[Music] good evening everyone we'll get started it is Monday October 14th 2024 this is a study session of the minona city council and uh we will go around the room and identify ourselves we'll start with m d Miranda yeah Miranda d assistant city manager Ken heiney City attorney Mike th city manager py Foster Balden W KY Copley W four Rebecca sha W two Brad woron mayor Paul W three Deb Calver at large CA Kimberly Wilburn at large B CA ful Senior Management coordinator Les M resources manager Public Works Julie wish canor will Manchester director oh uh Margaret Carlson Citron Emerald Ridge at the corner of Emerald Ridge and Oakland Road Kevin ringhofer Indian Road West all right well thank you call this meeting to order and we did introductions so that takes us to business item just whisking through the agenda here um so um item 3A is the Strategic Plan update sustainability and Community resilience I think Mike you're going to take that M Les yeah thank you mayor and councel uh before we get started just wanted to briefly mention that um after I we get Leslie um talking through sustainability plan excuse me strategic Plan update on sustainability and Community resilience currently TI St National environment I'm going to get up and I have a couple copies that wanted to get in in the denda this evening and so I'm going to I'm making copies for the council and I want to distribute those here in a few minutes related to the next item on the agenda uh when we get to that so but in the meantime thank you I want to turn it over to uh Leslie and also always want to recognize Sissa who is instrumental in our strategic plan refresh so tonight we have Leslie eka who is our lead and Council you've heard from all of our leads up to this point uh Leslie is currently our read on sustainability and natural environment and you'll notice that we're going to walk well notice the name change uh sustainability and Community resilience and I had a conversation with some council members today over the naming vernacular and so we'll touch on that as well and as always staff spent some time looking back um at all of our um all of our different pillars all of our six pillars we've come to you with suggested changes that's it's given us a chance to kind of step away from that April um Retreat when we frame this up and we have some recommendations and thoughts for you this evening as we again look at some pulling our next version of our strategic profile together and I think as always we're looking to become more narrowly focused um you'll notice our our words that we're using are more narrowly focused along with our performance metrics and our targets and so I want to thank Leslie working with Sissa on pulling tonight's presentation and thoughts together and so we'll look forward to an engaging conversation regarding our recommended changes so with that just quickly turn over to Leslie and she'll walk through staff's thoughts and on what we're we're so I can Brad Leslie great all right thank you good evening Leslie thanks for being here good evening U mayor and councel um so as Mike mentioned I think this is the last of your six strategic priority areas so last but not least um so I'm just going to walk through relatively briefly it is in your packet so hopefully you had a chance chance to a review um this uh the I understand there was a workshop where some of the work was done on this um since that time um I've had some connections with Sissa and Mike and then we also have a workg group that works on this topic we actually met and and so some of the recommendations you're seeing are from those conversations but obviously this is your plan and so obviously it needs to make sure it reflects the the interests and the priorities of the council so um just briefly so as Mike mentioned um one of the uh big changes is a potential name change uh typically it's called sustainability natural environment um recognizing that climate resilience is an important priority of the council we uh entertain the idea of incorporating that into the title so sustainability and Community resilience really reflecting a broad swath of sustainability climate mitigation climate adaptation and the natural environment the definition um we sort of expanded upon um it's a community that values sustainability the natural environment and actions that lead to a more climate resilient community so just expanding on what the council had initially proposed so with that there are three uh desired outcomes that were that were a focus um the first one is a more resilient community that both mitigates and adapts to Minnesota's changing climate and what this is trying to capture is climate and climate impacts from climate and sort of two sides of the coin one is the mitigation which is sort of how we prevent future climate change but also how we adapt to what we're already experiencing and what we expect to experience in the future so it sort of combines both of those into one uh desired outcome and I'll just kind of go through these desired outcomes first um in terms of metrics and targets um so for performance metric um we have three really three performance metrics that are try to get try to address the uh mitigation and adaptation site uh one is the CommunityWide greenhouse gas emissions and that's clearly centered on climate mitigation um and the target associated with that and I want to point out just a reminder that this plan um my understanding is it's at a three-year plan so the window is from 2025 to 2027 and as you'll see some of these priority areas are really big so we're trying to sort of scale that down to that three-year window and so clearly we have the climate action and adaptation plan we have the energy action plan these are plans that really um try to address mitigation um but the actual Target is a is reducing the greenhouse gas emissions by 20% per person again that's not total emissions by 2050 which is sort of the high level goal of the plan it's trying to scale that down to that three-year window we also have number of residential sustainable landscape practices installed um if you remember we have a program called resilient minaka we're actually in the third year of that program so it's been growing since we piloted it about three years ago um we uh really try to encourage adaption of you know replacing Turf with native plants removing invasive species like Buckthorn plant for biodiversity whether it be you know plants for pollinators or trees and shrubs and so that program really focuses on educating residents it provides technical assistance uh to Residents that are interested but ultimately the goal is that they take action on their property and so the the target we have um is about 100 residential uh additional resilient minona participants actually installing something or doing something on their property so in context we have this past year about 15 to 20 residents who are actually doing something you know that we have sort of documentation of that so we want to make sure we're sort of growing that program so we felt like that was a good Target to have and then number of property owners educated about mitigating Community flood risk um this is uh the the performance metric is about educating residents the target um we indicated as 200 Property Owners educated about flood reduction um um flood risk reduction and really what it doesn't say here is but the intent is that that's part of our CIP Pro program and some of the projects we're doing around kind of broadscale flood mitigation um all Property Owners um can take action on their property to help to help themselves and protect their own property so we see that as an important uh education area um right now for instance at the open house we talked to maybe 15 to 20 people um about flood risk and so there's obviously room for improvement but we really want to make sure we're targeting that as a key message um as a it's really a key message around climate resilience great do you want to do this section by section or did you go through the whole thing um I think if I go go through the whole thing and then you can ask questions or unless you want to do it section by section whatever is you that's good process check okay so um that's really related to the first desired outcome the second desired outcome is manage and protect or manage and enhance the natural environment so that is really focusing on a lot of the habitat restoration work we're already doing in our in our lands including tree planting you know Park restoration um and so it's really meant to be what the city's doing on public property so we have two performance metrics one is acreage of habitat restoration so that's again in public lands and then two is number of trees planted and this is really trees planted through our activities our tree sale distribution event trees that we're growing in our gravel bed nursery and that we're planting in our Parks uh parks and open spaces so this does not constitute or or try to Encompass anything that's happening through private development um and mitigation that's required during P private development it's really just our activities um that that we're doing so the two Targets we have one is 500 Acres of restoration following the natural resources master plan right now we're actively managing about 400 plus acres and so you know this the 500 acres is not new it's just active restoration where we're actually you know removing invasive species we're replanting um focusing on what we've outlined in the natural resources master plan um the second target is 3,000 trees planted in the community again this is through our distribution events or our tree sale and that's a cumulative over the three-year period uh and then the third Desir outcome is CommunityWide adoption of sustainability and conservation best practices so we have a number of performance met performance metrics related to this and a lot of this comes uh it really focuses on sort of that conservation and sustainability obviously um one metric is the number of EVS registered in motanka so these are electric vehicles either battery operated or plug-in hybrids uh the goal over the next three years is to have 1,250 more registered EVS um by January 20126 um and the second metric is number of Home energy audits uh with a target of 500 home energy audits completed over the next three years um the third is number of on-site solar installations with a target of 100 on-site solar installations next year or in the next three years and then the last one is gallons per capita water use and the target is maintaining the per capita water use at 75 gallons per person per day which is the target set out by the Met Council which we actually do reach so we want to make sure we maintain that and it's it's very climate dependent it includes irrigation so if we have hot dry Summers that water use goes up and so we want to try to make sure that we're sort of maintaining that that that base that we already have so with that that's kind of a quick run through but happy to take any questions if you want to walk through each of these happy to do so anyone questions anyone um my name how how are the EVS registered with the city that is a good question then I don't know the answer to um do you happen to know we actually get a um a print out from some source and then the source is escaping me but we track it in the uh energy action plan there's already a number in the energy action plan so you can look up like what we have for today's data um I'll see if I can find the footnote on where it came from I was just curious cuz I my R is in the parking lot and we see if we I didn't register with anybody so I think it's like a data source that we have State registration the vehicle registration prob I think that's probably it I want to make there is a fee too that you don't you don't have the same well you don't when you have an electric vehicle you don't pay gas tax but there is a fee tied to the registration for electronic Vehicles every every year to help pay for the roads that everyone uses weather regardless of your fuel source all yeah thank you um I would like to understand a little bit more about the greenhouse gas emission reduction um and the 20% from 2018 and we had talked about 63% there was that number floating around in actual Workshop so part A is kind of just maybe go over that a little bit and secondly if if it's 20% down from 2018 how far what percentage are we down from 2018 right now so how much farther do we have to go hang on I have a sheet pulled up if you're trying to follow along where I'm looking um I'm on page 16 of the climate action plan that's the data source I'm looking at uh we are at by 2020 wait 20 I'm just going to use 2020 because I can read that number uh it's 12 tons per capita and our goal is to go down to by 2030 5 tons per cap so going from from 12 to 5 mhm over in 2030 this is a different time frame so I think period don't you you can't probably use the numbers in the climate action plan and totally transpose those here because this is three years right right three years make sense or not not really but all figed out okay but if it's I mean if we just order of magnitude I mean if you're going down by that much over essentially 15 years 3 years is 1/5 of that so hence 20% would be my rough guess yeah good job good man that is good there you go on the flag that was imp impressive okay I have a question so in terms of like the um minaka participants installing sustainable landscape practices how do you so people register that their lawns like and you have 15 so this is through a resilient motanka program so we know so people kind of register for the program so we know what they're participating in and so one of those items is actually installing something so converting Turf to Natives and so we do work with them pretty closely uh so you know so we we have those numbers generally and I mean I know for a fact that our lawn is probably not registered yeah and so you probably have a lot I mean our Exar neighbors have play with this little plot of native grass that I'm quite sure they're not so I mean like how how can you track that without well so this so the target here is intended to be things that we are tracking and so that's why this is limited to resilient manat tanka participants because we know they're coming into our program we know what they're doing and so our goal to kind of Reach This desired outcome is to be increasing the number of people that we're working with and that they're installing these sort of these practices certainly others in the community are are hopefully doing this they you know they want to take on these projects we just don't have any way to track them so this is limited to what we can actually track so like how you know obviously through minaka Mike and all the regular social media Outlets that people can can actually sign up because I think it'd be really sort of community building right like all these neighbors like oh I did this I did that or whatever because it's it's um you know when you go from these perfectly manicured Lawns to this really what looks very messy in my eyes at first to to like have other people like be a part of that seems really cool and to get everyone together like through the city would be really awesome and that's I don't know how to that's the the that's the generally the goal of this resilient manota program is to get property owners you know learning and participating installing these sort of these practices and then having their neighbors see that they can then come into the resilient Menat tanka program but the only way we can track them is if they're actually register or signing up with us and so that's why we're encouraging more and more people to do that so that's part of you know when you get into the action items related to these metrics that's where we get into sort of the the brass tax of how do we actually get more people to sign up thus do more do more of these activities does that um include uh blue thumb and The Lawns to legumes program or is that separately tracked that that's a separate program that's a Statewide program we actually do send people to that program if they want specific grants from that okay so if they yeah if you want if people want to try to g f tracking that as part of this it's we can we can get reporting from the state but we're not we're not tracking it's not our program yeah okay other questions d so I just got to thinking so what at the at the open house the other night which was awesome as usual um I I did a QR code for the lead water lines and you know you can just upload pictures and then they can you know you're supposed to try to figure out whether it's copper or plastic or or what it is um but I mean that might be a thing that we could do too is just at the open house have a QR code and for people like Psy who have no non I mean your whole yard is just completely native um you know people could take a picture and just upload it and register their yards cuz you know I've been in neighborhoods where you have sort of like an anchor person and they've just influenced a lot of their neighbors and so like you go into these neighborhoods where yeah somebody's been working on their neighbors which is kind of awesome but um one of the things that I'm that strikes me and I I talked to Mike a little bit about it this morning as um there's a lot of professional language in here and and you know because because of the line of work that you're in you know there's there's this sort of um acceptance that that people in your line of work are there to protect the natural environment and so there are words like enhance and also manage but one of the words that is no longer in there is protect and um we value which also implies protect but I think I just feel you know I've been feeling kind kind of burned by Kurt Fram um cutting down our uh Woodland preservation area and so I think that I still feel like I I feel a little naked without the word protect and so it might just be me and I think it's it's implied in a lot of the things that you're doing but um sometimes mitigation means offsetting and but we don't have to offset as much of we're protecting and I think conservation also kind of implies protection but it's just something that that you know I I I've read it I don't know 10 times now and it it's just a word that's not there that makes me feel like it feels like it's missing in my opinion it might just be me it's implied in everything and so and and are you referring specifically to the natural environment the second desired outcome so where it says manage and enhance the natural environment yeah protect man protect okay yeah we can make that change oh on a similar vein um just again I think I spoke with Mike about this as well um I I understand because of the workshop we wanted to condense and and try to get these you know one sentence or taglines after the thing what I am a little bit concerned about is that you know compared to the 2020 version um for this is that we've cut it down so much and and for us as city council and for staff it makes sense it's become kind of a shorthand from what it was in 2020 my one concern and you know maybe nobody else feels this same about this is that maybe it's not it's becoming less clear to the general public um because we had a fairly long if you look at our 2020 um you know version is you know a little bit longer explanation of the priority um you know we've gone down to basically a sentence and here we had develop programs policies procedures that enhance community's wellbeing and partner with the community to Pro provide engagement opportunities and oop sorry wrong one um support long-term and short-term initiatives that lead to the protection enhancement of our unique natural environment while mitigating climate change impacts now that's longer than what we have but it seems to me that in some way I I just I don't want to lose too much of that because it's really setting forward our values when we say values the you know the natural environment and sustainability you know you somebody could look at that say what does that mean you know and I guess it's explicated a little bit in the points but if you know a resident is just going down and looking at that first column and you know just for somebody who isn't us that's that's my one concern about it um you know I like all I like the action oriented language of it um of the description and I think that's great but that's one thing that struck me along with the protect I actually have that on my vide like should we have protect on there as well so that's just you know a comment but I do love that I do really like the action oriented language in that tagline or that descriptor of the priority other comments Rebecca I think you know I I my initial inclination when reviewing all of these has been that we've really tightened up that language and that descriptor of the Strategic priority and if you go through you know and and at first uh but then I kind of go back to the conversation we had when we were are developing it and trying to really make that piece of it more concise and make the detail follow in the action plans um you know and the desired outcomes all the the other and so I I like that we've gotten away from the really long descriptions cuz I'm not sure people are they're kind of fluffy and people I don't know that's my input but and and I think back to that conversation I hear what you're saying but those are my thoughts and I I really like I like um the targets I think I I like the targets they're achievable they are very clear they are things that we're already doing um uh and I I think it's interesting because you're really trying to focus on on what the city does as a sort of as a government unit um and so but you do wander into things that I think are important also which is the whole Community Education part of it and pulling people along and that's part of my thinking around the whole protection thing because there there's there's a lot of Education that we need to do you know along with education about invasives and Water Conservation but you know because of the way for instance our tree ordinances are people do what they want with their properties and I know that in my neighborhood there there are a couple of I mean they're allowed to cut down Every Blessed tree if they want to and by God there are given it a good try um in the last few years and it's just been kind of shocking how many trees have been removed so uh you know there is that that's one of the reasons why protection is is important to me and um I don't you know I think these are achievable goals but I'm just wondering you know uh I'll just say the CommunityWide adoption of sustain ability and conservation best practices I hope tree preservation I can't I haven't reread it all but that's what I'm hoping in there so I'm just going to bring up since we talked about the the wording a little bit so the grammar nerd in me is is just having a little because it says strategic priority and that's a phrase It's not a priority if we even just said be a community that value sustain stability that would make it a priority thank you I have the same reaction are there other comments I've got I've just got a couple um I mean one I I agree I think we should add protect I think we probably most of us all of us agree with that um and you know and I I appreciate the word economy um that is being but here I think this is good um I like the fact that our targets are measurable and understandable and um so I think that's good the one thing I talked to Mike about today and and I'm not this is it's an observation maybe not not sure if it's a request or not but um when I look at our brand as a city we're all about the natural environment and taking the words natural environment out of the Strategic priority is something that that I'm struggling with just because you know I mean what what did our what before we did our refresh with our logo what was the model the kind of the city model we do it better naturally or something I mean something like that I mean we quality is our nature our quality is our nature there we go I can't remember I mean but he but quality yeah quality is our nature but I mean we refer to the natural environment in that and I think you know I would as my memory is so good isn't it sorry about that sorry I didn't go back and look can you tell um but I just I hate to give words natural environment away and uh uh because that's been so much a part of our identity so I throw that out as a comment and uh and if there's some twe if we can fit that in I mean the the other thought I had was if we didn't change the sustainability Community resilience I thought maybe we could say a community that values the natural environment sustainability and actions that lead to a more climate resilient Community just to just to up the natural environment priority um in our usage of words because I think um I I don't want to let go of that it's so much a part of who we are so that's my quality that was really what I was trying to get out as well so I appreciate that thank you other than that I think uh I think we're well on our way and um one of the things when we get into action steps um I did um and you shared some of the information tonight knowing where we are so that we know what we're how much improvement we're going to get and how much in just order of magnitude I mean you know if we have um um if we have 500 home um energy audits completed well have we done 100 so far have we done 50 have we done 250 just kind of gives us a sense for um the order magnitude but I think that can come in action steps anyone else so if I could just clarify so what I'm hearing because I again this is your plan so I want to make sure it reflects what the council wants so I I what I heard was add protect to uh the natural environment so protect enhance and man protect manage and enhance the natural environment um potentially uh under strategic priority um have the definition uh referred to be a community that values the natural environment you want to change that order sustainability and actions that lead to a more climate resoning Community which is is that that's okay you captured it thank you as far as the title I'm not clear do you would you like natural resources or natural environment put back in or go back to the old title or keep it the same what what everyone think I I mean I I threw it out there as a kind of talking point and you know so well I I kind of like the the name change I do too um just because resilience is is so important now that I think it needs to be included and I think if you tap natural environment on it gets kind of clunky I agree I think the resilience piece is really important so I've been trying to think about how to word method to keep both but really not trying it's not just preservation right it's really like adaptability and you know that resilience piece I I agree I also feel like if we don't preserve we'll have to adapt more than we should have to adapt if we don't absolutely but I think if we have it if we move it up like the mayor suggested in the in the description of the priority that maybe we could get away with not having natural environment in the title I'll just comment um I I actually am of the mind that having natural environment and the title I mean is important to me again as people look through this and they're not going to read it you know that that's our brand you know um if anything I think the resilience is the desire outcome or you know a performance metric is even more important but that's so I would we it on that side as an inveterate word Smither let me let me throw this out and see if anybody likes it um um sustain our natural environment and build community resilience oh I I think I'd rather see sustainability Community resilience and natural environment if we're if we're including all of them and you talk you're talking about the title think you were talking about the definition well I'm just I was talking about the Strategic priority there oh I'm so confused now so the sustainab I'm talking about the part you know in the upper leftand corner right below strategic priority I was so that's the title that's the title so we're really saying it twice title and description yeah description priority because the description essentially say I don't care it doesn't matter to me it's not not a hill to die yeah I'm not you know I'm I don't have a agree with that it's not a hill to die in I mean I think I think with um people you know the the words in um in um quotation marks I I think that covers it with a change priority I that does a pretty good job for me so anyway and I have to agree with Kimberly I really like resilience in there I mean and prevention as well but resilience changes the narrative a little bit like this is this is a little more Broad and also a little more like desperate kind of like this is we got to do this in prevention for sure as well but I think if we're taking natural environment out of the title then we should move natural environment up first a community that values the natural environment yeah I think compromis it it it it feels it it does feel off brand to me and that's really what kind of what I was telling Mike today is that there's a lot of implied information and sort of implied values because it's coming from a professional who steeped in it and and of course is for all but that's not true for everyone and so if this is sort of our defining document it seems like we have to I just sometimes feel like we do have to spell it out more and it does feel I feel what the mayor is saying because it did feel not great not because the natural environment is our brand and just felt like a bit it's it's a huge branding change that doesn't feel great to me so I agree that it does get a little clunky but it's I'm I'm still struggling with that and values value because Valu is something different to different people how highly give it value so again I would like make a decision because none of us are going to agree well so like I I would accept sustainability comma Community resilience comma and and the natural environment um as the title that way it's all in there um I do feel like it's clunky I understand what it is clunkier but it's not yeah horrible Sissa could you Sissa or whoever the most could we pull up the six do have the like the the new six strategic priorities maybe is it in the we' got I think you got them in front of you right I think maybe because think about counc I this as you're thinking about in the back none of those are wrong right I think sustainability Community resilience natural environment they're all very critical to what we're trying to accomplish why I was suggesting pull the six strategic priorities is again these are you these are yours own these and saff owns these we own them with you as a team and so what so how is it easiest to explain this to Residents so as you're talking to Residents and and we go and we state of the city and our marketing and material as we promote this new new strategic profile this refresh we're going to do some marketing around it What flows for you so what What flows for you as a house that's easy to remember easy to say to resident and something that sticks with all of our audiences so we so go back to thank you for um so we so go back to the first elit here months ago when Darren came we streamlined the first one calling this financial strength and we we look to eliminate and operational excellence so we want to be very specific Financial strength is important uh safe and healthy community that didn't change here we are with that one relable and well plan development infrastructure and asset management and community inclusiveness so they tend to be kind of these two-word two word phrases that captures what is it that are major what are our six major strategic priorities so think about that and how does that roll off your tongues in a way in terms of sustainability Comm resilience is it natural environment so I I think there's nothing wrong in these words is just what speaks to you and to the community the most and and we want I mean you want to communicate clearly and efficiently and and what I was going to throw out here Paul I'm sitting next to he said what is community resilience okay that's an interesting question um when we talk when we go in below um we say a more climate resilient Community I mean that's that's much more defined than Community resilience so I was going to say and this may be fighting words for some people but what if we said this was uh sustainability and natural environment or natural environment sustainability but I think sustainability and natural environment kind of rolls off the tongue pretty well and sustainability ties those two important Notions together and then but we're not walking away from being climate resilient Community but we're defining it a littleit better in the area below so I throw that out for consideration not fall on a spear throw it out for consideration I have one more possible suggestion how about environmental sustainability and Community resilience it's not just about environmental about carbon yeah we talk about environmental sustainability that's you know water quality air quality not so much natural resources typically that would be my one concern with say what you said again repeat yours again well well I I I said sustainability and natural environment which is what it used to be yes okay so liked it that's worked so well well that that wasn't it wasn't clear because we cross out National environment outed these words so I thought it was sustainability Community resilience natural environment I thought okay we got rid of natural environment that okay we Ting Community resilience yeah in in our Workshop yeah I yeah I don't know if there's a way to to to do it short like all the others and include everything that everyone wants but I'm I think resilience needs to be part of whatever the final answer is do we does it should it be Community resilience or about sustainability resilience and natural environment yeah yeah I'm good with that I'm okay with that I mean resilience everybody's happy let's move on yeah okay we're really splitting hairs because the RO the rubber meets the road on the internal portion so I think we need to make a decision the answer to the trivia question mayor so I I threw this out and if if people hate it say it sustainability resilience and natural environment yeah okay how many EES on the road today in menka um 500 720 2,000 come on Kimberly I 1500 there you go 1,400 and the data comes through mot not a registration but we've got and we we got to change the target then we've got 1250 by janary 26th that's additional add we can we can clarify addition that's why I didn't do very well 1,393 vehicles vehicles on the road if you ever want to check it out though just at data source about eBay it's really cool the link for them in that I have that that brings up another question so I don't I don't drive a hybrid I don't drive an I want to and I will soon I hope but the other thing is is there a way that we can start tracking that migration like does it have to go straight from the pure fossil fuel vehicle to EV or can we just start tracking people moving away from only gas vehicles to hybrid which also reduce and EVS I don't know of a data source that does that but I mean wouldn't it be the same as an EV but let's wrap up let's wrap this up I think I think we're chasing rabbits now with all due respect but I'll look into that dub thanks so you have what you need I have what I need thank all sorry that's okay that's okay I'm just trying to be mindful all right so the next item on the agenda might be just to summarize so thank you for your feedback tonight this is our last strategic priority we brought forward in a study session and in the coming weeks our team leads also have team members mention that before so each of our teams like for lesie for example you a team lead you was a team lead they have their own team we have your team leads they have teams around them uh we are meeting twice in the coming weeks uh to start formulating action steps and so the last couple years uh in our strategic plan this is now we have to now operationalize it I think as Rebecca said the the rubber meets the road when we operationalize this so staff we have a couple what I think four hours or so total coming up in a couple different sessions where we'll have 50 to 60 of our staff members together and we'll be uh creating our action steps that will support what you've discussed in the last 6 months regarding this and so you'll have an opportunity then to see those action steps and I think it's the December study session when we bring this back and we'll present to you all of the action steps we'll be again I don't know what the magic number is but again give you a sense there's the last couple years 90 to 100 action steps we'll see where we land here as we get through our internal exercise and that'll be your opportunity too to have influence on the operational side of it so as Council we look for your high level um goals and initiatives you've outline those here and then staff will then look to put meat on that bone as I probably often say and we'll bring that all that back to you in one package and that'll give give you an opportunity to look more closely at some of the uh closely at the action steps that are tied to these and then if there's something those action steps you want to suggest we'll be um open to hearing that obviously as well and then we'll look to finally approve this in CL January and then that'll get us on our next our next three years worth of work so thank you for your time these month it's been a lot of effort and I think hopefully very valuable effort this is this is for theity and for the thanks Mike all right um next say quickly we track all sorts of data so I guys just come back and we have we're data Rich here at the city and so part of why we want to get honed in on our metrics and targets is to know and to really look at all the data we collect and get very specific on making sure we track what is important to make sure we're making movement on these items that are important to you so yes there's certainly keep track of like if there's data if there's data points you're interested in write those down and certainly communicate those to me and we'll see how that might get woven into this and if it doesn't get woven into for example the Strategic plan we have other matrics that come forward in our budget and so we do track other items besides these and so keep note of those then as we connect on the phone or by oneon-one I'll keep note of those we see see how we can incorporate those into into either this process or probably more specifically into the budget metrics that we go through as well thanks M thank you thank you Leslie thank you nice to have you here so the next item is the worker protection laws there's a list of discussion points but I will turn that over to Julie thank you and uh please take it away sure uh always a collaborative effort when we work on things like this so uh Karen and will and I have um kind of drafted the information that's in your packet tonight I think looking back on how this arrived at your session tonight is you know you had had some questions during some development review obviously recently and when you have projects and you're deciding different projects this has come up u a handful of times over the last year I think most of the discussion is really centered around the construction trades that's really where your focus has been and probably you know looking at why that is we have a lot of construction going on and a lot of cranes in the air you know a lot of things happening in menka strong construction activity happening and um that's a reason as well but you did agree as a group that you wanted to talk about it further and so here we are tonight but before we kind of launched into the subject matter we thought you needed just maybe a cheat sheet of all of the different labor laws that exist um and Karine when she prepared this she just wanted to make sure you understood this doesn't include all labor laws especially those that apply to Veterans or um uh Ada American with Disabilities Act those sorts of things aren't listed here but this gives you a really good sense of how many laws apply to workers in the state in the country and so forth I think to um there have some been some more recent amendments and one is on the end of um the right hand side of this page it talks about worker wage protection act that's a newer law at the state of Minnesota that's specifically talking about wage issues and wage theft um and then this misclassification which was and this is really about construction employees this was done originally in 2007 but it was recently updated in 2024 um so just wanted to call your attention to that also the there's a notation here about responsible contractor law we talk about that when will comes with um projects infrastructure projects that the city is doing we often will use the terminology there lowest responsible contractor or bidder on a project and so that often is something you hear from us one of the things I think we heard from you all is to what is going to hear about what's going on in other cities and so I picked out a few cities not just the biggest cities of course we know minneap and St Paul are doing things but I wanted a little bit more of a Suburban flavor too so the first one we have here is from Brooklyn Park and this is pretty recent so their activity and their discussion happened last fall and then in uh the spring of this year they did approve uh what they call a prevailing wage ordinance and so uh that would be specifically for publicly funded projects and it really is pretty allinclusive it's any construction work that the city contracts for it also is anything that the city or the economic development agency um if they have a contract and it's anything um that's exceeding $50,000 in City funds or a dollar for uh Economic Development funding so that's what's going on in that City in Minneapolis as you probably are aware this gets some press um in 2020 they actually adopted part of the state's wage theft law into their own local ordinance and this is maybe a little bit different than what you see in Brooklyn Park um it indicates that the city adopted the ordinance in addition to the state law so that their Department of Civil Rights could actually do the investigation on potential wage theft uh claims in St Paul which I'm sure um maybe Deb is familiar with uh it requires all subcontractors or contractors working on City funded project in excess of 25,000 so not a lot of difference in terms of what's happening with these cities but but the how it applies is what's changing so maybe the dollar figure is changing or the kind of kick in for the requirement is changing or how they do the investigation on the back end if there is a problem um and they use a prevailing wage as determined by Minnesota Department of Labor so that's their go-to for their prevailing wage now Bloomington again another recent example of what's Happening uh they just adopted their ordinance for prevailing wage in June of this year and that applies again to all City projects their their amount is 175,000 um I suppose I didn't look this up but I'm guessing that's probably what is under the city manager approval like it is here uh in minaka that makes sense to me why it would be that amount they actually have um a compliance officer um and then they talk about how they would get compliance so they're talking about withholding payments that sort of thing um termination of contracts or order of the City attorney that's the first time I saw that language there's an order for the City attorney uh included in their um enforcement section that's a little bit different than the other cities in Richfield they had uh 20 in 2020 they adopted this is one of the more earlier adopters like um about the same time Minneapolis was adopting there this was happening in Richfield and it applies to those projects exceeding 300,000 and the enforcement ordinance talks about referring it back to the state or an independent investigator so people kind of go different routes when it comes to the enforcement of the various ordinance language probably the more interesting thing that I found in the research is henen County um who had they had done a report in 22 and then they in this year this early 24 they announced a worker protection unit and that unit is supposed to identify and help prosecute uh those crimes committed against workers in specifically hping County the other thing that they had in their information and what was interesting is they provided some statistics and some um because I wasn't able in my first uh kind of research uh we weren't able to find anything that had to do with what is the how much is going on in terms of complaints and that sort of thing um on the right hand you see the uh percentage of workers and those trades and the types of jobs those uh folks have and this was kind of interesting even though the report was about Minneapolis specifically they included data for the whole Minneapolis St Paul area I don't expect you to see exactly all the numbers on this chart but was what was of interest to me is the sectors and the number of employees in each sector so you can see a pretty high number of people in the food service industry much higher than we're kind of this conversation with the council started which is the construction industry which you can see is a little bit lower at 16,000 uh 44 workers employed in that sector as compared to 83,000 in the restaurant industry again this is seven County Metro uh area so it's not specific to hennipen County um as far as City requirements and this is kind of the heavy lift from will here he was kind of giving you a laundry list of things that the city is already doing things that are in contracts in the way in which the city has to bid a project uh the way the contract is executed with who's doing the work so a lot of the information includes you know non-discriminatory pra discriminatory practices affirmative action dearman I'll let Karine tell you what dearman is if you're interested um bidder qualifications responsible bter we already talked about compliance with a fair labor standards there's inclusion of prevailing wage when you do have uh some cases where I think 73 is a good example of a is that state or federal federal money that comes into a project they do have to comply with Federal prevailing wage so that is typical normal part of the city's um regulation then uh a db& um requirements there are federal funding requirements for inclusion of db& but uh some State projects also have this light rail for instance has a lot of work on the dbe side so it just depends on how it's funded um requirements to have payment bonds this ensures that people are paid contractors are paid so workers are paid then uh there's also a certification that's required for subcontractors insurance requirements and then there's a city policy if you didn't know this 2.17 of the city policy does require the way in which the city selects Consultants so if you didn't press that um Link in your packet I would highly recommend kind of just reading that because it has a lot of information about how the city goes about selecting um professional Consultants to help us work on projects under the the development side so that was mostly about infrastructure and on the development side and this is specific to things that have city funding included um we do have labor law compliance in the contract that's been in the contract for a while so any new project that you're seeing built in the last number of years it would have these requirements um violations actually would result in What's called the default of the contract the default requires oh I'm sorry was there something that went around here oh yeah oh sorry I got distracted I fa um violations would uh result in a default so how that works is for instance we have a payment that we make maybe on a tip um transaction we'd actually just withhold their payment it's very uh helpful in in a development situation I've never had to withhold it for this specific type of violation but we have withheld it for other compliance issues so it does happen um I'm going to stop there Maya there's lots of data in the report there's lots of information in the report again Karine will and I and Mike are here for questions if you have specific issues you want to talk about and I can go to the links live if you want whatever you want to do all right well um let's see we got a couple of questions we're supposed to answer does the council need more information and what are the policies or ordinances that city council would like to consider um two kind of the second one is pretty broad broad question but um Council uh we asked for this to come forward um your thoughts comments or questions that you have um Kimberly yeah so um to the documents that you just got handed out um our one is uh letter from the attorney general that was in support of Edina that was seeking to uh Institute having their um contractors participate in this building dignity and respect standards Council and then the and I I believe all of these were sh these were shared with you months ago when I first brought this up but this this document is the actual uh building dignity and respect code of conduct um and as you can see it's involved it there's quite a bit to it but I will say so what I the reason I brought this up and the and what I shared with Mike this this afternoon was that um I'm all in favor of of talking about about prevailing wages and worker safety and all those things but the right now um from what I know about wage theft is often it's often subcontractors will misclassify employees as independent contractors um and a lot of times workers are not aware they may not be be aware that they're being stolen from and if they are aware that they're being stolen from a lot of times intimidation is used to keep them from speaking up and they are not aware that there are places they can go to to seek help um and so I'd like us to consider some some sort of policy where uh contractors and subcontractors are are required to have notices up that in inform employees of their rights and where to go who to contact if they feel like their rights are not being upheld thank you comments on Rebecca um thank Kimberly that you know that's not the direction my mind was going but that's certainly something that I I think is um a nice idea so things are bringing that up you know I feel really conflicted about this conversation because I really you know I believe in people getting paid fairly I believe in um you know obviously we do not want people mistreated um I all of these things really make a lot of sense to me in a vacuum I have you know concerns about them in the sense of you know one of the things we hear a lot and that's gotten a lot of traction in the media and the legislature is that um cities are too prescriptive and restricted restrictive when it comes to what they expect of developers and that is inhibiting the abil ability to and I don't necessarily you know buy this whole argument but that it's inhibiting the ability for us to develop affordable housing and so the these things would be adding on to in in it as it relates to um developer requirements for City supported projects you know it would it adds on to that pile of requirements and regulations that you know we're getting a lot of push back on as it is now so I'm the timing doesn't feel great although I still want people to you know so that's where I'm I'm feeling conflicted likewise when we we look at City projects um Trails for example something that people really really want this will drive the cost of trails up and then you know as a result there a direct impact on the levy and things that we want our community to be able to have more of um cost money and if it's more expensive to develop them and because of our and maybe that's okay but I think we have to have a really transparent conversation as a council if these are things that we want to do so I don't feel like I'm seeing anything as it relates to policies that other cities have uh or ordinances that they've adopted that help me think that this is a no-brainer a slam dunk you know I I think we have to think long and hard about it I I'm thinking out loud and I'm telling you how conflicted I am about this CU I think it's important to look at it um in the context of everything else that's going on so I'm glad for the information I like the idea of is there opportunity to help cuz what you know what can we do if somebody is feeling intimidated or like there's wage theft what we what can we do to facilitate them from having speaking to someone or knowing their rights in a way that makes it less intimidating that's more um seems more practical than maybe some of these really big policy uh issues so that's my thought Paula yeah I have a question um maybe Julie can answer um or or Karine um I was just looking at the fine print of the Minnesota construction worker wage protection act and it says there were um more significant amendments to that in 2024 applies now to all providing Corning Building Construction approvement Services on public or private sector commercial or residential buildings and so that is um unpaid wages fringes would this would this you know kind of prevent or address any of the misclassification issues or is is this not doing that is basically is there misclassification issues that are covered by existing legislation is at the city level or that we're following sure do you want to talk about that Karine or do you want me to the specific amendments I would have to look up again I mean I looked at them at the time that I prepared the summary but I don't have them committed to memory so um I'd have to look up what the specific amendments were in 2024 um I mean I think the goal though was absolutely to further clarify to make sure misclassification wasn't happening um but because it's just been renewed or updated I don't don't know that there's a lot of track record on you know whether or not it's working part B would be is if that um work protection unit that's been created by hin county is going to be addressing those kinds of issues well I think that's part of I think what I saw in the research is that you got the state you got the FED Federal investigative unit you've got now this henpen county unit um it it was not clear to me like who takes action first like so somebody reports um a violation where does that go um and I I it wasn't clear to me how that actually gets done um the numbers I provided you um this is report yeah this is the state's um this is reported through the State Department of Labor and Industry and then they're sharing it for the Metro only mhm and that was what was used in that 22 report that led to worker protection for the henen county H County which we would be covered correct we would and a question clarate what's what's 10K workers what what's that what's that label above we've got total then we got sl1k workers what does that mean that workers impact per 10,000 workers per 10,000 y m okay the rate it is the rate the rate thank you um and I'll just Point again like the whole reason I brought this up is yes there are laws in place um and if everyone followed the law then we wouldn't be having this discussion right agree right but um as it is now unless it's reported no one knows to investigate and so my point is how do we what can we do to make sure that workers are aware of their rights and aware that they can report it and and and communicate to them how to do that and you know if I if I can just add on I mean I agree with much of what was said I mean I'm I'm quite conflicted on a lot of this in terms of the ordinances that were passed in other cities because um one worker abuse and wage theft is not acceptable and we want to do everything we can to make sure that that is not happen happing in our city and we want to be clear about our standards I think that's really important and to the extent that we can one have a strong policy that we share with developers and their responsibilties as it regards their their subcontractors and things let's be really clear on that I think that's important you know Mike and I talked about this at some length and we thought well it's going to be kind of a long conversation tonight but I want workers to be fairly paid now um um what's fairly paid and what's a livable wage and what's you know it's not just that more is better um because we're also paying when when we say well more is better well then we're raising taxes more because we're going to you know there's an impact on the on you know our city and what we pay now I don't want you know and there's when you start talk about wages I mean well there's minimum wage well I don't think any of the workers that we're talking about are making minimum wage um they're making I hope and believe a livable wage um but then there's also these circumstances where we have what what was the terminology the yeah way exactly so so there's kind of three tiers now um or multiple tiers if you will and on the one hand you know I want workers to do as well as they possibly can on the other hand I do not want to drive cost up for taxpayers and for residents but but we we have a role and I don't think so I'm not con that that some of the ordinances that we saw as examples are things that I would be excited about but I do think be clear on our standards and talking about what are effective ways to communicate with workers who work in minona how they can report um um concerns that they have about their treatment about um about their being paid appropriately about all of their hours being counted and so forth if there are things that we can do to inform workers of where to go and how to get authorities involved in their situation I'm I'm all for that that's information and knowledge is power and I think we would like workers who work in in to have from my view have that knowledge have that power have that ability to do that then as far as some of these other considerations I think we have to dig deeper in that decide if there are things there that we want to do and I'm not saying I don't want to do them but I want to be more clear on what the implications of you know these different levels of compensation are and what the impact would be on on on our residents and on our taxpayers so that's a general comment and I don't know please add I have yeah I have a a couple of I have a question and and a a couple of thoughts so my question is so if we're talking I mean I know what I have to do in my department but I'm a government I you know I work for a government unit and we have to put you know notifications up for workers I think it's different in Private Industry so if we were to make some kind of requirement I start getting like how is it enforced like you know I I I just don't know I mean like to your point we can make another law but we don't really have an enforcement department I mean you know I think our planning and development department has a lot to do and I so I get a little concerned about unenforceable rules which you know are so well- intended and then the other thing I just wanted to explore a little bit is one of the things that was passed out was an email from uh Craig Johnson at League of Minnesota cities because before Kimberly brought it up um when uh one of the last times that people came forward to us about violations and I was trying to figure out is there something that we can do sort of as a city or is it more legislative like is what you're talking about more of a legislative thing and then it's enforcable at another level of government so I think like maybe what you're talking about is something that we should talk at least talk to our legislators about at a breakfast about our legislative priorities but um one of the things that Craig says in this letter is that um I was talking about is there any way for cities to refrain from approving developments by contractors who have a you know a they're kind of repeat offenders with subcontractors or subcontractors that are repeat offenders and what what Craig basically says is that the the relationship between the contractor and the subcontractors is out of our jurisdiction because it is between private parties and that if so I don't I can't remember if it's included in the email but in our conversation basically what he said is if a company if a if if a developer has paid restitution in some way whether it's Financial or they made amends no matter how many times they did it they have met their obligation to the law and we cannot say no and so that felt gross and so one of the things that I think might be worth exploring maybe with legis Lors is um because it is out of our jurisdiction is that issue we can't do it but you know if if somebody keeps violating over and over and over um and it's proven that they violated then we should not have to feel compelled to say yes to a developer and face possible lawsuits so uh you know we can't do it maybe the legislature can do it maybe not and so those are some of the things that that I talked to uh Craig Johnson about um but I think it's it's a really complicated and you know the other thing that I talked to Mike about and I talked to Craig about is you know some of the complaints that have come to us they seem like they may be legitimate but they haven't proven and I don't know sort of what the statistics are between allegations coming forward and being legitimate or illegitimate and the companies just having deep enough Pockets to kind of beat down the workers that finally do come forward and just sort of make it go away and I just don't know I just don't know enough about that but you know we can't we can't say no to to a developer just because you know even if it's people that we know come forward and say they did this if it's not proven in court I mean it's really just hearsay and we can't deny based on hearsay so anyway those are some of the things that that came up in my discussion with um Craig Johnson at LMC M Kine I I need Clarity in the discussion around this this topic because um when you say you can't do something with a developer are you talking about a developer on a project where the city is providing city funding or are you talking about any developer building any project in the city where the only role the city has is approving giving land use approvals yeah probably like what seol brought to us as as as came up before with SE tool your authority to do zoning and land use approval is is embedded in chapter 462 of the statute that gives you the ability to put in place land use provisions it doesn't provide any authority to do General Public Welfare or you know to say this developer I don't like you met all our our code requirements you've met all of our code requirements but we don't like you for whatever reason you're a bad person and you don't pay your workers or you don't pay your federal taxes or you do something else that you don't like there's no Authority in 462 or in our zoning code for us to do that if you wanted to develop a a regulation that was broader you need to detach it from zoning approvals you need to to make it Citywide and then you need to say okay is it only going to apply to construction projects or is it going to apply everywhere in the city so it's just the clarity of what you're where you're talking about and who you're concerned about can so yeah just to to um to follow up on that I guess is just that from what I recall and looked at from the other cities it was only um projects that were getting again this was prevailing wage and that was only for City funded projects correct or assist that's that's what those cities have chosen to do but those are prevailing wage issues and that is that's different than misclassification of workers so I I understand that and and agree my question would be then again going back to this work protection unit Does it include public and private would this be yeah I would say yes sorry excuse me um because it didn't it didn't distinguish it just any employer doesn't matter if it's it didn't matter if it was construction it didn't matter it was just gra so I mean for me this was exciting to read about that because I thought this could first of all it's a regional approach it's a Metro instead of each of you know our cities trying to do different things and so my personal feeling and I spoke with Mike about um this was to um you know I agree with everything that has been said we want to make sure that people are being paid properly and it seems to me if it was a city prevailing wage issue given the fact that staff reports said that it's really not an issue that um workers in cities funded or assisted projects are already getting at or above prevailing wage for the most part so I don't see that a prevailing wage um ordinance wouldn't really change that too much um we'll jump in and say if I'm wrong but if we want look at this comprehensively in terms of not just construction workers and SE tool but we want to look at it in general it seems to me like engaging with henpen counties and this worker protection unit and doing that we can through Metro cities LMC whatever to build this up and giving them kind of the teeth and enforcement Authority that's needed would be the most helpful instead of just I mean I'm not saying just making a grand stand decision here but something that's not terribly enforcable to really go after something that's a much more Metro or Regional um kind of significant step not that we can't do both but um you know for all the reasons we talked about are we going to hire a compliance officer then are we going to add that to the city payroll because it seems to me that's the only way we can have make it have teeth and have enforcement and we can have it like an OSHA thing that all of our developers at least for City assisted and and City funded projects could do like what I used to have to do as a business owners post oia requirements um in in you know have all these postings for labor and which I'm sure they have to do anyway but you know we could you know do that and and have some of these you know things from the building dignity and respect code of conduct but you know have that those education um pieces that are required to be given to all workers I guess but you know again how do you enforce it um so it just seems kind of everybody Reinventing the wheel at different city levels rather than really engaging this on a a on a kind of regional level so that's what I would be interested in is really seeing what's going on with this worker protection unit is it you know is it really up and running will it be you know what can we as a city do to work with them to make sure that not only our construction trade but you know all of our workers have access to the education and the ability to bring you know the these kinds of issues and into the system and and not feel like they don't have any to empower them to do that Kimberly I know you want yeah so I mean I'm I'm going to keep beating this horse um so I I I am absolutely in favor of working with hennipin County and whatever agencies that are already in place but again how does hpen County know that there's a problem unless it's reported to them and how do the workers know that they can report the problem to hipen County so to me I mean I if it's possible to have a city-wide code that is that is not tied to land use and not just construction specific where contractors are required and contractor contractors are um responsible for making sure the subcontractors are following the rules um and and posting these and in languages that the workers can read and yes not everyone's going to do it that but I don't know I just to me it again but what can we do to help make workers aware of what their rights are you know to to add to what Kimberly is saying if you don't mind I mean you know it's a little bit like from The Sound of Music let's start at the very beginning and let's let's not you know let's not try and do too much I mean this is a vast area that we could create a huge regulatory methodology and a lot of a lot of legislation and we could add significantly to our staffing and to our Levy and still probably not to a perfect job but but I do think the idea of of worker education um and laying that expectation in in U motanka because we it's not like we have no construction of minaka and and and and maybe we could make it broader in time but I think the area where that we've been concerned about we've had issues let's start with construction we are involved D in approving construction now that doesn't mean we mix metaphors and start um holding back land use approvals because of issues but we do know that we have workers coming into our community and working and if we lay out our expectations and make sure that part of our every time a developer comes to the city they meet with our planning department and if we if that provides an opportunity to say by the way these uh these are expectations that we have and this is communication that needs to be shared with your workers and we can establish a platform I think there could be time that we if we do a good job of that that that can grow that can help other cities I mean but I do look at this a little bit like tobacco 21 uh when tobacco 21 came you know we really said well we really think the state should do it but the but the promoters of tobacco 21 went City by city until there was enough critical mass and then lo and behold the state pass the tobacco 21 um uh law and I see this as similar if we establish a practice that is good for motanka it's not that we want to limit it to minaka but um but we're responsible for motanka let's do it right let's establish a methodology and a process and maybe that will grow and maybe we can we can do something to protect workers in in the entire region frankly I would rather have the county or the state be able to handle um this effect L but but we've got plenty of laws on the books but if people don't know how to how to communicate how to how to make something happen I think that there's some communication things that we could do and I don't I don't know if it's signage or you know agreements with developers or whatever but lay out our expectations to protect workers that's a important value of ours um without establishing a bureaucracy and adding a whole pile of uh additional responsibilties on our planning department I and um you know I think I think I think that's a good place to start that would be that would be my gun just aik couple comments think yeah I was GNA say I like the idea of um um working with hennipen County but I know that henpen county has to deal with a bunch of different cities and so I think it is better for um minaka to um um really look at what's happening at our construction sites and then it's it to me it's not about if folks know who to report to um from my understanding from I I I mentioned this last time um my son's father been working in the construction field for 13 years and he talked about his situation personally and then I talked to my friend Katie who works for for oi Indian OIC in Minneapolis and she talked to me about the construction industry because they do employment work and then emerge who I used to work for also talked to me uh one of my um former managers talk to me about the construction industry and the complaints that they receive as well I think it's not about if the construction workers know who to report to it's the retaliation piece of losing their jobs it's the retaliation piece of the fear um and once they make that report or um start to Talk Amongst each other about what's happening at the sites then that's where the retaliation comes in and so I think yes education is very important because I don't think we can give enough education and reminders but how do we prevent and I think this is going to be difficult I don't think we can even control that but how do we prevent cuz you know we all I don't know some of y'all probably some of y'all got your own business but I've been at a job where you go be a whistleblower you speak about I've been let go from jobs as Advocate and I always advocated at jobs and I take it the I call I take the the um blunt of it and I really don't mind cuz that's just what I do but um where you're at a company and you get you go tell what's happening then you tend to lose your job like that is real and it happens quite a bit and so how do we how do we put something in place to say that that's not going to happen for workers at a construction site I don't know how we can do that like it's I guess whistleblower and the advocacy where world we call it whistle boore in the courtroom but how do we do do that at a construction site so that would be I think would be a challenge so um but that's what's happening I think it is I I think and I don't have a solution for you I mean that's that's the unfortunate yeah I mean absolutely and I didn't bring this bring this up it's it it's both right um some there are some workers who English is not their first language and so they you know they maybe can't read English well enough to to even be aware of what the what their rights are what they're that that really have no idea what what their rights are or if they do that makes sense or if they do no idea where to go right to to report it and then there is also the intimidation where there where people are told you know yeah if you if you say anything you'll lose your job you'll be deported all these so yeah well and I think that's I mean it's the it's the lack of power Dynamic that we're that we're dealing with and we can we can probably solve for some of it but we probably can't solve for all of it within within our scope right and how can we how can we be a resource I mean and to Deb's point I think we absolutely need to be having conversations with our our legislators about what state laws can be put into place and and protections and is there you know is there a way to have some sort of state or County inspection plan that right that does more than just wait for someone to report yeah well I'm also wondering I mean again we can broaden the scope L but I mean these workers who are who are afraid to report because they they fear for their livelihood they fear for their families they fear for um getting you know being deported whatever um you know I mean they probably need people to talk to and and counseling and things like that and I'm sure there's a lot of mental health challenges and again I'm not trying to boil the ocean here but I think we you know I I think I mean that's those are the challenges and the difficulties we're talking about here and I think that to Kimberly's point that if they know where to go and that they also know that the city of motanka like we're and my concern was that it was going to cost us money but if we do you know we like sort of direct people where to go if even if workers kind of have a sense that the city's in on this like here we're you know we're showing the path here's the different paths I think it helps I mean I I I I think everything helps them knowing the workers knowing oh minaka you know they don't they they care about us yeah because but I but I think that it's you know it's like the there's laws on the books now and if everybody obeyed the law then we wouldn't have this problem we would be here a question I have Julie um you know we I do have a question we use cdbg um and we used to give money to homeline to help people who were in housing crisis to avoid um evictions and homelessness and I and I know that is there anything like that for workers you know whether it's at the state or the county level or somewhere where where where there's there's a re resource perhaps an anonymous resource where they can call that's really I think what C tool is is all about I mean that's what they do they do worker Outreach and that's what they do in Minneapolis and that is their whole the the goto people uh I just want to remind the Council of a couple of things as you talk about this it sounds really easy what you're saying umy it doesn't sound really easy well I'm just going to remind you we issue 8,000 construction permits in a year right each is its own job site the contractor is one pulling the permit the education is not for the contractor it's for the work on the JB so my point is when you think about education that's not your audience right you're not trying to get to the contractor the contractor already knows the laws and so you've got 8,000 job sites in your city and then so I'm just I'm following your thought process I'm just trying to relate it like how how would I get there and I'm not I didn't quite process it yet but Mike well yeah thank you that's where my mind was going to just I I think from our perspective as staff hearing what you're saying about how we try to educate workers um I can speak to first I'll start like for all employers it doesn't matter if you're public sector or private sector so for here at the city we follow federal and state guidelines on what needs to be posted so we have bulletin boards in our city facilities so for city workers our employees we follow state federal laws and there's requirements on what has to be posted so any of our employees here at the city if they had a concern over wages wage theft You Name It We have bulleted boards with all sorts of uh requirements now I would in multiple languages in multiple Lang multiple locations langu languages location languages apparently I need my hearing so that's a requirement we're doing that and and so it doesn't matter if we're like for Julie's Point um a smaller contractor in the city that has one employee or two the same requirements are for them as it is for a larger private sector employer they they have the same requirements I think the difficulty that Julie alluded to is you know H how do we I'm trying to visualize how does what does that look like how how do we how do we educ I mean how do we educate the workers um because that's again not our audience we're not dealing with them for firstand um and I think to maybe just more now that's a comment maybe a question for Ken and Julie is for development projects for example we have development agreements and so in those development agreements they're they're lengthy documents they 20 40 50 pages in length and so we as a city require developers to do all sorts of things and that's the slide that was up there alludes to a lot of what the city requires and so we can put language in a development agreement if we start with contractors and we go back to like C tool for example they were concerned with United properties so with any project in the city we end up with development agreement and Karina is instrumental in protecting and writing that and protecting the city they work with K and Julie work on those development agreements those development agreements cover lots of topics and so we certainly can review that language and we could say to developers in more definitive language hey you need to do ABC but then then the so we can say it in a development agreement but how do we in this and police that how do you know what's happening how do we know that it's it's occurring and so I think that's what I'm trying to visualize is how do we then go how do we put this in action so how do we put education in action it looks like there's I guess some ideas coming that's good I got some idea so I think that I mean that's what from a staff perspective that how how do we try to accomplish that and and frankly fairness is another thing in terms of How It's laid out for people in terms of Education that all all workers are being educated not just some so when you talk about certain job sites that hear you talking about you're thinking big apartment projects right I'm thinking of uh a tile um company that's subcontracting for a major Builder on a house that has four four employees you know what I'm saying so I I'm thinking about the fairness aspect Roofing roing yeah so it's not just these big apartment that's what I'm hopefully just for perspective the construction worker wage protection act that was put in place last year um it makes the general contractor responsible for their subcontractors who mess up but the state said it doesn't apply to any Home Improvement contracts or any projects for less than 10 single family homes or duplexes so if you had a contractor doing a project for five homes not going to apply they have to be doing up to 10 um and it also doesn't apply any prevailing wage projects or contractors that already have con uh collective bargaining agreements the state took out a whole segment and I'm thinking it's cuz it's too difficult right yeah so sense well and I think that to your point I mean you know I think I think we have to start small and maybe start you know with you know to the point do the same thing the state did and say okay something is better than nothing let's let's follow the kind of the state's model and say okay we're going to work at focus on these contractors and take 8,000 down to 1,000 or whatever just make it make it manageable but but even then I mean I I agree it's it's this is not something we're going to decide and do tonight this is something well it's a study session we wouldn't do it tonight but not do it next month either but I think I think it's an important topic but KY you have you have a few I just have one so I was thinking as Michael was saying like if you can put some information in the contracts and say okay well you have to provide so much education to your workers maybe 30 minutes or an hour I don't know as an employment coach we had to like give education to our folks who was going through our program so give a education training or whatever to the employees and then the city can do random um like surveys you know cuz we giving out 8,000 permits so then we can do like random surveys to the 8,000 folks or you know I don't know how many you would do a thousand maybe I don't know just random surveys or something like that to make sure um folks are actually um getting that education piece just checking to see if they're getting the education so I I think you could do something like that I don't know a lot of work register their subcontract contct s with us you know there workers yeah I mean that's eight if we have 8,000 contractors or project permits permit permits how many workers I don't I gu can't even tell you don't have a gas yeah Kimberly um and so and agreed we're not going to we're not going to get we're not going to get there tonight but this is in like further discussions but just so I will say in this uh dignity and respect code they want and not that anyone would agree to this but it's in there um that they want contractors to agree to provide I think it's three hours of Education per worker and and um through like the them are approved trainers and to also pay them their hourly wage during the train the training yeah right that's the part that I went oh um but I think that's appropriate that's good that's part of your job so I mean like maybe we could come up with something like that and talk to C or other organization talk to the henpen county see if there's if we can have an education program that that we that workers could be referred to and that would be that's my idea that's good too I think we're on to something I I think I also you know having just hired a contractor who you know I did a great job but it was a smallish project you know we have a permit we had a permit that guy's not going to sit and do it now I mean we have to have some level of you know I think to the mayor's point that maybe we start with larger right over yeah yeah over a certain number of a certain size of project and then if we're successful with that we can look if to see if there are ways to expand it to smaller I just want to make one more comment um on that if it's okay I think that's a great idea um um and uh the one issue I do say kind of put you back in on what Rebecca said earlier is that um I wonder if this then if you know paid education then of course for projects that are going to be City assisted for affordable housing and things like that that's going to add cost to that so just I mean again kind of looking at all the consequences of of things like that I think is going to be important as we look forward or maybe there's you know like the mayor was saying a halfway thing where we encourage require whatever that they provide a link to a website whether it's on our city thing that has all of the resources in multiple languages that people can reach out to and that we just say you must provide this to all workers on your site I mean again we can't teeth but even something like that where there's links to you know that information and you know know we can say you know I don't know that we can check on everything but we if they we say please you know refer the all of your workers to our minona you know whatever our thing it's a website they can reach their phone or something that's a I considered that but I think then we we're getting down the rabbit hole but we also would like need to maybe provide like a you know say you can come here here to this room to watch the the training V give not everybody's going to have access to Internet not everybody's going to have everybody not undocumented workers that are are being human trafficked um so I'm I'm just saying it's it's part of the of a larger conversation but yeah Kim really I I appreciate what you're bringing forward and I and and I agree with you I mean I think we have an interest in protecting workers um but we're also getting into some of the difficulties and complexities of it's easy to say and hard to do and that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it yeah so let me throw out let me throw out a few thoughts because I mean we've all probably got our own thoughts we're we're going to circle back at this let's think about it but also uh you know I will commit to reading all of this stuff more thoroughly than I did tonight and if we have ideas and things that we can share with staff I mean this is not the last time we're going to talk about this I don't think we're ready for prime time yet but but I think that um and clearly you know we don't want to create a huge protocol um for the city um you know um that would require Staffing and all sorts thing there's there's got to be resources and and the state's been working on this I mean it was clear from um from the attorney general's note that he sees a need and wants the help of cities in this um but at the same time it's I think it's you know a matter of it's a challenging area it takes resources and where the resources come from nobody's nobody's talked about that and so there's a lot of hurdles to work through but maybe together with staff and Council and maybe doing a little bit more research we can have some more definitive ideas and share with Mike and then then see what next STS come from that is that a reasonable yeah approach I think so any Mike go ahead I think so it's October and so coming up in December is we'll go through the exercise well is an exercise for establishing our 2025 study session work plan we'll put this on that list and likely as indicate T will come back in 2025 for further conversation in the meantime I think this has been a good conversation hope we feel the same at least for staff kind of understanding where your interest lies and I think where your interest lies right now is looking at how can we as a city provide education and that opportunities for educating workers on larger scale projects uh we'll spend some as some staff we'll spend some time kind of betting that out coming up with some thoughts around that and then we come back in a few in 2025 I say a few months but coming back in 2025 for a continued conversation we'll have some Foster to consider at that time I think also part of that is we'll also communicate with henan County and just understand their program a little bit more and see where they might be where they might fit into this equation and and maybe just maybe a little bit of conversation because as um as Karine said you know a big chunk of the law got got cut out or that you know because of some the very difficulties associated with the scale of the issue and so maybe we we don't have to discover that for ourselves but understanding of the thinking about why that was cut out because that could be instructive in terms of as we try to develop a scope um that's manageable for a city um and what resources can we tap in because I I I again I think it's be challenging for for us to take this whole thing on but I think if we establish some standards and expectations um that's that's a good first step anyone else any any other comments all right we're gonna take a break and then we will take five or 10 minutes and we'll come back and U and we will finish or continue our agenda this is serious all right the next item on the agenda is the um City manager review process and Miranda I believe that you're going to tell us about that or Mike did you have anything you have nothing to say right Miranda thanks me Council um so tonight we're just gonna review the city manager review process we're talking about the review tonight it's just the process that leads up to the review um so each year for the we have two new members in the council so tonight we're just going to go through with the process we're going to go through the form that we've used the last years I don't even know how many years that form has been around and then so each year the city manager of mka under goes a performance review as outlined in the employee agreement so um article three of that agreement says that the it has to happen in the last fiscal quarter of each calendar year we generally do it one of the last study session or Council meetings of the year um this year is slated for December 2nd 2024 um which would happen in close session after like the last agenda item on that night um the evaluation provides important feedback to the standed manager alignment with City strategic priorities and their leadership and um manager competencies so when we when we review the form you'll see that all of our priorities are there and then of course leadership and management as well um so the action tonight is to review the process and then provide provide feedback going in 2025 so our current process is done by the assistant city manager that's longstanding that this position has always conducted this um process um so early November I will s uh email both councel and the directors the evaluation form um asking you to complete it um once submitted I usually give a couple of weeks timeline um on that I do compile all of the um responses into one single document um and I do like one two three four I just number them so they're um Anonymous on who's completing them and then they are shared confidentially with the city council through confidential packet I do do a form that is director's responses and then Council responses so they're two different compiled documents but they are both confidential um under the state statute a public body is permitted to close for the evaluation of a performance review of an individual under its Authority the individual must be identified prior to the meeting's closure however the employee has the option to keep it open so that is an option so if there ever is a time that comes where the employee chooses to keep it open that is their discretion to do that um Additionally the statute requires that a summary of the evaluation conclusion be presented at the next open meeting generally the mayor has done that um either at a study sh study session or regular meeting it's whatever meeting is directly next from the performance review so if on December 2nd that is a regular meeting we have a study session the next Monday so the mayor would do the summary at that study session so review of the form I'm going to pull it up so that's really all that is I send you guys a document you complete the document you send it back then you go into a close session with the employee and you have the conversation um that's really where my role kind of starts and ends um but this is the evaluation of the employee and the council um so there is a rating scan I will pull up the form here um the rating scale is a 1 through five so the performance review has both open-ended questions and rating questions so a quick snapshot if you are the person who was giving me performance review or filling it out um one is unsatisfactory so it's a 1 through five scale performance consistently Falls below expectations number two it needs Improvement so you would select two if this is Falls there performance generally meets expectations that requires Improvement in certain areas proficient would be a three consistently meets expectations in all aspects of the role four exampl consistently exceeds expectation and often goes above and beyond and five is outstanding performs consistently performance consistently far exceeds expectations demonstrating exceptional contributions again the document provides both rating scale and open-ended comments um well hold up here I would say that in the couple of years I've done this and even years prior the rating scale is great I would say even as an employee who gets performance reviews the comments are really what I feel employees pay a lot attention to um so this is the form so you'd receive this from me it'll say the year so it' be this year 2024 last year 2023 so going into the December performance review you're you're dating back back to January so it's this current year so from January of 24 to December of 24 you're doing it on that calendar year um your name the date this would say Council name um again here's that rating scale and then here our six strategic priorities so again this performance review focuses on our strategic priorities and the leadership and management competencies so You' select one through five there is the definitions of each one underneath it so you don't have to have a document with you you'd grade on there then you go into the comments so please provide comments and specific examples of how this person manages an advancement strategic priorities please provide examples if you have any specific examples are always really great um and then please provide examples on how some play makes a difference in the organization and or community so that's really focusing on those strategic priorities and the six different pillars of which we talk about a lot we then moveed into our competencies so we have leadership organizational management again there are descriptions under each one mayor and Council support um fiscal management community relations strategic planning and then shared values our shared values um if you need ever need more information on those let me know those are more internal Focus but there is a description here of what those what those are we go into the another comments section add comments regarding the areas the performance all of those areas um there is a time or two where you'll see on the director sheet that they don't select mayor and Council support because we don't often play in those roles and so if a director relieves that blink that is common and then please provide um Direction on any initiative or issue you'd like to see the employee to pursue or advance in the future and that is oh there's one more and then any additional feedback you wish to share with the employee so that is the sum of the form again I'll send that out in early November and then from there I give a couple weeks deadline get it back and then compile those the results and that is again confidential information so timing and options so I've been doing this now for a couple of years and Mike and his in this chair did it before when he was here and Perry before that and over the years there's been some voice mild concerns about either the form or the process or I've heard things such as like I've never given a performance review in my life I I don't even know where to start I feel uncomfortable doing this um so I've heard things all across the board but really we've never had a conversation and we've never really taken action on what that may look like um because the evaluation is from January of 2024 through December and we're now in the middle of October I'm not recommending changes for this year because employees been operating under this and to be really flank Frank I don't really I don't have time on my plate towards the end of the year to really give this if if you need something I want to make sure if you want something I can do that for you so tonight saff is seeking feedback on the process and form to potentially revise in 2025 so kind of focusing on it now we can get a q1 priority um so then we can get things wrapped up on that so if Council um provides feat feedback staff will present options at a future meeting I would say that um some of the options may just do new evaluation for mebe we want to expand on it or reduce it or do more comments first ratings I think those are all options um other cities have got an external consultant to revamp the whole process there would be a cost to that um I would also offer up that the our nonunion and performance performance reviews are currently being we're moving from paper flat paper BAS system to online system and we're hoping to roll that out um before the end of the year or very early next year that is something I could bring back to council and show Council what non-union employees are doing and give that an option for Council to review before making a decision we could also even do something as simple as bringing a trainer and doing a formal training of performance reviews that's something we're going to do for a non-union staff or supervisor manager so if that's something council's interested we have a lot of options or we can keep it the same so um happy to Garner some feedback and um see where council's thinking Rebecca so I I brought this up I think the last couple of years and I know other folks have as well I um I think that my biggest concern and watching you know my husband who's a director at a company that did a big overhaul on how they're doing reviews to try to get consistency and that's always been my problem with reviews you got seven people in totally different walks of life and no you know we're just like okay we're going to fill this out from our lens and so I I don't think I mean I think the form is pretty good I think having five numbers is too many I you know and I think trying to get a saw on the same page I also think re setting the form because once you do it and then you're like oh God if I give worse score than last year I don't really think this person did worse but you know it kind of gives us a fresh start to say okay we'll try to have a streamline objective on how we're reviewing this I think having it be as consistent with what the other staff is seeing and what the directors are doing at at their level would be really useful um and I think some kind of training even if it's us watching a video on our own time of the training that you're giving to you know the leadership here is probably useful so that we're all kind of coming to it from a similar lens at least you know I some of us have given reviews there's probably those of us up here who have never had to give reviews by virtue of the work that we do so um those are all I the formal seems iMat less material to me than like trying to get the Council on the same page I think that's the most useful way we can give a review thank you other comments anyone yep um soly my and I sort of along the same lines of what Rebecca was talking about and I was thinking about the sort of frustration that Rebecca expressed last time with with some of the um um threes and fours where I think the people giving the threes and fours weren't considering those a bad rating I know like probably all of you have had some sort of service and they say you know I'm going to ask you to rate me at the end and anything less than a 10 is a failure and I'm like well then why isn't it just pass fail what is the point of one through nine right um so and you know again as as motans a lot of us like good is good and we don't NE necessarily tend to go to the excellent you know we don't necessarily tend to give the highest rating so to Rebecca's point if there was some sort of understanding about what it really means when we give a three is that seen is that considered a bad rating um sort of thing yeah have great inflation right yeah other comments anyone yeah that's I'm sorry py go ahead when when I get a r and evil from my work my boss says here's what they mean here's what one means here's what two means and he says it I've been there for you know 12 years and he says it the same thing every time just so that it's clear about what he's saying to me and it really helps me like because you like you said threes are different for some people and and five is what what is five I was like wow what is he paying money to us like really amazing yeah I think um I mean I I agree I think getting everyone on a pretty Level Playing Field I mean I've gotten I've gotten evaluations for many years but the um you know when you I was in a sophisticated system at General Mills and three said fully satisfactory you got a fully satisfactory Bo you're doing the job but it also meant that General Mills if you got a three you were never getting promoted yeah I mean you had to get a four or five to be considered now that didn't mean you were never or excuse me you weren't getting promoted during this period you were going to get promoted if you're going to get promoted you have to improve your performance get a four or five if you want to if you want to move ahead fully satisfactory me you get this you get stay in place and keep the same job until you're old and you know so I mean I think really getting some clarity on what do we mean with these with these evaluations because I I think the form is fine the descriptions are okay you know we've fives are hard to get it should be hard to get but but you shouldn't have to walk on water the description for a five basically says you walk on water you've never made a mistake in your life you've never had bad breath I mean you know it's um you know it's like it's not realistic and then so we're to say that we're going to evaluate people and and and either not believe what we're saying or score them in a way that is inconsistent with what is practical realistic I mean that's the concern that I have with the form it's not with the form it's not what we're being asked it's the in scale is not realistic in my view and that that concerns me totally agree and then the other thing I would say is in terms of feedback let's um not everyone's used the form not everyone's done the job let's let's ask the same question you know a couple you know a couple month or after the first of the year we've gone through the whole process and we've all experienced it then let's evaluate what we've just done rather than then I don't like this I don't like that but I've never used it yeah a good idea I would say it at at work um they they just instituted a performance pay system for people that are at the highest grade at highest step in their grade and um it you know it's supposed to be a motivation you know to achieve those those High marks by the same token um a person in HR that's helping to implement this new program told me as we were seeking some clarity on it you know I don't want to see you know they're having all of the directors turn these forms in um to HR to make sure that there is some consistency and it's not all over the board and you know you have some high scores and low scores and you know is it being applied equitably and basically they were saying you know I don't want to see a whole bunch of top scores because you can get 0% 1% 2% 3% the idea is not everyone is should deserve the the 3% pay increase per year and so um it but I you know for people that really love their employees and want to keep them motivated it's tough and you know we have we have great we have a great City and I mean so much talent here and it just reflects well I think having that consistent anything that'll help us be consistent this way because I think people really do you know I'm reading performance evaluations all all year long from from directors and so I see how different people approach it and everyone's so different I just anything to help us be more consistent in our understanding um of what we're trying to reflect and what's and frankly what's helpful to Mike um also um so I think I think the comments are are important but I mean I I agree there are a lot of scores and just simplifying the scoring might make it a little easier because I know a lot of performance evaluations just for uh Rank and file employees is satisfactory unsatisfactory not all of them but some of them so any other comments anyone all right then we'll wrap that one up do you have anything no I still have enough so what I have is I'll come back in January after we finish up this review we'll clean up some of those numbers clean up some of those prescriptions and then provide some training for consistency great okay I think training is a great idea yeah very good so that breaks us yeah thank you I just add that when Miranda sends that out um what I normally do in Pre what I've done in previous years and I plan to do again is I'll have a memo attached to that or I'll give it to Miranda so she can attach a memo out that'll be helpful hopefully for you as you fill out the form because it'll give you my thoughts and observations and some of my own Reflections as you get that information I'll try to keep it fairly short but it'll be just a summary of this year and and again some of my thoughts and I'll get that to you with that memo so hopefully that'll be some good information as you feel through thanks any anything else anyone otherwise item D November study session topics Mike yeah thank you mayor council so in your in your sa report is then taking a look at November study session we have two items on that agenda that'll be November 4th which is the 2025 Enterprise fund budget so this is our look at our Enterprise fund so it be mainly our utility accounts and then for example Willison gry Bay Marina and some of our other accounts that are not general fund so we'll take a look at those on November 4th and then miss wishnack will be back for the rental registry updates so that is a a look at 2024 that was a newer program here this last year and so Julie will come back with information on that and then quickly looking ahead then December that will be a full study session agenda where we've got as I mentioned earlier one item is the Strategic profile action steps we'll spend a little time again bringing back those action steps that are going to be compiled by stff here and then we'll have our study session work plan so we'll start out or teasing out items for 2025 I've got as always a list going on that um so if you have anything between now and then I know we're meeting there some one-on ones coming up so if you have items that you want considered that's not the only time but start thinking about items that uh you want um up for next year and we'll start that process of vetting that out and creating our 2025 study session study session work plan we also then in that same vein start gearing up for for our legislative breakfast and any legislative priorities you have we have as a city again I've got another list generated on that based on conversations and that we've had throughout the year or when I've heard feedback from Council on potential legislative priorities so I've got a list going on that so we'll also talk about what that looks like for 2025 as we gear up for inviting our legislators here in January and then the other item will be Council of Staff annual appointments uh this year we did it in I think it was Jan Fed so we two two newest council members but this year we'll get a jump start on it because there's no change in Council sign an election year for us and so we'll tease out those appointments in December as well so a lot of housekeeping matters um the very important stuff coming up in the next two study session so that's what we have teed up and as always as you hear me say is if there's items between now and then that you want in here now is your time to let staff know so we can prepare for that or this is the schedule we're on great looks good that sounds good any comments questions additions all right now comes the scariest part of the night item item 3E is the 30 minutes of open time so this is an opportunity for anybody to bring up whatever they'd like Rebecca okay I'll try to make it quick so over the last couple of years I've gotten comments or questions from folks who have neighbors with with dead and dying trees but not trees that would fall on our radar so something that might be jeopardizing a neighbor's fence or shed but not something that would would rise to the level of the city getting involved in marking or ask you know requiring removal and with Emerald ashor you know I had one guy who called a couple times and I you know we didn't really have anything to say well in the last several weeks I've heard from two other people and so I'm wondering if that's something that's coming up you know some cities are a little more aggressive in marking trees and requiring removal and even taking steps towards removal I was reluctant to bring it up prior to now because you know we hadn't had a way to help people if they needed it now we do have funds that we received in a grant that we um became available first quarter maybe around then this year about $355,000 so I don't know if it's things something that people are interested in looking at and I think it's going to be something that comes up more we're going to be hearing about more often with the Oak and and ash trees um consider if we want to take if we want to do something a little more assertive on how we manage or require people to manage those all right thank you Rebecca um others py um I I'm sorry did you want to I talk about it talk about it all or do you we get I'm sorry no that's I'm good I'm we haven't done this a lot so I'm happy to hear what people have to say and but if we want or do you want to um what do you think in terms of discussion just other people interested in that more consensus I'm Sorry Brad the kind of well in my phone calls today I had a couple council members bring up these items and so back had mention this to me I was able to chat quickly with Julie and Karine on it so certainly staff I think can answer some questions or at least provide you with some information about kind of what the program is today because we do have some resources that I think we want just quickly show councel and then well if we have information let's go we have some information we ready to share with you and then I think part of this 30 minute open time is to get these out on the table and then decide where do we want to take it and so it it's putting this on the list infin this list on potential topics for next year as well that sounds good so if you're okay with that good let's let's no worries let's bet these appropriately you want to talk and I'll navigate uh yeah so we do get occasional calls from property owners who are concerned about their neighbor tree um sometimes it's the tree is hanging over my yard and I don't like it other time it was somebody who didn't like the fact that the leaves fell in his yard even though the tree didn't hang onto his yard um and and sometimes it's you know I think this I'm afraid this tree is going to fall over um when unless a tree is um likely to fall over a public Trail onto a public road or um onto city property the city does not typically get involved we would a tree that presents a hazard to city property or to the traveling public we would deem a nuisance and then we would go out and market and we could if the owner doesn't remove it we could remove it and assess the property back if the tree is considered a hazard but it's not affecting any public interest it's just affecting another property owner we consider that to be a private property issue we will typically refer them to this publication which is available at the University of Minnesota extension website it's called trees in Minnesota law it has a lot of information about what tree law is and what rights a person has regarding a tree that's on somebody else's property but we don't give them any legal advice we just refer them to this article and tell them you may find the answer to your question in here you want to refer your specific situation to page six right I mean and I have yeah and I guess the question is cuz I'm I experienced this in other cities where they maybe have more rigorous requirements and require dead and and disease trees to be removed is that if they're disease for sure that yeah yeah we have I mean we have in the past um you know most recently with the new funding that we got you know we haven't been going after all the trees on private property because of EAB just because there's been so many so we haven't required them to come down we've left it up to homeowners just because of the full infestation you know we could certainly change that it'd be quite an undertaking um and we we have got a few calls as well you're not alone by means some the same people yeah right if it's a disease tree it has to violate our plant pest ordinance so it would need to have Oak quilt uh Emerald ashb or um DM disease dutel yes it has to one of those three and then we have the authority under State Statute and our ordinance um to address that but as will mentioned we have not been enforcing that as to trees on private property because of the emerald ashor and I and I guess I think that is my ultimately my question you know if it's and what are those standards you know I know we can't especially going I talk of course we couldn't go out and address but it you know if there's one that seems to be adjacent to you know something that could cause damage to a building or I don't know you know some kind of Standards to that property owner or property owner we would not we would not get involved in that absolutely not could could we I mean is that something I I wouldn't recommend it but the issue is can you call it a public nuisance when it isn't it's not public it isn't um it it is a private nuisance and it doesn't affect a large number of people it could potentially affect someone but we generally wouldn't classify something as a public nuisance unless it presented a broader range of harm I think in some of these situations at least what I what we try to do is staff level is try to you know give them the resources try to get them to go to mediation something to figure out the the problem and try to um get them to cooperate I would say there are a few cases where I haven't been successful we haven't been able to get them to cooperate so that I have I mean there is that is what you have yeah I me same experience from us I me we've even knocked on the neighbor's door to try to help and they won't they won't answer the door I mean try to help the neighbors if we can without getting to involve it is is Emerald ashb different than either Oak Wilt or Dutch elm disease because basically unless you're treating your ash trees every Ash Tre in Minon you're going to get it that's not being treated but we still want to preserve Elms and we want to preserve Oaks and so do we treat em Emerald ashb differently than we would treat those other two type those two species with those two different diseases I'm not on private property we've been treating them the same right now okay all right and I know what you're saying Rebecca cuz even on night to unite I was in a neighborhood where the neighbors were literally talking about what you're talking about and it you know we're it it is kind of hard to look at our at our um Urban Forest right now because it is looking peing yeah yeah question yeah I mean would it be what are other cities do I me what do what are other you know is anybody doing what you're talking about being more invas when you say more I mean I know that my parents have had a trademark but I I don't know the circumstances around it in P but you know right every city seems to be kind of handling it differently I just worry that um you know I just had seven or eight diseased uh uh Emerald dashboard trees or infested trees taken and it's a burden to make people I mean it was almost $10,000 so you know if we're going to all of a sudden be dictating that and not everybody's going to you know kind of be eligible for that funding I just that that is one concern I guess I how do we you know how do you go in and and arbit you know I don't know how to do that yeah and to answer your question we we haven't talked about it since we were fully infested with a but we had looked at other cities and you know they weren't doing more than us at the time there's probably a few that are that I'm not remembering but for the most part they're not going on a private property and having them cut them down it's it's hard it is and we have a lot of ases all right we cover that one or anybody else anything more on that issue or py you had something you want to share well um Leslie being here made me think of it and I I'm sorry I didn't talk to about it because that I've had and um people complain and about chemical use on their lawns now I know we can't regulate the state regulates pesticides on their lawns and also the signage like I know that that but she wanted to and and and I think that I just wanted to bring it up just because I can see the new development that's going on with those massive massive Lawns and how much chemicals are going to be required to keep up those Lawns and I don't know like if we can do more education about it and I like and what she wants bigger signs like the city to have another ordinance I said no we're not going to do that it's too it's too much but something you know there's and maybe and I'm just bringing it up just because I said I would and but I did think about it in terms of like the new development that's going on with all the woodlands being chopped and then grass being laid and and I mean I I don't even know I don't know the solution other than education about it but um I just wanted to bring it up yeah and I don't know I mean I it's been a while since I asked about this I there was one development that was going in where they there were I would I had asked if we could require like a certain sort of landscaping for you know more environmentally friendly Landscaping um because they were getting some help from the city and I think the answer was yes but it didn't end up didn't end up happening um and I haven't Revisited since then but I don't know if that's something when we're looking at our zoning and land use and tree ordinance and all those things are there ways that particularly in developments that are um getting Tiff money or assistance from the city are ways that we can maybe require more pollinator friendly Lawns or you know something aside from just turf grass this wish that is an the ordinance now and so just so you know that that applies to all development so that's in there today um so I'm not sure what development you're talking about but I was talk no I was talking about all the houses that are you know the the one on flyth road that they're taking down all the trees mhm okay that not all the trees came down I want to make that's another thing that is not exactly what happened a lot a bunch of trees came down there are a number of trees that met the ordinance that were taken out of the exactly I totally agree I totally agree sorry sensitivity yeah no nothing nothing like that y not at all got it I'm just saying that you know yeah and they had to require they are required to plant with pollinators according to the new Landscaping ordinance percentage they are required to do that so every development is shows what we know that's all right I can just remind you no problem that um I think you're all familiar with we received um an email and I think paty you got it originally py and I don't know who else um maybe me about about group home clustering me okay I got it okay Deb got it and so um I've been in contact with the women who wrote to you originally and I said you know um I'm responding um in part because this is a concern that I've had for some time and all you who know me know that I really support group homes but I also have I've got some strong opinions on the way I support them because um I think that when the state preempted cities and said that we have no authority to stop group homes that have six or fewer residents I strongly support that and I think it I think it gave cities a lot of cover because otherwise if if they hadn't done that we'd be getting calls for all these small group homes and things and and it's just better to say the state's taken that Authority away from us and and we're in better shape but um a number of years ago I I've also felt personally that clustering of group homes works against group homes I mean I want people to support group homes because we need group homes but when they get clustered um they they the state passed laws encouraging group homes because they wanted to get out of the institution business and I've my personal opinion is that when you have cluster group homes it becomes kind of a serial institution because you've got three group homes in a row it's not a small operation anymore it's a bigger operation and um and it has negative impacts on the neighborhood and I want people to support group homes and when that starts happening it it I think it affects people's attitudes and all of a sudden the group homes that we need are going to have residents who are who are saying that they're bad we don't like them and so so you know way back when before Patty aim was even our State Rep there was ion Sal Selzer was there and I talked to her about this issue and um and so then it didn't go anywhere I kind of dropped it I dropped it for a number of years but then when these ladies wrote I thought a really good letter um I thought and I realized that we don't I contact them said we don't have any Authority but I would urge you to contact your State Rep and I will reach out so I called Patty AUM talked to her about this and she said yeah I'd like to do some research in that I'm I'm interested in it and then the other day um Heather Edon had a meeting for Mayors and um city managers um and Mike and I went to that meeting and I and I raised the issue and Scott Neil who is the city manager of Edina mentioned to us he said well Minneapolis got legislation that limited group homes um you had to have a thousand foot buffer between um residential group homes and I thought well if we if we had that that would that would solve the problem um thousand foot buffer would mean that we still support group homes but you have to be they have to be separated by a th000 ft so then Mike checked into that with Scott Neil and it turned out that Minneapolis got special legislation at the at the state um I think he Dina tried to get it and in the last legislative session they were unsuccessful so I've been talking to Patty and I will talk to other state legislators too because I think you know again I'm I mean part of this is a little bit of a personal thing because I I really do support group homes but I also think that when they get clustered it has real impacts on neighborhoods and neighbors and I think generally it it reduces the public support for group homes which are needed so that's kind of my rationale and and you know I I don't I mean I'm going to continue to pursue this but I thought it would be good to let everyone know I know you all got the um I got the email so I think it's just kind of want to let you know that I'm I'm talking that up that's awesome that's appreciate it yeah um I have a I have a very sort of odd topic and it's just something that I I keep thinking about and I don't really know if it's even appropriate for us but I'm on the Emergency Management Council for Ramsey County in St Paul is part of my day job and we did a tour of the Red Cross Blood processing center in St Paul and it it is fascinating and it's it's a little known fact that it is a regional blood processing center so it processes all the blood I think all the way from St Louis Missouri to Minnesota and because the blood sometimes comes from such a long distance there are times when it's difficult to process the blood product fast enough and it is wasted before it's even able to be processed and also you know just this vast area and um because of the kind of like emergenc just even thinking about like emergency response times that's hard enough to solve I kind of think of it as sort of it's it's a national security issue or at least a regional security issue and I feel like it's something that might be worth talking to our legislators about both federally through national league and League of Minnesota cities just because I feel like there needs to be there's already a blood shortage and um there just aren't enough blood processing centers so if so let's say there was a natural disaster or a man-made disaster I mean that and and it was in St Paul and it was there that would really wipe out our blood processing for a a huge region so it's just like this odd sort of off topic thing but it's been top of mine since last year when I went on that tour that it's something that affects all of us and um it seems like such a crucial um security thing that is just sort of under resource that I feel like it and it there's no attention on it so anyway I I just thought I would share that it because I there's there's no neat place to put that but it's just like a concern so anyway I'd like to encourage everybody to give what um Izzy I have um two um things I want to ask about or talk about um one is the um business small businesses like I know I keep hammering this home but small businesses in um minaka uh specifically um black and brown folks um I had asked Mike about this but um and I'm just talking about it because I I'm a small business and I'm going to be vouching cuz I just think it's important but um I tend to go to Minneapolis every time there's an event there like I went to open streets um in Minneapolis um over North and then and then they also have them in South Minneapolis every year and I'm wondering if we could you know possibly look at doing something similar to that um in our city and then also um I'm going to this north side business lunch in um and it really it's really about teaching um businesses about um like running the business um leveling up your business and I think it's important because we don't talk about it enough I know we have Elevate hin and I do use that service but I think about small businesses in our city um are we having any events like this in our city so that um and maybe we are I don't know but um I don't like always having to run to Minneapolis to do to participate in things I want to be able to do that in our city and I don't know what um other businesses in our city are doing is doing but um I haven't been able to find anything like that in the city so that's why I'm bringing it up and then also um I want to talk about the youth program that's with hopin School I know I keep talking bringing that up as well um I started working at my church and it was really nice to see that we had three interns that um my friend is running the daycare as a director who um just recently starting the last couple months and they already have interns there and they were three um African-American students from Hopkins High School and I was training with them today and I was really shocked to see them there because I didn't know we had this intern program and they were 12th graders and so just to see them there I was like oh wow how long you guys been here you know they said to be been here for 3 weeks and the kids is really excited so um I say this because I continue to say how do we really let kids know like what's happening in our city are we I know we talked about we have an intern program here um at the city level but also just like really um connecting kids to to the to the city more so because as I was talking to them I started telling them I didn't even tell them I was a city council yet cuz I'm like I don't even want to tell them that part but then I was just like well how did you guys get connected and I know my friend um Molly who's working for the church that I go to Grace she's really um inovative and she's she lives in Minneapolis and she works she has worked with um white woman but has worked with a lot of black folks over the years and her she came out and campaign for me in inat tanka and she took kids out door knocking and she said KY is really different out here like every time I bring my friends out here they're like it's different how do you continue to like encourage black and brown student this is from a white woman how do you continue to encourage black black and brown students to get connected to Services programs in our city and I said she came from Minneapolis to motanka work at Grace Church in minetonka and connected youth from Hopkins right away to Grace Church and I thought that was amazing so I would love to see more of that in our city if she can do it we can grow that so black and brown kids can have some same some of the similar experiences that white children have and I just can't say it no other way but I just want them to continue to get those opportunities um as much as they can thank KY so Kimberly um unless we do was follow want me to some information yeah yeah go ahead so uh KY uh we've had some really interesting chamber meetings lately um which have been really well attended 50 50 business owners mostly small business um I would say definitely uh people of color businesses as well um so that's a great Outlet if you're looking for something or if you want to share that with people I was at the de commission two weeks ago when they had their meeting and we talked about Outreach and and opportunities um promoting economic G or economic um development programs like uh open to business and um Elevate as you um shared a lot of those members were not aware of those programs and so it was a good education for for the people on the commission and we've asked them to help us spread information and um resources to people who are talking to them so first example of that was um uh Jay's at his booth at the open house last Tuesday had all of the Elevate henen and the open a business brochures at his desk as well as at our desk so if people were or coming to him for other reasons or talking to him that he had access immediately to our program so we've had some good Synergy hopefully that continues and I hope um the da commission members feel uh confident enough now that they know some information that they can help us be ambassadors for some of those Assistance programs so that was a good uh kind of synergy of people that we've had recently but definitely the chamber has been very active in this market um more so than my 19 years of being with the city um it's always been kind of starts and stops with Chambers um and what since we've had uh the Minneapolis Chamber it's going through its own Transitions and we only had about 35 businesses who belong to that way different than what's happening with the WIA chamber and um I don't know Mike if you've been to a lot of them I I find them to be very um good networking events uh for for business say yeah to Julie's point you prob repetitive but I think Julie covered it but it's been really quite transformational in a way just our relationship with wi Zetta chamber this year because they are looking to be partners with us and they're doing the same with the city of Plymouth because we're feeling I say we but our I think our businesses don't have a great home and because of the a place to be place to be we have a great home metan but a home me like a chamber type right and there's Minneapolis Chambers going through their transition they've gone through many of those here in the last few years and so those have been really well attended so I think that's a great opportunity for businesses to get involved why Z chamber is really promoting and it's really growing hopefully that sticks and we don't see other transition in that but I think it's exciting on that front and then I would maybe pivot quickly if Miranda want to touch a little bit on like on the Ace Program just just highlighting our relationship with hin school district on that front um and then yeah go ahead go ahead when I yeah too um so the Ace Program is Advanced Career employment and that's really focused on kids youth with barrier so it's ages 16 to 24 and one of the criteria they've had to have a barrier in their life so it's not aimed at those Advanced students it's really aimed at those students who maybe have a hard home life maybe don't have transportation maybe are a bipac student and haven't had get opportunities so we had six interns this year a great success so H we partner with h in that joint agreement with it they start to promote we promote alongside them this last year um we went into the school districts and um most of them were Hopkins students as well so that's been really interesting a lot of students of or a lot of bipo students came in the door as well as other students too um really interesting they have really good experiences and provide a lot um so this is the program again it's for the summer for eight weeks Sissa has a big um hand in this as well helping with our supervisors and managers organizing helping them create work plans we try and find a balance between exposing them to city like they do a police ride along and a fire Ride Along we also try and give them a really good project they can add on their resume as well as exposing them to all of the areas of local government they also do a really great job of providing them with courses at the beginning of their Ace Program of like here's how you send a professional email here's how you open an email here's how you work um the inner like don't sit at your desk and sing make sure you come in a professional presence and if you need help with that we'll help you through that um our folks over in public works will be given work boots um so that they're able to do their jobs in a safe manner as well so really trying to capture these students and get them in the door to help build resumes as well um Jace being a previous teacher in minetonka area also has a really great connection to schools um so our Stu two students on Dei commission one is a Blake student and one is a minona student both both both the Youth of color on that commission um so J's connections chose around Minon and as being a previous teacher has been really instrumental too on helping build that network of Youth and then also pushing them to the depot um as another option for after school too so I have a question for you so can kids go to menoto website or do they have to work directly to with the school so this is a City of Hopkins so they go to the City of Hopkins website and they apply there okay and then they we're part of all the interviews I mean we're a part of every step of the way um but we do push them to one um fill out application here at the City of Hopkins so um it's really a joint efforts between the two cities okay do you also do the city also partner with Menon High School to do this um so we part with the City of Hopkins and um we do open it to motanka I think we only had one student from minetonka apply and get placed so um it's we brought at the City of Hopkins and then the school district surrounding so doesn't matter where they go to school yeah it doesn't matter where they go to school no no but okay so a l go to Charter School yep they can go to charter school they can and one of this year did one of our Ace interns this year went to a boarding school goes to a boarding school somewhere else and comes home in the summer okay um her name is Blake so she doesn't even actually go to school she lives in minaka um but doesn't go to school in menka she goes to a boarding school somewhere else so all right thank you quick question could we could we have a a page on our website for this or a link I think we do I just don't a link yeah there's a link on our job site we have an intern page on our job on our employment site and I do believe we reference it there right so yep okay I actually do um I have well two but I'll do the the big one first and if there's time the second one um I don't know about anybody else but I've been getting some calls um and one really uh uh heated one over the weekend regarding ebikes um and the continuing concern and this is a repeated one along with with um uh traffic calming just you know concerns about speeds and stuff and so um I think we all got an email um somebody referencing uh the St Louis Park sa streets grant that they received and so I looked into that a little bit um so they have a um so anyway I thought uh my my thought is is is this something worth uh maybe considering as we go forward and are looking at um all of our Transit and things that we're we're looking at bringing this into uh consideration the Safe Streets award that um St Louis Park got um is part of uh funded through the bipartisan infrastructure Bill and so it is you know billions of dollars 5 billion dollars in appropriated funds um and you know it's grant-based for both doing a comprehensive study um uh Safety Action Plan and then you can also get uh implementation funding and so it's a pretty big program um the thing is it's going to run out I think it goes through fiscal year 2026 and so you have to have your uh your comprehensive safety action action plan done before you can apply for the implementation so I wanted to bring that up as a potential for consideration um and I have website and things like that that I can can share with you about that um and then a second thing that Brooklyn Park uh also just got uh helped with is the Smart growth Network which was the APA was one of the founders of that and um they received a a a grant for um basically electrification of of uh for Mobility options and economic uh opportunities in the community so those are two things that I thought as we go forward with our reimagining you know um both zoning and transportation all the things that we're going to be looking at um would like to discuss that and and you know just as a as another thing to look at in the shorter term um I realized or found out that um Excel here and this reson brought it up to me and I kind of verified it um that uh you know we have these ebike problems where we and I've seen it I think we've all seen it where we've seen middle schoolers or you know younger on ebikes with multiple kids on ebikes without helmets going faster than cars going faster than buses on Trails um and so I know excels here in fact has started pulling kids over um and so I looked at a a news item from July 26 as at that point first of all they passed an ordinance that required anybody under the age of 18 I believe to have a helmet law for it so they do require the helmets and and then they as of July 26 have pulled over 39 people for reckless ebike riding 26 of those were under the age of 15 and that was just as of you know end of July so I think that points to you know kind of an issue that's coming up for very consistently amongst my constituents as a concern that and kind of it's tied in with with the whole speed issue um and so you know thinking about that small thing and then also looking at these grants as far as part of our pedestrian um you know kind of safer streets initiative and smart growth strategies for that and creating connected communities um just wanted to bring that up as a possibility and I can follow up with um staff separately on that but just wanted to bring that to council's attention and something that might be worth uh pursuing I know you know staff and everybody always has a a lot on their plate but this is a at least this the safer streets initiative seems to be kind of a good chunk or opportunity to pursue do some funding for you know kind of a a worthwhile Endeavor so staff Mike just so again thank you Council this is newer this year as to have this open time and so I think for my perspective I've taken a lot of notes here and got we're addressing some of these concerns that are here tonight so I'm glad you're having that conversation so I think all of you on the same page of hearing to some of the challenges that you're hearing from constituents now it's a matter of what do we do with all that and so I think for some of the things we've talked about tonight like with KY as staff puts together action steps I think a community inclusiveness and so I think how does how does some of your comments fit into perhaps some action steps we might bring forward under Community inclusiveness because I think a lot of what our Focus needs to be is wrapped around what is our strategic plan or what are our strategic priorities I think same thing with you Paula in terms of what you've mentioned with some of these grants we are as staff coming back at the November study session as I alluded to a few minutes ago talking about the budget we will have information for you the Council on all the grants that we're seeking and so we have lots of grants in the hopper lots of grants that we seek and there's lots of administration tied to all that Grant Management and so if we're going to look at safer streets and another initiative where does that fit into then the Strategic plan and and what does that look like and so I think that'll be part of our action set building too is how do we fit that into safe and livable or well planned development so I think there's lots of of areas that that might fall into and then where does that fit into all the priorities so I think thank you for bringing that up and think as staff we're here we're taking notes as you see on on some of the issu you brought up and then where does that fit into again our workload and our priorities yeah I guess um thank you for that if I can just follow up with that I understand I don't want to you know pile more on staff and I understand there's a lot of things in the hopper I just um would ask my my fellow council members is this an issue that you are hearing about this is something maybe this is just War 3 but I'm he about this all the time in terms of you know pedestrian safety in terms of the you know frustration with ebikes oh I see it I mean yeah I brought it up at the last study session so yes we're hearing about it one question I had is um are any of the organizations that we participate in whether the league or Metro cities are they has anybody come out with anything on um City regulation of ebikes or recommendations for legislation or things like that because I mean it is I don't have to go far um I I hear about it at my house um in terms I mean you know um you know ebikes my wife um complains to me about that a lot from well onean what are these young kids doing on these not they should be riding bikes and getting exercise exactly but two they're they're on the trail zipping around and you know and as somebody who runs on the Trails um you know it's frustrating enough when a regular biker does not announce them you know so they come back by quietly and startle you which is one thing but then when they're on when they're young kids on an ebike with no helmets and going 25 miles hour um you know we have we have legislation that says no motorized vehicles on those trails and who says that a 25 M hour ebike is not a not a motorized vehicle I it's yeah it is but I you know I think I think as a world changes maybe we so there's I think a lot of things in that that some work with our legislators some but maybe there are ordinances and enforcement that um and signage that can be part of that yeah yeah I think I'm sorry I didn't address that uh with the ebikes um we did have uh was it met well we had well I got to think here give me a second so we had some uh concerns coming from ebikes on trail you're getting it so a staff and so one of the complaints we got was ebikes by U minaka Middle School East so um state law there's already state law that you have to be 15 years if you're 15 or younger I think you have to wear a helmet you can't even ride ebikes and you can't ride yeah 15 15 let's see helmets are required if you're 15 under you can't ride them period period um but we were saw we saw at the beginning of the school year you parents were buying their kids ebikes even though they were not 15 and what students were doing were driving him down the trail parking them on the school edge of the school property chain linking them to the fence and that became a concern and so our police and our SRO work with many T of schools that issue has been resolved at least with the school there a lot of communication with the parents were happy in the first few weeks so that's been I think resolved but just this General usage of bikes again I you saw our study session study session schedule so we're not talking about ebikes November December so it's going to be in 2025 and we start looking at ebikes I can tell you and talk to my colleagues everywhere I mean it's it's one of those things where technology is outpaced legislation right uh and so it's I think cities are trying to figure out grappling with like we are like what do you do with that and talking a little bit with with Chief Bor boom because you only need to be part of the conversation is you know we don't we don't have police out on their Trails we don't actively enforce our trails and so but this is happening on regular streets so what do we do you know with that because yeah what What the residents are telling me is that they're calling the police and they're getting um you know we can't do anything except give a leaflet for the kid to bring home to their parents it's what they're being told so we've got neighboring cities that are actually pulling over over people who are riding the L so I don't know I don't know what the answer is but um yeah it seems like hopefully we can do something all right well we're well beyond 30 minutes um yeah just to canly real quick to your your Trail thing and again it's an enforcement deal but as an ebike owner class 3 ebikes are not allowed on the trails which are bikes that can go over 20 M an hour class 2 e bikes um which I have a bike that could be either but class two right now um Class 2 ebikes are allowed on Trails class 38 ebikes are not um and I just real quick we don't have to discuss it but since um Margaret came and and dropped this off and I've been complaining to Mike about signs around minetonka um just if this is something if we can look at what's happening now and if there's something more that can be done or something differently like putting an article in the in minaka memo I think would be easy enough to do I don't know that we have the budget to hire people to hire people like she suggested but maybe there's a maybe we can you know brainstorm and think of a better way like I'm willing to just pull them up myself but I have refrained from doing that I have refrained from doing that said she's deped she's a signed police enforcement could we put a bounty on that yeah right you get two bucks a sign and then we find the owner of the sign pay the sign 5 Seconds responsive just they're like weeds and so um we we do uh sign sweeps we do it all the time yeah um and so as long as we have a general area where the person is um you know saying there's a lot here obviously I haven't seen the I took all the copies of I scribbled on mine but so this we we'll put it on our list of uh sites to check um I don't promise that'll solve the issue putting it in the memo doesn't get to the right people these aren't people that are residents in the city putting these signs in these are contractors they're businesses that sort of thing so that's the wrong audience in my opinion um so just know that we care uh we will go ahead and do enforcement as we always do on signs and uh we'll take it from there so I mean let me just ask you like since we are technically city employees can we take these sign down and bring them bring them to fear we have not allowed uh others that other than employees and that reason is because of safety issues when you do this um I will tell you as someone who takes down signs regularly I know it's not my main responsibility but if I see a sign and I can hop out of the car safely and I have my badge on I will do it I get asked all the time while you taking down those signs uh people kind of um chastising you so that's not something we want council members to do that's for staff to do an enforcement so but thank you for the offer I appreciate it I I've had to restrain myself a few times drop M note and then we'll make sure we get that area next well we went I actually saw um pardon me oh same Simon Golden Valley all right just before we uh sign off just want us to wish everyone happy indigenous people St St with just to kind of Mark that as our city we do that very good thank you all right is this a wrap it's a wrap I think so everyone thank you for your your involvement thank Paula