Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Well, welcome everyone. Good evening. Tonight is Monday, June 16, 2025. This is a study session of the Minnitankka City Council. Uh we're going to go around and um take role, but before we do, I um I just want to thank everyone in this room for your public service. Um you know, it's been an incredible weekend and um thank you for the public safety for all of their help and checking on us and making sure that we were all okay and I appreciate that. But but we are all public servants and uh um you know the what happened this weekend is unspeakable. But it also makes me appreciate all of the sacrifices that are involved in public service and when you look at the victims what happened today or this weekend um our families are directly impacted by what we do as well and they we owe them a debt of gratitude. So, I just wanted to before we go around with roll call just thank you all for for being here for your service and uh it's not lost on me that we all uh we all sometimes have to go the extra mile um and uh and sometimes just um unfathomable uh things happen. So anyway, um I'm sure we'll have more conversation later, but I I wanted to start out with that. So, Miranda, if you'd like to do start with roll call, I appreciate it. Yeah. Miranda Davin, assistant city manager. Eric Nelson, city attorney. Darren Nelson, finance director. Mike Pong, city manager. Thank you for your comments. Mayor Kley, w four, city council. Paty Foster, Bolton, Ward One. Brad Wome, mayor. Rebecca Shack, W two. Paula Romele, W three. Deb Calbertt at large seat A. Will Manchester public works director. Julie Wish, community development director. Kelly OD, recreation director. Kevin Fox, fire chief. Scott Borbin, police chief. Jason Tate, deputy chief of police. Eric Mezer, deputy chief, fire. Sarah Westy, assistant recreation director. Leslie Yetka, natural resources manager. Matt Kuma, park and trail project manager. Bill, city engineer. Joel Mary, assistant finance director. All right. So, that takes us to um um item three on the agenda is business items. And u Mike, I'll turn it over to you and then uh we can kick things off. All right. Uh thank you, Brad, council. Good evening. On behalf of staff, thank you for your time this evening. As you saw on our agenda, we have really kind of three items. The economic improvement plan, the capital improvement plan. We'll do a check-in later then on the progress of our off leash dog conversation. Have our 30-minut open time, which I have information on that to hand out here a little bit later. So, a lot to get through the next two and a half hours. Quickly just want to mention that when it comes to the EIP and our CIP, our directors and their teams are heavily involved in this just by way of little but by process. Uh it really starts with our directors and their teams framing up their recommendations. Uh they present those to Darren and I and Miranda. Uh and to our teams, you know, we we go through those. We we can tell you that Darren and I and Miranda ask a lot of questions. We scrutinize those uh before you even see it here this evening. Uh mainly though the EIP, if you think about our EIP again, our CIP, most of you'll find departmental uh more of the departments live, if you will, in the capital improvement plan. Uh community development lives, their activity really lives in the economic improvement plan. And so I'm going to really really turn it over to to Miss Wishnack at this point. She's going to walk us through the EIP, uh all the business programming, uh housing, and all the chapters. This is in your I see you have your three- ring binders. So, it starts about a little over halfway through the book. There's a tab called policy. Uh, and that's where we'll start. And then after Julie's done, we'll go to the front of the book and and go into the CIP. But for kicking us off, I'll turn over to to Julie and present uh the 2025 through 2029 staff recommended EIP. Thank you, L. Appreciate it. Hey, uh, it's the second policy. So, first policy have CIP, second policy is EIP, right? Um, and I should have asked Mike this before the meeting, but how long do I have? I forgot what you said. Uh, well, let's see. Mayor and council, I think, we got about two and a half hours to get through everything. So, if you can get through maybe 25 20 to 25 minutes in presentation. Okay. Are you good with that? We're good. We're good. All right. Um, and I want to give credit to Alicia Gray and Kirsten Jagger and also Kendall Larson in my office who helped develop the document. And then we'll tell you later on what the Economic Development Advisory Commission also weighed in on the plan and and share with you what uh information they had. I'll do that more towards the end. So, um, we'll take it by section. So like I'll stop at the housing section and I'll stop at the economic development section so that you have time for questions. So we'll chunk it out like that but I'll keep time uh as we go forward. So the program uh review again the document is created with the strategic uh plan in mind. It also talks about programs but for the city's involvement would not occur within the community and it really has to align with other purposes you have and either that's in the comprehensive plan, the housing plan or whatever other document you might be referring to. And then we have to dictate kind of in the plan what area of the economic development plan we're talking about. Is it transportation, housing, business or redevelopment? and does the program serve and is the current uh funding committed or uncommitted. So, we'll show you some of that in the document. This is a little bit small to read, but it is that front page that are your guiding um program policies and it talks about funding categories in the first section. And I I'm not going to read through this, but just remember that it's based on these principles and the guidance in your funding categories that we make the document. Sometimes we skip over this page I think too quickly, but this is what helps staff develop it so that hopefully it aligns with other things that the city council is interested in. So the process for developing the e um EIP is kind of we're right in the middle of it. So we'll hear from you tonight and then we'll go back to the EDAC on August 14th for finalizing the plan and then September 8th we'll come back to you. same schedule as the CIP. So, the fund overview, there's a couple of funding sources. And if you forgot, there's a cheat sheet in the back of the document that shows exactly where these funds are from. So, if you ever forget, just turn to the back. There's a whole page that explain each and one each one of these funds. So the development account which is really in this plan thinking about predevelopment funds. We do have a fund balance of $4 million and there are commitments to programming and different things that the city does. Uh we'll talk later about what those are. But just so that I want you to understand the funds first and then we'll talk about actual actions later on. The livable communities account has a fund balance of 673,000. Previously, you used to use that for the homes within reach money. Um, who used it then for rehab of homes and ongoing admin. Um, at some point Darren and I have talked about this. We we have to get to a closeout of that fund. Um, we're not quite there yet because you can only use it for certain things. So, um, just keep that in your mind as something that in the future that should be adjusted and accounted for. CBDG is community development block grant. There was a chart in your packet that talked about kind of where we've been and where we are going with CBG. So on your next Monday's council agenda, there will be an action for you to consider switching to this consolidated pool at the county. Um kind of in a consolidated pool now. So it's a little bit confusing where we we used to be. We get the money from the federal government. We spend the money from the federal government directly. That's how we used to do uh community development block grant. I can tell you from an administrative standpoint, it's a painful thing and I see agreement here um that it is not something you want to run on your own. So, we've transferred some of that responsibility to an outside entity, but then now this action that you'll consider on Monday would totally put us in the pool. That does open a lot more money for the city to have access to 740,000 I think I had in the report. Um, right now we get 140,000. So, it does open the doors for a lot more options for the city than pre we previously had. The only choice after next year is to either be on your own or to be in the consolidated pool. And I would just recommend that you not go back to the way we used to do it, which is an entitlement community. And just for the administrative reasons alone and for that small of amount of money, it just didn't make a whole lot of sense. Then you have the H levy. This is the fund balance uh as of this year is 1.2 million. You do have to remember there's a lot of commitments sitting out there for this fund. So it's not you can spend 1.2 million. You have 443 committed to housing loans. You have a 100,000 that's committed to pathways. We'll talk about pathways and what's going on there. 118 is committed to business and marketing. That's Thrive magazine. all the marketing brochures that we put together for businesses, that sort of thing. 47,000 is committed to emergency business assistant and then 75,000 for our last payment to Southwest. So, all that sits in that account and then it has to be dispersed at some point, but it can be um staggered for years depending on when the actual money is released. Then we have the affordable housing trust fund. We actually haven't expended either the mills or ammani yet. So you could probably add all three of those and that would be your technical fund balance in the affordable housing trust fund. So 2.5 with those commitments taken out. And then LAA, this is the acronym world, local affordable housing aid. That uh dollar figure was 321,000 came late last year. I can't even remember, Darren. When did we get that? Was it like October? Octoberish. Yeah. Yeah. So, we got it October after um we weren't sure when we were going to receive it, frankly. So, it was a little hard to plan. And so, then when we got it, it was the half a year's payment. So, we kind of thought about how to best spend these funds. And in the EIP, you'll actually see us just sitting uh and waiting for the next year's payment to come through. Because this year we expect of course like twice that amount. So 600. So by the time you're done, you know, you have over almost a million dollars of money. And then what can you do with that? The problem with peacemailing it is we have to track this. Um every four years it expires. So you either have to spend it in four years or give it back to the pool. So that's tracking is one of the concerns that we have. Second thing is you can't use it for existing programming. So you'll see later in the report we talk about pathways to home ownership and we we're running we ran out of money so we need to refund that and and see if the council's engaged in that. We can't use that money for that. It's already a program we have and so it has to be a new program or a new project. And so you'll want to give it to one project probably for ease of administration but also ease of tracking over the years. Darren probably would think that's helpful if we if we do that because otherwise you're sitting there and peacemailing it together over those four years and what if you spend a h 100,000 this year but didn't spend all of it for next year. You get the problem with that. So um hopefully this fund balance raises and then we can use it on a project like for some affordable units and don't have to do tax increment that sort of thing. So, that's the idea with LAA in the um five-year outlook. Basically, this tells you how much we're thinking in each year for each program. If you forgot what the program is, if you forgot how many people we helped, there is a chart in your packet that shows you the stats on everything. So, it'll tell you how many loans we made. It'll tell you what um uh some of the programs tell you demographics, you know, whatever information you have that's in that kind of additional packet, the supplemental information. So, um over the life of all of this, it's 1.6 million and um that's just the overview. So getting into pathways, you have had um lots of activity and we did one in 2023. That was the first year you did it. First year you did it and then we had 12 last year. So really ramped up. I think exposure help, marketing help, you know, lots of people were paying attention. Four uh loans uh have been completed this year and two are still in process. So there are um the program funds that we have are have been expended for this year. So we if you asked us what we thought we should do probably 200,000 more this year and then in 26 we would think 175 that again we'd come out of that affordable housing trust fund balance of 2 whatever I had on the slide before. So when we get to the end and you think about where we're headed maybe you can think about that as I talk through the next both sides. So, new initiatives um or I should say just initiatives, the HA levy would continue to fund the down payment and the housing rehab programs at 100,000. You would do pathways for 175 and homes within reach for 25. 25,000 is their continuing administration. They've got a couple years of cushion for purchasing of houses. As you know, the market's so tight in terms of the price point that it's hard for them to purchase homes in Minnetonka at the price point they need to keep it affordable. So, they haven't produced as much as I think they want to, but we still have a couple years of cushion for them to purchase homes. So, 25,000 is the recommendation to continue their administration for next year. That doesn't mean they're not going to try to buy homes. they will continue to try to find opportunities in the affordable housing trust fund. Um we're thinking about Noah no natural um naturally occurring affordable housing and then scattered site acquisition affordable housing ownership production that would be like what we did on Roland and Belmont and Wellland and all those properties. So Roland um it will have this is the one with Ammani. They will they actually almost have their permit today. We're this close. So we're going to see that construction shortly. Um we have talked about maybe selling the Belmont um property to Homes Within Reach. That is uh a remodel. It could be remodeled. So that's something maybe the city council would consider. This would make it uh easy and affordable for them to do the home rehab and move forward and sell it at an affordable price. We are exploring manufactured home construction on Baker Road and on the Wellin property. Now, the Wellin property, that home cannot be saved. The Baker Road property, as you know, was uh is vacant. So, these two sites probably could lend themselves to a manufactured home. We'll talk more about that if we uh have the gumption to do that and uh want to proceed. So, in terms of housing initiatives, we have the homeless response. The encampment policy is something you'll talk about next month at your housing update meeting. There will be a survey that you'll be asked to fill out and so look for that soon. Uh again, the manufactured home category or homes for affordable housing zone code. We included that as one of our um goals in rewriting the zoning code. Uh the rental registry program. We'll review our feedback next month. And then there's a new idea we have for you next month uh that we'll talk about legacy housing. And it's a program that we found in a couple other cities where people are able to put a covenant on their property just on their own as a way to preserve affordable housing long term. So, uh, we'll explain all that again in the upcoming housing update. Um, just so you know, if you didn't read in the council update, we did get the $150,000 for rental assistance, which is amazing. Um, so we'll have that money available to anybody who needs housing assistance. We've always had that funded, um, but we were running low on funds, so we were happy to to get the grant money to do that. Now, it's a three-year um grant. I'm gonna stop at housing for a second, and I'm at 619, so I'm almost done. All right. Thank you. Uh questions for Julie on anything she's shared on housing. Um on housing, Rebecca? Um just two questions. one on um the we see the amount on the pathways program go down in the out years is the thought that at some point we'll probably see some payback paybacks okay I'm hopeful well I'm I'm somewhat hopeful and then I'm not because I don't want the folks to move right out of their house but you know that the reality of that is people will move and and maybe some of this will be paid back earlier than we So right um we are not there yet. Actually no one in the pathways have sold since they got their pathways money. So I don't have any history yet of that. Right. And my second question and maybe this is a conversation for next week um or I don't know. But, you know, at we see programs that are working and I think they serve different, you know, functions, but we see maybe some problems with homes within reach being able to meet its mission in Minnetonka. And so, I guess I would, you know, I see the outyear funding in that as well. And I think that's a conversation as a council. I don't know if you have a perspective on that. It sounds like you're optimistic that maybe they'll be able to spend the money. Well, I think, you know, I I do I I am hopeful that there's always one out there or that there's a house that comes on the market that maybe is a lower cost and it does happen and so they usually jump on it when they have those opportunities. I would say it's getting harder and harder. Yes. Um but when we talked about this a few years ago, if you remember, we had a deep dive on whether or not to continue funding or not. Um, frankly, in the 20 years I've been here, it's been as high as 275, as low as 125,25 in some years when the money isn't spent. So, it's bounced around. Um, but I think that's a policy call for you all to decide whether or not you want to continue to fund it at the level we have in the plan. And that would be one that's anticipate 125 is one house, right? That's one house situation. We're at 62. 63 I think was the number you shared. 63. Yeah. Just a couple of quick comments if I may on that. Um you know the there were the um state legislature made a lot of money available for housing in in recent years. and um homes within reach and the the executive director there has been pretty aggressive and she's she's done a good job of finding houses. I mean where now admittedly most of them are not in Minnetonka but they she is finding houses in Minnitanka and I I'm encouraged by the ability and the kind of the initiative that they've demonstrated. They they've done more houses um as an organization in recent years than ever in their history and um and they're doing pretty well. So, I'm I'm I'm somewhat optimistic on their ability to find houses because you don't you don't need a lot of houses in Minnitanka. You just need one or two at a time and they're out there. Um they're t they're tougher to get but but but it's doable. So, I'm I'm encouraged that they can still do work in Minnetonka. And then just an aside, I don't know if anybody saw 60 minutes last night, but it was um add it on for a minute. There was a story about about um 3D printing. Oh yeah. And it was 3D printing houses and they're talking about 3D printing houses on Mars. But they're also talk, you know, I mean, if we fundamentally change our world view on what housing construction is because the big thing with new housing is that it's so darned expensive and it's not getting cheaper as we we demonstrated in a couple examples um in our city. But but I'm optimistic and encouraged that maybe there's technology out there that can enable the cost of housing to come down. And and the one question I had was, you know, we we talk about manufactured housing and, you know, there was a time when that was a, you know, that was a long square tube. Um, you know, and it was a mobile home, but manufactured housing um today is is um it's difficult to tell the difference between manufactured housing and and stickuilt housing. And you know, so I I'd be I'd be interested in maybe um having the council get a little more educated on the options in manufactured housing that exist because I think I think we kind of put that as well that's not right for Minnetonka, but I think it could be very right for Minnetonka and and the challenge is anything that we can do to drive cost out of housing production is what we want to do. So that's an area that I'm very um interested in. it come. I have a question um in regards to the 7500 that the land trust housing was receiving. I didn't see that. I mean, I haven't read the whole book either, but I didn't see that in the budget and I just wanted to ask about that. Is that something that remind me again 7500? Yeah. For um fixing that fixing up uh the loans that they reach home. Oh. So, I was wondering about that. Is that something that um could be as part of the budget or Yeah, we would have to bring that to you separately. So, we would have to say, you know, council, do you want to sell the Roland I'm getting mixed up. She's talking about the loans for specifically for homes within reach people in the program. Oh, the rehab grant. Sorry, 75 per 100 per house. Sorry, I'm mixed up. I'm thinking about well in for a second. Um there is nothing in the budget that shows that program reinstated or in the EIP. So that there's no program for that that other than the housing loan program in general. Okay. So my question is that's something that we could talk about because that's something that I had mentioned before and so I know that you said that the LAA um funding is that something that the LAA could possibly fund. Uh that's unclear. I think we'd have to go back. Laha I'm not sure that would work. Uh affordable housing trust fund would work for that program. I'm worried about LAA because we've had that program before. It's not a new program. So, I'm not sure how the state would see that. So, you'd have to use a different fund, but that's opt that option is available to you if the council agrees. Okay. So, maybe that's something that we could talk about um before we finalize the budget. It would be the EIP document. It wouldn't it would not be well the EIP whatever it takes. I don't know all the terminology. I think it would have to be in the EIP because it would be a housing program and then you would determine the funding source in this document and then we would execute it through uh our program set up. We'd have a new program set up for homes within reach again. Okay. A quick question just to follow up on that. Yep. Um just what is what would be the difference between that and like the other like general um one home rehabilitation rehab is there something I I don't know the background as well there in terms of income no in terms of who has access the funds yes so originally the 7500 was available to only those 63 homes that were in uh it was targeted people who were living in the homes within those homes homes. Got it. And I think I can't remember my stats because you maybe you remember, but it was about half the people who lived in those homes accessed those funds for some project. Um, so there were 30ome recipients. Money had to go back. It went away. It was CBG money. We couldn't reuse it. So we had to give it back and that program was over. So it's no longer active and we don't have that program. So, it's formally, but could somebody in a homes with an enriched home, if you were asking, could they get a a regular home improvement loan? Yes. Okay. It's the same AMI 80%. Okay. Are meaning. So, it's just kind of duplicating, but it's just uh it would be duplicating, but it depends on or it's just kind of um set aside. It's kind of It depends on how targeted you want to make it. So, okay. When you make it available to 24,000 households, that's very different than making it available to 63 households. Are we going through that funding? Um, usually I mean, are we using up all of our Not all of it? No. um it rolls year to year and then we get paybacks and so it kind of selfunds a little bit and then we get um some of it you know reallocated in the let me go back 100,000 top thanks for explaining that I just wasn't sure since I didn't know the there's a few programs so and then I just had a quick comment um I spoke with um uh Representative Falconer uh last week and and uh he knows of my interest in social housing and apparently there are some um kind of talks going on in the state legislature about that. So, I just kind of wanted to put a note on that, put a pin or not put a pin in that, but just kind of make folks aware and something certainly if we can you say that louder, Paula? Social housing um kind of what's also known as the Vienna model. Um it's basically where you have um public housing where you um income qualify in but you never income disqualify out. Okay. So, anyway, um I've know I've talked to several um other council members about this, but apparently it's starting to get traction. in the state legislature. So hopefully we can keep an eye on that. Maybe, you know, not in terms of funding for next year or anything like that, but just more of a, you know, let's keep an eye on that and see if that's something that we want to help, you know, encourage or be involved in. Um, kind of looking more at the long term or longer, medium-term hopefully. All right. Are you good or I'm good. Okay, everyone. Just just one quick thing. We I just want to know if there's anything that we as council members can do about helping to promote the building of condos because I really feel like here in Minnetonka especially people want to own but they don't necessarily want the lawn maintenance. They might want the HOA. They want the single level living or whatever it is. Um, and it's, you know, I think that the the policies that are making it hard to do that, I mean, those are I think there's a market for that state. Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree with that. And the other the other piece of it is is that condos are cheaper than houses. So, you know, affordable house may be, you know, I mean, the median house price in Minnetonka is $520,000. Um, you know, if we had a supply of condos, the median house price of condos would not be that. It might be it might be 250 or 300 or something like that. They're dramatically lower cost. That creates home ownership opportunities for more people. I mean, I know my son owns a condo. He doesn't own a house. He owns a condo because that's what he could afford to get into. And I think that, you know, and but but I know it's not policy. I mean, it's it's the building code and and and the and the condo warranty law that's in place that has just killed condo construction. So, um, yeah, the last one we had built in Minitonka was Legacy Oaks. Those are condominiums and part of their development up on Parker's Lake Road. They sell for about 850 um, not 250. So, new construction condos, I think, are higher than probably we anticipate, but it's still a different kind of, you know, we only have about 5,000 town homes and condos in the city. So, it's definitely not the majority of our housing. I just get I I I do get weary of just you know apartment rental apartments rental apartments because there is a market for people in apartment style buildings. Yes. Right. Yeah. Co-op. Exactly. So yeah, anything I mean I I agree with with with what Deb said. Anything we can do to lean in and and encourage that but but there are some fundamental changes that need to take place and that that needs to be done by the state legislature and enlist us. tell us tell us what to say and who to say it to. Yeah, there's a lot of organizations that work on the condo uh law and have for many years and haven't been successful, but there's a lot of organization that have um proposed language and uh so I can give you some of that language. All right. Okay. I'm way behind there so I'm going to go really fast. Yeah. Okay. Go next. Okay. So the business chapter generally you kind of know everything that's going on here. We have greater MSP membership that we belong to that we have business advisory services that we give outreach. The chambers of com commerce work that we do. We do a sewer and um uh sewer accessibility charge loan that if you're in a small business, you need that loan because you can't afford the charges up front. And then uh emergency business assistance. We have only had one loan for this, but we do think that as time goes on, we'll get more traction and people will find out about this. So hopefully uh we'll continue to promote that. And then the last one is the commercial to compliance. We've had people use that as well. So I think um those programs are all uh funded again in the EIP. Um, we're going to be doing some of the business followup just to make sure that we connect with all the partner organizations, make sure we understand what everybody has available. We're also doing uh marketing materials for partner organizations so that they're aware of all these nocost low uh resource kind of um lowcost resources that they can get to. And then everybody loved Thrive in the in the business survey. So, we just need to lift that up more and provide more information. People are really looking to that and absorbing that. So, we want to make sure we're putting the right information in. We're also working on our large corporations as we talked about in our uh strategic plan. And then we have our commercial market analysis. And if you haven't I think we t did we talk about it. Yeah. and um all that followup that was identified in there. Also doing business canvasing. That's where somebody's coming out to your door. Someone from our office would be saying how how is everything doing? We've done a little bit of that already in the Glen Lake area specifically. Um but we'll continue to do that on a more methodical uh basis. Then uh Weisetta Chamber, that's this Wednesday if you want to come. Uh the leadership meeting is happening. We have quarterly business meetings and it's a chance to meet city people and talk to business owners in the community and that's at Crescent Ridge this time. So that this second time there but right Crescent Ridge at 7:30. Yeah. Mhm. And then continued participation in Elevate. some of the technical numbers. 485 hours of technical assistance were provided in the last year which I thought was really high and means people are getting uh familiar with that and are using that service which is great. one thing you asked us to do or I should say EDAC asked us to do but uh we thought it was a really great idea to check in with our nonprofits and so we did that uh Kirstson actually spent time calling a variety of nonprofits. says the city has some affiliation with or are located in Minnitonka. And so you can see at the top of the chart, it talks about food, uh, disability, seniors, health, housing, and then a second housing, uh, type agency. And you can see their comments and their feedback was kind of all over the board, right? Surprising. And you can tell too, some of their funding is tied to federal, but not always. It just depends on what organization you're talking to. Some just had local funding like for the senior uh facilities. We're not naming the organizations because we did this under the uh premise that they would not have their name shared or their organization shared but they were more forthcoming I think to share all of the information with us. So really um the one that I picked up on people are concerned about SNAP being eliminated. We've heard that for a while so that was confirmed. Um concerned about older American act funds. um as a lot of their funding is attributed to that. Um I'm trying to think some of the macroeconomy issues this organization was identifying concerned about local HUD office closing which is true. I mean we know that from our own contacts. We haven't been you know we don't have a local contact anymore. We call a different office. So, all of this to be said, I don't know that I have a three key messages for you, but um just know that they were contacted and everybody was really appreciative of the uh contact from the city. They were happy that we had reached out and that we made some uh effort to check in with them, make sure they were okay. So, I think everybody's existing as is. No one's closing their doors, but definitely lots of things to watch uh as they move ahead in the next year. Thank you for that quick comment. Um, you know, I think just continuing to do this, I hope it's not too big, um, a lift for staff, but I think communicating to our business community that we are here to partner with them and just that reminder every once in a while because I think sometimes businesses don't think of the city and if we have that touch point once a year or one twice a year maybe, but once a year I think that really that pays two way is very valuable. as a two-way street and we become a resource that they might have not otherwise thought of. So, I think it's really good that we did that. So, thank you. You're welcome. I have one comment. Yep. Um I'm wondering about I talk about this a lot too, but um for new businesses coming um in our city, are we reaching out or canvasing? Um, and I know you have the Thrive and all of that, but I ran into a resident in a grocery store, Somalian woman who, you know, I was just talking to her and she was in you're talking about business and we she said, you know, Kizzy, I'm I'm cooking out my house, my apartment, and I'm selling food plates from my apartment building because, you know, I haven't been able to um connect with your city with doing business. And I said, "Well, me, too." I said, "I agree. I'm the same way. Like, this is what I do, too." And so, she said, "Well, how do you I said, well, you got to first of all, you got to start coming to the city talking about what your needs are." I said, "Um, you know, I've been talking to them about it, but I can't do it by myself." I said, "I need your help to do that." And so I just want you us to know that there is people in our city and I'm talking about particular right now. I know black and brown folks in this city who wants to do business who have been trying but haven't been successful because they haven't figured out how to navigate our system. So and including myself. So, how can we do more of that? And I know we have Elevate. I've used Elevate. I told I even told other folks there's a program, Elevate. It's a really good program. I love it. Did you like it? I love it. Like, it's really it's really good. It's awesome. So, I tell people about it, but I just want to make sure that we are reaching out to those folks who are not typically at the table. Good point. Yeah, I would say that, you know, Ky, I think that's on the top of our minds a lot as we think about these programs. I think that um reaching out to folks, sometimes it's in a bricks and mortar, right? we're we're going to a business. We're in Glen Lake. We might see uh lots of people in a strip mall or something like that. But if you're talking about homebased type businesses, I would say yeah, we're not we're not getting to those folks. Um I would say open a business is usually the only way we're talking to them because they hear about like open a business. Okay, I'm trying to open a business. That's usually how we get to those folks. Um but typically, no, we're not knocking on their door because we don't know they're there, right? So um yeah, anything you can do to encourage and you know a lot of our promotional stuff and our information that we have encourages them to sign up, contact, call, visit or reach out to Elevate or open a business. So there's a lot of ways to plug in but whether or not people are using that and you know I always look for new ideas on how to do that. I think canvasing maybe just like you just said canvasing for other business. I think that might be a really good idea. I think canvasing is always good when you can't reach, you know, I mean, in in anything that we do, even with just welcoming people to our neighborhood, I know Brooklyn Park does that. They have the welcome welcome package and I think some of that will be very helpful for a lot of things that we do in Minnetonka. And really briefly, I mean, leveraging the chamber to help because I one thing I know as a business owner talks to a lot of business owners. People love to talk about themselves and how they got successful. So some kind of mentorship or whatever would be cuz you're here and you can really and Elevate can be people and from outside the city. So yeah, I've been very happy with Elevate. It's just whether or not people know about them. That's one thing. and try to get them to make that phone call and get them to, you know, reach out. I think it's on on them sometimes and sometimes that's doesn't feel good. They want more of a personal touch and so I think that canvasing does fulfill that need to get right into somebody's place of business. Well, I'm just wondering about the places where um maybe doing some things non-traditionally. You know, where do people find community? And you know, I think a lot of times that can be faith communities and so forth and maybe trying to to reach out through churches and synagogues and and mosques and say, you know, um because I I I think wherever people find community is perhaps where we can reach non-traditional groups and and even, you know, I know that homes within reach would have a, you know, puts up things on bulletin boards. you know, if you if you're looking for a house, you tear, you know, like you did in college, you tear it off and here's a here's the um the um website or phone number. But but I'm thinking about maybe for some of these business support things where doing that in um you know, apartment buildings and um and places where people come together um you know, just seeking non-traditional ways to to meet people where they are. That's good, Mayor. That's real good. See, I'm learning. I'm learning. Anyway, coffee shops. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll keep uh we'll keep doing the canvasing and see how we proceed with that and continue to keep that top of mind. Thank you. All right. We got to keep rolling. Yeah, we're good. Okay. Uh let's see. We covered that. Oh, the only other thing on just so you know, we do respond to site requests. Um these are called broadcasts. They come from the greater MSP. They shoot us an email. I say, "We're looking for space, right? They have a certain square footage. It's a certain type of company. They will never tell us who it is, but we respond to those probably weekly, if not every other week. There's always some search going on." Um, with the office vacancy that was noted in the commercial study, and it, by the way, it was like 16.5. It's expected to grow next year as we have some of these bigger vacancies happening. But um we had let's see if I say it right, Darren. 15% of our property value is tied up in commercial real estate. 25% of our tax capacity is in the office commercial market. So, it's not all of your property tax, but it's something to pay attention to and that's why we respond to these site requests um to make sure that we have the opportunities noted here in Minnetonka on that either regional or actually some of these are global companies looking to come to Minnesota. So, um I just wanted you to be aware of that. On transit, I think we've talked a lot about that. So, I don't think we have to cover too much because we've done the transit study and there was some recommendations in there. So, we'll be following that. And then, um, thinking about last mile connections as light rail comes online is really important. And then in the development and redevelopment chapter, just some notes about doing studies and plans as we always have and doing pre-development work like some of the um studies and the surveys and uh environmental contamination research that we need to do. And then zoning you know about uh this was the feedback uh from the EDAC that occurred both in March and May. So they felt like um the direct housing CBG uh was not the way to go to go with the county. They felt they agreed with that uh tip pooling. What were they saying here? Um LAP are generated from local regional sources and they were just identifying they're not at risk. So they kind of were cognizant about where that money was coming from. They did suggest to do that outreach. We talked about that. Elevate Henipin. They were um asking about whether any funding was available for businesses participating in Elevate and there is. So they do some loan programs through that um as well. Pathways they have recommended additional funds for 2025. So, if the council's so inclined to do that and then um they actually were talking about village centers because that's one of the things we did after the last comprehensive plan is deep dive all these neighborhoods. Probably it's time to revitalize that process. So, they were thinking about that as we get closer to the comprehensive plan. So, that was some of what they said and this is the summary. Looking ahead to the tax levy for the budget discussion, we're thinking about 300,000 and the funds would go to Pathways Home Enhancement 100 and homes within age 25. So that's it, mayor. Sorry I'm 15 minutes late. Okay. Well, we we had a good number of questions for you. So, um, are there any other questions you offer, Julie? Otherwise, our two discussion questions here. Does the council wish to offer additional direction regarding the EIP and does the city support or does the council support additional funding for pathways in 2025? So, um any question for Julie? Any further questions or and your thoughts on these two questions? Just to clarify, the pathways money would you if we um supported it would come from the affordable housing trust fund or Okay. So the 200 that I put out there before would be from the for 2025 usage and then that would be from affordable housing funding. Gotcha. And is there if we put that is there a good chance that that funding would get used in 2025? Okay. I think so. Yeah. I think that sounds we trust your judgment. Yeah. Good. So thoughts on that council uh Deb? Uh just just one thing I I really found I I know it didn't give us any conclusive evidence, but I just very much appreciated connecting with the nonprofits and I do feel like moving forward that is going to be increasingly important. I mean, I've talked with some of you about maybe even having a a nonprofit fair of some sort to because people will be hurting here soon as uh programs are cut. And so, I just really appreciate that work and I'm sort of hoping that we can sort of fold that into the EIP in a more formal way because you didn't have enough work on your plate before. So, I just had to give you some more work. But I think it is really valuable and I think actually the fact that it didn't give us that different kinds of um nonprofits are sort of sitting in a different place is actually good information also and that also might change. So I think tracking that is uh going to be really useful moving forward. Thanks Deb. Other comments? Looks good to me. Yeah, I think it looks good. And then funding. Um, council, how do you feel about further funding for pathways? Yeah, I I think I think it's important. I think it's been a great program. Um, I think it gives us a different kind of clientele and a different kind of um it's a whole different kind of program and I think it's been super successful. So, um, and I know that the EVC is very happy with sort of how it's happened. Mhm. All right. Good. So, there are two other things I heard that I didn't hear total. Uh, just to summarize, I heard about the 72 or 7500 for um homes within reach only homes. I heard that idea and then the social housing idea, but I didn't hear the rest of was there agreement on those two things or not? I would my suggestion on the homes within reach is maybe if we're not in a backlog on the rehabilitation loans is maybe just do a push to homes within reach marketing push to homes within reach homes that as a reminder that that program exist is exists. I like that suggestion. Yeah. Otherwise, it's just more administrative work for staff to, you know, basically have two of the same programs unless there comes to be a backlog. What was that? Can you speak up, please? Oh, I'm sorry. I just wanted to support that just because having administered grants and things like that myself over the years, um it's never a great feeling to have two um pretty much identical programs that you're having to support unless you know it becomes an issue where folks aren't having access to it from a particular target organ that needs it. It doesn't sound like that's the case at the present. Yeah, I mean I think there's two different programs just to make sure um I correctly um relay what Ky was saying because it's $7,500 grant. That was one program. There are grants with the CBDG because there's no payback on the CVG money. So that's one way it's the same. On the loan program you have to pay back over time, right? So there's two different programs that address uh home rehab. So, I just want to be clear about that. But it depends on which one you're applying for. So, one you have to wait a little bit longer. The the one that uh is forgiven is a little bit more subscribed. So, I do have questions about WA, but maybe we can talk about it offline because I just think it's so odd that it has to be a new program. If you if you have a good program, why? Well, that's what we asked. But you know what? I'll put it in our um our housing update next month and you can show you what the the program um requirements requirements are. Then you can look at it. Is that a good plan on the LAA thing? Okay. Yep. Back to the loan program. Sorry. So then were you and then Julie, were you looking for a little more clarification on the social housing or what what is really being looked for or is I mean I I heard keep an eye on it and see if there's some opportunities. Is there anything beyond that? No. Okay, that was Yeah, keep an eye out if Yeah, there's some Look for opportunities. Yeah, look for opportunities and and kind of keep tabs on what's going on at the state level. And I'm I'm so intrigued by the um um manufactured housing. I mean, I almost feel like we need to sort of lay eyes on what the modern products are because it's so different. I mean, I've lived on I've lived in mobile homes and I've lived in single wide. I've lived in double wide. I mean, it was okay. Back then, it wasn't up to sort of Minnetonka housing standards, I'd say. But I think it's different now and some of them really just look like homes and I think it would be very intriguing. John Drew would be happy. John seen in the you know in some of the NLC um things the the the shipping container right homes which are which I mean it sounds like you know shipping but like again it does when the finished product does not look like a shipping container right no there have been a lot of interesting things but but I I am very interested um in new approaches given the expense of new construction new approaches to securing housing. And yeah, some of them will look like they belong right in Minnetonka, but maybe some of them won't. But, you know, change is, you know, we have to consider change, too. And so, you know, I just want to have a open mind. Yeah. Because housing costs are so high and anything we can do to get creative to drive them down and give people quality quality places to live. I think I think that's that's what we want to do. But again, I don't want to be the the only city out there doing that, but I think supporting initiatives that that are looking into those things, I think uh um have merit. Totally agree. All right. Thousand will come back to as a separate council item. Yeah, I think that's great. Thank you. All right, Mike. Any comments, thoughts? No. Uh thank you. And the housing Oh, I have one more thing and that is the homelessness pilot. Um, and just where are we going with that? And I mean, it just seems like it's been extremely successful. And let's dive in next month more for on that. Um, because we do have a whole homelessness kind of chapter in the in the report that we're writing. So, okay, we can do it. And that we still have one more opportunity here to get it, you know, amended based on your comments from that, too. Okay, Craig. Good. Yeah, just a final thing. Just yeah, following up on our conversation, Mike, uh just the fact that this isn't the last bite at this apple. Just wanted to confirm that that we can kind of circle back. I I think a lot of us were not very focused this weekend and um and so there might be things that pop up. Well, I think on the EIP that's for sure because we have housing next month. So that there's time to do that. I don't know that you have the same pleasure on CIP. So we're not finalizing either tonight. Yeah. Right. Great. Thank you. I I don't know if you have anything to add to that. No, no, thank you, councel. I know we were trying to get through a lot here uh tonight. Obviously, this is not your first bite of the proverbial apple. Uh we have a Darren will touch on our timeline coming up for the rest of this budget season as we call it. And so, yes, in September, I think is when you'll see it again. Certainly with some of the housing, we'll spend some more time in July, as we often say, all things housing in July. So, we'll dive a little deeper into some of the things we've talked about this evening. Good. Thank you. All right. Otherwise, yeah, thank you for those comments. Um, great feedback from council. We'll just transition now if we can into the CIP. Uh, as I noted, this is where you'll see your other staff members here, council, this evening, and we'll have a lot of input onto the the CIP. I'll first start off with the mouse where the people. So, just remind you of the questions. These were in the staff report. And so as we go through tonight's presentation, we have about 20 minutes Darren and I have with you this evening, we'll we'll go into the book. Uh so you'll turn your three- ring binder to the front and that's where we'll start with the CIP. And I think as I talked with Brad earlier today after Darren and I present, we'll go kind of more chapter, chapter by chapter document. couple things uh that were teed up in the questions and they are what questions and or discussion points will the council have in regards to the preliminary 2026 to 2030 CIP projects the funding or the tax levy and then as discussed in a previous study session is there any preliminary consideration to support a property tax supported general obligation capital bond a lot of words there but bas basically gojet perhaps in that 7 to10 million range to remodel community center and fire station number two improvements. So keep that in the back of your mind. Again, as we progress through this, there will be some direction that we'll ultimately need from from you. Moving to the next slide. Now, um you're familiar with the three-legged stool, the three-legged stool. Now, I was I was teed this up and I was called this is now the peacock. So, we'll call this the peacock graph. So when we think about the CIP and why this is important, how we tee this up is there are a lot of considerations that go into our capital improvement plan. So this big document that you see in front of you really is uh an outcrop if you will of a lot of different documents that come into play. So just moving in that lower left around that half circle you have the natural resources master plan. So that document is significant. Again, these documents, as we say, aren't created and then they just go on a shelf. So, they are living breathing documents. So, you'll see the NFRP come into play. Uh we have the public safety master plan that you're very familiar with. While it's very operational in nature, there are elements that support our capital improvement plans. The community survey is also instrumental in gaining that feedback into this document. With public works related, we have our pavement management plan. So as our Will and Phil uh work very heavily on the pavement management plan as it relates to 250 miles of road plus uh in this uh we also have then the comprehensive plan that comes into play. So there are elements of our comprehensive plan that get pulled into this document as part of consideration. our strategic plan, as Julie has already mentioned, with the EIP, certainly with our CIP, we do need to look at our strategic plan and the priorities in our strategic plan and making sure those are being funded. That orange next box, probably hard to see, is asset management. Uh, and so the city owns a lot of assets, uh, as you know, in terms of buildings and properties, uh, utilities, buildings, vehicle replacement schedules. So all that and a lot of a lot of uh meat if you will in asset management. We also have our trail management plan as you know that's an element in the CIP and certainly we have that planning document that comes into play the climate action and adaptation plan which really highlights our natural some of the natural resources and important sustainability efforts uh of the city. There are elements of that that get embedded into the CIP our park open spaces and trails plan. So again, that planning document, the post planning is woven into the CIP. And then last, I would just note uh then funding and planning priorities. And Julie touched on this as well. And in fact, if you turn to the very first page of your uh budget booklet, I'll just talk about funding and planning principles. And so really, again, before I do that, as you can gather from this illustration, there's a lot of considerations that go into this document, which is probably as as wide. It's as thick as it is. him with a lot of detail under the policy tab. Policy tab. I'm sorry. So, thank you, Darren. So, under the policy tab, so we're really kind of towards the front of the book. All the considerations. So, under that policy tab, you're doing policy. There we go. Oh, the one that says policy. The one that says policy. Thank you for that. Mhm. So, aside from everything I just mentioned, just to take a minute to talk about our our funding principles, again, I don't need to read this verbatim, but really if you look at one, two, and three noted there, uh, this is again kind of established by our policy. So, as we look at CP and all those documents I just read off to you, projects necessary for public health and safety, legal mandates are certainly through a lens, projects that maintain or make existing existing systems more efficient, I might even speak to the recent council meeting where we looked at the refrigeration system of the ice arena. So it gives you an example of existing systems where we're looking efficient cost benefits coordination with the way the projects also are being considered and then projects expanding beyond those existing citys providing for new new services. Say new new services. It's a new word. That's what cats say. New services must be an actual word because it did come up in spellch checkers. So new facility and services catches and so we'll we'll skip the grammatical stuff for this evening and look at the content and that is for and also things that are known for general community betterment. So those are the principles and then really quickly as we uh look at planning planning principles again the CIP supports our city's long-term strategic priorities. Uh it's reflected annually. So we do this again annually. number the third bullet point development of our CIP will be consistent with the operating budget. So we do make sure those do align and then also u DEI is embedded in this and I think that's been noted in the staff report. We've seen that in natural resources plan where that really shows up more prevalent. We do have an equity toolkit uh that was developed here in the last couple years does become an element also through office. Why do I say all that is there's just a lot of considerations that go into how we prioritize from staff in our presentation to you here this evening. Uh real quick then as it relates to the strategic plan why that's important is really two of our six pillars noted there infrastructure and asset management and financial strength with infrastructure and asset management really looking to make sure that we have reliable high quality infrastructure. That's really part of the the projects that you'll see coming up with street improvement projects with our trail improvement projects, uh, buildings and facilities. And then for financial strength, why that's important in how we tie our CIP is really making sure we're looking longterm, that our that we're fiscally responsible as good stewards of taxpayer money. So that's also reflected in in our values. I call this a virtual cycle. And again, this kind of gives you a very quick sense of again how this gets cycled every year. U we really start in the spring, as you know, with our community survey results. We get input from the community along with last year's performance metrics. That really kind of feeds into our strategic plan updates. We've been very instrumental in changing and making modifications going into 2025 for our new strategic plan. That then again feeds our budget, our CIP, EIP. really feeds it and drives it. From there, some things the things that you don't see behind the scenes is our directors do develop work plans based on all that. So, we even get more detailed in terms of our workload and our productivity and really all that leads to is deliverables, what output and deliverables delivering to our community and that kind of recycled itself every year. So, it gives a real high level overview how we really pull this together in terms of our processing. Just a couple elements again on the survey. This is not new information to you. So I just want to go quickly so we can get into more of the detail. As you recall, one of the questions, what do you like most living in Minnetonka? Open space, parks, trails about 17%, people 16%, schools 11%, safety 9%, housing, neighborhoods, nine, trees, natural resources 6%. Again, this is information that we look at in terms again kind of looking at where do we get to the numbers and and Darren's going to get more into the numbers of where these monies are being allocated. What do you like least about living in Minnetonka? Nothing. That's always good. Uh high taxes 22% as you know. Sidewalks, that's where that sidewalk and trail element comes into play. 13% traffic congestion 6% development. And then when you consider property taxes you pay and the quality of city services you receive, how do you rate the general value of city services? The mayor's talked about this in some recent addresses that when you combine look at that excellent 12% good 76%. So we're in that almost 90% when you combine those two. Uh if you could see an increase in the property tax levy that would be your highest priority. Oops. Thank you. streets is 30%, parks and trails 26%, police and fire 25%. So kind of really keep that in the back of your mind as you see some of these numbers coming up. Would you favor or oppose an increase in your city property taxes if you were if were needed to maintain city services at the current level? 80% favor. And then last, what park amenities does your household use most often? Trails. Again, we ask this question so we understand what people are using for amenities. We want to again make sure we have capital improvement plans that match that. Trails 31% playground equipment. Office dog park is noted there. Athletic fields, pickle ball courts, tennis courts all made the list. Now, um just to really kind of put things in perspective for the CIP, I'll just note the mouse will work here. This mouse. So again, as as you've heard me say repeatedly over the years, I think you um at some point maybe I'll just quiz you to make sure you've captured everything I've repeated over the years. And that is property taxes goes the three really fun three different things. Operations, debt, and capital. And so again, tonight is about capital uh as presented at our budget kickoff. Uh again, early projections are a levy increase. This is 2025. So this is the current current sorry current 2025. Thank you. 2025 was 7.323% on property taxes. If you recall going into this year, we had budgeted zero dollars per capita. So that really kind of setting the stage as a reminder as we went in from 24 to 25 that that CIP levy was flat. So tonight we'll show kind of show where we're trying to make some headway on that because we know there's some real real challenges coming up with cost of inflation, cost of purchasing goods, and the pressures that we're feeling on keeping up with the needs that we've identified. Uh I'm going to turn over at this point to Darren. So again, I just kind of want to set the stage for you. We can I've already acknowledged the work of our department heads and our directors. other team members are here this evening as we kind of go through some of the real thickness of here of our CIP and a lot of projects identified little more dollars involved in the CIP than in the EIP. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Good evening, Mayor Council. Uh just quickly going over the budget calendar. You've seen this multiple times at this point in time. Uh the red date is where we're at today. So we're at the CIP EIP study session. Our next budget meeting will be in August and that's where we'll look at the operating budget, look at their our total levy forecast at that point in time that'll include operations and then obviously capital will be built in at that same point in time. September we we will come back to a formal council meeting to adopt a preliminary levy and that's also the time that we typically adopt the uh CIP and EIP at that point in time as well too. So you'll get an opportunity to discuss the CIP EIP at that point in time as well too. So um tonight's not necessarily the last night of the of the of the CIP, but um we do have another opportunity at this point in time. It won't be in a study session setting. It'll be more in a formal council meeting at that point in time. Then obviously you come back again in November with um more details in a workshop setting um with the operational budget piece of that and then we'll come back into December and approve the final budget um on that end of it and such. So, all stuff you've seen. Uhoh. What did I do? I just hit a button. Okay, there we go. Oh, thank goodness. All right, so a little bit about the CIP. Uh, I'll just touch on it briefly. Um, CIP is is a planning document. It truly um is part of our budget process. It's not the budget. um we take those 20 those current year projects and move them into the the final budget in that October November time frame and such like that. So everything we see here tonight is basically a plan that we then will move in that first year of the plan into a formal budget process at that point in time. And obviously this is a an integral part of the strategic plan as a CIP as it touches on a lot of our of our pillars on that end of it and such. Um again a couple years ago or probably few years ago now at this point in time we um did a concerted effort to identify both our sustainable projects and our stewardship projects. And so we've tried to go through and identify those as best we can. Um it's not an exact science. So if there's um items on there that we may have missed or overlooked or our stretch um please let us know on on that end of it and such like that, but we tried to uh try to to point that out. We have uh um identifiers on each of those pages with um for sustainability and stewardship on that end of it and such. So we look at the we look at the CIP and I have one typo in here already. Um we look at what it funds and it this 2026 to 2030 CIP funds about $165 million worth of projects over that time frame. Uh last year the CIP was about $212 million. So we're dropped down significantly this year, but um basically a big chunk of that is due to a couple projects. The um Excelsier Boulevard project um that we are doing in conjunction with Henipin County. Um they have a large cost share portion of that. Last year we brought that cost share into the CIP. Um this year we kind of took that out because it just kind of skews the numbers so much on that end of it because it's so many millions of dollars on that project. And the same with um Three River Rivers Park District with a couple of their trails along Baker Road. Um there's a large cost share on those projects. And so we took those out just to make it a little bit more comparable from year to year on that end of it. So this 2025 CIP will kind of skew things for a few years, but we're trying to keep it kind of an apples to apples comparison. Darren, if I may, for ju just for clarity, when you say you you took that out, the spending is still there, but the primary source of the fend spending is Henipin County. And so that makes the numbers look weird when in reality the spending is still going to be there. The project's still there, but but you avoided skewing the numbers because we have this money come to the outside that is not typical. Is that a fair statement? Correct. You're absolutely right, Mayor. 100% there. So yes, the project is still ongoing. the fundings are all still there. Hen County Share is just not included as an expenditure in our in our reports or our projects at this point. So, thank you. And so, this and this table, as you can see, kind of breaks it down between kind of five different areas kind of our kind of categorial or or functional areas as well too. And um obviously street improvements, water, sewer, parks, and wrecks. Those are all big areas that we talked about even with um this community survey and such like that. Um that all kind of reflects in here of where those dollars are being spent across the organization. Oh, and this is really small compared to what I thought it was going to come up. Everything was very that accidentally hit things were small this year or I'm just getting um so we so we did have a new software our software is our same software program that we've had in previous years but they upgraded to an a cloud-based version of that. So, um, the font is the biggest that they have. The the original font that we printed was I got to our first meeting and I could not read what was actually there on that event. So, this is a breakdown of really the category that each of the chapters basically in the CIP. And so, um, you kind of see the breakdown there. The the biggest part is the street improvement piece of that is is historically kind of our biggest areas on that end of it. Water, sewer is another big chunk of that. Um, parks and trails, again, that's another big focus area on our projects. Um we do those in conjunction with street improvement projects along with standalone trails and such like that as well too. So just additional slide to kind of show the breakdown across those different categories. The smaller font does not make the spending smaller. Unfortunately doesn't numbers did not change when I look right right and this is the this is a breakdown across 2026 to 2030. they can see each year is in that 40 to 22 to $40,000 47 million range on on that end of it and such. And that really varies due to construction projects e and flow. There's planning years and there's big years and then we got to then we got to save for a few years then we spend again. So and it's on page three council your small there too. And here's our uh we saw this at our last step um budget meeting back in May, our kickoff meeting as well too. And this is our financial management plan. Part of this includes the capital project levies that are here is it is split between two pages here. But these are the tax dollar levies that will be uh proposed for 2026 and the future years. So you can see across the capital replacement fund, forestry fund, public safety, parks and trails funds, the dollars that these are tax dollar amounts here across the very bottom that are proposed within each of those funds. And as I go to the next the top of the next page here, you can see the street improvement fund is $5.8 million. That's by far and large our biggest area of focus for um tax dollars dedicated to the capital improvement plan. Um, and you can see that our total tax levy is $9.3 million is the proposed levy for um, our capital projects for 2026. Last year, as Mike mentioned, it was $9.8 million and it was basically flat from the the previous year on that end of it and such. I think maybe if I roll into our next here's where Mike where you're looking at the percentage we had forecasted this year. 7.52 is kind of where we're standing at as of today without looking at any additional bonding dollars or anything like that on on that end of it. And last year it was the 7.23%. And so if we kind of dive into the property tax levies a little bit further on that end of it and this is a kind of a 12-year history and it's getting a little bit old to show 2019 2020 range but um we had some significant things happen in that time frame. In 2020, we built the public safety expansion project on that end of it and we are issuing debt service for that project. And so what we did um in 2020 is that we reduced the CIP levy to try to get that debt service on there without with minimizing the tax impact across the um across the city on that end of it. So we reduced it in 2020. 2021 came on that end of it and such. And so we were um then reduced the CIP even further. We delayed some projects. Uh we had some federal CARES dollars, ARPA dollars that came in to help pay for some of our capital projects. So we're able to reduce that um fairly minimally or with not a whole lot of impacts. Um but we then had to kind of restore those dollars as we move forward. And so we kind of had planned that like we're going to we're here at where we're at. We're going to kind of restore this over the next few years on that end of it. Um then 2022 2023 kind of came in and we looked at the public safety master plan kind of came became a part of that not necessarily in 2022 but in 23 and 24 for sure on on that end of it. And so we've worked hard at trying to keep the um capital project levy CIP levy flat for the most part on that end of it um just to account for some larger increases in the operational tax levy on that side of it and such. Um, we've been fortunate to have some some good reserves at the end of each year in the general fund that we've been able to transfer over to capital projects. Um, I know last year when we were talking at this point in time that our those reserves were kind of drying up and we didn't have a whole lot left at that point in time. Uh, 2024 was a good year for us. We ended the year with a with a a nice surplus. Uh, we were projecting kind of a deficit when we take into account the transfers out on that end of it. So, um, that really helped us now moving forward for 2026 and for the next couple years to be able to to use those excess reserves and transfer those out to capital projects and program them out for the next um, two to three years on that end of it. It'll still leave us in a point, those are one-time dollars. will still need to focus, you know, as we kind of near the end or the middle or the end of the public safety implementation plan um to kind of to reshift some of that focus back to the CIP levies just as projects and and cost of living and all those types of things impact the capital side of things as well too. And so you can see that's why 2029 2030 are higher. Historically, if we looked at this chart, those out years are always higher and we seem to kind of adjust them as we go. Um and we'll keep on trying to do that as best we can on that end of it. But just know that there are some stresses in the CIP that um we need to to account for at some point down the road on that end of it. Just a quick comment on that chart. Um I mean 2019 we were basically at $10 million in our CIP and for um for basically um eight years um we we've been able to stay below that number and I I know that there were a lot of things going on in those eight years but um I mean that's that's pretty remarkable. I I agree with you. We'd like to see that uh those out years don't grow to the extent that they're pictured here when you kind of look at what our trend has been. But but clearly there are plenty of budget pressures out there. Yeah, for sure. And we've used I mean a lot of our capital project funds used to have a little bit better fund balance within within them and now they're they're they're on a very very thin basis on that end of it. they're kind of looking out, you know, we'll be negative of one year, but we'll try to replenish it in the next year as as projects e and flow a little bit there as well, too. So, um trying to maintain a a healthy fund balance in there or a sustainable healthy or sustainable fund balance is is key as well, too. So, trying to keep all those things well, we've and I think what we've done is um you know, we've got the 40% rule and we we abide by that, but we were well above that in some places. I think we spent those I I think we spent the cushion down and we don't have a lot of cushion left. Is that a fair way of saying it? Yeah, we didn't. As of the end of 2023, we didn't have much cushion left. We had literally it was a couple hundred,000 that we had programmed out in the CIP. Yeah. Um with the 2024 actuals coming in in the general fund, we were um able then to help reduce this levy and help supplant a couple of the future years. So there was several hundred thousand or a million dollars plus that able to to help end of it. So, thanks Darren. And I would and I would just add that too when you look at the last couple years and next couple back a couple forward a couple as we've been funding our public safety master plan. So, as we try to manage the levy, uh we compress the CIP in a way, right? And so in those outer years, I think you're right, mayor, that as this as the public safety master plan becomes fully funded, that'll allow us some more flexibility to shift towards, right, maybe some catchup, if you will, on some CIP activity. Yeah. Well, just like I mean, you said that the you see that 0.0 um with the CIP LA, was it last year? And um you know, 0.0 it sounds like we're not spending any money. No, in reality, we just didn't increase. I mean the spending's been pretty steady and but I mean one of our fiscal or our the pillars of our strategic plan are our prudent financial management. I think we've I think this graph demonstrates that that's exactly what we've been doing. Um so I'm I think this is a a good story with some help from with some help from good. Good. And then kind of to piggyback off of that with our strategic plan a little bit is is one of those um desired outcomes is to um find other funding sources for our CIP as well too. And so um you know we did a great job of that in the Hopkins Crossroad Trail. It was what is it $5.4 million project and we leveraged that with $4.1 million in in grants across federal, state, you know, county levels, um all those types of things on that end of it. So that really allowed us to do more trail expansion sooner on that end of it. So, um, that we have several other grants. So, we have the solar array projects that are going on with fire station ice arena and then the standalone one as well too. We got 50% funding on that one. Some of the relief grants um is it spelled relief wrong or I spelled it right actually wrong for for Leslie's uh grant itself and then some storm water funding for Gro Elementary as well too. So, we're really trying to leverage a lot of our grant dollars, trying to look for those. Um, we've given updates on our kind of our grant tracker spreadsheet as well, too. There's operational grants, but there's also lots of capital grants as well, too, that we're we're trying to to maximize and leverage our tax dollars as best we can across the across the organization. So, I'll turn it over to you, mayor, a little bit. So, these are just these are all the these are the projects that were called out in the staff report um throughout the I just went through and kind of highlighted a a few within each category. These are the ones that are there all in one little section. Doesn't mean that we have to touch on these. We'll obviously turn it over to you and you can go through it section by section or by category or chapter by chapter on that end of it and um see what's a priority to you, but these are just the ones that were called out there specifically. if there was something you wanted to look at specifically. So, well, thank you. Well, um, yeah, there's quite a list here and so what I would say is, you know, we'll walk through this kind of chapter by chapter to see if there are any issues. Yeah, Kimberly. So, could I before we go through this? Yeah. Um, and sorry, Mike, I didn't mention to you this to you this afternoon because I didn't think of it this afternoon. Um, I think it would be one like I'm thinking about transparency and communicating with residents. Um, and would it would be helpful if we had sort of a document or web page or something that like went through this like the B like glossery of terms. What is capital? What is a CIP? What is an EIP? and then an explanation of how you get from CIP and EIP to budget. Um I just like I'm I'm thinking of if if I had to explain to a resident how how we get to the budget from CIP I think I would eventually get there but I I don't think it would be eloquent and smooth. Um, so I think it would be helpful like as a new as a new council person that would have been super helpful. Um, but also just like being able to talk to residents or point them to a place to explain what this is. I just think that would be really helpful. Yeah, I I I agree with that. I think, you know, one of the one of the daunting aspects of what we do is we tax our residents and um and we like to talk about we do that we do that fairly and we do it well. But I think we get close to it and we have acronyms and things like that and I think that confuses people and anything we can do to make what we're doing as um easy to understand for our residents but also for I mean I still need reminders on these things. I've been doing this for a while and I mean the EVA there are members there are new members of boards and commissions that feel like they're drinking through a fire hose and the acronyms are overwhelming and um and the concepts are difficult you know I mean it takes a while to really understand tax increment versus tax abate abatement etc. I think it's just really helpful to to know the terms and um there's a lot, you know, this is a lot of information that it's a big job, but I think it's important. I think we did talk about it at the end of the budget cycle last year just as something to pass along because it it's December 8th or whatever and somebody's telling us, you know, we need to find a place to cut and it's kind of like, oh, well, we've been, you know, We're working on this. Yeah. Yeah. So, are we going are can we make comments about these the notable? Yeah. What what I was going to suggest is that um if there are any spec you notable ones that people would like to talk about now, let's do that and then and then we'll walk through chapter by chapter. Um, I mean, we won't talk about them twice, but if if you want to do it here or we can or or you can note um which chapter they're going to be in, but u because the page numbers are indicated. Um, I'm I'm fine either way, but if there are things here that stand out to you that you'd like to have some conversation on, let's do There's there's one in particular that seems especially relevant after events of this week and that is the drones as first responders because I know that they sent drones into Melissa Hortman's house and um to no avail unfortunately but I I think I think we just had a demonstration of a situation that was fluid and extremely dangerous with someone that was armed and dangerous and that it just seems so timely that that was something that came up um for us to consider and um I still have reservations about it, but I also always understood the value. So, I just wanted to say um I just wanted to pull that one out. And also just being in the finance department, um we got to help um Darren get uh an ERP that that works well. I just just Yeah. I mean, to me, what's notable about the notables is is that they we've been talking about them all for a long time and they all make a lot of sense to me. You know, nothing I I've got a few comments on other things, but um I think that they all make sense. There are some things that I think we pull out of here if we go forward with some of the bigger projects whether that's fire stations, community center, Willist and Marsh. Um, and so I think that's something that we have to be thought thoughtful about as well. we can kind of check off a lot of CIP projects by, you know, going forward maybe a little more aggressively with some of these bigger mass things that we've master planned and that we haven't been able to quite move forward with yet. And I should note that these are mainly 2026 projects. There might be some 2026 27 projects in there. Um there is a I think there's a deferred project in there as well with solar initiative but um vast majority of them are the kind of that first year of the CIP type of project. Other other comments or questions? You know, one thing when I was this is kind of an offthe-wall idea. Um but um on the solar initiative um this isn't really relevant for this, but I it it the question that I had was given that you know we are solar garden subscriber and given the fact that the rules changed midway through and it's less lucrative. Um I'm I was wondering um we like solar and we we want to go um carbon-f free low carbon, but could there be a path where rather than having our solar array affect our um electric bill, we we perhaps lease our space on our roofs um to um other entities who could benefit from the solar and then we get a steady rental that is not subject to the whims of the PCA or or the PUC or whatever. I mean, just a different approach and that's beyond the scope of this conversation, but just like to encourage maybe some creative thinking on how can we maybe turn um some of our real estate into a source of revenue that is more predictable than solar has proven to be without turning our back on that commitment. So, it's just it's an idea. I don't know if it has merit, but but just kind of maybe some creative approaches on that. I know Kevin Moss and I have chatted a little bit about that over the I haven't talked to Kevin about yet, but but yes, as a potential option, absolutely. So, that was one thought. Oh, I noticed on the skate park. Is that right? I didn't dream that we got 400,000 towards that. We did get My brain is just Okay, good. We did. So, the report was written before that came in. So, uh um yeah. So that is new on top of that. So that would help the capital or the park or the park and trail fund. Yeah. And we didn't get the money on Cullen, right? So maybe there's opportunity. I don't know. Um there y other other thoughts, comments on on these particular items? Um I them yeah I mean we have fleet vehicles and I you know I saw that we're transitioning to electric and hybrid which is awesome but the one thing is I also see deferment of refurbishing of fire equipment and it is starting to make me I just feel like we keep pushing it off pushing it off pushing it off and it does give me boss. So, um I'm really feeling those financial pressures on our public safety equipment. Go ahead, Mike. If I could just address a couple comments and go ahead. So, I think Debbie had mentioned uh the drones as first responders. That's on page 114. That's something that's been approved. So, that's been to the council. So, you've approved that contract. So, we're proceeding with that. That's a 20 just so you remember it's a 2026 initiative. So that's that's happening. Uh it relates mayor to the solar initiative that's on page 35. So that's a 2028 identified project. But I think staff notes that we'll certainly look at whether there's a project in 2028. We'll be back here next year without you unless you want to come. I will say, you know, I'll probably I'll next year. We'll look at next year's 5year CIP and we'll have may have new information on what uh roof what rooftop solar looks like, but certainly take note of perhaps other ways of of doing solar. Uh Deb, I think to your comment about fire trucks and deferred maintenance. I know Chief Fox is here. I did mention you mentioned it to me uh in the phone call today. Mentioned it to Chief Fox. Kevin, do you want to quickly address that as well? Yeah. So, the refurbishment that we're looking at deferring would be for our tower ladder truck. Um, it's one of the vehicles that has a lower usage rate. So, we feel that deferring that refurbishment out a year or two will have pretty minimal impact on it overall. We'll continue to monitor it from year to year, but we're pretty comfortable uh pushing that reef for about one or two years just because the the overall usage is on the lower end. And I also, you know, just because of the some some of the things that I do at work, you know, you sort of get out out of cycle, you know, that it would be staggered and then, you know, things just sort of pile up and then all of a sudden so I I worry about both the equipment and the sort of, you know, backing into a corner financially because eventually we'll have to do the refurbishment. There'll be other needs at that time. So we we try to refurb them at about the halflife of the vehicle, but there's a little wiggle room on either end of that. And then go ahead. Oh, with the drone, I just want to just pull Scott in quickly because I do want to um Darren remind you, just want to distinguish between the drones, first drones for first responder versus drones that we have in our fleet, if you will, today. And so we do have drones in our fleet today. Okay, maybe Scott, you want to touch on that because we do have that capability like what we saw over the weekend, drones going into homes or going into properties as your kind of first eyeball versus people. And so maybe Scott can I can I can comment and maybe Jason if he has to jump in, jump in, you know, specifically to the I mean we we do have a drone that we utilize now, but it does require someone to drive to a location to get out of a car and to launch it. So that takes time. um you know what we saw over the weekend, you know, we can pray we never have to experience that again. But the DFR program is a force multiplier. And so what that does, it puts a drone in the air very quickly. So as officers are uh in route or arriving, that drone is already overhead. And um in this case um could it have provided uh you know visibility early on? Absolutely. Because it picks up a heat signature. In fact, I saw a video uh a still shot of the actual um when they located him in in the grass, they put a a comparison with just live video and you could barely see a figure, but then they switched over to the drone and you could easily see it was somebody there. So, really what it does is takes our current program and enhances it to just it's it's faster response. Um again, it has it it you know the we're very cognizant of surveillance. It's it's really in response to certain crime and getting there very quickly and really helping responding officers um know what they're getting into. Um and you know you know just give you better uh situational awareness on what's happening. And I I really and I think I know drones were there that night. Multiple drones were overhead. It just took probably some time to get there. Anything you can add to that? I think you did a great job. That's amazing. You know, and I would just add too, you know, and there's so much we don't know and our our public safety people uh know more than we do, but just think about what could have happened if we if the officer who went from point A to point B had been had if we had a drone that could have gotten there five minutes earlier. You you know, you put yourselves into asking the what if question. Now that's that's not um not profitable really but it is profitable from the perspective of look at the opportunity if we can get to dire circumstances faster because of this technology. Not only multiplies the force but it helps us do the job better. You think about a fake cop car. A drone would have picked that up. That's not a real cop car. That's a that's a security, you know. I mean there are just things that you know it's a fool's errand to speculate but but you can sit there and think about the potential of the technology and what it might have what that technology might have done in this circumstance is is a question worth considering. Yeah and and it's the future it's coming um just has to be managed good policies and procedures. Okay. I just want to be sure that I'm clear on what we're talking about. So the the new program that we approve, that's where we have the different stations on buildings around around the city so that we can get to places faster as opposed to what we currently have that requires someone to get in the car and drive to wherever. That is correct. So currently you you drive it with you in your car. this puts something on the roof and as the officer is driving the drone is going to that location and uh going there very quickly and you know it's again these are rare situations that we experience but you know we have folks that go missing in our parks and you know there's a lot of valid reasons that they would be deployed um and um you know quite frankly I think there's just better use of of of you know we're more efficient um and so we're starting to see results over the and it's they're positive. And then I'm assuming in combination with the Axon system, you know, the integration with that that we just approve that that would, you know, be make enhance the usability and efficiency and efficacy even more. Exactly. And and and at some point you'll have a tour of what we have going on because there's a lot of amazing technology that we're utilizing. Um, and it's it's all being put into one location so we can collect it and and and evaluate it and just it's it's amazing. Great. Thank you. Did you anything else? Anyone otherwise we'll start going through chapter by chapter and uh we'll just I mean we'll if there's things in each chapter that people want to raise great but I think this summary probably took care of a lot of what we would otherwise stop for. So um so let's see go beyond policy go beyond tables. Um we'll start first chapter is municipal buildings. Is there anything in municipal buildings anyone wants to anyone wants to talk about um you know one of the questions we have obviously is has to do with the community center but um any any questions from Sure. municipal buildings 21. All right then. Um and and one of the question well excuse me one of the questions is um fire station refurbishment but that is that is um bear with me. Those are are kind of wrapup questions. Yeah. Yeah. All right then. Let's um if nothing's there, let's go to recreational facilities. And uh we've got Willis Center improvements, community center improvements, Ice Arena improvements, 45 Royals athletic center improvements, Shady Oak Beach improvements, and the Marsh improvements. Any questions on those? Anyone? Any questions? We got both. Thanks, Darl. Very good. All right, then. Moving on to parks, trails, open spaces. Um, quite a few things listed here. Um, I just wanted to make that pitch that I made about Cullen. I It's kind of a passion of mine. You know, it we we started on this path when I early in my time on the council and I'd hate to see us get stalled. So, if there's a way to find some resources so we can move forward with envisioning the master plan given that that grant was denied, I'd love to see that. Agreed. Especially Yeah, I agree. That was a 70 I think. What page is that on? 70. 70. Well, I I agree. We It would great be great to get that done. Is there is there an opportunity to go for more grants um on that? I mean, could we reapply or or apply different grants? Yeah, just maybe answer then whether it's Will or Leslie or Matt certainly chime in if I Yeah. Anyone want to take a shot at that on the on the Cullen? um nature reserve and the and the grant that we did not get. Are there other other funding funding opportunities there? But first I just kick it off by saying and then I'll turn it over to other staff members that so just for information. So page 70 this was a pending project. So it was in essence an unfunded project um if not for the grant and so it became a noted project in 26 and 27 assuming that we would get grants and now that we haven't gotten the grant which is unfortunate. Okay in talking with staff I think they would say we're going to look to applying for this grant or perhaps other grants. Um so it has been kind of that unfunded project but we want to we hear council and I think we as staff too we understand the importance of it because that's well thanks for that. Thanks for that clarification on staff. Certainly. Uh I can I can certainly jump in a little bit. Yes. Unfortunately, we didn't get the the state funding. Um a lot of the funding moved over to research. So, a lot of that pool of money ended up going to the U and the DNR, big lake studies, that sort of stuff. So, these city specific parklike projects just got bumped down the list. Unfortunately, there are always funds available, grants available for restoration, specifically related to invasive removals, installing native seed, performing the restoration. A lot of where we'd be missing on funds is parking lot build, trail, signage, the the physical stuff that would need to go into the park. That was the bulk of this ask in the in the bonding that we got denied. So, unfortunately, thank you, Paula. Um, I guess I just wanted to follow up on Rebecca's comment on, you know, since we got the $400,000 in bonding um, for the skateboard. Is there any opportunity to reallocate some of that money, you know, to this project or others? That would be lovely to kind of consider the possibility. My understanding is that skate park money is solely dedicated to skateboard facilities. Yeah, but we had 1.1 million. Yep. And we're we're going to be starting a master plan process for that whole park to get a better understanding of the expenses both. Oh, so there wasn't money allocated to that. Okay. Sorry. Well, it was I would answer it this way. Um and that if you if you bounce between page um 70, right? And then if you go to page I think it's 35 is the skateboard part. Yeah. No, that's not correct. Um Uh 53. 53. I'm sorry. Okay, no problem. You go to page 53. The funding sources are different. So that's a good point, Paul, in the sense that if we don't if we got 400 I understand the question you're asking is if we got 400,000 in bond dollars, does that free up 400,000 to be shifted somewhere else? And um logically, yes. Um there are different funding sources. So when you look at the page 53 Mhm. it's the community. So it's we're we're going to have to look at how does that bonding dollars fit into into this. It's a $1.1 million project. The two funding sources would have been the community investment fund and the park and trail improvement fund. So now that we got 400,000, we're still going to need to to rely on the community investment fund and the park and trail improvement fund for that additional 600 700,000. And then if you look at the Colin Nature Preserve, really the the largest piece of that was grants. And so it's going to be hard to shift um out of the out of out of utilizing like the community investment fund. Oh, that it doesn't meet the criteria. Sorry, I'm just I don't want to deliberate. Yep. So, as far as the community investment fund, it doesn't necessarily meet the criteria yet because it's only been in the CIP for this year. We'd have to go through another reiteration of the CIP for next year. Theoretically, you could you could swap out the park and trail improvement fund dollars. So, it's 100,000 at least or um that was $300,000 in the skate park. If we supplement that with the $400,000 grant that came in that takes away that those dollars and can those dollars then be used for right could they be reallocated for the Cullen AB? They they theoretically could be. Yes. Um it doesn't get you the full project all the way there, right? you know, but it gets you some of it. Um, and if we find bits and pieces, first I'd want to see kind of that master plan of the skate park first because hopefully it's 1.1 million and not 1.4 or 1.5 on that end of it as well, too. So, um, but I think set another way, um, I, you know, I think, okay, we we didn't get the funding we were hoping for. Um, we did pick some elsewhere. We potentially could pick some of that up, but our interest and commitment to doing Cullen is not. We're not taking that page out and throwing it away. What we're saying is, okay, well, we may have to push things out a year and find different paths for funding it, but I don't think we've lost it as a priority. Is that a fair statement? Correct. Yeah, for sure. And that's clearly a council decision, too. But I mean, that that's I mean, that's the nature. Think how many times in a council meeting over the year we say, "Well, we're going to approve this and we're going to amend the CIP." And the CIP is a guide. It's not, "Boy, this is it and you have to do it this way, period." I mean, we amend the CIP all the time. And I think, okay, we didn't get something, so we're going to amend the, you know, we're we're amending the CIP, but, you know, it the CIP has flexibility. I think that's a a key point. Yes. Correct me if I'm wrong. Yep. Okay. All right. So, anything else in um parks, trails, and open spaces? Will did you Sorry, was did Will had something to add to the Okay, Paula. Um maybe this will be part of the next discussion, but um I just uh didn't look at this as carefully. Again, focus was not easy this weekend, but um just in terms of uh potential dog park um any you know kind of fencing or any improvements that we would have to do. I wasn't sure that I seen that there. And if we're talking about swapping some things um you know I did just happen to look at this and um you know maybe there's some things we can look at in terms of the red barn analysis because I think there was done one done fairly recently. So, it doesn't need to be done again this year. You know, again, looking at I was looking at ways for the Cullen thing, the exact same thing you were looking at, Rebecca. So, um, but we can I don't necessarily want to get into weeds in that here, but if there's a way that I can, you know, ask some of these questions later, um, you know, that would be great because I don't want to take up our time here too much. Well, I think we we talked about there are there are going to be more bites at this apple. Yep. So, you know, yeah, but yeah, I have some questions about that and some of the, you know, kind of the park planning and things like that. Again, a lot of this is tied up with the Aquish areas and I looked at this stuff after we spoke otherwise I would have hit on them but so again I don't want to belabor things tonight but um just as long as you know with the going forward without understanding that we can bring this forward again before we're kind of coming to the point where okay we have to say yes or no and then I don't want to be the one saying well what about this? So that's I guess my concern is that um there's an opportunity to you know kind of get to some of this um before we get to that okay now we're making the final decision if there's some sort of intermediate opportunity before then. So, gotcha. No, I think this is the really what you just just mentioned, Paul. That that is the really the purpose of tonight is to again have these conversations and I think you know staff is taking notes and what I hear council saying is you you want to look to find a way for calling. So, that that's something we'll note and bring back to you at the next time you take a bite at that apple again. Uh we'll bring some solutions and some thoughts back on that and then anything else that is mentioned tonight as well. And I think too that any of us if we have questions that either dawn on us based on our conversation tonight or that didn't get asked, I mean clearly we can raise those questions with with staff and um and and and raise that consideration. I don't think we have to say well okay we that was that. So now we're done. I don't think that's it. We're we're going to the final vote. Right. Right. As far as like we don't vote here as far as dog parking. I guess I haven't been following that as closely as some other staff members on that end of it. Isn't there operational budget as well too that would potentially cover some of this or I don't know what costs are but um no space I mean to answer your question I've seen Will's budgets before there's got to be there's so much money in there well that's what I'm worried about because you're flat she's like richy rich with dollars I mean we we haven't programmed much in there for it but yeah that based on the discussion that's something we need to talk about after this that discussion cover, but we don't necessarily have anything in the CI for anything like that for this upcoming year. So, I have a easy question, I think. Go for it. Why an easy question. Why is the refrigeration for the Ridgel Commons so cheap? That's 200,000 in there for that. Isn't it more expensive than that? I'm thinking about the ice after what page you asked. It's just the actual matt system. Oh. Oh, I Okay. Oh, it's not okay. Portable system 67. Okay. Cuz that'd be cool if we could get that set up, but I was like, no way that's only going right. Okay. All right. Yeah, let's do it. I I will just comment on that as well that if if we had to cut that for to get, you know, more fun uh options in terms of funing. some of our other priorities. I think we need to maybe put that on the table for discussion if it comes to a real hard thing given given just some of the issues, you know, that we I love the commons. Um I'm just yeah, I'm concerned about um whether if we build it, they will come. I hope they will, but um yeah, I do have something Very good. Anything else? All right, we'll move on to major equipment. Lots of cool stuff in here. Um and will do you want to just quickly contextualize uh we do so I say we public works manages our kind of fleet y management plan it's a very detailed plan it really kind of maps out life cycles of equipment everything from say chainsaw like your chainsaws to to really expensive stuff and so um maybe you want to just touch on what goes into this. Yeah. So when we go through our fleet management I mean essentially we look at everything when it comes up for replacement we have a general replacement schedule doesn't mean we automatically replace it you know depends on the condition where we're at so we make sure we're optimizing the full life cycle. You know, plow truck for example, we've got it 15 years. We had some delays during COVID and we delayed a few things last year. So, we do run those longer at times. You know, some are at 17 getting to 18. And so, we just make sure the equipment's running. We're not going to have breakdowns. Um, our smaller equipment, you know, we're always going after grants. We have been moving a lot to hybrids, you know, so a lot of new vehicles are hybrids. We're looking at the full electric. There's definitely a cost with that. So, um, the larger equipment, the electric isn't quite there yet, so we'll continue to look at that. But the fleet vehicles, um, you know, the chief has a fully electric car, so that's great. Wow. And that's our most recent, but just making sure we replace it at the right time and we're not being wasteful in any way. Excellent. Well, go. Oh, I was just going to mention too is I pulled it out as a notable project was a cold planer, which isn't very exciting, but that's a major piece of equipment for our, you know, our thin overlay type or projects, those types of things, our patent overlay stuff that we do in house. Yeah, that's a it's a major piece of equipment that burns through a lot of asphalt over the years. Well, that's a huge savings. I mean, doing that thin overlay thing. I mean, that that's my favorite project. I mean I I love the fact we started doing that because we extended the lives of a lot of lot of streets and uh we say well we think we can add x number of years and we always get more and the streets look great because the typical resident doesn't know the um other than the fact that they haven't had their street all dug up. They don't know the difference between a full rehabilitation and a thin overlay. But they do like having nice smooth streets. Mhm. So that's I think quick question of the newer council member. So there's an option to contract that versus doing it in-house. So I'm assuming this is saving quite a bit of money by not contracting out with a third party provider. Yeah, it is. So when we started the program, when we looked at buying the mill, uh, you know, we ran the numbers the first year, we it was about 140,000 in contracting. So that kind of carries through depending on the year. It's in that range, 100 to 150. So, I mean, it's an expensive piece of equipment, but we run it 15 years plus, you know, if we can get longer and versus having a third party come in and do that. So, it way more than pays for itself. Oh, yeah. It was really good. You know, and then one other question I had and Will, you touched on it already. Um, you know, during the during the um uh pandemic, we added a year to our uh just one year. We didn't repeat it, but we added a year to our, you know, we said, "Okay, we're not to save money. We're looking for ways to save money." Um, everything that we're going to replace, we're going to add one year to its life cycle for that one, you know, one time a one-time deal. And, you know, that was that was taken a little bit of a risk, but I wonder and and my question was going to be, well, gee, could we do that every once in a while? Um, but I I think you said, well, you we look at the vehicles. I think the chief um talked about the ladder truck. Well, we look at how heavily used it is and maybe we don't need to refurbish it as quickly as we said we need to. Similarly, I think we do that with I think you're doing that on an ongoing basis. So, we don't need to add that year because we're kind of doing that um more on a micro basis and I think that's exactly the right way to do it. Is that a fair correct statement? Yeah. So, anytime anything comes up for replacement, we make sure it needs to be replaced. Yep. We'll keep it longer if we can. Good. Great. Cool. All right. Anything else in major equipment? All right. Then technology ERP is in here, right? It is. So I don't know if you have any comments on that because that's such a big important project, right? Yeah, absolutely. And you probably know a little bit of the history. So, we went through a tried to through go through an ERP conversion a couple years ago now on that end of it and such with Logis. Um, that project was unsuccessful at that point in time and we did not go live which is is probably a good thing on on that end of it. Yeah. Um, so we are still stuck with our current product which is on the HR side of it isn't a good isn't a good product at all. On the finance side of it, it's it it functions fine. it functions all right, but it's not um it's not going to be supported in the long term because Lois is eventually going to have to move away from product on that end of it and such. And so we're looking at um trying to put together an RFP um looking for kind of the best in class for both the finance and HR side of things and not necessarily try to fit um both into the same mold and and kind of what that's kind of what got us into a little bit of a pickle with this last system, I think. So, uh, we'll try to look for that. Um, put together an RFP here starting later this year, early next year. Um, hopefully with a goal I planned in hopefully 2027 time frame on that end of it and such. And there's a couple good um, applications out there that fit cities our size that could um, are being popular on that end of it. So, um, we're we're anxious to see what's what's how that can go and um, hopefully we'll have our scars have been healed since the last one and we'll be ready to move forward. All right. Any any questions, council, on that? I mean, it's those are big projects and um and they they weigh heavily on everybody, but they weigh most heavily on the finance department. So, uh good luck. Well, we're going to trust the experts and uh you guys fingers and toes are crossed. Yeah. But eyes and arms. I'll say a few prayers, too. It never hurts. Yep. So, anything else on technology? Anyone? All right. Then we go to uh local street improvements, a big part of a CIP. And I should know we have kind of broke this out a little bit differently than prior years as well, too. So now we're we're kind of showing each local street improvement project itself. Before in the past different areas of the of the if we had three projects within that five-year time frame, they'd be shown under one project. Now we're we're splitting them out because the kind of the precosts of of them are getting so expensive. That's why we're having to come back with CIP amendments. So we're trying to isolate on them as one project and and get them approved on the front end so that we're not having to come back with CIP amendments throughout the throughout the project. Makes it a little easier to understand, adds more projects to the book. But um hopefully you can see but but I but I think having a list like we have on um you know page 15 115 and being able to say oh yeah okay this is where this is happening um um what we're doing. I I think I think that's more informative for us because we do get questions from time to time and if we go back to our CIP book we might even be able to answer it. And there is a map as well two of your books that have has the layout by over the next 5 years of where those projects are happening as well. Very helpful. Um I had one thing on page I think 119 119 I think. Okay. Um so I just started thinking about um you know burial of of utilities during road and uh trail and you know there is the three rivers park district um trail coming down Baker road and I know that it's going on the west side of Baker but the but the utilities are on the east side of Baker and so I was Just wondering is that it would they change that? Like would we bury them or are the utilities going to remain above ground just because of how that works? Yeah, good question. I mean, as of as of right now, unless they have to be buried, they're going to be buried, but we wouldn't. They're on the opposite side. The Three Rivers has asked us to. I mean, we're looking at the funding, but it's kind of it's a big number. So, if it needs to move for the trail, we're asking them to do it at this point. you know, we'll certainly work together with them as much as we can, but if it's opposite, it likely will stay for now. Okay. All right. Thank you. Other other questions on local streets, anyone? Okay, then we'll go to MSA Street improvements. Um, one one rather large project there. Um, Will, I don't know if you have any comments about um about Excelsier Boulevard, but um I I went to Purgatory Park today and uh I was wondering if I was going to run into any delays, but I it it hasn't started yet, right? No, we've got a couple years. We're working with the county right now. Phil's here, too. I don't know if he wants to add anymore, but um it's a big project. There'll be a lot of disruption down there. Uh but the counties, as of right now, they're kicking in around 20 million. work together with them. We'll take their money. Yeah. Yeah. Right. We'll cooperate. Any other I mean that's big project. Any other thoughts or comments? Anyone? And there'll be a new trail along that road as well too with that project. Yeah. I did have another question on page 135 [Applause] which was um so I'm starting to think about the tip district improvements and know there wasn't extension on tiff and it you know we have the special tiff so I just wanted to understand how what just happened in St. Paul is going to affect page 135 and like this general outlook there. Do you want me to answer it? Yeah, they testified a lot. I'll tell you what I know and then um you know Phil if you have more. So basically what extended there's a five-year rule and a six-year rule and we were coming up against the deadline on June 26. So, if we didn't have those extended, uh, it's the way in which the money is spent throughout the tip district. We did not get the four-year knockdown rule, which flipped out the SalesMart property in the middle of the district, which would have been nice, but I have a new idea for that. So, we'll we'll do that if we have new development there. But, um, so basically, it extended the time frame in which we can spend money, which is great. Okay. So yeah, I'll add to that that um the projects listed in here, what that does is give us a little more time to evaluate what's going to happen from a development standpoint so we can build what's makes sense from development. We don't have to guess at what's going to come in. So there are going to be a couple small projects that will move forward now and then a lot of these will actually wait and see what happens with development and then if development comes in we'll we'll build them. Okay, good. Thanks Phil. Thanks, Julie. Thank you. Can I just as somebody who's a relative newbie on this, um, can you just confirm my understanding of the five and sixyear rule versus the four-year rule? The four-year rule is for something that nothing has broken ground, right? So, that kicked out of the district, whereas the other one was, you know, things have been planned, but because LRT was so long delayed and da da da da, therefore, they were willing to say, yeah, we'll extend it. Correct. Yeah. I think we used a few different reasons, but the one is timing of development. One was CO even kind of delayed some things and then um Minda, we were dealing with that on a bridge issue. So there were a lot of things that played into it that we gave reasons for. Okay. Um that they agreed with. But yeah, I would caution though, every tip district is a little different depending on what tip district you choose in the beginning. So each one has its own set of rules. So, this doesn't always mean it's the same for every district, just in this case. Okay. Thanks. Thank you, Julie. So, then um any other questions on um um MSA streets. Otherwise, we'll go on to uh to uh storm and drainage improvements. And uh any questions there? I had a water mane break in my neighborhood and I want to tell you that our public works team did an outstanding job. They were they were very prompt. My neighbors were impressed. Thank you. Thank you. I mean I just have to say we can whip through these sections which is so great. I think other cities have a different experience because of the forth thought of our predecessors and um in really structuring this so that we have a fund and and we have a plan and we don't have to make tortured decisions about what work we're going to do. So I appreciate that so much. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. I mean this book is really I mean it you know it really is a tool that we can use throughout the year and you know I mean we we usually have when we have questions we usually call Mike but but the reality is a lot of the answers are right here to the questions we have because Mike does pull this out every call. Yeah. Well we'll still call we'll still call. Um but but anything anything on storm drainage? Um we have our storm water utility. When I started out that was $3. It's a lot bigger now, but um but you know Well, you have a good memory on some things. I couldn't tell you what it was when I started. Well, I Well, I I when I started it was zero. It was zero. So, we we implemented it. And and it was it was um it was controversial, but we got it done. And and it's been the right thing to do. when uh um there's anything I've learned, there's always more storm water projects to do. Maybe now this month especially. Um I do have a quick question, Paula. And I don't know if this is impacted here, but I have a resident who's been in touch and is dealing with the railroad in terms of some storm water. Is there any budget implications for us, for the city um that could be possibly coming down the line for that? I just wanted to make sure that uh for the railroad. No, not for that specific one. Okay. So, it's nothing that we're going to be having to No. And honestly, we have some budgets and things like that. We'd go clean it, but since it's a railroad, we can't, right? Yeah. Okay. I just wanted to Nothing additional. Thanks. And railroads are particularly easy to work with, right? Well, yeah. The easiest. Yikes. All right. I think I think we're getting um water and sewer improvements. And and Brad, if I could just I'm sorry to interrupt you. Just in Paul, if you turn to page 146 to maybe Paula's question, Will maybe Will or Phil here. We do have like for storm water in on that page 146. It's really kind of a placeholder dollar amount. So that that kind of those are monies dedicated for you know those something happens that we don't aren't aware of. Um certainly as you know we go through a lot of effort of planning but there are things that just pop up and this this page covers that. Thanks for that, Mike. Thank you. Sorry about that. Thanks, Brad. No, no, that's good. Thank you. I mean, yeah, there's a handful of projects we've seen and we've had people come and talk to us about them and they're they're in the book. They're unfunded, but there's there's there's some pretty big big things that um um that are on the docket and uh and when they're not funded doesn't mean we don't care. It means that well, we're looking for funding. Yeah. So then, uh, water and sewer improvements. Um, and and Will, how many how many water main breaks do we have a year now? Because I know, um, we've been making a lot of improvements. Has our have our numbers dropped? Yeah, they've gone down a lot. We were in, you know, 90ish. Now we're down to maybe 40 or 50. That's great. Depends on the year. Yeah, we had a bunch last week. I don't know what happened, but yeah, that brought it up a little bit. Three or four. I don't know what happened. Yeah, we're down around I think we might have even had 35 last year. Okay, that's really good because I mean I remember I I remember telling people we had over a hundred a year and we used to and they're and they're and they're over 10 grand a piece. So that's a million bucks. So yeah, I assume they haven't gotten cheaper. It was like winter and June last week. That's you know. Yeah. Yeah. That's a bad concept. Don't don't bring that one up. And the reconstruction programs helped a lot. So, we've hit all we've been hitting neighborhoods like Taco Woodcrop's a good example. You know, Phil and his folks when they're fixing that stuff. I mean, that makes a big difference. That's where a lot of those breaks are. Yeah. All right. So, um yeah, we've got a good number of uh sewer projects here, but nothing that looks like um jumps out other than I got my notice for my water meeting to make my appointment for my water meter replacement. So, got to get you should know that that project's been kind of condensed now. We're shortening that up and it originally was going to be a five or six year time frame. Now, we're looking to get it done in threeish or Yeah, I think we're going to try for four. It's going well. So, we're just trying to close the window a little bit to get done fast. I was really excited to see that. So, I got the letter from Mike Kuno with my the our names are in red. So, like it caught my attention. We're supposed to open that and take action. There's a QR code. So, and the council should be aware that um we are going to issue we haven't issued um bonds for the water and sewer utility fund since 2021, right? And we were kind of scheduled to issue those every other year, every third year or so. We've been able to push that off um for about four years now, but we are going to issue bonds this fall um is the kind of the plan to move forward to issue our next kind of aotment of of bonding there. So, thanks. So, are there are there any other questions in the in the CIP book that anyone wants to identify? Otherwise, we're going to jump back to the questions at the end of our um our staff report. And I have a question related to that, but um I want to give everybody else a chance first. So, you know, the two questions we've got um what questions or and or discussion points does council have regard to the preliminary 20 the CIP and we basically went through that and did that. So, I think we're good there. But then the second question is a bit meteor um in terms of um you know what do we want to do? Is there um is there a preliminary consideration to support a property tax supported general obligation capital bond approximately 7 to10 million to remodel the community center and fire station number two improvement. um you know and and as I looked at that I mean the question that I had was you know what what would the levy anticipated levy impact be for that decision because I mean everything that we do is going to um you know add you know the the cost of the interest and um and uh paying back those bonds is going to be added to our um our levy and you know is that so is that a half % increase or is a 2% increase to our levy amount because I think that's really relevant for us to know as we can as we direct staff um um or suggest the staff what we'd like to do because we're not making decisions tonight. We're making suggestions. So, I don't know if anyone Darren, what are your what are your thoughts? Um good g great question. Um, if you recall at our kickoff, budget kickoff, we talked a little bit about the community facilities and we had some bonding options there as well. I don't I didn't have the 7 to10 million range one there, but I had the one option which was kind of the last option which was kind of the lowest on the low end of that which was I believe it was about a five or $6 million imp improvements on that end of it. And I believe it was we phased it in over a couple years as well too. So it take that into account but it was it was about a half a percent this year 25 quarter of a percent the next year and another 2% the third year on that end at that five. So that's right at five. So we can we can amp it up and say okay and that that would be including community center and the fire station. Yeah. And so there's there's a little bit of there's a little bit more to this question on on that end of yes absolutely community center um is definitely would be a piece of that fire station number two um a little bit more unknown because we don't really decided is a remodel the best course of action or is a rebuild the best course of action. We also submitted last week um state bonding request as well for next um legislative session. And so we requested um a fire station rebuild there um which is estimated coming from the study that um or W did on on estimates for the for everything there. By the time that would come kind of come into play with inflation all that kind of stuff it came to about 10 million $10.5 million or so on that end of it. That would require 50% match. So then you're in that $5 million range ballpark. If you ended up doing a remodel of some sort, you're probably in that three to4 million range anyway, I believe it was. Um, so I think at this point in time, you obviously would probably wait to see if you got state bonding next year, but it doesn't mean that you couldn't start a levy this, you know, implement a levy for this year, collect that next year, and save those dollars. Now you're stepping into a levy basically one way or another on that end of it because you're still if you got state bonding a year from now we'd have to levy those that $5 million to begin with and now you're now you're kind of stepping into it in a couple two to three year plan on that end of it. Um saving those dollars and then using those dollars to pay for your share of remodeling costs or rebuilding costs or community center costs on that end of it as well too. So, and so that's part of the question is is I mean so as I look at this 7 to10 million sounds like quite a bit but but we're looking at some pretty expensive things if we said you know if we wanted to ease into it say okay well how much is a community center or how much would the fire station be or you know we know funds are fungeable so if we said okay well we're we're comfortable with X whatever whatever we would say um and we did get bonding money then could we maybe say say, you know, okay, we we're going to we want to do the fire station now and want to wait and see on the community center. If we got the bonding for the community center, maybe we slide some money over got the bonding for the fire station, we could slide some money over the community center. Just wondering, I think I'm interested in financial flexibility because we know we need to do these things. Um it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. And so we're trying to trying to grapple with okay, how to how to do that in the most palatable way is kind of the question I think I have. I don't know if other council members agree. And I would say just to quickly add on real quick, Mirror, um I don't think you would necessarily we wouldn't issue bonds until we have a decision, right, on what the state does. Yeah. And then what obviously what we want to do for a remodel, rebuild type of situation as well too. But we are beginning that point of basically creating a savings account that for those dollars that can be used to pay for that project as well too and maybe lessen the bonding piece of that in the future. So I like that idea of a savings starting. We all like No, no, no. But I mean starting now we do it or not like and build it up. I like that. So we could basically have the have the levy um with not 100% certainty like where the money is going to go but knowing that it's going to go towards the towards the fire station facilities. Yeah. Right. Yes. I mean, if I think about that study session, we all I think the consensus was we really felt that the community center work was urgent and that we needed to get started on particularly, you know, um, fire station 2. And so I think that was theoretical. This is real, right? And but I don't think the urgency has changed. And as much as I hate the idea of, you know, spending $10 million, I think in order to get those things done, we got to spend the money. So, I guess I'm supportive of, you know, we've got to move on some of these things and these are the two most urgent as we identified through, you know, a lot of discussion at the study session. I I agree with that. Yeah. Yeah. With these projects, I mean, The timing is just never ideal in terms of having securing the funding, issuing debt, aligning that with design and bidding and project start. I mean, we're at a we're really at the entry level of all this. And so, what we're trying to do is be really kind of thoughtful and deliberate about how do we get from point A to point B on this. And we have a lot of unknowns yet. Um, and that's always the difficulty in this conversation is from a timing standpoint, even even council, if you say, "Yeah, let's go. Let's go today." And um, improve the community center. Let's do something in the fire station, too. Aside from the funding element of it, we're probably 18 to 24 months away from actually getting to a final project. And so between now and then, I think the question that we're ultimately raising is should we be proactive in our in our thought process and start um phasing in a t perhaps a tax levy for an eventual bond issuance. We're not saying today let's go out and bond for the money, but knowing that these are pretty significant projects on the horizon. We're all trying to do our part and you know how do we best plan for that and how can we ease it into it? Have some financial flexibility. Certainly the the bonding dollar request that's certainly an unknown. It's always an unknown when you do a bond request at the capital. Um, in a perfect world, um, yeah, we would we're going to ask for the bonding monies and we could get 5 million next year and that certainly kind of gets us closer to to knowing what that path looks like, but we also want to plan for what what if we don't get the bonding dollars. What does that look like? Well, I think to your point, Mike, is that um I mean the one thing we can be sure of is that the longer we wait, the more expensive it will be. I think that's the one thing we we know with certainty. Um the other piece of it is that the point you made is there's there's never a good time to have to increase your levy to pay debt and and and I mean you never feel really good about adding bonding money to your budget, but but we know we have these needs. We've got to get them done and um they're not going to get any cheaper. So, let's let's own, you know, let's own it. And then and then as we work through future budgets, I mean there the the the reality of the bonding that we're going to take on will affect our attitude towards some of the things that have to be in those future budgets. But but I mean that that's it. We you know, but kicking the can down the road is not a solution because it's going to get more costly. We've already kicked the can down the road here for a lot of years. I mean, really. Yeah. And um it this is really the heart of our community, you know, this building. And um so so yeah, I think I'm hearing pretty general agreement. everyone. My only, you know, concern and that my wait and see kind of thing is is to see how our overall levy is going to be like if we're looking at like last year, you know, we backed off of the marsh and and some of those things because we were looking at going way over 9% and we do have, you know, a significant portion of people here who are on fixed incomes and only increasing more and more as our population ages. And I think we just need to be you know looking at that as well. So for me personally at least I would look at it as that as a balance and looking at where we are overall with everything else before I would say yes ideally yes. Well I mean I think the answer to this question is are we willing to consider it in the preliminary? So like they'll bring us a number and if it's right you know 15% we're going to say no that we no. So yeah. No I understand that. I'm just yeah kind of reiterating that any final um decision would would you know certainly willing to consider it in the context of the overall Yeah. No, I think I think that I think Kimberly said it well. Um you know we're we don't have all the facts in front of us, right? But but we recognize that this is work that needs to get done and um and we're going to have to figure out a way to pay for it at some point. Um, clearly we don't stick our head in the sand and say, "Well, okay, no matter what, we're going to do this because we don't know what that levy number looks like." And no, you know, I mean, the best surprise is no surprise, but we do know that you there are surprises out there. So, that can affect an ultimate decision. So, I hope that's helpful. It is. Yeah. Thank you, council. Just to your point about how things get more expensive over time, you go to page 73 or more importantly 74 of your budget book and you know this comes up often in our conversations just about trail segments because we do hear from the community about trails and trails are being planned right that bottom number on page 74 and I'm going to turn to Will on this one to help me out. Um it's a hund00 million and this plan hasn't it's the same segments uh that's been noted in the CIP over the last number of years. I recall probably five years ago this was 63 million for that's what I was going to say. Yeah, it was 60 million. And so in in the last 5 years it's grown from 63 million to 100 million. So I think I think that's all weighing on all of our minds of of costs. Yeah. And what that looks like in out years. Yeah. Sobering. So I think we I think we provided the direction you were seeking. So now we we still have a couple more agenda items. Um so are we good on uh CIP? That brings us to the off lease strategy and guidance plan update. So Mike. Yeah. Thank you. I invite is it uh Leslie and Matt? Matt. Matt's got it. All right. Thank you, council. U take we'll transition here. So again, appreciate your comments on the CIP and AIP. Yeah, I'm gonna thank you to our staff too for all their work. I'll just really turn this over to Matt. Um I think as I have mentioned to all of uh mayor and council that as staff who are coming here this evening going back to the off leash dog conversation at the last is the last regular council meeting. Are we taking a quick break? Well, I'm just going to grab some water. a lot. We're listening. Go ahead. All right. As you're grabbing some refreshments, um, council provided direction to staff to look at two different scenarios at a 25 acre off leash area and a 45 acre off leash area. Staff is um working through that process and we thought tonight we would come before you before that cake is fully baked. Um, just give you a sense of where we're where staff is at in the process. Uh, give you some limited. Matt's been working hard here the last few weeks on where he's at uh, in the process. And just kind of want to update you again where kind of where our thoughts are, what this is looking like, and see if you as council have any feedback uh, any other direction for staff. So, with that, maybe Brad, if it's okay to turn over to Matt. Matt, welcome. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for the time. So, I've walked around quite a bit in the park. I want to really reiterate that this is conceptual at this point. This is really some uh factf finding for me to walk around and really get a sense of the actual areas we've been looking at in sort of two dimensions at at this point. So this is sort of a a bit of a a peak under the hood at at the process as we sort of work towards the the concepts. So um we took into consideration no overlap with any of the aquality habitat um from the NRMP. We took into consideration no overlap with wetlands as inventoried by the city um wetland inventory. Uh I looked at the practicality of hard barriers throughout all these areas. So, um, I'll I'll showcase more detail for what I'm calling areas one through five, but please keep in mind that these are still sort of where can the fence work, where can it work, how do I apply some of these criteria, but currently these one to five areas um, they constitute 32.9 acres. So, if I was, you know, really pushing the the max hard barrier fences for all these areas, I get to a 32.9 acreage. And I can go to through more particulars, but um I want to have you folks keep in mind that um you know, there's a bunch of fencing install considerations. So, protecting existing stils, these are natural places. How do we install this fence without causing too much disruption? um we're dealing with fence feasibility in some pretty significant topography. So, a lot of ups and downs. So, the practical realities of getting fence in when we're dealing with those and and the trails related to that, minimizing the visual clutter, how can we do away with too much fence turns and ups and downs and in areas that would um degrade the park from a visual standpoint. um we have a lot of existing trails in place. Um so where would it make sense to um add these entry features and the relevant signage and then what that would do to a lot of the the existing trails out there that would then sort of become deadends as a fence would then sort of nip them off and you can see that in some of the figures that I'll show in a minute here. And then overall um per discussions with fencing contractors and the fence that Three Rivers installs um you know at a myriad of their projects but specifically on their off leash areas we're looking at you know I bumped this up at probably 60 or so a linear foot to install these. So that does not include earthwork or tree removals. It's just a pure install price but it would include entry features. Um, so just to again showcase what sort of fencing I've been keeping in mind as I walk around out there. So this is cedar posts or some posts embedded in the ground. They wouldn't necessarily need to have concrete footings with them. They could be packed loose gravel. And then there would be this um this hardware cloth. Uh I I keep referring to it as hogwire. That's how I've seen it referred to. But generally two to 4 in grids on a galvanized steel fence and that could be that's a rolled product. So it could be rolled out and and this type of fence could generally accommodate a variety of topography. It's quite flexible in that way. Um but we would need to get in there to install it. So what I've heard is this sort of post driver would be the preferred equipment. Um these are flexible machines, relatively low impact. when you're doing it, you'd certainly want to be careful of, you know, rain or wet soil conditions that would cause slipping of this machine and and would potentially cause quite a bit of impact. But this is sort of the install that I'm generally keeping in mind as I talk to fencing contractors and I walk around on site. So, area one, um, you had recommended avoiding this area. I have it included now. um avoiding the a quality natural resources areas. Um but to get to above 25 acres, I have it included at this stage just sort of, you know, me walking out there, how would I get up to 45? Um so in this midpoint stage of me thinking this through, I currently have it included. Um, overall this would represent 4.7 acres to fence this whole thing in is over 2,000 linear feet. That would add up to over $120,000 to fence this in entirely. There would be one in this scenario um currently one entry point near the north parking lot. Um, but there are a lot of, you know, issues related to how much fencing would be needed along the the main trails through this area, how it abuts the NRMPA quality habitat. Um, it is 94 ft from the nearest residence. Um, and as I mentioned, this was included to get us towards that 55 acres. Uh, area two, this is in I wish these were numbered clockwise or something. Unfortunately, they're not. Uh, area two was the second staff recommended area. This is in the southwest corner. So, these are the two former homestead locations. Here you can see some of the very severe to topography. Those are those really bunched up topography lines, those gray areas. So, there's a lot of practical realities to getting the fence in up and down these hills and how that would work. Um, this would create a lot of deadends for existing trails if they weren't accommodated with an entry feature. So, there's certainly some challenges there. Um, there is some possible expansion up the Oak Ridge. So that's the northeast corner of this figure. But you can see a lot of those really tightly bunched um topographic lines that would make that a challenge and then um you know what it would take to essentially get fencing up that line and wear additional entry features. But there is some possibility to add pure acreage if we were able to push it up. So 3,700 linear feet of fencing for 10 oh just over 10 acres of an off leash area and 99 ft almost 100 ft from that corner north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north northwest corner of this particular area uh area three this is just adjacent to that um along the creek 8.7 acres um there is some pretty awkward existing trail networks there that that move really close to some residential properties. Um that sort of um is this part? There's a in the northeast corner of this particular area. You can see some pretty funky topography there. That was some sort of um sand mine. Somebody excavated material out of that location. So there's some really artificial humanmade topography there. and the trail runs across the north side of it which makes it pretty tricky um for where the fence should go or would we cut that trail off entirely. Um so certainly a lot more thinking needs to be done on that. There is a wetland sort of an ephemeral perched wetland in the middle of this area too that would make it challenging through there. And then where the entrance features would go were a little tricky to figure out. We'd certainly want one um on the south side and then there would be a few along the oak ridge potentially where folks climb the hill and then they could get into the air into that area with some sort of entry feature there. So certainly again a lot of challenges with the existing topography through this area, the adjacency to the creek and the adjacency to some of these pretty um nearby neighbors in this location. So 8.7 acres, 3,300 linear feet, just about $200,000 to fence this in entirely. Uh area 4, this is in the northeast corner of Purgatory. So there is some opportunity to expand this towards the parking lot. Um this was um taking into account sort of leaving that turf gazebo area adjacent to the parking lot outside of the area. Um certainly want to think that through a little bit more if that could be pulled in to add acorage here. Um here you can really see the trolley line, the old trolley line with this topography here where it's really bunched. That creates some challenges both in terms of the fencing install. These are very steep slopes and the existing soft soils there, but then what the trail network could do in there. Could you come along that east side and get down that slope without a staircase? Frankly, it would be very challenging and it could lead to some sort of in and back trail decisions um rather than circulating through there and be able to get up or down those very steep slopes reason. So that would create some challenges. Um this does include some natural resources master plan area A, that's that pink area, maple basswood forest in the northeast corner there. Um, but just how much we heard from this being a a potentially reasonable spot and sort of thinking through where the fencing could go. So, there is some opportunity for additional area here. 2700 linear feet of fencing, 4.7 acres, about $157,000. Um, 70 ft to the nearest resident. That's that southeast corner of this area. There's a resident uh were the resident. The fire station's to the east side, but there is a home to the south there. And finally, area five. This is in the northwest corner. 4.7 acres. Again, oddly enough, there's three of these locations that ended up being 4.7 acres, which is a weird coincidence. Um, 2100 linear feet of fence to fence this whole area in. This is a little This area is tough to assess because of how dense the brush is in there, right? Like for the I for me to plow through and walk the ideal fence line is a little tricky up there. wear my safety goggles walking through the brush. Um, but it is fairly close to the residence along the Purgatory Creek um just northeast of this location. Um, currently I show it at 44 ft. We'd want to consider that more closely if we would want to be close to a residence um that way. So again, adding these five areas up, it's just under 33 acres in total. Um, if we were to do all of that in fencing, it's $830,000. Um, this is preliminary. This is me walking, trying to get a sense of where the fence could go, where the entrance features would go. Sort of, you know, the idea here tonight is to get some some of your initial feedback on some of the realistic site considerations and the practicality of getting some of this fence in in some of these areas. Yeah. And just a sort of a highlevel perspective from us. Um again the the planning goal for these public lands is really to balance natural resources, the preservation and the restoration with human use out there. Um we want to support the interests of residents to use our park spaces and that sometimes requires a compromise at times on on certain land uses. Um, preservation of our natural resources generally means not transitioning to turf or built infrastructure like a ballpark or a picnic shelter. And I certainly want to pat ourselves on the back in terms of some of our past habitat restoration processes. Um, these demonstrate that we can convert lower areas into highquality areas through the restoration process and using our staff and our amazing volunteers and and the budgets that you folks provide us to to do this work are really spectacular. So, through this investment and commitment, we would continue to do that in the future certainly. Um, but just some staff perspective on how I think about this, how I process making these decisions of what should go where. So feedback, questions, changes for me as I work through this that Yeah. So the the red on here is the aquality habitats and then that stippley area or the wetlands. Well, I can start. Um so I have walked Purgatory Park with the friends and with with the pause for parks people um and you know so gotten the the different perspectives like my my initial thoughts from from looking at these areas. Um it would be nice if area two and three like if those could be connected. So that it's one. So because what we're hearing from the off leash dog uh users is that they're using these trail. They want they want the trails. They want contiguous trails. Contiguous trails like to be able to walk four miles or whatever it is they do for a day. So having um a lot of separate areas. then we start to get into the more traditional dog park area where problems can happen. Yeah. Um so I think we want to avoid that. The the drawback for um area two and three is getting to it. So, like I like, you know, I was initially and I'm not I haven't abandoned the idea of the the um like area four and area five and being able to like park and immediately have a gate or something that you go off and like just completely separate direction for the off leash um areas. Again, I don't know. the trail network, you know, I don't I'm not sure. So, so basically obviously there's there's no perfect answer, but like if we could have the the trail networks of two and three and the location of four and five, that would um so that's that's sort of where I'm leaning. Then just looking I am like I 100% understand why we're we're talking about completely fencing in these areas but considering if there are places where um you know where soft fencing and the topography is where it's not required and I agree with that. I think I think pause people are looking for contiguous areas and this doesn't accomplish that. But it also, you know, when you're looking at the map and you're looking at the wetlands and we're saying, you know, they're they're off limits, then um there's not really, you know, they've been sort of uh not having to follow those those rules. Um, and I would say also in terms of fencing, there's sort of like a middle ground that that actually my husband would, you know, he's been walking the park with me with with the groups and where you have a post with like eyebolts that you can just connect wires to. Pig, huh? Pigtail. So it you just don't it's less permanent and you can sort of configure it how you need to depending on you know traffic patterns or whatever. It might it it it sort of delineates space and you wouldn't even necessarily have to have the wire, but it it might be, you know, I don't know if it'd be more or less uh expensive, but um it's an alternative where you don't need the hogwire all the way through. So, so I'm thinking that there might be ways where you're just indicating the space without actually a fence everywhere. But I I I agree with you. I think the soft fence like, you know, I I'm not a stickler for hard fence everywhere. I know that is not how all of my uh colleagues feel. You know, I um I got my shoes muddy today um at Purgatory Park and walked it and and I would say to my fellow council members that if you have not walked the park, walk the park. Um you can't make a good decision in my view after today. And and I've walked the park. I've walked the park previously, but today was very instructive um for me. And um I walked away thinking that you know I thought I thought you know the softberry idea is a nice idea but it's not going to work. I have a different opinion now. Um I I think I think that there are a lot of places where soft barriers could work very well with no fencing. However, that is based upon walking in the park in June. Um, you know, there are places I walked where the the reed grass is probably um chest high today and if I go there in August, it'll be over my head. Um, if I go there in um in uh May, it'll be ankle high. Um, and and that's relevant because when you're using soft barriers and you've got a dog that stands uh two and a half feet high, you know, this I mean, no sight lines means no interaction with dogs. If they can't see another dog, they're probably not going to chase after another dog. Um and but but again seasonally the circumstances you get in these in these casual non-main trails really changes seasonally. Now the usage of the park really changes seasonally too. So I mean the things that we've asked you all to do we've given you an impossible task. Yeah. I mean, you know, I mean, it is an impossible task. And so, thank you for thank you for being good sports because it is it is an impossible task, but but I really I really urge my if you haven't been there, go there. Ideally, go there. Even though Heather Holm tells me, well, this isn't an yes or no or two sides. This is two sides. I mean, there are two different perspectives on how the park should be and whether she likes it or not. That's that's the reality. There are two sides to two two opposing views and you know we have to find a compromise um to recognize that both perspectives have validity and we have to do it in a way that that makes sense and I realized after um and I you know it's not like I've never this is the first time I've been purgatory park I've been to Purgatory Park you know as a customer I've been there walking with f I've been there walking with um with the um pause people I mean But but you when you really start thinking about what we've asked staff to do and then you walk through that park, you realize, holy cow, this is this is a this is a challenging set of circumstances. But if we can get if we can get these groups to compromise, I think we can end up in a reasonable place. and and and so, you know, I just urge everyone to walk through it so that you can be knowledgeable and that we can together make a decision that um isn't designed to keep everybody happy, but is designed to be fair and reasonable to the different perspectives that are represented among our constituents. I think, you know, bushwhacking a little bit is is also really important. Yeah. Um Yeah. Don't wear your new shoes because you've got I mean, today It rained. Yeah, it didn't rain while I was there. I brought my umbrella to make sure it wouldn't rain. But but I mean I had muddy shoes. I I I was going to wear the clothes I had on. I went home and changed, you know. I mean, I got pretty muddy, but it was so valuable. It was so instructive. And I think most of us have done it if Yeah. I think I've walked there. We've all seen. Yeah. I was going to say um I have walked the park several times. Um this of course this is my wart and so I have barked this park so many times. Y you know so just in case you don't think I have no but I I would encourage you to do it with each group though because they have they have very distinctive perspectives on it and that was what was so instructive. I mean, I could walk through that park a hundred times. Yep. By myself and never go to some of the places I went to today. Y because I I got a different perspective of the park. And I think that's really important because I think there are ways to minimize conflicts and and meet the needs of both of these groups. And what was so interesting is walking with the pause group, there was this there were a few people that didn't want to remove the buckthornne because of the sighteline issue and it's understory and I said it is understory. It's invasive understory. We need to get rid of it so that we can have the natural ephemeral understory and you know just the natural understory. So um you know there there there's education, there's exchange of information. it it's very important to go um and see what's there and also sort of understand all of the challenges just how thick the buckthornne is just how steep the topography just how um just how some of the unintended consequences of the good work that is happening like removing the buckthornne has caused people to then create new um uh bootleg trails that are causing erosion because they go straight up the hill, straight down the hill. They're not engineered trails. So, um you know, but that sort of points out like where maybe we could have better signage and what the signage might need to be. I mean, that is also instructive. So, there's a lot you can learn from uh walking around, I think. And really walking around in different kinds of weather actually is really important because then you have the experience that some of the people that are unhappy about some of their interactions. I mean my first visit a a very giant, very friendly, very fuzzy, very muddy dog just covered me in mud. So, you know, not scary at all, but very messy. Yeah, I was going to say that I still think that I mean just from what you just explained, I still think it's a lot of fencing. Um and I know you said there's problems with um possibly, you know, getting the fences over in area two and three. Um especially over closer to the side where the barn, not the barn, but the um well closer to the side of the barn going down that hill. I know it's pretty steep over there in that area. I did um when I walked over there with Heather, I did look in that space and I was thinking that myself like I don't know how folks are supposed to have a loop um trail when the hill is kind of steep in that area. So, I did think about that at the time, but um I don't know. Just it does seems like a lot of fencing still. me. Um, I was scheduled to go for a walk on Saturday, but with everything that happened, I counseledled um cuz that person who called me was like, they they was not aware what had happened. And so I said, "Look, I can't today, but my plans is to go walking again." And um might even ride my bike because that's a lot of walking with my knee being bad. So, I don't know if I'm going to be doing all of that. Yeah. Yeah. So I I guess um I've walked with both groups and by myself several times and so I want to assure people that this is an informed perspective cuz I I I hear I mean we're I I'm concerned that we're talking theoretically continue to be talking theoretically and I think we need to somehow move it to the next point of you know what can we implement and what you know how do we feel and what kind of barriers are we going to use and seeing this I mean to follow up on what Kimberly said I mean visually it looks like it's you know two and three and some some iteration of that or one four and five and some iteration of that and I I want you know everybody that I walked with the dog people that I walked with were very good dog owners and when they crossed the trail, they leash their dog. So, you can walk a long way. I mean, I don't think you need to get your three miles in walking, never leashing your dog. So, I'm less concerned about having it be contiguous in the sense of it's all open and you never have to kind of restructure how you're walking. Um, so I agree with that. So, I'm less worried about that. I think there are places where particularly when we look on the north sides and the south sides where there isn't a lot of interaction with anything where we could probably have um less of a a structured barrier. Um I think people I think you know area five I even said rhetorically to um the I'll call them the you know the naturalists that wouldn't you want what if we said no dogs in this area and then the the world is your oyster like nobody has an imagination for that area and I think that's a lost opportunity but people just like what they like and they don't want to envision something different. Kind of ask the dog people that as well, like, don't you want to create what you want here? Here's an blank slate. Nobody wants that. So, I don't know that we're ever going to get anybody to buy into area five, but um I guess area five again. I guess my inclination, I mean, all five areas seem like too much to manage, too much to try to develop. Um, I think the dog people that I talked to would be more happy with two and three and I could live with that with the right setup. That's my like boots on the ground kind of what is it going to take to get this done perspective. Um, so the only thing I'll say to that is that yes, the the dog owners that I walked with were very good dog owners and leased their dogs every time they crossed a a maintained trail of all the dog owners do that, right? And that and and they I mean they didn't come out and say that like you're going to have a lot of non-compliance, but they pretty much said you're gonna have a lot of non-compliance. But if you have to go from gate to gate, you still think people will just Yeah. Yeah. Some And I I mean, in all honesty, I think that's going to happen no matter what. Well, yeah. I mean, it's going to be a big change no matter what. So, there's going to be a certain subset at least that is going to just say, "No, I'm going to continue to use the park the way I've always used the park." Um, the hope is that there will be enough clear signage and education and all those things that it will be obvious if someone is is off leash in an area where they shouldn't be. Um, what's a park in Eden Prairie? That's what like 18 acres or something. Um um the person I talked to said, you know, um I went there to check it out because it's all it's all all it's all on leash except it's not and and well only I mean 20% of the dogs were leashed in that all on leash park. Mhm. And you know, and that's the classic thing from the reality that we have to confront is we can have great ordinances, but if people think they're a bad idea, they're going to do it their own way. And the likelihood of our way of the likelihood of enforcing um uh to solve the problem is through enforcement. We're smoking stuff that used to be illegal. Um because it's you you're not going to enforce your way to a solution on this. You're simply not going to enforce it. You have to live with reality and to have re and reality is you have to have ordinances that people and and rules that people think make sense. Otherwise, they're going to ignore them. That's just reality. I mean, go to some unleash parks um you know, in our community and find out how many people have um are are abiding by the rules and you're going to find it's it's a minority and that's the reality. So, you know, let's make sure that we're solving problems with solutions that work. Yeah. Sorry, other people have m spoken multiple times. So, I think those of us who go ahead um Yeah. I mean, I'll just work backwards maybe. You know, a lot of people didn't like smoking bans in indoor places or outdoor places at first, too. And so, you know, sometimes things take a while to change culture. So, just because something isn't popular doesn't mean that we shouldn't have an ordinance um to enforce it. In my We have an ordinance. So, I was I'm not I was not arguing against We have a new ordinance. We have a new ordinance. Um so, you know, I have a different perspective on that. Um, you know, I think it could work in terms of, you know, two and and three or the upper ones and we could maybe combine some of them so that they're um are, you know, less multiple areas of fencing. You know, having them combined could work. I actually don't really care about having fencing along uh Excelsier Boulevard. If people are under have their dogs under control, they should be able to have them under voice command and that's on them. Um, so when I hear and saw the research that came from some of the groups that said, you know, this is bad for dogs if we have all fenced areas and my heart and because, you know, then it breeds aggression or it can lead to aggression. And my questions are first of all, if your dog's under voice command, then it shouldn't be an issue. And so what they're worried about is people who don't have their dogs under control bringing them into fenced off leash dog parks. My concern is having people who don't have their dogs under control being in unfeded off leash pro dog parks because my higher priority is public safety of our people, not other dogs. And we saw what happened to a 21-month-old several weeks ago, about a month ago now, and that was on a main trail. That was, you know, dogs don't read signs. They're not going to necessarily, you know, look at we and we have negligent dog owners. And we were lucky this time that um the dog owner was able to be found after a half hour. um what if it hadn't that child would have had to undergo rabies shots which are painful and difficult and you know we got lucky that time. So I just would ask and I understand you know the arguments on both sides. I have walked purgatory in all sorts of weather all seasons, multiple times, and I understand that. But at the end of the day, we are, you know, public safety is job one. And are we willing to sign off on something? Personally, I'm having a lot of trouble signing off on something that isn't fully fenced. No other city, no other regional park even is not fully fenced, fully enclosed. Not one, not one in the whole metro area. We saw in that study that 60% of the visitors to Purgatory right now are coming from outside of Minnotonka. And I mean I don't think it takes a genius to figure out that one of the reasons the big reasons is because of this off leash dog park which is known. I mean the the dog that bit that child was from Brooklyn Center or Brooklyn Park, one of the two. We have people coming from all over the metro area just to this park. So, I mean, personally, I'm having a hard time seeing where I mean, I'm not saying that I wouldn't be open to persuasion or going out and look and seeing how could these natural barriers in all seasons deter badly behave off leash dogs from going and attacking a person and going off into other areas. But I would really have a hard time morally supporting something that wasn't fully um fenced, you know, because then if something does happen and a child or somebody else is mauled or worse, that's on me. I've made that v vote and I've made that possible. That was my decision. Nobody else's, not staff's, not no re any recommendation. That's my vote that has led to that. And that's what we're looking at because it's not a question of if, it's a question of when in my opinion. So, you know, I I understand, you know, the the concerns and the desires, but for me, I have to put um people before animals. And in terms of even economics, you know, otherwise, we're paying and for maintaining a regional park and we're not getting any revenue stream from it either. That's another thing. If we fence, then we can do what so many other cities do and have, you know, entrance fees and at least have a way to um uh generate revenue, a revenue stream for it. So, that's, you know, kind of where I'm I'm very empathetic. I have a dog. I love dogs. I understand why people want their dogs to be able to run, but for me, it's either fencing or having a, you know, also another thing very worth looking at that I brought up is having a dedicated single-use dog part. I just have a really hard time seeing how to support um a non-fenced off leash dog park in a multi-user community park. All of the other off leash dog parks in the area are singleuse parks. And I would, you know, hope that if if we want to do that and provide that for our residents, then then let's look at you know kind of looking at that sort of situation. That would be, you know, safety. That would give the, you know, large off leash dog areas and, you know, it would also make sure that, you know, our residents are are safe. And then we could also look at, you know, creating a special destination where we do have, you know, revenue generating um opportunities there. So, I second that first if we're going to put up that much fencing. I kind of do second that fee for them dogs. I do. Okay. Py. And I I mean I'm just wondering why because I agree with Paula. I'm terrified of dogs and I'll go with Poser Parks. I'm going to go with she's because I'm not because I I I I am even whatever. But is there a way to connect the the north upper and lower? No. Those three areas up there, the north east and the northwest. Is it one, four, and five? two three are down there at the bottom. Yeah. And then agree and I agree with Paula that the Excelsier Boulevard that part doesn't have to be fenced so that we can so we don't have to have fencing you know enclosed one enclosed two enclosed three and I was wondering too is there a way that because the two and three there's that can't be the only loop trail that's possible in this park. It can't be the only um the when the paws are saying we want we want to be able to walk three or four miles or three or four acres like there has to be another three or four miles. Well, okay. Yeah. Could it be an out and back or I mean I'm just saying if that's the only that's the only area that that can be that that can happen. So they shared a proposal which is No, I saw that proposal. Okay. Yeah. So, you know, like the areas they're talking about. Yeah. And I And I know, but I'm But I'm just saying that there that can't be the only No, I just know like I haven't I haven't walked like area 4 as much, but I I I think it's maybe not as I ideal as far as like a loop trail system. Like there's obviously there's trails through there, but as far as being able to go the four or five miles I'm not sure and maybe somebody else could tell me, but um so and obviously area five is just we don't know. I guess it could be anything. Um yeah. Well, and you know, yeah. Also, it feels like it's like it's got to be four miles, you know what I mean? Like is there is there any way to any leeway around there? I think compromis Yeah. I mean, it's what they want and I understand why. And so, the whole idea is what's possible. I mean, I nobody's going to get everything they want. No. So, I feel like we're a little entrenched ourselves and people keep kind of reverting back to the positions that at least that I've heard over the course of this conversation amongst the council. And so I I mean I hate to I am trained and certified as a mediator through the state of the Minnesota Supreme Court, but I don't think it's working. Um, but you know, I I think we talk a lot about compromise, myself included, and we've got to start maybe as a council, if we want to get this done, we have to start looking internally to where we might have opportunities to compromise because, you know, most of us I I'm pretty open to a number of ideas. Um, but I don't think area f four and five is gonna get four votes alone, right? I don't think that's going to work. I don't think 50 acres in the park is going to get four votes. So, where can we get between that those two positions? cuz they seem to be to me the the ends of each of the spectrum. Um I you know I I don't think any of us wants to come back and continue to do this or put Matt through trying to generate some magic proposal. Can we give some guidance tonight that we could all live with? So the the realization that I had after my experience today was I came into this thinking that this is an acres issue and I really realized after my experience today it's really a traffic issue. It's really about avoiding interactions that we don't want to exist. So, I was counting acres and saying, "Okay, how can we get to the acres?" I felt that was the solution. I'll say it now. I was wrong. I think it's a traffic management issue. It's an issue of, you know what, we've got intersections and we need roundabouts. I mean, that's kind of the way it is. Let's look at it differently. And you know, I'm sitting here looking at this and say, okay, as based on my experience, say, okay, well, let's, you know, one of the problems with areas two and three is that they're a long ways away from the parking lot. And one of the unintended consequences that came up was that if we said it was areas two and three, one of the questions I have for staff is, is there a way to enlarge areas two and three a little bit? Could we could we kind of make areas two and three, you know, below the whole trail there? But then the one issue They pointed out to me and I agree with them. You do that and you're going to have the people on Sidola Road pretty cranked up because it, you know, I mean, think about when you go to Williston. You go in there to work out, right? And you drive in and people are parked with their blinker on trying to get the parking spot closest to the door because they don't want to get any exercise in the parking lot. They only want to get exercise on the machines. I mean, it's so irrational, but human beings are so irrational. So, they want to go get exercise with their dogs, but they want to park right next to where they're going. I mean, you know, we can't we can't fix some of these problems. But I think taking a step back and saying, you know what, we don't have an acres issue. So, I'm wrong. I, you know, I I push that. I apologize. We have a traffic issue. And if we can avoid traffic interactions, we can come up with solutions that are going to probably work for both groups, even though we're not supposed to say there's two groups. Well, there's two groups in this. Yeah. Well, so can we like going back to I think what Rebecca said, can we make a decision between area two and three and possibly one, four, and five or like to like just start talking about where we're talking about? Yeah, I agree. I have a question. Go ahead, Mike. It was 910. Yeah, we meant we intended this to be kind of a quick check in. Yeah, as the conversations, you know, you're having is the same that you've had already. It's healthy. But so I think to Rebecca's point, I would say I think staff, you know, hoping to get a little direction tonight on this is where this is where we're at because based on the The last direction you gave Sam to look at 25 and 45 acres. I think what Matt has pointed out to you is that to get to 45 acres is tough. And I think I know Brad you said that it's maybe not the problem with the name to get to 45 acres is hard. The maximum that I think staff is saying is that just given all the topography and challenges is more like 33, right? And so I think what we really would be helpful is okay is it really looking hard at 33 and if so let's those areas sorry reference I didn't like having the marina can can let's let's listen to let's listen to Mike get one sorry about that um so just just to back up just a second so I think again the direction for staff was to look at 25 and 45 acres and so what staff has is showing you is that it's going to be hard to get to 45 just given the topography as we do deeper in the topography that's really difficult and the other wetlands and preserving the high quality areas. So the maximum really is at 30 kind of 33 and then to really look at 25 acres I think again I think we were looking for some feedback on if it's 25 acres maybe more concise of if it's 25 acres is it areas two and three you combine areas two and three it's about 18 acres not quite to 25 but it gets you kind of close I've heard a couple council members say maybe looking at areas two and three maybe there's a way to combine that maybe there's a way to look at areas two and three if they combine that that's 18. Is that is that a place that there's some interest in? Yes or no? And if not, then maybe what does that look like? Um I think also to the mayor's comment, we can also look at if it's not acreage, then we'd have to talk. Well, I don't know what that looks like. That's we'll have to have Matt kind of I don't know what that kind of looks like. Maybe this will start there. Is are we still on track with kind of looking at 18 maybe 18 acres if you look at areas two and three and maybe 33? you just kind of start is there maybe start with that. Yeah, I I think that I think that's a good thought. I would I would I would also ask I don't know if it's feasible to perhaps expand areas two and three somewhat because I think there's Yeah, I I think there's some opportunity there. I I mean to me as we look at what we're trying to do um and trying to provide some contiguousness and so forth, areas two and three are more amendable to that. There are other unintended consequences admittedly, but there is not going to be a perfect solution. I don't know. I actually we're kind of we were kind of talking about the two and three situation and obviously if access is an issue then um in the perpetatory park master plan there was an idea for creating a parking more parking um you know kind of off of stigil like in but I would say in the park not and and we've talked about this um too is is that way that would mitigate some of that you know issue that uh Kimberly was talking about about, you know, people not complying if they had to park in the main parking lot and go all the way. So, I think that could be, you know, a compromised situation. Ching. I mean, that's going to cost more money, but if we expand that those areas, then we can put parking there, too. Well, potentially. I mean, I, you know, I don't know. I'm just asking questions. But a parking lot versus the fences, you know, Yeah. Yeah. That's true. And then again, then you have opportunities for revenue possibly. um you know because it is more isolated. Well, so can we like I mean if we're leaning towards two and three combined possibly enlarge it have staff continue looking at that and they could include options of parking and what that would cost and some expansion. Yeah. Yeah, the the one other question that came up and I don't have a solution for it is is there um you know I mean obviously we've got the main trails, you know, somebody can show up in the park in the main parking lot and and they can they can walk the trails and then have that area. Yeah. I mean, you could get your three miles on by walking your dog a mile on a leash and then two miles off a leash. It's a hybrid approach which I think is pretty cool. Well, it's not unreasonable. Does that help? Are we help are we providing any anything that's you know and I I I literally have no dog in this particular fight, so to speak. I know that there was some thought about, you know, the the sort of natural peeling off to the north um from the main parking lot, but I was I It's I feel like areas two and three are actually more sort of the area that that the dog walkers prefer and so they're actually more likely to use it use it and use it the way it's intended. Um yeah, and you know, it sounds like that's a consensus right now, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if we if we could get to 20 acres in that general area, I think that's pretty good. You know, plus or minus. We're not we're not it's really but I mean, I think from a size perspective, that's a reasonable compromise. But then but I do think there is this traffic management, you know, avoid the avoid the interactions. I mean, it's this is like highway 7 101, you know, you avoid the interactions and um and you have fewer problems. He's nodding his head. you go. Okay. So, we can do a better job of identifying those key areas. That was one thing. Mitigating these areas of tension as in theory, but looking closer where where does that happen and where can signage or bits of fencing, right, mitigate that? Hope that's helpful a little bit. Any any other last comments before we move on? Um yeah, of course. Um just that again I would really ask staff to look carefully and I think ask us as a council to consider carefully if we want to be such an outlier as um in terms of the fencing issue. Um you know for for multiple reasons public you know safety um and and also you know kind of if we want to be a regional part want to become a regional destination for everybody and their brother bringing their office dogs where there's no fencing. Okay. All right. Anything else? No, I think that's helpful. Yeah, very helpful. Thank you. Thank you, council. It's It's even painful getting to helpful, isn't it? As you've heard me say, parking and barking are not always easy. And some points for you. is potentially is there revenue generation? Um we we can explore that a little bit. Uh what that looks like. I could be difficult. I don't know how how much that could generate. How do you issue permits? How do you collect permit fees? How do you enforce that if people don't have the look at that? Well, you know what? I think they're two separate issues. I think the matter is let's let's get a solution that starts to make some sense and then if we need revenue to make to to make it everything it needs to be okay well let's tackle that but I don't think that I don't think we need work on those at the same time is my view one that's one person's opinion doesn't sound like consensus but anyway that's good no I think that's a conversation for later day I agree totally agree with that Yeah, public feedback. It's already zoned out. I'm sorry. Yeah, the revenue thing's separate. If we need it, we'll we'll find we'll find a path. Well, you're ahead of the game because we have 30 minutes of free time. Okay. Yeah, that's right. Oh, yeah. We have 30 minutes of free time. Does anybody want to talk about anything? Take one. Pass it down. Sorry. A couple items pop up. Um, I don't have anything, just so you know. I don't either. Oh, I don't want to. where we was taking this. Okay, I'll just turn over to you for turn over to Brad for So, we've got two things here. And so, first of all, I'm just going to turn to the the council members who raise these issues and say, you know, what would you do you want to talk about this? And if you do, what what are you interested in getting a perspective on? You know, I at this point I just wanted to bring it up and maybe talk about it, you know, for a future um study session, but I don't want to go over it tonight to be honest. Okay, I'm done. All right, we'll move on. So, Kizzy, you you know, and we've heard this issue before, too, so let's be quick on land trust uh housing. Well, we haven't heard all the issues. We heard some of the issues. Okay. Are we going to hear them tonight? It's late, but I would like to discuss it, okay, in the future. I mean, it is late, but I do want to talk about this. And I know Rebecca did bring it up, too, about the land um 99 year lease. Well, I don't think you bring it up here, but I I I do want to discuss it um and talk about it. Okay. And and we we don't know the history of land trust. And so there's questions that I did ask that I would like to know whether it's tonight or at a different study session. I'm fine with it, but I would like to know. So, and the questions are it's right there on the paper. Okay. It's clear and concern. So, who, what, where, when, and why? I don't I'm not What are you asking for there? Who where did this land come from? Why did it happen this way? uh where the 99-year lease um uh who makes the decision if if I was told before if we're investing money in any project then we have decisions to change it or do something different and so since we have influence over as a council and we're steady investing in land trust then I think we should have some influence so that is what I'm speaking of. Okay. I I I would be happy to have a history of it. I don't know if I need it to to Well, we don't have Julie here. So, Julie knows the history. She would be there. I'd love to. She is here. She's just our housing people are gone. So, we're not Julie is here. You are. Oh, you are there. You are. You were behind Matt. Okay. Julie see me back here. I apologize. That's all right, Kissy. We did a historical kind of look back a while back but we can reengate that for the group and bring that back as an attachment in our next packet but that has been done in the past but all of the questions has not been answered around the 99 year lease land lease and then also um if the question at hand too if we're steady investing money into this program. Are we able to influence how this program is being done? And and we also talked about that it it operates as a separate nonprofit agency. The board can change the way they operate. Um but there are some laws that pertain to land trust. So um but we have no say in a nonprofit um how they do business. You can decide whether or not to fund them or not, but you don't get to tell them how to run their operation. Well, so we had that conversation last time, but I'm happy to provide it. Yes, I do remember we did have that conversation, but here's here's another question then. Who do we talk to on the state level to address some of this? like I would like to know who is over this committee that deals with land trust because I would like to talk to that committee and start bringing this up at the state level. So I I want to know this information. I think it's very important to address whether this council address it or not. I'm I feel like it needs to be discussed. I can certainly look that up for you and I can bring it back next month when you have your housing discussion. Okay. or just if it has been brought up, maybe just, you know, send us. Yeah, I'm just going to link what we had before and and you guys can look it over and I'll try to answer your specific question about what committee in the state. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions on that too? No, I think for me, like I mentioned, just the greater policy question for, you know, and I and I'm I'm interested to just hear about how at whether it's a housing meeting or even next year when we contemplate funding again, you know, what what are the what have we seen historically in the like say last 5 years for how many houses have been acquired and then what what do we foresee as opportunities cuz I don't think houses have been acquired in Minnitonka recently. So that's just looking at putting more money into that is what my thoughts are. And and and I'll just add because you know I I'm on a fair number of housing committees um that involve cities and so forth. And you know there's affordable housing and then there's a ownership affordable housing and we do talk some you know about um generational wealth building and everything and the reality of it is ownership now is is is a land trust home as good as a 100% ownership home? No. But often ch often times for the people who are in land trust homes the the choice is not between regular ownership and land trust ownership. It's between land trust ownership and being a renter and and in all of the groups that I'm part of the on the hierarchy of what is better for um the person who is going to live in the home. The better solution is to to be in an ownership position. um ownership affordable housing is superior um you know nine times out of ten to rental ownership housing because you're for a variety of reasons and we don't have to we don't have to go there too deeply but but I mean you know the homes within reach was started in Minnetonka but it's expanded to the to west henipin county um I agree that we're not doing as much housing in Minnetonka but but there's far more there's I think there's 250 to 300 00 homes in West Henipin County where people are owning homes that they would not w otherwise own. We'd have more renters if we didn't have the West Henipin Affordable Housing Land Trust. So, you know, is it a perfect program? No, there are no perfect programs, but but I do think it helps people own homes and I think that is consistent with our values. Yeah, it just seems to me it's one more um arrow in the quiver. Yeah, it's a different kind of arrow than say pathways. It's just a it's a different tool. It you arrive at a different end, but it's not it's not a bad end. It's it's different. You get it. But that doesn't mean we don't look at it. So anyway, but but Tizzy had the questions and I think that's good and and Julie will get the questions. So we're going to go look at our next meeting now or our um anything else on these two issues? I I don't think so, Mayor and Council. already addressed, but I would just add that questions on her. As you know, have lots of lists and so we'll add this to the the list of potential upcoming topics. I think Julie mentioned we can get kind of dust off that previous correspondents on the land trust. We'll get that out to the council. We'll put in the packet and we have space at another meeting to go in more in depth. Well, we're talking about housing, right? Next. Yeah, absolutely. Next, I'll transition into for the next quarter. July 21st is our next study session is housing um housing and youth opportunities and programming. So, we have two topics. Next meeting. So, whatever we can cover as much on housing and those two topics will I know our goal is always to keep our city sessions at a good manageable level. August 18th one agenda item which is the 2026 general budget discussion. So it's kind of really all things budget then in August. So, a lot of things we need to talk about tonight also come back a little bit and then September the zoning rewrite update and move back to 30. You know, if I could throw out one one question I've got regarding the herk as if we're going to go back to that the challenge I I look at that issue like the Henipin County boy school was looked at. we we stopped doing something what's going to replace it and I think that is the fundamental question that needs to be answered because stop doing the herk is easy to dislike but trash is not is really hard to like too and if you say okay well we're going to stop a way we're going to stop a bad way of getting rid of something without replacing it with an alternative we create we create a lot of unintended consequences I will say like several of us have been in different groups with discuss discussing the herks and discussing alternatives and like I think that's something we can go into more depth. That sounds good. All right, everyone ready to go home? All right, thanks everybody.