[Music] around November 4th 2024 the day before election day um this is a um meeting of the minaka city council a study session I will call this meeting to order and um let's go around the room and do um introductions and we'll start with Miranda Mira assistant city manager City attorney Darren Nelson Finance director Mike bu city manager paty Foster Bolton Ward One Rebecca sha W two Brad woron mayor Deb Calbert at large seat a Kimberly Wilburn at large B Sissa fol senior management coordinator Julie wish community development director will Manchester Public Works director Kelly OD Recreation director Scott bam police chief Phil olon city engineer Jason Tate deputy chief police Joel Mary assistant Finance director Zack hexel senior accountant Mike huno Deputy Public Works director Kendall Larson housing coordinator Sarah Westy assistant Recreation director Melanie putz City Assessor Tom Stocker resident 5524 Dominic and Kevin ringhofer met resident 2200 Indian Road West all right thank you I think we gotten everyone um so we've got a handful of business items uh we've got a big one with um item 3A but um first I will turn it over to Mike and see if you have anything that you want to add prior to uh jumping into the agenda yeah thank you mayor good evening Council and staff uh for your information there isn't agenda uh for tonight's packet we did have additional P public comments received after the publication of the packet that went out to you last Thursday so those are attached uh in your agenda otherwise no other action we don't take action on those on a study session so that's again for your information you'll see those public comments and then before we jump into the budget uh mayor and councel just want to give out another shout out I've been saying this a lot lately to our election staff um and to all of our staff have been helpful it's been a very busy last week I think I reported uh last Monday at the council meeting just the level of activity this last week has been very much the same uh generally between a thousand and 1100 people a day have been coming to City Hall as of last week we're open over the weekend with extended hours those Saturday the Saturday and Sunday was also very busy and then today was probably our busiest day we had around a lot 1300 uh come through City Hall and so again really appreciate our election staff working really hard on customer service making sure we're attentive to those that are standing in line because it for those that do come you can stand in line for quite some time um we and our staff is out there and I've heard a number of anecdotal positive comments just from residents that have gone through uh our line and had a chance to interact with our election staff and of course our election judges we can't give them enough thanks as well for their part in uh these busy days and and working really collaboratively and being kind and nice to to those that are uh in line so just and just a big thank you to all of our election staff and our election judges so that may I just turn it back over to you all right well uh thank you and U without repeating it I just want to I've seen the long lines at City Hall and you know for midday today I think the wait was 45 minutes to 40 to 45 to 50 minutes so uh but people are people are hanging out so I mean I saw one lady holding a baby and and patiently waiting and I give people credit for showing up at voting so uh but thanks to all the staff who makes it happen because I know how hard our team is working so thanks very much so as far as business items go um this is our U 2025 budget and related items um you know the council and we're going to review the Council salaries review the 2025 utility rates um the cellular antenna lease schedule and um the grant applications update but you know we've all seen the budget um uh previously and um so I think are you gonna are you going to Tee It Off um Mr Nelson Mr P's gonna te it off here yeah so thank you Darren mayor and Council as you just mentioned mayor uh number of items under item a that we'll walk through tonight um I'll kick things off with the general fund budget um and before I get into the timeline I'll really probably condense my comments tonight because my comments are mainly geared towards the conversation with Council and staff uh coming up as as the timeline indicates on uh this upcoming council meeting excuse me December December 2nd so we're gearing up for December 2nd and short of reviewing the entire timeline year to date as you know we we often refer to it as our budget season which does start back in March so we spent a good six to seven months already with our budget starting with director presentations we had then a kickoff session back in may we also in May study session had the community survey because that information is important as we start framing up our Capital Improvement and operational budgets we also then start our CIP in June bring back in August our operations again uh September again we had a presentation for at the public meeting on the 23rd and all of that culminates very quickly it seems like it goes very fast culminates uh here this evening no information has changed regarding the general fund since we last talked about it that's why again tonight I'll make more of my staff's comment my comments and I think Daren will be brief as well uh regarding the general fund and then we'll certainly want to spend a few more minutes on the utility rates uh we'll give you an update as the mayor mentioned again on the C annual cellular attenna lease and the grant applications and our Grant status uh information as well so with that we'll just roll into the next slide um and that is and again I I know you've seen this before again very kind of quickly for your benefit what we've been discussing uh saf with you as a council is projected property tax levy next year of 7.23% we have broken that down really into two main categories one is more general fund operations just shy of 5% or more specifically 4.98% that again is more infl inflation uh influence so really looking at staff compensation because when you look at the general fund budget uh roughly 70 over 70% of our budget is related to personnel and so with that general fund operation of 4.98% that does largely reflect staff adjustments in terms of compensation and then uh other benefits that are related to Personnel uh we also then are into the second year of our Public Safety master plan and that implementation schedule that is that 2.23 excuse me 2.25% so adding that 4.98 and the 2.25 is at 7.23% again I don't need to say it to you but I do know we have a couple guests here this evening but I also just want to reiterate that when we think of property taxes they fund three major areas and those are Capital Improvements operations and then our debt service that's further illustrated by the P graph on the left hand side of that slide and so with property taxes 78% of it or that biggest piece of the pie which is that blue shaded area is operations the red area is 18% which is our cap Improvement plan plan and then Debt Service is 4% so again a major piece of our our property taxes do go towards operations next slide do I have to for get that um this slide illustrates um projections and so it's what we do as a staff and really this is instrumental on Mr Nelson's part as not only do we take a look at 2025 but we look beyond that and that is prudent financial planning is that what we want to do as a staff has present to you with forecasting as what we see as potential Levy increases for the next few years that's what's Illustrated on this graph uh you've seen uh the detail behind that in previous presentations we call it our financial management plan or FMP for short where there's a lot of detail and assumptions that go into forecasting out the city's projected revenues and expenditures through 2029 and when we do that you do see that in 2026 and 2027 still potential bigger Levy increases those again are largely related to the implementation of the public safety master plan we do start to see in 2029 that starting to tailor back off and when you look at 20 really kind of that 2024 through 2028 that's that five years of the public safety master plan and how that's uh shaped the levy uh during those five years good next slide yep next slide so at this point I'm just going to turn over to Darren um I'll have a couple other comments along the way uh Darren will again kind of highlight the the general fund here in the next few slides and then we'll go into utilities after that so good evening um thank you uh and I'm not going to these slides you've all seen these before so I'll go them pretty briefly but just want to kind of reiterate on a few things on that end of it and obviously with the second year of the public safety master plan we are um looking to to add some additional Personnel we're looking to hire hire nine additional firefighters and then we have one in uh the police Department as well too that we were looking to to hire and so we have 10 new public safety personnel that really relates to that 2.25% additional piece of of the L increase there then we do have a couple other positions as well too so we have one Dei specialist um that would be funded through the general fund and then we have three um non- general fund Personnel requests that are within um Wiston Public Works and the and the March that are funded through those Enterprise um and special Revenue type of of funds on that end of it and are not tax levy dollar reled um we also have the second year of our non-union class compensation study plan so that impacts our Market adjustments for non-union Personnel on that end of it and then workers compensation um this numbers fluctuate a little bit throughout the out the summer on that end of it it initially started out at a much higher number which is still very high but um as you may recall at the council meeting last week or the week before your last council meeting um there was an approval of approving the league of Minnesota City's Insurance trust workers comp renewal for next year and there was actually a decrease in the premium that we had um initially brought forward on that inent so there was a savings of about $90,000 projected last at that council meeting um it's still increasing we're still increasing the workers conf this for this next year over 20% which is about $200,000 um but that 90 about $90,000 decrease that was noted uh last week um we are not reducing the levy the tax for that uh those tax those dollars related to the workers comp um premium Our Workers are insurance is run through a self-insurance fund and so every employee is charged a rate according to their classification and their hourly rate and so that insurance charge or that internal service charge then is then moved over to an internal service fund that pays our premiums pays our deductibles pays any settlement cost that we have on that end of it and such and so $889,000 is going towards that fund balance to kind of keep those rates a little bit higher to help cover U the cost of both the deductibles and for those um and any settlements that are incurred in that fund so that fund has about $3 million in it that covers our workers comp and our self Insurance renewal so it's not just workers comp in that fund um and so we need to have those reserves on hand in case there were to have any large settlements come out or if we have um increase in premiums and things like that on that end of it so I know we saw those savings at at the last council meeting but we are not um looking to impact the levy with those those savings at that point in time so we'll obviously keep an eye on the Self Insurance Fund and make sure it's at appropriate level dollar amount levels um but we kind of do that over the long term as well too so just kind of want to address that point on on the workers C piece of that and then there's some non-personnel budget adjustments as well too we've talked about these before as well um we have some increase in subscription Li software subscription licensing we're seeing everything that moving towards the cloud and they really got us over a barrel on that is that the uh the prices on that are increasing um pretty substantially across the board across everybody's applications on every Department's applications on that end of it uh we've talked about the Excel Energy and the change with the Pu on the on the solar garden rebates and so we've added $100,000 there to our electricity cost for next year and then we have a couple projects um that we're working on with the rewriting of the zoning City Zoning code and then um replacement of the permitting software application as well in two um also looking at our Levy we have a new item in our in on the revenue side of things this year and so um the city council on the minetonka Fire Relief Association approved a a c or a state aid sharing agreement this past summer I think we did that in September a September August September time frame on that end of it um we did that at the point where we increased the C IL approved increasing the fire reliefs pension up to the state ma which is 15,000 I think they were at 12,500 um in lie of that approving that increase the Fire Relief has agreed to split their State Fire Aid um with the city for next year for 205 and 26 and so um $260,000 is about 50% of the state aid fire of the State Fire Aid um under State Statute we have to pass 100% of that through unless we have a sharing agreement in place and so uh by doing that the city's able to retain 50% of the State Fire aid for next year and the year after so and that will still put the Fire Relief um in a good financial position as well too they'll still be at their um 100% or more funding level on on that end of it so that's a benefit to us that helps reduce the levy by about a half a percent on on that end of it um we did have initially in our initial plans back in early part of the summer late spring we did have a subsidy plan for the marsh and that was kind of included um as we we had a specific dollar amount when we purchased the marsh we had estimated that we would have $2 million to operate the marsh for a couple years um that couple years would run out next spring and so we estimated that we would need an operating subsidy to get through the remainder of 2025 looking at operations um throughout the summer and um projecting those into next year we're looking that we don't necessarily need that $250,000 that we think that our initial allotment of that uh 2 million that was used to make the purchase and the operations for the first two years will get us through the remainder of of 2025 next year on that end of it as more programming is coming on board we've had increased revenues and and things like that and things are looking good on that end of it um we have halted the Erp um and HCM or the human Capital Management implementation project um that's with with logis and so um that new software came with a EXP Ed Price Tag um but unfortunately that project has hit some snakes and so we're on hold and that project will likely not go forward and so we'll revert back to our current current system and um have some savings there on an annual basis for next couple years anyway then was some fuel saving costs and then some um salt inventory as well too were better manag inventory amounts at year end and not having large fluctuations at the end of the year just due to accounting changes on that end of it so all things that are help reduce the reduce the levy at this point and this is really small so I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on it this is basically a condense this is a condensed table from um from your budget book and I want to get the right page number so this is kind have a modified page number 14 in your budget book and so I just wanted to show this is the general fund revenues and expenditures and really this next chart here is a breakdown of the general fund expenditures by function so you have your Public Safety streets admin development Recreation um parks and environment pieces of that and so all these numbers in here tie back to um the expenditures the total expenditures on on this page here as well so as you can see Public Safety um obviously a biggest part of our general fund that's um mainly people on that end of it our Police Department fire department our biggest kind of departments on that end of it followed by um streets and parks um and and things like that so but I also wanted to show one other highlighted part on that same page so this is an expanded bottom portion so the bottom third of this page is right here and so the one item that I wanted to kind of bring to the council's attention we've talked about this a little bit when we were looking at the CIP and things is the unassigned fund balance this line right here as we go across and so if we look back at 22 23 24 time frame we had 8.5 million $5 million $700,000 for 2025 we're projecting that's going to be about $100,000 and so that's our unassigned fund balance that's kind of that amount above that 40% that we've used in the past to transfer over to our CIP for Capital related one-time purchases on that end of it um back in 22 23 time frame we had lots of arpa dollars car's dollars those types of things um we had a strong building economy as well to build bu improvements were strong on that end of it um and our budget has has changed over the last few years as well to have tighten up our budget quite a bit and reduced um any excess that is in our budget um we're budgeting our expenditures a lot closer to actual um we're actually looking at expenditures you know even in the in the police department for instance we're budgeting we have X number of Patrol officers authorized we're actually reducing the funding for one or one or those officers just so we know that we have a vacancy rate in place and so we've never done that before this is the first year of that um but just kind of wanted to point out that our fund balance is getting to a point where it's it's good it's at 40% that's right where we want it to be but we don't want it to go much we don't want it to go much lower than where it's at on that end of it so we'll be closely monitoring that as as the years go on but know that this directly impacts the CIP for future years as well is that in our CIP we plan out um transfers over the course of five years um in past cips we've done that for the last 10 15 years we've done that every year we've used that excess fund balance and and transferred that out we're not going to be able to do that any longer on that end of it so our CIP is going to have to stand on its own and not rely upon um excess fund balance if it's if things come true to what our budget is if the actual is is relates to what the budget is on that end of it and things can change economy can change we can building permits can come back up um those types of things um but for right now is is kind of where we're sticking at at this point in time so just wanted to draw a little attention to that to that Line Em of of the budget um so looking at quickly at homeowner impacts um as we can see there wasn't a whole lot of change in valuation over the course of this last year we're um single family or single household residential didn't move a whole lot about a percent and a half across the board um the one area that we're really keeping an eye on is the commercial sector uh there are some cities that are starting to get hit by that I know Minneapolis is is taking a little bit bigger ding on on some of their commercial pieces of that and as those values decrease it's going to shift um tax burden to the other sectors and so um our other biggest sector here is single household um residential so those will likely take a hit over the next years as we see as that whole commercial industrial Market um shakes out over the next 1 years and that space hopefully gets re utilized on that end of it and such but we are seeing some decreases um it will be interesting kind of see where the the assessment lands at the end of this year but I know Mel and her staff are working hard on that end of it but um it won't be just this year this will be a multi-year issue that we'll want to keep an eye on as well too so so then if we look at I know I presented kind of what the median value um impact was at our September meeting of our 7.23% Levy increase and that's about $148 for the meean valued home U which is just over $500,000 for this for this year but I also want to kind of show you some of the that 25th percentile and that 75th percentile and what those home values are and what the tax impact to those are as well so you can see there it's $94 for the about a $416,000 valued home and about $200 for a $660,000 value valued home so and here's just the graph that you've seen before as well Tok showing that shift of tax burden across U residential commercial industrial and apartments um obviously we can see apartment is apartment sector is grasping some of that additional tax capacity which is which is good um but that middle sector is the commercial industrial area which is is shrinking and will likely continue to shrink over the next next few years and so the other sectors will have to pick up for that that burden as we move forward um here's just an updated kind of comparable of where we're at um with preliminary levies across our comparable cities this chart has not been updated since um um September I have not heard of a whole lot of changes across this across our comparables I don't think um when I presented this before I don't think we had Woodberry and Brooklyn Park's information in there um we do have that now and if we look at what the mean of that is the average increases the average increase is about 9.17% and then the the mean is is woodb there're at 88.3% so um we are at or slightly below what kind of what that average is or the the mean is with our comparable cities and obviously every city is in unique circumstance I know Apple Valley has um big Park referendums that they're working on big Bond issu and for lots of Park renovation in their area um thinky din's got some of the same things going on as well too so Bloomington I believe has some um fire stations that they're working on so every story is unique but um here's just a snapshot of what where everybody's at for this next year then we also have future projects as well too so we all obviously have the public safety master plan that we're working on but there are other things in the hopper that we're trying to to balance and be aware of and try to figure out when and where and how they're going to fit into um this into the into the operations or our plan um for the next several years as well too so we have obviously we have a staffing um that we have to accommodate for fire stations and things like that so we're looking into that Opus Park which we had submitted State bonding request dollars for a couple years ago will up doing that again this summer um and we did that for the the marsh as well too so we'll end up probably doubling up our submitting those applications again for both those facilities then obviously we have Street utility infrastructure needs as well too there's lots of infrastructure needs that are underground that not a lot of people see but there's lots of costs there that we got to make sure that we're staying on top of on on that end of it so um and here's just a recap of the H Levy not there's no no changes there they're still recommending $300,000 um for our H Levy for next year and um just a note there that our our cap on that there's a a cap related to the market value of the Residential Properties in the city and that's um $2.3 million of what really what our Levy could be on on the H but it's always been right in this $300,000 range on that end of it um so then just a quick comments on on our budget communication and feedback um we've been doing a trying to do a really good job over the last few years of trying to get our budget message out there trying all the different communication methods um we've used minona matters now for the second year and so we're starting to get I think we got a dozen or so comments for the year um we've had 400 and some people engaged or have viewed the the budget project page anyway um so that's that's good information out there um obviously it's in the minona memo we do Citywide emails all those sorts of things to try to get as much feedback as we can um the one thing unique about this year compared to most years on this meeting is that usually this study session is later in November and truth and Taxation statements have usually hit um so they're in people's hands at that point in time so um usually that Spurs phone calls to either assessing office or budget office finance department as well too about um taxes on that end of it so um we do have a number of comments that we received this year but so far but I think we'll get some more once those start to hit the mail as well too which they're expected to be mailed next Tuesday after after the holiday so and then just a reminder um December 4th is our official public meeting for the budget we are required by State Statute to have that public meeting that's been um advertised um both at our September meeting and then it'll be on the truth and Taxation statements as well too stating the date and time of that is um December 4th at 6:30 in in the council chamber so with that I think um and here's just some Avenues where we've showed have had the communication so with that I think we are about done with the budget piece of that so um here are the questions that uh we had proposed and welcome any feedback and I'll turn it back to the mayor great well thank you Darren um Council any any comments or questions you'd like um to raise while we discuss this it's not this is not new news we've seen most of this before but um any any questions or clarifications or or comments anyone wants to make turn I'll speak at once Kimberly I'll just make a a a quick comment and um maybe this will be covered more on our in in our November meeting of um our truth and Taxation meeting um I just again looking at uh some of the comments it's it's clear that um people don't don't necessarily understand the budgeting process which I you know if you're not attending every meeting I can understand why you wouldn't um but like there was uh one resident who was making suggestions about the police and like and their training should be this and and you know this this should happen and the council doesn't decide that that's you know that's the the Council the chief brings forth a budget and it might say you know so we might know that we there we need to hire this number of officers and we need to to purchase certain equipment um but we don't we don't say well you need to do this training and you need that's those that's not decisions that the city council made make it's up to us to approve the budget or not approve the budget and we can ask questions about things in the budget and maybe make s sus about things in the budget but we don't manage we don't manage the department um and so I I you know as much as we can communicate that to Residents so they understand what it is that we're actually doing thank you Rebecca thanks mayor I just you know I have generally we've been talking about this all year and there's no surprises here there's always a few things you know I spent some time with Mike this morning going going over some questions about the details within the budget and I don't I don't know that I need to you know I can maybe send some follow-up emails and make a more efficient use of the time because it was more curiosity than anything but um I I so appreciate this it it provides a lot of context for how we we see the depth of what's going on um I you know the minesaga matters data is really interesting to me because you know a lot of people don't click through to anything other than the front page before they leave their comments which is fine I mean I we do a nice job trying to explain it in a summary but it isn't lost on me that you know there's a lot of criticism without a lot of research about the the detail I think we've got folks that do pay really close attention and that's great and we get good good meaningful feedback from those folks but some of the generalities about you know I I I appreciate Financial prudence and and but some of the comments are just so basic that we should just spend less money without really understanding what we're doing and that's you know a little frustrating because here we have this this very end packet that we're operating from all that said is I still feel comfortable with this budget I am I have heartburn looking at our Todo list and looking at where we see this go in the future but we're focused on the now at least for this moment so um I'll stay tuned for I've just got a couple of questions I'll email them thank you Rebecca other other comments um Deb yeah just really quickly um you know for for the listening public we have been reviewing um the budget for at least six months uh you know it's just part of our study session um meetings and I mean to say I'm comfortable with the 7.23 I think sort of overstating it am am I um do I feel that that is appropriate given um the needs of the city I think I think it does cover the needs of the city I very much appreciate um hearing the comments from Darren about um the uh you know the money that we we are starting to you know just sort of the tightness of the budget and not having any sort of extra to throw towards the CIP and I also it I I actually do think about the um um the the dip in commercial real estate it's something I think we've sort of seen a slow rolling hopefully not a train wreck but you know Slow Rolling significant change over time since Co and I really feel like it's a national league of cities issue I feel like Federal legislators and state legislators are going to have to start helping cities figure out how to Grapple with some of these issues and I think that we as a city are going to have to figure out some messaging around that because it will shift the tax burden and people are really feeling it I mean we're seeing it in this election you know sort of how people feel about inflation their Taxation and and um and and it's very real to people and I really do appreciate the comments that we got from people on fixed incomes because their incomes don't go up necessarily with the rate of inflation by the same token the city experiences inflation just like individuals do and that is part of what we see here so when we think about how much it used to cost to say buy a fire Tru um just you know there are really significant inflationary pressures and um and so I just want to thank staff for digging deep and you know Finding savings where uh even though it seems very high 7.23 is really uh you know just meeting our needs and I I share um some of the trepidation that council member sha mentioned about you know some of the upcoming real uh expense needs but I I am really comfortable um with accepting that 7.23 is what covers our needs for this year and um and also the um edac's Lobby the H thank you other comments anyone want to miss anyone here um I'll make a few comments if no one else is but I want to C anybody um you know a couple of things um the 7.23 is is what we um have talked about for quite some time now I think um delaying the facility improvements was the right thing to do although that's somewhat painful and 7.23 still sounds like a a big number because it is but um I think it also reflects the what this Council has indicated its priorities are we our operations are going up 5% 4.98% and you know that to me that's where the comp comparisons with other cities are are really valuable because um you know we're we're we're right you know we're not not very far north of inflation and a lot of the drivers and our operations incre increases are are uncontrollables I mean they are the real inflation that that cities face um we talked about insurance we talk about you know the cost of new equipment we talk about the cost of materials I mean all these things are real now our residents are affected by all these costs too not just in our city budget but in their in their every lives and and so it's a I I think that there are and I think you know people who are on fixed incomes and you know wonder if you know if there are are other ways um available to the city maybe not certainly not this year but um maybe in future years to provide some maybe some circuit breakers for for senior citizens or some some tax relief because I I think if you're on a fixed income and uh you know you may have a small pension your social security goes up with inflation I think it's going to go up 25% um in the coming year well you know our operational increase is 5% so those people are going to fall behind um based on the um even though they're on a fixed income and they're going to get a raise it's not going to be as big a raise as the increase um the percentage increase in costs so you know just being mindful of of that I still think this bud you know I support this budget um 2.25% for Public Safety is needed um we all supported our Public Safety master plan um we are spreading that out over time because it is a big it is a big increase but I think in this day and age it's truly needed so you know I don't see a lot of um I don't see any fat in this budget and and I'm also appreciative of the comment that Darren made about um um the unassigned um amount of money and how that's dropped down I remember 10 plus years ago um Tony Wagner former council member Tony Wagner um really pushed on this and I was with him on it was that you know every year we underspend our budget by a pretty significant you know amount and say well you know and and you know work in the private sector you you if you don't spend it you lose it and well this is a different ball game than the private sector um and you know we were constantly being reminded well the risk risks of overspending our budget are a lot different than they are in a in a private company and that's that's really true but I think running tight is exactly is the right thing so um I think the policy was put in place largely at the behest of council member Wagner um and people who agreed with him um that we created that policy where okay anything that went over our 40% um um Reserve amount um was going to be applied to the CIP which is really I think a very good policy but it's also like anything you become dependent on it and so you sit there and think well okay we're a little tight here but we know we're going to underspend and we're going to get that money shot at the CIP I think it's much more honest with our taxpayers because what if you take a cynical view you could say well we're really over levying to kind of pad pad the uh the CIP in future years and I'm I'm not comfortable with that I think being as tight as we can reasonably be understanding that there is some risk associated with that but by being tight I think we're we're you know what we're levying what we need for when we need it and I really feel good about that and this budget does that so so I'm supportive I mean there there are probably little tiny details we can we can argue we probably each received emails on a little aspects of the budget but but I think this budget makes sense it reflects our values it's consistent with our strategic plan and I think it's well vetted and I think I think the fact that we're maybe cutting a little closer than we historically have been I think that serves our taxpayers well so I'm I'm I'm supportive of the budget sorry for going on so long anything else well said thank you all right so um you know Mike you've got there's other things in here that you wanted to I think comment on a little at the utility rates and um the sell your antenna stuff and those sorts of things um was there anything you wanted to add or or ready to move on no I think we're ready to move on we'll have you know we'll you'll see another rendition of this or actually the same rendition at that December meeting uh we'll probably as staff go a little deeper into the presentation that evening right just because we it's a for the more I mean this is a public meeting but just we'll have more folks probably in attendance so we we didn't mean to condense it and brush over anything too quickly tonight so if you do have questions or comments that's what we're looking for again you've seen it number of times um but we'll have a probably a length presentation uh at that December meeting doesn't have to be much longer doesn't well and I think we want to spend in we're never mind noted well noted and I do I mean to the one slide that Darren had up there just with those future requests I think you Rec you recognize that and have said it here tonight and I think council member sha has said it and others just with those few those we some potential Big Ticket items coming up um as noted and and just how we fund those will be part of our long-term financial management plan and look at how we're going to fund potential um improvements to again to the fire stations we have facility improvements uh that we've discussed um and the other items noted up there like Opus are all going to be significant items so how we how we manage that fiscally is going to be important and and how we strategize that likely we'll get deeper into that into 2025 as we look at the 20 26 and Beyond so certainly that'll that'll come up uh for conversation and as as also I should have said earlier I want to thank our staff that's here with Darren and I directors and other folks that are um had great influence in in terms of budget and to Kimberly's uh Point earlier council member wilburn's Point earlier it takes all of us to put this budget together um for Darren and I we rely on our directors to really assemble a budget and really behind the scenes that's where they're they're making their Ling efforts made to uh myself and to Darren as we shape this budget and present it to you and and for you it's it's really a big picture look at it because it is it's an intricate budget it's 100 100 million plus budget and a lot of detail that goes into our budget over 40 different accounts and so we appreciate your support and Trust in how we pull this together I can tell you that directors and myself and Mr Nelson we um bring forward to you a budget that we believe is reasonable that meets our strategic plan we we understand the pressures that all of us have in ter in today's Economic Times just with inflation and we are stewards of the taxpayers money and we want to be good stewards of the taxpayers money and I think this budget hopefully reflects that so with that um the next uh item mayor if we can move on is related to then council salary review and turn this over to Miss Dam who pulled together uh research on this if you recall you as a council did adjust Council salaries here recently and then in the ordinance that was approved was to review this on even numbered years so obviously we're 2024 um so we're bringing a research to you per the ordinance that you adopted and reviewing similar like cities and Miss Dam will talk about that and we'll talk at the end what you want to do with that in terms of next steps and the timing of that with that mayor turn death m d Miranda yes thank you may and Council in the packet there is a form about the council salary review so we p together all of the 2024 data the 2025 data was not fully completed so there were some cities completed and there were some cities that were not completed um if the council did want to move forward with adjusting the any of the rates or any of the salaries they would go into effect after the next municipal election so next time it would go into effect would be January of 26 so historically we've had conversations around this time if there's interest on Council we'll bring It Forward around that March March April May time frame and then get it done well in advance for the election and then going to the next year we'd have those new rates so um the mayor and councel you are fairly competitive against a pier cities the these are the same 10 Pier cities we use for our non-union and Union employees across the board um however if there is an interest for change or more conversation we'd be open to hearing that that's all I have all right any any questions Council um you know I'll I'll just add a little more color because we did discuss this you know we did we did take a pretty significant increase um starting in 2024 and and the r there's two things that I want to comment on one was that large increase um reflected the fact that there hadn't been an increase since 2016 so um Council Council and mayor salary stay the same and so what we did in um making the recommendation for a change that we all agreed to was that we looked at the percentage increase that the staff had received over that time on a compound compound basis and we applied that to the salaries that were in place at that time so basically was consistent with what staff had received on a percentage basis then there was conversation because one city I believe Lakeville paid uh council members for each non City meeting that council members attended so if you went to a league of U Minnesota City's meeting or a training or this that or the other thing you got paid a fixed in Lakeville they get paid a fixed amount for each of those and uh one or two of our council members brought that up and thought that that made made good sense and so then um maybe I or some of us suggested well let's just simplify it rather than having to do all that accounting and keeping track and turning requests in let's just say $2,000 a year for meetings and so we we took the lump sum $2,000 added it to the um the you know what the calculation came for you know the um the salary increase and that became our new salary so mayor's at 235 and the and the council's at 18 then we said um let's look at this every two years because we recognize that there has to be there has to be a um an election between the time a an increase is um decided and it's implemented so the people who decide on the um so the voters have a chance to vote the people who vote themselves voting themselves a raise can vote them out of office if we're if we're um um if they don't like what we're doing so the idea was let's look at this every other year look at it about this time of year so we could consider next year do we want to take an increase that is consistent with whatever salary increase the the staff got so we're not having to take a big increase every seven or 10 years we're we're just consistently going up in a manner that's you know roughly appro you know uh reflects the market for um public employees and so that that's the approach we've taken I think it's a pretty good approach and so I think based on this report um next year you know in in the first quarter I would say we should probably we want to keep it away from the election but you know do it maybe in the first quarter have staff bring that forward make a decision do we want to raise how much is it how much has uh staff gotten make the decision move forward and then and then we live um we live with the consequences of our decision in the coming election Rebecca thanks Brad um I agree I I think that's perfectly well reasoned when earlier and when I was reading this it's like oh we just got this raise and it feels too soon but then I do remember a lot of time was taken in that meeting saying it it is not fair to Future councils to put them in this B in this position again to have to contemplate a catchup and kind of to take the heat for that so let's be deliberate about it which is why we added that language in the ordinance that kind of forced the relook and so I think it's um you know it it'll probably be a fairly nominal raise particularly considering proportionate to what the the pay is but I think it does make some sense to do this along the way and be deliberate about it than it does to kind of Kick the Can down the road and then get to the point where it's like why is you know why have we not done this and so I agree thank you any other comments Council kiss I I guess my thought process on this is that I look at it I mean I know everybody don't look at it like this but for me I look at this as a job because it's a job to me and I work and so um my thought process is I know we did just get a raised but I feel like if City staff can get raises I think the council should be getting raises too and I think it should be according to the cost of living um you know I just for me um it's important um not only do I do the work for the city um and I do good work but I really feel like for me personally um I just feel like um we should be treated the same far as cost of living um I don't think that we should be not considered in that way I know in the F in the past um because this is a fluent City everyone don't feel like that but for me personally I don't make the income that a lot of folks here do and so for me personally I'm going to speak for myself um I think that we should consider that any anything else council members um you know I I think uh kiz it to your point I think that's essentially what we're talking about here because we can only take we can only increase our salary every other year because of Elections there has to be an election between the time you do decide it and so the thought is is to do it routinely and base and base our increases on um what staff has gotten so it's very it's very similar the the execution is different because our Charter does not allow us and correct me if I'm wrong Karine our Charter does not allow us to just put an automatic salary acceler uh you know um formula in place and say well okay the council is going to get um a market rate increase every year I don't think we can legally do that we have to follow the rules and have that and we have to act on it and have the um and and um have an election between the time we make the decision and the effective dat is is that indeed correct that's actually a state law requirement it's not in the city Charter I mean I the city Charter might duplicate what the state law it's the state law that governs and it does require that any ordinance establishing the salary can't be effective until after an election there are some cities that have put in Provisions but I question the legality of that well we don't we want to we want to be we want to stay uh consistent with with a law just I want I want to be on a record of saying that just so you know especially with our own City attorney yes all right I think there any other comments I I mean I'm I'm always a little bit um I'm always a little bit circumspect about giving myself a raise but you know when we started talking about this so at that time um you know there is some difficulty recruiting good candidates um because people are really busy and um it is a lot of work and um we also don't want to be recruiting candidates that are only in certain tax brackets and uh we want to make sure that we have sort of socioeconomic representation in our city and um this you know making sure that um we fall somewhere in the sort of at least the average ballpark of our our uh like cities um makes a lot of sense and um even though it makes me very uncomfortable to um give myself a raise I think reviewing I agree that reviewing it regularly and um trying to make sure that future councils aren't kind of given a hot potato when they're uh elected makes makes some sense and you know we're making the hard decision for someone so maybe they don't have to make a hard decision later on so I do appreciate that thought great thank you anyone else um can yeah I'll just really quickly um yeah I mean the part of the conversation we had was was making Council more accessible to to anyone who wants to run for Council and like if you're a single parent you know the having to pay for child care to come to a meeting like salary should at least you cover that um or it just it wasn't economically feasible and I know it's still not economically feasible for some people to to do Council but just trying to make it more accessible to everyone and I know like if you look at our at the numbers now we're at the high end but if you look at what they were before we were at the low end so I think it's just we've we've made this adjustment where maybe some other cities haven't got gotten around to it yet so I think as as time goes on we'll we'll still be sort of in the average range yep thank you all right well I think I think we're ready to move on Mike next thank you mayor good conversation Council that's why this was brought back is to have this very conversation what I hear you saying is there's interest in um review well you're reviewing but modifying the salaries and so what we'll do is St is bring something back to you with perhaps a couple options for you to consider likely quarter one of next year I I think sooner probably the better sometimes ordinances can take anywhere from 30 days to 90 days but this is a relatively short ordinance um so I kind of default to the City attorney that's something we could turn around fairly quickly um and so again if you're it sounds like you're looking at to make a change make an adjustment and we bring something back to you in quarter one of next year yeah and I think we'd be I mean from my perspective we'd be looking for data on okay if if we're going to be consistent with staff what's that look like um I I didn't I don't have any sense that we want to jump ahead or make a meaningful change we want to just stay basically stay consistent with the market um and kind of Base our Market on what what what staff increases have been or or are anticipated to be yeah thank you mayor that's that's helpful and understanding that direction again I think we can take a look at that and provide you a couple options for you to to land on very good thank you mayor EXC I was going to say one more thing to also like making sure that we stay comparable to the other cities that we're compared to not to get too far ahead of them I think um just making sure that we're not being like overly lice for ourselves I guess yep and I you thank you and I would just sort to jump back in if that's right mayor go ahead I think the when you look at staff salary adjustments it's it's a two-part adjustment so we do take into consider cost of living as one piece of that the second piece is in a market adjustment um so we can run some calculations on really kind of an average for all staff because with our three unions and non-un employees we have in essence four different employee groups and so those are not all the same numbers and so we'll look at doing some averaging and and come back with of what that looks like give you a a high ballpark number it's probably in that 4% range per year y between the two that sounds good everyone okay good ex item Mike all right thank you mayor uh moving on I'll turn over very quickly to Mr Nelson uh he has a presentation on the 2025 utility rates and with that yeah thank you m um yeah so looking at our utility rates tonight is another big piece of of our study session so we look at our water sewer or s or our storm water and then our environmental recycling fees as well too so we'll kick it off here with the the water and sanitary sewer rates um back in it was probably 2014 I think we did a council did a in-depth analysis um looking at our infrastructure infrastructure and and really trying to get ahead of of of where our infrastructure needs were and our replacement and our um just our needs going forward on that end of it and so our rates increased quite a bit at back in that point in time um and we done a couple rate rate analysis since that time back in 2020 we had Baker Tilly come in and just do an analysis on making sure that we're kind of keeping track with um that infrastructure um needs analysis that was done back at that point in time and and we were keeping track with that um we've been tracking it about our annual increases have been about 3.75% for the last decade on that end of it on on that end of it um and then that helps coincide with all of our CIP related projects our operating needs and our debt service needs across the board on on that end of it um what we are looking at uh we did have a change back in um 20 in this time last year so for 2024 we had an increase or a change in our rate structure so we have been going you know that 3.75% increase across our water variable cost our sewer variable rate cost and then our infrastructure fee cost as well too and so what we found out is that what we were noticing is that the pass through charge from Mech count Council the mech Council Environmental Services um processing fee our sewer variable rate wasn't keeping Pace with that pass through charge and so we made a a conscious change last year to increase our sewer variable rate to match what that pass through charge is based on the number of gallons that we are sewer gallons that we're basically billing on our end and so we had to increase our sewer rate last year pretty substantially I think it was like 11% something of that nature um but that then got us in to an exact pass through amount so when you look at your utility bill and you look at the sewer variable fee that fee that we're charging is basically we're collecting that and we're cutting a check to Mech Council every month and so um our fee for 2025 to Mech council is $5.7 million so that's increasing um to the city of minaka about 7.18% for next year um across the region it's increasing 5.6% and so um why minona is increasing a little bit higher than other cities is that each City's flow was measured against in totality so they had a total millions of gallons of flow minona is proportionate share was a little bit higher than the average and so we took on a little bit additional burden for that in 20 for 2025 and we had a kind of a Nuance last year with um related to the Southwest Light Rail Project um where those contractors had to do some dewatering down in the Opus area Hopkins border that type of area and so contractors had to dewater and they had to they couldn't put that water into the storm water or storm drains they had to put it in through the sanitary sewer system and so um to do that that increases our flow percentage to that but we then charge them a pretty substantial fee for that and so we collected those dollars last year for that Revenue that we knew we would be hit on for our flow rates for this upcoming year and so um minetonka residents aren going to feel that 7.18% increase um since we already collected those revenues from that contractor for that for those services and so when we do the calculations it turns out actually the increase for next year's sewer rate is going to be 3.75% which is what um we've always kind of historically done is 3.75% and I redid the math I'm like this can't be 3.75% and it was 3.75% so um kind of long story short that's kind of what we're recommending is is 3.75 across the board on both the water variable rate the infrastructure fee and the sewer variable rate on that end of it or infrastructure fee is about um what was it about $80 a quarter or something to that nature on that end of it um that's one where residents I don't know if they totally understand really what the infrastructure fee is for they'll see their water bill they'll see the variable rate and say hey my water cost is you know they only use you know 5,000 gallons to the quarter and it's you know $15 or $20 whatever that variable fee is um but then like what do this infrastructure fee well that's the cost of all the pipes that are underground to maintain both the water and the sewer side of all of that and so there's lots of costs to be able to get that water to your property and to remove the the waste coming from your property as well too and so um that's a piece that I think we'll continue to work on with residents to make sure they understand that but that's the cost that's probably the biggest burden on this as well too so um so little insight there and so then when we look at kind of further looking at the MS or the mech Council Environmental Services processing charge um we have a good thing happening is that we're using less and less water um less water is going through met Council to be processed and that is um region wide that that is happening that's due to a lot of water saving devices conservation efforts all those types of things on on that end of it um but met council's price is also their costs aren't necessarily decreasing either so they have to maintain their infrastructure they have operational costs as well too and so if you look at the Orange Line here you can see um these are Mech council's um charges over the last it's about a 10 year look back on on that end of it they're obviously increasing words where the blue bar graph is that's um the amount of gallons that are being that are flowing through the system and so they're inverse of one another that means that even though we're doing better we're using less water less waste is going through the sanitary sewer system we still have to pay a higher per unit cost on that end of it so um good news is is that it's less units that we're paying for but it's it's at a higher per unit cost on that end of it so so there here um just wanted to show quickly just the impact of what a 3.75% increase across the the board on both the water and sewer rates would be um for a a kind of a low user which is 9,000 gallons per quarter which about 3,000 gallons per month um that's about a $5.39 increase and then uh come in average user which is 15,000 or gallons a quarter or 5,000 gallons a month it's about a $7.7 increase on the Water and Sewer side and that's just Water and Sewer doesn't take into consideration the storm water or the recycling that we're also looking at at this point and so we also look at um our cash balance and we forecast this out over 15 years and really it's um it's hard to take a an estimate what's happening beyond that fiveyear time frame but we kind of just estimate and and take some assumptions into into play on that end of it um we're trying to keep our cash kind of at that uh minimum cash Target that blue line um we're kind of we kind of come up to it and we kind of dip and so a lot of that is related to some of our bonding needs um we last bonded back in 2021 with some super rates that I'm very jealous that we didn't issue like more at that point in time um so we'll be issuing bonds again in 2025 we're at the point where we've exhausted those funds um or cash is starting to get um down there on on that end of it and so we need to kind of replenish that and have uh obious projects in the hopper that'll utilize those funds for so we'll issue Bonds in 25 um I think preliminar we got projected to be 2027 or 2028 on that end of it and we're trying to get our bonds um some of the bonds that issued back in like 2014 through 2018 Is We I think they're are 25y year bonds we're trying to shorten them up a little bit just to make sure that our debt service isn't become the driver of our rates in the future and so um if we can kind of Turn and Burn Thrills quicker than that it's um using more of those cash that we're coming in with our revenue for projects and not necessarily interest on debt service so um that's kind of the goal on that end of it so we'll see where this is at um at that point in time we are looking at kind of what's on the horizon um with this we are looking at um uh kind of I'll skip down to kind of the third bullet here um an in-depth rate analysis for this upcoming year I know Public Works has been working on uh um infrastru structure assessment on both water sewer and storm water pieces of that and so once that whole Citywide needs assessment is in place then I really want to do another rate analysis which would probably involve a study session to talk really in depth on rates and future and plans on what council wants to support moving forward on that end of it to um see where we're at and so this year we're kind of just not necess muddling through with 3.75% but um I think next year you know we'll really have some some meat on the the bone to really um talk about and um figure out where our rates are going to go and how our infrastructure is sitting on that end of it and such so some other things that are on the horizon we're looking at utility building software um don't have a time frame on that I'm my best guess at this point be 2026 is on that end of it um there were we always got kind of on the horizon as well too to maybe look at um moving from quarterly billing to monthly billing um that would be a nice I think a nice option for residents as well too because it's uh it's a little bit harder to Budget on a quarterly basis than a monthly basis for some um and we're seeing more and more payments I think 75% of our payments come in online now so um we're having less mail to process U we would still have additional costs to move from monthly to to a monthly billing just with additional mailings um staff time getting a billing prepared and things like that on that end of it but I think things are kind of starting to to even out a little bit as we go more and more electronic in digital on our billing and payment receiving methods on that end of it our meter replacement projects we just kind of kicked that off here just in the last month or two I think Council saw that on their um Council agendas a while ago so that project is multi-year project and um going well there and that'll able to provide us realtime reads I believe on on that end of it so um right now we send out leak notices once a month on on to Residents that that we that we the system notifies us of Le leaks um I think that'll probably change moving forward we'll have a little bit more real time data on that end of it for users that want to be proactive on that end of it and obviously we have some big projects coming down the pipeline as well too we've begin to we' talked a little bit about the exceler boulevard reconstruction project we're adding a a um bike trail to that area but also involves um working with the county there to redo that road along with the infrastructure uh water sewer storm water related to that project as well too so just a couple big things that are on the on the horizon there so with that that's kind of the water sewer piece of that um I can go on to the storm water piece and the in the environmental recycling you want to go back to this question or we can well let's just stop here see if Council had any questions first I think Paul I just a question on just kind of following up on your time explaining to people including Council um the the rates that MCS rates and things like that so it seems like it's a fixed rate we fix versus the variable rates from like our fixed operating costs even as a city we have fixed operating costs that we have to provide water and then the variable part is essentially how much you Ed um and so I'm wondering first of all I should know this I don't look that closely at my water bills do we provide that to Residents and then does do we get that information from that Council in terms of our own as a city usage yes so um council member R uh we get and Mike Kuno is here as well too so he can he can step in if I'm off base or not on that end of it so we obviously show residents we build residents on a tiered rate system and so you are build based on the amount of gallons you are buil for each quarter um DET takes kind of the rate that you charged for that tier and so your bill shows how many gallons you Ed it Compares it to a year ago um or the past three quarters of how your rate or your water usage has been um it shows you those number of gallons there so if it's I was just wondering that you know because people you were saying that people maybe don't understand kind of the fixed cost yeah that and that's why you know our rates are going up even though our usage is going down um you know I just didn't know if if people are aware that you know these fixed costs don't you know keep going up and they don't change so even if you know that's the that's the difference so our infrastructure fee is is that fixed fee or fixed charge but that obviously increases as well too over time and so um just because you cut your gallon use doesn't doesn't isn't going to that has to service those lines and keep things going and the cost to do that keep going up even though our usage keeps going down so um you know if that's I should know if that's reflected in the building hopefully it is but I was also wondering if that Council provides that kind of um level of detail to us or it's just based on your your flow rate it's it's their flow rate from that Council so we don't we don't know what their fixed cost what our fixed cost versus um and I Mike maybe you want to chime in if you have a mic yeah Council bills they essentially met Council bills based on a fixed annual fee so they have their annual fee across the entire system that they that they handle so the metro and then they just they divide that that uh dollar value by the total gallons that they have that come into their plant for the year and then we pay the percentage of our gallons over the that total amount of gallons so yes we're paying uh a usage fee per gallon but it's yeah they they figure it out based on the total amount of flow that they receive at the plant so they know I I can't remember what their total total dollar value is on annual operating fee but we'll say $100 million they they're going to get the $100 million they just divide that amount by the total amount of flow that they get in their plants for the year and then we pay our percentage of that so that's where essentially now they have told us what our fee is for 2025 so we know what that fee is and we just pay them every month uh an equal payment based on our flows from last year so we're always paying on flows from two years previous and it's just their operating budget for next year divided by the total flow and then we pay our percentage of that flow thank you and and they do Council does provide a budget overview they go out and they have a a budget show they provide to um cities as well too and I know their big driver is Debt Service and that is um I've been to a couple of their presentations and and operations are operations but um they have major capital and it Capital Investments and so Debt Service is their main driver on that end of it we'll just to add a little bit to I mean if we look at the graph um the Flow versus MCS cost I mean if you think about the system that we've got let's say the system cost a million dollars just Abra Cabra it's a million dollars that's a fixed cost and if you're if you're running a, gallons through it okay well then your infrastructure charge is $1,000 per gallon but if you're running um twice that amount well then then it's then your infrastructure charges the same it's a million bucks but you're dividing by twice as much by 2,000 so it's $500 rather than a thousand but it's still the same amount and you know whether you use a little or a lot um you know it um when you look at on a per gallon base if you add them all together and use on a per gallon basis the less you use the less flow you've got the higher per gallon the rate is it's in inversely proportional so it's it's it's rather counter counterintuitive but the fact of the matter is the big cost and so much of this stuff is the fixed infrastructure cost because that doesn't change regards it has a you pay for the capacity whether you use it or not and you know we did get a a comment from one of my neighbors and she says on my water bill that city tax was $75 while the actual water charge was 15 and there's a certain amount of implied upset or even a little bit of outrage at that and that's what we are that what we're talking about here and the same you know and so I do think that this is worth this might be worth a minona memo article because it's very hard for people to understand and we're we're taking heat for it this is this is a neighbor of mine that actually wrote that but that is not the only person that brings that up and it's kind of constant um you know especially when we do have utility when utilities go up or after someone gets your utility bill that's when I hear about it so I do think it's hard to understand and it's also really um it's not just counterintuitive I think it's really unfortunate that we've really done a wonderful job um conserving water in minona we really have done a wonderful job and there there doesn't seem to be a reward other than just pure altruism and that's really unfortunate and I you know you have explained why that's so hard but it's still very unfortunate well we I'll add to that too because we we Bill our residents for for water and sewer but our our B our our residents also get build for gas um and they also get build for electricity and these bills all are they're all different but they all have some commonalities and people don't understand them you know and we've got we've got franchise fees on them we've got you know you've got you got to pay for the grid you got you know you've got you know you got a billing fee you've got all these things and and I think it might be kind of instructive to and I don't know whose role it is really but but I think you know okay help me understand utility bills not just water and sewer but all of the utility our residents get so they know what they're paying for because um there it it is confusing people get frustrated and they don't understand it and if there's if there's an education piece and I'm not trying to sign us up to take on um to bite off more than we can chew but I really think that would be beneficial for our residents to understand you know when you when you get a utility bill what am what are you getting what are you paying for and why is it important and franchise fees for instance was part of that same comment right and so or particularly when our utilities you know they don't call them franchise fees they say it's a city fee sure it's just the city reaching in your pocket another time yes exactly and it should noted those franchise fees just to clarify thing our franchise fees are a flat fee mhm so they don't if a utility bill for Exel or centero increases um those franchise fees do not increase in our they are a flat feed so yeah but but it is a I think it is a source of confusion that well well to to our point exactly I mean and that's the whole thing is there's all these you know utility bills are surprisingly complex and they're hard to understand than just reading your bill so all right thank you for that let's see the question uh we have any yep that was just the 3.75 3.75 you know we've been doing that for a long time but um you explained well that it's different this year it's just happens to be the same right different but the same it's the same but it's happy coincidence very good all right thank you so moving on to storm water and this one's Rel very short on on that end of it um over the last number of years we've been charging had 3% annual increases we are seeing storm water area um is is prone to more um more scrutiny than the water and sewer side of things with um or not controls but let it not litigation but legislation or over regulation is the word I was looking for on that end of it um and then we do have some big projects in our CIP as well too so with that um staff was looking at a 4% increase for 2025 and again um as I stated with the water sewer this would be done uh rate analysis would be done in the storm water fund as well too and so we've never really done that and so I think that would be a a good practice to go under or a good um exercise to do and really see where kind we're sitting at and have something more definite for next year and and a plan moving forward so right now we don't necessarily have that long range plan we're just looking at what our CIP needs are our limited operational needs and then kind of just fitting that rate in there but having a long-term strategic plan on that end of it with storm water would be a good a good idea to have so is that storm water like that 4% is that having you do with the access Boulevard project you said there's B projects yeah yep that's one of the projects that are in there that's absolutely a bigger project um for sure that's in in the middle of that in 2027 we'll start incurring some costs even come up here in 25 on some of that but yes absolutely that's a one of the big ones in that fiveyear time frame so any other questions or comments on this one I can tell you Darren and I were comparing notes on this a little bit today and I was here when we started this and it was $3 a household and so over time you know 3% increase or three you know percent increase every year it does add up because we're now at 2562 per household so um um the two things I know about storm water feed are um they continue to go up and they're never enough because we always have more storm water projects than we can afford to uh to handle and and we're constantly in a situation where we're we're prioritizing and I'm not recommending more increases I'm just saying storm water with climate change and the types of storms that we've had the needs are not going to diminish they're going to get greater and uh and it's it's just a battle we'll never have enough money to do everything that we should do um but we need to keep fighting the battle y so any con any concerns about the the question here or any push back or shall we move on Mike all right or or Darren next one up environmental recycling fees so there we go this is the last one um so this one's a little going to be a little bit unique this year because our recycling contract is out for not out for bid we're out negotiating with um Republic Services at this time um Council saw that um made that decision couple weeks or a couple Council meetings ago on on that end of it and I believe we are schedule to come back in for consideration at November 18th council meeting um however there'll be a couple options to weigh in at the November 18th council meeting so it'll be um both renewing the the normal recycling contract with Republic and understanding what that fee increase is looking at like for 2025 and preliminary proposal was at 5.2% increase for 2025 um but then also looking at the organic collection piece of that as well too and so um I think will Manchester had put together some estimated numbers that it could be anywhere from $310 to um $610 per month depending on our participation rate amongst the city on that end of it kind of the kicker is that we have to for rate increases to bring those to the December 2nd council meeting um we have to have a public hearing on that and so we have to publish a public hearing notice which would have to be done prior to probably November 18th um council meeting as well too to get that into that um newspaper um listing for that week and so we have to kind of make a decision on where we what we want to publish as our public hearing rates doesn't mean that they have to be those are the ones that are approved by Council um but we need to make a a decision on kind of what we want to publish as a rate um in those public hearing notices and so kind of what we recommended is that we take the 5.2% increase on top of our current recycling rate um and then add in the $310 cents for the organized organic collection piece of that assuming that that's a 10% um City participation rate to start with I I don't know how or what not if that's in the in the right ballpark but I think we will give me some preliminary indications that it probably is but um we can start there and see where the November 18th council meeting goes out as well to after at that point in time and readjust our discussion at the December 2nd meeting obviously the public hearing notice had been would have gone out with potentially different rates but um it's a it's a starter anyway at this point so so that's kind of where I'm at nothing um nothing further on that end of it other than um just trying to recapture the the increase in the in the recycling fees and then obviously add on the the organic piece of that as well for for next year so any questions um Kimberly um and I know we discussed this but just to make sure I I'm understanding correctly um with the with the county requirements for Organics is it are we is everyone already being charged chared in Organics fee um regardless of the carrier and then if we switch to Republic would people who aren't using Republic see a decrease in what they're being charg I'm point to that direction towards Mr Manchester on that one that was quick it was very quick yeah I mean to follow same as we discussed last time kind of to recap everybody does currently pay the charge regardless um what we found is the charge currently is higher than the $310 we think we're at the 10% participation it would be exactly you know people would have an opportunity to sign up if we would get over that 10% an adjustment would be made but we think it should be certainly it's up to the companies but um everybody pays now it would switch to the $310 likely and then we'd look at participation as we move forward but as we mentioned last time Maple Gro and Plymouth have just done it the transition went quite well for them we've checked in with them multiple times just to make sure they were comfortable so I hope I hope that answers it yeah and Paula yeah just follow up on that so I'm assuming that Resident would have to take the initiative on their own to cancel their own Organics fees if they're elsewhere that it wouldn't automatically happen we would work with the companies kind of similar to Plymouth and Maple Grove and so we would try to assist with all of that here we would want them to sign up directly though those that are interested with Republic we would have them do that on their own but if they're going to be charged regardless of whether they use it couldn't we do something where we give them automatically uh we definitely we do recycl uh we definitely could yeah that could be an option Kimber or I was gonna say they don't like this is so silly but they don't give you the bins automatically I got the bin no you got to call and ask trust me yeah so I got the bid cuz I this is just my stubborn personality but I got it because I was paying and I promise you I haven't put no arganics out yet and I'm like why I got why am I taking off space in my garage but I'm just thinking about like for like residents um you know paying that fee it's if we go this route it's going to be much cheaper and we still going to be forced to pay it no matter what but at least is it is cheaper and you don't have to take the B leave it at and and this is well this one is counter will correct me if I'm wrong this one is counterintuitive because we have a relatively low participation rate so the more people that sign up again the higher the fee goes not the lower because it's more expensive for Republic to have to make a 100 stops than to make two and so the more PE we want more people to sign up but when we get more people to sign up the rate will go up not go down okay it's counter it it's counterintuitive but um and and I will say as somebody who is a new Organics recycler if you have if anyone has a solution for the fruit flies that are in my wife's kitchen um please um coach me on that because uh solu okay that'se okay well very good good to know anyway so that is that is the challenge Organics recycling I mean one of the things that I think is also I mean this isn't maybe a solution for everyone but for somebody who doesn't want more I mean you can bring it to I've been just bringing it to public works because then I don't have to deal with the B can stop and see will yeah every time but no I so that's I mean that's that we could promote in a way to get people to do it without kind of driving the cost up really you don't have room for the bin no problem just bring yours bring it in it works so I think there are options to continue to promote this and not be dissuaded because of the potential cost because it is kind of a perverse set up I mean it's just like the water rates the better you do the more costs and it's really a bummer but it does make sense though because they have to do more stops exactly it's dirtier and Messier and all that stuff they don't have to do more stops because they're stopping for our cardboard recycling anyway but I mean but they don't do it the same day and it's not the same truck do they but it's different it's it's a different you know anyway we're still working out the Kinks um I support I support the proposed recycling race public hearing so um how about in the public hearing we um I I I think doing the public hearing as you've indicated makes sense we we don't we don't have much Choice any concerns about the public hearing I think we should just bring thank you very much I think that is all I I will kick it over to next that actually I got it I'll I canos still still your turn I can jump in with we'll give there in a break still your turn yeah we'll give there in a Break um so next thing if you're ready to move on okay Mike take it away all right moving on then to a tenas uh so in your packet is a very short staff report and then Darren is has pulled up the actual leases for a summary uh just to give you again that background we do have a city policy or you have the council established a policy um that uh really requires the city manager to report to you the annual leases for each City Water Tower the number of ATT tenas allowed the rent that's been payable the schedule of those um lease agreements so that's what's in your packet and highlighted here for you U so there's no really action on this to take other than it's a requirement for the city manager to bring this forward uh thanks to staff for pulling this together for me uh you'll notice in the staff report or in the summary that's up on the screen then in your packet there are 13 total leases the grand summary total of that annual lease amount is $66,000 a year so equate that to a tax levy about a TA 1% of a tax levy is 500,000 so it really relates to about a 1% little over 1% Levy reduction if you will or equivalency to a 1% Levy reduction so it's an important uh Revenue stream for the city because again not every not every Revenue source of the city is property taxes so this is a significant um contributor to the city's general fund uh again I won't run through those 13 but they're noted here um we signed different contracts uh the city by the city policy it does allow the city manager ands and staff to sign those agreements again those uh expiration deadlines are noted here we do have some coming up at the end of 2025 that will I assume that at that point the cell phone companies will reach out to the city to likely extend those but again we'll wait to see we usually get correspondence from them uh when that happens we pull in our our staff Karine heine's instrumental in working out uh the final agreements with those companies and you do see it it does bring in a number of Revenue a number uh brings in Revenue one particular Revenue stream for the city again this for those that aren't aware this is um we look at our water towers generally this is all the equipment you see up on top so that's the report I don't if you have any questions on it um again it's required to bring this to you and here it is any questions comment hopefully based on thank you mayor what the rates I'm getting charged by Verizon hopefully they can renegotiate their uh uh the T-Mobile I know we can't do Verizon but at least te's coming up so be nice to have them feel a little of our pain very good duly noted all right okay that is cellular an antenna lease report and let's see Grant applications yeah Grant applications by Ken mayor and Council I'm going to turn this over to Sissa um a little bit of commentary before I turn over to Sissa this is something as I think we've talked for a couple years now really trying to really get our arms wrapped around grants and Grant Management uh the city has written grants for probably forever uh but we've never really captured that in a way that summarizes it that you see in the staff report and uh certainly I think the direct of the staff that we've heard from Council last few years is look more at Grants and grant opportunities and so this is a summary of that really proud of the work that has been done on this from all of our staff members and really Sissa has been instrumental in pulling this information together a lot of detail here uh there's I think some more iterations of it coming but with that I want to turn over CA because again want to give her a lot of credit for working with our directors on pulling all this uh information together and I think it paints a really nice picture for revenue streams again outside of property taxes uh that our staff and I want to do thank our directors and our staff that do write grants every department does look at grant opportunities when they're when they're presented uh this does break it down by department and also breaks it down to where it might be reflective towards our strategic plan and the priorities in the Strategic plan and again the that I I'm already probably saying too much because I want Sissa to kind of lead you through words lead youa your turn um yes so this is we're currently calling it the grant tracker dashboard and we may change change it to be called grants and other Revenue funds other Revenue sources maybe include other items in this dashboard besides just grants so that may be coming next time you see this and I'll just go by each of the areas that are shown on here just do a quick overview so grants by and I'll say currently this shows grants from 20120 until currently and so the data is held in smart sheet which is is a a glorified Excel document and so it's really just dependent on how much data how much accurate data we enter into there so that's where this information is getting pulled from and so next time we show you this we will probably show you maybe an image of 2023 and or image of 2024 um but right now is just um Gathering all of the grants from 2020 and so grants by status it shows number of awarded number that are currently submitted so pending grants and then the number that were denied then going down is Grants by Department um so that's pretty much who which department is applying for the grant and some are doubled up so some of them are police and fire um grants and City match totals on the left it his Grant awarded so those are the ones that we have been awarded and you can see it's the grant amount then the City match is below below that and then the combined total and then on the right is just all of the grant applications so the ones that are pending the ones that are denied and the ones that we have been awarded and if you want to scroll down Darren so in kind I just jump in real quick so I mean really you see the numbers there so just to summarize that the staff has submitted grants in the total of about $51 million in what's been requested since 2020 and then as Sissa pointed out what's been awarded is that 16.79% and have been awarded almost 16 million so we've really stretched our City's contribution towards maximizing our grant opportunities that's my takeaway that I want to share with you on that and then the revenue sources um so you can see which ones are Federal grand State local and private SL nonprofit then we just added the Strategic profile um category so you can kind of see where the funds are being used and then below that our reports um can I think that one says strategic profile so you can see which ones apply specifically to which area of the Strate strategic profile and then below that are upcoming um grants or ones that were denied and then below that one um those are the awarded grants and that is categorized by year and the way we do the Year by the way is there is an awarded date and that is where the year coming from so some of them may be blank we just have to go in there and add the awarded date and then below that um this one may not be the most relevant to council but this is active and Clos so which funds are we currently use utilizing and then which ones are closed we just added this column so that's why the numbers seem pretty low um because not every Grant has or not every individual has entered that column in for their Grant and then I think D if you want to go to the top those quick links probably don't work for you I think I'm going get those removed because those bring you to inside the smart sheet system which you don't have access to yeah Lo it brings you to login screen so I'll have those removed since those aren't relevant um so my request from you would be if there's something you want to see on this Dashboard please send it to Mike and I will see if I can add it um but that's all I wanted to share with you I don't know what the um next steps are I don't know if they'll bring this to you quarterly or I'm not sure what Mike is thinking on that piece of it I think the yeah so tonight is part of our budget conversation when they just um show this to you uh give you an update on really our grant activity because I think even for all of us is really understanding what that has looked like has been helpful for at least me and I think I see the uh see your reactions to that I think you find this beneficial as you talk to to Residents too and and be able to share that we are writing grants we are active with writing grants and again a big big credit to all of our directors and our staff um for writing these we we seek them out and we're looking for Revenue sources just outside again property taxes uh the other thing uh wor noting on grant writing we do a lot of it ourselves so each department uh looks at grant opportunities um and so I know Council you're exposed to grant opportunities when you go to conferences we're we're aware that our staff gets exposed to different grant opportunities when they go to conferences and sessions as well so we're exposed to I think to a lot of the same grants that are out there and our directors again have been very proactive in in seeking out those grants right many of them ourselves but there are times we do hire outside Consultants to help us with those uh I think one of those one example would be like with the the uh safer Grant with the fire department we have hired outside help to obtain those and you I think there are some cities that have hired full-time grant writers you can see perhaps it does pay for itself in that Essence U but we're able to again obtain this without having um hiring really full-time staff but we I think our model right now works pretty well in the sense of Staff writing grants that we think we are able to get and then if we if it's big grants or big writing exercises certainly want to we'll pull in experts and pay for that to give us ourselves that best chance of getting that award um so really no Direction needed from you tonight but certainly I think we want to show this to you show you where we're at we're going to continue to refine it look to break it down year to year and this will be part of ongoing budget presentation so as we get into 2026 2025 sorry 20 I don't need to skip a year we getting old enough already I don't need to write myself off another year but it's the as we look into 2025 for the 2026 budget will this will be part of that ongoing conversation during budget time Council any comments um Kimberly um yeah so I uh as Mike was mentioning I I mentioned to him a few times about the possibility of hiring a full-time grant writer and I'm you know familiar with some cities that have done that and the position pays for itself ET so it would just be interesting to know if it and I don't want to like make a bunch more work for people so but it would be interesting to know like how much staff time is going into writing these grants and if if staff if different departments feel like it's working the way it is or if if it would if it would be more helpful to have take that off their plate sort of a thing Paula somebody who's written a fair number of grants in my time um you know I appreciate all the work that staff does to get those because I know how how much goes into them um so I kind of in some ways do you have a I have go off shoot that's why okay there it is there it is it fell down um so I appreciate that I I just um also know that it's a fair amount of work to to to do that and I just lost my train of thought and um and so you know having a grant writer there's that balance between having the expertise the professional expertise to be able to write those grants well um versus having a grant writer who isn't as uh steeped in your your professional expertise so I understand that but at the same time there can be a lot of Grant work and grant writing that can be done um by Grant r or a grant manager who can help with that so I you know reflecting on that I think you guys have a handle on that um but you know so just understanding that the expertise that is required to write one of these effectively is is great but there may be something to think about in the future as the number of these goes up and think there's also a certain amount of uh U subject matter knowledge which is why sometimes having people in Department writing the grants it it's there's a difference between being good at grant writing and understanding the kind of work that you're applying for the grant and that's what I'm talking about so you have you know we just I think we're in violent agreement H I think we're in violent agreement yeah so yeah yeah so and I I would just say that we just established a small um Grant division in my department at work it's just three people for the city of St Paul because the preponderance of Grants are written in Department um but it does take a fair amount of coordination and one of the reasons is just to make sure that there aren't duplicative efforts going on in different departments So to that end I just want to hail the incredible work that Sissa did um just compil just compiling the information um and having it look so beautiful we we've used smart sheetss at work for various things especially during uh covid um to keep track of some really complex things that are going on enterprise-wide so I just want to compliment you on this beautiful work and um and I just want to compliment staff because this represents Untold hours of a lot of work in addition to some con Consultants I know that we may have hired for some of this um and I really hope that some of those Public Safety grants that we have been reupping every year uh start working their magic um because that would be so helpful to our bottom line and also just to our Public Safety efforts but um this is just a thing of beauty and it almost made me cry because it just is you know it's just don't cry up a lot of work and the other thing is when I watch Sissa go through when I got when I saw uh Sissa go through the tables it I was like well she's able to scroll through you know multiple lines and so depend like right now I'm I it's hard for me to do it but it helped me figure out how to to I'm finding the the updates in uh I legislate not easy to use but watching you do that I figured out how to access all the lines Dar all right good job Darren you know just just a quick comment in the interest of moving on um you know the thing I like is the I kind of look at applied for and granted yep and and you know our hit I'm going to call it our hit rate is you know over 30% and so you know that begs a couple of questions I mean you know what can we do to up our hit rate or should we focus on um upping our application rate but I mean if we felt that we were going to hit at 30 to 32% um for the effort then you can then you can quantify um how much time and effort we should do in terms of looking for new opportunities and I think I think I think having this data and quantifying it tracking it over time I think will really View useful so thank you all for the efforts here and if not just hit rate but what kind of Grants are we hitting and not hitting is there TR yeah no I mean it provides the analytical tools to assess what we're doing this super fantastic focus our efforts Sissa you're now the grant managers are that's right okay so anything else on this or we'll uh move on Mike yeah just two two quick things and I know we we it's and sense of the time here and we have a big present ation we not cond not big presentation a streamline presentation and a topic to talk about with rental registry so we going to get to that and make sure you have time for that just two quick things in mayor and councel um as it oh gosh um Paul I just had lost my train of thought just one quick thing you mean it was one quick quick quick thing um with oh gosh was I'm sorry um we can Circle back grants grants grants grants I'll come back to Grants but I do want to before we um let some of our directors go here with the budget conversation appreciate the last hour and a half or more with the budget one thing about the general fund that I was remiss in just giving you an update on with the general fund and I'm looking at um Chief bbom and deputy chief Tate just as it relates to the police department um with when it comes to Staffing levels you know you as a you adopt a budget and you know Kimberly mentioned that earlier you adopt the budget and then we as staff manage that and so with when we look at our Police Department budget we have uh licensed officers we have a headcount that we have in the police department and as Chief bbom has analyzed where we at with headcount and we are we have openings and we're looking to fulfill those openings and we look at what openings we have today and the timing of getting those positions filled we do have um some excess dollars in the police department just in that gap between what's budgeted and getting those completely filled what we're looking to do is um not in essence hire ad body count but looking at a spe specific need in the police department that's what the with a public information officer like a Pio and so we're looking to increase our footprint both in social media with potential Facebook uh presence increasing our education as we talked about here tonight on other topics but certainly with policing and just the work that the police department is doing looking to utilize some of those funds that are in our Police Department budget to bring on a pi o that would assist with the police department messaging really Under the Umbrella of our Communications Department um so I just want to give you that heads up that that we we'll be looking to bring on additional um assistance with utilizing police funds not necessarily for a police officer today but bridging and that financial gap um and then we'll look more into 2026 on funding for that position long term very good thank you so just more of a heads up on that front Council any questions or anything um green did you have something okay all right if I think my second thing I'll bring it up later but uh okay let's move on G ask can we take a break we can take a break would you like to do it right now once you're no no we're good we're good we're good we we'll wrap let's take a break and then we'll come back and um I've got 822 yes sir and get finished yes all right Miranda are we on all right so um this takes us to item 2B the rental registry update Mike I don't know if you have anything or Julie we'll just go right to Julie Julie right to you thank you thank you team appreciate it we do have about 15 minutes of uh slides to show you uh we have Kendall LaRon if you're not familiar with who Kendall is she's the housing coordinator um she's been with when did you start I don't even remember um uh September 2022 so over two years a year yes a year and a half year and a half and well no two years be two years two years exactly um and in that time uh Kendall's been working on a lot of things uh one of which is rental registry so I thought instead of hearing from me because you hear from me all the time maybe you could hear from somebody who's really on the ground doing the work um I do want to remind the council the whole reason I think you set up rental registry in the first place I I think there were three primary reasons one had to do with Public Safety um understanding uh how many rental units you have in the city understanding how uh we interact with them as a city I would say also you had concerns about tenants and making sure they're taken care of and that they have a place to call when there are issues and problems and things they need handled and then thirdly I think um your intention was to be able to communicate with people in a much more um easy fashion and making sure you understood who owns these rental units in the city was uh of importance and that's from a number of fronts you everything from Public Safety to enforcement issues to just general correspondence we've been sending to rental housing either landlords or Property Owners has been really uh helpful as we've started this program so with that I'll turn it over to Kendall I might sprinkle some things in we decided to game you have to name the picture right where you are on those pictures on the side you guess hopefully that wait are you guessing anybody good job the right side you many of you have been there the Opus area I don't know the name of the you were there KY I yeah I know I know the develop I don't know the name of it though the alot there there it isot the alot y it's the top one the bottom one those are the on remember design Cedar it takes you this we we're not playing anymore a Cedar Town H home thank you good all right cedaridge on the bottom okay kick it off awesome okay so um going with that uh over the past seven years staff has had multiple updates to council regarding rental housing in general um staff has researched and studied rental regulations to better understand how um rental registration and Licensing programs work and what might work best for the city and so there are two primary ways to address rental unit regulations the first one is rental registration which requires landlords to register their property with the city and provide essential information or rental licensing which requires register uh landlords to register their properties and pay fees for the program program and in addition require the property to be inspected um and other substantive steps to assess the condition of the property um so in 2027 uh just to go over a few kind of timeline here in uh 2017 um staff conducted an analysis on short-term rentals in minetonka and at the time it was concluded that minetonka would not purs pursue short-term rental licensing as there were not many found in the city at that point um in 2019 staff presented research on tenant protection ordinance ordinances from peer communities with potential consideration for minetonka but at the time there was no consens consensus from Council to move forward with rental licensing which would have been the best way to ensure tenant protections be followed um and then in 2020 of course um the pandemic shifted Focus to other housing needs um and a Statewide eviction moratorium provided tenant protections uh during the pandemic um in addition in 2023 more tenant protections were put into place in the state legislature and that those are going into effect now just to go along with that perfect and we are at building here you said it before Oh the station station station station mhm so in 2023 continuing on with the background um staff presented some more in-depth research on pros and cons to rental licensing and Rental registration uh staff presented findings to the council in July of 2023 during a study session with the recommendation to start with rental registration as a way to gain a more comprehensive review of the rental market to increase the city's communication with property managers and owners and collect necessary data to support our various departments like police and fire and Community Development to stay updated regarding contact information in the rental properties across the city so in um December Council supported the creation of the rental registration ordinance and on February 3rd of 2024 the ordinance went into effect um I'll also note here that uh the rent Ral ordinance allowed rental rental owners and property managers one year from the effective date to get into compliance with their rental properties so we're kind of still in that compliance period now nobody's in trouble yet no one's in trouble yet of course so looking kind of at a program review for the last eight months that the program has been in effect the city has received 323 registrations 289 are individual units and 36 are multif family buildings you can kind of see the unit breakdown there um in the graph between the different type of units we have apartments condos Town H home single family and then a unit within a single family home um and of course apartments are the largest um but um you can see that breakdown there um also uh when we're looking at the difference between short-term and long-term rentals uh most of the rentals on the registry are long long-term rentals which means the unit is being rented for more than 30 consecutive days um there are currently six short-term rentals that are registered with the city and uh staff has looked at verbo and airb Airbnb uh and trying to get a sense of what those numbers are compared to what's registered and we've been finding anywhere between like 17 and 13 rentals depending on the time of year um but of course this number May fluctuate for a variety of reasons one of them is time of year um and so we have don't maybe have a full picture of what that might be um let's see no I'm not yet okay um looking at terms of potential rentals so approximately 12% of menot tonka's non- multif family properties are listed as non-homesteaded while this non-homestead Mark doesn't necessarily indicate that the property is of course a rental it's a good start for us uh to look at that and so we know that understanding how many potential rentals can be difficult but uh the duplicate address analysis done by utility billing for us indicated that there were 280 potential rentals and as shown in the graph 146 single family rentals are registered in the city which is a little over 50% of that 280 number so um we're not fully to that 280 number yet but again staff continues to monitor non-homesteaded properties for potential rentals looking at uh registration challenges uh in these last eight months um overall staff we haven't had very many challenges with the program so far which has been good um the only place that we see for improvement um is really getting the rest of our multif family buildings registered so that's been um the hardest so far so we're working right now which is surprising because we have their contact info we know that they are rental properties um but just getting those managers to register the property so we're working right now to get the 28 buildings that haven't registered getting those into compliance by the end of the year so again to give you perspective on how many units that is so we hover around 9 ,000 rental units so you've got about 5,300 of those that are in the registry now so that that's quite a few units so we're a little uh perplexed perplexed would be a I'm not going to say irritated yet if it gets past a year then we might get irritated but um we'll get them on board I have no doubt exactly and this is just a map from the dashboard uh looking at kind of where we're seeing our our rentals had a question what's a unit within a single family what is that yeah someone renting out a room or renting out a room oh okay yeah or part of a house or right like floor okay I I have another question that is so you know you're perplexed you're not irritated yet not yet but soon to be IR yes and so my question is I mean you sort of know in this particular case like who we're talking about that hasn't done it and so what what are you do I mean what's the approach now that it's sort of getting to be go time well we spend a lot of time on the phones as these organizations um I would say a lot of it has to do with just this churn of property managers they just I I have never is insane how much turnover happens um one day you'll be talking to someone and the next day they're not there and they're email will bounce back um so that's a pretty concerning but it it is a a function of the um of the industry absolutely we've always had this happen hence why we wanted the registry so there was a way to check in with these people um but it is it is a constant catchup who's in charge that person knew that left left the person now that took over didn't finish the paperwork whatever the case is so that happens pretty regularly I would say that's number one do you have any other thoughts on why else they might be they put it on the back burner yeah it's just not doesn't seem they compliance so you know that might play they'll do it when they have to deadlines mean things to certain types of people now the day before it's due you do it it's procrastination February but I mean yeah if you give me a due date I'm going to do it by the due date yeah what's the process like is it a form yeah we'll show you in a minute here we go there's there's the part of the form you asked here we are here we are yeah so our form is a pretty simple in my opinion form from survey 123 um and it just asks for kind of basic information of AD address of the property name of the applicant and then also name of the property manager if it's uh also name of the owner and then listing contact information for owner and management um and then there's a few other things that they can do that are optional they can put an information regarding what their rents are um so that's an optional item uh people don't have to put that in there but most people have been generous and done that optional and we like that because we like to see where all of our rents are sitting out we know what most of our rents are for the multif family buildings but looking to see what different single family homes are doing for renting um and the condos and all of that are we just did it with hiia the other night when you were looking at the rental information that was from this database so that was helpful yeah but it's not like you need to log in you don't need to sign in there's not some password jail you get into it's it is hosted on our website it's not like you go to a different portal or something so it's just it's pretty simplistic yes yeah yeah but we've had some feedback yes so continuing on um we've received some feedback from participating um applicants uh regarding the intake form um and so we have added a monthmonth lease option because that wasn't in there before um we updated the acknowledgement section on the bottom that they acknowledge what they are providing as accurate information and just to be have that be more clear um for everyone um and then also updating the thank you page after they submit the submission page uh to clarify the timeline when certificates would be sent to them I received a lot of emails and a lot of phone calls after people registered thinking that they were going to immediately get their certificate um because the thank you page was not clear enough about what that timeline looked like so um that has helped people on their end and also me not getting as many phone calls about it so um those are just a few of the items um and then in addition uh we're looking because we're kind of hitting that first year of renewals that'll be happening um we're looking to make some changes on how that'll be done we have been doing um with new registrations which they all have been with receiving a printed and mailed certificate along with a letter explaining the registration ordinance and we will continue to do that for new registrations but for annual renewal registrations we're going to send digital copies now that they'll be going into the next year um in addition there has been there was a change in state legislation uh that stated that group State group homes with six or fewer residents are no longer required to register for rental licenses which then for us also implies they do not have to register um their property as a rental so staff is working to update our website um and our information regarding that I have a question on that excuse me so State group homes mean licensed by the state so because there's a lot of group homes that are not licensed by the state so if they're not licensed by the state but their group homes with six or fewer residents they can still be required to um register I'm going with no but Karine can correct me if I'm wrong because it does I don't believe the state statute says state license facilities I believe it says group homes less than six but maybe so maybe that bullet get group six or fewer be done yeah so just clarification yeah the other thing that we can't do anymore if you didn't know this we used to be able to do a lodging license with with the group homes we can't do that either so there's just really no City ability to do any regulatory um things with group homes thank you uhuh uh when we're looking at complaints in rental housing uh rental nuisance complaints are a small subsection of our total complaints that we receive in the city in 2024 we received approximately 15 complaints related specifically to rental housing out of the 57 uh housing related complaints um the city utilizes the 2015 International property maintenance code or the ipmc to address complaints along with city code and other State uh code as well um the ipmc can address a variety of violations um but a few examples include if a property accumulates a lot of TR crash and garbage anywhere on the property that can be addressed by this um if a property has a pest infestation um if a swimming pool is UN sanitary and in disrepair it's also in here as well another one would be cold weather uh regulations the unit can't be below a certain temperature uh Plumbing has to work all that's all of that is covered under under the property maintenance and in addition staff communicates with property managers when the city receives complaints about the property um and we regularly meet with properties especially with ongoing complaints um so and I would say they the folks that we've been meeting with um don't feel like it's a burden I don't ever feel like they don't want to talk to us so that's a good sign uh that we have um a good relationship and that they're using our information as a resource not necessarily as being punitive and I would say everybody that we've talked to and it's a number of buildings that we have a regular what do I say circuit that we go on and we we go with fire and police and um Community Development staff anybody who's involved in this and we sit down and we talk about some of the things that are going you know whatever issues are going on in the property and uh like I said we just have never been um told that they don't want to meet or or that they don't want to talk about things so that's a good sign I I I I was surprised by that I thought we would get more n we don't really want to talk to you or because we don't really have the authority to do that but we're doing it as an Outreach so that's been successful and I think in addition we've also been able to go on site and they haven't been there hasn't been a lot of push back to have these meetings onsite at those properties which has been helpful for us when we're going to talk about complaints being able to see um some of the issues condition of the prop condition of the property and and be onsite so that has been helpful as well um looking at um well part of the registration kind of program was to provide better communication uh with both landlords and tenants in the city and so staff developed a new monthly landlord newsletter um called the minetonka community connection that provides City information and tenant resources to landlords who can put that information in their own communication and post the posters up into their own buildings um overall uh this newsletter has been doing very well from a communication standpoint from our Communications team um with an open rate of just below 70% which is much higher than a lot of the other newsletters um that the city puts out um and so the chart shows how the newsletter has been performing from the first newsletter which was in July of 2024 um and then up to the most recent which was in October um so it's been pretty consistent um based on the click rates from the newsletter uh it kind of appears that landlords are downloading the event flyers for events going on in the city but not necessarily using a lot of the other links um on the newsletter so we're going to keep an eye on that um but overall the average engagement with the newsletter is around 82% so um we're seeing some good downloading uh for for all that information um also one more thing on the newsletter no worries um we are working on uh putting together we think a biannual newsletter to send out with landlord specific information so no tenant information just specific information for land Lords um which will include uh rental registration renewal reminder reminders um as well as updates on any tenant and landlord laws and any updates from other departments that are landlord specific so anything from fire police that they think landlords need to know now we can now I can go now you can go perfect um so when we're uh when looking at rental licensing options for a potential fure future discussion um there are a number of things uh to consider especially the cost associated with putting um a licensing program together um and administering it so staff continues to stay updated on where other Metro cities are in their licensing programs and uh we have found that some cities are starting to change their rental licensing fees for 2025 um so two examples we have are St Louis Park and Bloomington um are moving toward their rental licensing fees covering the full cost of their programs um and so those changes can be seen in the charts on the bottom there um they're making some significant increases to their fees so that they are almost 100% covering those costs and those costs will be going directly to the property owners um Egan is another I think a unique perspective for minetonka because they switched from a registration program that they had for many years into a licensing program because they thought it was time uh based on what they were seeing and hearing from their tenants um and so they uh went to a rental licensing program in 2023 so it's still a relatively new program for them um but I received an update from their staff and they noted that their registration program helped them a lot um in initiating that licensing program um and they've continued to see good voluntary compliance in the first now a little over a year um of of their new program they have four inspectors that um have helped correct many violations that they found when the program started so going in for those first inspections there were a lot of um code violations that they found and were able to have their inspectors correct um their fees are based on averages in the Metro so not as high as what we're seeing St Park and Bloomington change they're not covering their costs inan right so and of course the program's still new so I will continue to get some updates from them as their program goes on to see how that's how that's going um and here we are at our last slide um wait they have to guess oh yeah we have two photos here can anyone guess what the top photo is from bir still in Opus the one no am Amir Min good job congs and then bottom photo I guess I need to learn there we've been a lot we've been there a lot we've been there a lot dominium dominum what' you sayum dominium y very good yep perfect um so if motanka were to adopt rental licensing uh the city would need to consider how the program costs would be covered um so if you follow the direction of Bloomington with higher fees and more impact on the units then the pro pro program costs would almost entirely be covered uh by by that without using any general funds if you followed kind of what St Louis Park previously did and a lot of other cities um are doing utilizing low to average fees to cover a portion of the program funds then the city would have to provide additional general fund dollars to support the other uh parts of the program and So based on the experience of the last eight months staff continues to recommend the rental registration program to continue understanding the city's rental market um and see where it goes from there very good nicely done we do have more photos we oh wait questions or comments oh it's late we're not going to do stump the band that one that's the and the left is avor avor avor yeah so uh Council any any comments um regarding staff's recommendation um Kimberly um yeah so I was I was the one who requested that we have this report like before we got a full year in so thank you I appreciate all the work that went into putting this together and and to and the it's I think it's it's useful the the information the data that you've been able to gather and um um and I wasn't expecting like the the kind of code violation things with just this with just this registration program um and so certainly I I'm in favor of continuing the program and having the discussion again next year about whether we want to consider licensing or not um I had a discussion with uh Mr Funk about uh shortterm rentals and one thing I will say so uh it was a couple of years ago at a LMC uh vendor fair I talked to a vendor who and I don't remember the name of the vendor so it's not it's not trying to sell their product but um this person had developed software that sort of searched for short-term rentals and he did a search of minona and came up so it was supposed to be like you know a more deep search than just Googling like the Deep Web yeah like he said he had developed it himself so anyway okay but we did a search on minaka he found 50 U short-term you know verbal Airbnb type uh rental so it could be that that's higher than what we're picking up with with our kind of curse research um and the thing that I am con concerned about which um again will be a a discussion I think for more in depth for next year is of the short-term rentals are there how many are own owner occupied where they're just you know maybe doing a Airbnb for a couple weeks out of the year as opposed to uh properties being bought by an individual or or Corporation with the express purpose of just continually renting it out um almost like a hotel thing to me that sort of you know we have the concern about private Equity firms buying up our naturally affordable housing and removing that from the market also have a concern about people buying up housing that could be housing and using it basically as a hotel um and so I don't know I I I think you said like you can kind of tell by how people register whether it's whether it's an owner occupied or or not so it would be interesting to see to get a better idea of numbers on those and if that's something that's really an issue or not yeah I think well just right now I don't we don't see the 50 number at all um and even when we cross reference and how we do this is we look at utility bills and we look at what's not in Homestead and we try to get the and actually we're pretty close I mean I'm I'm actually amazed how many registered homes we have and then how many of them were identified by that process so I feel pretty good about the numbers um I don't think short-term is a big phenomena here I also don't we looked at the corporate buyouts of properties it's not just because of the price here is not lucrative enough for them the price is too high for them to be interested I'm not saying it doesn't happen right it's just not to the extent maybe that people think it's happening um in minetonka but that's just our initial thoughts I I I will think about that more as we progress sorry Paula Paul go ahead follow on comment that just anecdotally what I'm hearing more is I'm not was worried about corporate for the reason that you're saying but people who will buy one two or sidual I probably so um but I wanted to actually follow up on a question you talking about kendle and um just how when they transition from the registry to the licensing the fact that they did find a lot of violations and things like that are you feeling that um kind of with the registry at this point and the way You' conducted Outreach that maybe that wouldn't be the case so much here that you're really able to kind of get a sense of that more I'm just kind of you know curious I get it that right now we don't seem to have a big problem with that I don't know if Egan felt like they were the same thing we're not really having that much of a problem but they went to lies well I don't know how active their fire inspections were we have really active fire inspections already on those buildings and so um maybe that's a clarification we can get from them to figure out why were they having all these violations because fire safety inspection should should have maybe right prevented that from happening so I don't know exactly what they were yeah the main the main item that was sent to me that they was like a lot of the violation was that people just had their smoke detectors like it was a lot of like smoke detectors which we would check which we would check in a fire for fire inspection but that might have been in single family homes and they just hadn't upkept their smoke detectors or they needed to be replaced or whatever so it wasn't s probably significant they like that wasn't indicated in her email but I can definitely yeah we can check we can check on that but yeah she said that most of the most of the code violation was re was related to smoke detectors so so can I ask is is that other than you know when you when you license something when you license an apartment or a rental unit as opposed to registering it you you we the city has more control over the thing or I mean like what what are the significant advantages yeah well and that that's always something that I've I've had scratched a little bit about because I don't know if cities don't utilize like the property maintenance code or I don't I don't know why that for so long people just think they can't do anything about anything so like let's say we have a short-term um vbo and it's driving everybody crazy because they have too many cars they have um too much going on noise nuisance whatever we can do stuff about that that's already on the books there's regulation about it if someone has mold in their apartment they don't have working uh firearm we can do something about that so I I'm always like I don't licensing the only thing about licensing that that might be a little bit different is that you have that annual check-in that's required by law right now we're checking with properties that we see need some help and some attention and people we hear from a little bit more than other buildings so I think that's the only the structure of the licensing might be a little bit different but as far as what issues there are can all be taken care of under city code today so that's well could cost benefit could you potentially because you said like um people have been really open and like have have agreed to meet on property but could they refuse to do that so I mean yeah they could refuse us um wouldn't be in their best interest but they they could say hey we don't want you coming to you don't want to be on Julie's list yeah you don't want to be on the list right or kist and so um that's interesting to me that they have been so open um I was expecting more push back from meeting on site and kind of every time we're at a property we asked to be toured around and shown different parts of the property we don't just go and sit in a meeting we actually ask to go on campus and and look around and so that's kind of enlightening yes and we information and then when we have the fire department there too they can they share with them what's their last inspection they had these things and this is what you know they were required to fix and then you know they go back I think it's every other year the fire goes uh to the larger Apartments so oh sorry no go ahead py so like Egan they decided that they were going to switch from registering to to licensing and part of it was because their information wasn't up to date wasn't and so it so they they switched because of that I mean well I think just to be more formal about it you know how often are they getting out to properties and if they didn't have a very active fire safety program that's possibly why they did it um you know if they didn't have enough firefighters to go and inspect these buildings that could have been they didn't have enough Staffing to keep up with some of the preventative stuff that could have been part of it um but they what's interesting at Egan and why we like to pay attention to them they have about the same amount of rental in their Community I don't know about the age of it but right it it is a little bit similar in terms of geography amount of units that sort of so we're we're keeping tabs on them a little bit closer so sorry I just have one more like do you think that eventually that's where we're going is licensing I always get the vibe from the council that's where they want ahead but you never we never quite get consensus to just do it because of the cost um I think before we had um seen some of these newer per unit numbers that they're charging rental licensing it was costing each of those cities either uh 300 to $400,000 a year out of their general fund to do the program that's why most cities that don't have it didn't do it because it was too expensive right now that they've it's a philosophy question then they you know raise the rates so much that they can then afford the program but then who does that land on well the renters pay the renters pay for the program so then it becomes kind of a self self um defeating sure process right um but it's your yeah so the the cities basically it it was a finan fial question and that's what it's always been for this Council it's been can we get what we need out of the existing you know the juice The Squeeze right I mean I think I would weigh in on that I mean I'm great pass the expense along I'm very sensitive to the the residents are still paying for this one way or another no matter how you slice it right and that is a concern for me and what I haven't heard anecdotally from cities that haven it from individuals that have been kind of um pushing us to go in that direction from staff is what value can we bring what what problem are we trying to solve for here in minaka I think the registry is great I'm not I just I'm not convinced that there's a problem that would be made better through a a r a lure program it instinctively it feels like it would be but I I haven't that hasn't been articulated so that's why as an individual as this has come up now in the third iteration and the time that I've been here that I've just been like yeah I'm not quite there um two quick things and I'll stop but this map is really illustrative I would have not envisioned it in this spread out in this way way um you know I hear Pockets yes people say oh my neighborhood has the disproportionate share of the rentals and you can see that it really is spread out and there's appears to be some very high-end rentals too um from the looks of it so you know that's interesting um I also suspect if the fire inspect I mean I'm just going to I'm going to speculate you don't have to necessarily answer to this but if there's a fire inspection going on and there's something else going on in that building that staff will hear about that absolutely and if there's somebody who has to Ride Along on that fire inspection to get access to the building that that could potentially happen so I mean those are some safety mechanisms that with our competent staff that were really layering in that may not be captured in other cities yeah I would say the behind the curtain um you will have a fire inspector tell us hey there's something we need to pay attention to over here or hey I'm getting a police department is really good about this we're getting a few too many calls for service about one particular issue over at this building and we need to work through it with the property managers the other thing they will do is send us police reports if there are people in need maybe there's a housing situation where we're talking about maybe a garbage house or something like that in in an apartment setting and we'll be able to um remedy that as well so I think because we have pretty fluid information flow between each division and Department that um it does help us do our jobs a little bit more um I think you know in a more detailed way than maybe some of other cities have been doing it I don't know I mean I have I've worked here the last 18 years I don't know I I've got a couple of questions one is okay we've got all these apartment buildings signed up and we have all these apartment buildings not signed up are there characteristics of the not signed up Haron buildings that they have in common that would be of concern or is it just a pretty much a mixed bag it's a pretty mixed bag yeah it's any okay well that's good I mean that to me that's good yeah it's not the oldest it's not no there's not yeah to me that sounds then it's more of a symptom of the property management business is very fluid and dynamic it's not like okay well if you if you run a nice building you you stay there and if you're running a less nice building you you you move more often it's it's that it's just pretty even across the board I think some of those newer buildings we've seen three managers at least at that one building we've seen three managers familiar with that too then then the other thing you know um I I have a particular sensitivity toward um um places where people with with disabilities and and um and more challenges live and it sounds like some of the things that the state's doing is causing cities to have a more hands-off approach to those types of buildings than um and um facilities than more Hands-On and that that concerns me because I don't think the state is doing a particularly good job of um taking care of those buildings and so we're there's a gap being created and I'm wondering if there's any opportunity or any legislation that we should be pushing for to help close that Gap because I am concerned about vulnerable populations um and and I feel that um based on some anecdotal things and this report and a few other things that there may be there may be a gap we we we know of some potentially Bad actors within our city and so forth and if these are if we have vulnerable populations that are being managed not well and we don't have a lot of say or a lot of authority are the things that we should be working on either either legislatively or other ways I mean I think there's a balance there I mean I really it it's how much regulation are you going to put on one type of building versus protection of people who live there I mean it's really that kind it's difficult because if you think about all the kinds of Licensing that they were required to do prior to this they'd have to get a state license then they they' have to get a lodging license then they would have to get um a food license they would have to get I mean there was just like this litany and some of it was from the state and some of it was local I mean it was a little Overkill in terms of the way it was being managed um I would say we have a much closer relationship than we ever have with the licensing arm of the state we never used to have to do that because we had our own ability locally since we don't have that local control we had have been reporting things more often good and I will say our LMC policy committee um looked at that and I actually am not sure what the final wording because they came up with a a resolution or whatever it's called um policy recommended policy recommended policy to sort of change that because um some K some cities were complaining that it took away their ability to inspect and and address group homes where where there were problems and safety of the residents was a concern um so I know that is an LMC thing there was there was kind of some going back and forth yeah I heard about the going back and forth but I never heard so I'm not sure where it ended up but um it it certainly is on lmc's radar good I think we still have the building Cod so there that's a big level and then that's that's the that's the other question as I think about I mean I one I want to say I strongly support the staff recommendation we're not ready for for uh licensing at this juncture and I think we have a lot more to be there's a lot more to be learned so let's continue that process and then and then I know when we get there I'm not sure you know what I'll favor I'm I I kind of share some of the thoughts that Rebecca voiced but I'm also wondering if if we had a problem property um or two um and we know about it is it more effective to know about it and um and handle on a more surgical approach the problem issues then trying to create a regulatory profile that affects everybody you know you know I mean if if we have if we have enough information to know where our good properties are and our less good properties are and where we may have issues wouldn't just a more more more more attention on the problem properties make more sense and putting a whole regulatory protocol that affects everybody in place would be kind of my philosophical question that you don't have to answer I'm it's just kind of my thought process no I think that I mean as as a regulator for all things Code Compliance it it does make you nervous when you know you you want people to be safe in their homes and you want to make sure you do as much as you can from a regulatory standpoint to protect them I think we do have those standards though um in place and and we're able to deal with some of those things on a Case by case basis so I I feel pretty confident in that I would say about 99% but there's always that 1% I have in the back of my mind hopefully well that's right that 1% is always going to be there yeah it always get regardless of what you do regardless what you is there are there any other comments or questions I was just going to say that with you know being where we are in the year timeline um on sort of a pilot I would say I think we're doing pretty well and also I think it points out you know this is just rental registry this isn't lure and I think it's sort of a case in point why this is a really good way to start and possibly stick with because we're going to get all of this valuable information even if it's just the contact information and um you know I'm not I we periodically hear from residents about we need we need we need rental lure I think you're making good points about all of the power that we have to to you know fix problems a as they stand right now I honestly think that this is a great place to be and to work towards sort of completion of of this part of the journey and maybe this is where we end up you know for for quite a while I also feel like you never know what you need until you need it and maybe that's what happened with Egan where they just felt like okay well this actually is now that we have all this information and certain things are cropping up like we do like I think finding out what was it really that made them the dial yeah that that's what I would be interested in trying to find out um because it is so similar so that's where I am I mean I think this is I think this is a really worthwhile Endeavor the other part of it is you know if it's really a lot of work for our staff and it and we need to somehow recoup the staff time cost for that is that what you know like it was as much work as a lure program and they're like well we better start charging because we're paying for all of this work to be done it's really the same amount of work as a lenser program if that's what it is that's really why I sort of want to know sort of what the scales what yeah yeah but I think this I I fully support where we are right now long story short and this is great work thank you any any senting opinions otherwise we're going to move on okay thank you thank thank you very much Kendall nice job Julie nice job thank you so next item is shared values of the batonka city council I don't think this would be a long item but Mike yeah thank you mayor I guess J I should asked you this earlier today before we walk into tonight is there council is there hear your comments tonight we'll stick on the path of rental registry I appreciate your comments is there at this point staff probably doesn't plan to bring anything back in 2020 unless there's some cue that maybe something that triggers further discussion otherwise we're going to continue I think we'll continue give you updates our housing part part of our housing update we do a housing so I got com about the um like when someone make a complaint or whatever can we know like some of that what kind of complaints are happening like in the future not um not legally not true uh in summary form only you will not get uh real detailed information from us about what those are uh we can generally categorize them but that's about it otherwise it gets too specific then you know where it is and you know what property it is and all that should probably St all right well depending on what that's how about that we'll go with whatever says I'm just I'm just curious I think that does kind of determine to me if we should go with rental license because publish yeah their licensing inspection results that's when you have licensing this is different when you have a complaint no I was just saying it could kind of play into the factor of why whether we need licing right I understand all right moving on shared values of the minaka city council Mike who has that report yeah I'll I'll do this quickly mayor and counsel um I'll just really just highlight what was in the staff report if for you call going back to April we had a retreat good two-day seminar on that Friday Saturday appreciate Council and directors being present for that as you know uh in that was kind of multifocus the main focus was looking at re tooling our strategic plan and we've been doing that the we and you have been listening to directors and our team leads the last six study sessions as we're framing up 2025 six and seven our next threeyear iteration of our strategic plan but then also as you know U last April we we talked about uh Council uh shared values and so Dr Jean walked walk you through that exercise and it was referred to as our great Council and so uh that was in the staff report so staff really at this point is bringing this back to you uh just to refresh you with what that conversation looked like and the timing is good in in terms of the last again number of study sessions we've been bringing forward to you the Strategic plan uh we staff saw this as an opportunity to bring this back to you now that it's in November to see where you want to go with us in terms of any kind of formality around it and then opinion what we decide here tonight what's then teeing up for then the December study session is bringing back action steps and I'll touch on that here in a few minutes but then really this is all setting us all up for 2025 six and seven and so what's in your staff report are those shared values that you had articulated during that sorry during that study session you're good and those are noted in the staff report so there are 13 uh items that were develop staff has packages in the report for you and really what we're really what we're asking of you is is there anything more formal that you want to do with it again that was a good conversation you had that day when I mention if there's anything formal that you want to do with it is to formalize it more memorialize it um either by a resolution you do have your city council rules of procedure where it can be embedded again these are kind of your culture and and we have our shared values here at the city I what remaining left of Staff here six values in the city because culture's everything um I think these two and our staff would here has heard me say that um culture trumps um strategic planning so without I mean you can have all the best strategic plans in the world all the best documents in the world all the rest strategy laid out but if you don't have the right culture you're not going to get to the outcomes as you want and so culture is important we we talk we talk about a lot staff wise and it's important to what we do at the staff level and so guess the question for you then mayor and councel is there anything you want to do formally with this um I guess the one area where I'd see using it on your behalf is if you were to do something formally with this let's say put in your city council rules and procedure it'd be something that I would use um during orientation so council members come on board these are your guiding principles these are these are kind of your Rules of Engagement as you function as a council so it would be something staff would use with on in it be something we would use with our uh in the election year for example next August it's usually about August when we do a council candidate forum and so just tools that we would use in explaining what your culture is here on the council so with that I I'll just stop there and really direction to you there's something more with this well I I think I think it's a good question and you know maybe just to kind of cut to the chase I think this is important enough that memorializing in some way makes sense and so then the question is kind of what's the best way and I mean I you know I think it belongs in our kind of our rules of procedure I think that would be good and we if we want even be more formal we could do a resolution that says you know we're committed to these but but I I think at least in the world you know what does does everyone have an opinion or something to add Kimberly um yeah I would agree like that we went through the the effort to come up with this that list that it should be used somewhere I just have so and I know everyone's tired and wants to go home but like looking at the at number 13 the non-political and nonpartisan there have been issues that I didn't think should be political or partisan that others saw as political or partisan so I just that one makes me a little uncomfortable um OB the part you know making decisions free from political bias sure um but you know there's just like that that the the charge sometimes from the public is like well you you said you wouldn't do anything polit I I think some people nonpartisan and apolitical are not the same um and so I don't know I just I like just the the the wording of that I'm not 100% comfortable with Paul go ahea I'm sorry I I was just going to say I mean I I I hear everybody's point about wanting to memorialize this but I feel like it's a cop out a little bit for future councils to not do the exercise um because here you operate this way I mean rather than having the council try to get together I mean I thought it was a good exercise I thought it was some I think it's something that as we do work with Dr Jean usually on an annual basis that um engaging as a team is a so you know this is this council's shared values is this a council eight years from now there are shared values so I you know once it's kind of memorialized then there it is and we're going to use it for 20 years until we do it again and then you don't do the exercise I will also say we've got three people have very long days tomorrow so if we could all yeah you know I'm I'm I'm good I'm good with that comment let's let's kick the can down the road on this one I think I can't hear you mayor um I'm going to say Let's Kick the Can down the road on this one and U we don't have to memorialize it now I think we we largely agree with it if it needs if I think if there's further conversation on any of the points that um let's let's get them made and um but I don't think we have to in the interest of time I'm going to say I I I I'm not feeling the I'm not feeling an overwhelming support for memorializing at this juncture well no I'm I'm sort of agnostic on it I I'm not going to die on the High Hill I will say that I think that number 13 is super important um I felt a lot I have as as a person who is partisan in my private life I try very hard not to bring that into uh the council but I have felt since I started on the council a move towards there's there's sometimes a partisan feeling um and people have very strongly held beliefs and some of that is just your per you know people's personal values um which are very very important and of course affect you know how we all make decisions but I do think that number 13 is is really important and um and something that we all need to strive for personally so I think it's it's an important value and I I I do think that we have values that the staff follows and I think they are Revisited from time to time I don't think that it's necessarily 20 years and so I like I say I'm not going to die on High heill trying to make it you know memorialize it next week or next month um but I think it's worth discussing and maybe just not right now I mean I just don't think it's you know a burning fire but I think that I think these are really important I think it does inform culture and culture eat strategic planning for breakfast so so does someone want to make a recommendation or um or do you want to I mean you know go ahead yeah um thank you mayor I I agree actually I I understand the the point about um each Council needing to kind of come to these do these exercises on their own I think it's really helpful especially like you know when you're on boarding we're talking to new candidates that people understand that we kind of set the expectation um now future councils may may amend that or whatever but um I do you also um share the concern about the subjective nature of nonpolitical and nonpartisan I agree that we come to that but I think you get to that through the uh Commitment Community Focus you know if we focus on community I think that can be fold it in without kind of separating it out um so much although I agree with that but I think it's it gets into subjectivity that's hard to um do so maybe that that's just done another way um so I don't also not dying on that Hill that it has to be done in the decision made tonight I would maybe suggest if we're all too tired tabling it and coming back at the next study session yeah I was going to ask if could we just revisit this at another study session and maybe well and then I would recommend if we're if we're going to do that um let let's all think through any anything here that we have a concern about you know I would say the last one I understand where Kimberly is coming from on that but I also think that that is really through the eye of the behold older and um you know I think uh um you know I think we all work pretty hard to be nonpartisan in our roles but but I know that there are different levels of partisanship in other aspects of our lives and people see us in other aspects of our lives and then they extend that to our roles here and you know what people are going to do that we can't control what other people think or do um our goal is to be nonpolitical and nonpartisan in our roles as council members and I'm good with that but how people perceive me they may perceive me as the least uh political least partisan person uh they know or the most and different people have different perspectives I can't control that but I can't control how I play the game and I think I think that's an aspiration that I have so you know I think uh if we try and if we try and look at these and say you know what we're gon to we're going to dot all the eyes and cross all the tees and be that way I think um I think these are these are statements of value and culture and um and and our approach to things not everybody's going to grade us the same way um on those based on their perspectives but I think stating them is good so but I'm good with let's let's this is an important thing let's think about how we want to Memorial memorialize it and let's think about any tweaks that we might want to make to anyone would recommend but I think then let's if we can bring it back next time I think that's good does that work for everyone all right so then Mike you get to do the um December study session topics and it's kind of a short list yeah really short not a short list but yeah December study session will be full I'm planning to send out an email to all of you a couple weeks before that December 9th study session so in a couple weeks you'll get an email from me couple things on there that that are at the December 9th study session one is the study session work plan itself and so instead of getting that packet on a normal Thursday and coming to that December 9th council meeting that's one of the agenda items I'll put out in that email to you is to start thinking about 2025 I do have the a list going uh you'll see that in the email the list I have going so far and be prepared that'll give you some time to look at the list be prepared to come on December 9th um to add to that list and be ready to go through our exercise we've done the last couple years in prioritizing those we'll also then kick off with the legislative breakfast prior priorities so I think this was here tonight just looking ahead at 2025 legislative sessions right around the corner hard to believe and so we as a council you as a council we as the city want to start framing up what our legislative priorities are for for next year we'll be reaching out to legislators after tomorrow looking at the results of the election certainly you know obviously had AUM she'll be back in but we have a couple other races that will determine who's on who'll be our legislators next year and we're gearing up for Friday January excuse me Friday January 10th or Friday January 17th legislative breakfast with our legislator so that discussion will be important in December that'll also be part of that email I'll send out to you with another list looking at those legislative priorities annual appointments also in that as well so I'll send out an email ahead of you a couple weeks before that with some information get preped for that meeting TR all right thank you anything else anyone don't forget to vote