Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Good evening. Today is Monday, April 20th, 2026. This is a study session of the Minnotonka City Council and we will um do a roll call starting with Miranda. >> Miranda Diamond, assistant city manager. >> Eric Nelson, city attorney. >> Darren Nelson, finance director. Mike Funk, city manager. >> Amanda Maxwell, w two. >> Kimberly Wilburn, at large. >> Paty Foster Bolton, Ward One. Rebecca Shack, mayor. >> Ky Ki, W four. Deb Calbert, ATL large CA. Paula Rome, board three. >> Will Manchester, public works director. >> Julie Wishan, community development director. >> Kelly OD, recreation director. Scott Bordon, police chief. >> Kevin Fox, fire chief. >> Derek Mezer, deputy chief, fire department. Aaron Morris, assistant fire chief. >> Jason Tate, deputy chief, police department. Kevin Ringhoffer, resident. >> Nate Thornton, resident. >> Tom Stalker, resident. >> Okay, thank you. Um, we have everybody here. We will get right into it. So, um, our first business item is director budget presentations and Mike will introduce that. >> Yeah. Uh, thank you, mayor, council. Good evening. Uh just I have a couple slides for you this evening because I want to be brief because we have a lot of ground to cover here this evening. And so just to set the stage uh as our directors and and not only our directors but some of our assistant uh chiefs are here as well. So appreciate our staff uh getting prepared for tonight's discussion. Just to kick things off, you've seen this slide before, uh perhaps maybe newer to Amanda in terms of our overall city budget. And so just again, just a refresher for you all, uh looking at that center kind of greenish olive colored circle is the government funds. And so we're starting our budget uh kickoff, not tonight, but starting to set the stage for the next study session, which is our official budget kickoff. But before I do that, just want to again remind you of the different funds that we have here in the city. So again, in that um kind of olive colored circle, the governmental funds, those are the funds that are supported by again property tax dollars and those are noted in those subsequent dots around it. So going around clockwise, we have our special revenue accounts, our capital project funds, our debt service, and our general fund. So those make up our what we again call our governmental funds. That one big bucket. And then the second bucket is our enterprise funds. Enterprise funds tend to be funds that are supported through fees uh not tax dollars. So that's where our water and sewer and other utility accounts live uh including Williston, our Graves Bay Marina and so forth. So those are the again the overall funds uh for 2026. just remind you that that's 124 million in terms of the city's budget. So when someone asks you how big is the city's budget, you can say it's 124 million comprised of those different funds. Next slide, please. Thank you. Um and then so for tonight, we just going to quickly mention before I mention up on the slide kind of a batty lineup for tonight, if you will. Uh we'll start off with our uh with our eight directors here this evening. Uh Will Manchester will start with public works, followed by uh legal, then finance, admin, wreck, recreation, community development, fire and police. So that'll kind of round out our first agenda item that will then transition then into our public safety master plan. But before we get to uh tonight's director presentations, just want to highlight for you then our schedule upcoming this year for what we call our 2027 budget development process. So again, tonight, April 20th, we're doing director presentations. So tonight, uh you'll hear from directors. Uh they're pretty scripted pres presentations, meaning they're meant to be short, about 10 minutes, uh each, no more than 10 minutes each. You'll hear from each director in terms of what's what's happening in 2026. some challenges and looking ahead to 2027 and those challenges uh that they're dealing with and then rounding that out with some of the metrics. And so we just again want to set that stage for you a highle presentation from our different directors just kind of where we sit today and then again that kind of snapshot looking ahead. Um, and then in terms of how does that then transform into the rest of the budget for budget preparation for 2027, uh, after tonight on May 11th, we you'll have the community and business survey. So, Peter Leman, uh, is working on that as we speak. And so, that's getting finished up and that'll come to you on May 11th. So, you'll have director presentations tonight. You'll get the community survey results that will help again kind of feed into then that May 11th, 2027 budget kickoff. And on May 11th, we're going to really target those governmental funds. So, going back to that first slide, as I mentioned, kind of our governmental funds. You'll see um how we when and how we touch under those different funds. So, on May 11th, you'll notice the green X. The green X's mean that's kind of the highlight of the night and where most the focus will be. The smaller X's represent we'll be touching on some of the other funds as well. Uh so, again, May 11th is governmental funds. So those four buckets that I showed to you on that first graph or that first uh illustration June 15th, we'll come back with the capital improvement plan. Uh we'll also then touch a little bit on the special revenue funds also at that study session. Then in July, we'll hit on the economic improvement plan and then a little bit of our capital project funds as well. Then in August, we'll have the general fund and then a conversation on priority based budgeting. So really again been in August bringing back full circle everything that's led up to that point because on September 14th is when you as a council will need to approve your preliminary tax levy. So we'll really be gearing up for that se September 14th council meeting between now and then. After that preliminary levy and budget is adopted. Uh the next time we'll touch budgets is November 16th. We'll call that all funds. We're kind of touching base on all of them. And more specifically, you'll notice on the very right hand side enterprise funds. So, we're not really touching enterprise fund conversations until November and then really gearing up for December 7th public meeting. Uh that's when we're targeting that uh schedule and then at that point a budget and levy adoption occurring on December 7th with an alternate date on December 24 1st. So that gives you kind of a quick snapshot on this upcoming next eight months or so as we start to really dive into the budget and the tax levy. So with that I I just pause there quickly any questions for the council on that. Otherwise, thank you mayor. Hearing none, just want to just want to stress then on May 11th that is that is a really big night in our budget kickoff and you can expect to get some correspondence from me between now and then because I'll want to learn staff will want to learn for you going into that budget kickoff your priorities. Um so really becoming prepared to that meeting to share with staff your thoughts about the budget, what goals you might have, what priorities you might have. So we want to be able to understand that. So then that really kind of helps shape then the rest of rest of the year and then there'll be other touch points after that as noted here. But really um again I'll kind I'll work with you on getting that framed up for that May 11th study session. So with that if there's nothing else I'd really like to turn it over to Mr. Manchester while he can lead us into public works. >> Go ahead. >> Will. >> All right. Good evening Mayor and councel. I'll just jump right in. Um so as Mike mentioned kind of run through our goals and kind of some challenges and where we're going to be. So public works is primarily core services as you know and so one of always one of our department goals is to keep those core services going. And so we've got you know 300 miles of streets, water and sewer, you know, 950 water bodies, 54 parks and 105 miles of trails. And so most of our things revolve around those core services. Um, we're always looking to extend the life of these things as much as we can. And so that's part of the stuff we're always uh running through. We are working on our water meter replacement. So this year we've got our residential water meters. We're looking to hopefully finish that this summer. Uh we've got around 9,000. It's going to be tight, but our goal is to try to get those done and then all that would remain would be for commercial next year. Um got a number of projects in design. uh you've seen most of these Excelsier Kinsel and then the Three Rivers Trails and so those are currently under design considerations and so that's a big undertaking and then our construction projects we've got Minnetonka Boulevard the Cedar Lake Trail Rdale uh Red Circle in the Opus area and then we've got the Ice Arena and then our 2026 maintenance work which we do on an annual basis. Uh the Big Willow Park master plan continues most of you been involved in some of that. Um, EAB continues to be a big thing for us. It's peaking right now. It'll peak for a year or two more probably. And so we're continuing to work on the replacement and managing that stuff. Uh, our third location for solar um is in the works and so that'll occur uh this summer. It'll be on the ice arena. So you saw the other two previously and then we continue to work on our partnerships with local agencies like the county and MINDOT. Mindot's got a couple big projects coming up. So, they're starting the 394 work. There'll be a lot going on west of 494 and then uh Hopkins Crossroad. Uh the ramp west will be closing next week also. So, there'll be some impacts just so you're aware too after the Hopkins Crossroad. >> So, in other words, I can't make it to the meetings. >> Yeah, >> I'll never get here. >> Probably not. You can go east though still be able to do that. Um and then that is actually moving to Plymouth Road after. So, they'll finish Hopkins Cross Road in uh likely July and then they'll start the next signal work at Plymouth Road. Uh just some of our outlooks, uh GIS is a big thing for us. So, we're looking at new ways. We haven't incorporated that as much in our street and park work and so we're working on some of our data management with that. Um you know, we have a lot of water main, so a lot occurs with that. We've got service interruptions and leaks when those occur. One of the things we're always uh looking to the future is those aren't going to get any cheaper as the systems continue to age. So something we're tracking uh it's busy. There's a lot of projects going on as you've seen. So we're constantly tracking those things. With a lot of projects comes a lot of resident interaction. So one of our outlooks is expecting to hear from probably more residents than in the past. I don't know. But that's good. I mean we know it's coming and we'll continue on our notifications. Um, EAB mentioning again our habitat restoration. We keep up with that. So once we start, we need to keep it going just to make sure we finish that. And then uh our resilient Minnotonka program. So we've got a lot of residents asking uh for different types of landscaping. And so that's one of the things we'll be looking at as well. Uh just some of our challenges. Uh the same thing as last year, time or workload. And then the cost. you know, we're always tracking projects, but a lot of times when we're putting projects together, you know, we're trying to project costs five years out. And so, we're always projecting that more. And so, just looking at that, the public expectation, you know, we hear from a lot of residents. We work with a lot of residents. And so, the need for information is always there. We'll just continue to work on that. Um, we do as much as we can. Um, sometimes it's never enough. We hope it is. you know, we keep doing what we're doing and it seems to be working. But, uh, and then regulations, those aren't getting any easier. We haven't, you know, detected any levels of PAS over what the regulations would allow, but other communities in the area have. And so, those regulations are probably going to get tighter and tighter for us as well, which is a good thing, but at the same time, you know, it takes work to manage those things. uh cyber security and then some of our system resilience just to make sure there's no threats of anything uh continue to grow as well. And then there's a backlog, you know, as the EAB is hit, we've got a number of trees in the rightway that we're continuing to manage. Just keeping up with that is going to continue to be a challenge and so we'll keep at it, but it's one of the things we're always working on. Just some of our key measures. Um, similar to last year, we tried to put some of the same ones in here just so you could see kind of some comparisons. Um, our notifications were at around 66,000 notifications. So, we're definitely getting information out to people. Uh, we work closely with admin and our communications on that. Um, our volunteer hours, we're at around 4,000. Um, the trees replanted in the community up nearly 3,000. That does does include the tree sale, too. So, that's actually in the community. our facility work orders, you know, we're 3,600, which is quite a bit. Um, our overlay, we're doing about 14 miles, around a mile of trail and then 112 miles of maintenance on sidewalks. Um, we're still around two billion gallons of water and then uh 180 inspections and our fleet work orders. So, we manage uh police, fire, and public works as well as the city. Just keeping up with that. There's a lot going on there, but a lot of core services for us for the most part and things related to core services. So, I think that was 10 minutes. Certainly, back to the mayor for >> any questions. >> Well done. Any questions, council? >> It's tough. It's a tough environment with projections. So, I think yeah, you've done a good job anticipating our questions and we've been up to speed with some of these projects. So, appreciate that. Um, thanks for all the hard work. >> All right, Mike. Who's next? >> Legal. >> All right. >> Thank you, mayor, council members. Um, a brief introduction to the legal department for primarily for Council Member Maxwell's purposes. Uh we have seven uh personnel in in the legal department, three attorneys including myself and then four support staff. The other six besides myself are solely focused on criminal prosecution. And the office prosecutes gross misdemeanor, misdemeanor, and petty misdemeanor offenses committed within the city of Minnetonka. Um, as as it would make sense, our primary source of case referrals are the Minnetonka Police Department and the State Patrol, but we do get referrals from all of our neighboring jurisdictions as well. So, we handle cases that were generated by Eden Prairie, Hopkins, South Lake, uh much smaller numbers, but but we do get those as well. And that's because typically a traffic offense or a DWI offense will cross jurisdictional lines. Um the uh so the office has two prosecutors uh and that those two prosecutors and four support staff comprise the the criminal division and then the civil division is me and I I handle that work. We will have an eighth uh FTE coming on board at some point this year and I want to thank the council member uh the council for those personnel dollars that were um provided in last year's budget. We're still scoping that out. It's um with the city has never had a parallegal job classification and the the dollars that were provided were parallegal equivalent. Um and what we're looking for is perhaps somewhat of a unique um role in the law in that we're looking for really a substantive issue focused parallegal that can do both civil and criminal. Um and we're going to see how that works and see if uh throw the line out there and see if there's you know we can catch anything with that. uh and we'll re re-evaluate if that doesn't um prove successful. So, uh my experience, criminal people tend to be focused solely on criminal law and civil and and the two lines don't cross, but I think I I have some hope that we would get somebody good. So, our 2026 goals, uh, in light of having a small office and some of the difficulties in terms of managing large volume courts with two attorneys, uh, we're looking at ways other than through the addition of personnel dollars. Um, and and one of those is to create a really a criminal division manual. There isn't one that currently exists. And I think uh because I was new at my role last year and we elevated the assistant city attorney to the deputy city attorney last year as well. So the leadership of the office changed entirely. Uh realized that it it would be really useful in many ways to have a criminal division manual that would have sort of SOP documents for some of the common offenses that occur and how we handle that process flow. It would help new folks who come on board and can use that as a resource manual. Uh it can help in staffing and succession planning because when when any one person would leave a small office that can create some jarring impacts and you really need to have that that you know the the the way things work written down in some form and so we're going to start that this year. It's going to be a big undertaking. I don't anticipate finishing that. Um we're going to for focus on sort of the some of the primary um case types that recur first and then on the second bullet we're also going to focus on extreme risk protection order hearings because those are are becoming more and more of a of a case type that we handle and that's the red flag law u cases. So, we're going to focus on that initially as well. And then as a civil measure, um I am hoping to create a sort of a comprehensive data practices act res reference document that can be used to aid enterprisewide response to public information requests. So, the data practices act is sort of the state law equivalent of the Freedom of Information Act. And um we do handle a large volume uh on a weekly basis of public information requests. Uh, a lot of them are police focused and so I'd work with the the um Lindsay Yates and the police department. Uh, but then the clerk's office is also our our responsible authority to respond to these requests. And so I think this would would be helpful to everybody. Uh, looking ahead, I think, um, trendwise that most prosecutor offices show a a an increase in case volume. And I think we're we're anticipating that. It's hard to project a magnitude. I think there are those who work in crime prognostication that say society in general that they're anticipating perhaps a 5 to 10% decrease in criminal offenses, but there may be some unique elements in our jurisdiction that uh perhaps buck that trend. Uh we're looking at the commencement of light rail service, additional law enforcement hiring by any of these agencies that refer cases to us, increased use of special enforcement details such as the distracted driving uh cameras that were on Highway 7 last year, uh some of the retail theft focused details at Ridgedale um and tra human trafficking details. Uh and then continued emphasis on criminal law adjacent matters such as herbos, those extreme risk protection orders and expungements. Those are technically civil matters. Um but we our prosecutors do handle those in in our office. So challenges uh attorney attorney staffing is always an area of focus. Um and that's just in light of case volume numbers. Uh our office does tend to have more cases that are actually heard by a judge. It's difficult to compare numbers jurisdiction to jurisdiction because each jurisdiction has sort of a different approach to how they prosecute. We do tend to have more cases um actually heard by a judge and and not you know not dismissed at an earlier stage of the proceeding and then mounting digital evidence and discovery demands um and that that includes now drone footage um but as well as body cam video and squad video. And so we also have one of the individuals in our office is solely focused on video as being sort of our video technician. The um attorney staffing members I just mentioned that because they're all they're sort of always um an eye on your peer cities and uh Maple Grove I think is viewed as one of our primary in-house pier city prosecution offices and they just added a third criminal attorney in last year's budget. Again to be clear, we're not asking for that. ungrateful for what we have and we're going to we're going to uh find some efficiencies in our work through the manual as well. And then key measures uh you can see in the top line cases opened and processed by staff that that has gone up. there was a a fairly large bump in 2024 and that was actually due to a personnel matter um that I won't wouldn't be able to say more about at this point but that did create a a bump there where we had to address a significant backlog but if you take 2024 out you can still see that those numbers have trended uh upwards and then in terms of 26 estimated and 27 again this is this is sort of guesswork at some level but we're projecting sort of more modest increases uh as compared to the larger jumps uh from like 22 to 23. Uh there's a civil measure at the bottom of contracts drafted or reviewed. Measuring civil legal work is always a notoriously difficult thing and I think we view um the best way to measure that as being client satisfaction. And so at some point this year we'll do a client satisfaction survey uh inhouse. And then we also do I I also do one with the charter commission who I'm I serve as the attorney liaison to the charter commission. And so that sort of serves as somewhat of a civil metric although it's it's not exactly on point as having numbers like a like a criminal case volume number can have. >> And that's all I have. >> All right. Council questions. >> I have a couple. >> One, talk to Will about how to get cool photos. I know. I know. I forgot. I forgot to say that when when you worked on this yourself. It's I I could had to clip the scales of justice or something. >> I don't know what you would put in documents, stacks of documents. Yep. >> Um, how many of the extreme risk protection orders are we seeing? >> Yep. >> Kind of a year. >> Yep. So, it's still relatively new at this point already. This year, we've had five that have gone to hearing already. So, >> Okay. I think um and and police might address that in some of their presentation, but we but obviously we work, you know, side by side on those and but it seems to be more um of a focus and they you know resolutions of those can vary between uh six months or a year in terms of effect, but you're also able to renew those. And so you you know even when you have one in place, you're tracking you're also continuing to track those those cases as well. And would there be an efficiency in say that accelerates or one of this area is instead of hiring a third prosecutor to say we're going to contract just those specific cases out. >> That's that's a great question, mayor. And um with the new position that I'm scoping out, we one of the things we do intend to have them do is sort of be our herpo coordinator like or the point to lead on that because what happens now is everybody has their significant volume they're dealing with on a day-to-day basis and an herpo comes in relatively >> quickly sometimes >> sometimes unanticipated um rather suddenly. I won't say it's like a TTRO, but it's it's in that sort of vein where you have to then devote all your resources to to pulling all that evidence, compiling that evidence, getting into the system, and sort of put everything else to the side for the time being. And so that has been has created sort of sometimes when those have come up a little bit of um uh a little bit of difficulty just in in regular work management, but that that is going to be a one of the primary roles hopefully of this new position that we'll be able to hire this year. I envision them a little bit like a order for protection where all of a sudden you're just hauling hands on that. Exactly. >> Um and then one last thing I just want to acknowledge again because I think it was a massive massive achievement to contract with Minneapolis on that on call piece and is that working okay? >> That's that's been that's been great. Yep. And um uh re really really a good thing for staff when you have such a small office. you have two prosecutors that otherwise would have to figure out a way to handle that. Um, you know, even even just besides the work that is entailed in handling that covering those calendars, it it makes frankly it makes it difficult for them to take a vacation. Um, and and and uh you know, they they they have to make sure that one or the other is available or would have been available on those those um weekend hours. So, yes, that's that's pretty great. >> Good. I'm sure that your attorneys are very grateful for that change. Yep. >> All right. Anything else, Jim? >> Just a couple just a couple of things. one is so I very much appreciate the documents that you are uh you know set as goals to I mean those are huge undertakings and I you know being the person that does the data practices request just for my department it is I mean if you figure it out I want to look at it because we could use something like that and it you know it's it's so difficult it's so difficult and people that don't deal with it every day is such a massive amount. Massive. And I really want to start I don't know what we can do to get the legislature to help figure out how to limit you know especially the punitive ones that but we really need to lock arms and sort of make it a focus maybe sort of like we did with um with EM EMS that you know it is sort of an emergency for cities because it just bogs city's down and it costs so much money that we can't recoup in staff time. So, um just kudos to you on that. And the same thing on I mean it's it's very intriguing to me to put together kind of a manual for the for the court case types or the the case types. So, um I'd be so curious to see it. So, um, but I wish you a lot of luck because that's like doing a zoning code rewrite all by yourself. So, which you also have. >> I I council member Kevin, I agree I agree with your comments uh about the data practices act and thank you. And um that's why I was very I was very keen or or um carefully chose the word commence the development of the manual. >> I know there's no way we'll finish it this year. So, >> thanks Sarah. Can anybody else? Okay, next up. >> Let's see who we have. >> Finance is up next. So, >> Nelson >> and finance actually has a picture as well, too. So, note that legal. So, good evening, mayor, council members. Um, we usually don't have pictures, so I was able to slide one in here this afternoon. So, um, looking at our 2026 departmental goals. So, in finance, we have two divisions. We have our finance division and then our assessing division. um party based budgeting as you've heard um has been a a big piece of that um project over the last number of months on that end of it. Uh we are getting u making progress on the on the on this application and so we've identified all of our programs across all the different departments. We've done our scoring across all those different departments and now we're starting to get into that phase of uh being able to analyze those results and results and um take that to the next step of being able to implement some of those solutions to help identify resource allocation or revenue enhancement opportunities on that and such. And so we'll get a taste of that at our May 11th kickoff. Um get you pieces of that so you can kind of see where we're at uh to date. We won't be necessarily making any decisions at that point in time, but we'll leave that for our August time frame on that end of it. um utility billing system implementation. And so we've been working with Logis. We're hoping that we're on the schedule here for sometime later in 2026 to begin that process. Um they've got a couple cities live. Um that's with the vendor Spry Point and that is through Lois and so they've gotten a couple vendors live. I think Wakoneia and Maple Grove are live and so um we should be in this not this next group but hopefully the group after that which should be going um as I mentioned later this later this year. uh will mention the meter replacement project. Um that's a public works project, but we get involved with that with the billing side of it when we look at uh billing issues or metering numbers, those types of things on that end of it and such. Local sales tax, um that's been a a big push here the first part of the year on on that end of it. Hopefully um it continues to be and and we'll see um what that brings um coming forward. And then we will look at um working with the fire relief as well too about renewing our fire state aid agreement that we put in place. That would have been two years ago this fall already. And so I'm looking to um probably bring forward potentially an increase in their pension, but also um an um a continued sharing of that um fire state aid for the next couple years as well too. So um that all be dependent upon where they're at funding levels, those type of things on on that end of it and such. Then the assessing side of it, um they're looking to create a process to track the ADUs in their property data system. That's the PDS stands for U. So they can analyze those sales on an annual basis. Um right now they're they don't necessarily have something in place. So they're looking to um solve that that problem they have at at this point in time. And then they're also testing and training and implementing a new field mobile application um which is was also developed by Logis but we've been instrumental in helping them test that and uh roll that out to the other um cities that utilize that service. So 2027 outlook um really looking to dive deeper into the priority based budgeting piece of that. um really looking to um get it the first round in, get a basis for where we're at, and then really start to fine-tune um our programs, making sure that we have consistency across all the programs as far as scoring, making sure there's a peer review in place. Um all that type of um that good stuff and really be able to take the data out of there and make some useful decisions to help set us up for the long term on on that end of it. Um then we will be looking at an ERP and um a pay HCM or payroll F or HR system at some point in time here as well. Um hopefully it'd be nice to kind of get started on that later in 2026 here, but that'll be a multi-year project that would bring us through 2027 and probably 2028 um go live potentially on on that end of it and such. So we're trying to clean up the the the last one um before we kick off this new one here on that end of it. So, and then uh obviously 2027 will probably bring bring the continuation of that utility billing implementation as well too. So, that that'll be a probably a six to nine 12-month process as well too. Uh so, challenges. So, it's just time to dedicate to um really diving in and being a part of those those bigger projects. It always seems like you're going in a hundred different directions. So, taking time to cut away and just be part dive in and get into those projects is important. Um staffing stability will be a piece of that as well. Um I'm going to we've had some little bit of turnover in the finance department on that end of it and a little bit of we had some uh FMLA things on that end of it. So we're um trying to get some stability back in the the finance division side of that um which will be um a little while here yet. And then um looking on the assessing side of it, we also have kind of the future of assessing services as well too knowing that that's in the back of um our staff's mind there. um if we lose the staff there, it's getting harder to fill that fill those positions as well too as that's a small field and they all kind of know um where some of the other cities have gone at this point in time that are still doing city assessing on on that end of it and such. So, um just always kind of in the back of our our minds on that end of it. Uh key measures, I won't go through every one of these, but um we measure a lot of the utility numbers. What we're seeing is uh we're getting more numbers for online billing. So, a lot of more customers are are receiving their bills online, which is great. So, we don't have to print and mail them as those costs continue to rise. Um, payment wise, vast majority of our payments are coming through electronically. It's um we still have checks and we remote deposit those checks and things like that, but it's it's done in, you know, 20 minutes in a day compared to hours it used to be, you know, handful of years ago on that end of it and such. Um, with that though, we are seeing credit card fees increase and be a substantial portion of our of our costs across not just utility billing, but recreation, any any of our departments that utilize credit card as as a payment source on that end of it. And our philosophy has always been to, you know, build that fee into the the cost of the service. And um no plans necessarily change that, but it is, you know, a 4% charge, four to four four to 5% charge on a lot of our credit card fees on that end of it. So we're doing, you know, we're probably doing $50 million of sales across the city on an annual basis. It gets to be a big number on that. And you're seeing more and more private businesses add credit card processing fees. So it's getting to be normalized again. And um I don't necessarily want to do that, but um it might be something that's on our radar as well into the into the future. So um then we just have our annual rate of return of investments. Those have been nice the last couple years and we hope that um rates maybe moderate a little bit but um are expecting to moderate a little bit but um still a better return than we've seen um from seven eight nine years ago on that end of it and such. And then just looking at the assessing division, we got the the market value of um that you saw in the assessing uh report that was done a couple weeks ago or a month or so ago and their sales ratio which they always went in that 90 to 105% range and so we were right in that sweetheart range about 95% or so on that end of it. And then our commercial tax petitions too. We are um seeing an increase in those. It is um office space office uh market is still um on that let's say downswing but it is one of the most more volatile areas on that end of it and such. So we expect a few more court petitions on on that side of it. So and with that I'd be open for any questions. >> Thanks Darren Council. Any questions? Kzy. >> Yes. I have a question on um the tax the credit card fees. So if you start I don't know if we are we charging credit card fees now. >> We don't. We >> Okay. >> They're built in. >> Okay. So they're built into the bill now or >> Yep. So the cost the you know if it's a utility bill it's built into the water and sewer rate that you're paying. Those are costs that are built. >> It's an overhead overhead cost. Yeah. So, um, since it's built in, do you see any extra revenue in that or are you just kind of breaking even in it? >> I I try to emphasize that when we go to look at from the utility billing standpoint, it's it's we take that into cost into consideration on that end of it. I've emphasized I know Kelly and I talk quite a bit making sure that when he's looking at programming costs or fees that he charges for programs that making sure that he take into account you know four or five% just off the top for credit card fees. So it's a you know if it's a $50 program you want to make sure you're taking into account you know two $32 to $3 worth of credit card processing fees off the top. So it's a big it's a big cut. >> Okay. >> So breaking even right basically. So yeah, that's what I'm trying to figure out because sometimes I know you may, you know, build a little higher fee to get a little extra, but really are you breaking even or is it kind of >> Yeah. No, we would be breaking even. We're taking in as a as an overhead cost. So we're building that in as the cost of, you know, what's the personnel cost? What's the credit card charges cost? What are all all those costs? And we look at it compared to the the fees. So, it's not necessarily a separate item that we're upcharging or anything on on that end of it, but it's something that's built into our try to break even cost on that. >> Absolutely. >> All right. >> All right. Thank you. >> Have any other questions? >> Follow up. >> Yeah, thank you. Um, I was just wondering if there had been any uh indication of what's going to happen with assessing or movement on that. And also, you got to speak up a little bit. uh sales tax and assessing if there had been any um if we have any indications of what's happening there. >> Um I go ahead >> just quickly. >> Yep. Absolutely. Uh assessing I think it's there hasn't been any anything things changed since last year or beginning of this year or last year at this point in time. We have a couple Maple Grove Dino were going over to the the county. Um but that's supposed to that's scheduled to happen like midway through the year this year. So, um I assume that'll probably be a year transition for them or so to make that all happen. Sales tax front, um I think we have our our house hearing Wednesday this week. So, fingers crossed there that it it continues to plug away. So, >> thank you. >> Um Deb, so for the ERP and the HCM, do have you identified the vendor? >> No, >> we have not. We haven't gone out for RFP. We've truly I want a I want an ERP system that doesn't have a system implement, a third party system implement. I want a I want a ERP system that does their own implementation. So, >> um we'll see what all happens there, but we have to RFP the the project on on that end of it. But there's literally probably just a handful of viable >> companies out there on that end of it. So, >> and then in terms of um PBB um is there anything like we should be sort of recalibrating our thinking now in terms of you know >> yes um that there's not going to be a magic bullet like there is going to be like this is going to solve all of our problems for the next you know teen years on that end of it. So, I don't want to overpromise that there's going to be something that comes out of this, but I think there's going to be >> ways that I've kind of noticed even with our strategic plan a little bit to ways ways to maybe on our next one to tweak that a little bit to be a little bit more specific as it relates to the programs that we have or don't have, those types of things. And we noticed a couple things today, maybe aligning some of our our services with um some of the projects that we're doing. Maybe um maybe they're being paid for out of general fund tax dollars where they could be being paid for out of some utility type of stuff as well, too. Making sure everything's in alignment. GF versus what? >> Um like a utility like it was a storm water or utility type of service that's being done. >> Yeah. >> But the funding is being paid for out of general fund tax dollars. I know it's in one pocket or another, but we really should be making sure that we align our cost with where the the revenues with where the costs are coming from. So, >> any other questions? >> Great, Darren. Thank you. >> Yeah, no problem. >> Maybe I should should have mentioned this earlier, but for the sake of Amanda who's getting the hang of things to a lot of acron acronyms seem to be flying around, so we'll just maybe say the whole thing. >> Got it. All right. Uh, who's next? >> Uh, so we'll have So the next three be admin, so Miranda and then Kelly and Wreck, and then followed by Julie in community development. >> Excellent. Miranda, you're up. >> All right. Thank you. So last year I had photos and I think I went 40 minutes. So we're gonna redeem ourselves this year and I didn't do any photos. So let's hopefully I can speed it up. Um so in 2016 or 2026 our departmental goals. So I oversee HR, IT, city clerk, DEI and communications is all of us together. So we launched a performance management system which has been on our to-do list since like 2016. So, it was really nice to get it off the ground in January. It's all electronic now. We'll bring that to council here in a few months for Mike's review. Um, pay family medical leave. Um, we are tracking it. We are watching its organizational impact. We're watching the cost on the city and um, everything that has to go with that. It's been an all consuming for one of our HR staff. Um, so we're watching that. Improving outreach to our hard-to-reach community members and employees. Um, we have lots of employees out in the field and making sure if we have updates that they get that they can see them and can be part of them. Um, and enhancing efficiencies through Microsoft 365 and AI policies. Um, developing a boards and commissions handbook. Sarissa is working on that right now. Um, she's reviewing all the codes and bylaws as well to ensure consistency across those. She's partnered with Eric on that and all of the liaison. Um, as Darren mentioned, the HRIS system, payroll system options, um, advancing DEI through continued outreach and ongoing initiatives. Um, we need to review and update our personnel policy with five unions. That can be tricky. Um, but that is something that is on our forefront this year. The next one is ensuring um, WA WCAG 2.1A compliance, better known as digital accessibility. And our deadline was April 24th. >> Got moved. >> It got moved to what is it? >> April 26, 2027. >> So we got a year. >> You said April 26th. >> Andrew was skipping in this morning. >> Weight lifted off of his shoulders. >> I didn't get that news. You just made my whole day. >> Yes. So great news. So again, our staff was a little defeated because they have spent so many hours doing this, but we can breathe a little bit because we got a year um administering our elections this year and all that comes with what's going on and what's to come. >> We do have four union contracts open this year. So we are in the process of negotiating one. We do have three more coming up. And then we are developing a comprehensive cyber security incident response plan and hopefully doing a tabletop later this year on that. 2027. I put the new date down there. So, it's April 26, 2027. So, instead of just 26, we move 27. Ensuring compliance. Um, potentially researching a website change. We want to research in 27, see if we need to change platforms with the digital accessibility. Our website is 10 years old at this point. And so, just examining that. um reviewing our current official records repository. So with the digital accessibility, how does that impact our record system? Um we do have a council word our ward seat elections are next year and rank choice voting with that. Um we are nearing the end of our contract with the city of Hopkins on our ACE program. It actually ends in 2028. So, next year I really want to do a deep dive in that contract and review our ACE program and just do an analysis on that. Um, we do need to continue exploring andor implement a new system. In 2027, our police officer labor contract is up, so just one up next year. And then ongoing paid medical leave and again just working with our vendor. It hasn't been a smooth process for anybody involved. And so making sure that we have good experience for both our staff and making sure we can keep bodies as well to make sure we can keep running. So some challenges that we do and have faced are preparing and reacting for the unknown. Um, we are adequately staffed and admin for our day-to-day, but when Metro Surge hits and when we have to prepare for the unknowns, the upcoming elections and we have employee issues and all the things that pop up whether it's controlled or uncontrolled, um, pull us and that can change our whole resource availability in a snap of a finger. So, Mike, do you want to add on to that one at all? No. Okay, >> I came at the end. >> Okay. um recruitment and retention. So while most of us would say recruitment and retention, um we do have a talent acquisition who manages all of that. So making sure we have continue to stay competitive. Um repercussions of implementing state and federal laws. Again, we've got a couple of those examples already listed. Um embracing technology advances. They are coming fast and trying to be able to keep up and ensure our employees have what they need. Um the rising costs I think will be a theme for all of us with medical cost, technology subscriptions and then ensuring where we can potentially cut as well. Data practices, Eric touched on that one so I won't elaborate but that is that is really timeconuming particularly our city clerk staff. Um cyber security continues to be not I wouldn't say a challenge but an area of focus for us. um growth of communication channels, our video production has significantly um increased the last few years and graphics as well. And then again, reaching our hard-to-reach audience, making sure we're doing that and um watching the data on that. Our key measures, I won't go through all of these. Um I would point out a couple are um incoming desk phone calls is at 22,750. That continues to rise from year to year. So, while I thought the incoming calls would potentially decrease over the years, it continues to increase. So, people still do call the front desk, I sit up there every now and again when we're short staffed and I often hear somebody's answering the phone. Somebody picks up the phone and answers it. And so, providing that customer service has been um important. Um total ballots cast, that's an estimate for this fall election. We anticipate 30,000 being um cast. um communications division they're at 46 our anticipated for the end of the year is 46,500 I think last year we were in the high30s so that continues to rise for the um text and email subscribers not just email on that one memo is our tried andrue it still prefers to be the um communication tool and then um our grants have increased to I'll just mention those couple in those areas. And then HR, we have seen a lot of um retirements. We have one this year in the next month and they've been here for like 46 years, right? >> And so we're just seeing some of our really long-term employees starting to retire and we'll continue to see that. Um our workers comp mod factor, we're watching that really, really closely. That does impact the budget. So, we're keeping our eye on that one. And our help desk ticket requests up um we're anticipating about 3,800 this year. And our um ability to be remote connections continues to rise. We're at 590 devices. And with that, I'll leave it there. >> Thanks, Miranda. Council questions. >> Ky um for the recruitment um and the retention. Who's the recruitment? I'm going to talk to you. So we um we have our own we have a employee. She's an HR and her name is Katie Young and she is a talent acquisition. So she partners with all of the supervisors and works with each of them through um their hiring process and she also attends a ton of job fairs throughout the year. >> Okay. So she's internal. >> She's internal employee. >> Okay. And then for the BIPO I saw that it was 9%. Do you >> um expect for that to increase or for like 2027? Has has it been going up or what was the numbers last year? >> Hopefully. Um I think we're at 8% last year. I will say in the last year we now have two bipok and supervisory roles >> and they were our first two in a moved into a supervisory manager role. So we have a sergeant and then Jayce Alexander as well. So >> Okay. All right. >> Other questions? Anybody? >> Great. Well, you really trimmed it down. Mike, did you have >> Okay, >> Miranda covered it well, so I don't need to add on. >> Excellent. All right. So, if I remember correctly, we're going to community development. It is recreation. >> Recreation. Yes. Thank you, Kelly. >> Um, no problem. Uh, got the mic on. Okay. Our 2026 department goals really fall into two buckets. Facilities and programming. So, under facilities, the first is the Marsh. One of our goals is to increase our facility rental revenue and then also our membership numbers by 5%. I think we're on track to do that. The marsh has been very busy which kind of ties into the second one. The second bullet is facility improvements. And so we're in this kind of limbo stage where we're talking about the future of the marsh. Yet then we have, you know, somewhat high traffic most of the days. And so we want to make sure we keep up with the building. And so things like carpeting and and roofs and things like that, we're looking at doing some of those minor facility improvements. Right now at Willist, we got a lot going on. Uh this summer, they're going to be redoing the gym floor, which is 20 years old. Our fitness floors are getting a new finish. And then we're also replacing a couple features there in the splash pad. I think the frog that's in that picture is going to be replaced. So uh and as well as uh some rooftop units. There's just a number of things that are in our CIP, our capital improvement plan that we'll be doing at Willis Center. The community center improvement plan, I think most of you were on council in in 2022 when we were planning to renovate the community center. The marsh became available, so we put that on pause. And so, we'd like to at least get a plan in place in 26 as to what we're going to do. I believe even at the next study session with the budget kickoff, we're going to carve out a little time and talk about recreation facilities if we can. So, uh that will be part of that. I think Will mentioned our ice arena. So, in a couple weeks, our refrigeration and rink B will be uh renovated. So, we that'll be down for four months all summer, hopefully, fingers crossed, back up in time for our busy season, which usually starts in late September, early October. And then lastly with facilities would be our Shady Oak Beach lifeguard shack. So, we're we're winterizing that. So, that's a lot of heating and cooling uh not only help our lifeguards in the summer, but will also help our sauna attendants in the winter. So, when it's February and it's 0 degrees out, um it will be very nice to have some some more heat there at the beach. >> And then under programming, a couple we uh you each year we always try to offer new programs in each area. So, youth, teen, adult, and senior. Our goal is to do at least two per area. Uh and then continue to offer intergenerational programs with our senior services. A couple examples would be pen pals. We still have a pen pal program. So, seniors work with a local elementary school. And then we have another program called Hopkins Propel. So, we've got high school students that come over to the senior center and help seniors with mostly technology. Phones are typically what they're using. And so, I'm I think I'm ready for that program. Actually, I've had some issues. But it's it's actually really fun to see because the the high school students, they're getting something out of this, too. So, they're coming to help the seniors who are sometimes, you know, how it is with their phones. It's like, what is this? I asking my wonderful children most of the times what happened. And so, it's really cool to see that. uh 2027 outlook. You know, again, talking about facilities, you know, I know we've been talking about the marsh and the community center and listening quite a bit. Again, we'll probably hit that more in depth in May. Um I think the community center is the one that we we want to focus on as we put that on hold and kind of want to talk about that in the future. The marsh, again, Darren talked about the local option sales tax that um we have, you know, a request into the state for that. And then Willis, we Willis is an older building. I think we renovated that building 15 years ago and there's definitely some challenges with that as it as it ages. Uh looking at programming, uh the fitness programming and our outdoor programming have been very very popular. Um outdoor programming not only with sauna in the parks, but just using our wonderful park system is is really the demand for those types of programs have increased as well as our fitness programs both at Williston and the marsh. Uh and then lastly, our adult sports programming. A lot of a lot of times we talk about youth programming and senior programming, but we sometimes leave out adults. We have over 500 adult sports teams that register for softball, kickball, uh volleyball, whether it's indoor or sand volleyball. And so, uh, we're looking to expand some of those, uh, adult sports programming, specifically the the sand volleyball, which is is, uh, has the picture right there. Some of the challenges, again, talking facilities, we have aging facilities. Uh, and it's not only just the maintenance of those facilities, but it's the the space and the limited space within them. If you think about Willist and some of the other facilities we have, they're landlocked and so we we can't expand. Um, so we have to be creative about the spaces we have within them. And so if we want to try a new program, a lot of times it's just making spaces multifunctional and and if we ever try to renovate facilities, we're doing it within a certain framework that we already have. Uh the athletic fields, uh we have a number of different fields, uh youth baseball, youth softball, soccer. Um they are in high demand. Um and so we have to we schedule all those for all of our youth organizations and adult organizations. Um and that has been uh can be challenging at times when there's limited space. And then the last challenge is, you know, we're competing with some of the changes in youth sports. if you you have children or know of people who have children. Um we used to have huge wreck programs in soccer and basketball and and and those are are changing a little bit. You're starting to see traveling programs and now the traveling programs are moving to club programs and there's all these different changes with youth sports and so we're having to adapt our wreck programming and a lot of times it's just shifting to the younger ages. So as they get into 10 and 11 and 12 sometimes they're not looking for wreck programming and we're trying to figure out what we have to do to make those changes. key measures. I wanted to point out a few of those. We've got the special event attendance. So that 7,500 that is a lot of it's weather dependent. Um you know if we have a good good weather for Summerfest, KidsFest and the Burwell Spooktacular, those numbers can be you know 7,500 or more. Uh the senior volunteer number is a big number for us. We've got 6,400 hours volunteered at the senior center. When we when COVID hit, that number dropped under 3,000. So, we're really growing that number back, and I think uh seniors are more willing to come out and and volunteer for us. Public skating participation is over 6,500. Um John, our ice arena manager, will tell you it's not just a hockey rink. We've got a lot of different things that happen over there. We've got ice skating uh lessons, we've got figure skating, and then we have a lot of just public open skates. And so, 6,500 people uh will participate there. The marsh has been busy, as I mentioned. We're we will have over 200,000 facility visits. So that's member scanins, um, daily member purchases, programs, um, 200,000 is a lot of people coming in the doors for the for that calendar year. And then last thing I wanted to highlight was the tennis court usage at Williston. Williston is very busy. We all are aware of how busy pickle ball is. Our outdoor courts are busy, our indoor courts are busy, but we're still renting over 16,000 hours on our tennis court. So we have a very, very large tennis program, and that tennis program is doing very well. So although we hear a lot about pickleball and and for for good reason it's busy um our tennis program is still very busy as well. >> Any questions other than if I can help you with your phones? >> We know not to come to you for that. So council questions >> not Oh go ahead Paul. >> Yeah. How is the I'm just curiosity. How's Marsh um visits compared to like Willist overall visits? >> Yeah. So, so March visits again were 215,000. Last year, Willist was 350,000. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Willist's a busy facility. Yeah. >> Uh I think the the thing I'm most proud of when we took over the marsh is it didn't it didn't seem to affect Willist. We still have 11,000 members, 350,000 visits. >> That's great. >> But still nice to see how much the marsh has >> and and the marsh is growing. >> Growing. Yeah, definitely. >> Great. All right. Thank you, Kelly. All right, Julie, you're up. >> Thank you. Uh, we have kind of four main areas in community development and um, I'm saying that for Amanda's benefit, but Amanda knows some of what we do uh, because she was on the planning commission for so long. We also do environmental health and so that think restaurant inspections and in that area um we're getting ready for a big transfer of data into our new Excel software which is a permitting software changing from PIMS which we've had for as long as I've been around. Uh we've had that as our software through Lois which is our um consortium of software um that we use at the city. So that is a big change for us. Good changes coming though with it uh in terms of user experience as the people pulling permits and customers uh it will be uh a good experience. Then uh in environmental health we are identifying issues for nuisance enforcement and trying to provide public information. The same on the environmental health side trying to get people to think about these issues that we constantly um are called out for. maybe garbage cans, um, or think junk on your lawn, that sort of thing. So, uh, trying to be better about pre-education rather than being, you know, the enforcement arm. Maybe people can self-regulate a little bit. So, hopefully we're doing a little bit more outreach in that area this year. Uh, in the planning and sustainability area, trying to make sure we get that update done and then, um, that's no big task, right? we can get that done by the end of the year. >> Easy. That'll be easy. >> We'll be back a couple more times before the year is out. We're also um conducting an evaluation of our asynchronous meeting. So, what um we're presenting the meeting material for planning commission online prior to the meeting so that people don't have to read the packet. They can listen to it. Um, we're going to look at how many people are actually using it, getting some feedback from folks about if they're liking that service or not and then trying to figure out if it's worth the time uh to do that. I don't know if you've looked at it at all, but it's pretty cool to have that in advance. Amanda looks like she likes it. Um, let's see. We're going to research examples and potential funding sources for what's called the green cost share program. I believe that grant program or grant application is in right now. We're waiting to hear if we're a receiver of that. If we if we are, we're going to have to set up a new program for it. So, we'll see how it goes. And then, um, based on kind of last week's, you know, big thing about the awards that were given, I mean, there's so many great stories there and making it into kind of a storyboard idea. Um, we've had that on our goals for this this year. In the housing and economic development area, we're exploring business analysts, which is a kind of a module through JS. Um, we have really great help from public works on all of the things that we do in GIS, but this is another module they've opened our eyes to. So, hopefully we can use that as we're doing our business outreach. Uh, and then doing our data and reports in there as well. Um, we do want to hold a large multi-unit property meeting uh for the folks that manage these properties. We have we used to do them more often. Um, COVID hit and then we kind of fell out of that habit. Um, we do that a lot of online meetings with folks, but we kind of want to get people in, do some education and um and have uh contact so they know who we are and we know who they are. We have their emails and all of that, but it's just kind of a more hands-on approach with that group. And then, uh, we can check mark this. We already did this with the council. We have the repair program set up and ready, and people are accessing the program. In the building inspection area, we're crossraining some plumbing inspectors into building and plumbing. Um, when they have a specialty like that, we like them to get a a building certificate as well, so they can double duty a visit. So, we're not out there twice, we're out there once. So, it's an efficiency issue. Also, um to offer state uh training to those folks that are looking for a building official license. So, first usually they go limited license and then they get a full building official license and then um we're developing some plan uniformity and streamlining of digital plan review. So, we've been using our digital plan software for probably seven years and this is kind of the next iteration. And so, if you have a similar house plan or you have a similar like maybe have the same style of house going into a development, there's an efficiency that you can build into the software that you can get uh the plan review to be more um efficient in terms of the reviewer's time. And then finally, uh, helping with our our permit techs to, uh, be more involved in the Minnesota Permit Technicians Association. And that would improve their overall knowledge. So, what they do is they actually process a permit the minute it comes in the door and says kind of first glance, does it miss any of the marks that they know about? And as they get more familiar, it kind of helps the efficiency immediately when somebody applies for a permit. Looking at 2027, we do have some staffing changes upcoming in environmental health. We have a retirement and then uh I would just say in general work is steady there. That that doesn't really fluctuate too much. Um restaurants tend to be staying the same. We haven't had we have had some closures, but usually right behind the closure there's a new occupant coming in. So that hasn't been a real um roller coaster or anything. that's usually remains pretty flat in the economic development and housing area. Um working on that corporate outreach. We have some video production coming. Uh that was helped uh we were helped by the communications division and administration to produce these videos talking to actual CEOs about why they're here in Minnetonka. Mike and I were just out at Culligan um talking to them about why they're in Minnetonka. A really great history there. So, some of this will come out on social media. You'll see some of these interactions with companies that choose Minnetonka as their home. Um, continue to monitor small business. We're always kind of sensitive and trying to help and outreach these folks. um doing what they call neighborhood kind of outreach where people go from the um assistance centers like MCCD which is the community development um consortium that provides open to business program which is an outreach program of the city and uh there's two additional things we're watching you know the implementation depending on where you head with short-term rental whatever you decide will have to be implemented next year and well this year and next year. Um and then of of course affordable housing projects, working on that in planning workloads up. You can kind of see that by um what's on your agendas as well as you know last week the three neighborhood meetings in one week. That's usually a sign things are a little bit more um a little bit more happening. Implementation of the climate action plan is important. And then once the zoning work's complete for 27, we're already diving into the comp plan. So get ready for another big process. And then uh building permits actually permit inspections. I do have a positive outlook on that. I'll talk about in the next slide some of the things I'm worried about, but if you look historically, and I've been studying this for a couple of decades, um Minnetonka has always been able to weather storms pretty well when they're permitting area. And so, you know, probably the last uh major issue we had was about 2008, but there still was activity happening in Minnetonka. It wasn't like we took, you know, took a total dive. We were still doing projects. Um, we have some large projects planned this year and those will get built then in 27. You can kind of see the what's happening uh the orange you can kind of see what's happening with the permitting activity. You can see that big jump this la past month. That's why we're all kind of twitchy and don't know which way is up. But this doesn't always happen in the spring. We do get a little bit of a activity swing, but we've seen it. It's bigger this year than it has been in the years past. Some challenges that were um you know, on the flip side of what I just said about building, you know, some of that uncertainty in the economic markets does impact what is happening here. Um development investment is notable. I mean, I don't know that every community, every suburban community, and I'm thinking about the west side mostly, has the kind of activity that we do. And I look at construction numbers and that sort of thing from other cities, and we remain strong in that area. But it's not your typical project. It's not like what we were seeing housing after housing project, right? This is different. This is tenant finishes. This is office conversions, new users coming in, that sort of thing. So, um, staffing and and proper coverage. Um, Miranda touched on this already. We, you know, when you get a leave and that leave extends for a really long period of time, it can really mess with your community or customer service, especially in some of the jobs that we have, which are very customer focused and trying to respond to inquiries and requests. Um, technology, we already talked about housing. You know, something we worry about is affordable housing contracts and working to ensure they continue. So, however we can get that done. That's something that I continue to be concerned about, but we're we have a plan, but just executing the plan is is is what we're looking at. And then coordination for residents with mental health, physical or situational challenges. I talk about this every year. uh we work a lot with police and fire and uh various parts of the city to deal with maybe it's a property issue, maybe it's a maintenance issue, whatever it is. Um and that continues to be a strong element of our work. Um and I worry about how much time that takes and then I worry about the people who are having those circumstances in terms of how they're getting assistance and um making sure their uh situation is handled. Uh I won't go through these numbers but uh you know generally you can see each division and the activity level that they had. I think we were a little bit below on planning applications for last year. Um but in terms of total permits we were up annual inspections we were up last year and this year projected. So with that I will stop and you see me enough so I don't know. >> All right. Any questions for Julie? >> I have one. Kimberly, >> um do do you have a feel for if we um lost any restaurants or small businesses um because of Metro Surge? >> I I don't have direct information about that. Um we did have a closure with um a restaurant we knew was having trouble even before that. So there there was that. Um, I knew I know people that are having challenges in terms of trying to stay open, but they haven't quite closed. So, I have I would say three in that situation. Um, I don't think Metro helped, but I don't know that I would pin it totally on that. So, I I just think they were maybe in a >> vulnerable >> vulnerable position before and that didn't make things better. Yeah, maybe three in that category, I would say. Okay. Any other questions? >> All right. Thank you, Julie. We'll catch you with whatever comes up. >> Whatever. Next one. >> We'll see you in See you on Wednesday. >> All right, Kevin. >> All right. Good evening, Mayor and Council. I apologize. I got the obstructed view tickets tonight. So, I'll do my best to to lean around as I >> for a hero, too. >> Oh, please. Look at the pictures. and you're a hero. >> Uh so this we'll call this part one of rescue >> two that you'll hear from me tonight as we give you a public safety master plan update too. >> Um so jumping into this with in 2026 some of our department goals is we've are looking at doing pretty extensive training or uh extensive yeah extensive training with the metro transit and preparation of the light rail that's coming through. This is something that's very new for our area. Um, historically we haven't had much experience with with light rail style transportation. So, uh, we have a lot of training to do. We've gotten some specialty equipment to deal with anything from uh, vehicle versus train and and pedestrian. Uh, how to, uh, training on how to evacuate the trains if they were to have some sort of malfunction. We have uh the the tunnel on the south end of town by Eden Prairie and the bridge that that goes through the the federal area there. So um uh a significant change for how how we've operated in the past. Um we are also looking at partnering with Minnetonka and Hopkins school districts. uh you know kind of a good thing and a bad thing recently is a good thing is job opportunities in the fire service have been uh better than they ever have been before with a lot of the department starting to transition to that full-time model. The the drawback to that is uh the the uh supply of employees aren't keeping up well with that. Um, we're starting to see the point now where we're just doing a lot of trading around between departments. So, we're really looking at partnering with the schools to develop a fire and EMS based pathway system so that when they graduate, not only do we get them interested, but when they graduate high school, they already would have some of their certifications that's going to give them an expedited route into the fire and EMS service. Um, another thing is you've you've heard a lot about this uh the last couple years on us trying to get ready, but we're partnering with PD and finally putting together uh some pilot programs for our mental health response. Uh I believe PD's will be starting pretty soon. We're actually running two tracks right now. And then in the fall, um on the fire side, we are going to run our pilot program, but we are in the process of still getting some of our personnel uh the specialty training that's required to go along with this, and that isn't occurring until August. So once we have our people through the training, then we'll be able to start the pilot program on that. Um and then another new thing is working with our medical direction on a low acuity medical protocol. Uh we go to a very large number of medicals where um it's not really an emergency really. The the patient is just waiting for a ride to the hospital. We see we see a lot of that these days. And so we have now got but it it we have to up till now our personnel once we arrive we have to stay there until we are able to pass that patient off to uh an ambulance under this new medical direction if a patient is able to meet certain criteria and they're good with it. Um we're able to leave them uh while they wait for the ambulance. So, we won't necessarily have to to stay on scene, but they have to meet very specific uh points to for us to be able to to do that. So, that'll be something new that's coming along, and hopefully then that'll free our crews up uh for other calls in 2027. the the things we're looking at is um we're looking at potentially adding paramedics on duty and this would be through certifi higher certifications of existing firefighters. We've talked a lot about EMS. Oh, did I forget to move that forward? Gotcha. >> There we go. Thanks. Um, we've talked a we've talked a lot about EMS over the last few years and the challenges that have come up with that and um, it's gotten a lot better and we've done a lot of work with Henipin County Medical Center, but uh, one of the things that we're still seeing inconsistencies in occasionally is that response time. And um this is something we're seeing with a lot of other departments and HCMC has actually done a really good job in partnering with the other departments to get some of these paramedic programs up and running. It allows us to put a a small number of paramedics on staff and then uh they're able to start some of those more advanced treatments prior to the to the ambulance uh arrival time to to help uh the overall patient outcome. So, that's one of the programs we're experimenting or looking at experimenting with. And then, uh, again, the progress of the public safety master plan, we're we're halfway through or a little more than halfway through and have a couple couple more years on that. So, next year would look at u on boarding more firefighters. We, if you remember, we took a pause this year to uh look at fire stations and figure out a plan for that. So, uh, next year we'll be looking at potentially adding some more personnel, which is going to allow us to start staffing up a fourth station. And then depending on timing and the financing availability, um, we would be hopeful of potentially starting the design process for stations two and station three. Again, station two is that northern station up off of Hopkins Crossroad in 394 and station three is down close to the Opus area off of Roland Road. Some of the challenges um again it's it's recruitment is is the big one both paid on call and full-time. We're we're we're starting to see the demand is outpacing the supply when it comes to firefighters. So, um, we're looking at ways to to address that. Um, operational costs. There's, this is a a problem every department is seeing. So, uh, we are no exception to that, but it's really causing us to take a look at our uh, equipment that we use and start to get a little more creative with it. We're looking at replacement schedules. You know, uh, equipment that maybe doesn't get used as often, that's on a more frequent replacement schedule. We're looking at extending the life of some of those. Uh some of our other bigger purchases that are more bulk purchases like turnout gear and things like that that we buy all at once every so many years. We're looking at possibly do we spread those out in phases over uh several years to kind of help ease the the budget constraints with that. So we're we're trying to look at some uh unique ways to to balance those replacement schedules. And then uh again it's maintaining an adequate number of paid on call staff to cover available shifts. Our public safety master plan even though it talked about hiring full-time. Um the full-time side is for that consistent staffing but it still really relied on a component of paid on call. Uh prior to the hiring of full-time firefighters, we were always targeting kind of that 80 personnel for our paid on call. We've adjusted those numbers now and we sit in kind of the low fifth low to mid50s. Seems to be a good spot for our paid on call, but um it's it's becoming difficult to maintain those numbers. As hard as it is to recruit, it's also as hard to retain because people's lives are getting really busy. The demands we place on our paid on call are uh ex a lot because they ride with the same certifications as our full-time. there is no distinction between our full-time and our part-time firefighters when it comes to uh training and qualifications. They they are exactly the same and that's a lot to ask on a part-time basis. So, that continues to to put a strain on our our paid on call. And then our key measures. So again, we're at uh well, when I put this number on here, it was 58, but now we're down to 57 because we did lose another part-time firefighter out of our recruit class. Uh we're at 27 for our full-time. Uh last year we were at 6,549 calls. Uh that number goes up every year by about a 10% increase annually, give or take. Um, again, 89,000 hours of total training occurred last year. And when uh the the bulk of your personnel doing that training are are paid on call or part-time, that's that's a lot of of training for them to do. Currently, uh, we shoot for staffing levels of nine full-time on duty every day and four paid on call on duty. And that if if those numbers if we're able to meet those numbers because we don't have sick calls or or gaps in our shift coverage, that allows us to staff four trucks. Um right now we either run two trucks out of here and then one out of three, three and five. Um if we are running two out of here during the day, we'll put them down at station four during our peak time because that's one of the areas of the cities where we're still seeing some some gaps that uh deputy chief messer will touch on when we talk service level objectives. And then uh our response time to all emergency calls right now in that 90th percentile, we're still sitting at about uh 9 minutes and 17 seconds. and uh Deputy Chief Mezer will talk about those numbers a little more in depth in a in a little bit. But with that, I'll entertain some questions. >> Great. Thanks. >> Thank you, Chief. >> Council questions and we'll have um you know, we'll be talking more about the master plan next. So, those questions can kind of roll over, but anything Go ahead. Uh Amanda. >> Yeah, I have one question. um if HCMC lost funding or went away, would that impact how would that impact your department if at all? Is that something that we would need to plan for? >> We're not sure exactly. Um that's a discussion we've talked a lot about those concerns um over the last several years. There's there's been a lot of uncertainty overall in EMS, especially at the statewide level. Um, HCMC has reassured us all along that regardless of what would happen with the hospital that their ambulance service uh would be okay. I don't necessarily believe that 100%. They do operate somewhat as a separate entity from the hospital even though they fall under the hospital umbrella. Um, they're kind of a like a subsidiary of the hospital. So they assure us that that services would not be interrupted. I I don't know that I 100% buy it. So a lot of us are are u a little worried about that. But but there's enough ambulance services in the in the area that shortterm could help fill gaps if that were to occur. But I I think you know we we share those concerns with those uncertainties as to what could potentially happen there. >> Really scary deal, frankly. >> Yeah. It's a hospital you would never think would, you know, it's a pretty critical piece of infrastructure. I don't think the state in good conscious conscience could let that hospital close. is just it's an absolute critical part of the health care system in the metro here in >> cuz it's not just the ambulance service. >> Yeah, it's the hospital. >> Well, they're a teaching hospital. It's the level one trauma. It's the burn center. I mean, it's it'd be a catastrophic failure to let it close. So, I'm >> hopeful. >> I'm I'm confident they're going to find a way to keep it open. >> Um I do. >> Yeah. >> I just have one quick question. So, with the staffing challenges, does that, you know, we we don't often get in the weeds about like overtime, is that putting overtime pressure on the full-time staff or any anybody, frankly? Um, it hasn't been an issue yet. um our the overtime that we're seeing right now is is usually if it's got to fill a a vacation or a sick call or if they're coming in for specialized training. >> Um on the full-time side, we're not seeing huge gaps yet as as those numbers could rise in the future as as more vacation banks build up and and things like that. we would anticipate a somewhat of an increase, but um the that's the nice thing with our paid on call is we're able to cover some of those gaps with with our paid on call. So, we never really fall below three trucks on duty. So, um you know, on a full day, we're at four trucks. Three is kind of our our minimum. So, we're we're in pretty good shape as far as that goes. >> Great. >> Anything else? All right. Well, we'll be back. All right, next up, Scott. Last but not least. >> All right, good evening, council and mayor. So, as you know, over the last couple years, there's been significant investment in policing, staffing, and technology. So, for the next, you know, couple years, uh, our purpose is really to evaluate that technology and staffing to see how it's working and to make some adjustments. So really nothing um too crazy here, but as you mentioned, mayor, we will provide more details about the technology in our public safety master plan update, but this is kind of a a high level overview of uh kind of our goals going into to next year. So as um our our comprehensive evaluation of the ART talk which is the real-time operations center and just as a reminder that was the space that was dedicated to uh consume all the technology that we have into one space and really that has provided um amazing um just things that we didn't even think of that are I'll share a bit more as we get into the public safety study. But primarily looking at next year is really workload. Um right now we have two people that staff it. They also are um supporting our detectives. They're our crime analyst and our data analyst. So really looking at that, you know, right now it's open typically Monday through Friday during during the day, our evening shift and overnight shift. Don't have the luxury of of the our talk helping them on calls. And so we're going to make sure we look at it this year and then identify any strategies for for in 27. Um Axon RMS, that's our records management system. that is uh a project that uh Jason has taken on. It's been a ton of work. It's really converting our entire records management system over to a new one. It started probably a year ago and we're ready to flip the switch here in May. So that's pretty exciting. That's really the last piece of the Axon suite that we invested in a couple years ago. Um so hopefully that goes smoothly. Uh Opus substation, that is the space in the Opus area. We've always been looking for kind of a a location uh in Opus because that is with all the development that's happening is really to position a car in that area. And last year, United Health Group had donated uh or we have an agreement with United Health Group. It's a uh it's a one-year each year. It's free of charge for up to five years. And right now, they're they're getting the space uh up to uh you know, adding some furniture and stuff like that. So, our goal is to have a police car down there in the area. Next is the transition identified medical calls to the fire department. This came out of the public safety master plan. It's really uh as you know uh police have been the primary responder to all medicals and then fire would be the backup and they would come to the more significant calls. It's really been a goal of ours to transition um if not majority of those calls to the fire department. And so we're hoping that happens this year. And then Kevin already mentioned uh mental health response model. And just this might be uh just a review, but we have a social worker who's embedded here and really her role was to be the uh follow-up afterare. So 911 call comes in um let's say and you'll see the numbers roughly 500 per year. They're going to dispatch police officers um because there's nobody else to fill that void. And so really uh the officers would go out and if there was a need for follow-up care, they would do a report. and then Kelly uh who you will actually meet next week. Um she's going to provide an update to the council at the studies or at the council meeting next week. She would try to um you know intervene and try to work with the family on on me, you know, doing whatever they can to to uh stop the calls for service. What Kevin's mentioning is as they prepare to take over some of those calls with some training, um we also want to explore right now is Kelly will go out as a co-responder with a dedicated officer just to kind of fill that gap right now. And so we're going to do that here in the next couple weeks. And then when fire uh is trained, we're going to get them to uh hopefully help us out with that. And then uh lastly, uh we've been working with Ridgedale. We have an office at Ridgedale. If you've been up there, it's it's subpar. I mean, ceiling tiles are falling down. And so they have been working on a new space for us. And we're picking out the carpet right now. So that's pretty exciting. We have two detectives that work out of an office up there. And so that'll be a much better workspace for them. Uh, oh, lastly, I forgot to mention for the Axon RMS, I'm not really ready to really go public here, but I'm pretty excited that we have been approved for some congressional spending to help us reimburse to reimburse us for our RMS system about $965,000. Uh, it is uh at the federal level. So, until the until Darren says there's money in our account, I'm not we don't want to get too excited, but it's pretty cool that we were able to secure some potential funding. It's already in the CIP, but this would be a good way to cut that by about a million dollars. >> Thank you. >> As we look at next year, um, as we evaluate the our talk, um, we're really going to look first internally with with priority based budgeting, you know, really taking a look within our own budget and our own staffing is where can we allocate resources to expand the uh, shift coverage. An example could be uh if if we could get our staffing um a little further ahead is we have four cadet positions and that's really to make our bench a little stronger with new officers. Our hope was we'd be a little closer to being at MAC at fully staffed that we could take some of those cadets which are part-time non-benefiting earners and we could maybe um move them into supporting after hours into that into that RT talk. Um don't know if that's going to be an option yet but that's just something that we're looking at. And then evaluating our our our technology. I I think that's important because uh we have uh uh deployed a lot of technology and it comes with a tremendous amount of responsibility. There's a lot of questions about the technology being used by police departments and I will assure you that when we look at technology, we utilize best practices. In fact, we have a lot of agencies coming here to look at the way we're doing it because they're hear they're hearing we're doing it the right way. It's a buzzword, but being transparent with how we collect data, how we consume it, how we delete it, and just everything around the use of technology is so important because we do not want to be the agency that messes it up for every other every other agency in in the state here. And then lastly, just alignment that kind of goes not so, you know, it's part of the art talk just with with opus, all the time off. We have a lot of young officers that are having families and so we really got to make sure that we have adequate staffing on each shift and with light rail and just maybe we have to look at our shifts a little differently or our districts we're divided into uh four districts and just taking a look at call loads. So we're constantly evaluating our our calls for service and making some adjustments utilizing the staff that we have. some challenges. Uh, you know, I thought I would be seeing things change a little bit um more aggressively, but it's it's not the case. Numbers are still relatively low, and it's not that we still have a low applicant pool, but what we're finding is when we give a conditional offer and we send folks in for a uh psychological, often times there's there's one area where it's kind of a deal breaker, it's the ability to quickly identify and resolve problems. And um you know it could be generational, but it's really important that officers can evaluate a rapidly evolving situation. May not make the best decision, but can make a pretty good decision because obviously there's consequences if we if we don't. And so, um, that is one where I will get a call and, uh, we've unfortunately had to, uh, um, withdraw some conditional offers just because that that's a really touchy area if, if, uh, folks can't quickly, um, you know, just problem solve. I mean, it it it's it's it can be difficult or it's very complex when you're dealing with situations that are happening very quickly. But, um, it it's an area where we're seeing it's more challenging with with some of our newer candidates that are coming out of, uh, school. In fact, I look at my three boys. None of them could be a cop. Part of that I think I have I have solved every one of their problems and I think that's part of the problem >> cuz they help Kelly with his phone. >> They they can deal with the phone but for I that that's why I'm actually they don't want to do that. Um another challenge is is pace of technology. We are inundated with new technology. It's it's sometimes really cool to be the first ones out of the gate like with our drones as first responders, but sometimes you got to sit back and evaluate others. And so we're constantly doing that, but it's just rapidly evolving with AI. Um, and so really our our purpose as we look at this challenge is really making sure that we have guard rails, we have strict policies. Um, because again it's so important that we utilize this technology in an appropriate way. uh public perception and wellness. Public perception and our philosophy is our all of our outreach efforts are really like we're paying it forward. We want to make sure we establish a bank of trust and the only way we can do that is through our outreach efforts or positive interactions with our police police officers because at some point in time there's going to be a withdrawal. There's going to be a question and we have to take a withdrawal of trust. And most recently, unfortunately, it was with Metro Surges. We, you know, even though it was the federal government, we still felt the effects. Our police officers did of, you know, there was a lack of trust even though we're not we're not the federal authorities. And so that really we took a step back in time again, unfortunately. And so we're really trying to, you know, pay attention to that. And kind of what what coincides with that is wellness. We have a really good wellness program where we work with our staff. where we lack a little bit is the extended family. We're seeing that there's an effect on, you know, family members and we're really trying to look at how can we how can we take it to the next level with wellness and and working and I'm sure fire is the same way with first responders. It's just it's different now and and I think people react a little differently and I think that's okay. And so we want to work with with family. And then lastly, I'm I'm sure all of us here is is budget. We understand there's a lot of priorities from the from um from the city. And so as we look at the next couple years, it's really for our budget using priority based budgeting is where can we, you know, utilize the technology, but yet we're not always coming to to the community saying we need more money. I mean, so that's going to be a challenge that we give to our staff in the police department. Uh some key measures here. I I I can kind of highlight a couple of the ones I I think that are important. Our, you know, our calls for service always stay, you know, really, you know, kind of in the same area. It just depends. Trending, from what I've been told, everywhere, they tend to be going down a little bit. But, you know, part one and part two crimes, uh, you know, in 25 we we down uh, you know, a couple hundred. And really, that's your, you know, part one is more serious crimes, part two is your, you know, your probably your vandalism, things like that. So that's that's you know we're relatively um flat but last year we did take a little bit of a dip and that's a good thing. Now part of it was is that there was um an increased focus on juvenile autotheft uh juvenile theft from auto. We have like uh we have a detective that's assigned to a group that worked those cases and uh they've had great results. And so I think you know unfortunately yeah I could I could say 20 kids are responsible for 100 calls. that would reduce that number. And so I think that's where you see that. And then um you know mental health calls, you you see where that's at. And then um you know training hours, we invest a ton of time training our officers. We again we have a very young uh group. You know, just for perspective, we're only required to have 48 hours every three years per officer and we far exceed that which I think is a really um really good thing and important. And then our engagement events. Um, again, that's that's something that we focus on. And, uh, in 26, we we did add a community engagement officer position, but we haven't filled it uh quite yet because we're still down we're down six officers right now. And until we can kind of start to backfill, I can't pull somebody off the street because that would short that shift. And so, we're kind of juggling a little bit. But, uh, we do a significant amount of, uh, events already with just Elelliana and the officers. I kind of blew through that pretty quick, but I know we're doing the public safety master study update, but that is all I have. >> Great. Thanks, Scott. All right, council. Any questions for Scott? >> Well, this Go ahead. >> Yeah, go ahead. This might be um something to talk about later, but when we talk about mental health calls and there's it doesn't, you know, and we talk about,498 a year and there's one social worker, that seems so little, you know what I mean? I mean, like in a day >> in her shift, you know, you could get two calls at the same time or around the same time. I mean, how do you work that? >> So, I will cover that a little bit more in depth, but just to kind of give you a little bit of an answer here is um one thing to remember is that >> let's say there's 500 from other agencies all over the country that have deployed co-responder or afterare. Unfortunately, when there is a threat of like violence or a weapon, which is going to be probably, you know, 60% of the calls, we are always going to have to go first. >> Okay. So, how it happens in other jurisdictions, like for instance, they don't expect our social worker to go to all 500. Um, the officers are still going to have to on some calls if there's a of a, you know, a threat of a weapon, they're going to have to go there and quickly make sure it's safe, which is difficult in and of itself. And then the professionals will step in and help resolve that matter because right now we're on a scene for a pretty long period of time with our officers. And so it's kind of I I I think what we have to really focus on that it's not every single mental health call because oftentimes when they call 911 it's somebody threatening themselves with a knife or a gun or others and that I don't know I think fire staff is going to say until you make sure it's safe we're not going in but we're not we don't know what that number looks like but to your point but it's still >> for Kelly to deal with all of that it's a lot >> but I'll kind of cover a little bit about what our plan Deb. >> Um, and I really apologize. I'm a little bit fried because events and events in timing of my day today. So, you just talked about being six officers down and you may have covered it and I may have just, you know, spaced out. Can you talk about that a little bit being six officers? >> Yeah. >> Down. >> Yep. So, some have been through the additional staff that we've asked for that we just haven't been able to backfill. We have two retirements coming up that we were we knew they were they were going to happen. And then we had an unfortunate officer with probably four or five years that came to me about a month and a half ago and just says, "I can't do it anymore." Um, and he went to the private sector. His family just said, "I don't want you to do this work anymore." And that was a surprise. That doesn't happen too often, but sometimes that's when we have to take a look at and put in perspective, you know, what what's going on. And that's when I talk about just the the expectations are very different. Um, you know, cops uh try to do the right thing, but sometimes things don't go right. There's just a lot of pressure. Yeah. >> And I try to look and see, you know, what would I have done back in the day? They have a very tough job to do. And I think for some it's hard. And so I I you know when they say I can't do it, I I I say I appreciate that. I get that it's not for everybody. And so I think that's um a little bit of both. You know, we're just still trying to hire and we're all competing for the same candidates. And we're getting what 12 12 to 15 that apply for what five six jobs. And of that we send off, you know, three. We do backgrounds. And if they make it through backgrounds, we'll send them to a psych. And that's where we're seeing a little bit more of a sorry, but this this candidate is is not going to work for you. Um, and I I I think that's just the way it is, but we are hearing that there's more um people enrolled in the program. We just haven't It takes two years to start seeing the results of that. Metro Surge might have pulled that back a little bit. >> Yeah. >> But we we are being told that there's more kids in in the seat in the colleges, which I think is good. Thanks, >> Amanda. >> You showed some numbers on the uh level one and level two of crime offense offensive criminal offenses being sort of going down um or maybe flat over time, but we also heard that the case load of prosecutions has been increasing. So, I'm wondering, does that mean either are the types of crimes being committed more severe so that they require persecution or are we starting to prosecute things that are uh maybe a lower level offense? So, those two numbers to me just don't seem to I would think they would trend in the same direction. >> Yeah, that's a great question. Maybe Eric can help weigh in. It also could be that there's more of a you know more challenges to the actual uh incident versus just pleading it out and and you know that could be part of it. You know, part of it also is that you know our traffic stops are going up a little bit and so there's more citations, but I don't know that wouldn't really affect part one and part two. Um I think most of the cases that our city attorney works on quite a few of them are related to traffic citations. >> Yep. That that that is true. um what the chief said and remember that you know the the division of prosecutorial responsibility within the county is divided where you know the city cities handle gross misdemeanor, misdemeanor and petties and the county handles juvenile and felony. Um but but I I I I would agree with Scott. We could we could try to you know do a deeper dive into the types of cases. Um in some of our numbers we divided it out between DWI and domestic assault. Um and you can see how those those are trending. Um I believe I mentioned last year the domestic numbers uh unfortunately as sort of maybe a commentary on society tend to be fairly stable. Um the the DWI numbers can can fluctuate quite a bit. We are seeing those go up though. So I think traffic and DWI is contributing to a lot of that. >> And I think part part one crimes are mostly going to end up at the county attorney's office because they're primarily felony level cases. And then thefts that are felony level would end up there as well. I, you know, with with our DWI arrest, we do have a dedicated traffic officer that does DWI and so that could create an increase for for the our city prosecutor as well. >> Right. Anything else? >> All right, Mike, did you want to wrap up? >> Yeah, thank you, uh, mayor and councel. Hopefully, as you um heard tonight, I have a talented group of directors and certainly be sitting behind them as the deputies and assistants. They play a major hand in this and you'll hear more from them in the next agenda item. But really want to thank our directors for the work they put into preparing for this evening. Again, you get a sense of their commitment to excellence and really that's in the form of enhancing service delivery. You heard that as a theme throughout tonight, being creative and thoughtful in our approaches that is grounded in best practices and innovation. And I say all that because it's yet an eye to efficiency because as stewards of taxpayer money and as as we again kind of prepare for the budget kickoff, all this great work um also comes at a cost. And so part of how we manage those costs is through efficiencies. and these planning efforts whether it's through the strategic plan or with our directors and the work that we do in terms of looking at um 2026 goals and looking ahead at 2027 that's a planning exercise all these are planning exercises and it's really the the few levers that we have that really turns effort into efficiency is through these conversations so I appreciate your uh attentiveness this evening as you hear from our directors and finally I just kind of say that it's really through these planning efforts is connecting planning really directly to these day-to-day activities. And as again as a precursor to next month in May as we do the budget kickoff tonight's slides and presentation, it really hones in on aligning people and priorities. It maximizes our resource allocation that's vital to efficiencies so that we can demonstrate how we're using taxpayer money and how we're moving ahead with innovation. It identifies our challenges and risks. So we've touched on those this evening. So we're being mindful and planning for that. It enables our performance measurement. So those metrics and those measures that you see up here, those are separate than our strategic plan. Those are in our budget documents. So we do want to touch on that because we measure a lot of different data. We have data. We're data rich. And so we have to make sure that we're measuring and monitoring the right data. And then at the end of the day, this really signals us as an organization and us as a city of being proactive and not reactive. And that's the culture that we bring here is making sure we identify um what's on the horizon and making sure we have the plans in place so we can best plan for those again as we then propel ourselves into the budget conversation. So with that, uh thank you, Mayor and Council. If I don't know if you want to take a quick just a couple second break. >> Yep. It's 7:46. Let's come back at 7:50 cuz we still have a lot to get through. So, let's get back to it. >> We're ready. Chiefs, you >> ready? >> All right. Mike, do you have anything? No. We're just going to hand it off. Let's hand it off. >> Okay. >> Ready to go. All right. I'll just keep plugging away. And not only their photos. Look at the color of that >> dynamic. Very nice. It's a simple pair. >> All right. So tonight that uh Kevin and I are going to provide an update on the public safety master plan. I will start and uh I know we have at least one new council member, but even for those that have been here for, you know, at least couple years, some of this might be new to you, so there might be some review. And um I apologize for those that have seen it every year. Um but it is a pretty significant investment in public safety. And uh going back to 2022, it was uh a consultant that came in and really evaluated, I'll speak on behalf of the police department, pretty much everything that we do. Uh looked at all of our different divisions, our staffing, and then made recommendations to us. And then we brought it forward to the council and at that time had decided that this would be about a five to sevenyear plan. And then each year we would take chunks of it and try to uh try to meet the different uh action items that were identified. Not and not every single action item meant staffing. I mean there were some things in there that was that was you know had no money attached that things that we have implemented over the years but obviously most of the things that you saw had to do with FTE count which is a significant uh part of of the budget. And so just as a reminder back then there was 59 key findings and 47 action items. And you can see what what the uh study did. And if you read there's a you know an attachment um that is very uh you know long but it goes into a lot more detail about what I'm talking about today. Most of my focus is going to be on more high level the funding request. In that document uh at at the end for police there was a recommendation to add 14.5 FTEES that included police officers, detectives, mental health officers, uh property room uh clerk. I think I pretty much covered most of them. And then what we did is each year we prioritized like what what do we need uh first, second, well, how do we how do we go about uh these these uh these requests? And as a a review, in 2024, we did uh uh add additional officers for a power shift. What we did quickly is we looked at the um the call volume at the peak and determined that we didn't have enough resources that were working and so there was a power shift that was identified to fill that role. Uh we did add a traffic officer that was called out in the report, but we we applied for a grant and we are continuing to receive funding for that position. I believe that's 100% correct. >> Near 100% of of the funding uh for that officer comes from the state. One thing to keep in mind, if the state ever pulled back on that funding, I would probably have to figure out what we're going to do because in the report, it actually calls out for four officers to do traffic. Right now, we have two that are city funded and then we have a third one. Um and we feel that's that's appropriate. I think we have a good balance um because officers that are working u also are responsible for traffic enforcement. It doesn't just fall on the the uh the officers who do it, but when complaints come in, they're the ones that will address the complaint and be a little bit more proactive in handling those complaints. And then uh we added a sergeant as we as we really uh beefed up our professional standards with all the changes that hap happened in you know 2001 2002. uh that that position is responsible for all of our training. Like I said, we do over, you know, we do roughly 5,000 hours. They have to figure out what training we go to. They have to assign officers and and and make sure we're we're doing the most uh relevant training. And then um back in 2024, we did uh fund enough to uh every officer went through the kind of what they call the gold standard in CIT training, crisis advance training. It's a week-long school and that's what FIRE is currently uh working on for their staff too because we really that's there's really you know there's there's no training that says hey if you're going to be a co-responder here's the training you go to. It's really looking at things like CIT training and so that's what they're going to be working on here this year. 2025 highlights we added one case detective um that is actually partially funded by the state also for our autotheft. I mentioned that we have a person dedicated to autotheft. They worked with Henipin County um and there there's a team of officers at work and really track down uh you know stolen vehicles and and really try to recover those vehicles and that's been a pretty a very effective uh position because we just got extended that again because of the results of our our detective as well as the ones that are partnered with that group. um Axon public safety applications. That was that huge suite of different things. Body cameras, squad car cameras, AI, it was all those things that we we adopted about a year ago over that 10-year plan. RMS was a part of that records management system. And then uh drones as first responders uh was a significant investment late last year, and I actually will cover that in a little bit more detail here in a minute. uh 2026 highlights. We added a community engagement officer and then our Axon records management system is going to go live next year. Um this is what the staffing um study called out. It wanted to maintain a social worker, but in addition and uh in addition had two mental health officers. And if you recall at some of our prior uh study sessions, we held off on that request because we knew as fire started to transition full-time, how can we um transfer some of those responsibilities? We could have easily said, "Hey, we need two cops that all going all they're going to do is mental health." Okay, I think this will work. We don't know. We hope it works, but that's why we held off. And so as we look going forward, um we are looking to we're not adding two more additional officers for that role. We're going to hopefully transition that response the best we can. We know we have a role to play because um unfortunately when there's, like I said, there's weapons involved, we have to go make sure it's safe, but there's got to be a sweet spot. What does that look like? We'll find out and report that. But um so we are not asking for two additional staff for that. We do want to keep and maintain a social worker. She does have an intern that works for her. But one thing we're going to evaluate moving forward is that workload and you know what kind of oversight does fire need and police need? What kind of coordination? Because she also has a a desire to work with congregate care um go out on more death scenes. You know, things that aren't even aren't even related to folks in crisis. But there's a need for somebody with a skill set of a social worker. She can't do it alone. She doesn't work 24/7. And so that's something that we'll have to explore um moving forward what that looks like. Moving on to uh another area that was called out was to uh to maintain two detectives at Ridgedale but then add two additional officers to Ridgale. We uh again evaluated that that need and we made a decision that we've got a lot of technology that we have um adopted and can we use technology to make us more efficient and not have just people right I I I think if we could go back to 2022 and do the study over the technology wasn't quite there and I would I would have thought I would think at least that technology would have been brought into it. There's a there's a significant portion in there that you always evaluate technology. Well, we should be doing that all the time, right? How does technology um impact our work and can we utilize technology to be more efficient? But we as a department each year looked at technology and then how can we you know again not adding resources because you know it's always nice to add cops but you know my experience there's more opportunity for headaches on my behalf because you know and training and just there there's a lot that goes on with people right and so um we have really leveraged technology to our benefit that we have talked about it and even though there was 14.5 called out I think we're at about eight and I think we feel very confident that we're in a really good position not only to handle you know future call load with opus um you know with some minor tweaking with some you know nonsworn but really where where I think there's a the largest expense is with sworn staff there's so much that comes into play with a sworn police officer and so you know as we move forward is how can we continue to leverage this technology and if there's a need to you know to uh support our operation center you know with part-time not there's other opportunities for us But we feel pretty confident that we're not going to need additional sworn staff in the foreseeable future. I think we're in a really good place um because of this technology. And I'll just kind of cover uh a couple of these areas here is um again that that that focused patrol team. We have an analyst who who evaluates all the activity in the city and and in fact in the entire metro and we'll really focus on who's doing what and then we will focus our uh our our resources on that specific activity instead of just driving around aimlessly. Patrolling is a big part of it but I think we could be we're very good in if you if you uh and this isn't new. we're just very focused on where are where are the trends whether it's traffic problems or criminal activity is how do we focus our activity on that. Um and so having that that center has really allowed us to consume all that technology in one place and make really good informed decisions. We have meetings twice a week to talk about what's going on, where it's going on, every patrol officer hears it and then they focus their energy around that. without that literally you'd come in and just go drive around and wait for the call. And so I I think that's been very intentional and has been very beneficial. And so as we continue to evaluate these different um initiatives that we've taken on, we'll continue to report back the results. But the last thing I want to mention and I'm going to show a slide is our our DFR program. Again, we were the first in the state. In fact, Jason and Gareth presented at the state chief's conference last week and the state chiefs gave uh us the innovation award in 2026 for our DFR program. Um, remarkable. In fact, Egan PD was here today doing a tour. We have cities coming through. I don't know how many tours have we done. >> Too many to count. >> And they all come here because they want to know how to deploy it because you have to do it in the right way. It's not just throwing a a drone up in the air. There's a lot of responsibility with that. And so we have a lot of interaction here. Blaine came through about a week ago. Um it, you know, State Patrol, St. Paul PD, Minneapolis PD, they all come here to kind of learn like what how do you do it? And and more importantly, what don't you do? You know, it's pretty easy to know what they're used for, but oftentimes it's what you don't do. And I think that's what we try to really focus on is what what they don't do. Um, >> and Scott, oh, and I would just add we are uh so Jason or Jason and I are presenting at the annual League of Minnesota Cities conference on Friday morning. So, we've been asked to present >> at the league conference and we are submitting for a league award. So, hopefully we'll >> get an award there as well. >> And then just some results. Uh, you know, this is relatively new. We we deployed this last in August and one of the things that we're really paying attention to is is the numbers. And so what has been a a concern in the past is law enforcement will tendly just throw up a drone and not document the reason for it and really have no uh reporting procedures. Well, we know every single flight that leaves our our area. We know why it was deployed. We attach case numbers to it. And so someone comes and wants to ask questions about it, we know where to go. In fact, you can go right to our dashboard and you can see the flight pattern. And I think that's really really important. But these are these results are just amazing. And when we shared them last week uh or I'm sorry, yeah, last week at the state meeting, this was this was, you know, important for any agency that wants to deploy it because you can see it right there. You know, you know, you got 504 flights. Again, reminding you that we're only staffing it Monday through Friday like 8 to 4, 8 to 5. This is not being utilized after hours or weekends. And I think that's something to highlight. And so, I mean, it's just amazing. In fact, they get there, they're first on scene. You can see, you know, 66% of the time. Um, and it's not just for police, it's for fire as well. So, when a fire call comes out and if we have a drone, um, they can send that video feed to to the the chiefs as they're driving to the scene, they know exactly what they have in front of them. Do they have a real fire or is there nothing showing? And they can, you know, elevate their response or maybe sometimes decrease their response. And so being first on scene is is the amount of information that you can get is is incredible. And I've seen it work uh firsthand. Um you know, we have it now going out where uh some a call will come in and if it's it's if it's appropriate, the drone will go there and if they don't see something or the car's gone or if there's really nothing there, they can tell the car you can clear. So 18. I mean that those are those are numbers that are important because as you as you look at staffing needs the more that that now you know we now gota be careful right we can't just be doing it all the time but there are times when that drone can clear uh the call without an officer going on to it and lastly helpful intel you know that's letting officers know that hey you better you better pick up you better pick it up because this doesn't look good I think just this morning we had an accident at 7 and I don't know where it was um where a car it was a car went off in the ditch. They weren't sure of injuries. The drone got overhead and knew exactly where the car was and I believe the the gentleman had a heart attack and they ended up pulling him out doing CPR. Um and so just giving that information like here here's the car. Um you'll find it right here and it it you know because when calls come in often times the information is either lacking or it's it's missing a ton of information and the drone can can say you can slow it down or um you know and speed it up. And just this is just an example of a of a gentleman who was in crisis who actually cut off his his uh he was uh had a monitoring bracelet on and it happened in Hopkins. there was a domestic and we were getting uh calls uh weren't sure where he was but the drone found him uh walking down the train tracks and without the drone um the officers were to continue to drive through neighborhoods but they actually said hey if you go park your car here and walk to that backyard you'll go right onto the train tracks and find them and so um it just it's amazing technology that has been the the it's exceeded our expectations quite honestly and so we're pretty excited about it Um, and we'll continue to uh track success stories and uh in in data because I think that is one area where you know it's not like we have to expand the technology. It's more like how do we maximize the staffing benefit here. Um, and so that's pretty much it. Again, you know, we don't have a lot. I think we're in a position to really evaluate the technology that we have, the staffing we have, and make some slight adjustments internally. Um, but we are in a really good place and and feel like we have accomplished pretty much everything that was laid out in the public safety master plan. So, we're feeling pretty good. Um, we'll monitor our mental health response. We'll see how that does. Um, again, we don't think police officers should respond. If we can find other ways to make that happen, whether it's, you know, other um social workers or what have you, that's something that we'll continue to have discussions about. But that's pretty much it. I don't know if you want to wait do it at the end and then do questions Mike or mayor or you have a preference >> box and we can >> Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, Kevin, you go ahead and then we'll write your questions down if you so you don't forget them. Dad, you you question >> I got I they're written. I got them. >> It's been a long day for you. >> All right. Well, we'll keep it going here. I'm going to start and then I'll I'm going to hand it off to Deputy Chief Derek Mezer and he will talk a little bit about service level objectives that we brought to you last April. So, uh like the chief mentioned in 23 we had Citygate come in. One of the things that was really important for us was that we had a consultant that really looked at data. Um, we've done studies over the years in the fire department here where a lot of them came in and they kind of asked you upfront, how do you want this to look when when it's done? And we didn't want that this time. It was really important that we had somebody that put together a study that really looked at our data at national best practices and built a a study off of that. So with us they came up with 21 key findings and five action items. And while they found that our department was well organized and supported with managerial infrastructure, they highlighted that the sign significant issues we faced were really with our response performance, our staffing capacity and our fire station physical limitations. Um so out of the assessment that they did, um it was important that with what they laid out for us was one that we bring to council those service level objectives and and get those adopted. That that's really what the whole master plan is built around. Um uh Council Member Maxwell asked me a a good question the other day when we met. She asked and said, "So you we give people, we give you people, we give you stations. Other than, you know, what does that buy the residents, right? What what what are we getting out of that?" And and it's not always just about getting there faster or uh protecting our assets, but what what do we get for that? Um and they also suggested along with that that we do staff all five fire stations. Um, we've even adjusted our our service level objective response times a little bit because the the consultants made that mention right where they said, you know, our stations are located in really good spots, but we're limited by our road system. And they they compared it to somebody who dumped a a bowl of spaghetti on a table and said, "That looks good. Now, let's build all the houses and buildings around around that." So our our we we can only be so good um by placing personnel out in the city. We're limited by by our our road system is really that that last hurdle that that we can not really overcome. Um they suggest we rebuild and remodel our satellite fire stations. Most of our stations were built in the 70s and 80s. They were built around a a volunteer or paid on call fire department that had a staffing of about 50 people. And they were designed to not be occupied 24 hours a day. They they were just built for people to show up from home, go to a call, come back and and park the trucks and and go back home. Um they suggested we hire career firefighters to to give us that consistent baseline 24-hour staffing, but also to utilize the paid on call to maximize our capacity. They still view our paid on call as a pretty critical component to our overall staffing. Uh paid on call firefighters are a good value for the city, especially for the amount of work that they they put in and and would continue to help uh keep those gaps filled. So so we have the staffing that's required for our increased call response. And then the last was to address the issues with EMS that we have been doing over the last several years and continue to do as we move forward. So what have we done so far in 2024? We uh went through and kind of established our expected service life for the fleet. Um, we have a a pretty large fleet of trucks with over eight pumper trucks, three ladder trucks, and a whole fleet of various support and specialty vehicles. And as those continue to increase and not only cost, but the amount of wear and tear that we we put on those on a on a daily basis, it it's it was really important to look at the overall service life of our fleet and and uh adjust that accordingly. Uh we developed our staffing enhancement plan and part of that was we began at the time of staffing station two during peak hours uh to get a a company up in that RGale area quicker. So during the day we were we were placing a company at station two and then we began cross staffing a ladder truck. That's that's something we had done in the past. Ladder trucks are kind of that specialty piece of equipment that you don't use as often, but when you need it, you need it. And it's critical that it gets there early. Like when we have a a structure fire, we have a lot of apparatus coming into the scene. And if a ladder truck, which is a key component to fighting structure fires, if it's not one of the first couple of trucks there, we can't get it in front of the the building because it clogs up with a lot of the apparatus that are that are coming. So, um it was important that we have a ladder truck staff and then uh improving our our duty crew response times and that was again through placing a a crew up at station two in in the Ridgedale area which at the time was and continues to be our our busiest area in the city, especially during the day. And then in 2025, that was a big year for us where we uh that was kind of our our first year of the master plan where we had some of those funds available and we were able to hire and onboard new nine new full-time firefighters which allowed us to begin staffing station five 24 hours a day. So we don't staff station two during the day anymore because we have staffing at station five which is up off of Carlson Parkway and 394. that station can accommodate 24-hour staffing. Um, so we have that now staffed uh all the time. And then uh we've have full-time staffing of a ladder truck and that runs out of out of station one here. Um last April we presented council with our service level objectives and um we also implemented an updated an uh data analytics software tool that uh is really customizable to us and allows us to to track every aspect of everything we do particularly related to our service level objectives. and it helps us to almost daily look at the data on our on our times and and our personnel staffing and um we can make make adjustments on the fly on a on a daily basis with that. So some of the inrogress recommendations that we have going on is uh the replacement and financing plan for stations two and three. Um, this is fire stations. Getting four of them addressed is is a big undertaking and and uh we appreciate all the the work council has has done on this to to date. We have a lot of unanswered questions and uncertainties still on on how this will play out, but we we uh know that this is a big deal in addressing these fire stations. So hopefully um as we get later into the year, we'll have some uh a clear road map on on where we're going with the stations. Um we have started staffing station 4, which is down by Purgatory Park off of Excelsier Boulevard. We now staff that when we have four trucks on duty with our paid on call, we're able to staff that during peak hours. We identified through our data that that's still a gap we have in the city. it it remains another area of the city that can be busy especially during the day. We have the high school Mitaka High Schools in that area. Um we have the the Highway 7 and 101 corridor there that that generates a a large number of calls for us. So we've begun staffing that. And then we updated our rescue plan and purchased equipment and we're in the process of implementing that. A lot of that equipment has to do with specialized rescue for uh in particular rail, light rail rescue. We have uh special airbags now and strut systems that we can lift and stabilize train cars if they were to have an accident with a pedestrian or an automobile or even a derailment. We're able to to mitigate that. So, um that was a big one for us. What what we're looking at for 2027 is um the potential hire and onboarding of up to six full six more full-time firefighters. So um if you recall, the plan called for 21 full-time firefighters and we've hired 12 so far. Um or I'm sorry, we've hired nine so far and would have 12 more to go. Uh we did pause this year to really take a look at uh how the nine that we brought on last year have affected our overall response. And we also didn't want to get too far ahead of ourselves with the fire stations because uh as nice it is as it is to to hire people, if we don't have a a good place to put them and they're and they're not dispersed adequately around the city, it really doesn't add that much value to us. So in 2027, we would be looking to bring on up to six more. We do have the capacity for those people right now. And um that would not only bolster our staffing at station 4, but it would give us uh at least four trucks all of the time with the potential to uh go up to five trucks when we have our paid on call working. And then again, we would hopefully ne by next year be able to begin a design process for stations two and three. We don't want to wait too long on that. Um when we built station one back in in uh 21 is when we moved in. That was a four-year process from from the the time we determined a staff or a uh financing strategy through the design process and and all of the other things that go along with it till the day we moved in. it was four years. So, um it it takes a while to get these projects going. So, that's what we're we're shooting for and looking at for 2027. And I believe at this point we're going to start talking our service level objectives and and how our numbers have changed uh since we implemented that last year and got that additional staffing. So, with that, I'm going to turn it over to Deputy Chief Mezer and he'll go over our service level objectives. >> All right. Good evening, uh, mayor and councel. So, the service level objectives that were adopted last year, they they really track all of the the emergency response incident types that we go to. So, there'll be different metrics depending on an EMS call versus a structure fire or technical rescue incident. Um, and this is basically what sets the standard of our performance of how quickly we're able to respond uh with a first unit and then get an effective uh response force on scene. So that would be all the personnel needed to mitigate that. This is it was also called out in the city gate study to uh measure it in the 90th percentile versus an average. Uh so that it sets a standard of 90% of the time or more often um this is what that response metric will be. So, just to review, uh, for our EMS incidents, 90% of all of our emergency medical responses in the city, it calls for that s first unit to arrive in six minutes, um, with an effective response force of three national registered EMTs. And so, all of our personnel is trained to the EMT level. Um, either our paid on call staff are hired and then trained to that, and then our our full-time side, they will come in with that EMT license already. And then uh for structure fire incidents, it's six minutes and 30 seconds for that first arriving unit. And that accommodates for that extra time uh for putting on your turnout gear, getting into your equipment uh before responding to that call. And the effective response force for that is 17 firefighters on scene. Uh and that metric is at 11 minutes and 30 seconds is that effective response force. So this next slide looks a little bit uh at that and all the different tasks that are included that uh is the reason why 17 firefighters on scene in 11 minutes and 30 seconds u is necessary. So from the initial arriving units doing a size up and establishing incident command organizing that fire ground um and starting to assign tasks to the different resources uh arriving. That includes establishing water supplies from fire hydrants, deploying different attack lines or backup lines. Um, you know, the firefighters will deploy either a 200 foot, sometimes up to a 600 feet of hose depending on how far away uh a building is from a fire engine. So, it can be very labor intensive uh ventilation and forceful entry into structure. So all these different tasks is made up by that um 17 firefighters on scene in those critical moments that 11 minutes and 30 seconds. And so what we have here on the left side is the six months leading up to staffing station 5 and then six months after just to show some of the impacts on the response times uh that that opening had. And that opened it was like right at the end of August of 25. I think it was August 29th. Um, so we we have pretty good data leading up to that and then going out. So for EMS incidents, and this is citywide, um, our average response time for that first unit was 6 minutes and 40 seconds, but the 90th percentile of time was 9 minutes and 38 seconds. Um, and so 40% of the time we were meeting that goal of uh, six minutes for that um, EMS 90th percentile time, but there's still a lot of room to grow there. So over on the right side uh that had reduced down 30 seconds roughly on the average and then the 90th percentile time had reduced down uh even more than that as well. So so we are starting to see the impacts of staffing station 5. It is reducing uh both for our EMS and our structure fire incidents and really all of our fire turnout incidents. Um it is reducing that average and 90th percentile and how we're we're measuring those goals. uh for structure fires that sorry the acronym ERF the effective response force um we are still seeing that we're sitting at about the same at 11 minutes and 30 seconds we still only have about six firefighters on scene um we do also count our mutual aid partners towards that 17 um so we do have mutual aid agreements with all of our neighboring agencies I think one of the challenges right now that we're all facing is that call volumes are continuing to increase and just availability and overlapping calls sometimes prevent that crew from immediately responding. And we can look a little off this one a little bit on this next slide. >> So this uh looks at some call volume data. I'm sorry it's a lot of numbers kind of up there, but on the left side again the six months prior to staffing staffing station 5 and then on the right side the six months after. And this looks at call volume by district, the station districts. And so you can see uh anywhere from roughly 60 to almost 175 or 176 calls increased uh by each station uh for that six-month timeline which also means that overlapping calls which is either one or more call happening simultaneously is also continuing to increase. Um but our average response times and then our uh 90th percentile times have been significantly decreased for station five. um which we would expect now staffing there 24 hours uh that number is looking a lot better. Um it also helps out station two because it's also on the north side and station 5 does cover um a lot of those calls as well now that they are much closer. Um station one it's helped in that area. Uh not as impactful as station 5's area but it has alleviated the crews now that would have responded out of station one to those two districts. And then we can see station three and four are relatively unchanged because they're more or less further away from sta station station five. Um and then you know there's some increase or impact to station three and station four is basically the opposite side of the city. Um so we haven't really seen much of a difference there. And so we are continuing to identify where we need to uh staff. And so station four when we do have the paid on call staffing available to have that fourth truck, that's when we rotate them down there uh for the day during the peak hours. Um which we've seen is our highest v call volume time is typically between 8 a.m. and about 7 or 8:00 p.m. And that is where we are at. There's no end slide. Okay. very very impressive improvement and not you know a tremendously long period of time. So >> all right council questions for the chiefs kind of going going along. Do you want to start? >> Sure. Um, so we it's there, you know, we have people that are likely here tonight that I know have had questions about um what we don't do with our with our uh cameras, our drones, and so on and so forth. Um and uh I am under the impression that there is a memo coming out. So we don't necessarily need to discuss it tonight because we will be getting that um information in written form here shortly. Um, so one of the questions that I I have um in reading this and thinking about drones as first responsor responders really had to do with fire and response times and how is it changing, you know, I know it's helping you get eyes, but we didn't really talk about like h if it's changing anything about response times or even staffing when you're looking at what's going on in detail. Can you talk about that a little bit? >> Yeah. So, I don't know that it's had much effect on response times, but I can tell you as far as uh staffing and uh personnel, it has made a difference. I can list a specific example. um early on. It was towards the end of last year or right after the I think it was in December and we got a call um Chief Borbon mentioned sometimes information that we get up front is is sparse. So we got a call at a house under construction where they just said we're working on the house and we think uh there's an electrical issue going on in the house. So that's just a one truck uh response. And so we had a a unit going, but the drone was actually able to get there several minutes before uh we were able to get there because it was on the far western edge of town. And when the drone got overhead, it was immediately able to see that there was a working fire going on in this structure. And uh so the operator was a we're always in direct contact over the radio with with the DFR operator and they were able to relay that information to us which allowed us to uh elevate that to a structure fire and get the necessary necessary resources going before we got somebody on scene which you know saves time and saves the uh helped in saving the structure because it was a house under construction still. Not all the walls were sheetrocked and and a structure like that, a fire escalates incredibly fast. And so we were able to kind of stay ahead of it and and get the resources there more quickly than we would have by just getting somebody on scene and getting eyes on it. So that's probably the direct impact we've seen. Um, and again, we've had it with with some missing persons calls and and that helps us with resource allocation, too, because eyes up in the sky like that >> um is able to cover ground that normally we would need, you know, a number of personnel to to to try to mitigate. So, it's been incredibly helpful to us on that, but response times not a we haven't noticed a huge difference in that. So then I had two other questions and one has to do with this sort of chicken and egg situation with the fire stations trying to come up with funding to do what we need to do with the fire stations and our hiring objectives for full-time fire staff. And so I mean what are what are you seeing? What do you need? you know, I mean, this is sort of the time like what do you what do you need? Um, you know, what do we need? It's a it's a chicken and egg thing, but that that's one question. And then sort of along the same lines because it's sort of a funding question has to do with that um the inflationary pressures and that service life of your especially your large equipment and knowing how long you know taking four years to build a fire truck. Um I mean is this putting undue maybe detrimental pressure on on the service life of our trucks that we are keeping them in service longer than we should or how do you see this playing out um in this plan? >> Okay, I'll answer the first part first. Um yeah, I I think I mentioned last year and well, a number of times we mentioned that we want to stay highly flexible on this master plan. Even though it said it was 5 to seven years, I think again we want to stay flexible because people are great. We'd love to to be able to hire people, but if we're not able to adequately deploy them around the city, it doesn't serve as much good, right? you know, if if I have 15 people working out of station one, that's really good when we have a big the big incident or those overlapping calls, but if it's not helping us get there quicker and efficiently, it's not really serving. >> So, you were talking about six more >> next year. >> Next year. >> Yep. >> But, you know, I don't know that we're going to be able to pull the trigger on a I mean, hope so. >> Yeah. Um, >> yeah. >> Yeah, we we have the capability to to house them. We're actually looking at some potential short-term options. Um, you know, there's the capabilities of mobile dormitories >> and stuff. Um, we've used those in the past. The PD used them when we were building the facility down at public works. It's not ideal, but it could allow us to place some personnel at a 24-hour basis at say station four while we work on on through the other stations. So, that's something we're looking at, but we do, you're right, we still want to be very cautious as to uh how we hire because we we just don't want to get ahead of ourselves on the fire station. So, we're we're trying to to pace it uh with with each other without getting too far ahead on on one of them. Um the second part as far as the fleet goes, um we do have a lot of challenges with some of our more aging trucks. The good news is is we've had three trucks on order for four years that are coming due this year. Um the deputy chief's gone out with the with uh some of our maintenance personnel this summer to start the uh the build process. So we hope to have those trucks in early probably early 27 that they'll come online. And then we do have another truck that's on order uh behind that. So that will help a lot to get we have several trucks that are that are at their end of life. they're at that 20 year plus mark um that we'll be able to cycle out, but it's a challenge. We were talking with Darren the other day on this one that we have on deck for I think the next one we'll order is for it's for 2030, but on a five-year build time how does that work? How do how what's our plan with that on timing of the order and to to get it as close to 2030 as possible? If we wait till 2030 to actually order it, it's really a 2035 truck. So, >> and what are you seeing for inflationary pressures on that kind of equipment now? >> Um, they've stabilized a little bit. Um, up to two years ago, they were doing five price increases a year, which I was part of the reason that that group got called in front of Congress to to answer for that. Uh, last year they had two price increases. this year they've promised that there will only be one. They're still around kind of that that 5% mark is what we're we're seeing, but it's our other equipment too, our turnout gear. Um that has gone up a lot because of the POS issue in turnout gear. So gear that we were buying a couple years ago at about $2,500 a set is now running closer to about $6,000 a set. And those are items that uh we replace every 5 years. And uh because firefighters have two sets of gear because of how we have to clean it after a fire and cycle it through, they have two sets. So at five years when they get a new set, that set they were using goes in as a reserve set. So when their primary set is being cleaned, they have another set to use and then their reserve set has to go away. So NFPA, which is the National Fire Protection Agency, requires us to re that uh turnout gear has to be replaced every 10 years. It can't be used past that. That includes helmets and boots and gloves and everything that goes with it. So uh a lot of challenge there, which is why we're looking at things like with turnout gear when we replace it. Do we do it all at once like we have been or are we going to do it in phases now to maybe ease the the year-to-year budget pressures a little bit? cuz it's, you know, a half a million dollars for to when we replace everybody's turnout care. So, it's pretty significant. >> And this is my last question. So, when um uh just went out of my head. >> Um when I just lost it. >> Okay. I'll come back to it. >> Council, any other questions? Kimberly, you had a question. Um I did. Um so I'm I'm trying to envision what the what the mental health response will look like um once we once it's transition more to to fire. Um, and I I believe when uh Chief Chief Vance was still here that we were told like often the um you'll send a truck to a call even though you don't need that truck for that call because I I think because once you're out like if you have to go to another call you you've got you've got the truck. Um, so I'm wondering like will there be a mental health response team that wouldn't necessarily need to take a truck and it's just how that will work. >> Yeah. So, one of the things we're exploring that I touched on with the paramedics is if we were to deploy paramedics on shift is they would not ride in one of the pumper trucks or the ladder truck. They would be in a separate vehicle because we'd have one probably one on every shift and they would be a citywide response to not only go to the more serious medical calls, but they would be potentially that primary responder on the mental health related calls. Um, which to your question, it would keep them out of the big truck cuz we don't want to have to have to commit a truck of three or four people, two, three, four people and all that equipment on a mental health type call, that can sometimes take hours to resolve. Um, if we can have one or two people in a pickup truck or SUV is what we're looking at. Yeah. But how this is ultimately going to look, we're not quite sure yet. >> That's a great That's a great >> Okay, Kizzy, >> I was just wondering, do you think um you've been a partner with Hopkins School to hire to um for Hopkins School students to be part of that some of the six or 12 um new firefighters? Uh, probably not the schools because when we hire on the full-time side, um, they have to come in with their certifications already. So, that's really looking for those people that already have their EMT. If they already have all their certifications, absolutely. Um, but we're we're kind of looking for the the more experienced side because it saves us time and money to onboard. If we hire somebody that doesn't have their certifications and the experience, we it's that's a 16-month process to to get them on boarded. So, it's logistically difficult for us. So, our pathway for people like that are through our paid on call because um we always look to our paid on call first when we hire full-time because they've already been a part of the organization and it's a more seamless way to to hire full-time. So, um those pathways from the high schools really are going to be looking to get them into the the paid on call first and then that that pathway of >> Okay, that makes sense. I didn't even think about it from that perspective, but yeah, that makes sense. >> I thought of my question. Okay, quick one. Let's and we're burning we're burning time here. So, we'll try to see. >> So, uh turnout gear. Uh I was re rereading some of the original report and it was talking about how some of the stations really don't have a good place. They're improperly placed. And so, in the meantime, while we're working on this, what what's the plan for that since it's so important with the carcinogens? I don't know that we exactly have one yet because the existing stations we just don't have the room to. So if you look at our station one, we have a separate room for our turnout gear. It's got a separate HVAC system that ventilates that room, keeps it pressurized. So everything's contained into there. We just don't have that luxury at the other stations. The turnout gear right now sits out on the apparatus bays with the truck. So you got that mixture of the exhaust and everything else going on there. Not an ideal situation that right now I don't know that we have a solution for on that. >> It's just really good. Yeah. >> Anybody else critical questions? Um we'll go to Amanda and then Paula. >> If mine isn't critical, you can feel free to to cut it up. It's maybe a naive question. So thank you for your patience with this one. What I want to know is why does the city need to respond to medicals? If we have ambulance coming from a different service, isn't this a redundancy or what is unique about the city providing medical service when we then have to sit around and wait or so what's different? Why does the city need to provide that when there's already an ambulance service? And then would it make sense to spin that out into a separate, if we're adding EMTs, have a separate department that would do maybe the mental health and the medical calls that don't require um law enforcement or fire uh in particular. >> I can start since we're the primary responders. So that is the model in the entire county. In fact, I think beyond our county is when a 911 calls in comes in, police and or fire are the first responders and then the ambulance service will come either code three depending on the nature of the of the injury or illness or they come routine. I mean, we we respond a call if someone has a has a tummy ache to like they're having a stroke. So that's just the requirement and typically uh ambulance service will not show up until police arrive or or fire on scene. That's the way it's always been. I I would say that there is a redundancy of resources and I I think there's at this point now there's starting to be acknowledgment that that is a very tall order. Right now all these firefighters are going full-time and they're going to be there. You've got one or two police officers, two or three firefighters and an ambulance service. That's a lot of people. So, I think they're looking at that and I think by us pulling back that's going to then, you know, fire is going to have to go, but I think it's getting to a better solution than what you have going on right now. It's just the model and we're not unique. This is everywhere. >> It's national. Um, and I'll I'll tag on to that. So, the big thing is time. Um, the ambulances could be coming, if you're lucky, it's coming from Glen Lake or from here. Uh, it could be coming from Minneapolis. you know, they they are constantly moving around and they only have so much for resources. um on a on a serious medical issue. Uh c uh strokes, heart attacks, things like that. Uh time is is of the essence to get interventions going, whether that's high performance CPR, delivering cardiac shocks, um providing insulin on on uh anaphylactic calls, things like that. The sooner we can get interventions going, uh the better it is for the patient. And on top of that too is the more serious the medical, the more hands that are required. A card an average cardiac arrest uh takes about eight people to effectively manage it. Um between doing chest compressions, airway management, uh medical uh narcotic interventions, things like that, starting IVs, um it's kind of an all hands type of call and we have many calls that we go to. Again, information is only as good as it comes in. We have a lot of calls we go to that start out as a tummy ache or they're genuinely not feeling well and they go into cardiac arrest upon our immediate arrival. So, um, a lot of calls don't take a lot of people. Um, the the EMS system is being used in different ways than it has in the past. And a big part of that is a lot of people don't have access to good health care. you know, in the 70s or when the early days of 911 came about when somebody called 911, it was because they were really ill. Um, that's not as much the case these days because a lot of times people don't have a way to get down to the hospital. They don't have a primary care doctor. The ER is their primary care. So, we get called for for medicals for a lot of different reasons, but it's not up to us to to judge uh who should receive our service or not. So, we we go to all of them. And the sooner we and that's I talked about those low acuity calls, being able to clear from those sooner is one of our priorities. But, um you know, we we have no control over the ambulance services. We have no control over their response times, anything like that. and our residents pay taxes to to have service when they call 911. And so it's up to us to to get that that system started. >> And we're doing a better job of triaging it. So if we know fire is going, our officers will say, you know what, fire has it? That's something that we've we just are sending everybody. So we are doing a better job as more fire staff comes on. We're just saying fire has it. That's why we're going to transition pretty much everything over because it'll free up a lot of our resources. So, we are working towards that to reduce our role. >> All right, Paula. >> Uh, yeah. Um, let's see. So, I was wondering, you know, given the spaghetti road system that we're talking about, um, and the difficulties, is that taken into account with the goals that we have right now to reach Oops, I just lost my thing. Um, that what is it? five minute goal that we have to get to. Um what's our six six minute goal correct >> for fire structural fires? >> Um and so that's that's one thing. Does that does that take into account? >> Yes. All of our numbers were adjusted from so those numbers come from the national standards and we adjusted our numbers up a little bit because the consultants said in the report that we would never be able to meet those standards with our even if with all five of our station staff. >> Uh it's physically impossible for us to to meet the national standards. >> I was hoping that we there was some adjustment there because that just seemed like that five minutes and Okay, so that makes sense. And I was just wondering, it looks like we're getting close on a lot of those numbers in terms of the average time. It looks like we're off, you know, there's still, like you said, growth uh opportunities for the, you know, reaching the 90th percentile, but do you ever internally look at, you know, how many, you know, what's your 80% rate? >> Oh, absolutely. >> Things like that. Is that, you know, are we ever, you know, do you ever foresee like, you know, 90th percentile is, do you foresee like given the whole public safety master plan, um, that it would allow getting to your, you know, goals of that six and a half at the 90th percentile or maybe it's going to be 80th. >> Yeah. And and that's part of what we're looking at and >> kind of what's the trade-off? >> They're goals, right? and whether we ever meet fully meet those and and as council um part of that is your decision on what you're comfortable with. >> Yeah, I guess when we were talking about um council members Maxwell's question the other day, what are we buying? So I guess at what point do we need to maybe or would it be helpful for discussion at least to think about okay if we spend X million and get these fire stations you know what what what that what what is that going to get us how close is that going to get us to our our that goal and you know do we ever have to think about the balance. So that would just be one question um or thing to think about looking forward looking forward. Um, the other thing is a little more minor thing is um I know you were talking about the the engines on order and then one particular one. Um, and I was just gonna throw in a a plug for a possible electric engine to see if those have been looked at. Um, St. Paul got a electric pumper in 2024 and Roseville just got one. So, I'm hoping that those all work out and we something we can think about for the future. >> We have looked at them. Um, One of the things to consider is is they're double the price of what we pay now for our pumper. So there's an increased cost. Um we have seen that the ones that they do have are almost always out of service. Uh so >> okay >> the I think the overall technology is there as far as how that relates to fire service use. Um there's still >> concerns that maybe they're not quite there yet, but uh it's something we re absolutely have been keeping our eye on >> with gas prices and everything that >> Yep. We're we're watching those every day and and the technology is constantly evolving. So I think they're going to get there. >> Okay. >> Um is to matter when we're we're to re remain seeing I think so. >> Okay. Great. Thank you. >> All right. Did we get people's questions covered? All right. Excellent. Thank you. Very good information from both of you and and Derek as well and also all the director reports. Really appreciate that. So, um, everybody who is free to leave, please feel free. We're going to keep cruising ahead. Um, so let's here's just a little process check as Brad would say, but we're going to spend 10 minutes on this next item. And then I've got in my notes, I'm going to I'm going to break the rules a little bit. We're going to spend 35 minutes for open time. I've got it designated per topic. And so let's cruise through 3C, which is amendment of the council um rules and procedures. Mike, are you gonna tee that up? >> Yeah, I'll thank you, mayor. So, in the in your staff report, basically what we have done is brought forward to you a conversation that the council had recently at the March 2nd study session. So, we talked about council rules and procedure. There was a conversation about looking at the voting procedure. Currently, we do a roll call vote. council discussed transitioning to perhaps a voice vote process. Eric Nelson, our city attorney, crafted language for your consideration that came forward to the March 23rd regular council meeting and then we decided to bring this item back tonight just for further conversation. So in your staff report you have language that was carried over from the staff recommended language on that transition to explain really what what that means if you were to go to a voice vote what that language would look like and then allow for voice vote however some exception for council to always ask for that roll call type provision so Eric can cover that here uh in a minute and then really looking for your direction tonight Where's it? If the council is still going to proceed with a voice option, we have language then get teed up ready for you that we can bring back to a future council meeting. So with that, we're just going to turn over to Eric real quick for a summary of what this language review and then mayor we just turn back to you and that conversation amongst the council and the staff will look that direction. >> Great. Thanks, Mike. Eric, >> thank you, Mike. So the language that's proposed in the staff report here uh was crafted in response to the council request. It does uh state that the votes of the city council will be entered in the minutes. Um and so uh that will still record the clerk will still be recording each individual council member's vote. Um and that they can be taken by voice vote unless any member the mayor or any member of the council requests a roll call vote. And so um we set it up that way so that if you are unclear on the vote total, if it's a if it's a divided vote total, you can you or anyone else can still ask for a roll call vote. And then we did put in a provision about the clerk being able to ask for a verification roll call vote if we didn't, you know, hear the votes accurately. So, fairly simple. Um, you will still have to do a roll call at the outset of the meeting to take attendance, that initial roll call vote. Uh, and rule 9.2 of the council does still require every council member present at the meeting to cast a vote. So, there's no ability to hide among sort of sort of, for lack of a better phrase, hide among the voice vote, so to speak. Um and then uh just finally, in order to amend the rules, five affirmative votes are required pursuant to rule 10 of the council rules of procedure. You would have the ability if you wanted to proceed today on adopting the rules of procedure to consider it here at the special or excuse me, I take that back. Sorry, that was for a special meeting, not a study session. I take that back. So, uh to Mike's previous point, it would be teed up for um a regular council meeting then make that change. >> Thank you. So we talked about this um at a study session and then understand some reservation came up in further conversation. So rather than you know whatever that's how we ended up back here at the study session. So um council previously there was kind of a consensus on this. If there's further discussion to be had I'll open that um opportunity. Now, what I would say just for clarification, you know, I'd say 90% of our votes, if not more, we tend to vote together. The idea would be in those instances, this would be very a a quicker process. Then I would anticipate as mayor, at least in my, you know, if it is trending towards we're going to have a split vote, I would I anticipate calling for a roll call vote at the outset, but certainly we can always get clarification on, you know, that's five yeses and a no from council member Wilburn and a no from council member Calvert and, you know, making sure the record's clear on that. So, um, that's how I would operate under that, I think. that is pretty common. Um, but I'm I'm open to we're we're certainly want everybody to have their opportunity to share their thoughts on this if they have any different thoughts than when we last discussed it. And mayor, if I could just I should have mentioned in my opening comments in speaking to all of you, I think on the phone today, I just shared just some real basic research, if you will, that I did with our kind of six neighboring cities here in western end of the county. So I explored Prairie, Dina, Plymouth, Maple Grove, St. Louis Park, and then Hopkins. So, of those six cities, five do voice votes. Eden Prairie is the exception. They do roll call like we do currently. So, for whatever it's worth, uh that's what our neighboring cities do. >> Anybody want to weigh in on this? I'll go to Paula first. >> Paula, >> um I didn't raise my hand, but um Sure. Yeah. Um I know we talked about this, but it was actually really brought up in during the the last meeting that we talked about it. So, I guess um you know it was it was kind of hard in the moment to to necessarily think it through. Um my I I'm right now I I'm not really thrilled about it, but I'm open to hearing and considering other reasoning. Um if kind of the main reason was, you know, saving time, I'm not sure that it would do enough to to merit the change. you know, maybe 10 minutes off the whole meeting, 15 to 30 seconds per vote probably. Um, also in terms of a roll call provides clarity on the video feed, so when people residents watch a recording, they don't have to go into the minutes or the record of votes to be sure, you know, what the votes were were on record. There's just, you know, kind of more clarity. Um, you know, I understand some of the things that, you know, the mayor just mentioned and, you know, appreciate that. Um, I do think, um, a voice vote could possibly bring pressure on people. Um, it can be hard to be a dissenting voice. So, it's one thing to dissent by, you know, in a roll call vote. Um, but you know it can be the other one to say, you know, nays and you're the one or nay or you're the two. And also when we have a roll call vote, hearing how other people vote, you know, can influence and maybe some people would think that's a bad thing. Some people may think it's a good thing about how, you know, hearing how others are voting before you. So those are the things that give me pause. That said, I'm not, you know, I'm not going to fall in my sword on this. Um, those were just some of my concerns that I wasn't necessarily, you know, didn't think of in the moment during, you know, the meeting where this was initially brought up. And those those were things that I mentioned um as my concerns. >> Deb, I kind of share I, you know, I'm I'm kind of in the same camp that, you know, I'm I'm not going to die in a high heel over this issue. I think it could be construed as less transparent. Um, I'm not sure that that's really true for the reasons that people have explained because the the votes will still be recorded, but it is harder to hear and I do I I could see that you would feel the pressures. And the other thing is, I mean, if you're going to call a roll vote uh roll call vote as mayor, if there's sort of lack of clarity, I feel like there's a double-edged sword for you as mayor where it might provide cover um on difficult votes in in some ways and also be more difficult for you. I mean, you have it could be, you know, you're like, we had a difficult vote the other night and you were kind of like a tiebreaking vote or, you know, a decisive vote. Um, I think that can happen and I so I'm I'm sort of leaning in Paula's camp, but there I just don't know, especially if we have to explain more because it is going to be a voice vote versus a roll call vote how much time it will save. >> Well, I'm going to interrupt you right now and just say from that perspective, you know, my my interest in doing this, I I what is timesaving. I don't want to move forward if we don't have cons consensus on a policy change. So it's clear we don't have consensus. If somebody has something that they want to say it's it I mean it is I think 10 minutes is a big deal. You know I'm not a night person and so to me that is a big deal but I get it. >> Um I I think I'm not going to get into my rationale but let's um >> I'll just go ahead. So um like I was just say yes to me I mean 10 minutes is 10 minutes I I it's not nothing or however much time. So I think it's it's worthwhile. I have sat through other council council's meetings in other cities where they do voice votes. It runs fine. It's it's not it's not a problem. Um, and I I to me it there's more pressure like if I'm a dissenting vote >> when when it when it's it's just you, that's that's hard in my in my opinion. That's a harder harder to to say no again and when everybody else is saying yes um than a voice vote. But that's that's just my opinion. So I I think I mean I don't know. I think, you know, and we're we're we're doing our best to be more efficient. I think it's just more efficient. Um 99% of the time we vote unanimously anyway. Um and it's like in this this last difficult vote, it was it was apparent before the vote that we it was not going to be unanimous. So, I think it would have been simple. It would have gone the same way. Rebecca would have said, "Let's I'd like to do a voice or a roll call for this." And we would and we it would she would have been the tiebreaker. So, um I don't know. I guess I just I I disagree, I guess, with the the reasons for not doing it. >> Well, my suggestion is I you know, I I'm loathed to make you guys can obviously overrule me. I mean, five of you can. I I saw Kizzy was agreeing I think over here, too. So, we might not even have the votes. I don't want to make a a a p policy procedure change unless everybody's on board. So, let's put this on ice. We can revisit it again next year if there's an appetite to do that, but um speaking of not wasting time, I don't think it's something that we need to belabor. So, we will this will not come back um to a regular council agenda for adoption and we'll um can maintain the status quo. Kizzy, I don't want to cut cut you off, but Okay, >> let's see. >> All right. All right. So, with that, Mike, that's enough on that, right? >> Yes, it is. Okay. I could do just in December when you key up your conversation or items for 2027 study session work plan. I'll just add it there and you can decide in December if you want to bring it forward for next year. >> Great idea. Thank you. >> All right. 3D May study session topics. >> Uh so yeah, thank you Mayor. Sorry. >> Oh, Mike. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry. >> I'm sorry. >> Speaking of uh so May 11th is our next study session. I'll thank you for pulling that up, Miranda. So, those are our study sessions coming up. So, May 11th is our next one. As noted, we have the budget kickoff. Kelly noted earlier, we will bring in some Marsh operations in that into that conversation recommend as well. I know that was part of the study session work plan of having that topic come up and so county will be prepared on that. And then Darren mentioned also priority based budgeting. We'll continue to talk more about what that looks like. Amanda, I know we haven't probably talked in depth on what that looks like and so certainly for all it's really new to the city and so we've been gearing up with about that with with staff and taking us kind of first look at that in May and then certainly the community survey results. So I did touch on that earlier. So that's May and then in June the decision was made to separate EIP and our CIP. So June we will do the CIP. So it's teed up and then the purgatory park, excuse me, the purgatory park off leash dog discussion will also come up in June. So that will be two full sessions both in May and June. Uh July is the economic improvement plan and part of that is Julie Wishnack with all things housing as we call it. So housing developer refinancing policy, the zoning code rewrite all part of that drive as well that conversation. Um, so that's July and then August is the general fund budget. So that's really big conversation on that August study session. So that's the next kind of four months. Again, council, as you know, these are your study sessions. So staff always looks for your direction if you want to change that, add to it. That's what we'll be looking for here this evening. So I'll pause there, mayor, if there's any changes to that. >> Council, any any comments or questions on this? I think we're on the on the budget uh superighway now. So, we don't want to we don't want to get off. All right. Great. >> Okay. >> All right. So, do we have that grid? >> Yes, I have it here. Mayor, council. >> Okay. Great. So, here is my suggestion. We we're we are going to adjourn by 9:40. And we've got six items, I believe. Five items. >> Okay. >> One, I think this way. compels a longer conversation couple. >> So that is the eviction moratorum. I think to a person we all probably want to have a discussion on that. >> I do want >> proposed that we spend 10 minutes on that. Mike seemed to look at me as if that was not enough time. So I'm going to allocate 15 minutes but ideally 10 to that conversation. Um, and then the remaining, we've got an update on the Suburban Cable Commission from Deb, and we'll give that five minutes. We've got um employment issue from Ky. We'll give that five minutes. We've got the gun violence prevention ordinance, which um is Paula. And Paula, I'll give you 10 minutes and you can use it however you want to between your two items. >> Okay? And then um if anybody wants more time, they can certainly defer their item to another um 30 minute open time. Although I don't I guess we don't have another one this year. >> Not until October. >> Okay. All right. So, let's get cruising. So, let's let's um deal with the eviction pre-eviction notice time period. And we are going to start that right now. And we're going to end it at at 9. um 20. So I think we understand what the question is. So I you know I will get I would certainly be willing to let these two folks um Paty or Kimberly talk about it. But if you think we kind of know what the issue is, I think Mike has some things he'd like to say about it. >> Do you have anything? >> I agree. I think we know what the issue is. The 30 days. Do you >> um I just Well, I I guess we can let Mike go, but like at some point I think we should consider um a permanent. >> Yeah. >> Uh looking at doing a permanent and and then the discussion is is it 30 days or more? Um but it you can go ahead, Mike, and then we'll >> Yeah. Thank you. Go ahead, Mike. >> Okay. Thank you, Mayor Kimberly and Paty. I I think I mentioned hopefully this to everyone on the phone today that really what staff would need in this conversation is direction. And so, uh, if there's direction meeting, if there's appetite by the council to change our ordinances, currently it's a 14-day, I'm looking at it, it said state law, I'm sorry, state law. I said local ordinance. Thank you. So, state law is 14 days. So, if the council chooses to do something other than state law, we would need that direction. And so, that would come in the form of an ordinance. And so there have there are examples of some cities that have extended the current state law from 14 days to 30. There's been examples I think of of cities that have looked at 60 days and I'll turn to the city attorney on that explanation and some rationale on that. But really what we would need as staff from the council is if you're looking to extend the current state law that direction and then it's twofold. um is it we would want the time period and so being more specific on whether it's a 30-day moratorum or something that's beyond 30 days because there's and that's where I'll turn to the city attorney here in a second where he can provide a little explanation on what it's like legally to go beyond the 30 days because there are some challenges legally with that. Um and then the second question is besides the whether it's 30 days or beyond 30 days then is it a temporary moratorum because we've seen that where some cities have done uh temporary moratoriums just really in relation to operation metro surge or if it's if it's a permanent pre-eviction moratorum. So that too is a policy question for the council. Those are the two main parameters that staff would need direction on and then once we get some direction from you this evening then we can proceed on drafting an ordinance. Uh as you hear from staff often it does take time for that process to play out and so we'd want to get that started right away. >> Okay. >> So mayor oh >> did I say mortorium again >> I was jumping ahead to Paula. Eric, did you want to add for the clarification? >> Sure. So, pre pre-eviction filing notice the um as the council is aware that the the state law u unlawful detainer the state eviction statutes do um notice that or mention that local governments may have longer a longer period than 14 days which you would do by ordinance. It's also referred I believe sort of commonly as as a payer quit ordinance. It allows a tenant prior to the filing of an eviction, which does create essentially a scarlet letter on your on your record. It makes it very difficult to get future tenencies. It gives an opportunity to tenant to either, you know, hopefully uh access emergency assistance of some sort, housing assistance of some sort, um or to voluntarily move and so that not to have the eviction uh filing on their record. Um the uh three cities um have adopted 30-day periods. Minneapolis Brooklyn Center in St. Louis Park. Um you you all are I'm sure aware that St. Paul temp adopted a temporary uh 60-day ordinance. Minneapolis council adopted that that was vetoed by the mayor and not overridden. Um and so that's where the the pure city um lay the land lies. Uh there would be some concerns from a legal perspective if you go beyond 30 days. 30 days tends to align with a a periodic month-to-month tenency. uh you go beyond that and there is a point. It's not a bright line rule, but there is a point where you do increase your potential liability um uh by starting to infringe on one of the fundamental real property rights, the right to exclude others. It's a right that's been recognized as sort of par part and parcel of the bundle of sticks that's associated with real property ownership. Um and that right has been um sort of clarified in some significant decisions over the last couple years uh including um the the lawsuit that was brought against Governor Walls and the state about the eviction moratorum again >> during the during the pandemic where they did find that that um amounted to a physical and regulatory take. It it infringed on the right to exclude others. the state did win the case on other separate grounds. Uh but that was a a finding that was made and so you would get into some some legal concern there. I think more importantly with any ordinance that you would contemplate going beyond 30 days. Well, in general, this is a type of ordinance that where there needs to be some good engagement with the the whole community here in terms of both tenants and housing providers and how this would affect their operations. uh all manner of housing both affordable and and not uh multi-ousing association etc. Uh and I think hearing from those voices about some of the practical real world effects, the way they view these things is important as well. So it's not just a uh legal concerns. There are some um but it's practical concerns as well. Um I think that's all I have to add. >> So before we and then we'll get input from I want I have one question because I think it's kind of foundational to this and I don't honestly know the answer. Say I'm we think of eviction for non-payment of rent, but I've got three scenarios in mind. So, I'm a loud tenant and there's a young family that lives next to me and they violate the noise um conditions, quiet hours at the apartment consistently and um I'm a landlord and I want to evict them or I am um I have somebody who has acquired renters's rights by living in my house. It's a partner >> and we are not do There's some maybe not domestic violence, but there's maybe some aggression and things are and I want to my only way to the police have told me the only way to get them out is through an eviction or I am somebody who is smoking marijuana in my apartment consistently in violation of the terms of my lease and I'm a landlord and I want to evict them and all of those scenarios does this whatever the pre-eviction I'm not breaking the law and I'm not there's No legal reason. There's no order for protection, but I need to be evicted. Does 30 days apply now to me for pre-eviction notice? >> Uh, mayor, no. So, the the state the state law, the 14-day law is strictly based on non-payment of rent. Okay. >> And that's what we would be >> strictly on what? >> Uh, non-payment of rent. >> Okay. >> And that's what we would be contemplating here. I think the last and this may be wrong um the last stat I heard was was something in the on the magnitude of of 90% of the evictions that are ultimately filed are for non or if it was it was above 90% are for non-payment of rent >> okay >> so we would make that clear in any kind of ordinance that we would break that is very helpful for my decision making all right let's I'm gonna start and I want to hear the answer to Mike's questions you know do you want this to come back A do you want this to come back from a from the aspect of a temporary kind of emergency process or from a longer term more deliberate process and then you know do you have an opinion on the length of time? I think that's the information. So I'm going to start with the two people who presented it. We're going to go across everybody's going to give their position and then hopefully staff has enough information to move this forward. Um, well, for me, I think going with the 30 days just for the reasons that that uh Eric shared with us uh makes sense. Um, ideally, I would like to see it just be a permanent thing. Um, but I don't know where if everyone else is is in is on the same page as that. Um so I you know if if everyone is not doesn't have the appetite for that then I would consider the a temporary um but then we have to decide how long and I don't know how to I don't know what time period it should be >> I think it should be permanent >> and I think the 30 days >> I don't know >> are good >> okay Amanda do you have an opinion on this I know you're kind of jumping Um, I would also say uh 30 days permanent. I think it's if this is in response to Operation Metro Surge, it's too late to make it temporary. By the time we do all of the public engagement and if it happens in August, September, people who are impacted in January, February, it's going to be too late, I think. So, I would say permanent is what I would want to see and then do that public engagement and see whether we want to continue after that. >> Ky, >> um, I think it should be permanent. Um this has for me that has nothing to do with operation um you know metro metro search for me I know that it takes longer than 30 days for people who are getting evicted. Um I've seen it I've never experienced it but I've seen it put a lot of folks and you need longer than 30 days just to find a place to stay. So I mean especially if you low income it's it's the state should do it as far as I'm concerned. So yeah. >> Got it. De um C I just would like to ask Amanda, can you repeat what you said? You want it you want it temporary until public engagement or you want it permanent? >> I'd say 30 30 days permanent. I think it's too late. If if we made it temporary by the time we implemented it, it would be temporary at the end of this year. I don't think we can make it temporary now. By the time we go through all the permanent all the engagement, >> it's I'd say just make it >> to clarify. I think the premise would be if we did it temporary, we'd probably skip the engagement and we do because it wouldn't be >> permanent and so we wouldn't feel as compelled to get >> Yeah. >> So, we can come back to that. >> Okay. So, I mean, I'd be I'd be open to doing 30 days. I'd like to know, I mean, I really would like to know what landlords uh how they feel about it and sort of what the real life impacts would be. Um, you know, we're trying to protect everyone and that includes the landlords and um it can be hard for them as well. They may not have deep pockets, but um and I don't know what kind of legal ramifications there have been for for cities that have gone to 30 days. Um so, um I'm a little I'm I'm somewhat ambivalent, but um I'd be open to 30 days. Um, and I I'm convincible for it to be a permanent, but I really want public engagement. I really want um engagement from landlords that would be affected and the people that would be affected, including, you know, just members of our general constituency. Great. >> And Paula, thank you. Um, I guess, you know, I'd be very open to a 30-day temporary. Um, however, I'm having a my my question is is we've heard from um our housing experts and our people in the community who are dealing with this issue, our partners, and we haven't seen the evictions numbers. And so, I'm I'm trying to understand what we're basing this on. Um, so I mean I understand that it's a big issue in some other communities. Um, but I I just haven't seen that data, that evidence presented here. Now, if it's there and I'm I just don't know about it, then I'd be really open to hearing about that >> because we had that we had this discussion at a previous meeting. Um, so, you know, given that, like I said, I'd be happy to, you know, consider uh a 30-day temporary until, you know, we know something. But right now, I'm not seeing the data or the evidence that it's needed. I'm hearing people come up to me in the community and saying, "Why aren't we doing that?" And yet, I'm not hearing the anecdotal or or really the anecdotal even evidence that this is an issue. In fact, talking to our community partners um with his house and a some of the others, >> they're not seeing that this even the south uh uh >> southwest housing relief uh organization in Minnotonka. Um, so please correct me if you know I'm wrong. Any staff here who can point to this um or otherwise who are community partners who are the experts who are down um on the ground with this or you know if other council members know of you know have have things you know I'm I'm really open to hearing kind of some evidence. So, so I will give my input and then I think we will hopefully have I I'm not then I I don't think the 30 minute open time is intended to be a debate on you know it's kind of a take the temperature. >> Okay. My perspective is I think a hybrid of what I'm hearing here, which is I think there's I to Ky's point, I think setting aside Operation Metro Surge, I I do think there is a 14-day notice period seems like a practically short notice period for somebody who's facing eviction. Um, I am also pragmatic enough to understand that that may mean that landlords change their policies on how flexible they're being. You know, that you might be getting an your pre-eviction notice much sooner because of these timing requirements. And so I don't want to I don't think this is necessarily a golden ticket to fixing the issue, but I would like to understand um if this is and maybe it can come back at a at the housing study session as a small data point to consider, you know, why would we do this and and I don't want to make more work, but I'm hearing people say that they're interested in pursuing this from the aspect of or understanding more even from the aspect of a permanent 30 days in the sense of we're not seeing that there's an emergency issue here in Minnetonka today because of the resources that that Minnitanka has been able to not just the city but the community has been able to put in place and also but you know this may help us in the future for future issues like operation metro surge. So, I think we've got enough people interested in pursuing this. Mike, no appetite to go beyond the 30 days. I think that's pretty clear. Does that give us what we need on this topic >> as a temporary or is that >> So, are you recommending 30-day temporary? >> I think 30 days from the perspective of an ordinance change with public engagement to make the final decision. people want public engagement to understand if this is something that they want to support. I guess that's what I'm hearing. >> Okay, >> that's >> is that is that >> direction? >> Julie is looking like she's not sure that was >> No, I'm just thinking about timing. Maybe we can come up with a plan, Mike, and and share that with him. >> Outline. We so recently council I think we as staff had forwarded a timeline on the topic that's going to come up here soon is the short-term rentals where we've uh staff has mapped out a timeline Jen it's about 5 months we could do something similar is what is that is there an appetite to do something similar where we as staff could come to I don't know if this is timing wise too late but to that July study session so that's a couple months away where we can outline that provide a little more information on what this could look like unless you're looking to speed it up even quicker. And so I don't know how much capacity we come up >> realistic that if we're asking for and I think to a person we're asking for engagement on this >> that we're going to have to use our normal process, >> right? I mean can is that >> Yep. That's fair. >> Totally. >> I think that's >> okay. So then to reiterate, I mean, what I'm hearing is >> like I I I would like to get one in place to like to sort of cover the the people that are worried about the metro surge thing, but that's we don't have a consensus for that. So, you know, yeah, we're very good. >> Without kind of data, without seeing that that's a real issue, it seems like a bit of a solution without um >> Yeah. I mean, I just I feel like well, like we've already decided. Yeah. I mean, I feel like it's a it's 14 days is just a really short time whether there's a emergency or not. Um and and and just for reference, I know St. Louis Park has has gone to 30 days. That was before they did a permanent thing. So, it was not in response to operation metro surge. Um um so anyway um I mean I'm I will go along with the the the consensus. >> Okay. >> All right. >> Mayor, >> just real quick I just you know the community engagement also will inform the like you said the data and the findings and and generally when you do an ordinance if it if it is an ordinance that potentially carries any legal risk you want to have rock solid findings and sort of that rational basis. And so I I do think that's important from a legal perspective. In addition, if I recall right, and I might be wrong in this, when when Minneapolis, also well, pre Metro Surge went to a from to a 30-day uh pre-eviction filing notice, they I believe they put an effective date of that of almost a year out to allow the housing market to sort of prepare and adjust. >> Uh maybe it wasn't a year, but I it was a significant effective date. and and and just goes to show that I think that was some of that input that they received during the engagement phase about how to make this work and feasible for everybody. >> Fair enough. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Thank you, Mayor and Council. I think there's enough direction. We'll plan to bring an outline to you no later than July. So, we'll target July. Uh and I would just reiterate, I think, what the city attorney is saying on that public engagement. While there will be folks in our community that will that is looking forward to this effort, I think you'll find out in that public engagement process from landlords, there'll be some significant opposition to it. So, I think there will be some importance of getting that that um flushed out with the community on exactly where the community stands so you can make a really good informed decision because it will have impacts. >> Yeah, that's great. >> Great. All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. So, we're going to go in order and Deb, if you could give us your update in as quick of a manner as possible, >> I will do that. So, um it was hard for me to pull up my packet, but um basically this meeting has not happened yet. It's happening on Wednesday, but it covers some really important topics that affect all cities. Um and the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, the uh National Conference of Mayors has signed on to a series of letters um to deal with some of the preeemption issues and other issues that are affecting cable and telecommunications and um our abilities to control rights of way, recoup costs um and maintain public safety, frankly. So, one of the less important um topics has to do with the fact that sports broadcasts that used to be just on local TV are now um you know, they're on you know, YouTube and Disney and it's all paid and that it's really um hampering the ability of regular people to just access things that they should be able to access. So, that's that's kind of the lowhanging fruit. But then um there are several I mean really a whole like 10 or 15 um pieces of legislation at the um federal legislature that really preempt our ability um to control um telecommunications and do things for instance that um one of the the American broadband depo deployment act one of the significant features is that it's a deemed approved provision. If a state or local government fails to take final action, they give they don't give you enough time to take final action that the permitting request within the um that within permitting that it's deemed approved and that there's that um you cannot get you can't do anything about it. um the preeemption of local authorities in the permitting process will not expedite broadband or u the broadband buildout but will jeopardize public safety and procedures that local governments outline. So there's no way for them, you know, they won't have adequate time to deny if something isn't right. Um then there's um perpetual franchises. Um, so it's a huge structural change where franchises would no longer expire. They continue in perpetuity and they can sell them to someone else. And the and the um, you know, like the Southwest Suburban Cape Commission and the associated cities could not deny the sale of the franchise. And so if you have a crummy provider, you're stuck with them literally in perpetuity. That's another thing. And then you we are losing the ability to control our rights of way and the permitting process. And there have been several incidents. Um there was one area where 766 times, you know, they they struck other infrastructure and damaged it. They wouldn't have to repair it. Um an 8-year-old child died because three times in a row they hit a gas line. And um so these are the kinds of um uh >> so do you have a ask with this step? >> Yeah. So um several things. One is um uh I just wanted to bring it up as as an awareness topic. The National Conference of Mayors, you know, deals with this. I just wanted to know if people w wanted to be informed more regularly to see if they wanted to sign on to letters or to give Mike and me authority a as being on the cable commission to sign on to letters. Um and the other thing is that there are um some conferences which like nobody ever goes to from the Southwest Suburban Cable Commission um from NATO and MACDA and I um and um if anybody thinks that somebody should go doesn't need to be me um we can talk you know we can talk offline about it but they it might be helpful because of these really um extreme preeemption um pieces of legislation that will really affect our bottom line and our ability to control our rights of way um you know just to bring it up as an awareness issues or share the packets. >> Yeah, I mean I think it it's useful information. I think deferring to you and Mike on >> when when is appropriate to engage the city through letters of support or whatever. I think generally this does not seem controversial, but if anybody else has an opinion contrary to that we're all okay to defer. Okay. Is that useful, Mike? Okay. >> All right, Kizzy, you're up. >> Thanks, Deb. Thank you very much. >> All right, so I've brought this up before um about um council member children being able to um participate and work with the city. Um I feel like if um staff children are able to work with the city then council member children should be able to as well. Um, you know, my thing is, you know, we have a council right now who children are adults and probably doing their own thing now and whatever, but you know, I had a concern because I wanted my daughter to participate in the ACE program and she could not, you know, wanted her to work with the city, she could not. And I think it really li eliminates um children who live in the city. I mean, I just I didn't even tell my daughter. She filled out an application the other day. you know, it was ACE program for Minnetonka. I didn't I couldn't even have the heart to tell her that, oh, you can't participate with our city, you know, because I'm a council member. Luckily, she got another job. But I'm not talking about me for the right now. I'm talking about for the future of this council later on. Um, when other council members come on, you don't never know what their situation may be. And I just don't want to limit people from not having their children particip participate especially if staff can have their children. And this was based on um an ordinance or policy that happened because of other council members situation. You can't judge every council member based on what other council member did in the past. So I just think we should really look reconsider that because I just think it's just unfortunate. And did you have Mike any clarity on that? >> Yeah, thank you. If I if I can, mayor and councel in the city's ch uh city's ordinances, it's ordinance 205, section two of the ordinance 205.005. So the ordinance it goes beyond children. It it's a it's basically a person must not be appointed as a city employee who is a child to council member Kley's point. child, childin-law, stepchild, parent, parent-in-law, sibling, sibling-in-law, grandparent, grandchild, aunt, uncle, niece, or nephew of an elected official. And there's some other language in there, too. But it's it's pretty extensive in terms of what the definition of family is uh regarding a a council member >> and then clarity on the staff piece. >> Staff member. >> So, that is correct. Uh there with the city's it's in policy and in ordinance. Uh there's some inconsistency in the ordinance, but the policy used to be for child of a city employee could not uh be employed by the city and that changed here a couple years ago. And I I look at Kelly because uh this conversation came up was it kind of postco Kelly >> uh where the city had difficulty in filling a lot of part-time positions. a lot of it in the wreck uh in the wreck we had if I recall Kelly and correct me if I'm wrong there's like 30 positions that we were having to try to fill and so we lifted that policy for city staff so city staff children could be eligible to help try to fill these positions and so that was lifted a couple years ago but the ordinance remains in place for the council so if there's a desire by the council to change that it would have to be done by ordinance and then staff would need that ction. >> Could you read the the wording of that again? >> So, a a person must not be appointed as a city employee. And so, I'll just pause there quickly because by this the different section in the code, uh the appointing authority is the city manager. And so that's why that I believe that's why the language is written that way is that a person must not be appointed as a city employee who is the child, childin-law, stepchild, parent, parent-in-law, sibling, sibling-in-law, grandparent, grandchild, aunt, uncle, niece, or nephew of elected official. Kind of goes on. Anybody have any perspective on this that they want to share? >> I I have a little perspective. I I'm very sympathetic to what um Ky's talking about, but there's a difference between being an employee and the person that holds the purse strings and the control over the employment of the per of the appointing authority, which is Mike. And that's the difference. And so to me, I think it's a significant difference. Um because we control the purse strings over the entire city and it just it it just changes everything in my opinion. And I'm I'm really sympathetic um to what Kyy's saying. But um it's this, you know, it's the sacrifice of public service. A lot of a lot of people in public service make sacrifices like their families make sacrifices because of the choice that we make to be in public service. So to me that's >> I don't know. It's I think it's really easy for you Deb as a white woman to say that. I mean it's real easy for you to say that but I'm just telling you for me as being a black woman who children struggle black people struggle to get in these positions. And for me I'm not going to sit here and let you say that. and not speak up about it. Like, no, this this is an opportunity to me where children can black children can be in these positions and just because their parents decide like I made history. Just because their parents decide to serve on this city council, my child is excluded when staff children is not excluded. I don't think that's right. I just don't. I mean, we people can take a vote, say what they want to say, but it's not right. >> Is there anybody else that wants to weigh in on this? >> I will say for me my I think there is a sup there is an issue of kind of a supervisory issue. I agree with Ky that I I would have a problem if one of the director's children were hired to work in a maybe not I I don't know I I mean that's where it starts to get a little cloudy and inconsistent to me. And so I'd be more will I'd be more interested in considering if we want to reinstate that policy or or whatever. Um, but I, you know, I think it puts people in a tough spot when, you know, there's a a nepotism question. So, we can put this on a for the end of the year as a topic to maybe get I'm not hearing overwhelming position one way or another. Do we want to put it on our study session deep dive list for 20 27? and we can put it on the menty meter >> so I could add it to the list is what kind of what I'm hearing. Um >> because I'm not hearing an urgency in addressing it now. Is that fair? >> Yeah, I think that's fair. I I kind of agree with your position on that. If we should be consistent um if we're not doing it for council, then you know maybe look at >> reinstating it across the board. Um but yeah looking at it in depth. >> Okay. >> And and I didn't share this with council member Kley. I think there's another perspective I would just add and this is obviously perspective of the city manager role. Not personal for me but just the role itself. I think this policy is pretty consistent across other cities for the reason of um if a council member's all those folks I just named in terms of family members not just the child but whether it's a an aunt if I'm from Iowa said aunt but whether it's an aunt or a brother-in-law grandparent that if there's ever a moment of discipline let's say that employee is not performing well and there's discipline that could be held over the city manager. That could be retaliatory to the city manager. And so that can be really awkward for the city manager when they're having to do some perform discipline on that council member's child or or sister or brother >> and that can be upsetting then to that council member and that could be retaliatory to the city manager. So it can be really awkward. So that's why I think part of the position why the language is as well. >> But does that happen? But does that happen when you have a person's child here and their father is in position of the chief? Like >> so so that's another conversation. >> I mean it's the same kind of thing to me. I mean it might y'all might see it different but it's the same thing. Like people his dad is the chief here. So how can y'all not see that as people feeling like uncomfortable to discipline someone's child? like I don't see that as a different and I it doesn't really I mean at the end of the day you do what you want to do but I'm just telling you when we have trouble getting our kids in these type of positions and I keep seeing how other people kids are getting into these position I've watched this stuff for seven years now I understand it a little bit better than what I understood it before I just really feel that it's not right so do what you want to do But that really explains to me now, like even when I was trying to get Corey on to the fire department, no one never really just straight said, "No, that's never going to happen because of this rule or policy we have in place." So, I mean, I'm just I just see how how it works. So, that's that's just my thought about it. So, whatever. >> Thanks, Kizzy. Understand. All right, Paula. Let's do the best we can. We're we're we got to re-evaluate how we're going to do 30 minute time, but I don't want to give you short trips. So, you have >> Thanks. I'll try to be as brief as possible. I have two items that I brought up and one is just um a gun violence uh prevention ordinance for consideration. This is based on um if if there is a a preeemption at the state level recently enacted a gun violence prevention measure um that would be triggered essentially if a state uh uh lists preeemption and I'm trying to be uh basically no person shall possess or manufacture sell or transfer an assault weapon large capacity magazine binary trigger ghost gun within the city. Um, and it also prohibits negligent store uh storage. Um, and uh, locked locked storage does would not be considered negligent. Um, so anyway, uh, it's about a two and a half page ordinance. I sent a link to Mike. Um, but anyway, I would like us to maybe consider considering something similar um, or ideally the same ordinance because if enough cities were to adopt it, um then if there is litigation, since it's the same wording, the same ordinance, it would be easier and more cost effective to defend if it ever comes to that and um state is lifted. Um so yeah that's what I'd like to introduce for um so that's one. >> Do we want to pause? I mean does >> I just had a question. So >> if it's preempted by the state then would we be enacting this ordinance with the with the expectation of having a legal challenge? Because if it's already been preempted, I don't understand. >> No, there state the state law gun laws are preemptive right now. So, it's automatically enacted on all the cities. Um, cities don't have a right. So, the legislature and the governor, there's actually legislation that has been going through um the state legislature this session that is asking for the lifting of preemption, municipal preeemption. >> In that case, only when that preemption is lifted would this ordinance into effect. Okay. >> So, the ideal behind it is, you know, I've kind of been talking with council members from a few other cities is that if enough others, it's almost like a tobacco 21 in some ways where, you know, municipalities acted first in some ways before the state did um to do a statewide law. So, um, given the lack of of movement in the state legislature on this issue, it could possibly be a way to move the needle. >> And Eric wanted to weigh in on this. >> Yes. Thanks, Mayor. Real quick, the the St. Paul originally did this type of ordinance and they were sued by the gun owners caucus. That lawsuit is still ongoing. I don't know how successful it will be. the the their uh motions for a TTRO and then a restraining order were denied. I think it's set for jury trial in June perhaps. Uh Adina then took some of the lessons from the claims made in that lawsuit to craft their ordinance and maybe it's a little more refined. Uh in particular as as council member Romeli notes, it addresses the the effective date. It's designed right now it has no effect. Um I I'll say it without like word. It's a symbolic it's a symbolic ordinance. Uh but it would blink on essentially if the state ever lifted the preeemption. Um and the adine ordinance sets up a mechanism where the council would actually acknowledge the lifting of preeemption before it would go into effect. >> Is there value in seeing what happens with this lawsuit? >> Um you know I I'm I'm skeptical about the lawsuit. I I yes I always I always but I with that said I like I never um discount what might happen in a lawsuit and the twists and turns that that might take. So there's always lessons to be learned I think in terms of even certain things that the the any decision might say that would you know guide us in crafting our ordinance. Another approach just like throwing this out there again is is to do a resolution that would urge the legislature to do certain things lift the preeemption all those things. So that's that's another option to um if if there was ever that appetite. >> And and just for I think a little and Paul and I have talked about this a little bit. you know, prior to Metro Surge and some of the chaos that was resulting from that, you know, Brad had previously been talking about the resolution option and that was something that he was interested in doing and I was certainly willing to pick up um that in his, you know, in the transition and then yeah, I think Mike and I will both agree that those it was something that because of the symbolic nature and everything else that came up kind of fell to the wayside. Certainly something um we would be willing to have a conversation about the best path forward. Um do people have I would say on this one kind of thank you Paula for planting the seed. Maybe we continue to maybe talk about the best mechanism forward and maybe Paula and and Mike and I could sit down and have a meeting and just kind of would Would Would you be willing to do that, Paula? >> Absolutely. >> Would the rest of the council be comfortable with kind of that approach to considering how to handle this for now? >> Sure. >> Is that okay with you, Mike? >> Yeah. So we'll connect. So you and I and Paula will connect and talk it through. Okay. >> Okay. >> Sounds good. >> All right. Next issue. >> Okay. >> Yeah. No, I have it here. Um the other thing was um don't want to discuss the schedule on short-term rentals here. Mike and I had that separately, but I did um you know given the schedule I was uh wanted to bring up for consideration whether a moratorum for short-term rentals and homestead could or should be enacted in the interim. um you know just to hopefully give a transition period to avoid any you know kind of uh potential litigation or you know people being hit blindside or saying oh I I bought this property you know with the intent of doing an invest investment short-term rental and therefore you know could possibly litigate based on that assumption. So, um, just wanted to bring that up for for consideration. >> All right, folks. Anybody have perspective on that? I mean, I'm I'm a person. I'm always open to discussing. I think it's so everybody knows. Um, I'm always willing to discuss an at link. So, I mean, I'm certainly open to it. I think this is one of those things to go back to kind of it's it's an emergency action. Um, and it's kind of done without feedback, right? And that's I that's a reservation that I would have especially because I think we're honing in on some except you know not exceptions but parameters where short-term rentals are going to be potentially allowed. So, is the better and maybe Julie has perspective on this, but is there a notice, you know, is is it an article indicating that we're considering that, you know, like be forewarned before you purchase a short-term rental in Minnetonka that this is on our something that we're pursuing or considering. >> Well, I mean, I think we've already been doing that. I mean, it's not like it's a secret. We've already had lots of people reach out to us as it I think it was in the newspaper or something. Um, and the website would go up the minute you all introduce the ordinance on Monday. So, uh, you know, we're kind of geared on the intro and getting that done. Um, if you want to do some kind of I'm just not sure what it would say, right? It it could be a moratorum on new short-term rentals. That would be probably the only way you could do it. I'm thinking um but then again, yeah, it takes a lot of time to think. I don't think we could have that ready by Monday. Um it would probably be the meeting in May if you want to do it. >> So I wasn't that was a piece that I think a fact that what I didn't have which is the ordinance is going to be introduced. >> Yeah. adding another >> on Monday. >> Okay. I mean with that Paula, does that put give you some >> um Yeah. No, that's that's fine. And there's some other questions to discuss, but I'll do that. >> Okay. Okay. Appreciate it. All right. So, I think that covers that issue. Um appreciate everybody. I I have some ideas on how maybe we can do the 30 minute open time in a way where it's everybody's not so burnt out and I'll Mike and I'll talk about it. But I appreciate everybody's patience and sticking with us. >> All right, with that I think we're adjourned.