After distribution of the packet from last Thursday, uh there's been public comment received, and so a part of your addenda is that public comment. And those are attached for your review.

The staff report incorrectly stated that the Council first vote on April 13th was a three to three decision to deny the request. The actual motion to deny failed on a two to four vote, so the staff report noted that incorrectly. It is accurately reflected in the minutes.

We do not take public comment on ordinance introductions. The public hearing on those happens at the planning commission level, and then that will come back to us with the planning commission's recommendation.

Whereas National Therapy Animal Day is a day to recognize and honor the thousands of therapy animal teams who serve their communities across the country.

And whereas Samson, the trained therapy dog living and working within the Minnetonka Police Department, exemplifies the the compassion, service, and connection therapy animals provide each day, offering comfort to community members in times of crisis, and supporting the well-being of officers and staff.

And whereas cycling is an important and healthy activity that encourages physical fitness, promotes environmental sustainability, provides significant travel cost savings, and fosters a sense of community.

And whereas Minnetonka is a city known for care and dedication to outdoor access for people of all ages, backgrounds, and ability levels.

In fact, it started in 2019 and we were one of the first cities to partner with Hennepin County Human Services and we had an embedded social worker that was a Hennepin County employee that worked out of our police department full-time.

Well, now we're, you know, 6 years later and we've evolved even further looking at um you know, additional calls for service. Every year we're at about 500 right now. And so, we're really um leaning on Kelly to do a lot.

My role within the police department, as Chief said, I started here 3 years ago um Friday last week as an embedded worker through Hennepin County. About a year and a half ago, the department hired me directly and that was nice because there was a lot of constraints and restrictions on my role as a Hennepin County employee.

Since starting as the social worker at Minnetonka PD, referrals have steadily increased. In 2023, I received 416 referrals to follow up with residents. And last year, it was just around 700 referrals.

The majority of reports that I receive are for mental health follow-up. This could be from dis- heightened level of stress due to unmet needs, um an escalation of mental health symptoms, or to thoughts that someone might want to die by suicide.

While it's often hard to determine the number of calls that are prevented from my work at the PD, I do believe that one result of my role has been the reduction in frequent 911 calls.

I developed a relationship with this person and as a result they diverted their calls to my phone instead of 911, so officers weren't having to go out there. I worked with a family friend to get court order guardianship for her and then she's now been moved to a more suitable living arrangement for her to meet her needs.

I anticipate that the need for social work intervention from the police department is probably going to increase both because our referrals continue to grow and the officers are more comfortable sending reports to me cuz they know that they can trust I'll follow up and help these folks and it reduces their time on scene.

First is the 394 ramp closure and I I know Council we've communicated as staff to you. We're communicating to the public on that, but we are going to see some disruptions at the Hopkins Crossroads and I-394 ramp.

So just letting our community know that there will be some disruptions just due to MnDOT updating some traffic signals in that area. Next, we also have Highway 12. So just a little further west from what I just described is the Highway 12 project.

The Marsh will celebrate its third anniversary. Hard to believe that it's been in city ownership for the last 3 years. There is an open house coming up on Saturday, May 2nd.

Minnetonka annual tree sale goes live on Monday, May 4th at 8:00 p.m. Anyone that's interested in participating, certainly they can go to our website even before May 4th cuz our website has all great information in terms of if you haven't had it if you don't have an account with the city, set up your account.

Silver Skates Ice Review. That's our 51st annual review. We do this every year. Really appreciate John Heckman, our ice rink manager and the work that his team do on that.

However, um there are numerous pieces of legislation at the um at in Congress right now that are being considered. Some of them have sort of been put on hold that would preempt a lot of local control having to do with um recovering franchise fees to pay for um or even any kind of um oversight of like when people when companies dig up your front lawn to lay um cable like a fiber optic cable or to put it other kinds of infrastructure in your yard.

It would be very hard for uh cities to guarantee sort of the quality of the work to make sure that things were uh you know, your driveway and your lawn were repaired and even to guarantee the safety and quality of the work.

Just wanted to give a shout out to the staff for a terrific boards and commissions dinner that we had last week and I imagine the mayor will say something else but I just wanted to congratulate the uh planning commission table for taking first in Minnetonka trivia.

Resource West is having a fundraiser this Friday evening. There's still time to get tickets and attend so I'll be there hope to meet some of my residents or my neighborhood folks there as well.

Just a quick update you know we've been working through our um our funding request for infrastructure which could potentially come as a sales tax issue that we've been discussing here. And I was Mr. Funk and I were at the capital testifying on our request last week.

We're very fortunate to have the support of our legislators as we move that forward. So we're hoping this is something that the community will hear a lot more about going forward if we get the legislative permission and then that this community would ultimately have the opportunity to vote on that request.

First I want to thank you for the decision that you made at last week's study session to look at extending the pre-eviction notice to 30 days. Think that is very important and I think the recommendation was to look at making it a permanent change.

Also people were interested in doing it temporarily as well and I would ask that you consider both enacting a temporary change immediately for four or five months because expediency is important.