all right it is 7:00 so I'm going to call the meeting to order this is the regular city council meeting of February 18th uh 2025 for the city of Minista first of all I want to welcome all of you that are here this evening at all for a reminder if you have phones please put in them on silent so they don't disrupt the meeting and next please join me for pledge of allegiance iedge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to for stands andice for all so um I'm going to start with introductions I'm Lisa I'm the mayor and to my left our council members Kathleen rein Peter vickory B Aly and Brian govern and then on the end we have our city engineer Ellis Andy with w and in the back she's taking pictures we have Alie Fus who is our assistant administrator and then to my right we have Jer K who is our city administrator and then we have several empty seats some of them joining us via um satellite or Internet or whatever that's called and and then we have um Ron baby is with Kennedy andman thank you Becky is our attorney and he's sitting in for um Sarah sansal tonight who is um normally here and then we have our chief of police Paul Paul and with that I'll move to um the agenda are there any changes or additions to the agenda if not is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented thank you Mr R is there a second thank you Mr Victory any further questions hear none all those in favor signify with i i all those opposed motion pass 5 so the special presentation and I'm sure that's why you all are here this evening is to swear in one of our new police officers so first I'm going to hand it over to Chief Falls and then I'm going to ask the new officer Aon to come forward and I will then give you the old of office thank you mad mayor and Council uh it's always an honor and a pleasure to SAR in a new officer and I think this position is is especially uh exciting for us because it's an addition this is our number Aon is our number 15 15th officer which we have been looking for for a couple of years and so it's important to us that we find someone that's the right fit for our agency and uh see that absolutely see that in officer Aaron gness so we're excited tonight to have him join our team so I'll begin by reading some information about Aaron and then we'll call you forward here in just a little bit so bear with me officer Garen gettis Aon gettis began employment with the city of Minista on January 8 25 offer gtis has several years of law enforcement experience uh most importantly officer GIS was actually a volunteer Reserve officer with the manri public safety department from 2009 till 2012 off get has worked as a deputy sheriff at the dun County sheriff's office in North Dakota January 2013 until April of 2016 officer GIS worked as a patrol officer for the West tenan Public Safety department just next door to us from April 16 2016 until March of 2021 Al G left law enforcement career in aviation as a pilot for a short time before joining our agency in January off gness also has been a skills instructor at northan Community College from 2022 to present so as you can tell he has a lot of experience which we're very happy about Al gettas graduated from St col State University with a bachelor's degree in criminal justice officer vtis is currently completing field training and will be assigned to a patrol shift here very very shortly so as you all know it's you know it's a difficult job to hire an officer you need to find the right person and I'm very confident we've done that in addition to that it's even harder to find an officer that has the level of experience that Aaron has and so we're super excited to have him here on our team I know a number of times when he was a volunteer we talked about this day and uh it just never really worked out for us and we're so happy that have so with that I'd like to call Mayor wh and officer get to the I I will say too that we are very um fortunate to have somebody with your skill level and also your expertise and experience to come on board be part of our team we really really appreciate and really are looking forward to many having you here for many years to come so [Laughter] with can that Me On My Honor as a member of the Mina Public Safety department member of the Min public saf Department I will uphold the mission mission of the department by fighting crime by fighting crime and promoting safety promoting safety I will uphold my badge my bad my Integrity my Integrity my character my character and the public trust and the public trust I will uphold the Constitution I will uphold the Constitution of the United States of America the United States of America the laws of the state of Minesota law of statea the values of the community and the policies of our department and policies of our department so that guys talk thank you than you're all right so uh we have consent agenda items are there any you wish to remove otherwise they will consist of a approve our work session regular meeting minutes from February 3rd 2025 approve our city council regular meeting minutes from February 3rd 202 C is approve our claims D is approve authorized execution of a previous pavement agreement at 3403 Kings Point Road and E is authorized the purchase of a trailer for the infrared asphalt heater and F is accept the bids and award the contract for well number seven Rehabilitation improvements which is city project number 0225 are there any wish any ones we don't have to discuss then um is there a motion to approve consent agenda items a through half so thank you m Lacy is there a second second thank you Mr C further questions BR none all those in favor signify with i i all those opposed motion passes by vot next we move on to we have no public hearings this evening uh so we're going to move on to business items and first business item is receiving the bids for the 2025 Street Improvement projects these are City projects 01- thank you mayor wh members of council um this evening just a couple items regarding the 2025 project um the first memo in your packet is for informational purposes um it provides a summary of the bids um that were received for the project um and I'll kind of weave that into the second um item with relation to the 2025 project um and that is to declare the cost to be assessed in order of the preparation of post assessments and call for the public hearing so the 2025 project just a quick here um just a quick background there are three project areas within this year's project uh these are all reation projects Windridge Trail Ro residential area off County 110 time Circle off C Road 44 and the trillum area between 44 and L we did pourings for these areas to confirm M the the project type um and uh we provided that information in um in past okay the existing conditions here we have sorry about that there's there we go okay so some photos of the existing streets um the Pine Circle built in in 1973 uh we're seeing a lot of cracks and poles through that uh trillum area built in 1994 um the issue in the Trum area is the bond um the bonding material to the agregate within the payment um it is no longer um we're no longer getting that Bond the payments deteriorating and then on the brige trail bu through approximately 95 base layer pavement is so we uh the project is been as a full depth Reclamation where you take that pavement um it's pulverized or ground up it's Blended in with the portion of the underlying gravel in the insting roadway uh then that that material is act to the new base so it's it's bled packed um and then the pavement is placed on top so these are uh some streets that have been done uh previously a Reclamation project to Shane Lane back in 2019 and St bridge in 2021 the street width would re would remain the same uh we are M we matched the exis street grades to the there's there's a few areas where we smooth out grade but for the most part uh folks can expect to see what's there now is is what would here after this project we'll be doing spot curb and better repair and Trillium not a huge amount doing an aggregate shoulder on literage and then removing and replacing that Island Circle we have very little utility improvements there's a couple sanitary sewer manholes in the TR pardon me on time that will get uh infl and infiltration barriers put in there to keep the groundw under the sanitary sewer system and then valve work in the Trum area one um is a replacement of the existing valve that's leaking and then installing some valves um so that public work better isolate the system should there be a Break um so that we can minimize the amount of customers that would be out water situation okay so the cost um so this is where I'm kind of blending that first informational memo into the components of the 429 process so we had a bid opening uh earlier this month we received nine bids so that's excellent congratulations to the Council on receiving um that number of bids um and we got uh aste Asphalt Services Technology Corporation um is a little better this contractor was the uh the contractor that did the North arm project back in 2023 we had great success with that project we're looking forward to working with them again and I've also included um in the presentation and also in the package just a breakdown of where we've been at for both the the budget um feasibility numbers pre- bid estimates that sort of thing and then as it was bid so the the bid amount that was included in that first memo of 9986000 change um that's the the bid amount that's submitted by the contractor and then we add on 5% contingency because with construction things come up um so we include that 5% contingency in the total project cost and then also add 20% indirect cost to cover the engineering design and and that's some inspection cost here too so this is a summary of where we're at for the different components of the project um and then later on I'll go through where the funding as proposed um one component of the funding for this project is Minnesota state statutes 429 which is special uh special assessments where a portion of the project cost would be specially assessed to the properties that would benefit from the project um so uh with the exception of WID Trail we would be looking to follow this the city's uh special assessment policy where 50% of the street costs are assessed um and then the sewer and water uh improvements would be by the respective Utility Fund now with Windridge Trail um at the outset of this project we had a discussion with it being rural residential in nature a large lot residential um we look to the 2022 special benefit analysis that was completed uh for uh there were a couple areas in 20120 the 2023 project um where we wanted to get a special benefit analysis which basically looked at valuation of properties before and after the project and um based on the outcome of that that report U particularly with respect to North arm um at that time the council settled on a recommendation within that report to have an assessment capped at $10,000 per unit and that was the direction provided Us Fall with respect to wage so we're continuing with that as we move through the the 429 process and yes less than 50% correct um thank you for that uh so if if we look at how the actually the the bid price for wind brige was very close to the estimate the the unit assessment on windage would actually be about 22,000 so okay that's so we're it's it's a significant change from this City's assessment policy there we so um this map shows the assessment areas in blue so on the top left corner that's the wind R area it's a little small area kind of on the top right that's Pine Circle and then the bottom right is the tra area so using the um the number of assessible units identified in the feasibility report and the bid prices including that 5% contingency 20% indirect here's uh the the preliminary assessment um compared to Theos final assessment um so you'll see at the bottom there Windridge uh Circle actually stays the same again because of the the direction provided as far as um ping that assessment at 10,000 um and happy to report that the proposed final assessments both for Pine Circle and Trillium are less than anticipation and the reason we're seeing this reduction is largely due to um one of them is actually the pap there's some paper driveways in both project areas and in the estimates um we had a higher estimated cost for those because they are very labor intensive so we got some good pricing on that and then also the concrete curbing better um even though we're not replacing um lot of it we did see some better pricing in both of those two project areas that brought these OS final assessment amounts um under what was originally U estimated with the feasibility and we'll talk about the assessments later in a little bit certainly we can talk about them now if you'd like well just because a couple things um we have always rounded down from since we we don't put in 75 cents or whatever and then my question to the council is do we just want to make it like for instance on Pine Circle um is it 5 5750 versus 5755 I mean it's just so odd numbers that's and same with um trilia making it 7950 versus 7953 that's it's minuscule but it's just simpler I think 779 okay all right and then um okay we can certainly do that and I know there was um I think a question came up um earlier today I we would like to make have a little bit of a discussion I I have called and asked about um there's one property in Windridge that is being same address um being um assessed twice it's a very odd odd situation so I'll leave it to El thank you so um it's in the WID area what happened is there's it was originally platted as one lot and talking to the planning department um we're not sure what happened when it was recorded at the county but the property is it's now under two parcel IDs at the county thank you so we're looking at parel six and seven here so parcel 7 uh is let's see that is uh 1.3 acres and parcel 6 is 8.36 Acres um so when we looked at this um and this is how it was presented in the visibility study since there are two lots of record they were both included in the in the preliminary assessment they both have Frontage to the road they don't really do they um six does it's it's small but there is there is not yeah but it's not it doesn't meet our Frontage requirement I don't think yeah so so the the discussion this evening um that staff would like direction from the council is if you would like to see both parcel six and seven included in the assessment role now the the home the majority of the home lies within parcel parcel six um but there is a portion of the home that's in parcel 7 so it's kind of a head scratch on how we got to this situation um and I can provide more information to the council at the assessment hearing if you'd like but if the council um after discussing this evening has um a decision and Direction given to staff we could certainly um remove one of the parcels from the assessment Ro um my recommendation would be parcel seven because it's a smaller one smaller one yeah um and it doesn't affect the assessment amount again because this assessment was capped at $10,000 per unit um it would just be that the city's portion of the project cost would then increase by $10,000 why would we treat that different than we treated the house on trillian assing that b this can't be subdivided because our house already sits actually on a portion of of the seven mon so in other words they can't they can't sub divided because this is a 10 acre minimum here so in these instances um you know talking to the planning department in order for them if if they had combined it in our one tax ID um we wouldn't be in this situation and we're not sure why there was a split between those two properties to begin with um we think it had something to do with um the school district boundaries um I was looking at well as funny as it sounds I was looking at because we were trying to figure out what happened through here and I was looking at the hen County half section apps which has the delineation between School District boundaries and by coincidence or perhaps the reason why it split like that is the School District boundary follows that line that common line between parcel six and that's just that's point we don't have much to go have you spoken with we haven't um we haven't spoken to the property owner uh so certainly the first public hearing notice was sent to the property owner so in this instance they would have received two so it's unclear whether they thought it was a mistake that they got two or were they just like y we have two properties we get assessed twice so we have not reached out see it's the same address that's the other weird thing it's not like two different addresses are it's two PS but it's same address so maybe they yeah but I I just don't know so the other thing is you have to look at the evaluation and does it increase Lot number seven by 10,000 and lot number six by 10,000 when all the other ones are increased by 10,000 and they're you know what I'm saying the size of those lots are much bigger than seven so when you look at what we're assessing I think it would be an over assessment basically yeah I had a discussion of the planning department again today about this situation and if the if you have the example that the house is removed so you you now eliminated that you know you have a house that's partially on parel six and partially on parel 7 we had that discussion of is is parcel 7 a lot of record that has build right well the other thing too when you think about it um a small lot like that they have to have a SE their own private septic system and they have to have their own well and then there's also and you have to have those separated by certain distances so it would be pretty tight to do a house with a septic and a well in a 1.2 acre lot well but the issue is whether or not it's a separate property and it's not corrent well no they have two tax statements they get two tax statements on it so it is a separate property which would be what we did with trillian that it's a separate lot the difference with Trillium is they could build today without taking down any houses they could build another house on that second lot and they could come before us and say our houses on both Lo we want to move the line both put house on there and we would probably say yes we would do that with then this time us l seven would be even smaller but that's that's that's irrelevant it's whether or not what are other practices on the same project I mean the assessment is huge I mean that's that's what we wanted to decide whether not we want to assess the same person twice but if someone else owned that property and just had a vacant lot we would assess them if it was buil even a vacant lot there we would assess it if it was buil one your property is buildable and I think I mean I think we have to make if I may we may have to make contact with the property they could reconfigure the lot to basically split it in half to make it equal sizes too no they can't because it's a 10 acre minimum okay and so if you combined six and seven and then wanted to split it into two lots neither one would be conforming in fact a highly deal that number six is is conforming if you look at it because the other ones are 10 for Lots right so I I think that there's been some good discussion about this compared to the trill and paral um and the City attorney can certainly correct me if I'm wrong but one of the tasks asked of the council the even is to call for that assessment hearing and the way that the package is um presented to the council for adoption um this this evening includes both of them and we could go back and do some further analysis as far as buildability on parcel six and 7 um notice it notice the assessment hearing as it currently stands and then speak to the Property Owners prior to that assessment hearing kind of figure what out what's going on and at the assessment hearing the council could certainly um change the uh assessment role at that um at that hearing to remove in this instance let's just say for example par Mr batty Madam mayor council I think that's a good idea I mean I don't know anything about this parcel other than what I've heard in the last two minutes um you know I think the theory that it strad uh School District Lines is probably a good idea probably an explanation as to why it has two PS I've seen that happened with Watershed districts and school districts so that might be exactly what it is that doesn't necessarily mean to me though it's two persons I think the accessibility is whether that's a separate developable parel I don't think we have enough information right now I think the city engineer's idea is a good one keep it in for now even always drop it out you can't go the other way right um and again I would just say if a house sits on both those lots currently I don't think we can say well but you could remove the house and then build on number six and on number seven I you know that's a lot of speculation me you know yeah so so mayor way I think in the interest of moving forward um if the council's comfortable with with moving forward as presented uh staff would go back and do more research um with regards to the the split between Parcels six and seven um consult with the city attorney's office as necessary and then bring forward uh that recommendation and clarification at the time of the assessment hearing um and we'd certainly talk to those to the resident in the meantime because we would be noticing both our um and then if you know perhaps this might be an opportunity to combine it into one tax ID um but they might not be able to from a staff standpoint that would be ideal but we can C we have you know a month between now and the proposed assessment so we do have time to um do some more work on that okay thank you all right so we're looking at the post Project funding as I as I mentioned so this is as it currently stands um within um with keeping both both Parcels within uh the Lage area both parcel six and seven we would have to Sol $500,000 specially assessed now certainly this number will go down based on the council's direction to round down the assessments on p a trillion to the nearest $100 so these these numbers will be um updated accordingly with the assessment perod um so we're looking at the city's responsibility to be somewhere north of 300 pardon me $738,000 with somewhere south of $500,000 specially assessed um with a total project cost coming in at um $11.24 million and that includes both the contingency and who direct Cs and that includes the store or the other things that actually aren't being that's correct so um yeah we we bid them out as schedules BNC for the sewer water improvements and those are um city respons um so here we are this evening February oh I have the 17th the 18th um well we're here to um ask the council to order the assessment hearing declare the cost to be assessed again the the the cost to be assessed um is on the high side so we are conservative in this given the direction that council's provided this evening with regards to rounding down the assessments to the nearest $100 and then as well as that potential drop of one assessible parel along Lage so um as it stands in the packet uh we would be recommending that the council receive the bids and call for the assessment hearing which would be held on March 17th to provide sufficient time frame to notify the properties that are supposed to be assessed thank you and and just um one other thing that's in our packet we're talking about an assessment um for a 20-year period with an interest rate of 5.9% in our policy states that we charge 2% over um over our interest rate well the thing is is we're not bonding for this project so we don't really have any interests um per sa um in terms of bonding um so I'm just asking the now obviously um if they prepay their their assessment we put it into an account and it does get some interest but I'm just wondering it seems to me kind of high if we don't have if we don't have that expense of interest on the project it seems kind of high to me to to charge our residents 5.9% what let come before on something came lerri don't remember what what it was if it was and then the other thing is is we're just making an assumption on what potentially the interest rate would be so I I'm a little bit Leary about charging 2% over an assumption yeah so the 2% um or the the interest rate rate was provided last week when when the council amendment was drafted it will certainly be updated at the time the assessment was adopted if the council direct staff to um adjust that interest rate in the in the final assessment notice we can certainly certainly do so the the actual interest rate was 3.1 just charging the actual interest rate s the 2% greater if we don't have interest on the project I just don't feel comfortable charging our residents not only interest but then plus 2% so I I'd be more comfortable okay so moving forward if we don't if we don't bond for a project and we assess that'll be the right yes we should probably incorporate that into our assessment policy yeah we'll just okay take a look at it okay anything R well M what I was going to say is there is even if you're not bonding There's an opportunity cost because you're taking that money out of some pop because that you're presumably earning some interest on and and obviously Finance director gets people better than I could but there is a cost there right and that's why we're still doing the 3 it's just right can we go back to the lcks for a second there's there's another vacant lot in that on that street this the same property owners own two lots there too granted the second lot is substantially bigger at 6.5 Acres but the same person owns these two lots too so we're assessing them so they're they would have the same argument as the other one possibly like well it's a vacant lot yes possibly build but the other one is buildable so whatever we decide I think it's two and three are the same owner as well but it's not just the same owner it's when you look at lot two it has the required Frontage on the road and it's larger than 1.2 Acres so you can build on it and it doesn't have a house halfway across the the lot line well one been halfway across if you look at it it's the driveway it's basically the drive Drive the driveway's on it in a tiny little Eve so it doesn't have I mean you'd have to bring this yeah and the driveway is here not over there but there I mean but there could be they could put a driveway there and do that if they all I'm saying is they have to take the house down in order to build on that the lot but I'm just saying whatever we decide there is another vacant lot with the same home who getting the $20,000 just want to make sure everyone has that little p the second one that you're referring to I think that is closer to the same situation as the trillion Bay one if I remember correctly it's Parcels 2 and three that are under so parcel if you look um just to the west of parcel 2 I believe that is also um own it's also uh owned by the same owners of parcel 2 and I think I'll take a look and I'll include that in the assessment um memo in a month because I think it's a similar situation that for some reason it's pared off of the actual lot that shown in the FL or and is under a separate PID but is actually quote unquote is the same the little the little corner there actually part of parcel two yes that's my understanding it's got a sear and so that was not included the assessment because yeah so that's the differentiator there so I think it's it's due for a good explanation at the assessment gr so we can go and provide council with all the information for consideration on what to include yeah and my guess is that parcel six and seven have never been combined maybe because of as Miss fski and also Mr B have mentioned because of the school might be but they also figure if we combine we still can't subdivide we can't divide it because it won't meet our the 10 minimum that's the other thing so okay we'll go through we'll go through that all right all right school districts as so I think I think we may have found the reason take as deep as we can um so with that uh the schedule that we're proposing um that at the next meeting meeting would be the assessment hearing for the council uh accepts bits and awards of contract and then we would be looking at construction somewhere between June and September um we're still in a bidding season so we have not reached out to the contractor yet asking for a schedule uh what our experience has been is we usually wait till we get to the tail end of the bidding season which is usually around March time frame um when the majority of eventss have been open uh to ask for a schedule at that point so that since since they will know what projects they'll be working on and have a better idea their schedule at that time so tonight you just want to accept the bids not award the contract correct yeah correct we've typically gone and awarded the contract the same as the assessment perod I'm just in the event that know the council is hearing concerns with the assessments um we can certainly we can split that off you can award the contract not t i don't have resolution available for you but we in the future you could certainly um have a word contract before the assessment hearing but we've just had pass practice so that that public input is taken into consideration before we're in okay and do you generally let the contractor know that they were the lowest b or I mean or do they just kind of hang in limbo for a while so um so the bid opening well actually within within the contract within the advertisement the contractors aware when the we anticipate the council will consider awarding the contract so they are aware of that um and and the the bids are good for leave in this instance we put 60 days you do have a two Monon window um and that's that standard um from a lot of communities in the in the metro area do have that um lapse between the opening and work all right thank you all right any other questions then hearing none is there a motion to accept the bids for the 2025 Street Improvement project city project 012 thank you m and Mr vicory made that second any further questions comments hearing none all those in favor signify with i i all those oppos motion passes and then um there's a resolution to declare cost to be assessed ordering preparation of proposed assessments and call for the hearing so what I I just want to clarify because we're really not declaring the cost because we don't know yet how we're going to deal with six and seven on Windridge do we just say um we're ordering preparation of the proposed assessment no you have to do the cost I think this is the correct designation of the action yeah okay the cost can always come down I mean discussion we've had tonight but I like this title for resolution okay all right um so declare C to be assessed in ordering the preparation of proposed assessments and call for the hearing on the proposed assess proposed assessments for the 25 Street Improvement projects and that um hearing will be on March 17th is there a motion to that effect so thank you Mr Victory yes sir second second thank you Miss Lacy any further questions none all those in favor signify with i i all those opposed motion passes all right so that concludes our business items and we have sta reports have one maybe two okay um I'll how about I do mine first it's it's kind of a question a discussion um point to get to possibly another meeting or maybe even Direction um so uh I think every everybody's aware of the Farm Winery that received a a cup I don't know four months ago six months ago somewhere in that frame um it has come to light that there is a resident not the actual owner a neighbor who wants to have a wedding there and staff is looking for direction either yes no or another option would be um a special event permit so then the neighbor Neighbors get to know so I'm uh I know a little bit of the details I don't know if uh there's any direction or if there's more information needed we for the sake of them planning a wedding I think we need to kind of give them direction if they can do it or not if there's a process um we don't have one right now so couple things um so I got a call from a resident that had heard about them and as you know we had a lot of residents here for the the up and um this Resident was concerned because now there's going to be a wedding and they were specifically given their cup um as a Farm Winery only no on sale um no on-site sales and no event and now all of a sudden now they want to have an event having said that the people that want to um the young couple that want to have their wedding there um her grandfather her mother and father and grand Long family history own the property they are the ones that sold it to to bury the current owner and so now she wants to get married and she would like to get married on this property they live actually I think on Highland Road so they live in the area and um so she would like to get married on on her historical prop anyhow so um as Jasper pointed out they so here's the thing anybody in the city can do an event you know 100 I mean obviously if it was every weekend it' be different they can do an event but they have to for the size of this event they do have to get a event permit because they're talking about 300 guests um plus of course there's bride and groom and family and so so they would have to no matter where they were in the city they would have to get an event permit so I was talking with David earlier and he kind of dug into this and um he was saying that you I so I said well if they did it I think couple things we' have to make it very clear this is it I mean it's not like come back to us in six months wanting to do another wedding um so that would have to be clear and Crystal Clear um and then they would have to put certain um requirements on it which they would with an event permit anyway they might say on site parking only on no noise after and whatever staff in and the police and whatever would have to work that out but the question here is do you want them to just do you want to say no uh which we we can because this cup doesn't include events do you want to say one time only and that's it or do you want to save something else I think Des have wedding there and I have a really close friend that had two kids get married on her property in one year I mean I think we say yes and then see how it goes and see how they treat their neighbors and not put anything I think we say yes say yes with with you know the normal event rules and no stre Park such a and and and if I may the person who wants to do the wedding the way I understand it has reached out to the neighbors there's one neighbor out of those that have um gone against it everybody else Express and I we don't know exactly what the sample size was but that's what we've been told um so generally I'm just there's a gentan here he didn't I didn't ask for Chistmas to be heard but if you Mr I just have ack question can you just come up to the just um comment you had made and so if I wanted to have a 300 person event in my backyard what would you normally do right then you would have to apply for an event permit and then we would put certain stipulations on it and um and then you can hold it okay so they want to inter a 300 person event has neighbors wouldn't that apply right and that's what we're seeing yes so the only caveat is they can't continue having it's not a wedding venue don't have a lot of friends no no but maybe I'll have Rong way in well you know again I don't know any this than what I've heard in the last few minutes you know I'm I'm seeing this uh as completely separate from conditional use permited several of you were saying anybody can have an event whether it's a wedding or a graduation party or anything and if it goes over a certain threshold you have to get an event permit and Par and all those other things that seems to me like what they're doing which is really kind of unrelated to the cup the cup suggests that there's a business so I think you're right about saying this isn't related to your cup you're not going to be in the wedding business correct but sounds to me like they should be able to like everybody else get a special event permit for a special event right and again it's but most people don't do this on an annual basis or have multiple events every year and so we had that discussion uh when we granted the cup and said yeah you can't they wanted to do events like this and we just said no so I I think um I'm kind of as a yes so why don't we say yes and then see if there's any more of us and then we can say no you're pushing this into a business versus a random see how I a friend who wants to get married on my beautiful property I think we see how it goes and then it becomes an issue then we stop it but it's it could just know this is a one time off and see how it goes and and put a lot of stipulations and a lot of parameters around it so that all of the neighbors are good with it and you know so on um yeah saying it's a one1 thing what this person as a sister yeah I say it's a one yeah I would say if it becomes like hey it's oh we're not a businesss all the time for random people think that's different than my sister also would like to he has kids too so in theory they might want to get married there at some point too so but that of gets back to the cup discussion when when the neighbors are like well are we going to have all these events here all the time and they did want to do like four or five events every year and we just said no that doesn't fit in um so I'm okay with one but I think it needs to be clear that this is a onetime event because of the special circumstance surrounding the individual wanting to get married there I have no problem with that but then as Brian says you know wink wink you know these are friends of mine and our wink wink these are relatives of mine um yeah I think then we have to put our foot down and say no you need to come in for an amendment to your CP then and then we have a discussion about it that's how I would do it so no long before I was city council member I had wedding at my house in the backyard I I did talk to every single neighbor did you have 300 guests no okay number 15 I proba should we have everyone was happy but um yes this is a business but what if they have you know four daughters that and they do a good job and maybe we just give them an opportunity to be good neighbors have a nice wedding everyone goes home and a I mean I have neighbors that have parties constantly I mean big giant parties and you know we just kind of go go I hope and I bet you I bet you wish but they didn't have a lot of big you know they can do that without a permit and they do it so I maybe we just are really um and uh we let them have their wedding and see how it goes it's if it's is this um a business or a friend is it neighbor but so are they making money off of this so it's no different than you having a wedding right and I'm just saying though if they come back in 3 months saying oh we have another wedding that we'd like to do for then you know when there's a and you have to say Okay I I understand and that's what I'm saying is that you know at some point we have to say no because then you have to come in for a conditional use permit Amendment because we were very clear in the cup that um events are not going to be allowed here and the neighbors went away understanding that so if this one event happens we would have to explain to the neighbors what we're saying it's okay and they have to come in for a permit and we're going to put some very restrictive um parameters around it and then if they come in a second time we just have to sing them come in for a cup or because everybody else that wants to operate a business a wedding venue business has to come in for a cup or an IOP and so they need to be treated the same as well so all right I think we're I think we're good we we have the City attorney saying that this is what we should do so I think we're we're good we we'll give them that direction and uh we'll move forward all right okay any other staff police chief Falls has a has a DTF update potentially drug task force drug task force so recently the mayor and I the drug task force lunch in which um uh so last year was the first year that we combined the West Metro drug task force which is what we've been part of since uh 2016 we joined forces with the Southwest Metro drug task force to create a larger task force and what that did for us was and we've talked about this in the past but just as a quick refresher that was we were able to secure State funds as forfeiture monies kind of start to dry up um it's a way to to St stabilize the funding for the drug task force so that cities participating cities don't have to put money in to the costs and we all know that you know we probably don't have a lot of drug manufacturing and things going on in our cities but we do have a lot of us a fair number of Overdose deaths and things like that um that do affect our communities and so it's very important that we're part of this um so with that last year we joined forces and we are doing very very well so what I wanted to share tonight was just the year-to date um staff uh real quickly with you for that group for last year the good news is we received $300,000 in state funds to fund the task force last year um and through some staffing shortages and things there was a a drug task force up in the Northeast Metro that folded because departments didn't have enough staff to staff uh that made that spot available for us because these it's called a vet I have no idea what stands for I can find out if you really want to know I think you looked it up once and it's weird yes it's but it's a state term anyway long story short there's only so many uh spots open that can be funded through this mechanism so we were fortunate to be a group that our task force did a really good job of making cases good cases and arrests and and forfeitures and things like that so we were selected as part of this group to be able to receive these funds and so based on the numbers that I'll share with you and the successes of this combined group last year we will likely get a lot more funding in the future going forward because it has to do with uh a your size and then B your productivity so both of those things work in our favor so I'm confident we're going to get a lot more fundage funds from the state going forward so so with that in 20124 we had uh arrests 242 arrests there were 308 search warrants 72 illegal Firearms seized um there were 137 State charges and there were six federal indictments um on the federal side now as a result of this combining group we have Federal Partners which is important for a lot of reasons uh first of all the penalties are bigger when you see these large shipments uh of illegal narcotics um when you can charge the federally there's a lot more keed than that um and then also these federal agencies like uh ATF FBI and uh the DEA we've worked with DEA for a long time they just edited ATF up called tobacco Firs to this group recently and so what comes with that is a whole lot of resources at no cost to our local taxpayers so that's really nice for us um and so I'm confident that 2025 we'll have an even better year uh because we have these Partnerships in place and so we have so many resources um then moving down the list I'll just go through these kind of quickly uh marijuana obviously illegal marijuana 185 pounds were ceased methamphetamines 148 pounds um other like waxes illegal oil wax type thing 71 pounds illegal VAP cartridges lb cocaine 25 lb that's a lot of cocaine mushrooms a little over 8 lb fentanyl powder which is very very concentrated very deadly if it's not used in the great manner this is illegal fanol 4.4 PB Edibles over 4 pounds MDMA which is ecstasy that 2.5 lbs um let's see I'll switch to grams here because it's getting smaller LSD 252 G that's a lot for LSD uh crack cocaine 158 G heroin 7 gr and over 28,000 fentanyl pills so that's a lot of illegal drugs taken out the street our area just in our area no in the task forcea so but the issue is this stuff Minneapolis is now the number three hub for large shipments of illegal drugs so we're we've surpassed Chicago it used to be Chicago M Minneapolis and what happens is all this stuff filters out to our communities and people use it and they get hooked on it and worst case scenario they die of an overdose because a lot of this stuff is laced with fentanyl and other harmful things at we don't know what dose it's not consistent U most drug dealers really don't care they're not chemist so they just do their thing to make make a buck or two and the results are so we're third in the country third in the country we have some kind of letter that we can put on our website that I can send every person I know well this is something that um the they're working on through the the federal level to be able to identify and put out correspondents so the message is the same um we got this information right from the task force at the lunch in was that last week um th yeah can we get a copy of that if when I get it yes this was just kind of given to us in a verbal I see report at that lunch this thought we got that you took from the Northwest one that away do we have to keep applying for that or we just permanently on it now until we dissolve the task force right once you're on it you're in and we were very fortunate that um so on our task force is a number of Lake Area agencies and then Hanahan County actually runs it they provide the super supervision um which has worked really well even when we were just West Metro and then as time went on the West Metro and the Southwest Metro worked together pretty frequently um you know s many years ago they kind of work very individually and then as things got a little bit more dangerous that you know the tide kind of changed a little bit civil unrest and things towards towards police things got more dangerous um they started to work together so you have more bodies you safely when you're executing for wants you want more staff there um it's not like years and years ago where just a few people would go and serve search once um we're very careful about how we do these things and and we don't worry about the small stuff this is all higher level stuff um so I guess what I'm saying is they did an outstanding job this succeeded our expectations you we we have dedicated officer just as on that if this continues to grow are we going to me another dedicated officer or is one I think for the foreseeable future one is enough because I think that was part of the reason that we wanted to put the two task forces together um you know it used to be just Lake area in hen County um now it includes you know goes south and east a bit so basically St Louis Park Eden Prairie minota um the county ran theirs as well kind of so now we just bring all together as one the office out of Eden before we office separately um so it's just so much more efficient than it used to be and I would think that if they need more bodies eventually to start with any that the larger cities would probably add anothering for chief how many of these seizures were done in the high schools well none of these seizures no there there have been drug related things in the high school but at a lower level and the SRO handles that the beauty of being part of the task force is if you get something that is requires followup or further investigation or something more complex than just being caught with a small amount of Narcotics then you have access to the whole drug task force so they can kind of investigate if it's a they can execute search warrants things like that um the high school certainly um these large seizures aren't occurring there are they occurring like where are most of these occurring all over the have there been any in Minista there have been yes same Bonnie Minista um not all the time of course I mean drugs are Regional so we get a lot more of the the big numbers to the east but that stuff's coming back to our CI so we have a lot more users than we do dealers out here that doesn't mean they AR so and are you these you know the fentol you said like four pounds I mean couldn't that kill everyone in state in Minnesota depending on their cuity so are you seeing them being prosecuted and actually being put away are you seeing that yes yes we are and that's why the federal partners are so important for these large scale dealers the the federal charges are much more likely to stick but that they have to hit a thresh on um but yeah have a lot of access through a lot of resources which is really good for our communities the other thing that's nice about being part of a lar of the task force is if we get an overdose death we can call the task force and we're going to we're going to investigate our agency the death piece and then the task force would investigate the narcotics PS and follow this thing back and see who's supplying what and and try and get at that and interrupt that and hopefully get those players um charged and out of the system so they're not causing any fur the and um thank you for all of your many years of service um so we started participating in the drug drug task force in 2016 and um hopefully we'll continue that for many more years because it's it's very important an important aspect of our of our police and trying to keep our residents safe so with that um any other staff reports um are we going to have a March 3rd meeting I would say right now we don't have enough on the agenda to more the meeting so if the mayor would like to cancel it okay okay you're able to do that well um I will cancel it then so we will not have a March 3rd meeting well we convene on March 17th and with that are there Council reports um just I attended Mound Fire Commission meeting on February 6 in 2024 Mound fire lost nine fire fighters six retired and three left due to other reasons so that's pleas um they have since hired three so that up to 34 they have two in the interview process right now um for 2024 M fire had 725 calls for a total of 9,364 hours of those 725 calls 444 and 281 were fire calls minri portion was 101 calls 43 fire and 58 medical for 14.3% other other calls uh Mutual Aid response was high for M responding to other calls they answered 21 Mutual Aid calls for 444 hours five of those were in Minista in St Bonnie's district for 98 hours obviously with plan for the JP and everything they're responding to more these calls now so they'll be I don't know if that still comes as Mutual Aid since they're on the call together or how that's going to play out but they're still working together so um the latter chart payment will be done in 2026 um so then the only debt that M fire will have is the engine they got two years ago now um which will end in 2023 or 2030 there's about $352,000 those payments for Budget carryover in 2024 was 34 $1,000 um that's because of the fund reserve and $87,000 in um 20 the big change is in the software 2025 instant reporting system that they use switching from something called infers to NE r i s um So based on that the chief wants to switch the reporting software that they use to something called first du cloud services cost $8,000 a year but it will automatically put more info from the C report that they get calls and everything has it puts that automatically into the NIS system which will able to call payroll training hours response times and we be a very very large amount of time inputting all that I'll talk about fire partnership um meeting so we met um 12 yeah and um so we were hoped to have a finance committee already met me meeting but that didn't happen and uh so part of the discussion was and I'll run this by you folks so we talked about a $2.3 million budget could be a pretty happy increase however uh if if we do um again this is still to be determined but if we do the formula that we're thinking 50 50 50 um property values first and 50 um calls so I I won't go into details about that today but if we did that formula it would increase our general Levy overall Levy of Just Around 3% and some communities I won't mention any names um felt that that was too much however these are just preliminary numbers and I always feel that it's better to start high and and maybe work our way down but the other thing that I look at and I need feed back if you have any is we need to look at what we need and what will provide the best coverage and safety for our community and if that means a % increase so be it it means you know a few dollars I think Jasper did the numbers and it means like a dollar a month or so what does it mean generally speaking Yeah it's it depends on home value but on average it'd be about $2 a month $2 a month extra now some of these costs one of the reasons um the budget has to go up a bit is because um we're going to have some cost putting the two uh player departments together okay so the the combining them is going to cost them the other thing is we are going to be Personnel full-time Personnel that we don't currently have now if we don't do the fire partnership St Bonnie is still going to have to add full-time Personnel there's just yeah they'll add a full time and then possibly even other Staffing too in the very near future but they're really hurting right now because the chief is putting in so much time now some of the other things that we have to consider is this OSHA is going to be coming down and there in the process of rewriting their requirements and training requirements and all of that o if they're and they're not done writing all these standards yet but when they are done they will then if they're going down the road that we think they're going to go down it's going to mean a lot more training and a lot more time both on the chief's um plate as well as U training um so it's going to add more money um so having said that we're we're hoping to get a finance committee together and pass through some of these things um before the 18th which is our next meeting and we're hoping to get the finance committee 100% Award with whatever but are you guys shocked with the 3% General Levy at2 for household not well I think we just need to keep other things going up to J Ro if we want to increase our luy um we're looking at probably a 3 two one and a half to two 3% probably depending on what we do we're looking at um admin cost so yes we might be looking at somewhere around 10% merging again and then hopefully after that I'll so the budget is 1.8 so combin now total so we put their budgets together and Chief came and came back 2.3 adding in everything they want there's wiggle room in there some it's not like money pay bills so that but yeah it's not going to be yeah it be every year with level and we can use some fun balances to I'm sure to offset some of that for the first year sounds like a great idea I just think to have a really big fish um so that was that and then we're hoping to have there's also a jpa contract subcommittee we are also hoping to get being meeting soon but it's challenging and I think the JP discussion is going to be the harder discussion which kathle is on thate handed it to her but if she needs help well we have some good examples to go we got big Cel [Music] Shir Henderson toship that's another one there's a bunch out there but I think we'll be good we're going to be f um we not going to be um anyhow anything else other than I won't be at the meeting on the 18th so okay yeah so we will every is everybody else going to be here on the 18th no I'll be at the council meeting I won't be at player meeting counc I will not beting if it happens I'll throw him in front of the can take just kidding just kidding it's all so anyhow so I I did attend the DTF lunch and also North Le and shared some of the things that were Happening Here in our community and so on so we didn't have a speaker um it was just sharing the community um updates anything and anything else Water District's to start monitoring the ox lake so try see if we can find a volunteer lives around the lake to do that my sister inla lives on she just moved here from Texas yeah okay all right if we have no more reports I think we've covered everything then if there's a motion to a we can beour right thank you for seconding that all signy