Good evening everyone. I'm calling to order the November 12th Richfield City Council meeting. It's 700 p.m. and if you are able, please rise and join us for the pledge of >> allegiance. Thank you. Next, we'll move on to approval of the agenda. >> I move approval of the agenda. >> Second. >> It's been moved and seconded to approve the agenda. Is there any discussion? >> All in favor, please say I. I. >> All opposed. And we've approved the agenda. Next, we'll move on to approval of the minutes. And it is for the city council work session from October 28th, 2025 and the city council regular meeting from October 28th, 2025. And we did have one small clerical error. So if you look at the minutes for the city council meeting, it says the meeting was called to order by mayor prom. And so that is correct for the work session. But if you go ahead to the city council meeting, it leaves off um the name of the mayor prom. So first of all, thank you for covering for me when I was unable to be here last time. I appreciate that. And we want to make sure that we add um your to the minutes. So if without objection that'll be part of our motion with that clerical corrected. >> I will move approval as as described by the mayor. >> Second. >> It's been moved and seconded. Is there any further discussion? >> All in favor, please say I. >> I. >> I. >> All opposed. And we've approved both sets of minutes. Next, we'll move on to the open forum. Participants can share their comments in person, by voicemail, or email, and may also request to participate virtually. For more information on submitting comments, you can refer to the council agenda and minutes page on richfieldm.gov/city councsel. I have one comment card here. And if there's anyone else that wishes to speak, you'll want to fill out a comment card as well. And the way we've been doing this, if you've already filled out a comment card, you just need to tell your name and the You don't need to give like specifics like your address and you have three minutes to speak and we'll give you a warning if you're starting to run out of time. So the first person is Kevin Claus. If you would like to come up to the microphone ahead >> go ahead. Thank you. >> I haven't been here since I was a Richfield Arts Commission chair like 10 years ago. So, it's nice to be back today. Though, I'm here on behalf of the Richfield Bloomington Jefferson Jaguar Youth Hockey Association. [clears throat] And we're just trying to get the word out that you can still register for youth hockey. And a lot of people think hockey is only for kids that already know how to skate. And that's not with us. We'll happily teach them how to skate. And this year, registration is free. We were able to get a grant from the Minnesota Wild called Skate It Forward. So any kid ages four to nine in the Richfield or Bloomington area can register for hockey for free this year. And if they need any equipment, we also offer lowcost rental on equipment. And so we've got that taken care of. We've got being able to to teach kids how to how to skate and how to play hockey this year. And so registration's open. There's only about two weeks left to sign up. So please go to jeff jeffersonhockey.org. On the jeffersonhockey.org website, just click through. There's mites on the top. He's a thirdyear mit. This is Kip. And you'll see a registration information. And so just please get the word out on that. Hockey builds confidence, teamwork, and lifelong friendships. Please help us spread the word so more Richfield families can take advantage of this amazing opportunity. and we hope to see you on the ice. Thank you. >> Thank you. And to help out the city clerk, can you state your name for the record? >> Yes. Kevin Close. >> All right. Thank you so much. And thank you for bringing your um son along with you to to help participate in the city council meeting. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Is there anyone else who wishes to speak for open forum? Anyone else? Did we receive anything ahead of time? >> We did not. >> All right. Thank you so much. So, we'll close down open form at this point and move on to proclamations and presentations. And I am delighted to welcome the president of our civil service commission to give the report on that. So, um, President Rusek, if you want to come up and tell us about civil service, we'd be delighted to hear you. Good evening. Thank you for having me. I'm Jeffrey Bruzzek. I am the president of the Civil Service Commission for the Richfield Fire Department. As you know, we meet four to six times a year to discuss uh employment uh hiring practices and other best practices. uh the commissioners this year um myself I'm the President James Fchett is the vice president and Mary Stratton is our secretary uh we had some big we had a big year with some uh endings and some new beginnings uh 2025 outlook Chief Dobbish was instrumental in beginning success succession training and planning prior to the his June 25th retirement uh we can't thank him enough for getting everybody prepared for that Uh early in the year, we had a firefighter eligibility register. Uh in early 2025, we had to vacate that registry. Um we had hired three candidates off of that and only one remained. Uh we oversaw a creation of the new firefighter elig eligibility register which new hires will be pulled from. Uh other big thing that happened was the fire chief selection process. uh we discussed using both uh internal and external processes to ensure competitive uh selection and candidate search. We ultimately certified a fire chief registry register with two named candidates. One was external and one was internal. And I can say I'm delighted that we welcome Janelle Brooks as our new fire chief. She has been fantastic to work with. Uh other goings is that we uh regarding the resident requirement, we supported the removal of the 20 minute uh residency requirement. Sorry, my glasses are really bad here. uh in order to create uh an increase in diversity and a competitive uh search process. Uh this marketplace has really uh become competitive with the full-time fire fighter uh positions with all of the neighboring communities. Uh with leadership structure, we proposed reclassifying the vacant assistant chief position to a deputy chief position uh in order to meet the evolving operational and administrative needs. And we also approved the deputy chief hiring process and we're in the middle of that right now. Uh the firefighter uh register register cancellation due to the residency requirement change in the limited remaining candidates. We approved uh cancelling the current firefighter registry. Uh a new process will be approved uh and started in November and December or December of 2025. Uh, a couple other things to note. Uh, our firefighters are always working hard to serve the community. We have two, uh, long-term military employments, so I think we can all thank them for our services. The firefighters are also working harder than ever. Uh, it's my understanding that these service calls are projected to increase 4% over 2024, which was a record year with over 4,000 calls. And it's interesting to note, and I never understood this or knew this until I started on the commission, is that over 90% of the calls are medical related and are not fire service, what we would think uh would be fire service related. Uh in fact, it's so time consuming that we now have nine person shifts. Uh again, I want to thank uh former Chief Dovish for his leadership uh and kind of showing me the way of what happens in the fire department. And I'm sad to report that Mary Stratton is no longer going to sit on the commission as of this term. uh she's been instrumental for the last nine years in serving the commission and she's been uh instrumental in assisting me with any leadership with commission as well. So with that I have no further reports and I will see everybody next year. >> I wanted to just say thank you because I know you do a lot of really important work and please pass that on to the other commissioners. We're going to miss Commissioner Stratton. I know she has done a lot over the years. So, thank you for all that you do to help us and help with our fire department. >> All right. Next, I am pleased to welcome the chair of the planning commission. So, Chair Eddie Holvig Johnson, if you would like to come and tell us all about your important work. >> Thank you, Madame Mayor and Council members. Um, first of all, I want to thank our city staff that work closely with us, uh, Planner Via and Planner Crosby. They really provide excellent administrative support are very responsive to commissioner questions and and the public and whenever I talk to um Senator Crosby just like the amount of emails and and this um that she responds to and a lot of things are handled on a on a low level so that residents are served quickly and um fairly. So it's fantastic working with them and getting such great support. Uh the planning commission is one of the city's oldest commissions. um and is [snorts] established by state law and city ordinance. We have seven members and we guide the orderly and compatible development of Richfield and the commission holds public hearings um takes feedback and reports to the council with uh findings and recommendations. Um this year has actually been pretty slow. We've canceled four meetings due to um no pending applications. Um um some of the things we have considered um uh about the Woodlake Nature Center, recommending approval of that, some work sessions with the council, um hearing presentations about the Minnesota Independence College, um and future learning center, uh the Penn Station Apartments, and uh and then another work session about multi-building housing uh concepts in the Legion site. Um, additionally, the a large part of the discussion was about the changes to the uh zoning code. Um, and that's been a process that we've been pleased to be a part of um with the MR2 and the MR3 districts. Uh, overall the the members of the commission, it's a strong commission with lots of good members. Um, several of the members actually work in um different levels of public service. Um, someone from the university, I work in the public schools. Um uh Secretary Childson is works for the state in the pollution control agency and then we have people who work in uh real estate and uh manufacturing. So we have a wide variety of experience uh in the public and private sector. Um membership has been pretty stable. Um we haven't had people leaving um midterm. Um and it's really a collegial body to work with. Um, I think most many of our actions are unanimous, but when they aren't, it's very respectful. Um, and and I think we come to consensus and and and real compromises. So, I'm always I'm always pleased to have our meetings because we can we can really hear each other out and hear the ideas. Um it's also wonderful because we frequently get um members of the public speaking before us and often um you know planner Crosby or Planovia can connect them with the right city office if they if it's not the correct one or we can just hear their feedback and and it informs our views. I just wanted to thank the other members of um the commission. Brett Sters is the vice chair. Um Ben Surma, uh Cole uh Julie, Matt Teraldson is our secretary. Um Stephanie uh Kowalcowski um and Brandon Connealy are also members. So I'm I'm very pleased to be uh to be the chair again of the planning commission and I I thank you for the trust that you uh impart with us. Thank you so much and thank you for all of your work because I know there's a lot of detailed um laws and rules that you all has to follow and everybody seems to really take it seriously and work really hard and we appreciate that. Did anybody else want to add anything? Um Council Member Hayford. >> Yeah, I just wanted to thank you all for being so prepared and thoughtful in our mutual discussions in those council work sessions. It has been kind of a slow year. It is having been on the planning commission, it is more fun when there's specific projects in front of you that you get to work on. Um, but that work is really important and particularly on the multifamily housing zoning code, there were really thoughtful good ways the planning commission improved the final result of that. So, thank you for your engagement on that. >> Thank you. >> Next, we'll move on to the consent calendar. City Manager Rodriguez. >> Thank you, Mayor. The consent calendar contains several separate items which are acted upon by the city council in one motion. Once the consent calendar has been approved, the individual items and recommended actions have also been approved. No further council action on these items is necessary. On tonight's consent calendar, item A, approve dispersements and claims. Item B, consider a resolution supporting the goals and projects outlined in the Richfield Public Schools safe routes to school comprehensive plan. Item C, consider approval to set a public hearing to be held on November 25th, 2025 to consider the issuance of a new onale wine and 3.2% 2% malt liquor license for Brim 2 LLC doing business as Brim Restaurant located at 291066th Street West. Item D, consider the approval of an agreement between the Heniban County Human Services and Public Health Department and the City of Richfield Police Department for an embedded social worker. And I submit these items for your consideration as part of the consent calendar. Thank you. >> Thank you. Is there a motion? I'll make the motion. >> Second. >> Okay, it's been moved and seconded to approve the consent calendar. Before we take the vote, I just wanted to thank all of our various partners that are mentioned here. I know we've collaborated with the Ridgeville public schools on the safe routes to school. We've worked with both Henipin County and the um city of Adina with um putting in place the um senior social workers and those types of programs and so it's been very helpful to have the different parts of the government working together so that we can have a better product. So I want to publicly thank all of our partners. Any other comments? All in favor please say I. >> I. All opposed. And we've approved the consent calendar. Next we're going to move on to a um resolution. So, I'm going to turn this item over to Council Member Burke. >> So, the item for consideration is a violation hearing and consideration of resolutions regarding civil enforcement or establishments that failed alcohol compliance checks conducted by Richfield Public Safety. Alcohol compliance checks were conducted by Richfield public safety staff on September 17th, 22nd, 24th of 2025. Compliance checks are done to determine the availability of alcohol to people under 21 and meet state statutes. There are currently 30 establishments in Richfield that hold licenses to sell alcohol. Six of the 30 establishments checks checked sold alcohol to an underage person. The action being taken today enforcement and penalties against these establishments. It's a first time offense for the following establishments. San Miguel Enterprises LLC doing business as a short stop 7034 Cedar Avenue South Richfield, Minnesota and KMAC doing business as KMAC 6420 Nicollet Avenue South Richfield, Minnesota. The following establishments have failed two or more compiance checks. However, resolution number 9511 states if a second offense occurs outside of one year of the first offense, it will be considered a first offense. The following establishments failed outside of the one year and are considered a first offense. Lindale Smokehouse LLC doing business as Lindale Smokehouse 7745 Lindell Avenue South. Patrick's French Bakery Inc. doing business as Patrick's Bakery and Cafe [clears throat] 2928 66th Avenue 66 Street West Fred Babcock BFW Post 555 doing business as Richfield BFW Post 555 6715 Lakeshore Drive and Elhaban Mexican Restaurant LLC doing business as Elhaban Mexican Grill 6519 Avenue Establishments will be given an opportunity to admit they made an unsafe sale to an underage person and agree to the penalties imposed by the city council or deny the allegations and request a contested case hearing. The city council will adopt resolutions imposing penalties for establishments that admit to the violation. If the allegation is denied, a contested case hearing is requested, the city council will refer the matter to an independent hearing exam. Establishments will be notified of the hearing date and given the opportunity to present evidence and revote the city's evidence at the hearing. For a first time offense, public safety recommends the city council to follow the guidelines set forth in resolution number 951. Suspend the license to sell alcohol for 5 days. pay a $1,000 civil fine, meet with the director of public safety to present a written action plan to ensure future compliance, require a manager to attend an alcohol compliance training and awareness presentation with costs paid by the establishment. The training must be conducted by a private firm and approved by public safety. The city attorney briefly review the process for the city council. Sure. Thank you, council member, mayor and council. So, this is an opportunity for each business to come up and um either admit to the to the violations and then be accepting of the penalties that will be adopted pursuant to the resolutions. Or the other option would be to have the business um deny the violations and then they would um then go through the process of requesting an independent hearing that would be conducted outside of this meeting. So, this is not a public hearing, but it's a form it's not a formal public hearing, but the council should uh request if there are businesses present to come up and um choose which option they would like to pursue. Okay. So, at this point, I'll call up the businesses one at a time if there's somebody here from that business. If there's no one here, we're going to assume that they're admitting to the violation, but we want to give everybody who's here a chance to reply one way or the other. So, um, if there's someone here from Laakita Shortstop, if you want to come up and you can either say that you're admitting to the violation or, um, you can request contested hearing if you're denying the allegations. Is there somebody here from that establishment? All right. Um, so, um, Miss Anderson, have you heard from them? So, we're going to assume that Mayor, I was made I was not made aware that they would not be here this evening. Um, however, staff does u contact businesses to let them know um that they should be here this evening. So, I would assume that they would be accepting of the penalty. >> Okay. Um, next we have a representative if you want to come forward and the choices are to admit that you made the unlawful sale or to deny that it happened. Go ahead. >> Um yeah, I admit my violation. [clears throat] >> Yeah. >> All right. Thank you. >> Next. Is there someone here from Elaban? Hello. Yes, we do admit our violation to the unlawful. Thank you. Is there someone here from Lindale's smokehouse? We take uh full responsibility for the unlawful cell uh underage. >> Thank you. Um and it's my understanding that um the representative from Patrick's Bakery was not able to attend, but they are admitting to violation. >> Correct. >> All right. Thank you. And then finally, is there someone here from Fred Babcock Post? Good evening, Madame Mayor and council members. Uh Jeff Husby, general manager, and we do I do take full responsibility for the unlawful sale to a minor. >> Thank you. Thank you. And so, um, support services manager Anderson will then you'll be working with the, um, businesses for carrying out like the here the required um meetings with the public safety and all that type of things and the compliance training. >> That's correct. Staff will be in touch with each establishment to set up a meeting date and time uh with myself and the chief to um make sure that they complete the list of requirements for the violation. >> Right. Thank you. And thank you for everybody that came tonight for the for the meeting. So, um, Council Member Burke, if you wanted to make the motion. >> Yes. So, I'll make a motion to approve the attached resolutions regarding civil enforcement for establishments that failed all compliance checks by selling alcohol to underage person. >> Second. >> Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? And hopefully we can get this straightened out so we won't have any more um sales to anybody that's underage. Thank you again for coming tonight. All in favor, please say I. >> I. >> All opposed. All right, we've approved all of the attached resolutions. Thank you. So, moving on in our agenda, we'll go on to the city manager report. >> Thank you, mayor. Um, there were no speakers at our open forum last meeting, so I don't have anything on that. Um, I did want to pass along thanks to Clerk Friedrich and her team for a smooth school board election. Um, also thanks to Council Member Hayford Olyri uh, and the public works team that put together the Senate bonding tour. We got a lot of compliments about it. So, thank you. It was uh, they were here visiting the Nicollet reconstruction project and so we've got an ask in for $10 million to uh, cover our cost shares for that project. That's all I have tonight. Thank you. I'm glad that both of those went very very well and I believe we have a house bonding tour coming up tomorrow so hopefully that will go as equally as well. Um, I wanted to talk about the fact that we are having a fall food drive and um, it will be now through November 21st and they'll take essential items in, you know, like feminine um, hygiene products, diapers, shampoo in addition to food because all of those things are very expensive. So, if you would like to drop them off at the ice arena, any of our liquor stores, community here at the municipal center. That would be fabulous. And we're trying to get a thousand pounds of goods to give to VEP. And if we got more, that would be fabulous, too. So, the reason I'm bringing this up during the city manager report is it goes through November 21st, which is right before our next meeting. So, I'm hoping you can give us a report on what the results were for people bringing things in. So, thank you for that. All right. So, moving on, we will go to the council discussion items. If we have any liaison reports from the commissions, we've been fortunate to hear the all of the chairs and the presidents giving their reports, but if you have any updates that you want to give and [clears throat] also our hats off to hometown hits. So, council member Burke. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the Lom Bonita market opening. Uh, but I did go there with my son who has quite an appetite for tamales and uh the place is quite a success and I'm very happy to go there and I will admit to having at least one one I'll leave that but I'm very happy that they're open and wish them all kinds of success. >> Thank you, Council Member Hayford. >> Oh, okay. We'll come back to you. Council member Coleman Woods. >> I am I was grateful to attend in the mayor's place of the uh the annual fowl benefit uh benefiting friends of Woodlake and the Woodlake Nature Center. Um we had amazing dinner and turnout. Um and my understanding all the silent auction items went well beyond retail. So that was excellent for their for their organization and for our well our local community and Wood Nature Center. And then hats off to the fix it clinics that are now coming up uh by monthly and those are going to be uh the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month. Uh those fix it clinics are for uh fixing your broken household items. Um and there are people that are there helping to teach and so people can gain confidence in repair uh in their repair skills. So, um that we don't throw so much stuff away. Um but we appreciate everybody that's come out tonight for the first pilot and then anticipate more coming dates. The next one uh looks like uh December 10th. So, come on out and bring your broken items. >> Thank you, Council Member Hayford. >> Um my two items are related leazison reports. I'll say transportation commission met last week. Uh they discussed our 2026 sidewalk projects and gave some feedback. I know the council's already clued in on that, but we'll be having sidewalks around Sheridan Hills Elementary, 64th Street from Veterans Park all the way to Lindale and 73rd Street filling that gap. Um so they gave some final feedback on that. And the other item was they they reviewed all of the phase one feedback for Penn Avenue and all the feedback we've received from the public and that relates to uh the Pen Avenue next open house which is uh November 18th at Sheridan Hills Elementary and you can learn about the sidewalks there as well although they're two separate projects. So this will be the one where they actually start to show ingredients of a street. You get to kind of vote on what things you think work well and they're splitting it between the pen central commercial area and then the more residential area to the south. So, it'll be kind of a unique setup compared to like the NIT open houses. >> Great. Thank you. Council member Burke, did you have an additional >> I did. I almost forgot that uh the Richfield Human Rights Commission is going to have a free legal advice clinic this Friday, November 14th, starting at 12:30 till 5:00. We have volunteer attorneys from the area who will be giving legal advice, free legal advice about family law, housing, landlord tenant disputes, and wide variety of other legal matters. So, please come down. will be at the Richfield Community Center. >> Thank you. Um, as Council Member Burke already mentioned, we were very excited when LMO Bonita opened up and I want to say welcome to the community and I also want to thank our community development staff, everybody from the planners to the inspectors to the economic development managers. It was a team effort of everybody working together and working together with the business owner to get this off the ground. So, we were very excited and so hats off to everybody involved in that from the team. Um, I also want to to echo um the thank yous for the elections and for the whole staff that worked on that and they went very smoothly and so we're happy to have that. And I don't know if people are aware that we're doing this transition. So, eventually we're going to end up with only having elections on even years, but for a couple years more now we'll have elections every year. And we appreciate that. Um, I received um an email from a resident who wanted to give hats off to our first responders. Um she talked about that a car was on Lindell Avenue and ran off the road and drove over the sidewalk and ended up along the side of their building by City Bella. And she saw um the first responders working the police and the fire department and in particular one of the fire department staff stay behind and cleaned up all the debris from the car and the things that it had hit. And I found out later from Chief Brooks that the other firefighter had to go with the individual that was injured in the accident to the hospital and they work together with the police department to handle the whole situation. So, I just want to give a hats off to all of our fire and police officers for all the hard work that they're doing. and it was appreciated and it's fun to get emails like that that appreciate our staff and what a great job they're doing. Um, the other thing I wanted to talk about is I wanted to thank council member Hayford for covering and doing all the meetings while I was out of town for a family emergency and thank you for going to the fall dinner for me and covering all those things. So, just a team effort and I just truly appreciate that. And finally, I want to do a hats off to to the students of Richfield. So, I had the pleasure of going over to Centennial Elementary and talking with the fourth graders about what local government does and they had all kinds of very intelligent questions and I'm always so impressed. It's like the kids ask adult level questions and and they're just like, you know, elementary kids and they come up with the most insightful things. And it was interesting how they could tie everything together when they were talking about, you know, they were asking questions about why people litter, but then they were talking about the impact on animals and how it affects the parks and all the things that they could do and sustainability and different things. And so they tied it all together. So it was very fun to listen to them. And then the next day um the Richfield STEM School had um an assembly honoring veterans. And it's always so much fun. to the kids and and they had the entire school sing a thank you song for the veterans. So, it was very impressive listening to all of that. So, hats off to all of those kids and tomorrow I get to email and get questions from some third graders that sent some things in. So, the kids have been busy learning about local government. So, thank you to all of them. With that, if there are no further items, I would entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting. So moved. >> Second. >> It's been moved and seconded to adjourn the meeting. All in favor, please say I. >> I. >> All opposed. The meeting stands adjourned.