[Music] thank you [Music] hello I'm mayor David grantz and I'm pleased to kick off the 2022 state of the city for Arden Hills I'd like to say thank you to Boston Scientific for hosting us this morning at such a wonderful facility I'm also happy to announce that we're back in person after two years of doing a state of the city virtually it's great to see people again I also want to thank my fellow council members for their service over the past year council member Scott council member Holden council member Raji and council member Holmes council members and I will present on a number of topics relevant to Residents and the City of Arden Hills following the presentation there will be an opportunity to ask questions of individual members of the council and staff I'd like to highlight the current staff org chart and I'm grateful to have a number of our staff with us here this morning and maybe since it's kind of an informal group if we could have staff just quickly introduce themselves starting up front here good morning thanks for coming by my name is gray Sorel I'm the communications coordinator for the city um David Swearingen I'm the Public Works director in the city engineer Dave Carl City administrator all right thank you I'll begin the presentation uh today with an update on the Twin Cities Army ammunition plant also known as TCAP the TCAP property consists of 427 Acres of undeveloped Land North of Highway 96. the site is currently owned by Ramsey County and overseen by the joint Development Authority which is made up of two Arden Hills City Council Members two Ramsey County board members and a neutral chair who is a resident of Arden Hills of the 427 Acres currently 162 acres are slated for residential use 136.4 acres for commercial retail and Industrial uses it also will add three city parks totaling 24 Acres 57 Acres of roads and infrastructure and 46 Acres of storm water infrastructure and 1.6 acres of the site for civic use one interesting note about the site is that although it's expected to add 1460 residential units and an estimated 4 000 jobs there are only two entrance exit points to the main development one is located to the north of County Road H and 35W and the other south of uh at highway 96. so those two access points are basically the bulk of where people will be living in December of 2012 the city and the county entered into a joint development agreement to start the process of developing the property the agreement outlined each party's responsibilities a master developer was selected to develop the property the county was to have the land clean to residential standards and the city was to Zone the property the city and the county bat began their respective duties and in 2014 the city approved an alternative urban area review also known as an auar in 2015 the county had the land cleaned up and began the process of review by the Minnesota Pollution Control agency the next year 2016 there were three major updates first a lattice was selected as the master developer for the project second the mpca certified the land was clean to residential standards and third the city and the county both approved the TCAP Redevelopment code otherwise known as the TRC following these three Milestones the county and the developer began discussing the next step to move the development forward early in 2018 the city was allowed to participate in ongoing discussions between the county and the developer in the fall of 2018 the county announced a framework for a development agreement deal that would pave the way for construction on the site that was then approved by the joint Development Authority the county then chose to abandon its own approved framework and the county pulled all resources from the project in 2019 the county brought forward litigation against the city also in 2019 the epad listed TCAP from its Superfund list for soils deep groundwater continues to be treated on the site the litigation lasted two years but was finally resolved in the city's favor the judge dismissed the County's request to dissolve the long-standing partnership agreement between the city and the county following the litigation the county pulled all uh all resources from the from the project excuse me following the litigation the county pulled all resources the city would work with the developer to move the project forward the city leadership followed the County's suggestion and began talks with the developer the following 10 months of talks between the city and aladis both parties came to an agreement on on a term sheet for the project the highlights are reaffirming the 2016 approved plan including 1460 residential units a lattice privately financing major pieces of the infrastructure valued at approximately 8.5 million dollars which would mitigate long-term Financial Risk to the city a lattice covering City deficits of up to 2.4 million if revenues are not sufficient for the first five years of the project reimbursement to the city of one million dollars in planning fees that have already been incurred by the city a lattice constructing three new city parks valued at 14.5 million 17 million in tax increment financing for a parking solution to the pro on the project and making 326 of the 1460 affordable units with the following stipulation of the 326 units 20 percent would be owner occupied 180 units would be affordable at the 50 to 60 percent range of area median income and 146 units of affordable would be provided at 80 percent of the median income the city worked in good faith with the developer per the County's permission and although the city approved this agreement this past May the county rejected the term sheet citing a lack of shared Vision on the site the city is looking forward to resuming the process which was upheld by the court that concludes my TCAP update one item to review is essentially since 2016 there have been uh two agreements where two parties agreed the county agreed with the developer and second the city agreed with the developer both of those were turned down by the county I'll now turn it over to council member Holmes to discuss development projects in the city thank you mayor Grand I am council member Fran Holmes I would like to Echo mayor Grant's thanks to Boston Scientific for providing this lovely venue and I would also like to thank all of you who are attending either in person or will be watching the video we play of this program I'm going to provide an update on the economic development activity in Arden Hills there has been a great deal of development in the past few years first of all since we are meeting here on the Boston Scientific campus I would like to highlight the Boston Scientific is constructing a 17 450 square foot addition to the south side of building 14 in the northwest corner of the campus on on Innovation Way which is like right over there the purpose of the facility is the development and production of lithium batteries for use in medical devices Boston Scientific also recently increased parking lot capacity and other pedestrian vehicular safety improvements along Lexington and cummings Park Drive for increasing capacity since they bought more employees to the to the business here in Arden Hills the development Trend in 2022 in the city is continuing in Arden Hills from the prior years that we the city council attended two grand opening events for newly constructed businesses the first was held for Chick-fil-A on 3855 Lexington Avenue this property was the former side of a Perkins restaurant which was demolished as part of the Redevelopment the new 5 000 square foot restaurant features a dual drive through lanes and outdoor dining the project has an estimated value of 1.2 million the second newly constructed building was lifelong Wealth Advisors which opened in May at 1150 County Road E in Arden Plaza this property was previously undeveloped the new 5 600 square foot building is their corporate headquarters which moved from Downtown Minneapolis to Arden Hills it has an estimated value of 2.1 million celebrating its 50th Anniversary lifelong Wealth Advisors is a Financial Consultant that offers investment advisory services I'm going to turn now to um okay thank you I'm going to turn now to uh saltbox which is progress in progress Construction there are a number of in-progress developments in Arden Hills that the City anticipates Construction to be completed by the end of the year or the early part of 2023. this first one is in the City Round Lake business district which is located south of Highway 96 on the road south of the holiday station this is a new business called saltbox and it's located at 4440 Round Lake Road West this is a remodel of an existing 113 square foot industrial building on May 23rd of this year the city council approved the site plan review and in June interior remodeling commence to transform the building into workspaces for startup and small digital Commerce buildings this is a unique uh concept where saltbox provides essential shipping and warehousing operations for small businesses to start and scale their growth they're flexible this the flexible warehouse and office suites that that are at the Saltbox location range in size from 76 square feet up to approximately 2 000 square feet there'll be about 214 flexible site Suites a saltbox has five locations in the United States and is it and this one is anticipated to open in the fall of 2022. the Arden Hills location will be the first salt box in Minnesota also in our Round Lake business district right down the road from the salt box is the Gateway Interstate Commerce building this is located at 4200 Round Lake Road and can be seen from the visible Corridor of 694 and 35W so a lot of people have asked and you can see it right there on the map where is what's going on up there and it's it's this new uh new where it's a new it's a 250 000 square foot office and Warehouse facility and it will be occupated by two tenants the building construction is anticipated to be completed in the fall the first tenant is Del Core systems and Del Core systems is already in Arden Hills they have a location up on Round Lake Road as well and nearby but they needed expansion so they're going to this have this additional production facility and and once they are finished delcor will have a total operational footprint in Arden Hills of 250 000 square feet and more than 300 employees the company specializes in the design and manufacture of advanced robotic packaging machines Del core's machines provide the robotic technology used by other companies to perform the packaging of their own food beverage and consumer products they are the largest U.S manufacturer of vision-based robotic case Packers and then the second tenant will be colder Products Company also known as CPC CPC is the leading provider of couplings fittings and connection connectors for life sciences biopharma and chemical handling markets this site adds to the company's existing Minnesota locations which are in Roseville which many May many of you have may have seen and there's also one down in Minneapolis the Arden Hills location will focus on the innovation of liquid cooling for high performance computers CPC will occupy approximately 168 square feet within this Gateway Interstate building and there will be production warehouse and office space for more than 500 employees so as you can see we're bringing in a lot of of new employees into the city that will also be using our restaurants and other amenities I'm now going to turn to the Lexington Avenue area and the Lexington station phase three was approved by the city council in April of 2021. um sorry okay yes that's right that's the reason I'm confused is because this is the unnamed guest grocery store that's on going to be on Lexington station um at this time the exterior construction is complete and the interior build out is underway ultimately to accommodate a 43 000 square foot grocery store this unnamed grocery store will be new to the Minnesota Market an important part of this project is the addition of a stoplight there will be a new stoplight at the intersection across from Target in cane to mitigate um any additional traffic congestion the city anticipates the grocer will be opening in the spring of 2023 and a lot of people are interested in this so we're looking forward to that coming to the city other in progress construction includes Round Lake and new prospective Senior Living um the city of Arden Hills strives to develop and maintain a strong and diverse and stable housing supply for all members of our community this will these will both be senior facilities the first one is around is Round Lake Senior Living which is located at 1740 Park Shore Drive the developer is Trident development this is a three-story senior housing building featuring 120 units including 61 units of independent living and 59 units of Assisted Living memory care and skilled nursing this Senior Living facility features a trail adjacent to the property that was paved in August of this year this Trail will have accessible equipment for aging residents and and residents with disabilities there will be six or seven Ada accessible and Senior oriented workout stations installed this fall each station is designed for exercises for most users and the the construction of this is anticipated to be completed at the end of the year the second senior living project is new prospective living which is at 3565 Pine Tree Drive and again you can see that on the map this is a senior living facility of four stories and 145 units those units will be devoted to 114 of independent and assisted living and 31 units of memory care this properly was formally owned by Bethel University and sold it a developer in 2021. the senior living facility is planned to create opportunities for Bethel students that are going into the health care field in the future so there'll be signatures here where the students will be working over at the at the senior living facility now finally I'm going to be talking about upcoming construction projects the first one is launch property the construction is is anticipated to begin at the end of the year and this is the Redevelopment of the Pace Industries prod properties at 3737 Lexington Avenue and in the corner of 1133 Gray Fox Road Pace industry site has been vacant since October of 2019. on July 25th 2020 the city council approved a project to improve it and redevelop it the existing industrial building will be demolished and the site will be tested for contamination any pollutants will be removed by the developer launch property then construction of the two new buildings will commence the two new buildings are one will be a three tenant building comprised of Panera Bread Pacific Dental and Bank of America and then on the 30 1133 Gray Fox Road Site which is really all one one big area but in that area there will be a 4 900 square foot drive through called rocket car wash residents may recall that in 2021 launch properties brought forth a land use application for a standalone Aldi Supermarket accompanied by a two tenant rental retail building this zoning request was denied by the city at the time because the developer was proposing a significant number of deviations from the city zoning code and there was too much flexibility sought the developer went back to the drawing board and proposed a site layout with land uses that reduced the number of flexibilities they were requesting today the property had well today the property has no Landscaping but launch property will be installing Landscaping to bring the site into compliance with City requirements for landscaping it will eliminate two access points entirely and it will re it will realign one access point to the existing one leading to Cub Foods to minimize uh any conflicts in that area and this is an example of the city working with the development developer to achieve a mutually mutually beneficial project finally I'm going to talk about building department activity thank you in 2022 pandemic driven changes such as rising costs for layer labor and materials and supply chain shortages continue to impact current and future construction projects and timelines in residential and Commercial markets this slide is a little bit difficult to understand because the the beige is for the number of permits issued and the value of projects for the entire year of 2021 but the green is 2022 and it's only through August 31 of 2022 so you sort of have to think okay are we on track because we've got um several more months of the year to build us up to what was done last year and the way the trends are looking um residential pyramids appear to be on track for similar similar figures in 2021 which is both um requests for permits and the value so the residential we think are going to be pretty much on track this continues to demonstrate the strong desire of our residents to reinvest and preserve the high quality of housing stock in our community last year in 2021 there were several large commercial projects and it was a unusually high year for commercial development we think that the number of permits issued will be approximately the same in 2022 but we think the amount of value and revenue from those projects will not be quite as high as last year the city has approximately 46 million in commercial developments so far and this is evidence that Arden Hills continues to remain attractive for commercial projects even if the total value of the projects in 2020 um oh that's because I wanted to say that even the total value of projects in 2020 was 13 million so you can see that commercial is still growing from 2020. uh that concludes my portion of the presentation and I'd like to turn it over to council member Raji thank you good morning everyone excuse me thanks for being here today I'm council member David Raji serving a one-year term stepping in for the late Dave McClung this morning I'm talking about I'm taking on the task of the challenge of explaining City's connection with Ramsey County Sheriff's department and Lake johanna's fire department and the cost impact that these entities have on our City's budget Public Safety plays an important role in the city and makes up nearly half of the city's 5.5 million dollar general fund budget for 2022. and any increase in these costs does have a direct impact on each of us here in Arden Hills both of these the police and the fire are shared agreements with other communities which has proven to be the most cost effective coverage for us let's take a look at the Sheriff's Department we currently contract with Ramsey County to provide police services in our city for 24 hours a day the sheriff's department provides services to other cities including Falcon Heights Little Canada North Oaks Shoreview vadnaisites and White Bear Township following a compensation study the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners approved a one-time Market adjustment for each of these classifications providing a competitive pay consistent with market and surrounding local governments although this was done at the County Board level those costs do pass on down to the cities in our contracts for services I hope you can all agree that we need Safe Streets and neighborhoods and it will be costing us a little more to maintain our contract with Ramsey County Sheriff's Department that said Arden Hills remains a safe Community for our residents for our businesses and for our visitors of the 4232 calls received in 2021 for Arden Hills most were not crime related instead medical emergencies assisting other departments and quality of life calls the sheriff's department wants to remind everyone to be aware of the of theft especially for your automobiles including stealing valuables from Cars catalytic converters and stealing the entire car remember keep your vehicles locked and if you see something suspicious call 9-1-1 moving on to Lake Johanna fire department they operate three fire stations and serves the city of Arden Hills North Oaks and Shoreview the department protects an area of approximately 31 square miles and 42 000 residents in 2021 the department responded to 1178 calls for Arden Hills 24 of those were actual fire calls 849 were rescue and medical calls 165 were good intent calls and 140 were other calls such as gas leaks and downed power lines and false alarms across the three cities the calls for service are increasing on an average of eight and a half percent per year with projections surpassing 6 000 calls annually by 2026. in 2021 across the three cities there were 580 occasions where two or more calls happened simultaneously in in 113 times three calls occurred simultaneously and 17 times there were four or more calls happening simultaneously the department operates three stations two of which are staffed 24 7 utilizing part-time firefighters the department has shown the cities to the three cities that it's clearly needed that the staff for a third station in order to improve response times not only to the northern one-third of the of the area but to the whole entire district is needed to do this the department would need to increase the number of on-duty staff from currently six to eight staff will increase the number of on-duty to respond to emergency calls from two to three the road map to fill these two additional on-duty positions is to hire six total captains who will be on work duty 24 hours rotating shifts which means two will be working at any given time Lake Johanna fire department has applied for a federal FEMA safer Grant which would pay for a hundred percent of the wages and benefits for six full-time captains for three years totaling about 2.4 million dollars following the grant period the cities would be responsible for funding these full-time positions also the department has been working on a new headquarters facilities since 2017. last year via direction of the board of directors with representation from all three cities and the department itself Department purchased 3.7 acre parcel on Pine Tree Drive this new facility would replace station number four at Victoria Avenue in Shoreview the construction documents I.E plans and specs are complete and the project is shovel ready in 2000 in 2021 the city applied for the state bonding dollars to assist on paying for this project in the construction of the new station unfortunately the legislature did not approve the state bonding project for 2022. the cities in the department will continue to seek funding opportunities for news for this new station but the timing of construction is yet to be determined thank you for being here today that concludes my comments and my portion of this presentation and I'd like to turn it over to council member Holden hi I'm council member Holden and I just want to thank Boston Scientific and I know last year we had over 800 hits on the state of the city address online so I want to welcome those that are watching it online as well as here um most of you can read the slides so I'm not going to repeat everything that's on it last year we had two major project management projects pavement management projects one was old Snelling north of Lindy's and then a little offshoot called Cummings Lane off of that street we repaved old Snelling and coming Lane and we placed replaced aging water mange and sanitary sewers within the roadway and thanks to staff for thinking outside the box and really doing a lot of research we were able to add a 10 foot wide grade separated Trail along the west side of the road and behind the curb to improve pedestrian safety the road was designed with a complete curb and gutter and it we made it narrower widths of the lanes to provide a more traffic calming effect we will also be placing a permanent speed display sign that will be installed on the southbound traffic Arden Oaks the other one which is just North of Lindy's triangle was the we did pavement rehab and drainage improvements infrastructure this is slide shows the cost of a lot of the infrastructure that we did in the last year old Snelling costs one over one about 1.7 million 850 000 came from Municipal State AIDS which is funds that is given by the state of Minnesota to all cities based on a formula we had a hundred and ninety thousand which came from special assessments which really equates to Residents who front the property and six hundred and ten thousand dollars was covered by our six hundred and ten thousand dollars was covered by cities and utility funds on Arden Oaks that was about a 700 000 project two hundred and forty five thousand dollars was covered by special assessments or residents that front the property and the remaining four hundred and thirty thousand dollars was covered by City funds and City Utilities the City Hall Parking Lot which was over 20 years old and didn't have a very good foundation to begin with was rehabbed it was a 300 000 Pro 300 000 project and included new pavement it's now Ada Improvement and security improvements and the entire project was funded by cities funds Mountain View High School pedestrian safety improvements up by the school they now have the parking lot on the other side of the school which really complicates things because all the students park over there and they have to get to the school so the city was involved in the planning and the design and the crossing and all other safety elements including a speed sign display concrete curb mediums and Ada improvements the project was funded completely by Mounds View public school districts however our staff had the lead on making sure everything was safe and there was no liability to the city um Ramsey County Lexington Avenue reconstruction project well we all know that one it's past June 17th and it's not done yet um it's past June it's July end of July and it's not done yet but on we were fortunate enough the city was fortunate enough knowing that the county was going to do this we had 50 year old water mains along the line so we were able to replace that and we were able to finish completing the trail connection all along Lexington while this project costs over a million dollars we did receive the city did apply for State bonding funds and thanks to Senator representative Kelly and Senator Isaacson we received a half a million dollars from the state of Minnesota for the water main forty thousand dollars from a local Road Improvement project Grant which is another state funded Grant three hundred and ten thousand dollars came from uh City funds two hundred thousand was in special assessment and that was from the from the businesses in the area and the project will be will be con constructing a new signal and I believe Fran talked about that right at the corner of Target and the New Lexington to the secret grocery store that nobody knows what it is so there'll be a nice new another signal there so for easier access to businesses and to make Lexington run smoother um what's like Street Maintenance annual Street Maintenance this we have we have an annual Street median project the for pavement preservation and occurs on that this year it occurred on seven miles of streets and 2.5 miles of trails and just for trivia people we have 30 miles of roads and we have over 25 miles of trails in Arden Hills now the maintenance included crack sealing which you all see that little toilet paper in the street over the crack seals fogging fog ceiling is actually the oil that goes down and then seal coating is the little tiny rocks and Pebbles those aren't needed on the trails because it's the little the little rocks are only needed when there's a they're high impact and Road and big traffic on on the roads so it's not needed on the trail we did start a new the city designed a new maintenance process last year our new city engineer came up with this and it sounds like a great plan what we're doing now is we're taking since a lot of the roads aren't bad all the way through there's like certain places where there's clay in certain places that have good foundation what we're doing now is we're patching large areas City staff is going out there and patching the areas that are significantly bad and they determine that by different um ways I don't know there's alligator cracks and there's good cracks and bad cracks and Engineers know all that stuff but we determine which areas are going to be replaced so they take the large areas and they patch to large areas and that adds up to 10 years on the life of these streets when city does that the city spent approximately four hundred thousand dollars this year um 250 was on the seal coating and 150 000 was on the patching and I appreciate saving maintenance has always been dear to my heart and I think we do it in our homes and we need to do it at the city as much as possible um infrastructure again this goes back to the costs of infrastructure that's going on right now we have plans for a complete new trail from the Mounds View School a grade separated trail from E2 down to Lake Valentine Road and then Lake Valentine Road up to the school we were in the bonding bill for this we made all the bonding approvals unfortunately again the bonding Bill did not get passed from the legislature the cost of this Trail is around 850 000 we did qualify for a grant from safe routes to school for 450 and Ramsey County partnering with Ramsey County on the Old Highway 10 they're going to pay 200 000 and the rest of the city is going to pay 200 000. Ramsey County they're designing a roundabout if everyone hasn't heard at Lake Johanna Boulevard and old Snelling the old Lindy's triangle area estimated cost is about 1.6 million dollars 25 percent of it is the city's responsibility and we will be using our MSA funds our Municipal stated money the fortunate thing with this for the city since the County's moving forward with this is that underneath that intersection we have a six inch cast iron water main that has been placed there in the 1960s this pipe's old and it's cracked and I don't know much about Metal maybe Lyle can help me but cast iron gets very brittle as it ages so this six inch main is between two 12 inch Mains one we had just put in with the new section on Old Snelling when we did the trail and the street and the other one has come from when we did the other trail from old from Bethel so what we have is we have a 12 inch going into a six inch old 1960 cast iron to a 12 inch so we need to replace that 12 that six inch area with an upgraded 12 inch so we can get the full 12 inch flow this will assure consistency and reliability service for that area of the community we also found out and we probably knew this but the city has to replace all the clay sewer lines that are under that intersection because there are many that are failing um a third of our city is Clay line sewers and we've been lining them but um this one it has is is failing there are cracks in it it needs to be replaced so that's another reason why we're moving forward with the roundabout and one-ish additional point that was made by the county is right now Arden Hills we have money for that intersection if you choose not to move forward with that intersection we will use the money elsewhere and we will not come back to this intersection for a long long time so those are very good reasons for us to fix the water main the water the sewer and the traffic flow that goes through that intersection as you can see our annual maintenance projects are in the red the city's dually value it for next year um we're still evaluating which Trails need to be completed and next year's maintenance budget is expected to be at least two hundred and twenty thousand dollars in City funds we have the Arden Manor Park Improvement which is 250 000 this park hasn't been done it's on the cycle to be done it was supposed to be done this year but we have some drainage issues that needed to be reevaluated so we're going to proceed with it next year instead of this year we got a hundred and ninety thousand dollars from the community block grant program and we had to do a matching so we did sixty thousand dollars in City funds what happens when we do Parks we have an open house we invite the neighbors and the community the community to talk about what they want at the park and what they're looking for and we move from that point the other one next year will be the Floral Park Improvement we'll be doing the tennis court the basketball court and the equipment again it's about 575 thousand dollars that we budgeted for it the playground recruitment will be and we're going to rehab the whole site overall and the same thing happens we invite that Community to come in and ask us what they want what they're looking for in playground equipment more slides one big thing that's going to affect everyone in Arden Hills is the new St Paul Regional Water Treatment Center the center is over a hundred years old they're replacing two-thirds of it it needs to be done and unfortunately it does cost money so because of this they have given us an estimated of what the costs will be and so therefore there's a slide there that shows how much increase there will be in people's annual watt average water per month to have the the new increase I have never heard any complaints about our water I mean the good thing is that they're doing this now before there's a problem or an issue with the site we get our water from Roseville which gets it from Saint Paul which comes from this location so hopefully they'll be done within two years and and they will upgrade the rest of it as time allows the next one is I just wanted everyone to know about our tree plan we've had a lot of disease trees we've had a lot of dying trees 96 does not just seem to be a very good place to have trees so again we're taking down about 30 debtor disease trees emerald ash borer has been very devastating to us um so we're taking down 30 dead trees and then we are planting 55 trees and you can see along the dots where those trees will be planted um afterwards if you want to know what kind of trees they are there's a mix I can let you know we're also going to plant more trees at Prairie Dog Park it's pretty bare out there since it's an old baseball field so the dogs wanted some more trees so we're going to plant some trees up there and Oak Avenue there's a little they got to bring their own fire hydrants so Oak Avenue also has a little cul-de-sac area with a large green area and park inside that needs some more trees because we had lost some dead ones there and Tom quartz medium turned around also had some disease trees which we took out that needs more trees so our plan for the fall tree schedule we um we are Contracting with this and the the contractor has to water the trees for the next two years which is really big considering how we go from to Drought it's really important and it takes a lot a significant time watering the trees every year and making sure that they're in good shape in the summer emerald ash borer unfortunately the city and its residents are battling Emirates for um it's been pretty devastating in the city some people have had to take down on their private property three trees and more the city's really monitoring the ash trees from Rush board the city itself did an inventory of all our significant ash trees on public property any trees that were eight inches in diameter or greater that were in good condition we're being treated by injection we also in sicker trees we started planting buddy trees next to the ash trees that were starting to show signs of decline to the end health and to determine their infestation by emerald ash borer once the MRI sport does take hold of the tree it's going to have to come down so that way the Buddy tree will provide some overlap time period which where it will grow where the existing tree was taken down the city is removing all our disease trees that we find on public property and our plan can be reviewed on our City website under MRI sport if anyone would like to see what our plan is and where the trees are that are being treated now that's all I have and I'm turning it over to Mr Scott thank you thank you councilmember Holden good morning my name is Steve Scott and I'll be talking to you this morning about the trails in Arden Hills so the city currently has 25 miles of trails as shown on the map uh you compare that we actually have about 30 miles of paved roadways so our Trails comprise almost an equal segment of our roadways for motorized vehicles so the trails we have are currently constructured of a variety of materials including asphalt and concrete then we also have some natural Trails consisting of grass dirt and dirt mulched with wood chips the city continuously plans and constructs these trails to improve their connectivity with each other over the past 12 years the city has added another 7.2 miles of paved Trails as shown on the map Trails can cost anywhere from 1 million to 2.8 million dollars per mile to assist in securing funding for trail construction the city invests in feasibility studies the feasibility studies allow the city to pursue Grant and state bonding application funds a couple of examples of those are the Lake Johanna Boulevard Trail concept plan and the Old Highway 10 Trail connectivity feasibility study the city also looks for opportunities to partner with other agencies to secure funding some highlights of the recent Trail improvements are the completion of an East-West connection from the 35 bridge on County Road E2 to the intersection of Lexington Avenue and County Road E other improvements include added pedestrian safety with grade separated trails and my grade is separated we means that the roadway is on one level we have a curb and the trail is typically elevated and that's a safety Factor we also incorporate 88 improvements and flashing beacons at our crosswalks some of the considerations for building Trails includes topography and steep slopes vegetation and trees existing public utilities and sewer and water utilities storm water management requirements existing Road sections and curbs Wetland impacts we typically have to work with Rice Creek Watershed and most of those issues soil conditions right-of-way acquisition retaining walls driveway impacts and ADA compliance these variables are the cause of the large range of Trail costs the recently constructed Bethel Trail is 4 500 feet in length or 8.8 85 hundredths of one mile and it costs 2.4 million dollars to complete that trail so extrapolating that is the 2.8 million dollars per mile for that one segment the city continuously constructs Trails wherever practical and prioritizes prioritizes these projects as follows one is the additions to each other and our larger capital projects such as when we do a major Street reconstruction that's an opportunity to also complete a trail segment in that area we take recommendations from our Parks trails and Recreation committee we evaluate safety needs we look at connectivity with other Trail systems we coordinate with other agencies including the county MnDOT and our surrounding cities we conduct Corridor studies and we pursue funding opportunities one of the unique aspects of our city is the presence of our military facilities we have just North of Highway 96. Arden Hills is home to multiple military facilities including the National Guard and the Army Reserve notably we're lucky to have the headquarters for the National Guard's 34th Infantry Division the 34th infantry otherwise known as the Red Bulls is one of only three National Guard infantry divisions in the entire nation the Red Bulls recently relocated their headquarters from Rosemont to Arden Hills and moved into a brand new 150 000 square foot facility which features state-of-the-art building and Energy Technologies this new headquarter facilities houses a small number of full-time staff during weekdays but the facility comes alive on the weekends with over 700 soldiers from across Minnesota and neighboring states arriving to participate required drills and Military maneuvers often you'll see formations of military helicopters flying overhead and convoys of military vehicles on our roadways we welcome these citizen soldiers and the added economic impact they bring to the local business community the commercial businesses employees typically work on Monday through Friday schedule and they use the uh restaurants and shopping in their neighborhoods and the military reservists and National Guard members offer an opportunity for weekend traffic to those same businesses so it helps kind of balance out the scales beyond the yellow ribbon as a network of beyond the Eola ribbon associations around the state as well represented in Arden Hills by many volunteers including my wife the beyond the yellow ribbon steering committee coordinates with State and County military family assistance offices to connect available services offered by individuals organizations and Commercial companies to support not just our active duty service members but also retirees veterans and their families 2022 the city council recently affirmed its support and committee and commitment to the beyond the illegal ribbon bike Proclamation examples of recent Services we provided were meals to soldiers assembling for deployment and returning home from deployment we located a plumber who was willing to donate labor and a new water heater to a deployed soldiers family and we assisted the daughter of a deployed National Guard chaplain when she had a move from her Maplewood apartment to another town our troops are able to focus fully on their duties if they know their families back home are being looked after if you'd like additional information on what the beyond the yellow ribbon network is or how you could help please contact the city or myself directly moving on to local government and issue issues year-round the city receives input from residents and businesses concerning what they like and they don't like what works well and doesn't work around the community the range of suggestions awful often involves City policies city code and other operational functions the city council takes these suggestions seriously and will discuss and make changes wherever appropriate a few of the changes that we've made this year or a plan to include lowering the city-wide range of speed limits this was a uh opportunity granted to us recently by the state legislature so we will be able to control the speed limits on our city-owned street that does not mean that we also have jurisdiction over County or MnDOT roads which there are a lot of in our community so we do have plans to lower the speed limit to 25 miles an hour on city streets it's not been formally approved yet but it's likely to happen before Year's End the city also updates its ordinances regarding the proximity of drive-throughs in response to coved which affects how businesses operate we noticed on planning case after planning case one of the common reoccurring themes requested variance was a relief of that requirement that only allowed drive-through facilities within a quarter mile or greater so that alleviates a lot of the issues businesses are continually modernizing their business models especially after covid so this helps our businesses remain competitive with other other communities that city council also updated the ordinance to allow residents to keep chickens in their backyard that was also why covid related outcome they can also do so meeting meeting after meeting certain requirements by attaining a City license the council also updated the rules concerning defense Heights around swimming pools it's a safety consideration one of our residents came and presented her concerns to the council the current regulation was a five-foot barrier and she says four foot is actually advised and common throughout the area we said that makes perfect sense and we acted on that city council also updated their food truck ordinance to better regulate food truck operations to allow residents to serve the general public previously that was limited to the private needs of that particular resident but now they can host food truck events that just serve the general needs of the of the public following the concerns from residents the city council worked to have flashing speed feedback signs installed on Old Snelling Lake Valentine Road Highway 51 and Highway 96 to help slow traffic I'm done so that concludes my presentation and to wrap up with closing remarks I return now to Mayor Grant thank you all right thank you councilmember Scott the city's financial position remains strong with stable fund balance levels even as the volume of financial activity is fluctuated the city also obtained a clean on a clean audit report an unmodified clean audit report as the graph illustrates the city has generally been able to maintain stable fund balances as the volume of financial activity is fluctuated a healthy financial position allows the city to avoid volatility and tax rates helps minimize the impact of State funding changes allows for the adequate and consistent funding of services repairs and unexpected costs and is it a factor in determining the city's Bond rating and resulting interest costs um I'd like to take just a moment to comment on uh some of council member Holden slides as you've seen the city is over a number of projects has worked in cooperation and funding requests from the state from the county from block grants you can go back and review all the various sources of funds we have a 5.5 million dollar Levy and you see all the things that we're able to do we go out there and represent you and take part and partner up with other organizations to make things happen um between uh 2021 and 2022 the city of Arden Hills received one million one hundred twenty three thousand five hundred thirty one dollars in funding from the American Rescue plan funding the city developed a list of water and sewer projects that met the eligibility requirements of the funding and could be completed prior to December 31st 2024. in 2021 arpa funding was used for the replacement of Aging cast iron pipe in streets that were already under construction around hazelnut Park the funding will also be allocated toward Utilities in the recently completed completed Sterling Avenue North and utility improvements project and will likely be used in next year's Snelling Avenue North and County Road E intersection improvements project staff and council members determined that using arpa funds on utility projects will alleviate the need to issue future debt for improvements and can keep you kill utility costs down investment in critical infrastructure is a particularly well-suited use of arpa funds because it is a non-recurring expense that can be used to invest in long-term assets that will benefit Arden Hills for many years in a comparison of communities in Ramsey County the average cost of property taxes on a 387 excuse me 384 600 dollar Homestead in Arden Hills paid 84.50 per month in property taxes to the city the recent 384 600 was chosen is it represents the average home in Arden Hills we continue to collect our tax revenue and continue to maintain one of the lowest property tax rates compared with other municipalities in Ramsey County the only city not represented in that graph is North Oaks North Oaks operates partly as a rather large homeowners association and partly as a city so they're they're entirely unique probably unique even within the state of Minnesota in addition uh through what's already been covered there are a few recent improvements that have been made around the city that we'd like to share with you the Arden Hills Foundation donated new charcoal grills and hot charcoal bins to Cummings and Perry parks where they were were installed in August the Arden Hills Foundation if you're interested in looking it up can be found at Arden Hills foundation.org additionally a sun shelter will be installed at the Perry Park dog park along with a concrete pad near the entrance near the entrance gate the dog park Sun shelter Shades were provided by the Spring Lake Park Lions Club and the concrete pad at the entrance gate was provided by the Arden Hills Foundation we received residents I we the Arden Hills Foundation received feedback that the entrance to the dog park was often muddy and needed a concrete pad new maple trees as was previously presented will also be installed as part of the 2022 tree plant oh and one other Improvement residents have asked that the city stripe some of the tennis courts so that it can be used for dual pickleball and and tennis and in one case a small basketball court in a neighborhood will be striped so that it can be also used for pickleball um I want to thank you for joining us this morning for the annual state of the City address the rest of the council myself and City staff will be available for questions and feedback in just a moment you'll notice that tables around the room are labeled topically please visit the tables relevant to your question and please introduce yourself and this will give us an opportunity to answer questions in in more depth again thank you for coming today and I certainly want to thank Boston Scientific for the use of their facilities and hosting here today thank you [Music] thank you