One of the parks. Thank you. Good evening, and welcome to the Monday, May 26th. Excuse me. Tuesday, May 26th, 2026. Maplewood City Council meeting. Uh, this is a new night due to the memorial holiday. I hope you and your families all had a good memorial weekend. I myself attended a memorial service at Sunset Memorial. Uh, and, uh, it was rather humbling. Uh, honoring all of those that have given their lives in protection of our country. Uh, I went out to see my family’s, uh, graves and saw my great grandfather, my grandfather and my father, all who have served in the military. They didn’t, you know, um, give their lives, uh, during their military service. Uh, but it was pretty humbling to see all of the graves and hear all the names read, uh, of those who have. So that is always something that I make sure to do on Memorial Day. Um, and I hope everyone else had an opportunity to do something in that regard as well. Uh, let us get started with the business of the city, and we’ll start with our Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Then would you do the roll call for us, please? Council member gentleman. Here. Council member. Villavicencio. Here. Council member. Cave here. Mayor Abrams I’m here. And Council member Lee is not with us tonight. Thank you. Council members, would someone like to make a motion to approve our agenda? So moved tonight. Second, moved by cave. Seconded by the motion to approve the agenda. Uh, is there any further discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye, aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Next we move on to the approval of the May 11th, 2026 City Council workshop minutes. Is there a motion in that regard? I move approval. Second. Moved by junior, seconded by Villavicencio. The motion to approve the May 11th, 2026 City Council workshop minutes. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Next we have our May 11th, 2026 City Council meeting minutes. Would someone like to make that motion? I move approval. Second. Seconded by Cabe. The motion to approve the May 11th, 2026 City Council meeting minutes. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye, aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Next we have appointments and presentations. Council calendar update. Mr. Sabol. Uh, good evening, mayor and council members. Just a couple of items that are popping up on the agenda for next time. Number one, on June 8th, we are going to have our climate mitigation plan adoption. Uh, and then we also have a sale of our general obligation bond improvements as a forecasted at our last meeting. We’re going to add a special meeting on for June 15th, which is an extra meeting. So I appreciate everybody’s a little bit of extra work where we will do a really deep dive into the 2027 budget process. Uh, it’s still the first half of the year, but it’s the best time of year to start that conversation. And so really look forward to having that, uh, beyond there. And then the only other things I just want to note, um, we are as staff, uh, tentatively trying to put together a as America celebrates its 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, where staff are trying to find a way to do it. We don’t have the 4th of July event, but we can still commemorate that. And so we’re putting together a couple of options, probably at a park or at some kind of other piece. And then just as folks know, um, events in Maplewood are hopping and happening. And so, uh, celebrate Summer will kick off officially July 8th and Afton Heights Park. And so that will be the first, first of and at this point, dozens of big community events that are going on in the community. And so, um, but, you know, we are we are moving ahead. And I think the the next couple of meetings will be really informative and helpful. And so with that, I’ll stand for any questions. Any questions for Mister Sabel. Okay. Seeing none then let us move on to our strategic plan update for the first quarter of 2026. Welcome, Miss Knutson. Good evening, Madam Mayor and council. Um, my name is Lois Knudson. I’m the senior administrative manager, and one of my tasks is overseeing the city’s strategic plan. As you all know, the council adopted new strategic priorities in 2025 that were to be effective. We’re calling it our 2026 through 2028 strategic plan. So that was approved. This is our first time reporting on the new plan. There were two months where we just didn’t do any reporting as we were transitioning from the old plan to the new plan. Um, there are many new performance measures in this plan, as well as several that have been carried over from our previous plan. Um, reporting took a little bit longer than I would have liked, but that’s mostly because we have some new people doing some of the reporting. So I really wanted to make sure I was turning them as best I could and preparing them for what I wanted them to do. Um, I also met with almost all the departments to just kind of reevaluate, since this is our first time reporting on this plan. Who’s doing what? What performance measures are you ready to go forward with? And are there some that we kind of are waiting a little bit on? Since it’s a three year plan? Okay. Our strategic plan progress snapshot. Um, as you can see, we’re at 24% progress. A reminder, as I’ve said over and over again, when I report on this, this progress bar is driven by reporting on the action initiatives only. And that is the very lowest level of the plan. So even if people don’t want to have an action initiative, I try to encourage them to. It’s just little steps of how we’re trying to achieve a performance measure. So we’re at 24%, which is pretty good. Um, as you can see, most of the measures are on track. There were just a few with some minor disruptions, and then there were 32 that are upcoming. Um, action initiatives. So those reflect into this 24% progress bar. But there’s a lot of things coming that we’re excited about. We just weren’t ready to report on them or have them anything report right now. So we’re moving forward with that as we roll out through the year. You should see less and less of those upcoming, and more and more of those should be updated in an actual live measures. And then you can see there are three that say they are completed. And this being a new plan, that may seem a little strange, but a lot of times those are things that are like the first step of getting something done. Setting up funding for something, or setting up a measure to track something. So that’s what those three are that show are are showing us completed. Okay. Our first strategic priority is safety. And when council met last year, we identified our yeah, we described that as enhancing community well-being through proactive systems and infrastructure. And this is just a brief summary of kind of some of the highlights of where we’re at right now. We maintain strong emergency response performance. One of the key measures there is the fire department has a goal of responding to incidents in eight minutes or less, and their goal is 90%. Currently they’re at 92%. So they’re doing really well on that. The next one expanded community outreach and public safety education. Um, some of the things related to that. We switch vendors for the staff safety training, and that is resulting in a much more robust program. It’s something we’re able to kind of tailor to our own needs rather than the other one, which was pretty much canned. And all the same. So that’s been a success. And then both Police and Fire are doing many outreach events to the community that are focused on safety, whether it’s fire related, um, just ways to get help, responding to fraud, things like that. So that is one of the other things that our public safety staff is doing. And then the third, continued infrastructure maintenance and technology upgrades, a big part of safety for the city. It’s kind of a behind the scenes thing is staying focused on our infrastructure, our buildings and our technology. And if there were an emergency, are we prepared? What would we do? So those are a lot of those are ongoing measures are upcoming measures because they’re new things that we’re really trying to work on. Having a specific plan for. Sustainability, building long term resilience and organizational strength. So sustainability does not just refer to our environment, although that is a huge part of it. Um, it also includes things such as expanded employee wellness, safety and workforce development initiatives. And the fire department has been a leader in this. They have an advanced comprehensive health, safety and wellness initiatives that they’ve established just for their department. So those are in addition to the citywide measures we have, and that includes things as encouraging them to get, including the opportunity to get physicals and expanded mental health services. Um, continued organizational development and citywide training efforts. This includes such things as succession planning. As we look ahead to how many people are possibly going to be retiring in the next year or two, as well as staff training, all staff, almost all, probably close to 100%, have gone through HPO training, high performance organization, and that was led by our city manager, Michael Sabol. And that is kind of helping to prepare us to make decisions. If you’re going to do something, let’s have a plan. How are we going to work this out? What things, what are different ways to approach it? So and I’ve already seen it used in several ways. So it’s it’s been a good tool for all of us to have. And then advanced environmental sustainability initiatives, those include such things as recycling programs, habitat restoration and stormwater management. Now, based on our 2025 stats, the recycling collected monthly has continued to increase while the trash collection is continuing to decrease. We reached a point a few years ago during Covid when those numbers switched, people were at home more and they were having more trash and they were recycling less. But that has turned around and we’re back on the right track for that. And then we also have our food scraps program, which is kind of a pilot program, but it seems to be doing well and being successful. And then we are continuing to focus on maintaining open spaces and preserves throughout the city. Our third strategic priority is development, and that’s been identified as shaping a thriving, inclusive and forward looking community. Um, advanced redevelopment and affordable housing initiatives. Some examples of that are the EDA approving the use of lahar funds for two habitat for humanity projects, and the revolving housing Rehabilitation Loan Program that has been launched. Continued developer outreach and strategic land acquisition planning. Um redevelopment sites throughout the city that could possibly be acquired have been identified and staff continues working with developers and conducting site tours of those properties. Expanded outreach through events, surveys and community partnerships. The Maplewood Living has featured articles about nonprofits, about six of those in the last few months. And then there was a volunteer expo that was recently held, and that was led by our management intern, Colin Vu, and that highlighted area organizations for volunteer opportunities, as well as an opportunity for the community to become aware of what services are available for them. Community engagement isn’t one of our priorities, but it’s an underlying theme throughout our plan. Um, the police department held outreach events in the first quarter that reached over 1800 residents and not just residents of Maplewood, but of the surrounding area. And that number is just going to hugely expand throughout the summer months when we have so many more events coming up, expanded, culturally responsive engagement efforts, increased use of multilingual communication and interpreters, and strengthened residence driven outreach and relationship building activities. So that’s things like surveys after events. Um, the budget engagement process that the finance department did last year that will be continuing this year, I’m sure. Challenges and opportunities. Uh, technology implementation and permitting delays. Those are ongoing challenges we face, uh, the need for expanded performance measurement and data tracking. So this is in many areas throughout, in addition to our strategic plan, just other measures, other things we do that we should be tracking and trying to get some data on so that we can make better decisions. Ongoing hazardous structure enforcement cases, those are mostly related to rental licensing as well as the code enforcement department, outreach, evaluation and language access. Improvements are in progress. Um, we are working with, again, doing surveys at events, other ways to reach out to people and engage, and then weather related infrastructure maintenance impacts. In the first quarter, it was snow impacting things. We weren’t able to determine as many trees, things like that, because we were dealing with snow in the summer. It could be heat or air quality as we have experienced in the past. Moving forward, we will finalize redevelopment agreements and strategic initiatives, continue to expand outreach and inclusion efforts, continue strengthening operational systems and data tools, and advance long term financial and infrastructure planning. One of the things that’s not on here is our dashboard. The dashboard for the strategic plan. The link to it got taken down because communications are redesigning our website. And when our plan was dormant for a little bit, they had taken it down. So I done all the back hand work and I’m working with them to get that live again in the next day or two. And then again as we continue through each quarter, I want to continue meeting with the departments to modify and make changes to the things they are measuring. Maplewood continues to make steady progress towards achieving its strategic priorities through collaboration, innovation and community centered leadership. Are there any questions or comments? Councilmember Villavicencio. Thank you. Mayor. Um, thank you so much for, uh, for providing this information to us. I know all the department heads, you know, care about the diversity of the employees, but I was wondering if you could just, um, let us know. How do you measure the diversity of the employees? Um, when employees are hired as part of their, their form, their application is to fill out the background on what their diversity is there. And this is just based racially, um, ethnically, it’s not anything other than that that we have any way of tracking. But that is where we get those numbers. And Lois, isn’t that also voluntary? Yes. If they choose not to do it, they don’t have to do it. Thank you. Even part of when we’re inputting an employee into our software system to get paid and HR and all that, the benefits, there’s an EEOC form we fill out, but we do the best of our ability to guess. If we don’t, if they didn’t fill it out. But we always check what they put. If they did fill it out. Great job. Thank you. Um. I had a question about, uh, I’m looking at page 35 of 336. It talks about staff beginning to inventory all major city assets and assigning replacement cycles. Uh, is that. Well, I’ve been on the council long enough to know that we have done asset management plans. We’ve looked at replacement cycles. So in terms of saying beginning to do that, it’s not exactly in my when I read that, I thought, well, we’re not just beginning to do that. We’ve been doing that for some time, tracking our assets. So what how can we what do we need? How do we interpret what it says here? It probably should say continue. But Jody have some comments on that. Yes. Thank you. Mayor and council. Um, yes. That’s a very good suggestion. We should update that. And we will update that because we do look at all of our capital assets. Um, we go through each one department a year, 1 or 2 departments, depending on the size, and we take a look at each of those assets and do an inventory of everything. Um, part of this is that we need to update it with the current times, because our old policy would say squad cars last seven years, so we’d appreciate them over seven years, when really they’re probably 3 to 5 years. So we need to take a new look at that. So I would agree with you, mayor. We should update the verbiage on that. Maybe that’s a good word to use is update. And I mean that’s something that I just expect that we would continue to be doing is updating that as we do replacements or, you know, as, as things age out and, uh, but it’s more when I looked at that, I just knew that isn’t quite what we’re doing. But thank you for that, for updating it the next time we see you after the next quarter. All right. Mr. Taylor, it just, um, this is my opportunity to thank Lois for, uh, I just I know how difficult it is to try to wrangle 200 voices into one document and trying to make sure it gets it done on time. And so it is a ton of work and it is appreciated. And the other thing I will say is a lot of the things that you see in here are not glamorous things. That’s just the hard work of just managing well. And Lois does that well, and she manages us really well in terms of getting this project done. But, um, it’s it’s a cumbersome, complicated piece. But what I hope this does is it gives confidence to our residents that we’re doing the work and we’re showing what it looks like. And so this is just a measure of transparency that I think is important. Thank you. I want to say thank you to Lois because I know this is not an easy thing to do. Uh, when we went to the new plan, uh, uh, safety, sustainability and development, that means so much more than just those three words and trying to translate that for staff. Uh, I imagine that that has been challenging. But from a citywide perspective, we’re measuring what it is that we’re doing. Right? So that we know. Are we on track? Do we need to make some modifications? Uh, where are we having some difficulties? And without this type of a a dashboard for us to look at? Uh, we wouldn’t be headed in the right direction. And so I just want to thank you for that. But I imagine that it is challenging, especially to explain that we’re down to three words, basically. But there’s so much more than just three words. So thank you. I know that this is, uh, we really appreciate it. I know I do, and I, I imagine the council does as well. So thank you for that. All right. Thank you for your time. Thanks. Council members, we need to make a motion to approve the report. I move the strategic plan update on quarter one of 2026. I second. Moved by gentleman, seconded by Villavicencio. The motion to accept the strategic plan report for the first quarter of 2026. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Thank you. Moving on to the consent agenda. Would someone like to make a motion? I move consent to agenda items G one through five. Second moved by cave, seconded by junior men. Consent agenda items G one through five. Uh, any further discussion? I’m going to bring up discussion. Uh, I’d like to pull number four and five because they really kind of go together. Uh, and talk about, uh, have some more discussion rather than just be on the consent agenda. I know that we, I recall the first time we talked about Gladstone, we were in Covid, and I believe I was sitting at my dining room table running a city council meeting. Uh, online. Uh, and so this has been going on for a very, very long time. And rather than just, uh, have it on the consent agenda, I’d like to have kind of an update on things because this this is kind of this is, uh, a project that just has, has not, uh, you know, um, reached any. Well, let me just say it this way. There hasn’t been any movement that we can see, and we still have the Gladstone House that, uh, is pretty dilapidated on Frost Avenue. So let’s can we have some discussion on that? Uh, but meanwhile, um, can we go back and we’ll vote on G one through three? Is that Mister Beatty? Can I do a friendly amendment to just vote on one through three? Yes, Madam Mayor, you can. Okay. I’d make a friendly amendment to vote on G one through three. That way we can take care of that and then we’ll move on. Okay. So, uh, the motion has been made and seconded and then friendly amendment G one through three. Uh, any further discussion concerning consent agenda items G one through three. Then all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye aye. Any opposed? That motion carries and we will go to discussion. Uh, concerning four and five. Uh, this power, this is your topic tonight. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Members of the council, this particular project, as you all know, we’ve talked about it many times. There’s been a lot of moving parts over time that have made it a little complicated. I think any you have multiple partners from different state agencies. It becomes tricky. Um, and everyone I think is after the same objective, which is quality affordable housing with wraparound services. In this case, um, but timing of when that’s going to happen. And what’s needed within that time frame is it’s what’s really been the challenging part. And there’s been a few hiccups, hiccups along the way in regards to that as well as historic. Um, you need to take a look at it from a historical context. That was one of the hiccups, as you may recall. They had to look at that further to make sure there was no historical significance there that made the building remain. One of the things that is a staff. We’ve been talking a lot with, uh, Beacon Interfaith, um, about is the idea of wanting to get that structure removed. That’s really been one of our biggest motivations. Obviously, we want the affordable, quality housing as well. But, um, that’s been a huge motivation. The challenge is once that structure is removed, in some cases, it takes away their ability to get the financing if it’s done in advance of the financing being granted. So please know that that’s part of the reason that structure has remained as long as it has, because some state agencies, once you remove it, it shows that you didn’t really need the assistance for that aspect of it. And then that’s taken off the table, which it clearly is needed in this case. Um, one of the items before you this evening is specific to taking grants that were received by the city. In many cases, we are the applicant on behalf. And it’s it’s granted to us and it’s we’re basically the conduit for it. And in some of those cases, um, we are have the ability to convert those grants into deferred loans. Now, granted, it’s quite a ways out, as you can see from in the staff report. However, at some point at the end of the term, that money comes back to the city, it’s paid back, and then we’re able to use that. Future councils are able to use that in another way. So as a staff and in working with our attorney, we don’t have any issues with that per se. But it still does complicate things because, uh, from a tax standpoint, from financing, it’s preferred by beacon. However, it has created some additional time frame issue challenges. Minnesota Department of Employment Economic development deed. They have a and I know at the last meeting we talked about it. Um, Ron had mentioned the end of June, as you could see in the staff report, they want to see this site activated and they need to see movement happen. By that time. Um, we also know that Minnesota housing, that’s not their time frame. They’re looking more to the beginning of mid July. And we’re not quite sure where it’s going to fall. We’re trying to put a meeting together. Um, however, in any case, tonight’s action by the council, um, allows those things to take place, those conversations. And if we can come to an agreement on that time frame, um, then it will it will look good to move forward. This is what’s left to be done prior to, um, them getting a demo permit, which there’s still the hope that that will happen end of June, beginning of July. We do have Kevin Walker here, the VP of development for beacon. If you have any questions for him directly, um, you can you can ask those as well, if you like. Kevin, do you want to join us up at the microphone, please. And. Welcome to the council meeting. Thank you. Mayor. Yes. And I would just reinforce we are so eager to get underway. I mean, you’re it’s like, um. Yeah. Like, what’s the phrase to to God’s ears? So we’re very interested in moving ahead and we’re, you know, I’ll just say frustrated. Except that’s just to talk about the affordable housing, uh, environment, the complexity. Uh, there’s federal rules, which in part, Jeanette has alluded to that, you know, drives how we have to think about this from a risk perspective. We we look very carefully and closely months ago at trying to do an early demo. Um, it just it’s not in the cards, you know, it’s just it represents two great of risk about just kind of upsetting the applecart. And so we’re, we’re kind of in this stuck place. Um, there’s actually we’re, we’re exactly in that conversation that described where we’re really pushing, uh, Minnesota housing, uh, to partner with us to move ahead, set a closing date so that we can start to really align the remaining work. I mean, it’s such a short list of remaining items between us and closing. Um, and so we’re we’re navigating this very actively right now with the closure and other folks at Minnesota Housing in partnership with Deed and the city. So we’re in Ramsey County, right. And all the the folks involved in the project. So that’s, you know, at some level, we’re we’re stuck by circumstances. We would love to move forward. We just need to do things in the right sequence so we don’t put ourselves in a bad position and in a way that actually, you know, defeats some of the purposes we have for this project. Um, so that’s what I can say. Hey. Have. You any. Questions? Okay, then would someone like to make the motion concerning G four and five? I move to approve the grant and loan agreements between the city Metropolitan Council and Gladstone Crossing Limited Partnership and authorized mayor, city manager and city Attorney to complete and execute all required documents? Second. Is that just g. For? Did you want to add G five to that as well? Oh, I thought I had to do it separately. Mr. Beatty. And Mayor, I would suggest that they be done separately. Okay. So we’ll. Do it for first. Thank you. So moved by junior, seconded by Villavicencio. Uh, the recommended action, uh, contained in G4. Is there any for any more discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Uh, and then on to G five. It’s I’m willing to make that motion. I move approval of G five. Do you want me to read it out. No. That’s okay. Is there a second? Second. Moved by Cabe, seconded by junior men. Uh, g5 as contained in our packet. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying. Aye. Aye, aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Thank you. And I am hopeful that this project can move forward. It’s been kind of hanging out there for years, and I think it fits a very important piece in our affordable housing in Maplewood. Um, I can imagine how frustrated you are. Um, but thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you again for the city support of this important project. Appreciate it. Thanks. Moving on to unfinished business. Uh, this is the MCC, YMCA discussion. Mr. Sable. Um, thank you, mayor and council members. As I shared, um, in an email to you, all the Minnesota legislature concluded its business, uh, last week. And unfortunately, the, uh, there was a tax bill, but it did not include any provisions for a local sales tax, for funding for, uh, redevelopment and reconstruction of the community center. Uh, and did also did not include any pieces for the um, East Metro public safety training facility. Uh, and that puts us in a bit of, uh, challenge. So we do know that there are a significant number of repairs that need to be made to the building to make it safe and habitable for the for the occupants. I’ll just I’ll just anecdotally note that there’s still water that pools on the gym floor during rain. And so, uh, there is a desire to have by our leased partner, the YMCA, to have that to be dry and safe space and also know that there is still some uncertainty about the future. Uh, funding for a new project. So we don’t have any, uh, I would not be willing to recommend a $48 million investment in the facility using, uh. Excuse me, general fund dollars. And so it does require a different source of revenue to do some of those repairs. And so, excuse me, um, so what we have tried to do is, is to put forward a discussion for the city council. Is is what are the steps that you would like us to, to take and to consider next. And so as part of our analysis, we’ve done a facility condition assessment report, which we’ve included the executive summary in this packet and have previously put forward the entire, uh, summary of the of those items. And so you get a sense for the cost of repairs. The second component is that we put the executive summary of what the appraisal of the land value is. So you know what that piece of property is worth in terms of the an estimate of what you would get in the real estate market. Uh, and then you also could, in theory, just continue to operate it as it is with some, with some minor repairs. And so, uh, as part of the analysis, uh, Mike Darrow and Joe Robe put together a really nice summary that included, uh, some potential future options for consideration. Uh, they are not enumerated, but I will give them numbers. Anyways. Number one is to continue to operate the existing facility with significant reinvestment. Number two, you could do a short term interim operation of the facility. Um, focusing on most critical operation and safety related pairs. So this is what we call kind of a minor, uh, uh, upkeep in piece. Uh, item three is a total demolition and redevelopment of the site. Uh, that is clearly an option that’s available to you. Um, it would estimate that, you know, there would be some demolition costs for that. And then you could do an alternative. Um, you could sort of get out of the business of owning that and potentially offer it and sell it to somebody else who could operate it. Um, either for some other, some other site. And so, um, the purpose of this item is to just lay out a number of choices, and, uh, staff are prepared to sort of respond to questions, but this is really an opportunity for the council to say we didn’t get what we asked for from the legislature. There’s a number of things we could do. All of them are suboptimal choices today. Uh, and so which of the less good options would you like to consider going forward? And I think this is an appropriate time to just sort of have a discussion and let staff sort of respond to.. Thank you, Mr. Sable. I see lights going on. This is a really important discussion for our city. It seems that we have been talking about this for quite some time. Uh, I go back to, I think one of the first times we were talking about this, it was after the survey, uh, that we had done, uh, last year. I want to say it was a survey, uh, and we learned that a number, uh, a majority of our community members, uh, view the community center as a true asset. Uh, in Maplewood. And so I was really pleased with our the work that the council did, the work that our staff did, coming up with the idea that, uh, because this is viewed as a regional asset, my microphone’s on. Can you hear. Me now? Okay. okay, it’s back on. Can you hear me now? No, it’s not okay. Oh, he. Said yes. Not working. So. Okay. Two microphones. Wow. Okay. How’s that? I bet that’s better. Uh, anyway, I thought that we had come up with a really creative idea. Uh, that would help fund the, uh, needed repairs. And actually, the big update of the community center, it’s, I think at least a 40 year old building that is, uh, you know, as many 40 year old buildings. It’s tired, and it needs work. Uh, and I thought we had a really creative idea. Council members, I want to thank you for that and thank our staff. Uh, unfortunately, it was very disappointing that our legislature, uh, it seemed that they left a lot on the table. They didn’t get a lot of things done. Uh, which, unfortunately negatively impacts us. And so, no, I feel like we’re now back at, uh, retooling our plan on, uh, what we need to do, uh, in regards to our community center and looking at this, um, there are certainly some unknowns. We do know that we don’t have $48 million in our general fund. Uh, Mr. Rube is shaking his head at me. Yes, that’s right, that’s. We don’t have $48 million, nor can we tax our way out of this. Uh, this is something that we cannot ask our residents and our businesses to pay for. And so that local option sales tax, to me, was just such a creative idea and a good way to do it. And the timing seemed so right. There had been previously a moratorium, uh, for cities, uh, seeking local option sales taxes that was removed. And as soon as it was, uh, we were in that first group and unfortunately, there were, I think 36 other cities that were going for local option sales taxes and didn’t get them either. So now we’re back in this position of what do we do with our community center? And given the fact that our community sees it as such a wonderful asset and important asset, uh, I’m just going to jump out and indicate that my, I favor, uh, the short term interim operation of the facility, uh, number two, I guess it is, uh, where what we’re trying to do is keep things moving forward until we can have that opportunity to go back to the legislature. I talked with Mike Sable today about this, about the timing and our agreement with the why to run the community center goes through April of 2027. Uh, the council could, if they desired, to go back to the legislature and seek that local option, sales tax. We could do that again next January. Uh, and if we didn’t get it next January, because the legislature again, uh, doesn’t address this, uh, opportunity for us and a lot of other cities, we could then go back again in 2028. Uh, in the meantime, we’re going to have to do some repairs. We’re going to have to address the water problem. We’re going to have to address the safety issues that are developing as we’re trying to figure out ways to fund this. Uh, and ultimately, if the legislature is not going to be supportive of a local option sales tax, uh, absent some other creative way of funding, what our community center needs, uh, council members, we may be talking about, uh, a different alternative. Uh, maybe alternative three or alternative four. But I think that sometimes with the legislature, it takes more than one go around, uh, to try to effectuate, uh, the kind of legislation that we really need for our community. Uh, I certainly don’t want to support option number one, which is to, uh, sink in a lot of money into our community center because, uh, we’ve talked about this before, then we just wind up with the same kind of building without anything that is any more. That isn’t. It’s just not visionary. Uh, it’s the same building. Uh, but it just has up updated operating systems. And so that’s kind of the way I see this. I’d like to hear from other council members as well. I think everybody’s light was on. Uh, uh, Councilmember Cave, you were first or was it Councilman. Cave then? Okay. We’ll do this in order. Councilmember cave. Sure. I you know, thank you. Um, I would agree that this council really came together and, you know, with staff and put together a really creative idea with the, the local option, option sales tax. Um, you know, I’ll reiterate, I think it’s really unfortunate that that didn’t go through. Um, I’ll just speed up a little bit though. Uh, I don’t see us doing it next year because that would require a special election. And there’s no elections next year. So that would be the only thing on the ballot, would it not? That’s the thing I talked to Mr. Sabel about today. We could go to the legislature and ask them. They have to be the first ones that give us the approval to take it to the residents. We would wait. My suggestion, rather than do a special election, which is, you know, at least 40, $45,000, to do a special election, I don’t see that we could hold off doing the special election until 2028, when there is a regular election. Okay. But we we we would at least then have two chances to go to the legislature in 2027 and then 2028. But my thought is we would hold off and have it go to to a ballot of our residents only until 2028. I don’t envision a special election for. This, and that’s a possibility. Um, I don’t like, you know, option one, you know, I believe option two is. I mean, it’s viable, but there’s so much I don’t think a Band-Aid fixes a maplewood community center anymore. Um, more investment needs to be done than just fixing the emergency stuff. If people are really going to go there and keep using it. So I don’t want to spend a lot of money. I don’t know how much money we’re talking about in number two, but that I, I feel like we would be giving a disservice to our the people of Maplewood, Oakdale, North, Saint Paul who use our, our, you know, Maplewood Community Center. I feel like we would be setting them up to in a dangerous place. Um, I personally felt if the levy was going to go through, that would be an excellent source to, you know, ask the Maplewood citizens what they thought of it, if that’s what they want. You know, if that’s what they wanted our local tax to go for. Um, we don’t have that opportunity right now. And for two years, paying for something that we know is very, very damaged. Uh, I just think it’s a it’s a high risk at that place to just do a few things. So I’m really teetering on the fact that we need to have a serious not just tonight, but we need to figure out if this is something that we even continue. That building shouldn’t exist anymore. I feel like it’s it’s just not safe. Are you at that point right now, I am okay. I am, because I don’t see in two years, two years minimum, we’re talking about okay. And then if it let’s say the levy does go through or doesn’t. Local option sales tax, not a levy. I mean I mean local option sales tax. Um, then there’s more time after that. And what if, you know, then what if it doesn’t pass? And in two years that it’s looking like a dilapidated house, and in two years with all those people using it in the small amount that we’re going to fix, I don’t feel like it’s going to be a safe place. Personally, I don’t think we can get it to that point. That’s why really, everyone agreed that we need a new building. So to me, what my heart tells me is for safety reasons, we shouldn’t continue this. This building as it is. We should look at closing it down and continue the sales at the sales option tax. But for building a new one. And that way people can decide if they want it built there. Maybe we want to redevelop that whole section because it’s such a great bus line. It’s such a great area that maybe that’s not where we put the next community center. We ask South Maplewood and North Maplewood together, come up with a location. I just, I don’t I don’t want to put more money into this one. It’s really everybody knows it’s not a safe place. So that being said, I mean, I do want number three would probably be first I would look at number two but not know I you know what? I’ll look at it if that’s what the council wants. But I, I, I just see it as it not really unfortunately it just didn’t work this time. It doesn’t mean we can’t do the levy, but not for this building. Thank you for that. Um, Mr. Szabo, I’m going to ask because I think that that’s an important. You made a statement about the building not being safe, and I think we need to hear from Mister Love and from Mister Sable, because we certainly would not want to be managing a building that’s not safe. So let’s Mister Sable and then, Mister Love, can you address the issue about, uh, is the community center a safe place? Sure. Thanks. Mayor and council members. So, um, the facility assessment facility condition assessment report that we had conducted identified a number of life safety elements that needed to be fixed. Those were some, um, things that were within the systems themselves that were identified as a problem. And those are there is a pot of money that. So, as you know, we have an agreement with the why that we contribute some capital replacement dollars. And so there is the city is on the hook for some of those repairs. I think the larger life safety issue is really has to do with making sure that there’s not water intrusion in the building. That is the most obvious one. It’s the piece that destroyed the gym floor. It continues to be a source of water intrusion itself. From that standpoint, the building is not unsafe for human use, but it is not anywhere near its full potential. Uh. It has. What if it rains really hard, water gets on the floor, and that water leaks into the gym floor, and then it warps the floor, and then you have to replace the floor? Um, I not to simplify it, but it’s if you remember the book, like, you give a mouse a cookie, like a little bit of water damages the floor. And not only do you have to prevent the water from coming in, now you have to fix the floor, and then you have to move all of the equipment. And so sometimes there can be increases in costs that you don’t anticipate. But uh, so I will say the building is safe to use. However, it’s just not an ideal condition right now. And so the real question, and this is why this is a hard question, is what is the appropriate amount of investment in something that might be going away in two years or three years? And that is an unpleasant conversation. There’s no good answer to that question, but it’s the question that you’re forced to wrestle with, like, is I’ve heard clearly from the City council, the 20 million is too much and no one is interested in 20 million. I we haven’t wrestled out. Is there is there some number that does feel like an acceptable number? And and we will as staff kind of wrestle through that. But it’s good to know where the council rests on this rests on this issue. Pardon my love. Do you want to you were there on the tour with us and yes, the water problem is one of the biggest issues, the most immediate issues. Yes. Mayor and council. So, uh, I think, uh, um, City Manager Sable summed it up very well. You know, one of the biggest issues is the water intrusion when it rains. There were a number of, um, safety items that we met with, um, the YMCA staff and had addressed that were identified as well. So thank you for that. You know, one of the things to add in my notes here on I circled April 2027, we still have an agreement with the why through April of 2027. And we have part of that is, as Mike said, an obligation for some capital improvements, which fixing this water issue would qualify for. Uh, um, that requirement under the lease is that is that a correct understanding, Mr.. Sable? Uh, mayor. Council members? That’s correct. Okay, so but the minimal comment, just one second. Minimally, we are there until April of 2027. That’s that’s our agreement. Uh, you know, this is a huge issue. And one of the things that I want to throw out there, too, is that we have talked about this as a council. We’ve had the survey, um, Mister Sable, can you kind of run through for us? All of we have been talking about this. for a very long time. And it’s just it’s unfortunate that we didn’t get what we needed to from the legislature. That’s the disappointing part. So we’re having to revisit it. But we have certainly been talking about it and engaging our residents. We’re going to need to do more of that to help us figure out what really is next. I looked at number two because of that April 2027 date. We’re not going to. I would never recommend breaking that agreement. That’s something that, you know, we’re there. We’re committed until April 2027. So, Mr. Sable, can you kind of go through what we have done in terms of all of the discussions about this? Uh, certainly mayor and council members, I think one of the I think the starting point for the conversation was the tour of the building itself, where we walked through. We knew as staff that we had seen some building elements that were in decline, you know, a cracked window here. We know that the, uh, steel support beams over the awning are rusted out. Even if you drive by, you can notice that, uh, along the stair railing, you’ll see that it’s, uh, there’s a rust line that’s dripping down the concrete. So that’s an indicator of decay. And so we had a professional, uh, engineering firm go through and look at all of the components that were potentially broken. And there are, uh, if my there are 37 things that they have identified that need to be repaired over the next ten years. And so some of them are very small, 15,000, 5000. Some of them are, you know, three and a half to $4.5 million in terms of total repairs. So it runs the full gamut, um, from from that meeting, from the tour, we had a conversation with the YMCA because we knew at that point the YMCA lease was expiring. And so we said, well, uh, could you extend this lease and buy us some time to do some analysis? The why agreed to that. We did some analysis, and I think we had a conversation where we talked about the facility condition assessment report. We talked about the actual, uh, lease terms. We’ve talked about the real estate appraisal piece. It’s also been part of the legislative agenda. So we’ve talked about the legislative agenda a handful of times. Um, I think before I, I will speculate and guess that I think we’ve had a conversation about this building in this room seven times, uh, since the tour. And so it is something that we talk about regularly. It’s been in the Maplewood living. There was a number of open houses with participants from the from the MCC, YMCA. We had the online survey that was made available. And so we’ve made an effort to do engagement and outreach. Uh, in fact, we actually had uh, and we have available a website with kind of chronicling all that we’ve done and all of the data. Um, I’ll just note that the city competes for people’s attention all the time, and we don’t often win because, um, people opt to do other things and then watch council meetings. Uh, and so we I will say that the Maplewood living that’s going to be hitting mailboxes in two weeks or a week and a half or so, we’ll include a two page section about these projects and what it means. And so we’re trying to do some intentional engagement and outreach. But it is complicated and messy. But this is one of these thorny issues that there’s no, um, good answer. But we do as I say often, we do need an answer, kind of. What would you like us to do next? And so, um, that’s why these discussion items are are fun.. And one other question. Just, um, can you comment about that? April 2027 deadline? That and our obligations through April 2027? Um, certainly mayor and council members, the least that we have with the why requires the city to put forward, uh, a set amount of money for capital repairs of the building. Uh, loose terms. It’s about $225,000 annually. It might be 220, but that is the the general range. And what we do is we jointly agree with the YMCA that here is the here’s where we’re going to put some capital investments in that facility. I will note that in 2025, we used a portion of that $225,000 payment to pay for the LSS architecture work of designing the new facility. So, uh, the Y partnership, while they don’t provide any rent payment to the city, has been a good they’ve been understanding and have done appropriate give and take in the partnership. Um, and so there is we are committed for, uh, this year to pay that and then, I don’t know the lease terms precisely, but I would imagine they would expect a, a pro rata share from January through April of that 225. So, uh, you can estimate that it would be one quarter of that, which is, you know, 60 ish thousand dollars that we would owe them. So if you if you round up, it’s probably around. We would owe the Y $280,000. And Mr. Ruble, correct me with the precise number later. Thank you for that. Uh, you know. if we spend seven council meetings talking about. the Maplewood Community Center, uh, I envision that we’re going to have many more than seven, uh, between now and the end of this year about what it is, what’s going to be the best answer for our community. And bottom line is we have to listen and see what our community has to say. I’m very glad and encouraged that we’ve got something going out in Maplewood. Living this next edition, Council Member Villavicencio, your thoughts? Um, yes. So, um, looking over these options, obviously I was extremely disappointed as well. And, and I think we all know that the community center is really important not to just Maplewood residents, but to people in the region. And, um, so, I mean, I really feel that number two is the option that we should go for. Um, you know, I understand that it’s a it can be looked at as a bandaid issue, but I think it it is worthwhile to go back up to the legislature and ask for the sales tax again. Um, you know, in my experience, um, in passing laws there, it usually takes more than one year to get anything done there. So and that was in good years. So, um, uh, I really think that, you know, also, while we’re doing those things, um, even though that, you know, we’ve talked about it a lot and I can remember even before being on the council, um, you know, when the, the Y and the community center first started there. Um, relationship together and, um, you know, so it has been a really give and take between both entities. And I think, um, we need to have more conversations with our residents because, um, even though we have in the city, staff has done a really good job about outreach. I think, you know, anything I’ve learned about it, we need to overcommunicate always. And, um, really, like, go back and kind of do a history lesson of where we were, where the the community center has been up until now, because I think, um, you know, a lot of residents care about it, but, um, they’re missing all the pages in between the book, in the book. So I think if we kind of peel all those pages back and then have that A really good conversation with some really good residents and stakeholders and, and and see what we all can come up with. Thank you for that. I think I like that analogy about the book. Yeah. That’s good. Uh, Councilmember Jarman, your thoughts? Ditto. Ditto. Um, option two seems like the most logical. I mean, there’s a piece of me that says, yeah, that’s a that’s like paying rent for an apartment that you don’t live in, but we don’t have much option thanks to the legislature. You did that very well, by the way, saying they concluded their business, not they finished their business. There’s a big difference. Um, well. It’s true, but I think from what we know from the engagement so far and what we know from the why, there is a desire for this to be there. So operating from that premise now, we have we have no option but to do something, and none of it’s right because our options were narrowed by a group of people who don’t do their work. But that leaves us only, I think, with option two, the short term interim operation of the facility. And I’m not as worried about as you are about the safety because of what it says. Focusing on the most critical operational and safety related repairs. So I, I rely on staff to make that come true. In other words, what’s really safety related and what’s cosmetic and so on. But I think we do have to. Let people know. I agree with Nikki. The pages that are missing, they need to get caught up on because it’s their decision as much as ours. Although we in our we’re in the position of making the decision at the last time, at the moment, it is their decision if they want to participate in the decision. Um, and so we need to provide more options for that. But I don’t think we have any alternative but to do what needs doing desperately to keep it, to keep it open. I it would be simpler to demolish it and put a new one somewhere else, but it would also be very expensive and. You will lose. You will lose if you close down. I think you will lose a lot of the impetus and people won’t necessarily go elsewhere, but they’ll just have nowhere to go. And so we have to think about that piece. And there’s a lesson in all this. Gruesome as it may be, when this building was built, there should have been a spot in the budget for keeping it up to date. And it wasn’t. So we need to take a lesson from that and make sure that all of our buildings are kept up to par, because you don’t want any other building to be in this position. But we’re here, so we have to do something to, in my estimation, to keep it open and safe to use. And then we try again in 27 to see if these people are any more serious about their jobs than they were this year, and see if they will. I mean, the fact that they responded to none of the cities that says to me they just shoved it aside and didn’t think about it. So we weren’t very important. So I guess we need to make ourselves more important. I volunteer. Mr. Sable. Um, thank you, mayor and council members. I thank you for the discussion. Number one, this is not an ideal scenario. We had we had had other plans. And so we we did have to kind of improvise. Um, at, at the staff level, we have the facility condition assessment report that has some rough order of magnitude, numbers of what things could cost. Um, I think I have heard loudly and clearly that the full amount is not anything you’re interested in. And so doing sort of I don’t want to use the word Band-Aid, but doing the smallest amount possible to make it a viable, uh, building to kick, to make it last a couple more years seems to be the consensus of the council. So as staff, um, we will put forward an estimate of what, uh, minimum number of repairs would be. Uh, we also identify, excuse me, some potential sources of revenue that could be used, whether it’s existing. Uh, pre-programmed capital contributions or some other sources of money that we could make available. Um, and we will bring those kind of forward. We do. I will forecast we do have a meeting with the YMCA staff tomorrow to talk about the end of the legislative session and what that looks like. And so we will certainly learn more about what their, um, intent is. We will redouble our efforts on engagement. And so I do like that idea of a, uh, I was going to say encyclopedia, but some sort of, you know, chronology of what? Of how we got to this point. I think we can as staff, we can clearly do that. Uh, and I think the, the, the only other piece that’s out there is, um, thinking through what if we do go to the legislative session in 2027? Um, there would the lease agreement would expire before that session would end. And so there will have to be some sort of lease amendment that would have to take place between now and then. Um, it will be an entirely new legislature, uh, because they also have elections this year. And I’ll also throw out that there is a potential to be an entirely new council in 2027. Well, not entirely new, but there could be new members on the city council. And so we will do the best work that we can to provide this governing body with a plan for going forward. Uh, just know that the players may change. And so that may change the discussion next year. The last thing I’ll say is the if the legislature grants the city the authority, and the city chooses to hold an election on the general election in 2028, we might not know the answer until November of 2028, and the money wouldn’t arrive until April of 2029. And so this is actually a three year conversation, not just a two year conversation. And so I’m sensitive to that. And I just want to make sure that you’re aware that this is a at a minimum, a three year conversation. Thank you for that. Councilmember cave. Um, just a comment to, you know, I appreciate the transparency with the why. And I know we have a lease with them. Um, but there’s also the opportunity for them to see that this isn’t something they want to go forward with also. So we need to keep that up front. It’s not us breaking a lease, but maybe it works in both favors because they see it not going somewhere. Also, can we have a cap on spending with option two? Um, I know all the amounts that were recorded for the floor and everything. There’s no they’ve obviously gone up in, you know, six months, but I would like a cap on our spending, um, for over there. So we’re not just throwing, you know, money at it because it’s where it’s at. So I would like to see us have some type of cap on that. I think at least the way I envision it is that staff will bring back to us. Uh, what it would take to address the, the water issue and any other absolutely immediate necessity over there before there are any expenditures at all. And at that time we can talk about not to exceed amounts. But right now I don’t we don’t have the, uh, you know, this is our first discussion post legislative session on what do we need to do next? What are those next steps? Uh, so I certainly appreciate this. The discussion and this is an important topic. And also so the Y understands to not just council that it’s three years. Right. You know, that’s important. that that is Mister Seybold. Anything else you want to add. Uh, thank you for the discussion. Okay. All right. Moving on. We have one item of new business, uh, a commitment to volunteerism. Proclamation. Uh, Mr. Sabel, this is your topic. Um, thank you, mayor and council members, this is a, uh, an outgrowth of a conversation that this body had several weeks ago about, uh, using, uh, and encouraging people in the community to, uh, volunteer and give back to the community and give back to some of the nonprofit organizations. And so this is really kind of a, um, an opportunity for the city of Maplewood to partner with Just Serve, which is an app based volunteer platform that, uh, nonprofits can register and say, hey, we need a dozen volunteers to do buckthorn removal, and the community can access that information. And that’s an example. But it’s really an obvious example. And so there are a number of communities in the region who do this, who partner with just serve, uh, to promote and encourage volunteerism in the community. This is really an outgrowth of, you know, three conversations. Number one, uh, the post operation Metro Surge listening session that said, people just want an opportunity to give back, but they don’t know where to start. This isn’t a place for them to start. It’s also an outgrowth from our nonprofit resource expo that we just held recently. And then lastly, this is just one of these things that, um, it’s a streamlined way for people in the community to they can also identify things that they want to do. And so it’s a it’s really the city being a good partner and pairing volunteers and people seeking volunteers and bringing them together. And so, uh, one of the requirements to get the app is to just say that, uh, we this is a proclamation of a commitment to volunteerism and that the city of Maplewood commits to promoting volunteerism, leveraging just serve to make it easier for residents to find and engage in volunteer opportunities. And we’ll regularly, regularly acknowledge and celebrate the contributions of volunteers. And so this was a a no cost way for us to connect residents with nonprofit partners. Thank you for that. Any questions for Mister Sabel then? Would someone like to make that motion? I move to adopt the. Sorry. I moved to adopt the commitment to volunteerism proclamation. Is there a second? Second moved by gentleman, seconded by Villavicencio. The motion to adopt the commitment to volunteerism. Proclamation. Is there any other discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Uh, I’m looking forward to seeing that on our website. Our newly revamped website, so that we can be connecting our residents with the nonprofits. Uh, it has been amazing to see, the kind of volunteerism from our community. Uh, and it’s I’m not surprised by it. It’s very heartwarming. And this just gives an avenue to connect people with, with opportunities. So I’m very happy that we were able to, to do that. Uh, we are done with the agenda for tonight. Thank you, council members. And with