Let's call the meet. Oh, let's call the meeting to order. Roll call, please. >> Council member Nordby >> here. >> Council member Woods >> here. >> Council member McKenzie >> here. >> Council member Schwear is absent. Mayor Muggy >> here. Thank you so much. I had a motion to adopt the agenda, please. >> So move. >> So move. Council member McKenzie >> second. >> Second. Council member Woods. All those in favor say I. I. Thank you. Off we go to the races. >> Well, thanks, sir. I'll kick it off. We got uh one topic on the agenda for tonight, and that's just a water tower update. Since we were able to reallocate the funds of 4.5 million from the community center to a new water tower, it' be a good time to bring in our engineer, Morgan Dolly, and have him discuss this. We had a site plan that was done back in 2020. Um that was preliminary, but um there's a lot more information now and how things are going to unfold and move forward anyway. and just keep that. >> Uh, thank you, Brian, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. So, I um I don't have a prepared presentation. Um, I think Brian called me on Thursday or Friday or something. So, we wanted to provide an update and um it was a different council that was here when we did the sighting study for the tower, right? So, I think my goal here is to answer any questions certainly, but also give uh the council a little bit of context and background and um how we some of the findings within the study, right? Um and uh you know any I think I don't know if that's available on the city's website or whatever but that you know if anybody wants really technical boring read that is available certainly but I'll give you the high points try to translate um into kind of normal everyday language and first before I before I start I mean I've been doing this a long time um and at the state legislature you know bonding bill years turn into non-bonding bill years and vice versa. And you guys certainly um are no stranger to hearing that. And Brian and I collaborated on a little bit of the last minute kind of documentation that went in before the decision was made to uh finally approve that $4.5 million. And I have to say it's outstanding that that was approved. I know that there were some hoops to jump through and some conversations to be had, but the fact that it was approved to be repurposed in this fashion, I think is uh definitely a win for North St. Paul because it's a significant expenditure. And I think the first piece of background that you should know and understand and remember is that the the deficiency in storage, water storage I'll call it, right? We have two water towers total in the city and I might need Ron to pipe in with some facts and figures here if I get stuck. But um we're we're talking about the north tower and um we've known the city has known that there was a a shortage or a deficiency a shortfall in overall total storage uh since well before my time. I mean that that uh point was noted within the uh gosh that would have been the 20 30 comprehensive plan which was completed in 2008. So you know previous city engineer and previous engineering um evaluations had identified that that shortfall. Now the the it's not a hard requirement. It's not law, but the total amount of storage is determined based on um your peak demand, like how much the the most water that's ever being pumped out of the wells at any given time. And if you take I can't remember if it's like you take your highest service pump out and then you do some math and you come up with a number based on what the recommended storage is. That's included in 10 state standards. So that is uh again engineering guidelines or standards. Again, it's not law. It's not a hard requirement, but it is something that if you're a community with a drinking water system, there's a def a finite or a defined amount of storage that a city should have to be able to keep up with regular water demand. Um keep up with uh you know, fire flow if there's an emergency or there's a a need for uh fire pumping. uh with one or or maybe potentially multiple uh wells out of commission to be able to recharge those uh ground either ground storage or above storage. Now, both of the the storage units that the city has are both above ground towers. So, uh it's not just ground storage, they're elevated and the elevation is what provides the pressure throughout the whole city. So the higher the tower uh whether it's on an hill or whether it's elevated by you know columns or or a support column one support column in the center for example uh that elevation difference between the top of the tower and your lowest served areas. So homes that are low in elevation or also homes that are on on top of hills that differential uh elevation is what provides the the pressure to those homes. Obviously, if your home is on top of a hill or in a high spot, you'll probably see um lower pressure. If you're in a low spot, you'll see higher pressure. Right? So, that's kind of the general background of how it works and how we got to this point. So, it has been a known item. Um it's been uh included and passed forward from the 2008 comp plan to the 2018 comp plan. And um certainly it was something that in about 20 thou I think it was actually probably the comp plan preparation in 2017 2018 that triggered some discussion about okay well it's been quite some time decades let's say that we've known about this. How much is it going to cost? What's the recommended location? You know should we look at different locations? What are some construction alternatives? what are some different types of towers and different types of materials of towers to consider and what might be uh the best thing that we can determine at that time to make a recommendation within what we called a a tower sighting study. Now that was complete I think we might have started that study in 2018. I think it was completed in 2019 and then with a little bit of COVID there I think it was kind of delayed before it was officially received by council. I don't have the date handy, but I'm I'm believing that the final date was like early in 2020 when it was received by council. And again, that was just receipt of a study. There wasn't any action taken. It was just information that was presented at that time, which included uh basically uh some of the background as I mentioned, some of the alternatives evaluated and then a recommendation. Um it did look at as I mentioned different locations throughout the city. uh it looked at different types of towers and ultimately um what was included in the final recommendation was a type of tower. So that's a a composite tower. Um and composite it is just the type of construction versus I don't know steel. I think what we have now is a a elevated steel tower at the north tower. Um and composite looks a little bit different. It's uh you may it's a little more modern design. Uh there's one mono column I guess in the middle and then the storage areas on top of that as opposed to what we have now which is uh four independent columns and bracings and structure which which elevate that the storage area on top. Um, and one of the reasons for that recommendation was that the study looked at not only the initial cost and and so some of the the initial costs were evaluated and and compared among different types of construction, but also the life cycle cost. And I can't remember if it was out 25 or 30 or 35 years, but looking at the life cycle cost and the type of maintenance that you need to do on a composite tower is a little bit less than it is on a classic steel construction tower or other versions of that. And so looking at the upfront capital cost of the tower plus the ongoing maintenance. So every guessing on this cycle, but every 10 to 15 years, it's necessary to um strip and paint sometimes both the outside and the inside or just the outside and kind of refinish that tower. And so with a composite tower, there is a little bit less of painting and repainting that needs to happen. general ongoing maintenance is less costly and less um I don't know potentially problematic from a coordination standpoint or trying to stay on top of it. And so actually if you looked at and we did look at that kind of life cycle cost over 30 plus years the composite tower did come out to be less expensive and so that was what was recommended. So, it's a little more expensive upfront, uh, but less expensive overall over the life cycle. And I think that it was wellreceived by the council public works as well. I think we all know the challenges with, um, staying on top of maintaining aging infrastructure, right? And so, um, that recommendation, I guess, was wellreceived at that point. And so that that wound up being the final recommendation for the type of tower. The size again dictated by those 10 state standards. Uh Ron might remember all the exact gallons, but it is a larger size than what we have out there. So we're um we're increasing the overall total capacity for storage that we have through the city by contemplating constructing a larger tower at the north tower site. Now, from a sighting standpoint, we looked at all different uh a few different options. And you know, it's not like the city owns tracks of land throughout the city. I think they looked at a few different locations for uh land that was, you know, of a high enough elevation, but was actually uh not owned by the city, but could be potential areas and sites. And really what rose to the top from a location standpoint is the idea of using it's Tower Park, right, Ron? Yeah. So, so the that we call it Tower Park. So that's that area um that surrounds the existing tower. We have some playground equipment there. I think there might be some other amenities or maybe it's just kind of passive green space in that whole area. We also have a whole lot of uh cellular wireless companies that lease space on the existing tower there. So there's some equipment cabinets at the bottom uh and some different infrastructure and obviously underground there are uh previously designed and um in use large pipe diameter trunk water manes that come that that that either feed into the tower or feed out of the tower to basically supply the rest of the system and charge it with pressure. So the fact that that infrastructure uh meaning the underground piping and the the trunk connections throughout the city all exists prior. So there's not a need to reconstruct you know miles of streets to upsize water mane to a larger trunk size to get to another site. Plus the fact that actually the upon evaluation of that site, there is enough room to be able to contemplate constructing the new tower next to the existing tower and leave that tower online, which is uh I would say a very large risk mitigation benefit to the city that you don't have in some some instances you have to take a tower offline and you're just that much shorter on storage the whole time that you're building the new tower, right? So the potential approach here uh again as contemplated in the study would be to leave the old tower online. Uh there may be some conflicts with uh existing playground or recreational equipment, but I think we knew that that would be a part of it. So that would need to be salvaged and put into storage or otherwise repurposed or moved uh temporarily. but build the new tower generally next to the old tower um and keep the old one online, reconnect all of the existing underground water infrastructure to the new tower, take the old one offline. Once we have the new one online, then the old one can be demolished, which is a process in and of itself. So that's not, you know, easy construction by any means, but uh dismantle and demolish the existing tower, take that offline, and then we have an area that can be repurposed, potentially moving the playground equipment over to that location, or maybe that's something for the council or park and wreck to consider. Well, you know, do we want to make a change from a park and wreck standpoint, or is there some opportunity there? That would be something that's not necessarily included in our uh estimates uh for construction cost. Um, but it is an opportunity, right? And I think it makes sense to kind of uh consider that knowing that the opportunity to build a new tower and keep the old one online is a a a big advantage to the city to try to take u to take on with this type of project. And like I said, maybe it creates some opportunities for other nonwater related things that can happen separately, but potentially at the same time or immediately after. Yes, council member Woods. >> I just had a quick question. Sorry, I >> Oh, totally fine. This is meant to be interactive. >> So, rough estimate, you know, and I know this is, you know, all theoretical. I apologize. I haven't seen the study. Um, but and barring any unforeseen issues, what kind of time frame are we talking from start of building the new one to completion of demolishing the old one? >> Yeah. So, that's an excellent question. So, uh, typically on a water tower, you have one year of design and one year of building. And because we're talking about then demolishing the old tower afterwards, I guess I I can't say right now for sure that it would all happen in one year from a construction standpoint. There might be some things that spill into year two from a construction standpoint, >> especially considering maybe some park renovations or, you know, moving some stuff around from that standpoint. Again, separate from the the the water tower budget. But I would expect um in effect two-year or two-year plus uh from a design and construction standpoint. Um, we are just, you know, off-the- cuff spitballing uh, conversations between myself, public works, and Brian. I think we're thinking that 2028 might be the construction year, 2027 might be the design year. Uh and we've got an opportunity here depending on when the grant agreements come through from the straight uh from the state to once that's finalized and money is available, we certainly could start some work in 2026, which you know, it's difficult to pick up survey information and locate utilities and pick up the paint lines for all the different, you know, uh cellular providers and all the stuff that's in that area. Easier to pick that up like before the snow flies in 2026. uh geotechnical soil boring, stuff like that. that's easier to do outside of the winter months >> and really give the design team an opportunity to hit the ground running in early 2027 or whatever time frame makes sense to really start >> uh working on the design so that we have everything ready for bidding in winter 2728 so that we are taking bids kind of in a a good time frame where contractors slates for 2028 construction are clean. uh hopefully put together a package that's highly competitive, you know, get several good bids and can recommend award to council at that time again probably like we would do with a street project like uh February, March, April or something like that of 2028 knowing that we would uh if council awarded a contract then then they would probably get going as soon as uh road restrictions are off which if I had to guess you know it's different every year but that's >> May 1st to May 15th every year is kind of what I would use for a general planning standpoint. There certainly is also with this type just from a timing standpoint to further flesh out your question. There's more opportunity for different things like because we are in a res we're surrounded by a residential area there some public engagement. um not necessarily talking about, you know, design by committee, but certainly letting people know what um to anticipate, what's the timeline, what type of uh things and when can they expect them to happen knowing that it's, you know, probably across the street. I would think it would make sense to do some level of public engagement um for that immediate neighborhood and maybe even open to the general public if they're interested because, you know, one of two towers is a big deal. That's probably just a once in a lifetime kind of thing for the city of North St. Paul, right? So, not trying to slam it all into like six months I think is is a good thing, right? that if we can think about and I haven't started working on pre-esign or proposals or anything at this point but at some point I think it makes sense that we put something together for you to consider so that again we can at least start some of that data collection like borings survey utility location um yeah all the collection that goes into the process before you start before the designers start working on it. So again, they can have the the benefit of doing that in the winter months when everything's frozen up and and snow's on the ground. >> Okay. Um follow-up question to that. Um from a con bidding and slashconstruction perspective, I assume building a water tower is a fairly >> um specialized deal. >> Um so there's probably certain companies that do this >> that is that I guess so you're nodding. So that's true. Okay. >> Yeah. Uh so um yeah, typically we're going to have a need for references and all the typical things like we would for any project to make sure that the contractor has the resources and the personnel. Uh certainly the uh bonding capacity and uh ability to complete the work. Um again from a references standpoint I think we always ask for you know two or three successful water towers that you have built not just kind of contributed on but you know a a water tower that you've built similar in scale and scope and we'll check those references with other cities to make sure that you know they don't have any black marks on their record. We could go so far as to this would take some coordination with the city attorney, but there is the ability to build in um pre-qualification requirements where you know contractors will have to submit some of that information even before they submit the bid or while they submit the bid. there's kind of a scoring that goes on to make sure that they are qualified to submit the bid again based on references or based on uh similar type of work completed for other communities. That may or may not be something that we need to do. I guess in my experience, I've done it several times on projects where uh not necessarily a water tower project, but other projects where the the owner, the city is concerned like they don't want to have to contemplate awarding to a low bid, which is state statute, to a contractor that might not be qualified. So, when it has happened and we've gone through the effort and work to build that into the the contract or the bidding documents, which is a little bit of extra work, not a lot. Um, but when we have done that before, every time I've been involved with a project like that, I think maybe just having that on the front end scares off the the contractors that like they're not going to submit something. And and I wouldn't expect that uh this type of work would I mean, you wouldn't be getting like people that do just miscellaneous utility work or you know, like if you're putting a a a roadway project together and you get a bid from somebody who only does driveways, right? like that's not the same scale, right? So, with a water tower, a water tower is a water tower. There's big ones and there's small ones, but we're certainly going to be interested in qualified contractors that have completed that work before. So, that's something we consider we can consider. Um, and for the folks uh that I work with at WSB that design and bid and build these types of things um on a more regular basis, I I would probably ask their judgment like, do you think we need to, you know, have you seen any bids out there where people are just kind of throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks? And if they're not really seeing that out there, uh, which they may not, then maybe it doesn't really, you know, warrant building those sorts of things into the contract. But, you know, we certainly can again as we get closer as we kind of move through the process. That would be something that would probably be determined and recommended within from a staff standpoint uh even before we come to the council for authoriz authorization to go out for bid. And if we did come to that determination, I would probably let the council know at that time that that we have built that into the bidding process. >> Yeah. And that's I would say, you know, from my perspective, that's one of the advantages of working with WSB. Um because this is a like you said once in a lifetime thing. So it's not one of those things that you do all the time and you have you know history of what you need to do and what you what goes into it. It's just like >> never done this before. We don't know. I mean not that we don't know what we're doing but you know we're relying on your expertise a little bit. >> Yeah. We've we've done many towers. I think the most recent one might have been in Wyoming. I want to say that they just built one like that's one one year old or two years old. Okay. >> Yeah. That's a composite one. when I saw it. >> Yes. Yes. And they were they when we were doing our study in 201 whatever 1819 I think around that time they were kind of studying the same thing. They just I think they had that funded not with state funds and already in their CIP. So obviously that got designed and built a little bit more su uh quicker than than ours but uh again the state funding is kind of the the major lever at play here for for moving this project forward in in our instance. >> I have a question too. People have been asking residents when they're walking by asking about the water tower and also on um our up on the north side of the of the city up by Indian Way and and Beam. We're on a pretty big hill. >> Mhm. >> I know we're going from 300,000 gallons to 750,000 gallons for the water tower. Is that going to help the pressure? Because I know the pressure when you get up towards that end of town is pretty weak. So will this >> Yeah. So we did this >> the right location. >> Yeah. uh both in conjunction with the comprehensive water plan which is a part of the overall comprehensive plan and in this sighting study we did like we do now have a complete water model for the entire system that has been calibrated based on pressure readings throughout the city. So, you know, a model is only a model. It's not reality. But it does help us look at different pressures and and run scenarios too in terms of a a different elevation of the tower or a different location of of a new tower, for example. Um, the findings of kind of that that pressure study, if you will, which was an add-on to the sighting study, uh, determined that we don't there are lower pressures throughout the city. And so I don't want to take away from people's perceptions, but we are within uh 10 state standards for we don't have any areas within the city that fall below um kind of that recommended lowest range of pressure. And I don't want to say the number because I can't remember exactly, but I we did look at that. We don't have a pressure deficiency in the city. And once and there is a hydraulic grade line uh out there in terms of where the water level is within the tower. And typically if you have multiple towers and you just have one pressure zone within the city in theory the elevation by um like above sea level type of thing like where the water sits is going to be about the same between the two towers. Now there might be some exceptions to that and like even if the lay of the land is different again the water elevation should be about the same if you're all within the same pressure zone. Um we did look at well what if the city did separate into uh two different pressure zones? What would that take? Um and it didn't there it resulted in no real benefit but for a lot of expense to be able to isolate the north part of the city with the south part of the city because we have three or four only three or four crossings uh of highway 36. So that lent itself to looking at what if we had two different pressure zones. Um but it's a lot of additional uh infrastructure and you need to have uh pressure regulating valves at those interface points um for emergency connection but also isolated pressures between the two. Uh and it didn't really lend itself to any sort of significant improvement knowing that we're still within that normalized 10 state standards range for uh high pressure to low pressure. And in fact, if I remember correctly, there was some concern because of the topography of the city, if we did raise the pressure overall, um that would make the pressure too high in those lower areas, lowerlying areas of the city, which would require uh homeowners to get um pressure reducing valves on their home plumbing, for example, coming into the home. So, it was creating problems by solving problems, I guess, is the ultimate outcome, if I can kind of describe it like that. and and so that that didn't really go anywhere, but we did look at it. So, >> will there be inspections of all the piping that the water will run through through city streets and that underneath all our residentials that are there any pipings that's going to have to be replaced? >> Y >> in that time frame before they start running the water or they'll they'll be able to cap it, I suppose. >> Yeah. So, one thing that would typically occur during the design process would be full leak testing, which the city already does, I think, citywide and I think maybe even annually. Yeah. So, so public works does contract with uh a firm or individual who kind of specializes in leak detection work to try to because we have aging infrastructure and if you can pick up a leak, right, >> uh ahead of time, then that's always advantageous to try to help plan projects or whatever. uh maybe preempt water main brakes certainly for this area and Tower Park and maybe some of the adjacent roadways because there are large trunk pipes in the adjacent roads that kind of connect out to the system. We'll try to get a handle on if we're seeing any leaks. Public works can exercise valves, see if we have any bad valves. All of that stuff is going to want to be determined beforehand to see uh what may need to be included in the scope. But I think it's important to remember that um we we should try to not uh succumb to scope creep. Like there always may be things in the street or the next street or the next block that can and should be addressed. But we have the benefit of $4.5 million from the state um to address our water tower issues and concerns and some of the replacement of the existing pipes like definitely within Tower Park probably will need to be reconfigured. We may have all new piping frankly and and some of the old piping that serves the old tower location might just need to be abandoned or dug up and and uh properly disposed of. Uh that said, uh there will be investigation that goes into that. There may be, you know, we may limit it to just the streets that immediately surround the area just so we get an understanding and if there's something that we can build in that again serves the overall purpose of replacing the tower. Uh there's no reason why we can't include that, but we do have a hard stop on the funds. I mean, you know, anything over the 4.5, which we think is adequate, but you just don't really know until you get into the the full design. The 4.5 >> with the state is a >> radiator in the car. Next thing you know, all your hoses and everything. >> Yeah. You know, we we've been tracking within the CIP and then also working with the legislature what I like to call planning level estimates or CIP level estimates. uh we do have the benefit of the study which did look you know it did a deeper dive but that study is also um not quite 10 years old but uh you know it's getting up there in terms and there's been a lot of inflation we had double digit inflation for a couple years from a construction cost index standpoint coming out of COVID so um we have done updates to that but I think once we get into uh the full design we whether we're talking about preliminary design we'll probably do an estimate at that point you know 30% through the process. We'll do another estimate at 60%, we'll do another estimate at 90 and 100% right before we go to bid, which is what we do on every project. And we'll be able to kind of track and hopefully the city will be able to prepare if there is a little bit of need for uh some city funds, which you know, I can't predict right now, but hopefully we'll get a handle on that and understand um what that number is or uh if anything's needed at all. I mean it could be that we are we've got enough contingency built in with that planning level estimate already. That's what we try to do and that's the hope. Uh but once you get into that final detailed design that's when you really know. So more to understand on that in 2027 I guess is what I would report to council. >> Um two questions for you if you don't mind and again thank you for all this information. um between the I'll call it traditional and the composite um towers is there any um difference in the capability of auxiliary revenue generation to the to be able to support the cell towers and and all the auxiliaries. >> That's a really good question. Um I mean you know larger I can't say definitively but logically larger tower surface area and places to affix antennas and assuming that the city is okay with this and the lease agreements and I think that potentially all the existing lease agreements are going to have to be re-examined and maybe renewed or transferred over right so there's going to be some leg work behind the scenes but if you have more room to put antennas I think you might have more room to enter into additional lease agreements. And it seems like there's no shortage from the wireless companies. Like they they if they can hang an antenna and if it makes business sense for them, they certainly will. And I think the north tower is kind of maxed out for antenna space. >> Oh, we don't know. >> We don't know. Okay. So, I guess I just don't know for sure, but certainly the capacity for additional might be potentially realized with a new larger tower. I don't think it has much to do with composite versus traditional. I think it's more of a square footage of real estate really. >> It looks like the composite and the other one have the same amount of space on the top as the shaft that seems to be more. >> It's the support and that mono column or whatever it's called that is visually different and the construction material is a little different to get to that point. But you know those towers all go on the top and then the what they call the back hall or like all the facility information uh facilities that are at the bottom like the control cabinets or not control cabinets but I don't know just all the telecommunication equipment that goes that that's all at the bottom right and I don't it's been a little while since I've visited the site so you know you can't with a with a composite mono column um you can't put anything right underneath it. And I don't think that we allow anything under directly underneath the tower anyway. So, you know, we would just have to when we're sighting the whole area, we're going to want to make sure that we identify the area where we want those folks to be. I know there was a lot of discussion about fencing in years past uh for the existing tower and I don't know where that landed but um we would want probably the telecommunications providers to up their game and modernize the their ability to screen their equipment you know and there's several different ones I don't know who they are but it could be Verizon and T-Mobile mobile and AT&T and some of them have merged and bought with each other but if we can consolidate things to make this overall all site more uh aesthetically pleasing maybe, but also more efficient from a access standpoint and maybe keep those folks separate from people that are using a playground on the other side of the park. You know, I think that's what we would try to achieve. Um the city of North St. Paul has a long-standing relationship with KLM engineering who specializes with uh specializes on tower inspections and tower um construction and and some design components and uh also antennas and and uh the city's used them for many many years and so they would certainly be on the WSB team to help inform on that. >> Thank you. Um and then this is a major um water project. What are your recommendations if there are any that the city can do different and or better so we're not in the same position we were just recently with the introduction to um the bacteria that cause the need for chlorination on such a big water project? Um >> um yeah well so certainly uh as is included in our standard specifications that uh you know are used on every city project that I've been a part of. the disinfection protocols need to be followed um we need to have adequate testing um before during and after you know building that tower to make sure everything is um meeting standards before putting it online right um there's no need to rush anything because we have the old tower uh in place you know if we follow kind of the recommendation of the study and we're able to follow through on that approach so I think just being uh patient and uh thoughtful and making sure that all the tees are crossed and the eyes are dotted with respect to disinfection and testing. That's certainly something that I would expect to see. Um if there's other things that will be looked at during pre-esign and design that we can maybe build into the project knowing that, you know, we do not currently chlorinate. Um, I can't say exactly what those would be, but you know, my expectation is that the designers are going to be looking at that, making recommendations, and certainly including that. I don't think it's even a question. We should include any sort of things that will provide benefit along those lines in the construction contract or in the specifications or even in how we consider designing it, right? or laying it out for the contractor in terms of what we would expect for them to approach it from a construction standpoint and demolition standpoint. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? I guess one thing I thought of um when we were talking about uh additional you know potential revenue generating opportunities. This is different than that but something that is worth considering I guess in um when I was in Rosemont we built a new tower. Uh that was 20 years ago now. But um there was a lot of discussion about what color do you paint it and or what color do you want it to be and what do you want the logo to look like and what sides do you put the logo on or the text on and front back both sides facing east west all four corners of the compass I don't know right um these are all aesthetic things and we can get um recommendations and I would you know have make sure that whatever the city wants to do that it's an opportunity to be explored doesn't cost that much more to put a logo on it than it does to just put North St. Paul on it. Right. So, you might as well consider different designs, different graphics that can happen >> like the sphere in Vegas, >> put some eyeballs on it. Yeah. >> Put a snowman on there. I mean, we can't make it look like a snowman, but there's certainly opportunity to do some cool things from a branding standpoint uh or, you know, logo standpoint or whatever, right? A lot of communities will put maybe the name of the city and maybe if there's a tagline or, you know, something that they want to include. Uh, again, >> Wyoming has uh horses in the like the old west on their >> Yeah, I think that's their city logo or something similar to that. >> There's a shamrock on Rosemont. >> Yep. Yeah. And the discussion in Rosemont. So, that was a tower that was kind of going to serve future development. Um, and it was off of uh Bonire Trail and uh which was at the time a rural road and there was really nothing but rural a land or rural lots to the north. It's some of the development had already happened to the south. So there was a lot of discussion about do we even put a logo on the north because nobody's going to see it. There's nobody over there to see it. So you know maybe we should I think that's what they decided. Let's just put it on the south side. Right. So uh and uh another cool thing which I would want to try to see if we could build into the design process uh as a going along with that is we can provide uh we call them visualizations but they're basically mockups. You may have you know for architecture whatever they'll kind of create a potentially a 3D drawing of what the building might look like from the outside or maybe even you can walk through it. That's pretty standard and easy to do from a water tower standpoint. So, you know, we could pick a few vantage points from like people's front yards that uh are immediately adjacent or maybe, you know, uh what it would look like driving down um an adjacent uh roadway, you know, or what does it look like? Can you even see it from city hall? I don't know. But we could, you know, once you have that information in three dimensions kind of plugged into the system, you can create a view from anywhere. You can see what it looks like at night. I guess that would be another thing. How do you want it lit at night? Uh you can see what it looks like in the winter time and the summertime. I the, you know, the opportunities are endless in terms of once you get it in there and what you want to see or how you want to see the visual impact from different perspectives. So, I think that's another opportunity too as well that um would be fairly simple to build into the project and at the same time provide some nice benefit to the community so they know what they're getting. >> I have a question for you. >> Yes. >> Um so that study that was done for was a sighting study. I didn't know how much engineering went into it. So the numbers that they use there is a $300,000 or $300,000 gallon tank now going to a 750. Correct. Is that 750 was engineering done on that part? Is is for sure. >> Yeah. So that I referenced uh or previously mentioned the 10 state standards. So we did look at the overall city system existing storage and not just uh you know with the with the ultimate demolition of the existing tower and with the new one, how much do you need to add to bring it up to current 10 state 10 state standards? And uh you know the city's not growing substantially. So I'm pretty confident that there's no need to up that number that the 750,000galon recommendation would be the size that we'd wind up with. But again, starting the design process, you're always going to do some design checks on that just to make sure you're not seeing anything different. But I have zero information to let me believe that that number would significantly increase um if at all. Probably not is what I would guess. I didn't know how far along we were with the M&I development at the time. And one thing I was going to talk about later tonight is uh census information came out from Met Council. I think our housing units went up 400 some. I mean, population went up a little bit, but not a lot, but I didn't know if that was enough to change that. >> It was Yeah, it was all kind of happening around that same time if I remember correctly. And so again, you know, we would we have the existing water model now. we have some updated uh land use or you know uh generation of of water demand. Um and I don't think it would make a significant difference, but that would certainly be something they would double check with the most up-to-date numbers just to make sure that we're in the ballpark. And so, you know, if some nominal amount of storage needs to be added to uh make up for that fact, now would be the time to determine that and build that into the project. you know, we're not talking about changing um 750 to 1,50, right? I mean, the growth in North St. Paul has been, although it's been fairly remarkable for the city of North St. Paul, in the big scheme of things, we every time a new development comes in, we'll do capacity checks on the surrounding sanitary, sewer, and water man. And thus far, we have not uh with those plan reviews for new developments, we haven't identified major things like downstream or throughout the system that need to be um upgraded on the water system thus far. So, you know, if uh if all goes well and again, we're we've uh done our due diligence with that study and everything checks out with the more imminent pre-esign and and detailed design on an upcoming tower project that that would all be fleshed out. and we'll know well in advance I think especially during the pre-esign process if we're seeing any change there but I wouldn't anticipate anything just from what I've seen with development >> seems really interesting I've seen one being put up in Farable that uh they build the tank down below and then it's jacked up into places and they're done >> yeah I it's a fairly unique um construction process and if there there's people that live around there that are kind of armchair interested uh construction observers. It's going to be it's going to be something to see for sure. Uh it's not um it's not easy or standard. There's a lot of labor that goes into it. There's a lot of materials that go into it. So, it's going to be a pretty interesting process for sure from a construction standpoint. And there may be, I guess, uh, potentially some pre-work, which I didn't, we talked a little bit about, uh, the, um, cellular antenna, uh, cellular providers that have antennas. I'm certain that there's going to be, uh, some need to engage with those folks in 2027 as a part of the design process. And um you know they will have the luxury I guess if you will of the old tower staying in place while the new tower is being built but we also want that transfer and transition process to go as smoothly as possible. So they may want to start getting ready for it on their own end and do some pre-work even if they're not moving their antennas yet. Right. So I think we would call it utility coordination with private utility owners that might be within a street corridor or whatever uh type of project and this would be no different. So those go those folks would be engaged pretty early on I would think probably winter 26 27 to start out with just to hey just so you guys know this is coming in two years and work with us so that we understand what your needs are and you work with us so that we can communicate where you want to live on the new project. Um, like I said, how is it going to be screened? That sort of thing. Knowing that we need to finish our piece, and then we can cut those guys loose to be able to what I would imagine would happen because they don't want to uh lose cellular service. They probably want to put all new antennas on the old one and then dismantle the old one, dismantle the old antennas off of the old tower before we demolish the old tower so that if they can repurpose that equipment, they can. I don't think it's going to be like pick up the antenna and move it over here. That's what I would anticipate. >> One other question that Troy brought up at this year of our Tower Park. There's two buildings. Did those buildings have pumps in them and things like that? Um, see if I can get him up here. There he comes. Because is there going to be bigger buildings because bigger pumps or what is it going to look like besides the tower? What else are we going to have in that area? >> No. Uh, those buildings there are are two of our wells. That's wells one and two. So, those would those would stay the same. >> Um, yes. some of the other buildings that you see there. Um, one of I I believe it was AT&T is using the one now for their cell phone stuff that used to be a Nexel building. And then in part of that building too is also a backup generator. So all pretty much all those buildings will stay the same. >> Generator for the well. >> Backup generator for the well. >> Oh, okay. >> Yep. >> So really quick wise, there's really nothing else. It's all inside the frame or whatever it is. >> Yeah. the the piping that's up there. Uh we don't really have a good map of what's going on up there. So, like Morgan said, we'll do some locates, figure out we'll have to do some reworking up there because shutting the stuff off between the wells and the tower. Right now, it's kind of uh difficult. But, so when we get that new tower built, we'll >> I assume it's mostly gravity when it comes to a water tower being able to, you know, there's pumping, but there's also gravity in the water. >> Yep. The wells just basically fill the tower. And them wells can fill the tower on the south side of town, too. the way our system is set up, >> 750,000 gallon um tower we're going to have now, do we need bigger pumps or is that >> uh No, that that shouldn't change that shouldn't change that. Um it when we need more water or when we need more water, just another well comes on um to to fill the tower. So, we'll have to do some rebalancing. There's probably going to be some different valves um that we get that we put get put in. Um when you were talking about the pressures on the the north side of town, um we have been working with our SCADA guy to like Morgan said the water in the towers level itself depending on the heights um you know where they're at the towers. So one tower gets you know can basically right now the way our system works um is one tower turns on the well and one tower shuts off the well. So sometimes we have, it's not a problem, it's just we can't get one tower um as full as the other tower before a well shut off um because we don't have we can put some electronic valves in to try to help with that so we can get some more height in our water towers or for water storage. Um but we have been working with the SCADA guy on on trying to get the most capacity out of that. And I think when we do the new tower and we do start checking into this stuff a little more, I think we'll be able to control that a lot better. Um, by, you know, by doing that, getting some more water in the towers to produce a little more pressure. I don't know that if it will help out on the, you know, north side, but it's definitely something that we've been looking into. >> Yeah. And I would add that um although it might be a little out of scope as we really do this kind of deep more detailed dive into the design for the tower and obviously you're looking at the whole overall system as well. We might identify some things for the future or maybe concurrent, I don't know, outside of the scope of the the water tower project, but improvements that could benefit that either from a control standpoint like a SCADA standpoint or from um or from an infrastructure standpoint. U one of my other clients, the city of St. Paul Park had an elevation differential between their two towers and uh through building their water treatment plant, we determined that it would be beneficial to put I don't know exactly what it was. It was like a a a pressure regulating valve such that they could the one of the two towers that was always lower, it allowed them to pump more water in, but it wouldn't flow back out as quickly. So again, it just maximizes the amount of storage within their two towers. and you guys have a kind of a similar situation going on there. I don't know if it's exactly the same, but we'll be able to flesh a lot of that out with some of the data collection, more detailed design, coordination with public works, and if we identify some things for the future or concurrent, you know, those will uh be a part of the recommendation and and a record for, you know, this council, current public works, future public works, right? So we may uncover some some future things that are yet to be determined at this point. >> Can you explain SCADA? >> Uh yes, simply it's basically the the uh computer that monitors our system for so the SCADA system monitors our all of our lift stations and then all of our wells. It's all of our alarms. Um so our lift station or so we'll just talk water since we're talking water. Um, it basically it gives us a low tower alarm, a high tower alarm. Uh, it they're in all of our wells. It tells us when our wells are pumping, when they're when they're not pumping. Uh, if you know we have a lead and a leg pump, um, you in our lift stations. So, if there's higher flow, uh, another pump will turn on, but it monitors all that. And we can monitor all that. It's on our phones. It's on all the public works guys phones. um >> go like you get overnight alarms if there's an issue or a problem. >> Yep. If we let's say we have a I don't say we have a water break. Um if we have that and it's a really bad one, it could it could drain the tower. We've had it where drain the tower in a half hour. So we get a low water tower alarm. When that happens, everything is set up for uh wells to turn on to, you know, hey, it gets down to a certain we set the tower heights for low level. Um if it gets down to 19 ft, uh this pump kicks on. If it gets down to 18 1/2 ft, another pump kicks on. If it gets below that, another uh pump will kick on from another well. So, we have them where it's all set up where there's redundancy where there's always water pumping in your system because you never want a water tower to go low or your pipes to go dry because you have to do a boil order for something like that to happen. But that SCADA system monitors all that. And if we get a low tower alarm, we get a text, we get an email, we get a call, and every guy on our crew gets that. it goes down in an order, myself, Randy, you know, goes down to a pecking order in there, but every single person will get all three of those things. Um, so we can monitor that. And like I said, it it's a super helpful tool tool. And when we upgraded our SCADA a few years back, we went with a new um company. And then the guy that we have by luck, we got him. One of our guys on our crew was at Water School and they were kind of just talking, this company was talking about this stuff. We have one of the best guys around. Everyone knows him. He's very well known. He's super knowledgeable with this stuff. He talks way over our heads on a lot of this stuff. But it really helps us um with monitoring everything that goes on. And we have to have that stuff in place. Um, you know, the the lift stations, you know, lift stations a low low point in town where all the sewage flows into because our system is a gravity system or are our sewer going out of town. It's all gravity. Um, and these low parts in town flow into a a wet well and then when that gets certain, you know, a certain height filled up, it gets pumped up and out. Um, and we've had those where, you know, we have problems with those. If they the pumps don't turn on or a pump gets clogged with something, um, there's multiple pumps in there. There's two pumps, but we get alarms if one of them fails. So, we can go out there and find out what's going on. So, >> I appreciate that. What it does is, you know, as a resident, we turn on our faucet to water. What's so elaborate? What's behind it, all the different fail safes, all the different being able, you know, it's pretty impressive when you look at the system we have and, you know, the failovers and the redundancy and what happens. >> Yeah. And you know for me or for being you know having to be in char or having to be responsible for the stuff and having to answer to all the residents in town and you know making sure that we have clean safe drinking water making sure your sewage goes away when you flush your toilet. You know if one of those things fails a lift station you it could have a sewer backup in multiple homes um you know in that area. So when stuff like that goes off or when you get that alarm um you know a low water tower alarm the first thing you're thinking of is what what happened what broke or you know what's going on. So yeah >> it also provides some uh maintenance opport or uh you know it's logging like how long the pumps run and that sort of thing or whether it's a lift station or the wells. public works can review that data and get an idea of is one of these pumps starting to burn out, for example, or is it ready to be replaced because the run times are just too long or it's not able to keep up or whatever. They they don't last forever and so we can get an idea of when things need to be maintained based on all that data. >> Yep. It keeps track it keeps track of all of our pumping, what we pump every day for water. um you it it logs every all that all that data and all the information and it's what I have to report each year to the DNR to the state to the I mean all these different entities I mean they want to know your highest pumping day what what is the most you pumped in a day what is the least you pumped in a day what you what you pump in a year um and it does trends all the the ska keeps track all these trends like Morgan said for the water pumping for the lift stations and you can tell Hey, on a daily basis in the morning, you know, the lift stations go off every, you know, 30 minutes, they go off and during the day you with when people are not at home, it might go every hour. So, you can kind of see those trends and see if something's going on or what's going on or you know how it looks. So, >> when was the last time you had a pump broke go down? >> A lift station pump. >> A lift station pump. Yeah. >> Um, well, it's it's been a while. um for a while your chance >> for 11th so 11th Avenue uh the pumps were going down uh I shouldn't say going down they're getting clogged uh a couple times a week and we found out that um there was the security tags from Target >> they were getting flushed down the toilets and they were getting they were like the perfect size and they were getting stuck in our pump >> and there we we found like it said multiple times times a week we were getting a pump fail alarm or it wasn't pumping enough and these tags were ended up being the perfect size and they were getting stuck in the pump. I mean, we got to the point where we talked to Target and we were going to make them buy us pumps or help us pay for pumps because or, you know, they had to kind of up security. People were going in the bathrooms flushing the >> tags, right? Yeah. They're they're taking the tags off and flushing them down the >> top. And we end up getting a different uh velute at the bottom that sucks the water in and it's a different size where those tags weren't getting stuck. And I think they kind of did a little work too on their security where it became it became less and less. But for it was probably gez 6 months where that we really were fighting that and it was happening a lot. Um but the pumps are pretty solid. There's two pumps in there. Um, so you know, we do have backup, but they alternate when they pump each time, you know, and there's a certain runtime that we have on each one of them, you know, that we, you know, but like I said, you can see that trend and how they how they pump and what they do or how often they need to both come on. Um, but yeah, it's been uh pretty solid right now. So, >> kind of like back in we were younger, the restroom keys were tied to a cinder block. Is that what they got? >> Yeah. I don't know what it was and it was kind of like them tags were the perfect size and it would really cause a problem with you know our pumping. So >> that was great explanation. Like I said we just turn it on and it works and we appreciate what happens behind the scenes. >> I I appreciate you asking because you know I sit up here and talk about this is something we talk about every day and you know for you guys not not to I'm glad that you asked a question. So, >> and in 20 years I've been talking about SCADA, but I've never known what the acronym stands for, so I just looked it up. It's supervisory control and data acquisition. >> Okay. >> But it's the industry standard for basically if there's a lot of talk out there about smart cities right now. SCADA was the original smart cities uh thing that that everybody adopted decades ago to try to help automate and understand and control their infrastructure systems whe whether that's wastewater or water. It's been around for some time and it's pretty sophisticated technology truly. I mean you you can pull up on your phone or a tablet or laptop or whatever and you can get a graphical depiction of everything that's going on. So it's it's pretty impressive. >> Not a video game, but It looks like one. I'll have to We'll have to maybe sometime we can have a little demo of it. I can do it in a workshop just kind of show you. It's really kind of cool. And you know, like you said, they have pictures of the wells and the lift stations. They're generic pictures, but it there's a heartbeat on there that shows each one of the each one of the facilities, each one of the wells, each one of the lift stations showing you that it is communicating. Um but you know if we get a lightning strike or if we get a power outage or just something brief it can throw that off and then we get tons of alarms you know that hey this is down or communication fail or whatever it might be. So then one of the things where um you know it's given me gray hair over the years where alarm goes off and you're like what is this? But on the on the flip side of that too, it's also a ton of information that we can see at a glance and kind of troubleshoot over your phone or your laptop, you know, and and log on and kind of figure out what's going on. So, >> cool. Thank you. >> Yep. Any other questions about sighting or tower construction or >> how much earth will be have to be scraped down to uh level it out down there? >> Well, that's a good question. That's why we do soil boring so we have a good understanding in and around the area especially where um you know a lot of structural uh weight and mass is going to be added to an area. So, I couldn't say right now if there's soil corrections needed, but um I would not be surprised if uh a lot of non-engineering uh compatible soils, meaning non-granular material will have to be uh exported and replaced with, you know, granular material so it could be compacted and so that footings and foundations can be built on top of that. >> Will they have to remove the uh the shelter down there? you think? >> Don't know. >> I don't know that. I I don't know >> where it's going to go. >> I think when we're just roughly talking about this um you know, over the past couple of years, I I think they're talking about maybe having it over where the playground is right now. So, it it may have to I guess we'll just have to see what the lay of the land looks like. >> Let the residents know it's going to be closed for a while. Yeah, I would expect um you know when we did the sighting study, we're just kind of looking at blobs on a map and and whole parcels, but really when you start the design process, that's where we're going to look at >> where exactly um what makes sense from a vehicular access for maintenance standpoint. How are they going to, you know, access both the wells for pre-existing infrastructure and the new tower from a, you know, again, public works vehicular andor equipment standpoint? Also, how are the antenna uh owners going to get in and out of there without being too disruptive to the public uh and so that we can keep the site clean and also keep it multi-purpose, meaning that I would anticipate that the ongoing recreational and passive green area is going to remain. it just might need to be reconfigured. And so we would want to try to come up with uh a recommended or designed location that's hopefully going to be the most efficient uh cost effective from a construction standpoint, but also best from an ongoing operations and maintenance standpoint as we can come up with. Also, would they if these tower or these uh cellular groups uh want to put new antennas on, would they be able to attach them before the tower goes up? >> No. That's that's something that happens after >> once they get up >> is erected and >> we have a fully functioning structurally solid and and >> probably there may even be a situation where uh we don't want anybody touching it until it's out of warranty. Uh I don't know exactly, but that they're going to want access to it as soon as they can, but we also need to look out for our our uh best interest first. So, uh, but certainly I I've I've never been aware of that being attached prior to erection. That's >> I just Yeah, I didn't all they do that. >> There's always access either internal or external and I think on a composite structure, you know, all the access is internal. Um, but, you know, you you can walk to the top and usually there's a hatch somewhere and so, you know, there there's the ability to get up there whether it's for antennas or maintenance purposes, one way or another. All right. Thank you all for your great information and it's a great kick off to a great project. >> Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you. >> All right. With that, we have this 619 call for journ till 6:30. So moved. So moved. Council member Woods. Second. Second. Council member McKenzie. All those in favor say I. I. Right. See you in about 10.