Um, would you like to do a roll call,Sarah? >> Yes. Uh, Laura Greenley Karp is absent.Sarah Zaratka >> here.>> Lloyd Grachek >> here.>> Ingred Kohler >> here.>> Rachel Lucas >> here.>> William Keley is absent. And Cassie Schweer is not here yet.>> All right. Um, would we like to make a motion to adoptthe agenda? So moved. >> Any discussion?>> All right. Uh we would like to make an order for um approval of minutes.>> I will. >> A vote. Oh,>> sorry. A vote to adopt the agenda. All in favor say.>> I. >> I.>> All those opposed. So moved. >> All right. Thank you. Will we like tomake a motion for approval of minutes? >> I will make a motion to approve theminutes. Great. Any discussion?Let's take a vote. All in favor? I. >> All those opposed?All right. We are open to the public. Anyone? Okay. With no one from thepublic, we can move on to the first action of business, which is um by Jackhere, our legal, our city attorney. Take it away.>> Hello, Madam Chair, members of the parks and rec commission. Uh my name is JackBrooksbank. I'm the city attorney for North St. Paul. Um it's nice to meet allof you in person. I think we've sent an email or two around. Um, you may haveseen me if you've seen the uh, city council meetings. I usually sit overthere on the side, so I'm nice and out of the way. Um, here tonight just tokind of run through some of the kind of uh, basic um, kind of public governanceand transparency type laws uh, that apply to you as in your roles as publicofficials on the parks and recck commission. Um, the point of thispresentation is to be useful for all of you. So, if at any point you have anyquestions, um, raise your hand, talk over me, what, whatever, you know, jumpin. If anything doesn't make sense, um, I'm here to answer your questions, makesure you get the info you need. Um, I'm not here to listen to myself talk. So,uh, that's kind of what we're going to go through here.I also, you know, um, I am the lawyer. It is my job to get up here and tell youthat you're not allowed to have any fun. Uh, so>> too late. Uh that's what I like to hear uh secretly. Um so I am going to betalking about a lot of the kind of rules and restrictions that apply to you aspublic officials. Um I do just want you know it's a lot of don't do this, don'tdo that. This thing seems very scary, don't do that. Um it's not because I amsuspicious of any of you or think that you're doing anything wrong. We justwe're running through everything so that we're all on the same page. Some ofthese things are um tremendously counterintuitive. Uh, and we just wantto make sure, you know, the the purpose of my being here, the purpose of thecity having, you know, an attorney on retainer, um, they can call me in is tomake sure that you're protected. That's the number one thing that we want. Um, Ialways tell everyone, uh, it can be the easiest lawsuit, and I can I lovewinning lawsuits, but being in the lawsuit kind of already means that we'velost to some extent. It's a lot of time. It's a lot of hassle. Um,if you get called into a deposition, those can last for up to eight hours andthey are, trust me, extremely boring. Uh, so we're just trying to avoid all ofthat. Um, so that's kind of the the baseline here. Um, so I'm just going tokind of run run through things. I'll try not to just read my materials too much.Uh, but like I said, if you have any questions at any point, um, just let meknow. Kind of follow the outline here. So the the first two kind of go togethera little bit. Um so the open meeting law and data practices. So this is aboutpublic access to you to your discussions to your information. Um both of theselaws are passed as sort of public transparency um type laws. And the ideais that we're trying to avoid you know any kind of backroom dealing, secretdiscussions. Um and the phrase the legal phrase that gets used a lot iscorruption or the appearance of corruption. So, some of these thingsthey're written to go, you know, wider than you think maybe they have to. Uh,and the reason for that is just it's it's again it's that if someone can besuspicious of what's happening, um, we're sort of already seeding someground we don't want to. So, they're written to be a little rigid and theythey can be cumbersome, frankly. Um, and so I don't want to, you know, likesugarcoat that. and you're going to hear some of these requirements and you'regoing to say that seems silly and I uh might agree with you but unfortunately Idon't get the decision to say well we should just not do that. Um that's thelegislature that does that. Uh so the open meeting law as the name suggests uhmeans that we have to have our meetings out in the open in public. Um thedefinitions of what counts as public, what counts as open and also what countsas a meeting are broader than you might think. So a meeting is when a quorum ofany public body and parks and rec commission you're a public body. So whena quorum of public body is together and that's to make a decision to discuss apossible decision or to obtain information about a possible decision.And so that's a really broad you know discussion really broad definition ofwhat that counts as. Um, so that covers most types of discussion, frankly. Um,anytime that you're talking about business that's in front of thecommission or possible business that's in front of the commission, arguablythat could be a meeting if there's a quorum. Now, again, there's a um we havewe have the full seven right now. Yes. Um, so the seven members on thecommission, so a quorum of the commission is four people. So any fourpeople in one place um having a discussion about city business, that's ameeting. Um,a meeting can also be, right, it's about that discussion. So, it's notnecessarily an in-person meeting. So, that's the other big thing is that ameeting could be uh one of you sends an email to the rest of you. Uh, if thereare if there's a quorum CCD on one email, that could constitute a meeting.Um, if somebody else emails all of you at once, that doesn't count. they can'tlike make you have a meeting. Uh but if you reply all to an email that theentire commission is on, that could be a meeting. Um if that isn't, you know,done in out in the open in public with all the disclosures required, that couldbe a violation of the open meeting law. Uh the other big one that can happen isum Facebook comments or you know, social media. If there's four people like inthe comments on one thread, that also that does count as a meeting>> like under a post. >> Yeah. someone posts and we get like fourcomments from four different people about you know something city related umthat's potentially a meeting that's potentially a violation of the openmeeting law act. >> What if it's like personal relatedunrelated to city? >> So there is an exception for this whichis um like I said a um you know a meeting is making a decision discussingor obtaining information about business or potential business. So there is anexception for it's like a purely social event. Um so if someone has um you knowlike a Christmas party or you're you know doing something totally unrelatedto your um you know your duties as commissioners uh that does not count asa meeting. So if there if four of you happen to run into each other in theaisle at the grocery store that's probably not a meeting. Um if you starttalking about city business it becomes a meeting. Uh the other thing importanthere is a the meeting it's not based on like there's no formalities involved. Sothe fact that you're commenting from your personal Facebook account does notmean it's not a meeting. Um so just the fact that you're on your personal socialmedia commenting on personal things if you are commenting on you know thingsthat could be official business before you that could potentially count as ameeting. Now again, it's only a meeting if there's four people there. Um but youknow the so the the gold standard advice is um just don't talk about stuff thatmight come before the commission um outside of you know sort of the reallyofficial channels. Um obviously understanding we live in a modern worldand 100% just don't talk about it isn't really you know not really an option butjust being aware of that being careful with that. Um the other important thingto keep in mind, there's a thing called a serial meeting. Uh a serial meeting iswhere one person sends an email to one person who sends an email to one personwho sends an email to a fourth person. Now we have four people on an emailchain that is now a meeting. So um and again the idea of all of this is thatyou know the the decisions that you're making and the rationale for thosedecisions should all be hashed out in public at a public meeting. And so theidea that what we're trying to avoid is having you kind of discuss amongstyourselves, build the consensus, and then go out in public and take the votenow that you already know what you're going to do, right? We want that prothat thinking and that discussion to take place in public as well.>> What if we got three three commissioners in a city staff?>> Uh not a quorum, not a meeting. Um so that's why uh you will notice uh if youhave some subcommittees or things set up already you will notice all of thosewill be quorum minus one number of commissioners. Um that's whyum texting also could possibly constitute ameeting. Um now the good news is that uh if there is going to be a meeting, ifthere is something that four of you want to go to that might involve somediscussion of city business, um so something like uh you want to have parksand wreck night at the history cruisers or you know set up a booth or pass outflyers about an event. Um or you all four of you want to go to um you knowthe same yoga in the park event or something. Um it's pretty easy. The therequirements are fairly minimal. Um, so there's regular meetings. This is aregular meeting. You post to schedule those at the beginning of the year.Those are fine. Um, other than that, anything that's not a regular meeting iscalled a special meeting. And we just have to post about it at least threedays in advance. Uh, and city staff, they do this all the time. We postmeetings all the time. Um, so if you're thinking, oh, well, four of us are goingto be at some event. Just email Sarah and say, hey, four of us are going to beat this event. and we'll just post it and say potential meeting happening hereand then we're covered. Yes. >> Umso um if a lot of us are going, you know,hopefully a lot of us want to go to a lot of park events. So but we may notknow that the other is going um we won't know until we arrive at the eventperhaps. Um and and in that case is that considereda special meeting? if several park, you know, commissioners are at an a parkevent, which seems very likely. Um, and but yet we're not maybe one of ushas volunteered to work the event or two and the other two just show up. I mean,we don't know when we're going to be a meeting,>> a special meeting or a >> Yeah. And you know there's some sort ofpractical here. Again, the sort of you know purely private or purely socialevent exception does exist. And I will say if there are four park commissionersat a park event, um to somebody who is who who isn't, you know, right next toyou the whole time, that's going to look like a meeting if there's four parkcommissioners at a park event. Isn't that what we want is toparticipate in the park >> saying like if we have a concert in thepark like we don't all have to sit next to each other we can go and enjoy it andnot >> if you're if you're somewhere in thecrowd that's not necessarily you know it has to be like the four of you kind oftogether. So depending on the size of the event>> and does it have to do with what we're talking about like if we're notdiscussing a park event >> I mean a park.>> Yes. So, if all four of you are at a park event in a park talking aboutliterally nothing to do with city business, that is technically not ameeting. >> Mhm.>> If we get sued about that, we have to prove what you talked about.>> Okay. >> So, it's still a giant pain. So,>> yeah. >> And and again, the actual noticerequirements are pretty minimal. So, what I recommend doing normally is justif you think there's a possibility that you might have four people at an event,just post it. There is no penalty for posting for a meeting and then nothaving the meeting. >> There is only a penalty if you have ameeting without having posted it. >> And to post it means let Sarah know.>> Yeah. >> Which I do do that usually if I thinkthere's going to be Same with the arts commission. If we think there's apotential like a bigger event that the parks are doing,>> we post it anyway. you guys don't even know about it because there's not areason to. Great. >> Um, but>> always letting me know would be helpful too if you think you're>> because we don't often know. I'm not on Facebook. I'm I don't know when everyoneelse is going to be attending something until I'm there.>> Really? >> Answer my question.>> Exactly what I was Yeah. >> Good job, Sarah.>> Keeps track of as well. >> Yeah.>> So, if like each of us individually tell her we're volunteering, will she thencommunicate that to you, Sarah? >> Yep. Okay. Exactly. Okay. Yeah.Yeah. And something that I know the city council finds very helpful is they justtake a couple of minutes at the end of every meeting and they say, "Okay, whatare the events for the next they do every meeting every two weeks." So theysay, "What are the events for the next two weeks? Is anyone going to thoseevents?" Uh, and so they'll say, "Oh, we have a fire department thing on Friday.I was planning on going to that." And someone else will say, "Well, I wasplanning on going to that." And then if a third person says, "Oh, actually, Iwas thinking I might go to that, too." Then we just look over at the clerk andsay, "Okay, let's post that. >> Let's post it." Um, and so as long as wedo that at least three days in advance, we're totally in the clear. So, youknow, it really is it's an overdisclose kind of a law. Um, it's fairly easy. Youknow, once you kind of get in the hang of it, um, it's just anytime you'relike, I wonder if that might be a meeting, hey, let's post it. And it itbecomes pretty mechanical. Um, so it's can>> fairly easy to keep track of. Can we build that into our routine so that atthe end of every meeting, we're checking in with you on that or each other onwhat's coming up next month and >> or let's let's make that a part of everymeeting. >> Or and every event maybe.>> Yes. Right. >> Discuss a certain Yes.>> Yes. So she could just put it on every meeting or every event that we have.>> Yeah. >> Could do that. And you can just p itdoesn't matter >> recovering ourselves.>> Mhm. >> Yeah. That would also be a way to do itis just if there is an official parks event,>> right? >> Just post that there might be a quorumof the parks and rec commission there. >> So that okay.>> Does that mean we can talk about things if we know it's a meeting at an event?>> Yeah. Okay. >> Um>> just can't make decisions, right? >> Yeah. So for a special meeting, um thereare you have to say like what the purpose of the meeting is. Um, so youcan if you say like, oh, we're going to this event,you know, basically you're sort of limited to like we can talk about likethis event um because you for this meeting we can kind of talk aboutanything because it's a general meeting. For a special meeting, you actually haveto provide an agenda >> um as well. And so, you know, if you'reat, you know, yoga in the park, I probably would not talk about like thecapital improvement plan, >> right?>> Um, I don't know that there's much risk of that happening anyway. Um, but justfor an example, >> as you're doing art, as you're doingarch, you're >> Hey, by the way, did you hear what the>> All right, we're going to keep this moving along. Sony's not here all day.>> Good job, Sarah. Good job, Sarah. >> So, uh, there are some times when youcan have a what's called closed meeting, um, which is when we go into closedsession. It's it's private. It's, um, you know, not open to the public. We canhave a a confidential discussion. Um, for the most part, those situations arenot going to come up for the parks and recck commission. Um, it'd be hard tothink of, you know, there there's a list of them in here. They don't really comeup. The one thing I do just want to highlight here, um, penalties. Um, theseare specific to intentional violations. So, this is if you are trying to getaround, right? Anytime there's like a good faith, oh, we thought we did theright thing, but we maybe didn't, it's not as bad. Um, if there are intentionalviolations, there can be financial penalties. For some of those financialpenalties, the city is not allowed to pay them for you. So, if you are tryintentionally trying to get around the open meeting law, it could end up withyou having to pay your own money as a a fine.Again, we'd like to avoid that related to the open meeting. Um, we'll move on.Data practices. Um, this is another big one. Um, data practices act. Um, ifyou've heard of a FOYA request, that's like the federal equivalent. The DataPractices Act, that's the state law. um that governs all of this. Um so ithandles um government data uh and gives people the ability to request governmentdata. Again, just kind of starting with some of those definitions. Governmentdata is all data collected, created, received, maintained or disseminated bystate or local government and that includes by state or local governmentofficials. Um so that could be paper documents, emails, text messages, umphone call records, all of those things. It is not again it is not defined bylike the form the name on the account. It is defined by uh who is talking andwhat are they talking about. So if you are talking about government businessanything created as part of that is government data. So again if you'retexting somebody that's government data if you make a Facebook post that isgovernment data. um you know this this goes sort of uh you know it's fairlyall-encompassing if that is how you are talking aboutgovernment business. So again just kind of my topline recommendation here is wehave these meetings where we can discuss whatever we need to discuss. You allhave official city email addresses. I would really urge you to to try yourbest to keep communications about parks and wreck items to meetings and yourcity email. Um because again to the extent there is ever any litigation ornot even litigation because with government data someone can just turn ina letter and say please give me all the data you have about whatever subject Ihave identified. Uh and so the best thing for you is if I get one of thoseletters and I call you up and I say hey we've gotten a request for all dataabout um you know this park event. Uh do you have anything on your personaldevices? And you can just say no and then that's the end of it. We don't haveto do anything. um if you're texting, you know, other commission members oryou're, you know, you've got Instagram messages about it or whatever, we haveto go grab those off of your device because that's government data and wehave to provide that. Um this is again a huge pain for everyone and so it's justbest all around if we don't have to do that.Um there are a few differentclassifications. the the default classification for all government datain Minnesota is public. Public means public. Public means it can be requestedby, viewed by, copied by anybody. Um, data is only not public if there is aspecific statute that says that kind of data is not public. Um, so again, youknow, a barring and and it mostly tends to be things like certain types of lawenforcement data or um sort of sensitive like financial information, personnelhistory, that sort of thing. So again, texting somebody about what's going onin the parks um is going to be public data. Uhcity has again there's an official form that anybody can fill out. It's notlimited to city residents. It's not limited to Minnesota residents. Um, theydon't have to provide a reason for why they want the data. They can ask for asmuch as they want to subject to there are some they have to pay some fees ifthey make us do too much work. Um, but anyone can request any data. So, it'spretty wide open. Um, again, I would just urge you to to keep to the officialchannels. Um, if you are using your official email address on like a homecomputer or a smartphone, all of that is also backed up on thesystem here at the city. It's all accessible here at the city. So, even ifyou've been emailing on your official email address from your phone,we wouldn't count that as being data on your phone because we already have it onthe the servers here. So, we wouldn't have to get your device to do an extrasearch as long as it's on your official email.>> So, uh just texting a friend, a neighbor, whatever, and saying, "Hey,there's yoga in the park this weekend." Is that public data? >> Probably not. If it's just like um youknow, if if it's you texting a friend as a friend,>> probably not. If you put out like a if you're making an Instagram or Facebookpost >> Yeah. know>> and you say, "Hey, you know, whoever's seeing this, there's>> yoga at the park this weekend, um that probably does count." And so it's sortof it's like what what role are you in? Um again, there's that sort of like ifit's just a social if it's a friend that you do yoga with and you say, "Hey,there's yoga here also. Let's go there." >> That's probably not government data.>> Thanks. Um, so that's kind of the uh, you know, thedata practices act. Um, and again, anytime you have any questions about,you know, any of that stuff, um, feel free to let Sarah or Ava know. They canpass questions on to me. It's very complicated, but again, pro daytoday,you know, there's lots of like exceptions and counterexceptions thatdon't really ever come up for a parks and rec commission. So, for the mostpart, shouldn't have to think about it too much, but I do just want you to beaware of it. Um, next topic is conflicts of interest. Um,this one is, again, we're getting to be a little bit more um intuitive on someof these ones. Conflicts of interest, you all kind of know what a conflict ofinterest is. Um, you all know that they're bad. Um, there are some statutesabout it. they mostly track a common sense understanding of um sort of how todeal with these things. Uh there are some specific ways for differentpotential conflicts of interest on how to deal with them. Um whether that's,you know, a recusal, what that does to vote counts, all of those sorts of sortof more technical details. Um, if a conflict of interest is ever coming up,mostly just let uh Sarah or Ava or me if you um happen to have my email or if I'maround, just let one of us know. Uh, and we can walk you through the kind oflike, okay, here's what happens now with that. For the most part, we just againjust be thinking of conflicts of interest.>> What would Yeah, you can tell I have a question. What would be a potentialconflict of interest for us? Sothere's there's there are some technicalities. It's different if it isa contract or something else. So if the city is hiring somebody or some companyto do something, >> okay. um then a conflict is much morenarrowly it's or much more broadly it's like a much stricter standard um becausewe don't want to be you know hiring family members or you know hiring a alawn care company that one of the parks and recck commissioners is a member ofor owns or something like that. >> Okay.>> Um so for those ones it's it's can be quite strict. For non-contractsituations it can be a little bit less strict. Basically any time wheresomebody is before you with making some kind of a request some kind of an ask ofthe city where you have some kind of an outside relationship with the personmaking the request. So that can be financial, that can be uh you know somekind of a business relationship. Um that can be a familial relationship if it's ayou know a parent, a sibling um you know some kind of a thing where you have aninterest in both sides. Parks and reccomission you're probably not dealingwith like contracts as nearly as often. Um but it's still potentially coming upin terms of um you know looking at uh proposals for you know maintenance orproposals for new park facilities. Um just making sure that you you know ifyou have a a family member who works for the architecture firm that might bedesigning a playground. Um just making sure you're disclosing that. For themost part the remedy for that is you have to recuse yourself. Um, so justlike during that one specific item, you just go sit in the audience while thediscussion happens. Um, and then for vote counts, if you are recused for aconflict of interest, you don't count towards the quorum. So if there's sevenmembers on the commission and two of them have a conflict of interest forthat item, we consider votes out of five. Um, so you can so like some thingsrequire a unanimous vote. Um, that's still possible even if someone has aconflict of interest and has to sit it out. Um,best practice again is overdisclose. If you think you might have a conflict ofinterest, talk to staff about it. Staff can talk to me about it. Um, you know,if you feel like it might affect your decision-m generally, we'll have you sitout. If you don't know if it's a conflict of interest or not, um, we canwork with staff. we can we can give you some advice on if it's the kind of thingyou might have to sit out on or not. Um, generally we again transparency is thename of the game. You know, we're we're just trying not to we don't want anyoneto be mad at us even if we are technically correct. Uh related to conflict of interests giftlaws. Um so that is an interested person cannot give you gift. An interestedperson uh is someone who has an interest, you know, direct financial orother interest in something that might be before the city.For city business, uh that's most people. Uh and so it we just again wekind of look at this pretty broadly. Um gift meansanything of value. Um there's kind of a there's a dimminimous exception. Soanything less than $5 we don't necessarily count. Um, so if you're atlike a conference or something and someone wants to give you like a pen ora stress ball, that doesn't count as a gift. That's not something that has tobe, you know, disclosed. You're going to get in trouble over. But it could beanything else. So that could be um like plaques, memorials, that could be food.Um that's probably the one that gets people in trouble the most often is umsomeone says, "Hey, I know you're on the parks commission. Can I buy you dinnerand hear your opinion about something?" Uh and the answer is uh no they can't.Um there are some exec exceptions. Um again it's pretty much it's sort ofdimminimous things. Um gifts by your family members, right? Again it's sortof if it's if you're not receiving the gift because of your position within thecity, then it's not really going to count. Um, so that's kind of the big um the bigethics laws, the big rules that that we've kind of got. Um, and again, theycan be a little technical and a little unwieldly. Uh, and some of themdon't always make a whole lot of sense. Um, but that's what they are. Um, youknow, if you ever again, if you ever have any questions, don't hesitate toask. uh the rest of the presentation we havea a couple of topics here just to kind of go through kind of how some of thesome of the city operations uh and some how some of that stuff works just stuffthat you might be running into. Um so you have some notes here on roles of thecity manager. Um so North St. Paul is a city manager city as opposed to you willhear some other cities they will talk about their city administrator.Um, I continually wish that they picked two words that were more different thanmanager and administrator. They didn't. Again, nobody asked my opinion on this.Um, the the basic difference is that a manager has more more power, more directauthority than an administrator does. So, our city manager, that's Brian. I'msure you've probably all met him or seen him around. Um, he's sort of like thelike the CEO of the city and then the city council is kind of the board ofdirectors of the city. And so they're much more hands-off kind of big pictureauthorization type of stuff. And Brian has a lot of kind of the day-to-dayum you know he hires employees, he can fire employees and you know promotepeople, move people around. Um he kind of does most of the day-to-day cityadministration. Um those sorts of things. He also has um purchasingauthority. So, anything that is less than $20,000, if we need to buysomething, that can be done through the manager's authority. Um, so if we'rehaving a park event and we need um, you know, something there to, you know, wewe need a bucket of sidewalk chalk for a night in the park or something, um, thatcan go through. We have a purchasing policy. You can talk to your staffpeople. Um, they can go ahead and get you those supplies. We don't need toreally do too much about it. um the city manager does not have the authority toenter into sort of longer term contracts on behalf of the city. Those all have togo through the city council. So difference would be if we're, you know,providing art supplies for a night in the park, that's the kind of thing thatwe can just go buy. uh if we are hiring an artist to teach people in the park,um that is going to be the kind of thing that we're going to need, you know, somemore city council authorization to go do something like that. Um so again, it'sjust kind of like what the process is for you guys. You know, the the citycouncil wants to be supportive. You know, we we appreciate all of the workthat you guys do. A lot of the events that get put on are are delightful. Umand so we're not trying to like, you know, kind of really be looking overyour shoulder too much. Um, and mostly I would think about this in terms of howmuch advanced notice do you need on something? If we need city councilapproval in order to do something, you know, that has to go on a city councilagenda. City council only meets one meets once every two weeks. Sometimesthere's already stuff on that agenda that's going to take up all the time.So, it might not go for a meeting or two. Um, so just kind of thinking aboutthat in terms of the amount of time it takes to get that approval. Um, morethan it's usually not that hard to get the city council to say yes to the kindsof park events that we've been doing. Um, so it's mostly kind of a timingthing. Uh, my kind of final um thing here, uh,Robert's rules of order. We kind of go through this stuff. Um, I'm not going tospend too much time on Robert's rules of order. My my general rule uh is that ifyou have two people who are fighting about Robert's rules of order, uh no,they aren't. They're fighting about something else. Uh something else hasgone wrong. Uh and they're trying to use that as, you know, part of a largerconflict. Um now that said, we do have some kind of basic, you know, proceduralrequirements. We want to make sure there's votes on things and that, youknow, if someone is looking back and looking at, you know, five years fromnow and we want to say, "Oh my gosh, whoever thought yoga in the park was agood idea," they can go back, they can look at the minutes, they can say, "Oh,it was voted on, you know, at this meeting and specifically like which oneof you voted yes." Um, we want to be keeping a record of that. If it's aunanimous decision, we will write it down as unanimous and then that you canwe trust people to do the math themselves on. if you were there and itwas unanimous, then what was your vote, you know, that's good enough. So, it'snot overall sort of that burdensome. The general kind of flow, you were doing agreat job. Um, you know, kind of going through the start of it. We have someonewho's the chair of the meeting. Um, they will introduce a business item. Um,someone will make a motion. There will be some discussion. Um, there might be,um, sometimes for some, you know, park items, there might be a public hearinginvolved. Um, so there you just want to make sure you're very clear about, youknow, when is the commission having a discussion amongst the commissioners andthen when is the public allowed to come up and say their piece. Uh, I would saythis is probably the one that gets off the rails most frequently is if there'ssomething that is um, you know, considered to be a little bitcontroversial. Um, I've seen this happen a lot when cities are continuing orconsidering uh either establishing a new park or getting rid of an old park. Uh,people have very strong opinions about that. Um, people will come in, they wantto talk, they want to say their piece, they want to be part of theconversation. Um, if we're having a sevenperson conversation amongst thecommissioners, we can kind of keep a lid on things and keep track of things.uh if it's a really contentious issue and we're trying to have a conversationwith 50 people where everyone is kind of talking at the same time, it justdoesn't go well. Uh and then things take a really long time. Uh I was at ameeting until almost 11 last night. No one likes that. Um,so, uh, it can be it can feel kind of uncomfortable or unnecessarily formal,um, if there's kind of people out in the audience, uh, and some of them mightknow something about what we're talking about, right? If we're talking about umyou know, I know there's a lot of people who who do volunteer um you know, kindof park cleanup and those these sorts of events, we might be talking about it asthe commission and we might it might seem like a good idea to just say, "Oh,hey John in the audience like what what do you know about what's going on inthis park?" Um and it can feel a little unnecessarily formal to be like and nowwe opened the floor to public comment about this item. Um, but really thereason that we do that even when it's a small item because usually there's likeone person and we could include them in the conversation and it would be fine.The reason why we do that is that if the general practice is people in theaudience can just be uh an open part of the conversation. It makes it reallyhard in situations where we don't want that to happen to try now try andenforce the rule. um you know, even if it's a very good reason, right? Likewe'll let one person talk, we won't let 50 people talk. It's just we want tokeep everything kind of on even even footing.>> Are we allowed to open up um discussion topics to the public? Because I thoughtwe were only had that option at the beginning of the meeting. So, at thebeginning of the meeting, you have a what's like a public comment period, uh,which is a time for anyone to bring whatever they want to to your attention.Uh, under the the the rules that we kind of have written up there, the open forumpart of it is for items that are not otherwise on the agenda.So that is for, you know, hey, I don't know if you're aware, but here'ssomething that you might need to address at a future meeting or send it talk tostaff about or um you know, uh the bathrooms at Casey Lake Park are out oftoilet paper or whatever. Um you know, someone can come in and sort of bringthose to your attention at the public forum. Um for sort of more normalbusiness items, usually we don't have the public there. For some things we arerequired to have a a public hearing where we we have a formal opportunitywhere we say we're opening a public meeting or a yeah public hearing. Anyonewho is from the public who wants to comment can now come up to themicrophone and say their part. Um for some things we are required to do that.We can if we want to even if it's not required. Uh and so if there's a lot ofpeople here who have strong feelings about it um and we think there might besome value in you know having and again keeping it kind of as an orderly processand we say if you want to speak on this come up to the microphone we'll givepeople three minutes we'll have everyone talk one at a time you can say yourcomment and then we'll have you sit down. Once everyone said their commentthen you know the the commission will discuss. we're not going to have kind ofan open-ended 50 person discussion about something. Umyou can you always have that option. Um so uh there are a few things um you knowsort of motions that's like we want to consider a business item. There are somesecondary motions that's we have some action to take about this other thingthat we're um already considering. Um motion to amend uh is probably the mostcommon one. Um generally speaking, motions and secondary motions allrequire a motion and a second uh and then a vote. Umeven uh a motion to amend, there is under Robert's rules no such thing as afriendly amendment. Um so under Robert's rules, there is nosuch thing as a friendly amendment. So friendly amendment, it's not the end ofthe world if it happens. um it's not going to invalidate anything. Uh this ismostly me being a lawyer about it, but where someone will say I make a motionto approve, you know, whatever this is, and then someone says, "Oh, wouldn'tthat be better if we did we approved it with this condition in it?" And then ifthe person who makes the motion agrees with that, there is a tendency to justsay, "Oh, yeah, let's pretend that was the motion that I actually made."And you you either have to restate it or you have to say like one person will sayI make a motion to approve this um this park plan or whatever and then someoneelse will say I would like to amend the approval to be approved with conditionsand then you have to have a a second and a vote on the amendment. If that passes,that is now part of the original motion and you now have to have a second voteon the actual business item that you're doing. Um,again, these are these rules are kind of designed for larger more sort oflegislature style bodies. So, it can be a little clunky. Uh, and ultimately, aslong as the rules are fair and everyone on the commission gets a chance to saytheir piece and everyone knows exactly what it is that they are discussing andvoting on at any given time, we're not really going to have any problems if youknow you can pull out Robert's rules and say, you know, I'm actually that wassupposed to be uh the speaker was supposed to or the the chair wassupposed to make that motion and not the vice chair.as long as everyone is following what's happening, we're good to go. But that'sjust kind of the overall kind of cadence of of how to do um the kind of thegeneral business. And so we just want to make sure that someone is stating whatare we what are we voting on and then we are having a vote on that item. Umabout the only time where this starts to get really that complicated um is thereare um provisions that we can have people attend meetings remotely umthat's part of the open meeting law. There's some requirements in how youpost that. Um if someone is attending remotely then we have to do what'scalled a roll call vote which is instead of all in favor say I and everyone saysyes we have to go down the line and say commissioner Greyche yes. CommissionerZadraa yes. Commissioner Caller. Yes. And we have to get those individualvotes if someone's appearing remotely. I >> was just going to clarify whether youmeant if the commissioners were meeting virtually or if any public was meetingvirtually. >> Yes. So it's it's the commission if oneof if a member of the commission is appearing remotely.>> Um the rules are at least one person has to be here physically present in themeeting place. Uh and then there are some notice requirements. Uh and theneveryone has to be able to um see and hearevery each other and everything that is being said. Um so there are optionsavailable if you have to like zoom in to a meeting. Um you cannot call in byphone because then no one can see you. Um so that's kind of that. But>> does that person have to be in public? I remember that being a disc uh notanymore. >> Not anymore. Okay.>> Not anymore. They changed. you used to have to disclose where you were and ithad to be a place that was publicly accessible.>> Uh and then co happened and everyone said, "Why are we doing this?"Um so I've we've seen meetings wheresomeone's at like uh I think I had one where someone was in the mess hall of aboy scout camp and so we posted like the messaul of camp such and such is thelocation where this commissioner is is. uh anyone who wants to observe themduring the meeting can can go to the mess hall at this camp if you reallywant to >> if you'd really like to.>> Um we don't have to do that anymore. Thank goodness.Um so that's kind of my presentation. I have just thrown a whole lot ofinformation at you. Um I know that was that was a lot. I've been doing a lot oftalking up here. Um, mostly again, we just want you to be allkind of aware of these rules and we want you to just to kind of have that littlevoice in the back of your head of, you know, if you're if you're see people outand about and you're thinking about talking and you just kind of go like,"Weren't there some rules about this or something?" Um, and for the most part,if your instinct is, "Weren't there some rules about this?" "Hey, Sarah, arethere rules about this?" 99.8% of the time, that is going to cover you justfine. Um, so you know, again, I we don't expect any of you to, you know, be yourown lawyer. Um, most of the time dealing with these things is not thatcomplicated. Just want you to be kind of thinking of cognizant of some of theserequirements. Um, and if you ever have any questions about sort of this reallythe the nitty-gritty specifics of, you know, my um, my cousin'sgirlfriend's uh, niece is a member of this lawn carecompany that we're considering. Is that a conflict of interest? No, it'sprobably not. But if you have something like that um where you're just wonderingabout it, again, just reach out to staff and we can, you know, we can kind ofwalk you through everything. Um for the most part, you know, people dopeople get stung by some of these things every now and again. Uh, and for themost part, you know, sometimes you see peoplegetting in trouble and you go, "Oh, God, there." But, you know, there, but forthe grace of God, go I. And for the most part with these kinds of things, you yousee the things that are going on that get people in trouble and you go, "Well,yeah, of course you're going to get in trouble for that." Um, so it's not, wedon't try and be kind of like gotcha about it. Um,you know, I think the the big one there was a open meeting law violation wherethere was a city council that was talking about basically they were justtalking about something that was going to be very unpopular. Uh, and so theyjust had their attorney attend the meeting and said, "Nope, this isattorney client privileged. Everyone else get out of here. We don't want youlistening." Uh, and uh, that is not how attorney client privilege works. Um,>> so that that did not go well for them. Um, so for the most part it's just sortof like anytime you're you're trying to do something like really clever. Um,usually that's how you get in trouble. Um, but again the require the actualrequirements are not overly ownorous. If you're going to be somewhere, make sureit's posted. If you're going to talk to somebody, make sure it's on yourofficial email address. Um, if there's if for some reason there'ssome need to you if if a member of the public emails you on your personal emailaddress, forward that to your official email address and then reply from there.Um, if you need to take a like a photo of something, um, you want some photosfor the website of a park event or something like that, take a photo onyour phone, email that photo to yourself again at your official email address andthen delete it off of your phone. And now there's no government data on yourphone. It's all on the city's system and we don't have to, you know, merge thosetwo things. So, it's all fairly easy to keep and keep track of. But we just kindof want you to to be aware of this stuff.>> Awesome. >> All right.>> I do have one question mostly just for me because I was curious.>> So, if our chair our chairperson isn't here, so Sarah is doing our vice chair.If Sarah wasn't here, who is supposed to run the meeting? What does that looklike? if the chair and vice chair are bothgone. >> Yeah. So, you have a designated chair,you have a designated vice chair. Other than that, um if those two are gone, butyou still have a quorum, so we can still do business.>> Um you designate somebody. >> Okay.>> So, it's just uh and then you would want to like kind of make a record of, youknow, you'd open the meeting and you'd say, you know, we are the you know, nowopening the meeting. Um the members have designated Commissioner Kohler as uhchair for the evening. Um and then we just move on with it.>> Okay, that's simple. >> Yeah.>> Thanks so much, Jack. We appreciate your time.>> Thank you for coming. >> Absolutely. And like I said, um reachout to your staff leaison. They're great. They'll probably be able toanswer most of your questions. Um if they can't answer something, they knowwhere to find me. We'll make sure that you get the answers you need.>> Sounds good. >> Awesome. Thanks so much.>> Thank you. >> Thank you, Jeff. All right, we'll keepmoving on then. Um, election of officers, we we're going to not put thatoff anymore. Um, yes. Um, and to state, uh, Laura hasexpressed interest in being chair again for 2026. Um, I received that word viaemail. Um, so we'll start with the chair if there's any other anyone elseinterested in being chair. Otherwise, we can uh move for a vote. Okay,>> we're just voting on the chair first and then the vice.>> Yeah, we'll do them. >> I make a motion. Uh,>> thank you. >> I make a motion. Lord Greenley Karp isthe chair for 2026.>> I second. Want to take a vote? We want to do thisvote. All those in favor? >> I.>> All those opposed. >> Perfect.>> She's voted in. Does anybody want to be vice chair? Sit in this big seat.>> Assume you want to be vice chair. >> I was put in this position. I was notasked, but I don't mind being vice chair.>> Thank >> Should I make a>> Sure. >> I make a motion that Sarah Sarco be vicechair. >> Seconded.>> All those in favor? >> I.>> All those opposed. All right. You have to feel the love.>> I know. Thank you. >> Of all four of us. Thank you.>> It's a fun ride. >> I was gone last year during that meetingand Laura Vess like you're the vice chair by the way. Oh, I am. Okay.>> Yeah, we by the way you >> Yeah. I was like, "Okay, well, good toknow. >> You do great.">> Yeah, >> they both do.>> All right. Well, so I guess we don't need any other officers since we knowyou'll just designate someone. Do we want to like try to power through thislakes thing that you found here? The review of chapter 92.>> Yeah, it shouldn't be terrible. I can go through it pretty quickly. So, um, yes,the chapter 92 of our city code, which covers parks and lakes, um, I decided Iwanted to take a look at it and realized most of it had not been updated since1989. >> Oops. Yeah. So, um, I took some time um,along with uh, our community development director, Ken Roberts, um, to lookthrough it, make recommended updates. So, the first um, portion of your packetthat refers to this shows all the track changes. Um, since then we've done someformatting changes so you can ignore like the letters and numbers that areout of order. Um, but the content is the same. And then the second portion you'llsee is the cleaner version. Um, essentially what we did is we looked atwhat are current issues or things that are in our parks that we need to addressas well as looking at other cities in the area, other communities to see whatthey have in theirs um, and develop these recommendations. I will say uh oneu addition that I would like to recommend that isn't in the packet. Wehad a resident reach out with some comments um on the recommendations andthey recommended banning glass beverage bottles in all of our city parks. Umcity staff is supportive of that as well. So if we want to add thatlanguage, let me know. Um and I can do that. But just wanted to get yourthoughts on this and if you like what we have in here, um, we can take a votetoday and I will bring it to council on April 7th. If we feel we need to tableit or have additions or anything, I can certainly do that as well. So,>> just one question about the glass. I'm in support of that when I think aboutpeople sitting around the park drinking like a glass bottle. Sure. My onequestion is we allow alcohol in our buildings and wine would be a big partof that and wine doesn't come in anything usually>> most of but most people aren't buying the boxed wine if they're buying proccoor something. So my question would be is there a way to amend it to say like noopen alcohol in the park like no glass bottles. I don't know exactly how towrite this but I'm trying to think of like if I rented a building and Icouldn't bring wine I might be ticked about that. So,>> it does currently say in our park rental policy, no glass, and we have not had anissue. >> Okay.>> Um, however, we can amend that. That's not a problem. Um, but it does currentlysay that. >> Well, if it>> if it hasn't been a problem, >> it sounds like people are probably doingit and they're just not making a mess of it or something. But,>> which I feel like if we want to include glass in the park rental policy, I thinkit would be better. >> Maybe that's different than the park.>> Yeah. Verse this. Yeah. Agree. Yeah, because I'm definitely on board. Likesomeone's sitting out by the volleyball thing drinking a Haritos or somethingand it breaks. Yeah, it's just >> Okay.>> Yeah. >> Otherwise, um yeah, there's just kindIt's like a lot of additions in here. I would say the biggest ones to highlightwould be um we added a lot to not damaging particularly the vegetation inthe parks. Um as well as some additional language in the littering section. Andthen we've updated um the section on uh vehicles, ebikes, bicycles, skateboards,motorized foot scooters. Um we're becoming aware of e- modtos as well. Sothat may be something um I might add some language in here for that too. Umjust to make sure we're covered, but those are kind of the main changes. Umyeah, so if there's any comments or questions or concerns, I'm happy to takethat. I think it's great. Thanks for catchingthis and looking back. >> Oh, and it officially updates the parkhours. We voted on that, but it never got changed in the city ordinance.>> Okay. >> So, this would then remedy that as well.>> Great. >> What are is the park hours 7 a.m. to 10p.m. or is it >> Yes. Okay.>> Yep. >> Oh, and this is shorter period thanthat. >> Yeah.>> Page number. What's the page? So, what are we going to Fields 2 has a separatetime listed? I I got I'm like 9:00 a.m. That's late for park, but I'm>> starts on page 19. >> Okay.>> But um yeah, the park hours are kind of spread out through this. There's a fewtimes where it's listed and it's been wrong. So, we're going to make sure thatthat gets updated. >> So, we're doing what? 10 7 a.m. to 10p.m. We said >> 7 a.m. 10 p.m.>> Um yeah, looks great, Sarah. Thanks for all the hard work on that.>> Yeah, I know. a lot of minute details you got to comb through in thatcapacity. >> Yeah, absolutely. I think this is goingto be really helpful, really great, a lot to stand on if there is damage oranything in the parks as well. So, >> can I ask a question about um under theno person may hitch number four and any animal or fasten anchor or otherwiseattach a wire rope or sign blah blah blah to any tree, shrub or plant.How hard and fast is that rule? Because like if someone is having a barbecue andthey want to >> table,>> they want to have their pet, their dog at the event and they want to tie aleash around a tree, a substantial tree. >> Yes.>> Is that a problem? >> I would say to be completelytransparent, this is more of a reactive rule rather than proactive. So we're notgoing to go out and look for that. Right.>> However, if there were damage due to that, we have leg.>> Okay. >> Don't be tying your horse up, Ty. >> Saddling your giddy up over there.>> Don't h itch my giddy up. >> Don't hitch your giddy up, Tinny.>> Unless it's a real big tree. >> The first thing I thought is I'm like,what kind of animals are we? It's Oklahoma. Like, that was a rule. Itlists. >> In my neighborhood, you could not tetheryour horse to any mules listed. >> Good to know. Need a motion, Sarah, ornot? >> Yes. Yeah, I would take a motion if we>> I'll make a motion that we approve the amendmentsin the notes. >> I would say chapter 92.>> Chapter 92, the parks and lakes as noted in theminutes or >> the packet.>> In the packet. Okay. A second. I'll second that. Any discussion?All those in favor? >> I>> I All those opposed. All right. So moved.>> Um there was a discussion to potentially push the next topic park representativesto the next meeting since we are lacking a couple people tonight and we mightwant their insight on what parks they might want to be assigned to. So Isuggest um >> I make a motion to move that topic tothe April meeting. >> Second.>> All right. Any discussion? Those in favor? I. Those opposed. All right,reports from staff. >> All right, I got a few here, but I willmake it quick. Um, the first one I will need feedback on, though. Um, we, as Imentioned in a previous email, um, we were looking at May 16th as our date forthe citywide parks cleanup. We did the citywide cleanup last year, however, theweather didn't really cooperate, so there wasn't a huge turnout, but I knowthat there was interest in doing it again this year. Um, May 16th would bein line the same as last year. Um it would be the weekend after the citywidecleanup event. Um so we kind of still make May that like North St. Paulcleanup month. Um we also have interest from the Rotary Club would like tocollaborate with uh the parks commission. U they would like to cleanup Rotary Park that day. Um so I'm just looking for feedback if that date seemslike it would work. Um we can certainly decide on parks when there's morecommissioners here that we want to focus on but just preliminarily if we can wantto move forward or not. >> Can I clarify um the lake associationare they on board with that date? >> Um I have mentioned it to them but Ihave not heard back yet >> because that is a problem when those twoare different dates. Sure. Um then then that becomes more of a burden onon it just becomes very difficult to find people to clean the the the peoplewho show up to clean up at Silver Lake Park are the lake commission. They'revery good about it. >> Um uh so I strongly feel like those>> we should be selecting the date they those should be the same date.>> Okay. Okay. Like, so is are they do they know yet whattheir date is? >> I I haven't heard. Um I would say if wewait too much longer to select our date, however, we won't be able to discuss ituntil April and then we can't really promote it until it's kind of late. Sothat's why would it be possible just to do you have their contact information?Could we just email them tomorrow and say, "Hey, here's the date we'reproposing, >> but do you need us to vote on it?">> Nope. >> Okay. No, just want to make>> I just wanted to get your feedback and we can start promoting it at least.>> Okay, but that's the date. >> I think we should pick an earlier datebecause I I know last year, even though it was a cold, poor weather day thatthere wasn't much to clean up because um the maintenance crews, it had warmed upsubstantially several weeks prior and they'd already gone around and cleanedup most most of everything. So, there's very little to clean up.>> Okay. Um, >> our issue has been though the last fewyears it's been in April and our turnout is bad and the weather has beennotoriously bad. I mean the weather in May can be bad too to be honest, but>> I don't think we can plan on weather. I think we have to plan on>> I think they're trying to tie it around the citywide like because there's alsothe citywide event where you can take anything and dump it. So I think they'retrying to tie it together. >> Yeah, it's that first weekend of May nowis the trash to treasure event along with the citywide garage sale. Then thesecond weekend is a citywide cleanup. So the third weekend had been the parks.Just so it all ties in. If it were me, I would recommend then pushing it outhearing what you're saying. But once folks start using the parks more like inJune, July, that would be when I would recommend doing it rather than pushingit earlier into April. I could see Mary in that like after Memorial Day because>> didn't you mention that after Memorial Day Silver Lake had needed to be pickedup or was that Fourth of July? >> Oh, that's you. Yeah, actually that thathappens. Um Memorial there it gets a lot of use uh on that weekend. Um I thinkthe city's pretty good about picking up the garbage after that. Yeah. Um, but II feel like it's it's just always been this spring event, not a summer event.>> I think we'd have a an even lower turnout.>> I was going to say I'm like, if you do it after Memorial Day, everyone's attheir cabins. >> It's uh it's a weekend thing. And Ithink it's >> easier to get people to show up if it isin the spring and generally around the same time of the year>> as it has been. But um so has it been in April before? Is that what we thinkyears ago it was? >> I feel like the last was last year May.>> Last year was May. >> Was the last I feel like most of theyears I've done it, it was it was always around Earth Day. Like we tried to do anEarth Day thing and it was always like April 20th>> in the high school. >> It snowed one year.>> Used to be involved in it, but I don't know that they're involved in itanymore. >> Nope. Okay. Was it in your email youmentioned the Rotary Club um the Silver Lake Foundation and then didn't youmention that the Rotary Club was going to reach out to>> they were going to reach out to the high school and see the issue is because wedo this on a weekend >> hard for those students. So>> well here's a thought too. So this you're saying the problem was the citycomes and cleans stuff up. So it might be like a Casey Northwood they might beclean. Maybe we need to focus on like, you know, where it looks terrible, theenvironmental place right off of 36 where everyone throws their trash fromthe holiday. That pond over by Target where the trash just blows in. Likemaybe we need to refocus this and on untraditional parks that are near busstops because that is where the like you drive by that subway and it is trashcity like but no one ever goes there. The city kind of they mow but they don'treally pick it up. And I Yeah, I wonder if we can expand outside the parks, too.Like I I know >> I mean I I guarantee you if you goanywhere on the gateway, I mean in the environmental park right there does havea trail and I I don't see as much trash there, but right off of B, County Road Bor South >> I know the Rotary would want to do that.>> Yeah. And then Rotary Park would probably be near the highway. So, likeI'm thinking maybe we keep maybe we keep the date, but we focus. I mean, we cankeep Silver Lake is going to do what Silver Lake is going to do, but maybe wedon't go to Casey Lake. We don't go to Northwood because those are gettingpicked up. >> Where where I've had people complain tome is honestly near bus stops because because we've called the bus stationsbefore and asked for trash cans near some of these places in North St. Pauland they won't do it because they don't have the manpower to go and change thetrash. So people stand at the bus stops and they just throw their trash.>> And uh 11th Avenue is really bad. There's several bus stops along there.And because of Target and Cub and Home Depot, you just get a lot. So like maybeit's >> roadways.>> Maybe it's roadways near our parks like cuz what Postal Credit Union, whateverwe call that park. That's >> the Postal Credit Union.>> That's our park. Like we could just have people spread along 11th between, youknow, the North St. Paul Park between Ariel and Mcnite and even Mcnite Fields.I bet the outside of I've seen that outside Mcnite Fields is pretty gross bythe highway. >> Yeah. Um is it is it Dave on citycouncil? >> Who who's the is that Dave who does?>> Yeah, there's Dave. >> Um he does he's the arts>> assigned commissionro. Troy Troy and I did the um woodland area outside Mcniteright off of um >> on Mcnite and there was a lot there.Yeah, because the other parts we went to.>> So that would be my suggestion. Do do the environmental one over by theholiday on like be Mcnite outside and then like on 11th Street for theenvironmental >> if you guys think of any and then theRotary Park would probably be a good one too. It may not be as trashed but>> well they can go on both sides of the gateway too if they feel like it.>> Yeah, >> I think that sounds wonderful. Yeah. Umwhat times do you think would be best to run this? Is it more of a morning thing,afternoon? >> It's a morning thing. I would say latemorning, possibly early afternoon because if we have bad weather,>> I think it's extra unlikely people are going to want to be out in the morning.>> Well, although people do want to um the the advantage of having it in themorning, like 9 to 11 or something like that, something reasonable. The thehardcore cleanup crew will arrive early and leave late at we, you know, that'sjust what happens. Um, but if you say 9 to 11, then people can go, "Oh, yeah.Well, I can still do that thing in the afternoon, but it's yeah, oh, I seethat's in the morning." I feel like that helps draw people as well. But if youhave it go into the afternoon, then they feel like, "Oh, well, that day, youknow, the whole >> Yeah. selfishly, I wouldn't want to dosomething in that like I'd want my afternoon free to do what I was going todo for the day, but I'd have usually have the morning before noon free. Youknow, that would be easy to squeeze in." bit.>> Do we think like maybe 10 to noon would be too late? I just want to capitalizeon as warm as possible in case >> 10 to noon sounds good. How long do wenormally do it for? >> Two hours.>> Oh, >> which we can do it. We can certainly doit longer. I just think you start to lose people's>> I think a two hour commitments. Yeah. >> Yeah.>> Yeah. >> Three hours a bigger commitment.>> Yes. >> Well, perfect. So, um what I'll do isI'll start to put that together. We can start to get that promoted. Um and thenat next meeting we can discuss who might want to take point at each of thoselocations. >> Yeah.>> Um and kind of go from there. >> What were the three places we werethinking of again? >> So the urban ecology center specificallyalong South Avenue. >> Um the postal credit union pond butspecifically along 11th Avenue. >> Can we I don't know what that is. If IOkay. So just >> it's next to It's next to Subway. Um>> the one by Target. >> Yeah. So it's across from Target.There's a pond >> and there's a path>> and there's a subway and there's like a little walk path around it.>> We're just doing that because >> this thing>> we're just doing that because of uh >> See, every time I drive that I thinkthat's the urban ecosystem. >> We established that that's not ours any >> city owned. Yeah.>> Still city owned. We'll go with it that way. Okay.>> Yep. >> Okay. And then the third uh location forthe parks would be Mcnite Fields >> and then the Rotary Park take the leadon that >> and Silver Lake has to be a part of it.>> Yep. >> Too.>> Okay. >> I can take I assume I should be aroundbut I can take the urban ecology center. Um>> I can do the um postal credit union pond.>> I will have to be done by 11:45 but I could start a little earlier too. So>> Okay. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, I will come back withthe next meeting with all the information compiled neatly and nicelyand then we can talk to everybody else and have the plan moving forward.>> Can I just double check so I understood that long presentation correctly? Ican't just post and say does anyone want to come help park cleanup?>> I think social media >> can but then like we can't post on itlike we can't comment on it. >> You can't add to it. I was confusedabout that. >> That's data.>> Can't you call that an event? >> Even you posting that personally, thatstill qualifies as it's the role of you as a commissioner. So if someone asksfor information, that would be included. >> Well, we can call it an event orwhatever we need to call it, a meeting. >> That way if we>> which I will do for this cleanup date. >> Yes, that's my suggestion is>> Yeah. I just I'm like I feel like I might have done that in the past whereI've posted things like come to the Fire and Ice Festival just for like I have alot of friends on my Facebook page that live in North St. Paul and I'm like Ijust want to help promote these events but now it sounds like I'm not supposedto be promoting events. >> No, it that it's I from what Iunderstood that inherently is not an issue. It's just if there was a datarequest for your information. >> Oh, then I just have to share with them.Yes. Okay. >> And then that means that>> because there's nothing malicious there. There shouldn't be multiple of uscommenting on your post. Then >> Sarah, I'm not trying to give youanything more to do because I'm sure you're too busy, but um would it be agood idea for us to have just guidelines? Like for example,one of us can post something. I'm not on social media, so it doesn't I don'treally have to worry about it, but social media can be such a great toolfor getting people to events. So I think to protect any of us who were going topost on social media, can we just clarify that? And you know, I know it'sall right there, >> but can we just put it in, you know,like for example, Sarah could post that's called that would be data, butand we shouldn't, you know, like respond to her post. Can we like drop our ownguidelines? Historically, we've usually talked to the city before we've done it.And you know, like in your in your case, hey, I'd like to do this.>> I'd like to do a post. >> Send it to the city.>> Let the city >> I've never done that, Lloyd. I just doit. >> Yeah. So,>> because it's like for my friends, you know, like I'm not friends witheverybody in the city. I'm friends with my neighbors and like>> right >> you and like this person and like it'smore just >> a lot of neighbors don't check the citywebsite but they'll see it when you post it you know or they know Sarah'sinvolved so they probably know if Sarah posted they're like oh okay yeah we'lldo that >> theoretically >> yeah I don't I don't know I just want toI want to protect all of us uh from accidentally doing the wrong thing>> well what I'll do I'm not comfortable making that myself so I will ask Jack tosee if he has some sort of guidelines that he can certainly provide thatbrings clarity. I mean, it's it's probably all here, butyou know, maybe it's>> it's probably too tricky because if he just writes down like five things andlegally it doesn't encompass everything like I would say Ingred as nice as thatwould be. I think it just has to be more of a he's probably going to comeannually and talk about this or something and then we as a group discussit if we have new members just because I remember when I came in somebody told melike three of you can't be you know like like it was told to me. So yeah. Yeah.>> Yeah. >> Yeah.>> I emailed the whole council one time. >> Yes.>> That's how we learned about >> not the council, the commission said,"I'm not going to be at the meeting. >> This is my opinion.">> Well, that was a long time ago. >> Or which the city manager.>> Yeah. Okay. >> Went naughty naughty.>> Yeah. >> All right. Is there anything else leftabout the citywide cleanup? Are we good? >> No. Okay. Next.>> Um, my other quick updates. As you see on your desk, I have made a brochureabout our parks. >> This was recommended by a communitymember and so I put this together. >> Oh, nice.>> If you have feedback, let me know. Um otherwise, I plan on staff approved it.Um it's intended to just be high level like what does each park provide, notany sort of details. um details are available on our website, but I can putthis available um to start at least here at city hall and then have an electronicversion as well. But any feedback? Yes. >> Um upon seeing this now for the firsttime, I think having just this front part with the QR code>> posted at our parks perhaps in a little laminated thing either like on abuilding or sign or whatever. I think that would be handy. And then possiblyin like Casey and like housy um like inside the wellprotected buildings wecould have some of these flyers so someone could grab some.>> Yeah, absolutely. >> That could be good idea.>> Great job, Sarah. Good brochure. >> Yeah. Yeah,>> it's beautiful. >> Thank you.>> I can add graphic design to my resume. >> Yes.>> One of your many talents. >> Um and then the quick other updates. So,I know we talked about switching gears to Mcnitefields and we're we have we arein possession of all the documents regarding the um the land restrictions.Um it doesn't look like there's any land restrictions any longer. Therefore,storage will be necessary by public works and electric. So, we already wereaware of that that that could be an option. So, at our next meeting, Ron,our public works director, is going to come present what we found, what theywill need as storage out there, and what um them steps moving forward would be.>> Okay. >> Okay. Excellent.>> Um I have been working with Ken so much on this DNR grant um potentiallyfor Casey Lake Park in the hockey rink. Uh it's due on Tuesday. So, um wesubmitted the preliminary one, got really good feedback on it. Um, so we'resubmitting the final one on Tuesday. Um, as soon as we hear from that, we'llcommunicate and let you know. Um, and a final decision will need to be made bythe parks commission if you wanted to move forward with the grant or not. Um,they award that in June, though, so it'll be a little while. Um, and thenthe last thing I I referenced in the email um, last month, we have afirefighter here on the North St. Paul department that is in the medallion huntcommunity >> and likes to run them. He's part of theone that runs uh the St. Paul winter carnival one. He does South St. Paul. Umhas a parks one that he does all year round. He just is like super passionateabout it. Um essentially he would take all of the responsibility.He makes the medallions. He does the clues. Um we just post it on socialmedia. Um he works with businesses to get prizes. Um really there's nothing tobe done with the city. Um council is supportive of it. So want to get yourfinal thoughts before we let him start doing these. Um it sounds like council'sonly hesitation was they don't want to do it year round. They want it to bemore of a they don't want to get watered down. I'll say that. Um so make thembigger deals if we're going to do it. Um otherwise they're supportive. Just wantto get your thoughts on on that. I was so excited reading about that. I waslike, "This sounds incredible. >> I would love if they if the if thefirefighter would like volunteers, I would love to help. It sounds like anawesome opportunity. Sounds like a really cool thing for the city." I'm>> I'm very supportive. >> Perfect.>> Yeah. >> And I think there were some um I didn'tread about it in detail, but he was saying be careful in the partner. Thereare rules about what you how you can look in the park and>> so that the park >> land and shrubs and all that won't be>> hurt by the hunt. Okay. >> Yep. And there's no there'll never bedigging involved. I mean there should never be anything that destroys ordefaces anything in the parks. >> Yeah, I like it.>> Seems like a great idea. So >> yeah.>> Yeah. >> Perfect. That's all from me. So>> all right, we can do reports from commissioners. We'll start at the frontwith Rachel. Any reports? >> Um, okay. So, this is just generalbusiness. We're not doing the parks, >> right?>> Both. Both. We're gonna call it both. >> It divide it.>> Okay. >> Um, I swung by Northwood before this andthey have the Gaga bit. Gaga pit out >> in the hockey rink and it's beautiful.>> Great. >> Oh, I'm thinking perhaps we want to likeannounce like, hello, look at this new feature we have. This is what it is. Ithink they just did that today. So, yes. >> Oh, wow. Okay, cool.>> Yeah. >> Yes. And then Oh, they just put it outtoday. >> Yeah.>> Today. It looks like it was brand new. >> You chose the right day to swing by thatpart. >> Oh, the Gaga pit.>> Yeah. Went out yesterday or yesterday. >> Was there last week?>> Oh, >> okay.>> Be nice to have we could put a sign or something.>> Yes. If we also have like a laminated sign explaining like this is what it is.>> Yeah, absolutely. >> I think that'll be helpful.Um, when do we discuss summer meetings as inlike in the parks? >> Anytime.>> Okay. Do we can we add that to the agenda for next month>> to figure out where and when we're going?>> Good. >> Um Um,that's an uh I already didUm, okay. I am done. >> Great.>> All right, Ingred. >> Uh,I don't have anything. >> Okay. Nothing.>> Lloyd, >> can we get uh uh supplies to clean uplike Southwood? I' I'd come and get them from You got them at the city that wecan pick up. >> Sure. Like uh garbage bags.>> Yeah. Yeah, that's all I'm going to need. Yes.>> I can pull that together for you. >> Yep. Yep. Cuz it's going to right nowit's going to be me and that's fine. I'm okay with that.>> Okay. >> Okay.>> Yeah, I can do that. >> All right.>> Otherwise, no, I'm good. >> All right. Um I just I know we haddiscussed a while back about a ribbon cutting at um Polar.>> And do we know when that is and when that will be?>> Not yet. I do have that um as soon as they can get in there to get the newwood chips put in um immediately I'll get that scheduled. So, it's on myradar. >> All right.Um I don't think I have anything else for me. Um All right. We'd like you tomake a motion to adjurnn. >> So moved.>> Uh all those >> favor.>> Just second. >> Second.>> Okay. >> All those in favor?>> I. All those opposed adjourned.>> Perfect.