hereby call to order the Roseville City Council meeting for Monday, October 13th, 2025. Mr. City Manager, would you call the role, please? >> Council member Strong >> here, >> council member Schwarter >> here, >> council member Grath >> here, >> council member Bower >> here, Mayor Ro >> here. And by way of introductions, we have our city attorney Rachel Tierney who's on my right at the end of the day. Uh and the city manager uh Pat Trean who's on my left at the other end. Uh we have other uh guests and participants in the meeting who will be introduced as items come up on the agenda. I do want to remind folks if you have a cell phone to either silence it or otherwise assure that it doesn't disrupt the meeting this evening. Uh, and I do want to also let you know that we have um materials uh for the meeting uh available to the public on the back table by the back door. Uh under the big clock, there is one copy of all the materials which you can share with your fellow attendees. Uh and then we also have individual copies of the agenda if you'd like to follow along uh with your own copy of the agenda. With that, uh we'll ask folks to stand if you're able for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Right. First on our agenda this evening is to approve tonight's agenda. Uh are there any changes that need to be made from a staff perspective this evening, Mr. Trojan? >> There is not, Mr. Mayor. >> All right. Are there any items that council members would like removed from consent for separate consideration or items that council members would like to change as it relates to the agenda this evening? Doesn't appear to be the case. We'll do a check with members of the public. Uh if anybody is here on an item in section, let me check the numbering. Section 10 of our agenda this evening. Uh it starts at the bottom. Well, it's all on the bottom of the first page of the agenda. It's called the consent agenda. These are approval of payments and relatively administrative type decisions uh that we take up at the end of the meeting as a single motion. Uh but if you're here this evening to either make a comment or ask a question about one of those items in section 10 of our agenda this evening, this would be the chance to let us know uh and we can pull that item forward in the meeting uh so that you can have a chance to ask your question or make your comment uh rather than waiting till the end. Is there anyone here for an item in section 10 of tonight's agenda, otherwise known as the consent agenda items? Right. Does not appear to be the case. Uh with that, then it appears we can have a motion to approve the agenda as presented. >> Move. Second. >> All right. It's been moved by Council Member Grath, seconded by Council Member Schroer to approve tonight's agenda as presented. Uh any discussion on that motion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I opposed. >> That passes unanimously. We have our agenda for this evening. Uh this then comes to our first opportunity for public comment. Uh I would note that we have a chance for members of the public to speak on agenda items as they come up this evening. Uh but we also at the start of each meeting uh provide an opportunity for general public comment that is related to things not on the this evening's agenda but may be related to city business or of interest to people in the community. Is there anyone here to speak this evening under general public comment not related to agenda item this evening? It does not appear to be the case. Uh with that then we'll move on with our agenda. Uh and our first item this evening as far as uh uh I guess business related items is under recognitions and donations. We are going to receive a presentation from the superintendent of Roseville Area Public Schools uh Jenny Lake who has got some information for people in the community uh related to a ballot issue that uh the schools have on the ballot this fall. And so I would welcome uh Superintendent Lake to come up and uh make the presentation to the council and the public. >> Okay. Thank you for having us. Thank you, mayor. Thank you, council members. Uh do I advance my own slides presentation? Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. Thanks for having us on Indigenous People's Day today. I really appreciate the time and recognition and partnership that this school district shares with the city of Roseville. Uh here with me today is our executive director of business services, Miss Sher Thompson. Um >> yeah, good evening. And we've been here before and we really again really appreciate the partnership. So, as you know, we are here today just to be as transparent as possible and provide rationale to our community in terms of our capital projects levy ask. Um, that will be on November 4th. So, it's an odd year election and we know it's important for everyone to have all the information as possible. Uh, this is a very important election in Roseville area schools as we have three schoolboard seats open and four candidates running for those seats this year. So, if approved, the levy would provide a dedicated source of funding for uh technology and safety. It would be $6 million a year for a 10 10-year period. So, $60 million over the course of the 10 years. And um this will be ongoing cost. So, that's why we're looking at $6 million per year. Uh it's that reinvestment in in infrastructure. It's not onetime costs. So, in in recent years, Roseville's uh area schools has been fortunate to receive the community support. Um going back to 2017, uh we passed a $144 million bonding uh referendum. And with with that, we updated our schools. Um we put in secure entrances. uh updated our programming spaces including our media centers, our special ed spaces, added some classrooms in buildings that needed that additional capacity. Uh then in 2021, we went back to the voters seeking additional operating funds. Uh at that time, we had a levy that was expiring after 10 years. So we uh were not only able to renew that levy uh the public supported increasing those levy dollars and we're very fortunate. So why are we asking for additional cap capital projects lovey now? Uh and the reality is is is that is how schools uh receive their funding. Um we receive funding in one of two ways. It's either authorized by the legislature or we need to ask our voters for approval. So that's why we are coming back. Um now um and of course this is no reflection on cities or counties but we do not have that that authority but we have similar needs just as you're seeing the needs for increased public safety costs. Um we need to go out and and ask the the public for that approval. most uh Twin Cities metro districts, nearly 70% have a capital projects levy in place uh to support those investments. Uh a couple of our neighbors um specifically being North St. Paul and Melons View uh have not yet accessed those funds and they are also seeking that um funding this fall. >> We have a brief video we'd like to share. This fall, Roseville Area Schools is seeking voter approval of a dedicated source of safety and technology funding. If approved by voters, the levy will provide $6 million per year for 10 years to support security and technology related expenses such as acquiring, maintaining, and upgrading equipment, infrastructure, and systems. The tax impact on a $350,000 home is about $18 per month. Visit our website to use the tax calculator for your estimated tax impact. Roseville Area Schools is one of the few metro districts without dedicated funding to maintain and improve the technology that supports student learning, safety, and connection. Technology impacts every part of the student experience. The levy would help Roseville area schools enhance safety in areas such as strengthening school security with modern tools, protecting against cyber threats, and helping ensure safe, welcoming spaces for students. Funding dedicated to learning would provide every student with access to up-to-date digital learning tools, support career and technical education with modern technology, and ensure reliable online resources that prepare students for future success. The levy would strengthen how we connect and communicate by providing funds to upgrade networks for strong, reliable access, improve communication tools between school and home, and enhance collaboration for students, staff, and families. The safety and technology levy will foster safe, welcoming learning environments for students and staff. Empower students with the digital resources they need to discover, innovate, and excel, and connect families, staff, and students through reliable tools that build community. You can vote on or before November 4th. Learn more and ask questions at our website, www.isd623.org/levy2025. So you may ask where do our tech levy dollars go? We have five areas of spending and they are uh I'll go through some examples. Safety and security of course. So the bonds for buildings we have our safe and secure entrances. But think about how technology is woven into those spaces. also know that safety is on the top of mind for all of our families and community members in our schools and we take a approach that is both relationship based students feeling safe in their schools and classrooms but also we need that physical safety and we know that technology is woven into the structure but also the app-based security that is throughout our system. Uh also an example would be the use of digital technology in terms of our video cameras. We have over 700 cameras in Roseville area schools and we need more with 30% needing to be upgraded to a higher digital level platform and that doesn't even touch on well sure you can talk more about infrastructure it's just increasing increasing costs uh student learning that would be all of our ecurriculum the transition of course if you've experienced that as community members or as families moving from textbooks to online curriculum I also want to share that in Roseville area schools there is no vision to expand onetoone learning in terms of families experiencing some anxiety about the num uh length of screen time for students. So we will remain 6 through 12 in Roseville area schools. Um and then do you want to touch on the cyber security and infrastructure? So um cyber security uh of course uh everyone is familiar with um what you hear um even in in the media as far as attacks on organizations, local governments um and it we have put in like u uh dual authentification but it's also like what is that next thing right there's always changes so uh and it's costly for us um as far as cyber security um we uh probably like you uh we carry cyber security insurance. We've been carrying that for the last 5 years. Um because if we are attacked, it's very costly. Number one, if there if it's ransomware to get that data back. Uh we also don't want to um have any of our data compromised. Um so it is um it's an ongoing investment. It's not a one-time cost. Um looking at our infrastructure, um as far as our infrastructure goes, um all of our cameras that were mentioned, those are all on servers now. So, it's additional servers. Um, it's all those things behind the scenes. It's one of those things that us employees, the majority of us and our families take advantage of um or we take for granted. Infrastructure, we don't notice it when it works. We only notice it when it doesn't work. So, we've been very fortunate in that area also, but we need to continue um to replace and upgrade those um those systems so that they are robust. >> Yeah, I would imagine the city and the school district share many expenses in all of these areas as well. So, you're probably well aware. Uh the last item would be communication in terms of ensuring that that that's what our families deserve. We have over 93 languages spoken at home. everything. Our families deserve to have the language they speak at home translated and active and timely. Um, we have to continue to do a good job on that. All of our website platforms, our app platforms. Uh, we had last year in Roseville schools 1.4 million different touches to our website and 1.5 million million 1.5 million electronic newsletters opened. So again, maybe similar numbers to the city. So we've talked about our needs. Um so then to share the impact to our taxpayers. So um this uh chart just illustrates the three different types of uh properties within the district. Uh I'm going to focus primarily on the residential homestead impact. And you can see that we have the $350,000 estimated market value uh highlighted there. That's because the $350,000 value or estimated market value is uh what is the median value property uh within the Roseville area school district. Uh so the impact um on a $350,000 home would be $18 a month or $218 a year. And we do have um out on our website, we not only have more information about the tech levy in general, but we have a tax calculator. So um individuals can uh go out to that site and put in their specific property value and uh see what the impact would be. >> Yeah. The other point I'll make is that we're currently maintaining and safety and security will always be a priority in Roseville area schools and we'll pay any cost necessary and it's currently coming from the general fund. So when you think about the tax impact, this is what our district finance advisory committee let us know in terms of surveying the community and bringing forward their respective opinions in terms of tax tolerance. We believe that our community can support less than $20 or $18 a month for this ask. And again, maybe I led too early, safety and technology aren't optional. And again, our families deserve to send their children off to school feeling safe each day. uh we'll continue to pay those costs, but the cuts will come from our co-curricular, extracurricular, and curricular areas if this levy doesn't pass so pass. So, I think Roseville area schools are very proud. I think we offer a world-class education here in Roseville. And uh we just we want to keep up with our neighbors as well. Um and really asking for the community's support. And for more information, of course, look at our website. You can call myself, give Sherry a call, email us. We're happy to meet. We're happy to present at additional meetings. Um, and just make sure that everyone has the information they deserve and need as they go to the polls on November 4th. So, thanks for having us. We have as much time as you have in terms of any questions or comments. >> Good questions. Uh, Council Member Strong, >> I just wanted to make a comment for the public. Um, as you move away from a physical textbook and you go to an online subscription, you are making sure that you don't have a generation old textbook in a student's hands that maybe has whole lifetime of things that have happened since then, but it is an ongoing cost and it is an ongoing tech cost to have that subscription for each child. So, I think sometimes people forget that it's not a oneandone like maybe a book, although a book really shouldn't be because books should be replaced with regularity. And then I just like to say as a parent u who had children in music and arts, the access to music and arts in our school district is really beyond compare. I hear other parents whose kids cannot afford to participate in those options in their school districts even if they're on free and reduced lunch. They don't have those options. And we never felt like there was a barrier to us participating. And I know there's so many other families and that's why there's such phenomenal participation. And I so I really, you know, I appreciate what that means. And so that's my additional plug for you. >> I appreciate that. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Other council member Bower, >> you mentioned I think 2017 2021 there were asks well and now this ask in uh 2025. What did what are your plans for a future ask or do you have ideas on the horizon of when you would come back for additional funds again? Yes, that that's a very good question. And going back to 2017, um right that those dollars were for for buildings, so they could only be spent on facilities. Uh 2021, that is an operating levy that um will expire uh with the 2031 2032 school year. Um so we would uh likely seek approval again for a renewal on that. And then this is a 10-year period. There are no are no other additional asks. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for the question. >> Other questions? All right. Well, thank you again for being here this evening uh and for the work you do uh in the Roseville area school district uh with the young people in our community and surrounding communities. Uh, and we want to encourage everybody to make sure they get out and vote on November 4th, both uh, related to this uh, levy ask, as well as the school board uh, candidates and the three positions that are up for election this year. >> Thank you for the partnership. Thanks for having us. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right, that then brings us to our business items this evening. Uh and our first business item uh is to consider a request to perform an abatement for unresolved uh code violations at 949 Brooks Avenue West. And we've got our code officer uh David England with us this evening uh to present this item to the council. Welcome, Mr. England. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Members of council has described uh this is a request to perform an abatement at 949 Brooks. Uh back on September uh excuse me, August 20th, uh staff received a complaint regarding outside storage of junk and debris at the front of this property. Uh staff did an a site visit did confirm the junk and debris. Also, we confirmed there were two vehicles that were unlicensed. Um and one additionally inoperable with a flat tire. Um we provided a door hanger at that time to the property. Uh we received no um response from that uh resident. So then we did a site visit again on September 2nd and followed up with a letter to the property owner detailing the violations again. Um on September 19th, we stopped back out after seeing no change and we were able to meet with the resident on site. We discussed the violations with him, asked what his plan was to bring the property into compliance. He stated that he intended to bring uh the property into full compliance prior to any council action. Um, at that point we did give them a council notification because we did have this date, but we were approximately 20 days away from that. So, we thought for sure it would be corrected by now. Um, I did stop back out on October 3rd, did not see any progress. Uh, we actually saw more items stored outside at the front of the garage. Um, so I did provide him an additional uh, council notification at that point that I posted on the property and the two vehicles. Um, as of I think it was, yeah, the 7th of October, we did learn that there was a transfer of property ownership from the current resident to a family member of the resident. U, we were able to make contact with that individual just to make sure they were aware of this action. Um, he said he would make sure that the property came into compliance before today. Um, I was very hopeful that this was going to um, come off today. Um, we were out today and the vehicles per the Department of Vehicle Services have new plates and new registration. They are not currently displayed on the vehicle. Um, but they are they do have current registration. Um but the items um stored at the front remain. Um and so this is basically the ask tonight would be to seek approval to abate the uh junk and debris at the front of the property and on the property and by hiring a contractor to remove that and then charge the property owner um for that service and also the approved city council approved abatement fee as part of that. >> Right. Thank you, Mr. England. And if we can have the overhead camera, I think you've got a picture of the site. Uh >> yes, >> that uh we can make available for the public. Here we go. >> That that's the items that are in this area that are out there now. Um it's quite a significant progression from when we first arrived to see items were in front of this white vehicle at the time. Now they're expanding out towards the front entry of the home. Um, same similar picture just from today. So, it's quite a bit more, but there has been progress. We just don't have full compliance. >> Right. Thank you, Mr. England. Are there uh questions from the council uh for staff at this time? >> Council member Strong, >> do we know when the ownership transferred from one party to another? >> Um, not specifically. It's not listed on the Rams County website. It was um general progress and procedure that we do is we do verify that at every notice that we provide and um it was fairly shocking to see the transfer of title without a sale. Normally there's some indication of a sale. Um but in this case, I think it was very fortunate for us because we were provided with the new owner's contact information, so we were able to get a hold of them by phone. Um, but I don't know. It was within the last couple of weeks. >> Okay. >> And does the new owner also reside at this location? >> He does not. >> And did the prior owner live at this location? >> He did. And he is, from my understanding, he is proposed to the current resident will remain. >> It is a family member sale or transfer. >> Thank you. >> Do we have a representative of the property uh here this evening that wishes to speak? That does not appear to be the case. Uh do we have anybody from the public who might wish to speak to this particular case before the council this evening? Once again, the council is being asked to authorize uh staff uh or a third party to uh to abate the nuisance on this property, which would be basically to to pick up the junken debris in the front yard uh and dispose of it and then charge the cost back to the uh property owner. uh if the property owner does not pay the costs uh through the normal billing process, those charges can be uh put on the property tax then for payment. Uh that's the procedure that uh the city has set up for these types of scenarios. Um is there anyone from the public who wish to speak to this? All right. Uh we'll look to the council then. We've got the requested action. Uh is there a motion from the council related to this item? Motion to abate the uh property um as requested by the staff. >> I'll second it. >> All right. It's been moved by Council Member Strong, seconded by Council Member Grath to uh authorize the abatement as outlined uh for the junk and the debris on this property. Uh discussion on the motion as the maker. Council member Strong, >> it's unfortunate that someone from the property didn't come tonight. I think we could have had a discussion about an extension based on the change in ownership. Um, but because this same resident continues to be in this property and we haven't seen any progress, um, I feel like, you know, we should proceed as as requested in order to, um, approve and, u move forward on this particular situation. >> Right. And as the secondary, Council Member Grath, >> I would agree with that. Um, it's frustrating because I know Mr. England makes every attempt and he you you've heard that, you know, the number of times he's reached out to people and people have to take this seriously a month's time, six weeks time, you know, eventually we have to act on these. It affects neighbors, it affects neighborhoods, uh, and uh, we have to have some standards that we live up to. Now, that doesn't mean we wouldn't work with people and if if they do come to the meeting and explain a hardship, we could potentially do that. But with the information we have tonight, I think we need to go forward. >> Right. Other discussion on the motion? And I just want to clarify uh the uh action uh for abatement is not necessarily um dependent on ownership of the property. It's it's a it's related to the property itself. Uh so we could certainly consider if it made sense to look at the timing based on the transfer of ownership, but that's certainly not a requirement or a part of our code as to needing to to rethink timing or or restart a process on that basis as I understand it. I'm getting nods from staff. All right, with that then we've got the motion before us to authorize the abatement of the nuisance on this property at 949 uh Brooks Avenue West. Uh if there's no further discussion, all those in favor signify by saying I. >> I opposed. That passes unanimously. That abatement is authorized. Thank you, Mr. England. >> Thank you. >> All right. That then brings us to our next item on our agenda this evening under business items. And uh this is to uh consider uh the possibility of closing the Roseville Leaf Recycling Center. Uh this is a matter that was before the city council uh in September uh and is back before us after an opportunity for some additional public comment as well as uh the weighing in of the uh public works environment and transportation commission. and I will turn it over to our public works director uh Jesse Fryhammer to uh bring this back before the council. Mr. Fryhammer. >> Uh thank you mayor and councel. So I'm going to go through a presentation pretty much the same information you saw before with a few added slides. So I'm going to go through it rather quick but if there are certainly questions we can uh answer that. So some quick background. We originally brought this uh at the September 9th meeting. Uh proposal came from staff reviewing options uh looking to save cost towards the city budget. Uh major major reasons to close the site include cost savings. It's a duplicative service to what Ramsey County provides. Uh some of the existing site conditions. Um as was mentioned, this was referred to the public works, environment, and transportation commission at their September 30th meeting. Um they did receive public comment. I think there's a lot of public comment in the packet as well as I think six uh members testified at the commission. Um the recommendation from the public works environment and transportation commission was to keep keep it open for one more year and to collect more data and to explore options and revisit in in 2026. Um a secondary recommendation was to keep the organic collection where it is and explore moving it to the city campus in the future. And then uh we're here tonight at the October 13th meeting. So um the site's located at Dale Street. Uh it's been there since about 1971. Um it was formally staffed but has not been staffed for at least 10 years. Um it is just a leaf site unlike the the Ramsey County sites there yard waist so it does get confused from time to time. Um but typically we open it uh four weeks in the spring, 6 weeks in the fall. Uh it did coincidally open today. Um and then we do turn all the leaves collected into compost which involves uh compost turning. Uh the only service we provide that Ramsey County does not provide is we do for a fee you can get compost delivered. So site collection, just a few more stats. Uh this is kind of some new info, but we collect about 30,000 um 30,000 to 35,000 cubic yards of leaves annually. We think the site really can only hold 30,000 after that. We really end up having excess leaves in a stockpile. Um we do typically lay out 17 rows of compost. They're about 17 feet wide by 8 feet tall. Every 21 days we try to turn it. Um, at the beginning of turning it takes about four days to turn all the rows. So, as you can see, it's it's it takes a lot of time. And then we continually add, as I mentioned, we we have a static pile of leaves that as residents keep bringing them in after we form the piles, we keep adding to it, and then they slowly build break down. Uh, this does make about four to 5,000 yards of compost. The residents do take most of the compost, so it's uh is is very well used, but we typically do have about a thousand yards at the end of the year. We typically sell that for a very minimal fee to vendors to use. Um the reason we don't get much money for it is they have to if they want to use it for something, they got to filter it, they got to haul it. It's it's a it's a cost. Um so, as I mentioned, one of the reasons staff was really proposing to close this um it is a would be a budget savings. uh significant the big cost would be uh reduced CIP cost. Um the the equipment that we currently have is a 1997 piece of equipment. We purchased it used in 2006. It's literally at the end of its life. Harder to find parts for. Um currently it's we have 275,000 or $375,000 in the CIP for that. Um but we will have to replace with a different style equipment. This style is no longer made. Um equipment and fuel costs. So, we do about 720 hours of equipment costs at the site. That is our our loader and the about basically 720 hours of of the loader with the attachment on or without because we do use the loader to push up the pile. Um it's about $8,700 in fuel we use. And then staff time is about $59,000 equivalent in staff time. Uh it's about $720 or 18 weeks of staff time. Um, we wouldn't necessarily reduce staff, but it would reallocate staff to other duties such as storm sewer, street maintenance, or streetscape activities where we potentially use contract labor for. So, other other potential budget savings. Um, if if the site was closed, we could potentially use the site for tree disposal costs. Um, since 2024, Ramsey County has not allowed the cities to bring our tree debris to the site. So, we have to pay a tipping fee. So, this would allow us to manage tree debris a little differently and potentially save us cost. Um, as I mentioned, this is truly a duplicative service to what Ramsey County provides. We're the only city in Ramsey County that offers this specialty or additional service. Uh, but Ramsey County takes all all the leaves as well as grass clippings, um, uh, yard uh, tree vegetation, stuff like that. Um, residents can also get mulch. Uh, like I mentioned, the only thing that they do not provide is the the compost delivery. Um, their site is open year round. They do have hours um that varies on time of year and then uh is closed on holidays. Unlike our site, we're typically when we're open, we're open. Um, they're typically closed every Tuesday uh and and Thursday. And I and I I'll kind of list the hours out here later. So, there's also a lot of issues with our site. Um, the location isn't great in terms of the actual volume. We don't have a lot of queuing for when it gets really busy. So, you're backing up on a county road. Um, illegal dumping. We get a lot of non-contract non-resident and contractors because we don't staff the site. And then we do get some odor and noise complaints. Then just kind of some photos of some of the issues we see at the site. Um if we did close the site, um this is the closest site for most Roseville residents. About 76% of residents it is the closest. The current distance on average is about 1.33 miles. If we did close it, that distance would go up to about 2.8. So about an increase of 1.5 miles. uh wood management. Like I said, if if we did close this, staff would propose using this for uh wood debris management. If we with both public works and parks, we we either through boulevard maintenance, pathway maintenance, um natural resource management, we create a lot of wood debris. This would give us an option to manage it um as as time allows or build it up over a period of time and do a like a tub grinder or something be more cost effective. Um, it would also give us some emergency operation and other temporary uses such as water brakes, um, or temporary contractor storage. We do have one spot for water breaks, but that's with Ramsey County. There's no guarantee that that's there forever. Um, then organics drop off dumpsters. Um, we staff would still propose to move that outside the gate. Uh, it would be easier for residents to maintain and also easier for vendors to to or easier for residents to access and easier for vendors to maintain. um staff would propose to um close that at the end of this leaf site. That would mean no collection in in 2026. We would manage compost through the end of 2026 though because obviously what we collect we need to turn into compost otherwise it would it would be very costly to get rid of. Um we did do the equity and inclusion toolkit on this. Um that just kind of noted that there would be a slight increase in burden since residents would need to travel farther. uh but there would be a cost savings which um does does meet some of the goals of the strategic plan. So if the lease site is decided to stay open um some investments would need to be made. Um security for one we would recommend adding um cameras and then closing the walking gate to to minimize some of the illegal dumping and then certainly adding staffing. Now that would be the biggest cost. Um, if you added staffing, that would help eliminate non-resident use as well as, uh, contractor use. Um, it would help some of the illegal dumping, people bringing in grass clippings when they're only supposed to be bringing leaves. Um, but the one big impact would be if you staff it, you you'd have to reduce the hours. So, one of the advantage we know residents like about the Roseville site is you can go there anytime, you can beat the rush because there there's not hours. So, but if in order to man the site, you would have to at least have some reasonable hours. So, um, included here is what Ramsey County does. So, typically, um, during the peak season, they're they're open, um, Monday through Friday, 11 to 7:00, but they they close on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So, it's Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then Saturdays are open from 9:00 to 5:00 and 11:00 to 5:00. So, if we go this route, staff would propose basically mirroring what Ramsey County does in terms of hours. Um, if you did this over a whole year, that that's about 700 hours of cost. um kind of using what roughly what Ramsey County pays. That's an additional $14,000 of costs annually just just for staff. And it gets a little more complicated. We'd obviously have to hire multiple staff to coincide hours. So, it's it's not as easy as just saying, "Hey, we can just hire one uh person to do that." So, um and then the other um big cost is if we do keep it open, there does need to be a long-term solution for the compost equipment um as I mentioned before. So, like I said, current equipment 1997 at is at the end of the life. Uh, we do have money in the 2828 budget. Uh, but we'd have to look into different options. Um, kind of the cabover version or a little larger one that would be able to manage our site. Those those are much more costly. It'd be a standalone piece of equipment. Those costs for new range up to about $800,000. So, it' be very expensive. We can do a pole behind like is shown below. The only problem with the pullbehind is our site is not large enough to accommodate a pullbehind. If we do do that, we would need to reduce the volume of leaves we collect by about half because we'd have to rearrange the rows differently. The rows can't go as high. I think the the model shown there can only go about 6 ft when our current rows are about eight. And then just just kind of show some options. The the cab over a brand new one would be $800,000. A pull behind would be about $85,000. Uh, but we would have to invest also in an upgraded tractor. Our current tractor would not be able to pull this equipment. So, if you add a new tractor and that would be about $400,000. Um, and then organics. Um, we did a little more analysis. If we did close this site, what would be the impact? So, currently residents um um this is the other site that's new to Roseville is the environmental service center, but including that, the current average distance is about one mile. If we eliminated this, it would go up to mile and a half. Um, this is a little more impactful than the leaf site from a a user perspective because people use this multiple times a week or weekly. Um, especially the super users, I would say. So, um, depending upon where you live, it it it could be a larger impact. Um, we do know Ramsey County is looking to do the the blue bag or the food scrap pickup program with the the pickup with your waste. They are testing it in Maplewood, North St. Paul. Theoretically, it's coming to Roseville in 2026, but we've heard that uh 18-month window for a very long time. So, I'm not going to guarantee that. But certainly, if we we keep the compost through 2026, we have some options to explore uh going forward. And then we do have the option that um or the recommendation from public works on that as well. So, with that, that's kind of the end of my presentation. I went through it rather quick. Uh but with that uh the requested council action would be to consider approval to close the the Roseville leaf site at the end of the 2025 leaf season. So with that I can open it up to any questions uh the council may have. >> Right. Thank you Mr. Fryhammer. Are there questions from the council? Uh council member Sher. >> Uh yes thank you for the presentation. Um especially when you looked at the keeping it open cost that would be additional to it. I'm looking at and you mentioned this that um the uh public works environment and transportation commission had recommended that we keep it open for another year so there's time to gather more data and explore options for leaf management. So if if we were going to keep it open just for another year, I assume those costs that you showed that that would be as if we kept it open permanently. That wouldn't be for the one-year extension. Correct. Yeah, it would that would be if we we we did all those hours over the entire length of the year >> to mimic what Ramsey County does. >> And then do you think the equipment you have could limp through one more year if if >> So it really end up being a two-year thing because we're already going to do the one year with with the compost for next year. So it would really be two. >> Um we know we at least will have to do some maintenance, but it's it's kind of a gamble at that point. Like I said, we did have it in the we we've been slowly pushing this off and the the timing worked out. So, um it's hard to say. We we've cobbled together for 20 almost 30 years. We can maybe one more it can still do it. I don't know. >> Thank you, >> Council Member Strong. >> I know this hasn't been brought up, but um do we have any idea? This is um we were told was a filledin wetland area. Obviously, it's wetland because it's adjacent to the Harriet Alexander Nature Center. Do you know anything about that? and what kind of water or environmental impact we could be having by having waste on there. >> So, um we did do some analysis on that. So, we don't know how much the wetland was filled. We looking back at the 40s before it was a thing. There was certainly a wetland there, but um I wouldn't say the whole site was filled in, but it certainly expanded over the years. Probably the edges got filled in. Um we have worked over the years to contain the organics at the site. So, I I I wouldn't say us eliminating it. We've we've done a pretty good job of keeping the water on the site so it filters down, but certainly we do have organics directly next to a wetland. I wouldn't surprise if we have some leeching that that gets away. Um, you know, future use of the site wouldn't be as intensive, so there could be some improvement, but like I said, we really do have kind of a burm around the site to contain the water, which is also one of the reasons it doesn't shed water as well. So, if you're there after rainfall, it uh pools. Um, like I said, there's really no drainage really set up for it. So, but I wouldn't say if we eliminated it, the water quality next door is going to dramatically increase either, >> but we don't know what kind of impact we're having on the existing um wetland from having this property or this >> Yeah. So, we we've worked with MPCA and the wershed on this, so they're aware of the site. Um like I said, we contain it. Um, but you know, water quality, we don't like go take samples constantly around it, but we haven't seen any dramatic or negative impacts that we've observed. One of the comments in the packet, it did mention um jumping worms or concerns about the quality of the compost. You mentioned they have to sift it or um filter it in order to sell it. Can you speak to that? >> So, we we do have minimum standards we have to meet. So, we do get it tested tested to to be a I guess compost site, but it is we we don't filter or or sift through the material. So, if people have GI Joe figurines or whatever else gets raking leaves, um that stuff's not going to break down if it's not not organic. So, um but you know, a lot of residents when you're shoveling, lifting your loads, you kind of self sort um to filter it out. Um, but it's, you know, we don't, we can't guarantee certain things about it. Um, you know, it's whatever people are bringing in their leaves is what's breaking down. So, we're not all the only thing we add to it is water to keep it moist. But, um, yeah, we don't and we do some testing to meet minimum standards to make sure it doesn't have certain and a lot of that's related to when we do street sweeping. So, we don't pull in, um, heavy metals and whatnot like that. But we're not it's not like a certified organic compost or anything like that. >> From personal experience, I have found that little plastic army guys are one of the most common things in there. >> Um >> besides plastic bags. >> Yeah. >> And um bottle caps. Those are a lot of those. Um so can you speak to if we so if we um closed this site um any funds that we're talking about that we would use? They're coming from the um wastewater. Correct. >> So everything's coming out of the storm water fund. So all this this program is 100% funded by the storm water fund. Um so um the the cost saved especially on the CIP items that would you know not I wouldn't necessarily say it would reduce the storm water rate but it potentially would prevent a future increase of the storm water rate because we'd have less um you know less there'd be a significant less CIP item and then less operating cost for fuel and and and equipment use. >> And just for clarity that's our water bill. So, we're paying for it somehow. >> Correct. It's coming out of your utility bill, the specific line that would be your storm water utility fee. >> And just for the benefit of the public to CIP as capital improvement plan or capital spending. Um, council member Grath. >> Um, is it feasible to have volunteers at the gate to check because that was one thing brought up. >> Yeah. So, uh, public works, uh, suggested that, um, volunteers I would recommend that would be a very hard thing to do. Um, you have you have to have really thick skin and be prepared to tell people no, you're not allowed there. Um, it's a lot it's not as easy as just opening the gate and letting people through. Um, to tell people no is really hard, especially when you have contractors or or vendors thinking they they have the right to be there. So, it could certainly be explored, but I I do think you it would be um rather challenging. We talking to Ramsey County staff. They pay their staff. um they have a fair amount of turnover from people because they do have to they have the same issues. They have to tell people, "Oh, you're in an Oka County resident or you're, you know, you're a contract vendor. You you brought a a tip up vehicle, you're not allowed to dump here or you're bringing something that we don't accept." So, um it's not the easiest job. Volunteers, I know we have very uh robust volunteer programs, so certainly could do that, but um it is a little harder than other volunteer programs we have. And then the other thing uh uh as far as the equip equipment goes that's a fairly expensive piece of equipment spec specifically used for this process. Um are there options of buying used equipment or so certainly we could go go used. Um there's the market is is a lot different than it was 25 30 years ago. Um but yeah certainly there's options. I I showed the new versions of what a new one is. Theoretically, you could buy a a used one for half the cost uh with ours on. Certainly, that could be an option. The ones for the right size of our site are harder to find because most sites have gone more regional sites have generally gotten bigger. Our sites remain the same and it's a kind of a mid to small site. So, there's not a lot of smaller equipment. A lot of the smaller equipment that would ideally be good for a smaller site that manages ours. You would have more turn. You would just have more room to manage the amount of leaves we have. We have the problem of a lot of leaves on a small site. So, we don't have a lot. It's not like we have room. We could spread the leaves out more and use a smaller piece of equipment. The leaves we collect, we have to manage in that site. We have um which is why I mentioned that pull behind option. It's a pretty fair option, but we don't have the ability to the the turning radius to turn and then it doesn't stack the rows as high. So, we'd have to reduce the volume of leaves to to go that option. Well, that option would need a new tractor, you said. >> And would we need a new tractor, which it's it's a new expense. You'd swap it with the other tractor. Um, but yeah, it would still be an additional cost. >> Thank you. >> Just a clarification, when you say swap it with the other tractor, you're not saying swap it with the loader, the front end loader. >> No, we we'd still need the loader, but we do currently have one um tractor that public works uses. We use it for mowing. Uh we use it for snow plowing in the winter. We would have to we would theoretically replace that tractor with a much larger tractor that could both pull that and then theoretically have many of the other capabilities to do that. But we'd have to buy new plow equipment attachments. So that's why it adds up really quick. You notably buy a tractor, you got to buy a flail that m that matches that. You have to buy, you know, the plow equipment that matches it. So it all it all adds up. Everything's kind of right size for the size of the equipment we currently have. >> Got it. In the current scheduled replacement of the tractor we have, >> it's at it's it's out there at least 2030. It's in it's in good shape. I know. In fact, I know this year on the CIP, we actually pushed it back two years because it was it's it was in no need to replace. So, I want to say it's like 2031 or 32. >> All right. Other questions from the council? Council member Bower, >> do we adjust the CIP or what we're um once every year we adjust the CIP, right? Did we adjust that at all knowing that the piece of equipment that we currently have was no longer available and we were going to have to change that or did we just maintain as the CIP thinking it was going to be around the $300 some thousand? >> So, we did look at it a few years ago um for the type of equipment we actually tested um one of the midsize version that was on that middle slide that is no longer available. Actually, they they eliminated because they don't have enough sales on that size. Um, so we we have adjusted it, but um I guess we didn't look at the the super big option. That might have to be the case, but um I know the we've we've adjusted the CIP also in terms of years. We um I think originally, you know, we thought we get about 20 years out of this. We have slowly kept pushing that decision to replace it off. Um but we're almost getting to that point where we can't keep pushing forever. >> Thank you. And just on that topic, um you had talked I think in one of the discussions either a council discussion or the public works environment transportation commission or both or or an email from me. I'm not sure anymore. Um that uh that the existing unit, one of the things that looks like it needs to be done fairly soon is a replacement of sheet metal. Is that on the apparatus itself that turns the pile? >> Basically, it's the it's the protection on the outside of the pile. So as it spins, it it it contains it and builds the rows. So that is going to have to get done very very uh shortly. Um we might even have to do some some temporary stuff this year to at least keep it together. >> Okay. And is that because of wear and >> it's just wear. It's just it's it's you know when you're spinning stuff if it hits anything hard it just slowly damages it and eventually becomes a safety hazard. So you got to >> and and the rows won't stack properly. So we've had it we've done that numerous times. I I want to say how many times but that's been an ongoing thing. um you know it's just when it's turning it's just very mechanical so it just wears out. >> Right. And we have the capability to do that sheet metal work. >> Yeah. If we did that most likely we would do in house um to to do that with our with our mechanics. >> Got it. Okay. Other questions from the council. >> All right. I do want to open it up and provide an opportunity for public comment if there's anyone from the public who wishes to speak to this item this evening. Um, I just want to uh go through the uh rules of the road for public comment. We do have a three-minute time limit per speaker. Uh, I try to enforce that uh generously and gently. Uh, you can say a lot in three minutes. Uh, direct all questions or comments to the council. Uh, if we can't uh answer a question, we may have to follow up and we generally collect all of the questions that might be asked and then answer those at the end of the comment period. Uh we do ask that you begin your comment or question with your name and either your street or address for the record. Uh and uh with that I think that's oh and everybody gets one shot at the uh comment per agenda item. Uh with that we'll recognize our first speaker. Welcome. >> Hi Roger Hes Wagner please. Um first uh I think what you should do is um limit the number of hours start charging a tiny fee when people bring like a pickup truck load or so many bags or whatever. have some small fee and then hire a part-time person just to do that for those hours that it's open. And u as far as equipment goes, it seems like what you have now is the right size and works perfectly. Just needs to be have a total refurbishing of it. Whether it needs a new engine on it, needs some new gears to be machined because you can't get the gears anywhere. But you could machine new ones. I'm guessing for, you know, I don't know what, but you think for under $100,000 or $200,000, you could easily make the thing like brand new again and then it would last many years and it still you'd have the exact right size that you have. And my only question that I'd have like asked that I'd like to ask is uh I'm wondering are there any because public works put so many hours into this are there any non-leaf things that aren't getting done because they're spending time on the leaf piles and thank you. >> All right. Thank you for your comments or question. >> Any other members of the public who wish to speak to this item? Thank you for the forum. >> Um, two minutes. Um, I've got a lot I could talk about the presentation. I think the thing that >> Can you uh let us know what you >> Oh, sorry. John Hughes. I live on Hel Drive. So, within a two or three miles of here >> and we've loved the compost b pile for 35 years. It saved us every year. We make maybe five to six trips a day. We don't have means by which to move a lot of leaves at a time. So we I and my wife makes my wife make several trips a a day. The thing that concerns me most is I think the impact on us and others is highly minimized. You're talking 1.49 miles average increase. Ours is I believe round trip. I think I figured on using the same criteria is 14 miles for one trip. It's not an alternative for us. It's a showstopper. We can't make 14 miles five times from city hall. It's 11 miles. So where this 1.49 for the average person to go, I I don't know who where it is. If you look at your map, our recycling is about right in the center of the three that's comparable. And when you look at distances, like I say, I think it minimizes it. The only other thing I would want to say is that I think the process has kind of left out the public. I don't know how a person would know about this meeting tonight. I have no idea. We had a friend that knew a friend that knew a council member. Not in our quarterly reports we get. Nothing would mention it. No posting down at the site. You know how full this thing would be if you would have posted something that says on October 13 we're going to decide the future. They'd be out the door if people saw. We don't know. Nobody knew it. The trans there is no transparency. You don't know who the people are that come. You don't know where they came from. You don't know how many trips they made. There's just no information. And like I said, we have treasured this site for years, as have our neighbors, virtually everyone. And like I say, I think you need more public input and thought. And as far as the finances, it it just doesn't bother me. I'm a nonprofit guy, finance guy for 50 years, so I always look at the expense side. It doesn't matter. We've got skating rinks. We've got public parks. I can go through a list. We can find a way of saving something that's been there for over 40 years. And I think a great asset. And I think we should be proud. I think it's a reason to celebrate over 40 years. And I went by it. I go by it 10 times a day. I have to go out on Dale. I walked through it today and I thought, "This is a wonderful site. this. We ought to be proud of it that we're giving this to our citizens. But these numbers, 1.46 miles, I would go further. I'm going 14 miles for one trip. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. >> Good evening. Uh, Richard Carlin, uh, 693 Heel. Um uh I would like to just talk about a little bit about the the history of the site and the connection between its funding and the storm water uh project and why do we why did we even have a site like this to begin with. Of course, I've lived in the city since 2000. I don't know why it started in 1980 and neither probably to anybody here. Um, but I would surmise that since it's part of the storm water budget, it was a way to control what problem leaves cause. And the problems, you know, what problems uh leaves cause? They plug up your storm water drainage. So, as our neighbor has explained, the distances that are going to change are going to change behavior of what people do with their leaves. The really disciplined and and and civic-minded people will still find a way to manage them responsibly. The rest of them are going to rake them into sleep into the street and let them fill up your storm water drainage pathways. This city is a beautiful city full of trees. I suspect that it started in the 1980s along with the program to collect the leaves. We had the big Hoover sucker, my wife calls it, uh machine that came around uh that managed those. And and again, why was that the case? Well, probably to manage the subsequent problem of the leaves in the storm drains. Um, so I mean just as our our school uh representative, our principal said, you know, infrastructure, you don't notice it until it's gone. And that's what we're talking about here. We're talking about taking away infrastructure. And then finally to the cost. I mean, I appreciate the work that our director of public works has put together uh explaining it, but it's one-sided. I mean, yes, if you find if you pay full price for a brand new machine, it's $800,000. But the current machine is in service almost 30 years was bought used. Advertise that over 30 years, guys. It's $20,000 a year to your budget. Tell me the city of Roseville can't afford that. I I think that uh being a little bit shortsighted and I'm not sure what the big driver is to get rid of it other than the fact that some people are upset that some people from Roseville dumped their leaves here. Well, who cares? Who really cares if the site can handle it? Why spend the money for policing other than maybe a camera to catch the dumpers of a piano? I mean that you're not going to stop that. They dump it on the side of the road somewhere else and you still have to take care of it as a city. So, you know, the reality is you can post and then do intermittent enforcement. You don't have to spend the same kind of money for continuous management and control. Like you say, it's a stressful thing for whoever's standing there to control the access. Um, you know, anyway, those are some of the things that I think that that really uh have not been addressed in the discussion. And at least my rough calculations, you know, this is $120,000 a year item to the budget, even with all the things he's talking about, if you amortize the costs over the life of the equipment, uh, because the equipment's the big cost. And >> um, so >> you're actually about 3 minutes and 40 seconds, so if you can finish your thought. Well, I think I've got it all uh covered. Um, and again, I just just think it's the wrong incentive for the community and it's going to cause less beauty to this city and more trouble for your storm sewer drainage cleaning equipment and you'll spend the same amount of money just cleaning the storm sewers. >> Thank you. >> Is there anyone else who wishes to speak to this item? >> Welcome. My name's, excuse me, my name is Joe Saxs. I live at 2642 Victoria Street. And uh me, I have a lawnmowing business and it's pretty much strictly in Roseville. And I do offer leaf curbside cleanup. I do full cleanups for my customers, but I offer curbside where you rake them, I take them. And I got dozens of Roseville residents that called me like especially since you guys or Roseville quit sucking them up for the residents. And a lot of them are like elderly and senior citizens and they kind of rely on me to get rid of the stuff for them if it's not the full cleanup at least taking it to the compost. And uh I don't know I always thought like that kind of made Roseville one of the superior cities because it offered a service like that and made it easy for the residents to get rid of stuff close by. And for me like I keep the prices pretty low. It's like 50 to 100 bucks on the high side for like a ton of leaves. And if they close the Roseville compost, I'm going to have to drive like to St. Paul and they charge like that much alone just to dump it. So the cost for everything for Roseville residents for me to take them away would be double if not more. And uh I just see the taxes going up every year for like property tax and all that. And I just think like the cost for the the compost is pretty minimal compared to a lot of the other stuff that's being spent on. And that's it. Thanks. >> Thank you for your comments. >> Is there anyone else from the public who wishes to speak to this item at this time? >> All right. Uh we'll go ahead and close the opportunity for public comment then uh and return to council consideration of this matter. Um I would like to um actually move that we postpone this uh to the 20 make the decision in 2026 based on the um you know our commission had recommended and that I'm getting a lot of hears and calls that people felt that they didn't get an opportunity to um talk more about this and it seems like there's still some unanswered questions and information that our commission and others are looking for. So it seems like putting this off another year would give that enough time to happen and then we could post things and get people's input because the point that we didn't have anything posted for people to you know at the site now to be able to come to this meeting and stuff. So, I I think it would give people an opportunity and it sounds like um to do it. It would not cost any more than it does now to but it would I think help our residents and our commission um get the answers they're looking for and then um make a decision when that happens. >> Second that. >> All right. There's been a motion uh and a second uh to uh follow the recommendation of the public works environment and transportation commission to summarize um which is to to not close uh at the end of 2025 but rather to uh postpone until the end of 2026 to make a decision uh discussion on the motion. As the maker of the motion, anything else to add? >> I think I said plenty. >> Okay. As the seconder, Council Member Grath, >> well, I would agree with that. I think there's questions out there that we we've talked about some of them tonight, but um as Mr. Sachs mentioned a lot of people are elderly and we certainly don't want to burden them more, double their costs. Um, so I think there are questions out there that would help us to get more information. I'd also like more information on used equipment and and also probably on uh repairing what we have. I know you can only put things together so long and as Mr. Hess said, maybe you could rebuild the whole thing, but eventually you can't even get parts for things that are that old. So, I just there's there's some questions out there. We need more information in my opinion to make a full decision. >> Right. Other discussion on the motion. Council member Strong, >> I'd like to check in with U. Mr. Fryhammer. Um, was Mr. Saxs use of the um the recycle or the leaf plant part of our expected use for this particular facility? >> It is not. >> It is not. So, this is supposed to be for individual residential property owners and not for contractors. >> Yeah. And like I said, we don't really have any way of enforcing that. So, we don't check IDs. The way the county enforces it is you have to present ID and or they don't allow contractor dumping. So, I don't know what sort of equipment is being used, but that's how that's the other way they enforce it because obviously contractors can live within Ramsey County, but commercial equipment is prohibited at Ramsey County sites. and theoretically at our site >> at our sites, but like I said, we don't have a way of enforcing that. >> Okay. Other discussion on the motion, council Bower, >> I think an additional year does make sense as well. I think that will also allow us more time to talk to the county as well. I know that was something that was brought up in previous um here at this council as well. And I know we didn't have an opportunity to do that, but postponing it for a year will allow for that to see if there's um some other agreements. I know it not being available on t closed Tuesdays and Thursdays is one of those things. the hours. Um, we've heard that be in difficulty with the county as well. >> Certainly. In fact, one of the things I was thinking about is maybe there's actually a benefit to us being open on Tuesdays and Thursdays and not perhaps on other days uh just from that point of view. But those are all things that we could theor theoretically think more about and figure out during a an additional year of consideration. Um, and I have to say that um I'm I still have some some healthy skepticism about sort of um uh you know, I guess I'll knock on wood as far as the life of the uh the existing unit and and how long we can keep that running. Um, you know, I think there are probably if we have some time, we've got some opportunities to potentially research some some used equipment. I know that particular one, the the right size unit that was looked at a few years ago, you know, may still be available in the used marketplace. And if we if we have some time and and are willing to invest a little bit in that research, uh we may find that that's something we could we could look at as well because the uh what I don't think was mentioned this evening is that that rightsiz unit would still be able to be run with our front end loader as opposed to having to use a tractor and I believe that that would work with our existing layout as I seem to recall. Uh assuming it's available. >> Yeah, I I'd have to I'd have to double check. I guess I don't I didn't go down that rabbit hole since it didn't seem available anymore. >> Sure. Sure. But anyway, those are the types of things that I think having some time uh would would potentially give us an opportunity to answer. But I also want to be realistic in the sense that if the existing turning equipment, you know, breaks down in a catastrophic way, you know, this fall, we may have our answer uh already. Um so that's a reality of this process. Um, I also want to note that I know there was a lot on on the social media side of things talking about, well, the the reason the city wants to close this is because it's an excellent place to put in, you know, a bunch of new apartments. And I think as was discussed, this is this is a wetland area where I'm not sure it's terribly suitable for building. Um, and I don't think that there's any any expectation that the city has any time in the near future or let alone in the in the longer future to to do any kind of development on that site just because of the the the condition of the site and the location and what it is or what it was. Um, so I think that's part of the reality, but there absolutely is no plan on the part of the city to do any kind of development on that site uh other than using the site for some slightly different purposes as was outlined by Mr. Fryhammer. Council member Strong, >> I want to add to although most of the people that we've heard from in person have been um in support of keeping this, of course, there are people who are quite opposed to the keeping of it. And um I have seen on social media a lot of dismissal and dis diminishment. Well, you you came in later. It doesn't matter what you think. And I think it's important that we listen to both sides of this situation. um you know I don't know what the expectation was of someone who maybe lived nearby but um I think we have to make sure um that we you know we aren't just listening to the to the loudest people who are the most mobile and the other piece I want to make sure is if if someone is really um in this for um there are other ways to get rid of leaves you can um have the leaf um the yard waste pickup in at your house and they come every week and um it comes right to your door. And um and so that is an option. So that's not the only way to have them not in. You can also compost at home or you can just um you can um have them ground up and go back into your yard. So it's not that's not the only way that they stay out of the um obviously it's one of many, but I just think it's really important that people kind of look at the whole picture. And I agree that we do need to make sure that if we have an immediate stop. And I guess I wanted to ask Mr. Fryhammer, when does this um site open in the spring and what is the most common usage at that time? >> So we typically open in the spring once the uh snow melts. So it really depends. And we just go four weeks because that's typically when people are cleaning their yards up, but it's only leaves. So we we also try to close it before people start to mow. So, like I said, if the grass grows really, really quick, we'll close it because as soon as we if we keep it open a week after everyone mows that first weekend, we will see leave or uh grass. So, >> all right. Uh if there's no further discussion, we've got the motion before us to uh follow the recommendation of the public works environment transportation commission and keep the uh facility open for one more year to consider uh more information. Uh and uh with that, if there's no further discussion, all those in favor signify by saying I. >> I opposed. >> Nay. >> That passes 4 to one. Uh Council Member Straw in opposition. I do want to note too that I believe uh if I understand the motion correctly. The motion was not to like add security measures or add additional staffing. It was strictly to continue business as usual. Yes. Just to make sure now that we've voted, everybody was clear on what they were voting for. Um certainly if somebody wished to make a motion at this point to amend the action we just took because we're still at the same meeting there is an opportunity to do that. But uh just wanted to make sure from the council perspective we all understood what we were voting on. >> All right. And the staff understood as well. So those are the folks that are going to have to uh to do it right. So it's business as usual for one more year as well as uh gathering some of the additional information. I do want to note a couple of things just for the public benefit. So, uh, dropping leaves at the Ramsey County sites other than the White Bear Township site. Um, those leaves actually end up getting transported to White Bear Township as I understand it for the that's where they do their composting. Uh, so certainly you've got your travel to get to the other sites and then there's the travel to deliver the leaves to the to the uh the other site and then certainly, you know, your your hauler that you use for garbage does have yard waste. I'm not 100% sure where those leaves necessarily go or what's done with those uh if they're composted or what's exactly done. Uh but it'd be interesting to know more about that too. Um if if folks do know about that because I just I fear that that could be going, you know, somewhere that's not super environmentally great. >> Um so just wanted to know. Um council member Strong, >> don't they have to Isn't that part of their um arrangement to be a holler within our city that they arrange they indicate where that's going? I I can't speak. >> Yes, it is on the application. Okay. Off hand, I don't recall. Okay. >> They say about the >> Yeah, but it had the distinction between the waste and the um >> recite the recite and the yard waste that they had two locations on that application to indicate where that was going. >> Right. And just finally on the the compost, um the last we heard from the county on that was that they're working um at with the various transfer sites that are used by the haulers for the garbage. Um the only place that they have all the robots and everything for pulling out the blue bags with the compost is at the facility in I think it's in Newport that's operated by Ramsey and Washington counties. Um but a number of the haulers in some of these other suburban communities take their trash to transfer stations. I think Roseville goes up to Blaine and none of those stations at least at the time the county was presenting to us a year and a half or so ago were yet uh modified to have that robotic equipment and the ability to pick out the the blue bags. Uh and so I think that's the the factor that is entering into uh when we'll get the curbside pickup of organics in Roseville is when those transfer stations or at least the one serving Roseville uh gets that equipment in place. So, I'm not sure what the status of that is, but we may want to check with Ramsey County on that, too. >> Yeah, we can get we can get an update. >> Great. All right. With that, I think we've covered this item. Uh, and thank you everyone for your involvement uh and for the commission's uh recommendation and certainly all the staff work that's been going into this for some time. That brings us then to another public works item this evening, and that is to consider updates to the uh street light policy. And this is a policy we had adopted not too long ago or updated not too long ago as a council uh and uh recent implementation had led to some folks asking some questions and that is what brought that this back before us and it's been before us before. Mr. Fryhammer is back with a recommendation on a policy update. Mr. Fryhammer. >> Uh thank you mayor and councel. So at the July 14th meeting we did have an updated discussion on the street light policy. Um during that discussion, we did um uh staff was kind of directed to collect some more information on three sites uh that we didn't have any information on in terms of how much lighting and if potentially to modify to the the existing lighting policy to include a a standard of some sort instead of just requiring a street light at an intersection. If there was some lighting, say from 36 that was shadowing on there, is that provide adequate light? So, um, assistant, uh, city engineer Eric, uh, Hendrickson went out, uh, we we did a detailed study. We did it on a moonless night and did all the factors to make it a scientifically, um, uh, accurate, uh, measurement. So, what we did was we we did some research. So, similar to St. Paul, but IEES, which is kind of an international lighting standard, residential areas are supposed to be uh.3 to 6 foot candles of of of light, basically measured. Um we went out and studied uh two locations that we did have some light pollution from. Um study location one was the intersection of Fulham and 36 service road that measured 004T candles so uh less than the recommendation. And then study area two was Marian Street and the service road that was uh 05. The other location had zero lighting at it um which would be similar to in the report the acorn uh location. So based on that study um the the two locations um uh if we updated the lighting policy staff would recommend updating the lighting polic illumination target to the illumination range of uh 0.3 to 0.6 ft candles. Uh that would mimic what uh Minneapolis includes for their residential areas. Um and then based on that we'd recommend installing lights at the three locations we previously um delayed until we had discussed that. So I guess with that the requested council action would be to motion to approve updating the street light policy to add the street light illuminescent target as I indicated and then motion to accept the memorandum document in the street light uh study for Fulham Street uh and South Highway 36 and we would end up um if those are approved we try to get those lights installed this year or next year as Excel has time. So with that I can answer any questions uh council may have. >> Right. Thank you Mr. Frahammer. And one of the things that had been brought up as part of our earlier discussion was the possibility of a residential ability to or a resident's ability to appeal the installation of a light is the staff's recommendation because of this illumination or illuminance target that that is our standard and that that sort of negates the need to appeal installation if you will. >> Correct. So yeah, we've talked with other cities on specifically that and most of them don't have the appeal process because it is a standard. If it meets the certing lighting standard, we want to meet it. So, um I mean I would say if the appeal was if we went out and measured it, we would just say it met the requirement. Um you know, if it was overlit, we we'd certainly look to do something different to modify the lighting. But yeah, there we're not suggesting since it is related to safety not to have a an appeal for a light that's required. >> All right. Thank you for that clarification. Uh questions from the council. >> Council member Bower. Uh you have this under the street light design, the illuminence target. Is it make sense to put it there or does it make it I guess is that the appropriate spot to put it? Um since that's the design and not so much the target. I mean I can go either way. I was just getting more clarification if that's where you intended it to be. Uh just because up above um you have something that states beginning on the top of page two if the following conditions are met. I wonder if if it's more conditional, you know, if the condition is that the >> actually, you know, that that that's a good point. Um, >> yeah, we did under design because that was where the the talking about the LED cut off, but um >> yeah, I could see >> we could certainly add it under as the last bullet point. That that's a good point. Never never even thought of that. Yeah, I I can see I know we talked about design for um you know these are new street lights that direct uh downwards don't scatter light and all those other wonderful things that we have in there but I would be open to moving that to um the target if others feel the same >> and it seems reasonably easy to accomplish that by an action this evening. It's not a major >> major rewrite or anything like that from the bench here. Other questions from the council? Council member Graph, >> who do you think serves on the illuminating engineering society? >> I don't know because that's the standard we're using. >> Yes, we're we're using >> lighting industry. >> That's that's the question, I guess. >> So, um I and like I said, I we do know from research Minneapolis is is the big one. We found they had documented, but it seems like most cities that do it are referencing this sort of standard. So, um, like I said, we're just trying to tie it to what other cities have been doing. >> It's just a question that people brought up. I guess the other thing would be is, you know, it's good to have standards, but do we need to light up our cities as much as they're lit up? That's a more general question than what we're dealing with tonight. Other questions from the council? We'll check if there's anyone from the public who wishes to speak to this item this evening. does not appear to be the case. Uh given that is uh there desire from the council to take an action on this recommended update to the policy. >> Second. >> All right. And is that a motion uh to update with the change that council member B suggested moving the standard up into the series of criteria? >> Yeah, that makes sense to me. >> All right. And is the second? All right. Uh, so it's been moved by Council Member Grath, seconded by Council Member Stron to approve the updated uh, street lighting policy as uh, presented with the change as outlined by uh, Council Member Bower uh, this evening. Uh, discussion of that motion as the maker of the motion, Council Member Grath, I brought up these questions, so I wanted to bring it forth. Um, I think the other thing that isn't discussed tonight is is how people feel uh safe walking and um I know in my neighborhood it is dark and some of those corners are are dark. People like have the darkness, but when you're walking with your dog or something in the winter, it can be a little unnerving. So, I I see that side of it. I guess the other side of it we don't have any input from is like perhaps the police department and what they feel about lighting because I have read in the past that is a factor that they feel it's better if some of these areas are lit especially the downward light which lights the corners of where someone could be hiding in a bush or whatever you know just uh a feeling of security is sometimes part of what lighting is about. All right, council member Stron has the second of the motion. >> I think it's good that we have a consistent policy and um that we keep safety in mind and I appreciate the down lighting and the attention to and I'm sure as standards change and we learn more about lighting, we'll probably this will be amended and adjusted to uh to fit what we as we learn it. So, >> all right. Other discussion on the motion? Right. And I would uh just note that I think uh as has been part of previous discussions about street lighting. Uh certainly the primary purpose and the reason for the adoption of the policy is the the pedestrian/vehicle safety at intersections. Um, I think that certainly uh potentially illumination of areas as it relates to crime prevention is sort of a secondary uh uh benefit but not necessarily a primary consideration in terms of looking at street lighting because certainly we've got a a lot of neighborhoods without a lot of street lighting uh because they don't have a lot of intersections and >> and outside. >> Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So, the the intersection safety is the primary uh concern, especially given the difference in speed and weight and other factors as it relates to a vehicle as opposed to an individual pedestrian. With that, uh we've got the motion before us. If there's no further discussion, all those in favor signify by saying I. I opposed. That passes unanimously. That policy update is approved. Uh that then brings us under uh what we can uh refer to as public works night here in the city of Roseville. Um our next item which is to uh consider uh selecting a construction manager at risk for the civic campus project. Once again, Mr. Fryhammer uh is involved in this and he is presenting this evening for this uh decision uh before the council. >> Uh thank you, mayor and councel. Um just a real quick presentation similar to when we uh selected the architect. Um so it's a quick background on the construction manager process. So, um July 7th, council approved moving forward with concept C. Uh at the July 21st meeting, council approved the RFQ and the RFP um for architectural services as well as the the construction manager at risk. Uh we released the the construction manager at risk process was a little more detailed. Um it was kind of a three-part process. First part was releasing the RFQ that was done July 23rd. Uh they were submitted on August 25th. We had eight firms submit. Um uh at the September on September uh 5th we we released an RFP to the top five scoring RFPs and I'll show you that shortly. Um at the on September 19th the proposals were due. So all five that we gave the proposal to submitted which is good. And then after that we shortlisted down to two the top the top two scoring firms and then staff interviewed them. >> Just if we can go back to the previous page the RFQ is request for qualifications. >> Correct. request for qualifications and then request for proposal. >> Got it. Thank you. >> So, eight firms submitted listed there. Um and then the staff scoring on the RFQ um and the RFP subsequently was the city manager, public works director, parks and rec director, city engineer, uh park superintendent, and building official. Um so, the RFQ uh scoring matrix, this is a summary of after the first ones are submitted. So, they um submitted on four criteria and they're listed there. So we uh based on the scoring rubrics, we ranked them. Um so the top five uh there was a little bit of separation. So that's why we shortlisted down to five. Um we sent the RFP out based on what they submitted um in their proposals, which some of the criteria was the same. Um for example, their project team um and team member experience was already submitted with the RFQ. We we rescored that as well as the fee structure. They had submitted that with the RFQ. It gets rescored. Um but they they gave a lot little more detail on their project approach and work plan. Um how they do cost estimating, how they do scheduling which are very uh key components of this. Um so based on that we scored them. Um you'll note three of them scored zero on the interview. It was because those three were not included in the they they didn't score high enough to get an interview. So we only interviewed the top two firms which was Krauss Anderson and RJM um construction. Um and then based on the interview um we got the final score. So the the staff recommendation uh based out of that was Krauss Anderson. Um just a little another slide that's in there is just kind of a breakdown of the hours. Um also break out between license passport center cost as well as maintenance operation center cost since they're funded differently. Um the overall cost for Krauss Anderson is about $3.6 uh million and they're kind of right in the middle. As you can see we had ranges all the way um from uh a little lower in the 3 million all the way up to um 5.8 $88 million in cost. Um and then same thing the hours of effort varied um from about 9,000 hours up to about 22,000 hours. So based on uh scoring criteria as I mentioned we interviewed two uh we interviewed them on October 1st. Um and then based on the scores and interview staff recommended selecting Krauss Andrew Construction for the construction manager at risk for the civic campus master project. Um they've done a lot of construction manager at risk projects which was key to the committee. Um a lot of some of the firms only had done like construction manager advisor other stuff but um since we are proposing this method certainly want to make sure they're they're used to doing that method. Um done over 40 public works facilities as well as at least 20 licensed uh center and dance studios. Uh their project team was definitely very experienced compared to some of the other proposals that we saw. their project manager and project superintendent who we will will be on site or work daytoday over three years have over 10 years of experience. So certainly on a large scale project like this we want experience. We don't want uh junior staff on a large project like this. Um and then uh certainly Krauss Anderson has been a part of the process a little bit along the way. They were worked they worked with uh the last two updates providing some of the cost estimate. So they're very knowledgeable of the project including challenges associated with the project. Um their proposal also included uh Edin resources which will help with public relations and community engagement which will be key since we are impacting the neighborhood. Uh we will be impacting the civic campus. This is three years of work. Things will be changing. We need to make sure to communicate how access might change dayto-day stuff like that. Um and then cost of services and hours provided uh staff thought was the overall best value. Um breakdown of fees about 2.7 million would be uh funded via sales taxes. that's tied to the maintenance operation center cost and the license passport center cost would be about 889,000. Um and then the overall cost about 3.6 and then I did include the updated spreadsheet that does include um this is basically all soft costs related um from the original estimate that Carl Anderson had put together um but it does include the architect uh costs that um will be subsequently on a future agenda item. So with that, uh requested council action would be to approve the selection of Krauss Anderson for construction management services related to civic campus project. Um and then if uh if selected, staff would bring the agreement for approval at the October 27th city council meeting. So I can answer any questions uh the council may have. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. Fryhammer. Are there questions from the council? >> Council member Strong, >> I just have a comment. I um I know sometimes us residents ask about the uh integrity of the organization and we did have a resident complaint uh questioning this although we did have additional information that um did give Charles Anderson a positive comment. Um but someone who does some watch uh watchdog work with um both of our top two scores um had nothing of concern when it came to um use of staff or or other things within the top two people. So I just wanted to make sure people know that we did I at least looked to make sure that we knew if they were a bad actor in the environment that they're working in and and they came back both came back with very positive reviews. So, >> right. Other uh questions or comments from council members. All right. Um is there anyone from the public who wishes to speak to this item this evening? Does not appear to be the case. All right. We've got the request before us to authorize uh or to approve the selection of Krauss Anderson for this construction management services uh related to the campus project. And as noted and as is the case with the architectural services that we had approved earlier, uh the contract would come back for final approval by the council. >> Motion to divide the question >> between the pans for Dan Studio and the MOC. >> So a motion to divide. Is there a second to that motion? >> I'll second it. >> All right. It's been moved by council Ber, seconded by council member Sharter to divide the question. I don't believe we do discussion on a motion to divide based on the rules. But uh we'll go ahead and uh proceed to a vote. Then all those in favor of the motion to divide signify by saying I. I. >> I opposed. >> That passes 4 to one with council member Grath in opposition. Uh that means then we need a motion uh related to the uh well I guess I'll just defer to the council. What motion does the council wish to make at this time? >> I'd move to approve the maintenance center. um part of this request. >> Second. >> Okay. It's been moved by Council Member Schroer, seconded by Council Member Bower to approve the maintenance center portion of the uh construction management at risk services. Uh discussion on that motion is the maker of the motion. Council member Schroer. >> Council Bower is the secondary. >> No, appreciate the work that was done on this. >> Right. Other other discussion on the motion hearing? None. All those in favor signify by saying I. I opposed. >> That passes unanimously. Is there a motion on the um other portion of the project as well? >> Second. >> It's been moved by Council Member Grath, seconded by Council Member Strong to approve the uh same services uh for the remaining portion of the project, the license center, passport center, and dance studio portion. Uh discussion on that motion. I'm imagining if there wasn't on the first, there probably won't be on the second. Uh all those in favor signify by saying I. >> I opposed. Nay. That motion passes three to two with council members Bower and Schroeder in opposition. All right, those uh items are approved. So that will be coming back for council consideration of the contract then once that is finalized with that service provider. Uh and on that note uh related to that, we have the contract now before us as item 7E uh for the architectural services. And I'll turn it back over to Mr. Fryhammer uh to bring this item before the council for our consideration. >> Uh thank you, Mayor and Councel. Um so as I mentioned previously uh at the um September 15th city council meeting uh the council selected LHB for architectural services for the civic campus master project for the civic campus project. Um the overall cost of their proposal was uh $2.6 million. Um so over the last few weeks we have worked with LHB and the city attorney to uh finalize an agreement. Um I will note the agreement only includes the base services. Uh we did meet with LHB and they said we can certainly add the um additional sustainability costs after we do a little bit of the schematic design um and we know a little more the budget. So that could certainly be added on at a later point or we can just say no we don't want to do that later but we don't need to make that decision now. So the the proposal or the agreement in the in the um contract is just for base services for the license passport center and the the whole the whole project. So, so with that, um, the staff would recommend council approve the agreement with LHB for architectural services and I can answer any questions. >> Right. Thank you, uh, Mr. Fryheimer. Other questions from the council this evening on this item? >> Um, do we have a sense of sort of when we have to make a decision on that that other the optional part of it related to the sustainability? I >> um, I don't know exactly. We'll once we kick off the meeting, we'll kind of get a time frame of when we'd probably cue that up. But um it would be something that would probably be done in the next 3 months. So when it's not going to be like way down the road. It would be you know once we figure out exactly you know some of the original schematic design updates we'll know real quick which direction we want to go as we go into design development. So we we can certainly make sure we bring that back if if we want to at at an earlier date because obviously it affects the budget overall because not only is that a cost but most likely the sustainability costs will be higher level costs as well. >> Got it. And we'd certainly want to understand those budget impacts on the on the construction side of it as well. >> All right. Other questions from the council? Council member Bower. >> Uh in this agreement, do you expect any additional costs? I mean other than the cost that we would come for or situations or scenarios that would occur that would result in this being larger than the 2.6 in total. So we hope we have everything covered. Um this does include the whole compass of what we think but obviously there are some site unknowns. Uh but this does include environmental work uh up front, some geotechnical work. Obviously, if we encounter a deeper level thing, we might have to do some additional changes, but we like to think this um covers everything, but not going to say it's everything for sure. But >> what is the procedure of a change request then approve? >> Yeah. So, they would have to they'd have to give us a more or less a change order um to to to do that. And obviously, we have a budget that we need to meet. So, we we'd have to really keep an eye on that if we if we want to do it if it's a ne necessary thing or if it's an ask. >> Mr. Treasure. >> And um Mr. Mayor and council, I would suggest with a project this large, there's regular communication with the council in regards to those things to make sure that we're all on the same page. I don't want to have u not saying there would be, but any project creep on this without us all being fully aware of what those reasons are and ramifications are. So, um I would uh suggest that I stay in regular communication with the council on that and if there needs to be council discussions, certainly have that here at the council. >> Great. And I was just going to uh ask on that. So certainly it's an agreement that is being considered and theoretically approved by the council. Um what is the threshold for changes that would come back before the council? Is it does it involve the the spending authority that the city manager already has under city code or is it some other uh factor or is that something you've had a chance to think about or discuss? >> We haven't had a chance to really think or discuss that. Um I think um probably good to have some type of threshold. Um I think having um the remember this is the design not the construction. So it's talking maybe different types of dollars here. I would think if if you uh were set to limit anything over $10,000 which is my authority right now would uh come to the council at least as information at some point. I think as a team basis I would probably just report everything but um certainly above 10,000 we want to have a council awareness of that situation and probably talking about design elements due to something we found in the field that we were going to have to design something differently. So whether that's a couple thousand dollars or $15,000 I think we just want to have transparency as much as possible this project for you all and for the community as well as we go down the road. And I would say that you you don't have to have your final answer on that this evening. If you want to, you know, have some more conversations among staff and the consultant and perhaps the city attorney as well in that regard, uh, that would be very appropriate. Uh, and certainly if there's something that you want to bring back to the council for consideration as to what the threshold is and sort of get the buy in upfront on that, that might make sense, too. So, don't hesitate to do that, I would say, unless there's objection from the council. Doesn't appear to be the case. Um, I did have a question for the city attorney. Because this is a single agreement, is there an ability to really divide the question as it relates to approval of the agreement? >> No. >> Thank you. I I appreciate when our our attorney is succinct and uh and there's no question as to the to the answer. I appreciate that. All right. Uh I think we've uh we've done the questions for staff. I don't know if did I ask for public comment already? Uh is there anyone from the public who wishes to speak to uh these architectural services and finalizing the agreement uh that's before us? Does not appear to be the case. Uh with that then is there a motion from the city council as it relates to the agreement? >> Second. >> Right. It's been moved by uh council member Stron, second by council member Grath to uh approve the agreement with the architectural services firm as presented. Uh is there any discussion on the motion as the maker? Council member Stron? >> No. >> Second or council member Gra. I think I got that right. >> Yeah. I just appreciated the um option of looking at sustainability down the road. I think that's something to keep in mind, but of course it has to be feasible. So I'm glad we have a few months to re research that. >> Right. Other discussion. Council member Schroeder. >> Yes. I would like to um make sure in the future that these contracts are split between the two. So there's that opportunity. I know this one is in one, but um it would be nice to be able to because we have to do keep them separate from costs. We want to make sure um what goes into the sales tax piece and what goes into our actual levy bonding part are very separate. So I think it would make sense to try to have them very separate items in the future. I guess I would request that we get some legal advice on on that and just make sure we not tonight but that that we have understanding of that going forward um as to whether that's an appropriate approach uh from that perspective um because we certainly want to make sure we're doing things appropriately from that perspective. All right, we've got the motion before us on this agreement. Uh if there's no further discussion, all those in favor signify by saying I. >> I opposed. That passes three to two with council members Bower and Schroeder in opposition. All right, that agreement is approved. Uh that then brings us to a separate topic. Finally, Mr. Fryhammer gets a little bit of a break this evening. Uh and uh we've got a matter related to fire department staffing uh before us. Uh that is to consider accepting a a grant for fire department staffing uh from FEMA under their safer grant program. Uh, and I'll turn it over to Chief Rosahan uh to make the presentation on this item this evening. Chief, >> thank you, Mayor, members of council. Um, excited to be here uh tonight to discuss all things safer grant and kind of discuss with you. One, the uh formal um agreement to enter into the the safer grant as well as two to kind of look at potential timing. um there were some parameters uh built into the grant that we'll talk about uh further into the presentation that we might have an opportunity to evaluate um how and when we try to implement and start the grant. So uh we'll jump into that here in just a second. Um just wanted to give a quick overview of kind of the the who, what, why, when um of the uh the safer grant. So, the overview of what uh the FEMA safer grant is, we want to kind of set the foundation, make sure everybody's understanding of of how that works and how the the program works and how it impacts uh the city of Roseville and the Roseville Fire Department. Provide a brief overview uh and review of our existing call volume. And again, I don't want to be too redundant. I know many of you already heard a lot of this presentation. We've discussed this at length uh over the last one to two years u talking about our call volume and our inability to fully meet the demands of the community at this time. Um, we also want to look at uh reviewing the proposal of a new operational staffing model and how and when to integrate the outline and timeline of the FEMA safer grant process. Um, so I'm hoping the easier portion tonight is the kind of the formal acceptance of the grant, but uh we do have to try and make decisions tonight on on when to potentially start that grant process. So, a quick background. Um the safer grant or the staffing for adequate fire and emergency response grant was created um in 2003 under the Bush administration. Um truly what it is for on that second bullet point is is to provide funding directly to frontline firefighters. And so there are no uh grants that are allowed that are you know allow you know five or six different chiefs and a couple of training officers and administrative staff or anything like that to qualify for the grant. has to be directly tied to frontline firefighters, firefighters that are working in a firet truck, in a fire station, responding to emergencies. That's the only way you can truly qualify for the grant. Uh there is a piece of the FEMA SA grant that uh works with more rural agencies as well. They do much more volunteer recruitment. So, there is some funding for volunteer recruitment as well as the the full-time staffing that we do. It is a highly competitive process. Um typically one out of 15 to one out of every 20 um applicants receive a safer grant. We're excited that we've got our our second one in the the last, you know, six to to 8 years. And so, it's an exciting opportunity for us. And a total of uh $324 million were awarded uh for fiscal year 2024. In past years, they typically do kind of a roll out where they do um maybe 5 to 25 different fire departments over, you know, every week for about a month or two. For this year, it was just it was everything was out there. Every department that was awarded was was notified essentially on the same day uh as we were. and we were a previous recipient of the safer grant. Um we fiscal year 2019 uh we utilize a safer grant to hire and retain uh six full-time firefighters. They were that those finance were finances were utilized in 2021, 2022 and 2023. Uh the unique piece about the 2019 uh grant was it was did not have a local match. uh local match went away in 2019 um and through 2023 and now in 2024. This is the first year that the local matches is now back on the table and that's what we'll talk about tonight. Questions so far? Feel free to jump in at any time. Um so quick uh catch up for the for council and I and I know you all know this, but uh we continue to be extremely busy and deal with an ever growing call volume. Uh we topped out in 2024 with over 7,500 calls. Um over our past uh six years, we've a averaged a 4 to 10% increase every year year-over-year. Um almost 40% in 5 years. Um and we're tracking 4% ahead in 2025 than what we finished in in 2024. So again, I don't know when we're going to ever see a plateau in our call volume growth, and we may not. Uh but we want to be in a better position to be able to handle that growth and handle that call volume as we move forward. I foresee us being uh at or near 8,000 uh calls for service at the end of 2025. Um and if not, we definitely will be in 2026 and then into the 8,200 8,300 by 2027. Um so we want to be in a better position to better serve the community. some of the things that um we have talked about in time. Um so this this high call volume demand has consequences qualitative and quantitative um consequences whether that's decreased onship training uh reduced community outreach which I hate to do. Um I hate saying no to community events. We've been um incredibly involved in a non-emerging capacity being super involved with our community. Uh but there's been plenty of events in the last two years that we've just had to say no to or at the last minute we cancel um because we're just simply not able to handle it with the with our current call volume. And so those are things that with additional staffing I think we can get a lot better at. Um things like an expedited onseene time. I like to call that the double whammy. Um we have expedited onseene times when we're out serving somebody in the community. Say it's an emergency uh medical response and we get our third or fourth call that overlaps at the same time. we have to leave this person or transition them over to Alina very quickly which again doesn't provide the best impact to them or you know we hurry up or expedite that EMS care and then we race off to this other call already late so we have a poor response time to this call and also had to cut this one short um and those are the situations that we're seeing every single day um and to be honest with you we need to be in a better spot that we're not doing that um again we are um seeing increases in our response times our our quantitative pieces and we're unable to meet many of the expectations and recommendations of NFPA 1710 as it pertains to response. As we we look here, this is just a quick reminder of what our our daily staffing is. And so, um, these are the vehicles we try to staff on a daily basis. Our minimum staffing uh is six. Our maximum staffing is eight. So, just as a reminder, if we're at our minimum staffing, we would have two people on the fire engine and then two people on each of those medic uh medical uh rescue vehicles, those pickup trucks. And we would not staff the battalion chief uh vehicle here. So maximum staffing or or uh where we'd like to be it would be uh three people on the engine, two on each of the medical vehicles, and then of course a battalion chief that's uh staffing there. Our average daily staffing is 6.4. So the vast majority of the time we have six people on duty. Sometimes we have seven and every once in a blue moon we might have eight people on duty and we're able to to fully meet uh all these apparatus and and their responsibilities. So, in the future, what we're trying to do, and this is uh the exact same slide that I presented to you uh about seven months ago when we talked about what our staffing should look like and what's appropriate moving forward. Um so, we haven't changed anything. Um trying to keep consistent is adding the uh staff ladder um as a consistent piece of apparatus. This ladder apparatus provides us immense flexibility uh to respond to both fire and EMS calls. um it has all of the the suppression needs and the rescue needs that we have within that vehicle as well as has all the cap capacity and capabilities of EMS response. We believe that with this vehicle we'll see uh less situations where we are delayed to calls. We also think that it gives us a a significant um improvement to our fire suppression and fire response capabilities uh by staffing something like this versus another pickup truck for an example. Also, with this staffing program, uh it's pretty significant that we'll have a much uh steadier, a more frequently staffed uh battalion chief vehicle. You probably saw in my oops in my previous slide, um only about 27% of the time our battalion chief is actually staffing that that uh suburban vehicle. Um which is pretty significant. Um when I'm not at the fire station, so outside of, you know, essentially 8 to 4:30, our battalion chief is the is the fire chief of the city. They have to integrate and work with apartment managers, business owners, residents. They're the ones that are are supervising the shift. They are the initial incident commanders before myself or my assistant chief or whoever get there. Um they have a a big role to fill and when they're tied to a fire engine versus being a little bit more of a a rover or separate from their crew, um it's it's a huge advantage to our overall organization and how uh operational and effective we are. So, uh, we've had, uh, some great, uh, meetings with a lot of our stakeholders. Um, and we continue to have meetings with all these stakeholders holders that are listed here. Um, we've had a huge community engagement plan. Um, I've got, uh, flyers here. I've handed these out at every single community event I've possibly gone to. Um, don't worry, I have one for each of you before I leave here tonight. Um, we've, uh, we've done a fullcourt press on getting out to the community. Um we've had some great work with the communications team as far as some YouTube videos, getting things in the newsletter, um things on different social media sites. Um so I think that's been been very effective for us. Um I also think that um there's some some great opportunities to um you know meet with uh civic groups. Uh we've met with Lions Club, the Rotary, uh every HOA and co-op in the city uh has heard our presentation almost for the most part. And so, uh, some great support from the community and I think you've seen it with some of your, uh, emails regarding to the city manager's budget and things. I think there's been some people that have shown a lot of support, uh, for the for the fire department. Also like to thank all of you. I think you've shown a lot of support for the fire department through uh, the city manager presentation for his budget as well as at the not to exceed. I think there's some very positive uh, discussion of supporting the fire department and police department as well uh, moving forward with the budgetary process. And so we're happy that we can bring this grant to help uh reduce some of that tax levy over the next couple years as we uh bring on more firefighters. So with that being said, um it's kind of the the when and the how with the safer grant. So we are uh notified on September 25th that we uh received the the safer grant for the amount that we we asked for. Right now we are in that 30-day uh period of time which is 30 days of acceptance which will end on or near October 25th 2025. U from there or uh from that point um we'll have a 180day recruitment period and that is essentially um as it says there a default 180day recruitment period begins when FEMA approves an application for an award under this activity. So that's a period where we uh cannot tap into our grant yet. That's an opportunity for us to recruit and retain firefighters, get our academy set up, get logistics and operations set up uh to bring those people on. And so that is uh projected to be right in the middle of uh mid to late uh April 2026. And then from there uh in April 2026 is when our 36-month period of performance begins. So that is a uh the entire period of time to which the grant is is good and which we can utilize and draw down from the grant. uh week. There are situations where you can draw down earlier than the 180 days. Um but you have to to write to FEMA and get uh get that uh request granted through them. Otherwise, everyone else will start on the 180day uh period of time for the grant itself. Um you know, similar to our previous grant, um this one didn't that one didn't obviously have the local match, but we did have some in incremental increases uh in an effort to prepare for the grant. uh completing so kind of a ramp up period. But on the left side of the the screen you see um our total grant from uh federal award ward and dispersement will be about $3.9 million. Uh the required non-federal resources which you know the vast vast majority of that will be tax levy uh will be $2.4 million. As we look at the right side of the screen, uh this is kind of where the local match piece comes into play. uh from April 26 to April 27 uh 75% will be covered by FEMA, 25% by the by the city of Roseville. In year two, from 27 to 28's the same. Uh in 2028 to 2029, there's changes where 35% is covered by FEMA, 65% by the city of Roseville, and then from approximately April 2029 and beyond, it's it's on the tax levy uh completely, and 100% by the city of Roseville. This process has always allowed for you know an appropriate ramp up uh for cities to prepare prepare for uh taking these positions onto their onto their own levies. So uh impacts of uh of starting in line with the 36-month period of performance. Uh so our original plan as as all of you know was a September time frame. I do want to, you know, address with council that September time frame when we originally brought that to council and to the city manager wasn't necessarily that there was some sort of an operational or logistic thing behind that. The idea was we needed to find an appropriate timeline to bring on firefighters that um did not impact the levy uh more than we needed to, right? If that makes sense. So um originally we talked about about a $700,000 cost on the the taxpayers levy to bring on 15 firefighters. I think it's 177,000 under grants. So the idea behind September, it was never really an operational piece uh or a logistical piece. It was more about what's an appropriate amount that we can ask from uh the taxpayers and ask from the city council to to make this work and to bring the 15 firefighters on board. So uh when we received the award on the the 25th and and talking to the city manager, we had 180day window uh to start the period of performance. And because of that 180day window that now is mid to late April of 2026, it caused us an opportunity to to re-evaluate and look at is there a reason or a need for us to move up to to April to start or are we fine with sticking with September uh at in that uh for that time frame. So to move up the start date of the grant to an April time frame would be an additional $185,000 on the levy or for 2026 uh total budget. because I'm a visual person. Um I've got just a basic crude uh graph here or table that I'll we'll kind of quick go through. Um kind of looking at pros and cons of a September time frame versus a an April time frame. Uh if we were to look at uh pros of a September time frame, obviously we have more time to to plan and prepare. We have more time to recruit personnel. We have more time to put together some of our logistics, our response plans, um incorporating the the ladder truck and some of those things that we've talked about. Uh though I don't think I would have a lot of concerns if we had to recruit and retain 15 firefighters by April of 2026, but September does give us more time. Uh September was also the the original time we proposed to the council. So there is something to be said about keeping with that as far as you know having homeostasis and being consistent. Uh potential to uh not use all the grant funds. That's um is a big con. Um when you're starting four to five months um ahead of time, there is potential to leave money on the table. Um, two big things with that. FEMA does not like funds to be returned. Uh, believe it or not, um, that's actually not a good sign when you, you know, if they give you $3.9 million, they gave you $3.9 million for the for a reason, not to send back, you know, uh, you know, $300,000 or whatever it might be at the end of the grant. Um, and also the the taxpayers themselves, the taxpayers are going to be paying all the $2.4 million during the duration of this grant. I think they would have concern if we we sent money back. Um, delays in operational uh, operationalization of the the staffing enhancement. We would be um starting an academy in September and then we'd be operationalizing uh our staffing program in about January 1st or so of 2027. So with an April uh start time, we can operationalize it sooner. Um an academy would go in April, May, and June. We would look to somewhere around July 15th um start our response plan that we've talked about with the ladder truck. Um it's more in line with the period of performance. Um cons is we may use the grant funds early. Um, this happened to us the first time around in 2023 into 2024. Um, we were supposed to end our grant on approximately February 1st of 2024. We use all of our funds by about the first week of January. Um, not, you know, a gigantic amount of money, but definitely there's there's some money there. And so, we spent our grant funds early. Um, and so it might be something we have to think about as far as budgeting in the future for 2029 and and uh so on is is if we are ahead of pace on our grant and what that looks like as far as timing. Um, and then an additional cost for the taxpayers, the 185,000 that I just talked about in the last slide to to start in April is is another cost to taxpayers and we want to be mindful of of the taxpayer dollar. So with that, um, couple main things that we'll be asking tonight is, uh, to formally accept, uh, the FEMA safer grant and where we go from here and then, uh, get some discussion or some direction from council on if an April start time is appropriate to go in line with the period of performance or to continue with the proposed September time frame for 2026. So with that, I can answer any questions or help with anything. >> All right. Thank you for uh your information and presentation this evening and certainly congratulations to all of us on receiving the grant. I think that's uh you know certainly was not uh assured as we went into the process by any means. Uh questions from the council for staff. Uh council power. >> Thank you for presentation. I may have missed this but you noticed uh both September and April as start dates or you know times. Are there other months that make sense or those really are for the scheduling that you have? No, I mean we could we could start I mean it obviously depends on the levy. Um we could start hey June July August. Um we could start any anytime after uh April 25th 2026. >> Thank you. >> Yep. >> Other questions? Council member Strong. would it make sense or what would be the advantage of because it looks kind of like we're at a kind of a difference between quarter two and quarter four and not quite September but um would it be somewhere right in the middle of a July 1? Would that minimize the cost that we that the taxpayers would have um outlay on that? Well, we can run uh some of the numbers, but it would be if it's halfway between, I would guess that'd be approximately $90,000 um additional uh for the 2026 budget. >> Other questions? Council member Grath, >> uh the hiring process, are you having lots of interest? Is it easy to find people or >> We have Word travels fast uh when you get a safer grant. So, funny thing, we get a lot of requests for ride alongs and people that are like, "Oh, I'm interested in, you know, phone calls, emails, those types of things." Um, things to be mindful of is um the city of Burnsville, uh, city of Maplewood, City of Eden Prairie, City of Shakape, I think that's it. Um, also received safer grants. Um, ours was ours was the largest, I'm just going to say. Um, but, um, but all of them have varying numbers of between six and 12 uh, personnel. And so things to think about with a hiring process is it's going to be competitive. I mean, there's essentially 60 new fire fighting positions available in the Twin Cities metro area. Um, and so the the the pool of applicants, while maybe a little bit more shallow than it was 5 or 10 years ago, now it's it might be a little bit more difficult with so many other departments um kind of looking for the same people. >> You have a follow >> one followup. What happens then if say April 29th comes along and we don't have enough qualified applicants that we feel comfortable with? >> It's fine. Um we can we can start the grant whenever um whenever after that April date. Yes. So it's there's not a hard and fast even if we even if we had a delay all the way to September um you know some simple communication with the folks at FEMA to let them know hey we are we're so interested. We're still here. Here's where we're at and and u when then we can begin that process. >> Yep. Council member Sean, >> um, congratulations on this grant. This is very exciting. >> U, you you talked about a number of these other cities that also got the grants, and I'm assuming that's also the April start date for them as well. >> Yes. >> Do you have any idea when they're going to start the recruitment process? >> Some already have. Uh, the city of Maplewood and city of Burnsville already have applications or applications open for for firefighters. And how long would the uh academy take? >> I'm anticipating three months. And the reason I'm doing that, one um you know to to build a lot of institutional knowledge for our firefighters, but two is how we recruit. Um the days of you know bringing in firefighters that are maybe with the Lake Johanna Fire Department to our north with seven years of paid on call experience and they have fire one, fire two, and EMT um and they're ready to hire right on the spot. It doesn't exist anymore. Um, I think we'll get some I think we'll get some people that are lateral transfers that come from another fire full-time fire department. I think we'll get a few people that are paid on call with another organization that are looking for a full-time opportunity. And then I think we're going to get people that are similar to our fire cadet. They maybe don't have the training, maybe don't have the experience, but they're the right person or they're the right fit. Um, and some of those people we're going to have to train and they're going to be very green. Train them from the very beginning all the way up through their firefighter one, firefighter 2, and EMT training. Uh so we're planning to essentially run a an academy that incorporates the full fire one, fire two and EMT curriculum at the very at its base, but then also of course incorporating our institutional knowledge and and things that we do within our academy. >> And if you don't get enough the first time, you do a second >> Yeah. >> academy. Absolutely. >> Until you get as many as you need. >> Okay. >> Thank you. And just to follow up on that, so the the way it seems to be set up is that the the pay starts at the beginning of the academy. Yes. >> That's when they're hired. >> Yes. >> So that that's when we start potentially being able to to utilize the grant funds. >> Exactly. So first day of the academy, we can begin using the grant funds. Yes. Um we the the grant does not cover um any of the hiring costs. So we send them to a medical exam or psychological examination. That's on that's on the city to to get that figured out. the second that they start um their wages and benefits are on the grant. >> Thank you. Other questions? Council member Strong. >> Um this is for city manager Trean. So, in looking at our not to exceed budgets, um you know, we kind of came up with the worst case scenario where we weren't sure if we would get the safer grant and obviously we have um cops grant too to consider, but where would this kind of fit us into the top four scenarios that we had talked about at that time? Do you know right on? >> Yes. Uh so if we were to start in April in midappril um the total levy impact for the fire department positions be 362,000 versus 177 which um the September start date and with the cop grants um and assuming no franchise fees just straight everything in the levy that's 11.45% four or five%. So, it's below the 12%. With franchise fees, um scenarios, if you remember scenarios three, uh which puts some money back into the capital as well, you're looking at 8.24% levy increase. And scenario five, putting as much of that capital back into the operating levy, you're looking at 6.14%. And once again, that's assuming the cops grant which we heard on Friday. And the additional levy, we would need another 185,000 to start um in April. So that's from anywhere from 6 to 11.45. So technically, I guess all the scenarios uh are under that 12%. I think um you know, we've all talked about, you know, we want to make sure we get to a number that's sustainable, but that gives you the range at least of what we looking at. >> Thank you. And just to clarify on that, if we do the uh franchise fee approach and certainly the levy percent is well under what the what the 12% that we did for not to exceed, how does that total impact relate to sort of that 10% total impact that we had been sort of targeting through the process if we add the 185 levy uh for the firefighters starting in April. So, I haven't done that calculation with the levy plus the franchise fees. Um, but if I it's u, you know, $6. >> Yeah. Yeah, I would have to. >> Okay. I was thinking >> interesting to know more about that. Uh and just to that point, I think if we're if we have some question on the finance side of it, I potentially we can make some of those decisions uh assuming we accept the grant by the October 25th deadline, we can make some of those other decisions as we continue through our budget process if we can't, you know, make a a firm decision this evening in that regard on the timing because it may be a situation where we look at something in between April and September or something like that and we may want more information to make a decision in that regard. Mr. Uh uh yes yes yes to all that that I think we'd really like to get some direction of where we want to go but certainly um we need to do some more number crunching and for all you to consider things technically I guess um we don't have to make the final final decision till we pass the budget on December 8th but certainly more work do beforehand on that um help the chief uh plan accordingly uh as well I was just going to say that uh this back to your original question Mr. Mayor, when we had scenario five where we put as much of that capital into um the operating levying was somewhere around 5%. That plus the franchise fees equal to about a 10%. So adding additional levy will push that above the 10% maybe take 11% but we can get that exact number. So from that logic it would tell me it' be a little bit higher than 10% um recommendation from the finance commission. >> All right. Thank you. Thank you. Uh other questions uh from council otherwise is there anyone from the public who wishes to speak to this item this evening? >> Was waiting for some >> Roger has Wagner please. And my comments have nothing to do with the service they're giving right now. The fire department does an awesome awesome job with with EMS. And if you do s do this, I'd like you to start in April because we might as well get the best service we can as quickly as we can. And I don't know if we'll have enough employees now on the fire department, but it' be nice if they could get into having normal 8our shifts rather than the long much longer shifts they have now. But anyway, the main thing I have want to just mention is I mean the fire department doing EMS started out as a nice little $50,000 a year program which now is many many millions of dollars and I'm sure this is adding quite a few million dollars to after the grant is done that's going to be on the taxpayers. So, and the whole reason he started it was because Alina gave really bad service and because of Rosal's been doing the service, Alina hasn't needed to improve their service all these years. I mean, the only reason we did it was because Alina was giving bad service. So, I just keep wondering if it would be cheaper in overall to pay a lineup two or three million a year to improve the service in Roseville rather than adding a lot more employees and things. So, I don't know if that's a possibility. Don't know if anyone's ever talked to Lina about it, but it just seems like their cost to run EMS is less than Roseville's since they get insurance money, which Roseville doesn't. So, it would be nice if someone ever talked to Alina to see if there's a way to get better service in Roseville. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. H. Uh, council member Bower, >> I can't comment on the alignment piece that I'll leave that to the chief if he wishes to. I will say they've been working with the League of Minnesota Cities, I think, as with others to change the primary ambulance, uh, service offering. I know that's, uh, you know, we've bumped that up with the League of Minnesota Cities. They have also bumped it up. Um, and we along with other cities, uh, are lobbying for the, um, that law to change. There was some movement uh, previously. Um, the chief can talk to you about the changes that made the state EMS office, but uh, last session there were some changes there. The League of Minnesota Cities is optimistic that there will be other changes, but I agree looking forward with our EMS costs. Our ability to transport, which would then allow us to recover those costs, I think is really the way um, and actually is necessary looking forward for us to be able to provide the level of EMS services that our residents want in a sustainable way. And so that's something that I will continue pushing with uh through the league and through uh reaching out to individual legislators, but it's also something that um individual residents um will be doing. I think there's some good opportunity um with outreach from Roseville residents to reach out to the um the representatives to get this changed. I think there's some momentum or some movement at the state house for that. >> Thank you, Council Member Bower. Um, and uh, Chief, I I know that uh, it it probably the easy answer is yes. We've been talking to a line about improving their service, right? >> Um, yeah, I wasn't sure where if what kind of rebuttal you rebuttal you wanted from me. >> Well, yeah. I mean, >> usually when I give a rebuttal in a public forum, I get in trouble. >> As council member, you know, Bower mentioned, I mean, the the problem we have with the service is that basically, uh, under the system set up by the state, Alina is our provider. We don't have a lot of choice in it. we don't have a lot of ability to influence decisions made by Alina and and you know because they are our provider and are a uh I believe a private for-profit business some of their incentives may be different than what Roseville residents might like to see in terms of service and things like that and I think that's part of the challenge uh not in addition to the fact that uh um you know recruiting for those types of positions whether it's in the Twin Cities metro or outstate is super challenging uh for those you know and it's because of the transport side of it. So, um there's there's pros and cons to whether a city benefits from doing transport, but having flexibility to make decisions in that regard is is at least half of what we're we're trying to achieve through the change in legislation. And feel free to >> Yeah, you're you're 100% right, mayor. Um except for when you said we don't have a lot of um control over it. We have zero. Um we literally have zero. um this council here would have more power to choose who our trash hauler is um than who transports people, sick people out of our city. Um so yes, the the state broke up into primary service areas, PSAs, back in the about late 1970s into the early 80s. Um and at that time they took over a local control of over Roseville at the time. Um decided to to not keep their uh their PSA and gave it away to um I think it was like Allied Health or whatever the the company was at the time. Um, but yes, we have no say in things like that. Um, even if we were to ask them to meet response time expectations, they don't have to do that. Um, it's same day service. Um, and that's across the state of Minnesota for anybody. And so, um, it's not just a Roseville thing. As as council member Bower mentioned, there's a lot of communities that are like, what is what's going on here? Even if nothing else, even if we don't run the Roseville Fire ambulance in two to three years from now, just to have the city have the power to say, "We're going to look at three or four different contractors and we're going to evaluate the contract every two years and decide if this ambulance agency is is going to work for us or if we're going to go with a different ambulance agency. We don't even have that level of power." Um, so there's been issues um at the state level with transparency. There's been issues with uh response time reporting. there's been issues with uh user fees and how much some of these ambulances are charging uh for some of their transports. Um it is growing. Um and I think the office of EMS, which council member Bower brought up in the last year and a half that has come into uh effect, I think is starting the process of working through some of those things. Um so I think it's on the right track. I think that municipalities are are growing with some of their ability to gain more power and more authority with this. But there's still a long ways to go. And I think we can also having having having met a few times with Maplewood officials, uh, in regard to medical transport, um, uh, doing it yourself as a city isn't necessarily super lucrative either. You help cover much of your costs, but not all of your costs. And, and if I'm not mistaken, the reimbursement rate was set during um, shortly after I graduated from college, just to give folks an idea about the time frame on that, >> looking at me now. And but anyway, >> and even then, uh, you know, the city of Maplewood collects at about a 40% rate. And so even with that, they're only collecting at maybe 40 to 50% of even that rate. Um, so yeah, it's not it's not a glamorous job. That's why I think EMS is an essential service. Um, in a lot of places, it does not get uh coined in that way or entitled that way, but it's it's an essential service for our community, and there needs to be more focus on on especially the transport piece. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. We're not going to be able to solve that this evening. No, that's a unfortunately >> that's a big one. >> Uh but certainly I think that's something that we keep in the back of our mind with all the decision-m that we're doing as a city in regard to our services we provide. Uh and I know that's been part of a lot of these conversations over the last several years. >> All right. We do have the uh the request before us first of all to uh accept the or allow the acceptance of the FEMA grant. Um and then maybe talk about how we want to proceed as it relates to the start time and if we need more information or if we're prepared to make a decision this evening or where we're at with that. I move to uh um accept the grant. >> Second. >> All right. The take the easy one first. Right. Moved by council member Schroeder, second by council member Grath to accept the FEMA safer grant uh that we were awarded in September. Discussion on that motion. Council member Schroeder as the maker of the motion. >> Oh, and again, thank you for making this possible. >> Thank you. >> Council member Grath. Yeah, these grants are a lot of work and I I don't know if the public I I know I don't even understand fully, but I know there's a lot of work involved, a lot of detail and you've done an excellent job to get these time after time. So, we really appreciate that. >> Further discussion on the motion. >> Uh just two other things I would note is that I don't think we're under any illusions that after the grant period ends, the city of Roseville is on the hook 100% for these costs. They are additional costs to the city and to the to the taxpayers of the city. And so what the grant gives us the ability to do is to work that into uh the levy in the years going forward. And so I I I think it's it's very helpful to that process. And so we but we don't want to we don't want to give people any any uh false illusion that that we're not paying for for these uh you know eventually in full as residents of taxpayers in Roseville. The other part of it is that I think we should note that FEMA funds are federal tax funds. And so it still is um you know taxes collected by government entities that are paying for this. Uh even though it's a grant to the city uh and helps with the city taxpayers, ultimately we need to reflect and and note that it is uh still tax dollars and tax dollars that are paid to the federal government. Uh so with that, we've got the motion before us. Uh all those in favor signify by saying I. I opposed. That passes unanimously. That grant is accepted. Uh discussion by the council as to how to proceed on the timing if we have any are I don't know if we're prepared to act on it tonight, but I'd be curious to hear. Council member. >> Well, my thoughts are, you know, if the other other departments are are also looking for a pool. I think the sooner we get start looking the better. Um and also it would be sooner we have this available to the residents of Roseville. We've talked and we've had a study done on the effects this has on the firefighters and the staff and that's not going away or getting less just you know by waiting to September it's actually worse. So my opinion is sooner is better even though it does cost us some money. >> Other thoughts as to how we proceed? Uh council member Bower >> I would second what council member Graph is saying. I do think the competitive nature with uh our neighbors having safer grants as well. I think uh the quality of our services directly related to the people that we hire and so being able to hire the best uh is something that we should pursue and to do that we should be out there um when everyone else is as well. Do we want to uh have staff uh come back with any recommendations to the council as to how to how to achieve an earlier start time and and try to reflect uh our targets related to the budget and where we might uh perhaps do some shifting or something like that uh if appro if possible to do or appropriate to do. >> I do think that the staff needs to come back with what those numbers look like. Um whether that means we just shift things from some other um areas. you know, safer grant was great reward that we had and so maybe we can make adjustments still to some hiring of a different position a little bit longer. I know we've done that in the past as well um rather than doing that, but it' be good to have that number to know what we would need to shift or to delay um to maybe uh 26 or sorry to 27. >> All right, council member Schroeder. I would agree with that because I I think um I think that the city manager can take some time to, you know, crunch the numbers as they say and come back because we really don't have to make a decision right away, but sooner the better because we want to obviously start recruiting when we can. But yes, so it' be good to be able to get that on the docket sooner than later, I guess. >> Right. And just to be clear, I'm for starting uh the recruiting, you know, right away. um in to make that happen um for shifting something else out further along, but I don't want the delay of um the hiring. >> Yep. >> Right. No, that's important to understand. Um is there uh any objection to that approach or other thoughts? Council member Strong, >> as you might expect, I just want to make sure that the uh HR manager isn't get shifted out because with 15 new staff, I think the need for 15 new people in all the parameters that uh would do would be needed to get that many new staff on board um are really important. So, I want to make sure that that um especially with again the paid family medical leave and all the intricacies that go into getting that together and again how many people that may be impacted and going out on leave um in the coming year. I think it's important to make sure that that particular position is not uh jeopardized by pushing things around. So, >> right. Well, I think you know there's some some opportunities for uh staff to take a look at what makes sense. You know, potentially partially funding some of the additional costs through use of reserves may be an option as well. I don't want to rule it out, but certainly we all know that that ultimately has to paid for be paid for by levy funds at some point as all of this does as I noted before. Uh, I hope that provides some guidance to staff and certainly if there's some decision points that you'd rather bring back to the council prior to our December hearing or December 8th, our December 1st hearing or our December 8th decision, you know, we've got a number of meetings between now and then that we could certainly take up an agenda item related to this specifically. >> Yeah, I would like to maybe touch it in November or, you know, maybe late October, but probably November. Um, and then just have a check in and see where we're at. And I just I just want to repeat I think I heard that there was interest in looking at an April start date as soon as possible and then from there there's lots of different ways to approach how how to work that but not like talk about a July date or August date but an April midappril date. >> Yeah. I mean I guess I would just say unless for some reason that we haven't thought of this evening it makes a lot more sense to start in at a different date than April. But I think our our what we're saying is we want to start in April. >> That's how I understood. I just wanted to repeat that so we're off the same page. >> All right. All right. >> Very good. >> You do that. >> I think that completes that item then. >> Uh we have just a couple more uh more administrative type business items uh before us at this time. Then we'll move to uh consideration of city council meeting minutes uh and EDA minutes actually as well. Uh we've got both council and EDA minutes from our September 15th meetings uh as well as both from our September 22nd meetings. uh and uh would look to see if there are any changes or corrections that council members have uh to those minutes uh or a motion to approve uh any portion. >> All four of them. >> Second. >> All right. It's been moved by council member Sher, second by council member Grath to approve all of the minutes. Uh as presented uh discussion on that motion. Uh hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I opposed. >> That passes unanimously. Those minutes are approved. Uh that then brings us to the consent agenda. Mr. Treasure, if you could give us an outline of the consent items. >> Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Agenda item 10 AA approves payments in the amount of 2,337,23258. Item 10B approves a gas station license and one cigarette tobacco products license for the holiday station store at 1583 County Road C to reflect the fact that now Holiday Corporate has taken over the ownership of that store. Uh, agenda item 10 C takes action to not to not wave our statutory liability limits for 2026 and keeping the liability amounts currently in place in the state statute. Not waving our liability limits is consistent with past council decisions on this matter. Item 10D approves accepting drainage and utility easements along the eastern property line of 1705 Roselon Avenue to accommodate sanitary sewer that was installed in 1958 and storm sewer in 1967. Item 10E approves final payment and accepts the work as completed for the Dale Oowaso sanitary sewer lift station project in the amount of $19,42860s and starting the one-year warranty period. Agenda item 10F approves a resolution uh to request score funding uh that is recycling fund uh funding from the Ramsey County to assist in the cost for residential curbside recycling program and to fund zero waste operations at city events. Then finally, agenda item 10G authorizes the mayor and city manager to execute an agreement with Metropolitan Council um to execute a ME met Metropolitan Council Livable Communities Act agreement to allow for funds received between 2007 and 2010 to be repurposed for other housing affordability programs in the future. And that is the consent agenda. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. Trean. Is there a motion on the consent items? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All right. It's been moved by Council Member Strong, second by Council Member Grath to approve those items. uh discussion on the motion and I would just note that not only is not waving the statutory limits consistent with past council action that is much more in the interest of the taxpayers in terms of the liability of the city uh those limits are in place to limit the liability of the city which is to the benefit of our taxpayers. With that we've got the motion before us. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I opposed. That passes unanimously. Those items are approved. Uh now Mr. Trean has to uh future agendas coming up. >> Yes. uh two more meetings here in October. Uh next Monday will be a meeting more in a work session format, but we'll talk about the close proximity uh excavation regulations, bring back some additional information. We also will look for the council to approve um what's what we call the recottification ordinance. This is the technical corrections uh the overall code that will help us eventually get this online. Uh to the extent there's any um policy decisions, we will be deferring that uh for a future conversation. Assistant city manager Olsen will be sending out I think tomorrow morning just kind of a sneak preview of kind of what's all in those ordinances just so you get a sense of what it looks at. I know the city attorney and assistant city manager spend a lot of time just going through whether it's commas or other old outdated references uh in there. So it's kind of a more of a cleanup document. We want to just uh have the council consider an update for the appointment and reappointment policy for advisory commissions to reflect actually what we're doing. So, for instance, we have um the HIC still listed in there. So, we want take that out. There's another thing about uh for reappoints that we previously used an application that was at least three years old. Now, we have a whole different reapplication uh reapplication application um uh for people to fill out. So, just just really being consistent with uh what we've been doing the last few years. So, pretty pretty simple. And then uh I want to bring back the discussion about the remote participation. and the council kind of landed on up to three times for council members and commission members. So, we'll bring that back for you to review. On the 27th, we'll have the consideration of the Aldine rightway uh take up the park and recck commission packet uh uh recommendation. You're all very familiar with that topic. So, we'll look to see if there's a decision be made on that. We'll look bring back the construction manager at risk and also uh the approval for the professional service agreement for civil and prosecuting attorney. our meeting on the 10th. We do have an EDA meeting where we'll receive a tiff district report. We try to do this annually u from elders just kind of give a status update of all our tiff districts. We'll look to adopt the professional services contracts. I think we talked about this at the last EDA meeting and then consider adoption of the EDA meeting calendar at the regular meeting. Uh we'll look at the fee schedule for the first time, utility rates, uh talk about our calendar, and then I think uh fortunately we still have remember number four or five liquor license uh violations as you know we do quite frequently. No tobacco violations as I understand it just just u liquor licenses and then we have the two meetings in December. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. Tre. Are there any questions on upcoming agendas? Any council member initiated items for future meetings uh or reports or communications from council members? All right. Hearing none, the only other item on our agenda this evening is a motion to adjurnn. So move >> second. >> Right. It's been moved by council member Grath, seconded by council member Sharter to adjurnn. No discussion on a motion to adjurnn. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed. That motion passes unanimously and we are adjourned at 8:24 p.m. Thank you everyone. Wow. >> 6 minutes early. >> Yeah.