To the flag of the United States of America and to the standice agenda. >> No, Mr. Mayor. >> So moved. >> I'll second. Hi. >> Hi. >> Comments. >> Good evening, mayor and city council members. My name is Don Whitel, 26340 Thomas Avenue. And uh Janelle Kousnia is on um is at this meeting also and she will be starting out this evening. >> Can you hear me? >> Yes. Okay, good. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of the council. Thank you for allowing me to appear virtually. My name is Janelle KNA, 26775 Grand Avenue, Elco, Minnesota. Um, I'm here with Don Whitel to ask the council to partner with us to provide private water testing to residents of Elco New Market and New Market Township. Um, I should say private wellwater testing. Um, tonight we're asking the city to take advantage of a unique opportunity. Uh, Twin City Water Clinic has generously donated 150 comprehensive wellwater testing kits to our community and for an additional $18,750, the city could match that donation with 150 more kits and making tests available for up to 300 local well owners. This is imp particularly important at this time because the city has increased pumping from the aquafer and there have been concerns about water changes and water quality in some private wells. Minnesota generally recommends that private well owners test their water regular regularly. However, when there are significant changes in local groundwater conditions, testing that may be several years old may not tell residents what they're drinking today. So testing is recommended more frequently. Recent groundwater sampling also gives us reason to encourage more residents to obtain current information. In September of 2025, the city's report showed that the aquafer and confirmed that there was iron, manganesees, and hardness are all common in in area wellwater. Maganesees exceeded the state health standards in some sampled wells and on one site ours was above the standards. We are not suggesting that every well has a problem. Residents simply need more current information and the best way to know what is in their water is to test. The city has already recognized the importance of water testing by allocating money for testing up to 50 wells with Braraw Intertech. We appreciate that commitment and our request is not to replace the city's current testing program. It's an opportunity to complement and expand it. We also understand that participation in the city's current sampling program has been limited. There may be several reasons for that. Some residents may not want staff on their property. They may have difficulty scheduling access or may have concerns or questions about the access agreement. This program offers another option. Residents can voluntarily collect their own samples and submit them for testing. They would not need to schedule someone to come into onto their property. A testing program is most valuable when residents feel comfortable about participating. By making testing simple and accessible, we may be able to reach more well owners. This is also an opportunity to make a generous private donation go twice as far in combination with the Twin City Water Clinic commitment of 150 free tests to our community for a relatively modest in investment of $18,750. The city's matching donation could then provide up to 300 residents with current information about their drinking water. Residents who rely on private wells do have a responsibility for monitoring their own water quality. But when conditions in the local aquifer are changing, homeowners cannot necessarily anticipate what they need to test or from weather or whether water quality may have changed since their last test. Providing affordable and accessible testing helps residents take that responsibility seriously and make informed decisions for themselves and their families. Our request tonight is simple. We request that the city council provide funding for 150 additional testing kits either through a portion of the funds already allocated for water testing or through another available funding source. This is not about assigning blame. It's about providing residents with information about the water they drink today. We hope you will support this effort as a gesture of goodwill to the residents of the city and surrounding township and as another way to demonstrate the city's commitment to the health, safety, and well-being of all Elco New Market residents, including those who rely on their private wells. Thank you for your time and your consideration. >> Thank you. >> [snorts] >> Hello everyone. My name is Wes Hoffman. Uh I live at 9845 Blackpool Court. I first off my script here. Uh I think the city does a great job. Uh especially all the the public works. I love it here. So um that said, um I got to take off my glasses. Sorry, I'm a little nervous here, too. I'm not a public speaker. Uh, good evening, mayor and city council. As my name is Wes Hoffman, I'm a resident of Elco New Market and founder of Dream Green Cannabis Club at 531 Main Street. Thank you for your time tonight. Before I share the latest progress, I want to take a brief moment and share a little bit about who I am. Who I am is a man that is defined by a character and discipline and a deep abiding philosophy that guide my life from a positive mental attitude and strategic execution to relentless commitment to building genuine goodwill and in everything I do. I do [sighs] I [snorts] would I'm sorry [clears throat] once again little nervous up here. I would be more than happy to sit down and talk with anybody at a future date about my background, my values, and who I am as a community member. But tonight, I am thrilled to give you an update on Dream Green Cannabis Club. When I reflect on my journey and bring this vision to life, I am filled with incredible pride in the path that I've traveled. It has taken two and a half years of dedicated work to get to this point. Got to breathe here too because it is deeply important to me from day one not to just take shortcuts. As John Wooden taught, true success is peace of mind attained only through self-satisfaction and knowing that you made an effort to do the best that which you are able and capable of doing. I approach this by doing things in a certain way with absolute purpose, commitment to building lasting goodwill, close and transparent work working relationship with the city and leadership to build a foundation designed to last and serve the neighborhood safely. Got to catch my breath. Sorry, I thought I had two minutes. [snorts] Um to borrow words from Ralph Waldo Emerson, what lies a what lies behind us and what lies before us is tiny matters with compared to what lies within us. Everything that I've accomplished through navigating local requirements designing a space rooted in integrity comes from the exact commitment to doing things the right way. I'm getting closer every day to opening my doors and I want to personally invite each of you to come and take a look at my space and celebrate my progress. Thank you for your time. >> Anyone else? >> Public. All right. Close public comment. We'll move on to consent agenda. Anything in the consent agenda you guys want to pull out, discuss? No. All right. I'll take a motion to approve consent agenda. So moved. >> Second. Any discussion? >> All in favor? >> I >> I no public hearings. Uh general business. So item on general business is awarding the sale of bonds um for uh the land acquisition and well number five um improvements and water treatment plant modifications. Normally we would have a representative from Ellers typically Bruce or Rebecca that would be here tonight. Unfortunately Bruce had an unexpected medical situation with his family and Rebecca's out of town. So you guys will have to put up with me. I've sat through enough of these I think I can wing it. Um so we issued or went to market today um for the sale of bonds um for the land acquisition for the approximately 4 acres north of city hall to basically round out the land acquisitions for our future municipal campus. um for the construction of well number five and the water treatment plant modifications which included which were related to the well and also um for providing for bypass capabilities at the well or blending capabilities at the at the plant um market today uh we went out uh we are recommending awarding the sale of the bonds to give me half a second here to Beard, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Uh they were the lowest of five biders with a true interest cost for the bond at 3.7755%. That's approximately 22 points below what was estimated. Um, so we were very close to what we expected to get within the market. The fact that we had five biders was very solid in my experience. Typically you get three to four. Occasionally you may get more than five or more. So I would say that this is the market means we hit it on a good day. We went out there's a lot of people and interested in buying our debt. Um the other biders on the project also included um Northland Securities, Stifel Nicholas and Company Incorporated, TD Financial Products, and Bach Financial Securities um with uh their proposals ranging from 3.79 to 3.93. Um, I should also notice that the offering um included a premium of $131,000 um which uh we would accept and then that would just be applied against the bond par. So basically just lower our debt service. So with that, the city council is being asked to approve resolution 25 or 2658 authorizing issuance awarding sale prescribing the form and details and providing for the payment of 2.145 million in general uh for 2.145 general obligation bonds series 2026A. You just say so moved. >> So moved. Are you seconding it or are you asking first? >> Oh, second. >> Thank you. >> [clears throat] >> Um, I don't have anything specific for council update unless you have any questions on any items. >> I don't have anything specific, but if you have any questions, I'm here. >> Happy to say that uh we interviewed uh four candidates in our final interview process and we moved uh three on to backgrounds for two spots. So fingers crossed that maybe we can finally fill the three openings. Uh we're anticipating um potential start dates in October, be able to do two and then the third person probably started in 2027. Um and then also update on the scourge of the scooters and the emotos. Um there's been an uptick in the emotos, the electric dirt bikes going around town. My officers have been very active in stopping kids, demanding helmets, talking to parents. Uh we have had now two cases of the kids on the motorcycles fleeing from us. Um we were able to identify them. Had some interesting conversations with parents, actually charging one of the kids for fleeing. Um hopefully that will put a dent in some of this behavior. But uh they are active, they are out there, they are stopping and having awkward conversations with parents and kids. So [snorts] >> anything for fire related? >> Um on the fire department uh we had our uh discussions on the fire pensionou with the representatives from the relief. um the their representatives um agreed to the terms that the council had directed us to propose which was basically all the same terms generally remaining the same three-year with a 3% increase per year. Uh they'll be bringing it back to the relief for um ratification um at their first meeting in September. So you can expect to see it on consent agenda at the September 10th meeting. engineering. Um, I have a 5-year-old daughter. She'll be turning six here in November. So, she's starting in uh starting kindergarten here in about a week and a half. Uh, so today she actually have they have to have like a little assessment thing where they go in meet their teacher and they do a little assessment just to see how ready they are for kindergarten. Um, so she actually she had that today and the the teacher asked her. Um, so if you have $1 and you ask your dad for another dollar, then uh how much money do you have? Uh, and my daughter responded, $1. The teacher's like, "Okay." So then she was she was speaking with my wife after and she goes, "Yeah, um, not sure Lily understands uh, addition quite yet." Uh, to which my daughter responded, "You don't understand my dad." [laughter] Um, but other than that, no, I nothing formal here tonight unless you guys have any questions. Anything [laughter] [clears throat] from community development? >> Passed on? >> No. Um, not at this time. >> Anything from parks? >> Nothing from parks. >> Anything passed on from CC? >> Um, we had the community picnic uh this last weekend. It was very successful. Um, in the past with regards to attendance, we would kind of do the this looks right and we do the one and a half hot dog per person math. Um, this year we actually tried to be a little more formal and use the clicker and we are confident that we had at least 260 attendees considering all men, women, and children, infants um, in attendance. And if that's the and it did feel like it was one of our most well attended um community picnics. The weather of course um helped um we didn't get out as much advertising in advance as we have in previous years. So uh if we had done that we honestly could have expected. It's become one of our most appreciated and expected events from our from our residents especially families. But we saw a lot of um non school age kid um families attending as well. All right. Anything from scale? Um our big item from scale executive committee for this month is we had an update on the um co-responder um program in Scott County and this is where you have mental health professionals that will assist um and work directly with our law enforcement agencies to respond to calls. And the idea is that they can help with those individuals ideally put them in touch with the resources um that in the long run will help them with whatever their current situation is and ultimately reduce the number of calls to those for those individuals. Um the program has been successful and has seen some response or there's some benefits of it. The uh some of our larger neighbors to the north, they actually have full-time individuals that are embedded with their police department. Um the smaller communities on the southern and western portion of the county have um because of the volume of calls, they have an individual that's assigned to multiple cities to assist them with that. You can ask the chief about effectiveness. Uh [snorts] this program was a funded through opiate dollars um due the settlements with opiate companies to help um fund this program. Those dollars will be and and other revenue sources will begin to not be able to cover the cost of that by 20 of the late 2020s or 2030. And so there are future discussions that will need to be held about the effectiveness of the program and how it would be funded going into the future. And so more to come on that. As far as the effectiveness of the program, I defer to the chief. [snorts] We've been pretty happy with it. Um they have that access. We let them in our PD. So we see our sign person periodically. It's nice. the a lot of the stuff we end up getting asked to handle is civil, which cops aren't great about doing civil. We're not supposed to. Um, so it's nice to have a kind of a subject matter expert and find resources, mental health, um, programs, things like that. They've been very good about that. They don't respond. These aren't your typical co-responders that go right to the house with you during something that's happening. Um those are programs you tend to see in bigger cities, bigger counties, better funding for those kind of programs. Um but we feel it's been been very helpful and beneficial to have access to that. Um even if they spread a little thin between the four smaller agencies. Um but it is nice to at least have someone that can help at times. >> That was service delivery. Um we had scale exeact last Friday. Um the discussion there uh revolved around again the uh the lobby's contract. Um some discussion about the upcoming session and um preparing for the legislative platform associated with that. Uh there is also discussion about upcoming meetings. uh they're looking to have multiple sessions related to school funding because it's such a complex um issue. I've heard more than one legislator joke that there's only three people that really understand how it works and they're not allowed to travel in the same car. Um it's but um uh in all seriousness it's it's a more complex issue and school districts would like to try and provide more information that and now with the constitutional amendment that's coming out they would like to try and also provide objective um information related to what it is and what it mean what it actually is because if you look around there's not a lot of information out there right now on it. In fact, I just had a discussion this afternoon with the Lakeville school superintendent [clears throat] um on on the topic and a lot of that information is forthcoming. Um so those were the those are the primary topics that were discussed. >> Maybe somebody will ask you know when school districts decide to do special uh elections and special things that they don't um try to change access to voting and things like that. And uh you know maybe some of this is a good conversation to have of how things may or may not be manipulated at times or appear manipulated. I shouldn't say that they are but um yeah and they won't be there because it's not probably they're not scale. So not that there's a good example that I'm alluding to. [laughter] >> Yes. will be back in September. >> Just wrapped up second month of those meetings. Uh the next month will be the last one where changes and proposed amendments. So this is where first meeting was intro to what happened. Second meeting was a bunch of presentations on stuff. Some good presentations from transportation stuff, met council stuff, uh some housing pieces. Uh and now it gets into the guts of any proposed changes or things like that. So, as soon as those comes out, I can share those and if there's comments or feedback, whatever. The Northwest Suburbs are going to do another push on group home stuff. So, that'll be another fun session dealing with that. So, um but we're going to do things differently here. we're or that's what I'm going to hope to uh promote because I think there's a good way that local governments can insert themselves into those types of discussions and there's not a good way to do it and we're going to continue to have that conversation. So, >> any discussion by council? I'm just wondering, you know, with Don and Janelle's testimony or public comment earlier, knowing that the there's probably a hard deadline for some of this stuff to be considered, it feels only fair to have a further follow-up conversation if folks are interested in having a conversation. Um, since we didn't really do a whole lot of back and forth because we don't typically do that for public comment. So, just want to throw that out there to see if anybody was interested in discussing it further. [snorts] >> I believe there's statutory limitations in what we can do and I think that will [clears throat] dictate what we do. >> Andrea, do you have back >> discuss that? So for any uh spending that the city does uh it is required to have a public purpose and typically you've got to look to uh constitutional state statutes to determine what you're authorized to spend on. Uh this is essentially a private gift or grant and there really isn't any specific uh basis in law for that sort of funding public expenditure. >> Now, Andrea, when you're saying public purpose, you're saying a public purpose that is justifiable for the city, >> correct? >> Where other units or levels of government, >> they have that authority. There are counties that do uh provide free test kits. For example, Dakota County does that. Uh the state will sometimes have grant funding which they give to counties for that. But there isn't anything I was able to find for cities to do this sort of grant. And it feels like that what you just said there probably justify or confirms a lot of the stuff as I was trying to educate myself on is there any other cities that do this and it didn't look like from what I was able to find that there were any other cities but counties there's several counties that do it in Noa Dakota Dakota Henipin and others and then maybe cities play a role in facilitating or whatever but not necessarily the ones purchasing those kits or subsidizing them or anything. Yeah, we did u make a call to Scott County um to see if they had any programming. Uh Corey actually made that call just to say, "Hey, do you guys have anything that might you might be able to bring to bear um to assist with the clinic?" And the county indicated that they currently don't have that type of a program currently. And historically, the staff person that we spoke to doesn't recall that they had done that in the past. doesn't mean that they haven't, but that is not a there isn't a source of funding today for that type of a program through Scott County. Doesn't mean that there might not be in the future, but for purposes and given the timelines of the clinic, it's unlikely they would have something to bring to bear. >> So, legally, we cannot fair or accurate. >> May I ask a question? >> Sure. Ask a question. Could it be done if the city could it be done if the the city worked with directly with the company instead? Uh >> again, it's asking for funds from the city and that we legally cannot >> that's a good >> to organ well to organize a testing. >> That that's a good question, Don. So the testing that we're doing is directly related to that we do when we have water quality complaints is directly related to our permit and permit is part of our authorized function. So there's a direct nexus with what we're doing. In this case we would be doing testing on private wells that isn't related to any of our public operations. It would be [snorts] it would whether we worked uh regardless of how we provided it in this circumstance given who the recipients are and what the purposes um it's hard to draw that nexus for the public purpose. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you for consider bringing it up. For what it's worth, I've been digging around on the internet and I know that Andrea will probably shake her head at me, but I know I know that it's more than nitrates that you want to be tested, but the Scott Oil and Water Conser Conservation District does free nitrate testing once a year. So, if that is something like a a resource that could possibly be used to and I don't like this isn't going to be something that that we would do as a city, but could possibly be tapped into to see if they would be interested in doing more testing more things rather than just the nitrate testing. >> That's a call we can I mean, we may not be able to fund it, but we can make phone calls and make inquiries because we have, you know, relationships with those agencies. >> I was trying are they at scale they are they also attend service delivery. So that actually could be a >> that might be like a project that scale could consider. >> Yeah. I mean this it's good that the question came up but that would be something that I could and we've had discussions as you know at scale where they've talked about um various uh groundwater work that they've done as the county and collection of data and they're currently working on a groundwater study which doesn't have a completion time at this date. Um but the idea of offering um uh trying to provide more opportunities for well owners um might be an opportunity and those agencies might have where they it's part of their clear authorized purpose. They might have more opportunities to to provide that. So it's something I could bring up at service delivery as a as an item and just see if there's a there. Soil and water isn't always there, but if they're not, then I can just make a direct call to the director. >> Yeah. because I feel like well early on at the scale exec committees we talked about like different projects to bring up and project ideas >> and so I don't >> I don't have my notes for what I scribbled down at that point in time to see if it fit fits the bill but >> just from the politics of the organization it might actually be better to bring up an executive committee because um then they can push it down um so to speak to the committee u both work but it might it might actually be more effective if it's brought up at at the executive committee level. Um because you have a lot more of the players there, so to speak. >> Janelle, did you still have something you wanted to contribute? I was just going to say as far as nitrates goes, we've held two um well clinics here and we've tested over 500 wells and I think we had one and that well was south more south by Fairbolt. Um so really the nitrate issue because we have such thick till here in the area doesn't become isn't isn't the primary issue. The the primary issue is manganesees and arsenic. Um um so just just so you know I mean we've tested over 500 wells already and we nobody has had nitrates. So and I'm I'm well aware I think the grant money that Dakota County has comes directly from the state and the next opportunity to apply for that is 2020 aid and I've been in contact with uh Scott County and um the the water resource group there. So that's all. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Any other discussion? >> Have we had any had any state representatives, senators, candidates reach out about coming here at all? Seems like there's a lot of campaigning going on and nobody seems to give a crap about us down here. >> No. >> Just curious, >> would would the council >> I mean, come on, man. I know it's only August. It's almost September, but hopefully we'll get a few coming down here. Usually it comes later in the session where they come for the um hi, I'm running for office under public comment. Um however, it has been our practice in the past to um set up meetings uh with those individuals either prior to or after the election preession to make them aware of our priorities in the community. >> Any other discussion council hearing? None. I'll take a a motion for adjournment. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? >> I adjourned.