Mr. Mayor, I have two items I'd like to talk about. One is I'd like to council process session. I will make a motion to approve as amended. Second all in favor I presentations coma motion to approve consent. I'll make a mo motion to approve the consent agenda. Second public hearings business reports. Um first item uh I had sent an email to council as we're getting into the economic development planning process. There are some suggested changes to the process that I would make to council. The first one, we originally talked about a process that would involve some larger like retreat to go through the information and as we're getting into it and I talked about his experience in a couple different efforts. Um we'd like to recommend that we actually move to a monthly approach to the process. a number of reasons for it. One, um, it's more manageable from work standpoint. Two, information retention from the EA and any other participants in small packages. That format also allows for more interaction, take smaller bites out of the so to speak, as we're going through. And it gives us greater flexibility to schedule resources. We're having speakers coming in or um topics around. It gives us greater flexibility to do that. and allows us to be more flexible in the process as we move forward. That would however require a commitment from the EDA to meet on a monthly basis. I have spoken to Bob with it suggestion heavily question for the remaining members but I'd like to get some feedback on that. My thought is that we would use our second meeting March for the work session. We just made the joint meeting the council. So, um we technically are meeting our posting requirements. Um and then we would also use our regular EDA in April which is the second month and by that time we will recommend that we identify regular time for the foreseeable future as we continue through the process. So that's point number one. The second point is if we're going to be moving forward with that approach the council should I make a decision provide some direction on whether or not we want to expand the group. So this wouldn't be like appointing additional members or amending the composition of the EDA but it would be adding people essentially the strategic planning. So these would be task purpose individuals who would be participating in strategic planning process for purpes of that project. Um, but we want to have those people on board obviously before that meeting in March on the 27th. Uh, if you wanted to be business oriented about it and say, "Hey, can you give us some people to fill it out? I would recommend that expansion two or three additional individuals just manage the size of manage the size of discussion um since it's a this strategic planning process is ultimately kind of a committee oriented approach and at the end of the day you'll have to come back to the EA for any actual voting you don't have okay those are two items suggestions. Who's the chair? Is it Josh? Yes. You didn't sound very confident in that. Well, I missed the meeting, so I thought it was So, yeah. I mean, you know, um I don't know what I was gonna say, though. Sorry. Do we want to pull from the chamber? Do we want to pull from Where do we want to pull from to get other ideas and people's people involved while keeping it small? I mean, I think it makes sense to have a chamber representative or two. Yeah. So, Bob is already the chamber representative, but he's a lone he's the lone local business voice representing the chamber. If you wanted more of that input, um, you could ask the chamber for to basically help us identify additional individuals that would participate. I would suggest maybe one person for planning. Makes sense. Well, I'm torn because part part of some of this discussion too, and we represent the residents, but having uh unelected res, there's something that voice too. I mean, and I get what that's what we are obviously, but is there and maybe that's maybe I'm overthinking it too much, but trying to give the opportunity for an non-elected resident to be another voice in the process, like an appointment process or I mean just interview process. I don't know. I mean, but just to have somebody else because that's where I feel like we get the push back or get the flack of, well, we're not representing, you know, those voices of the community. Um, so is there like a public person? You you could have an atlarge position. Um, I'm just playing not that I disagree, I'm just going to play devil's advocate because I don't know if it makes sense or not. So, you can say, well, but you didn't have anybody from the public on there. Okay. So, you point somebody. Okay, but you did this one, but you didn't. It was this person. It just added to our, you know, circle here. Yeah, but it wasn't this person or you know, you needed adversity. You should have had five, you know. So, I think there's no matter what you do, I think there will be a level of criticism. I think you just have to make a decision on what's reasonable and practical for the benefit of the process and the chips will fall where they maybe we do one chamber person, one planning person and then go from there and then how it grows. And I was going to say too, Amanda, I know you've said we've struggled to get people on other commissions in the past, so I wonder if it would be the same situation. It doesn't hurt to at least open it up eventually. But, and remind me, is there anybody from the township on planning commission? Right. There's somebody that sits on the planning commission from the township because that seems like a voice to at least factor, especially when we talk strategic planning and growth. We're going into the township. And I mean that's just a natural friction point anyway. Yeah. And in that case, the township's concern really is about the land use side of it. So that's why we created that position on the planning commission because it gets into the actual development, the actual annexations, specific projects, infrastructure impacts, etc. So I'm hearing yes. I'm hearing yes. So, I will have Renee scout interest on the planning commission one and then and then I will talk to Ariana about if getting an additional a list of interested folks from the chamber that would like to participate with regards to the more frequent meetings monthly meeting approach feedback on that I mean my feedback would be I'd prefer same day as the council and risk running longer nights but that's easier I mean versus having another day at another time and another meeting to get to is just more challenging but I I agree with that. Okay. So, I would anticipate the meetings would typically I think we would try and keep them to our sized bites. Um, so we're already scheduled at six. So, do you want to meet at five? Yeah. Before before we have a hard stop at six for for a meeting. Yep. Or or do you want to tack it on Well, when you tack it on the backside, it gets to be hard because you don't know what time you're ending. Yep. So, let's put it to be four. That way, we have a hard stop. Is there a can once they're set, can we, you know, if we don't have a work session, can we just move it to six and do six to seven or so, or would we just want to start council at 6:00 so we end earlier? So, the work session and the business meeting are the same meeting. They're just whether or not you have a part one on those nights. So, our council meetings always start at 6. They're posted at six. So if we make that change then we have to jump through some some hoops on from an EDA standpoint. We have our meetings that are already scheduled through the year and we'd use those but for the additional ones we would post special meetings and it gives us some flexibility from month to month. Let's say the following month we know for whatever reason we've got a short council meeting and everybody rather start at seven. We could post at seven. Well, the only time it really gets screwy is if we have that public hearing during the council meeting where we have to have the public hearing scheduled at seven or whatever. That's when we have a work session. It ends 15 in 15 minutes and we have to but that doesn't happen that often. If it was simply an issue, we could post joint meetings of the EDA and the council during the work session. The problem is is once we hit, and that might work for me, but once we hit June, we're in budget, capital outlay, um, cap, uh, capital improvement plan, utility budgets for most of the work sessions through the remainder of the year. So that so once we hit second meeting in May or the beginning of June, we're that pretty much isn't an option anymore. But that would get us through April and maybe through May we could use the work sessions if we don't have anything else big that we need to use the work session for. Start with that and then we can figure it out from there. Okay. Right. You have a second update. I did. Um, so I was at a meeting today where we had a presentation from the chief lobbying folks from both League of Minnesota cities and metro cities talking about legislation that is expected to impact cities. And there's always a lot, but the primary item this year is housing legislation. So for Amanda and Josh, this is a familiar routine. Um they're expecting all of the big pieces of there's been a few that have come down like from Representative Elkins and a few others, but the big stuff which is the same stuff we've seen in previous legislative sessions, is really expected to start dropping next week. To give you an example of the types of things we can expect, some of which we've seen before is that a legislation that would mean that all commercially zoned property would also be allow multif family or big apartment buildings by right. So anything that we zone commercial is essentially being zoned for u multif family. The obvious issue is if you're zoning it and you're trying to preserve um preserve for commercial or create tax based diversification, you can have people come in and we can't stop them from building apartment buildings on all our commercial property. Um they would require density like triplexes or more within a certain distance of your municipal state aid highway routes within the community. So within our community that would be a lot of the community that would automatically allow for that. No parking requirements. So I could build an apartment building right next to your business and have no parking for my building if I chose to do so. So all the parking would have to go on the local street or into neighboring businesses or or whatever or into the neighboring neighborhood. Um allow multiple units um in all districts. So basically single family residential zone districts would go away because they could be duplexes or forplexes depending upon within those districts. Um, there are some that are limiting the size of lots to like eighth of an acre, which means that would be a density way beyond even what the Met Council is requiring. And we know that we have some push back within our community right now with regards to just the standard densities. Um, reduce or eliminate uh traditional public engagement steps in the development process where they would say you this is administrative. there is no public engagement or you can only have for this particular type of project you can only have one public meeting on it. Um so things other things that are just practical issues. It doesn't take into account um our comprehensive planning efforts. So they're basically usurping a large number of the requirements under the met council and our comp plans and our system plans. So we'd be doing all that work for nothing. um uh it doesn't take into account the efforts that we are already doing as a city to try and provide for afford more affordable housing etc. And the list goes on and there will be more things that pop up. So as we get into the session basically I'm looking for direction from the council about where the city officially is regarding this legislation in general. We've had these discussions in the past and basically authorized the mayor to sign letters opposing it like from scale and other partners um authorized the coun the city administrator the mayor and or other council members to go and speak with legislators on behalf of the city related to these um items. And what it really comes down to it's in some places and maybe here some of these things might make a good idea. The idea is those decisions should be made by the local jurisdictions. You can't zone you can't zone at a state level because of the uniqueness of every community. There's a reason that the why zoning is typically a local function. Um, and what it is is that everybody agrees there's a need to try and provide more in a wider variety of housing, but there are philosophical differences to get there. And some people believe the way to do that is to mandate one-sizefits-all and in some cases very impractical methodologies because they really don't understand how it works speaking bluntly from a state level. And one thing we have to keep in mind is this is a bipartisan effort. So this isn't one party or the other, one caucus. This is bipartisan. There are people on both sides of the aisle who favor this type of legislation. Um and if we are opposed to it and we don't express our opinion on it, sometimes this stuff actually gets passed. The other thing they pointed out is that um the interests that are putting this forward are taking the flood the zone approach. So in the past they would have this piece of legislation that does this and this piece of legislation. So what they're doing this time is we're putting the same language in this bill and this bill and this bill and this bill and this bill. So, if this one fails for whatever reason, all we have to do is have one person make it past the line of defense and we score a touchdown. So, um it's so they're this is probably an an annual event um because I don't think that these are going to go these approaches are going to go away. But um cities because of their active engagement have been able to push off the I would say maybe the less advisable pieces of legislation in recent years um and been and have attempted to try and push the discussion to a more productive discussion but um speaking bluntly a lot of those special interests they're not interested in having a discussion. So that puts us in the position of just simply uh dealing with it in the legislature. be happy to sign anything in opposition. And some of that too, like the density stuff, isn't that that's what you're referencing? It's came up last year and successfully stalled it up and yep, now they're just coming back again. So, yes. And what you're seeing is it's the same stuff plus more and to some of it to an even greater, you might say, to a greater degree than stuff that we've seen in the past. And this is not out yet. I was told from Limus they're expecting to see these bills start to drop next week. So I will most likely be in the minority for most of these conversations. So I mean most of the stuff absolutely. I think this just goes to show still that we as cities pull that local control card way too much and it's becoming less and less effective and we need to be at the because I would argue we're not at the table with solutions either and all we do is push back against everything and so I mean parking I mean who would be stupid enough to build an apartment without parking I mean you're not going to get people to buy it. Um so some of the stuff is just whatever but I fully support us oppos opposing it from the philosophical standpoint but we got to be prepared to have solutions then too instead of just push it back like we always do. I would argue that we have we've taken a look at our infrastructure standards and reduced them to reduce the cost of housing provide and alum I'm saying the majority of cities especially the league and metro cities they just flat out oppose everything and that gets kind of old that that that's true but I think that's just a function of who they are. They're representing a broad coalition of cities. They could facilitate better conversations. They share any proactive pieces of legislation that they're trying to push through. Do they share any of that? Like from our standpoint? Yeah. Um the position there is that it should be up to the cities to decide what how they should meet those needs. That there shouldn't be legislation that dictates how cities meet those needs. So we have the tools, most cities have the tools right now to do all of this if pretty much if they wanted to or some variation. We've done a number of things. To Josh's point, um I would agree that the initial response in the early years of this is like this is just bad legislation. And what's happening is cities are getting smarter about saying, but this is the stuff we're already doing because there is a lack of awareness by legislators. There's a small group of legislators that are pushing this that try and within their caucus leverage the caucus to get it approved. Most legislators aren't educated on this, so they're left to what they're being told. and cities don't tell their story historically haven't very well. Um, we have the advantage that in Scott County we have done a good job of talking about the practical aspects of this. Josh is right. Not all cities do and not all cities engage with their legislators. And so it's kind of left to whoever talked in your ear the last as to what the correct information is. And so that's kind of what I'm asking is do you want and do do you are you directing and are you giving permission for me and or any of the members of the council mayor to basically take those actions to go have those conversations as needed testify if tapped on the shoulder to do so. Yes sir. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Anything for public works? Nope. Chief, thank you foring the investigator. Rich, sorry. Oh, he's not sleeping. He's writing down when he lays awake thinking about him. Fair enough. Anything for community development? Um, no. Parks. Uh, just the minutes uh prepared by Jake. If you have any questions, I'll try and answer. If not, I'll have Jake follow up with a response. Easy. Anything? Uh, we didn't meet this month, so we'll meet in mid-Marchch, but I'll give a plug for the egg hunt at Eagle View, which is on Saturday, April 12th. Josh, do you have an update on fire risky days? I would have to pass and defer to Linda and Kate and those guys. I could pull up my thing real quick or if there's an update. Um maybe I'll give a quick update meeting. I was at the last meeting for as a subject matter expert. Um so at this point we think we've nailed down to a large degree the activities at the park. Um I think things are coming along really well this year with regards to getting everything scheduled. Um the question of whether or not um ultimately fire rescue days is going to move out out of the house so to speak to either a local nonprofit or its own nonprofit or whether it's going to stay in-house as a city event um for coordination purposes. That question was deferred to the next meeting of the committee because they did not have a full committee there. However, the decision was made that this year is still a city event um for functional purposes and I think the intent is to come to the council with a recommendation by this summer as to what we would be looking to do or recommend for future years. Anything to add from scale? Nope. Anything to add from I35? The last meeting? There wasn't one in the last couple weeks. So, any discussions by council? I guess the only thing I would add is Tom and uh commissioner uh beer were up at the capital. Was that this week still or was that on Monday? Monday. Y and uh so no, I thought uh everything went really well for that uh hearing and everything. So I watched it online. I think he did a great job. He did awesome. He's a storyteller. He's fun. It was it was a good story like something that they're going to remember. Yeah, it the the key benefit of having the county commission chair do it is one, it's not his district. And so it really emphasizes the partnership between the city and the county because one of the questions we've historically gotten is well is the county on board with this? Is the county supportive of this? And that clearly is sending the message now that from our side of the table to the state mind that no, we're everybody's on board on this side, everybody's committed to it. So I think that was huge to have uh Commissioner Beer up there. say you should have smiled. I was smiling. Any discussion by councel? Motion to adjurnn. Motion. Can I get a second? Second. Second. All in favor? I meeting a journ. meeting.