America to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right. Any changes to the agenda? Council will notice that there's been a revised agenda which has was sent to you today and laid out for you. Uh under general business, we're looking to add item A which is legislation regarding the city's zoning authority. We're asking the council to consider adopting a resolution supporting the retention of city zoning authority and also approve a letter to our legislators regarding proposed legislation to restrict city zoning authority. Motion to approve agenda as amended. All in favor? I I. All right. No presentations. Uh, anybody here for public comment on anything that's not on the agenda? Going once, gone twice. Um, consent agenda. Any discussion that needs to be done on the consent agenda? Hearing none. Motion to approve consent agenda. A motion. Second. All in favor? I I no public hearings. General business. As the council is aware in um the last several legislative sessions in St. Paul um special interest groups uh have and uh various legislators have been proposing to pass legislation which would undermine local control of municipalities as it relates to their zoning authority. Um, as a city we have opposed that and actually at our last meeting we had a discussion about whether or not we would continue to oppose such legislation indicating that we would support resolutions, letters, etc. that would propose legislation that would be contrary to the interests of our community. Um, we presented for you tonight uh both a resolution. This is a standard resolution that the League of Minnesota's cities has developed that provides a broad overview of the general issues with the legislation that's currently moving forward. Also a letter which has the same general theme. Um, the extra thing in the letter, which I think is great, is it provides an opportunity for all of the cities that are using that format to identify examples of the things that they have done on their own without being dictated by the legislature and what works best for their community to promote um housing and affordable housing in their community. So, we've prepared these for your consideration. If the council would like to act on these, um, we'd be looking for a motion to approve resolution 2519 and then, uh, approving the letter. Can we do them both at one time or do you need them separate because one's a letter and one's a resolution? You could say so moved and we would be so moved. All in favor? We need a second. Oh, sorry. I will second it. All in favor? I I is this the same language that all the cities are kind of following what I or more or less um cities will tweak it based on particular points they want to make to make it more accurate for them. Um Renee worked on preparing these the resolution is pretty much the standard one. We've reviewed it. We think it's a fair statement. Didn't require modification. and we made some tweaks to the minor tweaks to the letter and then modified it for the things that we've done. Okay, that sounded really good. Nicely done. All right, move on to reports administration. So on this item, we're looking for direction, not necessarily a motion. As the council's aware, um we have been participating in the scale regional training facility since it was established back in 2007. It's a joint powers agreement between Scott County and all of the cities in Scott County. And at one point, Carver County was participating as well to basically provide a facility that had training facilities for law enforcement, fire, and public works. And at the time that it was established, the intent was to provide an opportunity to meet the training needs for the various organizations at a cost that was less than what they were sending people other places and the added benefits of guaranteed availability, scheduling priority, and we get to control the facility. It was a very cost-effective way to get it established and it was one of the first regional training facilities in the region and in the state. Um facilities that have been established or upgraded sets then have done it at a multiples of what we invested into the facility at this point. However, the facility is getting to be 20 years old. A lot of those capital investments that have been made are reaching the end of their lifespan. They're either obsolete, need to be refurbished, or they need to be replaced. The facility itself um being what was originally the mud bath sanitarium facility um and is actually on the strike register wasn't designed to be a public safety facility. So, a little bit of square block going into the round hole. And so, it's um a little rough around the edges. And to be blunt, the operating strategy has been to put as little investment back into the facility as possible to keep costs as low as possible. And that is starting to show on the facility. The board as we've been looking at what needs to happen with it realizes that we need to look at the next generation of what's going to happen with that facility. Um first was taking a look at the need. That was the first study that I included in your packet as councel. Um that raised a number of questions uh related to the facility like well what can you actually do on the site? Um what investments need to be made? What should be included in a future facility? Should the facility be located someplace else? So the second study um took a look at answering those questions. We called it the LEGO study. It basically took a look at what can you accomplish on that site with some rough costs associated with it because there was some opinions being expressed that you couldn't do much on the existing site. It turns out you can you can do quite a bit. There's also opportunities to acquire land immediately adjacent to the site. So the question was should that be pursued to be able to do more at the site. Um once that was completed then it became down to okay but what are you going to do? How much are you going to c going to pay? And so the last study which is just the financial perform took a look at various scenarios, sample scenarios of what you might do and phase it in over a period of time and then based on the current cost sharing or cost allocation formula and the current participants and members of the RTF, what that might look like if we had to um basically pay full boat for it, so to speak, or if we could maybe get the state bonding to cover up to half of it. One of the things that we have to point out is if we really don't do anything but just maintain the facility as it is, it will likely be an increase in costs. Um, as I'll talk about in a minute, we've been getting a really good deal for a long time and there's going to be some cost adjustments. There are alternatives to make reinvestment in the facility. Ultimately, this three-year process of taking a look at this was just trying to get it to a point where we started to remove the opinion, the agend individual agendas of agencies or individuals and get it to the point where we were operating with a common set of information to use as reference so that individual organizations could do that costbenefit analysis. Are we in, are we out? And if we're in, what do we want and how much can we afford? So, we're finally at the rubber hits the road portion of the discussion. What we're looking for the council tonight is to identify for the city what our official position is for the start of those discussions. It seems strange, but the last three years was getting us to the start of the discussion, which really is going to begin in April, where we decide where we're going from here. So, I spoke with our public safety chiefs and I asked them to take a look at how do we use the facility today? How would we operate without the facility if it didn't exist or we weren't a participant? How would we meet our needs at a couple different levels? Just checking the boxes, meeting the absolute minimum needs that we have, meeting the minimum training requirements or doing it more optimally, meeting our needs now, and looking at a 20-year window for that. And then if the facility was still there and it was rehabbed or refurbished, what would we actually use realistically and what would we, you know, at a minimum and what would be nice to have and then also come up with some cost estimates. What we really found going through this and I honestly I thought it was going to be a little more complicated process with a lot of different scenarios, but it turned out to be relatively straightforward. police department has identified in current today dollars if we were to look at an alternative meeting our needs with facilities alternatively and this means not just going to modern sportsmen where you can just sit at the line and shoot at a target but you can actually do tactical exercises you can move around you can draw from your holster so we're talking a tactical range and we were to spend the amount same amount of time that we're spending today we would be looking at $10,000 a year to replace what we're doing there. The alternative options uh the chief feels would meet our needs for the next few decades. So this would have a long a long thing. It would become obviously more expensive over time, but in today's dollars it's 10,000. Fire department's a little bit different. Um we've only used the facility once in the last 20 years, but that was based on leadership's view about training and needs and use of the facility and when we need to schedule it. and in discussion with the current leadership, there is a change in opinion on that. They believe that we would use it um but it wouldn't be a high usage item. We might do one cycle of training out there a year. They also pointed out that there are alternatives that are relatively comparable that we would be able to make use of in today's dollars for about $1,000. So right now we pay 53 and change $5,300 or $11,000 to meet it alternatively. That's a hell of a good deal. And we've been paying between 51 and $5,300 for nearly 20 years. It's a really good deal, but that's not the deal going forward. So, where do we go? And looking at it, we really arrived at um a pretty what we feel is a pretty clear and concise recommendation that um if we were to use the utilize the facility um the basic components that we would be looking to have would be the current tactical and distance ranges that are out there and a burn tower. If within the budget, you can also accommodate um an indoor range and a modular live fire facility to shoot house where you can move walls and change up scenarios and a virtual simulator um and the use of a force training or a mat room that would be great but not absolutely necessary. When we look at the costs um the break point just from a pure cost standpoint in today's dollar is about 11,000. However, both chiefs were very clear in their feedback that to have guaranteed availability, priority scheduling, and to have say in the facility, there's value to that. Beyond that, if I, in my opinion, had to assign a value to that, that could be an additional $4 to $5,000 worth of value annually. So, that breakpoint for us considering all that would be somewhere in the mid- teens, so 156,000. When do you want us asking questions? So in about half a second. Okay. So that is our recommendation. Um so like to stand for questions and ultimately we need you guys to give us direction on what our position as a city for the start of that discussion with the larger group. A couple thing one thing I do need to point out. I do know from discussions with my peers that not all of the current membership in the RTF will be participating going forward. I'm not at liberty at this point to say it publicly. I can relay that information to you individually because I don't know if they've had public discussions about it. So, I don't know at what point I would be talking out of school, so to speak, but I think it's pretty much a guarantee that not everybody's involved. That's another reason why I didn't get into the details of the cost sharing of various options because if you have a significant contributor at this point not be there, it changes all the numbers. So, ready for questions? Okay. So, real quick, obviously 15 to 16 annually. If you're looking at the assumed operating expenses um price point with half state funding, are we look is am I reading this correctly is what I'm trying to ask. It's 144601 for $34.6 million. Is that for the renovations? $34.6 million. Am I reading this correctly? So it's on page 220. So as we're doing this, well that's if everybody continued to participate in I'm I'm looking at it correctly saying if everyone contributes and we're at that 15 to6 range and we're say we fall in at that$ 15907 they would be looking at a $41 million renovation. Right? Is that am I reading that correctly? That's a lot of money for a renovation. That's what I'm thinking. Yes. So, what they're saying is the 3.5, the 9.4, the 21, the 34, the 41. That's the dollar amount in the renovations or the rehab or tearing it down and rebuilding it. Yeah. It would be the principal amount of the cost of the renovation. Okay. And how is this 15 to 16,000 annually for how many years? Well, perpetually that's your annual. Okay. So, it hopefully in 15 years they won't say, "Hey, we need to add another 10 grand to that." Well, you might. I mean, costs do change over time. We're talking in terms of today's dollars. Okay. So, there's not a contract that we're signing or anything like that. No, we we it's a joint powers agreement. So, we are a partner and there's a formula that So, if you think about it, it's like the fire contract that we have. There's a formula that allocates the costs and that body makes decisions related to the operation and budget of that facility of which we're a member. So, we get some say, right, in that. I would say that we've gotten off really lucky for the last 20 years because there's been virtually no change over that time period, much less than inflationary adjustment. Um, but we've also put almost nothing back into the facility and it shows. Um, going forward if you are making those investments in my role on the board, I would suggest that we're properly budgeting cap from a capital standpoint for the repair, replacement, refurbishment of the investments are that are then made. The state has also started to take more of a position that if we help you build something new, we're not helping you replace it and refurbish it every single cycle through our bonding. You got you need to figure out how to maintain it. So, I think that would have to play into the to it. So, yes, but I don't believe it's going to be it's going to double every year, but I think you could assume there would be some reasonable inflationary escalation of costs over time. And I know I ton of reading and I'm spacing it right now, but which fund does this come out of? This is a general fund. Okay. Um, historically, historically the fire department hasn't used it. So, it's been entirely in the general fund because that's where law enforcement is. But if they use it on regularly, we would prop you like 10% 8% there would be a proportion amount that would be allocated to the fire department, but it would be relatively small. And if we decide to go with the 15 to 16, when would it start? Are we talking yet this year? So it's not in our budget or could it be next year? Um, so we're just starting the discussion. Realistically, you're going to have to get consensus on who's involved in what you're doing going forward. So the 2030 is probably when it would start. I think you're realistically talking 2027 realistically at the earliest in part because there's existing debt service that needs to be retired that's going to free up capacity for something going into the future. Okay. But it really depends part I mean there's a number of scenarios that this could play out. One could be well we're going to shoot for this but we can't afford to do it until we get state funding. So the timing may be dictated on state funding. there could be well we're going to try and ride this out for x number of years until it's a you know we're going to plan for it but it might be planned for 2030 and we're going to extend it till then. So those are discussions which are yet to come. Again this is with the feedback that I bring to that board meeting on April 11th plus what's brought for cities. It'll be the starting point for all of those discussions. Okay. So there'll be much more to come. Okay. I was just making certain that we had time to budget for it. We and Not only we, and that would be one thing I advocate for is we need to know this is coming within a reasonable time frame, but I I'm assuming that my peers in other communities are going to have the same position that we just can't unless it's the same amount we're doing today or a relatively small change, we just can't shift gears instantly. Okay, perfect. All right, I'm done with my questions. Thank you. I know it was in our packet materials, too, but just curious to know the folks that are potentially walking away, are they building their own facilities? Are they partnering with other folks? Is it something that we've looked into as far as other partnerships we could explore? Maybe not now. from more long term what I understand it's a combination of building their own internal facilities for their use um which would not provide the same um uh options that the current facility provides. So they are choosing to pay the same or less from a contribution standpoint to have sole control. But I would believe in the ones where they're building their own facility from what the conversations I had what they're getting will be less than what's available to them today. But there's advantage of it. They don't have to travel. Um they own it. They have full control of it and it may be less than what their contribution would be here. Um other folks are just using other facilities. there. Um, in that case, it's usually a facility that's they is uh cheaper or closer or both for a variety of reasons like a partnership facility though still where other cities and counties are buying in. They would not be a partner. They're going to be a user. So, they're going to be customer at those places is my understanding. What you see a lot of is larger cities are building their own facility which basically is a mat room an indoor range where at the RTF there's a really nice outdoor long range. Um so you might not have as many amenities but it's not like they're building these giant facilities either. And then you basically have three large facilities that are multi- agency membership users. We can use those facilities as well, but we're not members, so we don't get priority. It's first come, first serve, and you pay basically all a cart. Whatever you use there, you pay by the hour. And that's where you came up with that $10,000. If we did not participate in the RTF going forward, what would we pay to go to the hero center or to these other places? What do they charge per hour for this training, this training, this training? How many times a year do we do those? How many officers? how easy is it to get in there? Um, so we did all that research and that's kind of where we came up with the, okay, we're paying this here. If we go there, what would we pay? And that doesn't factor in the inconvenience of driving to Cottage Grove or to Maple Grove or, you know, much further away. And then, yeah, so you got to kind of factor in some of that stuff, too. But when people are doing their own facilities like Lakeville's going to be doing, um Rosemont did, it's usually a small indoor range, a mat room, but you know, they don't have the long outdoor ranges. They can't do some of the stuff we can at the RTF. You know, the RTF it's out the short ranges outdoor, but it's tactical. You can move. There's moving targets. You can pull a squad in. I mean, it you can do more uh more tactical or you can holster and pull out and Yeah. Okay. anyction on that. So, I need direction from the council. I guess the basic question is, do you agree with the recommendation that we've provided to you regarding the city's position? I am a yes. I'm a yes as well. What I also heard though is that it would be the council's desire that if we are if as we move on in the process and we are still a participant that there's s that there's sufficient lead time for us to be able to adjust our budget accordingly to reflect whatever we're arrived at. Okay. Okay. That's what I need. Thank you. All right. Moving on. Uh anything about public works? Are you speaking for for them? Um nope. Uh I if you may have followed on social media, I didn't have time to send an update this week. We the water man leak. So uh public works uh worked to find that for two months. Um, usually when you're talking a water man, this is not like an incredibly large, but it's a large volume of water. Usually it'll be visible. It'll either be literally bubbling out of the ground, somebody's driveway is going to cave in, or there'll be a big wet spot where it's normally relatively dry. We knew where we knew which pressure zone because if you recall, we have a pressure zone for what would be older elco and then everything else. Um, but we had difficulty finding it. uh if it's leaking into uh drain tile or the storm water system, you'll hear it. You'll be able to identify and catch basins. If it's somehow getting into the wastewater system, you'll see increased volumes at lift stations or you'll see increased volume coming out at the Met Council meter basically at the end of the line for us. None of that was showing up. Um it actually was baffling public work. So ultimately we did is we hired a locating service. They come in and they literally they're listening stethoscopes on hydrants and leak detection electronics. They're very good at it. Um they did locate it on Monday. Um it is in one of the few remaining original pieces of pipe that we have in the ground. It's basically down on France Avenue just south towards the corner just before you go into the odelco downtown. It's basically under a driveway. Um, it's in a spot where it's under a culvert under a driveway and it's shallow enough that they think this year where it got cold but we didn't have snow, it was a free snap. Is this right by Maryland? It's right Walter. It's right by the house that's immediately south of the old PD building. Okay. Okay. The interesting part is in that location you would have expected that it would be coming out of the ground. It would be filling the ditch. You would see it running in none of it. In fact, they didn't even encounter wet until they actually got close to the pipe. It baffled everybody. Nobody's seen anything like it. They figure it basically traced the pipe until it hit a sand vein and then went out to the wetland. Wow. So, you have anything to add on that, Luke? No. Okay. So, highly unusual, but we did find it. We did fix it. And then, of course, we're going to monitor usage on the system to see make sure make sure that was it, but they're 99% sure it was. Nice. I have nothing else under public works. All right, Chief. Just want to thank you guys for proving us to I know it's been on the books for a while, but uh for authorizing us to hire the the next officer. We could have now they have a power car and some extra help. That's it. Excellent. Nothing unless you guys have anything to me. Community development. You don't have a joke for us. Come on. No jokes. You don't have a joke. I was doing homework and I failed. Get that words of wisdom's book of jokes or something. Um, for community development, the uh planning commission uh met on Tuesday night. Uh, they reviewed another concept plan for Dakota Acres Town Home Development. Um, they basically expressed general support. There are some conditions um that they gave back to the developer, but I think it's getting pretty close. Um, and then you directed the planning commission to uh or the RV recreational vehicle parking ordinance uh back to the planning commission to determine if they felt any changes were needed. Um, we did talk to them about the potential conflict between a ice house and a camper. Um after some discussion, the planning commission uh unanimously recommended that the ordinance is good the way it is and they are not recommending any changes. So if you feel otherwise um we'll need direction, but that is it was unanimous with four uh four of the five members present. And then the only um other update is we found out late this afternoon that the city of Elqu um Park I35 and the Niagara project has been um is a finalist for a 2005 award from the Minnesota Real Estate Journal in the Does that give the city anything or just a happy happy? There are a lot of categories. Uh this is an indust the industrial category. Okay. All right. Anything from parks? No. Okay. Um CC anything? I don't have anything to report. Um both Linda and Amanda are out and neither one of them coming. The Easter egg hunt is coming up on in April the 12th. The 12th. Yeah, it's the 12th. Yeah. Um I believe you guys saw in the update, but I think it's worth noting that our newest corporate citizen um volunteered to help fill the bags. It's normally a lengthy process filling 300 bags um with a handful of volunteers. They showed up with 25 people, got it done in 20 minutes. It was amazing. Wow. Um and they also donated um a massive amount of cases of water. Big surprise for our events for the year. So is that where all that came from in there? Yeah. Okay. Uh other um scale executive committee to report um not at this point. Okay. Service delivery. We're still working on our our two big projects right now. Um the first one is the insurance consortium. uh looking into going a larger insurance pool. So that is continuing to move forward. I don't have any immediate updates. Um we're supposed to be getting an update on that at service delivery I believe at next month's meeting. Um moving forward right now there's just discussion related to governance. The big question the on the governance side I think the big question is going to be proportionality of stakeholders. So right now under state law, every participant gets a vote. But if you're the county and you have three times as much as everybody else, is that fair that they only get one vote? Everybody seems to agree that there should the smaller stakeholders like an Elco market of which we would be the small stakeholder probably um or one of them, we should have enough say that we can influence the process. So the big guy just doesn't make all the decisions. You know, it's the 51% shareholder approach. But at the same time, I think there is some sensitivity to the fact that if they have a substantial or the large, you know, if you have people like a shock pee, but even Scott County just dors everybody else at this point has that many stakeholders, maybe they should have more than just a single vote that which may require special legislation. There's other governance issues that'll have to be worked through, but that's going to be the big project, I think, for the first half of this year, and we'll continue to go from there. The other item is animal control. It's one of those things that flies under the radar. It's a service that most cities provide. And we have been really, really lucky that we have had the same animal control service for nearly 20 years, and they provide good consistent services, very relatively cost-effectively. You see the bills and you're going, "Wow, that's expensive." No, that's cheap. Um, in the more rural areas like us, we don't have the option of having csos to pick up, feed, and water the doggies. we don't have several boarding facilities or veterinarians that we can board animals at and there's a cost to that and so there's becoming a question about on the northern portion of the county their animal control service is basically defunct so they're really scrambling in how they're going to provide it at all. um on the southern portion of the county and the cities that are part of our little consortium. Um our current provider uh they're a family operation. At some point they will no longer be able to do it. And so it's a longer term question of how do we meet our services after that? And so there is a larger question. What you find out when you talk to other communities is this is not an uncommon issue. At our last meeting, uh there was a discussion of do we need to provide animal control services beyond what is statutoily required, which is largely dealing with dangerous dogs. So, do we even license animals and do we even pick up stray dogs? Um there are jurisdictions out there that do not. They only handle what is minimally required and the rest of it civil. If that dog is running in your yard, it's a civil issue. We do not deal with it. The police department does not deal with it. it's not a local ordinance issue. So that is one of the research topics that we'll be exploring for part of this discussion. Um and then uh the larger and then the larger question of where we go from here. It's not going to be a quick discussion and it'll be one of our ongoing projects through this year. I would say more to come. Uh anything for I35? We have not met since before our last meeting. still finalizing our project coordination map. We are up there, still close to the top, which is good to see. Yes, absolutely. Especially given it wasn't really it was in the other category prior to this. Yeah. All right. Is there any discussion that we need to have? Nothing for me. Motion to adjurnn. I will second that. All in favor? I I