America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, justice for all. Just remind city council to turn on your microphones for the meeting. Turn on. Any changes to the agenda? Um, council will note that there is an amended agenda. We added item 8A, item under general business, which would be the 421 and 431 Main Street property acquisition action. We'd be asking the council to approve an amendments to the purchase agreements and adopt resolution 2535 approving the assignment of the purchase agreement and loan agreement to the EDA. All right. You got a motion to approve as amended. Motion to approve as amended. Second. In favor? I. Motion carries. Any no pro presentations, proclamations, or acknowledgements? Any public comment for anything not on the agenda? Hear none. We'll move on. Uh, anybody need to discuss anything on the consent agenda? Not. I'll take a motion to approve the consent agenda. Motion to approve consent agenda. Second. All in favor? I uh no public hearings and then general business. So, under general business, um first of all, staff would like to express their thanks to the city council for their flexibility um and making themselves available to take act action on this item. Um we've been trying to get all of the necessary documents in place, the agreements between the city, the EDA, and the CDA that are necessary for us to be able to close on 421 and 431 Main Street properties. Um we have uh our legal counsel um has been putting in extra effort to make sure that this gets done. Um but also uh CDA staff and their legal counsel has as well to make sure that we can meet this deadline. But most of all um Renee uh has been going well above and beyond given um uh her specific circumstances. she has gone way beyond the call of duty to make sure that this item um can get done um for the citizens of the city. So that being Andrea, thank you for everything. So that being said, um now that Rene is on, I'll let her walk through the the highlights of the documents for the council. Um thank you, Tim. Um so related to obviously we weren't able to get the um closing conducted by today as the original purchase agreement um required uh or ex said the closing was supposed to be in June 12th. Uh the council is being asked to uh approve an amendment to the purchase agreement. uh two amendments, one for each property, extending the closing date until the 17th and adopting a resolution assigning these purchase agreements to the city's economic development authority who has the ability um to borrow money from the CDA in the form of a mortgage um to mortgage the properties. And uh the resolution um in addition to assigning the purchase agreements to the EDA um also it approves the loan agreement and that loan agreement outlines that the city will levy for any deficit needed to repay the EDA. So, um to be clear, the uh properties are currently rented or leased um those future uh lease amounts um are yet to be determined. The or the rental rates, we will contact those uh property owners and work with the EDA on what those acceptable rental rates are going forward. Um a deficit is expected um to uh pay the CDA. The loan is um advertised over a 15-year term with an adjustable mortgage rate ranging from 1.5 to 5%. And um again, any deficit will uh require a levy. And that is why the city council is being asked to um also approve the loan agreement. And if Andrea has anything to add, I'll let her add. Otherwise, I'll take any questions. Yep. So, we'll need a motion um one to approve the amendment to the purchase agreements and then a motion to adopt resolution 2535 approving assignment of purchase agreements and loan agreements for 42131 and that can be done as a single motion. So moved. Second I thank you. Thank you. Thank you again. I'll move on to reports. Edmond. Um we have a discussion item tonight for city council. Um, as council is aware, uh, Brandon has been evaluating our social media policies and tonight he will be going over his findings and recommendations related to potential policy changes and we'll be looking for direction with regards to um, social media platforms and practice on those platforms. Yeah, thank you Tom. Um, so not sure the best way to go about it. So, I think I'll just go through item by item because I kind of did a whole sale overview of the entire social media um just our management tools, what sites we use, our policy as it relates to our data retention uh schedule. Um so, the first item that staff recommends is to continue using Meta Business Suite um as our management tool and to remain solely on Facebook. Um, this is due to, as it lays out in the memo, just a lot more people use Facebook than anything else. And, um, again, they're not even solely getting their information from our social media sites. They get it from our newsletter and our website, first and second. Um, so I see no reason to change anything there. Um, so, do we want to do this one by one or do we want to get a motion at the end? Would you prefer to just give direction on each item as we go or just do a wholesale feedback? Cole is fine. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Um so the next item is um just requesting that we can bring back the draft social media policy I attached to this um as a non-draft just our implemented social media policy. Um the changes in there are pretty simple. It's just again matching um matching our standards with the data retention policy for Minnesota or schedule and um also just changing and editing some things that were grammatically incorrect and um also there was another section there to um just what we can and we can't um remove and why. Uh we just clean that language up a little bit. And the final thing which will require a little bit more discussion is um just whether or not city council agrees with staff's recommendation on turning comments off. Um I know do you want to speak to what Megan said? Yeah. So um on that item when we get to the discussion um Megan she was unable to be here tonight but she did provide some comments or thoughts on the topic that she asked if she could share um or I could share on her behalf um when we get to that point. So that being said, maybe now take the items one by one. What would be the council's um direction on the recommendation to right now basically abandon the X account and just stick to Facebook as our so social media platform? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Okay. On the recommendations related to um content that Brandon is recommending, do you guys agree? If you do, we'll bring it forward as an action item on a future consent agenda. Yes. Okay. Cool. Um the last item we anticipate there will be some discussion um related to uh the approach we take to posts on Facebook whether or not we're going to treat them as simply posts which are pushing information or whether or not we allow comments which puts them into the category of a limited forum um as outlined uh the pros and cons are outlined in the staff memo. So we'd be looking for direction on that. I'm in favor of turning the comments off as long as somewhere in the post it says if you have questions, comments, or concerns, you can email blah blah blah blah so that the public realizes that we're not wanting to listen to them. We do have another outlet for them to go to instead of filling up Facebook with comments where you guys have to try to keep track of it all. Agreed. And over the last maybe month or so that we have had them off, I have made sure to do that. So, I continue to. Perfect. I like the comments. I really do. I mean, I think it's I like the comments. All right, I'm over my limit. No, I I I do. I mean, I I I think it I I see too many school boards limiting stuff. I think it's just I think it's the opposite direction of what we're trying to argue or say we're trying to do with transparency, communication, engagement, and I think it's a step backwards. Can you show me an example of a positive conversation or an informative conversation that's come out of these comments? I I think the fact that people are engaging is positive. And I I mean, if if we're not we're not going to get the face toface conversations. They're not going to call my cell phone. They're not going to send me an email. So, it's one of the only forums to have information getting out there. Do I agree that most of the comments are not productive and uh whatever? Generally, yes. But I also think there has been some good information shared and then the education that follows um from some of those comments and and links and clarifications. No, I think it can be we don't the city doesn't have to necessarily respond and that could be the disclaimer of, you know, we're not going to be watching this um unless there's like an egregious thing, but I think that's where we can step up and I have the fun of I I enjoy it. I really do. And we were joking the other day that like I will be the first one to make a comment on one so I can lock it down so that I can have it be me or whatever just because I enjoy the engagement side of it. So, I mean, I guess I would be totally against locking them down and turning off comments altogether because I think it just it's a step backwards in my opinion. So, Megan has some comments. I do have a comment on that. I do believe that if we if the comments are on, there is an expectation that if somebody asks a question of the city that we will respond. So, um so I I I think just saying, "Hey, we're not going to respond." I think that actually looks also sends a message of disingenuousness. I think if you're going to do that, it would be better to just simply do it. Fine. And because if you don't respond to the question, it simply becomes a public discussion forum and then it should that be on our site or should that be on a public site? Um Megan's comments are um I wanted to share my thoughts on the proposed social media ahead of tomorrow's meeting. She sent this to me yesterday. I appreciate staff's work on digging into this and understand the positive and negatives on both sides, but ultimately I'm not in favor of hiding comments because I believe it impedes our ability to grow and trust and foster transparency in the community. I also think it's a fine line when it comes to the First Amendment right to free speech. I believe a better route would be to have a solid policy for moderating derogatory distasteful comments as written in the new policy and broken down by category. I understand a lot of the information we put out there is complex and social media isn't always the best place for people to fully understand the issue, but I think removing their ability to voice their opinion or ask a question is a dangerous thing. I know we are a growing community with many prospective businesses who may or may not check out our Facebook and share some comments which could impact our image for better or worse, but we also need to consider how disabling comments would impact our image to the constituents we serve first and foremost. And then she asked me to share them at the meeting tonight. I like to respond. So, initially, it was like kind of a while ago. I text you after one of the posts went up because I was like, "Why are comments turned off?" And then you explained and I was like I just sat and pondered because I'm I'm very back and forth on it because information can get out. They can ask questions. They may get correct answers, but I just feel like there's a lot of misinformation and angry people that are commenting. I don't know what the best approach is because I it's almost like I keep thinking like, oh, we could just put a disclaimer at the end of each post. But the more I think about it, the longer my disclaimer gets and then like that's not going to be productive either and nobody's going to read that. But I mean at the end of the day the post gets shared one time to the Elco New Market neighbor group and then whoever shared it they could you can comment on that post. So does it make sense to just leave the comments on because they're going to comment on them anyway? And I agree with the transparency piece and you know trying to build that trust and get more information out, be more responsive, but I at the end of the day that takes more resources. So I would say the only difference with the repost is that when it's on another site, there isn't any expectation of you know it it there's no expectation of response or response to questions or comments or anything. It's that the public might still There is an they may have an expectation that the city's going to respond. True. We have people. True. We have we have we have people. I I'll just tag the city or I'll tag Renee or I'll tag Rich or I'll tag Jake and and then I mean I can suck you right back in if I really wanted to and anybody could for that matter. So I mean I mean because my other side talking about the other side of mouth was well yeah I could repost you know the the city's thing and open it up there on my page if I wanted to. um and and allow it to to happen. I mean, I think we're damned if we do, we're damned if we don't. I mean, no matter what it is, I mean, there's going to be people saying we're doing something to hide it or we're doing something to allow it and we're ignoring. We were joking too the other day. It's like people don't understand like when one or two of us comment on something, the others can't because then they start giving each, you know, well, mayor's not responding, they don't care. Kate's not responding. Well, no, it's just because two of us have already responded, so they can't and we can't violate open meeting law or whatever. So I mean there's always going to be I think some of that misunderstanding of it is an information outlet and that's where it ends not back and forth saying xy what do other cities currently do? Um in my experience when social media on said it was a learning experience for cities. Um, right now I would say the majority have comments on. You are seeing an a a rapidly increasing discussion because I hear about it in the um with other administrators. You're seeing a rapidly increasing discussion about whether or not comments should be left on for the reasons that are identified in the in the memo that their original intent was to use social media as a means of pushing information and not to serve as a community discussion forum and as a means to ask questions. And what they those that are considering it are finding out is that the resources necessary to deal with, for lack of a term, the trollom that happens on the commentary is is substantial. It's highly negative. They'll often find that a lot of the a lot of the commentary is from people who aren't even constituents. Um I'll be honest, I've seen that where that's fun to call out, too. Yeah. I mean, so So I I think in my mind ultimately comes down to what is the purpose of the Facebook page. Is it to push information? Is it to serve as a forum for requesting asking questions which I would which was part of the intent but I would argue it's not a medium for most of the questions we've seen over the years. It's not the best medium for it. Or is it the intent to provide a a a a public forum for debate on city related issues? Um, and and I think your intent of it is really going to drive the decision you make on the comments. Well, and and the way you said it there, too, is it's a good place that I've found. Again, a lot of it is just off-the-wall crazy stuff, but it also does give a glimpse into the off-the-wall crazy stuff that our residents think and believe and talk about. And so to have it not get out there and it whoever made the points of somebody can re reshare it, repost it and it'll get out there anyway. But it's just it's been helpful information for me. I mean I like even seeing about the Highlands uh of Eagle View stuff. I mean just so it's a place to go and it's helpful information to get of like what are people worried about? I mean truly it's what are they pissed off about and can we address it that's where all that stuff not Right. Yeah. Yeah. No. And it'll happen either way, I think. So, Andrea, are there any key legal elements that the council should consider beyond what Brandon already pointed out in his memo? No, you really can do either. If you leave it open, the one issue practice request. And then it does get tricky when you find somebody. Can I can I ask a question in response to that? Um it's my understanding that the data retention is we don't have to hold it until when it's read that's the end of our retention, right? You can address it that way. Okay. Okay. And that is how it would currently be. So then that wouldn't data practice wouldn't be an issue. There's not even really that many comments on making a big deal out of nothing. Maybe because to your point when they it's the sharing it onto the neighbors or whatever. Yeah. Is that something you don't regularly share it into those groups? It's just I can't directly onto your page. What we tend to see is that Yeah. No, the vast majority of our posts don't even get they get like a couple thumbs up or a couple hearts. Um I don't even like them. Apparently, I haven't liked a single one going back to March. It's it's when But there's those occasional posts that um strike a nerve with somebody or spark a high level of interest. Um that really where you get all of the the the commentary. I I would like to add though that there are posts where mostly for law enforcement they get a couple hundred likes and 50 positive comments. You should do all of our posts. So where do we want to be at? Do we want to turn them off or want them on? I think we keep them on. I like them on. I mean I don't especially because we don't get a lot of posts and comments anyway on our specific ones. So, well, I'm for not having them on, but I think it's just you and I. So, because Megan's for them being on, so I think we've lost out. And a decision to not make a change doesn't mean that you can't revisit the topic in the future. So, guess that remain on for now. Okay, that's the direction we needed on that item. Thank you. Yep. So, we will prepare the action item. We will abandon our X account and we will leave and we will handle comments like we have in the past. All righty. Uh, anything else from administration? No. Anything from public works? One quick update. Um, we did have first round interviews today for the deputy clerk and account position. Um, we are not moving anybody on in the process in the account position. Um but but at the end of the day, we only deal up with two interviewees for the deputy clerk position. That was actually a very I make it sound like it's a bad thing, but we actually had a good pool. And so we have three candidates that will be moving on to the second round. And I feel there's a strong likelihood that we will have somebody out of that pool that we'll be able to make an offer to. Nice. Good. All right. Was there anything public works anybody knows of? Um, nothing beyond what's in the written report. Okay, Chief, please. So, it's hard to believe, but it's already been a year since Chief Brady left. Um, so just want to thank you guys again for your support and my promotion. Give my guys credit. They have really stepped up to accept new leadership and kind of a new way of looking at things. That's always a challenge. Um, Detective Barry hit the ground running. Uh he's been very busy, kind of more busy than I even thought he would be. Um so I appreciate the approval of us adding a detective assignment. Um it's it's been paying for itself with freeing up the sergeant to do more sergeantly things and and kind of building up that expertise that we really need from a a detective that a normal patrol officer has a challenge building because they don't have the time. Um, we also are in the process in a hiring process and we do have two people who are moving on to the background process and that just started uh today. So, nice. Crossed that we get someone out of that. Good. That's all I have. No bear reports. I have not heard anything beyond he was out sightseeing about out at Cedar Lake. That was the last I heard. So, thanks. Those are fun comments. So, with the detective position. Are you seeing a maybe a possible in the in the short future of a full-time detective? Is it warrant that already? When we start looking at the 2026 budget, that will be a conversation we'll have to have because I am we are tracking his time spent on all cases in addition to even doing backgrounds. You we are going to potentially have four to five backgrounds in the next couple of months. That takes a lot of time. So, I think we'll have a kind of good database to take a look at. when we do start looking at for next year, that'll be a conversation we'll have to have. Excellent. Uh fire's not here. Um sir, just a a hard copy of the report or update on your desk there, but nothing else. Nothing formal. Oh. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know if we wanted this now or later. [Laughter] Joker. All right. This is the first time I pulled. What did the Kentucky Derby horse say when it fell? I've fallen and I can't giddy up. Oh my gosh, that that just happened. I love it. That's awesome. Thank you. You're welcome. Uh community development um council is up to date on everything. Uh parks Um Jake did not have anything that he wanted me to report beyond what's in the um written update and the minutes from the previous meeting. Um I should point out that next week on Wednesday, Tuesday, Tuesday night will be the open house for the proposed trail through Wagner Park. Um I I'm not a We've been getting comment. Um, Brandon, how would you characterize the comment that we've been getting? Positive, honestly. Except for the one on Facebook that was so hilarious. I didn't see it. Yeah. Well, it's just we love the idea, but why would you just put it on the road? And I mean, it's just like, but it's one of those educational moments, too, where I think somebody else probably commented, I think, uh, just one of our people that check everything. Uh, something to the effect of, well, yeah. Oh, no, maybe it was somebody staff. I don't remember, but just you were going to take away half their front yards when we have this nice wooded area to put a trail in. And now we're worried about kids getting snatched up from people hiding in the woods and stuff. So, people doing drugs. Yeah. So, keep an eye on that. Back to that social media. Yeah. Yeah. There's bears in the woods. Yep. CC EC lot of seriousness in this meeting today. Uh we are not meeting this month, but fire rescue days is coming up. They're always interested in volunteers if you want to let Jessica know if you want to help out. Do we want to talk parade or we meet before the parade? Just before it is therefore we do that. Is there volunteer what's needed for volunteers? If you know, you simply need to talk to Kate or um Jody. We had an opportunity. She was here. Y all you do is ask. Should be all Oh, okay. So, we we're happy to take volunteers. Um there never seems to be enough manpower to quite go around. With regards to the parade and the council float, um we will have candy. We will be trying. We we have I would like feedback, but I heard we should buy more candy than we bought in previous years. But I also there was also the advice back to the council float that you should reserve a bucket for the last stretch. Um well, we have to keep the kids hands out of it because they're very generous and they're tossing. Maybe it's just mine. So, we'll be getting that. Um, I would ask the council to be here roughly one half hour before parades start. Parades at 11. So 11. Yep. Yep. So I be at get dropped off at city hall around 10:30. Um, there will be limited opportunities. There will be no opportunities to park here. The entire city hall parking lots taken up. So, it's best if you either come a lot earlier so we can find a corner for you to park your car in to pick up later or just simply um get dropped off by somebody. I'll have my wife volunteer to drop me off and then she can come over to Wag the float too if she wants and then you can Oh, yeah. Have her go on the float with you, but then go to Wagner and help you. Yep. Going right by. Just get off at the end and there you go. Yep. Then you guys can walk home after. She doesn't know she's being volunteered for yet, but I'll let her know I don't know if there's any other fire rescue days updates that you may have, but I don't have anything from last time. No, we're we're just in the final stretch um of making sure that everything gets uh lined up. Uh the volunteers are just making sure that all the dot eyes are dotted tees are crossed. Um, everybody's confirmed and public works is already working on prep work for the event, but the um have little for expectations outside of fire rescue days the week leading up to it. That's pretty much uh the bulk of their the bulk of their time. I also sent out a like newsletter insert that frames the correct stuff instead of the stuff from last year that I accidentally put in there on the previous newsletter. So, if you didn't get that, you'll get it like tomorrow. Perfect. Is that on a really nice paper card stock? It was. It was like I took it out of my mailbox. My gosh, we are like making it now. Yeah, we are. We have stepped up. We've leveled up. Yes, sir. All right. Uh scale tomorrow. So, tomorrow morning and this is the legislative update session. Special session is done. So, this is the wrapup. if if they are I don't even know if this is going to be remote. Um so if you can attend in person that would be ideal. So 7:30 and I believe it's still at um the link center at uh at Mystic Lake. There's a Zoom link 7:30 tomorrow at Mystic. Yep. It's in the link center. It's between the casino and uh the ice rink. Yeah, I might attempt that, but I'm 7:30 in the morning. I don't know. Um All right. Executive committee service delivery. Uh service delivery. We did not have a meeting this month. We will be having or didn't have one last month. We have a meeting on um Monday I believe and the big topic there is going to be the animal control topic. If you recall everybody was supposed to have internal discussions about where they are with regards to the option of lowering services or going independent um on the topic. So we've kind of vetted full options before we we move forward. something to do with bears. Yep. All right. I35. Uh I attended this morning since Megan and Renee were not there able to make it. Um they did we went through the legislative debrief. Talked about that. As you probably guessed, a lot of the counties were up in whatever with uh Met Council uh and the trying to steal the $93 million that then didn't get stolen. Um but uh later on the meeting too they approved uh a revised updated version of the letter to go to the quarters of commerce. So Rob had sent that over to Tom and Renee and Megan at all. And it was just uh they made some minor tweaks to who it is to. So, they changed it to the the administrator of the quarters of commerce uh to make it more specific based on Ryan's feedback and then just kind of shuffled some of the paragraphs around, kept all the wording the same. So, should be good with that. Perfect. Thank you for your continued support on doing that. It was fun to go back. They were feisty today and they always have good bagels. All right. Uh discussion by council. You want to go first or should I? It doesn't matter. It's basically the same thing. Okay. Chief, can we uh do a public information campaign of or the sorts regarding our golf cart ordinance? Um my experience lately are these under children 10 12 years old just driving all over town with golf carts and side by sides. Enough that I'm taking notice. There's a lot going on. So, and then can we also do an educational piece about scooters? Kids on scooters. I just about took a kid out the other day. Literally did not stop. Came bounding around the corner. I had to slam on my brakes. Um I'm sorry, my truck. He wouldn't have stood a chance. Yeah, I know. I think what was it the spring we did about the I do every spring about the golf carts and ATVs. We can do that again certainly. Um I know my guys have been pretty active with stopping golf carts and ATVs. They're they they do that every year. Um the chronic offense is underage kids usually operating stuff. Scooters, we'll we'll definitely put that out. Um there are a few we don't have any ordinances on them, but there's state statute that actually, believe it or not, covers the the scooters. Um it's more helmets. They they're not supposed to operate them on sidewalks. They technically are supposed to be on the streets when they're a certain size and power. Um, we'll put something out on that too about what the regulations are, um, safety concerns, the hazards, and things like that. So, I'll get something on Facebook and then maybe the next newsletter we can get something there about scooters. They're just so common place. I mean, every household has two or three of them. They do. Scooters, it's electric bikes. It's these these motorized things. They're just ripping around town and not Yeah. I and certainly I'll talk to them about they see we're kind of limited on what we can do you know for underage because they have to be clearly for us to be able to stop and talk you know you got to be kind of careful constitutional rights and stuff but I do know when they see kids who are clearly underage they will stop them and then they do contact the parents and and advise the parents and if we have parents who continue to allow it we have recourse to deal with that as well. So, um, but we'll get the word out and I'll make sure to talk to my guys about being trying to be even more actively enforcing or keeping an eye out for stuff, but yeah, definitely we'll we'll get it out there. Awesome. Thank you. I notice it more in the evenings than than anytime. It's that evening messing around with Yeah, it's just scary. I mean, someone's going to get hurt. Yeah, I I can say we've been people around here are are pretty good. I mean, we've had these ordinances or we've had these scooters now for how many years and we at least aren't getting called to anything, but obviously it is a it is a concern. Thank you. Thank you. Any other discussion? One quick thing. uh and Tom had a meeting I don't know a month or so ago with the admin mayors or administrators or city folk that are kind of like the metro cities league of Minnesota cities about group homes was a topic and um so me continuing to work this has been the topic feels like forever uh with the whole group home licensing regulations and cities and local governments all doing it differently last year if you may remember we passed a law that took away every city's right or ability to license these places that pendulum swung way over here obviously. So we got to find some more middle ground. So we can we'll be doing some work on that this summer working with a variety of cities. It sparked a good conversation and there's an interest to to bring all the stakeholders together, talk through it and whatnot. So just FYI on that. And then the League of Minnesota Cities Metro Cities Policy Committee start next month. So you probably have gotten emails, sign up and join in on the fun because it is fun. Um different definitions. Awesome. You got anything? I mean, I feel like I should have something, but I don't have anything. All right. Motion to adjurnn. I'll make a motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor?