We're going to pause for just a moment here. People coming in and out. Welcome. Are we talking hockey tonight or no, okay. No. Well, let's see. It's a good Hockey, taxes, uh I don't know, but I haven't felt this safe in a while. We are We do I do feel safe. That's true. Please, come on in and have a seat. We'd like to get started. >> Yep. Yep. We'd like to get started. >> Maybe I shouldn't say that. >> [laughter] [snorts] >> I'll give it a minute. >> [snorts] >> Okay, we'll call on the Shakopee City Council meeting for April 21st, 2026 to order. Can you please take the roll? Council member Delaney. Here. Council member Weidinger. Here. Council member Contreras. Here. Council member Lara. Here. Mayor Lehman. Present. If we could all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, please. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And a friendly reminder to council members and staff, let's pull our microphones close so everybody can hear us. Thank you. Item 4A is special presentation to officer of the year. Chief, floor is yours. All right. Mayor and Council, thanks for having us tonight to present the 2025 Shakopee Police Officer of the Year award. The officers nominate their peers for this award, and a committee is formed of both sworn and non-sworn staff, and an officer is selected based on the nominations. With six nominations for one or both of these two officers that were selected this year, it was decided that we cannot select one without the other. Officer Filon and Officer Godfrey make up our proactive police unit. Where one is, the other is not far behind. Let me share a little bit about the work that these two have done in the last year that and the impact that they've had on our community. Throughout 2025, they demonstrated an unwavering commitment to identifying and disrupting criminal activity that posed immediate threats to public safety. Assigned to the proactive police unit, they focused on complex offenses including violent crime, narcotics, retail theft, and burglary. Their efforts were instrumental in locating and apprehending wanted individuals, identifying criminal suspects, and addressing emerging crime trends within our community. In 2025, the two of them combined issued a 111 citations, made 136 arrests, and authored 17 search warrants. Beyond their local responsibilities, these officers served as a critical regional resource assisting law enforcement agencies all over the state by reviewing crime alerts and identifying suspects when others could not. Through their expertise and persistence, they helped identify suspects in 66 cases. They played a significant role in removing illegal drugs from the community. They were directly involved in seizing substantial quantities of methamphetamine, MDMA, fentanyl, and cocaine. One of the most notable demonstrations of their commitment was during a shooting investigation. They dedicated over 22 consecutive hours to identify and locate the suspects involved. Through coordinated efforts with multiple law enforcement agencies, the suspect vehicle was located leading to a pursuit on Highway 494. All three suspects were ultimately apprehended and officers recovered three firearms with a significant amount of narcotics. Due to their diligence, determination, and teamwork, the suspects were brought to justice less than 24 hours from the initial shooting. Officers Godfrey and Fileen serve as trusted leaders amongst their peers. Fellow officers consistently seek their guidance and expertise. Their willingness to mentor others and share knowledge has strengthened the unit's performance and fostered professional growth throughout our entire department. These two The work that these two do for this community is nothing short of amazing. It's an honor to recognize them both for the work that they did, not just in the year of 2025, but the the work that they do every day. And it's my honor to recognize both of them um here as the 2025 Shakopee Officers of the Year. Our community is safer because of the work that you two do, and our department is stronger because of your leadership, so thank you. And I'll give you your >> [applause] [applause] [applause] >> Chief, before we get a council picture with the officers, you mentioned one drug MB something. >> MDMA MDMA What what's that on? >> MDMA, I knew you were going to ask me about that, Mayor. Um it's a narcotic. Um I'm not a drug expert, I'll be honest. Um it's similar to that of ecstasy, more commonly known as ecstasy. Pill form. They just keep coming up with new stuff, don't they? >> Yep. We appreciate your work dearly. I thank you for making the community safer. Uh thank you for all your leadership within the department. Um we just appreciate everything that you do, all of you. So, if you want to step up here, we'd love to get a picture with you. Please push in your chairs, council. >> [crying] [applause] [applause] >> I have to admit Mama is very precious on item 4B, the citizen award presentation. Chief Pearson? All right. So, [clears throat] we don't get to do this a lot, but I want to take the opportunity to recognize one of our citizens here in Shakopee by presenting her with a life-saving award. Um on January 6th, 2025, the police department was dispatched to a vehicle fire in the parking lot at the Allina Clinic on St. Francis Avenue. Prior to the officers' arrival, dispatch informed the respond- responding officers that the fire there was fire coming out of the dash of the vehicle. Nine people called 911 to report this incident. And the vehicle was very quickly fully engulfed by fire. Inside the vehicle was an elderly disabled woman. Prior to the officers' arrival, Alejandra Garcia acted quickly, helping the woman out of the vehicle into safety, preventing her from any injuries. Without Alejandra's quick actions, this outcome could have looked very different. Alejandra's actions are a strong example of initiative and dedication to the safety and well-being of our community. And for her courage, quick thinking, and selfless actions, it's my honor tonight, on behalf of the police department, to present Alejandra Garcia with a citizen life-saving award. Thank you, Alejandra. >> [applause] [applause] [applause] >> Mr. Reynolds, do we have a pin handy? Shockoe pin? Yeah, we do. Let's uh let me get you a Shockoe pin to wear proudly for all you that you've done for our community and in the saving of life. We really appreciate it very much. If you'd like to come forward, we'd love to get a picture with you also. Thank you. They're all upstairs, so the stash got moved. You want to hang around just for a minute? We'll bring you one. Perfect. Oh. It's a long way. Turn the light on. We used to have one. Yeah. We used to have a lot of them. Yeah, that's what we were looking for. They were down there. He's coming. He's got a pile. I got a bag. Who moved them out? How about down to the tax stuff? Do we have an award for the tax assessor? >> [laughter] >> Sorry. Next time. Happy to take pictures after. We'll keep them. >> Oh, wait. We don't use pennies no more. I know pennies. Well, we'll have to throw quarters. All right. Hang on 1 second. You got it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Reynolds. Okay, item number 4C is an informational update on a 2026 property assessment. Council should have had the PowerPoint on the table. And name, please. Michael Thompson. Michael Thompson, the floor is yours, sir. Thank you. Uh thank you very much, Mr. Mayor and council members, for the invitation to stop by tonight and share some information about our most recent uh property tax assessment. This is an important time of year for the residents and taxpayers, uh business owners, because there's a finite time period for everybody to review the information that was sent out and get their questions answered and potentially uh appeal uh the the valuation or classification that was sent out. So, it's uh it's about a month since we sent out about 60,000 mailings and uh there's still time right now that if you do have those questions or concerns, you can still contact our office before certain dates pass, which I'm going to touch on in a little bit. So, I'm going to start with a market update. What did we see uh in the market? Some of the change and then I'll overview some of the changes we made and then some of those appeal uh and relief options. I like to start with the interest rates because they've been kind of a hot topic over the last number of years and they have a lot of different uh impacts on the real estate market. So, the the slide that I'm showing uh is >> [snorts] >> showing that in February 19th, the rate was about 6.01%, 6% and it had dipped just below 6%, I think, right around that time. And then we had some things happened, uh global things overseas that I think are kind of to blame for the rate spiking up about a half a percent and that's had an impact on some of the more recent activity, but we have to remember that with our assessment timeline uh when when we looked at sales, it was a somewhat of a 52-week time period and the rate had come down almost a full percentage point over that 52-week range. So, this is still quite a bit higher than when they had the rates had bottomed out in January of '21. A little bit longer look back as far back as I can get data to 1971, the average rate over that time period is about 7.7. So, at 6% we're still well below that that average over this time period. But, for people that have been in the housing market about as long as I have, we've never seen a rate that's at that average or above, although we came pretty close uh about a year ago. So, this still feels like a pretty high interest rate, the 6% and I want to touch on a couple of impacts that that has. First one being um monthly payment affordability. So, I pinpointed three uh specific points in time on this chart. The first one in 2013, that's when our assessed average assessed value was 237,400. That's the lowest it's been since that bubble burst that we all are familiar with. So, that point in time, the the rate was at about 3.53 and the monthly payment on that house if you had put about 5% down with a typical credit rating, would have been about $1,352 a month. The average home with that rate. Fast forward about eight years, the the average home value in the county has gone up substantially uh from that 237 to 339, but the rate actually went down about a percentage point in that same time period. So, now we're looking at the point in time when the rate was as low as it's been it time frame represented in this chart. So, even though the house val- the average house value goes up about 50% the monthly payment only went up about $400 over that 8-year period. So, the average home at that rate, 1746, that's about $50 per year increase over that 8-year time period. And now fast-forwarding to today or 2026, the average home value again has gone up a a substantial amount. It's $488,000, the average home in Scott County. But, the rate has almost tripled since that bottom out that we saw in 2021 of the rate. That equates to buy that average house at today's 6% rate, $3,390 per month. So, where we saw a $50 per year increase over an 8-year period, now we've seen the the actual monthly payment almost double uh from 2021 to 2026 over a 5-year period. So, this obviously impacts uh who's deciding to purchase a house versus rent and Let me Let me pause for 1 second. This looks a little bit lengthy, so I'm going to ask that counselors, if you have questions, let's let's ask as we go. Put your hand up. Uh the first question would be how exactly do interest rates affect um you know, you put a a value on a property based on the property, not necessarily the market interest rate. And the market interest rate doesn't have a direct correlation with the valuation or the the levies of either the county, school, city. Um the only impact that I can see is the the movement or transactional of buying and selling. Sure. So, the interest rate is not impacting our assessed value. Our assessed value is based on sales of properties. What I'm uh trying to convey in this particular slide is simply that the combination of the value and the rate together impact the affordability or the monthly payment, which can impact uh the buyer pool. So, if if I'm somebody who is if if the rate's 2.65 and the value's the same as when it's 6%, I may decide to buy a house instead of rent because that monthly payment might be more similar in that case. So, really the message I'm trying to convey here is not that the rates impact the values. Although they can have in a roundabout ways some impacts on values. But there's not a direct correlation. >> stagnate, the market values tend to come down because you can't sell it. And that might kind of be a good segue to my next slide. Uh the another impact of the rates is the lock-in effect, which has been called There There's a few different terminologies for it, but it means you have a really good interest rate that you got maybe 5 years ago. And maybe you want to sell, you want to get it something a little bigger, or whatever, but you're not doing that. You're keeping your house out of the supply because you don't want to give up or relinquish that favorable interest rate. So, this chart is showing the percentage of outstanding mortgages and at what rate they're at. So, you can see that if we go back to like 2022, 92% of the outstanding mortgages had rates below 6%. That number has now gone up to or or down to about 78% that have it below six. So, there's a lot more above six than there were five or six years ago. And you can see where that's coming from because the very dark blue section, those are the people that actually have rates under 3%. Not a lot of movement in that group. Now, people do end up having to sell for various reasons. So, um there's divorces, deaths, just different reasons why people are forced to sell. Um and and so that's that's where you're seeing some movement still, but it's it's very difficult to want to give up that rate all things considered. If you're buying a similar house, your monthly payment's going to go up quite a bit. Quick look at foreclosures. Um this was a a really big topic of discussion for, you know, five or six years after that bubble did burst, and you can kind of see where we were at with uh almost a thousand sales, and at one point we actually had more foreclosures and short sales than we did traditional type sales. So, it was a serious impact on the market, and we were decreasing assessed values for a number of years during that time period, but just because it is sometimes a topic, and we do still hear from some of the taxpayers that they're predicting foreclosures are going to spike again, and we're going to see another bubble burst. We haven't seen anything any trending toward that direction. I think the amount that we've had has kind of flatlined, and uh and then I did highlight specifically Shakopee over the last five years, those numbers. Quick look at uh volume of sales. So, this chart is showing you uh the brown is is all of the county-wide sales all together. So, a couple interesting things to point out on this is number one, we had about 2,000 sales over the last couple of years each year, and that's down from 3,000 just back in 2021. So, for assessors, uh we we don't have a preference of what the market's doing, but we do like more sales because it it gives us more data points to do our job with. So, it's it's a lot easier for us to dial in values when we have more observations. So, 2,000 is still a really healthy number, and we can still do a really good job with that. Uh the other thing I would point out is we subcategorized those by price point and the the blue line is the under $300,000 category and you can see kind of where uh that the number of sales under $300,000 has gone down quite a bit and there's a couple of reasons for that and one is as the values have increased, what would have been a you know, a $280,000 house is now over 300. So, we we recognize that that is happening, but there's also just not a lot of new construction or any new options being built in that price point. So, you can see in this next slide. This is a county-wide median price for new construction and Shakopee, I actually went and ran the numbers and I was going to highlight that on the side, but it's almost identical to the county-wide numbers. So, it was within $10,000 on the single-family and the townhouse condo. And I think another interesting thing to point out here would be even townhouses are being built and sold for substantially over that $300,000 price point. So, it's been since about 2020 that we eclipsed that that kind of threshold for for new builds in the townhome markets. Does the does the -1.9% under townhome condos, is that represent it's a drop in the amount of uh sales or construction? That's the median price drop. So, a year befo- a year previous to now, uh it would have been 1.9% higher. Okay. For that median townhome of new townhomes. Months supply of homes for sale on the market, this is kind of the measure of what's what's the inventory? Is it a seller's market? Is it a buyer's market? Clearly, when when we had the foreclosure debacle, we had the the buyer's market for a number of years. There were a lot of great deals. And then we more recently had the sellers market where uh you would put a house on the market and it you'd get 10 offers in the first weekend that it was out there and and that's not the case anymore. Uh I have a a slide in the my next slide kind of shows that when we were in that uh price or when we were in that time period where you could literally list a house and the median days on the market was eight. So, half of them actually sold less than eight and half of them were above eight, but probably still under that 20. And now the median's up to 28 days. So, it's taken about a month usually to sell, which is still pretty quick compared to historically. Um and and that can also be because technology has changed the way real estate at transacts and it speeds the process up in a number of different ways as well. So, shifting gears into some of the changes that we made for the assessment. This is the countywide uh new construction value add. And as you can see, it's down substantially from the year before. And I have a slide coming up that maybe kind of explain some of that, but I think for the most part, we saw a lot or a lot of really large projects that concluded the year before. So, we've add value as of January 2nd each year. For new construction, it also would include someone puts a deck on their house. So, it's not just new builds, it's it's improvements as well. Um but we had uh you know, Triple Crown Apartments was adding millions and millions of dollars for a number of years up until this year where they were kind of finished. And then uh we had some big industrial projects that that came up that concluded the prior assessment including the water bottling plant down in New Prague or Elkan New Market. Um some of those types of things that I think contributed a lot to that decline. Here I've segmented out by jurisdiction. Last year's new construction value compared to what we just saw in 2025, but I also added a percentage that shows the amount of or the dollars of new construction in 25 compared to the taxable value that we of our most recent assessment. So, you can kind of see how much was added as a comparison to your value your total value. So, countywide it was about 1.3% and Shakopee was uh about quite a bit healthier than that at 1.8%. And then just breaking down Shakopee specifically by category, agricultural not nothing going on there. Um residential actually up 15% uh compared to the year before. And most of the other stuff that's down is is again because there were so many large projects that came to their conclusion the prior assessment year. And this is kind of the the look at what we've seen going way back. If you look at like this is cumulative, by the way. So, like uh you got to look at if you go back to like 2005, 700 million was the total new construction and then the colors represent what segment they that the dollars were coming from. So, back in 2005 and 6 when we were in a lot of national news articles for being one of the fastest growing counties in the entire country, I think we were top 10 for a few years in a row on a percentage basis. Uh that's that was almost all due to residential. And then you can see it more recently in the last 6 7 years that that has diversified where we added a lot of value in multi-family and industrial segments. Mhm. A lot of uh going on on this picture, but um it kind of explains how we do our analysis each year and and what requirement we have to follow from the Department of Revenue. So, the little blue dots are where we left off last year on a percentage comparison when you compare um our value to a sale price, what is the ratio, we call it. So, if if we have um a property sell for $100,000 and we have it assessed at 95,000, it's a 95% ratio. It's saying our value is 95% of what it sold for. This is looking at the median ratio by jurisdiction for residential property, and that's what Department of Revenue looks at for level of assessment test. We have to be between 90 and 105%, and so if if we're below that, we increase values. If we're above it, we decrease values, and we kind of try to target that 95% line. As you can see, there's a little more room on the low end. We don't have 90 to 110, we have 90 to 105, and we take that as um a little bit of a suggestion of which which side to error on. So, in this case, the uh the red boxes are the going in ratio or after we set last year's values, new sales came in, and we still compared to those values that were previous. So, markets are changing. Some neighborhoods neighborhoods are maybe going up or down, different property types change at different rates. We have a different set of sales every year, of course. Um so, these different things happen, and then we get the going in ratio, and then we adjust values again based on those sales. And that ends us up at that green um triangle as to where we landed on our final ratio. A little bit further look back in time county wide just to show that we have made a substantial effort since that 2010-11 time frame to to make sure that our jurisdictions fall within a percentage or two on that median for fairness. So, where it used to be a little more sporadic and they were within the range usually, but they weren't always in a tight uh range, that's the we've we've addressed that. What happens if we don't set values between 90 and 105%? This is a clip from the state uh board orders that came from Minnesota Department of Revenue last year. If we're not within the range for a specific property type or jurisdiction, the state will come in after the fact and they will increase or decrease values across the board for you know, these are examples, but they could say residential in Shakopee, we're going to increase all the land values 15% because the assessor didn't do what they were supposed to. They didn't hit the mark. And here's here's a broader look at that. This is goes back to 2006. We have not had any state board orders in Scott County since 2006, the last time we had two orders. And you can kind of see I've highlighted in red the range of of some of these changes. So, back in 2011, there was a a specific jurisdiction that had values decreased 40% and that that could have been overall or on land or buildings. And then just recently as 2023, a 115% increase was was uh given to one of these segments in some county. So, they can go up, they can go down, and and they can make a big impact, and this is why it's really important. And I don't expect you to read this news article, but I did highlight a a portion of it to make a point. The state stepped in after former county assessor didn't adjust property values sufficiently to meet the required 90 to 105%. As a result, these adjustments are now necessary and non-negotiable. That's the key important part is they do this in June. So, we're sitting here today, we sent notices out. Property owners are calling our office every day. We're having those discussions, answering questions, potentially changing values for these appeals. Um and then we have the board meeting in in June. We have the county board meeting where they can come and and have an independent board look at their value. And then all those changes are done, and then the state comes in and does this study. And at that point, you're disenfranchised if if they make a state board order because you can't now go back. Your only option after that is to go to tax court, which costs money. It's an intensive process. This is why it's so important that we get it right on the front end. And then there's also the the situation where maybe a property owner looked at their value and said, "Yeah, it looks about right." And they decided not to appeal, and then they get a 15% increase or something. And they would have appealed. So, it it's just there's no measure to how badly that disenfranchises our taxpayers if we have a state board order. >> [clears throat] >> So, here are some of the value changes that we made. This is an average residential home value change, but it's it's about the best representation about of what happened to residential properties in each area. Shakopee's up 3%. That's very close to the county average home value change. And then the ranges, we had a couple of areas that those assessed values from prior with the sales came in and we were actually higher, so we decreased values just a touch. And then we also had a couple areas that almost went up about 7 or 8%. So, uh There there was there's always variation every year. This is actually a pretty tight range. I know last year we we had a little bit bigger um range that I think we had a couple areas go up in the 14% range. And then just the caveat I always like to give cuz people see that and then they maybe their value went up 5% and they're in shock and they say, "Well, Mike said 3%, you know, so there must have been a mistake." Well, we further stratify the city by neighborhoods. This is just kind of a map of some of those neighborhoods. And we also stratify by the the style of the home, year built, price points. And so we're making changes based on the sales in those subcategories as well. Everybody in the city does not just have the exact same percentage change each year. Quick look at commercial, industrial, and apartments. And what stands out is in 25, we had a lot less sales. So commercial had 15 and had about the same amount in 2026. Industrial had about double and the reason for that is mainly attributed to some industrial storage condos that were built in one of the townships. So each individual unit can go in as a sale. So it kind of uh maybe misrepresents a little bit that the volume doubled. Cuz that was largely due to one one project. But apartments did go up quite a bit in our sale volume from two sales and this was the first time we had a qualified study which Department of Revenue requires six sales. So we have not had six apartment sales in any year for the three years leading up to this. We have increased values on apartments. Last year you you can see the 0%. They were relatively flat but we did change some pockets. This year though, we have increased apartments quite a bit and because those 13 sales represent quite different portions of the market, I did split it out. So, the 10 sales were of smaller apartment project more four a lot of fourplexes in there. And those were the ones we were more really low on at our level of assessment. So, we did increase values 15% which is very substantial. And then the the larger units, what people more typically think of as apartment buildings, they went up as well about 6%, but not quite as many as much. So, we only had three sales in that bucket compared to 10 sales in the the smaller category. Final slide on on the changes that we made. Um, just a overall look that we've we went from about 33.8 billion up to 35.3 county wide value includes exempt, includes everything. That includes changes we made to existing values plus new construction. We're up about 4.4%. Quick look at some of our relief and appeal options. I do like to just recap that our timeline is about a three-year period. So, the sales we studied that we used to set values most recently actually started all the way back back in October of 2024. This is Department of Revenue uh determined time frame. That went through September of 25. Then after that, we took all the information, we crunched the numbers, we came up with new values. We mailed out notices in March. And now we're having the appeals, but by the time you pay your second half taxes next year in October, three years from start to finish. So, at any given time there's three cycles overlapping each other. The mailing that we did send out, you got two notices, purple tax statement, important for potential property tax refund purposes this year, but the green notice is the one we really want you to focus on because there's instructions on there what you can do if you disagree, who and we actually have on that notice the specific appraiser for your property. So, if you're residential in Shakopee, there's one name on there. If you're a commercial property in Shakopee, there's a different name and number on there. So, that is your best and first option. We We recommend call the person on the on the green notice. They will help you. They will answer your questions and they will explain to you how to appeal if you want to. And then just a quick plug in the bottom left corner, you also got a little insert in that mailing where you can follow a link to sign up for e-notices. We only have about 7%. We've We've had this option for I don't know if it's close to 7 or 8 years and we're up to like 7 or 8% of people that have signed up for it, but saves the county and in turn the taxpayers a little money and it also you you get your notice a little bit before everybody else. So, you get a PDF in the email. We do hear a lot of times from homeowners, well, I'm not a real estate agent, I'm not an appraiser. How How would I know if my value is correct or not? I'm kind of at the mercy of you know, taking your word for it. We actually built a couple of of nice tools for the taxpayers and the first one is if you go on our GIS there's that hyperlink that I've pointed that red arrow to, you can click on that and review your property information. And right within that link if something doesn't look right, you can suggest corrections that would provoke an appraiser to reach out, call, discuss, potentially set up an inspection to come and verify the information. So, that's a really easy way to just starting point. Do they even have the information correct? Second tool, and this is probably my favorite. We built a layer for the taxpayers that is public. You can go in and you can filter for recent sales, and then you can turn on and off different years. And it will show you it for example, if this was your neighborhood, where are the sales that most recently happened and just how much did they sell for? Then you can click on those properties, look at the picture, look at the property information, maybe drive by the house. And maybe if a couple of them are very similar to yours and they're selling at a different price point, it's just a way for you to have a gauge on your own to do some a little bit of research that we made hopefully easy. Um just just to for peace of mind to see you if if you think maybe that we made a mistake, you give us a call. What's an unqualified sale? So, unqualified sales, that's all Department of Revenue determined. Number one, the county does not determine that. But it would be things like if you sold your house to your brother or sister or relative, those are automatically out of the study. If there were changes made to the property since the assessment date, so if if we assess the value and then you made all kinds of improvements and then you sold it, that might be another reason it would get kicked out because it's not a fair comparison of apples to apples. And there's I think like 36 reasons why they kick them out. Maybe someone had gotten financing from a friend or somebody that they gave them a favorable rate, and so it's not at market. Sometimes we can make adjustments for those favorable rates and sometimes they just get kicked out of the study. >> Distress sales? Distress sales would be another one. Thank you. >> So, what options might exist? These are just some different examples of programs and we do try to help people find these when they call us and and if they're you know, potentially fitting one of these categories, we've trained our staff to try to work with them to find beneficial programs that they might qualify for. And I am going to just highlight two of them before I wrap it up. One is obviously the appeals process. So right now you can still call us. There is a open book meeting that's the the it's at the Scott County Courthouse and it's on May 6th. You can come in and talk with an assessor and sit down. We're open till 7:00 p.m. that night. So if people typically can't get a hold of us, that would be a another opportunity to come in and talk to us, but it's really an extension of the informal process. And then that County Board of Appeal in June, the County Board has appointed a special board of real estate agents and appraisers who live and work in the community in the county and they know their stuff really well and they're a independent body that we submit information to, the property owner does, and they make their own decision, unbiased decision at that meeting. So that's another option. And then of course tax court, you can skip all of the steps and just go straight to tax court if you so choose. Millions and millions of dollars go unclaimed from the state's property tax refund program, so I do always like to highlight this. And sometimes when we talk to taxpayers, they say, "Well, I checked if I qualified at you know, 5 years ago and I make too much money or I I exceeded the income threshold." There's also a special property tax refund which has no income requirements and the basic terms are are highlighted there. You owned the property and lived there both years. Uh your your taxes went up 12% from 25 to 26 in this case and the increase was at least $100. Um and it wasn't because you made improvements. Double-check if you qualify. You can do it online. You can go in there on your own and and submit the information. Some people work with their um income tax representatives or professionals to help them with that as well. And with that, if I would stand for any additional questions. Thank you very much again. Questions from council members? I don't have any. This is good information. Well, I I guess I'll ask the one question that I have. Great presentation that I only have one question. Um I served on a Board of Equalization for many years, and my question is back then there was cri- state criteria um it was you had to use so many sales of like properties within a certain timeline. And then you were at that 95 to 105. How what has changed in the realm of state legislation as far as what them rules are, if they've changed. So, I guess the question is has the have they changed or are they pretty much the same? Pretty much the same. Uh I I've been in the profession since 2003. And I've been the Scott County Assessor since 2009, and there was a change in in that study and how they calculated time adjustments at one point cuz they wanted the values to be more current. But as far as the requirements that you just talked about, the number of sales, the time frame when the sales occur, and the level of assessment, all three of those points, they're they're all the same as they happened. Okay. And then the last comment um like properties, it's very hard to get like properties. New construction is probably easier than the old Shakopee because old Shakopee, if you go down a road from one end to the other, there's no two properties that are same. Um Not comparable. And sometimes, you know, amenities might be different, whatever. Uh materials might be different. Um so, sometimes it might be beneficial to actually contact the assessor's office and go through the whole comparable thing for the uniqueness. Yeah, absolutely. We invite those questions and and you're exactly right. When people have said, you know, assessing or appraising property values is somewhat math, but it's also there's there's a little bit of art form in there because what you described properties could be the exact same square footage and you're built, but they had different materials. And now, how do we adjust for that difference if we're using it as a comparable? Some of that can be subjective. So, it is important that you call us if you have those kind of observations or concerns. We'll work with you. Well, thank you for your very good presentation. We appreciate it. All right. Do you have something, Mr. Rouse? Uh I was just going to say uh it's, you know, everyone should be very thankful that they have professional assess- assessors in uh Minnesota. I've worked in states before where they're elected. And as with any elected office, there can be pressure points applied. Uh so, yeah. Professional assessors are a a great thing. Very good. >> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you again. >> very much. Have a good night. Item number five. Approval of the agenda. Are there any changes to the agenda from staff? Not from staff, sir. Council? Councilor Contreras? Make a motion to approve the agenda. Second. Seconded by Councilor Whiting. Discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all in favor say I. I. Opposed? Motion passes. Did you have something, Councilor? Consent agenda. Any changes to the consent agenda from staff? No, sir. Council? Councilor Layer? >> a >> a motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. Is there any changes to the consent agenda? Uh, I'd like to remove 6M. So, we have a motion and a second with a removal of 6M. Now, we're jumping the gun there. Any other changes? Mr. Reynolds, would you like to read the consent agenda, please? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Members of Council, this these are the consent agenda agenda items for Tuesday, April 21st. 6A is the SHiP Community Garden License Agreement Renewal. 6B awards a contract for the 2026-27 Native Vegetation Management Project. 6C is the Minnesota Department of Public Safety's Minnesota Fire Department Turnout Gear Cleaning Program Application. 6D is a recreation facilities vending contract. 6E appoints Sergeant Joshua Davis to the rank of Captain. Congratulations to Sergeant Davis. 6F is an ordinance for street name changes for Canterbury Southwest Development. 6G is amendment to the fee schedule for plumbing permit reviews per state code. 6H approves a purchase agreement with Traffic Control Corporation for signal equipment for the Old Carriage Court Corridor Improvements Project. 6I is the Cletus and Helen Link Family Foundation Grant Award. 6J is the preliminary and final plat of Dean's Lake 11th Edition. 6K is approval of the April 20, excuse me, April 7th, 2026 City Council minutes. 6L is the Metropolitan Area Dance Alliance Donation. 6N extends hours for the construction at Mystic Lake Amphitheater. 6O is the Schlepper Field Improvements. 6P approves on-sale and Sunday liquor licenses so 50 for Velasquez three LLC doing business as Don Guia Taqueria. And 6Q is the vehicle acquisition acquisition use and replacement policy. Thank Mr. Reynolds. We do have a motion and a second. Any discussion from council? Seeing none, all in favor say I. I. Opposed? Motion passes. Item number seven is public comment. If you're here for an item that is not on the agenda and would like to speak to council, we'd love to hear from you. Anybody here that would like to address council that is not on the agenda? Last call. Seeing none. Item number eight, business removed from consent agenda. I took off 6M. 6M and I guess a question I have are we are we doing any kind of retainer or is this just kind of a notification that this person this outfit is going to or this company is going to be supplying these services at these rates should we need them? Mr. Kurski. Mayor and council, there's no retainer on it's billable hours. Um they're basically working on the gravel pit project because we also switched financial advisors on that project and the two parties had worked together um on this project. Do you have uh the gravel pit conditions for their uh permit in the building? Um one more time, Mayor. Do you have the permit and the conditions attached to that permit available for council? The original one? From The ones that are currently standing unless they no longer have a permit. They're They stopped uh I think last year was the last time they withdrew any material from the the Okay. So, how do I go about getting a copy of the permit and the conditions? I can get you a copy. I'll get it to the administrator. Okay. Thank you. All right. Uh wishes of council. Mr. Whiting. Make a motion to approve retaining of Taft at hourly rates of $400 for associates, $500 for partners for economic development work. Is there a second? Second. >> Second by counselor Contreras. Discussion on the motion? Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say "Aye." Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Item 9A, monthly financial report. And this would be our finance director, Mr. Reinhardt. The floor is yours when you're ready, sir. Sure. Uh good evening, mayor and council members. Uh tonight I'll be covering the monthly financial report through March. Uh so, the first quarter of the year. Uh also um covering or it'll also include the the Q1 investment report. I just wanted to provide a quick update before I uh jump into the presentation. We did have our audit field work last week. Um and it's for the most part wrapped up with a just just a couple loose ends. Uh happy to say that I don't expect um to receive any findings and we'll receive a clean audit opinion on that. Um that financial presentation would occur uh to city council um first week of June. Um so, looking forward to that. Another solid year, at least uh financially speaking. Uh so, this slide uh shows the general fund through March of 2026, so 25% of the way through the year. Um still really early in the year. A couple of uh larger transactions could really skew the information one way or the other. Um but uh here's where we're at so far. Uh for revenues, uh property taxes and special assessments uh will remain uh at zero until we get our first half uh uh tax settlement, which we receive in June. Uh licenses and permits, uh charges and charges for services, uh they look like they're relatively on track uh in the comparison uh to budget and and first quarter. Um miscellaneous uh will typically include investment income, um but we uh have yet to allocate that interest yet. Uh typically we'll wait till we get um our audit report uh significantly completed, so then we can have uh accurate starting balances when we do that allocation. Uh when it comes to we basically allocate on to the funds based on cash balances, so we wait till uh we make sure our numbers are good. Uh on the expenditure side, uh we are within our budget target in total, and I'd consider each department uh reasonably with in line with expectations through this point of the year. Uh the mayor and council are showing over over budget, um and I know we've talked about this in the past, that's just a result of timing. Uh so annual dues are paid at the beginning of the year, um so as the year progresses, I would assume this would fall within uh budget targets for the year. Uh also included in the council pack was the first quarter investment report. Um this uh slide shows the interest earnings uh for the first quarter in comparison with the previous 4 years. Uh the purple line uh being 2026, uh we're at about 840,000 through the first quarter, um so it's up a little bit from the past few years. Um expectation is that uh we'll probably have about a similarly year to last year um when it comes to interest earnings. And then one uh final slide, um again the purple line being 2026. Uh this compares the annual unrealized gain or loss, uh so the market value uh adjustment to of investments for the year. Uh the last 3 years, uh we had pretty significant um adjustment for unrealized gains uh due to the flat or downward shifts in interest rates. Uh in the last months, we've seen uh rates come up a little bit, um specifically in comparison to end of year so December 31st, 2025. Um and we have a unrealized loss of 450,000. Uh we do intend to hold all our investments till maturity so any unrealized uh gain or losses only recorded once a year at the end of December 31st and never actually realized. Uh hard to know where interest rates will go from here but um last year we actually uh were seeing a inverted yield curve where um the yield was higher for short-term rates than it was for longer-term rates. Uh it's now back to more of a traditional yield curve where you've uh the longer you invest the higher the rate would be. So more of a traditional yield curve you'd see. Um I can stand for any questions you have but that's all I have for you. Questions for staff? No questions, sir. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 9B right-of-way management and fiber projects update. We had a discussion about this in the past. Staff was doing some research on it and was going to come back and they are now back. Our city engineer will be presenting. Floor is yours, sir. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and and council. I was uh before you in February. Uh council member Whiting was not present for that meeting so I'll cover a little bit of what I spoke about in the previous meeting and then some updates moving forward into 2026 after uh took some feedback from council and did a little bit of research and have some updated information for you all. Uh so just a reminder from uh 2026 fiber internet buildout, there are two providers that plan to do installations in the city of Shakopee. One is Gigapower doing work for AT&T and the other is Metronet who's doing work for T-Mobile or T-Fiber. Um there's at least two more years of active construction yet to complete these installations with the majority of the work happening in 2026. Um just a summary, uh these fiber projects are done by the installation of conduits through directional boring, meaning the conduits are pushed underground rather than open cut excavation, and then fiber is pulled through those conduits after the conduits are installed. Excavation is needed in certain areas to for the bore pits to actually access the ground and then to put service boxes and pedestals. So that's the excavation that you'd see, and then services are trenched to the properties themselves. This map shows to date what we know about planned projects for 2026. Gigapower has scaled back their projects that they initially had proposed in the city of Shakopee. They're limited to one area in town along County Highway 83. Now that obviously could change based on markets, based on their portfolio for the year, but that's at least at this point what they've shared with us. The purple areas are what Metronet is planning for in 2026. They had a very small project that started along the north side of 169 back in 2025. They plan to do a massive expansion through Shakopee this year. So we'll have more than likely just one provider working in Shakopee outside of the one Gigapower project, which will make it a little bit easier for coordination. But more than likely this will be a pretty substantial project for this year. Now again, this is going to be based on crew availability, schedules, weather, all these things if they're actually going to get to all of these areas, but this is what they've planned to submit to us for permits for 2026. I want to just go over a brief summary of the issues and challenges that we saw in the previous year or two regarding these fiber projects. This is nothing new, things that you're already aware of. You know, issues on permitting the projects themselves, the time it takes to review the number of permits that we see. I mean if you look back at the map, the number of areas in town to identify conflicts with utilities, locating all of the city's right-of-way and the easements, all of those things to research, finding ways to get through congested corridors. If there's already utilities that are in the ground, how can we find safe avenues for those utilities to go in the ground? And then there's a lot of new roadways in Shakopee where we have moratoriums on installation. So if it's a new new development, those fiber contractors can't do boring under our roadways for a period of 5 years. So it creates challenges for where they can actually go to get to different areas in town. Communication, we saw a lot of issues with resident notification or non-notification. And also contact information for the fiber companies. So if property owners do experience an issue, they had challenges finding who should they actually call to get in touch with. And then on the construction side, a lot of issues with locating. Obviously, not only from the city side, but the public utilities commission side and private utility companies that are locating for telecommunications line and gas lines. With the amount of installation in the ground all throughout the city, essentially all of the underground infrastructure needs to be located. So there's only so many locators that are available to be able to do that work. And then if schedules change and things need to be relocated multiple times, it creates inefficiencies and just a lot of waste of time. Obviously, property impacts, irrigation lines, trees, restoration of people's properties, damage to public infrastructure like roads or sidewalks, and then private service damage whether it's gas gas or electric services or irrigation services that were damaged through the boring if they weren't properly located. And then essentially just overbuilding. If you have more than one fiber company going in the same location, there's stress put on not only city staff, but the residents that have to live through a multiple phase construction project, too. And then a larger projects can occur occurring simultaneously throughout the city. So if there's projects on one end of town versus the other, it's difficult to manage those. So back in February, I proposed to somewhat of a mitigation plan for 2026. We we looked at all the issues that we saw and the challenges, and we made recommendations for how we were going to mitigate those challenges and make a much smoother process. A lot of those things that that I shared with you at that time were just ideas that we had. Um since then we've made we've had a lot of firm commitments and have come up with some some new ideas as well that we wanted to share with you. Um and that's really what I'm here before you tonight to share. Um so on the permitting side this is stuff that we've already put into place early coordination. We've been working through the winter with both of these utility providers to work through their schedule, look at areas where they can't go, where they could go, and phase of construction. So that's made it a lot easier us easier for us on reviewing the permits so that we know what areas they need first so we can focus our efforts and time um to review those areas early on to avoid schedule issues. Um it allows us to review those relocation plans as well. And then we've worked on we talked about this a phased permit release. So we're not issuing 10 blanket permits throughout the year. We're going to be issuing permits based on when they can actually install these projects so that we know when they're working, our locators know when they're going to be working, and we can actually target different areas rather than having it all throughout the city and not knowing exactly when they were going to be moving into different areas. Uh on the communication side of things I'm going to share with you a couple of things that Metronet has actually worked on it and produced later on um in the next slide, but there's things like direct mailers, neighborhood entrance signs. So when you come into a neighborhood, there's information for who to contact and I'll show you example of that. Door hangers, updated websites, and then one thing that were that we've changed as well as confirmation of communication prior to permit issuance. So they need to give us a notice, um they need to share with us who they notified and a map of the area before they even go out and mark those utilities. So that way we know that the property owners at least had a chance to know about the project before anything actually happens on their street. And that's something that we've got confirmation from from the utility providers that are going to be doing these projects. Then on the construction side of things, uh this is an idea that we floated out. Um we've worked with a consulting firm uh called Bolton and Menk who's done this for a few other communities last year. They're going to be I I have a contract in before you tonight after this presentation for Council to consider for them to provide consultant support for us. So, they would actually have staff in Shakopee that are going to be managing these projects out in the field at 24/7 while the contractors working. They will be the direct line of communication for residents. They'll be the direct line of communication for the contractors, city staff if we see an issue. So, we have boots on the ground with someone who's got eyes on these projects as they're taking place so that again makes it easier for us to coordinate directly with the contractors, with the residents. If we have an issue, we can call our inspector and say, you know, what what's actually happening and we'll be able to get information right away to residents. So, I'm really looking forward to working with them on providing enhanced service to the city to to manage these projects. Another confirmation is requiring vacuum exposing services. So, no more hand digging along electric service lines. So, they've acquired additional equipment to be able to vac those service holes in the ground without digging. Yes, Mr. Mayor? Gas lines also? >> That's correct, Mr. Mayor. Yep, all lines. We're we've already scheduled this, but we'll have weekly construction coordination meetings both with our public works staff, engineering staff, and public utility staff. Those are scheduled already so that as construction happens, we know a look ahead for what's happening in the next week. If schedules change, we're already actively aware of that before before they change it in the field and then we've gone and marked utilities that don't actually need to be marked. Also, it allows us to talk to residents if they get a a question. If things do change, we can provide that direct communication to them. We've already got confirmation of this which is a good change is that they will be hiring their own electrical contractors and other contractors that will be doing repairs. So, let's say they've drilled through a an electric service for a property owner. In the past, they've required that property owner to fix their own service and then get reimbursed uh for that work. Um, that creates a lot of if inefficiencies with a property owner needing to go find an electrician who's available who can give them the right price, especially during a peak season where it's really hard to get an uh an electrician out. Um, they already have four set-aside contractors who are local that they can call, make those repairs, pay for themselves. Uh, so that's a really good change that hopefully should help mitigate some of those issues that we've seen. Yes. So, is this the customer's private line or if it's in the easement, isn't that a utility uh spark line? Yeah, Mr. Mayor, a good question. So, this would be the service line that goes from the road to the house, not the line that runs along the road. If that line is damaged, more than likely the the public utility or the utility owner would make those repairs because Shuck-P Public Utilities wants to make sure that their infrastructure is done to their standards, that gets repaired their way. Um, so that wouldn't be for that work, it would just be for the service line work. So, the only time that would happen is if they're trenching from the street right-of-way where they're putting the conduit in and putting the service to the house. It would be a let's say you're running a conduit along the road and that service potential was marked and they didn't get the right depth and they've hit that service or let's say by chance they're boring underneath the service and a rock gets dislodged and it hits the service, too. But I guess I'm confused because either way they're supposed to be working within the the right-of-way, not on the private property, and what's in the right-of-way is not the homeowner's responsibility. Mr. Mayor, um, more than likely the electric lines are within the the easement that runs along the right-of-way, which is almost the same location where that fiber line would go. So, if the electric is on one side, the fiber is going on this side, and the service comes across in this location, then that fiber line could come in contact with that electrical service. Does that make sense? Either way they're going to pay for the damage. That's correct, sir. Okay. Uh last two is they'll have dedicated restoration managers and crew so and crews so they have separate contractors available to come in behind the drilling work to actually do the restoration rather than letting that sit for long periods of time so that's a good change on their system. And then the last is Mr. Mayor you brought this up is reimbursement for city incurred expenses. So there's two forms that we can do this. One is there's what we have especially in our fee schedule is called the delay penalty. So this would be used if let's say a contractor excavates a sidewalk and they've left a panel exposed and haven't filled that in and it's been a week and we've noticed it and and they've told us well we'll get it done and we tell them all right well you have until Friday to replace that sidewalk panel we need the sidewalk accessible. They don't get it done by Friday then we can hit them with the delay penalty which is a fee that they would have to pay a one-time fee and then we have weekly charges that go beyond that already established in our fee schedule. So that allows us to get our public infrastructure repaired in a timely manner. The penalty is >> [sighs and gasps] >> it's somewhat low I guess I would say from that perspective and and I I really think any amount of fee is probably too low. There's a lot of money that these projects have that you know our partnerships and relationships and working with them is what's going to get them to repair these damages more than us issuing fines and penalties but that is one of the tools that we have in our toolbox in case they're non-responsive in getting some things done. So that's our first first approach. Our second approach is we can collect what's called a letter of credit or an escrow or a bond that the contractors can post. Now what that would be for is there's a set aside money essentially that would be available if the city would ever need to draw on it to cover our expenses that are incurred. Now based on the statutes and Minnesota rules we can only charge for the actual value of the city services that we provide. So, if let's say our fire department needs to go respond to a gas leak that gets hit by um a rock that gets lodged, something that we saw last year, we could calculate what the city's expenses were to go run out and to cover those and and respond to that situation, um and we could send them a bill uh based on if we have defensible costs and they could reimburse us those costs. If they don't pay those expenses, what we could then do is draw on that letter of credit or that escrow or bond to repay ourselves. Now, there's challenges with drawing on and cuz essentially a bank would put up this letter of credit and we'd have to work with the bank to actually draw on those funds and there's a process to do it. Um more than likely it'd be easier to just to get paid by the utility provider, but that's something we can certainly do we do. We haven't done that in the past, um but that is a tool that could be at our disposal if we're starting to see non-compliance. That could be something that we implement on day one or that could be something as we start to see these issues where we're responding and we're not getting reimbursed, we could implement that for future endeavors. So, that could be at the council's discretion whether that's something we want to consider as staff. Council Lara. Uh going back to the dedicated restoration manager and crew, um when we see comments or people reach residents reach out to us regarding saying, "Hey, we they came, they dug, there's a pile, they wrecked my lawn." Do we direct them to call someone at the city about that and then you guys take care of that Yeah. Great question. So, either way, um they can certainly contact staff and what staff would do is we would reach out to those utility companies. There's also a and I'll show you this on the next slide, um Metronet has a website where you can submit a restoration ticket. And that ticket will go directly to their field managers. Um it's an easy process where you just type your address and type what the problem is, it gets submitted. That submitting a ticket allows them to track their services so that they know this issue comes in on this date and they can track when it gets resolved and addressed. We've had really good success having residents do that. We've also had really good success with just our staff working directly with those property owners. We saw that a lot already this spring from work that happened last fall where they put topsoil down and grass seed and it's still pretty early in the year where that grass hasn't grown, but we've already had Metronet out repairing some of the things that we've heard issues from from property owners. >> And you have other contacts for the other two that are doing that? >> That's correct. Yes, sir. I I think Council LaRue brings up a good point because the I think the problem is is that if this is adopted, we're going to have a different system than what we had prior and you have a lot of the cases you're talking about that are prior that they don't have anybody to contact and that's why we're getting them. In the future, they're going to have neighborhood signs and door hangers and these types of things telling them who to contact um directly, so they'll have that information in hand. In the case of my property, Council Whiting's property, Council Delaney's damage, and any Administrator Reynolds and others, we didn't have that option of who to contact. We just had to tell the city. >> Yep. And many many of them probably aren't resolved to this day. So, now the question to go farther than what Council LaRue was pointing out is how do who does the prior to if this is adopted, they contact the city. >> Mhm. Okay? If this is adopted, then they'll have that information on who to contact. Correct? And that information was already available last year. It wasn't as publicly shared, I'd say. There was already websites that were established, but if a property owner didn't know what website to go through, then how do they actually get that information? So, then that was where the city stepped in and we helped facilitate a lot of that communication. Now, what we're hoping is that it's a lot easier for a property owner to know exactly who to reach out to rather than trying to go contact City Hall who gets pointed to this person who gets pointed to this person, and then finally gets a response. We're hoping to to mitigate that that perspective. >> I think I got my door hanger of who it was after they were done and gone. >> Yep. >> [laughter] >> It's like that doesn't really help. Okay. Good. So, I'll share with you a few of the the communications that Metronet that residents within the Metronet project areas will see. I really like these. I think they're going to be a lot better than what we've seen in the past. The one on the left is the actual envelope that you'll receive in the mail. The What What this says on it is in bright pink construction notice. So, it's not a bill. You're going to not Hopefully, you're not just going to grab this and recycle it. This is something that isn't just trying to say, "Well, I'm going to sign up for T-Fiber." Having that construction notice on there is at least one step to get you to open the envelope and see with the information that inside. And then what's on the right is the actual letter that's included in the envelope, which is right on the top it's a construction notice. Here's what's coming to the Here's what's coming to your neighborhood, construction FAQs. They've got the website, they've got the phone number directly on there. Questions about construction, how to sign up for service. So, from this is before anything gets marked on your property at all. This is a construction notice that'll be mailed directly to your property before anything happens. So, this is that first step in communication that we're trying to get people's attention that there's going to be something that's going to happen this year. It's within the right-of-way. Here's the actual owner of of who's going to be doing the work. Here's who you can contact. Um I guarantee probably half of these are going to be recycled, no matter what. So, we need more steps in the process as well. Um the the figure on the left, this is what the neighborhood entrance sign is going to look like. Um it's going to say construction's underway. Here is a QR code that you can scan if you're walking in the neighborhood, walking your dog, you can take your phone and scan the QR code, it'll bring you right to the website. Has the phone number directly on it with the website link. Um this would be in This would be placed before construction starts as well at select areas in neighborhoods. And then the one on the right is a pre-marking note, uh So, again, before construction starts, there's another postcard that comes right to your right to your door that construction is is is coming. It's on the way. You've got your QR code. So, multiple points of communication before construction starts all that look very similar um that hopefully we'll be able to get people's um attention before the work happens. And that's my main goal is to make sure people are aware that these this is a project that is it's allowed. It's uh permitted by the city. Um these fiber companies are allowed to do this. Um it's going to be on your property. There's going to be issues. There's going to be challenges, damages, but at least if you know about it, then we can help you resolve the issues and and try to take some of those emotional elements out of it. Very good. Questions of staff? No. Mr. Whiting? So, I had the joy of having both CenterPoint come through and then right after that the fiber company came through. So, I'm not sure who I'm complaining about, but uh uh some of the It was mostly aesthetic issues that I'm concerned with. You know, when they came and replaced concrete, it's completely different color. Um they spray-painted You know, we have graffiti rules. You know, we we find people for graffiti. They graffitied all the sidewalks and never cleaned it up. My neighbor still has in in the bottom of the handholds they put gravel. There's still bags of gravel in his boulevard that they never cleaned up. And of course, my yard boulevard was the worst beat up. It's actually turning out pretty good for for now. Um one of my questions is is uh you know, I live in a part of town that has alleys, and they put those alleys in for all these utilities. Why don't we use the alleys? Yeah, um it's a good question, Council Whiting, and I think it's it's probably utility company dependent. We asked that question of CenterPoint. Um they've shared that having the gas mains along the public right-of-way is easier for access for them. Um it allows them to be able to maintain their infrastructure uh in a way that's more accessible. Alleys are difficult. You're aware with the narrow narrow location of a lot of fences that are directly up to those alleyways to be able to locate those is is a is they shared was a challenge for us and their standard is to go within the right of way on the front side of homes. Um, obviously that was a change where, you know, utilities come into the properties to in the back side of the house where the gas meters are. It was, you know, it changes a lot with the home configuration. Um, but from the city's perspective, it we can't really dictate which whether they go in an alley or or within the public street. They have the right to use our right of way as long as they're following the city's ordinances, the state statutes, and and Minnesota rules. Um, you know, if if there was extreme circumstances where we had a congested right of way and they couldn't actually find a location, then we could work with them in the alley, but it's really I I think it's it's more of the preference and and standards of the actual utility owner. Well, I do appreciate having a dedicated uh person or point of call for restoration issues or other concerns and things like that. So, who's going to come back to these that are already completed and finish cleaning up? Yeah, uh it's a good question. Thank you. So, um once we kind of get into the growing season, that's our opportunity to then work with the property with the utility companies that installed last year to ensure that a restoration was done. If there's issues, then we work through and create a punch list similar to how we would do any other city project. So, just cuz we're starting this process in 2026, doesn't mean we're ignoring the projects that happened in the past. We're going to still follow through on all of the restoration requirements that each of those utility companies have. All right. Thank you. Okay. So, any other questions for staff? Okay, so one of the questions that was raised by staff is the uh potentially requiring a bond up front. And I don't know if you have a recommendation on that. Do we try try this If this passes, try this first, kind of weigh it out, see where where we're off where we're at. Um well, I don't know what the consensus of council might be on that or what maybe the recommendation of staff might be on that. Yeah, I So, you said you we we know we had some strikes when we called the fire department out. Did we not charge them last year? Uh Mayor and Council, no, we did not try to recoup those costs last year. Although there's a cost to having them bond and trying to recoup through the bonding too, it's pretty labor intensive for staff, I would imagine. Yeah, and and um it is, but I would say this is pretty standard. There's other They've done this in other cities. There won't be any pushback if we ask for this. I just don't foresee us actually probably drawing on it unless it's an extreme circumstance, but it could allow us It could protect us from that perspective. So, um I I think we would be fine either way, but if we certainly if Council felt strongly about it, it wouldn't be an issue moving forward in in getting that in place. Okay. So, do do we want to decide that first? Or I I think if we're going to do it, we we can just do it and move forward with it rather than trying to jump into it midway through the year. I think it's if we want to set that standard in it and >> Well, what what I'm trying what I'm asking is before we take up what's before us officially, do we want to have a discussion on whether we want to require a bond or what was the other word you used? Uh letter of credit. >> Or a letter of credit. Um and if we do, then we'll incorporate it in the motion. If we don't, then the motion or what's before us, we can take up separately. Make sense? Would it be one or the other? Sorry, I was Yeah, and and I guess Mayor and Council, I would say I whether that takes a formal motion, that that can be something that we implement in in a in a process. I I don't necessarily think that needs to be a a council-adopted action. Um if that's something that we hear strongly from council that staff should do, we're just going to move forward and and take that on. We wouldn't need council authority for that. All right, very good. Any other questions of staff? One really quick. Councilor Contreras. How many um issues did we have last year? Like major issues? Did we have many? Uh Mayor and Council, I I guess I would have to define what a major issue was. I I think from one property owner's perspective, you could say there's a lot of major issues even just with lawn disturbance. >> I guess. I'm I'm guessing like when we had a car fire department or yeah. Maybe five to 10 uh utility strike issues where it was significant from that perspective, yeah. That is a lot. Okay. That's it. Thank you. Wishes of Council? Oh. So, the motion before you tonight is essentially to a um accept the proposal uh to enter into an agreement with Bolton and Menk to provide that field observation services. Um so, that's that's the suggested action that I would have you adopt tonight. Um but obviously the feedback on on that security or bond would be other direction. So, I'll wait for a motion and then I will ask my questions on the motion specifically, Mr. Whiting. Make a motion to accept the proposal and authorize staff to enter into agreement with Bolton and Menk Incorporated for right-of-way fiber optic field representation services. Second. Seconded by Councilor Delaney. Discussion on the motion? The question I guess I have is the yearly cost I I assume this is a yearly cost of $150,000 to have this uh entity on online for this these projects. Um it's going to be funded by fees collected with right-of-way permits associated with fiber. So, will that make their permit cost increase? I would assume. Uh in 2026 we aren't proposing increasing fees more than we already adjusted based on between our 2026 um our fee schedule updates. Uh but from what we expect for the projects and the permits that we're going to issue this year is we're going to exceed our revenue projections and forecast based on the fees that are going to be collected with the extent of these projects. So, we won't be adding more fees to this. We'll be using the the the adopted fees that are in the fee schedule. >> Like all other ones will just uh look at them and adjust accordingly. Uh Mr. Mayor, that's absolutely correct. And if we only get if they only follow through with two projects, we obviously won't be needing that many that much right away inspection services. So, we won't be spending that full amount. Okay. And does if if uh if we only do two projects, does Bolton and Menk still get the two 150 or do we go by their pay scale? Mayor and Council, that's absolutely correct. So, it's based on the hours that they perform an inspection. Yeah. Very good. Answered all my questions. Any other discussion, Mr. Whiting? Yeah, from my point of view, I'd like to see the city reimbursed for any kind of concerns and issues that we come up with. You mentioned several strikes, so. I'd like to see how the notification and the oversight works out before I'm going to jump into one way or the other. I wish we could have got reimbursed in the past. But I think this will go a long way to stopping the need for that reimbursement. But I could be wrong. We'll see. Yeah, we just have to see. Any other discussion on the motion? Discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. Good presentation. Item 9C. Informational only. Uh Mayor and Council, I I will stay here for a a project introduction for our Safe streets and roads for all um SS4A safety action plan. Um, just an overview of what SS4A, the grant program, actually is. This is something that's already been before you when we applied for the grant, when we accepted the grant, but I haven't really shared exactly what this project is. So, what the SS4A program is is like it's a competitive grant program that's established by the federal government. This was established in the bipartisan infrastructure law back in 2022. There was essentially $5 billion appropriated between 2022 and 2026, which funds planning, demonstration, and implementation projects. Now, implementation projects are like actual construction projects. Planning and demonstration projects are more studies, and that's what we have before you tonight from the city's project. The The program was set up to improve safety for all people who use our roadways. To date, just under $4 billion of that $5 has already been provided to 2,000 communities nationwide, so we're one of the 2,000. And the goal of the program is to go to zero roadway deaths using the safe system approach. Now, with the safe system approach, this is something that's been adopted by the Federal Highway Association. It's really a shared responsibility. Traffic safety isn't just for the roadways, it's not just for the drivers, it's also about safer vehicles, it's about safer speeds. We know that when cars go slower, it's less impact on the body when there is an accident or a collision. It also takes into account the roadway safety, so how are roadways designed to ensure that they are operating safely. It actually talks about post-crash care to ensure that we have appropriate emergency response. there is an accident, we can take care of those people that are involved in those accidents. And then safer people, and making sure that we can educate our drivers to know how to drive safely, how to stay off their phones, not be distracted when they're driving. So, it's really it takes all of those elements together to get to zero fatalities on a roadway system. Um, while that is while that may seem like a a lofty goal, I think it's one that we can all stand behind. I mean, I I think we can all say that um no roadway death is an acceptable one. Um, so anything that we can do combining all of those approaches is something that I think we can all take accountability on and and move forward with. Um, so that's what the SS4A program really is at the heart of it. Um, safer streets for Shakopee. Uh, how we actually are going to be using this funding to support the city of Shakopee. We received uh $400,000 in a combination of state and federal funds to be able to do this project. Um, really my goal when this came about and and when we decided to apply for this grant is we wanted to use a a take a proactive approach to reduce fatal and serious injury crashes. Um, rather than rather than be reactive where we see there's an accident history at an intersection or see that there's um there was a crash on a roadway. Um, we wanted to take that step forward and see where could there be an accident? Where are we seeing that roadways are are um operating outside of the norms? Um, and then how can we implement um solutions before we actually see those issues? So, taking a proactive approach is something that we can get ahead of some of those issues that we might see in our system. That was my goal with this. Um, this study that we complete will help guide our roadway safety strategies for everyone, not just drivers, but for pedestrians that are walking, for uh for bikes, and we look at e-bikes that are on the roadways. Um, there's a lot of things that go under our roadway system when it become when it talks about roadway safety. Um, with the study we're going to be reviewing all roadways. So, we'll be looking at city streets, county streets, um US Highway 169, but the primary focus of the study will be on Shakopee streets. Um, and we'll use the outcome of the study as the basis for future safety grant opportunities. That that's a really um great thing about this project is by identifying a lot of these safety issues and um potential solutions that positions us really well to chase safety grants that could be available in the future that we can then implement those projects. So, already being ahead of this, doing this study, doing public engagement, identifying solutions already really helps us when we try to get other grant funding opportunities. In addition to the safety action plan, we're we'll be conducting two supplemental planning activities. What that means is we have the safety plan that we're going to be doing, which is what I'll get into with that exactly means, but with our grant application that we submitted for, we included two different projects that we're also getting funding for. These are projects that we wanted to complete in-house, but we didn't have the funding for, so we were able to use these grant funds in order to do those projects. One is doing a continuing our 10th Avenue safety study. This is something that we've talked about with council before. We've partnered with the CAPS program. We've had Safe Routes to School grants. Now, we're going to be taking it a step further with this funding, and we'll also be doing a a low-speed volume intersection audit, and I'll get into what that exactly means in a future slide. This project really starts now, and it'll go through April of 2027. So, this is a pretty quick project that was due to a lot of the timelines that we put in our grant application. It took us almost 2 years to work with the federal government to get a grant agreement established, and we lost a lot of time in actually delivering this project. So, now we're going to be working quickly. Building off of our safety plan in Shakopee is just you know, Shakopee is a unique area. We want to look at this not only from you know, the state of Minnesota, the the national standards, but the Shakopee context. Shakopee we know has a younger population, significantly younger than average for the state of Minnesota, which that equates to additional vulnerable transportation users like school children that may be walking on our roadways. So, if we have a younger population, there's the that those vulnerable users are out in in our area. We know we have a lot of visitors that come to Shakopee for event traffic. These are people that are unfamiliar with our roadways, unfamiliar with the context of Shakopee that are coming in for a night and leaving, um that are um maybe not making the right the the safest choices as well when they're coming to the city. So, our safety plan needs to have that in its context. So, we're not just looking at 8:00 to 4:30 when people are coming in going to work, but there's this other event traffic that's happening outside of the norms. Uh we have major employers in the city of Shakopee, so there's a lot of travel that comes into Shakopee and leaves Shakopee, whether it's in the morning or the afternoon, um especially along Highway 169. We know there's issues and challenges already with that highway, um and really we want to study how we can try to mitigate some of those issues that we've already seen. Um Shakopee is a diverse population. Uh we have um about 35% non-white and more than 16 16% foreign-born within the city of Shakopee, which again leads to more vulnerable users on our transportation system. Um then there's two unique components of Shakopee. One One is growth and development. Uh we have a lot of new roadways that are getting built. Um having these safety strategies identified with the study allows us to build roadways safer from the start and not need to react and reconstruct after roadways are already built. So, we can take advantage of a lot of these ideas that we're going to come up with the study to implement those before the roads actually get built. So, we can use that through our comprehensive planning project, which we're going to be starting uh this year, um and identifying goals and ways to make Shakopee safer from the start. Um also we have a historic downtown. We know that there's there's a lot of our population that's been in Shakopee, have seen a lot of these changes that have happened over the years, uh but they know a lot of the context about Shakopee and a lot of the history. So, taking them into consideration when we look at some of the changes that we'd be making in redevelopment in our downtown area. >> [snorts] >> So, what is an actual safety action plan? Um based on the the SS4A grant, we have a requirement to follow a certain rubric uh to develop the safety action plan. Um that was part of the grant requirements. The first step is a leadership commitment and goal setting. That's really where the council comes into play. Um we're going to be establishing an official commitment to a goal of zero roadway fatalities and serious injuries on our roadways. Again, um that's a lofty commitment and a lofty goal. Um other communities in Minnesota that have done this have established a goal of year 2045 or 2050 in order to do that, which gives time to implement a lot of these safety strategies and initiatives and work together to come up with ways to reduce those serious and and fatal injuries. We will not get penalized if we don't achieve that goal, but establishing that goal from the front will help drive to make this project successful by knowing that we have this shared commitment as a community to um accept the fact that um any fatality on our roadways unacceptable. So, setting that goal and official commitment from the city council will allow us to drive this project forward and make a real impact. Um we'll be working with the community to establish a planning structure. Um what this will this will be called the Safety Action Plan Committee. So, this isn't just city staff. This is working with all of our partner agencies, our our school district, State of Minnesota, Scott County, um the Chamber of Commerce, uh the TZD Coalition, elected officials, our traffic safety committee, MVTA, Palmer Bus, all these different entities that operate and and use our roadways in the city. We're going to be bringing individuals from all of these groups together to come to come and and create a coalition. It'll probably be about 20 to 30 members. We'll meet quarterly through this project, so four or four or five times. We're already working on establishing that first meeting next month. Um and what this this committee will ensure that we're um we're following through on our commitments, we're on schedule, we're working through, we're getting feedback from the community to ensure that the plan that we put forward um really uh gets to the heart of Shakopee. Um so, we'll be working with a lot of different community members to create this partnership. Um the next component is is the safety analysis. So, where are the crashes that we're seeing on our roadways? Where are we seeing speeding issues? Where are high priority roadways? Where do we see the most traffic, the highest crashes? Where are the most serious fatal injury crashes actually occurring? We'll be pulling a lot of data to do that from the technical side of things, but the other component is community feedback. We want to know where people don't feel safe driving, where they've had um near misses, where they know that there's some issues that have seen that maybe we don't have that data for. So, taking that community context with that technical data will allow us to really identify where we have safety issues in the city. Um, along with that is we'll be doing a pretty large engagement and collaboration um um uh event throughout the city. So, we'll be working with community representatives to get feedback, um whether that's uh stakeholders or our partner agencies or any resident. So, we'll be taking a three-level approach. One is discover, we'll be going to the community, identify those issues. We'll then develop strategies and then we'll document what those strategies are and bring those back to the public. Some of the things you'll see is we'll have pop-up events throughout the summer, so we'll be at Sand Venture, we'll be at a lot of the park and recreation uh events that are throughout the city. We'll be at Rhythm on the Rails, other community events um to try to get feedback as from the the broadest perspective of people that we can. And then after the project is done, we'll have an open house where we'll go back and share with the public all of the feedback that we heard and what we're proposing with this project. Um, we'll be looking at our our vulnerable population assessments, so uh where there's um young new drivers, where there's youth that are walking on our streets going to parks, going to schools, where we have elderly populations that are vulnerable drivers. We'll be looking at all of those contexts when we look at an equity consideration, um so that we know if there's a a vulnerable population in a certain area, even a smaller amount of accident history may not translate uh the same because we may have someone who's more vulnerable to a a more significant injury. So, we want to take that into context. Uh we'll be looking at policy and process changes, so ways that we can change our policies to include safety initiatives within them, and that'll go a lot with our comprehensive planning as well. And then one thing that I'm really excited about is the strategy and project selections. So, we'll be actually looking at different improvements and and actually coming up with plans to make those improvements so that we can come up where we see if there's a safety issue at a certain intersection, we can already come up with a strategy to make those changes so that when we let's say reconstruct that roadway we will have already identified some solutions that we can include in that project in a lower cost initiative. It'll also allow us to again pursue some grant opportunities if we've already identified a need, we've identified a project, what that project costs, how to deliver it. It's a really easy grant application from that standpoint. And then last is progress and transparency. Essentially, how are we doing? Are we achieving the goals that we set out to achieve? If we if we said every we're looking for a 5% reduction in accidents every year, at the end of every year we're going to be going back and pulling that crash data and really review if we're actually making a difference in the community. The next is the supplemental planning activities. The first is the the 10th Avenue safety analysis. We know we have an upcoming reconstruction project in 2028 and 2029. So, we're going to be coming up with a plan to improve safety along that roadway as we reconstruct it. We'll build off the previous Safe Routes to School project studies. We'll include more safety analysis and public feedback along the corridor, not just working with the schools, but the people that are driving the throughout the throughout the year. And then we'll be coming up with a concept design that's safety focused. And that'll set the basis for funding and grant opportunities. My goal is that we can actually obtain grants to implement with this reconstruction project to bring taxes down and allow us to do a different project than we actually can afford based on our current funding in the CIP. That can include adding trails or sidewalks along the the where there's gaps where people have to actually walk into the street. It could be reducing lanes where we know there's conflict points from vehicle weaving. It can be adding pedestrian crossings in certain areas where we know pedestrians want to safely cross to get to schools. So, there's a lot of things that we'll focus on this corridor and and that'll be the first thing that we do with this with this study. The second activity is this low volume intersection policy. The goal with this effort is to develop a policy for appropriate intersection control. Now, this is on low speed, low volume intersection. So, think local roads where you have 30 mph speed limit in residential areas. If you go drive in our downtown corridor, you will see there is a hodgepodge of yield signs, stop signs, no control that brings you to an all way stop to a three way stop. It it's very inconsistent and as a driver, especially visitors that are coming from the area, it makes it very challenging to drive our corridor in a safe manner because you really have to pay attention to your surroundings. So, what we're going to be doing is doing an audit of all of our intersections. Where we have stop sign control, where we have yield sign control, and then reviewing based on industry standards and safety data, what actually is appropriate for those intersections. And not just focused on one specific intersection, but corridors in context. Where we have a high volume of traffic traveling in in one direction, does it make sense to actually have them stop here, yield here, stop, or should we continue on and not have stop signs for a certain stretch until it meets a different roadway. So, we're going to be removing those inconsistencies and setting standards both for our existing roadways, but also new development. So, as we're growing, we can maintain that same consistency that we're going to establish in our older parts of town with our newer parts of town. So, Shakopee all acts the same from that standard. And lastly, we will be developing an implementation implementation plan. Obviously, this costs money to go change out signs. So, we'll be looking at priority areas so that we can then program projects in the CIP where if we need to tackle one part of town first, we can proactively do those approaches and and know what those costs are. Um so I'm really excited about that. I know that you'll hear from a lot of our staff as we get a lot of questions about stop signs and and requests for it. Having this study already done will be a lot It'll allow us to answer questions from our public very confidently based on technical data, something that we've already analyzed and reviewed. It'll allow us It'll hopefully allow us to build trust with the public that what we're doing isn't just giving them an answer cuz we think we know it all, it's because we've actually done something that creates safe roadway system. Lastly, is how can you participate? This is This is for the public. This is for staff. This is for council. You can subscribe to our project website shakopeemn.gov/ss4a. We already have have a survey on that website. It It asks questions about how do you use our roadways? Where do you feel unsafe? All of those things that we're trying to get feedback on. You can add feedback to a comment map. We have a map of the city of Shakopee. You can drop a pin right where you've had an issue, where it's a near miss. You can add a comment, add, you know, what happened in that, and we'll review that as we go through the project. You can volunteer to be on our safety action plan committee. You can visit us at pop-up events throughout the summer. You can attend our open house at the end of the year. So there's a lot of ways that we're going to be going out to the public. It's not just right here. We'll be sending out direct mailers. This is already in the June subscription for our Shakopee Snapshot. We'll have social media publications about this. And if you scan the QR code, it'll take you right to our project website. Uh and that's all I have for you tonight. I'll stand by for questions and feedback. Otherwise, we're going to be quickly moving forward with this project, and I'm really excited about the impact that it can make in the community. Questions, feedback for staff. Councilor Woidtke. opportunity here. Um under the low volume intersection policy, is there any opportunities for us to include a bullet or focus on the rail crossings for a future quiet zone? Yeah, that area certainly is part of this area that we're going to be studying and that's a great focus that we can certainly look at, too. I potentially get into some more grant money for something like that. Yep, good good suggestion. I'm almost signed up, so. Any other >> [laughter] >> feedback or questions? I I have a lot of This would just be great for night to night when we get all like, "Can I have a stop sign here?" I'll be like, "Hold on, 1 second." Just have the QR code available. You can hand it out. We'll get some more out. So, I have a couple of uh I guess it is comments that I jotted down here. When I when I looked at the the 10th Avenue, one of the things I keep thinking about is counter sinking the bus loading and unloading zones, so they're not right up against the traffic lane. Um I don't know how possible that is, but that location, if it is possible, is probably the easiest. Don't really know the engineering side. Uh what else did I have here? Um Sign changes, yikes. I got to say at 10th Avenue and Apcar had a stop sign. They took it down. After 5 years, I've been stopping at that stop sign that isn't [laughter] there. That's a long time ago, but uh that that does happen. I mean, people get used to something that's there and now it's not there and it takes a lot of that to relearn that. Um so, if we're going to change signage, somehow we have to make sure in this process that something is telling you there's a change here. Yeah. Um that's going to be pretty critical. And then the last, obviously e-bikes, but that's a whole separate argument. It's a lot of it is the user. Um Don't even start. Are we going to prioritize um and I say that because speed plays a huge role in the severity and of injuries and death. And we can talk about the low volume, low speed, you know, 8th and Minnesota Street intersection compared to 169 and the call load and the end results of the speed. So, the question is are we going to prior- prioritize to where the biggest impact is? Yep. Yeah, um thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council. Um there's there's two things. One is the the safety analysis that we talk about these high priority roadways. So, we'll identify those, the ones that carry the most traffic, that have, you know, most speeding issues or higher speeds, that where you see the most crashes. So, those will be identified specifically, and we'll create what's called a high injury network. Um secondly is is part of this program is we actually got funding to subscribe to different vendors that allow us to have real-time speed data. So, we can track speed data on every single roadway throughout the city of Shakopee and identify trends every single day of the year. Um and we already have that vendor under contract. What it uses is connected vehicle data and cell phone data in certain vehicles um to really get about a 30% snapshot of the vehicles on the roadway. So, we can see where roads are operating above the speed limits and identifying certain trends on our roadway system. So, as part of speed, we'll be looking at those higher speed roadways, but also even if we have a low speed roadway, we could be seeing speeds that are 40 mph. So, so we don't need to go send out a speed trailer from the PD. We don't need to have someone out collecting radar data. We can get a really good snapshot of how our roadways are functioning all throughout the year. Even though them two are options might be good prevention tools. That's correct. Yep. So, I you know, I read this and it you know, you got supplemental activity one, activity two, but 169 is not listed in here per se, but I I think that's because it's a separate one. It's part of it as well. And we need to review Highway 169. The great thing is we've already we've already done that initial study and we're going to be building off of that so we don't need to start from scratch but we need to review every single roadway in the city of Shakopee and 169's included. And then my promotion are down the road through the state of Minnesota it's a state highway and the goal there is to make it much safer and re- reduce the call load. What are we up to over it's got to be close to 3,000 calls per year now. Yep. And and the really nice thing is having MnDOT a part of this study they're a partner to this so when we formally adopt it if we do identify ways to make it safer they've been a part of that process and it'll make it a lot easier with us to work with them to identify solutions that they can implement along the roadway. Well, I obviously am all in for multiple reasons but so yeah it's this is good. This is good. Mr. Mayor I do have one I do have a lot. So with this safe roads for all safer vehicles safer roads safer people the and we just brought it up those e-bikes I really think that we should think about implementing some sort of educational course for these kids. I mean they're out they're out they're out it's tis the season golf carts already out on the road. I mean talk about I'm just waiting for the day these kids zoom out in the road and are not following proper safety precautions in intersections and so I really would like to see something come out of this dealing with that because whether we need to pioneer it and be the first city to implement something or what because they're not going away. I just want to comment that and it's in my liaison report too that there's potentially changes to the e-bike requirements at this in the state legislature right now. Sure. Some of the things I was thinking about and I mean we're getting off topic but it is safety related is you remember the era of the pedal bicycles where you go down to city hall city clerk and they give you a little sticker you stick it on your bike. Bike license, right? >> We could that state could mandate that as a requirement for the three different classifications of e-bikes and that there is your opportunity for the training on what the rules are for that specific classification. Working with the state on that uh legislators, hopefully it'll pass by partisan. It's pretty common sense and it saves lives. Um but you know, we'll see. We'll see what happens. There's a lot of gridlock going on, too. So Concert Contraras. Just to add on that, I do want to say that our SROs have been educating our kiddos in school. So um and I know I've had a conversation with their chief about this actually today and I mean, it's hard because we do see them down the sidewalks doing you know, popping a wheelie and you're like they're not wearing a helmet and it's it's just we have to make our kids responsible too cuz as parents, we do. We'll go buy them the helmet. The helmet's sitting in the garage and it's like why aren't you wearing it? So it's I I don't know. It's I know that our our police officers our SROs are working with their kids getting them to you know, educate them cuz it's educating educating educating. I get it. But it's like listen. >> [laughter] >> Sorry. It's much easier to enforce when you you know they've been trained on what the requirement rules and expectations are. Um it's it's a lot easier from the enforcement side. You know, I'll go back to the Jerry Pool thing when he told me, you know, if you want to burn up the streets there's a racetrack right there. The faster you go, the more they're going to pay you. What's your excuse, right? He's spot on right. So it's kind of the same. You really you got to put them in a position to where they don't have an excuse for not being safe because they've already been educated on it. They should know what the expectations are and they should be clear. At the same token, I hope they have a good time. I'm not against I'm not against e-bikes at all, you know? Just be responsible, yeah, responsible. >> Exactly. Exactly. Council, what do you think? I'm good. >> Are we all in? It's informational only. So, Mr. Delaney, what do you think? You think it's a good thing? I think it's a good thing. Okay. Definitely helps the been almost t-boned a couple times on the street, so definitely getting safety studies in and also along with 10th Avenue got a lot of questions about that, the stop signs, of course, the school being there. So, this is a definitely an opportunity. No, great uh safety first, right? Uh and I have been hit at one of those yield signs, so you know, keeping the consistency would be great. So, in an unco- Oh, wait. We'll go go go through this. Your comments? You're good. Mr. Lara. So, let me ask, if you come up to a four-way uncontrolled intersection, what's the current law tell you to do? Let's This is a trivia. This is a trivia for everybody. Person on the right. You yield to the person on your your right. And I don't think a lot of people know that or disregard that or I don't I don't know. I haven't read the owner the manual driver's manual. I guess I'll sit down with my grandson and read it with him and he's about ready to get his license and then I'll know if they're still teaching it. Very good. We're all on board. Yep. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Thank you. Item 9D, annexation comprehensive plan amendment, Musa expansion and zoning. Director of Planning and Development, Mr. Kursky. The floor is yours, sir. Thank you, Mayor. Mayor and Council, again, this is annexation comprehensive plan amendment for MUSA expansion and zoning. City of Shakopee has submitted an application for annexation comprehensive plan amendment to figure 4.60 in the plan metropolitan urban service area, also known as the MUSA, in the 2040 comprehensive plan and zoning to agriculture preservation AG. Property is approximately 16 acres and includes the adjacent public right-of-way of Zumbro Avenue, located west of Zumbro Avenue and south of Highview Park to 30 ft north of the Jackson Township line. So, the property in question is uh the Bauer property down in the corner here. If you remember, this is uh Highview, the D.R. Horton property. This is Greenview, the new Lennar project. And this is the Bauer property. Property is presently zoned UER in Scott County, which is the urban expansion reserve. The request would zone the property as agricultural preservation, which is what its current use is. There's no change necessary to present guiding. The application request would be consistent with the orderly annexation agreement between Jackson Township and the city. City has proposed in the annexation at this time as the property to the north and east are in their development phase. It's essential that Zumbro Avenue right-of-way be annexed into the city for the city to take over maintenance of this road away from Scott County. And this is the last developable parcel along Zumbro Avenue in Jackson Township. So, the MUSA is down here. So, that will now be in the MUSA. And again, you can see the Greenview was the most recent MUSA expansion. This is the proposed MUSA expansion. Uh we did meet with the property owner, uh the families that own this, and we're working with uh on eventually getting them sewer because you'll see in probably January next year this parcel down below which is currently in Louisville Township will be proposing to annex into the city. Um this is owned by the Sand Family Trust and they have it under contract with a developer. So there are three separate votes required tonight approving resolution R 2026-060 approving the annexation of the property two approving resolution R 2661 approving the comprehensive plan amendment for the um Musa which does require a supermajority and then adopting ordinance O 2026-009 approving the property zoning to agricultural preserve. Questions of staff Mr. uh Reynolds. Yeah thank you Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to remind you specifically uh in our quarterly meeting with the county that we had I believe two weeks ago this was one of the areas that Scott County had specifically asked that we annex in um because they were it it essentially is cut off uh and they wanted us to bring it in so we would then be have responsibility for it so So they won't have to drive all the way out there to plow just in front of that property. >> Yeah [snorts] exactly. So that just uh uh the county is fully on board with that. >> Right. Uh questions of staff. Question I have is uh did Jackson Township discuss this at all and have any position? Mayor and council they were notified as required we didn't get any feedback. I think that they understand we're almost to the end of the line here and they understand that we're brought sewer and utilities down and they don't want to have to work with Scott County to maintain this last piece of roadway. And the property owner is okay with this action? Mayor and council they came to the Planning Commission. They then met with uh our staff and engineering staff and they are fine with it. Okay. Wishes of Council? Councillor Contreras. I'll take the first one. Um I make a motion to approve resolution R-2026-060 approving and the annexation of property. Is there a second? Second. Councillor Delaney seconds. Discussion on the motion? Discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say I. I. Opposed? Motion passes. Take the second one. >> Mr. Delaney. Make a motion to approve resolution R-2026-061 approving a comprehensive plan map amendment to figure 4.60 planned metropolitan urban service area MUSA in the 2040 comprehensive plan. I'll second. Seconded by Mr. Lyra. Discussion on the motion? MUSA, metropolitan urban service area. MUSA. Do they ever complain about us expanding? Mm, no. It depends who you talk to, I guess. Um discussion on the motion? Discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say I. I. Opposed? Motion passes. And the last action, wishes of Mr. Lyra. Make a motion to adopt ordinance O-2026-009 approving the zoning to agricultural preservation and zone. Second. Seconded by Mr. Whiting. Motion by Mr. Lyra. Is there any discussion on this motion? And ag preservation, basically of what it is now and if the property owner wants to develop, they will have to come back for a zoning change. Mayor, that's Platted out. Preliminary plat. Final plat. Any discussion or questions of staff? Questions? Discussion of the motion? No. Seeing none, all in favor say I. I. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. Thank you. Thumbs up. Item 9E. First Due Community Connection Platform. Uh Fire Chief Joe Simon is going to be represented tonight by Fire Marshall. Um I threw myself a blank after 45 years here. How can I do that? >> Tom Pitschneider. >> Tom Pitschneider, I'm sorry. And while Tom's getting ready, uh Mr. Mayor, members of Council, uh Chief Simon and I had discussed this and although it doesn't technically need to come before you, uh we decided that it was certainly something that uh we wanted to bring for education of the community, uh to talk about uh the ability to uh have families uh provide information about their particular homes that, you know, where people might be sleeping or if there's somebody that needed some extra care. Uh we just thought it was a great idea to to get the word out and and so educate you also as well. Uh it didn't technically need to come before you, but we decided to anyway. So, do we technically need to have to take any action? Well, we'd like you to. Okay. Yeah. Show support for it. Are you ready, Mr. Person Pitschneider? I am ready. Floor is yours, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor and members of Council. We're here tonight to talk about Community Connection. This is a program where residents and businesses can actually input information. It is a 100% voluntary. They can put it in on their own. So, it is a program that's part of our fire prevention program and part of our software that the fire department is already using, part of our record management. As I said, participation is voluntary. Residents and businesses can upload as much or as little information as they'd like. All the accounts are secured by a username and a password, and only the user can access their account. Users can also delete their profile at any time if they feel that they don't want to be part of the process. Only the fire department can access the information, and we have the ability to remove an account down the road. So, let's say you have created an account, you sell your house, you fail to delete the account, new resident moves in, wants to create a new account, the system will not let them create a duplicate account on an address until we delete the previous one. So, there's always the process of only one user per address. >> So, they'll have to prove that they actually have ownership of that property and before the fire department will purge the old information. >> Right, and it's based off the GIS data, so you can't put in a parcel that doesn't exist. So, you have to have a valid address within the city of Shakopee. So, right now there are several other users around us. Um, Burnsville uses it, Chanhassen, Chaska, Eden Prairie, Lakeville, and Savage are all part of the process. So, what can the residents put in? It's looking at basically four things in each area. So, your property, access to utilities, number of bedrooms, locations of bedrooms, where the front door is to the residence, any gated door codes that may be helpful for the fire department accessing your property, if you have a pool, your utility shut offs, and any emergency meeting location. So, if your family has a fire prevention plan and your plan is to meet at the tree or meet at the mailbox, that can be in our access already, and we can have that information as we're responding to a call. Second, your people. Number and age of the occupants. It looks at occupants under 18 and over 65. And that's specifically for our statistic data of fire injuries and deaths primarily occur in those under 18 or over age 65. So, those are our target audiences on each side. We don't specifically ask for a detailed age, but number of individuals under 18 and under and over 65. Your needs. Needs include information on occupants' health, medical, mobility, or language issues. So, if you're on home oxygen, you can put in check a box that says there's home oxygen in use. If you have asthma, you can check a box. We have no other information behind that. I can know that you have oxygen in the house, but I don't know through this process what that oxygen is for. So, there's no medical data acquired, just causes of what you may have. So, nobody's putting in medical records, drugs, that type of stuff. That is not collectible in this operation. And then, pets and livestock. So, animal type, dog, cat, horse, pig, um the name of the animal, the description of a picture. Um you can put your veterinary information in, who your vet is. So, say the fire department shows up, we have to rescue a cat or a dog out of a building, we automatically know where that emergency vet information may be. That's already in our process. On the business side, same kind of setup. So, business name, business type, number of staff in the business is all importable through their property plans. Through their people, again, details of the occupants, where they may be, where different areas are in the building. Information in this one changes a little bit because we look at access, look at utilities, fire detection, fire alarm, fire suppression systems, and hazardous materials. Businesses can upload some of that information through this portal. And last, contact information for businesses that emerge to key holder. So, at oh dark 30, when we're responding, we have information on who has keys to that building so we can get in or if we've got a key box, we can call somebody and say, "Hey, we're in your building. You have X problem. You need to respond." So, it's going to give us that early information. Next, help us help you. How do you sign up? So, very easy. You need a phone number, you need an email address, and you need the property address. That's the only three things you're required to put into the system. Now you've got a username and access, you create yourself a password, and you can provide all this information that we need. Mayor. So, example, what would stop me from signing up, saying my address is Counselor Contreras's address, give you my cell phone number, and my email address? I got to look in the system. I think it would be something that we would look at as they come in and verify the addresses are correct. There's nothing that ties the property owner to your username. So, but I will look deeper into that and make sure. Okay. So, we verify we get the right responsible party for each property. >> Right. Right. Yep. And then the the other question Well, I'll wait and see if anybody else has any other Sure. Go ahead and let him finish up. >> Go ahead. Okay. Um So, you can connect from any internet provided device. Information is 100% voluntary is an access only accessible to the firefighters while we are responding. It actually shows up on our mobile data terminals in our truck. And the data is protected by bank level security. So, it's something that's not accessible outside of the software. So, what does it look like? So, for you as a resident, this is the resident portal. There are a number of tiles on it, and you click on each tile to enter information. So, you've got the my information, household information, contacts, any functional needs, any pets, utilities. You can put other attachments in. You could put a drawing of your house. You could put your home safety plan that your kids have developed through their educational stuff in school. You can add a lot of stuff. And there's also a smoke detector tab on here. We'll talk about that a little bit later before I wrap up. On our side in the apparatus, what we are going to see is a responder view. So, this is a address. In this case, I know it's got a basement. I know that the resident has submitted or said that they have a meeting place. And I can tap on the apparatus on these tabs and get additional information. So, I've highlighted the the uh middle one there with a disability. And basically, I've created an individual named Shelley who's age 16 with some different functional issues. And we have that while we're responding. We can see that immediately ahead of time. We're not showing up on the scene trying to gather that data. Now, it's been provided to us. Continuing, we can look at the business portal, very similar for businesses to import information. They do have a couple other fields at the end with the hazardous materials, and then the fire suppression systems. How extensive is your hazardous materials listed? And are you already connected with the county We are connected with the county, so you could put in stuff by MS or SDS number. You can put it in by UN number. So, you can put quite a bit in. Okay. It's Again, it's up to the business owner if they want to do that. It's not something we're going to force them to do when we've already got Tier 2 reporting. So, pretty valuable for smaller businesses. >> Yep. Yep. And we do have the Tier 2 stuff kind of behind this in the property data that this also links to. Mr. Lara? >> One thing I noticed on here under under the business portal, the occupancy information, that it says, "Is this a short-term rental?" Yes or no. I thought that was interesting. Yes. Good idea. Cuz that's a I mean, I guess you never thought about that. You never know what's >> And that is under the resident one, too. Oh, oh, as an option. So, if it's a short-term rental and they don't have a house if it's residential, and if they don't have a rental permit, will this data then get them convicted of that? If we're track Depends how deeply we're tracking it. A lot of what we're seeing now when we go out on a fire call is we're tracking who the property owner is. And if we see that's a rental property, many cases I'm getting that in my office, and I'm forwarding it to city staff and saying, "Hey, we were at this property. It's a rental. I went into our licensing program. I don't see that there was a license issued." That goes to Mr. Kursky's department. They can follow up, send appropriate letters to try to get that property licensed. So, we are doing a lot of sharing between departments right now. But, it's a disincentive if they're not licensed. Right. >> sign up. Yes. It's another potential way that we could find those properties that are short-term rentals or just rentals in general. So, the business portal on the fire side is a little more in-depth, gives us a little bit more information. So, that's our next slide. This is a simulated business in a vacant space out in Southbridge. So, you can kind of see we have pre-plans. We have information on systems. We have information on hazardous materials, contacts, different spots where key boxes are located, alarm panels are located, if there's a gate or a security fence, and then water and electrical shutoff all show up as icons in our apparatus. So, user benefits. Vital information is provided during the response, saving us valuable time upfront and minutes gathering that information in emergency when we arrive. Critical information on occupant accountability. So, we now know where to look for those occupants if they've provided that information. We have options within the software for them to opt in for various notifications, including information on severe weather, community activities, and other announcements. Those can be put out via either email or text messaging, and the individual can select what they want that to come as. So, they can say they want text messages, they want text and email, or they want nothing. So, they clearly select everything that they choose from. It builds on our current home safety fire safety program that we have now, where we can send firefighters out to visit homes, help with battery changes, help with smoke detector replacements. That type of stuff. This provides us a cleaner process to track those and bring them into the system. Right now, they go to our website, they fill out a form that's emailed, goes through several processes before we see it. Then we have to send it to the crews. This can be automatically assigned in the software to a crew that's going to respond out and deal with that. And then in the future, there's additions to this program that they're talking about which will let us do other community risk reduction things and bring some more services in such as firefighter visits, fire station tours, car seat installation checks, a lot of other things that we have qualifications for and we do now through a submittal on the website. We'll be able to submit everything through the community connect profile, keep it in one location, and keep it organized. Lastly, it's all about investing in a safer Shakopee. So, enhancing our situational awareness. When we get there, we have the information that we need. We're better prepared responding to those residents. Protects our most valuable and our most vulnerable people because we have that information up front. Do we have people confined to a walker? Do we have people confined to a wheelchair? Do we have somebody that's excessively overweight that we may need to deal with where we may need to send additional resources for that lift assist or that medical condition that we've been called to. Strengthening our partnerships. It gets us more involved with our community members, gets our community members more tightly involved in their own safety and in our organization. And it's scalable and secure. So, we talked about bank level. They can put in as much information as they want or as little, but it's not just a data program. It's that link between us and the residents to let them know that we have their best interest information and we're working in their best interest to help save lives and property in Shakopee. So, I'll stand for any questions. Council member Delaney. Yeah, [snorts] I had the same sentiment about um security. I mean, it sounds like do you just kind of sign up? Do they do users or residents get like a PIN when they sign up that that lets them know that this is from No, that is not >> sign up. Once they sign up, they get an email confirming that they go back and they put a code in to say that that is truly them as part of the process. Okay. And then as far as coming back into the system, how safe is it? Is it multi-factor authentication? I mean, do you It is not a multi-factor going back in. It's just your username and your password. Could we add that in? I mean, I I've I mean, I get an email or snail mail like every week saying you've been hacked here Yeah. or this. I will check with them and find out. I don't know if that's something that they're proposing. It's not something that's in the system right now for authentication. But I will check with them and find out. Thank you. My thoughts are already there. >> Mr. Widing. Find out your cat's name or something. Well, no, you have I mean, you have PIN information. Just some other information. Well, if it's a door code, that's something you probably don't want out there. You're right. So, this is a current to sub feature of uh product we're already using. So, there will be no added cost. It's no added cost to the residents. It's already part of the package that we have in the fire department. So, it's already part of our first two incident management fire department management package. And scalable to any size. Yep. Yep. No cost to residents. They they sign up for free. They provide their information for free. I would think pet owners uh would really want to have this information in there. Small businesses that maybe not under the you know, on the radar of the county hazardous waste people or or tier two type stuff. You know, or even businesses that have a special spot in their in their store or business where maybe there's something special to them that they want us to try to protect. That's all information they can put in. And you mentioned oxygen, that's you know, that's a major flammable issue. So, coming in for your firefighter's safety is is a big concern. So, all that info, all that data, that's going to equal safety for our firefighters. So, >> Right. I think that's good. >> Correct. Councilmember >> Sure. Um, how are do you guys have a plan in place um to get the word out for this? Yes, we're going to start working with marketing. Our city hall marketing staff, we've already got some marketing pieces from other cities that we've looked at. Excuse me, so we've got some flyers. We're going to do we're looking at business card size handouts and postcard size handouts to give out at all our community events. Um, all of our downtown events, Rhythm on the Rails, anytime we're out we're going to give out that information. >> Night to night. A stack of for the chamber maybe we'd be able to. >> And get out to some of the businesses. I want to try to get in front of Rotary and Chamber and some of those organizations, too. Sure. I just have one more thing. Um, one more question. Um, >> have you have you heard from some the surrounding communities that use this? Do they have good participation? They have fairly good participation. Um, they're they're seeing more of it from residences than they are businesses in the ones that I've talked to. Um, Chaska and Savage both have a better presence of residents than they do of businesses. Sure. And then did they give you any feedback in terms of like, "Hey, we really seen this work out well to reach out to people this way?" Um, most of them are saying the postcard or a small handout is the best way to get the marketing out to people. Um Chaska's done some stuff on their website. They've done some stuff in their city newsletter. Same concept that we're going to be doing. Um our next city newsletter does have an article on community connect in it. So we're starting to introduce it to the community. Um we'll continue to do that throughout the summer. And we'll just continue to build the program with your blessing. Yeah, thank you. Council Contreras. Thank you. Um it's a new opportunity and new tool for our community. So let's give it a shot and see what happens. So a couple of things. Um And I'm hearing from council one concern is uh the authen ticity. Just making sure two factor authen multi-factor whatever and how we can make sure that um not just that the system is secure, but if they're getting spammed that they're you know that they know it's actually coming from them. Um is that is that what you're asking what you're trying to get to? >> Just making sure that when the person that signs up is the person signing up and that going back in that you're the person accessing information again. Hacking happens all the time. Just want to make sure our system's secure. Well, if if if they're using email you're using email I Yeah, using an email address. >> it to the email. So the only way somebody could get what they're sending you is if they've got access to your email already. And and you have the opportunity today to have two factor authe- authorization on your email to protect yourself from that. Yeah, I everything, yes. >> Okay. So I think that one's covered. Um The other one was I think it's going to be critical to make sure that somebody doesn't call set up an account for an address that isn't theirs just a a spiteful type thing. >> Um And the future there's a future dispatch model that the city been working with the county and dispatch and stuff on for quite a while. We haven't rolled into it yet, and I recall the concern about the fire department module um that were available in that program didn't meet what the fire department was trying to look for or whatever. So, I guess the bottom line question is how does that fit into any future um module or program that is being contemplated? I don't know that we're there yet, but will this be separate or will it be able to fold into that or Sure. Mayor and members of the council, um I don't know what exactly the county's going to pick yet. I think we've got a fairly good idea what their process is going to be. Most of the fire departments right now in Scott County are going with the First Due platform. So, for us to switch to another platform that the county is potentially providing from their aspect would be cost-prohibitive to many of Okay. >> to do that switch again. Um us, Prior Lake, Savage, um Minnetonka just is looking at this program. Jordan is already on this program. So, a majority of the fire departments are already in First Due and using these technologies. We are able in First Due right now. I can look at buildings in Prior Lake and in Savage, and I can see certain information on them that the fire department has put in. I cannot see the stuff that a resident or a business uploaded, but I can see the stuff that the fire department put in. So, where the key box is on a building in Savage. So, if we're responding for some reason Savage is on another call, a Shakopee engine is going to Savage for something, or vice versa Shakopee is tied up, and a Prior Lake engine is coming to Shakopee, they can look at some of that information and see it. That's vital in an our cooperation between departments. I don't see that being something that the county's going to offer in their package. Okay, so you raised another concern, I guess, that maybe we can address. So, now if we're going to share information with surrounding communities, these other firefighters may have access to information that would give them access to a potential business or a resident through a key code or whatever. >> They will not have access to the stuff that the resident or the business types in. Only the stuff that we put in from our end. Okay. >> So, if you import your information, that only stays in our database. It's not shared across the other databases. Okay. So, what we have is locked down in the software of what we share with adjoining jurisdictions. Okay. All right. And where I think it would come in very handy is hypothetical, you have a resident that signs up, and it's voluntary. They can put in what information they want, as in-depth as they want. So, let's say somebody has a heart condition, and they're taking nitro, and fire department's on the way, somebody's down, whatever. They're the first on the scene. They're reading this. They're probably going to walk in, start their process of stabilization and checking out and doing what they do. And maybe there's a bottle there, and they look at it, and they like, "This person is on this." And they might just save their life right there on the spot. Yeah. >> Yeah. I mean, what we're looking for is those basic things. We're not looking Nitro's not something we can ask about within the system. Right, but So, there's only a certain selection of things that we can The resident could voluntarily put that in. >> They could voluntarily put it in in an other area if they wanted. There's only specific stuff that they can check as boxes. Okay. Um Alzheimer's dimensions is one, autism, cognitively impaired, deaf, hard of hearing, diabetic, Down syndrome. So, very generic things that we would see that would be flags for us Okay. >> as responders. So, it doesn't get into the depth of you're on high blood pressure medication. That is not part of what this is collecting. It's not collecting medical records. >> Right. Right. That was a good question. Do you get an insurance break, like home owner's insurance break if you sign up for this, like you have home monitoring with this? Does it fall under there in some form of fashion? Councilor Delaney, not that I am aware of. I'm not aware of any discounts that would be part of that. Have you ever seen a true home insurance insurance discount for anything? Mhm. Got a small percentage off some of my Right. Right. You mean your rates didn't go up as much. All right. Anything else from council? Mr. Whiting. I'll make a motion to approve the implementation of the first Duke Community Connect platform. Is there a second? Second. Motion by Councilor Whiting, seconded by Councilor Delaney, notating some of the various concerns we brought up that staff said they would look into deeper. Discussion on the motion. Discussion? All in favor, say I. I. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you for your presentation. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Mayor and members of council. Question. All right. Liaison administration reports. Which side did I start last time, Mr. Lara? Um you started on that side, so I'll start and I don't have anything to share at this time. >> Very good. Councilor Contreras. Um thank you, Mayor. So, I attended the scale meeting on Friday, April 10th, and while there were updates, um but I think the one um that caught my my attention the most was the election update. Um elections update. Um and my pretty much my takeaway was that there's a lot of changes com- coming. Um, you know, there's there's tons of stuff that's that will be happening and how to vote, who can vote, what you need to present. So, I don't know if it's okay if have a suggestion if we could have Ms. Julie Hanson come and give us an update. That would be something I feel that um, I'd like to see. Um, and I'd like us to make a note that I did appreciate that our staff was there. Um, our staff um, and and having them there so they can be on board. Um, I I appreciated that, but my main thing was I don't know if we could possibly do that. Yeah, counselor, that's a great idea actually. Uh, uh, assistant administrator Peterson has been contacting along with uh, uh, Rick, our city clerk on on the election issues and Yeah. uh, but absolutely coming in and there are a lot of changes. There are some things that we're looking at that we would like to I mean, so the reality is is that we have I know. two people paid to sit here for 45, 50 days and for several weeks you'll have five people coming and vote. Right. That's one of those things that that, you know, we would like to try to to see if it can't be changed at the state level, but then there's also some options that we're hearing about where we can request the county actually do some things. So, there there are a lot of things that are going on right now. Um, we are on top of it, but yes, we certainly can have them come in. I I don't think we have anything real knowledge of anything solid yet. Right. That's the key. >> Exactly. >> Uh, but yeah, when we when we do get that solidified, absolutely. Right. >> Great idea. You have things happening at both the federal level and the state level and it's like It's all moving parts. It is. It is. Great idea. With that it was just stay tuned for updates. So, that's it. And we did get our letter in of support for SCALE and the Oh, yes. 13 project in Savage and Burnsville to Nicollet Avenue which this council has supported for years along with the 169 quarter coalition, but I did double check to make sure there was support from majority of council on that project. So, Anything else? That's it. Mr. Weidell? Uh thank you. Uh 4/9 we had the ribbon cutting for MVTA's new uh bus garage which was the same day as the uh as the uh uh swearing in of our firefighters. We did get an award, so I know you guys probably attended, but uh Mr. Layman or Mayor Layman was uh gracious enough to attend. He probably wanted to see the new diesel mechanics and I wanted to see the shop. >> And the big shop uh fancy shop we have, but great attendance, a a great presentation, and uh uh so that was uh on the 9th. Uh then on the 15th I was at the Minnesota Chamber Day. Uh so the Minnesota Chamber, not the Shakopee Chamber was there as well. Uh Chamber Day at the Capitol. Um I was there for the business conference mostly because of the uh MPCA director and associate uh director was there talking about PFAS. So, uh you might not know this, but it cost $50 to $1,000 to create a pound of PFAS depending on the variety. It's going to cost 2.7 million to 18 million per pound to remove it and destroy it. So, uh of course the the 3M settlement is pretty much all used up, so we can't uh rely on them. Um but I think mostly because of the chamber's efforts the deadline for filing uh in the state's prison system where businesses have to file for their P fast report I got extended from July out to September. So that's good news at least for me. But a lot of other as you might know manufacturing is Minnesota's second largest business next next to health care. But there's a lot of uh key growth indicators that are sliding in Minnesota from 2007 to 2019 the GDP growth was 18th of all the states. Now between 2019 and 2024 were 33rd. Job growth was 20th now 39th. Labor force growth was 22nd now 40th. Per capita income growth was 25th. It's now 33rd. Growth in medium household median household income was 21st. Now it's 46th. So They got a list on there for taxation compared to other states in the nation. >> They probably do and that's probably a big part of it including I was talking to Council member Delaney about electrical costs and things like that. You know your utility costs are way up. So there is some concerns for our labor force. In in manufacturing um So uh We've all heard it but just a little more to know about. >> note we're we have very little P fast in here. When I say here Shakopee area compared to some of these other areas. >> Yeah so most of the money from the 3M settlement went to the East Metro. Yep East of the city areas. >> Cleaning up their water stuff. And then yesterday was the MVTA board meeting. Where [clears throat] we talked about uh our Apple Valley Transit modernization. So that's the next project through with some federal dollars. And of course an unmodified report from our audit. So, um good news there. Uh and then also uh back to the chamber um we had uh some legislators give their discussion and I think the most things we can expect is out of the legislate later this You think gridlock? Well, some of that, but HCMC uh is going to get somehow they're going to find money for HCMC. And I think that's bipartisan, so um that's that's what we're looking at. Very good. Counselor Delaney? Not a whole lot going on. I did attend the swearing of 20 new firefighters with uh Counselor Laura, Counselor Contreras, they were there also. Exciting to see that happen, putting our safer grant to work. Um I love the new faster, stronger, safer. That's I like I like that, so our fire department. Um so it was exciting. Uh that's the only thing. That's it. Very good. My report is uh April 9th. I couldn't make the fire thing and the MBTA thing at the same time, and I knew there was a couple of council members going to the fire thing, so we split up task. Um we did I attended with uh Counselor Whiting, who's our liaison. Uh he did a speech, nice job, by the way. Um spoke to some of our federal uh leaders about various things. I had a good some good conversations with the Congress Congresswoman Craig, who was in attendance, and uh some of Angie uh Amy Klobuchar's staff, and some others. Um nice improvement, and uh there was they took a site that really had some issues, and from the somebody else besides the transport MBTA had it, and they really capitalized on renewal of a site that uh had some issues to into modernization. So, it was a kind of a double winning deal there. >> A lot of soil corrections. You would have you would like that one, yeah. But uh so that was good, and and you know, a lot good things going on there. A lot of new equipment uh uh bus-wise and stuff. It was kind of cool seeing some of that stuff. I didn't realize that some of the brake pads and hold down springs and stuff on one of the trucks I was looking at with some of the guys. Some of these parts are just back ordered everywhere. Um it seems to be a supply issue across the nation. So, but anyway, um Um Mr. Reynolds pointed out that we had our joint quarterly meeting with Scott County. We basically talk about just various joint related issues uh between the city and Shakopee like we saw tonight on uh small little piece on on a roadway in in one last property. Um not a whole lot discussed because things aren't going just too bad. Uh talked a little bit about maybe the future insurance uh pools and how that's working out and where that's headed. Uh little ways away from that yet, but still working on it. So, a lot of a lot of joint things going on. Um obviously we we talk a lot about what the um trends are. Scott County trends, other cities, Shakopee's trends uh and just see if it's unique to one location or the other or if it's kind of the just a normal society trends. Um Had an opportunity to meet with uh bunch of state legislators and senators on Saturday, the 21st. Um talked a lot about what's going on at the state. One of the issues that we talked quite a bit about were were the e-bikes specifically. Uh and some of the revisions that they're working on. I I hope and pray that there's some bipartisan agreements in a time of division to really try to improve on that portion of law e-bike regulations and stuff like that that that doesn't make it harder to use them. It just makes it much clearer for everybody on what the rules are and like I was saying earlier if there was some kind of a licensing thing to where you know, it's not a money maker. It's an opportunity to hand somebody the information that they need to be safe and and to know what the expectations are so that there's not excuses. Okay. Um, this is not new. This is something we had when I was a kid with our bicycles, you know. Um, and I think that would go a long way. Uh, and we you know, we talked a lot of about a lot of other things that are going on on both sides of the aisle. Unfortunately, I I there just doesn't seem to be a whole lot of cooperation amongst each other. Uh, and that's just unfortunate because it's it's the people that they should be thinking about in general in general. Okay. Um, I think I'm going to stop there. Oh, I did meet with the new hockey president. I know that you all had a an email from staff about a scoreboard or something. Um, talked very we did hit on that just a little bit. Um, basically staff's uh, response pretty much summed it up. But in general, this is somebody that is new to our community. Came into our community. Is now the new uh, president for a period of time with our hockey association. Wanted some background information of hockey in Shakopee and just uh, it was a good conversation. Nice guy. Um, yeah, looking forward to good things coming out of somebody that's fairly new here and fresh slate. So, that's all I have. Mr. Reynolds. What do you have for us sir? Nothing for me sir. All right. News and announcements. Where did we start last time? I don't remember. I think I did so go ahead. Mr. Delaney you got the first pull up Mike up sir. >> Shakopee clean up day. Clean up day for residents of Shakopee, Louisville, Jackson Township is Saturday April 25th 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the public works building at 400 Gorman Street. IDs required see city website for details. I think most of us all always there. It's always a fun time and Mr. Reynolds guarantees it's going to be a sunny day. Well, thank you for that guarantee. I hope so. >> [laughter] >> I I did make that guarantee. I don't know if it was a guarantee. I think he just said he's pretty confident it's going to be a beautiful day. Mr. Whiting you're you're up. Yeah, following clean up day bring your coat. That's right. The tree sale pickup is also Saturday 20 April 25th. That's at 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the public works building 400 Gorman Street. See see the city website for details. And don't come before because it'll be busy with the clean up day. Um calls for Contreras. Oh, I get the long one. I thought you were going to do it. You want me to do it? Um You want to? Go for it. Bark in the park Shakopee Parks and Recreation Department's annual Bark in the Park event will be happening in conjunction with the grand opening of the Marystown Canine Agility Park on Saturday May 9th from 10:00 a.m. till noon. This free event will celebrate the official opening of Shakopee's newest dog park and will offer attendees a chance to visit with local dog friendly vendors to gather information about products and resources available in the area as well. As a check as a chance to check out all of the exciting features at the park has to offer. Dogs obviously are welcome and encouraged to attend with their owners as well. Make sure that the dogs keep their owners on a leash at all times. Um and have a good fun day. Do the dogs have to be registered with the city? Uh city requires dogs on a leash and tags and vaccinations, I believe. See, I wouldn't have done such a great job like you. All right. Um Shakopee Social District um reopening. So, the Shakopee Social District is reopening for the season starting on May 1st, 2026. You're coming Your cup Get your cup. Any other business? I I I just have one small one. It is is there any non-disclosure agreements that the city is involved in that the city council and I are not aware of? No. And what is the council's thought on bringing forward a future local policy of not allowing non-disclosure agreements? I guess I would want to know if there's any reason why we if What are the pros and cons of doing it, I guess. Um would it prevent us The reality is non-disclosure agreements aren't really valid in Minnesota. Uh most of the information is public, and if we're asked, we have to give it. So, uh often times, you know, if there is an NDA, it will specifically say as per Minnesota law, Yeah. you know, we are required to divulge things if if it is We've had since I've been here, maybe three or four over time. And none of them were actually non-disclosure agreements because Minnesota doesn't allow it. Okay, so I know the state legislature's taking up the issue to uh Yeah, so I From my perspective, it would be a lot easier for them just to say no, we're not going to do this at all. The The only The only issue I would have overall is if it somehow put us in a disadvantage. Uh if there was a project and and we refused to sign anything at all and then another community said, "Well, of course we will." And that would keep us out of the mix. But I I I think that's probably a pretty small chance of ever happening anyway. And if it's passed at the state then all the cities will be in >> then everybody would have to do it. I hope I hope they do. I hope they flat out say I think the issue is with the data centers and keeping that away from the public has been a big concern in other communities. Um Well >> But other businesses I can understand why they may want to It just seems kind of weird to me thinking about it when when you start talking up and going through the emotions, it's like how can you have and I'm not saying our staff, I'm saying any staff uh negotiating through a NDA without the elected body even knowing. So, they're in in essence they're they're negotiating on behalf of their elected body without knowing what the parameters to negotiate with within of the elected body. I think we've known about them all at every time. >> [laughter] >> And and like I said, it's not just for here. That that's just a global comment and that's probably how the state is looking at it, too. But just something to think about. All right. Anything else? Wishes of council? Mr. Lara? Motion to adjourn to May 5th, 2026 at 7:00 p.m. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Opposed? Motion passes. We're adjourned. Thanks, everyone. Good luck with the >> Mhm.