[Music] okay we'll call the Shak city council meeting to order for February 18th 2025 if we could take the role please yes Mr mayor council member Delaney here council member Whiting here council member Lara here mayor Layman here item number three pledge pledge of allegiance please join us to the flag United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all item number four we have uh special presentations 4 a is 202's off officer of the year award and that uh Mr Chief Tate will present good evening mayor members of council this is always a a special night and uh something we're very proud of uh tradition wise at the Shaka Police Department is to present our officer of the year award um I know you've heard this before but this is award completely uh nominated and selected by the people in the Shak Police Department uh tonight we're here to honor uh our 20 24 officer of the year officer Seth perer now um Seth received five different nominations from his peers five different peers for officer of the year there's a reason all these people are are here and out in the hallway um some highlights from these nominations and these are quotes always treats people with respect and dignity he he is a great example of what an officer should be always doing something positive and proactive showing his drive and determination to keep our community safe when you think of who best demon demonstrates the core values of this Police Department you think of Officer perer I could not agree more there are countless examples uh that back up those comments from his peers Seth was recognized by the Department of Public Safety in 2024 for a proactive stop he made uh at one of our area hotels again he's always out there doing something proactive uh he saw a suspicious vehicle in a parking lot uh his subsequent investigation uh led to uh over $1,500 of of pills being recovered an AK-47 and a handgun always staying busy proactive and looking out for this community when it comes to compassion and being empathetic and treating people with respect Seth is a standard Bearer I received an email from a person s Seth dealt with last year regarding a domestic situation here's what she said in the email he used compassion to assure me that the situation was handled calm me down and was empathetic it reestablished my belief and compassionate police officers who take the time to assess and accurately assess the situation and come to an outstanding solution this was not the first time I've heard comments like that about Seth and I from the community or his peers and I know it won't be the last one of the most important jobs we have in the police department is that of a field training officer I'd even argue that while they're field training they are the most important person in the police department they really shape and mold new officers and make sure that they do things the shocky way they are mentors active supervisors and it can be a very difficult assignment in 2024 Seth had over 400 hours of field training time with our new officers his mentorship and ability to teach new officers officers is vital to the future success of this organization as you can see from the comments both from his peers and the community it is vital Seth play a significant role in shaping the future of this Police Department moving forward I know when I called you and told you that you were the officer of the year uh selected you were extremely surprised I can tell you that none of us uh that know you and work with you were surprised in the least um this is well-deserved Seth uh the epitome of what a a great excellent police officer is um we're lucky to have you here at the Shak Police Department uh with the city of shaki and it is an honor to present you our 2024 officer of the year award congratulations mayor and Council if we can do a quick to [Applause] the war I would I would just add that when the uh accolades come from those that you work with and and those of the community that you serve that's a tattletail sign of true Community oriented policing and it's outstanding thank you item 4B Minnesota hem Emergency Management presentation director certificate to Captain Tim Nordstrom thank you Mr Mayor while while Chief Nelson gets up uh I'm going to just basically remind Council that as we continue to move forward with uh the changes in our uh Public Safety departments part of that is a shift from shaking Emergency Management from the police department where it currently resides and ultimately putting that in the uh fire department and this is a big step towards that uh and we're delighted that uh uh we're able to to present this today and as we continue to move that uh forward thank you Chief good evening mayor and Council I'm excited to be here tonight I'd like to ask Captain Tim Nordstrom and Mesa bang the director of training for Minnesota Homeland Security and Emergency Management uh come up and join me uh tonight Captain Nordstrom will be receiving the certificate for Emergency Management director title uh through Minnesota HSM this is a significant achievement for Captain Nordstrom in earning this as it takes tremendous commitment and dedication throughout his time to achieve the certificate I'm told he started it back in Co so it certainly takes time to to get here uh this accomplishment is not only a personal milestone for Tim but also a testament to the outstanding staff that we have within the organization uh Tim is one of six members within the SHP fire department who hold some level an emergency management certificate although Tim will be the first one at the director level uh it's as ad excuse me as administrator Reynolds stated this is the certificate holds a lot of value for the community as we look to transition to the fire department with their Emergency Management duties and I fully expect as we work through that transition many of our certified members will be taking on some role within that transition uh Tim's expertise will provide more value than just in the Emergency Management duties he'll uh provide tremendous value within our organization training on various Emergency Management duties as well as helping us pre-plan some of our more common and smaller scale incidents and this certificate will also allow him to play a key role in The Incident Management System for some of the larger scale or long duration events like our flooding last year uh both within our community as well as our mutual Aid Partners if they were to ask for help or assistance so before I get into too many details and uh step on the toes of what Mr Vang might have to say here I'm going to turn it over to him for the actual presentation thank you Chief mayor and council members uh before presenting the uh certificate here to K Nordstrom just want to highlight some of the um challenges of obtaining their certificate and the reason why I say they're challenges is because training requires a lot of dedication and time this particular certificate requires about a little over a 100 hours to complete both online courses as well as in person couple that with the basic Emergency Management certificate that uh Captain Nordstrom have has obtained we're looking at nearly closer to a th000 hours of person Personnel time just to obtain both certificates so it certainly is a milestone and achievement um and as the Director of training and state training officer for the state of Minnesota I'm very proud to and privileged to present uh cab Nordstrom with this certificate of director practitioner certificate and um it's been a great pleasure to have him in class also as a subject matter expert in his field because what we're really looking at in terms of Emergency Management is tying all of the local resources we have in terms of fire uh police and local emergency managers so it's my again my privilege to present to Captain Nordstrom the director practitioner certificate and a an Emergency Management pin thank you very much thanks if we can get a picture as well take a handful you all the cool people left yeah item number five approval of the agenda any changes to the agenda sir to approve the agenda as presented your second second any discussion on the motion all in favor say I I I opposed motion passes item number six consent agenda any changes Mr Whiting please pull 6h 6 any other changes to the consent agenda make a motion to approve the consent agenda as modified sir second second second by Mr Delaney motion by Mr Lara Mr Reynolds will you read the record consent agenda yes sir these are the consent agenda items for Tuesday February 18th 2025 6A declares Surplus equipment and property and Public Works 6B purchases for 2025 class 3 trucks Street Park and Facilities purchases three 2025 Class 2 trucks for engineering 6C is our monthly financial report for January 2025 6D approves plans and authorizes bidding for phase two of the downtown adaa lighting and tree rehab Improvement project is the cannabus business licensing Act 6f is an ice resurf vehicle replacement 6G approves the 2025 tree purchase orders for our annual resident tree sale and our tree replacement program 6i is a Cooperative agreement with Scott County for trail preventive maintenance 6j is a cellular d a cellular dialer and fire panel upgrades at various City facilities 6K is the AARP Community challenge grant program application 6L is a design bidding and contract Administration agreement with Confluence for Valley Crest neighborhood park and additional work for bidding and contract Administration for the Marytown dog park 6m is the Minnesota dnr's conservation Partners Legacy grant program application 6n is the Minnesota Pollution Control agency's implementation grant for Community resilience program application 60 is the Minnesota Pollution Control agency's planning grant for Community resilience program award 6p is an engagement with CAC Rock for economic development and bonding Council 6q approves the city council meeting minutes 6r is a consumption and display permit renewals for 2025 6s accepts deed and approves a RightWay maintenance agreement for 1030 cubu Avenue 6t is an appointment of individuals to boards and Comm commissions 6 U approves purchase agreement with traffic control Corporation for a signal cabinet at verling drive and Heather Street and 6V is a contract with SE for condro survey for rivy River City Center 6 W amends Nationwide 5457 plan to include part-time fire fighters and finally 6X is the Minnesota DNR conservation Partners Legacy Grant excuse me Legacy expedit projects Grant award thank you Mr Reynolds now if we would have had uh 6 y I would have made 6z as uh the perfect alphabet and probably a record for Shak at least in my tenure for the longest consent agenda um but any rate agreeing with that many things absolutely we have a we do have a motion in a second any discussion on the motion say I I opposed motion passes seven public comment if you're here in the audience for an item not on the agenda that you'd wish to speak to council about now would be that time so if you're here for something not on the agenda and would like to address Council seeing none item eight business removed from the agenda item 6 h was removed by councelor Whiting Mr Whiting thank you Mr Mayor um we've had a lot of conversations over the years about the development of this Bluff area uh originally we talked about uh the desire of the city council to preserve the area for public use as far as roads and Parkways so that the public could gain as much value out of that view and that bluff line as possible uh this development here looks like they've utilized much of that bluff line for backyards and that was not the goal and I know staff knew that goal and I know the developer knew that goal um I'm not seeing it in this plan so I can't support it Mr kki so mayor and Council this is an amendment of the Pud uh District number 10 and a preliminary plat of the bluff few Edition so this is the area that's in question um I have another exhibit that actually will show the bluff in a second so these are the home as what we do have is um you'll see we City already owns this piece of the bluff over here as part of this they will be donating this section of the Bluff and there's a trail system designed to connect to our if you remember um py homes is developing this section and they're building the trail from the original wind mirror section to here and then we'll have this Trail that'll run through the bluff as part of a public park piece and end up down here that'll eventually connect down here um this section of the bluff is open um to the roads so people will be able to get gain access through this entire area these the purple areas not backyards it will be City Park property and this is a bigger exhibit to give you an idea so parcel one is the parcel you're talking about tonight parcel two is the um commercial and Industrial L along 169 parel 3 is the remainder of the bluff so the city already owns this piece over here um we're getting this portion of the bluff as part of this project and then we're working with an appraisal right now for the city to acquire the the remainder of this Bluff from the park development fees will come out of this project so this will probably be one of the largest parks in the city when it's completed and if you look at the comprehensive plan so here's the py piece um you can see this all connects together these are the existing Trails um that come through here and will go through the py piece and then along the DR Horton piece and eventually when this piece gets developed we'll daylight down here and connect across the street but in the comprehensive plan all of this is designated open space and we are preserving all of the area that's in the comprehensive plan as Park and open space so again the only uh this was approved previously by the city council what they are doing now is actually uh adding to the density so the lots are a little narrower to allow the development of 247 single family homes uh property as I said is guided Suburban residential which is a requirement of 3 to six units an acre and park and open space so we're getting getting the park and open space portion that's in the comprehensive plan um they're requesting Lots less than 60 feet wide and six yard setbacks U versus or S and a half as required by the code as this is a PUD they are setting aside 15% of that area that's guided as Park an open space and the comprehensive plan and giving it over to the city Street utilities are currently not available to the site if you remember the py plan they have to bring the sewer and water to this site so they will not be able to build homes here until that happens um PTI is in the midst right now getting their final plans done but this project cannot move forward until they bring that sewer and water to the site and again here's the layout of the Lots by color so the larger lots are over on this side smaller lots are on the south side side um up against the existing drar Horton development drar Horton is the final developer of this piece so they'll be introducing some different product over here that is not in the rest of um the windir area and the original uh plan here was this road was going to go into this site here but because of the grade and the um Park and open space that'll be coming through here they've agreed to terminate this road and have would come through here so this Lo Road will no longer connect through this lot project will be built in two phases first phase will complete um 17th Avenue County Road 16 to here the second phase will bring it down to here we are working with um Scott County and the property owner down here to get this last 800 or so feet built so that the county will have a county road that goes from the entire um west side of the city through to the east side of the city this is the last phase that will be needed so staff recommend city council approval of the amendment to the Pud and the preliminary plant Mr whing you can go back to section four on your map there on the bluff line I think it was one of your last slides you had where it's on that slide there you go now that' be part of the bluff line I'm talking about I do appreciate that they've uh uh brought that road out to look at that bluff line uh for a small portion there but this was part of the original plan for this area and and I think I'm wondering why Street it looks like Street number six why Street number six couldn't be shifted over so that uh I know it's that backyard probably falls off there but uh that was the whole idea that development and I wonder if we can't do something with Street six and change this a little bit coner W if you can tell me I can't read this in my SC it' be over in the black uh squares there yep that's Street 6 is right to your right there right there so if that could be on the bluff line and we could change some of these I know there's value in that view but that was the whole Port point of our discussion before this development started it was to preserve that view now I appreciate that we have the open space but I'm confident that that's not buildable either so um that's why it's coming back to the city that's the bluff line so I'm just confused why staff would allow this since they knew direction we are going with this any questions or comments I I have I have two um one from my perspective I'm looking at it as you know if we wanted to take the whole Bluff you've got a balancing act between property owner rights to develop the property as intended and the city's desire to have a Contin contiguous um natural space along the bluff and I see it as a balancing act um it's neither scenario is perfect for either party if you take out this row of homes uh you're making it very difficult probably for the development side if you purchase a bunch of it and make it so that's really hard to develop now you're you know paying a premium because you're going to have to pay for that uh situation that you created so it's definitely a bit a balancing act um that's that's my comment on that the the the other comment that I have is and maybe you can answer correct me on this one but on page 49 the first paragraph talks about higher standard designs in Aesthetics exceeding current design standards um exceeding when percentages sighting requirements Stone Wayne's coding on the front these types of things this is exactly what they're talking about at the state right now about housing affordability and matter of fact I think one Senator had that exact same wording and tag SHP to it so mayor and CC that's required pleas please let me finish okay and and when I'm looking at this saying higher design standards than than are required um part of that in in in my mind again the the The Balancing Act is we're also giving smaller sidey setbacks smaller lots and these other amentities that benefit the developer and in exchange we we're getting amenities that fit the neighborhood is that a good take on that maybe that's exactly correct so the state law currently requires a higher standard in the Pud and so we're only requiring it on the front facade so instead of using vinyl siding they'll use Hardy or op um that's been true in all of our other um puds okay and and I guess the last thing I would say and maybe you can clarify this is if you look at the skinniest purple portion on the map in front of us um that looks to be maybe 20t wide I I you know and I know it's deceiving it's probably wider than that um and it looks like it's small so what is the that actual distance of that smallest area behind house one through three four I guess it would be Mar you're talking about this area right here behind them houses into purple purple yeah mayor the developers here and they can answer but I think we need to one of the issues we've had with this site and you know the Met Council minimum density is 3 to six units per acre some of you know it's being changed to three and a half under their new regulations so believe it or not this barely hits to three because of the amount of open space that's required as part of the Pud but when we Michael can you pull up um page 57 Bingo and and there you'll see outlined in the aqua blue is the portion we're talking about and mayor I understand you're concerned about how small that is but that's only this particular parcel if you look at it compared I mean it's actually part of the bluff as a whole correct and and so it's it's it's kind of deceiving it's not like this is actually separated from the bluff it is part of the bluff it's just zone or excuse me it's just the property lines are drawn this way and Mr reynoldson that's the the point I was trying to make in my comments where if you look at it's deceiving if you look at just the purple area behind them four homes you're thinking it's very small when when you in actuality it's it's going all the way across to what we're seeing on the other side um mayor and counil look at this you can see that all of this area has been farmed we actually are preserving the bluff area here as part of this project this area over here has been farmed and so as part of the next project the heavier Bluff will be picking up so when we talk about this area down here it's actually fairly flat you can see the area that are giving us which is over here is where it starts to really fall off you know unfortunately over time this has all been graded out for farming so a lot of the BL has been eroded we're trying to preserve the natural buff line similar we did over here we did allow the developer here to to develop these Lots because these were flatter but we did pick up the entire Bluff when we had this project so I think if you want to look at the bluff in total you really need to look at this because this is the remainder of the real Bluff area that we're picking up and then the last question I had was to your very first map um and that was this one where would somebody access this that doesn't live in the neighborhood this Trail would they so where's the closest park parking lot and I know there was some and some other um plans that we saw specifically up on top of the bluff where where you have the tower and stuff there's some parking up there too mayor council there's parking on the street over here so you would park um over by where the um new gas station is and then basically that's the trails start today it runs kind of dead ends into the hill and the other one kind of dead ends into the neighborhood but as this develops all those Trails will now be connected to this and once this is done our plan is when this piece comes in to connect that trail actually to the other side and we're working with um Scott County on either a marked U mid block Crossing or another potential underpass here so that you really will'll have a pretty significant Loop for the neighborhood okay any other questions of staff Mr Lara I do um so since we're talking about this project um questions I had was regarding the product that they're going to be building I uh had noticed through the renderings that there are I mean these houses look smaller and um once one thing that stood out to me was the one stall garage I'm just curious in terms of what price point and then also a lot of slab on grade uh what price point are they hoping to enter these homes at Samaran Council of the developers here but one of things that was discussed at the Planning Commission that it's unlikely you'll see very many one car garage they have a option on that plan to do a two-car garage so they'd be very similar to the units that Mi homes built um off County Highway 83 where they have a two-car garage the door and then space above um just because that's the reality of the market they don't think the that many people will accept a one car garage but again there's a representative from the developer in DR Horton here and they can talk about price point and unit designs yeah I'd like to hear that all right there's no other questions of Staff we'll ask for the representative to step forward please we appreciate you coming to answer any questions we might have thank you mayor city council uh Brian Tucker with summergate development out of Lakeville uh you might recall we were here a couple years ago and got the preliminary plat approved uh we were a little ahead of the curve in terms of uh the property to the east not being quite ready to go so uh we had to kind of put the brakes on and and start to uh work on that uh we were able to pull that microphone toward you it's it's heavy but it will move the whole thing the B pick up the base there you go thank you if you can get that close enough so council members and the audience at home could hear you sure thank you uh so we we helped facilitate the acquisition of the property to the east so we could get utilities moving to this bam and parcel uh so we've been working on this for a while uh I would say that the mayor kind of hit it on the head when we're talking about the Lots up against the bluff our first sketch plan that we brought in had lots entirely along the bluff and staff uh indicated to us that that was not the city council's objective obviously from a developer standpoint that's ideal because you have a lot of Premium Lots so what we're trying to do here what we try to do as staff is kind of hit that sweet spot where we're minimizing the number of single loaded streets we have through the development where you only have lots on one side that just gets the cost structure uh a skew quite a bit uh so this was a means of trying to find some open space that had provided some views uh for residents that maybe were just driving through the neighborhood or or lived in the neighborhood but weren't accessing the trail uh but also providing a corridor so that we can get that trail all the way through there um and as Mr kkki indicated there is additional Bluff space so that uh the trail is not going to be sitting right there on the edge with no other um no other space before you get to the drop off uh so that was our our way of trying to again find that sweet spot where we could get a few Lots backing up there uh minimize single loaded streets and still achieve part of what the city was hoping to get which was some open view shed through there uh with respect to the homes uh we are working with Dr Horton they'll be the Builder in this project and Mike Su is here and he can answer questions about price point and design and those type of things mayor any questions on this particular comments the uh one comment that I have as we know a 100-year flood coming down the bluff line coming up against these houses is something that has to be planned into this to deal with so I would just put a flag on storm water runoff and I'm sure our engineering department is well aware of that yes okay thank you I I guess it that brought up a question it may be for staff but is that what the outlaw B is for storm water runoff okay is Mayor and Council that is a storm water management Basin thank you okay Mr Su welcome good evening thank you for having us tonight we're as always excited to be part of Shaka and um with this development as Mr KY pointed out we're introducing a home that we do not have in the Shak Market with this development um just kind of give you a brief overview we'll have our two-story traditional homes that we have built through all of the windir and we're building in High View um they are the red color houses up there so there are two stories um just to give you an idea where the world finds us at in pricing they're running 650 to 700,000 out there now it's it's getting hard to figure out how people are buying these homes but thank the Lord that people are still finding the way to make it work um the freedom as you may or may not remember these are our one level more design for the older crowd um dampy nesters which color is that that would be the green okay and on your handout what would that be called um there are Freedom homes what AC which Ser are those going to be HOA maintained uh there HOA maintained you get uh Lawn Service Snow service um we're going to individual irrigation service just because it works out better with water rates that the individual irrigation comes out of the homes um but it is an h mean maintain mold and um snow removal and then their pricing is in the mid 500s and it's it's similar to what we built um in Amber Glen by zombro in 78 that has the pickle ball court I don't know if you've been up and driven through there they're the one level homes and then lastly the new home product that we're bringing is the cottage homes that's the light blue and what you have in your packet is just the black and white line drawings they're not designed for shabe so if you look at them you'll see sides without the windows on them this is our standard design that we start with and then we make the modifications to bring them into compliance with each local uh City's rules and regulations so they're not 100% done with what you see here but we know we can get them to meet your rules and regulations we can get the hardboard fronts and the stone on them so we can get that to work um to answer your question on price the onec car garage is right now running around 420 425 it's more than we want we're trying to figure out a way to do it but when we started this product or project 12 months ago we were at 390 but just the world that we live in prices keep going up labor keeps going up we're chasing the price of homes really hard and we're trying to figure out a way to do it we as you know Horton is a national Builder so that gives us the ability to go out and look at a lot of plans across the country and other parts of the country are making um finding success with these onecar garages so we think it will have a Mark here where maybe some empty nesters some single parents that can't afford a two stall garage home that they can make this work just to provide you with some comparison the two stall garage home will be 475 so if they want a One stall they would be able to to to purchase that yep y based on what we're doing here and they'll put it into context as everybody goes by monthly payments now the difference between 475 and four and a quarter at the 7% interest rates we find ourselves in 5% down everything else being standard um the 425 right now require is a monthly payment of 3,100 and the 475 is 3500 so homeowner can save just over $400 a month close to $4,800 they almost $5,000 when you throw in the odds and ends that I didn't use when I rounded my numbers but so that's where we see it that we're trying to figure out a way to get homes affordable I don't know if we'll ever truly get there Minnesota cuz um land prices the cost of doing business in Minnesota is quite different than the rest of part of the country but everybody works at it and we'll keep trying Mr whing I think if that onec car garage package works out you'll want to make sure your homeowners association agreement allows for parking outside of that garage and just the driveway will still be wide enough for two cars cuz we recognize people may have to have we have one car in one car out they're going to have visitors I some have been long remember that one car garage was pretty standard so it's not unusual for shocka to see1 car garage so it works but we just got to make sure we think through it um they will get a be able to build sheds out here they will or will not will they will because with one car you need place to put snowblower lawnmower so they will be and we're looking at our rules just to make sure they're compatible with the homes we're not going to require Top Line but they got to be compatible with the outside exterior looks of the home Mr Lara so you're telling me that a slab on grade with one car garage one level is $425,000 yes I am sir and I wish I could tell you something different but we try every day to get lower pricing and it's just I'm curious to I'm just curious to see like how you guys try well and I was going to ask that the question of what's the three biggest drivers to the cost of that slab on grade home being four 400,000 um land I mean just the way life is land is a very limited commodity in the Twin Cities because every piece of ground has to wait like this one it's you have to wait till the next one develops and when that sells the next one wants more so land prices just keep going up and up and there's just such a tight supply of land there's such a tight supply of homes I mean labor is their increases for labor has gone up 10 11% is what the trades are getting Lumber is going up take it for what it's worth the Tariff is going to push prices of homes up because Lumber 80 90% of the lumber comes out of Canada so last time we saw the tariffs come in lumber prices went up so um trying to figure out how to break it so land is roughly used to be 20% now it's probably pushing 25 to 30% when I say land is land and improvements out here in Bluff you of one foot a street probably adds $3,500 to a house so if youd say we're going to add another garage make the Lots 10 ft wider it gets 35 Grand but then on the other side you've got the the problem if you just opened up all the land and didn't have services and tried to run Services a long distance to get to the development the the infrastructure cost is going to be more than what the land price was don't don't um don't want to come off that say you should just open up everything because there's that opens up a whole different can of worms I mean who's going to invest in the sewer and water streets I mean I've sat in the city staff spot I understand that you just can't go out and put a mile in street and that's just the way it is I have co-workers that work in Texas and other places where they can find a th000 acres and they go out and develop a th000 Acres at a time it's just not the way it is in Minnesota it's just we're broke up in the smaller chunks and we just all have to keep working I hopefully our codes are different I mean all over the country you have different codes we have you know we don't have the hurricane issues we have the tornado and the heavy snow load issues um we have the high insulation for the cold extreme cold weather so we have a lot of different things in in a Northern climate than the southern climate and but then they have the hurricane roofs and Florida and windows and all kinds of other things so I get it yeah we we try and I I know people are kept or trying I've had conversation with your staff your administrator on how we can figure out ways to get homes more affordable but we keep trying as a group and I think shock be is one of the places where you can actually have good conversations with your staff on how to do it but one of these days this group may come up with a better idea and then we can all retire because we'll be rich and famous but we haven't quite hit it yet zip ties and duct tape they're both rich and famous all right any other questions of the applicant thank you for coming Mr Su wishes of council anybody you got to Jim I'm not doing I just it's that's crazy um all right uh I like a motion to adopt ordinance 020 let's see 20251 approving the amendment of to plot planned unit development district 10 Bluff View for property located on north of the Lure Avenue adjacent to SVU water tower in the windir neighborhood west of zumu Avenue is there a second is there a second I'll second it for discussion discussion Mr Whiting uh I'm I'm disappointed um I understand the value of of the land um talked about some of those smaller houses uh my mind that whole section four could be twice as many of those smaller houses are close uh with maintaining that uh Parkway that we uh wanted to build as a roadway I can't support this okay any other discussion on the motion I'm just disappointed in the price point well I think uh yeah I think it was well two years ago or longer that uh Mr Reynolds pointed made a saying and that that saying is proven to be very accurate land labor Lumber and we don't control any any of the three uh and I would go a step further it's not just Lumber if you buy a shingle or you know shingle nails or you know the paper that goes over the H any product that goes into a house or any product that you purchase on a shelf that doesn't go into a house has gone up substantially and I don't know how to get around that short of getting inflation down getting mortgage interest rates down and even if they did get inflation down I I don't know that the the cost of things are going to go down I don't know what the fix is to that it's certainly not in our wheelhouse um but that doesn't mean we don't continue having conversations and trying to figure out how to have affordable housing but then again we have to remember we're probably one of the leaders in the area for affordable housing not too many cities have four trailer parks in or very close to their boundaries I would argue again we have a great opportunity in the future to utilize them trailer parks updating them into them smaller houses better quality than than the old school trailer homes where you might be looking at modular um things like this uh which would make a huge impact on the affordability of housing in them certain specified areas and it would be very consistent with what's already there so we've got some great opportunities in the future to hit that market too so Mr Thompson uh m m May Council because there's a council member missing tonight if this is going to be a potentially be a two two vote I I recommend that you would be better to table this to you get a majority and and also you're going to need to prepare certain findings if this is not going to pass and we don't have those prepared for tonight so um uh I think a better procedural mechanism would be to wait till you have a full Council find out whether there's majority one way or the other and if it's they not in favor we can prepare the appropriate reasons they're not complicated but I think we should do that okay so if you want to withdraw the motion and then we make that that was councelor lar that made the motion um I will withdraw the uh motion and um uh and I'll accept that as a second okay and then would the next step be to I make a motion to table this until our next meeting yes make a motion to table it is there a second uh to the next meeting what's that to the next meeting yes which would be um March March 4th 4th okay is there a second to that motion second Delaney okay uh all in favor say I I I opposed motion passes thank you that brings us to 9A monthly financial report and that would be our Mr Reinhardt our finance director yep uh good evening mayor and council members uh presentation tonight will be on uh the financial results through December me load this up quickly um these are preliminary results um as we'll be posting uh journal entries and adjusting payables receivables over the next uh few weeks so these amounts will change uh none of our financial numbers have been audited uh at this point in time our audit is currently scheduled for the third week of April um and then our final numbers and our audit reports are typically presented in June so we're still um a few months away from having everything finalized uh this slide shows uh the general fund through December um our prelim preliminary results showed that we ended the year positive uh which is always great news uh the fourth column over uh which is budget balance remaining shows the preliminary 24 2024 budget variances uh in totals for revenues we're at 110% of our budget uh or a positive 3.7 million and then expenditures were're under budget at 99% or 257,000 in terms of dollars uh then at positive for the year if you look at the third column over uh 2024 year to date the very bottom number on there uh we're at uh 3.5 million in all likelihood this number will probably come down a little bit um but definitely a very strong um year financially I do have um individual sides in both revenues and expenditures I'll get into more details on both of those uh the majority of our positive budget variance was on the revenue side uh 3.7 million uh taxes which is primary property taxes uh we ended up ahead of budget targets uh the city had decertified a couple of tax increment districts uh returned that excess uh increment and those that was redistributed which was part of that and then we also had originally butterfly or budgeted for for uh the Shutterfly tax AB payment which was eliminated in 2024 so we had some savings here uh licenses and permits are exceeding the budget amount um but under what we did uh the previous year uh primarily as a result of building permit Revenue uh in 24 uh the city received permits for 12 commercial buildings uh one apartment 63 town homes and 271 single family homes uh total permit value uh this year was 322 million uh compared to uh 405 Million last year uh intergovernmental uh is currently ahead of budget targets uh 100,000 related to the shock be Public Utilities uh pilot fee being over our U budget amount our state aid Street Maintenance for streets came in about 50,000 more uh police state aid was 120,000 more and then we had some non-budgeted grants like the pathway to policing and age-friendly Grant uh charges for services also ended up ahead of budget targets uh which is um kind of was a little surprising to me because we um didn't open sand Venture last year and had about 192,000 budgeted for that but um engineering fees came in about 100,000 over and then police contracted Services what couple hundred, over budget and then uh for miscellaneous that includes investment earnings and then our market value adjustment for an unrealized gain uh which I'll cover when we get to the investment portion um sorry for this kind of wordy busy slide here um but prior to get into the expenditure slide I wanted to touch base on um our annual adjustment for compensated absences liability uh which was a pretty significant impact this year for a few different reasons uh we were required to implement uh a new accounting standard this year which is gby statement 101 uh for compensated absence uh the city was previously required to report a liability for um for all leave um for us which it' be sick in vacation time as defined in a Personnel policy that we were required to pay out when employee um was separated uh in addition the city now will have to record a liability for earn leave that employee is more likely than not to use uh the most straightforward example would be uh SI time as part of our Personnel policy employee acrs and can use sick time uh but if they have not been here five years that would not be paid out um now based on this new standard we'd have to determine um how much uh AC crude sick time that an employee would likely to use uh so for that employee if we think uh the employee um would use 20 hours a SI time in 2025 we need to Now record that as a liability for those 20 hours uh this new standard uh as well as uh wage wage adjustments we've seen in public safety um additional Staffing primarily in the fire department and then uh safe and sick time where we now a crew time for um part-timers have made this a larger adjustment for 2024 um we had budgeted 314,000 the actual amount is more like 1.1 million for the general fund um so it's about a A $700,000 Change 786,000 Change uh I would expect this to be a one-time adjustment just increasing the liability for this year and then going forward we wouldn't necessarily see an annual adjustment this big um so with that that explains why some of these expenditures are slightly higher than last time You' seen them uh for expenditures in total again we were at 99% or about 257,000 below budget uh we are showing uh six departments over budget um however uh the overages um really have only a minor impact on our overall Financial operating results uh I know we did budget amendments in December with the intention of of bringing all departments um in line with their allotted budgets but uh as you can see it didn't didn't work as planned um with a lot of the mov pieces still at that point in time um but for the six departments that exceeded budget were less than 1% and can easily be explained by that compensated absence as adjustment uh of the other two um fire is currently over um as a result of um their new Staffing model and being a little under with our assumtions for part-time Staffing uniforms and training expenses uh building INE inspections um Department was little over um as a result of the Tyler software programming for rental inspections and then also their credit card processing fees which is um was a little bit higher based on the their revenue being more than forecasted uh there were were some departments that came in under budget uh engineering had some open positions um that led to those savings uh the mayor and Council budget um we had uh less dues than we paid this year or and had planned to pay this year and then I had some Savings in the Street Maintenance side um partially a reflection of the the winter weather and not having as many uh snow call outs as we have had planned for um so moving on to kind of where we're at to to end the year uh so the previous slide uh showed we're at currently about 3.5 million ahead for 2024 uh as mentioned um um we haven't had a chance to fully dive into all the numbers so there will be adjustments but uh it kind of gives you a a idea of where we're going to end up um but it'll likely still come down a little bit from this point uh so in addition to booking payables and receivables there are a couple of fund balance adjustments uh the first one being um for uh committed fund balance for building permit Revenue uh that adjustment would be um to decrease that balance for open permits we had at year end um which would uh set set aside money for future building inspection costs and related programs uh the decrease would be from 2.65 to 2.23 million uh based on our formula for that and then our fund balance policy is to set aside 35 to 50% of our general fund upcoming um operating expenditures but budget um if we wanted to maintain that 50% which we have in the past it would require about a $1.3 million increase um in that Reserve uh it has been the city's uh past practice to put any excess uh General funds towards onetime expenditures uh specifically we've used it towards um Capital needs um I think once we firm up the numbers we'll bring back um um kind of a a plan for that um I would say we're likely would likely be ahead or likely have about two to 2.6 million available um for those one time time needs uh moving on to um investment earnings or um the investment report um included the full full investment uh report in your packet uh this slide just shows the interest earnings um from this year Well 2024 compared to the previous four years uh the Orange Line being 2024 we're at about 2.6 million for the year which is up from last year um City's investment earnings certainly have benefited from higher interest rates this year um I would say just based on our current mix I would expect this line to be pretty similar for 2025 as we've seen in in 2024 um when we look at this chart next year and then um again the Orange Line being the on the side being 2024 um this side um compares the unrealized gain or loss or the market value adjustment uh for Investments for the year um in 2022 we had a pretty significant unrealized loss as uh interest rates were Rising 2023 as rates uh declined or held flat we saw unrealized gain for the year and then in 2024 at least in comparison to two rates at the end of 2023 we saw the rates come down a little bit more uh which led to an unrealized gain this year of about 1.6 million uh as a reminder I say this every time but this is just a adjustment on paper we plan on holding all Investments till they mature um but we do um show this adjustment once a year in December 31st uh when you combined both interest earnings and the unrealized adjustment we had a total investment gain for the year of just over 4 million so I'm not bad at all I can stand for any questions that you might have questions of Staff two questions on uh on your overall sheet it shows a fine and for fitures at uh $327,000 yeah so the majority of that money that's coming comes through is basically the court fines that we pass through to the county for prosecution cost prosecution cost are included in that number there are some the other you know lodging tax being turned in late there's some miscellaneous other fines like that but they're relatively small okay I I I've got a guess at the majority of that is prosecution cost yep corre and then the other point was you had a a cost for the family leave Bill or changes to law to that and right now they're talking about delaying that potentially for a year so we'll have to keep an eye on that and see what happens at the State House yeah so this would be the two different things so the you're basically talking about parental leave right um this would be um the safe and sick time that now part- timr are okay have the ability to crew hours which is for every employer okay what happens if they delay the family leave by a year does does that do anything to us at all um well there's an employer contribution portion to that um so that would obviously have savings there and I think it's I think you can do anywhere up to 1.5% am I wrong I'm looking at Chelsea but but it's a it's a small percentage of of what it is and I think you have the opportunity of you know sharing that cost with the employee so there's I want to say for the city it was half of or 75% yeah is what we had so so we'll have to keep an eye on that and see what happens okay any other questions for thank you Mr rard is everybody good for the next item or do you want to take a short recess Let It Go are we good yeah good good okay item number 9B Park and Recreation 2024 annual report they'll be getting set up for that the wave sack fees for for trailer houses or modular homes that would be a I've been trying to do that they're just not interested say to talk to talk it's it's pretty frustrating actually good evening mayor and council members um I am excited to share a little bit about Parks and Recreation with you this evening as most of you I'm sure are aware I am still relatively new to the city of Shaka I started back in March of 2024 and one thing that I really wanted to focus on as the new director of our Parks and Recreation Department was to really set a strong Foundation within our department through our staff I wanted to focus on our why why we do the things we do and how we as a Park and Recreation Department fit into the overall mission and vision statement of our city um and specifically what we decided to focus on was how we help make Shaka the place where people want to be um so as a department we created what we call our purpose statement so what we settled bu on was that working together we provide fun and engaging programs events and spaces for the betterment of the community quantifying our impact on the community can be challenging so I wanted to take a moment and share some meaningful feedback that we received from our residents over the past year one of the most memorable examples for me personally um with looking how Parks and Recreation contributes to the better betterment of our community happened this past summer when I was teaching a lifeguard instructor class at our pool at the community center um I ended up having a conversation with a gentleman who was participating in the open swim time there he shared with me his long battle with cancer and um shared that he had recently received a difficult prognosis and that his sole goal right now was to enjoy the time he had left and make meaningful and Lasting memories with his children and the fact that he chose to do so that day at the Shaka Community Center at our pool uh really resonated with me and kind of reaffirmed that the all the meaningful work that we do um for our community so our department is structured into really two key divisions we have our Operations Division which focuses on the management of our Recreational facility facilities and then we have our program and services division that focuses on putting together all the programs and events that we offer as Shaka continues to grow and we work towards achieving our CAA accreditation something that I will touch on more here shortly it was important to me to ensure that our staff structure really allows us to best serve our community and adapt its needs without disrupting our services uh to support this we made a few Key Staffing changes this past year within our department uh we had a vacancy back in August and decided to restructure our department slightly so some of the changes we made is we moved our parttime fitness coordinator to a full-time Fitness supervisor position Fitness is rapidly becoming one of the most utilized services within Parks and Recreation and expanding this position ensures that we have the staff capacity to meet the increasing demand there additionally we moved our Recreation coordinator which was a part-time position to another Recreation specialist full-time this will allow us to expand our programming for the community while also assisting in developing some of the key standards that are going to be required of us to receive our accreditation and lastly we have a new community outreach coordinator um Rachel Bland she is joining our team team on Monday the 24th so just in a few days here we ended up having 64 applications for that position and it was an incredibly competitive interview process with really um some impressive candidates Rachel's immediate priorities will include renewing our Ice Arena advertising contracts revamping our scholarship fund to reach more residents in need assisting with our accreditation self assessment and working on enhancing participant feedback which directly supports one of our strategic plan initiatives by having a participant input program these Strategic Staffing changes position us for continued growth that we can effectively serve the community so shary and tro um are going to provide a little insight in just a moment as to how 2024 compares to our previous years but what I would like to do is take a step back and look at the bigger picture and provide you all with a little information on how we compare to other Park and Recreation agencies across the country and in our Midwest region each year Recreation management magazine publishes what they call a state of the industry report which includes data on cost recovery across different types of recreation organizations so in this um graphic here you have cost recovery for public governmental facilities like ours nonprofit organizations and then private for-profit organizations this is the average cost recovery um as you can see in Shaka we are just slightly below the average at 50% cost recovery one of the key factors to consider though as we look at 2024 is our sand Venture pool was not open therefore we did not generate any revenue from this facility however in an attempt to retain our lifeguards we got creative and found different opportunities for them within the city so we still incurred most of our staffing budget for 2024 so as we look into 2025 I really see this going up quite a bit on the cost recovery and historically we have been uh well above our comparables when it comes to cost recovery at one point we're almost at 75% where are we at retention did we retain most those lifeguards yes we did I think we only had Sherry two M we only lost what's that we lost less than five one thing to think about lifeguards is a lot of them they are you know your high school or college students and eventually they want to grow up and pursue their you know their careers so we do lose some to that every year as well but we retained most of them one of the other factors that I found really interesting that came out of the uh state of the industry report for 2024 was the annual increase in operating expenses amongst different parks and recre agencies Recreation agencies the report mentioned that the Midwest saw the largest increase in operating expenses year after year um so in this graphic you can see the Midwest average increase from the previous year in comparison to shpes which we are significantly less than the average all right um one of our significant achievements in 2024 was we initiated the accreditation process through the National Park and Recreation Association um earning our CA accreditation ensures that we're operating and will continue to operate under the best practices of the industry the field of Parks and Recreation is constantly evolving with new trends and accreditation will help us stay informed and adaptable allowing us to assess which Trends have lasting value and which are fleeting Beyond industry alignment cpra the ca accreditation process will strengthen our succession planning and onboarding processes through this journey we have realized that while we've already met a lot of the standards within the cap process we have yet to document them they live in our heads not necessarily on paper so that's one thing we're working on now um for context CER accreditation consists of 154 standards of that 36 are required meaning you must get the you must achieve those 36 standards in addition you must meet 90% of all of those 154 to receive your initial accreditation and must meet 95% to re accredit every 5 Years From that point on what what uh what other four agencies in Minnesota are accredited good question um I know Rochester is I want to say St Paul and I'm forgetting the other two Roseville okay no I will get that third one or that fourth one for you I know it's down by the Rochester area but I forget ex man maybe it might be Mano but I will double check okay so to give you a little overview about where we are in the process um there are six phases we submitted our application back in September of 2024 completed all of our staff training in October of 2024 and now we are on the self assessment which is by far the largest part part of the accreditation process and by far the um most workload heavy of the process um our goal is to have the self assessment completed and submitted by the end of 2025 so that moving into 2026 we're prepared for our initial review and our on-site evaluation and then hopefully have a hearing at the um annual conference in September of 2026 with that I'm going to turn it over to Troy and let him talk to you about some of our facilities all right uh mayor and Council thank you very much for allowing us to come up here and brag a little bit about uh our wonderful department so um I just want to this first kind of um slide here talks about uh operating expenses and how we compare them to other community recreation centers um as you can see shock is much lower than the industry average um this next slide here uh shows a little bit of the community center utilization um some of the key points that I wanted to touch on um with our community center so we have our indoor playground our walking Track which is our free amenity um and then you got your daily admissions so anybody that's coming in in to pay for a service and then you got your membership scans so any members that we currently have that come in um those are the numbers that uh um they're scanning to come in to utilize the amenities so any thoughts on why the indoor playground dropped off yes so um last year we um did have a uh um price increase that uh what that did was um we had a lot of people that weren't really happy with you know the price increase that we did we did come back and we did change those uh with Council approval and we brought them back down a little bit but that kind of did it did hurt us that one year so as I recall we had a lot of uh daycares and other community buses coming in that's correct yeah where would we see the uh the covid impact and what year would that be shown because we had a pretty substantial drop and then you had you know opening back up and then you get that big return yeah so that was that was 2021 okay so that was before any of these numbers on this graph here so okay all right so moving ahead to uh Community Center membership packages so um in our membership packages uh it includes all these different things so you got your Fitness classes your fitness center the gymnasium Aquatic Center drop in programming indoor playground um Fitness orientations and the other thing that uh it has on there is the open skate in the ice arena so um all these numbers right here um will represent the number of membership packages that we currently have for shakb so it doesn't it doesn't uh it's not the amount of people it's the amount of packages that we sell um on a yearly basis all right we'll shift ahead to um the ice arena here so um with this uh this is H we have door counters on our Ice Arena and as you can see our yearly visits have uh gone up every year since uh 2022 um and we are seeing we see this number keep going up um as we have uh you know more tournaments and more um people utilizing the facilities so so this is how many times the door opens this is correct yeah this is this this will read each person coming in the door and then it also reads the outs as well so it gives me a good good number of uh um how many people are utilizing the facility so we do have those numbers on the community center as well okay so all right so ice R utilization um these numbers represent all the ice hours that are actually utilized uh from year after year so as you can see we're uh continually going you know moving up um we are getting to the point where there is a we don't have a lot of extra ice um I do get phone calls probably on a daily basis of people um that would like to rent the Ice uh um and most times than not I have to tell them that I don't have anything available so it is a good problem to have but um we also could use more so and then um with that um this this summer we actually have 18 tournaments booked um in the past we've had about 13 or 14 um a lot of that stems from uh Bloomington is going to be closed starting in March for the summer doing renovations so we've a lot of their tournament uh directors have come to me um I've probably turned down another six or seven that wanted the same weekend so it's uh it's it's going to be a busy summer for for us over there what's what's the hours that ice availability is bookable is there between this time and this time you know basically we will open up um the facility for the demand of people that want to utilize the ice so right now I'm uh 6:00 a.m. a.m. is our first kind of rental in the morning and I see men's groups going until 10:30 10:45 at night 3M well 247 right we keep paying they pay the rent okay all right so my last slide here I just wanted to touch on um some of our key partners that we have um you got your uh shakb Hockey Association which uh uh they uh keep growing and adding strong teams year after year they've been a very good partner um you got your Shak high school team they're having a uh great SE the boys are having a great season this year they actually play their first section matchup on Thursday um that'll be a very busy night against wakia and then uh hopefully they continue on and uh move forward they are um favored to go to the state tournament this year so uh we'd like to see that happen uh another big partner we have is our shaki Skate School um they have uh from um their learn to skate numbers have doubled from Fall 2024 to Winter 2025 uh we have many adults in the program now learning to skate we also have a record number of firsttime participants in our spring ice show uh for March 29th 2025 go for gold Skating Academy has an ex successful representing the state of Shak or the city of Shak all over the world um they commuted for the Mexican national senior women's bronze medalist us Collegiate Women's Champion National development team member and uh shaki Skate School Academy is widely recognized as a leading competitive skating program in Minnesota and draws from all over the North America to train and the last partner we have is our training house uh Twin City Orthopedics that uh utiliz that upstairs Dryland facility that we have in the arena um they continue to grow and they have added about five or six different associations this last year so they are growing so that's all I have and I'll turn it over to Sher Troy um yes U before you go um thank you for your presentation um great news uh we like to see the ice arena successful and that's part of my question you know when we it's a few years old now are we still call it Cutting Edge and are we still uh uh one of the best out there absolutely yes I uh you know my staff is uh one of the greatest uh teams that I've worked with uh in my career and any any new things that I've bring you know bring bring to them they're always willing to jump on and try new things so so um any new enhancements or anything new coming coming forth um there's a lot of different companies that like to come to us to try them um and my staff is more than willing to give them a try and usually we are you know one of the first rinks to try some of these new things so uh we still are Cutting Edge and people enjoy coming to skate good well if there is something that you know you need to bring before us we want to keep it that way in my mind speaking for myself but uh um Bring It Forward if there's something we can do better Mr yeah um have what's the uh status on the um oh what was it a store like a pro shop I think they did skate shap sharpening and whatnot there is that still vacant yeah I I I'll actually take that one uh it is it is vacant currently we're we've reached out to a few vendors to try to get them uh uh interested in coming aboard it's a tough space for limited use uh of having uh people come in and out limited traffic we will continue to try to find a partner but it is looking less and less likely that that'll be the case and if that's the case we'll have to figure out what we're going to do with that space then thank you but we've been working on that for probably six to eight months now so the hard thing is with the with the Pro Shop business um a lot of different people have skate sharpers at home um um they're very um the different one the newer ones are very inexpensive and families that have two three kids in hockey it uh they're just buying them for the house well it's more cost effective and then you know with the tape the laces and all that other stuff um it's just easier to buy stuff online so these Stores um you're just seeing them closing their doors just because it's just harder to um harder run that kind of business so thank you good evening Mr Mayor members of the council um it's my turn now to brag about programs and services and all the cool things that we get to do um each and every year this slide represents some of those events and some of the programs um my job here tonight is to kind of go more in depth in what we do and give you a few highlights uh this first slide talks about where we are compared to where we were in 2023 um you'll see that in all the program categories uh for our registrations uh there has been an increase um there's two items that I really want to point out with our numbers uh being increased and the first one is Aquatics um you'll see that number is almost 400 more than what we had in 2023 it's really important to remember that we did not open sand Venture and these uh were all our indoor lessons and because of the way we've been able to maintain our staff levels um you might remember a few years ago we were all talking about the shortage of lifeguards the shortage of aquatic staff we've really worked hard um within our department to hire maintain train and retain what we have and so that we're able to grow those numbers and meet the demand for the aquatics that we have in the community the other item is our fitness programs um both Courtney or I'm sorry Kelsey and Troy mentioned uh that the fitness programs that we do as part of the community center memberships is really important and it's really popular and it's really I think one of the driving forces behind why we have as many membership packages as we do um if we could do water aerobics classes 7 days a week 24/7 we would have people coming unfortunately we have to balance our other activities we do in the pool like our swimming lessons like our open swim and being able to offer a wide variety of things so our fitness programs continue to grow and that's another one of those reasons why we um increased our fitness coordinator to a fitness supervisor the walk-ins uh that you see here the 16,000 some of these are um part of the numbers that Troy gave with Community Center daily admissions but these are numbers of people that are coming into the community center for a specific type of activity whether it's pickle ball open basketball um top time at the Aquatic Park uh we have CC playtime which is different than our playground it's a time where kids can bring their Trikes and bikes into the gym and ride around on these cold days um so are the uh walking trail walking path included in these numbers or are they backed out the the numbers for the indoor walking Track are not part of this number this is specific uh to the types of activities I mentioned okay mhm there we go um in the next few slides I want to highlight some of our actual programs from our prechool youth active older adults I'll talk a little bit about Aquatics um and our special events um first off um I wanted to talk about our camp little o program this is a program that typically was only offered in the summer in the past um we have increased that number to be through the the school year both mornings and evenings it's a program where we've seen the need for um since covid when we lost kids Cove and didn't have that drop in child care this is our way of reaching out to those individuals that are looking for an option to have something for their young child to do and then still go work out so we're trying to fill that need summer day camp is becoming our new summer state of our programs it used to be our t-ball our near ball our swimming lessons swimming lessons are still a staple but our day camps um a few years ago we only offered one weekl long all day long program besides all the other things we've done in 20124 we increased that to eight weeks of day camp with 95% of them being filled in 2025 we've bumped that number up to 10 so we're going to be offering 10 full weeks of programming as an option for families who are looking for that summer Child Care option our active older adults this is our one population since Co that has rebounded successfully and every year it keeps increasing um it's it's known on a national level that social isolation is um the one thing that really hurts our older active our older generation they lose Parts some of their family members they move to a new community there's no way of keeping them involved it's our senior programming that we want to try and keep those people active social active and young at heart to keep them viable parts of our community um let's see programming so I touched a little bit on our swim lessons um already um again we offer our programs year round we do group and private options um available for all ages we have uh an a group of men from Minneapolis coming in to do some adult lessons with us we have the preschoolers we have private swim um for people who really want that one-on-one option to learn how to swim um again um the numbers continue to go up and I think as Minnesota as a land of 10,000 more Lakes it's one of those things that a lot of motans do when they want to be able to make sure their childrens are safe um around the water you've heard us talk to you before um about our women's water safety day and our water safety days that we have um it's a program that continues to be successful um the main re we ask are the participants why they keep coming back and one of the main reasons we hear is that these the women in women's water safety they want to learn how to swim and so that when their kids go swimming they feel comfortable around the water and I think that's really important the city of shaki has been a American Red Cross authorized training provider for years and what that allows us to do is like I mentioned before how we hire our staff we maintain them we train we retain and we promote um our full-time staff have now become authorized um instructors for both water safety instructor and lifeguard uh training instructors and that means that when our staff need to be recertified we don't have to send them elsewhere we can now do do it all inhouse so that's a really big plus for us oops getting ahead of myself our special events uh this is one of the things I think that is the most exciting part of our department of program of programs and services the three that I'm highlighting here tonight are ones that have been a traditional longstanding event a newer event and just a very large event the happy birthday America parade is a program that's been around longer than I've been employed by the city so a long time um it has been something that has been on everybody's calendars people come back with their kids their grandkids and participate in the little walk to celebrate our nation's Independence we have had a sponsor of that event for over 40 years and I want to give a shout out to the Shak B Valley Lions because since we've had this event they have been a part of it with providing popsicles for the kids to come and have after the parade and I think they look forward to that event as one of the their main STS um we've talked to them about doing other sponsorship uh with other programs and no matter what they said this will be one event that they will always be a part of and I think that's that's really cool our popup Putt and play um is an event that we do that really highlights our creativity of our staff um this is an 18-hole golf course that we set up in theide the community center gym in 2024 we had over 120 people participate but I think how we grew this event from years past is we added um a a special session in the morning for our active older adults to come and we we acted we added a sensory friendly portion of the event so that people with kids that had um special needs uh neurod Divergent children where they can't handle all the lights and the sounds we were allowed them to come and participate and not be at a distraction for the kids our spooky family fun event it's our Halloween event Hubert Park this year was jammed with participants with vendors we had food trucks we had music um it's one of those events where it's CommunityWide it's a free event two years ago we got rid of charging people for it and worked with our sponsors and everybody so that we were able to still put on a great program one of the most important things we do after a program happens is we send out surveys to our participants we need to know how we are doing so that we know how to improve so our surveys asked the questions did we meet your expectations was the fee appropriate was it too expensive were the staff knowledgeable did we have enough staff to the the number of kids that were in the program not all the feedback we get is good as you can see from the middle um comment but it takes those negative comments too in order for us to be better and that's really important so that we can continue to grow and meet the needs of the community moving on to Parks 2024 brought new amenities to our active Park scene this was the first full year of dedicated pickle ball at Lions Park um Lions Park also had our disc golf course undergo a major renovation um and I'll talk a little bit more about the disc golf course in a few slides another great new amenity that we added to the parks was the fitness court at Scenic Heights although we did not actively program that Fitness Court in 2024 we are adding it to our fitness classes uh this upcoming summer Our Youth Athletic associations two amateure baseball teams and private rentals continue to use our athletic fields near capacity another way that and it's much harder to quantify is the amount of users that we have that just want to be out in our Parks um people who are going for a walk enjoying the trails going fishing out at Quarry Lake um or even hammocking at the New Westminster Park according to a February 2024 nrpa Park pulse survey 92% of adults experience a positive mental health Boost after spending time in their local parks um I think that's really cool that's a really neat statist statistic uh with our Park shelters we did see a slight decrease in the overall number of Park rentals in 2024 in 2023 we had 254 rentals um in 20 24 we had 233 um we attribute that decrease uh to a couple of things one being the summer floods uh we lost some of our rentals at Hubert Park as well as Memorial and also with the Redevelopment of Memorial Park going back to a more passive nature um area um that's not being rented as often getting feedback so Lions Park Disc this information we are able to get uh from a app called udisk and the use of technology in order to learn more about who and where our users are coming from is tremendous from this slide you can see that um there were over 88,200 rounds of golf played in 2024 that's from just a little over 2,000 separate users so somebody going out there is playing more than once they're coming back because they like the course so much we have had um I counted I think I believe we have had 32 different states come play so people coming from other states 32 other states have come and participated and played on our disc golf course excuse me Sher yes you it says udisk is that some sort of app that people are using the data through this app yep so they go out and play they put their information in the app and it tracks how many times they do so we probably have had more users out there but I think this is still a really interesting way to be able to track who's coming from you know um and that's a lot of that's a lot of steps that they're putting in to go play you'll also notice um on the graph to the the right for 2024 the kind of orange and then the dark green for August and September that's right after we did the huge um Redevelopment of adding the new baskets adding the Mando um and adding the new cool features what that is you want to explain the man mandatory uh obstacle was the Mando the Mando yep or I call it at the Mando C this funny here um we also get feedback from our Park shelters so after every Monday after the weekend um our staff sends out a survey to our Park users so that we're able to track how we're doing with our Park renters uh did they find the space clean did they find it um did it fit their needs were staff helpful and courteous how was the process of renting it um our Park shelters continue to be a um place where people will do their graduation parties their birthday parties celebrations of life um they remain to be very popular last but not least our partner sponsors and donors I've tried to remember all of them going through the our lists and everything but these organizations help us do what we do without these organizations we wouldn't be able to do what we do um from being Premier sponsors to help us put on our concerts at Hubert Park to being um sponsors and Friends of the event at a lot of our active older adults um our without them we we couldn't do it um some of our biggest partners are our fellow City staff our public works department our fire department our Police Department our communication s you name it without them um we couldn't do it and it wouldn't be fun without them so um thank you to these Partners sponsors and donors and we continue to to look forward to another great year in 2025 okay so to wrap up as we look into 2025 some of the goals and objectives that um we're are looking forward to is completing our caer self assessment um while Troy and Sherry were speaking uh we were able to find out that it's Minneapolis St Paul Rochester and Roseville are the four other cities in Minnesota that are cpra accredited um we are looking to revamp our scholarship program to ensure that we're meeting the needs of our residents and they can participate in our um events programs and facilities and we are also getting new cardio equipment our lease is renewing this year for our community center and we're also looking forward to having Fitness in the park out at the new fitness court and most excitingly our newly renovated sand Venture Aquatic Park opens on June six of this year you're here and with that I'm happy to stand for any questions if there are any Mr Whiting any water aerobics plan for sand Venture that is a good question um I do not know that off the top of my head some things that we are looking at sandventure is doing some adult nights and partnering with Tommy's Malt Shop to try and get our adults out and enjoy the pool without their children um but we can certainly look in having water aerobics out there as well we do do tot time and that's quite popular I'm was thinking of opportunities to program it and you said the aerobics was if you could schedule it I'm not sure about the actual water Fitness classes but we do do a fitness in the park uh San Venture in Lions Park is one of our sites we go to so okay a short first season and I think everybody is going to be looking at the off actor checking it out seeing what it has to offer and I I would guess that the following year would be the opportunity year we could have snow up until that day I mean Could Happen well if you want to go swimming outdoor tonight let me know I I'll go watch B we hope we don't have snow on June 6th knock on wood any questions normally we would open much sooner than that I would imagine than June 6th yes the reason why we open on June 6th is because that is when school is out of session we always time our opening around there mainly because we won't have our lifeguards ready to lifeguard cuz most of them are in school um we are fortunate enough to get some college kids that come back and guard for us but we do a lot of training up until that point this year we'll do even more training than normal just to get them used to the new features and look at you know are there any things that we need to re-evaluate with the new amenities and make sure that we're operating a safe facility so we'll do quite a bit of training out there in the month of May nice I I can see some opportunities for rentals for pool parties you know not using the pool but actually you know using just the the site yes um so our rent our reservations opened for like our group rentals I want to say the first Monday in February and we are already seeing those roll in um and one thing that you know I wasn't here but according to our aquatic supervisor private rentals of the pool weren't really a big draw in the past and we've already had several inquiries about that so we're working on seeing what we can't do to make that work thanks any any other questions well thanks for your in-depth uh presentation I think uh you hit on a lot of different topics in your presentation and uh I would have to say that there's a lot of options for the folks out there that want to utilize services so absolutely that is our goal well thank you very much thank you just keep those pickle Ballers and those hockey parents happy uh item number 10 Lis on reports Mr where did I start Lara here I um just on uh February 12th Wednesday with was the main street breakfast at O'Brien's um it was just uh chamber uh giving us um giving Main Street updates um in terms of basically there's like a refresher of what we learned at the uh at their annual meeting um and then uh Michael came and gave an update on the uh uh lighting project down there because a lot of people had questions on that so that was it very good thank you Mr whing nothing to report my on is tomorrow Mr dely things second Public Utilities um we're still going through a couple of households going through the opt out side process for various reasons of course got my own letter here um to date there's been over 18,000 electrical units installed about 2,000 remaining um everything will be completed this year solar access charge will be up on our next uh utility meeting we're going to review the charge and know we just some comparing to other cities to see what they're doing but you got to understand whether you're pushing or pulling from the Grid it's you're still using infrastructure which has to be maintained so that's one of B discussions um had a meeting with the general manager one of the other Commissioners um that talk about water treatment site Ami so other topics 169 Coalition um my first time going to Transportation day at the capital I was sponsored by the Transportation Alliance I was part of our I guess advocating for transportation we did bring up the uh bridge that was one of the things Mr Reynolds was asking and all three of them said they're working on it um as far as our production Bridge getting that light lighted um we talked about the funding gap for 13 of course get those stop lights pulled to get that throughput all the way from 169 over to 35 which will help alleviate some of that and also our RBT study I think I got that right um bus transit rapid bus transit study brt brt I flip the letters brt um they look that 55 down to 41 I think that did get funded if I if I understood the discussion we had um did get a um unsolicited feedback on our Engineering in public works uh they said guys do outstanding job so that just wanted to pass that along um again I agreed but just wanted to make sure I passed that along um there'll be a groundbreaking for 2821 1699 I think that's in April Coalition is helping out also helps us to do some Outreach to push some of the the priorities that we're we're champion and uh met with county commissioner Brennan and we talked about Marshall which I think is coming back to the council one of our Council meetings as far as another presentation and details talking about what uh Marshall the Marshall Road Pro oh okay Marsh Ro project and uh what else mlc breast um you might talk about that yet I was going to oh you going to talk about you were there we were all there we were all there um and staff also that's all I got thank you very good thank you Friday November 7th we did the uh mlc breakfast um big attendance housing big topic all of us council members were in attendance with our staff um Tuesday February 11th I met with a couple here at City Hall about the smart meter issues and the opt out concerns by some residents um February 12th met with Scott County staff and commissioner Brennan the there was actually two topics one was the Marshall Road statistics we went over St statistics uh of commerci road which was uh helpful I guess um crashes you know how severity things like that um car counts past present expectations in the future um but we also talked about RI River Crossing capacity um and I've said it a million times not only at 169 but I'm to the point to where I don't really care where they put it as long as it's it's somewhere it was 20 some years ago that they told me they were going to build the 41 River Crossing to 212 and here we are 25 years later never I think they did a phase one environmental assessment over the fence or something um and we know growth is going to the West whether it's us Jordan in between B plain whatever but um any anywhere that extra River Cross capacity is put is going to lead to 169 and enhance 169 and if it removes capacity from the current river crossing that benefits the some of the things we're doing also because that capacity could go toward some of our entertainment uh needs too so but the bottom line is the river is a barrier and there needs to be capacity and the people hire up that plan Regional stuff met Council included um mindat they need to be looking at this whole Southwest area and the total River capacity and you know I I pointed it out years back at a meeting if you just look at a big map and you look at Cedar Avenue 35W 169 it kind of tells you the rest of the story right you just got to have it if you're going to keep building so um hopefully that gets somewhere Mr Reynolds thank you Mr Mayor members of council so a couple things um first of all uh Mr Jordan I had a discussion earlier today to we want to bring to you just a a brief update on the um 4th of March about our 169 study uh I know that all of us share a lot of concern with 169 the state of play of 169 the amount of time that our police and fire departments spend on 169 uh clearly areas of 169 that have a higher crash rate than anywhere else around and and you know obviously this is something that we've been working for uh for a while but uh Mr Jordan will give a an update on where we are with that it just kicked off a couple weeks ago uh very much want to keep you and the community informed on that because it is probably one of the biggest issues as we all know that we face and that has an impact on us daily uh so expect that in March and we will continue to update you as Mo we move along uh today was a day of awards uh pretty amazing uh we had a couple from our our Public Safety earlier uh but uh Chief Tate actually got an award on behalf of the department earlier uh at the County board meeting he received uh he and the department received the commissioner's circle of Excellence award for 2025 in recognition of outstanding commitment to Human Service clients for the sky SC County coordinated response uh Department him along with uh the sheriff's department uh the city of savage this is one of the best programs currently out there impacting not only our residents but also the ability of our Police Department uh and our officers to really make a difference our officers are not social workers so why not put a social worker in the department have them work with the officers and be able to do their social work stuff with our residents that clearly need help that's what this was award was for it's a groundbreaking program uh the county wants to expand it to all the cities it's an excellent program and congratulations Chief Tate and your department uh for being a part of that and speaking of bridges Mr Jordan just got back from receiving an award I love how Engineers try to make everything a little Bland um no offense Alex uh the it's the AGC men. AGC 2024 Bridge construction award for bridge number 754 that would be the pedestrian bridge over us 169 uh and so uh for exceptional Bridge construction work on bridge number 70054 presented to the city of shaki great project now if we can get the logo lit uh everything everything will be done on that bridge and we can we can close it out totally there was there a lighting issue on that bridge that I heard of uh it's a bureaucracy issue Mr Mayor another one it's not it's not a lighting issue it's a bureaucracy issue the uh short I'll I'll speak off the record with you all right I think we went it was going to be led wasn't it we have led but the logo but the logo the L portion is working yes yes okay yes the logo portion is not the logo portion not currently all right hooked up anything else from uh that is it thank you sir okay other business oh wait City Bill list 10 a no questions no questions sir okay 11 other business none for me Mr Mayor I'll make a motion to adjourn to March 4th 2025 at 7 p.m. second second discussion none all in favor say I I opposed motion passes we are in adjourned