[Music] Okay, we'll call the Shaki City Council meeting to order for Tuesday, May 6th, 2025. Please take the role. Council member Delaney here. Council member Whitening here. Council member Contreras here. Council member Lara here. And Mayor Leman here. Item number three. Please join us in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Item number four, approval of the agenda. Any changes to the agenda? Mr. Mr. Mayor, we have a couple of items. Uh first of all, uh 5H, you have a corrected title on resolution number 20253 in front of you. And we'll be pulling 5N the fence ordinance until the first meeting in June and that will come back to you then. Okay, that's it. Any changes from councel? Mr. Mr. Delaney like to pull a 5m that'll come under the consent agenda. Sorry. Okay, Mr. Lara, make a motion to approve the agenda as modified. Second, Mr. Whiting seconds the motion. Discussion on the motion discussion. Seeing none, all in favor say I. I. Opposed? Motion passes. Did you have something, counselor? Nope. Let's get a second. Item number five, consent agenda. Any changes to the consent agenda? Nothing from staff, sir. like to pull 5M uh creating a hotel licensing program just for discussion. Mr. Wing, I make a motion to approve the consent agenda uh as modified. Mr. Second by councelor Contrarus. Mr. Reynolds, would you please read the consent agenda, please? Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. These are the consent agenda items for Tuesday, May 6 of 2025. 5A awards a contract for phase two of the downtown ADA lighting and treehab improvement pro tree tree rehab improvement project. 5B is Scott County's public health statewide health improvement partnership grant award. 5C awards a contract for the 2025 stage coach road improvement project. Approves extended Saturday construction hours. accepts a proposal from WSB for construction services and approves a railroad agreement. 5D is a resolution to approve Dakota County joining the Minnesota Valley Transit Author Authority Board. 5E is a temporary liquor license for the Shockby Lions Club and Foundation. 5F is special event permit and temporary liquor license for JCI Shakape. 5G is the Shakpi Soccer Association donation. 5H is a JCI shockb donation. 5 A 5 I establishes a social district. 5J is a declaration of surplus fire department property. 5K is ordinance 02025 TAC uh excuse me 02025 TAC 012 regulating grease traps and enforcement. 5 L is ordinance adopting the plumbing code regulations for delegation. 5 O approves the city council meeting minutes for April 15 of 2025. 5P is ordinance 02025 TAC 014 allowing on sale wine licenses and on sale malt liquor licenses for baseball teams. 5Q is ordinance 02025 tech015 amending the city's adopted 2025 fee schedule. 5R is change order number one for Quarry Lake Park Shelter. 5S approved plans and authorizes bidding for the Mary'stown Road Reconstruction Project and approves a contract amendment with SRF. 5T is a renewal of a lease with Mandot for the dog park in South Bridge. 5U approves a contract amendment with SRF for professional services for the County Road 101 Shinanoa Drive traffic signal improvement project. 5V approves the 202526 liquor license renewals. And 5W declares scuba diving equipment a surplus and approves its sale to the Carver County dive team. Thank you, Mr. Reynolds. We do have a motion in a second. Is there any questions on the motion? Questions? All in favor say I. I. Opposed. Motion passes. That takes us to item number six, public comment. If you are here for an item that is not on the agenda and would like to speak to council, now would be your time to do so. Please. Welcome. You can give us your name and address for the record. That would be awesome. Go ahead and pull it toward you. Slides on that table. Thank you. Really, really close. Really close. Is it Is it on to plug it in the floor or something? Nope. If we if we can't get that, can we can we have her at the podium over here with that microphone? Sorry for the inconvenience. Oh, that one's not on either. Technology is going to make us more efficient. May I get it? Try try it out. I don't know. No. So, well, at least this one's working again. Sorry. Yes, absolutely. Sorry for the inconvenience. Uh, next year's project. All right. No worries. Thank you. So, yeah. So, I'm Victoria Ranoa, RA N UA, and I live at 5284 Eagle Creek B Boulevard, and this area is zoned rural residential. And I am here tonight to respectfully request that you guys reconsider the removal of agricultural as an allowed land use. This was removed in 2020 when you guys made some changes to your allowed land uses. Um, I purchased my property in 2021. Um, in part because it was rural residential and agriculture wasn't a lot of land use since I was in kindergarten. You asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said I want to be a beekeeper and have an outro apple orchard. First thing I did was get bees. I have a quarter acre orchard. And I've been involved in agriculture operations within the the county helping other people establish farms. And um in 2015, I started my own 300 acre or 300 hive beekeeping operation with 20 hives on the property um harvesting all my honey on the land. And then in 2017, my husband got sick and I um sold the bees but kept the equipment. And then when I I'm ready to kind of start things up again, I find that the zoning has changed. and and I thought well like I knew about the residential beekeeping thing um but I didn't think it applied to me because I thought agriculture wasn't allowed land use. So I just respectfully request you reconsider that um if there's a reason why it was um removed or if it I think it might have been an oversight but if there was a reason why it was removed consider addressing those concerns in uh as a conditional use permit instead. So, um, it just is a a fantastic opportunity to provide food. Those rural residential pro, you're not making any more rural residential properties. They're stuck. This is a a great opportunity to provide um good, wholesome food um to the community. So, please reconsider that land use. Can I get the address one more time? Yeah. 5284 Eagle Creek Boulevard. And then while my husband was sick, I got um a weekly box of vegetables from a rural residential property in Marshall Road. So, not too many people are gonna take up this call of agriculture on rural properties, but some will. And thank you. Well, we appreciate you coming and talking tonight. Any any clarifying questions from council? Okay. The the way the policy works is we we take the information, staff takes the information, and they'll do some research and they will tell us uh what they find and we'll ask questions that we have of them. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. I have one question. Mr. White, can staff mention when that ordinance was change or that zoning was changed, that language? They're going to have to research it. Well, I'll have to research if they can remember that. I don't want to put you on the spot, but do you know have any idea? Yeah, we have to speak into the mic. We can't here. Thank you. Yeah. Do you have any idea when that uh uh zoning was changed? 2020. If you remember, we uh mayor and council, we moved everything to a table format. And just looking at it, I think it was a scrier's error because you can have a roadside stand, but you can't grow things. So, I think that was just an error when they transferred the table over into the code. So, I will look tomorrow because I noticed note 46 allows a roadside stand with conditions. So, you have to be able to grow things to be able to sell things. So, um I'll look tomorrow, but I have a feeling it just got dropped out of the table. Scrier and Mr. Reynolds, if staff could just go ahead and shoot us all an email on what they find. Thank you. Any anything else? And hopefully keep in contact with uh Miss Right. Many sorry. Thank you. Did Did you get the the contact information, Mr. Kursky? Mayor, I know her very well. Okay, very good. That's a yes. Correct. Okay. Thank you. If is there anybody else that would like to address the council on an item not on the agenda? Item not on the agenda. Okay. Seeing none, we will move on to item number seven. Business removed from the consent agenda. 5M was removed by councelor Delaney. Mr. Delaney. Correct. This is just more clarification for me. Concerning on wording on uh page six of the ordinance or I guess 110 of our packet uh item 10 no interested person employee manager or contract performing services of any kind may reside in a guest room at the hotel. How does that apply? I mean we don't have it yet but there are like uh Wisconsin Dells where you have those resorts where you get college kids over the summer. How's that handled? Mayor and council, that clause is put in there so that you're not living in the hotel as the owner. Oh, okay. Got just need that clarification. Y um number 11, that's my other one. No guest shall be able to establish permanent residence. I'm just looking for the definition of permanent residence. So, it's staying for more than 30 days. So, we have a couple hotels in town where people are basically using it as an apartment. If you remember the individual who was involved in a murder a few years ago, he was actually living as his residence in one of the hotels in town. So how that applied to like an extended stay? Again, we don't have them yet, but question. Extended stay. So extended stay is defined in the code as less than 30 days. So extended stay means you're saying for a couple weeks once you hit that month, it's an apartment. You're no longer paying the lodging taxes. It's no longer a hotel room. Okay. So, technically, I suppose they could check out, go somewhere else for a day or two, and then come back and check in. I'm sure there's always loopholes. Is that always loopholes in the law, right? Yeah. I mean, is that how extended stay handles it now or Well, I don't think I don't think people go for more than, you know, two or three weeks on an extended stay business type. So, mayor and council. So, um the one that's next to McDonald's, there's an extended stay there. They have contractors typically that come from out of town. They'll stay there Monday through Friday. They go home on the weekend and then they come back on Mondays. So, they're only staying there while they're working. It's not their place of residence. Yeah. So, that explain Okay. Business won't pay for the weekend. Got it. And I I guess I guess I I've got a question or two. Do you have more? Just my last one. I promise here. Um on the next page number seven, page seven, number C. as far as inspection hours, just making sure the rooms are un unoccupied and we're not What page are you on? Uh page 111 of the packet, page seven of the ordinance. So mayor and council, that's very similar to our rental ordinance. So typically we do not enter an apartment or we would not rent our unit unless the person's okay with it or the police or fire department would enter a unit if there's someone ill or someone has passed away. or something. We've had hotel units where the occupant has been deceased. So that's the only time that we would enter. Thank you. So I I guess the question I had um page 110 item 10. No interested person, employee, manager, or contractor performing services of any kind may reside in a guest room at the hotel. So, if if you hire a contractor to, I don't know, put carpeting in or something and it's going to take a couple days, they can't as an individual rent out a room for the night to finish the work tomorrow. Mayor Council, I'll defer to the city attorney since he wrote most of this. Mr. Mayor, I'm looking at that. I'm sorry, but one more time, could you ask your question? amendment. So on page 110 of the packet, item number 10, no interested person, employee, manager, or contractor performing services of any kind may reside in a guest room at the hotel. So if you got a specialist for a boiler or something coming out of Chicago to fix something and it's going to take two days, he can't stay overnight there. Granted, he would have to buy a rent a room or whatever like the normal general public. That's a good question. I went I wanted to go back and look at the definition of interested person and it does not include those types of um you know contractes. Uh we can certainly take a look at that and change that. I I I get the point and and I'm also concerned about in the same exact wording on that same item an owner of the property not being allowed to stay on his own property. reside. I think well he can rent a room if he's the undercover boss, right? You you could council. I think that is concerning. So having the actual owner of the property basically has an apartment that's a rental unit. It's no longer a hotel room and there's different codes that apply to that. Well, this is saying guest room. So the owner of the property can't do a surprise visit and check in as a guest for a night in his own hotel. Is that what you're telling me? No. Mayor Council, I'm saying you can't live there. So the whole idea behind I believe and the city attorney can correct me is this is to keep it says reside your employees from living on the property. So the word reside should be permanent residency or resident. Yeah. Yeah. M that's correct. Yes. Yeah. That the the purpose of this is not to let them live there. Okay. That doesn't mean they couldn't rent a room there. So, uh, to maybe to keep the language consistent, uh, we should probably say may be a permanent resident in a guest room. That would be consistent with or if you use the term extended stay. No, because extended stays are allowed up to 30 days. Okay. Then it becomes a permanent resident. I'll defer to the attorney then. Do you want Can we do that as a text amendment here tonight? Yes. And and if I may, I I'll read what it would if everyone agrees. No interested person, employee, manager, or contractor performing services of any kind may permanently reside in a guest room at the hotel. I think that covers Yeah, that's fine. We can add that one word and that should take care of it. And I I'm assuming if it's the same thing as worded anywhere else in this resolution, we would have to make that change too consistent. I don't know if I haven't read it through that deep. Maybe by the end of we can put this on the back page. Mr. Thompson. [Music] Uh give me one. I'm just doing a quick word search here to see if it does show up anywhere else. And smart. Uh that looks like it's the only time where the word reside is in the ordinance. The rest of it all is residency. So it should be the only change we need to make. Okay. All right. Any other discussion and any other questions on this? That's all nine. Thank you, Mr. Lara. No. What's wishes of council? Mr. L. Um, I'll make a motion to adopt ordinance um 02025-013 as modified. Is there a second? Second, Mr. Delaney. Discussion on the motion. Is there discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all in favor say I. I. Opposed. Motion passes. Item number eight would be a recess for economic development authority meeting. M. Councelor Contrarus. I'll make a motion to recess to the EDA. Is there a second? Mr. Delaney seconds the motion. Discussion on the motion. Seeing none, all in favor say I. Opposed. We're in recess for the EDA. All right. Welcome. Uh call to order the Tuesday, May 6th meeting of the Shakabe Economic Development Authority meeting. Uh please make note of the role. Uh we're not going for any records tonight, but we could with this agenda. Um so if there's anything anybody would like to pull, I'll ask for a motion to approve the agenda. So moved. All right, we have a motion by member Lara. Second. Second by member Catra. Uh discussion, discussion, discussion. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Uh consent agenda. There's nothing. I don't even think we need to move that. Uh, general business, we have nothing. We have item number five, the EDA bill lists. Does anybody have anything they'd like to pull? Any questions? None for me. All right. Uh, with that, uh, if there is, uh, we can move to adjourn if there's no disscent. All right. I'll make a motion to adjourn to the next time. Um we're on which will probably be the first meeting in June uh June 5th. No uh June 3rd 2025. Is there a second? Second. We have a motion that's seconded to adjourn. Uh discussion discussion discussion. All those in favor say I. I. We stand adjourn. Thank you. Well, Mr. President, was it a record? No, we were not rushing things. It was not a record. All right. Item 10A, monthly financial report. Finance Director, Mr. Reinhardt, the floor is all yours when you're ready, sir. That DA meeting was so quick, I wasn't quite ready for this. Um, take my time. Well, good evening, mayor and council members. Uh, tonight I'll go through the monthly financial report through March. Um, which would also include the first quarter investment report. I just wanted to pro provide a quick update on the audit. So, we have completed our audit fieldwork for 2024. Um, that presentation will be completed by the auditors at the June 3rd uh city council meeting. Uh, but pleased to announce that we're we'll receive a clean audit opinion. Uh, and there were no audit findings or comments. So, another solid year from a financial perspective. Good work. Uh, so this slide shows the general fund through March. Uh, so 25% of the way through the year. Uh, still pretty early in the year. So, one or two large transactions can often kind of skew the results of this report. Uh, for revenues, property taxes, and special assessments, those will remain at zero until we collect our uh first half tax settlement in June. Uh, licenses and permits uh tracking ahead of budget targets uh for uh this year as well as um a little bit ahead of last year. Uh so, we're continuing to see growth in uh building permits um so far in 2025. Uh miscellaneous would typically include investment earnings. Um but we uh have yet to allocate interest for 2025. Uh typically we'll wait till after the audit so uh we can ensure we have accurate starting cash balances when we do that those interest allocations. So though those will appear um in the next monthly report. Uh on the expenditure side uh we're within the budget target in total. Uh I'd consider each um department budget at this point in time uh reasonably in line with with budget expectations uh through this point of the year. uh mayor and council are showing ahead of budget targets. This is mostly a result of timing. Uh annual dues are paid at the beginning of the year. So as the year progresses, uh we'll s we'll likely see that department um come within uh budget targets by the end of the year. Um just a couple slides on the investment report. Um you did receive the full uh full report with your packet. Uh this slide shows interest earnings uh for the first quarter in comparison to the previous four years. Uh that dark green line is 2025. Uh we're at about 700,000 through the first quarter. Uh so slightly up but comparable to what where we were last year through March. Uh my expectation would be that um we'd end up similar to last year with um interest earnings at the end of the year. I did add one um slide here just to show our interest return uh in comparison to the three-year uh Treasury yield which is the benchmark that we use in our our investment report. Uh our maturity average is about 2.5 years. So a little less than that three-year um benchmark. Uh the blue line on the slide uh being um that benchmark and the city being the orange line. Uh we've stayed fully invested meaning that um we invest everything we can above what we need for operations. Uh generally this means more predictability in um interest income uh and better returns over a longer period of time. Uh because typically with investments the longer the maturity uh the higher the rate the return will be. Uh the um again the orange line on the chart is our investments return. I just wanted to show that typically we lag behind the interest rate changes. So uh in the instance where current market rates increase it sometimes takes a little time to catch up as you can see in the the 2022 year. Uh but in instances where current market rates uh decrease uh we'll have a period of time where we're outperforming as you can see in 2020 2020 and 2021. Uh I think we're in good position with our current portfolio now. So, uh, if interest rates were to come down, I don't believe we'd see a immediate impact on, uh, what what we might expect for interest earnings in this year and the next year. Uh, and then this slide here just shows um the unrealized uh, gain or loss um, for 2025. Again, it's the green line um, otherwise known as the the market value adjustments for the for the investments. Uh last couple of years we had a pretty significant adjustment for unrealized gains as um interest rates kind of stayed flat or actually shifted down in the past year. Uh so far in 2025 rates are down in comparison to December 24. Uh so we currently have an unrealized gain of 670,000. Uh we do intend to hold all our investments to maturity. So that unrealized gain loss is only recorded once a year on December 31st. uh market still is indicating rates um likely will come down at the end of the year, but you I guess you never know with where things have been going. Uh if we were to see that happen, we' we'd have another unrealized gain for for 2025, similar to what we saw last year. Uh with that, I can stand for any questions that you might have questions. Mr. Lara, I just have a comment. Congratulations on your zero findings on your audit. Yeah, I'm actually looking very forward to their presentation in June. It's always nice to not have anything come up during the audit. It's good. Good stuff. That's it for me. Anything on the side, sir? Item 10B will be the police annual report presentation by the police chief, Mr. Tate got it. Good evening, Mayor, members of council. Uh, back tonight for another annual report presentation. And I think the theme is is going to sound a little bit like a broken record uh from years past. Uh, we see a couple different themes uh throughout these slides. Uh this is one of those positive themes that we see is the uh trend is still going down. Our overall crime rate in Shakby hit a record low last year. Uh I know that doesn't some folks might not feel that or they might not believe that but this is what the numbers are. Um we remain a very very safe community. Um and we're real proud of of that trend. our top, you know, some of our top uh reported crimes. You can see they're going down again. Overall, an 8.1% decrease um in crime from the year before. Uh I will tell you that our first quarter of 2025 here, um we are seeing an uptick in certain things. Uh our arrests, our DUIs. There's a couple reasons for that. Number one, I think um we're fully staffed. We have our DUI officer uh that's grant funded that's back. He missed a good portion of last year. We'll see that reflected a little bit in the DUI numbers. Uh he was on late duty. And we have a younger um a younger force, a less experienced force tend to do a lot more traffic enforcement, stopping uh catching people with warrants. and our uh proactive policing unit uh has been up and running fully staffed here now for several months. So you see that a little bit reflected in in the data from uh last year and you will see that again. I also think it's important when you when you get your monthly reports when you see that things are up to remember historically where we're at. Even if we go up a little bit, historically, we are still at a at a very very um good crime rate overall. Where we like to see the arrow go up uh is this one right here, the case clearance rate uh going up. It's always our goal, it has been for several decades to be well uh to be above the metro average and our case clearance rate. Those 40 45%s there are um are above the average. 55 is well above the average. um that you know tells us what are we doing when we actually get a reported crime. Are we solving it? Is there an arrest made? Is that uh case cleared? So again, I think with our our DUI car, our proactive policing unit, we're going to see a lot uh this case clearance rate remain high. I also think it's um important with this slide too. Um our officers I I talk about that proactive policing unit that is a priority in our our police department. It is nice to see some of the things that that we hear back from the people that we do deal with. Um we had an officer, our our proactive unit first and foremost. A lot of times they'll uh they got their own little sheet that they keep when they have a phone that they'll dump on a case where people are texting each other back and forth. Don't go to shock. If you're going to shock, make sure your headlights are on and you're driving the speed limit. Um, we have an officer just the other day, uh, she shared that she had somebody in the back of her car for a theft. Uh, that individ individual said, and I quote, "Everyone said not to come to Shakpi." Um, last week our drug task force had over an ounce of meth that they had a control buy set up on here in town. Uh, the individual called and said, "I'll do it in Bloomington. I'm not doing it in Shakipi. It's too hot there." That's the kind of reputation I love. Um, it's not, you know, it it is one that I think we've earned. We've stayed very aggressive throughout the 2000s. You saw that that graph going down. I know that you hear a lot in the media. Minneapolis has said it. You know, crime's gone down last year everywhere, and it has. Um, but if you look at that 2019, 2020, and that graph, it's been consistently going down, and not every city can say that. Chief, what's the metro average clearance rate? We won't get it for mayor. We will not get it for 2024 until probably mid to late June. It's usually that 43 44% um is where we've historically had it. We've published that um in our reports in the past, right? We get it very very late in the year. Okay. Again, kind of that broken record theme. There's not a whole lot different here than than what you saw last year. our calls for service uh 22,661. Um I don't have code enforcement on there, but they saw a slight uptick in in terms of the code complaints that they they dealt with. Sorry, Mr. Mayor. Um couple questions. You mentioned code enforcements. Now, that's just the one officer. Police officers are not doing any code enforcement. Mayor, council, our goal is with that code enforcement officer and with a cso that they handle the overwhelming majority of of that. An officer may take an initial complaint, especially if it's at night, if it's after hours when those two positions aren't working, but these are these are calls that require followup, whether it's 7 days later to make sure there's compliance, 10 days later, those types of things. So, that's that's our our clearing house are are those two individuals. So, a little followup to that. When we got our code enforcement, we were moving to more to a proactive approach on code enforcement. Do you still see us as a proactive code enforcement city? Mayor, council, I part of what the struggle is with code enforce I think our code book has something like 900 different codes. So, when you hire a cso to start training them in and then as we just swore in another one uh last week, um it's hard to hard to get somebody. I think we're going to that consistency helps. That's why we got the full-time code compliance officer that we have. I always want to be a little more proactive, but again, you're going to see again this next week or two, we're going to start getting the long grass complaints. We're going to start getting uh weed complaints. You get a drought summer like we've had in the last few summers, those complaints go down. So, sometimes it's weather related. Um, we haven't been systematically going through town necessarily the way that that I would like. It it really is a lot of complaint driven that that we're uh going to. Now, when we go to a call and we see something at one house, if there's somebody down the block, the expectation is that they'll that, you know, they've got their tires out uh outside, too. The expectation is that we're going to make sure everybody on that block is in complex. you can understand that's probably one of our most makes our phone ring the most I guess uh on is code enforcement. Now the other thing I was hoping you could explain is the the Lewis Street Bridge and uh why we have 169 so that anybody watching can understand what that means. Sure. Um first and foremost 169 and Lewis Street Bridge a lot of uh crashes are part of that. Okay. Also, uh you look at the Highway 169 numbers, I'd say I think it's close to 80% of those are traffic stops or traffic related calls. Somebody's drunk, um impaired driver, uh road rage. We are in the middle of a grant right now too where we are um have extra enforcement due to the uh crash rates on 169. I know the studies coming and uh I'm excited to see what that that shows. Um but right now because of the crashes Lewis Street Bridge again um we get a lot of complaints on in the uh mornings in particular people making right illegal right turns on Lewis Street because they don't want to sit in the backup. So they'll go to the light and make the right turn to go north. Um we do have officers that that sit out there in the morning and and watch that uh bridge as well. it. Anytime you have a bridge, whether it's 169 or or Lewis Street, when it weathers, you get in Clement Weather, it's slippery. Uh that's part of it. And also, um it could be a stop that they do on 101, but if they're by the Lewis Street Bridge, they say 101 Lewis Street Bridge, that hap, you know, that pops up on there. This includes all your on-ramps, off-ramps to 169, which is a big stretch that has thousands and thousands of cars. So, I'm not, you know, every day that go through there. So, I'm not surprised by the numbers. Um, I don't um I I think our enforcement efforts, again, we see people the speed numbers that our officers are are getting out there are are high. So, it is important that we're out there. Um, and I'm looking forward to see what happens from an engineering standpoint uh when this study is complete. Thank you. I'm I'm glad that uh Mandot worked with us on dollars for that safety study and uh I've been banging that drum for a while now and that is a really high call load and it you know it's not just police, it's fire also. Mayor and council, I I will add to that this grant that that extra enforcement grant is ending here in 2025. So I again you'll see it's getting worked a lot now. You're going to see the traffic numbers up, the warrant arrests up. Uh because we out are out there, uh this doesn't impact our minimums on our our patrol staff who's patrolling the city when they're out there. Um but that does end here shortly, that grant. Uh lararseny, vandalism, and and DUI again in the top three. And I'm going to I'll get into some of the arrests here in a little bit. uh citations. Again, I I talked about some of the extra enforcement grants. There's the TZD grant, too, that we we do for impaired driving. Um you know, roughly, I think 9,500 stops a year uh in 2024, close to that. When you add everything up, uh when you look at who's actually getting a moving violation ticket from one of our officers, they're getting a they're giving a a moving violation ticket. take the snowbirds out. Uh if you 30% of our stops, so 70% of the time our officers are out there and the purpose is to educate. That is our priority. Um to make our roads safer. It's not to go see how many tickets we can write. Um, I will point out I think the last two years here we've got two officers just by the themselves have done more traffic stops just by those two officers than some whole departments have done in Scott County. Councelor Lara, what's a snowbird citation? Oh, the snowbird citation would be somebody who's our winter parking ordinance. So, the 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. uh or no street parking calendar. Yeah. real and then um I have another one real quick going back to that last slide. Um number four, Evana Addison. Is that just because it's the sheer size of the It's a lot of is because it's our largest apartments. Mayor Council, I we've again we kind of scrub through these pretty good and and it is a again size-wise just the volume you're going to see some of those. Uh I've always said like if any city that has a Walmart in is going to have it in their top uh places. Anybody that has an ER is going to have it in their in their top. And I will point out that the if you look at the history going back a few years on apartment being in the top call, I'm not necessarily saying it's management in this particular case, but in many cases it's it's management. And as that management issue gets addressed, you see them calls go down and and then maybe you see it at a different location. Great. Arrests and response to resistance. We I know I've covered this before. I'll just do it real quick. Um we do not call it a use of force report because you don't have to use force to um generate this report. It's an internal document that we have that we require officers to fill out. Uh anytime they use anything beyond an escort hold. So even just if you had to pin somebody up against the car and restrain somebody to get them handcuffed, that generates uh this report. It goes to a supervisor who a sergeant who reviews the body camera footage and signs off on it. Sends it to a captain who does the same and then they send it off to me who does the same. So, it's a it's a pretty pretty strict process that we have. It's one that um uh has been pushed out there as a best practices by benchmark analytics um that that review. uh we are constantly collecting a lot of data in our response to resistance reports. So what does that data uh tell us? First of all, remember we had 22,600 some calls in uh 2024. You look at the 104 uh reports there. That's 0004% of the time in any call for service generates a response to resistance report. Um when you look at that and you look at 23 and 24, oh my goodness, we've got um 30 extra uh reports. What's happening? Arrests were I think down slightly, but yet we have all these remember the mental health aspect of this. That is a big big portion of that 104. A lot of times that's somebody in mental health crisis that we have to assist the paramedics in holding down um as they transport in an ambulance. 30% of that 104 are people in mental health crisis. That is data that we um extrapulate from from our folks. Um 7.3% of all arrests we make require this report. Um if you look at the again the just over the um 1,400 arrests 104 require a report. 70% of the time our officers are just restraining someone. Okay. So about 30 times in the entire year in 2024 our officers have to use force and that include using a taser one time. We used the taser and deployed it one time last year. So, of all our arrests, we're looking at 0.2% of the time we're actually using physical force. Um, the overwhelming majority of those force incidents were taking someone to the ground. Um, 50% of the people we deal with in in that 104 uh were under the influence of alcohol or drugs. And as I mentioned, um 30% in a mental health uh crisis situation. I don't see that changing unfortunately. Uh I think you know we've seen it in some of the uh things that get sent either to council or um certainly the calls that were on the the mental health crisis piece that we've had um is not going away. Our coordinated response unit has done a fantastic job at lowering a lot of call loads. I cite an example often where uh we were one year I think 23 we we were at this house 84 times and in 20 23 we were at it 84 times last year we were at it four all due to that coordinated response uh program. So that is that is helping um immensely in that. I mentioned again the D uh DWI arrests. Uh we're down just a a slight tick. I think that's going to be a much higher number in 2025. Again, full-time uh DUI car that is a grant-f funed car. Um his salary, his overtime, his training, everything is reimbured uh by this grant. It's something we apply for every every October. Confident we'll get it. Most departments that have had it in the past, a lot of them just due to staffing issues can't have that. Uh so our competition for the grant isn't immense, but also the our numbers and what our person is producing uh warrants them to keep funding it. So we're quite confident that program will keep going. Uh the broken record theme again, 251. I've said this over and over for years. I I look forward to the year we don't have to do it, but our average blood alcohol level of someone we arrest on a DUI is twice the legal limit. Just over twice the legal limit. So, um we still despite all the free rides, all everything that we have um we're still uh seeing the people that we do get are very very uh intoxicated. Of the 251, 40 of those were drug um arrests for impairment. I have a question, Mr. Lara. I'm curious if if it's possible to ever um see statistics on DUI arrests in Shakpi comp like who's a resident and who's not because since we are a destination city, I'm wondering how many of those are people that don't live here versus people that because since we do have all those ride programs and such, um I'm just curious to see what the numbers would look like casually. Sure. Mayor and council, just real quick, anecdotally, I I look at every one of them every day. Uh the overwhelming majority are not from here. Overall, close to twothirds of everybody that we arrest and book in the Scott County jail is not from here. I believe we collect that data, but maybe not on the DWI arrests, but not on the DUI arrests. Um it's something maybe we look at like a month or two here and we can give that that to you. But most of the folks that I see um again because I look at them, they're not from here. But I think in fairness, if you take our population compared to the transit population going through the transit population just on 169 and is substantial. Yep. And then uh before I leave this slide, I I do want to uh again uh last week uh MAD Minnesota announced we were there law enforcement agency of the year. That's the third time uh in the last maybe 15 years that we've received that award. I think we've got seven or eight awards uh agency awards from that organization over the last few years. And a lot of it has to do with what we're doing proactively in in the uh getting PE designated driver program which if you've looked Savage is doing that this month. Um our programs are being replicated throughout the state and Mad Minnesota recognized that. Uh drug task force again you see their numbers going up a little bit. It's um there's a couple different things. I mean the amounts for charging have have changed over the years. They need higher amounts to get higher charges. They've they're fully staffed now, uh, which is eight agents and a and a commander. Um, we in 2025 have one agent in the police in the uh, drug task force. And we also have one of our sergeants as the commander. Uh, that's always been very beneficial to us. I think that's going to be good for Shaki. Uh, when uh, whenever we've been driving the bus, I think we get a little more attention around here. Um, and I know that the two individuals that we have are going to really push things and and be proactive in uh from the task force standpoint. Chief, what's the uh the number of investigations is up quite a bit and then the prescription drug substantial increase. What's up with that? Some of it is uh mayor councel uh investigations can be a lot of things just the different tips. The drug task force really kind of was a little bit of a roller coaster staffing wise in terms of who was there that you know some agencies took a long time to uh fill somebody when you do put a new agent in. There's a learning curve uh with that kind of work. But in any drug case, especially like pills, you get one good case and it's gonna, you know, you get catch somebody at the right time with the right possession. Um, you're going to get a lot of lot of pills. Well, I'm I'm curious. Is this somebody with prescription drugs that aren't their own? Yes. A lot of them are probably press pills, too, laced with fentanyl, those types of things. Okay. Well, then they get a lot of they get a lot of press pills. Um, but those aren't prescription. be there'll be some prescription, but I a lot of them will be illegal press pills. We're classifying that as prescription because it looks like a prescription. Correct. Okay. Yep. I saw a special on them press things on the news and it's like God, they can make them just pretty quick. Pretty sad actually. It was epic now. It's crazy. And we do um we do get reimbursed a certain amount for having an agent in there and even more so for having a a sergeant in there. So those funds from the grants for these task forces do uh come back to the city. So some future needs and trends. Um just very very quick update u from the flood last year the state disaster relief request form. I did complete that and submit that. There's been some turnover on the at the state level emergency management wise. So things are moving slow but they are moving. We're moving towards getting a reimbursement. Um I can't say exactly how much. It's going to be a little over 20,000 that the city will get recouped uh for what happened last last spring. Um we are in the future we are in the process of moving towards uh a new dispatch system. Uh the county is um that is their decision. They're moving. I think it's going to require a lot more work on our part. We've done some research into this specific program with their records management leggg. Um we've got a lot of work to do. I've got a lot of concerns in in terms of the workload that's going to be falling on our record staff and specifically uh our patrol staff. So, um, we were with Prior Lake, uh, representatives today out at South Lake Minnetonka looking at their system and, um, we don't, the countyy's paying for it, but we have some concerns in terms of workload and safety that are going to fall on us. Cars, I'm just real briefly on this since CO, you know, cars have been a a challenge. you know, we we put the order in early. Uh say we need four squad cars and there's a little bit of a crapshoot. Bill's staff does a great job at kind of getting that in early, seeing when we can, you know, dropping the hammer when we can and we can get these vehicles in, but even uh some of the unmarks right now, it's it's very very difficult to get squads. Um we are we are in competition. They're not turning them out like they used to. And um that's going to continue. training. Uh this has been one of our calling cards as you know for three decades how much uh how much we value training. It's our research and development for our staff, our professional development. Um training needs are not going to go away. You know the mandates aren't going away, but if you've been listening, training reimbursement funds are going to be uh cut at some point. Um both the House and the Senate have right now we get about $940 per officer if they're here for uh the entire year. Uh I've seen anywhere from 70 to 20% cuts in that. So it could be a substantial cut in our training reimbursement. Um hopefully we know in a month or so what what that's going to be. Uh luckily our tribal funds can offset that. um it's still going to be a priority. Unfortunately, I think for some smaller uh more rural police departments, they're going to they're going to be hurting. Um animal control is has been something I've been frustrated with, I think, for for over a decade. We spend quite a bit on this. Uh it's about $34,000 a year. Uh nobody's happy with the service that we're getting from it. Um alternatives are few and none. Uh we are not alone in this. I know Savage, Prior Lake, us, we've done a lot of talking uh at a county chief's level about what can we do animal control-wise. Certainly, we can get a lot of complaints real fast. Uh if animals aren't being treated right, um this is something that we're probably looking at maybe having to do in-house with our code enforcement folks. We impound about 100 dogs a year. We can do it. Um but it'll probably mean a couple different things in space-wise in terms of kennels and and those things. So um that is coming. Um we are um again moving moving towards uh an alternative there. Council contriers. Thank you. Quick question for you. Um and I don't know where I'm going with this but it's just a question. When are we up or are officers up for like up um vest? because I, you know, doing events with them, I've seen how a lot of officers wear outer vest with all their equipment outside and I've noticed our officers wear the inner vest. Right. Right. So, it's just is that our officers, mayor, council, our officers can wear an external vest. Okay. They don't wear the loadbearing vest that have all the stuff on them. Okay. And that's a decision I I have articulated numerous times with our staff. I've got my reasons why I I don't like the loadbearing vests. If they have a problem with the weight on their belt, we have suspenders and they get we'll buy them the suspenders that you can hide inside. I don't I got a lot of safety concerns. Not um along with the look of them uh having all these rounds and bullets and handcuffs and everything out there. Um I don't like the look of that. Got it. And there's studies that out there that have put a lot of research into this. There's a lot of studies out there that show that's not a good look and it's not one that u bodess well for us and in the type of police officer we want to we want to show. Got it. Thank you. But we're not compromising safety. No. No. I I think uh look, we've been wearing this uniform for years. I mean, we still have our vests. It's a there's a federal and state grant that reimbures us for the vests. So, every was it five years, we get new ones. Okay. So, we get fitted and um they can get an external carrier if they want. So, when they come in, some do. They come in, it's a hot day, they can take it off and write their report, cool down, all of that stuff. Um, but in terms of the loadbearing vest, again, I I can talk all day about the cons of that. I think some people think it looks cool, but um I got a lot of safety issues with those two. Over the years, Chief Vest have with technology, vest have gotten lighter, but still uh what's the word? Uh capable or whatever. Mayor Council, they they're still capable. I don't know how how much lighter they were. When I started, we we had these paper thin ones and they failed some tests and we had to go reissue everybody new vests and I we missed those old vests cuz they were real thin and light and and cool. Um, but again, I think I think a lot of the technology is is the same. If the officer wants to wear an armor plate, they can. That adds obviously weight and bulk. Sure. Um, but they in terms of vests and equipment, they have the best that's out there in terms of a bullet ballistic vest. All right. Good. Questions on this side? Questions? Chief, I just got one last question. What does the if you could if you could what would be the one thing that the residents of Shakpi could do that helps keep our crime rate down. Mayor, thank you for asking me that. I forgot that on that slide when we talked about crime going up and down and uh if every resident in Shaki just locked their car without the keys, right? without the keys in it, preferably not running. Uh if every resident would bring their laptop in from their uh car, their purse, anything like that, that those crimes of opportunity, unlocked garages left open overnight. And unlocked vehicles represent a very significant portion of our thefts, which is our number one reported crime. Has been for decades, probably always will be. um if they just do that, we'll hit another record next year. So that's why you see it in a lot of our communications, too. The locket shot campaigns that we've had over the years, um emphasizing that. It is a it is an opportunity thing and residents do need to do their part to make sure that they that they don't have that stuff out there. Well, and I I was always under the assumption and and worked with the police department many years, even before council, that, you know, if you're calling in a crime, the more good solid data that you can get safely to the police, the better chance they're going to be able to be more proactive and and successful in that crime following up. So, you know, you just don't say there's a car, you know, whipping donuts out in front. You got to need need more information than that. You know, color, type, maybe a license plate. Um, mayor and council, last slide. Um, I want to hit on staffing just real quick. Uh, I've I even just last week read a two-pager from a metro department, pays very well, uh, down over seven cops and they're going to lose seven this year to retirements. And the theme of the letter was, you know, we're doing our best not to make everyone go to mandatory 12-hour shifts. Um, that happens, uh, with a number of departments here. We are fully staffed. I do anticipate maybe losing one in July. Um, we will still be fully staffed. Uh, I bring this up for a couple reasons. U, we've undergone a lot of transition in the last couple years. Uh, hit a bit of a retirement cliff. There is, I mean, a recruitment war going on with everybody trying to um fill their ranks with with lateral hires and lots of incentives. Um, we've done a really really good job. I'm proud of our staff. They've worked hard recruiting. Uh, our officers have worked hard recruiting. If you look at our hires the last couple years, you see a nice mix of people just getting out of school and people that are coming from other agencies um with experience so that we don't 15 years from now have another retirement cliff uh where we're trying to uh fill all these gaps and and holes. Um a lot of that credit comes to you folks for giving us the flexibility. Uh when we see somebody that we like that we need, we have to jump on them. uh our cso that we hired, we are as a patrol officer, I think we we had our eyes on him this time last year and just kind of put the arms around him and and weren't going to let him go because we knew he wouldn't last long out there. That flexibility is key. It's going to be key in the future to keep us um selective in our hiring. Hiring for character is always our um our goal. Uh I will share with you and again this is a big reason I wanted to bring up staffing. We just had some 360 feedback come through from from everybody from the department. Uh we also get feedback uh in general from our checkup from the neckup. So psychologists don't give anything specific but general themes uh mayor council the last two years but this year in particular I would say 85 to 90% no exaggeration of the feedback that we get officers can write whatever they want 85 to 90% of that talks about how good our culture is. Find me another cop shop that has that. That really makes me I I've been doing cartwheels for a while uh with that and we've been talking uh as a supervisory staff about how the feedback that we've had that's what's going to help us to moving forward. There are over 1,500 law enforcement officers in the state of Minnesota that are retirement eligible in the next two years. Okay, we're not out of this yet. Um they're still uh the our folks are very attractive to other agencies in terms of state agencies and so forth. Um they're going to keep coming after our culture is what's going to keep us together and keep us coming through that so we're not um giving up our our proactive unit and we're also um again we can we can have the ranks filled or don't impact our minimums and uh keep this train moving in the right direction. So, thank you again for that flexibility that everybody in our police department knows that and appreciates that. The amphitheater, um, I really do wish we would have had a little bit of a trial run this this fall. Um, just to kick the tires and see see how it went and and make any changes to our our plans and approach in the offseason, but we'll we'll be after it this time next year. I will tell you we have sent staff to uh other amphitheaters and talked to other staff from multiple amphitheaters that um on how they do things. Um we had Valley Scare last year. We had to use Savage and Scott County to help supplement the number of officers that were there. We know we're not going to be able to do this alone. I think that was a good test run um of how we're going to work with those other agencies in a contractual overtime consistent basis. I will tell you just the number of events valley doesn't go away from April through the end of October just managing our contractual overtime is going to be a full-time job for somebody and coordinating with all these other agencies. Um there's we joke about it, but there's probably some days, some Fridays in September, um October or I'm sorry, September, late August where you might have a home football game valley fair going on and a concert. You might have 30 cops in this town just on contractual overtime. When I started, we weren't even close to 30 employees in the whole department. So that's part of my question. You talked about the 360 uh reviews. Is there any con concerns about how much overtime they're doing at these events? It's contracted other these people are these events are paying for them, but is there concerns? Mayor, council, right now um as a department, our folks are excited for concerts. Yeah, I it's but it is something and and I mentioned this in the article that was in the paper and it's true. We're sitting there in interviews and they're talking to us about the amphitheater, the people that are um that we're interviewing. So, it is a recruitment tool. The fee that's going to come with the the tickets that we've been discussing is I think going to be vital in terms of how we um work the some of these other departments. The county will be different because they've got the renaissance there for part of that. They weren't able to help out during some of the valley scare time. Um, by that time throughout the year, our our people are kind of almost valley fared out to be honest because they have us out there every single day. Um, other departments know this is coming. Um, we've talked to them. I think they're excited for it, but it is going to be a lift. Will will the amphitheater have its own security detail like Valley Fair? Mayor Council, yes. Um, again, I think what excites me about this venue and how it's set up, it's not going to be a festival. It's not going to be an all day thing where I mean everybody has a ticket for a specific seat. Uh the way the the security on the outside um is going to process people as they're going in. I anticipate a very very safe um event. Our biggest lift will be the traffic. Yeah. Yep. And hoping a train doesn't come by. That's right. Good luck. It's do always once. Um and it when you look again, you'll see it in our in our budget. um coming up. We have to add a lot for for overtime for next year, but close to 70% of what we have right now is contractual overtime of our total overtime budget, which other than maybe Bloomington, not a lot of departments have that big of a percentage. And the last thing I want to talk about is uh is our building. it. We moved in in 2003, so uh 22 23 years old here. We're we're coming up on um we've done very little cosmetically or structurally to it, if anything. We've done some cosmetic things that you've probably seen over the last few uh months, but we are we are at capacity. Um we have our open spaces are not open anymore. I think we've taken very good care of this building over the last uh 20 plus years. It's um we've got from a storage standpoint, whether it's the bike room or the SWAT room, um they're full, our storage is full. Uh we've got a back closet area in between the two interviewing rooms now that we've converted to a workspace. So, um we do need to look at the future here. And it's not just our, you know, the police department building. uh at training room, take out the police department, our use of it, over 60, I think it was 60 different organizations throughout the community made over 202 reservations for that for that building in that room. It's our EOC. So, we we have to make sure that this thing's going to last 25 more years. It's not anything that I anticipate bringing to you for a 2026 budget, but I think hiring a consultant to at least look at the building. We have a very unique ceiling that that comes down. Are we able to move up? Are we able to move out? Those types of things to make sure that uh again, this building is going to meet our needs moving forward for the next um 25 years. And I think doing it right is is the right approach. I know Burnsville's on their second remodel in like 10 years. We don't want to do that, but let's see what's possible and what what what what's out there and and possible for this building. I think that is that is a feeling inside. We've again that 360 feedback I talked about. Um there you're starting to hear it. Um the women's locker room's full, those types of things. So that is all I have for you, Mayor Councel. Questions? Thank you for Thank you. [Applause] Okay. Under 11 workshops 11 A West Minister Baseball Field Improvements. Is it West Minister or is it minister? Westminster. It's spelled funny. I take a different than I put in that correct. No, I think it's right. It just spelled that way. Good evening, mayor and council members. Um, tonight I am here to talk to you about some proposed improvements on the Westminster field for the baseball fields that was brought to staff by the Shakape Youth Baseball Association. Um, I'm going to go through what they are proposing. They have met with staff several times and what we are looking for today is just some guidance from the council um before they move into concept and planning phases too extensively. They we want to make sure that the that mayor and council are in support of such. Um so the Shakape Youth Baseball Association approached um city staff wanting to make some improvements to the ball fields. um to build excitement at the younger levels of baseball in Shakape. Um this would allow them to host 9 under, 10 under, 11 under tournaments as well as their in-house jamboree over at that field. Right now they are seeing a slow or a small decline in youth baseball numbers. They don't believe it's substantial, but they are hoping that these improvements could potentially build some more excitement and start increasing participation again in you in the younger levels of youth baseball. So, like I said, tonight we're just going to go through their improvements, um, what they are proposing pending discussion from mayor and council. We will come back with any significant projects. So this is just to get your support before they spend too much time moving forward um with their ideas. Um so the first project that they are proposing is to move the current fence which is at 240 ft to 200 ft and decrease the height from 6 feet to 4 feet. So this is an overlay kind of, you know, very nothing official, but what that would look like. Would that be the yellow line? Yes. And that would be the new location. Location you can kind of see. I believe the black line behind the trees. Okay. Is there it would have been beneficial if we could have had this slide presentation in our packet prior to this meeting. I apologize about that. Yes. We get the idea. Carry on. Okay. Uh so the next thing that they are proposing is to grass the infields and have irrigation um on this infield. This is what would be proposed here. In talking with the board of the baseball association, they are saying we are one of the last um or cities that haven't gone to this model. uh they were at a field up in Maple Grove where those younger level of players really enjoyed that grass infield. So that's kind of what they're looking at here. If we were to move forward with this, we would propose some type of maintenance agreement similar to what we have with the Shakabe Youth Football Association and the scoreboards that they put out at um they're complex. The next improvement that they are performing is or requesting is to install field armor on the batter boxes. And Shane, the president of the Shakpi Youth Baseball Association is here tonight. I believe these are to give a little bit more support and structure to a part of the field where it sees a lot of wear and tear where you have people sliding in and all of that. So, this just helps maintain that. I believe we do have this installed at some of the fields out at Tapa Park. Is this under the sand? Yes. Okay. Cuz I was wondering how you dig in or if you slide. But this is just showing what they're actually putting in and then it dirt comes over and then sand. This is where you stand to bat. Correct. Yes. Can't dig too deep. No risk injury to the players. Any risk injury to the players? To the table, please. Please join us. Yeah, I'm not sure that mic is working yet, so you might have to speak up. Okay, you can come stand by me, too. There you go. Thank you. Sorry, I'm not dressed up. I came right from baseball practice, so my apologies. But the field armor, the the thing with the batters box is probably the most difficult to maintain at at the field as far it just becomes a dug. It just dig dig dig. Right. So, we do have these out at Tapa at I think three of the fields, five, six, and seven out there already. A lot of success. It's just much much easier easier to maintain. Cool. Thank you. Yep. And then one thing I should on the on the previous slide with irrigation, there is already irrigation out at Westminster. We would probably just have to add a couple heads just because there's grass more so in the infield. So infield. Yeah. So how do you keep people from hitting the heads while they're playing the game? So they just go below the the surface level. Yep. They go pretty deep. All right. And then also looking at putting concrete in the dugouts. Again, just a more stable surface long term. This is also a little bit of a maintenance thing as well. A lot of the runoff from the field. Um that becomes really difficult to maintain as well. We get a lot of wetness, um everything like that in there. suggest concrete in the dugout would just make it so much more cleaner. Except for the spit and the gum and well then then you can uh sweep it out at least or something. Okay. Power wash. Uh pretty self-explanatory. There's not really a whole lot of Well, there's no shelving really in the dugouts right now. So, the the players just put their bats, you know, on the fence or whatever. So, this would just make it look a little bit cleaner. And then that's all we have. So we are myself and Shane are here to stand for any questions. Can we go back to the first slide of the field that had the the grass infield? This one. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Lara. So why why this particular park? Why this field um to make this type of investment in? I know we have, you know, like you mentioned, Tapa. Um, so yeah, why this particular field you want to make this type of investment in? Yeah, great question. I mean, you know, I think at Westminster there's two fields, right? So, you have one and two over there. So, we would be looking at doing this at both of those fields. Um, and Tapa itself is well, and these really are softball fields that we're playing baseball on, right? So, you know, one of the things that we talked to the Lions about before we even even thought about this is for years this was a, you know, a backup field for their big softball tournament that they have every year. And for years they were at, you know, 80, 90, 100 teams. And now they didn't have 60 this year. So, we went to them to say this this was a backup field for them. And according to those guys, it's been 10 years since they've used this field for that tournament. So they were all and we just said we want to make this more of a little bit of a baseball not baseball only because you could play softball there but you know grass and field those types of things to get away from you know playing playing softball there and uh they were all for it. So that was that's a big piece of it and I think just having a you know a really young age that these kids could look forward to playing on a really nice field um I think really can help improve our culture. You know, I think at the when we talked like our in-house program is, you know, kind of like your your six, seven, eight year olds. They're kind of playing all over town, right? They're at elementary fields. They're just they're all over. And that's fine, right? They're they're still learning the game or whatever. But now we start at at and potentially going 9U, 10U, 11U are just playing games here, only games. And we maybe practice elsewhere. And but this is the field they can look forward to. Um, you know, that first year of travel, they get to go play in a really, really nice field and be excited about it. And I think having like even our end of the year in-house uh jamboree that we have out at Tapa now, if we can move that to here where this is the first time they ever get to play on this super nice field and now they go into the following year, you know, kind of playing their games there, I think it's just something that could be super exciting. Sure. Um I have more follow-up questions. Um so obvious so no tournaments are only at Tapa right now, correct? Yeah. Oh, my my other concern is if we're wanting to do more tournaments and such, the only the issue comes down to parking with all those cars. I'm familiar with this location, um the parking lot's very small. You're competing with the park that's next to it as well. Um have you, you know, is that something you guys put thought into? Is it is would um someone would a shuttle that's provided to bring people that encourage people to park at the high school since the high school's right down the block? Um you know, are those things being considered as well? because it is a residential area and then it's off of um what is that 17 um you know I don't know how much parking is allowed on there but I just um to go down value and all those cars just line the road you know you're having u vision instru uh in um obstruction so just things to think about is when we're when we're which is great we want to bring people here to shockby for those things but uh to consider what are the ramific you know off-site things to to think about. I think you said the tournament won't be there, but Oh, I'm sorry. You said that the Lions tournament won't be there, but other tournaments might be is what I'm guessing you heard. Yeah, because it's I think one of your slides you mentioned you wanted to host other more more events. Yeah. Yeah. So, we I mean we host some games there in our at our annual Shocky tournament, but but we were thinking maybe we could add another tournament or two there potentially. Certainly something to think about. Yeah. You know, I mean I think during the week we have games there. uh now and there's plenty of of traffic and it but there's plenty of parking. I mean even though it is a residential area kind of parking in a residential spot and carrying equipment and all that, right? It's not ideal. Uh but it's certainly a shuttle is a great idea. Yeah. So I mean that is definitely something that we need to think about for sure. Yep. And even like you know we thought to staggering times a little bit differently so like the next team isn't showing up while that other game is still going on. Maybe it's a half hour you know in between games so they can get out of there and the next team can come in. That sort of thing. Um but something that we've thought about. Yeah, for sure. I have one more thought that just popped to mind. So, um this is just field facilities. Um if you guys are wanting to do more tournaments and such there, have you guys thought about improving the other facilities that are there like for concessions and whatnot? Yeah. So, really the shelter there right now, you know, when we've hosted the Shakabby tournament, we basically bring in warmers and we bring in um just like basically picnic tables. So, we've done hot dogs and burgers and stuff like that and we can use that as kind of a concession stand. There's no refrigeration. That's the only problem, you know. So, there's um we just bring our own coolers. So, yeah, if we were going to do that, we'd probably be looking at at purchasing a cooler of some sort of, you know, something like that. Yeah, for sure. All right, that's all. Thank you, Mr. Dwing. So, you mentioned the 240 foot field is a softball field, correct? Okay, so the 200 foot field would be more little league or that style of field. Yeah. So most So my my son is 11, so I've been around now for travel for 9 and 10 and usually at the youth fields, 200's kind of a standard uh park. We've seen some at 190, but with 240, and this is more baseball talk, sorry, but like you know, a ball gets hit to right center and if it goes to the fence, it's just a home run, right? And that's not really baseball, right? You know, the fence. Yeah. So like if you bring it to 200 now, that's just a double, right? And that's more true baseball, we feel like. And hey, if somebody pops a a home run, man, the kids would go crazy, right? I mean, we had a kid at 10 last year hit a hit a home run over in Richfield and the whole place went crazy, right? And that's that's excitement. That's that's fun for those kids. So, even if we create some more home runs out of that, I think that's that could be even more enjoyable. So, so is the grass on the infield more of a or the lack of grass on the infield the softball thing? Correct. Yeah. Yep. Softball is just dirt uh egg lime all the time. Yep. Okay. Do our other fields set up for baseball have grass on the infields? Yes. So, I think Kelsey mentioned, you know, I would say over the last couple years, I bet 70% of the fields we go to are grass. So, we're definitely playing, you know, on a softball field. It's a different game. It is. Yep. All right. Thank you, Mr. Delaney. Okay. So, my question is probably more for our our park and rec staff director. um the original intent of these fields from a citywide perspective, what does this proposal do to that original intent and and to expand is is this change and the original intent okay because things are changing in the marketplace. So, I would say I mean I wasn't here when these fields fields were built um but they were built for softball and nationwide in parks and wreck and sports we are seeing a decline in softball, a pretty significant one. I know Sherry, our recreation program manager, she's been with the city a little over 30 years and she used to have I don't want to throw numbers out because I'm going to forget wrong or remember wrong, but many many softball teams. There was um men's, women's, um co-rec. Now we're just we're just down to a few. We are seeing definitely seeing a decline in softball. So to be able to take this field and give it a little bit of excitement for baseball, I I don't think I don't believe that would harm the original intent, especially with that decline. Okay. And then uh looking over the basic concepts that we have in front of us, what would your some of your concerns and some things that you really like? Um, I really like the idea, like I said, with softball declining, I like the idea of putting a little love into it and getting it the younger generation excited about playing baseball. Um, my concerns would be similar to council member Lara about the parking. Um we have talked, you know, based on council's um thoughts and guidance tonight about doing a neighborhood meeting just to make sure that if if they do move forward with this and it could put increased parking, you know, what is the neighborhood's concern and you know the shuttle is a great idea. I didn't think about that, but that would be, I would say, my biggest concern. And I think we could, you know, flush out what the neighbors are feeling by having a neighborhood meeting. Okay. Mr. Whiting, would this be an opportunity to reconfigure these fields totally? I mean, obvious a cost to that, but uh to add parking, you don't want to be parking on the outfield if you're going to hit those home runs, right? But uh hey, you just added 40 feet there. Yeah, we had looked at that as a staff group and I don't have the larger map, but we did kind we did identify an area that could potentially be used for parking. There would certainly be impact to the neighborhood at that point in time. Okay. Okay. And of course, there's always associated costs with that as well. Sure. Councelor Contrarus, picking picking up on that. Um what are we thinking? I know we're just brainstorming right now, but when it comes to the cost, um, is the association willing to what are we Yeah, you talk to me. What are you thinking? Yeah. Um, we are not asking for any money. Uh, so we plan to selfund uh the whole project, right? I think just I mean I suppose we haven't looked at any parking costs or adding parking spaces of course at this point. Um but you know if that would prohibit from happening we would have to consider something along those lines. But um there are there's so many there there's a couple different associations in in uh Minnesota that really want to help with projects like this. Metro uh baseball being one, Minnesota youth athletic services being another have both told us that if we applied for a scholarship we would get some funds. Of course they're not going to promise me um a dollar figure but it I think it's pretty substantial. I know Prior Lake did that and got close to $100,000 uh for their improvements that they did here in the last two years. So, um and I know that we are already raising funds with this in mind anyway, but we didn't want to get too far down the line without talking to you guys and and kind of seeing if this is okay before we go any further. It sounds like you're in conversation with some of the local uh clubs and potential there. Uh, I know we're working on the Miracle Field at the Lions and this is only going to enhance baseball and um, you know, that aspect of it. Um, have you looked at any numbers or is this too preliminary as far as cost? Yeah. Uh, yeah. So, you know, I would say you we've only gotten one bid for the infield and that's by far the biggest cost. It's about 35,000 per field. Um, the the fencing was pretty um, inexpensive. I would say overall it'd be about 60,000 per field, but about 65% of that is the infield and and irrigation. And we've only got one quote. I think that can go down or we're hoping um and we've raised just this year alone or right around uh $35,000 that we have kind of allocated towards uh some of this if if it does in fact kind of move forward. And you'd want to move forward with two fields, not just one at a time. Correct. Correct. Now, I I do think that maybe doing it in phases might make some sense for us financially. Um, meaning like maybe this fall we would do the fences for example, you know, or or do the fences in the dugout and then maybe next fall we look at at grassing the infield or something like that just to try to, you know, divide out the cost a little bit. Sure. Councelor Contrarus, one more comment. Um, I am very familiar too with that area. Yeah. And um there's a volleyball section right there. And I think there's like another little piece. I don't know. It's just like opening ideas of parking. 10 dead cars in there. I know. I mean, there's there's potential. There's Yeah, there's potential. That's what I'm trying to say. There is. So yeah, cuz my only issue is like when I drive to get to what is that 17th all the cars and then you're just like I mean as a mom I'm like oh god no kids coming out of you know behind of a car, you know. I mean, they don't know which they're going. So, you're just driving down and it's a curve and you're like, I can't see. Hope there's no kids and you know, somebody trying to cross and there's cars on both sides and it's like so parking off the street would be my biggest thing. Sure. And and I'll just I'll just say not that I don't agree with you. I do. But there are games there Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday right now. Oh, I know. Um so when I'm talking about maybe adding a tournament, we're talking maybe one weekend. Okay. you know, maybe two at best. Uh we're not talking every weekend, all summer long. It's just maybe the potential to to host a tournament. But I think even if we didn't do that, this would just enhance the programs we already have, make it a better experience for the teams that are already playing there, right? Um but I think that a tournament is is just maybe a way to to create some more excitement, bring more people to town that time. Absolutely. Yeah. It sounds to me like the consensus of council is to have that neighborhood meeting, get that feedback, see what we can do with parking. You'd have to work with staff on that. And there's possibility that since we we as a community benefit from getting some of them cars that councelor Contrus is talking about them conflicts from what's currently happening without any improvements. Uh if there's an opportunity for parking, we might potentially participate in that part of it. Um something Mr. Mr. Reynolds, did you have comment? I was just going to remind that if uh we work on parking, it will have costs associated with it and we would need to budget understand that and we don't even know if it's possible, right? At this point, park improvement. All right. What uh do you need anything more specific from us at this point? I don't believe so. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good luck on your project. Item 11 B, long-term financial plan. Speaking of cost, good evening again, mayor and council members. Um, so tonight we're having a discussion on the long-term financial plan. This is the fifth year that we've uh put together this plan. So already already been 5 years. Um just a quick background. Um so the reason why we ended up putting this together in the first place, it was a strategic priority. Um as uh council directed strategic priority. Uh there is no um template that exists for a long-term financial plan. Um you know our there's set guidelines for annual audit report budget book. There's there's nothing for a a long-term financial plan. So we have some flexibility on what we put together within this plan. Uh and then the third thing I wanted to mention that as we um have issued bonds in the past, it is one of the criterias that is part of the bond rating agency. So we've also kind of checked that off um our to-do list as well. Um the kind of the uh chart at the bottom of this kind of illustrates how I kind of view this. Um it really is looking at things from a long-term perspective before you get into the operating budget and the kind of the year-to-year um decision- making. Um, so it's nice to look at things from more of a a longer term perspective before you you look into um uh kind of the one-year short-term decision-m. Uh, the plan that's put together uh includes a couple of different areas. Uh, one would be trend analysis. So looking back at uh where we've been in the past 10 years, uh, kind of tells you the picture of where we might be going and then also a 10-year uh, projection for the general fund. um that kind of sets some realistic expectations of what what you can um expect um when any given year when preparing that that annual budget um the last three years. We've also um incorporated this with the capital improvement plan. So we've published it within uh the CIP. Um so I saw this infographic another city was using and we kind of modified it for our our purposes. So a much cleaner prettier version of that. Um but this illustrates that um city council's uh role is to and city staff role is to have um high quality city services as the foundation for a healthy and growing community and shows um kind of where external forces and government action might intervene. Uh those high quality services drive uh population growth as more people and businesses want to be part of our community. Uh population growth drives the growth in real estate values. Uh whether that be new development or rising uh demand for existing inventory. uh that growth in in value uh ensures that um there is uh sustainable tax revenue uh which pays for inflation based cost of services um in our best best-in-class city services with minimal impact on the property tax rate. So sort of the cycle of of city government. Uh so the first few charts here um I'll kind of go through kind of a series of charts. I won't spend a whole lot of time on any one of them. Um, but we have them split out uh by property type uh but on two different charts just because um uh it's more of a a visual thing if you have um you know a big set of data on one of them and then smaller smaller amounts. It's too hard to read unless it's split on on two graphs. Um no other reason besides just being able to visually be able to see them. Uh this chart show is based on the number of parcels. Uh the chart shows the property types by parcel since 2016. uh interesting to see commercial has stayed relatively flat over that period. Uh where conversely apartment industrial and and tax exempt parcels have have grown. Uh egg parcels um tend to jump from year to year. Um it's not necessarily the case that you're losing a bunch of parcels or not. Um but since it is parcel data, it's it's reflective of uh the egg parcels of often being split into um smaller parcels either for residential or a different property type. Uh so this is the same chart as the previous slide. Um but it's only residential in total. Uh residential parcels have increased 1,610 and total parcels have increased 1,825 over that 10-year period. Uh we have a total of 15,690 parcels for payable year 2025. Uh makes sense as we've seen a lot of the larger egg parcels become mult um multiple uh residential parcels. Uh so in the packet I included charts on taxable market value. Um but on these slides I just have tax capacity slides for this presentation. Pretty much gets at the same thing accounting for the value that's applicable to the property tax levy. Uh we've seen significant growth in tax capacity over the past 10 years. Uh apartment from 1.8 million to 6.3 million. Uh commercial from 5.2 million to 8.4 million and then industrial from 6.6 million to 22.6 million. Uh so for apartment and industrial um they're pretty close to about 250% increases over that past past 10 years. Do we expect the commercial decline trend to continue? Um, I don't necessarily know if it'll decline, but I would I would anticipate it would stay relatively flat. I mean, I think most of the growth that we've been seeing has been um kind of an industrial and the residential side. Um, but you still see things like the Canterbury development where you're seeing commercial go up, but I think that's probably the general trend in most cities is there's not a lot of, you know, shopping centers going up, right? But the existing commercial that we have is not increasing in valuation. Is that um so it sorry I was on the right side. Um I mean it has increased just not to the the pace that the other ones have increased. Um I think the one thing that's leading the apartment on the industrial side is there's also a lot of new growth in those areas. Well, this shows that commercial declined from 24 to 25. Yeah. So these are these are would be assessed values. So based on the assessor's value, yes, I guess that would be an accurate statement. Sorry, I was looking at more of the 10-year trend versus just the past year when I asked that question. Um I do actually have a slide. So I did get um the assessed values for payable 2026. I've actually added a slide in that presentation so that I'll be able to answer that question, I guess, when we get to that slide. Um and then again, so same same type of information only again is residential in total. So residential we've seen an increase from 26 million to 50 million uh and in total about 40.7 million to 88 million. So uh tax capacity has more than doubled over that past decade. Um then this chart shows the shock fiscal disparities net contribution in terms of tax capacity. Uh so this is the net amount um what the city contributes to what it what it receives. Uh the payable 2025 data hasn't been updated um statewide, but in 2024 we are the ninth largest contributor to the program. Uh so I'd anticipate that jumping a couple of spots once I am able to pull the other information. Uh we are the only city in Scott County that is a net contributor. So Bill Plane, Credit River, Jordan, Prior Lake, Savage, they're all recipients of fiscal disparity dollars. Um so with our growing um industrial uh and commercial tax base, mostly industrial, it's gone from 2.4 million in tax capacity to 9.4 4 million in 2025. Uh so to put that in context as far as um percentage of our tax capacity, it's about 8.6% of our tax capacity that's going into the program. We'll not complain this year. We'll just move on. Yeah, we all I know you've seen the there are certain things that we are never going to be able to solve, right? Well, let's not at many different levels of government and I'll leave it at that. change the line instead of death and taxes be death and fiscal disparities. Um so on this slide I'm showing um net tax capacity captured by the tiff districts in the city. Uh 10 years ago was about 540,000 in 2025 is about 4.2 million. Uh so I think the slide really shows that we've been successful in increasing tax capacity through our tax increment districts. Uh keep in mind of course these developments would not have occurred but for the use of tiff. Uh so we have generated about 4.2 2 million of additional tax capacity that in time will be added to the city's tax capacity. Um on this chart, the years uh listed um are the year they're required to uh be descertified um or have descertified. For example, Amazon, which is kind of the the copper color there, was descertified at the end of 2023. So again, you're not seeing anything on this chart for 2024 as that's now been descertified. Quick question. Can you remind us what the enclave is? I'm the old city hall site. Yeah. So that's the enclave department there. Was uh Canterbury a 20year and wasn't that started at 15? Uh so Canterbury I think that goes runs through 2039. So I believe that was a 25 year redevelopment district. Okay. This is 45. 2045. Thank you. Yeah. But if it started in 2015 2016 Yeah. So I I would have think the first time it was certified would have been I mean redevelopment districts are 25 years correct. So that would have been 2020 would have been the year that 2020. Yeah. I guess it would be 2019 because you would have that final year where you you descertify but Okay. Yeah. Um then levy components over the past 10 years. So um back in 2016 17.6 million increasing to about 27.2 2 million uh this year. And then um this slide kind of has a lot of lot of information, but that shows the city led by dollar amount um ch I should say the changes in city levy by dollar amount percentage and then the corresponding impact on the city tax rate. Uh so over the past years um if you wanted to have an average, it was about 999,000 or 4.7% increase in property taxes per year on average. Um however we have seen our tax rate drop significantly since 2015. It was 37.9% and it's 27.8% for taxes payable in uh this year 2025. Uh population chart. Um so the 2020 number is the census number. Um that was 43698. Uh we've used met council estimates for the other other um kind of the other numbers there. Um, so over the past decade, we've seen population increase by about 7,300 or 18.5%. Uh, for full-time employees, so kind of the the final slide here, I believe it's the final slide on on on the trends. Um, so public safety, which would be police, fire, and building inspection, and park, park, and recreation, which would include parks, community center, ice arena. Those are the kind of the areas where we've seen the full-time staff added over the past past decade. So, I've added some bonus slides that weren't part of the long-term financial plan, but I think it kind of helps um helps with this discussion. Uh, so this is um these are numbers as of April 25. So, these would be assessed values, which would impact the property taxes payable next year. So, these will be the numbers that we'll be using for this year's budget or developing next year's budget, I guess. Um so for taxes payable in 2026 those preliminary uh assessed numbers um we we're seeing a taxable market value increase of 444 million or 5.4%. Uh about um 50% 51% of the value increases coming from new construction. Um so that's pretty significant. Uh total tax value of residential increasing by about 5.1% apartment 12.1% and commercial 3.1 3.9%. So commercial still commercial is increasing but staying relatively flat to kind of answer your question from earlier. Uh industrial 4% um and then at this point I don't I don't have fiscal disparity numbers so um haven't been able to run every calculation possible yet but um that's kind of where we're at with preliminary numbers and the median value home um for taxes payable 2026 is 361,300. So that's about a 3% increase from where we were at last year. So, good numbers um kind of leading into our future budget discussion. Um next couple of slides I took from last year's audit presentation. Um but I thought they'd be helpful to include here. We'll obviously see updated slides when the auditors do the presentation in early June. Um we don't have these, do we? We don't we don't have this one, do we? Uh it's I I I put it in with the You have the copy of the presentation, but this wouldn't be part of the the plan. Uh 265. Um, so every once in a while I get questions on debt, so I wanted to just kind of throw that in there. We are are favorable in comparison to both our statewide city comparisons and also within the county um for both debt per capita and then also our debt service expenditures as part of our total expenditures. Um and then uh taxes wise um again favorable when looking at um kind of tax rates and taxes per capita with our peers in Scott County as well as um our cities across the state. Uh that I should mention that at least for taxes per capita that also includes tax increment and and lodging taxes. It's not just necessarily property taxes only. Um, this slide, if you're looking at this in your packet, I had to I had to correct what I had highlighted there. This is more accurate than what's in your your packet. Um, but Shakabe does continue to be one of the lowest tax communities in the metro area. Uh, there are 32 cities in the metro with population between 25,000 and 100,000. Um, this chart, um, is based on 2024, so I could use the League of Minnesota Cities property tax calculator. So, a year old, but we are the the fourth lowest um, based on that data. And then our final comparable slide, um, which, uh, we typically incorporate as part of our budget presentations. I've updated this for this year, so I figured I'd share that with you, too. Um, so this is looking at 2025 annual cost of services for our property taxes. And then, um, basically what we provide is sewer and storm water um, on a $300,000 home. So, uh, Shaka B continues to be at the at the lowest of those comparison cities. Um, we're at about a,09 $1,94, which is actually a $2 decrease from last year. Um, this is mainly a result of the Market Valley exclusion. So, it actually took some of that property tax away from a $300,000 home. Um, and we've also had pretty minimal um impacts on sewer storm and and tax rates over the past year. Um so the next few slides I'll kind of get into the general fund projections. Um just wanted to provide a few reference points. Um looking back at the previous 10 years again um on average over the past over the previous 10 years we've seen our uh tax capacity grow by 9.1%. Uh total amount we levy as a city which would include operations debt service EDA and then our capital projects uh would be an average of 4.6%. Um part of that being uh debt service for the community center in the ice arena. Uh the levy for the general fund um which is funding operations only increased by 2.6%. Uh for revenues um couldn't really do a comparison like I could do with some of the expenditures because they jump around quite a bit and any given year we might have some grant that kind of skews the data. So couldn't really put revenues on here and have a very good reference point I guess more or less. Um but for expenses, um the four functional areas, general government, uh about a 5.1% increase, public safety 5.5, public works 5.7, and park and wreck 9.1. Um and then looking back at those increases is is primarily driven by staffing needs, whether it's um staffing changes or increase in staffing costs. Um so for the trend um I shouldn't say the trend, for the general fund projections, um here's kind of the information I used. I use 20 the 2025 budget and then the 2025 um payable numbers for market value information. Uh for the expense side, I've assumed that each of those functional areas have incre increased by 3% per year uh with the exception of public safety which is more personnel driven. So I I did an extra half a percent for that. Uh on the revenue side for licenses and permits intergovernment revenue uh charges for services I used a 3% annually increase. And then for miscellaneous, I I used the 2% increase, assuming that most of that would be um our cash balance increasing over time would drive a little bit more of additional interest earnings. Um and then for taxes, I just plugged um that number based on those previous assumptions and what it would take to maintain a a a fund balance target within the general fund. Um so here's what that looks 10 years out. I know you probably can't read that, but it's in in your packet as well. um a lot easier to look on a computer screen and be able to zoom in and and look at the numbers, but I'll just kind of walk through it anyways. Um so, uh below the projected figures there are lines um for the ending fund balance in comparison to that 50% target. Uh the annual change in total revenue and expenditure by percentage um the impacts on the levy. Uh again, we plugged uh 4% as the needed amount um based on the other assumptions used. Uh for those impacts, um we use the 2025 payable year as the base for taxable market value and tax capacity. I increase that by 4% per year. And then the median value home, we increase by 3% per year. Um interesting to see that under the scenario of increasing the levy by 4% if the tax capacity continues to grow, we'd still see a rel relatively um minimal impact on the tax rate over the 10 years. Um also added some projections for the number of households and population based on Met Council data. Um and then um showing the taxes per capita as well. Uh the annual increase numbers are um kind of below what we've seen. Um if you remember that reference point chart um but I think they're somewhat reasonable. I would say if there were um if we were to continue to see uh increases in licenses and permits, intergovernmental and charges for services that exceed 3%, you're likely going to see corresponding increases on the expenditure side too to kind of support those revenues. Uh so in other words, not all the expenses go handinhand with just property tax revenue that's funding them. Um and then generally speaking, um more of a this whole kind of 10-year projection more of a general illustration of or you know going through the thought process of okay, if these assumptions seem reasonable, you know, you would basically anticipate at least a 4% average annual levy increase to to support, you know, operations over a 10-year period. So, that's kind of the number the starting point you're kind of looking at once we get into the operating budget. Um, hopefully I did my best to explain that. It's sometimes nice just to kind of get an idea of where we've been, where we at looking at through through some of these charts. Um, uh, so I think that's about it. I I can open up if there's any questions or or or discussion. must have done an outstanding job. Nobody has any questions and just include a bunch of numbers and charts and it seems to seems to minimize the questions. You do it quick, Mr. Mayor. Get it over with. Yeah. Like to make one comment. Um, I mean, we're a datadriven organization and by any metric, by any financial metric, we are knocking it out of the park. And I I I I say that because it's not by accident. uh the staff and uh department heads and the finance department all are very focused on making sure that we can deliver the best product at the best price for our residents and we are we're killing it. So, uh it's okay to to recognize that, if you will. Definitely. We do. Sometimes we see those charts too many times. We know we're at the that low end of our comparables and uh but we don't recognize the appreciate the work as much as we or show our appreciation as much as we should. So, thank you for that. I I think just generally speaking and and you'll get the same comments when the auditors come and present in June. pretty a pretty strong financial community and we're I mean we've got things working pretty well and pretty efficiently and I think we're as Bill says we're all pretty proud of that. We took a lot of steps early on years back to create some internal funds that have shown to be very beneficial for the spikes and you know in the in the general levy whether it's a fire truck, plow truck, uh cop car, whatever. Yeah. I mean that that that was probably the first real step to um put us in the position that we are today. And we've done multiple over the decade I've been here as well. But that that clearly and I actually testified uh on uh uh Representative Tapky's bill where he was trying to get the uh legislature to agree that this was a good idea and that if you receive state money, you should probably have a plan to pay it back much like what we do. and and and unfortunately it didn't get the reception which I think if people would have just said well let's take a step back and actually look what this does uh because it really is probably the first brick or the cornerstone for our financial shape today. Yeah, I think to say to pay it back um might be miscon misconcepted by people but what you're saying is to to have a fund. So, let's say you know the state gives you money for a widget thing and you build that widget thing and 30 years later you need to rebuild it that that you this whoever received the state money is putting the money aside for that purpose. Yeah. As opposed to going back to the state and say, "Hey, we need a new widget." Right. Like, well, we just bought your last widget. Yeah. There's certainly a lot of unknowns at the moment that we can't control, but we're we're trying to minimize any damage. Uh, knock on wood. There we go. Anything else? Any questions? No. Thank you, Nate. Appreciate your presentation. So, that takes us to item 12, leazison reports. Uh, I can start, Mr. Delara. So, um, school district, if you've not, um, if you're not aware, and this also goes to the general public, they are conducting a community survey. Um, and if you, if you have not taken it yet, um, the gist of the survey is basically asking them you to um, rate the what you your opinions and they want it from whether you have children in the school district or not. They want it from business owners. They want it from residents. They want it from parents. And um one of the questions is um due to declining enrollment, they are they're going to have a levy coming due that was used for building and that was I believe um just over 5 million there. One of the questions in that survey will be um how in favor would you be if it was to be voted on to use four million of that dollars once it's that's over to use that for um uh shortfall in their budget um for like staffing I believe was one of the one of the um uses for it. So um that once the survey is over all those results will be presented to the school board in June. So I'll be really interested to hear how that turned out. But um I guess so it's a levy renewal but the a levy renewal but the funds would be not be used for the building it would be used for um teachers teachers. Yeah operations. So it's um and then the survey asked other questions too. So um I've already taken it. Um and the great thing too about it is the feedback and um interaction that you do with it is open for as long as the survey is open. I believe through the end of the month. Um, so what I put in there now, I can go back and see what other people have added to it since I've taken it. Um, so it's not a oneand done. It's a constant interactive uh survey, too. So, um, you can go to I they have a link on Facebook, but um, for those that don't have that, you can go to this the uh, public schools website and it's literally it's a window that pops up right away. It's the have you taken the survey yet? And it lets you get into it right there. So, so it was a 7 to9 million shortfall. That's a what? 7 to9 million shortfall. And is that all uh declining student uh per pupil cost coming from the state? Um there it's uh in they said inflation and um decreased in u birth rate. So the decline in um enrollment. Well, if they got a decline in enrollment, do they need less classrooms and net less teachers or do they want to downsize the classroom sizes? I don't know the specifics on that. But I be I would be curious to see like you know what would um and it does ask like some of the questions ask you like how satisfied are you with class sizes, how satisfied are you with overall administration, how you know it gets fairly detailed. So, um, and it's it gives you an opportunity to give open-ended, um, questions or answers. So, definitely everybody in the community is recommended to take it. Excellent. Find the link on Facebook. Facebook or you can go to the uh, public schools website and it's the first thing that pops up on there for you. Very good. Any other reports? That's it. Nope. Thank you, councelor Contrus. Thank you, Mayor. So, I don't have a actual liaison, but I do have places I attended, things um, invitations I attended to. So on the 23rd I attended the state of the state where um state rep um Brad Tapki invited me to go to and I attended that. On the 26th I did cleanup day. Um great turnout. On the 3 I was also invited by our police officers to attend the NLPA um Cinco de Mayo parade in St. Paul. That was pretty cool. Um and then in the afternoon I went over to the food trucks that we had over at Murphy's Landing and then um yesterday I attended the groundbreaking of Prairie Point. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Whiting. Yes. Um MVTA met uh we talked about our Burnsville bus garage modernization project which uh is multi-phase and actually uh the whole project over many years is going to end up being $15 million worth of upgrades to that building down there. We had a wrership report. Uh, our fixed routes were up 5.2% over Q1 of 2024. Uh, 5.3% increase in downtown Minneapolis routes and 11.2% decrease to downtown St. Paul. Now, that might change uh when the governor says all state employees have to be back to work uh at least 50% of the time in person after June 1st, I think it is. But um still some uh we'll see about St. Paul. uh locally fixed routes are down 5.9% but connect which is that uh on demand service we recently got in shock is up 52.89% 8 n% so uh growing quite a bit and I want to acknowledge um MVTA got a a certificate of recognition from uh Southwest Metro Intermediate Schools uh right here in Shakipi for working with them to uh coord coordinate on transit options for some teachers that they brought in. So they connected housing uh with transit so that they can get teachers to to work. So it was a a good connection for our friends in Chakabby. But that's all I have. Very good. Thank you, sir. Mr. Delaney. Okay. 169 Coalition. I got a chance to attend the Minnesota Infrastructure Legislative Conference. A lot of good information. One of the takeaways was uh what works, what doesn't work on how to approach legislators. Uh really some good ideas about off cycle engagement. Uh focus on what on the what and then the how. Involve the chamber. identifying funding opportunities and explain why it's important, but also get the community involved to help make those changes, help drive those changes. Uh, we also got a legislative update. Um, Jordan groundbreaking was moved till later in the summer, so we didn't get a chance to attend that. As far as SPU, they also had a financial audit. Um, they passed, so good news there. Lights staying on tonight, right? Lights are staying on. Um, so that was good news. Um, we're also, as far as the AMI, uh, there are 34,000 installations, most of them will complete this summer. They're going to start door knocking later in the summer to try to get the last few, uh, residents connected. So, you you'll see that pop up here shortly. Uh, let's see. Also, council members will start getting a wonderful packet. So, please review if you got questions, you know. Yeah. Yeah. So, you more more homework of that. And let's see. Um, as far as uh other activities, Officer Evan swearing in. Um, welcome to Shakabby. Uh, we attended that. Totally forgot. National Day of Prayer was last week. Uh, this year I attended Friendship Church at Prior Lake. Uh, Pastor Art Hansen, the care pastor, was in Shakabe last year. Prayer Lake this year. Legislators were not able to make it as far as Senator Pratt and uh, Representative Bberg. Um, just because of sessions, they couldn't make it. Uh, of course, clean up data. It's always fun getting feedback from the residents. It's a great program and keep doing it. Um, that's everything. Thank you. A question. Go ahead. Go ahead. I wonder I got an invitation to uh the amphitheater through the 169 coalition. I wonder how the EDA didn't get in there before the 169 coalition. So, how did that work? This is all who you know. That's the I guess. Just got to ask. did go through one tour out there earlier in its construction. Um, were you not there? I was at one the groundbreaking, but no, was it? Well, no, we went No, we went on the bus tour. The bus tour. We went on the bus tour. The last one we did stop there. I was there, but it wasn't a lot to see at that. Yeah. Well, you can compare that to what it is now if you're interested. And I did sign up progress. Yeah, I signed up for that. Uh, let's see. Mine was uh attended to cleanup day. The 30th was uh active PT Anytime Fitness up at the West End Mall. They've got a new inside the Anytime Fitness service at their uh physical therapy basically through uh the mail. Uh they're connected with the mail. So, that's going to be a good service for all the active things that we have going on outside in Shakape. uh staff staff and I met with Senator Pratt and some other mayors and administrators about uh some current bills related to homeowners associations. Um what else did I do? The Beacon groundbreaking councelor Contrarus and I attended that uh this morning. I attended the chambers future leaders. I was a speaker forum at the chambers future leaders this morning at the brew hall. had a good cup of coffee too while I was there. Um, good conversations. I think that's all I have at this point. Um, commend the county on your newsletter that you sent out. It was a great article about 169. Thank you. Thank you. Under other business, I guess uh Bill Egan is going to give us a rundown on some issues going on and uh what he's got coming up. Public works. Public works. Mayor and council, I just have three quick items for you. Uh, first of all was our cleanup day. You mentioned that. Uh, we had a good event. Um, most of the line was done in a couple hours. Uh, the event was four hours, but we had 320 vehicles. So, I know a lot of you help. So, thank you for your help on that. Is that more or less average? It's good average. Okay. Yep. Uh, second thing, May 18th through the 24th is APWA National Public Works Week. So, just wanted to get that out there. If you see some of our staff out there, give them a good wave or say hi to them and thank them. And then lastly, uh, speaking of staff, in 1979, we had one of our staff members start as a seasonal. He worked for six years as a seasonal. and May 8th of 1985, he was hired as a maintenance worker full-time 40 years ago. Um, he's still going. I don't hear of any plans of retirement, but he's been with us for 46 years. Um, we're proud of his dedication, his knowledge, and his hard work ethic. He's first one there every day pretty much. Um, he's the longest standing city employee that we have right now. And we did a short article in the shock B snapshot that's coming up soon. So take a look at that and give it a read and if you see him, thank him. He's well, if you see him, I think I can speak for all of us, but thank him for on behalf of the council for his service and uh many more years. Yes. Go ahead. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Public works guys do a great job. We really appreciate everything you guys do. Unsung her unseen and unsung heroes. 12A City bill list. Any questions? One more. No, we're right. Not other business yet. No questions on the bill list. Other business. Mr. I think uh staff should take a look at the council chambers communication and and public address systems and see what we can do. Uh is that on the budget? I think I've seen that we've we've paid for something a few times. I want to get a gallon of gas and pour it on the whole thing. How much is gas? Let's put that in the budget. It's down a little bit. So, uh if we could look at something uh for a future budget item to make sure that people are hearing us and uh all this work and that the audience microphone works. That would be nice. Yeah. Yep. I hear you. Any anything else? All right. Just real quick. Um, so I did, um, one thing I forgot to mention, I did attend the, um, Connie Road 17 project open house, as did I. And I just have to just my frustration is that the general consensus and perception is reality that everything was just falling on deaf ears and that it's just no, there was no consideration in terms of what we suggested. there was no what about the residents. I've also I spoken to one uh constituent who just does not feel heard and it's just very frustrating and very disappointing. So that's all I want to say on that. Well, we saw the concept. Uh they they gathered information. We haven't seen what the results of that meeting were. Uh if what changes might be made, so I think it's might be just a little bit premature to figure out where we're at. So we'll have to wait and see. Nothing's been done yet. So hopefully we'll have to see what what the Scott Scott County Engineering Department comes out with based on uh the discussions that they had at their open house and until until we see that this board spoke with one voice and I felt that it was on deaf ears too. Well, obviously we've got concerns with with the neighborhoods out there, but the the county is looking at it from a a different standpoint. You know, if we were the looking at the SMS properties around it, that's the standpoint I get what they're looking at. Let's not be attacking other entities. Let's let's recognize the the basics accountability that if we were Scott County and we wanted to build build a road to move mass amounts of traffic with little interruptions, we would be doing we would be that would be our policy and we would try to achieve that unddeinish property. We are a local unit and we like to have access to our properties. I call it as I say. So the the conflict is different levels of government and and if we really wanted to talk about conflicts, we could throw the state and the federal government into the conf into the conversation, too, because we have many more conflicts with them two entities right now than we do with anybody else. So relationships with with state, county, and federal are important. Even when we disagree, we have to try to work within the lanes that we're given and try to be respectful when we don't agree. That's part of our decorum policy. So, but I hear you. You know, I it's never nice when people are faced with things that interrupt their their daily driving and their lives. I just wanted the constituents to know that we we tried. So, that's it. It's it's just not our jurisdiction. I I mean, we can, right? You know, we can try to to find solutions. We're doing that. I think the residents are doing that. I think Scott County is doing that. So, let's see where all this information goes before uh before we say we couldn't get nothing accomplished. We don't know that yet. Okay. All right. Anything else? I'll make a motion to adjourn to June 6, 2025, 7 p.m. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion on the motion? No. May May Yeah, let's go to May 20th instead. Oh, May 20th. So, why don't you withdraw your motion and I'll withdraw my motion and I'll make a new motion to adjourn to May 20th, 2025 at 7 p.m. There you go. Second. Mr. Mr. Delaney seconds the motion. Discussion on the motion. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. We're adjourned. Thank you. Thanks everyone.