please join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance of the united states of america and to the republican republic for which it stands one nation [Music] liberty and justice for all little little bit of delay but an important part of the meeting so thank you um so with that adam will you please call the roll yes madame mayor i'm getting a just got a message from counselor carlson she's having audio trouble again so i was trying to help her with that um mayor st norris here uh councilmember hanson here councilmember dahl president councilmember buckley yeah looks like he's connecting customer carlson is connecting i will complete the roll call in one moment hey great to give it time if possible connie are you there that's where carlson you can see here but we cannot hear her which we need to she's reconnect she's trying to connect again ah looks more promising okay just let me unmute her counselor carlson yeah can you hear me now yes thank you all right final life ah all present and accounted for excellent that takes us to the approval of tonight's agenda does anyone have any questions additions comments so um the building permits are included in the agenda right yes oh no the uh um this be a appropriate time to ask about ask a question about one of the building permits that's on our list under the consent agenda maybe we wait till then that's what i meant yep sorry i'm jumping the gun okay well we'll make a note for a consent agenda to address that madam mayor uh we had one edition uh uh ms sally anderson from community thread was present his present uh speak to the adjusted council so that under open forum is new to the previous agenda okay welcome sally we'll get to that in just a moment okay any other items if not would someone like to make a motion to approve tonight's agenda i'll make a motion approving tonight's agenda thank you connie it's our second second thank you john adam councilmember carlson aye councilmember buckley aye sponsor member dahl aye spouse member hanson aye that takes us to our proclamations competition accommodations petitions and announcements and the july recycling award recipient is michael stangle at 1017 pioneer trail he'll be awarded for his recycling efforts with funding made possible by a grant from washington county so thank you very much mr stengel for your recycling efforts and with that we um i believe can move on to our open forum yeah it's not on our agenda i just noticed is it just my agenda no i think it was probably open because there wasn't anything planned but we are our open forum portion of the meeting is where we set aside 15 minutes to address topics that are not on tonight's agenda and with that um as noted we have sally anderson here with us this evening to address the topic of community threads so if you'll just unmute your mic sally and you may begin okay very good thank you so much um for this opportunity we are very grateful for the past support we've received from the city of bayport and the opportunity to summarize community threads impact community thread is proud to serve as the local clearinghouse for coordinating volunteers a responsibility the community counted on when the saint croix river threatened to flood in the spring of 2019. within six hours of being asked by washington county emergency management to find volunteers we had 370 people lined up by filling 60 000 sandbags using 1300 hours of time these good citizens demonstrated the power of volunteerism and its benefit to our community last year youth volunteers from stillwater area high school offered their services at technology assistance workshops where older adults were invited to bring their mobile device and meet one on one with a student to learn tips to stay connected a good skill to have especially during these trying times to support older adults our chore service and transportation volunteers provided rides to medical appointments and helped homeowners with routine household maintenance making it possible for older and disabled adults to remain independent programs that support older adults are the focal point of our work offering people services that help them stay healthy and participating in community life our bayport senior center had over 3 400 visits last year offering activities ranging from chair yoga to craft classes community threads programs are aimed at supporting our most vulnerable citizens who deserve our care and attention as you can imagine our services were called upon this spring when the lockdown went into effect we responded by reaching out to identify those who needed assistance to remain safely at home once we identified the needs our volunteer center matched older adults with volunteers who offered to pick up by help by delivering groceries and medications picking up food from the food shelf and making individual check-in calls we also collected gift cards to assist people with purchasing essential items we heard later from one disabled older adult i am so grateful for the additional help provided during the pandemic i have some rather severe allergies and going to the local food shelf at this time was not safe for me the gift card to cub foods help make ends meet at community thread we are adapting activities with the intention of encouraging older adults to participate for example after our popular aerobics class needed to be cancelled we offered a walking group which has been well attended we will continue to find ways to offer programming that supports older adults and gives them the opportunity to create and sustain connections including volunteering with others while maintaining social distancing one timely example volunteering is happening tomorrow when a group of older adults will be making face coverings for school-aged children to go with the free school supplies we are distributing as part of our annual stuff the bus campaign thanks to the generosity of the community at community thread we strive to create a place where all people are enriched engaged and connected we are an independent nonprofit and every year we need to raise our entire budget about half of our funding comes from allegations and the remaining half comes from a variety of sources such as the united way of washington county east municipalities businesses faith-based organizations as well as generous individuals we rely on all of these sources to continue to offer our programs and services you may read more about the impact of all of our programs in our annual report which is posted on our website we appreciate the support that we have received from the city of bayport in the past and today i'm asking for your consideration of a gift of three thousand dollars in 2021 to continue to support our programming thank you for your consideration and may i answer any questions at this time hi sally nice to see you you too i was just going to ask if with first of all miss you but um i was going to ask with you know you weren't able to do the black tie bingo your fundraiser and stuff so are your finances down more than or more than what typically you would be yes um we were counting on raising about 50 000 from that event and we have now canceled it because it's just not safe to um be doing it but i will be honest we did receive a paycheck protection uh program loan and so that really helped us with a couple of months of payroll but all of the um funding that we were expecting from program fees from rental fees all of the sorts of revenue went away so i'm in the process of projecting our expenses out through the end of the year and our revenues and it's it's going to be a very tight year okay well the reason i was asking council her that because i know their budget is has been just they fell he does a really good job on our budget but i didn't know if it was something that we consider you know definitely the 3000 but if there was extra money in anything where we could give them a little more i just was throwing that out there is this i think you know a very worthwhile organization yeah i agree and i think it could be a possibility for a grant with our cares act money to for them to apply for is that correct adam yes councilman hanson councilman carlson aaron the council um the the support and grants for uh nonprofits are going to be part of on the camera are going to be part of our later discussion um so that is something that we are we're going to be discussing later um so that will be uh on the docket so yeah sally we'll definitely address that um as part of that discussion and um we are considering budget at this time so uh congratulations on everything that you have achieved this year it's remarkable and a wonderful service to our community so um i'm sure that you'll you'll end up hearing probably very positive things from our group again later this evening or as we progress through our budgeting cycles so but really appreciate your coming on again with us we wish we could see you in person um and we'll look to that soon any other questions from the council no okay great thanks for joining us sally thank you i appreciate it hi sally have a good night stay well thank you too okay that's our only um item on our open forum this evening so that takes us to tonight's consent agenda where we'll consider items one through five which include the july 6 2020 city council regular meeting minutes the july payables and receipts the july building plumbing mechanical and zoning permits report a pay application number two from miller excavating for demolition for the clean water land and legacy product project pay application number two from miller excavating for the second avenue north drainage improvement project and hiring of brian st claire as a part-time police officer and pera declaration so at this time are there questions regarding the consent agenda can i before we get into the consent agenda do we have to just double check that there isn't anyone that has something to say during the open forum that i mean they don't have to be on the agenda beforehand right i just went through the participant list and i didn't know if there was anyone that is on the call that might have something to say don't we have to give them an opportunity we can we definitely can you're right so no good good catch it's a little odd doing this via i know i don't know if anyone's on there it looked like there was maybe one ipad that didn't have a name yeah i had three um is there any is there anyone that would like to unmute themselves at this time to address the council as part of the public open forum if so please unmute and state your name and address and for the record and okay all right worth checking yes thank you for the reminder thank you okay back to consent agenda does anyone um have questions comments concerns regarding this uh john i think that you were going to mention something yeah um i just wanted to ask staff about the third line item in in building permits is at 990 north inspiration parkway and it's for a fence permit and it's a uh issue that that a homeowner had reached out to me specifically about a while back and i just want to thank you john get some clarification to make sure that was resolved to you know equitably for all the neighbors and every everybody's happy with how it's um progressing adam can you comment on that yeah i'd the i was gonna actually contact looks like uh miss taylor's available she's the last one to deal with defense permit sarah do you have additional information on that sure um can you hear me okay yeah okay i didn't have a chance to look up the exact address to go back and verify that this was the same property but there was an issue between the two neighbors and um that they had rescinded their signature on the fence application um that has been resolved the both the applicant and the neighbor worked together to modify the proposed plan for the fence and they did sign off on it after all okay this just happened recently sarah yes i think um the revision came in last week and i i turned it around within a day or so so okay because i talked to the whole counter about two weeks ago and she had was still not gonna sign yet so i was i'm assuming it's the same place but okay i'm glad to hear they worked it out i just checked my email and it is the same that's the address of that complaint so that's good to know what got resolved yeah we like your neighbors can work together yeah after i followed up with the um the one homeowner who filed the complaint the neighbor did for me uh revised their application and sounds like they they worked it out so good good any questions thanks for the update excellent any other questions or comments on the consent agenda all right if not would someone like to um approve tonight make the motion to approve agenda as submitted okay thank you john is there a second i'll second it okay thank you connie adam councilmember dahl hi house remember carlson hi hi that's robert hanson hi mayor st norris aye that's all excellent well that will take us to um an always exciting part of our meeting where we are going to be swearing in a police officer named brian sinclair at this time i'm going to ask them to come into chambers i'm going to put on my mask so that we can be properly socially distanced and protected and then we'll go forward with the ceremony we have a nice group of officers here to help him celebrate this evening which is lovely to see can we see this on any of the screens or is it just going to be he the officer will be on the um looks like it's called bayport and we'll see we need to mute in between so we don't get the back okay this will be tricky because he's going to repeat after me and i'm going to have to mute and unshoot in between so if you want to see if you can hear can you hear me [Music] i think you might want to go with that [Music] probably okay good evening everyone this is great a nice group here to help celebrate welcome everyone okay um please go ahead you don't usually do you want to say anything ahead of time we can't hear her are you speaking laura because we can't hear you adam yeah i was trying to get the feedback yeah we're trying to work off of just my laptop instead of the laptop at the podium why we're getting feedback but um should we just do the podium one with audio instead try that or not maybe mute everybody else adam because there's a lot of background noise too fine is that any better seems to be better yes okay we'll proceed i wanted to just tell you a little bit about uh mr sinclair he's currently a full-time federal express pilot he comes to us with a variety of law enforcement experience to include volunteer service with washington county sheriff's office and then he was a reserve officer with us before he became a community service officer and today with your approval we are now going to swear him in as a peace officer his wife and his family are here as well and i'll have officer soon to be officer sinclair step up here and take the uh oath of office that the mayor is about to give him so that the um at home can hear us but i really want them to be through you um and i will repeat sections you would raise your right hand repeat after me i'm ryan sinclair did solemnly swear hi brian sinclair do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states that will support the constitution of the united states and the state of minnesota and the state of minnesota and faithfully discharge the duties and faithfully discharge the duties of the office of peace officer of the office of peace officer of the city of bayforce or the city of bayport in the county of washington in the county of washington to the best of my judgment and ability so help me god congratulations thank you so at this time we're going to have his wife come up and pin his badge on her name is classroom thank you brian i'd shake your hand but we're not going to do that tonight thank you council for allowing us to hire such a great um asset to our team and we're looking forward to working here thank you again thank you for joining us i need to get mayor sanor's back unmuted i think she feels stuck yeah yeah she hasn't moved that's not good and the atom is not on either we have no one to leave it lead our meeting what are we gonna do well we can let the cameraman do it it says vcp which doesn't help i knew it was the day you can you can change it if you want under participants yeah do you have that little option oh go ahead andy you can you can leave it you can on an ipad it's under the top but i don't know where it is on yours then you just select yourself and then you can rename yourself use my phone and i use my ipad as my information oh it said it's an iphone and then i forgot you're welcome i think yes john you made front and center on mine [Laughter] now it's you michelle because i laughed oh yeah whoever it's set up yeah you must have switched to just one person instead of the you know what i worry lucky i can see you guys now i got four across the bottom and then one big in the center weird i'm trying to get my ipad to not fall asleep so fast my other one i know i'm gonna have to go take a lesson when this covet is gone so is anybody on site there besides um nobody else is on site right was but but she was muted too i saw it because she moved from her office to the chambers it looked like so i don't know i hope that they aren't doing that i think they're stuck there's adam well i don't have adam yet oh really he just showed up in the corner of mine i don't know our entire city hall just died oh there he is the internet connection right um does susan just want to go to the closest house was that connie's probably although you know how long mine works up here yeah well you're doing pretty good i just have to figure out how to maneuver yeah i'm always afraid to push a button for fear i'm going to get rid of everybody who do we still have on everybody but the mayor in terms of council and then laura would need to get back chief eastman i should say i think i know where some of our cares funding needs to go upgrade the wi-fi i don't i don't know what is going on with our city hall internet um i'm dead in the water let me he fell down it's okay we're the internet went down at the city hall right now so no dad's not happy at all not really can you hear me adam i can can you see me i can see you okay i can't see myself so i don't know where that went you're good john back everyone okay well we had a nice group here to and um celebrate and we welcome uh officer ryan sinclair do we have to make a motion to promote him i believe we do yeah we did that in a consent agenda oh we do okay gotcha yeah yeah sorry no we're good okay so we do not have a public hearing this evening and we do not have any unfinished business so we have three items under new business so we'll start with the first of considering authorization to solicit and accept bids for a city crack ceiling project and match would you please present thank you madam mayor members of the council um city staff primarily um john parody and myself completed the street ratings for this year and that also includes evaluating um the need for seal coating and crack sealing um it was determined that um we should really do crack sealing this year there's some significant cracks on some of the streets um primarily out in inspiration um which has it's kind of we actually did crack sealing out there um what it does is it fills up the cracks um and reduces the uh ability for water to get in these cracks and during the winter freeze thaw and um cause more road damage um so what uh we did have uh we should have did street ratings earlier this year but we've been obviously ongoing pandemic stuff and then the street project kind of pushed this back um so what we're asking for is um in order to expedite the process a little more um is we want to be able to complete this work during um some of the warmer temperatures um so what staff is asking council do essentially is to um authorize staff to solicit and then accept bids if with if they're within the estimated amount of seventy seven thousand dollars um normal on a normal year um sealcoating and crack ceiling has a fun budget or general fund budget of 70 000 um and so staff thought it was reasonable to ask for 77. we do have some money available in the parks budget and then the street budget to cover that because some of this um crack ceiling will occur in some of the parking lots um one of the other significant areas is the trail system needs it throughout the whole city actually um so if we want to go through the timeline um august 3rd which is today would approve the solicitation um we'd send out um the bid request tomorrow and then it'd be august 17th for the bid dead lion and acceptance and then we've actually extended the work completion date to september 30th um there is um john parody felt that we could extend it that long as long as we may met temperature certain temperature requirements for this type of application um so staff is recommending the city council adopt a motion authorizing staff to solicit bids and then subsequently accept the lowest responsible bid within the estimated amount of 77 000. um if it goes over that step is recommending that we just push the project until next year stand for questions questions for matt matt um so is this specifically cracks or how how is it determined what things get fixed or do potholes are potholes included in this or no we we do pothole patching just throughout the year um wherever we see them i know we have a few potholes that we do need fixing we do have a list um we've just been um swamped with other work and so we're getting to some of that stuff but this is specifically crack ceiling by an outside contractor gotcha thank you so just so i understand we we typically would have done a seal coating project but we just didn't know where that would be the highest priority so we decided it would be smart to seal cracks throughout the city instead of just concentrating on a small area to seal coat or am i i'm confused about why we're floating i guess so so the sealcoat uh fun budget line is essentially both for seal coating and crack ceiling um we haven't actually done a seal coat probably in the past uh since i've been here except for um some of the newer roads which have the the new type of steel coat and we haven't did additional a traditional chip seal seal coat um since i've been here primarily because um when john and i have driven the streets in the past we don't feel that there's a requirement the streets are holding up fairly well without needing that and but this year we felt that this crack ceiling was needed or was a priority um on all the streets listed um on the back of the uh or on the um in the agenda packet now there's quite a lot of them so okay and we're covering it like you said we're going over the 70 000 that's allotted but you've got it in the budget so that's not a problem the extra seven yeah there's money essentially and there's some in the streets budget and then there's part in the parks budget there's some money allotted for um essentially street repairs um and so that's where that little extra will come out of and did sch give you these estimates or did you just kind of come up with what you thought each would cost so i've used an estimate in the past from sch essentially i have this really big spreadsheet that calculates different things like road reconstruction seal coating crack ceiling a whole list of different things that we can do the road these costs were actually from sch yes per linear foot cost okay so it should be on track so will all the um homeowners be contacted and and given information so they know when this is taking place in front of their homes do we do a communication outreach of any kind we could potentially do that mayor so when they do crack sealing they actually essentially heat up use hot oil and use the toilet paper over it so it doesn't stick on anything um usually we don't do a communication if we're just doing like a crack ceiling like this now if we were doing a uh a chip seal that that's kind of more invasive this isn't quite as invasive that we would put out um notification like that okay so no one's going to be stuck behind or in their driveways waiting for anything no this is a pretty quick process essentially they depending on the size of the crack they either cut it open or they just blow it out they'll put the rubber sealant down and then put toilet paper over it and move on to the next one so um line item you know sort order 204 is fire hall parking area for about 3 300 is that the old fire hall nope that's the new fire hull and again these are all estimates so it's it's a lot harder to rough estimate this crack ceiling because like at the fire hall if you catch it early there's fewer cracks than and like than if you would let it go longer and so that 3000 is really just a real rough ball estimate of what sch has seen in the past okay oh sorry keep going well there's the potential that that fire hall parking lot could very well be only two thousand dollars worth of cracked seal this is it's highly variable on crack ceiling um just based on how close the cracks are in the road we didn't we didn't physically go out and measure every single crack and so um even with even when we're getting quotes back um essentially they'll be that'll be an estimate too and it won't be perfect because they'll have to come back and actually measure every single crack once they're done okay any other questions for matt i'm still not sure why um i mean because it doesn't really look that pretty after you seal the cracks so why are we not doing a seal coating project or will we eventually have to go over in seal coat where we did all this crack repair or we just never anymore because it's not effective so we we won't be doing seal coding this year um there's a potential that we would do it next year john and i just don't feel that the current condition of the streets warrants it um and michelle if you want to talk about it we can talk about how we still put it in the past you know um and that's fine but we can do that off camera but um i get that it doesn't look good but we want to be able to seal up those cracks and crack seal coating doesn't seal up the cracks um the way it should that's why we have to crack those i i agree it does not look pretty but that's not the job of the road to look pretty so now that we're gonna have a beautiful new highway 95 the rest of our streets are gonna look have toilet paper on them for a while um gotta trust your judgment on that because uh you obviously know way more about it than i do any other questions oh okay um well then would someone like to make a motion i'll make a motion i move to authorize staff to solid solicit bids for the city cracked ceiling project and accept the lowest responsible one under the amount of 77 000 or up to the amount of 77 000. okay thank you connie is there a second again thank you john adam please call the roll college member carlson aye councilmember buckley aye sponsor member dahl aye councilmember hanson aye mayor ours hi his all right okay that takes us to item number two under new business it was which is an update on proposals for the city's waste hauling contract adam uh thank you madam mayor members of the council uh for the public's information a rfp for trash uh was released this year uh mid-june uh it was due the proposals were due mid-july july 15th our current contract with the public services expires at the end of december of this year and so the council did direct staff to do an rfp again this year we did one last year very similar but we ended up not following through with it the city initially got four firms to say that they intended to submit proposals but only uh three ended up submitting uh our current provider for public services uh highland sanitation and tennis sanitation um i went through the i went through the proposals and did some comparisons and i provided those in the packet and i will uh kind of go through those with the council um and if there's the council has there's no formal decision that needs to be made tonight but i would like to request the account that the council provides staff direction um if there's additional questions or input from the council that we can go back to the haulers and get additional information we can do that or if there's uh one of the proposals that you've seen um that you'd like us to uh pursue a contract with that uh that's what we're looking for this evening um so with the three and i'm gonna say also compare with me for a second i'm going to hope our attack holds but i'm going to share my screen and can everybody see yes yes it's pretty small but i have my own well it's yeah i'm not sure if the public can see it but i'll go through this um yeah it's fine on my laptop can you close your close your bookmarks adam would it give it a little more oh there's a little bit better yeah and i i don't have um councilmember hanson i know that you had asked and i did not have time to get this information are the the pricing uh listed under the current uh column that does not include the taxes um so that's going to be um in addition and i i did not have time to put that in we've that the pricing that we've had previous to this rfp process did not include the taxes so those are going to be a set rate um depending on what the county and the uh the other entity charge but so this this figure um if you're all familiar with your current tax bill or not your your current uh hauler bill uh this is the um the taxes are gonna be on top of this or the three uh for the three different size containers uh for the starting in next year 2021 um this is the these are the rates as you can see uh republic submitted uh an alternative bid we requested that weekly recycling be included as opposed to we're currently doing it bi-weekly every other week and these are the the price differences that they had they did include as an alternative bid or alternative proposal um the bi-weekly to continue what we're currently doing and that's a couple dollars cheaper than their proposal but then both tennis and highland uh offered the uh the weekly um the weekly recycling so the prices are reflected there one of the alternative proposals that tennis offered was to include for one dollar more plus tax uh to include the cleanup day costs um in the actual base bid so that's what these differences uh highland in their alternative for future uh cost increases i'll go back to what the other haulers had um they they want to have this more transparent process and as you can see here they want to review the actual disposal weights each year and then calculate that for the weight per gallon that they're charged that cost them so they have this simple elaborate simply elaborate uh formula that you can then base the future years on uh based on the actual waste that's uh yeah i mean frankly that's that i mean that that doesn't tell us anything no that's useless information for us exactly yeah it's not the most clear um republic listed a four percent increase um of course this is contingent everybody's contingent upon what the recycling environmental center costs are um as those are very confusing at times is there a question may i jump in um on the on the tennis um with their alternative for the um cleanup day base price is that for one cleanup day per year or you know for the duration of the contract or is that one cleanup day for the entire term of the contract no that's per year um they they were the only one out of the three that did not propose a curbside cleanup event uh republic was going to include um a uh with a reduced rate uh curbs as well to be one cleanup day where everybody can bring their uh waste their disposal items to the location to dispose of it the dumpsters would be there but they also proposed having a where everybody puts it out at the curbside at a reduced rate and it's picked up um they actually the republic listed a two-week event they proposed a two-week event to have that additional curbside cleanup um the highland also offered so they'd have the one day but then they were also where everybody brings it then also having a curbside event uh where people would pay a reduced rate for a period and have stuff picked up curbside uh tennis did not include the curbside they were just gonna they've just proposed the the one event so the other ones were you know one in the spring one in the fall so two events that differ adam yes at any given time though could a client call tennis and have pickup title yes they all three of them offer bulk item pickup at any time uh typically you know there has to be a few days or you know can't be that day often depending on what the item is but a couple day notice um and all of them all the the rates were fairly for the bulk items were fairly fairly similar i can provide the specifics but they provide a list of all the items that they pick up and um you can see depending they kind of categorized what type of item uh based on the size and it's either 10 20 or 30 dollars for depending on the item actually a question i had adam because um tennis doesn't say exactly it just says variable based on item but you do have a specific list of what like if someone put a couch out there what that would cost yes i didn't include all that in the packet i can send that to through the council i just want to make sure we we have that information i want to also make sure that it's clear to our residents what those costs are up front instead of they put something out and then they get a bill for it later because i've seen people complain about that with certain waste haulers so you know just wanting to know having that clear up front for any of them whoever we choose i understand okay um so councilmember dahl does that answer your question the uh tennis offer offered one or proposed to have one cleanup day event and both the other haulers did offer uh the two events you know split they can't be right back to back um you know one spring one fall depending on what he wants and we'd have to coordinate it uh but all three of them offered the bulk disposal but but and again just to be clear both republican highland it would be some sort of additional fee on top of the numbers we're seeing here yes yes all three um well i'm sorry yes so the but we don't have any way of knowing what that is so it's on the second page isn't it yeah so the actual cleanup costs um they all vary on and part of it is you know there's it's 120 for republic it was proposed 120 an hour per employee um and then 300 per day for the tr for a truck so depending on how much is actually disposed of um there's also some that like highland you know they had the cost the city was 50 an employee per hour plus 250 per truck and then the resident has to pay as well so if it's you know to be per per load or um all three of them asked because we don't we have not been doing this event uh for some time we didn't have any fresh or recent data to provide they if it's that they all wanted more detailed information as far as what we've been doing so they can try to estimate what that cost to them would be that they can then in turn uh charge the the customer um we don't have that so they this these prices would possibly be adjusted after a couple years when we have we all have a better idea of what the actual cost would be um it's qui if we only had a handful of people a handful of residents show up with their their junk that for that cleanup day but you know any of the haulers had mobilized you know multiple dumpsters and that's that's not cost effective for them so you want to know how much materials be involved going back to the the additional carts you know it's it varies but um we don't we currently i don't believe we have a lot of additional cards but that was one of the questions um the excess refuse so this is bags in addition if it doesn't fit in your container um you know you can have it additionally on the side uh these the prices you can see there um varied from 750 to three dollars oh sorry just i skipped the the increase um for 2021 that's that that top section for 2022 and 2023 because we proposed having a three-year contract uh republic had proposed a four year or four percent increase each year um the uh tennis said that they they were unable to uh estimate that they they did have what their costs would be and but it's without the it's only half the figure um there's without knowing all the other variables um that includes the direct costs they were not willing to commit to a percent increase or a figure and then highland they had a three percent increase on the waste and a five percent increase on the recycling the way that actually works out for the overall charge is it comes out to about 2.9 percent increase it's actually because there is the waste is more than the recycling portion of the the charge um so it's right right around the three percent um moving on to the uh replacement carts it's not a not a major issue but highland does include one free cart replace or bin replaceable per year um at no charge but their second one is a little bit more expensive the yard waste uh again varied quite quite a bit um all the way from tennis at only 84 up to republic at 123. um currently we're at 82 so it's uh it is it would be a significant jump uh for both republic and highland from what we currently our current residents currently have well one of the differences is the tennis does charge for brush bundles they're you only get the 95 gallon with no additional bags included republic includes five extra bags and highland includes eight bags they have a smaller container but tennis is you know quite a bit cheaper for the monthly rate i'm sorry the annual rate but that doesn't include any additional bags so there's a small charge per bag it's the two dollars per bag um for the non-subscribers if you don't have the yard service but you want to dispose of it uh they all have varied from five to four dollars tennis does have a two bag minimum uh for the trail island did not state that they had any minimum though um again their extra bags are there the uh again i kind of already went over the cleanup uh they all they all vary uh depending on what actually is being um disposed of so the they they were they're all open to uh pricing it different ways where the city can cover it or they can be you know have the the resident pay for it and with the city pay a portion um it really depends on they're all open to you know working at the city to figure out how we wanted to charge for it um we in the past the city has paid for you know there's been significant costs that the city has paid for for these events um those in part it was i guess the use was down but the city was still paying the money um moving on to organics uh both republic uh which is different than their response last year uh they did propose having a 10-yard container uh available uh with a pickup at once a week at a at a city facility i know that was something that the some of the council has said that they were you know very interested in so we did uh did have that as part of the rp the highland does they had to either add a public facility or a city facility um but they they char they stated that they were gonna in charge so the city could basically rent another dumpster for organics um the republic they did not uh include whether or not there would be an additional cost all three haulers offered um which is typical offer the city facilities no cost um for our own waste the uh so tennis did not have a organic they don't have an organic program um they said they're very open to it but they they don't have the means to dispose of it um they're waiting for uh the rec the ramsey county uh washington uh environmental center to make it available and then they are so they're happy to pursue it uh all three include the holiday tree disposal which we currently don't um we don't have but uh there would be a two-week period for a free holiday tree disposal i thought we did have it it's just like yeah i thought it wasn't in our contract so i didn't i think they did it this last year though roma could probably tell us if he's on but i'm pretty sure they did it okay well all three would continue that or have that available um then the the number of trucks uh that's not really that important uh all of them have sufficient uh vehicles to service the city uh but all three of them did uh do have diesel trucks i know some another question that some of the council had last time um waste management which is the the only firm that uh last time and this time they decided not to submit a proposal um they had some natural gas trucks if people uh um i did make a note that republic uh because their contract uh there's one period that ends uh october 1st and there will be an additional price adjustment because the last one was supposed to take place in october but it didn't until the new year um they were willing to waive the three percent increase if if they were selected this year um so with that the one item that you didn't talk about is the day of week for pickup we currently have mondays as our scheduled pickup day um yes thank you madam mayor uh both republic said they'd continue doing the monday uh that's our current day of collection uh tennis said that they were good they were gonna do the monday as well they continue that highland did say i'm sorry let me go back very top i kind of missed that portion right um the highlands said that they they needed to do it on friday um that was their kind of their the day that they had the capacity available um they could not do monday they friday was the day that they wanted to do it um kind of taking a step a little bit higher a little bit back all three have uh partners for customer service uh republic as you well know um has a regional call center um with their hours and uh both tennis and highland have local offices um they don't they don't have a national call center for their local companies honey honey maybe you want to go and mute i'm sorry it's okay so that i think that's an important thing that you just covered there adam so there's a regional there are local people to call for tennis and highland and there's a call center that services the midwest or all of the united states for republic what uh i believe it's i want to say it's in indiana and again um mr franklin may be able to clarify that but he uh i can find it regarding it is local it's regional i believe like i said it's it's our region um they have if you're all familiar with it they they have some broader hours on their call center but they're they're not a local um you know they're a national company so they have multiple regional call centers uh that each region regional call center handles that region's customer base um both tennis they're a local you know they're both tennis and highland are smaller and they have local offices here um for their their call centers uh tennis they they claim to have a within 45 seconds of a call that's their average wait time um highland didn't say what their average wait time was um but they i i've called them several times it goes through fairly quickly um again it's just a small uh small office so with that i don't believe i have anything else to present i think i i think i covered oh basically the the summaries and the comparisons of the actual um proposals themselves i can i can get it's a lot of information there if you recall the rfp itself was 45 pages long um so it's i tried to compile it all for the console the main important parts i'm happy to send out the send out the actual materials to the council to review if you'd like to look further into it but otherwise if the council has some additional questions that it would like answered or information obtained or uh provide direction to staff i would like to hear from the council of the things that they think are most critical um so can we just there's some clarifications i think that need to be made that are just some missing data for me before we get into that kind of high level stuff um if that's okay mayor sure okay um the weekly recycling is a 95 gallon one currently is my understanding and then it looks like tennis would be 65 gallon but highland it doesn't say the size so just for when we actually have to make a decision it'd be nice to have that information uh yes thank you madam uh michelle um the highland did not clarify what their recycling container was um they they did offer recycled weekly recycling though okay that's i just think we should have that information eventually um and then do people ever get extra recycling bins and they probably won't need to now if we have weekly so that was just another question i had but maybe it's not pertinent since it's weekly and there have been some not many um i believe under our current contract they can it can be requested um it's it's not common no part of it we do have some that have multiple trash bins um obviously with moving towards the weekly recycling the the hope is that the general hope is that the there's more gets recycled so that actually reduces the amount of waste um in the trash that that's kind of the the intent both tennis and highland uh currently do weekly recycling and so that's been their um their practice i know about it talking about uh maybe a year or two ago uh moving in that direction uh on their end and offering weekly recycling but actually you know doing less than weekly uh trash hauling um and i i don't think that didn't happen obviously um but the expectation is that the trash volume will reduce significantly if more opportunity to recycle is available i i hope that's true um i also am not maybe it's just me not understanding how this works but the highland that really complicated formula that they gave us is that another way they could calculate it versus the fees that they told us already or what what does that actually mean yeah so they they use and i i cut and paste literally from the rfp um it's not the clearest they they take the amount the basically the weight that we would be disposing from the first nine months of the year and then they calculate the average weight per gallon because they know the volume they know how many gallons they they dispose of and the the weight and so then they take that average weight per gallon and they multiply that by whatever cart size you want for the customer then they multiply that by the cost per ton to dispose of it so that's what the rac would charge and then multiply by the 5 or 52 12 which is the average week per month um and that so at some point they change their rates so we're going to start out with the rates that they quoted us the 1950 the 23 46 and then they're gonna assess how much it really is costing them and then they're gonna change their rate is that how i should interpret that if this is the way that this and they they proposed this last time um is something that they'd like to talk to us about it wasn't uh formally laid out this way um but they they they believe it has more transparency than any price adjustments would you can see how the prices are calculated yeah if you trust what they're saying is the tonnage and all that but well you have to report all that i mean all that verifiable as you know and it covers them it's great for them but for the people that have to pay the bill and you don't know what the bill is going to be and we're trying to choose a provider and also their prices could change drastically it's kind of i don't really like it but that's me so that just for clarification you know we've got the basic numbers and then that's listed under the alternative but that is not an alternative that is what they are proposing or that's could we choose the 19 the 23 the 27 you know in that their left hand column or this alternative or yes it's kind of a hybrid or no yeah so let me clarify that uh thank you the that 1950-2346 those are the the proposed 2021 charges fees um and those do include tax the and then so for 2022 and 2023 year two and three of the contract they proposed the three percent and five percent uh perspective um for waste and recycling increases they said as an alternate they would be open they'd propose going to this other using this formula um if they said it's for better transparency and they think that it would it could potentially be cheaper for the resident um because it's actually what they're paying instead of a preset you know cost of increase um i did not yeah who knows what the actual ton i mean going this other way my my concern would be that it could get worse i mean right now we could be locked we could lock in for the you know three percent increase but if things get out of hand on you know it could end up being more for customers if we use the formula um but i'm i'm not familiar enough with the formula and how that currently plays into them calculating their charges so it would be helpful if they could you know offer us some examples you know a family of five does this versus a you know a single person does that or you know it's just the formula is really not that bad it's all just based on that multiplier but it doesn't really you know it's a huge x factor for us when we're trying to make this decision you know what else would be helpful i agree with john but i'd also think um just knowing how many of their cities opt for that calculation version versus the flat known fees with known increases if they could share that with us or if that's not appropriate i don't know but i i can definitely find that information out um the and just to clarify so that average weight forget i mean this is everybody who has that cart size is going to have that cost so there wouldn't be if resident a and resident b both have uh varying weights in what they dispose of they're going to have the same cost if they have the same size card so i just can't hear that this isn't a different formula for every resident it's great they used that was mike that was great that would be crazy boy that would be hard yeah another i just have some concerns about the unknown too i guess that's my only problem it's just not knowing how that calculation would play out and we have the same problem with tennis because they're not telling us what their increase is going to be right how yeah that was my next point is is i'm you know we have to have some sort of idea what we're getting into or that's not you know they could just come up with some crazy number i would imagine or maybe not maybe i would i think that we could ask them to provide maybe a history of what they've done the last um you know last 10 years what it's been and i i think if we went back to them it would be fair to ask them to provide us you know at least a range if it's between that three and four etc exactly i agree the one thing that i'm also interested in obviously at the financial side is is very important the services that are are detailed are important but and customer service is important we get a lot of individual complaints from different residents and businesses that deal with customer service so adam what do you know about these other you know we've had republic services ourselves now what do you know about tennis and highland um my my experience with both of them so far i i've not had either of them as a customer um i've heard good feedback from the uh when i've done the reference checks on both of them i i know there's quite a few uh i'd say cities similar to our size um that utilize tennis i know oak park uses them uh they're very happy with them as a municipal hauler um they have quite a few uh both open uh open hauling cities as well as uh um organized collection like us um just to give you the quick uh list uh for the organized for tennis they have birchwood village falcon heights hastings maplewood north st paul oak park heights west lakeland um then for the open hauling and this is just the list that they provided for references um cottage grove invergrove heights lake elmo newport oakdale south st paul st paul park and woodbury and a lot of them i believe a lot of those cities have had them for quite a few years uh the um highland they're they're i'd say they're smaller even than tennis um republic they're they're you know they're a national company they uh they are all over uh you see their trucks everywhere um they they're in the call center you know there's that's been part of the i'd say the complaints that the city's received um is the call center wait time um the in familiarity with some of the the i guess say the the the contract the city's contract the city details about our accounts um i i know that that has gotten better we haven't heard as many but it's a national company so there's going to be efficiencies that you're able to get from that large company but also some of the impersonal account management uh and romack he's you know he's been very helpful when we've reached out to him he's offered uh to you know take point on a lot of those issues but um at the end of the day it's a large company and uh both tennis and uh highland we've heard is there you know they're family run uh they're small companies they're run like that um they are local so that's uh that's kind of the fact that i i've received i um one i'm used to it but two i also like uh the monday pickup the murdered out of my mom yeah after the weekend on the weekend and it's nice to have that cleaned out instead of having that perhaps odor or extra mess um around until fridays is that yeah i think there we would get a lot of complaints on the friday pickup i really do i think that would be quite unpopular with the residents myself my neighbors [Music] i agree i i i think the monday pickup is very popular um highland doesn't offer it at all adam the monday uh they just say they they are only the friday right monday um friday was the day that they were proposing um they said they could try to make later in the week work um but they friday was the day that they were proposing they could not do it they have the other i mean if you if you understand each hauler um has to coordinate which cities they they cover right island does have others that's that's fine it's just if that is a deal breaker then let's not continue with um pursuing highland i mean it's just i i like their proposal and and i'd be interested in finding out this alternate you know charges i think it might be work out better for the residents but that that friday i really think we'd have a lot of resistance to that i mean is that worth an extra dollar or saving a dollar per week or two dollars per week i i don't know month yeah oh yeah i got you john buckley you do what are you thinking i haven't heard from you i would wait and get a definite answer from highland as far as scheduling change but um being picked up on friday or thursday compared to a monday i'm not really opposed to it but i know we're we're we've always had a pick up on monday so we're kind of set into a pattern but you never know change might be good but i would definitely contact hyland and i agree with john is the numbers are very promising but i would talk to them and see what they could do as far as schedule the pickup time or day thank you i someone was asking like i think uh maybe connie asked adam like how was their kind of customers like how do they do [Music] um and i i before the meeting did some you cut out my search on that michelle you're cutting out so we're not quite hearing what you're oh i'm sorry what changed can you hear me now okay i was just saying that i did some research can you yes please continue still hear me customer rate she's like frozen or i can't hear anything she froze um michelle we're you're cutting in and out we're having challenges so adam wanted to say something i did uh marion michelle can you just pause for a second because your line is is coming in and out so well maybe if we give it a minute it'll stabilize so adam let adam talk he wanted to say something i found i found the information on the highland uh recycling size it's the 65 gallon 64 gallon uh recycling container so that was something that um i was able to locate okay thank you customer wants a different size they can get the 35 or 96 um swapped out with no additional charge but their standard is the 65 gallon which yeah if if we're doing weekly that's more than enough because we currently have 95 bi-weekly so weekly is more than adequate should be good okay um can anybody hear me speaking yes now we can um just i had done some online research about customer ratings for tennis and highland i already have a sense of how i feel about republic's customer service because we've had them um but tennis was definitely rated higher online than highland like 4.7 versus 2.9 i don't know how much you trust those kinds of online ratings but it was just interesting tidbit for me so did you happen to do uh republic too um i know you did and i can't remember let me see um they're really they're even lower 1.3 okay just curious yeah that is a good question so again i don't know how much weight you put into that republic obviously has a lot more people rating it because they're a larger company um i think highland it was like 70 some ratings and tennis was like i think 20 some ratings or something so they're not like collaborating because they're such small companies but interesting i thought that was helpful when i did that all right any other questions or things that we want adam to check into further adam would we be voting on this topic at our next meeting is that the plan the plan the scheduled plan is to have uh yes to select a provider uh at the september meeting we do have time uh if we need to wait till october but the the plan is to get a contract before the council that makes sense it makes sense to do it then so that we can if there is any kind of a change in service that we could get containers swapped out with adequate time that we're not under the gun so and we can just uh just to clarify we can the council can select a hauler uh contingent upon the contract being worked out um there's there'll be details that we may need to work out if we don't have it ahead of time so the counselors can select a hauler at the september meeting and then in october approve that formally approve the contract and that still leaves plenty of time to make the transition all three provided transition plans though so they're all doable adam i i have one more question sorry did someone else say something no okay so one of the things that tennis is is lacking compared to the others is the organics program and it says that they're waiting for the rec to make it available do we have any information on why they have this feeling that it's going to be made available through the rec and that could help us understand what that's about i don't have that information i don't um sarah do you happen to have any other information from the county i know the county it's obviously something county-wide um that is i don't see becoming more popular but that you know we're all the the waste diversion is trying to be maximized and organics are part of that equation um i don't know i don't have the details as to where it is county-wise i know their their pilot programs in various cities um there's uh it's the last proposal republic wasn't even offering it um as part of their proposal and so now they they're making that change it's really a matter of from what i understand is a lot of the haulers economically it doesn't make sense for them to offer it until it's easier for them to actually there's somewhere to dispose of it um so that i think that's a challenge for some of them um i don't know if that's i i i don't want to speculate but maybe with tennis being smaller and they don't have they don't they don't have somewhere that they can bring it to um i know highland has uh some other options that they they utilize for their general disposal um adam have you and matt spoken at all about if we had a container on city property where that would be placed because i can imagine we're going to have residents that are not going to be happy wherever that gets if there was a container placed somewhere within our small city we've we've informally or high level discussed it um kind of as you noted uh there it's nobody wants it by their property um the the containers themselves are there my understanding is that they're they're not just a standard dumpster they are they have to be airtight you know to a higher extent um and they they have to be emptied regularly depending on who uses them how much they use depending on what the ambient temperature i mean there's a lot of factors that go into it um i think that that'd be something that we'd have to further explore where that would work best um the there aren't a lot of examples out there we've uh customer dolls um daughter had a girl scout project um that we were working with them on and there's there's not a lot of uh other i don't say projects but examples that uh are out there um that cities are doing uh there are a couple i mean and we can find out more information on that to provide to the council um if it would like um there's just not a lot of them it's it's such a burgeoning area it's one of those things that the container is probably fine but as people are dumping things they don't always get into a container and then you know there's extra maintenance for public works and there's more rodents it's one of those kind of not my backyard kind of situations that we could run against so um i'm i like the idea of organic recycling i like recycling in general i just um before you know we we sign up and say that we're going to do this i want to make sure i knew where and and how that would work even highland as part of their proposal when they proposed it cautioned uh the city as far as how to it has to be controlled you know it has to only be for residents who have indicated interest and then have access um they did not suggest just having it a free-for-all where anybody all people can just come and dump it just because it needs to be regulated they also suggested perhaps having a you know city staff to monitor the organics drop off which i don't think we're in favor of that at this point it would have we'd have to explore it further we have not determined what would work for us yet all right well there seems to be a lot to think about in between now and september so council keep funneling your questions um adam and please gather that information and continue to fill out the spreadsheet so that we can continue to compare apples to apples so anything else on this topic this evening i'm good no thank you thank you okay great um with that let's move on to item number three under new business which is the update on the covid cares act funding again adam um so the we're it's like i said we're in uh coronavirus all the time uh but the federal congress passed back in march uh the current the coronavirus aid relief and economic support act um it was done by the president and then on june 25th governor waltz um announced the plan to distribute those funds and a formula uh similar to the federal uh distribution is um 75 and 34 cents per capita uh this company did not you know advocate for a specific amount or apply for a specific amount we did apply uh for our allotment our allocation um it's not an expense reimbursement system but we are given the the funding and we have to either spend it on uh certain certain expenses related to covid that are eligible and then by november 15th whatever we have not spent we turn to the county return over to the county and they have a time period that they are to utilize it and then if they don't use it it goes back to the state um there's a the the three prongs is that it has to happen during this time period march 1st to december 30th actually for the city it's november 15th and then it has to not be accounted for in the budget and what i got some further clarification on that it's it there can be something in the budget that's similar to it but it's you being used differently um so obviously our like our police and fire our public safety personnel are being used much differently in their responses because of covet 19 than they than they normally would and even though their wages are included in our yearly budget um the determination by most of the cities that are involved in this and there hasn't been any nobody's been told that they aren't eligible there's a lot of cities that are using some of the their coveted allotment or their carer's allotment uh the crf funds to pay for parts of their their wages for their public safety personnel um these these additional costs for these expenses need to have occurred due to cloven 19 um or as a result of kobe 19 and the city's response to it um the guidance has changed and it continues to evolve we get further clarification i'm on a you know a weekly either webinar or phone call or zoom meeting um and there's additional updated information they get further clarification from the irs or the state mmb um but what i what the council asked for was a list of what some of the expenses and eligible items that the city has either come up with um or would incur and so i worked with the department heads and we did have uh some expenses previously that we were incurring uh before this money was um certified and distributed we just got our share of the money last week um the we we really tried to not spend a lot of money uh before we knew this we we never tried to spend a lot of money but we tried to be very uh you know cost conscious in all of our expenditures uh this did give us a little more breathing room when there were things that we really could use but we were you know kind of hedging on well we're not gonna you know we're not gonna spend the money on this because we might need it over here um one of the big things that this money is available for is uh teleworking working remote telemeetings um i i definitely am going to be proposing to you some of it for city hall's internet uh that does not uh seem to be working very well for us in all seriousness it's that type of thing we've i know the council was supplied with devices for some of these remote meetings um there's there's a broad you know it's it's a really broad it's not a list but a broad scope of what can be eligible um but also we don't want to over you know overspend one of the kind of the other part of it is the cities are they're not expected to but they have the option the availability to uh distribute or provide programs come up with programs to help the community that they're in that they they are and so the list that i came up with um is gonna include some small business grants uh or loans i i i really don't propose doing any loans one because the ongoing paperwork is not worth it um and it's it's just it's not as beneficial to the to the community members there's other organization grants that we can uh discuss they all they all really need to be need based um they whatever costs that they are incurring or they have incurred due to covid they need to be able to demonstrate that and go through an application process um that's been pretty pretty consistent guidance but then there's other you know it the chronoviruses hit everything so they do say that you know youth programming or child care support um whatever that could possibly look like um is something that we could we could discuss or look at um they did even include the the creative economy and tourism they understand that you know the part of the fact that businesses are hurting is because people aren't you know one they don't feel comfortable going places or you know doing these things but it's having a broader impact than just directly um so this program it's far from perfect uh we are you know we're very fortunate to receive some of the funding uh for some of our incurred costs that we have to have had to spend money on um but i i did have the list and i'll go ahead and put it up here in a second um of the things that we've already spent uh money on and ours the city's response to kova 19 and then like i said some of those other items that we believe staff believes that it would be helpful for us to do or spend the money on um and then some of the programs for the non-city expenditures so let me get to that list that um go through them and then if the council has any questions on some of the costs that we've already incurred please let me know adam yes for tonight then the goal is to accomplish what yet to make because this is this is almost as detailed as going through the budget that we had the workshop on prior to a council meeting so the stuff that we've already done i'm not going to go through that line by line madame um what we so the there's still and we're not behind many other cities there there's still a lot of cities we just got this money um there's only been this is the second a you know distribution period um so there's still a lot of cities the this that are coming up with these programs um and so we're all kind of bouncing ideas off of well we don't want to reinvent the wheel um but what i'm look what staff is looking for from the council tonight is which programs do we want or me which programs do we want to pursue uh which ones do the count does the council support in uh providing to the public and then we did have a couple uh items that uh specifically for the fire department um that we we were looking for um and then there was one for public works as well uh kind of directions that go ahead and get that obviously anything that the city spends on itself has two impact um one it's anything we spend now will be less of a you know tax burden on the community um if we were to pay for it otherwise and but then that does leave less money available for non-city programs um just to let the call i know i send information to the council washington county came out with two programs uh for residents and uh property owners uh just this last week they've formally approved it and that's being done through the cda um one is a small business loan program which is uh fifteen thousand dollars um for businesses that are less than three and a half million in revenue and uh 50 employees and then there's a uh like it's ten thousand dollars uh homeowner uh aid from so be clear adam the small business thing is a grant not a loan i'm sorry yes i misspoke yes thank you yeah they're both on the same page not loans small business loan in general is what to me um those are both grants that's correct right oh uh to go if everybody can see my screen um the the personnel expenditures that's you know that's something if the count if the council wants us to uh use some of the the cares money for that uh we can and some of this doesn't need to be determined now like i said we have until november 15th to actually spend the money but um one thing i should say is they are we don't have any specific dates but we were told by the state mmb that the discussion at the federal level is to extend the deadline um or the expenditure so that may end up happening um we don't want to wait but we may you know have a little bit more flexibility um as we determine that hope is not going anywhere anytime soon um but we've you know we have incurred some unemployment costs um the other thing i should mention in all these expenses uh both for us and the non-city entities is you can't double dip so if you get something through you know the paycheck protection act or some other grant or loan program you can't get for the same expense you can't get money from different sources for the same thing um how do we do that how do we make sure that's not happening though well well we we have to have an application process and that's part of it um they're all subject to the same type of certification that we make at the city um we need to provide basically have them provide receipts um and there's if something that's the other thing we have to be very stringent in our checking um because if somebody finds that we're ultimately because we're the uh the local government that's receiving it um we're on the hook for if a if another organization you know a business or something misuses the funds and they weren't not they should not have received them or they used it on something that was not eligible the city's one responsible for that fund so there are these types of strings attached this seems like a a big tax on our current staff to add this kind of response and and the city's liability if we end up having to pay back so there there's still a lot of questions um and it's yeah it's not as simple as everybody just gets the money um i think you know like i said we've got there's some examples coming out of the different types of grant programs um they're they don't seem too onerous but they're also they're they're smaller one i guess one of my suggestions would be i know that if there's money left over from and we had community thread which the council highly supports um the county's program does not include non-profits um there's too many of them county-wide that they they said it was gonna be too difficult to administer um but they they said that if and it also doesn't include churches but if they if at the end of the closer to the end of their uh period if they haven't had as many people apply for their programs then they may open it up to the nonprofits um i don't have their figures off hand but it was you know 10 million and 1 million um so i i thought that it might be beneficial for the city to either you know fill that gap that the on some of our organizations that the county is not currently making it eligible um we can use the same type of criteria same type of process and so it's kind of already in place but change the criteria for what you know which types of organizations are available so is it really true that even so the only funds that are available are at the county level and at the city level correct for this particular there were cases there were i mean there there's state funds that the state kept you know quite a bit um they kept almost half i think um they were so good all right so i'm trying to figure out because i i we obviously have businesses that have been hurt in this process as well we have to avoid double dipping but why isn't the county having some kind of program that tracks the applications and and we submit against that so that we at least can see that there's no replication there that'd be nice that that's something that i i will ask about because that hasn't been uh announced um but and if there were staff at that level not every individual municipality would have to dedicate staff to try to administer this as well it it does not seem like i mean it's it's a nice gift but it does not seem very well thought out at this point that's that's one way of putting it um yeah it was the i know they were trying to get money out to you know local communities as fast as possible but there's uh a lot of questions that are left um the i i think the i think the the intent was the the local communities are going to have a better understanding of who needs it um but anything that the city doesn't spend does go back up to the county or not back up but then to the county for their programming and then ultimately back to the state um but that doesn't address the administration and it doesn't address i mean as a small city we can't have 10 different programs we cannot administer that and to even try to make sure that if we offer a business grant program and the county as a business grant program you know there's it just seems like there's overlap and potential for i don't want to see us ending up being on the hook for something later that we have to end up paying back and anything that we spend for the city and decreases our are having to increase taxes to cover some of these costs also impacts our businesses because they're they're paying taxes and they're typically taxed at a higher rate so um i i can't see us making decisions on this this evening and i think that we actually need another workshop like we did for the budget to try to talk about this further i i agree with you mayor that like we don't want that overlap because they am i coming through i'm sorry um and i think that i also agree then with adam's point where he said maybe our job would be to fill in those gaps that the county isn't fulfilling so not necessarily doing a small business grant and not necessarily doing a resident you know help with mortgage whatever instead maybe focusing on the other non-profit organizations that aren't getting any relief maybe even our local elementary school could probably use something to help with going back to school those kinds of things and i don't know about those there's other three bullet points the youth programming tourism and creative economy support that i bel also agree with you that we would need a workshop to better understand what all of that means but i do see that we have some potential options for using that money that the city isn't going to need but i would i would recommend that we avoid whatever the county is already doing let's not offer that because i think it's going to get us in trouble later it's going to be too hard to manage that and avoid the overlap and and all that so but i i think there's potential there and maybe we do just need another time to talk it through more detail yeah and if we could further understand for the businesses what qualifies with the county and what doesn't so that if there's something that's out falls outside of that that we could consider that for our businesses in addition i like the idea obviously the non-profits he sent us the description i don't know if there's more details behind it but it's got like four bullet points that explains what they need to be and what you know what they need to meet you know one full-time employee yeah what they would spend the money on so let's say that oh i see what you're saying let's say that uh uh um it's easy yeah so i think we have the same rules don't we that has to be related to their there's no balance on if they're submitting replica you know replicant or replicated guys on some of those i filled out some of those different ones i just filled out one through the state and they do ask specific questions like have you gotten money from any so they're asking the business owners um if you know if you've gotten any and if you have where has it been from interesting so they do on the applications at least the ones that have come out recently the one through the state and um actually there was two different ones so they they do ask that um and then you know kind of sign it off on the bottom and then they on the one from the state anyway um for the although the one from the state was strictly that i was applying lately was for um daycares now that i think about it but i had applied for another small business one and they did ask and then you have to they have what they give you a page at least on those two that i did actually i should say a couple pages and they explain to you what you can and cannot spend this money on you know like the one through um the daycare it had to be used on either rent utilities um uh salaries are not salaries excuse me um money you're your employees so um it can't be lost but i agree with you guys i think there is the one out through the county there's the new one through the state for small businesses um i and i think they're really trying to focus on the very small businesses because the first few that i filled out that were for small businesses i mean they were being given to not such small businesses and that's why it's stipulating the 50 employees and under type thing so but there are several like i said there's the one through this date right now and i got some information on the one through the county so um i don't know i do know a lot of the businesses are myself too as a business owner the things that are hardest for us is getting a hold of some of this personal protection so if i guess if you're looking to help your businesses you know maybe throw some of that more stuff at him and not not broke but um versus alone or something anyway yeah i think that i i i don't want to say just because businesses are being addressed at the county we don't want to address that we can't address the businesses but i want to be very clear on what the county is is considering um you know within their realm of acceptance and what might be left over that we could help supplement with so exactly yeah yeah adam is there a way that because it's i mean i just i don't see that we're gonna get through this this evening so can we schedule a workshop and go into this in more detail and perhaps have somebody even from the county come and describe what their criteria is and how they i mean there should be some kind of comparison from the cities to the county to make sure that there's no overlap so that we can freely go about what we'd like to do uh absolutely mayor just one just one thing with that there and that's been part of the frustration from the staff perspective is as i said the it's incredibly vague the the federal government the irs gave you know these three three parameters that it needs to be related to you know directly due to covet 19 has to take place during the time period and you know can't be regularly have been budgeted for um they all the cities they're they're either trying to copy their county programs you know piggyback off them or try to fill those gaps those are kind of the two regarding the the businesses um we i can i'll we can definitely try to find out more information that's been one of the like i said one of the frustrations of trying to come up with these programs is they they have not given us a lot of they said here's things you aren't supposed to do and now i think it's i think it's fair because we're all taxpayers to the county as well that they should define how they're going to distribute it so that the rest of the cities within the county can supplement without overlap we you know it just makes it makes sense and you know if every community is paying to administrate this it's that's just a nice so um i challenged the to go back to the county say detail exactly for the cities not just bayport but all of us what it is that will meet this criteria for businesses i'm not i i think the homeowner is a different um tactic i don't know is we have enough money in our coffers to even approach that but um so we could look at our our business expenses our nonprofit expenses and maybe some you know smaller programs within our budget for businesses so then we at least can go okay we want 70 20 10 or whatever percentages and then we can dive deeper into how to allocate but i think that this is too undefined to make any kind of recommendations this evening but maybe i'll leave it to the council does anyone else have any ideas no i i tend to agree um mayor um it's it's overwhelming and um you know it's vague and and nebulous in some ways and it's going to be difficult to with what we know and what's in front of us right now move forward yeah it's easier with the city allocations and it's next easier for non-profits but to help with any help for our businesses i think we just need more clarity anyone else no i agree with you guys is anybody opposed to a workshop i think a workshop is in order okay adam i i'm trying to also save you and the rest of the administrative team some time and make it more clear for you as well because right now it's it would be very hard for us to provide you guidance that's fine um yeah it's they believe me it's been frustrating for the administrators because the guidance has been very lacking and try to come up with whatever ideas you want and we'll tell you no if it's i mean and honestly they were like if if you can somehow relate it to 119 it probably is eligible and it's we're like okay that doesn't matter okay well i think putting a little bit more back on the county and having them provide some clarity and definition would probably help a lot of communities and then we could go from there okay super all right anything on that topic all right then we will move forward with our uh counseling liaison reports um i'm going to quickly go i don't know there's been a lot of activity but i'm starting our left-hand corner john buckley do you have anything to report i'll report mayor okay thank you john dahl didn't have a meeting last month so nothing wrong with the airport okay going to the second row michelle just so you know the pictures are a different order for everybody but anyways i was in the upper left when you said that but um not to cut the meeting short but no i don't have anything either okay and connie well i could say no but they're really a follower connie no the library board did meet virtually again on the 21st um and do we discuss the master the facility master plan and it's been paid for the design hasn't um jill's hoping to have it back in august sometime because if she gets back by that time she can get some an additional or request put in a grant for some reduced additional um funds from the anderson foundation so that's why she's hoping it will be back by that time and we talked about the budget and jill feels that the library budget will stay flat um she doesn't anticipate any reductions her concern is though that or what she stated was that they are losing income from the meeting rooms and reservations and the fines and all those things that typically are there so she talked about asking the city to increase her property tax allocation and in doing so um then she can get her um more grants from her like i'm trying to think of what the people that double or meet the grants that she gets her budget or her money um so i don't think she's talked to adam about that yet or anything but that she did discuss that a little bit um she and she went over the emergency management plan that she's she's going to be using the city one but making it more specific to the library um let's see what else did we talk about well we've been kind of reviewing the policies for the last several meetings um oh and she isn't planning on hiring anyone new to re right now at this point to replace um the one that uh retired she didn't think maybe at least until 2021 if then she was just going to see what happens with the kobet issues and other than that um it was just going over the receipts and the bills and we do have a meeting in august i can't remember the date but um otherwise everything seems to be going well they're still doing some curbside stuff and she's kind of um you know sticking with the kobet issue so that's all very good thank you connie you're welcome i have nothing to report either so had him over to you in the team uh chief eisener okay can everybody hear me yes sir ken okay great the month of july called volume was 98 compared to 114 of july of 2019. our year-to-date totals are 561 compared to 739 on 2019. uh we're seeing that the call volumes are starting to get back to normal uh our monthly drill so our extrication and our first responder module fire inspections are ongoing as well as the new plan reviews our member update members all of our members are still remain healthy we did have a busy month difficult calls we had a house fire a river rescue and a fatal traffic accident we did go back to drills in person and with our social distancing mask and following the state guidelines on another note we do have two people that applied for the department and they went through the inter view process so hopefully next month they'll be on the consent agenda which is great that we have people volunteering in this current condition you know it's great to see people stepping forward and help us out we did have a boat demo for st paul power squadron out at lakeside park for the boating organization we're going back to our fire improvement team meetings and with that i'll stand for questions questions for the chief okay thank you very much thank you adam was a oh sorry so for the month of um july uh this was submitted on the 23rd so we've come away since then but um we continue our extra patrols on highway 95 and other businesses and residents um ex-patrol's on fourth street south that seems to be um what people are moving to fourth and sixth to avoid highway 95. as you know you all allowed me to add one part-timer mr brian saint claire tonight and thank you very much i met with the business owners managers probably 95 of them directly handed them the executive orders and posters answered any questions provided some mass and then past things that we accomplished where we posted our use of force policy on the web page for transparency um and we of course posted the notice that safety camp and night to unite which safety camp would have been tonight and night two night would have been tomorrow um while i was sitting here i posted old pictures of our facebook um of national night own safety camp so that's kind of fun to look at and um we also posted the governor's order on updates on that continually on our facebook page and with that i stand for questions questions for chief i just want to tell you thank you she was out the very next day with those um plans and the signs and everything so i just want to tell her thank you very i have a question for the chief um and i apologize for catching you off guard and it's um a controversial topic but it's something i saw shortly before um our workshop start started this afternoon and it had to do with the uh protesting going on downtown stillwater yesterday and i realized it was um you know a different department but um one of the one of the officers for the stillwater department um in his squad car was wearing a a certain mask that could be in my opinion construed as considered as political and i wonder what kind of policies we have in place so uh so an officer stays neutral and then how we would handle something like that if that's allowed somebody's got potato chips going on here so that was me i was trying to open this up hold on a second i'm gonna mute it for a second okay she has some masks i gotta get on her there we go there we go so we recently ordered these um you can kind of see that it's got you know a little bit of uh lettering on the side um it's black which i think is important um when you approach domestics or certain violent situations you want it to be a little bit darker so you don't stick out um so we were going to um we just got these um i tried to ask them to go blue or dark you know so we're all uniform but we were going to use these to be poor police okay yeah i mean that's great so i'm just going to say what i saw was a was a officer wearing a a blue lives matter mask which which i understand his point of view and stuff but um in that kind of a situation that is kind of inflammatory in my opinion um and i would just like to you know have our officers be be representing everything as neutral as possible to me um that can be construed as kind of a political statement same as i would say if they if they happen to have a a black lives matter mascon or a or a trump or any you know a biden or anything sure um so i just kind of wanted to i wouldn't disagree with that council member and i would not if i knew that was going on here i certainly would not allow it and you know you can put forth policies and procedures and sometimes you don't see what's going on and it's good if you were to see something like that in our agency to point it out um but with your approval i'll just um make sure that they're all wearing the ones that i provided okay sounds good thank you you're welcome i got criticized by chief eastman wearing a red mask tonight um she wanted me to wear a blue one so i didn't get one oh any other questions for chief eastman no but it's a really good idea to keep politics out of out of public safety so very very good thank you for taking proactive okay action there all right fine madam mayor members of council public works has been very busy uh this month um with the reduced uh reservations in the uh beach house and the closure of the bathroom we were able to paint both the indoor and outdoor bathrooms um which definitely needed it and we're hoping to actually stain the fence by city installed fence by nj's cafe by the city hall parking lot obviously we've been busy with the street improvement project that has taken up quite a bit of our time a lot of it has involved lighting sewer and water um overall the project's going well um it's just taking up a considerable amount of time and moving slightly slower than what i had anticipated um but it is moving along so a couple of the other projects that we did this month the street ratings i as i had indicated in the um before during the crack ceiling uh discussion um i will be presenting as part of the capital improvement program um a couple of recommendations here for the next couple years uh the biggest one will be well not the biggest but the um the one that should happen next year is probably sixth avenue um that goes by the cemetery and up to the state prison that road is in need of some some work so there's also a potential water quality project that we are working on with the wmo and a couple of the um homeowners in the area um if you know the area right behind the post office um 2nd street uh north from first ave to 2nd have north the pirro creek uh is actually in the city right away along that edge and some of the um the bank is actually falling in and so we're trying to work with the homeowners and the wmo um to create a water quality project in that area potentially for next year we'll see uh sewer cleaning the contractor is likely to start here sometime in early august hopefully they're done in two weeks homeowners will be the homeowners that we know that have sewer issues when we um when we flush those uh mains will be notified um just one other one the estuary removal i will be working on a um essentially a bid for removing uh 10 to 20 more ash trees and then planting the trees that we had already removed and the new ones for removal uh that'll happen this fall um i stand for questions do you um matt thank you for the update do you know when they're expecting to be done with the highway 95 project is it end of september august what are they nope their their final date i believe is the end of october october i heard a rumor in town that was the end of august and i was like i'm pretty sure that's not true but i'm gonna make sure so they have still a fair amount of significant work to do they have a lot of curb to put in on the west side sidewalk some of that's been started they also still have to put the median in between second and third they also have to pave through town so there's still a quite a bit of work left to do right i had a question for adam earlier today that i just couldn't remember if we had plantings in our median planned or if it was going to be playing concrete and i visited afton over the weekend and their open medians look beautiful and so i was happy to hear that the one at least in between the school and pero will have those plantings and then adam yoon said that perhaps on the other one that's being put in it's too narrow to have plantings but we might be able to have a planter or something that for beautification so yeah i was going to check with matt i couldn't recall the conversation but the the one on the north end was i remember it was it was too small to do something substantial um the one in front of the school it's about a 300 foot uh median 100 the middle 100 feet of it i believe is going to be the the planting area so that's what they allowed us to have is that correct matt is that accurate yeah i believe so and then we we also had um essentially sidewalk down the side so we had somewhere safe to uh do uh maintenance on it okay looking forward to that afton's project although it was lengthy and painful as well has turned out beautifully so all right back to you adam assistant administrator taylor you hear me okay yes yes yes okay so just a few highlights from my written report we completed the first edition of the city's newsletter i was able to develop the format and content in-house which made it extremely cost effective and efficient which was positive it was posted on the city website and then distributed to subscribers of the city's email notification sign up um we definitely received positive comments we also heard from several residents that they were concerned that the city's newsletter would go away and so that was good feedback to know that that's still very much desired by the community city email sign up we formated and mailed a postcard to residents and businesses highlighting the benefits of subscribing um as of today there were 340 people subscribed so hopefully that number will continue to increase um the election prep for the august 11th statewide primary is complete and i apologize for the typo on the staff memo which states the election is august 3rd i had tonight's meeting on the brain when i wrote that memo so special productive equipment and supplies have been ordered and received um all required training and testing of the equipment is complete and washington county has reported they've received 90 90 absentee ballots from bayport voters as far that could mean that we'd have very little in-person voting since the prediction for total voter turnout was about 150. the survey work is complete for the land and water legacy project building and zoning permits continue to be strong i completed 12 plan reviews this past month for permits we received prepayment from many homes for cost to convey the last remaining outlaws to the conservation easement so i'll be working with the minnesota land trust to finish that up and i'll be working on the next edition of the print newsletter this week i stand for questions questions for sarah one thing i just want to mention with the council about the money we got from uh mattamy it was about forty thousand dollars uh that we saved the city by having madame pay for the transfer um so that was good news saves the taxes yeah who goes too no credit to me is sarah um adam you and i have also talked a little bit about the website bayport's website is getting a little bit antiquated um especially with the new you know us having zoom meetings on there and um just having it be a little bit more interactive that's not something that we talked about in the budgeting discussion but we should probably make sure that that's that's reflected there as well yes matamira um actually that's not that was actually going to be um we were hopeful we our plan is to do that as soon as possible this year yet and utilize the cares funding uh for that because of the improvements that we're making in the service provision with both with we want to have online forms uh online credit card acceptance for payments um so there's we think that we can have some of those upgrades utilize the cares funding to be able to provide the additional services uh with our website um since we're it's the reality where we are now so exactly well great good that's good news it wasn't listed on the list of the line item list because we don't i don't have the figure yet um but we have it we'll figure it out all right thank you any other questions for sarah all right then back to you adam and we do have a a guest that's leaving us so um a team member so i'm sure that you'll expand on that yeah um thank you madam mayor members of the council i did not submit a written report um everything that i've the majority of what i've been working on um is in part in the agenda tonight uh both the rfp for the trash as well as the cares funding and the budget uh those those three items um have been the three big ones uh the other one that we were just the city was just notified is our beloved city attorney andy pratt is leaving us um he has uh i want to steal his thunder but uh he he's leaving for another position and so we will be required to get a new city attorney um for our civil uh criminal prosecution is still handled by ekberg uh because of the coronavirus and i'll get back to andy addressing him but i just want to let the public know and reiterate to the council but i've already provided information because of the situation that we're in it makes it really difficult to do a rfp especially where interviews are suggested or required because we have the history with ekberg uh i my proposal is to go back with ekberg for the time being and uh so i did reach out to tom widener who is the lead for prosecution and one of the partners there and uh next tuesday uh actually no that's tomorrow i was gonna say yeah next no the next tuesday um i i'm gonna be interviewing uh three of their attorneys one is nick nick vivian who was one of the city attorneys previously for andy um and then two newer attorneys um and mayor senors i've asked mayor sanders and acting mayor deputy mayor connie carlson to join me for that meeting and we'll be uh talking to the attorneys and asking them some questions about uh what what we'd like to see or what they're able to offer us um sounds like all three of the attorneys uh are gonna be more than more than competent um i i think uh i think this is the the best way to do it i know that some of the other cities that i've been talking to uh that have been going through the rfp process it's for their specifically for a city attorney it has not been going easily so because of the timing i did reach out to the lead and they said we legally aren't required to have a city attorney at all times but obviously it it's the smart thing to do so i don't want to have too long of a gap in between um and so this i think allows us to do that most efficiently and quickly um and we've since i've been here we never had an issue with uh with ekberg when we were with them for the civil to that point uh part of the reason that we left ekberg was to follow councillor pratt and he has become it i know uh i get along great with all the staff um but he has definitely become a trusted advisor to myself and the city and he will be dearly missed his uh both his personal uh he uh i'm gonna miss andy i it's not gonna get choked up here but uh yeah i i really enjoyed working with you uh and having you as our city attorney and um we are still legally allowed to talk to each other [Laughter] don't lose my number or don't block me all right i don't know to take my call if i if i may marry just a parting i know you've had a long meeting um and uh it was a really difficult you know call to make to adam and i also represent the city of mendota heights who has a meeting tomorrow night so that's my last meeting and um because this type of law is just really fits my personality and my way of thinking and kind of the the team function that we're all going towards the same place and we're all on the same side side of the city uh and that's i just really enjoy that i'm not a litigator i don't like to argue points necessarily i like to get things done with a group of like-minded individuals which you all you all certainly are and i consider um everybody to be friends of mine not not just colleagues or clients or anything like that it's really um been a privilege um to be here for eight and a half years um i told my wife that that's the longest job i've ever had and um she was a bit shocked by that but um you know that and three of you are have been on the council the entire time um of of that time so um it's been a really good group and new members as well and and staff um too uh so i won't you know be going too far i'm with rbc bank as i've told a few of you doing some public finance work kind of being a director of their finance office that they have down in minneapolis and actually the same building i'm in now um so it's kind of a boring job when you get into the details of it but it fits me it fits my 15 years of practice and i certainly won't miss getting together with you all and for a stat and same with the staff meetings back when we were able to have in-person staff meetings we had a a good uh collegial group and um you know john parody is not here tonight but i said the same thing to him too so it's a really good group going forward um certainly the people that are being interviewed tomorrow i i don't know one of them he was new he's been new since i've left but um can certainly vouch for them um for first class project so you'll be in good hands and then whatever the long-term decision is will be a good one as well so i'll certainly stay in touch with everybody um and really that's i just want to thank everybody for everything if any council members have specific questions or things that we want you want us to check out during that interview process please submit those to adam if you haven't already but um i look forward to that process as well maybe appreciate ekberg reaching back out and uh and offering us their services and and selection among their lawyers but andy thank you for everything um you've been a true partner we've been and and you will be missed sincerely thank you so much mary and i forgot to say that if there's anything that comes up sort of sometimes random questions come up that just need a a sounding board you know my official last day my firm is on thursday of this week but adam knows my number and so if he has any uh thing pop up i'm happy to assist in in whatever way so thank you andy best wishes yeah good luck andy i can't believe it was eight and a half years old i went way so fast you didn't age a bit well enjoy your new position thank you connie appreciate it you're them well and uh we i'll be sure to reach out to them but you get illegal advice you get you pay for so i i stand for questions from the council um i don't want to believe any other questions for adam adam thank you and i didn't i truly i know that you're doing the very best you can to unravel this cares and uh and so and i i think that the list that you've prepared with the help of the department heads is a great start and looks like it's on par with with really good ideas so i hope you only see my frustration as being that with the uh the way that these these programs can be rolled out across the nation and state and and down to the local level that um we want to do the best we can and we don't want to overburden our own team because you are all very busy already so thank you all right well uh is there anything else anyone wants to cover tonight if not would someone like to make a motion to adjourn i'm moving adjourned thank you michelle is there a second i'll second oh go for it john i think we'll give it to john dowell and adam would you please call the roll council member hi hanson hi that's riverdale hi counselor buckley hi mayor stan ours aye aye all right with that uh meeting's adjourned have a great evening thanks again thank you andy hope to see you take care hanging in there you