the only question i had today that i didn't even call you because i didn't figure was um real important but like with the issue of the lowering the speed limit and stuff is that something that would take a lot for us or is that something that would just take a different ordinance or uh yeah so we'll go over that um it's the process has been simplified um we don't involve mndot um but there are some some variations that we'll go over and cost okay all right how have you been good good surviving it's every day is a blessing to be alive leave it there that's putting it mildly yeah yeah yeah we had our first case of colvin at the preschool so oh no but we shut down the just the room that it's in is what we have to do and so it affected like 10 families which isn't too bad but it's still a whole process you've got to go through and dealing with the minnesota department of health and and here i jinxed myself because on friday last week i said oh gosh we made it through four months and haven't had to deal with anything adam are you ready yes you record your recording okay cool all right well then i'd like to call to order the october 5th 2020 bayport city council meeting and with that adam will you please call the roll callers mayor sooners here uh councilmember carlson here councilmember buckley here councilmember dahl president counselor hanson here all present great that takes us to the approval of tonight's agenda does anyone have any questions comments additions or would someone like to make a motion to approve i'll make a motion to approve tonight's agenda thank you connie is our second again thank you john buckley um roll call uh councilmember carlson aye councilmember buckley aye staff member doll aye council member hanson aye mayor stars aye aye all that takes us to proclamations accommodations petition petitions and announcements and the september recycling award recipient is elizabeth kelly at 298 4th street north who will be awarded for her recycling efforts with funding made possible by a grant from washington county so thank you very much elizabeth for recycling that's the only item that's recorded for our proclamations area so that will move us along to our open forum area where we set aside 15 minutes of the meeting to address any topics that are off the agenda is there anyone in the with us tonight on zoom that would like to address us or via the phone madam mayor i don't believe uh there's nobody waiting to be admitted um and i don't believe there's anybody uh non-staff or council okay very good then we can move swiftly along to our consent agenda where we'll consider resolution adopting items one through eight the august 24th 2020 city council special meeting minutes is september 8th 2020 city council workshop minutes the september 8 2020 city council regular meeting minutes the september payables and receipts september building plumbing mechanical and zoning permits report appointment of election judges for the general election on november 3rd 2020 a revision to bylaws of the bayport fire department relief association related to pensions and benefits and a special event application from the cub and boy scout troop 113 for the pumpkin and resales on october 10th and november 21st at the village green park any questions or comments regarding the consent agenda sorry i just remembered that he sent an updated version of the fire relief thing and i didn't read it so i was just going to look at it really quickly and see what was different okay where the changes noted in the new version or am i looking at the whole version yes uh thank you madame uh councilmember hanson the update was actually for the recreational fires not the people what was that one oh okay yeah i was gonna say it okay good i'm like i don't see any changes so okay thanks for clarifying sorry no i didn't read that i just had already read this by the time you sent the notes so i just want to make sure okay so we are going to get a chance to discuss recreational fires as a council then yeah sorry for the confusion sorry i will uh make a motion no just wait a second i would like to um make one recommendation and adam may we start adding a working draft of our agendas on our websites like a week or so earlier than where they currently appear i think that this would help improve communications and more transparency people from the especially since we're meeting remotely and it's not as easy for people to stop into city hall they could see a working draft and then we could provide on a given date every month same date of the day of the week and then print a final one or post a final one closer to the meeting date of course things will be you know met possibly postponed but we can make that note and that way they could call in and ask questions or ask us as a council with more time to have that bigger visibility to items that are on our agenda yes that's something that uh we we can should be easily able to accommodate as you said the just with the caveat that it is subject to change but uh staff typically meets two weeks before the meeting uh to kind of solidify the agenda with upcoming topics um so that that should be made able to we should have no problem making that available thank you that would be super does anyone have any comments about that from the council is everyone okay with that yeah i think it's a great idea good all right thank you and with that then michelle back to you to approve tonight's agenda or um the concentration is the consent agenda yeah i'll make a motion of proving the consent agenda okay thank you in a second awesome who was that john dahl okay john doll thank you and adam roll call please thank you madam mayor uh councilman hanson hi councilmember dahl aye mountain member carlson hi councilmember buckley aye mayor stan orders hi his all great we do not have a public hearing this evening and our first item of unfinished business is to consider a proposal from tennis sanitation for the city's waste hauling contract and i'll turn that over to adam and chris thank you madam mayor um staff has been members of the council staff has been going back and forth with tennis a proposed contract which was included in the agenda packet for the council was proposed to tennis and we've been we do not have a final contract available for this evening but we are we are getting close um there were actually several we were trying to get it done before the meeting um and we were not able to do that um just one moment admitting somebody um there there were a couple couple items that they they did have some questions about or that they um wanted to further discuss with the city uh one of those is regarding the certification of the assess assessments for the delinquent bills if you recall that's something that the city has been doing for quite some time it is a time consuming process for staff i know it was a kind of a point of contention with republic um the amount of delinquent bills that the city received um that it is legally though one of the options uh to collect those unpaid uh if you will utility bills um for the waste disposal what tennis had proposed is to essentially give 60 days worth of not grace period but not considered delinquent until 60 days and then they instead of assessing the bill they would propose disconnecting the service or not disconnection but uh stopping the service until the bill is paid um and they propose they what they do with their other cities is go through a essentially a collection agency um so it would be 10 days after the 60 days um that they would then turn it over turn that charge over to uh basically a collection agency um instead of having the city certify the assessment um one of their concerns was the carrying costs of those delinquent bills for quite some time uh we had in our our um proposal spread out the the repayment of those um under our republic contract we would wait until january or sorry july of every year when the city got its first uh half of our tax collection bill uh receipt um we would then pay those uh those costs that had been certified um we spread that out a little further um to a 40 40 if you saw in the contract 40 40 and then 20 final um tennis really just didn't want to have to carry those costs uh typically on average we have just over 20 delinquent accounts a year this year the average is about 300 per account um that that's i know in the past when we've talked about it at a high level um there's been some concerns as a city council uh there's been some concerns over the trash accumulating you know these if they can't get if the residents can't get rid of their garbage you know what's going to happen to that um i i discussed that a little bit with tennis and they said that they've they've been working uh they get a good response and this it's a kind of a the stick approach um they they said they they usually follow up with the residents in a very timely manner um having the threat of they use the word threat but having the threat of having the trash collection discontinued um they've been they've had a very high rate of compliance he said they also work with the code enforcement if needed the uh what i what i had asked or inquired with tennis um just today was if the city would be willing to cover those cot that carrying cost which would obviously have a less of an impact on the city if we could still do the assessments as opposed to discontinuing the service or suspending the service it's not a permanent discontinuance we do we do have concerns over that uh we do have a handful of uh residents who every year they are on this on the list again um so we would like to get you know transition those customers into uh not just paying their bill regularly but uh not beyond the assessment role but that is uh i guess their their right to to do that um so i guess i do need some input on from the council as to what the city would be willing to do if there's any openness to having the service suspended um or if as i said uh as kind of as i proposed back to tennis if the k if the city would be willing to carry that um for that period um essentially it would just be that they would it would act as like an invoice the hauler would invoice the city we'd certify those we'd assess them but we would pay the the hauler uh their delinquent costs um sooner instead of uh waiting six months as we have been doing um that was one item the uh the other item that they said that they had heard that in my discussions with them um that we were interested in the the larger recycling cart and that was one of the issues that had come up during our discussions of their proposals if you recall they had the 65 gallon recycling cart whereas some of the other haulers had the 95 gallon uh they did say that they were they were willing to provide a 95 gallon cart um for all residents at no additional cost but with that they they wanted they requested that all the residents have the same size um currently there's there's a handful just a small number i want to say it was like less than 10 maybe six or so um residents who have smaller recycling carts than even just the standard um there's no discount provided but that's something that if we were interested they can provide the larger the large size recycling cart uh one thing they said also keep in mind though is that with recycling being every week as opposed to every other week um they were uh you know that that's something that perhaps the large cart size would not be required so um the so that's that's the other item that i guess i'd like input on from the council let's see i have uh there were a couple other uh comments that they made that were part of the rfp um that just needed to be either verified or put into the contract one thing that wasn't listed was the like the one-time waste yard waste pickup if you don't subscribe to the service that uh we did have that language um so that needs to be added um otherwise most of it is uh fairly uh non-substantial um so with those uh with those uh other points that i just asked about um i i would like some feedback from the council but also the the the question before the council tonight is what to do um because we don't have a final contract um the the council has two options either to uh discuss it and then postpone uh the final approval until a special meeting can be called or authorized staff being attorney nelson and myself to finalize the contract if there's no other significant changes those are the two the two options at this point because we don't have the final contract available tonight are there any other questions regarding the contract itself that i can try to answer chris did review this in depth we also had our the legal minnesota city's insurance trust provide input on it to make sure that the insurance coverage was sufficient um so it's been it's been well reviewed very good is there michelle lead off with questions do you have some questions um do you want to first answer the questions adam yet or do you want uh me to throw more questions out there well why don't you get your questions out there okay and we can then everyone can go around and just address anything that they'd like to do okay um i felt as i read through it a little confusion about this contract and what it covers in terms of what a residence is um 0.3.6 in the just like the definition section it says that a commercial structure is a building that contains five or more dwelling units which was confusing to me because i thought a dwelling was a residence but but then later in other points like 4.2 8.2 and 10.3 everything refers to multi-family being three or more units so i just i don't know that it's important what the number is but i feel like it needs to be consistent because it's confusing sure are and the re part of the reason for that is our current code um defines and we will have to we chris and i have been discussing there are some updates to our trash hauling ordinance that will need to be corrected um next month or before uh this takes effect um just some of it needs to be updated because it hasn't taken place in a while um but we didn't want to do that before this contract was finalized the the the difference in the number of units um anything four or less is considered uh residential um and non-commercial so if there's an apartment building or apartment complex with five or more though they're not required to use the city hauler for waste if it's more than one it's obviously a multi-family so in that that range between two and two and five so two three four uh those would be considered multi-family but not necessarily commercial okay so there is a distinction between the two there's dif there's basically like three different levels single family multi-family that's not commercial and multi-family that is commercial yes yes okay and the dividing line is actually five or more units makes it commercial correct for that's that's the way that it's been for historically for okay and our um contract with them covers single family and multi-family that's not commercial four or less yes gotcha okay thanks for clarifying that it was confusing to me um i had another question about 15.3 i'm gonna scroll down to that um let's see this is under the municipal facilities collection requirements it just says in the event of a natural disaster within the city the contractors shall make dumpsters available as necessary for the cleanup at a price to be negotiated at the time the service is rendered and i just thought we might want to put some kind of reasonable safeguard in there some because if there's a huge disaster and dumpsters are in need everywhere i don't want to get us in trouble so just a small thing but it could be big at some point so so i don't there's some kind of legalese or some other language we want to incorporate in there just to make sure we're covered in terms of them not gouging us with the price so you add them on 15.3 the one that michelle's referring to in the event of a natural disaster are we required to go through tennis for dumpster service or can we pick who's ever available that's a good question too yeah it was uh let me just pull up share this language for the crush was shaking your head uh no you wouldn't be required to um you know they they would have to to make them available to you but there's nothing in that language that would require you to contract with tenants for um that way you're not not locked in that should help the price concern but on that point we can absolutely add language you know at a reasonable price or at a perhaps that would be a better term than market price rather than price to be negotiated at the time uh a reasonable price at the time something like that but there's no obligation that says the city shall contract with with tennis for dumpsters okay great um let's see my next question was on 19.1 um let's see oh i had so i'm not sure how the yard waste is actually working for us and you mentioned something when you were talking adam and i wasn't sure you said a change to the yard waste pickup but i wasn't clear on what that was but maybe that would clarify this the way it works right now with republic is you pay for a whole year of yard wait or the whole season of yard waste collection no matter what point in the process you start it so if you move to town and you're on the last month you still pay the whole fee i assume that's not how this reads 19.1 it sounds like it's a monthly use so you could just use it one month if you wanted to but i wanted to make sure that's clear and it is how it would work uh the what had been proposed it's not prorated so it is for the it's for the whole year um so it's the same as it has been with yes republic the the comments that i've received um from the haulers is because they offer the the the single time you know the non-subscribe subscription service um kind of the one-time yard waste pickup and where is that is that in here somewhere that was the reference that i was that's what you're saying so there's no one-time yard waste pickup then there's a contract right now okay yep so that would uh if you recall um the so their their proposal is to add a section uh 19.3 um contractor will offer an option for a one-time yard one-time pickup for yard waste the yard waste would need to be placed into paper compostable bags and be pre-scheduled for pickup by nine am on friday the per bag yard waste charge is four dollars with a eight dollar minimum so minimum of two bags um that they those from the rfp that they they do have available that was inadvertently left out so and so you have to do it with a yard waste bag and a specific type of bag i'm sorry kind of just one of the the compostable the regular leaf bags that people the yard waste bags that you can get and adam i imagine that that is seasonal so it's not a one time for the year it could be a one time pick up but you're not contracting them to come every single week and you're paying by the paper bag correct right yeah it's just the whenever it's whenever you want it or need it it would just be what's nice about that is that is the language that you're you're saying that they're proposing adam that you can set it out on friday without calling ahead or do you need to call ahead and arrange to have and to notify them you're requesting that you uh you do call um by 9am on friday before pickup okay but it's it's then picked up the following monday yes with the rest of the that is more convenient than it has been that's good um i feel like 19.1 is not clear then because when i read it i thought it was like you could just randomly do it for a month for seven bucks but so i don't know if you need to work on that language or not um we can um if uh do you have any customer hands do you have any clarify should we get rid of the monthly use fee or just change it to an annual so it's clear i feel like it should be written as an annual fee if that's how they're gonna charge it or seasonal i don't know is it is yard waste done the whole throughout the whole year it's only in the certain season right like the winter they're not doing it i think it's through october right so i feel like that should just be like spelling out how does it actually work but okay the uh and i can't necessarily speak to the the full uh rationale behind it but because i believe it's it's billed monthly so if you have part of the service it's it's only operating seasonally but it's build split up monthly so you'll have seven oh so you pay for it throughout the whole year yeah even though you're only getting the service of part of the year correct oh can that be explained somehow in the way it's written uh like we should be able to yeah change it um it it because they do all their billing you know the the rates are set monthly um they they actually do instead of quarterly billing they do uh bi-monthly so it would be every every two months um is what they're proposing the so there would be a 14 if you if you subscribe to the yard service the yard way service it would be 14 every billing cycle you know every other month um even during the non-collection times um that would just be part of it um gotcha i don't know it was the under republic is it only billed during the the portion do you know or does anybody i've never done it so i don't know i've always gone into late we had it and i believe we've had it for a few years and i believe we just paid the flat rate once a year for six or seven months and it seems to me it was about eighty dollars for the year but as i remember it was a one-time charge that we just paid up front i thought it was about eighty dollars too when i called for it and this seems like it's gonna end up being more right yeah a little bit more slightly more yeah all three haulers were had a higher uh yard waste yard waste yeah okay in the proposals all right if we could just clear that up a little bit it could be helpful um the other question just based on some issues i've had with republican and one of our residents are is each unit of a multi-family that's less than four or four or less units do they each need to have their own garbage and recycling bin that is paid for or could they decide they only need two even though they have four units the that's one of the things that needs to be clarified in our ordinance um the the contract our previous contract with republic didn't require that um and so that was something that the city has always applied um at least in my my knowledge of it as well as when i've been here um so that that is something that obviously is within the council's purview to set that policy um this does i believe i mean this contract would sorry i didn't see it anywhere but how how would the billing of that work if the tenants change and and who then is responsible was that a question for me mayor it's it's just a question in general probably for you or for chris it's like if if a multi household dwelling decides that they only want two and then there's turnover in the um it becomes possibly problematic for the the billing process the owner of the property is the one who makes the decision i believe and pays the bills and the bills go to him or her yeah typically in these situations the the owner of the property is is providing for these services i believe the way this contract is written is if they have three or more units the there would be the option to have individual um individual trash grins for each unit or they would have the option at that point to get a dumpster but these are usually passed through cost okay um and that the property owner would be pay would be paying and and they would ultimately end up at the property on any way through [Music] the possibility of certification to the property taxes like a duplex isn't covered by that option right now either so this was a duplex i was dealing with it and they had never had two garbage cans before and suddenly republic decided they needed to start charging them for two garbage cans and made them have two so i would like to avoid that situation and let the land the owner of the property decide how many they feel they need for their residences but i guess that's up to the council when we get i don't know if that's just part of the ordinance versus the contract but it's good that it's not in this contract the way that republic had it because then it gives us more flexibility as a council to come through chris do you want to comment mayor and councilmember hanson i'm pulling up the the ordinance uh right now but that is something that can be addressed in the in the city's um uh solid waste ordinance and and as adam said there are some changes in this contract that are going to necessitate some changes to the um the solid waste ordinance so as part of that we could have um the council decide whether or not every single dwelling unit is required to have an individual refuse bin okay all right so we can discuss that then when it comes to the ordinance area okay all right any other questions michelle um well one last one i think we just we had talked at one point about one of the haulers had suggested that our contract goes for three and a half years so that we don't um have to switch hollers in the winter do we want to think about that as an option or right now i think what setup is three years it is a three yeah it's really a question more for the council it is a three-year proposed duration of the contract that is something that has been being discussed one of the things that we i i saw mr uh franklin um join the meeting um one of the items just in the the collection of the the republic containers um they're coordinating that currently as part of the transition um the with the christmas new year on top of the snow there's going to be certain areas that cannot you know it's going to be entirely just accommodate the multiple containers it's already difficult i mean if anybody's driven down the bayport alleys during the winter it's the the containers are snowed plowed in when there's significant snow so that's something that we're working to get to be able to have those collected as soon as possible but because of the holidays it's it's not ideal um so that that's something that i'm i'm happy if the council wants to try to change that out or extend that the other at this point i think that the council could go through with this contract um for the the next you know presumably three years and as we get closer to the the expiration of the contract we can when we're renegotiating it or if there's any decision to extend it we can we can extend it that at that point i i have no preference one way or the other it's really is going to be for the the residents meaning the council and the hauler um i'm happy to take a proposal back to them for additional months or or not so i would say as long as that process is easy to just make an extension or something at that point if things are going well that makes a way to do it but when you're not speaking do you mind having mute on because i have been having it on oh have you okay i just can't you just keep popping up on my screen because you're making noises and not having i've had my knee wrong until you just said that really okay i don't know why mine's picking you up thank you you bet does anyone else have um i mean it's i don't want to get into a such you know a challenging situation at the end of the contract uh where there's any you know ambiguities so does anyone have any preference of we keep it at three years or we keep it at three years three months which brings us into the spring time frame um what are your thoughts if if it's going to complicate things in terms of adding that language then i i would say no because i i think we need to you know kind of move forward here it seems to me a little bit like this has been dragging on um so i i guess that's where i mean if it can be added reasonably it does make some sense um i think that's that's my thought on that so chris and adam if that were the option if the council wanted to go with the extra three months which i'm sure there are other cities that swap out at the end of december as well if if they end up changing their services but should the council want to extend that does this language mean does that do we have to renegotiate the cost of the increase for another three months or does the three months stay the same so how complex is that and how many of the council members want to extend it is interested in extending it like three or six months anyone having strong feelings of extending um i'm good either way i guess the i would like i do agree that i don't like to see it end in december where you've got the trading in and out the end of the year but i also agree with john that i think we've kind of been working on this it'd be nice to get some closure on it and if both adam and chris feel like that would be something we could negotiate um at that point in time i guess i'd be okay with going okay and john i think john dahl i don't want to speak for you put and put words in your mouth but is that your intent to is to get this wrapped up yes that's about right okay and councilmember buckley yeah i agree it's we've been dealing with this for just over two years so i think between the two companies they've been in business long enough enough and i think they can accommodate the customer to switch out or whatever they have to do so there's no lapse in service but yeah i would say go go at the end of the contract and just january 1 or whatever that chris and adam decide we would go with that okay great okay so um anyone else and michelle does that wrap up your questions okay thank you um connie did you have any additional questions um no i had no questions it's just back with adam's issue about um the size containers and stuff i just i guess i was thinking if we went straight across the board with the 65 for now seeing as a recycling is going to be going every week and then i'm trying to remember what his other question was oh um with the billing part or the um delinquent payments um adam you said there's about 20 families that are kind of continually delinquent um not not 20 of the same there's about out of the 20 on average every year there's about uh four or five that are repeat offenders or repeatedly um it's yeah i think some for some people it's just easier to have it assessed to their taxes than um have it paid i guess part of me is leaning towards that i i guess i hate to see if they cut off their services and people i don't want to see garbage piling up in the alleyways or you know because people's services are cut off and they're just going to put it out there anyway i don't know i don't know what people would do that would be my concern with that okay so yeah you mentioned the assessment i know there's other cities that actually do their refuge hauler that's assessed to their yearly taxes how much of a headache is that or would that be to have that just put on our taxes to alleviate the monthly billionaire every two months billing and for all of the billing for the the city all the um 11th hour here so i surely throw that out there um that would be something uh the yeah well the city would have to then um from understanding you correctly the the hauler essentially the city becomes the collector you know the correct the we would pay the hauler um whatever the the the customer contracted rate and then you know for however many units and then we become the the the bill collector um i think that i do know there are cities uh like that i don't know that we're able to accommodate that um at this point would i i would need to do some more research i know all park heights has their waste rolled into their yearly taxes and i was just curious talking to some family members that live in opera kites you know how how much problems there would be to have that and just something to look at for maybe future reference i yes i would have to to look i haven't i haven't looked into that at all so i would need to i need to do research on that and i agree with what you stated before as far as have the city just continue on as far as the assessment for delinquent and then have as far as the contract do the amendments or whatever to it that michelle and we've talked about and just leave it to staff as far as continuing on with the contract or go through with the contract the final details between yourself and chris okay thank you john john doll um well first of all just a really quick question is um their daily service hours are between 7 a.m and 7 p.m and i apologize for not knowing what our current hauler is in terms of pickup collection times is that election times yes councilmember dahl thank you um the our current is seven and seven uh with the republic uh they did um ask just today ask for 6 30 to 7 um who asked that adam uh tennis did in one of their communications today they they requested that the early pickup time uh would be able to be uh 6 30 if needed that's 200.77 what was originally proposed was to just continue that seven to seven um some of these trucks with these backup beepers you know we have construction ordinances and in terms of noise and to me it starts to fall into that category in fact at my house right now and i don't know where it's coming from but um all night long you can hear it back a backup beeper and i'm far away from anderson so it's not anderson but you're the b b b and 6 30 in the mornings quite early to be you know especially for those of us that do shift work and have to sleep in an unusual time so i'm not at all comfortable with going early in fact i'd like it to be a little bit later but i understand you know what's best for everybody as well so that's my uh question and then i don't know if it's appropriate to jump in now on the recycling i i think sticking with the 65 gallon containers if we're getting picked up every week that's a that's a 30 increase in volume approximately that we're netting out and and we i'm in a heavy um heavy recycling family we have that thing full every two weeks and um but i think 65 is more than enough and i'm in in terms of the delinquent bills i i think something needs to you know if we have people that habitually are delinquent and it becomes a problem for city staff that we're spending an inordinate amount of time on this bill we need to find a way to nip that in the bud because that seems silly to me and i that's something that we can maybe address in the ordinance when we look at that if there is a handling fee that ends up being attached to that in addition to the actual reimbursement of the delinquent funds but have a processing fee that's assigned do we do that currently adam we do madam mayor the state statute limits it to 10 with a six percent interest um on top of that uh essentially a penalty uh for administrative costs um so the city uh does does currently uh impose that um the uh it it does take you know some some time what what we don't want is the city to uh necessarily take over the the the bill collecting uh role uh that's something that we had been working on improving with republic uh we did make some some improvements to get those numbers down um we also had a uh we imposed a threshold of if it was only because we can only collect 10 percent and if it's a 15 delinquent bill then that's you know that's that's not really worth anybody's time to go through the entire certification process the city does pay for the assessments to be certified um managed by the county um so there is a cost on the city as well for that um and so those um you know those those do add up depending on how many how many we have um the obviously the more that you do there's a becomes a little more efficient but that it's as far as a staff staff would rather not have to do any assessments um but at the same time um if it's if it's easier in the end then it's something that we're obviously willing to do so bottom line adam you're saying that we the tennis would let us know which ones are delinquent we would start managing that on our side and tracking it or they would track it for how long but quickly i don't want to i don't want to belabor this i think we've gotten in a lot of depth so um the the so what was what's being uh currently proposed um just in just today back and forth with uh with tennis is to use what kind of a combination of what they had in the city had proposed they go through their normal uh so if it's 60 days delinquent instead of or essentially 70 days delinquent instead of uh just con or suspending service they would then essentially invoice the city they'd turn those those accounts over to the city the city would add them to our assessment list and if we are able to collect prior to then then we don't we ended up not we end up not assessing it but tennis would get their their funds so they wouldn't be carrying those delinquent accounts um through the year and uh which had been the case um so that's that's what uh staff has proposed uh back if that would be an alternative to the suspension of the service yeah i'd i would prefer that we not suspend service or have to deal with people with collection agencies calling them i just think that that's going to be add more complexity if we just take it assess it and it's not overly burdensome for our staff then it's probably the simplest way but any of them have any opposing thoughts i actually thought it sounded like kind of a pain for a staff that's already overburdened and maybe it would help to actually get people to pay their bills i wouldn't mind trying it for a year i don't know if i want to go with a whole contract with it because we don't really know how it's going to turn out but i don't know why the city now would have to take on more of a burden because we're changing our hauler it just i don't know i feel like our city staff has enough to do but maybe it would also add to i don't know if the police have to get involved if people aren't hauling their guard you know they're just stacking their garbage up in their yard or something i mean that's gonna add more staff time and that is to the police though too that's what i'm saying so i don't know but i just i feel like it was unfair to for tennis to kind of throw this at us all of a sudden because it's like wow that's not how we've ever had to deal with it before and i understand some people are in tough situations and obviously it's the same few households or some of them every year but i wish there was another way to deal with it than for the city half and have to have the burden of tracking all that and figuring it all out i know we've always had the assessment process but this is adding even more to it i feel like i'm paying the bill i don't know it just it's not sitting well with me but i seem to be the only one everyone else seemed to think it was a good idea to to do it so well i'd rather i don't know adam do you feel that it would be an extreme overburden for the staff i just guess i would rather see that than us having to be um chasing down people whose garbage is piling up and i don't know i guess i'm just but i don't i agree i don't want to overburden our staff but do you feel like it would be an excessive overburden uh no uh counselor carlson hey i don't believe it'd be an over uh over overly burdensome item uh we do i'm sorry that we're i'm gonna be bringing up in my uh report is delinquent other utility bills that's something that we we've always been you know trying to collect those and have not had a practice of we've been suspending service but that's been a very very rare uh we've had a very good collection rate um so that's something that um i i want to discuss with the council later so we're all my point is we're already doing some assessments we're already doing uh certain items that uh it's the same same work so essentially what it what it involves is sending a letter setting up the public hearing at the end of the year and then the council has the public hearing we've in my time here we've never had anybody um speak at those but then it's just certified to the county um i i don't believe that it's it's overly burdensome uh it would be easier for staff to not have to do with any of it but that's like i said that's then you have the and we're going to be fielding calls about the customer service and having their their trash you know suspended so it's i don't know that it necessarily uh one stays better is a net positive either way i would think that we would do it for a year and then re-evaluate it to see how many problems there is and how much staff time is actually being expended towards those assessments otherwise i know in the budget you mentioned you're going to have a part-time or an internship that would be a good project for them for the first year until you're until you reevaluate it sure the the i can definitely if the council wants i can definitely uh propose the the year um it just so i'm clear uh councilmember buckley and the other consumers who have mentioned the year uh the year of trying the assessments as i discussed or a year of trying the uh service disruption i don't i don't want to see this service disrupted i think that's going to be really a problematic but otherwise no i would go with your assessment of it like we did before prior to this i would go with that and then reevaluate it after the first year service okay any other does everyone want to go in the direction that john has proposed john buckley yeah i agree with john i'm good with that right okay adam what other outstanding questions do you have that need to be addressed um um i didn't get to weigh in on the gallon size and the other thing i think we were circling back to anything i thought you're adding new questions i'm sorry okay so can we go back to um so we we know about the assessment so now let's make sure that we clear up the other question that you had regarding the sizes um i believe let's see there was a question on yeah the assessments the gallon size those were the two uh the two big ones as i said there were a couple sections that um such as the the one-time yard waste um for non-subscribers that needs to be added um but adam then let's quickly just go back to that gallon size and circle around everyone just get that one tied off so michelle you had a comment yet on that one i just want to make sure that there wasn't yet another thing that was standing out there with with adam so go ahead um i think with the every week pickup we can be okay with the 65 gallon i don't think we need to go to the larger size and there's obviously some families that didn't want the larger size maybe for storage reasons or something so i think we're okay with that um and i just wanted to also mention the start time issue i don't want them to start at 6 30 i agree with john doll i thought seven seemed early i don't know what our what is our noise ordinance start time or something for construction i thought it was eight too even though you know mndot was out there earlier than that this summer but so i understand if they need seven i'm fine with that but i would not um say 630 is okay and then i also just to reiterate a point that i made earlier that i'm not sure i was very clear on the contract as it is now i think is confusing for duplex owners and what choices they have everything refers to multi-family residences of three or more units having choices on cart size so i just want to make sure that that is extends to the duplex people as well i don't understand why a duplex has to be treated differently than the other multi-families which are only three or four units based on who this contract covers so i just feel like that needs to be clarified uh yes thank you uh councilmember hanson uh one of the items that we've uh dealt with with the duplexes is it depending on if they have a separate utilities account so if they're receiving separate water and sewer or if they have a separate address those traditionally would lead the city to believe that it's a separate unit it's a separate residence so there is the the legal matter of who owns the building you know there can be a landlord who lives in one half and you know rents out the other half um but uh that uh that that's kind of been the the rationale behind every unit would is considered a separate unit if they've got separate water sewer or if they have a separate address so i guess i don't understand why that differentiates a duplex from three publics there there isn't traditionally there has been a difference that was the that was the issue um there are some duplexes that were perhaps not didn't start as a duplex and so they were sharing uh string one we've got unauthorized duplexes that we've come across over the years um that may have been sharing trash and then uh they either applied for a cp for a duplex or um one way or the other it became known to either republic or the city that there's actually two units there so i guess i'm still not clear on why we differentiate multi-family residences of three or more have certain privileges about choosing carts and things but the duplexes don't some of that is for space um to when you start doubling up the number of carts two units it's still you can have you know either four or six depending on how many carts you're going to get you know if you have yard waste or not when you get to that third unit three to four you may have you know now you're talking about just a large number of carts so that's going to take up a lot more space than just two units so so they get like the choice of a dumpster that would come through tennis as well yes they they have the opportunity to and typically uh the three or more so three or four units there there may be a landlord who doesn't live there or we don't have a lot of them in the city to start with but this is covering some of the other little uh niche uh categories that we have in housing and that allows you to them to combine all their trash and as part of their rental agreement that's that's just managed by the landlord or the owner i just want to make sure that the duplexes have the same opportunity to choose only one cart for their entire household of their entire place of two or and not be forced to have to have two based on how this contract is written and it sounded like it's not forcing them to do it but we have to look at our ordinance to make sure that that's in line yes right mayor and councilmember hanson that's correct and ordinance change the ordinance doesn't um the ordinance doesn't specify right now whether or not every single residential unit would need a um a refuse bin or not right now the option that a duplex wouldn't have would be would be to have a dumpster under this a duplex could not have a dumpster okay thank you sorry if i beat a dead horse but it just wasn't clear okay so anyone else have a preference on the recycling size cart 65 seems to be what um appeals to both michelle and john anyone else really see a need for that to be in 95 i also stated the 65 i thought was a good choice thank you connie all right um one question i had asked was you know is there yet a smaller size because there are some folks that need to be accommodated for lighter weight and they will be accommodated so um if someone for any reason needs to have that adjusted they can work directly with tennis so they won't receive a discounted price but they would at least not have to be burdened with overly large containers uh to maneuver so just making sure that all uh all diversity levels are covered so with that i don't even know how anyone would make a motion with all of these different um adjustments but uh kristin adam please advise if there's any specific language that would need to be um you know documented here for us to move forward with someone potentially making a motion i'll let the if you have something to say please uh with that we have um the proposed uh amendment to 15.3 um saying that dumpsters have to be provided at a reasonable rate uh proposed amendment to 19.1 to make clear that it's monthly charge for the course of a year with regard to yard waste and the addition of 19.3 about one-time pickup for yard waste when bags are utilized and then the addition of 4.3 this would need to be amended to encompass that the city language here would be that the city would uh retain the assessed amounts uh for coverage um um service would not be stopped but uh the city would not be making payment to tennis the city through the assessments but the city would pay tennis for the service provided uh to it so those are the amendments we we discussed today it seemed like there was agreement by all the councils so i would propose a motion to um or someone could propose a motion to adopt those one two three four amendments discussed and agreed to by the council tonight thank you chris is anyone would anyone like to make that motion i'll take a crack at it here um [Laughter] i uh i moved to uh approve a three-year waste hauling contract i believe that's what we agreed upon the tennis sanitation for a term to begin january 1st 2021 through december 31st 2023 with the changes as um noted by our city attorney chris nelson to item 4.3 15.3 19.1 and 19.3 thank you councilmember oh yeah is it not final though from tennis don't we have to throw that in there so let's just make sure yeah we we should we should make sure that um we understand if the council has given uh staff approval to move forward if those things can be accommodated to sign the contract on our behalf or if we need to see this one more time with a special meeting i can i mean go ahead i will uh amend my motion to allow for staff to um finalize those details as mentioned thank you all second john's motion thank you connie all right so adam please call the roll um thank you madam mayor and i just want to clarify does that include all non-significant changes such as other typos and such or uh changes okay i uh councilmember carlson hi sponsor hanson hi counselor buckley hi marison ours hi hi zol okay so that moves us to new business and it's to consider an amendment to chapter 30 the fire prevention ordinance for the city of bayport regarding uh recreational fires so adam thank you madam mayor i'm just going to pull up the agenda here um so over the last uh obviously we're all home a lot um many of us have been home during the pandemic and with that there's been some increased uh inquiries or concerns over our existing uh recreational fire ordinance uh there was some some of the some of the restrictions were seen as a little too limiting and it was unbeknownst to several of the council members um over the past several months that the existing conditions were what they were so staff has been asked to look at that and come up with some proposed changes to make it a little more accommodating to people wanting to be able to want to be able to be out in the backyard with their recreational fires one of the uh the main issues was the time of day previously it was much more restrictive and what was going to be it had to be between basically between noon and midnight the new ordinance which you have before you we changed that uh to uh was it 10 a.m to midnight um and we did we did add some other uh some updating with both the state fire code and some other just clarification on what types of materials the fire chief was really was hoping to be able to have only dry clean firewood you know he didn't want wet wood that causes a lot of smoke which leads to um issues as well as complaints in speaking with both the fire chief and the police chief there there haven't been a high number of complaints or issues with recreational fires but the the ones that we do receive are often with un uh unattended fires um so that was something that we definitely want to keep in there we require that um but some of it as i said some of it was just an update to the ordinance uh both attorney nelson as well as the fire chief and the rest of the staff have reviewed this i did send out an update today in an email that the council hopefully saw and that was the the additional yellow language that was added as well um from the chief and uh chief eisinger and uh our attorney um with that there's a couple a couple of items that i just want to make sure the council provides input on uh regarding this uh one is the time period uh from 10 am to noon and then the the number of hours that uh the fire can uh be lit or burn um it was for and that's what staff kept it at but obviously that's something that the council if they feel differently should let us know um the uh i believe that was we did add a requirement that at least someone 18 years of age was attended we don't define attended so it doesn't necessarily um that's going to be a you know enforcement uh not issue but that would be something that uh there there should be somebody you know 18 or years or age or older at home while the fire is burning if not right next to it um we did we were trying to avoid um miners from just having a fire um if they you know we presume that an adult uh has the wherewithal and the responsibility to you know manage the burning fire um one of the other things we added we changed it from 15 feet to 25 feet from any building that's state fire code we that needed to be updated regardless that is the uh current uh restriction and then we we did keep the ten feet from any property line um the recreational fire must be at least ten feet from the property line there are some potentially small yards in the city where there's going to be very limited space for a recreational fire under some of these but these are the the distance really we don't have any any leeway on the 25 feet and staff feels fairly strongly that the 10 feet from the property line should also uh be maintained um so with that uh we also just i see this we did ban the prohibit the use of any fire accelerants for the fires but other than that uh we really just kind of updated it so with that i'm happy to stand for any questions um so you got them on yes on the which one is it number one where it says recreational fire should have a maximum size of 30 inches at the base of the fire and a maximum of 24 inches in height so you're saying the 30 inch log that you throw in a 30 inch fire is illegal or the well the the the if you're if you're familiar with the state fire code which i presume the that actually has the the 36 inches by uh 36 inches i'm sorry 36 by 24. um the the uh the 30 inches is actually more restrictive than the the state fire code standard um but that was that was what our previous or existing ordinance has um so staff left that if the council would like to expand that up to the 36 um then it may obviously um and that's and that's the inside diameter correct yes yeah the actual fire pit or structure that is to contain um number two that uh the the inside of the the pit can only be 30 inches so with the 24 inches of somebody's burning and they just lit the fire and you have a 36 inch high flame from the base of the fire pit it's illegal correct uh well tech i'd have to defer to the the fire department and the police on actually as far as how that would be enforced i i would presume that that would be a discretionary um enforcement issue that the the city would have to obviously understand that the fire can't be maintained at the height above two feet um i don't know how the the actual enforcement uh with the state fire code um would apply unfortunately the fire code it's it's after the fire started and it's maintained that after i think it's 20 minutes once you get a bed of coals and then you put dry materials on it that's what they're referring to but is starting it i mean a lot of people you start the fire you're gonna have flames i'd say three to four feet in height to the tip and and the other one i was looking at down for use of uh i think it's number seven where you have paper and cardboard but that's re you can't burn strictly paper and cardboard because that's what you're referring to that is yes it's not the use of paper and cardboard to start the fire correct that's uh what we what the city wants to avoid uh buckle you have as as you are aware um a boy avoid having people dispose of their cardboard by using that as the fuel as opposed to starter okay and the other one you got from the 10 to midnight and you can only have one fire in a 24 hour period in the longest duration is four hours um i don't know the reasoning behind the one in 24 hours or one no more than four consecutive hours per day i mean is there a reason for that or uh staff does not have the information as to how the four hours uh how that was determined again that's a carryover from our existing ordinance um the the four hours is in my you know my personal opinion uh seems a little short if you have a you know start a fire in the evening um the city doesn't necessarily from an enforcement standpoint would would necessarily expect someone to put it out after four hours if they're still there um the so that was one of the i as i said one of the items that the the staff would like input on from the council um the the one per day and uh you know it's what we what we don't want to do is one of the things that we're trying to avoid obviously or as well as having uh residents burn have those illegal fires where they're burning yard waste or burning um things that they're not supposed to throughout the day um that was something that you know most people are not going to be doing that in the evening or at night or obviously after dark um so that what we had been told is that that having limiting it to the later hours of the day was originally one of the uh one of the rationales um but again the the hours and the duration uh staff is open to uh input from the council in fact we request it yeah i i agree with the 10 a.m to midnight and as far as the duration the four hours and only one per day with the covid over the last since march and everybody's staying home trying to figure out how to keep their children active and you have a fire and a lot of people i noticed including myself you'd have a fire at one o'clock and you'd have hot dogs over the fire and later on that evening you'd have supper or whatever and then you would have marshmallows in that so you're the 10 the midnight is fine but the four hour duration i don't agree with i think that could be tweaked in only one fire per day i think if you got rid of the four hour consecutive you could probably keep the one hour or one fire per day but that's my opinion i don't know everybody else thinks well try my mute no your okay um i i guess i tend to agree with john on that four hours seems like a quite a short time because we had one um and it's like we started it at five i guess i didn't know there was a four hour minimum but we started at five and then you know we had like john said we cooked hot dogs and then we sat around it for quite a while and then a little bit later about nine o'clock we made some more so there we ran into a five hour stint and i felt like you know we had just you know it hadn't been that long so i guess i feel four hours is a little on the short side um i don't know i would be okay with like six or something i do agree with keeping it that one per day only because you don't want someone burning consistently for well they wouldn't be able to with the time limit but um and the 10 a.m to 12. i was glad to see that it was made a little earlier in the day so i guess that's just my input on it yeah i it just seems like maybe the intent was to make this whole policy or ordinance less restrictive and to me it looks like it's gotten much more restrictive so if we can have you know flexibility obviously every ordinance we have because there's some amount of misbehavior otherwise we wouldn't need ordinances at all um but we are in a very unusual time where outdoor seems to be like one of the only ways that you can um socialize so i would like to see that um hours expand or you know like i think john you propose getting rid of the one per day so that people could actually and more of an hour limitation of six or so i think would possibly help accommodate but i'm i'm open but i just i don't want to see that we make this tighter instead of making it something that can actually be enjoyed yeah i agree it's the the six hours would would be a good idea but eliminate the one per day and the ordinance below part of the ordinance below it if it's a nuisance so if you go out there at 10 30 in the morning and you start burning some wood and then you got some punky or wet wood if they got a complaint then they have the teeth too because it's fallen underneath a new nuisance if your neighbors are complaining that it smells really bad so i would i would go with that but that's like again that's my opinion but i think it's i agree with you mayor it's i'd like to see it more lenient but still have i mean the six hours and that is perfectly fine in more than one time a day we have had we have in almost every instance we've had some kind of you know person who's upset their neighbor so there's got to be guidance but i think that what you've proposed was probably uh worth adopting and what about the size of that that base of that fire that i mean i think that we could possibly move that to the 30 is anyone um i think we should go with the state guidelines and just make it simple is that the state is the 24 is the state guideline adam yes madam mayor anything over 24 inches in height um as comfortable oh no i thought there was a base diameter 38 oh yeah i was i'm mistaken uh standard okay or the size of the base 24 is quite quite short to have a good cleaning clean burning fire but if there are guidelines i don't know that i would just hope we use a lot of discretion for for me the biggest problem i think with everybody and i would like to see it possibly added is the smoldering fires that's the problem i have in my neighborhood and i've actually complained about a neighbor with the smoldering fire to me that should be the same as um that should be added um right here somewhere in the nucleus part of 12 right where uh as you know generate flying embers or um a smoldering fire that that needs to stop immediately that's that's as bad as anything and consider it to your neighbors in terms of the time i don't frankly i i think we should be pretty lenient on that and and and i hope we use a lot of uh you know common sense and good judgment in terms of the the height of a fire the height of a fire so does 11 cover that for you john or do we need something more in 12 i guess i'm not sure what smoldering fire means to be like they've left it and it's no they they're throwing i mean i guess for whatever reason they're throwing some sort of material on it that's generating a large amount of smoke the small the nuisance part okay and mayor and council member dull and council members the uh smoldering fire the large smoke producing fire is uh specifically covered by that uh 26.27 that's referenced there so this was sort of added to enhance um people's notice that they can be cited for a nuisance if they if they do do that um and just with regard to the the uh one fire per day thing that was that was something i added based on a misinterpretation of the council's previous discussion there um about uh not wanting to have uh fires going all all day um so that that was just something that was uh was put in that's not in the original ordinance not that this is amending okay anyone else have any other guidance otherwise i'd like chris and adam to kind of summarize what they think that they would change on this and see if we can move forward um yeah oh sorry do you want to go again john no no i was just i was going to say that i agree with the 36 inch diameter the state requirements and i i would prefer to leave that 30 inches in height instead of 24. i agree sounds like there are state guidelines though that we have to have it at 24 is that correct but the state guideline is 36 in diameter so we could change that yeah the the guidelines their ordinance or the guidelines they have is 36 inches in diameter inside diameter and a maximum of 24 inches in height but we can as a city we can be more restrictive so we can put it at 30 inches we can be more restrictive but can we be more lenient and make it taller i think we can be more restrictive but i don't think we can be more lenient correctly aren't you guys asking for the 24 inches in height to be expanded to 30 yeah that's what i thought i understood but i don't know that we can do that so i don't know if we can clarify that for us but i would agree councilmember hanson i would say the discretion would be to reduce that number um not to expand that number only because of this state requirement or recommendations or i don't know if it's a requirement a recommendation or what it is but i i agree i think 24 is very short but i mean if that's what we have to do then we have to do that but then let's also follow the state guidance and change it to 36 inches in diameter right we're gonna follow state guidance i agree i think and then under point number seven i agree with um i i was confused just like john buckley was about the paper or cardboard so i think it might be helpful to you know parenthetically say other than for kindling or something just so that people aren't like what we can't burn paper how are we going to start a fire and i also agreed on all the points that i'm super happy that we've expanded it beyond 5 p.m that's i think what brought this whole conversation up so it's now 10 a.m and um we need to get rid of the one fire per day and change it to no more than six consecutive hours and i think that would i don't i think that i'm saying getting rid of the consecutive and having it be six hours per day oh six total hours per day i i believe so or john buckley do you want to clarify do you want to have two fires of six for a total of six get rid of the how many fires you can have a day and if you want to have it no more than six hours consecutive so you could burn a fire from ten to three and then at five o'clock or five o'clock six o'clock at night you could have another fire until midnight right and you're still in the ordinance okay but not cons not consecutive correct makes sense to me i agree i'm more for lenient in this so oh another thing do we need to add under seven that people shouldn't be burning plastic you know people like to throw their plastic bottle in the fire or whatever or is that just we don't specifically customer handsome thing we don't specifically mention plastic we have garbage trash rubbish litter or solid waste okay um should fall under that i guess yeah we can add the word plastic just to clarify that um some because there isn't any they might consider it the the presumption is that that would be included there but you can add the one one more word to just make sure that it's known okay our goal obviously is to be clear so yes clarity okay any other changes if not chris can you read these back uh yes madam mayor thank you no uh the council proposes to amend uh section one uh to 36 inches for the diameter proposes to amend section 2 to 36 inches for the maximum dynamic diameter of the pit um proposes the addition in section seven of the word plastic in the section uh garbage trash rubbish litter or solid waste and proposes to delete uh the second uh sentence in number section 13 um with uh no recreation and add no recreation fire is allowed to burn for more than six hours per day any less go ahead adam um i'm sorry chris i just want to make sure did we on number seven under the paper cardboard were we making the change to other than using to start fire or other i did miss that uh thank you that should be paper cardboard and then in parenthesis other than for kindling okay okay with those changes would anyone be ready to make a motion i move that we adopt the new ordinance uh according to the and uh excuse me including the changes that chris just outlined thank you michelle is there a second second i'll second it goes to council member buckley um and with that adam will you please take the role yes thank you madam mayor uh councilmember hanson hi councilmember buckley i am councilman carlson aye spouse robert doll hi thank you okay so then we have another item i i'm not sure it's one that we are scheduled to take action on or it's one for discussion but it has to do with the speed limits within the city and uh with that i'll turn it over to you adam all right thank you madam mayor um members of the council this is something that has been mentioned a few times it's regarding the speed limits on the city streets everybody is very aware about the speed limit issues that we've had on highway 95 but during the 2019 special session the less the minnesota legislature did make it easier with some of their changes for cities to change the city street uh speed limits um we're able to put it down to 25 miles an hour and without going through mndot approval or having mndot really play any part in that what those are that's for all the residential streets um so if anything's defined as a residential roadway um that is what uh that's what is eligible to be reduced to the 25. um and that essentially um would basically mean anything that's primarily all residential um i won't get into the specific definitions but uh what that leaves is most of our city streets other than obviously 95 main street would have quite a bit of industrial zoning so any area that's zoned residential would qualify fifth avenue in 95 as i said would not be included uh what the council has to do is have uh go through the process of uh doing a small analysis coming up with a kind of a plan to do the analysis um and so we would enlist sch to uh assist us with that and then the council can just pass by resolution uh the the areas that they want under the lower speed limit but for the public's information if they're they weren't aware the state standard for uh urban district streets which are the majority of the streets in bay port are is 30 miles an hour that is obvious often perceived as you know too fast for a city street especially if you're a pedestrian when you're driving it's it's it may not feel that fast but any vehicle traveling at 30 miles an hour is not necessarily slow um and so the the legislature did work with mndot um and there was uh you know obviously this was not necessarily supported by the engineers association to lower it to 25 but um that i don't have the background on that um the so the 25 was where they compromised on um with that some of the costs that we would have to the city would have to incur to make these changes um it's roughly about a hundred dollars per sign uh to that's for the cost of the sign the cost of the posts and the installation um that's our best estimate using one of the requirements for doing this every every area that it changes so every street off of 95 where we would have a 25 mile per hour speed limit after the 30 mile an hour or on fifth avenue um we would need to put a post sign we need we need to post so at a minimum we've got about 40 uh to 50 eventually sweet signs that we'd have to install um public works wouldn't be doing the actual installation um we would contract that out um just for uh it would actually be more cost effective to do that um but that's as i said that's about at a hundred dollars to sign that's between four to five thousand dollars um for the sign signage costs uh we did discuss with uh john parody and he is still there um based on some of the other uh similar uh projects that have been similar to this the initial estimate that we got was about 3 500 so that would be the we'd have to do the engineering analysis for that um one of the things obviously we're trying to avoid is causing any additional confusion or inability to comply um the city this the staff would definitely be proposing that we do the entire you know just all residential streets we wouldn't want to pick and choose which street we want to change 25 which ones we want to leave at 30. um that can cause a lot of confusion as well as problems with enforcement regardless of what the speed limit is we you know the the police department is not able to be there 24 hours seven days a week at every intersection um but we have been doing additional patrols uh due to some of the construction uh issues that the construction has caused um with some of the reports of the speeding on the city streets especially during this last paving portion um so the but with the twit posting at 25 miles an hour we hope that there's better compliance with that um i i'm happy to discuss with additional questions if there's any from the council i know matt has been working on this for me for us the last week um it it seems like a pretty straightforward process so we um i haven't had the opportunity to talk to john about john parody about the doing the analysis but it's something that we could do relatively easily i believe the overall changing the speeds what would be the estimated or guesstimated cost to do that to change the city over you have a kind of a ballpark figure or well uh assuming let's we'll use the high number well it's either uh 70 500 or 8500 um is kind of the estimate that we have um and that includes the study from sch as the engineering analysis as well as the sign uh installation install and the signs everything out the door the signs are about thirty dollars a piece um the actual speed signs the uh the posts because there's two posts that are used for each sign that's about fifty dollars total and our estimate for the installation is about twenty dollars per sign um so it's roughly a hundred dollars per sign in system okay that didn't that wasn't clear to me thank you i'd like to hear from chief eastman and matt regarding your comments and thoughts matt maybe you can start um yeah i'm i'm open to uh just about anything on on this um as far as um doing the install and stuff like that um we've had um vector sign before doing some of the install for us and so the bigger a project the better price we get um as far as one of the one places i would worry about though is adam indicated potentially like on main street and like central depending on how that becomes classified whether it becomes essentially a residential roadway there would likely be streets that are still left at 30 miles per hour which again adam indicated if we do it everywhere then there is some confusion there so it would probably be more signage um just based on um areas that would require to remain at 30 miles per hour okay thank you thank you matt and chief eastman would this drive better behavior or give you your team more teeth to be able to address it this is she's had audio connection problems that's why that's why i'm not in city hall it's because there's still problems with the connectivity there so adam have you had a chance to speak with uh chief eastman on this adam you're unmute you're on youtube that uh and just for um we did have comcast here uh this week and chief eastman's actually not at city hall oh she's i has other connectivity problems the process of moving some family members okay first country so but she did want to make sure she joined us tonight um so anyhow the uh when i spoke to her just this last week um i believe it was last thursday she was really deferential into uh having sch determine what the best um the best way to that it makes sense uh engineering-wise as far as the enforcement uh the the state statute for changing it is a little bit ambiguous but it says all the changes need to be posted um so it's we we would want to make sure that we follow that in order to be able to enforce any any speed limit violation um that was her main concern is we're still you know regardless of 25 or leaving it at 30 as long as the you know the public knows that we're we're doing the patrols we're we're out there um but we're not gonna be able to catch every every uh violator um that's something that is just will always be a challenge for every community that doesn't have you know traffic cameras everywhere um but she was she was not opposed to it uh she was too supportive of it as long as we had the the engineering input just to wear the best placement of the signs um would be i think there may need to be some like if the if it goes through and it's 25 everywhere but not on certain streets you know along minnesota um or the road that runs from uh in front of lakeside park is that maine so would that be impacted or is that considered um to be zoned differently because there's a lot of signs of of children at play that the residents have put in that area so if that is not covered because of the semis that go from anderson over to the other facilities um we'd probably want to just let them know why or anywhere that we wouldn't be changing them why they why they would be excluded hey adam with a lot of change last year with this in reference to what the mayor is stating isn't it if you have playgrounds in or school zones that would eliminate the need like down at the park in that it's commercial zone commercial so that mean there's a park there you could adjust the speed limit to be the same as the residential at 25. um i know that there's there's a there's a section on the school zones i'm not a moon um there's a section of the same statutory uh section there's a subsection that deals specifically with the school zones and the creation of that uh that does include mndot's inner interaction even on the city streets and that the minimum is 15 up through no more than 30. the the parks there's also a section of that same uh that same statutory section that deals with speed limits on the park roads um the the i'll just read it to you the political subdivision with authority over a park may establish a speed limit on a road located within the park um i'm looking to see that it cannot be lower than 20. um but that's in the park it would it wouldn't cost it wouldn't be considered next to the park um it would be in the park roads that are in the park okay i we don't i just want to make sure that if we change the majority and there would be certain ones that would be left out for a certain reason we probably want to just make sure that those residents are communicated so that they understand why so um but at this point do we just need to probably give an indicator that we want a ch to check this out or what is that no no no i'm not ready for that i i think 25 is still too fast so i don't want to go into a lot of pains to go through all of this to only get five miles per hour slower i feel like we need to choose a different direction um how about stop signs on the streets that we need them intersections that would help what i think and then john dolan i actually talked about this anyway i don't want to take credit for it because it was his idea but he said if we put in stop signs on say 5th street 4th street people will choose to go on 95 instead of trying to zoom through town because they don't have to stop once they have to stop then they're going to go through on the main route so we might solve some of those speeders but it was just an idea but i'd like to throw that out there maybe yield signs they're not as effective but i just feel like we're going to waste a lot of time changing it to 25 times it's a probably a two-step process and a two-part discussions so would overall i mean and can things be even lower i mean i i we did put in an extra stop sign i think toward um property yeah by mr bell's property that one time so um adam i mean what's what is the best way for just to maybe have you guys back with a good proposal which might allow for some yield or i like stop signs better than yield signs i think that they end up carrying more weight um but what what is the next step because there seems to be some investigation doesn't seem like there's full clarity on what can and cannot be done and where and where this would not apply so could we leave it in your hands for maybe the next 30 days to come back with something or does everyone or do you guys want an answer tonight no i wouldn't expect an answer tonight i mean that's thrown a lot at them i would i would go with what you're recommending mayor is to have adam or john prody and matt do kind of an analysis of it citywide and if it takes them a month or maybe longer bring it back and see what alternatives or what's resolutions we have to it either more stop signs reduce the speed limit and or speed bumps which is that i've seen cities utilize that a lot that really slows down traffic but it's it raises terror with the snowplow drivers so yeah if they can come back with some options i'd i'm with that so mayor clinton just butt in um so so john's original you know that 3 500 that's that's a price for a similar price that he's doing for a different city currently um and that's really only related at looking at the speed limit reduction um if we're talking about adding stop signs and different stuff like that that gets into a whole different realm of of traffic analysis and likely would increase any costs on um a recommendation for that um if he wants to talk about that he's more than welcome to add to that conversation what if we skipped the speed limit one and just talked just did an analysis for stop signs if it's if we can't go to 20 which i also am not clear on i think it's just more work to go to 20 but john i want to chime in on what you'd say about your price if and what you think we should do yeah um so mayor and members of the council so for the purposes of our discussion right now i'm not prepared to provide like any kind of price adjustments because i need help from my traffic engineering staff to to to look at that and tell me whether or not that requires some additional heavy lifting or not so but i think i think what i'm hearing here though is there's a lot of ideas that probably need to be if we could say but i think we can help that discussion a little bit by putting in i don't want to say minimal effort but just enough effort for maybe your next meeting so that you have some technical information to respond to from an engineering perspective i mean i've heard okay we've we've talked about 25 miles per hour we've talked about 20 talk about stop signs and yield signs and some other things and those are the sorts of things that our traffic engineers are pretty easily equipped to um to pull some information together rather quickly for you to consider at a future meeting you know we can do it in like a memo format or something nothing that's too terribly doesn't require a lot of effort but rather just kind of gets at a few of these things that you're that you're discussing tonight maybe um can address some pros and cons to the various options and and then we can further the discussion whether it be at your next meeting or you know december or a work session or whatever you know you you choose but i think that makes from from what i'm hearing tonight it just feels a little to me like um something preliminary like that that equips the council with some additional uh technical information that's maybe not overly technical so that you have to be you know an engineer to understand it but still enough that the council can make some some good decisions on what the next step might be and so that would be a minimal investment i'm sure and it would give us more information to make some more qualified decisions and actually visualize so right how soon do you think you could do that by the november meeting or longer well i again would have to check with our the workload on our traffic staff right now but yeah i would hope so i hope so mayor that it would be something we could bring back to your next meeting what are the thoughts from the council would that be a good step forward um oh go ahead go ahead okay oh i was glad to see that this topic was coming up because even though our speed limit is 30 people go a lot faster than 30 down 5th street here and up central so and i but i do think we need to have a little bit more insight on it so i think it's a good idea to go forward with what john was prody was suggesting i'd like to see something done whether it be stop signs lower the traffic combination whatever but i think we do need to do something i have you know with having the kids out there when they're some of the cars fly by on that fifth street like they're like they're on a racetrack it was really bad when all the construction on the highway was going on but it it's it's always bad but it was extremely bad when that was all going on um so i guess i'd be for let it going ahead with what john suggested okay thank you connie john dahl back to you um yeah no i think we need to move forward with the study and but um kind of to echo what michelle said 25 is just not slow enough i was on main street leaving work headed south on on main right next to the railroad tracks and and one of the neighbors in the neighborhood you're talking about mayor susan um ken ran out in the street and yelled at me to slow down and i looked at my speedometer and i was going 22. so um you know if it would have been 25 i would have still been well under the speed limit and i wasn't even close to 30 and so i know they have a problem there but i don't think 25 solves a problem for us so i i think we really need to dig in on on trying to get lower than the 25. okay thank you any other comments john buckley or michelle covered okay all right so john parody take that as an action item we'll look forward to hearing back from you if it can be november great if not just have adam keep us posted will do thank you mayor thank you i think that concludes all of our business we're now into liaison reports so with connie okay sorry um the library board did meet in um october september and um right now they're open by appointment only and jill said it's going pretty well um you know a few here and there every couple hours they set it up so she's happy to see that she said they they're still having a lot of curved side pickups um that's continued to be high um they are going to start a couple virtual programs she want to make sure i got this out there there's um a virtual music called sprouting melodies that'll be starting this thursday um for 18 months to three-year-olds and then on the 22nd it'll be babies to 18 months and then there's also a virtual teen and it's called united through music and that'll start on the 15th of october and it's for sixth through eighth graders and they're hoping that they can get together and try writing some music or some of them learning so she was excited about that one and then um oh the big thing we discussed um was the master plan and they're actually the facility master plan and they're actually waiting for the final she was hoping to get it this week but i did talk to her today and she hadn't it hadn't come through yet so that's the big thing she's waiting on is the master plan um that was about it it's kind of hard to discuss much on with the virtual and and no hours i mean open we will have a meeting on the 20th here of october at six it'll be another virtual meeting so hopefully you should have that master plan by that and i can share some of that with you great thank you connie michelle was there anything with cable there was not okay john buckley no report mayor okay john doe sorry um we did have a meeting last month uh middle st croy watershed and um really nothing specific to bayport so unless somebody's really interested in other municipalities i don't have anything thank you i had three different items and the first was um adam and i attended the bayport fiery fire advisory committee meeting where the four communities that we serve with our fire department get together we review the call volume the other program you know that might be offered to this um the fire department but as we've extended our um uh psychological services in cases extra stress we just talk about the general um state of what's happening within our four communities as it relates to fire just to keep them up to date of the overall uh volume and where there are some certain properties that may uh have more frequency or what can we do to balance stress uh all kinds of you know general topics we all end up from our side having a lot more information and access to uh chief eisinger but it's a nice time for the other three communities to also have that that visibility um after that i s uh about a week or so later i stepped in during one of the fire um department training sessions just to um say hello and to congratulate them on their 132nd anniversary as a fire department in bayport which is quite an accomplishment so i had a chance to just address and uh and congratulate them and thank them for their service as well as the service of their families who give up so much time and uh and obviously take on a lot more stress and worry uh so they're all serving us um so that was a nice opportunity to say hello and then adam and i also attended an east metro cities meeting where it was discussed whether or not it would make sense to join together as kind of a unit to possibly have representation collectively with uh with government issues transportation or any other thing that um having a volume of folks working together would be better than us in uh individually contracting those to represent us so no decision on that yet um it was it was a very preliminary meeting and an interesting way that it was brought together um by family members a former mayor of saint paul mr kelly uh brought kind of solicited those the attendees and then the services were going to be provided by his son's consulting organization now the organization has a good reputation but it was just it was a interesting combination of how they uh invited us to participate and then the actual conversation so i'd say more information to come and we'll definitely when they present things further we'll bring that back and and have more input from the council of what and how you'd like to see us perceive adam is there anything that you would change or add to that no the just the one thing regarding the uh east metro mayor's association um is the uh quite a as you mentioned the way it was rolled out um there was not a lot of communication with the administrators in my last uh i host the every bi-monthly county local government managers meeting and at our last one that was brought up as one of the topics and uh they'd like to discuss it more next at the next meeting um but there there seemed to be a uh some room for knowledge of how most small cities not just small but cities smaller than st paul uh operate um where most cities in our state in our state are have a weak mayor council government system as opposed to a full-time uh staff person being the mayor um so that that was uh that was something that will be discussed um just so everybody if the the emma uh does start operating um that they have an understanding of how uh how the cities function how statutory cities function so say adam yes question on uh the mayor brought up the fire department and win their service contracts with the other communities are we is the city been paid up to date from the other communities for fire service we haven't been paid our full uh we haven't be we haven't completely invoiced for this year um we are uh to your to your question oak park heights um has not paid their full invoiced amount um for this year uh so that is outstand they there's a small portion of their their bill that is outstanding um that was something that their administrator and i um discussed just recently and we chris and i um have discussed that so we'll be meeting to discuss that item with them uh very soon okay yeah i was just curious because it's been kind of an ongoing problem for the last year or so so i'm just i'm glad chris is on board with it without tipping our hand on that front at some point um does it become a is it appropriate between two governmental agencies to to charge a late fee or something like that to try and alleviate this ongoing problem i think we would just have to if well i'll let chris explain the the legal process but at some point we would have to uh have a initiate a legal action for performance um for full performance i don't know what if we can charge any late fees it's not part of the contract we don't have any uh pre-existing language that would govern that um that's good for me yeah okay and fair enough here marion council members are generally governed by the terms of the the jpa and that's that's one of the things that we'll be looking at all right thank you chris very good so with that um adam i'll turn it over for staff reports thank you madam mayor um you should have the library report uh to you as part of the packet chief eisinger's not i was not able to attend tonight uh he had his uh i believe it's his three-year-old uh eli's birthday party uh this evening that he had to attend so i i let him have the night off on behalf of the council um so he was excited for that his grandson um with that i will then call on uh chief eastman for her report can you guys hear me now hello guys yes oh okay thank you i went from my laptop to my phone um i really don't have a lot uh our year to date is for incidents or 6787 we did continue uh extra patrols on four fifth street fifth avenue and maine and i'd be interested to hear to go back to the whole um glenn and john prote the engineers interest in the you know certain streets not having if we decided to reduce the speed whether it be 20 or 25 as michelle noted that she'd like to see it even more i i would think it would be very hard to enforce you know if we weren't doing all of the streets and maine particularly and the mayor alluded to that as well with being close to the park um you know it's just a very busy road and that there has been numerous complaints on main street and we've had the speed sign out there and we just literally can't be everywhere i do want to say that if you don't run traffic or you're not sitting in front of a lidar it does seem a lot faster than 30 miles an hour we have several data from our speed sign when we put it at different places that seldom do we have any that reach over 30 miles an hour it doesn't mean that there aren't some but it really you know the majority of it is like 80 to 90 percent are all within the speed limit um and we have looked in as the mayor also alluded to by peanuts house which is 4th avenue and 6th street or by his house at one time i was successful in getting a speed or a stop sign put up there just because you can't see over the crest the hills as you're heading west and it's it takes a lot and i can tell you if they put stop signs going say these put stop signs on the avenues versus the streets and the people that don't have stop signs make the assumption that the other people are going to stop and that increases the speeds but i'll let the experts deliver that information to you um you know maybe certain places need four ways and i don't even know if the engineers would uh you know consider that as well but i wanted to add that it was very frustrating when i couldn't talk during that period and i apologize for that um i don't know if you saw in my report we did get an a minus from the patch.com which is the 2020 safety grades for twin city metro suburbs so that was kind of interesting if you got a chance to look at that and where the other cities raided halloween will have reserves and some officers out with gloves and of course masks on um passing knowledge glow necklace glow necklaces and candy and we'll have them in different quadrants and driving around the city just to make sure everyone's safe and i'll stand for questions any questions for chief eastman well she answered mine i was going to ask her if they were going to have officers out on halloween and this year so i was glad to hear that very good thank you chief eastman thank you chief uh next we'll call in public works director kline uh madame mayor members of council um public works has been as usual busy this month um mostly starting to get ready for winter unfortunately um grass is still getting mowed prepping for winter we put in a new water tank mixer that mixes the uh bayport or the baytown tower so that doesn't freeze we've also started uh street sweeping which is always a big process throughout the year or at least in the spring and fall um there are quite a few uh some what would i call major projects going on um i'll go through through them fairly quick here um i know there's some questions on highway 95 so i'll uh make sure i talk about that too um sewer cleaning and televising that's finishing up here in october um they're uh it's going pretty smoothly um crack ceiling has been completed on all the city streets they're using up all the good toilet paper that we could be using um ash tree removals has been done and tree planting was supposed to start this week we'll see if that happens um a couple of uh volunteer occurrences that happened here in the last couple weeks one is the city hall landscaping on the south side of city hall uh sam schoolman who's uh working towards his eagle scout project completed the native plantings on the south side and also added some rock and mulch and so hopefully we can get that looking good next year um keep watering it and it'll uh it'll be a good project so just like to thank him also the anderson corporation legal department um they usually do an annual volunteer project with the public works department um and this year it happened to be cleaning up the land and water legacy area um there was a couple of fenced in areas in in the area and so we we took one of them down and then also collected a lot of metal recyclables and anything else that needed cleaning up um so we put a good dent in it but i might need them to come back next year and help again um the other thing that we've started is some survey work or we'll be starting some survey work on the cemetery road and 6th street north we'll probably be seh will probably be providing a cost estimate for plans and specifications in um a feasibility study on at least six street north which will likely be a project or um which would we would recommend for a project next year um then wellhead protection the city has officially been approved uh for their wellhead protection plan by the minnesota department of health um now we have obviously responsible for starting to implement the plan so um that'll be some more work here in the next couple of years um and then the highway 95 project um that's obviously the paving has occurred um as has been discussed already this meeting um it went fairly well other than you know the travel on the side streets um but that really couldn't have been helped too much um one council member had asked about um when the road is gonna get striped and when we're gonna start losing the safety cones um striping will be occurring this week starting on wednesday and going through friday after that the safety cones and barrels will likely just be pushed off to the side of the road they have a they have some punch list items that they still need to complete and so they'll be using the safety cones and the barrels um on an admitted basis here probably for at least um another month um their last item that they probably will be doing is there's some curb and gutter that they need to remove because it's either cracked or isn't tipped in the right direction and that is scheduled for early november so hopefully they can get that completed after friday the road should be totally striped and free-flowing other than where they have to do punch list items does that also include our painting of the individual parking stalls or i know those are kind of separate activities yep so we we will not have that completed by friday um we're hoping for some good weather potentially the week after to to see if we can get that done at the very least i want to um get the yellow curving painted so that people know where to at least park in regards to that and if we have time um we'll also do the painting for the striping for the parking spots okay and then there's one item that i've been made aware of that the landucci trees that were put in around the perimeter and are not quite all meeting the specs of the agreed-upon height so um are you addressing that with them we we are addressing that um we came up with a proposal if adam wants to talk about that i'm open to letting him take the floor on that one sure uh thank you thank you matt uh thank you madam mayor um yes mayor to the point to your uh inquiry uh staff was made aware that some of the trees that serve as the the screening conifer trees uh between the pre-existing homes and the new landucci property were not the the eight feet um that were was proposed in the tree planting plan um and because of the time of year and the the the health of the trees um we discussed with our dan licked our the consultant planner um as well as uh just as staff that it probably was not uh a good idea to have those trees removed uh but because we do want to hold the builder accountable we're going to be demanding that he plant 13 additional trees for the to make up for the difference in the height that for the trees that were planted what we did was basically calculate the cost difference between the six and seven foot trees that were that were installed and an eight foot minimum tree um and then divide that by the number of eight foot trees um so that's those uh we're we're in the middle of uh making that known to the the manduchi the developer um those probably won't be planted until next spring uh the deadline that we're giving him is i believe matt i believe it was june june 1st or june 30th you're getting a next summer um to have that planting done just because it is incred it's very late in the season to be doing those plantings there were quite a it was a challenging uh at that at the landucci parcels um because of the bank to get in there um so that was uh that plays a role in what can be done now um but the the shorter trees actually are a little hardier they they typically take better um so we we don't want to you know waste the trees being planted but we want to make sure that the commitment was met by the builder so matt when in that process please make sure that you communicate to the homes that are impacted along there so they know what's happening and when and also understand what kinds of trees would be going in in addition um i want to make sure that they're not just little scrub trees you know so let's just make sure that they're always in the loop shouldn't they be i i would expect trees planted at a height that was agreed upon frankly this is outrageous and the challenges of that that's for them to account for and uh i expect you guys to hold their feet to the fire on this and if trees can't and if if trees cannot be removed without damaging you know their their property which then let's just make sure that the homeowners and landucci come to a a good agreement it's not just the city in landucci that the homeowners also get to see and have some kind of input regardless john i agree i don't know how you cannot know that they're eight free trees and just substitute it's it that's why i'm bringing it to everyone's attention that this is an open issue that has to be addressed thank you sure the other thing is just let's and i did ask adam to look into this and just make sure that we're very vigilant on those end properties when building permits come through that they are indeed single level homes on the property lots that they're supposed to be so just just make sure that's double checked staff is on that yes thank you the additional trees will be the eight foot trees um and so they'll be out of the it's almost 60 trees along that entire bank that are part just part of the development i mean those out lots and the connecting lots um 13 so that's almost you know 25 more in trees so that's the net is not it should hopefully be a benefit to the residents both the new and the pre-existing um and it's not uh by any means letting the developer off uh with nothing with no penalty so thank you yes um okay anything else for uh public works director kline from the council i just want to tell matt thanks for coming up and helping us up with our little sewer problem and coming very efficiently anyway matt i appreciated that well technically it wasn't your problem it was more our problem i know but it was coming out of the toilet i thought it was but i appreciate you coming up coming up as quickly as you did quick quick one for matt in terms of the construction um you know safety devices is is it possible and i was out of town this weekend um possible to have them stage those cones and traffic barriers in in like one place instead of all over the place and have kind of a central location so we don't i mean i don't know it seems silly to me to have them strewn all about especially if we're down to a punch list and only have little pockets that need those items yeah so what becomes challenging from um at least the contractor's standpoint is what they would tell you is that to to start moving them all the way around and stuff like that is there's a cost to that um obviously um i can i have talked to them there was talk about reducing the amount that was down there based on what's left on the bunch list so i'll reiterate to them that we would prefer to have obviously some reduce down there so i would appreciate that thank you and i know many residents would as well i'm i'm really looking forward to the crosswalks by the new flashers being defined because even though we have the flashers i don't think people even realize that they're there yet and so i'm seeing people do you know what kitty corner and not straight across and so it's going to be a bit of education depends i agree will make a big difference as well just all the crosswalks that are currently not delineated so okay then add anything else for matt okay then back to you adam thank you madame uh next uh sarah assistant administrator taylor thank you madam mayor and council uh progress continues on the land of wire legacy project the dnr grant acknowledgement signs have been ordered and will be posted upon arrival which is should be in the next week or so a draft of the habitat management plan has been completed the plan will be finalized when a public access point is identified and i've been working with um john parody on that so hopefully we'll have a location identified here at least a preliminary location soon i also created a page on the city's website that provides an overview of the project progress to date as well as a budget and expense summary to keep the public informed so if you haven't done so already please check that out election preparation is underway absentee voting for the general election began september 18th in-person absentee voting and ballot drop-off hours at the washington county government center are monday through friday 8 to 4 30. equipment testing will begin next week and i'd also like to say a big thank you to both the returning and new individuals who've offered to help staff the polling place on election day they were appointed as election judges earlier this evening on the agenda and i really appreciate their willingness to help out i'm currently serving as a city staff liaison on two important redevelopment projects in the community the first is the highway 36 technical analysis work group washington ramsey and hennepin counties mndot and the met council are studying the potential for transit improvements on the highway 36 corridor between stillwater and downtown minneapolis and this study will be ongoing through spring of 2021. the second is the allen king plant decommissioning and reuse advisory panel stakeholders are considering alternative land uses as well as priorities opportunities challenges and impacts associated with the reuse of this site the advisory panel will ultimately help guide and inform decision making by the oak park heights city council and i'll provide periodic updates to the city council as work progresses in these two groups uh we kind of went over things going on in inspiration uh we're left we're down to our last few new home building permits for the third and fourth phases survey work has been completed in the third fourth basis so we can finalize conveyance of the remaining outlets to the conservation easement with the land trust building and zoning inquiries and permits for decks and patios fences those types of structures remain strong in phases three and four and only a few um scattered lats remain to be developed in phase one along with most um of the villa lots in phase two but otherwise we're nearing build out of that development which is pretty exciting so with that i'll stand for questions any questions for sarah thank you very much back to you adam thank you madam mayor um members of council uh i've obviously been working on the trash baller contract negotiations um and the other items that has been ongoing was uh as i noted in my report was the cares act uh funding uh with the school um particularly i did hear back today uh just as late this afternoon uh just for our meeting that the school does have a quote for uh about 36 thousand dollars worth of chromebooks that they'd like to order for the bayport anderson students um so i will be i have a 8 a.m uh sorry 8 a.m phone call tomorrow with the district's i.t director and we'll be going over those um but the deadline of november 15th is fast approaching and so i've been kind of pestering the school district to get back to me but as i since the last city council meeting i think we've had two changes in the ability to give money directly to the school district but now we're back to our understanding at the last meeting so we are able to give money directly to the school district um and specifically specifically identified as distance learning is eligible so we i'm working with them on that um the other there have been some other items that the city is uh identifying that we can really use to both combat uh coved just around our some of our city facilities and at the same time take advantage or capitalize on this available funding such as touchless faucets and sinks in city hall there was a drinking fountain that needed to be updated in the fire department um we do need a drinking thought in the fire department for ada standards um but items like that that we have identified there's a couple that we we should have the available funding left to do those one of the items that did come back more i just want to let the council know we should still be fined for the funding but one of the items that we did we we under uh estimated was the website increase for uh the available um or not to be able but the potential options the features that we wanted to add um so that one that one does come in a little bit higher um we may need to reduce the amount of money that we're planning at the council wanted to spend on the public safety wages um but it we're still within our our allotment so we'll just be shifting those dollars back into that other category is what staff would propose um the website is uh is going to be a tremendous advantage both for the city and the residents um in receiving and providing services um there's i i think uh it's it's gonna be really well received um so we're excited that that is uh gonna go underway soon um ball park not specifics but just a ballpark of what you're thinking you might dip into the what we thought was going to public safety the um i try to remember the the original number we had on the public safety wages i want to say was about about 18 000 um is what we had i believe estimated um and i think possibly i've been crunching the numbers and i think it's about about half of that maybe a little less um that we have to use for some of these other other identified items okay um so i'll have at the next uh the november meeting i'll have kind of a final uh tally of where where we are um since we won't be spending much since from the november meeting to the deadline um so um are there any other questions on the the cares funding or anything and we already discussed the trash contract um moving on i just want to hey i have a question on the cares funding sorry no if i was waiting to be called on or if i wasn't jumping in but okay okay um i guess i'm disappointed to hear that the money that we're going to give them is going to be spent on something that they should have budgeted for outside of the cares act even being an issue so hey i understand chromebooks are important but right now i feel like i'd rather see give them guidance to have that money go to something that they wouldn't have already purchased you know they should have supplied chromebooks for their kids already that should have been part of their budget so i feel like i'd like to guide them towards the you know tutoring or some way to help the kids that are going to fall behind because of the online learning that's i was just kind of disappointed to read that when i read the update and then or like that you were waiting to hear from them and then you heard today that it was chromebooks it was i thought we were going to work a little bit more with you know trying to get them to supply tutoring services or something additional to help the kids that are going to struggle so i don't there's anything we can do at this point but i would like to well and then it's been such a long delayed response time that and we're supposed to use the money in a certain period that it it i'm i i agree with you michelle i think it's very disappointing um and but i i anticipate that there's there's so much disruption in the administration and elsewhere there that uh i think just getting a response but how does the council feel about dedicating it to the chromebooks it is our our carers funding what are your thoughts should we progress proceed or redirect as a parent with the child there right you know i'm disappointed with the chrome books as well um uh yeah to michelle's point they absolutely and you know knowing going into the school year that we were you know distance learning was going to be a factor that you know providing some devices for kids that might be in situations where their family might not be able to afford something should have absolutely been considered and so yeah i'm i'm with uh michelle and mayor susan on this one in in uh being disappointed so what do you what what are your thoughts should we proceed with that funding transfer we're already now seeing a shortage of what we need for our own public safety costs what what are the thoughts of the council [Music] i kind of want to keep our money ourselves if we can now if that's what they're going to spend it on adam's trying to get my attention oh yes he is members of the council um and some of this this was one of my chief concerns with the school district when the topic first came up is that the the anderson students would be not penalized but that they would account for you know they should already have been giving everything they you know especially for distance learning since that was expected pretty much should have been expected by every school district in a state or nation for that matter um so that was one of my one of my concerns uh in providing the district uh these funds uh with that because of the last the the guidance on how it changed and the state minnesota management budget office flip-flopped just within a couple weeks on transferring the funds one of the items that were identified as being eligible was the distance learning that was a clear and that was informative information from the league of minnesota cities as well when chris and i spoke to the league attorney um about what can be done for the students and so that was kind of the direction that staff gave the school district as because we're not getting any i mean this has been multiple months of waiting for what their plan was and because we were running out of time with the deadline fast approaching the there's a presumption of 500 per student for distance learning that is eligible under the guidance the guidelines and so i take responsibility for telling the council when we're coming short on time that if they have something even if it's distance learning you know that that's a easy one that should have they should have already done that or planned for that um but that was the the last just this last week the guidance that i i gave them because we didn't have we're running out of time i mean i've been waiting for weeks and weeks on what can we do to help and i just heard this afternoon about the chromebooks so couldn't a contract to help students that are falling behind because of distance learning be part of it i mean especially if the tutoring is done in a distance learning manner isn't it isn't that distance learning for those kids and why couldn't that we set up have them set up a contract with a company that does that and get that ball rolling that's a good fair question i i don't know as far as how that looks on their end we would need to have the money spent by november 15th otherwise the city is on the hook for for that balance um that i don't i don't know as i said nothing's been happening quickly on the school district's side and so that's i don't know that we want to wait um for them to devise that plan it's as long as the computer couldn't we spend that on those wages couldn't we easily spend it on our public safety wages if we wanted to at the last minute yes i mean that that's as i said that's that is an option so on that on that point um madam mayor uh councilmember hanson um in addition to the time limitation one of the aspects that's uh likely difficult with the tutoring scenario is it um it really doesn't fall under any um category that is a qualifying expense under under the cares act too it was you know one of the difficulties with the city considering it is as well it doesn't fall into those clear categories like something like chromebooks for better or worse woods so in addition to the time crunch of there being um there being a short amount of time in which to get this spent i think not only does the city potentially have some concerns about whether that's a qualifying expense school might have concerns too about whether that's a qualifying expense and ultimately we would be accountable for that so that that's another concern with the schools as well so it's distance learning defined in some way in the rules of how to spend the money and does it just equate to a device or i guess i'm confused why we assume distance learning funding just means supplying devices to children versus services distance learning is not defined what all it says in the in the statute is to facilitate distance learning that's all it says and so parents who are unable to help their kids with the distance learning need to pay someone to do that seems like it would fit i don't understand why that would be controversial at all but um you know john and michelle i agree with you guys i was disappointed when i saw that um but on the note of just working through this cares act thing it's i personally had applied for a grant and i applied the first time around and they still had money it's it's a very slow process and every time i got to a point they changed something so i've applied for this grant three times they sell the money so i think it's just it's very frustrating all the way around yeah and i don't think things have been set up clear like i said i was the one that got this with mike going but i i'm just i am disappointed too but is it something that the kids are not going to have then right if we don't give them the chromebooks i mean did the did the district now not take away from their budget for anderson schools i guess i want to be very careful that we don't then end up so it's a really good question connie so i would assume since school's been in session for a month and a half or not a month and a half but coming up on a good month plus um they should all the students do they all have their chromebooks at this time or is there a shortage or were they thinking that these would be backups in case there were um ones that failed what what were their thoughts of why they were going to spend this amount on chromebooks school district three months ago or more talking to my daughters and that said that the school board dropped the ball on it big time and a lot of parents are very disappointed that lake elmo bayport stillwater area schools don't have they dropped the ball they didn't have time to order it it's budgeted per the school district but being they delayed so long and made before they could make a decision they fell behind all the other schools so they when they went to order them we're looking they're still waiting for them so i so is this budget that we would be giving them would just reimburse something that they already have on order anyway adam do you know that's what it's eventually coming to my understanding i don't have those facts about mayor i was sent a essentially a quote today for 120 chromebooks um for the student as i said i have a phone call at 8 a.m tomorrow with their it director that i can obtain some of this information so just to make sure that we can you know take get some kind of action or guidance for you um if you find out that this is just covering something that they already have on order but now it's on our bill versus theirs what does the council want to do i'm out i don't want to do that no i would i agree with michelle yeah i'm in the same boat i mean we're to your earlier point susan we're we're over a month into school and if a child doesn't have a device by now they're they're already way behind the eight ball uh handing somebody a chromebook in november or it is you know missed two two months of school at that point well i would hope that that they that child would still get a chromebook and i'm hoping that it is somehow ordered if it if we have children that don't have the equipment at this point that is just unforgivable but if we are just going to take our budget and pay for something that they purchased way too late then i think that we could better keep that money here in bayport and save the parents some money that they could maybe invest themselves so anything that we take off and reimburse from our own expenses we'll end up helping the residents of bay board which hopefully will help the kids so and we could always do some kind of other charitable um cause and transfer with our discretionary budgets if we would choose to do so but i want to make sure that adam's very crystal clear in the direction that we give him so if this is a just a replacement a swapping out of something that they already have ordered and budgeted do we want we is it the consensus of the council to bring that money back into bayport and choose it for public safety and other items i would take that even further and say that if it's just if it's chromebooks i'm not in on purchasing them for them that that was their responsibility to provide to the kids and this if we were going to help the school in some way it was going to be something additional that they didn't already have budgeted and i know that they can get around and say well no we didn't we only budgeted for so many and this is going to be extras i just feel like they're going to play a game with us on that so they can get them from us so i i feel bad for you adam having to go back and say you know what now they're saying no but i that's how i feel about i feel like they're kind of well i would hope adam that you can you know take take the council's tone on this and express our disappointment with the school district over this and and um how poorly it's been handled and and frankly it's been handled you know the fish stinks from the head down in this situation the the legislation and how these programs are rolled out has been ham handed at best and um so we're we're here where the rubber meets the road trying to you know kind of pick up the pieces i would imagine adam that you could find good uses for that thirty six thousand yes madame um members of council the one thing the one question i guess i that remains for me is are there any uh any other this was just the first thing that they actually sent me that had any any details on it um and i said i i like i said i got it late today um i do have a con uh call with uh the it director tomorrow um which they they that's the latest person that i've kind of been i honestly passed off to but um they wanted to talk to me um to the city are there any other i know councilmember hanson mentioned the tutoring are are there any other expenses that the council would be that we that the council would support spending the money on um the one of the things that they that i i have heard from other other entities other governments is it's a a shift of i mean we're talking shifts of dollars on paper so if they use their cares funding for 36 000 of ppe what just as an example and it didn't plan well enough to get the chromebooks for everybody but now that they've got additional 36 000 potentially from the city it really doesn't in the accounting and reporting they can go back and say they spent the 36 000 on the chromebooks and now they're getting the money from the city for the pbe great question when i speak to them tomorrow or when i speak to them over the next couple days that that i'm clear on is is there anything that they that the council's okay with uh it's hmm cool guess i'd have to see what they're asking i i don't know off the top of my head what it would be i i've asked as you know uh counselor hanson you and i were on the first call with uh i know we've been waiting for weeks and almost months and there's been little to no input it's hard to plan any of this and we've been holding this money for them but the plan that i've been begging them for i came back today finally with something right right so so and we we don't meet officially for another month so what can we do with providing guidance if there's any kind of feedback if there's any kind of redeeming proposal that comes back tomorrow what what's the process that we can take to provide that guidance without or do we have to have another special meeting if or how can we manage this we're running out of time and i don't want to see us lose that money yeah i guess i don't want to see it being gone either um i don't know what to tell you adam i just know there's been a lot of hurdles just in my situation so but i don't i was i guess i was excited when i thought they could use it for tutoring or the kids that were going to be behind miss anne or principal wilson she couldn't give i mean we have to deal directly with the district i'm guessing right they wouldn't let you just deal with anderson's that was the uh yes the as far as directing the or tran making the transfer you would have to go to the district um they we were told uh we don't have anything in writing yet but we had we were told that the support that we provided would go towards anderson we made that request um we made that preference known and they said of course we'll funnel it there the as i said my initial hesitation was that they're going to take that money away from anderson what they would have already given them and redistribute it to everybody else so that's what i'm wondering if they're going to buy these chromebooks and they're going to go wherever john does your girls have chromebooks yeah um violet needed one when she started middle school so we got one when you know she's in eighth grade now so she's on her third year with a chromebook and elsa uses a family um so you didn't get one from the district no no okay we've never been provided any electronic devices okay i think my opinion is being that the city is offering tens of thousands of dollars to the school district they would be on it i mean they would be really appreciative of it apparently with the lack of communication from their end to poor adam trying to do his job i'm i agree unless they can come up with a good one tomorrow or the next day when you talk to him adam i would say we would bow out and we would utilize the money to the city period so how do we structure this adam and chris to provide get an update from adam after the meeting tomorrow and get direction back from the council to proceed within the time frames so do we need to have a special meeting or can how do we manage this i think we could do it just by corresponding emails correct adam um well if i would not uh have the the serial meetings uh through email um i the the council can either vote right now to you know direct direct me to you know make the decision or the it can have a hold a special meeting um i once i get the information tomorrow um as i said i i should have the answer tomorrow um with from the it director but that's that's just the it director um i know they have an interim finance director of uh you know a new administrator it's it's the administration is in kind of it's a mess so i don't i don't know that's my fear as far as the how quickly they can come up with anything else because they haven't up to this point it's been frustrating do we have can you answer the question do we have anderson elementary students currently not having devices to support distance learning do you know i don't i don't know the status of that i think everyone that's listening to this meeting and as well as this council needs to know the answer to that question i i would say if that is the case then the city just purchased them directly for the students as was mid-month going to be when we thought we couldn't answer the money directly um we were told we could do that um so that would be so all right just to speed this up a bit um why don't you have the meeting get back to us we could schedule a special meeting that would be let's just you know try to time capsulate of a 30-minute meeting um that we could just address this question and i mean it doesn't have to be just 30 minutes but try to you know this has already been a healthy investment for everyone but it's an important topic and we need to move quickly so what does the council think of having that kind of arrangement bringing us back together for a quick meeting to make a final decision i like that idea and i mean even if for some reason you know all of us can't make it i think we're all fairly like-minded on this i if i can for some reason i trust you guys to you know have my opinion in your thoughts all right so adam let's proceed that way i mean there might be something that this it for it director has to tell you that might sway the opinion one way or the other so let's let's just proceed that way okay it's an important topic chris um madame air members of council i sincerely apologize but i know we're at the end of the meeting i have to jump off now but um i apologize for that um but i will be in touch and and follow up on with uh adam on everything that we talked about tonight great thank you so much i apologize no need to apologize it's a long meeting so thank you so yeah when you talk when you talk to the person the i.t person at the school district can you ask them if apparently bayport has received their chromebooks and lake elmo just received them about three weeks ago well john doll just said that elsa didn't get a chromebook right but if you have one of your own they're not going to give you one from the school so but that's probably why did they make them aware of that that's what i'm wondering you know steph handles most of that stuff so frankly i can't answer that question i will find out tomorrow i think that chromebooks are mostly used for while they're at school to be honest i don't know that a lot of them are if any are going home with them yeah lake elmo is they take them home do they yep okay well that's good at least that'd be interesting to see what bayport what the district is actually providing bayport at this time i think that'll give us a good idea what direction we should go and if there's if there are students that do not have this technology how many of them are there and it'd be really interesting to know how those students have been managing through this process i agree all right well we've had there you go adam i have one one last thing that i need some input from the council um very very quickly uh due to our water assessments or our water unpaid water utility bills um our the city's practice for the last uh quite some time has been uh to just collect it and essentially well use the the cut off or the shutoff threat as the the leverage for the uh the collection um what i'd like to propose is that we assess those unpaid we have we have uh several thousand dollars in unpaid water utility bills um going on the second uh the second billing cycle um for one reason or another um there we did the council did opt to waive the late fees it's a five dollar late fee um but we still have some that are uh delinquent um so i would like to propose that those we we notify them that they'll be you know through the normal assessment pulse process um but assessing the late the delinquent water bills has not been something we've been doing the last several years um it's in our code both ways we can either shut it off shut off the water to try to get compliance payment or assess them um i guess i i need to put the council on the spot because we are approaching the november um how many people that are are delinquent how many are actually owner occupied owner occupier um i don't have that exact number uh we have i have three pages there are some that are commercial um there's uh the the water cut the cut the shutting off the water is obviously never a you know public works handles delivering those notices um right wanda did do a good job of uh getting the collection um we're just in a we seem to be in a different time we have a much higher rate of unpaid right than in the past and the problem i don't i don't think it's right to have a owner or landlord the tenants are going to suffer if we go and shut it off because they didn't pay it but i feel like we have to use yeah we have to use the same rules we did for the garbage collection we weren't going to just stop the garbage collection so why would we just stop their water i think i across is probably an easier way than all these different exceptions so is all right are you guys okay with us doing it that way so that we can continue with water service ourselves legal and it sounds like it's written that way that we can do it so because i know state statute the building code is to occupy a structure you have to have running water otherwise you you the police can eject you from that premise you don't need electricity but you do need plumbing facilities so that's they've used that in the past as a leverage to get people to pay when i was building official there but yeah we're we're a different game now so i would i would go with that do the same as your garbage and assess it is there a limit on i know that on the assessments for garbage there's a 10 i think you said uh yeah i don't believe our uh i don't believe there's any uh fee like we a penalty um it'll just be the the the regular uh interest um similar interest i believe it's sick could we put the same penalty so that things are consistent um i we would have to revise our code and i'd have to check make sure that we were able to but that would be something that we potentially could do um it's that way you would compensate you know especially for staff time and that to put some kind of penalty or extra fee on that if we do assess it to the property okay is so is there anyone on the council um opposed to assessing the lincoln water because that's my question that make sure i'm clear okay doesn't look like it okay that's all i have uh yes i i hate to jump back in i did text my wife um just about the chromebooks quickly and um they this evidently they have run out of chromebooks at anderson that's one of the reasons we don't have one we have enough other devices that we have been able to make it work so just throwing that out there it does sound like it is a problem which is shame on the school board seems to be a lot of money to do other things there but yeah okay well adam keep us posted circle back if we need to regroup for a quick you know we'll make it happen thank you madam mayor members of the council all right is there anything else anyone wants to touch on okay if not would someone like to make a motion to adjourn what move we adjourn is there a second second thank you john buckley adam councilmember hanson aye councilmember buckley aye sponsor member carlson aye once remember doll hi harrison ours hi as all good evening everyone good night thank you good night great time have a good night you