e e e e e e e e e e all right call to order the March 3rd 2025 uh meeting of the bport city council let's all rise for the fo of Allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all right thanks Matt can you please call the role council member do president council member Bliss here council member Hill here uh mayor Hansen here I just note that uh council member Gilmore is absent tonight and also note that John will be leaving at 6:45 just for another engagement so all right do we have a motion to approve tonight's agenda so moved a second all right wow that went so fast I'm just you guys are getting so good at this all right um all right so uh all those in favor I I all right we'll move on to proclamations accomodations petitions and announcements the February recycling award recipient is Mana la Mona label sorry at 4843 Street South she'll be awarded for recycling efforts with the Grant from Washington County and then we have a proclamation that no one printed for me this is what happens when um Sarah's not here right oh so let's see where is it in here like so many pages is it after third page really did I go right by it sorry I should have seen all the where ases there it is okay this is a proclamation for slowmo summer um this year we switched from slow-mo May to slow-mo summer um do I do I do we always read all of this when we do proclamations or can I just Madam Mary you don't have to I can give you a brief overview okay that's easier we just want to make sure so John's here yeah essentially what we're uh seeking is slowmo summer is kind of a a takeoff on um noo May right um what we're hoping is that um in some research was done or at least um paper research that um it's preferential actually to leave your grass a little longer the whole summer rather just than in the month of May um and by longer we mean uh 6 in essentially that's what we're hoping for um the proclamation in the past has been that we needed to deviate from the length of grass because anything over 6 in um is a violation essentially so this Proclamation is more of an announcement rather than needing it to specifically deviate from city code um so yeah if uh people are willing to leave their grass at 6 in uh it's good for the honeybees um good for the insects uh pollinators all of that that'd be appreciated all right thank you all right so then we'll move on to the open Forum the open forum is a portion of the meeting to address the city council on subjects that are not part of the agenda the city council may take action or reply at the time of the statement or may give direction to staff regarding investigation of comments expressed total of 15 minutes is allotted for public comment during the open forum anyone uh want to come and address the council now okay we'll move on to the consent agenda consider a resolution adopting um items 1- n February 3rd 2025 city council workshop and regular meeting minutes and the February 3rd city council and Planning Commission joint meeting minutes the February pbls and receipts February building Plumbing mechanical and Zoning permits report uh the no waiver of statut Tory tort limit liability limits for City insurance coverage joint Powers agreement with the county sheriff's office to purchase fuel for the police department an application for a short-term rental license from Rob Rob schmidtz at 445 Lakeside Drive and the appointment of Dean Chamberlain to the Planning Commission for a term to expire at the end of December in 2026 do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda I move to adopt the resolution approving the consent agenda as presented thanks Carl second thank you John roll call vote please Matt council member do hi council member Bliss hi counc member Hill I mayor Hansen I passes no publics no unfinished business so we'll move on to new business which is to consider a final plat for Barker's help School addition submitted by the Stillwater area public schools Independent School District 834 good evening mayor council members and those watching at home um if we could switch to the screen there as the mayor said this is the final plat application for the new elementary school being requested by Independent School District 834 uh Council previously approved applications related to this development back in November including the annexation comprehensive plan zoning map Amendment as well as a conditional use permit for the school itself and variances related to uh impervious surface and Grading within the site uh this current application that comes forward is related specifically to the subdivision It's the final plat of the property which is the next step in the subdivision process after the preliminary plat uh and it essentially dots the eyes and crosses the t's on establish ment of the lot and block for this property and dedication of RightWay for Fifth Avenue uh South North excuse me um there's also the development contract which is the legal instrument drafted by the City attorney that ties all the approvals from November and this final plat together and gives the developer the ability to move forward with the project U provides for payment of City fees and provides security for the public improvements included in the property project um this property is the 10 acres located west of Barker's Alps Park uh south side of Fifth Avenue North it's undeveloped and was annexed into uh the city of Bayport uh surrounding uses include undeveloped property to the West as well as U public uses including the fire department and Correctional Facility to the north the final plat establishes the one lot for the school facility dedication of RightWay to Washington County for the county road uh it also provides for uh construction of the utilities to and through the site would ultimately serve land to the west of the property uh dedication of easements uh over those public improvements within the site including storm water facilities and utilities and then provides for payment of a park dedication fee in the amount of $85,000 uh which the city can use for uh improvements to public park systems the development contract again drafted by the City attorney uh combines all the approvals into one provides for the financial securities that are required to construct those public improvements provides that the city engineer will oversee uh those public improvements as they're constructed and make sure they comply with City specifications and then there's also four easement agreements included as part of the development contract to cover the uh ISD 834 is use of the city park uh the reciprocal off street parking areas uh the shared use of Barker elps Park as well as the access to um the park or excuse me the school parking lot by the city uh and special OCC occasions uh the emergency vehicle access on the south side of the building and then a storm waterer easement and maintenance agreement covering uh protection of those storm water areas within the property the site plan has been finalized from the Planning Commission uh and city council reviews to include the site plan uh some modifications to the uh landscape plan essentially the areas shown in green are those areas that are being disturbed as part of the project uh and then being restored in accordance with uh either Prairie restoration planting of trees uh we're also clarifying that um they aren't planning on installing any irrigation as part of the project given the uh water tolerant species that are being planted uh so that will no longer be necessary City Engineers finalized the construction plans in coordination with the developer and the Watershed organization has also approved the storm water management plans for the site so City staff recommends approval of the applications based on the final plat being consistent with the subdivision ordinance as well as the preliminary plat approval uh the development contract again consistent with the requirements of the subdivision ordinance is drafted by the City attorney including the easement agreements the Planning Commission did review the final plat at their meeting on February 18th uh they had no real comments and voted four to zero to recommend approval uh there were some comments during the open Forum portion of the Planning Commission meeting concerning uh potential future uses or expansion of the school uh also construction of sidewalk walks going east of the school on Fifth Avenue North and some questions pertaining to the landscape plan uh the landscape plan in full is available by contacting City staff uh there is a Grant application being submitted for the sidewalk to be constructed along the public Street uh and then obviously uh any expansion or change in use for the park or the school is not even being contemplated at this point obviously would require involvement and approval from the city council to happen uh and then subsequently if that were to move forward would involve a planning process similar to what's been carried forward for the school itself so City staff is recommending approval of the applications again subject to the 18 stipulations uh they're included in the city council resolution all right thank you Dan um I know I spent a lot of time looking through this very closely and then spend a little bit more time looking very closely with Matt this afternoon so I got all of my questions answered and then you did a great job of incorporating some of those into the description that you just gave so um I feel very comfortable with everything that I've seen I don't know if anyone has any questions or needs clarification on were were we able to was anybody present for the Planning Commission I watched it meeting and were we able to answer the concerns and questions of the residents yeah it was mostly yeah it was that fear of well you know if you give give them an inch they're going to take a mile kind of attitude they were worried that the school is going to want to expand we didn't give them anything we they bought their own property I'm just saying they didn't say those words I'm just saying that was sort of Cl fear that it seemed to be coming through um and then I remember there was just a comment about the the Prairie being up against the woods and how was that going to work so I'm sure if he has more questions he can be filled in with the details on how that's going to work and then side access to it yeah along um fifth there um and so we talked about the safe road roadfe routes to school safe routes likely not an assessment is like I think that was a concern assessment yes and who's going to take care of the sidewalk are the residents responsible and the answer was yes that they have to shovel it not like maintain it yes but like shovel it yeah and that's the city code requirement is you have sidewalk into your property some cities when the sidewalk does access a school will have the city Crews handle that because of the need to get it cleared in time for kids to walk to school but that's a decision for a later date right I don't think we do that with the sidewalks that kids use right now right to get to the school so I don't know how that will work or not but we'll have to figure that out um I was trying to think of what else was going to say but yeah I mean other than that I I maybe didn't go I didn't go over it two times but yeah well it there's a lot here there is a lot here and it's um I think back in the days when we had paper packets it was easier to kind of tell what was what but now you're just kind of scrolling through it going okay what part am I on now it's a lot but um yeah and I had questions a little bit about like the because we're very specific about some of the agreements but there wasn't anything that said like the bus parking in the the sh lot that's mostly on Barker's Alps land is also going to have car marks on it so that after school hours it could be used for cars as well and and then if you look at the actual whatever number this plan is of the plat it's tells you that you can see it marked but it's just not written anywhere so things like that that I was just confused on so um got got all that clarified um so I guess unless anyone has any other comments I I don't we have no one from I don't either okay from being at the meetings and just listen to it all before already yeah wow okay then I guess we can um a motion I will move to adopt a resol a resolution appr approving a final plat for the development of a new elementary school at 135th Avenue North subject to findings of fact and the conditions of approval thanks John I'll second all right thanks Katie roll call please council member Bliss hi council member D hi council member Hill I mayor Hansen I motion approved check check there you go um there we go okay our TVs weren't working for a minute now you're welcome to scadaddle if you want District 834 thanks for coming sorry that uh you came all the way here and we had no questions for you but maybe that's good right I have a feeling wait I have one question is it going to be Bayport Elementary School like it says in the renderings before you leave because everyone's been asking me okay good just want to make sure because I've been saying yes based on the renderings but all right thank you okay bye Dan thank you okay consider an amendment to Chapter 58 utilities of the Bayport city code of ordinance to adopt a storm water utility and summary for publication and we have a guest yes while she's getting ready mayor Hansen I'll I'll just do a short uh update essentially um so at the November 13th 244 city council meeting uh City Council reach consensus or special meeting actually on the establishment of a storm water utility um the determination was that um approximately $6 per quarter for Residential Properties um was what was considered um essentially we're we're creating the storm water utility as a means to pay for different things related to the storm water system items such as education uh monitoring requirements um compli with local and state and federal requirements and this utility provides a more Equitable method than just using property taxes um the reason being that establishments such as the school churches the prison system um aren't paying property taxes and with what we've developed or with what SE has developed um it spreads out the storm water charges more evenly um rather than and having them specifically uh based on property taxes um so with all that said I will pass it along to uh Lily um who is here to present thank you for the introduction and good evening everyone I'm Lily Hawk I'm a water resources engineer with SE um so speaking about the storm water utility program the funds garnered from the the program could be used for the administration of the program itself but the main purpose is to help fund storm water utility maintenance um as well as capital Improvement projects that might include replacing storm sewer or constructing storm water management bmps um to help reduce flooding or provide pollutant removal um a lot of these items are in line with a permit that is administered at the state level that the community also has to adhere to um and provide maintenance for the storm utility so the storm mod utility would be calculated two different ways the first way is if you're a resident um of a single family home home or a dwelling of 1 to three units so duplexes or small rentals you would be charged a flat rate for each quarter um but if you are a property that is not a single family or smaller dwelling um you would be charged based on your land use and the area of your parcel compared to an average residential parcel um the land use categories have been established using both the county system um and kind of different City divides based on what we've seen on what type of businesses are here um so the main categories we have are commercial industrial institutional multiple family Municipal um parks and open spaces and then vacant properties your institutional properties are going to be the ones that cover any of your um communitybased services or facilities so churches the um the prison sorry I don't know if there's a in Correctional Facility uh would be what I would call it um elementary schools other educational institutions would be included in the institutional category um and then multiple family would include any Parcels that have more than four dwelling units so that is the threshold between your single family base rate and your multiple family usually in those cases you have a lot more impervious you might have a small parking lot um so those Parcels end up looking different than say single family home would um so we take that base R and then we create this what's called a residential equivalency Factor um this is based off of that land use and the land uses are divided by how much impervious they might have on them so if you have more impervious that means when it rains there's more storm run runoff so then you have more burden on your system coming from these Parcels um and also sometimes when you have more impervious you also have more pollutants so Parcels that end up having more impervious have a higher residential equivalency factor to account for the fact that they are going to produce more runoff and pollutants um that residential equivalency factor is then applied to the rate and the area of the parcel to create a total charge per quarter per acre um and then again just a reminder those single family homes are consistently at the base rate no matter their size they're generally less than an acre across the city um and so there are there isn't a large area discrepancy between single family or smaller residential Parcels so in order to create a system where you can charge residents based on their land GRS we created a database based off of these County categorizations so when we're looking at this pie chart it is based on the number of parcels in the city so not necessarily based on area um and as you can see most of the city is comprised by residential Parcels over 3ar of the city um and then that is followed by vac areas as well as your industrial commercial and Municipal properties so majority of the income and revenue from the storm R utility program would be coming from those single family or residential Parcels how this program would potentially evolve if we apply these rates per parcel is that the first year there would be a base rate applied with those residential equivalency factors and then each year the city council could opt to increase the fee I've shown on this slide a potential increase in fees based on a preliminary um financial plan put together by the city when determining if this program would be feasible so it shows an original base rate of $6 for 2025 that would then double in 2026 um you would have a tripage from your original base rate in 2027 and then it would have a marginal increase going forward past 2027 at 3% L can I just interrupt for just to be clear none of this has been decided that we are going to be doing any of these increases yes I for one I'm not excited about doing any of these increases like to see how it goes this for a while at this rate just so I'm just afraid if anyone sees this they're going to think it's gonna happen so yes no absolutely and that's why there's a little note in the corner that says these are determined annually by city council so say you implement it one year and it seems It's feasible the next year to continue That Base rate the city council does not have to increase right it is an annual decision um and that may or may not even follow closely to this this was just the original assumption in that financial plan it was in the financial plan but just as a recommendation we don't have to do that so all right thank you just want to make it clear no absolutely um so when also looking at the storm utility program set up a question was what are the surrounding communities stor utility programs how are those established um so we looked at the surrounding area not just Washington County but also cities that border Washington County that were of a similar population um not all communities have storm a utility programs so if you have a community in mind that's not on this list they may not have a program um there is quite a bit of range as you can see across communities something to consider here that's included in that right column is the residential equivalency Factor so when it says it is similar to Bay port's potential setup um that means that they are giving in very similar burden between say your industrial commercial institutional properties and Residential Properties as we are suggesting in this presentation um if it is lower that usually means that it's more even burden um between residents and industrial commercial properties if it says it's higher that usually means that commercial industrial properties are taking on more of the burden of the over overall utility program um sometimes this can line up with the rates in the sense that you see Circle Pines and MTO Medi excuse me that pronunciation may be in incorrect midi midi thank you it's not raised in this area um we could tell from that I left up I was like ah very clearly I Nebraska for those curious um but those rates are generally higher potentially because single family homes are paying a smaller rate in comparison to the the base rate necessarily or more of the burden is on those other properties so wait I'm confused because mamei says the quarterly base rate is $38 and then you're saying that I should rephrase that residen is may be paying $38 and then the commercial industrial properties are going to be paying much more comparativ more yes they at so for than what ours are yes roughly um rough numbers here at a base rate of six your commercial institutional industrial properties um institutional is a little less we have commercial industrial at the same level um are paying roughly $33 so okay significant that's per acre per um so significant difference there I don't have um their exact numbers on what they would be charging per acre um but using what they gave me for the residential equivalency factors that are going to be much higher than that $33 compared to $6 ratio okay um and also to note here Taylor's Falls has an aster next to it because when I inquired about their program they were um let us know they're in the middle of redoing it or also changing their rates so I included them because I think the RF comparison note can be helpful um but their quarterly base rate I would maybe take with a grain of salt as they are in the middle determining if that is accurate for their Community okay um but look looking through this list you can see $6 is roughly in a Range that's similar um or lower than most of the communities with a similar residential equivalency Factor if you wanted to scale the rate based on that financial plan you know up to $18 in3 years you are exceeding um the surrounding Community slightly but I would also note with that you don't know what their plans are to increase their rates um and everyone's in the same position where every year they have to decide whether or not they would like to increase their rates so over time your surrounding communities will also be changing and going through similar processes to determine if they want to overhaul their storware utility program um so in different considerations with the programs you can establish whether or not vacant properties are exempt um if you want to charge certain properties and if you want to establish a cost maximum so looking at the vacant properties uh we had we recommend that they are excluded from the program on the basis of a few different factors um the first one being well 8% might seem like a large amount of the land area it is a relatively small portion of the land area um of the city of Bayport to Garner fees or uh to Garner the storm utility fee from um and that only actually equates to 2% of your potential revenue from these properties a lot of these properties end up being a sliver of a single family residential parcel that is next to someone's main property that they may just not have Incorporated yet um so there is also a question of whether or not including these properties would be an additional burden both on single family homeowners and residents but also on the city to then kind of have to track down um people who fall under that category and are now paying two fees Andor other individuals who don't live in the city of Bayport um and who may be administering or taking care of their parcel from afar um and it was determined based on the small potential revenue from these properties and potenti potential burden and the fact that they're predominantly residential and you're most likely already getting a rate from the parcel owners um a vacancy exemption excuse me is recommended um which moving on would bring us to the other side of this is the cost maximum Fe um excuse me one more note on the vacancy exemption that would include Municipal properties nonoccupied properties or properties that aren't developed so if there's a residential parcel that didn't have a home that would be considered vacant but say you have a commercial property that doesn't have a building on it but it's entirely paved it's a parking lot that would not be considered vacant because it has been developed for a specific use um the third aspect of that is cemeteries parks and Open Spaces um just because those also usually have the least amount of runoff um and are good for intercepting storm water um and also most of the parcel owners of those properties either ended up being the city in the case of the parks um or undeveloped um State DNR properties that are likely not to be de developed in the future um so moving on to the cost maximum side we looked at a few different options for establishing a cost maximum here so what you're seeing in these two charts on the right um and they're the same data in the charts they're essentially the same is the spread of your non-residential properties and what their potential fee would be at $6 for your base rate um so in that left graph you see all these dots of above the graph and those are to represent your outlier properties who are paying substantially more fees or who would be paying substantially more fees than any of your other non-residential Parcels um this is called the box and whisker plot that's the statistical method we use to identify these outliers and on then on the right these outliers are removed so you get a little zoomed in glance on kind of what your average non-residential parcel is looking at with that orange line at the top representing your outlier threshold um so the big box in the middle is where majority of your non-residential Parcels are falling in terms of the fees that they would owe through the storm water utility program so that 75% threshold and Below most of your non-residential Parcels are in there it is only in this case roughly 10 Parcels that are actually even above that far enough above that to be above your outlier threshold um so the cost maximum was established in the sense that we're applying this residential equivalency factor to create a more Equitable burden between the non-residential parcels and the residential Parcels but it's not necessarily the perfect approximation in the sense that it can expand these rates for these extremely large Parcels um in a significant way that might represent an undue burden on the parcel so we established an outlier at the outlier threshold which is that orange line um we looked at different options for the outlier threshold um and or looked at different excuse me looked at different options for the cost maximum and one of those was also the 75th percentile and it was determined that may have um excluded too many Parcels or included too many Parcels in being limited by the cost maximum so we wanted to raise that um to the outlier so what you're saying is none of the so the nonresidential properties will pay no more than $210 per quarter per quarter okay okay yes and this is also by parcel and not by taxpayer so they're also a significant amount of non what wait is it 210 per acre per quarter or is it just 210 per quarter it is just 210 per quarter per parcel okay so um many of your commercial and Industrial parcel owners own multiple Parcels so it's not necessarily that one taxpayer is limited to $210 they might have multiple Parcels that are even under the lier threshold and then sep a letter above it and you aggregate them to one rate per that parcel owner so this does apply not per acre but just over the one parcel it might impact multiple Parcels for a tax owner are the identified outliers is that per parcel or is that per institution organization corporation that is per parcel so I know for a fact that like three of these Parcels yes are owned by the same taxpayer sure um and there are few others who I think the the state of Minnesota itself um running the correctional facility also owns several Parcels that are above a threshold so it's fair to say if XYZ corporation owns six properties that are in that outlier range they would get six above that outlier threshold they would get six $210 quarterly mhm yes fees okay quarterly yes okay all right absolutely so the graph on the left and the is the graph on the right is basically a stretched out version zoomed in and taking off those top points okay mainly to show you that took me a while to figure that out but it's it's very few Parcels that are impacted by this there's 1,200 total in the city and if we take out 900 of those around L residential so of your 300 roughly non-residential Parcels 10 of those would fall into this category what did you call this graph again whisker something a box and whisker I need to Google that after this is really interesting I learned something tonight oh if you do salary surveys you see them all the time goodness yes it's it's been a while until I look back at statistics and said ah here's how to determine an outlier okay apologies um so we looked at several potential Revenue scenarios taking into both of these things into account um at first we had been talking with the city administrator and identified that the vacancies due to the small amount of Revenue that they would generate could probably be Exempted from the start um and from there we looked at several different base rates and then also on top of that those two cost maximum scenarios so the base rates we looked at were from $3 to $6 um and then we looked into those 75th percentile outlier thresholds so there is a memorandum um that has been submitted to City staff that does contain what the projected Revenue would be for each of those scenarios so eight scenarios total um the one that was identified as the most feasible in the preferred scenario was a $6 base rate with the cost maximum set at that orange line that outlier threshold um so not limiting the cost maximum further and that did produce enough Revenue to meet what the financial plan identified as the target so in this graph on the left side are those financial plan Revenue goals um per year and then we've also got what the potential storm water utility program Revenue would be if we did all that yes doubling and tripling and everything one other thing from my edification and maybe others here and people lisening at home when we talk about vacancies we're talking about a property with a structure on it we're not talking about a vacant structure on a property right yes you're talking about a property without a structure on it um the way we identified those with using the County parcel database was that they would have zero doll building value right um so if there was a Structure on the property it would give a building value um and then just a note for those non-residential if they were developed AKA covered with a lot of impervious those aren't considered vacant because they will be used for something and have been developed whether or not there's a structure on it thank you for that explanation yes and we did before Carl was on the council we did go through this very we looked at all the scenarios remember and we chose which one we thought was the most reasonable and get us to where we needed to be there will be a test Carl after no it was I mean we did we all kind of looked through and picked which ones we yeah and we all agreed I think we all kind except maybe Katie for that something I don't know we I think we all kind of all AG on the same so we've seen this before maybe except Carl to The Madam mayor to your point to the the increases here shown are being presented to the council just want to be clear watching it's not a f sure we have not decided any of those increases so I'm kind of surprised they're in there but yeah and to be clear too the financial plan is those targets are set up based on those in increases so there is some wiggle room if you decide maybe to move a capital Improvement project to a different year those numbers in the financial plan would have changed anyways so also you can see on the Storm R utility program side even if you didn't increase the rate through year two or 2026 you would still be meeting that Financial Revenue goal um that's what yeah that's why we decided like it's easier to just let's do the $6 instead of like we double it and then we make more late because it made more sense to just kind of not keep raising it on people every year and yes so I wish that it actually showed what what we intended to do more than what that plan might have suggested but that's okay I just don't want anyone to get confused or I completely understand um and I would also like to add to the increases in the rate don't ever have to be like a solid dollar amount they could be 25 or 10 cents um or 15 cents it could be whatever the city council decides so we see that other communities too that the annual cost rise I know the financial plan described tripling it every year but it could be like that 3% every year um completely up to the city council this is just a measure of whether or not it could be effective to what the financial plan targeted all right thank you so much yes um so as an overall summary the storm water utility program would pay to help um maintain all of your storm water infrastructure and potentially replace repair um and Implement new storm water management as needed for the city um again the major points on outlying and establishing the storm utility program are that the vacant properties would be excluded um and that you would have a cost maximum cap for those few properties that are um significantly high above that outlier threshold and then I did show again the financial plan potential annual increases here but again to note those are decided annually by the city council they're not they're shown on the slide because they were shown in the financial plan but that is up to the city's decision every year what they do with the storm utility program so um question could do you mind going back to that one where you compared our rates to the other cities yes um so I'm looking at this and then I'm looking at what's in our packets what page are you on I am on oh God I don't have page numbers oh well seven to the end or something like we're close to the end thank you um thanks it says the storm so commercial industrial it says 6285 per acre each quarter and I'm trying to figure out oh so that's the is that the RF that we're not actually seeing yes yeah so okay they're depending on how this the individual city did it they may have taken that RF and multiplied it by the base rate so if you're looking in a particular community and their base rate was say the $12 and they're asking I can't remember the number you said 62 they might have an RF of like six or seven so the RF ranges here for instance were literally less than one to nine um and ours are hovering around the 2 to four range in the middle there so you can have substantial multipliers on the base rate depending on the community M mayor yes I'll chime in yes so as Lily mentioned that's what happened so the per acre per quarter the RF is already multiplied by the base rate there and then in the Billing System it'll indicate what the acreage is for each property gotcha and then my other question is is it common to have a cost Max cap for the non-residential I wouldn't necessarily say it's common or uncommon it's seen across other communities as well so very dependent on the community and what they would like to do um I've seen communities both with it and without it but I don't have like a overall statistic for the state of Minnesota or anything like that and um it's sometimes not the information I looked at to get these numbers and the values for the other communities didn't necessarily always come from the ordinance sometimes it comes from a fees schedule that wouldn't necessarily show the cost maximum or from direct communication with the city um so sometimes it's difficult for me to know researching this whether or not there is a cost maximum for each Community okay anybody else have questions for Lily no okay thanks for all of the the details and the write up for us yes it's been a while since we talked about it so iture I was like oh yeah I know and if any questions do come up can always reach out and no I think I'm just I'm glad doing this I I know when we did um the analysis when we were looking at what we were going to set for our budget and tax increases that we were able to say that we were we were able to reduce taxes per resident so that then this fee is kind of covering what that reduction was if that makes any sense but then it's also going across the not other um entities that aren't getting um having PID paying property taxes like the churches and the prison and all of that so it it's much more Equitable even though it it's going to feel like it's an extra fee for the residents but it's not is what I'm trying to say because we were able to reduce the the actual property tax by this similar amount the $6 per quarter $24 I think that point is something that could help me a little bit um to get up to speed I paid attention when I was a young as firing city council member a little bit so I know that this is this is something that can ease a burden on a existing property tax payer because of the fees on those that don't yes pay property taxes exactly um is there is there something quantifiable I can share with my neighbors as we yeah Matt you're going to be on the spot here yeah met mayor members of the council we did do a calculation showing that there is a certain point I believe about 96% of the properties would see some actually property tax relief we'll call it um based on was just a few dollars like it wasn't like huge yes right in actually it was inverse um the people with higher property taxes saw bigger savings than the people with lower property taxes um so yeah if if you desire something I can um I think I created a spreadsh sheeet it's a really really long one but um we're actually writing a newsletter article for the next newsletter coming out too it's in Sarah's list so maybe we could just be more DET explanation like what you have given a brief synopsis I think people might get lost with the spreadsheet right and I think it's going to be summarized yeah Madam mayor I believe it's already been in the newsletter we did it in the newsletter and I think I just looked it up to see what she had in the plans for the next one and it did say um new storm water utility so I assume she's going to be writing about it again yeah it'll probably just be a short update Madame mayor and maybe we need to give a little more detail so saying and I know there will be people who are going to be oh yeah thanks for sticking around John um I think do you have anything any opposition to this if you're going to vote okay all right good sounds good um people there will be some properties that are going to see a bill that have not had a bill in the past because they didn't pay they don't pay util right so that will be I just want to make sure they're all well aware of this happening so okay do we want to make a motion or do you have more questions Carl help okay okay I move to approve the amendment to Chapter 58 utilities of Bayport city code of ordinance as presented and summarized for publication thanks Katie I'll second all right thank you Carl and a roll call V uh council member Bliss I council member Hill I mayor Hansen I right thank you that passes and now um you're free to go Li thank you thank you all all right so now we're gonna um consider an amendment to appendix D the fee schedule the Bayport city code of ordinances and summary for publication Matt's going to present this uh thank you madam mayor members of the council um normally on a yearly basis um we try to do it once a year um we do update the fee schedule that is located within in our zone or our uh city ordinance um this year I believe we've already done one of these updates um but had to do another one because there's a few additions uh mostly related to cannabis um charges registration charges r and initial registration um and um storm water um the storm water utilities that we just passed um we did add in a couple of other ones the building department or our building inspector asked us to make some changes to building permit just minor changes at this point um mostly reducing some of the permits that we have related to maintenance um and not making it so cumbersome to have so many and then uh one additional burial um addition um an increase to one and then elimination of another um I don't know if you have questions on them specifically um I wasn't going to run through them all individually um did want to mention that the Cannabis ones are I don't believe are at the max that you can charge um but they're similar to uh what other cities are charging charging okay I have a question about under the building section why does it say permit maintenance what does that even mean so it's a permit for like general maintenance so if you're replacing a window replacing a door doing a garage door um it's replacement of those things so instead of having we used to have permits for one to three windows was one cost and then four and above was another cost um and then now it just got all incorporated into one General permit for those items and so there are other categories under building it's just yeah we need that okay I just seemed weird yeah there's a there's a significant list of other ones on the building yes we just put the ones that have changed on this list so we did have a fee we were supposed to like get a permit or replacing like a storm door storm door I probably not okay it wasn't clear to me so I don't know how that works but no just an exterior door which would be your permanent door right not necessarily storm door no permit need for storm door okay good because I didn't get a permit and I've done that so I had no idea all right except for window and door or for for project it is kind of confusing isn't it um I don't B no that is not per window anymore that is just so if you're if you're not changing the window size of any of your windows that's just one General amount now I I feel like I maybe should have s's in par parentheses after each word or something that's fine we can make that change Windows Doors or garage doors you know what I mean cuz otherwise does sound like it's purr do you think that would fix it I don't know okay that's all I had and you're taking away the winter burial one cuz we do you even do um the same price yeah mayor members of council um we're taking away the winter burial mostly because the person who digs the full casket burials charges the same price winter or summer at this point so that's why we remov the extra for the winter burial okay anyone ready to make a motion I move to approve the amendment of appendix D fee sheet of the Bayport City code of ordinance as presented um and summary for publication do we have to make note of the notes of the changes with the s in parentheses one second okay thank you Katie and Carl roll council member Bliss hi council member Hill hi mayor Hansen hi feels so very empty in here doesn't it okay so we're going to do Council the aison reports um Katie do you want to start yeah um I my first one I went to was Bale um Farmer Market people are meeting they are going to do the design a shirt contest for the banks going to handle it they're going to do a kid one and a adult one and then hopefully sell those shirts at Derby days and their Derby Days themed shirts okay yeah great and then um ice cream social is going off with a hit uh churches are all I think all three churches are involved they're going to do a food drive um some of the members of the churches will help scoop along with hopefully City Council Members so if hopefully everyone's still up for it I think they'll send like a little sign up sheet half hour only to scoop out some ice cream um they are looking for the city to donate some ice cream for the ice cream social really so yeah um cuz Mabel's donate some and the rest decal buas but they're wondering if maybe the city could pay for that part Jill will also be doing the music down there and that's what I have for not herself but she'll hire yeah I think it's she's not that talented that same guy she had at maybe Derby days she was talking to again oh who was during the duck races she had somebody come down I think um and then I also remember she had circus people one year I can't maybe that was two years ago yeah maybe that circus was two years ago or was that last year I don't remember I don't know okay um I also went to um I'm a part of the board for the Anderson parent group and they had a couple questions that I've talked to Matt already about for their bgy Dash who what up at Burker Els and their um field day at the end of the school to see if maybe we had to think about moving it to a different Park but it seems like the park the area that we're at will not be disturbed from the parking lot getting fixed up so we should still be able to have it there and I relayed that to them and they're excited cuz then you got to change all the paperwork saying where it is yeah cuz they just walk from the school so you don't park or yeah it's just parents that come and they're there's enough parking on the street for them so and then I also went to Planning Commission meeting on the eth that the final approval for the school that we approved as well um that there was a couple people that came up about the Prairie which we are still working with the UFM on the right plants and everything to go so I think that's going to be fine um and then the park getting Tak over which I I'm hoping people know that that's when we're here it's not going to we're not going to let that happen when I'm here um and then the sidewalk as well so those were the main concerns um and then I also did hiring of or interviews for Planning Commission so we had two interviews and we hired the dean guy great I sat in on those too wonderful looking forward to meeting him time he's going to be a good fit he has of City backround qualifications yeah yeah excited well nice job you were busy I was busy awesome Carl last weekend spent two days with a bunch probably 300 city council members and Mayors from across the streets a league of Minnesota had their newly elected official leader Institute uh they do one for more experienced people like you to um but uh it was just it's valuable to learn how cities work and and how to do the job we do but super valuable just to meet others who are doing this in similar size towns or bigger towns or much much smaller towns even uh and love getting together with council members from some of our neighboring communities and getting to know some of them that's been probably the most valuable part of of getting started is meeting some of our our neighboring elected officials wonderful attended by first uh meeting of the Lake Elmo airport citizens advisory commission um it's a commission made up of 50% uh representatives from uh cities and and townships around the area and 50% airport users um just a couple of updates worth mentioning there I guess the uh the Lake Elmo uh arrow is installing a new fueling system with the leak detection system which I think our grandkids will thank us for somewhere down the line good uh and then of course for anybody who's aspiring to be a pilot the uh EAA chapter 54 is doing their young Eagles youth flights again in May which is always worth getting a kid up in an airplane yeah wonderful and then the um April meeting I think is the last of my pre-election conflict so I just wanted to I'll miss the next meeting understood thank you Carl okay um in March I had a couple different meetings with Simon um on that Spar Grant the St Paul area Association of realter for the walkability study which is part in his um write up and we're waiting to hear if we got the extra National Association funding from them I'm not sure what the date is that we'll hear back but seemed pretty positive so we'll let you know how that goes and thank you Simon for working on that with us and um I met with Jill because I'm now a new library board liaison and so she taught me a little bit about how the library board works and and my role so we had a separate meeting and then I also went to the actual Library board meeting and her summary in our packets is usually kind of tells us most of what you need to know cuz she pretty much takes what we did there and puts it into our our letter but um it's exciting how that book club that they someone some random resident I believe started the book club with in conjunction with the library and it's it's growing they had to move out of the little room into the big room um she has lots of plans for a spring break so family should be looking online on the calender for all the activities that are going to happen and she also hosted um representative Josiah Hill and our new County Commissioner Bethany Cox at the library so they could learn a little bit about why our library is so important to our community and she has we have two new Services um canopy video streaming and you can also get the New York Times all access subscription all you need is a library card so go on and uh and check that out um I went to Regional councils of Council of Mayor meeting on February 10th and also the Fire Relief Association on that same day um Regional Council of Mayors was just um about we had some futurist there it was really interesting just kind of looking ahead and what we need to be thinking about so I was like again like you said getting together with PE is I was very helpful Fire Relief wasn't nothing too exciting happening at Fire Relief um I did go to a couple of the bur crawl meetings with the local businesses just to help them with their new event and make sure they were you know on track and cuz I had uh I started the summer Bar Crawl um through bcal when I was on that so I thought it could help with that a little bit um leadership in the valley had their education day so that was what we did on the second Thursday of the month and we went to Century College and we went to Still Water Area High School and we each got assigned a different um elementary school or different type of school in the area to go come back and report on so it was really interesting to learn about all the different options that our community has for Education also met with Clayton dumc from sustainable Still Water he asked to meet about the work that they're doing with me Council to install um they're hoping to get solar panels at the water wastewater treatment plant and so wanted to see how we as a community would feel about that and I thought we would probably feel pretty good about that so so if we need he he was just looking for support and and maybe might be sending us something where we would like say a letter of support or some Proclamation or something I'm not sure and just kind of talked about other ways that their group could maybe connect with our community and because they don't want to be known as just sustainable just still water like it they want it to affect the entire Valley so working on that um Matt and I had the meeting with the partners with the for the fire Advisory Group and that was on the 19th and I think everything went really well we're all kind of on board with doing some more meetings that we're supposed to be doing so we can stay in touch and kind of keep things rolling so that we can renew uh or create a new contract probably eventually with some some different um criteria in it but we'll all have to it was uh interesting then we also met with um the newly elected Baytown chair and vice chair and went over a little bit about our fire advisory uh team and how we're probably Matt said will probably take us a couple years before we kind of come to a conclusion about it and she said are you kidding let's just lock ourselves in a room and figure this out you know so she it was very interesting um yeah so it was good we got to get to know them Nicole doll and who's actually related to John it's her brother-in-law and she's the chair now of the Baytown board and CJ Randazzo who we've met through um Rick fosi when he comes to do those so he's the vice chair um so they had just some questions about you know our relationship between the city and the townships and you know things that we have in common the annexation that's going on and just able to kind of get up to speed with them and seeing how we can already how we already work together well and what we can do to partner on things again in the future so um they're doing a great job getting everything kind of digging in and learning more there um I went to a was called the greater MSP partnership this was through the Regional Council of Mayors their president came and spoke to us and they um their mission is I'll read it to accelerate Regional competitiveness and inclusive economic growth so it's like kind of like a chamber but more about economic growth instead of like the actual businesses and so they had an event that they invited the Mayors to and I invited our new commissioner bethan Cox to because Washington County contributes $50,000 a year to this partnership and then they're trying their goal is to bring Economic Development you know if someone wants a new business and they're not thinking about Minnesota or the greater MSP their job to kind of go out there and try to get those people so we just wanted to know what are they doing for Washington County and I'm still not sure that it's clear but I'm going to keep meeting with people to understand that Anderson Corporation is also also contributes to them and Excel so I thought kind of interesting that they all feel like it's a valuable thing so I'm wondering what they're actually doing for us and and if there's more we could have done um and I met with Mary Richie she's with the Stillwater Community Foundation to keep uh continue my pursuit of the best way to come up with a an endowment a way that people could like give endowments to the city if they want and I think I'm finally getting close to that so and then I also had a meeting with Eliz Eliza excuse me klebeck from She's the VP of communications and Community from Anderson Corporation and I just think it's good for us to stay connected and kind of update each other on what's happening with them and what's happening with us so just kind of keeping those lines of communication open so we just had coffee and told her about what's going on with our school and the annexations and things like that and um she's going to try to to hook us up with she's going to plan a tour cuz I haven't been there for a while and maybe meet the CEO and then I would invite you guys when we get that scheduled so that was my month of March or February I guess so now we're on to staff and City administrator reports thank you madam mayor uh fire chief eisinger Madame mayor council members uh for February the call volume was 78 compared to 78 2024 I couldn't believe it when I did the pre this morning I know I was I had a error in the one I it says 100 okay so uh but our year to date volume is 205 compared to 178 for last year monthly drills are fire Behavior Fire officer right to know Hazmat uh which by the way we did have two hazmats last two days one down here at the Holiday Station and then a semi that turned over today so going through that um we had uh washing County Hazmat training some of us attended our Cirrus training for active shooter in Woodbury we attended fire Advisory Board as the mayor mentioned our Fire officer class continues we have one this Wednesday and one next Wednesday our anniversaries are Aaron Pritchard with 15 years Ray Valley with 15 years Kyle peler with six years uh upcoming events uh some more serus training uh the township annual meetings and the Fire officer class with that I stand for questions so the actual call volume for February was 78 78 y I had it was 78 last year okay so both of those numbers were wrong okay sorry that's okay I went and updated cuz Sarah asked for it well I had placeholders and I forgot to update the that's okay it happened all right thank you for clarifying that thanks for coming uh police chief Jackson Madam mayor council members uh somewhat of a couple of announcements um officer lowski did a meet and greet at the bar crawl she stopped by there for a little bit said hi to a couple of folks uh Officer Nick tesy is hit his 5-year full-time anniversary with us so thank him for his service if you should run into him uh officer lowski also did a uh couple of Tours for three kindergarten classes of our Police Department uh this past week and we did sign on to the uh Bal ice cream social June 4th we're going to have a presence down there for that okay um and then the big announcement is safety Camp July 14th and 15th we did did change the date this year um just to be a little bit easier on staff members it's a lot when we do it combined with um night night which is August 5th this this year so uh we're kind of starting the planning process with that um but hopefully with the uh date change that'll make it a little bit nicer for staff so I will stand for any questions so you guys moved it to the night of city council yes that way I only have a long day the rest of the staff yeah like it's not helping you Jay okay all right thank you any questions thank you uh public direct Works director worth uh Madam mayor members of the council uh for the month of February um snow plowing and cold temperatures and painting was the name of the game at uh at our public Workshop um couple of things that we're are kind of exciting here for the future uh the 3M P settlement priority 2 grant program was released and uh the city intends to uh submit a letter of intent for a project there is $20 million available for um that has been allocated to supporting projects that res restore aquatic resources wildlife habitats and outdoor recreational opportunities in affected areas um we are looking at the lwp property um which is land water Legacy program um along the river um potentially looking at um adding a a park and a boat landing um so it's pretty very exciting um we'll be putting that to letter together and submitting that by April 4th uh the other thing was The Spar community's um application update that is uh Spar uh as mayor Hansen indicated is the St Paul area Association of Realtors they have a grant that they have uh they have money available for communities in order to essentially make the neighborhoods more salable to uh real realter and we decided to take advantage of that by trying to do a walkability study and we reached out to the contractor who takes care of um fixing our sidewalks by smoothing out the cracks and it's all called safestep LLC um they had never done one of these walkability studies before but they are very confident that they are able to do something um since it's kind of a a niche that they're in already um we will well we've talked through that with them um it sounds like a really fun project for the city for the safe step and um Spar seemed on board with it they did seem positive and in the sense that we're hopefully going to get that Grant um almost in the amount of $155,000 so um walkability is a big buzzword these days and uh really aiming to just get an idea of what our walking trails and pedestrian uh sidewalks look like and if there are any gaps in those in that system that we can fill to make aort more walkable um that's that's the aim of that project so um other than that with that I stand for questions all right thank you Simon Okay does anyone have any what oh yeah you I forgot about you go ahead Matt I get to fill in for two people Sarah's out SI tonight unfortunately like oh we're done um she did Dev on her um report Communications the new website uh is progressing um we're getting a fair amount of content on there um looking at potentially online payments for a number of different excuse me a number of different items um also finish up tonight the workshop for 2025 City goals and priorities um the council went through and identified areas where um they want to prioritize on the goals um and um made suggestions for other ones um far as the city administrator report um obviously tonight we finished up the elementary school with the final plat um intent there is I believe they are fencing off the area tomorrow um of the parking lot area um and the um kind of the perimeter that goes um between the two properties essentially so they will not start just a heads up they will not start tearing apart the um our parking lot tomorrow so you will still be able to park there in the short term and there will be an opening in the fence to use like the Pavilion and different stuff um but when construction comes they want to get the fence in place so they could start moving immediately on construction um or removals actually um which will be coming probably in the next week or two so okay question there I was waiting for the right time that's something as as this stuff expenses go up as parking lots get ripped up I don't think we can communicate too much yeah it'll be Stark here for a little bit uh well construction get started and it'll take a little getting used to but yep and um the intent would be to um probably here after final pla out passed um um if Sarah's in tomorrow I'll have her do an email blast just on the short term schedule that we know um we have been in contact with the uh both the vaa uh St gr Valley Athletic Authority and the um St FR prep regarding ball field use um and then obviously Anderson uh parent group who is been talking about using the field but um yes there's been up until the schedule that came out last week we haven't had too much of a schedule that we knew about so okay um the mayor mentioned that fire advisory meeting I believe that went well and hopefully we'll be uh moving forward with um um getting another uh negotiation going um I already talked about preconstruction preconstruction planning for the elementary school um so with that I will stand for questions okay now we're really done unless someone has an announcement okay anyone I move to adjourn the meeting second all right all in favor all right all right we're done thank you all thank you quiet me for