[Music] It's 45. Call this meeting to order. Everyone, please stand for the pledge of allegiance. >> I 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 liberty and justice for all. All right. First thing, approve city agenda. Um, I move to or I'd like to amend the agenda by removing number one in city business action items. What? Yep. That one. >> Fine with me. >> Any other amendments? Um, why don't we add an item to authorize the posting of the city administrator job? Either replace that one or add it somewhere or other on the agenda. So, you just want to amend number one to authorize posting city administrator. >> You're just going to strike and replace. Let's strike and replace that and replace. Are you doing the minutes, Alan? Uh, if you want to do them, I will stop if Yeah, that's that's fine. We don't we don't need two competing minutes. >> Well, I'd rather have you concentrate on the business at hand. >> What would you like to title the uh subject? Um, authorize city staff to post city administrator job opening. >> Any other edits? >> I'm just going to caption it just so it matches the rest as discussion of. So that's fine. >> So we'll see what comes of it as a business item. >> I move to approve the agenda as amended. >> Second. >> And in favor? >> All in favor? >> I >> I >> motion passes. >> All right. Open public forum. >> Anything Barton? Um well I can just say a little bit about um say >> you want to just announce who you are. >> Barton Winter uh Birwood Five Oaks Lane. >> Thank you. And uh I saw in the agenda that there was something or no this was a a public notice about looking for someone with a u spray washer uh some kind of capability with um air compressor possibly. So anyway, I'm uh I just want to say that I'm I'm certainly interested in the painting part of it and uh I I did make initial contact with an individual who whose specialty is painting uh tennis courts and basketball courts and some hockey rinks. So, but uh anyway, I I have mentioned that to the parks committee and I don't know what the time frame is exactly about getting funding for that and whether we have um uh funds set aside at this time or whether we have to vote on that and are we going to vote on that tonight or we did mention that in the U parks committee meeting maybe one or two times ago that was going to be about $500. That would be for one coat. The center 15 the crown part of the rink. So anyway, I'm I'm certainly um wanting to give you any guidance that I can see, but it the material is called acrylic resurfacer, and it's a especially heavier paint, so it should cover up all the um aggregate that we have, which we have quite a bit of heavy aggregate on the in the asphalt there. Make a a perfectly smooth surface. So that's the intent. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Barton. Thank you, Barton. >> Thanks. All right, announcements. We're looking for someone to power wash the hockey rink. So, if anybody in the community has a power washer, uh >> Well, Alan, you volunteered yours, didn't you? >> Oh, yeah. At the sometime during the last meeting, I mentioned having one at my disposal. And so, if no one from the community shows up, I'll be bringing it by. And I assume that I can leave with Jim or with Kathy. I don't think there were people rushing to >> We didn't get a huge >> since Thursday. >> Inbox is flooded. >> Right. >> All right. On to presentations. We have County Attorney Kevin Magnus. He's going to do a presentation on crime trends. >> Well, thank you so much for Do you want me to talk? >> All right. Is this working? All right. Good. Well, thanks a lot. Um, and I won't take up too much of your time. I just wanted to introduce myself and talk about a few things that um, you know, are happening, the way our office is set up, what we're doing, maybe some of the crime trends that we're seeing. Um, I have to say that it's good to see uh, Alan Cantrude here. It's been a while. Um, and you're in good hands with Allan, that's for sure. So, um, I'm, uh, from Lake Alma. I'm living in Lake Alma. I'm living um, in the same house that I grew up in. Um, and it's from 1889. My father sold it to me as is. >> Is there any other way? >> A lot of this stuff is still there. Um it's held together by um um you know spackle and and wallpaper essentially. So u I know my wife's had a bad day when there's a real estate agent in the driveway. You know it's one of those kind of places, but it's home. Um I'm a wife and I have a 13-year-old daughter and a 5-year-old son. Um and back to school time is always a fun time. So, um, originally, uh, I went to, um, Lake El Elementary, then at a Minihaha Academy for junior high in high school, college in Chicago, then, um, um, I was in the military. I was stationed in Germany um, at the very end of the first Gulf War. Um, I was sent there, my unit was there, but by the time I got there, the ground war was over because it was pretty short, which I was fine with. And then when I got out, I was in a graduate work and I was doing a PhD in philosophy um at uh a German university and then a Belgian university and I end up graduating with what they call a senseiat essentially a master's degree in philosophy. And then what do you do when you have a philosophy degree uh and you don't want to, you know, have a Santa suit as your uniform to make to make money? You um go to law school. So, I went to the University of Minnesota and I went back to Europe, took some classes there and my first job out of law school was at the European Commission in their essentially their antitrust um enforcement division. It's like DOJ kind of thing. Um wound up back, you know, took the umbilical express back home like so many of us and wound up back in the Twin Cities where I was in private practice for 20 years doing complex business litigation. I don't know how many of you know my predecessor, Pete Orput. Does the name sound familiar? I miss him like crazy. He's such a phenomenal person. He uh he talked me into joining the office. Then uh he talked me into succeeding him or at least running to succeed him for the county attorney when he retired. The thing is is that he managed to talk my wife into it who was wondering why being widowed for seven months with an infant was a good idea. Somehow Pete did it. And then uh after he announced his retirement and endorsed me um you know he found out he had cancer and died 10 days later. It was tragic. And if you haven't if you don't know Pete, all I can say is I think you're worse off for it. He was just an amazing amazing person. And he left me an office, you know, that was in in in really good shape. A lot's happened since then. It it uh it's it's quite different, believe it or not. And you know, in the three years um that I've been the county attorney. Um, but I think uh, you know, I think I've honored the spirit of it, the values that are there, and I think we're moving and growing in a direction that Pete would have been proud of. Right now, we have, uh, 61 and a half employees. Half, it doesn't mean a a short person, it a half-time person, but um, um, so it's about split between um, attorneys and staff. So, we have about 31 and a half attorneys somewhere in there. And we have five law clerks, too. Um, so our criminal division, um, you know, I don't want to sound at all glib, um, or, you know, or make this sound easy, but it's, I mean, for me, it's it's it's simple, at least in in in principle, that my paramount concern is public safety. a lot of other interests that you know that we balance in the pursuit of justice but public safety is paramount and that's because you know and I'll talk a little bit about this but I believe in working you know to rehabilitate and help those people that you can I just don't believe in shifting the burden of doing that onto the community out of you know a secure environment I think there's some folks um who you know really see the benefit and I understand that of of working, you know, to help defendants and help them, you know, get on the right path, but I just get um just absolutely do not support the idea that that the neighbors of that person should bear the risk that goes along with trying to rehabilitate someone. Uh but we do, you know, tremendous amount of diversion, circle of justice. There's a lot of other things that we do. Um we're and I have to say the prosecutors in my office are great. Um, it's not about notching, you know, putting notches in your belt or posting the heads on spikes outside the office. You know, we do we try to do the right thing the right time, you know, all the time. Just trying to make sure that the justice is done. nobody gets uh is punished too severely, too leniently, and that whatever options we can to uh work with the victims and help them as well as um you know try to um deter and um rehabilitate as well. So you can see in the office we have about 1,400 referrals from law enforcement a year. Um, we don't investigate cases. They come to us um from law enforcement. So, someone calls me and says, "Hey, someone's stealing money." I say, "Well, go talk to the, you know, your local policeman or, you know, police person um or the sheriff or whatever." Um, and then when they give us a referral, you know, after it's been investigated, they refer it. They refer charges um to us and then we look to see if that's something we can prosecute or not. we have a pretty high um uh rate of of charging the cases that are referred. So out of the 1,400 we charge about 1,200. So that's uh like 85% charge rate. And you know there's a lot of reasons that you might not choose to to to charge a case. you know, um, insufficient evidence, um, you know, the procedural errors by law enforcement, un unavailability of a victim or uncooperative victims or witnesses. You know, there might be a policy um based decision based on um, which jurisdiction could have the best result, whether it should be federal, whether it should be our city or some other city that may have very similar um, charges cases. And then you know sometimes that will you you'll do a plea deal where I may um dismiss account in exchange for two guilty pleas for the same thing in another jurisdiction knowing that it doesn't decrease the amount of time the person gets and it gives you two secure you know certain convictions rather than two trials where something might go wrong. Um so there's considerations like that. And I think a lot of people don't necessarily um think about that. Um but you know most of the stuff we get we charge and um um we have a a very strong relationship with law enforcement. You know I think the fact that it hasn't grown more because you know I think they're I think they're doing um you know a lot of work. the fact that they've stayed level has a lot to do with the success uh of and the and the skill um with which our prosecu or our um our law enforcement investigate the cases. So, particular Dan Star and I um sad to see the him retiring, but we've developed a very good relationship and I did not know um that it can be kind of unique for a county attorney and a county sheriff to to work as closely as we do. I think it's something maybe has to do with giant egos. I don't know someplace and uh but um we're fortunate in Washington County that we have got very um ethical, capable law enforcement across the board. Makes our job a lot easier. Talk a little bit about crime trends here. I'm just going to highlight um you know the the the 20 and 21 case load. You can see and let's see if I can get this thing to work but That's not showing up on there, is it? Um, in any case, you can see that um, you know, autotheft related, and that's that's every kind of autotheft. Um, you know, it was, I mean, pretty high in 2018. 55 was kind of low, but then when the pandemic hit, you know, obviously we all know about this, it really jumped. And so you can see in in 2021 there were 93 of those cases charged. Um we've we've made progress in in getting it down. You know uh it's still way too high. You know 46 47 is still too high but um it's trending in the right direction. Also with criminal sexual conduct um there was a um a slight bump in 2021 that may have been related to um COVID lockdown other things. Uh but for the most part the the causes um for each case, you know, vary and it's not as much of a of of an opportunity situation like like some of the autotheft and and uh burglary kind of crimes are homicides. Um you know, there was a time not that long ago when we averaged about one a year, but um you know, I guess we're growing with the times unfortunately. So um you know now four, five, six, seven is probably the the the uh number of cases we'll get in a year. Autotheft. So this is um the uh picture of ignition after someone took the Kia Kia challenge. And um so here you can see someone removes the cover on the steering column. there is a gap in the ignition um system that um or the you know the key the the key connects the circuit but you can wedge um something the size of a thumb drive in there and that'll complete the circuit and start the car that way. Um so um we saw theft but but one of the things that that that is I think is really interesting um is that you know when I was young you know I think the the entry level crimes were shoplifting and smoking a bunch of dope and you know and that kind of thing and then things kind of got worse. Now it's joy riditing. I mean joy riditing is a serious problem and every a lot of people are talking about it. Jail riding happens because and and it happens with young kids because someone will steal a car and they got to get all their friends in, right? And they'll drive around and they'll commit crimes because that's what you do in a stolen car apparently. And and then the kid who's invited along for the first time is going to be sort of encouraged to, you know, shoplift or do whatever they're doing. And then next thing you know, that person wants to try stealing the car as well. and the cycle repeats and that is something that I think we've seen um as a relatively new phenomenon um probably over the last you know five years it's definitely exacerbated in co what's also driving a lot of this stuff is social media you know when you when when someone's sitting around in in co and they're not you know they're not going to school I I don't know about you but I mean at the time my wife and mother-in-law and I were trying to get a nine-year-old to do online learning it I mean the three of us had our hands you know, she'd flop around and refuse to do it and, you know, eventually get her there. So, imagine if you're a kid without a whole lot of structure um at home and then you're missing whatever structure you had at school and now all of a sudden you're on the street with a $700 iPhone and nothing to do. What these kids are doing is watching other videos on Tic Tac or whatever and they're watching crimes being committed. And so, we started to see the phenomena, these like sort of flash crimes. You know, for a while we'd see the smash and grabs at department stores. That's cuz somebody saw it in in Los Angeles, you know, or um you know, with the with the autotheft. That's a big driver of some of that stuff. Um I will say that um you know, Woodberry's got the flock cameras, the license plate readers, automatic license plate readers. Um and they've been really effective in locating a lot of these cars. Um Cottage Grove and Forest Lake are in the process of of getting their permits approved. Um, you know, there's things to be careful of when instituting that sort of thing, like everything, but we're finding that it is a pretty significant aid to locating um vehicles that are wanted for whatever reason. So, this is a statistic um or a chart that just is still the thing that um you just blows me away and has me very concerned. So in 2018, you're looking at 35 adult fleeing cases, fleeing from from a police officer in a motor vehicle. 2022 was up to 111. And there are a lot of reasons for that and we can talk about that. But you know that fact is that something happened in our culture that allowed that to happen. um some kind of some motivators that that were um contributing to that. You know, in 2024 um we're down to 75 and that's still way way too much. And um we're still trending down, but it is still, you know, a phenomena that we're seeing. And it's dangerous. It's really dangerous. It's dangerous to law enforcement and it's, you know, it's dangerous to to uh folks in the area. So, our sex trafficking uh east. So, that is the worst acronym ever be before my time, but it's the East Metro Human Trafficking Task Force. And um Pete started it, my predecessor, around 2015, 2016 with uh with, you know, with law enforcement. And um it's we're really fortunate to have it because by having this task force in, you know, the the the Washington County area, that local presence makes a huge difference. If we didn't have it and we just partnered with BCA, um the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension or something like that, you know, we'd be focused on Minneapolis St. Paul with maybe some effects in in in in this area in the east metro. But because we have a wellestablished force here, it does make a big difference. Uh, one of the things that I focused on is um, runaway kids. Um, you know, there was a time when somebody ran away, you went to the Greyhound bus station to look for them. Now it's all social media. These kids often if they run away, they've already met somebody online and often they have no idea who that person is or it's not the person that they say it is. Um we our task force has got un you know unique capabilities in terms of equipment software. We can get into phones. Uh we we're really good at getting the warrants from um cell you know phone providers so you can get location data all that kind of stuff pretty quickly. And so what ends up happening is now that we're putting the word out that tell us about your runaway situations is they'll contact um the trafficking task force and we can get in there early enough and try to locate the the runaway kid um pretty quickly because you know the amount of time you have to get there before that person is um you know more susceptible to just going that down that path in life um is fairly short. We had a case in in 2024 where um a grandmother of a 14-year-old girl in Cottage Grove called Cottage Grove police who contacted the the trafficking task force. They were able to she was using a a um communication called Text Now. It's an app. It's like Snapchat. These there's tons of different apps out there. They're changing all the time. You can't keep up with it. Um but that's a different issue about what to do with kids and phones. But they were able to um um they were able to get the location data from um her phone even though they didn't have it. They were able to get subpoenas, track the phone, and they found out that um she was likely to be at Boyd's Motel in Newport. So they went there and they found this the girl alone in a room wearing lingerie. She had been there for several days and had been sexually assaulted by the man. Um by using her phone they were able to get the man to come back to the to the motel where they arrested him. Um he was charged with firstdegree criminal sexual conduct and received uh 100 months um in jail and will re register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. And that's one thing I'd like to point out um that you know you want to see a person like that taken off the street but at some point they're going to get out. And so sometimes what I'm thinking about is what charge is most likely to get the person u um to require as a as to register as a sex offender. That has long-term consequences. And so, you know, it that may not always be, you know, the same the same process with different um charges. And so things like that play a role in deciding what we're going to charge or if we're going to do a plea deal. You know, if one of the things we can get as a result of a a guilty plea that's certain, it's adequate time, but also um that registration. So we do the sting operations. Been doing them for a while. They're really successful. you know, the um sex trafficking is it's kind of like dandelions, you know, um they're there when you spray them, they're gone, but the moment you stop spraying them, you lawn's full of them again. And that's really what what the sex trafficking is like. Um they um these are all individuals that were um darkened our door at some point and spent some time in the the Greystone College as it were and and um I had to blur the faces out because I gave one of these presentations and someone came out afterwards and said that's my ex-husband and I thought maybe we should we don't want to retraumatize anyone. Um but any case um what we're doing in these sting operations is we have an investigator who's posing as a um uh as a juvenile as underage. And so you know we're end up charging someone not just with um soliciting for sex but it's soliciting sex from a minor. And uh you know um those are the kind of situations obviously we want to get. We're also spending more and more time um trying and it's a lot of work trying to get on the dark web and other places that aren't as accessible um and looking for people who are out purposely trying to find minors. Um a lot of these guys will get caught up and they'll they you know they'll be told the minor and they don't care and that's a problem and they'll be arrested and charged. But um you know the the people that are sort of you know if you get one every two or three years but it's a real predator who's out there you know looking for um young kids. Um you know that's a huge win. And we've got the ability to to do some of that. Um we also do recovery operations. Um so this is the same girl and um eight different shots. Now this is not um someone that that we encountered. This is actually from some um material that's from a national organization that I'm using here to kind of show the um make make the point that this is just such a horribly damaging life and um you know no one goes into this for this life obviously but between you know the drug addiction and the control that are sort of developed um you know it gets to be an incredibly difficult life to lead. And when people ask me what they can do, you know, what area do I think that people outside of law enforcement can have the most impact, I think it really is on the recovery side. There just aren't a lot of places that that where you spend an hour with someone after, you know, they're they come in thinking that they're um they they've got a job that someone is going to pay. Um and uh um and then they end up meeting a social workers and law enforcement, everything else. They take the phone, try to figure out if they can see who, you know, who what contact she has, but they're also spending a lot of time just trying to to do the recovery. And oftentimes they're successful for a little bit of time. And one of the problems is, you know, where do they go? And there are a couple shelters out there that'll take them, but you know, it's kind of hard to leave a world for the uncertainty of that. Now, there's a place that's just about to open, Corey's house in uh Oakdale, that I'm a big fan of. Um it it was a it was a real estate person and some others just got together and um they bought a a a really really nice built I think a really nice house in a upper middle class neighborhood in in Oakdale. You would never know that it's a I mean a group home and I probably told the neighbors after they they bought it. But, you know, it'll have half a dozen or I think maybe even a little more kids in a group home environment that is just like, you know, the equivalent of Ward and June Cleaver in in 2025. And I think that's important because then there's a a view of life, you know, outside that world maybe reflects back to the life that they had at some point. Um, and uh and and then there's has to be so much handholding and help to get to get people through. But the successes are amazing when you when you have um I'll just talk just briefly about juvenile prosecution. Um again, public safety is the number one priority. Um my um um the criminal the juvenile division head has been you know in this business for 17 years. Phenomenal person named Tony Droy. And he's the one who's been preaching that since my first day before I was in county attorney when I was just working there. like you got to think about public safety. Try to help these kids as much as you can. Public safety is your number one responsibility. And um you know most of the cases that we review um are cases where a kid did something stupid and it happened to also be an offense. And so I believe very strongly in holding that person accountable. But, you know, you want to use the the, you know, the right size hammer for the right size nail. And and you don't want to overcharge. And if you can keep a felony or something else off a off a kid's record, it's important to do so. And the vast majority of kids that come through the system that commit crimes like that, go through diversion, and they complete whatever um anger management, you know, can help with their truency, chemical dependency, mental health issues, whatever. when they get out, we never see them again. I mean, that's the vast majority. Um, you know, I think there's only less than 10% of the juveniles have um have um we sought to certify as an adult. And I would say every year it seems like there's like 10 cases, 10 individuals that and often it's many many different related cases that take up most of my time. And those kids um are in serious trouble. I mean, they've you look back as far as you can in their record. So, when they're eight, nine, 10, you know, often there's already a gun involved, you know, um um as soon as they're in double digits in some of those cases. And um you know, and they're just in juvenile detention, secured, whatever, they get out instantly, they're right back in the same situation. And that's it's just a tough tough thing to deal with. Um but that is not the norm. Again, mo u juvenile trends. I just want to point out the motor vehicle theft. We had a designated um prosecutor just for juvenile um motor theft during the co because there was so much of it and we needed someone who could keep their finger on it um because it was such a trend and it was so different than what um people had been experiencing. Um but you know when you're when you're going when you have um a spike um like that um you know that's definitely co happy to talk about that if you'd like. I don't want to take up too much. I'm just wrapping up here. Um but um carjacking was a big deal obviously and carjacking became its own law in 2023. Now, we had not had an adult or a juvenile carjacking since 2023 until recently. And a couple months ago, we had our first one. someone at 3:25 in the morning um ordered an Uber from one of the larger health club chain and um and then the the Uber driver drove this individual to within a block of his home where then he threatened the individual, tried to take his cell phone, threatened him with a knife. The driver got away and ran. And so now you've got a um a guy I think who just wanted to take the cell phone and get out of the car, you know, get a free ride is now stuck with a vehicle and as the police are coming and so he takes off on aund and some mile an hour chase um you know into Wisconsin um where he's arrested there with some stop sticks and now he's going through the process here. Um, you know, again, that doesn't sound like the kind of um carjacking that that is kind of popularized in media and and and um in a lot of the stories we hear. Um, I do take some comfort in this is the only one that that we've had now uh in a couple years. And I'm just hoping that that continues. So, this is um this is a car that crashed uh in Woodbury, I believe. Um it was a pit maneuver. You can see the squad behind the car that pinned him up against the tree. Um that juvenile has got a gun in his right hand and a phone in his left hand. Um and he's being pursued um by an officer. Um he was caught charged and um his his trial um is pending. I'll just really briefly um talk about the civil division. That's where I worked when I um was you know an assistant. It's kind of the junk drawer of the the attorney's office. Um, we do a little bit of everything. Allan knows all about this. Um, but it it's probably other than keeping your the streets safe and it's it's what affects most people the most and they don't really think about it. I mean, all the contracts for the county are reviewed there. Um, all the child support collection comes out of there. you know, your tax appeals, um, you know, guardianships, civil commitments, uh, which has been an issue. I could do an an entire presentation on that. All the data practices stuff, you know, to make sure that the public right to know and they're getting the information, um, that they're entitled to, you know, we do a lot of that work. Also, the expungements is an important thing. So, um, I just want to, um, give a shout out to the to the civil the unsung heroes of the, uh, the county attorney's office. With that, if there are any questions, I know I've taken a little bit longer than I anticipated, but I I hope that was worth the worth the ride, as it were. >> I have a few questions. Thank you for coming in. Um, you know, >> pleasure. >> Yeah, it's really it's we appreciate it. It's nice to just get a little just your thoughts when we're not and sometimes, you know, we meet the sheriff for people when they're having some sort of an emergency and it's nice just to have you come in and just give us some information. So, >> it's great to meet you as well. >> I just um have there been any changes in the county's policy or stance toward federal immigration issues in the past eight or nine months? >> And um this is something they've talked about at the county. Dianari, you know, has talked about it. I mean, that's a federal issue. >> Um, we obviously don't want to interfere. Um, um, you know, we'll within within our mandate do what we need to do, but, um, you know, we're not immigration enforcement officials. Um, so it hasn't been an issue. We haven't had, you know, um, a lot of people or, you know, we don't have federal agents, you know, trying to have us detain someone on an immigration detainer, um, where that starts to become an issue. We haven't had that situation yet, but, uh, I know Dan Star well enough to know that he understands that county sheriff does its job and the federal immigration folks do theirs and we should probably keep it that way. >> Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you. Well, >> thanks for coming in. Appreciate it. >> It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me. >> Thank you very much. >> All right. Next thing on the agenda, the WCSO monthly newsletter. >> It's just in the packet. >> Just in the packet. >> Just in the packet. Yeah. >> All right. >> Don't know that we need to do anything on >> and then Chris has some updates on the website. >> I'm coming. >> It's alive. >> It's a small town. We have >> I love it. >> Multi- multi-talented people. Um, so I don't know if you guys have noticed, there's been a lot of changes on the website. Um, I'm currently fixing some of the the nonupate pages and there's some pages that was kind of doubled at the same time. So, I'm kind of cleaning it up and making it very user friendly. I've I've been hearing some good things of the changes. I'm still waiting on some feedback from, you know, see what people are seeing. Um, that's kind of the only update. You guys have any questions? >> I I would say I noticed that there's different file formats for some stuff. So, some meeting minutes will be in a word file, some meeting minutes will be in a PDF. >> Yes. >> So, is it >> Can we just make sure that they're all uniform? >> Yes. Um, that was actually that was there when I started converting everything to PDFs. >> Okay. >> Because at least for me, they're easier to read online instead of having to download them. >> So, I mean, if >> whoever's doing the meeting minutes, if I you guys could send them to me as a PDF, that'd be great, but otherwise, I've just been converting them to PDFs myself. >> The other thing, not not to nitpick, but um the the naming convention is different for everything. So, all the documents have a different >> Yes. naming convention. So, I don't care what what naming convention you pick. Just let's just do one naming convention for all documents. >> Yeah, that's that's kind of my next um project is to see what would it what was the naming convention if there was one and going to try to keep everything the same so it's easy to easier to search. >> Yep. And and Chris, I know Ryan and I spent some time looking at the website. I think Bridget, you were on the website committee for a while, weren't you? >> Long time ago. >> Long time ago, maybe. But I mean, I think >> there was a page for the website committee. >> I'm not sure that I know there. Anyway, I won't go into that too much, but I mean I think we're happy to talk to you. Any of us are if if you're if you have an issue or something, you know, so or if if you need a little help because I kind of I'm not a website. I'm always the wrong kind of engineer apparently for everything, right? >> But but like I think we can kind of work through stuff, you know? I know you're kind of learning how and I think this is working out well for us, but if you need a little help with stuff, I can probably help you out, too. So, >> I know I've been experiment experimenting with some plugins to see what would work well for file management. Okay. >> I think I've landed on something, but I got to do some more research. >> Um, but yeah, it's it's there's a lot of work to do, >> but it's it's getting there. >> Yeah, it's looking good. >> It is. if if we have thoughts and ideas about what we'd like to see on the website. I know you're fixing it right now, but is it okay if we just send them on to you? >> Of course. If you guys have any suggestions, send them my way and then I can I can if it's possible to get them on there, I'll do it. If it's if it's not, I'll let let you guys know. But I'm always open to suggestions. >> That's great. And then um secondly, I know Alan Mitchell has said for many years that there are issues with the website at point in time, could we reach out to him >> and see what is on his list? And if we fixed >> Yes. >> what's on his list, that would be great. And then the third thing, when we think that it's in pretty good shape, would it be possible to ask the community to review it and give you any thoughts, ideas, or fixes that they might see? >> Absolutely. >> Okay. We don't want to do that yet. We want you to, but let us know when that's a good time to do that. >> Yeah, for sure. Thanks. >> My question for you guys is when it comes to the files, how far back do we want to have that on the website? Like we want to have everything on the website or >> what's the what's the record retention schedule, Alan? >> It probably varies depending on which data you're actually talking about. So, some records have to be kept. Um, are you talking specifically about things like agendas and minutes and and meetings, that sort of thing? >> Yes. >> I'm not sure if we have a retention schedule for those specifically. Probably definitely don't for anything posted on the website actually as a scheduled here's what we have. >> Many cities will go back at least 5 years, you know, maybe longer. I was just going to say if we if there was some sort of record >> I mean there is it's basically agendas are kept forever but not necessarily on your website just available. >> I was going to say if there's some date that's set by a record retention schedule we should just use that but if it's a forever thing then it's >> well some are like I said I mean you've got your resolution books and your ordinances you know those things are kept at least in paper in in the in the file so to speak but as far as posted to the website you know it gets a little cumbersome. >> Yep. at a certain point. >> Is there a way to archive? >> I'm currently working on that. I'm hoping to be able to have everything archived, but to have everything showing neatly, I could go back >> I could have like the agendas and meeting minutes back five years. >> I I I'm real hesitant to get rid of I use that stuff all the time, often going back >> quite a number of years. Like for example, I was just looking for the water superintendent contract and it was from 2013. And so it's important I think to me to have that stuff available. It doesn't need to h be available as it is now with kind of with everything else. But just to keep that stuff online is I think >> I mean we have no shortage of contracts that are many years old. So >> you know >> should we have policy? We've got them all. Just whether or not they're on the on the website. >> Sorry. >> Oh, should we have a policy or a write up about what we keep on the on the website? Seems like we should. >> We should. >> Well, yeah. I agree. I think there should be I'm just throwing random numbers out five years of agendas with everything else being archived. Some sort of archive, you know, repo where we house that stuff. That can be online as well. >> Yeah. just not fancy when you look at it on >> out there front facing. Yeah. And it might make a good subject once it's an agenda item, you know, and then we can everyone can be here to talk about it. So, and the public can come in and say, hey, you know, much like Mr. Henkins, you know, hey, I go back all the time and look for something that might be longer than 5 years old. >> Do you know, Ryan, how to archive stuff like that, or could you um because I don't necessarily know other than by doing it by hand. how I would go through our website and archive that stuff off. Maybe we can touch on that offline or something. >> We can look at it. right now when I've been looking at other cities of how they archive all their stuff and I've been asking around from I've got a few friends who also work at other cities and they're asking around of how they manage their archiving because they have all their agendas in this I don't know how to explain it's its own little archive um plugin. So if I can figure out what the um that plugin is and be able to get get everything in there then it's then having everything archived going. >> Yep. >> So >> then it's a discussion for >> seems like it solves that problem. Then >> are you interested in working in city administration? >> Is there more to it? >> I'm just teasing you. >> I'm just teasing you. So >> Well, it's work that's been needed for so long. We're so glad you're doing it. Thank you. >> No problem. and then we'll have a discussion about policy. >> Oh yeah, that sounds sounds good. In fact, let's do that at a workshop. Um Ryan, you might I just out of my depth on it a little bit, but Ryan, you might know better, have some ideas. >> Yeah, we can. I think >> Okay, >> the workshop's probably the best venue for that discussion. Anything else, Chris? >> That's all I got for you guys. >> Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. >> All right. Next up, city business and action items. Item number one, discussion on authorizing the posting of the city administrator. So, I can make a motion if there's no discussion. Okay. >> No discussion here. >> Yeah. I move to authorize staff to post the city administrator position um online and in the wiper press but not to require it to be posted. So authorized but not required. Does that make sense? >> Just fishing just seeing what's out there. >> Okay. >> Well, do we have the ad? I mean just saying position open >> I guess. Yeah. I don't have specific stuff. I just want to get an authorization out because usually we say that should be authorized by the council. >> Um >> can I interrupt you for just so my understanding is we're interviewing somebody now that applied for that first posting. So does that mean that we have to repost everything? That's why I say authorized but not required to post. >> So should I just say if necessary? >> If necessary is all that's all I'm trying to say is just if if unfortunately Mary fell through I think if the next person falls through then >> then we post >> let's post it. But >> that makes sense. >> That's all I'm trying to do so we don't have to come back and have a meeting just to >> So that's my motion. I'll >> second it. All >> in favor? I >> I motion passes. >> All right. Number two, discussion of the RFP for city planner progress. >> So, I didn't add this. Um there's an RFP up, but only on the city of Birwood website. The resolution asked for it to go on the League of Minnesota City's website. It's not there. the we should be getting the deadline for it is September 18th. Um I don't know what people want to do with respect to do we I doubt we're going to get more responses than from Bolton and Mink. Maybe Ben I do think it's probably I mean given that we've only seen $11,000 in building permits this year. It seems like we're ripe to save some money on city city planning by moving to an hourly rate. I don't know how people feel. I guess I'm kind of fine with just having Bolton and Mink come in and give us a presentation and then seeing if we want to host it further at that point. Otherwise, I think it's going to be pretty short deadline for people if we want to try to post at the league of Minnesota cities and get more bids. We can just see what happens. I don't think there's anybody, you know, honestly at this point, I think we should just see what we get and discuss it in October. >> I think if we have it in the resolution that it was going to be posted on the League of Minnesota Cities, it needs to get posted on the posted there. >> Do you want me to see if I can get it posted there? >> Yeah, that's >> okay. >> Fine. >> I can try and do that. >> I do think it would be good to have more than Bolton and M. >> I I don't think so. >> Bolton Bank for so many things. >> I don't think that's that would be bad. Um I think I'll I'll see if I can get it posted on the League of Minnesota Cities in the next day or two. Yeah, I think it's just important if that's what the resolution says, that's what we do. >> The the other thing, and this this goes into the discussion of the citizen portal, but our citizen portal that we use is not in very good shape. And I believe in the RFP we say somebody has to know about citizen portal to use it. Um, but if somebody came in with something better, I think that that would be uh a consideration. If they're coming in and they're thinking that citizen portal is going to be great and this is what we're going to use, that's going to be a disappointment to anybody. I mean, I think the goal with any of these online systems is to eliminate the paper pushing and have everything for every permit updated in there and not in the basement of Village Hall. And so, you know, and I also think citizen portal got implemented very quickly. >> Oh, it did. >> And >> without a lot of care for the details of getting it to fit well in the city. And so maybe what we do is either get some consulting on it to get it improved or I think we need to do something there and maybe we don't figure that out right this second either. But um let's that would be another great workshop item I think is figuring out what we're going to do with citizen portal and maybe we just get a a quote from the gov office people on that. Yeah, >> because they they certainly advertise that to us as something that would take care of more than I think it's taken care of and would like eliminate >> half a staff person. Yeah. >> If we spend some time on it. >> Yeah. >> Um I guess my point is if we're having people come in to say uh that they're interested, they want to do the RFP and they're assuming that our citizen portal is ready to go. >> Yeah. >> It's not. >> Yeah. So we just have to be clear about that. >> Okay. Yeah, fair enough. >> So then I can talk about citizen portal. >> I was going to say then we want want to jump right into the citizen portal. Bridget, >> so yeah, I think just the action item for me is to is to see if I can get that posted at the League of Minnesota Cities and then I'm fine with >> Let's move on then. So, I spent a a morning with Theres and I was the client and I kept on applying for permits and that was it was really interesting. >> Yeah. >> Um and seeing what happened and overall this is a system that was put in quickly with people who were not expert um who I'm sure were trying to do their best with it. It is clunky and it is filled with errors. started to write down all of the errors that we saw. So, for example, if you apply for a fencing permit, you'll get a letter that says, "Thanks for uh applying for your chicken coupe permit." So, so I mean, it's it's some basic stuff like that that needs to be fixed. And apparently um we get to send that stuff to the administrator of the system and they they will fix it for what what I don't know is if somebody internally can be an administrator of the system and so I'm going to find that out. But the other thing is it's only being used for permits where there are no variances. So that's it. assume when you go in and you have to mark whether there's a variance or not. If you mark that it's a variance, that's game over. The system doesn't do anything more than that. Then it becomes a manual process where the office reviews it, you know, talks to Ben, etc. And I think that there I know that there is logic in the system that would at least walk you through some basic city codes and stop it or give you an alert that this is what you're going to have to do if you have a variance if that makes sense. Other cities I understand have implemented this. They put their codes in and then the logic flows in reviewing this. What would also say is it's not a good and I didn't really I didn't totally understand this but she said it's not a good tracker of history. So she has to track all of the history that happens with any kind of variance. So maybe we don't we haven't turned that on in the system but like I say any variance is not being helped by the system and there are bugs with any other permit. >> So did we exhaust any sort of training that would have been provided with the purchase of the software? Do you know? I don't know, but I've asked Trice to set up a meeting with this administrator and she and I. So, I'm gonna ask those questions. >> I mean, we basically paid him $2,000 to do the implementation and then we paid 2,000 a year for the software and I think we just kind of dumped all of our permit forms on them and said, "Here's our permit forms," which aren't weren't real correct in the first place, and then it just kind of got in. That's what I think happened. And and don't get me wrong, the staff is working really hard to >> Yeah. >> to to do this, but >> yeah, >> the system is really self-optimized. >> I just have a hard time believing that someone would sell you, you know, software as a service and not have any sort of at least a training video, like some sort of, >> you know, curriculum like this is how you use our software, >> right? >> Because they want you to keep using it, >> right? So anyway, I've got more work to do, but I just wanted to give you an update. Um especially as it relates to any RFP and any vendors that would come in that we're considering that this system needs help more >> and and it can get better. >> Yeah. And I think Ben said that they've worked with this software before, haven't they? Bolton and Mink have. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Bolton and Mink said that they had they had worked with it. Y >> anything else, Bridget? Nope. That's it. >> But I suspect any of the engineering firms have worked with it. I I'm not >> that worried. >> It's like asking if someone's working with Salesforce. >> Uh >> well, I mean, what I'm more worried about is Jack Kramer basically does everything on paper >> and you know, and that's just how he's going to do things. He's a good enough guy that it's probably not worth making a big deal about, but at some point maybe Jack will retire and we'll want and we will get to kind of an all online system. So >> is that is that a bottleneck? Well, it means that anytime, as far as I understand, anytime staff deal with a permit, like a building permit, where Jack is involved with the building codes, they email it to him, he prints it out, he writes a bunch of stuff on it, and then they scan it back in. >> That's your understanding as well. Yeah. So, a bottleneck. I would say that's a bottleneck. And I would say I don't want to go hire a building inspector. Um but because I think Jack does a very nice job, but um it's not ideal and I don't I don't think that's a software problem. >> If we get the software >> Yeah. >> working and it's relatively easy to use and if we sat down with Jack and said, "Let's get in your way." Maybe >> and maybe that and maybe that works and we can give it a try. But that, you know, it's it's >> it would be nice if that was the only problem that you had was Jack's manual input. >> Yes. >> So, I can't believe that if all of these engineering companies are familiar with this software and use it that it's just not being optimized. >> Yeah. >> So, it sounds like training and just fine-tuning it to the city, >> which didn't happen. >> Yep. >> Is what's needed. And it was live fire exercise for a lot of folks who aren't here anymore. And so I think that had something to do with it. >> Oh yeah, I think we did them a disservice. I think we just dumped it on. >> Yeah. So I don't think it's time on Bridget and sitting down and see what I can do. So >> anyway, I've got this noted as um Bridget uh presented brief report and uh played secret shopper with the uh listing of the city's permitting and input portal and it needs work. Portal will not accept permit applications that require variance. for example, system does not track history at all either. Next step is to meet with the software vendor and explore improvements. >> Sounds good. >> Sounds like what we talked about. >> Yep. >> All right. Discussion of repassing the 2026 preliminary budget to reflect the $70,000 state grant money for the Lake Links project. >> Yes, I can give context on this. So, what um we have to do to apply for the $70,000 is we have to have four documents. One of which is to specify that we approve spending $70,000. I know Alan was here. Did I say that right, Alan? >> So that's that's really all that this is. There's nothing new. There's nothing. It's just it's just a requirement that we have to have for this application process. >> Yep. And one of the more specific details is that it has to be integrated into the spend of the city next year for us to be able to get basically access to the fund. So the the the bonds have already they're already out there. So the money is just essentially waiting for us. And so by showing that as a budget item, as an input, we can then show it as an output. So that's all this adjustment is. So it doesn't change the levy at all. >> Nothing changes. The budget doesn't change >> because it's 70 in, 70 out, and it's not coming from taxpayers or at least not Birwood taxpayers. >> So there's no line item on the on the budget that's changing. We didn't find it in the budget before and now with the updated budget there is a line item for lake links for $70,000. >> Trying to find it >> on the income. >> I saw it this morning. It's on the most current one that you sent out, Brian. >> Not the one in the agenda. [Music] >> I have a full packet handy up there in paper. Is it in my on my desk? >> It says page nine. >> I looked at page nine and I didn't see anything. Yes. Oh, here. $90,000. >> No, it's 70. >> Building permits. >> Okay. It's It was a note from Marshia Olsen yesterday. >> Yeah. I remember budget 2026 file. >> Okay. >> And then if you bring that up >> because I look for it. >> Um it is uh under um there is general fund receipts. You got it? >> Yeah. Okay. Thanks. >> All right. Okay. That all makes sense now. Sorry. Do do we want to um >> So it's not it's not reflected in the current agenda packet. >> That's what I'm getting. >> It's on here. Do you want to see? It's on this one that Marca sent out. >> I I have that email. >> Yeah. Okay. >> And as long as you can see it there, if it helps at all, I've got it teed up as a motion to approve preliminary budget with $70,000 addition in revenue from state grant for Lake Links. Uh, PN no levy impact closed PN. >> Yep. But can we just make sure that Chris adds it to the agenda that's posted online? >> Um, I think he probably heard that. >> I know. That's right. >> Thanks, Chris. >> Consider it done. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> All right. >> So, I will move as Ellen stated. >> A second. >> All in favor? >> I >> I motion passes. Thank you. >> Yeah, thank you guys. Um that's the culmination of our meeting with the uh representatives at the uh at the at the state. So that was very productive and helpful by them. >> Yeah, they were great. >> All right, last the consent agenda. Do I hear a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> So moved. >> Do I hear a second? I second. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. >> Just think it might be good to do a roll call vote on this because we're authorizing a large amount of funds and that's technically required. So, um, did you second, Ryan? >> I did second. >> Let's just do, if you guys don't mind, just do a quick roll call on this. >> All right. Uh, Akens, how do you vote? I >> I >> I >> uh motion passes. All right, that is everything. Any alibis? Nothing. All right. Meeting adjourned. >> Good deal. >> We have a meeting. Do we have a motion and a second? >> Oh, yeah. >> Thank you, Al. >> I move to adjourn. >> Second. >> All in favor? Getting a jerk. [Music] Do you want [Music] [Laughter] [Music]