just thank you again for the speed on this and getting the bid requests out early since we know that does help to drive down the cost. So, thank you for that.

in our packet of information again, we talked about the financing for this project and there's a general obligation bond pay for property taxes and special assessments. We have very large amount of storm water improvements on this project which I've said before and I want to repeat again tonight should be paid for from the storm water utility. We can talk about that when we get to the actual financing piece. Uh but to put those on the property tax roles unfairly Greg allocates those costs to people who uh some people who benefit pay nothing and other people pay disproportionately more. I'll let go with that. I just don't want it to go unsaid that it was in our packet and I didn't bring it up at the time we were awarding the contract.

So, our we have a concern right now. So, I'm I'm the applicant. I'm the purchaser of the crearyy building. And then we've also got the seller. So the seller and I are very much on the same page about how we'd like this to all happen. But we do have a concern about this easement on the north side of the building. Um the way it's worded right now, which feels a little bit open-ended for both of us. We have a concern that there could be um use or access from the city for future development to the parcel that is to the east of this right now corn fields to the east of the lumber yard. We don't want to have I don't want to get to a point where I've finished and paved this parking lot area which is more or less what I'd be doing in front on the north side of the crearyy. I don't want to get to a point where I'm done with that work and then I find out that there's a uh agreement with the city and the developer directly to the east that's not pictured in this map where they're going to be bringing um sewer water and sewer or city water and city sewer through this parcel uh at some unknown point in time.

If I may real quick just to clarify what that process might look like as I think through it is um there's two ways. So we're not just looking for connection of one of the buildings. We what we're looking for is making sure that sewer that the track B is not landlocked from sewer and water. Right? So we're looking for a path across the property to track B. So even if the track A gets connected to sewer and water, we still need to know how the sewer and water is going to continue across the property.

I don't think you want a blanket ement. Then we wouldn't have to vacate anything, right? Yeah. There that. Yeah, I'm sorry. That's more of what it is. Not vacating it, but just exact. Whatever those bids are, the city you guys hear, whatever the line is, there's going to be need an easement over it. Yeah. And we keep it tied to that. And then we there's no more uh easement, you know.

Um in practice, um when you're maintaining anything, and we even experience this every street project when we're redoing street projects, you guys get the emails on um when property owners put their irrigation systems in our rightway. So that is that is even our property and we end up in debates over who has to restore that. Now you can imagine going down side lot lines and being in the rear of lot lines and things like that when you do these maintenance activities. You'll run into fences, dog fences. You'll run into trees that they've planted. They don't know where their easements are. They know where their lot lines are. And so they encumber those easements. They put things in the way. Um and then we can't, you know, we have to use enforcement to get them out of the way. If it's our property, we can remove them. If they're if it's their property, we have to enforce the removal. So, it delays maintenance. It delays our activities um and access.

If you just think about driving across America and looking AC where we where everything in America, 60 to 75% of the roads in the United States are rural roads. They are asphalt with a gravel shoulder with a ditch. That's the most common road you can find in America. Here's a couple examples of two one from 1979 90 and 91 just in adjacent communities. I I would just submit to you that if the value were there for curb that you would likely not be the only community around that's doing like a ribbon curb to protect the edge of a rural road that most rural roads would have curbs if the value were there long term and and I'm going to give you some examples and you can just keep thinking about it. I know this is not where you've been.

Um, but the one of there are probably more communities with PVC is a standard than ductal iron or maybe it's more equal. Um, I've personally have been in communities where PVC is our standard. So, it's not that the pipe doesn't work. I'm not aware of any city that has that allows PVC on this development, ductal iron on this one. I'm not aware of any city that just allows the developer to pick which pipe for which project. And so we have a standard for HDPE pipe, which is a plastic pipe that's meant for directional drilling, and we have a standard for ductal iron. My recommendation is if we're going to go to PVC that we change today for PVC moving forward for everything. It's not we don't want to start introducing a third pipe that we just start having now randomly interjected everywhere. That becomes something now that um your public works staff has to be prepared for. They start to have to have spare parts. They have to start having everything changes for your public works staff to be able to respond to breaks and things like that where they have to double up on tools and equipment. So, you want to have you want to go forward with either ductal iron or PVC and we can we can change. There is a time when communities change, but I I I I don't think it's appropriate to make a change for just one development here today. You should be thinking about this as your city your city standard moving forward.

I am fine indicating a no on that. The risks to me do not supersede the benefits. I I think it's good feedback from council and from staff. I there's a worth to me there's a worth an endeavor worth looking into but I don't see how it outweighs the the cons in this case.

If I'm this is a council meeting, it's for council elected officials to have a discussion. As an elected official, it can take me up to seven weeks to get something added to a council agenda. If I'm a department head, I can put it on an hour before the meeting. And somehow there seems to be a disconnect there for me.

I think it is a as we are no longer in those years of Lake Elmo where this ordinance was put into place, I think it is a valid discussion to have to see if there is room for modification. And if there's not, there's not. But I think it's a worthwhile discussion because the reason that was put into place was because of horrific meetings that were occurring and people were abusing the process. And I think we as a city are past that hopefully forever.