business is to approve the minutes from the last meeting. >> So move >> second. >> All in favor? >> I >> I >> Okay. Thank you very much. The second order of business here is to have the report about the city finance presentation on debt service. Hello. >> So, I didn't put together much of a presentation. I wasn't entirely sure what uh you folks were hoping to hear tonight. So in your present or in the um packet um I focused mostly on the debt that the city has and and the projected um both tax levies and debt um based on I would call it the the information that we have right now. So we put together modeling based on um known CIP items um known operations some assumed growth in operations etc etc. Um and our goal for for the levy especially is to um grow the levy enough so that those um CIP uh uh investments are um that we're able to do those in the future without taking out quite as much debt. Um, our history here has been that there wasn't much saving going on for those capital items and then we had to invest in a lot of capital items and so we ended up with over $60 million in debt. Um, we are trying to slowly decrease that over time. Um, and in order to do that we will be um doing some some capital levies. So I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have um as best I can. I didn't get any ahead of time. So, I might be winging it a little bit. >> What's kind of the ratio you're looking at, like tax receipts coming in, what kind of debt do you want to maintain or get down to? >> Um, I I don't know that. I mean, zero would be ideal. I mean, we there is a cost there is a cost to having debt. And if we didn't have to have it, um, that would be the ideal. Um, the projections that I have and again, so when we're doing these modelings, we're really we're making assumptions about certain things. We're making assumptions about um what a sort of um a levy that people will stomach or a growth in the levy that people will will sort of um be okay with. So I think the um is this 10 or 20 years now that I have that handy um we were getting down to about I think 30 million maybe down to half maybe a third of what we have right now within about 20 years. >> Sure. So, >> and when you say get the levy down, you're talking about the tax levy as opposed to all the other >> the when I'm talking about getting down, I'm talking about the amount of debt, right? >> The levy is not going to go down. That's going to keep going up. >> I was going back to previous comment, but I'll save my question still here. I was just wondering uh I understand that that one major portion of the debt has had to do with the the building of this building but u if you could mention in your presentation are there any other major lumps that created this debt? >> Uh I would say the city hall and public works building um they were together in the same issuance. um they I want to say the total um of the two was around 12 million. That entire issuance was higher, but there were other items um on that. I believe that was 2021A. >> Um so definitely a large chunk, but um there's I guess all the other ones are they add up. Yeah. >> Okay. So, so, so you're saying that out of the 60, roughly one fifth of that has to do with the construction of the of the public works and and the city hall. >> Uh, I'm not sure you could use that in terms because like this where I think we're at 55ish at the end of 2025. >> Okay. >> Um 12 was the initial issuance. So, if you're talking about initial issuance on this building, you would also need to be talking about the initial issuance on all of the other remaining balances. And so, >> no, I was just wondering is it is it is it is it built up from a small number of a large number of small routine things or are there big lumps in there that we should think about? >> I would say largely and smaller items that have added up. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. And I would say in seeing the approvals over the last couple years, the phasing of sewer in downtown over the years because it's been phased out in seven phases and you know each one million and a half, 2 million, 3 million, you start adding those up that overall as one single project is then bigger than city hall public works. But because there's, you know, 2 million here, 3 million here over what, a 8year span. Um, that that was definitely another one that I, you know, those I mean, those are going to start to come off what in 2035ish. >> Old Village. >> Yeah. >> I I guess I'm not sure off the top of my head. >> Would those be 20-year bonds? >> Uh, the sewer bonds maybe were 20 years to start with. They have gone down in terms >> to 15s >> in the and even tens. Yeah. >> In terms of the modeling, what um because I I know we do projections, we're usually conservative for population growth and we do it for the tax modeling too when we're trying to do the levy amounts. What has been the approach for business side in terms of the potential growth of the tax base on that side? Uh we use tax so I I do projections in tax capacity. We have a crazy spreadsheet that does uh some projections in revenue for whack and sack and all of that. Do you remember what what did it does it is it calculating tax capacity in there or I think I might have even just done a flat. >> I can't recall but we're tracking every open parcel. Yeah, I'm not sure that one is doing tax capacity yet, though. I think that's a future me goal. I don't know that I didn't know that off the top of my head. And I guess that from an EDA standpoint, I guess one curiosity I would have is um how have we grown over the last several years in terms of the net tax capacity and increasing from class 1A, class 2A, 4A, you know, how have those been growing and are there ways we can leverage to make sure it is business commercial as the primary driver versus residential because they have a different class rate and >> I mean definitely more residential obviously. So, um, I haven't done a really detailed breakdown of those. I have plenty of levy data if you'd like me to email it to you. You can play with your own spreadsheets. >> I don't do spreadsheets. That would be very not helpful for anyone. >> Are you waiting for questions or >> I am waiting for questions. I literally like I I I really like I can I can tell you, you know, >> I put in your packet you sort of what the debt uh >> Thank you for being uh being being here and doing this. I think a large part of it because I was whining at the last meeting saying I was concerned about the size of our debt service. Uh the chart I saw online was 31.1% of our tax dollar goes to debt service. And so I started digging into um uh the the budget, you know, the stuff online and I had a hard time understanding a lot of it. For example, I saw nothing that said here's going to be our total expenditures. Uh I think it might be the sum of all the levy numbers for each year would be total up to the all our expenditures. Or maybe not. Maybe I'm wrong on that. But I I I couldn't tell exactly how much our debt service was to our total spending and and I thought from an EDA standpoint to to support and recommend development uh like the 180 acres, you know, if we were going to be adding a lot of residential and costs associated with it, are we going to make our debt problem worse? And I said, I I you know, I don't know if my assumptions are correct. Educate us. Well, you're here to educate us and I have a bunch of questions. You mentioned the word assumptions and I have uh some thoughts or concerns on that. I see you got population growing basically 300 people a year. Um and I'm looking and I'm seeing more houses being built and I know there's some couple more developments coming and and what happens if we go with 180 acres and start putting residential there. So my question is uh how do you get to 300 people a year? Are you do you have plotted out expected people uh in because of with the existing developments that are ongoing or do you anticipate if if we were to do the 180 acre development and put in residential there? Are those people factored into your your resident growth? And by the way, does it include renters? I actually used the um community developments and I believe you got it from Met Council and maybe >> right I mean so it a little bit >> we get population projections from Met Council. We also have a development sheet that basically is tracking every open parcel going out 15 years with estimates of population based on the Met Council ranges per acreage. So, but 300 it's almost exactly 300 every year, you know. Uh, does that make sense for all you're talking about? >> It could be. It will fluctuate. So, like one year, I think we were projecting like 2027 or eight. It's going to be a lot more, right? Okay. >> But it it has to do with apartments coming online and larger developments coming online. >> And you are counting renters. >> Oh, yeah. Okay. We're looking at >> it. Just seemed like that was low and therefore I was concerned that the cost of serving population might have been low. The next question I have is the general fund. Uh your one of your assumptions is 4% a year uh in growth of the uh general fund. Uh the last five years it's been six%. Uh and if I'm right, I'm I'm I'm not really sure how to interpret this. I see the infrastructure levy looks like it just came online for the first time 2025 and we got some $400,000 numbers. Did were those dollars not existing at all in the past or were they in the general fund or someplace else? >> Because if those were in the general fund, our historic growth of general fund is 7 and a half% not and I wonder if 4% is realistic growth for that. >> I when I'm doing my projections I use today's dollars. So if the if the um growth that you're looking at is actual growth that probably in includes some inflation and so my modeling does not include inflation. >> So you don't have any inflationary uh assumption at all. No, I I model for today's dollars so that we can look at um in instead of trying to project inflation on top of the growth of the city, we know that inflation happens. I'm not denying inflation. I'm saying that when I'm doing my modeling, we're looking at everything in today's dollars. So, the difference between your numbers and my numbers are probably that. Now, um, going back and I'm going to lose track because you asked about five questions there. So, you asked about the, um, infrastructure levy was not a separate levy in the past. Um, I have to I've only been here uh, not quite three years. So, um, historically, I can't think of any transfers that were going from the general fund to the 409 um, in the past. That is isn't to say that there weren't some sort of um occasional transfers that happened either into the 409 or into other infrastructure projects from the general fund or other funds in that time. So the set um sort of that separate set aside um process or practice that we've started has been very deliberate and just started here in the last couple years. And I swear there was a couple more questions in there I missed. >> So uh going back to the uh size of the debt service uh what is it actually as a present percentage of our total spending. I it just it strikes me that that's a 30% is a huge >> 31.1% >> of the do tax dollar >> of the of the le. So, if that's our debt service, it's it's probably just a little below that. Um, our tax levy is by far our largest. We have in it might be slightly below that. I'm I'm guessing I would have to do some calculations in order to know that. Um, so I I brought up on the screen and I don't know what's being um shown right now, but um I did put together um my handy dandy tax calculator. Um this does take into revenue. So when you plug in your taxable market value of your home, it gives you your approximate city tax and then however much your So so 31.1% does take into account the revenues on our so so that would be of your tax dollars 31.1% is going towards debt debt service. >> Yeah, that part I understood. I just I I figured it must be lower as a percentage of our total spending because, you know, there's lots of other sources of income other than tax dollars. Well, um well, okay. Uh the the expenditures um capital improvements would I assume include our water treatment plant construction. Is that correct? You know, we're obviously spending continuing to spend more money on that. >> What are you referring to exactly? water treatment plant is going to be paid for by a grant from the MPCA as the trustee from the 3M funds. >> Oh, I didn't realize it was completely being paid. I thought it was part completely. Okay. >> For the creation of it. Yes. >> For the creation of it, but does not include operations. >> We're hoping. We're hoping, but we we are not guaranteed. I and I don't have any other specific questions other than I just I I just look at this and I and I fear that with all that's going on here, our debt levy issues might get worse than better. Uh I I know some fees are being increased. Our cost of water going up, you know, understandable. U and I guess other fees are probably going up, but I you know wonder how much of the of future costs all that covers. Um >> so at the risk of speaking very broadly um the the notice of the the debt service load that our city has had and the increase to it was alarming. So levies were increased and uh the capital levies for fleet and infrastructure were created in order to be able to pay for things with some things with cash on hand to decrease the amount of bonding that was required to ultimately bring down that debt service load over time and get that into a more sustainable arena and that. So that's trying to to to pay things both ways in in a in a in a manner that we hadn't done in the past, have some savings, right? >> Go ahead. Okay. >> Just a a clarification on a couple of your comments. So you had asked about the debt levy with regard to water. So levy um is tax dollars does not go any none of that money goes to the water fund. Water fund is supported um in theory completely by uh fees. And so that's what you know another part of what we're working on are our utility fees and making sure that we're covering depreciation and saving for those funds as well. >> Okay. Actually I did have one last question and then I'll shut up. Um uh and it has to do the with the uh interest rate we're paying uh on our bonds and I assume that gets negotiated with every every issuance. But uh are we is it possible that we would be paying at lower and better rates if we had a lot less debt service? Are we suffering at all because of the 30%? Uh, I believe we're rated right now as a double A1. Um, which is pretty good. So, we have a lot of debt, but we also have a lot of cash and we're growing rapidly. So, overall, financially, we're in a very good position. Um, but that's only because there's so much cash on hand. Um, certainly, I mean, could we, you know, improve over time? Possibly. But I think we we get really I >> really good rates. >> I didn't not notice anything about, you know, cash being an asset. Uh is that invested? >> Absolutely. >> And and what and what kind of >> are we getting 0.05 savings account rates? Are we getting money market rates of 1% a year or >> we get a mix? I want I Nah's my expert and she's not here tonight. So I want to say our sort of uh and more recent rates are closer to three and a half to four. Um we we do have CDs that are uh a few years old and so we still have some of those >> uh you know one and a half still in our portfolio but we've definitely brought it up significantly in the last couple years has increased. Then that that begs another question then. Uh we're obviously paying more than as a percent for our for our debt than we are earning for cash. Uh >> not on some of the older debt. >> Okay. What I was just wondering is >> the recent debt. Yes. Are we keeping a cash contingency just in case in case we want to buy Fury Mort's property or or are we uh uh considering paying buying off some of that debt? >> There's some recommendation that we keep six was it 60% of the budget in a in a >> our fund balance fund balance is a minimum of 60%. don't want to pay down too much debt too fast because they'll look at that decrease in cash. So, when we're talking about our bond rating and stuff, so we're sort of um trying to to juggle. Our um bond council does or our um financial adviser does advise us every year whether or not um she believes that we >> could get uh you know that it would be financially beneficial for us to buy those down. >> Okay. it. The other thing I'll just comment on is that a lot of times and I have some friends in other cities that deal with their infrastructure and their assets. If you look at um the assets for the city, every paved road, every curb and gutter, every sign, every paint stripe is an asset that the city has to owns and maintains. So, every water pipe, every sewer pipe, and I have some friends in some cities that hadn't planned for the management of those assets in the future when they come due, and we have some newer stuff. So, it gives us some time to ramp up the money to be able to replace those when it comes time to replace, but they're seeing the cost of that replacement as exorbitant. So, some of these are to put the city in a better um standing 20, 30 years down the road when those assets need to be replaced. >> That's that's good to know. At Woodbury, it was a big issue with street maintenance. They were planning on 20 30 year life of streets and they got 15 because of poor pavement and the the funding wasn't there for it. >> Right. a problem >> in that is is you know we've implemented a a pavement management plan for the city and doing the proper maintenance on those so that they don't become uh out of use earlier than they should be. >> Okay. Thank you for putting up with my questions. I was trying to hammer you even though it came across that way. >> That's okay. Um, I'm certainly happy if you have um questions as some of these are a little easier to address when I have time to actually look up um data and I'm happy to to answer questions via email or sit down, you know, on a in a conference. >> I may take you up on that offer. Thank you very much. >> And we do we've got audit here next week. So, >> okay. I I'll wait a while. >> So, definitely next week, >> right? Okay. Thank you. Well, I guess I'd be curious because this the conversation is on the debt load for any other EDA members. How does this then make you think differently or the same about the 180? Obviously, we're not directly talking about the 180 tonight. There's no agenda item, but in terms of how we grow, things to focus on. Obviously, council has taken specific fiscal actions to as mayor was mentioning to try to long-term wise with staff's recommendations and insights to bring the debt load down. Um but to me from an EDA standpoint it still comes back to the 180 acres. Are there thing other things in the long term where EDA has a role to play to help ensure that specific types of growth are enhanced are energized are focused on whatever that is and it's not tonight but long-term wise what are things we can do obviously Tony has a conversation topic coming up again on uh solar but what other things does that you know bring into your mind as as a topic for consideration as something to you know what lever can we pull that's that's why we have an EDA >> I like commercial so we had two two vastly different plans for the 180 that are presented >> I think you know I'll just my stance on this is that Lake Elmo as a city is very residentialheavy and I think to be uh successful in in any form of government, you have to have some good balance. And so the more commercial that we can bring in to help stratify that taxable base for the city and when things need to be done, um it's not solely a residential issue. It's it's more comprehensive, uh plan to be taken. So, I I think I've said that before and I'll just hammer that drum a little bit and if I'm, you know, certainly always open to other people's opinions and stuff, but that that that's that's what I I keep trying to drive. >> I second that motion. >> I agree with that, too. And I also think if it has to be some residential, we keep the median price higher and we're not chasing affordable housing. >> I I agree that that the that the commercial direction would work a lot better for the city to kind of correct the imbalance we have now. >> The motion is to add more business I'm all for that. >> So, Director Stoopa, I guess, again, it's not tonight thing. Timeline wise, what decision points do the EDA or council need to have coming up on the 180 as that plays out over the next several months? What are some of those decisions? >> I think most of it going on right now is going to be the process going through community engagement. So, being a part of that and following that is something that EDA, every member should should be a part of. Um, and then the picture, the big picture is what are we going to hear from residents and then that's the decision I think is the next step kind of locking in the uses because that's going to be really important as we move forward with our AUR. Um, that's what we want to hear from EDA because we know a couple things from the TAP presentation because we were involved closely. um we have population um concerns or things that we need to work through with the Met Council and that wasn't really considered in that tab. It kind of maxed out residential. So, we're thinking about all these different things. So, that's going to be part of that process that you know making you aware of it right now. But those are some of the issues. So when we get that engagement finished really kind of focusing on how we want to move forward >> with some of those community events whether it's again who knows what how it's going to play out would it be advantageous as you said there's a role for EDA members um if EDA members not necessarily an ambassador role per se but that they're prepared to be able to explain tax capacity business growth versus residential both growth the debt load I I assume those would be advantageous things for the EDA like that's that's a valid role and responsibility to be able to have those conversations in an informed way >> and that came up too with um cost of service with tax we added that to the report right that wasn't there I think also when we do open houses like attend the open house be prepared you could help staff with the open house I mean that something that's going to be um happening fairly soon we don't have the date set yet but um that would be helpful >> yeah I that in the explanatory material that goes out to residents that might be attending. It'd be good to make a make a point of it, explain this situation. So, at least people are informed that it's their pocketbook that's going to pay if they go for more residences. >> And one of the things on the communication updates is just push notifications. Might as well just bring it up now. That's the web page is updated. You can sign up for push notifications on the site, too. So if we release information, you would get that. >> Well, and and to that point, Tony, one piece of feedback that's going to be received is there's going to be a piece of feedback saying, "Don't develop it at all. Keep it as egg." Well, from EDA standpoint, the response is if you do that, you lose that opportunity to grow the tax base. So that that's right there. That's the conversation. But as you said, residential, there's a cost that's incurred to the city that is less than with business. So those are the questions that are going to come up. So yeah, I I guess I would just say ask because I see it as way more of an EDA member thing than a council thing because it's an econ that parcel is an economic development parcel. That's the way I see it. But I am wrong all the time as my wife says. So I will leave it at that. >> Good. Thank you very much. >> Yes. Thank you. >> Thank you, Clarison. >> Okay. The next agenda item is the uh ADA memo to the about the solar farm on the landfill. I just wanted to follow up on this is something we've talked about for I think over a year now, but um one of the things that you know you've worked on really closely is trying to get an understanding of the the debt the bond on the site and whether we could work towards implementing a solar some type of solar project at the site. And uh Sarah Sel is here tonight. Uh she sent a me memo. the memos in your packet, but essentially the challenge is if we were to go forward with a solar site like we've discussed in the past, trying to find someone to install it, it appears that we would have to pay off the bonds. It'd be very difficult because these are federal um tax exempt bonds. Um there is a question of if we did everything ourselves or, you know, and owned it, operated ourselves, is something we haven't talked about in the past, it'd be pretty expensive. I don't know if there's a use or how that would actually work in terms of what we do with power. Um that seems to be the only workaround to not paying off the bond. So with this information, I just wanted to bring this to EDA and I know you've had a lot of questions. So if you have any questions moving forward, we just try to figure out what direction we want to go after uh reading the memo. >> Yes, in reading the memo, I I can see that there's really according to the memo, there's two obstacles. One is the uh uh the MPCA approval of something if the bond were paid off and the other is the uh the probable need for uh special legislation to be able to do this. Uh the somewhere a little further down the line is how you can how you actually get the connectivity from Excel. I have been talking to developers and they say you have to put in an application for that. So that's a little further down down the line than than the uh than the first two. So my my proposal is and I've talked to Nicole about that is to talk to the the lobbyist and ask them what do they think is the realistic possibility of ever passing a bill like this not not this session but the next one and and if there is a realistic possibility it's worth going after. If there's not then why waste our time? But the other one is uh I can write a note to uh Hans Navy and ask him what do they consider at MPCA uh when they're when they're looking at a request like this so I can understand uh what what he's actually looking for and what you'd have to prove about your design to make it approvable by the M MPCA. So you can see that there's a a ladder of things that have to be done. And I think the first one is to find out from the lobbyists if there's any possibility of actually getting past something like this past the legislature in the next year. I I understand that this year is pretty hopeless as far as getting things done. But uh I I'd even be willing to talk to ever running for office and and see how they feel about it. I think one glaring thing that that's missing from this is asking Excel Energy, who would be the power provider there, if that's something that even I don't know, for lack of a better term, floats their boat to to put in. you know, the the size of these is a certain level and at at that size, is that something that they would even consider as a a good thing for for the power grid that they manage? >> I can follow up. I was talking to Excel a few months ago. It's not an ideal site for them, but I can >> write up a a memo so you can know what came from that conversation. And so if even if it was something that was doable, if Excel doesn't find that as a site that they think is suitable, therein lies, why go through all those steps and those costs to get to that level and then for them to say we're not interested. >> That that's a crit that's a critical issue. the the developers I've talked to say that that will act on applications one at a time. I know Jason is talking to someone like uh I think it's Mike will help me that had uh uh some connection with this whole process. It's it's it's worth pinging them one more time before we spend any money to try to do anything. >> Okay. >> Excuse me. You said that you were told when you talked to them that it wasn't their ideal site. Is that an issue of size or location or is it not close to power lines or what's the problem? >> I'll have to go back. It's a combination I believe of power lines and then the size. >> I remember being very surprised about that little solar farm that's right on 17 north of here. And I look at that saying, "Wow, that's the smallest solar, you know, I've ever ever seen." You know, right about just right around 50th and 17 there. >> But I think that's a different mod. So what we weren't sure of and what we were researching and why I was reaching out to Excel is we thought that it was possible not to pay off the bond if we worked with another government entity like Excel. So we reached out to Excel and that's when they stated that they prefer larger sites. Yeah, >> I think I think the other one is, you know, Tony, you know about it. It's a different model. It's a >> No, >> I think that's this is the one that Don is talking about. That's that's the one that I'm involved with. And that's called that's a special case. That's called a community solar garden. And under Minnesota law, those were put in so people could subscribe to them. It's it's a different model than having a big uh and they were actually limited to that one one megawatt back then. So the I was approached by several companies to ask if they could use that site because it happened to be appropriately connected or appropriately adjacent to a three-phase 440 power line. And and if it's if the power line is too high voltage, it's hard to push your your your voltage high enough. If it's too low, it it doesn't carry it. So it was just it was just almost an ideal situation because there was the right amount of land. It was in the right location and it's close to the line. And so they're happy to do it and but but the uh as uh we're learning not every place has the same value from from Excel's point of view. I would be interested in seeing a memo regarding Excel's thoughts on that location >> and and in the spirit of EDA recommending it just strikes me that if if this looks like a financially there's a model that says this is financially beneficial you know for the city then great otherwise >> no >> because what was what was the bond payoff amount in >> it's around 3.3 >> three something million. Yeah. >> What kind of interest rate are we paying on that bond? >> It's a So that's another thing. It's a state bond, so it's being paid by the entire state. >> Okay. >> Um if we were to pay it off, obviously, you know, we would pay locally. I think that was discussed and decided against that. >> Right. >> Is this is this amount of money the three 3.3 million is that part of the Lake Elmo debt? >> No. It's a state bond. >> State bond. Okay, great. >> Long-term wise, say XL wants nothing to do with it and it's not the right size and scope for community gardens as well. We have assets in terms of city- owned rooftops here is one example, but obviously this is not 5 acres. It's not 10 acres. Are there models as well that other cities are doing for leveraging those assets even though it's far less financially beneficial? But are are there programs out there where cities are starting to say, "Look, we have flat space. We can put up solar panels. It'll it'll be this much smaller for value, but hey, it still helps." >> I haven't looked into it. I mean, I know obviously people put up solar panels >> for their buildings, right? But in terms of >> feeding it back in the grid or having some type of agreement that you've set up in the past, I don't know. I am aware of landfill solar. It does exist. >> Yeah. Well, thanks to everybody for the effort that put into this. I think we I think it's not dead in the water, but there's a lot of possible barriers. So, the only other item was the communications. It's just an update that we have a city projects page. We've talked about that in the past, updating that. and then you can sign up for push notifications uh updates on the project. So that's another way to stay informed. >> Are there any other comments from members of the EDA? >> Well, ju just one question. I I know it's come up in the past that hey, it looks like Fury's interested in selling the property. They're probably talking to people or whatever, but but there's a for sale sign out there now. And uh so it looks like they're really serious about selling a property. So my question is uh what are the chances that the city especially for flush with cash what that might want to buy that property and include it as part of a old village commercial development plan or development plan. Not necessarily commercial. >> I don't know. Do we know what they're asking? >> I haven't looked into it. I I can ask. >> I think it's worth it's worth talking about. I mean, a piece of property like that doesn't come up every day. >> Oh, I mean, that would be just such a >> Well, I don't know if I've learned this from being on the EDA or talk. The land is pretty contaminated, so it's going to take a lot to get it to where you can actually build on it because of what they used it for. >> Yeah. Need remediation, which >> Yeah. >> How long has it been vacant? 10 years, maybe? >> No, they've actually been carrying on some operations there. They parked vehicles and there's been there have been people in the building. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Been doing hail repair for a while. >> Yeah. He never he never technically stopped operations per our ordinances. >> He's not selling cars out of that. >> Correct. And that was a topic before when he there's a potential that he was going to rent it out and if improvements were needed, but >> technically he never stopped operations. >> He actually listed what he was doing. >> Yeah. >> Got it. you know, I I don't I would have been surprised if there weren't hazardous, you know, chemicals in the ground, but that's going to affect anybody who buys that. And it probably would affect the price, too, would be my guess. Uh so the question is, you know, how much do we care about who ends up owning that property and for what purpose? Uh and if uh if the property is worth a whole a lot less because of the hazardous uh materials then then maybe we we put in an offer that reflects that >> future zoning for that is mixeduse village right >> mixed use village some changes that need to occur but it's that's what it's guided for. I mean, speaking not as a council member, as an EDA member, I I don't disagree with the topic and the conversation. Um, because you are both correct. These types of parcels do not come up. They They don't It's been Fury for Well, Mayor, how long you've been here? For 25 years. >> For over for over 20 years. >> And it was here when you moved in as Fury. >> Yeah. >> Um, and Tony, you've been here and we bought our our 1999 van from there. So, it's been around >> still driving it. >> I mean, you're you're entirely correct. And I can say as a council member, I appreciate that the council two councils ago said, "Yes, we want to have an EDA to have these conversations." Now, obviously the EDA doesn't this EDA and RC doesn't have the authority to issue uh bonding to make those p purchases, but we used economic development dollars to purchase this building to then turn into the council chambers. So, the the concept exists, the process exists. It is a very large conversation. It absolutely is. But I I have no problem with having that conversation. I I I will be transparent. I have spoken with the the broker for there and yeah, there's been some very interesting offers that have come in that are not what you would ever expect and not necessarily what I would see as a EDA standpoint or a council standpoint for what I think is the best long term for there. The other asterk is we are starting to develop our 2050 plan like we're starting to hire and do some of the consultants and that will be due 208 >> 2028 >> in which it might be an entirely different use for that spot. So I I I guess I don't have any official statement per se but I personally think it's a worthwhile conversation. What comes of it I don't know but it also comes down to staff. we already have our our yearly plan for this. So, I don't know how best to pursue that be because staff is limited and I don't want to necessarily say, "Hey, guess what?" >> Yeah. And you know that I mean you get down to the yearly priorities and certainly not that you want to let something go by, but that that that was not a priority of the EDA at the beginning of the year. If if some of these things I think fall off the table, if we get to a place where 180 acres is pretty good and we feel like and staff feels like that's something else that can be taken on, but it would be a fairly large undertaking for the staff and not something that was anticipated. >> Well, just a final comment. You know, we're with the old village program very interested and concerned about maintaining the character of the old village and uh as it should be. That's exactly the way it should be. Y >> and what kind of impact would it have if Fury Motors were built totally out of character um by by somebody who just wasn't thinking the same way that uh the city's been thinking about the old village. I mean, it's it's more than just contiguous. It's right there in the middle. I I I it seems to me that um the potential impact on the character of the community is such that maybe priorities might could be reconsidered um uh to make sure that something we don't want to happen to that property happens. >> I can hear that. This might be a dumb question, but you know, if parcels are so hard to come by, you know, why would we put all the effort in selling the fire station? >> So, it's kind of like sell something to buy something else in the same area. >> Yeah, I was told that that the the income from from selling the fire station was was already planned in the budget for something else when I asked about that question three years ago. So I don't I but I don't know but but when I look at that property I say that would be a marvelous parking lot if nothing else for business. >> I I think one thing to add with that site the Fury Motor site is if it were to be purchased by the city the plan would be to find a developer have a plan that we could control you know and then move forward and then get that off the books right and >> not unlike what we did with the old village what we do doing >> fire station and like the 180 acres. So couple advantages of doing what you're talking about is coordinating with Valley Community Center and the old school looking at densities um figuring out because you have to have a certain amount of residential density on that site permit council unless you were to change the village um mixed use guidance. So uh you know the plan would be we would have I mean I would recommend finding a developer to develop what the EDA and the council want to see. >> That makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Thank you very much. Very interesting point. >> Are there any other comments? If not, I'll call for a German. All in favor? I I Okay. >> Thank you for your service to the city.