This is to approve the minutes of the special meeting that was held on September 17th. >> So move. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Motion passes. Uh the work plan discussion for the 2026 work plan will be presented by community development director Estapa. >> Okay. So this [clears throat] will be our uh first draft of the 2026 work plan. You'll see it's somewhat similar to the 2025 work plan. At the next meeting, we'll go through the the 2025 work plan and give an update on all the action items that we've [snorts] completed. But essentially, we just wanted everyone in the commission to take a look at this and see if there's anything that they want to add. Uh you can we can talk about that tonight and then we'll create a final draft for the next meeting. So we have it broken up with the goals. These are the same goals as last year. Um same purpose, but when we look at the project description and the action items, they're going to change slightly. So, um, we group them in assist city staff and city council with marketing efforts for city- owned properties. This is just basically all our city- owned property disposition. And as you know, we're working through the 180 acres site um through the Urban Land Institute technical assistance panel. So the idea is that in hopefully by quarter two that will that project will be done this year but hopefully by quarter two we'll be able to start marketing the the parcel uh by at least quarter the first quarter purchase agreement for the former fire station parks building will be signed. Um if there is a need for environmental cleanup we'll work on grants. We've already talked to MPCA in Washington County. We worked through the phase one and phase two with them. They've paid for both review city own property and develop a disposition plan. So this is something that came up last year and what we want to do through our GIS is look at every publicly owned property in the city and then evaluate whether they we should keep them or basically create a plan for each property and understand um how we're using it. Sometimes the valley branch will ask us if we want to take on some property too. So we want to understand like what they own, what the county owns and just do a full evaluation of of that for um for the second quarter. Sometimes we'll have residents call us seeing if they can purchase property too. That's another reason why we instead of taking it one by one um working on a plan and then create and implement a plan for old city hall. Next week I'm going to be presenting at the workshop options for the old city hall. So after that um that' be a good time to further talk about what that could look like. um whether it's to keep it or to sell it. There's basically six different options that I'll talk about next week >> with the disposition plan. How from a staff perspective, how do you see that in terms of the EDA's role versus council versus potentially planning commission as well? Because I assume that there's the economic lens, there's the planning standpoint, there's obviously the 2050 coming out soon as well. >> How do you see those interplaying and who would maybe take the first chop at the bit? I think we would, you know, start to do the work internally through GIS and come back to the EDA first and then also involve the planning commission. Ultimately, the decision will be made by the council. But I think everybody would definitely be involved because some of the land like you said may not have a high economic purpose. So, you know, it maybe is better under even like parks too, like ship parks. We would want them to take a look at it also. And we'll have full confidence that GIS and everything we have that we will have 100% knowledge of any easements that might have been from 1890 or like some of the utility and drainage easements that maybe we're not even aware of like we're fully confident that we were able to collect every single part for all those parcels. >> We would collect the parcels that are own. So the easements would be challenging. So that's something that we would have to go one by one. >> All right. >> And and to that level If I don't know how many properties there are. So like if we find that there's multiple properties, we would have to come back talk to the council because that could get pretty intensive in terms of trying to figure out easements that because I know some properties we would need legal to research easements. So >> Gotcha. Yeah. I anticipate there might be more than a few where legal is going to have to look into it especially whereas ones that were supposed to be transferred from HOA to the city and maybe weren't and for all intents and purposes we think they were but >> they weren't. Uh, I'd like to ask just just just a rough estimate. Are there dozens or hundreds of properties to be to be considered? >> I I don't have the answer to that. Um, I think I did a quick when I pulled the GIS it I think there were about 50. I think there about 50. >> Okay. Thank you. >> And a lot of those are going to be your retention ponds and the the easements on the outlots for developments. So there going to be a lot of those. >> Is there any plans to uh purchase more sitter property like as we think about future development? Um >> I am not aware of any. >> Okay. >> Say more. >> Yeah. Would would would that be something to consider as part of our plan and work next year like to think ahead about is is there city property we should consider purchasing? >> I think we can add that as a item that we can discuss at the next meeting in terms of if you want to come up with >> a scope you can also like call me. We could discuss kind of more in detail what that looks like. But um basically [laughter and cough] could be an item where strate looking at strategic locations that the city could acquire >> for some specific purpose I would think. >> Cool. Yeah, I think it's worth considering. So >> if that's what you're referring to and kind of put a quick plan together, we can identify some areas. >> Okay. Yeah. >> So collaborating with a communications coordinator to make effective website social updates that's ongoing, right? Kathy's here now. She's our community um communications coordinator. Also, we talked to um Kathy about posting four business stories a year to spotlight local businesses. That's something that um she's looking into for next year. Um just to see if anybody, you know, any businesses want to be spotlighted, right? So, um she hasn't reached out, but we'll see. There may be more. We'll have to figure that out as we go along. And when we say post, we're explicitly and only speaking online. Are we talking in the annual mailings that we do as well? What are we thinking? >> Think it could be like a a post in an online [snorts] story like and maybe some social media posts. It may be even a story we were discussing like maybe it's not a specific business but what's new in the old village and then highlighting old business you know like the business that businesses that are existing some new businesses and it may just be more of a village post to kind of tell people about especially if it's around restaurants right and working with the greater Stillwater Chamber of Commerce just sharing communications that would be more social if they have events we can share those if um we have events they can share ours keep outreach material up to date. Um, keep our maps and projects up to date. So, the community development map that we have right now [snorts] is a PDF. I'm looking at creating a story map, a GIS story map and updating that. So, that's something we'll work on next year. And then we're continuing just to get a better list of businesses. um just try to update that as best as possible when they come in for change of use through planning and permitting and also fire. >> Question on the chamber of commerce. Um has Lake Elmo ever considered starting their own chamber of commerce? >> I don't believe Elmo has. >> No, the um is the Stillwater Area Chamber of Commerce. So they effectively um are supposed to advocate if you're a member you can be a member for the Stillwater area chamber of commerce if you're a business in Lake Elmo Bayport um I think Marina on the St. Croy those places. So um I have never heard of uh somebody trying to create a chamber of commerce strictly for Lake Elmo. >> Well yeah it's called a greater Stillwater Chamber. So yeah, >> being a member in Lake Elmo, they do definitely do a good job of taking care of Lake Elmo people. Okay. Sign up. >> Cool. Just curious, >> Jason. Under housekeeping, you it says you're going to make updates to the EDA handbook. Is there an EDA handbook to update? >> There is an EDA handbook. I know Ashley's been looking into it. I don't know if you >> Yeah, we sent it out um I think at the beginning of the year. Um, but we just wanted to make some updates to to keep it more current. >> I have >> I think you do have it. I'll I'll make sure you have it. >> All right. I I I an electronic note, I assume. I I just >> I probably do have it, but I just didn't recognize it. Thank you. >> No problem. >> Are we still getting uh from Washington County from their EDA? Obviously business information as well in terms of some of the data >> uh not necessarily the new businesses per se but >> the CDA >> the CDA. Yeah. Is that information flow still occurring? Have we had any new asks for them or is that pretty static at this point? >> We talked to them from time to time. They we have a CA um agreement with them for I'm going to forget the the program but it's essentially let me say it's on our website. We we received $47,000 $48,000. So instead of running a program internally because there's going to be admin cost, it's through the CDA. And if you look here, I have it pulled up the website. It's the CDA. It's the home improvement loan program. So our funds go to this program and residents in Lake Elmo can take advantage of this program. We asked them for an update last week in terms of has anybody used this, applied, what do the numbers look like? Is >> there anything we could do so businesses could have something like this? >> Not for that funding for that funding stream that's specific, but they do >> is there different funding? >> They're they're they definitely have programs. I would have to look specifically. Um that's something I could look into and get back to you on. >> [snorts] >> So, we also had this connection with um through our EDA website when we made the updates last year. So, a lot of the information that we could have created, we just realized that county already has all the information that we would were asked to kind of look into. So, I'll look into it if you have specific like redevelopment um questions or >> Yeah. Well, what first got me interested in the EDA, so I was told that the EDA kind of has a budget and then businesses can apply for a grant to improve their space. For example, at the coffee shop on the end, they want to build a deck. Well, the they're renting, so they don't want to invest in that. Then the owners don't want to necessarily do that for the business. But if there was a way that businesses could do improvements that kind of helps >> aesthetically the whole town. >> Yeah. So that sounds like a facade improvement grant. Those are pretty typical. I'll look to see if they offer it. So have property acquisition. One thing that >> is there anything we as a commission can do for more community outreach? Nina, you bring up a good point of like just being a listening ear for for businesses in our community to hear what trials, tribulations, what positive things they have to say. like is there a forum for that today or is there something we should be thinking about doing to hear their concerns and considerations and ideas? Um open to suggestions, thoughts if that's something we want to consider as part of our outreach and and work plan next year. We did a we did a survey a business retention and expansion survey about three years ago and uh I have to say we asked businesses to give a half hour of someone's time to talk to us >> and a number of us went out and >> interviewed people but I have to say there were very few respondents were willing to talk to us. Everybody's too busy. >> Yeah. Uh if you had an open forum, you could say, you know, come and uh tell us what you think is good or bad about how things are being done. That's a possibility. You could do it as a online survey. I think it's a good idea to reach out again. >> Yeah, maybe re-upping that survey, right? Some just so we stay appraised of our community and and what the businesses are, what the landscape is. >> Well, I think that's not a bad idea because when we did start that, the EDA had just like renewed. There wasn't an EDA, so people didn't really recognize it if people were knocking on their if me and Tony were knocking on doors and Charles and Jeff like, "What are you guys?" >> Nina and Tony >> like, "Who are you guys?" So maybe now that it's been strong for a couple years, we it would be more wellreceived and people would take the time. >> Yeah. Okay. I'd suggest adding that something something about that outreach as part of our work plan next year. Um, >> so is the outreach to existing business owners and >> yeah, >> existing business owners and maybe we can figure out what that looks like here as we go ahead. Like again, is it a survey? Is it something more in depth? Is it an open form? Um, >> well, one of the questions we asked is what business would help your business. So, that could help. Knowing what businesses want could help with the other portion of what should the city buy or what should we do with city hall? what types of businesses should we attract? >> One of the out of the roughly dozen and a half uh people who responded uh I think the main issue was they wanted to understand better what the rules were and who they would have to talk to at the city. So, we recommended that we hire a community development director to uh be the contact person for businesses and sure enough, council agreed and look. So, something really valuable came out of it. Actually, >> I think another thing to add too is maybe talking with the CDA doing maybe a workshop locally about everything that they offer, right? And then have them come at some point organize that. It could be resources for existing businesses or new businesses, too. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Good. Yeah. We want to have a good business community. I want voices to be heard and to make sure we're responsive to that and not working in a in a bubble, right? So, I think that'd be that'd be really cool. Well, in in light of the fact that there were many who didn't respond to the surveys when you guys were on site, I know you you were writing down Jason the the idea of a forum where that's obviously we have open we have an open forum with every council meeting anyways. Um I if Washington County has experience with other cities where they do a a quarterly or twice a year type thing for obviously you're starting from scratch and the first time it might be two businesses. Is that a norm with communities as they're trying to build up the business culture where there's just a bianual get together to talk about the business environment? I have no idea. Uh maybe it's a terrible idea, but I I'd be curious what the CDA has thoughts of, you know, what's happening in Forest Lake, in Marine on St. Croy, and you know, Lino Lakes, just the amount of new businesses you think since that time, the how how the community's changed. Certainly by me in the south side of town, my kids go to milestones, you know, across so it hits home. >> I I'd like to add one thing. Uh I'm I'm still interested in doing something with the closed landfill and we are going to have a discussion at council about that possibility and I cannot predict what the outcome will be but I'd like to have an at least a spot open on this and it it could be part of the discussion of review city owned property or it could be part of brownfield grants or something like that. But it's it's just to keep that in mind that uh it would really be wonderful to get some value out of that. >> I think under city property planning we'll just have a placeholder for landfill and then after the meeting >> yeah develop you know how to how to develop the landfill into something valuable. >> Okay. All right. >> Are there are there any other comments from the members on this plan or >> are we okay with the comments so far? >> It seems like >> you have anything covers a lot of stuff that we should be covering. [clears throat] >> Okay. Well, if there's no no further comments, then thank you. Thank you, community development director stop. >> The next we're going on to the communication updates. >> So, we'll just start the former fire station parks building RFP, you know, group is part of the process, but tonight it's going to the council. So, that's really the only update that we have. We just wanted to give you that update in case you weren't aware that it's tonight. Um, the Urban Land Institute tap. Hopefully you've received an email asking for your participation. They uh have created they're creating the panel. They have one more panelist. Um but there are a range of developers, brokers, planners, designers, um some public finance spe a public finance specialists. So they're putting that together. I believe they're looking for one more broker if I'm if I'm correct in saying that. Just to remember, 50% of this was paid by paid for by the Washington County CDA for this process. And then the tap itself is scheduled from October 22nd through the 24th. Um I believe the meeting, the stakeholder meeting is October 23rd here at city hall. So like everybody to participate that's received the email and if you have anyone else that you want to add to the stakeholder list, send it to us as soon as possible. >> Do you know what they're how should we be prepared for the interviews? What 23rd I think the morning what are they looking for? or they >> depend it depends on so the easiest way for me to answer is depends on the stakeholder right so our engineering team is part of the stakeholder group they want to know the history of what's been there before what are some of the challenges for for the EDA it's just your personal background what's been discussed at the board comm you know the EDA anything that you want to bring up anything that you have knowledge of in the past that you think would be good they just want input from all the board members and you know any history there. I mean I'm sure some of you have been here when there was the other applicant they they would want to know the history of that. Um we've also sent numerous documents to them. What is it called? The briefing book. So they have a briefing book that has it is all the old documents from the RFP that was done before that whole process. So just bring your experience I guess is the thing I could say in terms of anything any vision that you have, anything you think would be better for that site. >> Can you recall offhand who all of the stakeholders are that have been invited? >> We Yeah, >> I was just going to say it's it's in the um staff report, but we just got um their bios recently. >> That's the panelists, but the stakeholders >> Oh, the stakeholders. Um they're going to be community members. Um, I think I have it written down. >> We have an Excel sheet of >> Yeah. public sector, private sector, local business owners. That's some of you. Um, and then any institutions or anything that's nearby that we could identify for the for the meeting, >> but it's planning commission parks, EDA, council. That was the first group. And then some people from Connect Lake Elmo. We and we asked them to send it out if they think other people should be um included. The subdivision to the east was identified. So hopefully they're aware. Um, anybody else you recommend? >> County. >> The county is on there. Yep. The countyy's on there. >> We talked about Oakdale, too. >> Oakdale's on there. Yes. So, the community development director for Oakdale. >> Good deal. >> Um, and some other I they're trying to locate the owners of the site for the big development in Oakdale to see if they can get some information from them, too. They have an HOA, I'm sure. So, get plugged into that. >> Yep, we have HOA members on there. >> Good deal. >> We can share that list after the meeting. Share it tomorrow. You can see >> now you this meeting is scheduled for three three >> three days. Do you uh have a schedule somewhere of what what hours and places? >> We do. I think we could send it tomorrow. Yeah. >> Thank you. So, if you have any comments about this, just send it to us as soon as possible so we can add stakeholders or anything else that you want to you want to add to this. Any questions? >> How long do you think it'll take for them to provide the report back to us? Couple >> they were talking about there's two different ways to do it. I think instead of doing the immediate report out, I think this was discussed. We're going to wait a couple Do you know the date that was >> I think it's um I think we have it set for November 18th, but I can update you. Okay. >> Ready for the next item? >> The next item is number five. Uh upcoming meeting on December 2nd. >> You actually have the GIS update. So >> Oh, that's that's part of these communications. Yes. Okay. Go ahead. >> Yeah. So, working with Bolton and Mink, we worked with their staff to create a GIS and maps and data page. And on this page, we just had the printable paper maps. But now we have at least two public parks and trails map, parks and trail map, and then a >> public parcel viewer. It's similar to the county viewer. I'm sure you've seen the county viewer, but it has all the local city information, too. So, I'm gonna zoom in just in the village area. And you can see here that it lists all the plats. This is coming from the county. This is all connected with the county's GIS. So, when the county updates this map, it automatically updates ours. This is utility data from the city side. So, it shows sanitary sewer pipe, storm pipe, and water pipe. It's real basic, but it's great to when we work with uh developers that they're able to see where the closest um utilities are. And then we have obviously our parcels. If you click on a parcel right here, >> it's going to pull up the information, tax history links, accessor links, plat if there's an old plat. And then obviously this is all the information um like the county we're just pulling that information. It's connected to the county like I said. So if it updates, we don't have to monitor that address points. Shows all the addressing. Then we have a planning section. This is really good. We have the Shorland buffer. So you can see if you're in Shorland, you can look at the subdivisions that are there. We have MUSA boundary with phasing. So green means go, red means don't go. Um let's see zoning. That's the zoning layer. Future land use map too. So you can see that also. >> See, some of this is county information like easements you're asking about. I don't know if that's all the ements, but there's some. Then we asked for the parks and trails because this is requested. So you can see the trails there. There's a legend too right here. Tell you what those trails mean. back then and parks and trails. The parks turn the parks on. I think this is I believe it's only Let me check. That's also the county. Marty requested irrigation zones so people can see what irrigation zone they're in. School districts. That's just pulling from the county. The watershed district. Some people don't know, but part of it is in not in Valley Branch. Let's see. Anything else? That's about it. But it puts all that information all in one application, which is great because the county just doesn't have our our local planning and zoning shoreline buffer information. So, this is a really good tool. This is a tool that's now public and we use it when we talk to developers or anybody residents can use it. It's on our website. >> And when it's pulling from the county, it's taking every data point of the county and then adding on top of that. It's not as if it's taking some of the county info. >> Yeah. So, we've looked at the county map. You can connect in the back end and then it just you populate your map and then add your layers. So, if there's other layers that were missing from the county that you'd want to see, you let me know. If there's local information that you'd want to see that we have, we could also add that to this map. And some of the additions would take less than a day. I mean, the person doing it couldn't do I used to do GIS work. You could add like a layer in 10 minutes, right? >> That's fantastic. So, when obviously there's property sales all the time and it updates on the county level whenever they get the ECV for it. Does that mean this is then doing like a is it literally live or is it doing like a nightly jobs batch or is it >> uh it refreshes so when they're refreshed ours would just refresh. >> That is fantastic. >> Just so you know I mean it all lives in a folder and you can pull their links and when you make your map you're just pulling the same link that they have. So it's connect back to their database. >> That's really cool. Is this on our city website now? >> It is now. I believe we released it la I don't know if it was a week or two ago. >> So I could go home and pull that up and see all what you just showed. >> A lot of time on it. Yep. >> Wow. That's fascinating. >> Grab a beer, sit in the chair. [laughter] >> Wow. >> So the public parks and trails app, how is that one different? that just has the I think it's similar but it's just it's just paired down so you're not looking at all the other information >> the parcels basically >> park [snorts] >> if you want to look at this and I mean I assume this is going to be presented to the parks commission too if it hasn't already um if they have any comments they amendments too. >> So, in terms of uh internal policies and procedures, I assume it's already documented within staff every time there's a new DA that goes through and we start doing subdivisions. It's already identified whose role it is to communicate to Bolden M, hey, we need to update the map because there's a new trail that's going in on these streets for the first phase of this development. >> Yeah. So, I mean there most of it was done by focus, a lot of it. So that's still being done through Bolton Bank. We're still processing through Sophia any updates and making sure they get updated. >> All right. Thanks. This was a work plan item just in case you don't recall. So, we'll check this one off the list. >> Does anybody have any questions? >> Thank you very much. This is going to be really nice for for the people of the community to take a look. >> I've used the county one quite often, but it's nice to have the additional information. Thank you. >> Thank you. [snorts] >> And the next item is the uh number five upcoming meeting. Nothing to report there. This is December 2nd, 2025. We'll bring the updates to the work plan and we'll do a review of the 2025 plan. Does anyone have any any comments about the next next meeting? Please put it on your calendar. [laughter] >> We'll be here. Uh I want to move that we adjourn if there's no further business. >> Second. >> Second. >> Anybody object? >> Nope. >> Thank you. meeting is correct. [snorts] >> Web traffic on there is about to increase drastically tonight. There's going to be at least seven more people on there.