e e e e e e e e e e e e e it's um 701 I'm going to call to order the city council meeting for the City of Lake Elmo here on March 18th please stand with me for the Pledge of Allegiance Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all all right uh Item B on our agenda is approval of the agenda can I is there anything that anybody wants to get changed was there something we needed to pull from the consent agenda which item was that staff would like to pull number seven number seven staff would like pull number seven from the consent agenda anything else all right hearing none I'll I'll uh entertain a motion to approve the agenda as amended with number seven moving into the regular agenda move to approve agenda as amended s second second we have a motion in second approve the agenda I'll call the question all those in favor of approval of the agenda please signify by saying I I agenda is hereby approved um in our packets we were given the March 4th special and regular meeting minutes um unless there's any uh changes to that I'll entertain a motion to approve those minutes move to approve the minutes of the March 4th 2025 special and regular meetings second all right all those in favor of approving March 4th 2025 special and regular meeting minutes please signify by saying I I I minutes are approved approved do we have anybody that wishes to speak on public comments inquiries Julie no okay we have a presentation the lake JC's we would like to present to you the City of Lake ammo a $122,000 check donation to from our charitable gambling fund awesome thank for all of your support and do I understand the JC's is is kind of going away unfortunately yeah we're uh we are we are uh withering in numbers and uh therefore we will probably be folding by mid year okay well let's get a picture with that one ful big CH and thank you for your continued support over the years we great greatly appreciate it apprciate you [Music] guys there's people under 40 that can be part of the JC's right are if she get hand just give her a whack right bye Ken talking to me who knows my name all right uh for the consent gen this evening we have number two approved payments and dispersements number three approved lease for farmland and David SE Farms number four approved T-Mobile temp Tower 3303 Langley I think that's a lease there number five is approved pay request number one for well number two posos water treatment uh number six is approved security release for eastn Village fourth edition number eight accept donation from Lake mjc's resolution 202528 number nine approve Washington County tree stewards program number 10 approv Lake Elmo Elementary development agreement resolutions 202-31 number 11 authorized administrative services coordinator job posting with that I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda move to approve the consent agenda as presented second we have a motion acent and a second to approve the consent agenta as uh stated all those in favor please indicate by saying I I all right consent Edge is hereby approved and then uh first on on the regular agenda is accept feasibility report and call for improvement hearing approv plans and specifications and Order advertisement for bids for the 2025 Street and utility improvements resolution 2025 d030 I do understand that there might be some people that came to speak on this this evening so if you plan on doing so or wish to you need to fill out a sheet in the back and give that to the clerk at which time we'll we'll uh listen to people from the audience okay how do I get where do I I'm sorry Mr Mayor and councel I have a present thank you I have a presentation um it you've seen a lot of this information before but um just want to step through things uh one more time this is a the next step in a 429 process so before use an item as the mayor just stated to approve to accept the feasibility report and um authorize approve the feasibility accept feasibility report um accept plans um actually this is the wrong presentation this is this is this is last um we need the March 18th one we need the March 18th one that one was the February um presentation I can I I can I can probably use this I just did close it though but um can you send this back Julie or did I totally screw us up apologies sorry it'll happen technology is great when it works sent was last week uh I don't think that's it but I don't think that's right what I can do is use this and just pretend that this um red box is uh around March 18th right now it's largely the same information um but we've you know at at the last meeting we were looking for Council feedback whether to extend um Water Service in certain neighborhoods um we took that um information uh we went back um we ended up not extending water service and that's what final plans are developed on so tonight we are um apologies again we're before the council to accept the feasibility report uh call for the Improvement hearing to be held on May 6th and accept or approve final plan specifications and authorize uh staff go a bits so I'm going to um kind of scroll through some of this this being the old presentation apologies again so um the the input that we got from Council um because uh it was it was so so expensive for not just the city but residents to extend the um uh public water lines in to those neighborhoods that we ended up um uh not pursuing that um we also didn't have any strong resident desire to have that public water extended um folks have several folks have heavily invested in their own um water treatment systems and are happy to continue with that so getting to um 55th Street the cost the street cost didn't change based on the actions taken last meeting so we do have um the same assessment rates 22300 and one at 1150 with partial access um stepping through again apologies for this Slide the 59th Port neighborhood uh those assessments are proposed at 77500 for the Reclamation improvements installation of concrete curb and gutter Irish Court um just to refresh those assessments uh that rate stayed constant as well at 10,700 and so with the um 55th Street North 57th uh Street North and jeul up way um neighborhood those assessments this the the costs of the projects up there there was never pardon me there was never the ability to um extend public water down those streets so um the cost was um you know determined to be $757,000 for that work the portion to be assessed translates to an assessment per benefited household of $14,200 and there are 16 properties um at heal pass those that assessment um is projected to be um I believe it's 177,000 um based on the cost of $759,000 um I apologize again for kind of using this old presentation I don't know what happened here but um there are parking restrictions planned um it's it's all within the feasibility studies which are on file um generally the I believe it's the south side of the road has the Restriction in anywhere around a culdesac in situations where the streets are less than 26 ft in width face to face um here we are so again just to reiterate yep around called the sacks and that kind of that southern side of the road um so what I'll say is um in the absence of uh some additional Maps which I had in the other presentation um the improvements are you know uniformly for the five neighborhoods are a Reclamation of the existing asphalt surface an installation of curban gutter concrete curbing gutter on the edge and a B4 uh 18 uh section so that's a 4-in high gutter section uh this is this best best kind of matches in with grades at driveways um these neighborhoods all had old bituminous uh Road edging and um you know that vary kind of between 3 and 4 in high and then we are matching geometrically um and and uh from a profile standpoint these the roadways so um I apologize again for not having a better graphic so the action before us tonight again is to accept the feasibility study order uh public Improvement hearing which would be May 6 that would be advertised in the STW water gazettes and those uh affected would be uh uh directly mailed to um approve the final plans and uh again a copy of which is on file here at City Hall and to um authoriz staff to advance to advertise for bids and that's what I got okay I'm simply right I'm kind of looking for a map here I know that so here's this this will work for everybody so um I have you know disseminated uh you know to to get to the issue of the 57th Street uh you know the I guess the debate on um including that in the improvements I I'll I'll just add that my um my position hasn't changed my recommendation um to include 57 Street as part of the improved or part of the improvements for the 2025 Street project stands um and I can offer more information by way of that but I think I'll let um if if Council wants to hear some of the folks who live out there talk I'm happy to step aside all right sure um when I call your name you can come up to the podium you'll have six minutes to speak there's no back and forth with the councel uh if there are questions of Staff we'll you know address them as such um or we can discuss it amongst councel during uh after the motion phase um so when you come up to the podium state your name and address for the record please and I'll call up uh John bourbon excuse me thank you mayor and city council members for the opportunity to speak today my name is John Bourbon and I reside at 9612 57 Street North uh in Rolling Hills development you've already received three mails from uh the five residents in this community that are quote benefiting from this Ro Improvement on 57th Street Eric yosis is here in support he's not going to speak but he's uh asking me to represent him Brad Brad Bergie is going to speak and then lend Jan's here he's our neighbor but he's not in well he's down the street it this doesn't financially impact him but he's here to show his support of our opinion so um you know we've sent those emails hopefully you've had a chance to read them digest you know they're a lot lengthy more than what could be said in six minutes so what I'd like to do is just highlight our unanimous opposition to the plan to have 57 Street replac as part of this overall project this opposition is based on Merit and fact the Road in question was already in placed in 2011 at an age of about 18 years at the time of replacement there was additional subsurface drainage installed because that was causing the road to fail water would seep up through cracks in a road there's a big grade difference in in the neighborhood that system mitigated the failure mode and remains working today it worked Engineers did their job the road's fine now the road is being slated to be replaced only 14 years of age and it has not reached the end of its useful life Road should last more than 20 years in this sort of residential setting it's cars pickups not heavy trucks the remainder of 57th Street was replaced in 201617 at that time it was 23 to 24 years of age so the original Road was fine except for the the water issue in our section of the road so um in talking to city engineer Mr Stanley told me that the road was evaluated in 2021 greated is average but in that conversation he admitted that the road looks better than average right now it had been maintained it got a seal coat there aren't major cracks there's some potholes like every road but they've been patched it's in good shape and that's a testament to the maintenance that's been done so there is no reason based on its condition to be replaced the proposed sewer workk also is unnecessary I know he's told me that that's not um a driving factor in the project but to add to that I live at the lowest point on the road storm subers is just to the left of my driveway we have had one instance of water across the road in a winter time when the storm sewer froze so no matter what's put in that would have happened regardless it was an awful winter uh City came out thought it and everything was fine heavy rains there's a little bit of water on the road but it's not an issue sewer does not need to be upgraded on the on the road uh and that should not drive the project either so as the map shows here um there's two culdesac you see the yellow those are uh the ends of the culde saacs and then the straight section is then connected with 57 street so that's the extent of the project in our neighborhood um the culd sacks to the best of my knowledge have not been replaced uh the one in Judy Mary Manor was put in I think somewhere around 97 and for Lake Elmo Vista about 2001 so they're 24 to 28 years old they've got the the people have got their investment out of those roads and they're in bad shape they're much worse than the 57th Street so why is 57 Street included in this plan there's nothing wrong with it it's got a lot of useful life left so you know just trying to understand the process and talking to Mr Stanley said there's economies scale in road construction projects yeah for sure there could be and that replacing 57th Street now may be less expensive than maybe doing it sometime in the future he said you know in the process of repairing the road there may be damage to the road by the construction vehicles you know what I communicated that to all the neighbors you saw the email in full transparency I provided that email to you guys but we're not convinced by this speculation tying in a 14-year-old Road in good condition to 24 year old roads that in are in need of repair makes no sense there is no evidence that the future cost per unit will be greater and if you look at the project you know if you just think about the cost in of doing something 57 street is a constant width 28 ft the culde saacs have a constant width until until you get to the ends where they bulb out one of them has a center hole so you know the work to do that to me is a lot more than just pouring and repairing a constant withd road so and then you know if you want to speculate what if the rest of 57 Street needs to be replaced and that is done along with ours it'll be cheaper too so regarding cost the numbers just don't add up in 2011 when our road was replaced the assessment was 4,900 in 2016 pren he calls it at being 6,500 now 8 years later it's 15 grand it just doesn't make sense it seems excessive and you know if it's accurate that's even more reason to leave it alone and get our full useful life out of that road it it doesn't make sense to replace an asset that has useful life with the attempt to minimize the overall cost of maintaining that asset so the investment of our dollarss and the city dollars make no sense this is not an investment worth doing and we ask that you strike this portion of the road from the project and uh let us get the full useful life of of the road and our original investment thank you thank you um Brad Bergie good evening to you all my name is Brad Bergie I live at 9481 57 Street North which is also part of the Rolling Hills section I only have one comment and question I want to direct to you and I support totally what John just previously presented to you in the staff report presented to the Council on September 17th 2024 quote the city maintains a 10-year revolving Street Capital Improvement program to maintain develop or replace Street Network to acceptable level of service and address Pavements exceeding their useful service life and no longer can be maintained so my main question tonight is can the city continue to claim that the Rolling Hills section of 57 Street North has exceeded its service life and no longer can be maintained thank you very much thank you we have questions for the city engineer on that I I do have a question here and I guess maybe a little bit for the applicants if you could just repeat I you said at the beginning um of your comment uh the the residents that were in favor of this I I know we got the email from you um from Eric um I think you mentioned in the email John no sorry um so there's five residents and all five of us in Rolling Hills y so it's Greg Kenfield and his wife Sasha they were they sent me an email in support after I sent it out to them Brad Bergie wife so we're the five res in ring Hills Estates on 57 Street okay thank you so and then my question for the um for the city engineer is then have you have you heard from the Ken fields or um the uh the muas at all about this project um again obviously you know we have three that we have you know that I've seen emails from and and heard from have we heard from the others uh mayor and councilman Hearn uh I have not heard from uh anybody else i' I've spoken with Mr bourbon um and um I've seen some other email correspondents that was sent through Council but I haven't heard from anybody else though if you look at the emails sorry speaking out of turn but my emails include those families and if you want me to afford additional emails that they say they're support of the opposition I'll gladly do it just to make sure there's no question that two the residents want the road I hate to say trust me but I will only say that because I know positively they're an opposition and I thinkg you saw email was Tex so I yeah sorry another question here for the city engineer I know we kind of chatt about this a little bit too but maybe just to to talk about here as well um so if these if these five uh units were not included um we didn't go forward with that 57th Street how would that impact the uh assessments for the rest of the properties uh so uh now we're talking about the properties on the culdesac like 55th Street North and julip way so I was able to break out the cost kind of per Street section and um those assessments for those folks would actually slightly go down um they would go down to uh somewhere it probably be in the neighborhood of 10 to 11,000 per property based on you know the current estimates you know um the factor being you know if you look at um you know 57th Street you can kind of see it just right on the drawing um if you combine the lengths of these two culde saacs that L that stretch of 57 street is almost twice as long as those lengths of those two culde saacs um and then the fact that there is this large these These are large Lots with significant Frontage on 57 Street um you know um so it really you know when you pull those lots out and that those costs out um you know 55th and and julip way uh those those assessments do go down um if 50 if 57th was to be done as a standalone um like in the F in the future yeah based on today's cost assessments would be proposed at over $21,000 um so in the future I I anticipate that number would be higher so and I should have asked you this earlier on the phone today it was that communicated with the residents as well that kind of like what that price would jump up to and any feedback that you received from them on that as well no at the time uh when I spoke with Mr bourbon um you know we you know it was just kind of a uh you know spur the- moment phone call and I didn't have all that information at hand at the time so um in the days since we've had some some more time to think about it and do a little more analysis okay MH would you like my opinion no not right now thank thank you that's all you had you have any questions he took my last question so I'm good to go thank you good I'm good okay given that I'll entertain a motion on the topic the motion is on page uh three of the yeah uh motion to approve resolution number 2025-the ability report calling hearing on Improvement approving the plans and specifications and ordering the advertisement for bids for the 2025 Street and utility improvements there a second I'll support all right discussion now just to confirm is this motion to keep 57th Street a part of this project yes okay thank you so I'm going to give my two cents on this there was a lot lot said and a lot covered um I've driven this stretch of roadway and I'm just going to let you know you're probably not going to like what I I have to say but given my 30 plus years in the civil engineering experience and my experience in building roadways and construction and working for a geotechnical company not the one that did the Geotech for this particular project and reviewing the Geotech report a few things to say uh in the Geotech report there were two borings done in that section between julip way and uh 55th Street North when we look at the corings of that pavement it's obvious that the sections were thin in such that a typical standard residential roadway you don't want any less than 4 in of binus I think the average if I look at my Geotech report that I uh that I reviewed um shows it was done with ground penetrating radar uh which can go a couple feet down into the pavement when driven bear with me on this section but I think on that 57 Street section we're looking at where is it okay FWD we don't need FWD uppr thickness for 57 shows an average thickness of only 3.4 in with the 15th percentile and 2.9 in and the minimum being 2.3 in of structure the base in and of itself identified in the corings is dirty sties with some aggregate which is not a uh a base that you want for the condition of your roadway and I'll say from experience things can look to be in good good shape on the surface and serviceable but really it's like the the backbone of something if the subgrade and the underground structure is not in place that road is doomed for failure sooner than later in addition um this section of roadway has bituminous curban gutter which may have served a purpose in the past but it was at the develop benefit to put in curban gutter because it absolutely lends no structural uh attributes to the roadway itself in other words I refer to it as the crust on the bread keeping all the dough in the middle the curban gutter helps the structure of the roadway regular vehicular traffic on a standard roadway that's 4 in thick and is constructed properly with proper maintenance should last easily 20 years and and even more um this roadway obviously was not constructed to that thickness I think the road cores at rh1 and rh2 uh in the report show thickness it does show the uh chip seal which is great at sealing up small cracks and keeping water from infiltrating the base which would increase the deterioration due to the freeze thaw cycle that we we get here in Minnesota and it accelerates that deterioration fairly quickly um rh1 let me get to the coring pictures here rh1 has a thickness of 3.7 in where the actual the uh chip seal kind of comes off the top but at 2 in we're going to we're going to see some delamination in the asphalt which over the long term isn't going to be good and I think the boring shows aluvial Sands mixed with some Aggregate and silts which is you would never spec into a base for roadway it's basically like the developer came in no Aggregates were brought in scrape the top and pave the top and that's probably why something was done in 2011 I don't have the answer for that I wasn't in this position at that time sir there's no time for you to talk right now manag rep 2011 itn't original develop um the other one rh2 shows was a thickness of 2.3 in um the lower por uh chip seal was present at the top so with all that being said in my 30 plus years of experience this roadway I've driven it a couple times it looks okay it's not great but it's going to deteriorate very quickly so my position I would be irresponsible in my professional opinion if I said just leave it the city has a considerable investment in its infrastructure I know that there is a cost to the residents the basic beat up of these streets is unregulated uh sanitation trucks that don't have weight limits on it other than that that's what's going to beat up the roadway given the proper subgrade base along with the proper structure on top Road's going to be good for I would say 30 years easy so with that that's that's why I'm going to support this motion member Dr i' like to weigh on this so I took a ride up there today and and looked at the street like the mayor I have a few more years experience as a civil engineer having served as a city engineer and director of all infrastructure in a major city on the west coast I'm licensing two stat as an engineer I took a look the seal coat I think covers up a lot of the scars on that road as I looked at sections this badly cracked the seal coating tends to kind of hide that a little bit um but it was badly cracked the the tumus CRI and gut are pretty much non-existent in some areas I did not look at the soils report as as the mayor has but in my view um that section uh would benefit from a replacement and after listening to the report on the soils and the boring it clearly would be a benefit but just looking at it and from my experience and walking down that street that street is not in is not as good shape as you think it does the seal coating hides a lot of the scars I'll also point out that I have been involved in the construction end of Roads um kurbing gutter concrete streets pinus and the construction side of my engineering profession and so I think I have a little bit of knowledge about that and I spent a good deal of time out there today looking at the street and um after receiving your emails and trying to consider from your perspective I understand that the assessments can be can be painful there's no doubt about that um the city as a whole are picking up a large share of the road but you do have that pain of the assessment and I hope our policy will make that a little bit easier for you to manage but I think you'd be well served by having that street replaced if you don't do so now four or five years from now the cost of doing it because it's going to require complete reconstruction tearing everything up installing a proper base and building it basically from the subbase up which is going to be three or four times as expensive um I know you don't want to hear that but I'm giving you as again as a professional opinion as the licensed engineer in this state and someone who's done a lot of this work both designing them and building them I will say that uh when we're comparing cost you brought up cost from 2011 in the construction industry when we had covid we saw steel prices uh cement prices go up astronomically during covid so they do generally go up a tick each year uh but with that uh labor steel cement all went up at like like steel went up 80% uh cement went up 60% so um at least in the transportation industry that we that we saw I would defer to councilman dragas and the mayor about their expertise here so I would I would support the motion as well I say something sure go for it um I wish I could add to the the years of engineering experience here I I have zero years of of engineering experience um I guess the the thing that I'm battling a little bit here is I I cannot argue with the engineering at all I'm seeing the boring reports I mean that completely makes sense from the engineering standpoint um uh the the reasoning behind uh making these repairs right now um I guess the the the part that I'm struggling with a little bit is if we have all of the residents saying that you know from my understanding that they're okay with knowing that this price is going to go up significantly if this was assessed to just these properties 3 four years down the road um if that's something that they're okay with you know unless I'm missing something here and and that's going to drastically affect the houses around it for what um from 25 years down the road when these streets that are being repaired currently have to be redone again if that's going to impact um significantly those I guess that's again I'm just trying to kind of battle um between those a little bit so so I my understanding is that the five residents that are being impacted by this are are aware of what the price increase would be um and if if that's um what there and it's going to the other thing I did want to make sure it was and this was the question with well how is it going to impact if these five are not part of this how's this going to impact the other residents around them um it does bring the price down for them um if it would have went the other way I would have um I there's I would not even have thought twice about this um because of that um I I'm probably going to vote differently uh than the rest of the council um here's the argument I'll give you on that 70% of this cost is City cost 30% is resident cost so if we wait five years and have to do full reconstruction cost then the city's cost is going up exorbitantly as well it's not just not just the resident's cost as far as I'm concerned I'm here to represent the whole city and so that I would want to Ure that the city's cost is not go up now if the five residents wanted to sign an agreement that if and when that road deteriorates they take on 100% of the cost I'd listen to that but as far as the city paying I don't want the CD to come back in five to 10 years and pay that much more pay the appreciate the the inflation increased cost and the increased construction value it's not just inflation it's going to require complete reconstruct at that point sure okay so yeah that's a good point um we don't we don't burden the I mean just like they redid the roads in my neighborhood yeah you know paid my portion uh City paid their portion it is what it is yeah that in again based off of the boring numbers that you're seeing there it looks like within the next three to five years if nothing's done that's a re it's a total reconstruction versus a Reclamation you you'll get at least five years out of that right but beyond that it's going to be a depending on the weather the spring freeze thaw those cracks open up you get water introduced it gets into the ovial soils in the bottom without that aggregate that's going to properly drain it's uh it's it's really kind of a uh Swag yeah that's a good point I I was not thinking about from that standpoint um because and that was kind of to my comment of how does it impact the residents around it I'm not thinking about well yeah the city's covering the 70% um yeah so that's a good point um I think the other thing is we're not ordering the Improvement this evening we're calling for the plans in specs and calling for the public hearing so the motion before us tonight is not to order the Improvement to be done but to get the plans of specifications and call for the public hearing on all of these projects so there's still time to reconsider um and perhaps we you know uh we can read the soils reports oursel that mayor is able to obtain and get a better understanding of it and if you haven't driven up there take a look I would encourage you to do that because there's nothing you know better than looking at it yourself but it sounds like in this situation it's it's more about what's underneath it is but you can see some of the scars on top and that you know obviously chip seals are a good maintenance program for for roadway uh to help seal up some of the smaller cracks to to to keep the uh Professor Jean skoke said the the worst three things for pavement are water water and water so anytime you have cracks in your pavement and you're producing water into a a subsurface that's not well drained such as what lies underneath this roadway you're going to incur more problems quicker okay all right I'll call the question all those in favor the motion approve resolution 20253 please signify by saying I I I motion passes item number 13 is letter intent for 3M priority to funding Trail project so as you may know um we requested a letter of intent and the day after it was released the ball for the ball fields they were deemed ineligible but through priority to so we were asked to see if there are any trails that we could apply for and we looked at at the trail Network and most of the trails that we have in the plan required rideway acquisition so it was going to take a while um this is one of the trails that you'll see is the central Greenway Corridor coming out of the park and then going east to uh Down Still Water towards the Village um there's also you know some fish Lake Park so we considered potentially you could run a basically a half mile multi-use between this trail from Stillwater to Sunfish Lake Park so if this is something You' want to support this was really the only trail that we could find that was kind of an easy trail that would be ready to go um but it would be a nice Connection in nature from uh a major project that's going to happen in the future um question on the trail thank you um in the letter is there any indication on the cost of the trail no being a normal 8T width I'm assuming binus Trail that's correct okay so we haven't done a like a we're going to work with engineering the submitt is on the 4th so uh we're going to fourth of April fourth of April ail it's a prettyy quick um submitt but uh they don't want to see projects really over a half a million we don't think it's going to meet that I think I did a quick estimate about 200,000 okay so it seems to fit the range um but we'll get a better number from engineering okay other questions for director stopa it's 100% Grant funded though right right right okay um we do have somebody like to speak on this from the public uh you know the routine Tony so give your name and your rank serial code all that ton man I live at 5050 Kirkwood Avenue North in Lake Elmo and uh I wanted to say that I I like this idea but I see this as an opportunity to take the six minutes or five to talk about another one that uh we just found out recently that the the uh the the program under which we've been uh doing restoration of sun Sunfish Lake Park is called uh conservation Partners Legacy program and those programs apparently won't spend more than a million dollars on a on a specific project and so we've been working now since uh the spring of 2018 on the park and if you look it's going very very well so far we've gotten 661 th000 from the DNR C uh CPL project and we'd like to be able to finish this job uh there's there's another RFP coming up on that program in August where we we're going to apply for more money to try to finish it but that those are only good for three years and we need a longer period of time to establish the the control burn and the forestry uh to go back in there and get rid of Buckthorn as it comes back and so the the There's an opportunity to uh get money from the 3M fund to continue this work the the time frame of the of the projects that you can apply for uh for funding is five years and so if we go in in August and get the the rest of what we need to take out the rest of the Woody debris and the do the rest of the forestry mulching then we're left with the question where do we get the money for the next few years to essentially extend the project and so uh I sent uh I wrote up another letter of intent under the the name of the friends will come with centr stake Park sent a copy to administrator Miller and to Public Works director powers and to Deputy Public Works director Swain swapo and uh with the suggestion that I I just go ahead and send this in and see what happens basically what it would be is we'd be asking for permission to send in a proposal that would ask for $1.8 million over the 5-year period starting in 2026 which is when the money would be available to continue on with this project to make sure the buck AR doesn't come back so the reason I came here is I wanted to make sure that nobody would object to me sending in a letter and you don't have to answer but uh uh again as uh as uh community development director staa said it's the 4th of April I didn't on the the other three I went through the process of getting it on the agenda and everything I don't think there's time to do that before the before it would have to be sent in so I would like to just make sure that nobody would object if I sent in a letter asking for permission to put this proposal in thank you thank you Mr Man any more questions related to the trail for Mr stoa motion to support a letter of intent submission by staff for the three and priority 2 Grant funds for a multi-use path connecting the future Central Greenway Regional Trail to Sunfish Lake Park there a second second all right any discussion question here I would just say I mean this it seems like from our discussion last time when we were um looking for the grant it fits that um uh the criteria of what they're looking for to create opportunities um since we're not able to use the water as much um for recreation so seems like this fits and might it's worth worth a shot uh because this would this would be a great connection especially with the future development um with the athletic fields there too and then the greenway Trail coming through there I mean what a great uh addition that would be and and even if even if only one or two one or the other of the the ball fields or the greenway happens it still would be a great um option to have okay I I just want to say thanks for bringing this forward looking for opportunities to to make the G better appreciate it thank you with that I'll call the question all those in favor of a motion to support a letter intent submission by staff for the 3M priority 2 Grant funds for a multi-use path connecting the future Central Greenway Regional Trail to Sunfish Lake Park please signify by saying I I motion passes thank you number 14 you get to stay up there approve old fire station and Public Works building RFP all right this is what everybody's been talking about office yep everybody's ready okay so fire station RFP has been at the Eda for a couple meetings and this is what they've recommended for approval to be sent um to the council so just to be clear there's seven Parcels it's about 1.2 Acres but only 8.8 is buildable we would require that a RightWay dedication would be made you know during this process because as you can see some of the lots are in the street um I ran a quick just uh uh uh the assessments on this is about a million dollars just that's site but there's seven buildings so we'd want to re establish the alley in terms of a dedication so that access Through the Alley could also be used so the background in this is during the village uh study we asked residents what they wanted to see at the location basically said eating drinking establishments familyfriendly spaces maybe some housing if it was mixed use a community center Green spaces recreational spaces and Retail one of the quotes uh I guess one of the sayings that came up was that the survey results indicated that residents wanted to preser the charm and character of the Old Village as it currently exists and that they wanted to limit big box development so with the um criter criteria evaluation that you'll see in a second we work that in um just something to talk about really quick though is it's currently in a phase one environmental assessment that hopefully will wrap up um in April we spoke to an appraiser it was difficult to get a speculative appraisal because there could be two different sites depending on how it's awarded so we'll do the appraisal after the selection uh the Eda recommended a minimum purchase price of the property for 100,000 if it were to appraise for more that difference would be considered the subsidy to the developer um we initially had post closing performance measures were written in the FP but something that we'll negotiate um with legal and with the purchase or through the purchase agreement and that's something that the council will also see um while the purchase price is not the primary factor in the decision the city may consider the offer amount When selecting a proposal so that's come up a lot like how important is the price it's not a price competition it's the best product that we could get for the city um and for residents so the committee currently would be 10 Representatives all Eda members or they could designate someone one planning commissioner and then City staff uh they would score the proposals and pick the three highest the finalist could come to an open meeting and present to the committee and then the committee would send their recom recommendations to the city council but basically send the three recommend one um and the council would then approve who they would like to approve uh and then the staff will work on the purchase agreement this is our timeline right now this is the best case scenario so the way the RFP is written it's written to have some flexibility on the timeline but essentially what we wanted to show you was that April 17 best case scenario we could release the uh RFP we are having an official building openhouse where people can walk through uh the the fire station uh we'll have a pre-application conference which is basically just a presentation about the RFP so people understand how to fill it out um and if they have any questions we need those questions in usually a week later but we're going to answer them um in post those answers on the uh website so sometimes the answers modify the RFP so we want to make sure everybody has those um answers and the proposals will be due so after that we'll give people about a month um to submit and then you see to be determined timeline is just the review process so the evaluation criteria is what we talked about earlier it's 65 points for Community benefits so the main thing that we wanted to stress was land use and that would be 30 points points so um examples would be may be positive would be retail restaurants bakeries tap rooms brew pubs markets uh we also said if there was a mixed use development that dwelling should um be outside of the fire station footprint and should not exceed two stories to keep the charm of the Old Village preservation and design so this is encouraging the Adaptive reuse of the fire station and not a demolition of the fire station so they would receive points for that if someone wanted to demolish the Parks Building they would not lose points um for that also the site is in a Design District so they should look at um how to promote preservation and traditional building design um so that will all be considered in terms of what what their approach would be public space and streetscape improvements it's 10 points basically a lot of concrete on the site so we want to see how they're going to add Landscaping to the site on parking parking is interesting because we want to see them get creative with their parking plan we've heard from some people that they want to retain public parking and have people be able to use the parking lot so we just want to see what that looks like they could uh earn more points if they have a creative plan and then economic impact um we've heard that people would like to see more small businesses so that would receive Five Points and then that the type of development should attract residents um from Lake Elmo and surrounding areas to the Old Village we think that this is really important that this development could anchor and bring more people to the Village de developer qualifications 25 points is always important 10 points for experience and previous projects uh we want to see their approach and timeline with outline costs this is pretty important to just to know the scope of the project and what's feasible and then proof of funds this is just a basic uh you know showing that they have the proof of funds or a letter from the bank or just how they plan on funding it too we want to we want to understand what that looks like and then with the post closing performance measure I talked about that there were a couple ways um and methods that we discussed at the Eda but this RFP doesn't go into the details because it just basically says that there will be compliance requirements and then not meeting them could result in the property being returned to the city and that more details will be worked out during the purchase agreement and like I said that would be reviewed by the city council so they'll understand exactly what those measure uh performance measures will be um at the time of the purchase agreement and I just have the recommendation so if anybody has any questions any questions for director sh uh council member Hearn could you just talk through a little bit with the the subsidy again for the difference between the appraisal and the purchase price walk me through that one a little bit so this one's pretty tricky because we're only allowed to give a business subsidy of up to $150,000 so depending on where the appraisal comes in it may actually push the purchase price up depending on what the developer wants to do uh there's certain ways that you can receive that credit through environmental cleanup and I believe uh historic um Rehabilitation costs that's something that we'll have to work with our with legal and who's going to review the applications but if someone for example has a project that really doesn't create jobs and there's no reason to receive anything but the $150,000 business subsidy then they would have to you know basically increase their purchase price if it's below that okay yes where does the $150,000 limit come from it's state statute oh not for with that one but you can provide subsidy but it's not considered a business subsidy if certain criteria are met so we need to work with them when we're selecting and kind of talk through that and understand Mr Mayor memb the council you also have to have a public hearing on the subsidy and also have a business subsidy policy those are two things we would also have to implement if we're going to give some type of business subsidy here okay is that something we can uh cross that bridge when we get to it y okay council member Dragon um how's the subsidy determined is it strictly the value praise value versus the purchase price or is there um is it that should stone or I mean we have praise value but you know that may not be the actual value someone's willing to pay for it uh Mr Mayor members of the council I'm just looking at the statute um business subsidy is a state or local government agency contribution of real property so um that would be basically what we have here um it doesn't really go into defining how you determine that okay that amount I believe we discussed um Sarah and I have discussed that there's an economic development specialist at Kennedy engraven that we are going to be working with on this process I would to add that to you I seem to recall Council uh maybe three years ago uh approved a tiff for redevelopment properties has that been factored into this at all that could be factored in on on the site okay so if a developer comes in and wants to do a tiff that's something we could consider consider the council yeah okay this I think this question I don't want this to turn into discussion but with you being on the Eda too so maybe if you have some insight on this but you probably answer it as well so when that $100,000 price take was set assuming that the value of the land is a million dollars is the goal that we're we're hoping that the business is going to be able to get this subsidy to help encourage them to develop if you can kind of walk me through that Pro process with where that $100,000 um minimum uh was determined I guess if we know that the value is a million dollars I don't know if we know the value it's assessed at a million but I wouldn't be that confident saying that it's anywhere near a million dollars um I think the 100,000 just came from conversations with Eda that there's an absolute minimum basically like a a Reserve at an auction kind of a show of Interest right if you're if you're really interested in it then you got to I mean it's kind of like that one of the one of the uh things to get points was to be able to show that you're financially viable to do that right I mean Charles Caden Ed can walk in and give you a outstanding proposal but I don't have a penny to back my name to do it so why would given me the uh the opportunity be a good idea right and and it is where I mean we don't have to accept any that came in so if we have 10 proposals all for $100,000 yeah and we're like well you know well if they don't provide any and they don't provide points in value we don't have to approve any of them true okay yeah that's stated in the yeah in the RFP and how is this committee being selected again so the Eda members and then um one planning commissioner that we're going to ask for the and then just staff so if someone on the Eda doesn't want to be on the committee they can assign someone okay d one last question and I don't want to beat this set but the difference between the value and the purchase price so if we put this out for an RFP and we get four or five you know proposals and the highest one is 600,000 isn't that really what the value of the property is regardless of you know I mean Valu is what's what's a willing buyer is willing to pay a willing seller sure I mean i' I've dealt with this in the past where you put development requirements on it so sometimes it's difficult to really say um if it's the True Value um but I I agree with that sentiment I mean I think what we'll see too is you may see people offering a higher price point for something that is not encouraged in the RFP and then something would require a lot more work um you know and then it would bring that value down so you're getting a better outcome but financially viable it would have to like d it would have to drag the purchase price down so you're G to see that too probably occur thank you makes sense if there are any more questions for director Stope I'll entertain a motion motion to approve the request for proposal for disposition of the former fire station in Parks Building support we have a motion and a second uh discussion council member Jerry I just want to thank Jason for his work on this I think I read through the RFP it's very good um appreciate the effort you and your staff put into that and I'm looking forward to what our proposals might look like thank you I concur yeah I love the criteria I think it's really uh well laid out and will make it very objective and and help help me a lot um when we're looking at the different options yeah I really like all the things that you guys have done um this is going to be right in my backyard so look really looking forward to it thank you I just want to State too that we have an email list so anybody wants to be on the email list can email the office call the office right now we're over 10 people so um we're going to have the official open house but if other people that are on the list want to see the building we will be moving forward with opportunities to actually go into the building great all right I'll call the question all those in favor of the motion to approve the request proposals for disposition of the former fire station and Parks Building please signify by saying I I I all right motion is approved then we have item number 15 approve utility rates and fee changes for 2025 ordinance 2025-the thank you mayor and Council I'm just going to do a really quick recap of our um presentation from last week we did a full discussion at the workshop um with the council um so I would definitely encourage people to watch that video um if it's available online and review that packet for more information on this um so the majority of this item addresses the utility fees I'm going to insert just a little bit at the end about some other fees so um short our goals for the utility study are um to just make sure that our utility funds are sustainable we need to make sure that we're charging enough to sustain These funds um which are the utility funds just to clarify water sewer and storm water um so we look at Revenue sufficiency we look at Cash balances over time we now um are looking to decrease our debt over time and then as well um expense recovery and we are currently looking at including our depreciation expense um within that expense recovery um there was some discussion at the workshop about how this model this year has changed since we did it with Northland um Financial Services in 2023 and so we had talked with um Tammy amdal today and had a bit of a discussion and she kind of uh reviewed some of the the changes and the viewpoints that Nina and I um have been implementing versus what her team um and former City administrator um hunt had had um recommended um the main points are and I'll might be doing this at the wrong time but um there are four main points I'll touch on um one is that we um adjusted and corrected some Revenue projections um we are moving towards that true profitability so making sure that we're covering that depreciation expense we're decreasing debt and this comes back to the sort of ongoing discussion that Council and staff have been having over the last year of um trying to decrease our our very high debt load at the city right now um and then four is the addition of the water treatment plants so we have $50 million in New Capital assets coming on board which will both increase our depreciation as well as increase our operation our actual outof pocket out of um operational expenses so those are the four main items um for the water fund sewer fund um is mainly the depreciation expense and then some increased um net Council expenses so um Financial forecasting is just that we are modeling based on assumptions and predictions um things that we can control things that we can't and we're just going to recognize that this is not perfect and change is inevitable um so this slide kind of goes over some of that those financial forecastings so um we are projecting existing operations um out at an inflationary increase of 3% we project out our CIP projects um which again have changed a little bit uh since the last Model so we revisit these annually they projected on a 10 10-year term um we took out mpca funding for extensions um and again we're moving away from issuing debt as much as we can adding the water treatment plants again adding that depreciation as well as the operations so with um without the the increase that's recommended uh we would have maybe normally done a 3% INF inflationary increase using the um current revenue and expense uh assumptions this is what our cash would look like over the next 10e period so crashing essentially so our suggested rate change at the moment is 20% every year for five years and then a 3% inflationary increase um we do adopt these typically uh year by year so what we're looking at is just that the 20% for this year um for sewer it would be 20% every year for four years then a 10% in year five and inflationary after that um this these increases make us slightly less dependent on development we are strongly um subsidized by development at the moment um because of our whack um sorry availability charges connection charges and such um with this model the funds should be profitable after a year five um and then of course we can reassess and adjust um the plan in future years as development occurs or doesn't when you say profitable is that an indication of the ability to then pay for the depreciated value when Replacements needed as I understand it's not supposed to be a profitable Endeavor correct it's to maintain and replace maintain and repace Future needs correct and you so it gets a little weird with utility funds because it's full of cruel accounting and so you're you're it's not like cash accounting where where it it's really straightforward with our full acral we're looking at we have to recognize revenues as like special assessments when they're assessed not when we actually receive them we have to recognize um you know all of these grants we have to recognize Capital contributions I'm just concerned that some people might say see the word profitable oh and misinterpret that as that the city is making money on this deal so the city is only making enough money in order to reild the things that we need to rebuild for the water fund specifically or the sewer fund specifically or the storm water fund specifically we're not sending the money around to other places Optics matter correct I I think what what we're talking about here is that operating revenues will exceed operating expenses correct and so we don't we talked last we look back where the last seven years we've had operating losses and so this plan puts us unpack to get there over a fiveyear period which is a reasonable period of time given where we are positioned at currently in those funds correct um so uh with the model this is what our cash looks like over time um it feels like it's a lot of cash but when we look at how much it's going to cost to replace our infrastructure in the next 20 years 30 years 40 years um we've got a long ways to go so uh we want to make sure that we start now so that in 20 years or 30 years um the residents are not facing um astronomical uh increases um this is what our debt would look like over the next 10 years we would hope to be debt free by 2045 so again that's still 20 years out before we're debt free um this is what our revenues and expenses look like we see a spike in 25 and 26 because of the grants from uh npca for the water uh treatment facilities and you can see after uh 2020 uh sorry 2030 we do have revenues outpacing expenses this is the sewer Revenue versus expenses again we are seeing 2029 revenues outpacing expenses um so our quarterly Bill examples are shown for a low volume that's a 6,000 gallons build um we would see a quarterly Bill increase of $18.35 or roughly $6 per month for a medium volume uh property 20 gallons build we'd see a $35 increase or $11 70 cents per mil relative to other cities we are we would be roughly and this is um kind of a a comparison these are 2024 numbers for other cities and then our 2025 number so we would be six for low volume and fifth for medium volume and then finally just um because we are adopting or revising the fee schedule I had asked staff if they had any other changes and we uh received a submission from the building Department to revise the solar um building permits to um just resolve some some complaint and and question issues and being more in line with the um time and inspections involved for those uh okay so yeah seeing that are you able to show what the previous fees were are new the solar Fe new um there was so currently we don't charge anything for those Jason do you happen to know what the solar not the top my head were I believe they're all the commercial so the commercial is fee based on valuation plus the review fee I think maybe that was the original and then we added the flat fees okay so when we do fee based on valuation isn't that uh is that typically a percentage of the cost of the valuation or I mean that seems a little yeah and is that percentage stated somewhere else in the fee schedule yes I believe it is in the building permit section all right thank you so that's the abbreviated presentation I'm happy to address any questions I kind of has questions as we went thank you you have any questions I do not gentlemen have any questions no questions here all right I'll entertain a motion motion to approve ordinance 20259 revising the 2025 fee schedule for the City of Lake Elmo and revising city code 5.16 regarding surface water fees is there a second second all right any discussion needed I know we discussed a lot during the workshop hopefully we've kind of vetted all that out I'm going to call the question all those in favor of the motion to approve ordinance 20259 please signify by saying I I motion passes uh motion to adopt resolution 22-29 authorizing publication of ordinance 2025 d09 by title and summary support I'll call the question since this is for publication all those in favor of resolution 2025 29 please signify by saying I I I thank you motion passes now we can go to the number seven item from the consent agenda was pulled I believe there was a date changed in that that necessitated it coming into the general uh regular agenda act accept improvements and approve security reduction for East Village 5 fifth edition okay Mr Mayor and councel um get of all this here um yeah so uh eastn Village fifth edition uh the request here is to uh retroactively begin the warranty period um June 30th 2020 24 the work was completed in advance of June 30th 2024 um and due to uh paperwork hangup um we've been working with the developer um we we have done a walk through punch list is settled everything's acceptable um so this this warranty period would end June 30th 2025 so this June for fifth yep just for the fifth edition okay so so it's a administrative change more Yeah clean up some paperwork yep all right yep thank you questions no no I think just because it was uh needed to bring this into General uh the general agenda because uh it was changed after the packet had been sent out and the information could me be made public in time so maintain that transparency pull that into the regular agenda and explain why that change was made so honor a motion motion to accept the improvements and approve the security reduction as detailed um in the worksheet plus the uh the changes from the meeting tonight for E Village fifth edition contingent on the developer being current with all payments and obligations in accordance with the developer agreement second great thank you are there any questions as to the change was made and why no all right I'll call the question all those in favor of the motion as previously stated please signify by saying I I I motion passes thank you very much Council reports council member drich nothing tonight I have nothing for Council reports today no report no report okay staff reports anything uh Miss Miller I would like to thank our Public Works Crews they were able to take down our abandoned um Brookfield sign that's on the corner of the verom 14 for us so that is gone great M Johnson no thank you no report I actually have a report um the state legisl is uh once again introducing zoning preemption and we uh have been tracking that and it's made it out of its initial committees the LMC is also tracking it in opposition and they're asking for cities to send it letters of opposition to their representatives I just want to go through them really quick and just see if you're okay with us drafting a letter and sending it um the L lmc's also has a draft letter we can send that to you after the meeting but um just real quick there's the Minnesota starter home act it would require cities to permit at least two units on any single family um Zone lot it limits lot sizes and it prohibits minimum parking so you can't require parking U more homes write places act um for us that means that uh we would have to up Zone 50% of residential areas to allow Town tow houses duplexes and triplexes by right um it would prohibit certain construction materials eliminate parking um it would limit the use of planit developments so what you'll see with some of these bills is they'll put them together because they're altering certain sections and then there's transforming Main Street act it um basically requires that the cities permit multif family mixed juice and commercial districts except for heavy uh industrial zones it would also allow uh multif family buildings up to 75 ft tall in commercial districts um eliminate parking again and then uh award density bonuses for affordable housing there's another one that's a preemption of Municipal design standards that would not allow um any type of design standards for any units under four from one to four um this would have an effect on our Lake Elmo design guidelines and then also there's just an outright um other act that's a Prohibition a minimum parking requirements for development and this States Pro it would prohibit all cities from requiring minimum parking spaces for any new development including commercial industrial and residential so that would eliminate all parking and it would just be chosen by the um developer so that's that's what we're working on um so uh uh from my viewpoint I think some of that is absolutely ridiculous and just another issue where larger governments trying to dictate what the smaller units of government should be doing within their own boundaries and uh absolutely I I I can't speak for the other council members but I'm on board I'm okay with the big no thank you me too okay me as well all right thank you thank you I was just going to mention um that staff is already working on um some uh news article a little flashy thanks for the the fresh and such um regarding the rate increase so certainly if you guys are getting questions or concerns feel free to send them my way send them Nina's way she wrote the have gotten a couple comments uh you know essentially from some of our residents that do have fixed incomes it's we recognize understandable yeah absolutely so thank thank you okay Ina no report Standley no report Miss Sola no report all right with that uh well we future agenda items just in case people are curious what's coming up um in the 1 of April and it's it's dangerous to have a council meeting on April Fool's Day especially if uh if I'm going to be here so uh there's some uh plans and specs for ISD a34 utility improvements um the hearing 202 I thought that was April uh 6th that is that is correct that's out that's an outdated line item the hearing is May 6th May 6th right okay so um looks like we're looking at accepting bids and award for contract at the Village Parkway is that still on that is still on we um we we did we were able to negotiate these Ms all right perfect so those are a couple items we got coming up uh and then uh consent to gen item we'll have our typical Arbor Day thing that we present out at the Public Works facility I'm assuming that that's going to be the same so appreciate everybody's time thanks for all your hard work um and then we'll adjourn the meeting at 8:27 e e e e e e e e e e e e e