I'm happy to report that it actually went better than I anticipated. um in that they were actually able to accomplish a few things. There weren't supplemental budgets in every issue area. Uh but the issues that they did tackle were kind of the pressing ones and in particular um as it relates to Lake Elmo, they were able to pass a bonding bill, a capital investment bill and that was really kind of the in my mind the number one priority of what the legislative session was to accomplish.

The other the other kind of uh parallel thing that could happen, right, if there's a change in administration, there's typically changes in commissioners and things of that nature, right? Could could change some direction of, you know, all the departments for that matter.

last year we didn't we really didn't anticipate very well as a as a council on having legislative items, but knowing that we will go into there, I I mean, I would like to see us put some money in a budget for a lobbyist for the 2027 session.

and I agree and also because they're up to speed on the issues. We don't have to start at ground zero and work our way all the way up again.

Really what community education can provide is we can come in with we already have the structure, the registration system, the staff, all of the things that can pro uh design and deliver the programming. What we would need is an agreement so that we could use your facilities.

I think once we figure out what those plans are and how we're going to pay for them and what facilities we're going to have, then it would make sense to talk about a coordinator at that point. But we don't know really what we're coordinating yet except the assets that we have. And I don't think we're failing at doing that currently.

And and this is a creative way to partner with an asset that exists. Like I I know the quality of the program and I said it before, but I I yeah to the underlying question about a staff member, I would agree with you, Council Member Dragoich. I think partnerships such as this are the way to go for the short and medium term.

Right now for instance they uh this school year they were charging $95 a student to participate in a sport and that it's not uncommon for a school district and mo many of the districts around us have already done this. they have shifted those middle school sports programs over to their community education program when they can no longer afford to subsidize them.

I'm probably going to be the the lone on this. I love sports. I absolutely love the idea of this. I would personally be happy to contribute my own funds to something like this. I don't feel comfortable asking the city to pay for it.

So it almost feels like for the school sports it's a double dipping from the families in each district. So for me it's [snorts] kind of like yeah well now I'm just going to take it from the city to handed over for a school thing. Well, that's not necessarily the city's responsibility that I think of.

I always look at as like is there a way we can reduce their costs by making our facilities less expensive to use or getting out of the way essentially to make things cheaper. And I maybe there's no way here, but I I guess that's more where I feel like I is, you know, representing the residents. That's where I'd feel more comfortable saying, hey, like this is how we could try to bring the price down versus saying, "Hey, I'm going to take money from everybody to help subsidize this.

I did ask to bring this uh forward uh and it has to be done in an election year because I think uh anybody that says they haven't had a an increase in stipen salary, whatever you want to call it, for 13 years would be out of their mind.

It talks about comparable city data. Uh what I did is I asked sometimes you can say well these cities are the same size but we all know that Lake Elmo goes through a rapid amount of development and work that's happening that's going on. So, it's not the same to say that a city that is built out has the same amount going on that the city of Lake Elmo has.

It's not that it's an embarrassment per se how low they are, but it's unacceptable. And I I appreciate that this is being discussed. I whether it's Monaceel or Rogers as very comparable ones. We know it's not Woodbury, we know it's not, you know, uh St. Paul where it those kind of those are full times.

9,000 mayor, 7,000 city council. Easy.