foreign [Music] the city council meeting of March 2nd 2023 Kim would you take roll call please remember Wilson here councilmember Hatton here council member Jacobs here mayor Bishop here um all standard forsake the Pledge of Allegiance please to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all can I have a motion by someone to adopt the agenda I'll make a motion to job tonight's agenda no second it all those in favor moving on to the consent agenda um we have four things in the consent Agenda One is a is approved monthly claims B is approved the January 5th 2023 city council meeting minutes C is resolution number 2023-03 amended cup for the address at 157 Saint Croix Trail and D is the development agreement at 165 Lakeland Shores Road can I have a motion if there's no discussion as to uh approving the consent agenda agenda yep I'll make a second all those in favor say aye moving on to item three which is public comments uh I believe we have someone here from the yellow ribbon Alliance yep would you mind uh just stepping up to the podium uh note your name and address and then uh [Music] let us uh and tell us what you'd like to sure yep yellow ribbon Alliance lower sand Curry Valley P.O box 102. in Afton is where do you want us sure yeah if you're going to say anything um well no we're just here to to get the word out that we uh you know we're here and uh we'd like to get some help from the cities that are included in that five City Yellow Ribbon Alliance um we really need volunteers uh mainly for our big event and events leading up to our our field of bands um this will be our fourth one sure if you want to hand those out uh we had 18 volunteers besides our group last year at the event with a thousand people and we really need twice that many at least and it's hard I don't know why we're not getting the volunteers from the cities in fact I this is our fourth one and I don't think we had one member of any city council at any of the events and all that money goes to help our our local veterans service members and their families here in the area so we'd love to have the city council involved and and help out in fact I'm going to put together a little little contest with all the cities to see who can sell the most tickets and we'll figure this out as we go but in that City that sells the most tickets and they can get tickets from Woodbury Hudson Duluth wherever they want but if they buy them through your city and you sell the most tickets you're going to be the city yellow urban city of the year which is pretty cool because it's for our veterans the more recognition we get the more we can help our our Local Heroes and there are a lot of people that were helping out because of the event we're getting a lot more um calls for help in in Washington County so if we could really get you guys involved if if you guys want to come to the event that would be great I think it'd be a good show of commitment to your citizens with all the veterans that are out there um so so can you go ahead oh you know what I'm sorry you can go to our website it's five City yellow ribbon.com and there's a volunteer there a general volunteer sign up and we're going to have one for the field events on this day what are you what are you looking for well we need people in the parking lot we need General help to help people direct people around you know we don't want to call them security we want to call them safety entities they'll just say staff on the back yeah but we rotate everybody around because it's a big area at the Washington County Fairgrounds we have to direct a lot of people to where to park and where the bathrooms are and where the food is and she knows where the beer is so we can we she can handle the beer handle the beer area so um yeah five City yellow ribbon.com and we we need everything and they'll get a t-shirt they'll get in for free they'll you know we have food for them and it's a good time it's fun do you mind if I ask what the spectrum of services that you offer throughout the year are not at the event just in general what are you serving you you mean who are we helping out well I know you're serving the veterans but like what kind of things hi I'm Reggie kopeski Randy's wife and this was um something that he really felt strong about and we're going to keep it going but uh some of the things that we have done is we offer scholarships to graduating seniors from Chesterton Academy Stillwater High School Saint Croix prep not just the high school so anybody in the the valley can fill out an application and they get awarded a thousand dollars we help a local family in Lakeland um with their little boy he has battled brain cancer since he was 18 months old and he now is six and going to school part-time we have supported that family and she is an Air Force Reserve mom we have a veteran in Afton that uh has how many trips have they taken to the VA 600 times we've offered rides to the VA hospital for him we put on a free veterans dinner at Saint Francis of Assisi for all of our local vets we have had veterans in need of uh needing a dumpster needing snow removal they give us a call and we are there to help them and awesome you know as we drive down County Road 18 there are five yellow ribbon signs hanging in each of our towns and we really need to do whatever we can from each City to help our vets so whatever you can do and I was going to ask um do you have a representative from Lakeland Shores on the yellow ribbon I know it was Tim yeah I think I was going to take it over wasn't I heard I can't remember you decided that last month yeah oh I'm working I like that okay because when I looked at the website today it still said Tim and okay we'll figure it out yeah real we're getting people at the event that have you know we get up there we get up there and we talk about what we do and we get emails and calls from the event from a lot of sons and daughters their uncle or their aunt or their dad or they're needing help so we're identifying a lot of people so I ask whether the help that's generated by your group is it just in the five cities or does it go up to Stillwater or I'm not going to say no to a veteran so I mean most of it's here most of it's here but the last one that we received from the event was in Stillwater and uh yeah I mean I'm not going to say no do they have their own group they do not as as right now it'd be nice if they did it was one um prior to Randy because he was president foreign maybe you can tell them what the things that that our event actually supported yeah well if you go to our website you can see our uh we give money to uh one is uh they build a home for a veteran one the big one that I like is called 230 uh it stands for 23 veterans commit suicide every day and they're there to eliminate that number and get it down to zero hopefully so we we send money there and then there's another one where they train dogs to uh to help out veterans and that need a a service dog plus others sounds like a wonderful uh we like to see some City Council Members there come on yeah yeah I'm in all right it's a fun time good music beverage we will be in my yard I'm sure Tim's seen it okay you may have seen it how do you get one up at Lucy Bell we have connections I was gonna say because I uh I'm involved in the VA and I see it up there and I'm like well if they try to take that down I'm not going to let them we like to hear that too okay well thank you guys appreciate it thanks I'm good how are you moving on to item number four which is unfinished in a new business there may have been a brief mention of the fact I I was somewhat concerned to the fact that I there are certain meanings that I may not be able to make due to having fun and um so I'm curious as to whether or not we shouldn't have an acting mayor or a deputy mayor that would step up when I'm absent from this particular role um I haven't got a strong opinion as to how we go about it but I think we ought to at least uh uh have some discussion about it concerning what anybody feels is necessary or not necessary I don't think there's anything wrong with having a deputy mayor just for the reasons you mentioned there's going to be reasons that somebody you can't make a meeting and I can't think of what those would be but this job is but this job is 24. it's just 24 7. yeah it's just one of a whole lot less well you want to do it you want to do it let's just decide it and get it over with it well do we want to if since there's no other opinions being given at this particular time does anybody have a desire to be a deputy or acting mayor or do you just want to uh you know I don't care how we do it you know useful interest okay that sounds good to me to Motion in a second no no I make a motion to have Tim Hatton be our deputy mayor not a second of course that gives you a cut and pay then right yeah all those in favor say aye aye welcome Tim it's a stepping stone I can tell you right now because uh you know once your Deputy you know before you know it you're the mayor so get ready um 4B is consideration of 2023 Road Project let me just give you a little background information we um I talked to John parody sometime last fall about the fact that there are several roads that you know a lot of our roads could use work but the question of whether it's really necessary or not necessary and he and I walked around looked at the roads and um you know this was probably closer to two years ago this coming May and um you know cosmetically the roads are looked fairly bad uh you know we've done four Street we did a small section over there on Quinnell but uh in recent times but uh we haven't done a road major road work in in quite a while we've done some spray emotion patching we've done some just regular patching and most of the patching that we have to do the holes aren't really deep enough to really get into asphalt patching you know getting um but it can be done that way or it can be with spray Emulsion to make them look a little better and to make it so that whoever's riding a bicycle or whatever is not struggling but as far as damage to your car I don't think we've not that this should be the test but I don't think there's anything out there that would indicate that you know the roads have reached that condition that one has to be afraid that jeez you know if we don't do something pretty quickly if somebody's going to have a severe accident because um I can tell you in my conversations with city engineer John parody As of a couple days ago oh well backing up to last fall I he went ahead my suggestion and had where we agreed to have the people do the the I don't know what you call it the determining uh just what the conditions not of the roads are but of the sub soil and that type of stuff borings I guess you'd call it and that was done to the tune of some at this point six thousand dollars and it's kind of a preliminary um step in order for people that are going to construction companies that are going to um do the work to have some idea of what the work entails The Next Step would be for John to do whatever he does engineering-wise and then to seek bids I can tell you that we got thirty thousand dollars from the federal government um sometime within the last couple years and which I believe we can use I know we can use for road construction we can use for they've really kind of made it easier to use the money because a lot of the smaller towns are struggling to figure out how it was that they were actually going to use this money not heaven forbid that they wanted to give it back and so we're down to since I talked to the city treasurer two days ago he took the six thousand dollars approximately the out of the thirty thousand so we're down to twenty four thousand dollars that we have from the federal government I believe we have somewhere between 450 and 500 000 in our road budget uh if you want to call it that uh our capital budget for roads um you've all had a chance to digest Mr peroti's letter which talks about the probable project costs which are estimates uh you know from his experience which he's normally pretty much right there what he was giving us the project cost estimates for was for a Milling of the existing asphalt surface down approximately an inch and a half and then a resurfacing of an inch and a half over that and he talks in his uh memorandum about you know the fact that conceivably there might be some drainage work that could be done or not done and um that would obviously I believe add to the costs so with that in mind I will start out by saying nothing has to be done we can always just patch the roads because structurally I think they're sound enough uh if we want to go ahead and do something in the next two years in order to utilize the twenty four thousand dollars that is left and we probably shouldn't make that the deciding factor uh let's you know then we need to have a discussion as to whether we want to do those both those roads and [Music] um you know which uh one of the many of the three Alternatives that John put out in his memorandum that we wish to uh tell him that this is what we would like done I can also tell you that in 2023 none of the five cities are doing any major road constructions so it's not like um you know we can feed off of some company that's doing road construction in in Saint Croix Beach you know and since they're in the area why not do ours as well that type of thing but apparently there's nothing going on so with that said I guess we should decide whether or not we wish to do anything and if we decide we wish to do anything which one of the possibilities we wish to do is anybody got any input road work issue before did he give you any idea of like okay well we can do this now or if we wait like a few years it'll be awful or four years it'll be all like do you know what I mean like how urgent is the I don't think the condition of the roads makes it urgent but um would we spend money on any maintenance this year yeah I think we would have to we would have to at least on those two roads yeah how much would we spend I don't know but it's huge I I just throw out a figure of under 2 000 okay I mean it's uh because if I my my opinion is if we do them I think we should do them both right yeah get a better more bang for the buck I don't know what it would cost us even if we put it out for bid this year to see what the bid comes back at right it's not like we have to accept the bid no um because I remember after when they had their that's when they did all their roads is they had such a good bid that's why they paved all their roads years ago you mean after yeah so I know some of that has to do with the I believe the cost of oil yeah but uh and you know a year ago it was higher it can't make sense of the gas prices and that probably isn't what we got in probably isn't an indicator of what the price of oil is but you know it seems like um so if we haven't put it out for a bit then he could come we could come back in the next meeting or two meeting or well I guess we'd right yeah right yeah I mean it's not like I think as long as we made a decision by May or uh yeah I mean I don't know how long it takes for him to get a bit but they can obviously do it really fairly rapidly and the construction part of it and you know probably we can do it into the middle of October um well in general it's not going to get cheaper no that's for sure oh excuse me you know and and you mentioned it's going to get worse they don't get better over Long Haul the roads deteriorate and so I'm I'm my yardstick on inflation has been rather shredded the last year or so it just when I was doing the fire department it was real easy because we were always looking at the same basic inflation for seven years I did the budget but um now it's it's uh it's up but it's not consistently up and that makes it just tough to do so I I believe I believe that you know I didn't ask him for some strange reason but I believe that something like this this Mill and overlay is probably as a lifespan of maybe 10 to 15 years okay I don't it's not like you're going down and redoing this is not a five-year well I don't want to say isn't that what we did on they did on Quinlan before they put an overlay on top well yeah but we're not talking about that half inch I mean on Quinlan in front of my house years ago but that was like in early 2000s well that that road was from division all the way down to well was actually down the First Street was gravel when I moved in yeah that first stretch that first block and uh so that was I think that was oh my God what was that 80 85. I think when I got asphalt so maybe I'm not giving it enough you know I I think it lasts because it's been honest yeah it's been almost 20 years I would imagine I guess I don't have my map I just brought that map okay Tim Hatton you mentioned to me something about uh the possibility of filling the holes and then putting a thinner Overcoat you know layer basically the bachelor fact of an inch and a half and there's a few different things you could do I think that this is a good idea I think as an alternate you should also include the rest of Lakeland tours Drive because they're gonna have a machine that costs a lot of money to get the machine they're all getting set up and like you're adding to it you're gonna actually get a is the is the North End of Lakeland Shores road is that one is that as bad or no The Wider part Oh I thought they were both no you don't have that included okay no it's not it's bad and you know I mean it's quite a bit wider or from those pillars on up it's like a single Lane I mean you basically pull over to pass somebody so if you want to look at one of the options what they did last year here if you go right outside their door going to the memorial they did that kind of like that little little yeah they yeah they did kind of like a slurry over it and then they did over by the the North the street going to buy the fire department going north why not buy the fire department up the hill there they did that there too so they kind of did a test to see how that would last but they have it by my house and it's right it's actually it's right it's skeptic but it's working out well that would be a good idea too because if they can just come it's like one truck that has everything and then they just came behind and I think rolled it a little bit so then I mean that we just boom you're done but I don't know what the cost was yeah I don't know what the cost is of that I know that when I talked to Peroni about what they were doing over there especially by the Lakeland old Lakeland City Hall the historic place you know um they seem to have done that what you're describing for a fair amount of that and John parodi indicated to me what I interpreted as maybe a little bit of doubt in his voice yeah um that this was going to be anything that was very successful right yeah because he doesn't like to throw money away I know that no he does not um so you know I mean that's I know like on some parts of Quinlan we got what they call that alligatory going on you know Gator back yeah which is you know which is an indication that things are not doing well okay as compared to just these large circular areas you know that are you know where you've lost a half inch of your yeah I say we just have them go out bit it I don't know what it's going to cause for them to put it together and basically you know to me when I talk to John about the about the uh drainage stuff I think that's out we're on our road Lakeland Shores Road and you know he said you know this really has more to do with you know if you're noticing consistently that there's a large larger areas of water accumulating you know as compared to just a little small area you'd want to take care of that by you know draining the side of it so then well that was part of the bit too wasn't it down there it's a yeah improving along the sides of pavement for miter drainage issues yeah it's in the First full paragraph there minor drainage improvements alongside of payment yeah if desired yeah you know and I you know we can ask the we can ask them to do anything I honestly think that I'm not going to go through the hassle at least I don't want go through the hassle of trying to get the people along Lakeland Insurance road to agree to anything that touches their precious lawn you know because it really comes right up oh yeah it's it's there there is no easement there yeah right now and um so you know and unless somebody's noticed something and you know we could maybe have them give us a bid a separate bid for the drainage along Quinlan you know to do that if you want but I I don't know if it's really necessary I don't think they're really yeah because I know when they did it the last time that just that everything worked out they kind of made a little lip on your driveway but that seemed to work out so when they do it again they'll just take take it down and but they'll get back over it so it should work out of course everything drains from my yard into your yard so I don't care about that the amount of budget set aside for road projects I think we have 450 to 500 000 in there and so I just I wanted Anne to be real clear about this that um this isn't if you do a road projects it's not going to increase your budget or your taxes they set aside every year for potential road projects there's probably five years cfd plan out here somewhere um and I think the the benefit of if you chose to wait is there may be a neighboring station that you could uh get in on a project with because then you don't have the mobilization fees because they're they're here the risk is uh you know road projects right now are 35 higher than they were two years ago so do we want them to obtain a bid to have it done in 2023 no drainage is that what we're talking about I would be in favor of having a look at it and then council members the only issue with just getting the bids you have engineering costs yeah which um I mean if you chose if they came in way too high I guess at that point you wouldn't have any choice to perhaps wait but there will be engineering costs we should just get a bid that includes the drainage because if it's not very expensive or they find something we don't have it set up so we don't have to take the drainage with the rest of the bid yeah as long as they're as long as they're separated yeah right yeah are there complaints about drainage issues well we wouldn't know if you know what I mean we probably wouldn't know I mean that's you know how it water pulls up in this town so much not at all I mean it's well it's kind of hand in hand when they do it they manage the drainage anyway yeah but if if there's a issue with some drainage then they can point it out to us and we can determine if we want to do it or not I don't have an issue I shouldn't say that we do have one spot between our yards where water sits in the road and what that place where I keep dumping a bag yeah that's not a safety issue where John's got it that's the one where John has gone from an arduous task too one of these days I'll come home and there'll be a huge sinkhole and I'll see is John somewhere actually if in the past asked uh John parody about that you know whether there was anything you know you know is there something that's causing this particular problem which you know like somehow it wasn't the road bed wasn't made where there's a culvert underneath there in some way or that time I'm sure there's a spool of wire because I've had spools of wire in my yard but that's about the only place is there's an actual pothole that develops consistently and that pops top layers preparing council members that's with the drainage the issue is it deteriorates that pavement so quickly so you would probably know if there's you'll see sitting water and underneath is going to be the top the end of division right now yeah and no the city hasn't received any complaints about your roads the condition of the roads or drainage no I mean on occasion I hear from somebody you know I get about a half a dozen at the most you know comments about uh you know the snow plowing and that type of stuff okay Bush this year has been pretty ugly and um I mean not necessarily the snow plowing but just the conditions that we're having to deal with between rain and one foot snowfalls so um it's not like anybody's really ever calling me up uh and saying you know we just don't get that many comments on it as a matter of fact knock on wood but the we get very little complaints from any of our 340 citizens you know uh in town I'm just looking at the the drainage stuff that's on this paperwork appears to be discussing ditches and shoulder grading is what I was wondering if there was issues with like standing water on their roadway I think would be I would assume would be part of their you know milling and fixing things but they're talking about drainage improvements in the on the shoulders and I was just wondering I hadn't heard I hadn't noticed any drainage issues along the road [Music] and I think they'll pitch the asphalt so it's gonna yeah they cry off the road and you know on top of it they're taking an inch and a half off and I guarantee you they're probably not giving us much more than an inch have putting back on so it's not like you're you know going that the road's going to be at a different level than what it is presently how do we want boogers folks have we agreed that we're going to have them okay let's look at the back of the John's letter Hill letter a memorandum we could do uh so we talk about bidding spring of 2023 that would be a that's 2A and then we're talking about uh under one um do we want to do c Mill and overlay with drainage improvements in select locations on Quinlan okay see Earth yeah one C and you're the street commissioner right right so you know I mean John Brody be walking around with me 465 bucks an hour that's what we pay him your money's worth yeah so is that is that acceptable to everybody yeah so we're talking about 1C and [Applause] well we'll just then the next one is just what is it that's timing yeah this year with this year completion or next year next year completion or the third one is bit it this year and they have the option of doing it this year next year so I I think I'd I think I'd rather just get it done this year you know I can't imagine the cost's not going up because you know uh obviously they might be in the area in 2024 but you know if we see things going well let's see what the bid is yeah determine what it is so we're basically talking about 2A correct so we've got one c2a and then the others are just that's just me calling them for it you know uh anybody wish to make a motion I'll make a motion with the considerations for advancement 1C and 2A which are the ones for a milling and overlay driving improvements select locations coordinated with the streets commissioner and the bidding in Spring of 2023 for completion in 2023. and those one 1C and 2A are on the memorandum provided by by our city engineer John perodi on February 1st 2023. is there a second I'll second promotion all those in favor all right anybody opposed [Applause] okay let's see I'm moving on to the uh Council and staff reports Kim you got anything of which at least need to alert us too okay um going on to 5B mayor and city council reports uh Tim Schroeder uh do that has Saint Croix Beach I know they usually set up the City cleanup day any any because it came uh um just to take care of it I know that they've hired a couple people to take maybe I don't wanna I'll give Dave a call okay and check with him because usually when we have the cleanup they were the only city that has everybody show up right perfect attendance yeah no the whole the whole band's there I don't want to ruin it I know right you can be we have to get we have to figure something out if you if you do talk to Dave there was one problem last year which was you know it's one thing to show up with a pickup load in the back yeah it's another thing to show up with one of these extra long trailers yeah the cost Towing it you know both of them being full and and that price being full of shingles yeah somewhat the same yeah so just alert them to that fact that and we lost the director yeah yeah Kate's going so yeah okay no that's but he's had to hire two people to take her place so somebody ought to be able to do it um I'll just let you know that it's typically the first weekend in May yeah but they've always done it yeah traditionally them but uh which is May 6th so I'll check on that and then uh fire board meeting uh I know we've talked about uh various how would I say uh inspections for commercial buildings and we've been okay with them they've contacted the two new buildings and they're working with them on getting a fire inspection to walk through it to make sure everything's up to kosher and if things are not in there that shouldn't be in there uh other than that that's about it I don't know if Tim has anything else on the fire department Tom nothing specific um we're just going to plant a seed here I was out looking at something on the website and I kind of went down a rabbit hole and I noticed that Randy's name is still in a few places and I think we should do a little auditing and it's on the yellow ribbon stuff his name is still on the yellow ribbon stuff if you go into the places that we sponsor support or whatever and anywhere else I'm gonna nose around that's what I'm doing and I I guess we should go out there and you see something that isn't right bring it to the next meeting no just email me I'll change it okay oh my God we're going to have conversations or did you want a volunteer to do it or no I'm I'm doing it oh okay good but I mean there are other people that go out there and look around you see something you go that doesn't seem right or you know I mean so I just kind of like I said I'm kind of planting a seed if you see something now we know we send it to you absolutely Tim Horton sounds good thanks how much but I do the uh the five city meetings accounting was there last time talking they'll put up putting a Regional Trail through here through all the way down to Stillwater yeah that'd be part of this Trail extending it all the way so they're not sure about the trail with the snowmobilist part and whatnot so they're going through and starting this so I don't know what their time frame was on it but and then have the trail button also both in Darwin where the new places and then they're going a trail through Bella and two while the other side there so they want to get a Regional Trail in the area are we talking about hiking or bike bicycles rollerblade yeah an trailer yeah but a Regional Trail house is wider and has certain amount of enemies emanas things to do no uh certain guidelines or requirements so but yeah so that should be coming up here soon the next couple years and nothing um hasn't been going uh fairly well as I say I get a few complaints here and there I kind of eyeball things that uh um seem to be easy somewhat easy to take care of um and uh to anybody that actually is going to watch this uh in the near future I would certainly uh not really apologize but uh just uh hope that they understand the difficulties that we've had this winter with incredible uh you know snows along with uh large rains that and freezing and thawing at incredible uh rates so bear with us we another month and you'll be driving uh you know to the road with no snow and hopefully and um beyond that uh if there's nothing in addition I think if we have a motion to at 7 15 I would make a motion to adjourn the meeting is there a second a second are those in favor aye all right [Music] on Sunday yeah believe me not enough