Mhm. >> Okay. All righty, I will call this meeting of the city of Oak Park Heights City Council to order. First item up is Pledge of Allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Next will be approval of the agenda. >> So moved. >> Second. >> All in favor. >> Aye. >> Aye. >> Opposed. Motion carries. All right, now we have a a special swearing-in ceremony for Officer Reed Larson. >> I'll let >> Chief Hanson take over. >> Good evening uh Mayor and Council. A special night for us. Uh tonight we recognize uh Reed Larson. If you could come up here, please, Officer. Reed Larson, that's you. Come on up here, please. >> [laughter] >> All right, over there, center stage. Uh very proud to announce that Reed has completed his uh supervised field training program here. Uh Sergeant Bierling has certified him for solo patrol. He's an awesome fit for our city, our department, and he's truly just an awesome individual all around. So, we're very, very appreciative of having him here. And tonight we do a swearing-in as oath of office, and then after that we'll do the badge pinning. So, if I could have uh Honorable Greg Galler to administer the oath of office. >> I'm sure. Please raise your right hand. Repeat after me. >> I, Reed Larson, >> I, Reed Larson, >> do solemnly swear >> do solemnly swear >> that I will support the Constitution of the United States >> that I will support the Constitution of the United States >> and the Constitution of the state of Minnesota >> and the Constitution of the state of Minnesota >> and that I will discharge faithfully >> that I will discharge faithfully >> the duties of a police officer >> the duties of a police officer >> in the city of Oak Park Heights >> in the city of Oak Park Heights >> to the best of my judgement and ability. >> to the best of my judgement and ability. >> Congratulations officers. >> [applause] >> And tonight that you will get your brand new badge. >> Officer Larson >> [laughter] >> Is there some Is there somebody from the audience who like to come up and do the badge pinning? Oh, good choice. Good choice. >> [laughter] [laughter] >> I want to make sure she doesn't draw blood. >> [laughter] >> There you go. >> There you go. Okay. There you go. She's done. >> Wait. Uh the mayor would like to do a quick couple of pictures. >> Yeah, we'll take a 5-minute recess for pictures. >> Great. >> Mr. Judge, we get of course two things we get saved here about that. >> There you go. >> Already got it. >> Not ready. >> You need to put it on yet. >> Not ready yet, Sarah. I'm taking it >> Mhm. >> So, any staff reports? Council, anything? I'm good. >> I got a couple things I wanted to bring up. Um as Jake notified you in his weekly update, the situation with the cable access is not very good when you have a situation where the income continues to drop as more and more people cut the cord to cable. Um and the expenses in that are they don't go down. And they've looked at alternatives, um you know, reducing staff and such. And it just delays it. So, >> [snorts] >> at the last meeting we basically started planning for the shut- shutting down the cable center. And in doing so, what we basically had to do is hand it over to staff cuz I'm an individual member. I can't make a decision on behalf of the city. So, we handed over to staff. So, Jake has got information from us and I know that Kevin was reviewing some information. So, at this point most of the news will probably come from Jake rather than me. So, I got that. Uh second item I was going to bring up is I mentioned last time that the Browns Creek Watershed District, which encompasses our western areas of our city, primarily the neighborhood that Councilman Lilja Gren um lives in, that they are going to be getting final approval on their 10-year plan at the next Bowser meeting, which is Thursday morning. Um Comments remain from staff. our city engineer, made extensive comments on the plan. We didn't urge rejection, but we did point out two things that are significance as far as the city's concerned. One was the budget creep. Namely that the Brown's Creek budget continues to grow and grow. Which means that the residents that live in that area continue to see greater increase in their taxes than comparable districts. So, that was a concern. The second was the fact that the they are expanding they are attempting to expand their area of interest. Which at times brings conflict with the county and the city in the fact that they are sticking their little noses in where it's our responsibility. So, those are the two things that we had that we did comment on even though the plan will be approved on Thursday morning. As a side note, we have a in regard to that to our north in the Forest Lake area, we have the Comfort Lake watershed. And they are experiencing the same situations that we are here with Brown's Creek. And they're in a somewhat controversial move the mayor of Forest Lake is now a member of the um Comfort Lake Watershed Board. And that's creating some ripple effects that in probably at some point will come back to us because there's several other municipalities in the Twin City area, which is what I represent on the Bowser board, are experiencing the same thing. So, uh we'll see where it goes, and it's just a heads-up that we're not the only ones, and something, I don't know what, may be coming down the pipe at some point. Okay. >> All right, thank you very much. >> I had another brief update. >> Yep. >> Uh to the rest of the council, as well as to our Bowser representative. Um so, one of the issues dealing with the Middle St. Croix watershed we've that we've run into is we, as the Middle St. Croix, do not have enough revenue to require an annual audit pursuant to statute and Bowser's regulations. The state auditor's office has now started trying to compel watersheds of all sizes to can create an annual audit. So, we are working with both Bowser and the state auditor's office to clarify what the legal obligations are for the Middle St. Croix. At present, um our forthcoming budget does not account for an annual audit. It accounts for one every 3 years, which exceeds the state requirement of one every five. Um we did increase the legal budget, though, just in case. Um so, that is an update on the Middle St. Croix. >> Okay, thank you. Anybody else? Staff. Jacob. >> Yeah, Mayor Council, I'd just add to what Council Member Ron Kitt had stated regarding the cable commission of, you know, I'll continue to work here with the city administrators of Bayport and and Stillwater and and Attorney Stanstrom here, too, in the background on this matter and and keep you all apprised. >> Thanks. Chief Hanson. >> Mayor and Council, uh just a quick appreciation for the attendance and helping out with the Night to Unite event earlier this month. It was outstanding. I really do appreciate all that support. It was a lot of fun. And coming on and hosting, two school back in sessions. So we'll have extra patrol on 57th Street here especially in the morning going through the neighborhood and then on 58th Street again on the schools. So we'll see that. And then third we just have our our new squad car is up and running here Thursday. We're going to pick it up. So we'll have that so that's good to see you too. So that's it. >> Good. You know Chief you got to pass on to your officers how professional and how warming they were to the community. They got all they engaged they talked to people and they they did an excellent job. That's probably one of the best ones that that I have ever seen for what they did. So thanks thanks for the leadership in that. >> All right. Assistant City Administrator Pilmsky. >> The only thing I have for you tonight is your recycling award winner Jean Evans-Williams who lives at 15098 64th Street North. She had her recycling out for collection so she was offered a award for her recycling efforts. >> All right. >> Thank you. >> All right. We'll move on then to visitors and public comment. This is a an opportunity for the public to address the council on any questions or concerns. Limit comments to 3 minutes in length. I don't think we have anybody for that so we will move on to consent agenda. Uh Uh if you want to make someone motion to uh >> I'll make a motion to uh >> as written >> to approve the consent agenda as presented. >> Okay. >> Second. >> All right. Um roll call. >> [snorts] >> Councilmember Johnson. >> Yes. >> Councilmember Liljegren. >> Yes. >> Councilmember Runck. >> Yes. >> Councilmember Swenson. >> Yes. >> And Mayor Doughty. >> Yes. >> All right. We have no public hearings this evening. We have an old business item. Resolution approving an extension for the conditional use permit and design guidelines site plan review for 5963 Odell Avenue North. >> Yep, Mayor and Council, uh before you is a request to extend an existing conditional use permit uh here as the Mayor said at 59-63 Odell Ave North. Uh if you recall in August of '24, uh the Council had adopted resolution approving the CUP and is got design guidelines site plan review for an office warehouse building um on Odell. Uh that CUP was asked to be extended by the petitioner uh last year and that request was granted for 1 year. Um with that set to expire, the petitioner is here before you asking for another 1-year extension. Uh if you recall too, per the zoning ordinance, there is that opportunity to extend CUPs uh if they have not been utilized within the 12-month period. Uh when considering the extension, the Council should consider factors such as type, design, size, proposed construction, uh applicable restrictions on financing, special and unique circumstances that are beyond the control of the applicant that may have caused delay. In this situation and and I've shared this too with the petitioner who's here today just so the petitioner understands the city staff recommendation of the when when we look at this and applying the facts to the ordinance, uh we do not believe that the petitioner has met the requirements that are outlined within the ordinance and I've outlined three items here that I just want to call to your attention. First of all, there hasn't been any visible progress on site since the approval in 2024. Uh secondly, uh staff has questions of what the special or unique circumstances beyond the control of the applicant are that may have caused delay. Uh the letter is attached here uh from the petitioner that outlines their their rationale and their reasoning and it's still questioned by staff. Finally then too when this is just an item of note here that I think the council should be aware of. There were some challenges that we had in getting the petitioner to complete payment of outstanding invoices and also maintain the property. You've probably seen when you've driven past that property the maintenance hasn't been up to par of what we expect here in Oak Park Heights. That was a challenge in working with the petitioner on that and want to make sure the council is aware of that matter here debate and make [snorts] your final decision. So for those reasons we are recommending denial. Obviously nothing against the petitioner here. This is just applying the facts of the matter to the city's ordinance. Happy to answer any questions and certainly the petitioner is here if you have any questions for him. >> I mean I understand where the staff's position is on this. I also know that property just sat empty for a long long time before um the applicant came forward and and purchased it and and it has committed to to putting a building there and I I mean I I do have a personal relationship with Paul and I know he's a man of his word. So I think if he's saying he needs a little more time to move something forward I I I tend to believe what he's saying and I think we should I mean the other option is just to have the property sit there again and have nothing going on. >> I have a question primarily to the city attorney. Um every time we do one of these extensions we incur staff costs but we don't charge. I mean is there any way we could um specify that if we were going to grant an extension that we would that there would be some type of a cost to cover our or some type of a payment to cover our costs. >> Good question. So, um if there was legal or engineering or other consultant review that went along with an extension request, we'd probably typically charge that back to the applicant just like any other cost affiliated with their development project. We don't typically account for staff time uh internal staff time in these sort of processes. Um what I might recommend going forward would be perhaps that's something that gets added to your ordinances and your fee schedule that on renewals or extensions of a uh conditional use permit or other um things that nature that there would be a fee affiliated with that to cover your staff time. Um I don't know that there's a way to cover internal staff time presently on your fee schedule. >> Okay. >> And >> [clears throat] >> Mayor and Council, sorry, just so to to add onto that, we do have several items that we're going to be adding to the fee schedule. This is one um to make sure that that is accounted for going forward. Uh so, we plan on bringing those here at uh year end all of our recommendations here of the updates. There's several fees that haven't been looked at uh in quite some time and and this is one where there's no fee at all and we think that there should be a fee related to it. >> I tend to agree with the mayor that we should extend it. I don't know if I'm comfortable extending it 12 months. I prefer like a six-month extension. >> Cuz then especially if the property really my main concern is the invoices and maintaining the property cuz I agree with the mayor that it's not it's better to have someone controlling the property than an abandoned property. So, maybe extending it to like six months, we do a check-in, make sure the property's still being maintained, invoices are being paid. And if you know, progress may be being made so we can supervise this a little bit more. Is that doable? >> So would that be enough would that be enough? I'm not opposed I'm not opposed to either one of those. I I would definitely say this is the last I would Is there something we can put that this is the If we do do a year or 6 months, this is it. You don't have to come back cuz we won't approve a a next one. >> Yeah, my I guess my first comment Mayor and Council is going back to Councilmember Johnson's comment on the the 6-month um you know, if you if you time that out, you know, that's pretty much a lot of the that's a lot of the wintertime. And I don't know what all is going to get done to show where the petitioner is able to show that they're substantially using it. And so, if you do want to extend it, I just recommend doing it for the the year. And it's the petitioner's hearing that right now. That would be it. You know, that that >> Cuz pretty much everybody's going to be back up here a year from now. >> Kevin, could we put greater conditions on the maintenance of the property? Like if the there is a nuisance violation, it revokes the extension in any way? >> Oh, that's good question. Um I I was going to say in general condition the conditions on this conditional use permit are already set, but any condition on the extension in terms of uh keeping the property maintained, I think that's a fair uh um addition to the extension itself. >> Okay. >> Is that really it? Really just >> [snorts] >> uh I mean, the property owner is already required to maintain the property. That's a a requirement that exists in code. And so, I guess the condition is the property needs to be kept code-compliant. >> Yep. Code-compliant and the city retains the right to revoke the extension at like upon 30 days written notice of [clears throat] any code violation? >> Sure. >> I'll make that motion. >> Second. >> Okay. >> They've been doing it for a >> So in that we'll put we'll put the clean up and the fees paid so there can't be any outstanding fees that are owed to the city at all. >> With that 30 days notice. >> Right. And just to be clear that the motion preferably is that you're passing this resolution um in your packet with the addition of that condition. >> Correct. Yes. >> And it's 6 months? Or is it a year? >> It's a year. >> Oh, it's a year. It's a year. >> Yep. That but [snorts] they'll have the ability to immediately pull it if it's not code compliant or if they're not compliant on city fees with 30 days written notice. >> Perfect. >> Okay, anything else? Want to see if anybody want to make the motion. >> is already seconded already. >> Okay. I thought that was just Oh, the Okay. Yeah, vote on the to the the addition to the resolution. Okay, all those in favor. >> I. >> I. >> Opposed. Okay, that carries. Now we need a motion on the resolution. >> Well, I think that was cuz I I just did it with the amendment. >> Okay, then I guess we have to do a roll call. >> Oh. >> Yeah, it's not going to hurt. >> Okay. >> Okay. Councilmember Johnson. >> Yes. >> Councilmember Wollschlager. >> Yes. >> Councilmember Runke. >> Yes. >> Councilmember Swenson. >> Yes. >> And Mayor Daugherty. >> Yes. >> Okay, that passes. >> Thank you. >> Thanks and get some work done now. >> [laughter] >> All righty. Uh next item is request for a two-day food truck event at Green Twigs Villas 2. >> Mayor and council, the property manager over at Green Twig Villas 2 has submitted an application along with uh director of a craft market uh to request a food truck one food truck to be placed for two days over the course of their craft market um in their parking lot Friday, October 2nd and Saturday, October 3rd. And because this is being marketed to the general public and is a multi-day event, the approval for this does require city council approval rather than administrative review and approval. So, I have included in the packet for you the application and requesting um approval. Uh staff has no objections. >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> Aye. >> Opposed? Motion carries. >> There'll be another Could [laughter] you put that on the list of fees, too, and then when we get to applications like this, we charge a nominal fee. >> Yeah, I think we have a pretty robust list of of items that we want to >> [laughter] >> We're going to solve that. >> It's like a council member wants more fees. >> With that, any other council items or announcements? >> Make motion to adjourn. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Aye. >> Opposed? We are adjourned. Thanks, everybody. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome.