okay i'll call the oak park heights city council meeting for tuesday january 25th to order this meeting is being conducted in person at city hall chambers and by video telephone conference do the ongoing coping 19 health pandemic the meeting will follow the provisions of minnesota statute 113d .021 first on the agenda it is a pledge of allegiance since many of you are there would you like to stand and do the pledge of 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 is the approval of the agenda we have one additional item under new business b traffic calming for 58th street and then under um other council items and announcements eric has edition of the coven coped return to revolt meetings process and timeline is there any other additions or changes i move approval was changed second motion by council member dougherty second by council member lil grin eric can you call the roll excuse me yeah council member doherty yes councilmember johnson yes councilman yes member rob yes mayor mccomber yes next is council staff reports we got a message uh yesterday that two of our bills are ready to go through for the legislature when they start um house file 2697 and the match uh senate file 2157 and then house file 2698 and senate file 2156 um let's see on friday i had a women in municipal government meeting today i uh was at a zoo meeting with this uh small cities legislative agenda and then this week we have coalition of utility cities and that'll be going over their legislative agenda and then on friday i have a mica breakfast that's the metropolitan council on affordable housing and then national league cities transportation meeting and then uh early next week we've got the league of minnesota cities meeting with uh basically east metro mayors and that'll be in oakdale and then i'll be attending the advanced leadership conference so far they're still going ahead in person which is surprising and then i have the regional council of mayors meeting and then just as a note after being on these meetings is the league of minnesota cities has canceled their day on the hill which they've usually had since none of the legislators will probably be there in person they're all going to be doing the entire session virtually and then likewise with the minnesota association of small cities they've canceled their legislative reception that they have every year and then when i was on the national league of cities uh meeting earlier that conference they're still going ahead in person for washington d.c so that's not going to be virtual and there will be no way to access any of the sessions for that and that's all i have uh councilmember daugherty yes i attended the parks commission meeting yesterday um they are gonna ever advertising for some vacancies on the park commissions if anybody's interested and you live in oak park heights you should consider that um and also due to the fact that they're going to be open there's open positions they're going to postpone their election of officers until they're more up to full strength and then the moving they'll be we'll be seeing recommendations i believe at our next meeting on the park equipment at swagger and also the summer park program coordinated position chuck is it is it one or two they have two positions only two technically one okay thank you chuck yeah next is councilmember johnson i have nothing to report council member lilgrin uh i have nothing to report the planning commission meeting was cancelled for january okay thank you councilmember wrong no report are there any staff reports chief nothing to report mayor okay any other staff reports and jennifer the recycling award mayor council trent and mary wood at 5819 oakfield avenue north were chosen as a recycling award winner and they have selected the cash award thank you next is visitor public comments section this is a time for anyone in the audience that would like to address the council on any item not on the agenda and if there isn't anyone coming forward then we'll move on to stillwater mountain bike team championship sign presentation mike grunk is that going to be you no this year we're going to um go with the other pony alum and you know councilmember johnson okay you know we're both alum but 40 years apart she's more recent hey you know she noted the fact that we both had the same debate coach even though we were 40 years apart so if you guys want to come up and i know you guys probably have parents and i just want to say you guys you make our city proud you guys make the school proud and i'm just really proud to celebrate this win with you guys so congratulations on your victory this year thank you make sure you get pictures all right nice i'm smiling no problem you can see it in your eyes do have a question um how many of you are going to be competing in the fat type i'm not sure how many will be competing but i think that a majority of us will be there supporting the team and helping out with the fat tired like yourself okay just doing some volunteering those things yeah that's on our agenda down the line here tonight real quick i'm dan awesome i'm the director of the team um now and just wanted to thank you for the partnership with valley view um and the support that you give two quick antidotes these guys are amazing riders and as coaches we get to see them progress and to watch them have fun on the valley view trails to watch and do some of the technical features that our trail boss matt lane has put in watching kids be able to go through what we call the rock garden i can't do the rock garden and these kids just sail through it beautifully at their young age it is amazing to watch development and then in the summer i get out and i ride that as an individual and i'm there in the summer and i had a guy pull up and ask me hey do you ride this trail very often and i said yeah i get to ride a little bit he has no idea who i am i'm just george small riding um and he said well i found it on trailblock which is an app that links to where trails are and things like that and he said is it worth the time riding and i said absolutely and then i got to give my spiel about our stillwater mountain bike team about our partnership with oak park heights and and that the team has developed this trail so i just want to make sure that you guys here thank you um for the partnership and the trail that we have access to when you guys don't have a good job it's it reflects well for you guys as well um everything that you guys do um we never hear any complaints um how it's well kept and stuff that's great and great to see you guys continue to succeed yeah the last story you got a big zoom call the spring of all the big mountain bike teams in the state it was a it was something that tried to organize these things and and mr layman and matt and i were on the phone call and one of the other teams that said hey you guys are doing this every year you know what are you doing right and we kind of said well we do this and we do that the other thing and one coach chimed in i won't get the story exactly right now i'll fix it but um they they one of the team said well i know you guys have a private trail in north park heights and you just didn't do that it's your kind of trail and matt directed them and said no it's a partnership that we have with old park kite city and yes our kids did a lot of volunteer work and built it but you need to know that it's a public access come on over you cannot any time but um we're grateful for your support well you'll remind them if they come over when they see the sign yeah yes it is but that's the reason why it was when we started doing this we uh had the sign and then we had the year separate because it was like well that way you could just hang on yeah we expected you guys to win we're pretty fortunate we're pretty poor well thank you to the mountain biking team and congratulations on your championship and we expect it every year thank you keep up the hard work thank you we'll move on to the consent agenda which is approved bills and investments check six seven three three one to six seven seven eight four um in the total of two hundred and eighty nine thousand one hundred eighty three dollars and eleven cents approved city council minutes january 11th 2022 2022 approved resolution approving a gambling premises permit application made by american legion post 491 or gambling activity at fiesta cancun adopt resolution granting the application of whitetails unlimited metro area to conduct a one day raffle at saint croix event center on march 26 2022 adopt resolution recognizing the contributions of hal peterson is oak park heights park and trail commissioner from 2018 to 2021 and approved 2022 prairie maintenance with minnesota native landscapes incorporated is there a motion to approve a motion by council member johnson second by council member dougherty eric could you read the rule sure councilmember doherty yes that's remember johnson yes that's from every legion yes council member rob yes yes and then we have no public hearings for tonight and there is no old business so we can move on to new business which is back to um the fat tire bike rally to be held on february 20th 2022 eric sure thank you mayor um council members the packet documentation talks about a second year supporting or advocating approval of the agreement for the fat tire bike rally planned to be held on february 20th 2022 this year the promoter is the chilocoud velu cycling club with the beneficiary of those funds generated being still out of area cisco scholastic cycling advocates if i remember the whole acronym there anyway um it's not so much a race but rather self-time events there's a large loop that goes across the bridge um i'm not mistaken um they did run this last year and there were no known issues i think they had about 200 participants last year it was well received it was a two-day event last year i understand there's a event in new richmond that um is like the world mountain trails or that tire bike jenny you know what the heck i'm talking about that bike world championship so you might see more folks this year this year than that however um again it went well last year we didn't have any issues so they are seeking same permissions again uh the city's tool is a is an agreement the draft of which is enclosed it might have a few tweaks but ultimately staff certainly recommend approval they are a non-profit organization and last year i recall you did waive the fees and um and and the deposit so if you wanted to take that action as well that would be up to the council as well so with that it's largely the same last year updated dates and a slightly different sponsor we do have the proof of insurance we'll just wait for the state and or the county approvals as well i'd make a motion to approve it um doing the same as last year for going to fees second any further discussion motion by council member dougherty second by council member lil jagran eric uh councilmember daugherty yes that's robert johnson yes councilmember logic yes councilmember robert yes mayor mccomber yes next we have the traffic calming on 58th street and as you can see i had eric send all of you the copy of the email that i received from alexis at schmitz at the high school a project that she's working on considering some safety improvements along 58th street especially where the curve is um basically toward the entrance to kowalski's and across from the entrance for the high school and that that spot tends to ice up especially during the winter i don't know if it's because it doesn't get enough sun but there's also the speeding that goes on um back and forth she came up with some suggestions to put up one of those radar signs like we see in other cities your speed is you know it's supposed to be 45 or it's supposed to be 40 or whatever it is and somebody's going 55 and it does tend to bring their attention that they're going too fast i did email back and forth with the chief and if he's in the room maybe he can um speak to some of the suggestions that he sent to me chief yep thanks mayor uh so a couple of months ago last year we kind of looked into this a little bit the city engineer administrator and public works some of the concerns with the new construction project that's coming with no rel the highway 36 my concern was the traffic congestion that we're going to see on 58 and so you know bottom line is that we looked at other we're looking at other options uh whether that be a bump out to put squad cars for traffic enforcement whether that's a stop sign at kruger whether that's speed limit change and someone that's already been kind of looked at to it along with these speed limit signs that display um in any event if the council chooses to uh it sounds like a great project for the student and if i guess mayor if you want to assign her to staff i guess i would be more happy to help her navigate uh the the task i'm not sure what all goes into it if she's looking you know we're looking at multiple things and this is one of those ideas was to put up those traffic signs that display the speed limit and whereabouts but my suggestion was as it was to you that um i get a lot of the information from different traffic companies in particular taco that they uh have the different signs and maybe protect with you and the public works director and then also alexis if she's willing to work with both of you to come up with suggestions i mean my first instinct is obviously to have the flashing radar sign your speed is but maybe you can come up with a good suggestion and bring it back to council maybe we can get something in before our construction starts yeah that sounds great i think there's a lot of layers there of course that we need to look at and it'd be good for the student to kind of see what all goes into you know it's not just the speed limit signs and all the different factors with the city engineers input and public works costs and i'd like to thank alexis for bringing it to our attention i know all of us drive that path quite often drive that way quite often so it's really nice to see a student take an initiative on on something so important to our city and alexis i'm not sure if you're on the line if you'd like to say anything oh yeah i'm on i just wanted to thank you guys for giving me the opportunity to listen in and i appreciate all your suggestions thank you then um we'll have the chief get in touch with you or you can um call city hall you know call the police chief and then like i said you and um the chief and the public works director can come up with something and bring it back to our council that's really very nice thank you yes i would love to say we're going to put you to work you can be the future council members i mean oh yes okay would we uh should we get a motion to have our staff work with alexis on getting something to put together first second okay who made the motion on that one little degree okay motion by literally second by johnson eric health remember dougherty yes councilman remember johnson yes council member logical yes councilmember rob yes mayor mccomber yes then next we have other council items or announcements and eric you wanted to talk about the remote meetings yes thank you mayor council i did send a memo out this afternoon a little bit of a follow-up for from some of our staff confusion on on how we are proceeding with pandemic or not with remote meetings in a nutshell i think if the council desires to go to remote or virtual meetings then the hosting of those meetings or the action of those meetings should fall under the 13d 0.021 which is what we're under tonight and does make it easier to be off-site it does not have the requirement of being in a public place although there's a three-time exception for that however the challenge we had with falling under that tonight in terms of how we communicated that last week was the city technically formally at least from my opinion did not state we are falling under the pandemic it's not prudent however how do we revoke that or how do we reconvene what standard are we using this for especially in light of the action that house will discuss last last time on the 11th where it basically slated four or five meetings throughout the month of february which basically we'd have to all turn to remote so um i guess for where we are at the staff is to say if you're if you want to have virtual me we have no objection not at all that's that's that's fine we just helpful for us to clarify it and also what's also helpful is to say when what parameter is are we attaching that finding to such as what health response or what index do we want to attach it to when do we come back is there a is there a 30-day window a 60-day window so for right now i don't think much is going to change between now and february 7th much less how can we make that determination at the staff level so that's where we are challenged we're not health experts obviously but we don't want to be maybe we profess we are but certainly we're not um anyway so where we stand right now is that the meetings are not going to be virtual as of right now the last formal action the council took that i can absolutely document was back in may [Music] where um the council maybe it was june um where everything after july 1st 2021 was was back in person so for us going back and forth is challenging if it's warranted fine but that's where we are i'd certainly also defer to jenny or or kevin if they wanted add-on and thank you for letting for helping in on this model too so so with that being said we don't need anything the plan is for the next february the first meeting in february is where we're staying we'd be we would not be virtual you're saying our first meeting in february is a workshop i think we could say it's practical and prudent given the demographics of oak park heights being typically vulnerable populations they're still vulnerable with the rise of the omacron variant that it isn't practical or predictive public meetings that might subject members of the public to the very but that might give us enough justification if that's the choice we'd like to go down i think you have a justification to certainly do it i don't know i think that the challenge with it is how do you go back when do you go back again staff has no preferences okay if this is if that's the council's decision this evening so for the next 30 days we will go virtual oh okay um but we can't say we're gonna go virtual for this meeting and not the next one yeah it's impossible to schedule the meeting certainly coordinate the the technology it's a lot the televising is challenging in of itself um so that's where we're asking for some clear guidance otherwise as right now everything will be in person what do people want to do i'm okay with staying in person i'm well i do think that because the omicron is still going and it who knows if it's ever going to end or when it's going to end um i mean you go by the cdc guidelines their department of health you know wear masks now they're saying to go to the n95 mask i see more and more where people aren't wearing masks there are the breakthrough cases and as carly just mentioned there demographically you know there could be people that can't be there don't feel comfortable to be there we have staff members that we don't want them to get sick we need them there to be running city hall for us and if you look at save in the uh legislature it's an even meeting in person i've seen different businesses if you if go ahead i was just gonna say the house isn't the senate looks like they're gonna be in person but so many things like i said are being cancelled in person not all of them but some are yeah there was actually a bit of a poll going around in the city attorney list served here recently kind of someone posted a comment on the listserv saying hey whose cities are going back to virtual meetings and it was interesting because there was really a wide variety of responses um you know is almost 50 50 i think back and forth between cities going back to virtual meetings versus cities staying in person and so certainly there's a lot of um uncertainty or waffling even amongst the various cities as what to do and how to deal with what's going on right now and so you know the fact that we're having the same kind of uh debate about these issues is commonplace across the state right now um and i think part of what the staff's memo tried to get across was you know if if staff could have some more particular parameters in place from the mayor and council as to you know if infection rates are at a certain level or whatever that that will trigger um going to virtual meetings that would make it a lot easier for staff to track and and understand what the council's intention was as opposed to this sort of free-flowing debate that happens on a meeting-by-meeting basis i think that's what staff prefers to avoid because it leaves staff in a state of uncertainty as uh how meetings need to be noticed and what sort of technology needs to be set up and and things of that nature and so it doesn't sound like what are other cities doing since you said it was 50 50 how are they going back to what standards are they using well i think they're basing it on the fact that the pandemic issues are flaring up and they're utilizing that 13d 0.021 as the as the basis to do so and so you know technically that statute says that the mayor the city administrator or even i have the authority under the statute to make those decisions um but certainly i think also the council as a whole uh can choose to provide its input on on whether that happens or not but um you know i i think neither eric nor i wants to be the arbiter of those decisions uh on behalf of the council but i want to put words in your mouth eric but yeah no one thing would be if we go remote um we would have to reschedule the two work the two workshops the first two workshops in february because we were doing them because we're doing them in person that's uh one with uh they were desired to be in person correct right i mean that's the one with amy on the no i don't have my calendar the sixth seventh and seventh this and then the following night we were in the presentation from king point advisory so i would think and i think and i do think that we could potentially just do hybrid you know those that want to be in city hall or those that can't come to city hall that we're doing like we are tonight um so that they're oh sorry okay go ahead carly i was gonna say if if you're allowed to make that determination could would that be something that you would want to look back i think right now we don't have enough data in front of us to come up with a metric but it seems like you or eric or kevin of the capability of looking at those metrics and kind of coming up with that determination and we certainly could get that because county board meeting this morning they had a work session totally just devoted to coven maybe we can get all that data from the county um that was pretty specific but you know as far as what the numbers were and how the scale was going it didn't it didn't look good yet you know that we hope that it's going to come back down or flatten the line or whatever they call it um that it does slow down but and no other variant pops up in the meantime but right now i see i mean even on sunday i went to another funeral of another person that died of probit and it's just depressing to to see the numbers of people who are either getting infected or passing away from this virus i think we need we all took an oath that we were going to protect the health safety and welfare of our city and that includes our employees we need to be mindful of their health as well so that's where i was going with go to hybrid meetings you know some in the council chambers some remotely it had worked in the past not that it all has to be virtual but the hybrid i think we're all okay with it we just have to come up with the direction for staff which i think would require more data would it do hard can we just set a date and say 30 days would that be okay i think that would be just fine and hopefully can i finish just hopefully that if we see the numbers coming down we can always say okay that's it we're doing good if the numbers are still where they are or if they're going higher or a new variant we can revisit it but put it in a 30-day for now so then we are we postponing our workshops then until march we don't have to i mean we can still do them hybrid i thought the purpose of the the one was for us to all be in person training if we can if we can be spread out enough and everybody has masked on i i think we could do that i think the one with the the goals are the team building in particular the one with the with the advisory council with the advisory board yeah they wanted that to be in person they couldn't be born we're saying one thing but now we're saying but okay because we have these workshops we just do something else it's either all or nothing they say if we have to can't postpone the off the grid then let's not be trying to make shift stuff to get these in there and let's just do that until march the chief will have to do it from his car i also think weather might be warmer for in march hopefully i also think with the statute i think kevin will check on this but i think if we make it all virtual we'd have to stay over to what the practical and prudent thing is staff directed us so all virtual for 30 days which would put us our two meetings in february in the parks and planning commission for february virtual uh planning commission's cancelled so okay that'll be all right perfect so kevin could i ask if so what staff will do whether that's we'll work with mayor and kevin and i will what we hear from all of you is that it's practical and prudent uh under to hold our meetings for the next 30 days from today whatever those are um we'll be all uh virtual virtual um and then the work sessions slated for february 8th will be postponed and the seventh um we do wanted to consider our check in with uh lockridge grindel on february 28th but that shouldn't be a problem because that they'll probably want to zoom in on that anyways don't think angie i don't think angie will be a part of that one that's true he'll be busy so that's what we hear from you folks and that's kevin is that what you hear young man it is and you know i i think uh um in this concept of hybrid the legislature and the interpretation of that statute i think generally allows for that um the only caveat that the um powers that be have kind of indicated for that is if you're going to have any of your council members in council chambers you do have to also allow public to attend in person if they so choose you can't have the members of the council at chambers but say none of the public can come in but the flip side being if all the council members at home you generally can exp other than one you can exclude the public from chambers and so that's kind of the touchy subject with hybrid type meetings but otherwise what you're saying makes sense but virtually because it is an open meeting they are always welcome to join and watch the meeting or if they have a comment that they could anyone from the public can make a comment during the public comment period if it's not pertinent to the agenda is that correct yes okay is council okay with that yes now i can't see you again so yes okay he does so these are not hybrid meetings these are i think it would be a good idea to have a motion on this one so second motion by council member johnson second by council member lil chagrin eric councilmember doherty yes council remember johnson yes councilmember yes councilmember rob yes mayor mccumber yes um are there any other council items or announcements i make a motion we adjourn second motion by council member wrong second by council member was that mildred yep eric councilmember doherty yes council member johnson yes council remember loadregrin yes let's remember brock yes mayor mccomber yes thank you everyone recording stopped have a good night you