in both fire departments it was a large scale operation most of them are in the room here today thank you for coming assisting and all in all it was a job well done it was such a great team you all came together and these are the group around the pier talking with individual working as coaches and working logistics getting that information job well done thank you for being great officers and deputies thank you for being great human beings and with that i'll get you guys your awards zack officer brandon crosby yes [Applause] i would like to thank all of you for the fine work that you did that day but not only just that day but for the work that you do each and every day and it isn't always appreciated but i want to express my deep appreciation for what you do we're going to take about a 15-minute um recess or break if you'd like to get photographs or um visit with other officers and their families too so break for about 15 minutes we have all the officers um next is the that's pretty cool jennifer we're going to start the meeting again next is council staff reports um getting an echo um i testified several times over the last couple weeks both at the house and at the senate on several of our bills coalition utility bills and one that was asked to do on friday that was presented by the city of columbus but and senator housley is the author of the bill but it actually would benefit us as well there's about 18 cities so i testified on that um had quite a few calls over the last couple weeks with our lobbyists city lobbyists and the coalition of utility cities and then small cities as well and then friday i have national league of cities women and government board meeting thursday i have small cities board meeting a reminder if anybody is going to the metro city's annual meeting um to register for that and then the meeting for the first meeting for the energy transition advisory committee was postponed until next week um that's all i have for right now councilmember dougherty i have nothing to report councilmember johnson i also have nothing to report councilmember rank i have a cvb meeting tomorrow and the monthly meeting of the middle saint clary watershed has been cancelled thank you um chief there he is well we gave you a seat we're not gonna give you a microphone and then secondly our traffic enforcement we're coordinating now with washington county and state patrol as far as stepped up traffic enforcement and on top of the heat program so that's uh which definitely with the nice weather we're getting a lot more traffic out there especially in some of the neighborhoods and now with the nerf wars that's going on we've had several several calls on that already at the high school that started again yes it did last uh friday at six and it last uh several weeks until there's a winner there's been a lot of already complaints and accidents involved be aggressively uh enforcing traffic enforcement in that area 58th and that some of those areas that we're seeing the high volume of traffic of kids going into the business district well then that's it mayor and thank you for putting together the recognition for the officers earlier appreciate that um assistant acidity administrator pinsky good evening mayor and council i have two recycling award winners to present to you this evening the second winner for the month of march was jay higgins who lives at 5630 newgate circle north and the first award winner for the month of april dawn and kevin anderson at 5665 oldfield avenue north would you want to mention the city cleanup day too sure city cleanup day will be saturday may 7th 7 30 am until 1 pm it will be in the anderson corporation southwest parking lot behind the building you'll want to enter off of osgoode thank you are there any other staff reports next is the visitor public comments section this is a time for anyone to address the council on anything not on the agenda so we'll move on to our 21 2021 city annual financial statement and the review of our city auditor dave mull good evening dave good morning i didn't push it back real well sorry all right uh we've completed the audit i've got a presentation for you tonight oh of course all right i'll keep i'll try to keep up with it okay thank you it was working five minutes ago all right so when we complete the audit there's four different reports that are issued they're listed here on the page opinion on the financial statements report on internal control report on minnesota legal compliance and then a audit management letter so i've got a few comments on each of those first one the opinion on the financial statements that's the our primary role addressing three questions what do we do how do we do it what's the result well our role is to determine that your financial statements are free of material misstatement and presented in accordance with accounting standards we do by following standards set by our industry and at the federal level by the government accountability office so we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance at the statement financial statements are free of material misstatement the result of our work is an unmodified or clean opinion on the 2021 financial statements next up is a report on internal control what we do is gain an understanding of the controls that are in place here to help us understand where there may be risks of material misstatement and focus our efforts uh in areas where we think risk is higher and then we're required to report any deficiencies that we find in internal control but please to report no internal control deficiencies noted next up a report on minnesota legal compliance the state auditor's office has a checklist that all auditors are required to follow there are currently seven sections you can see them there on the slide so we select a sample of transactions and test for compliance with finance related statutory provisions so for example under the category depositories of public funds chapter 118 a requires uh cities to have a collateral for deposits they have at financial institutions so for example at the end of the fiscal year you had at midwest one checking in cds and with the amount of checking in cds you had on deposit you needed collateral of 3 million and the bank provided 4.7 million so here is an example of what we look for in testing for compliance please report no items of non-compliance noted next is a required communication to those charged with governance it addresses items that don't fit in the other reports that i've talked about whether any changes in accounting policies or accounting standards noting none for 2021 where there are estimates in your financial statements the biggest estimate is uh now we're required to report the city's pro rata share of paris pension liability and that's performed by actuaries at pera and that estimated liability you can see in the slide there 1.1 million again please report no difficulties encountered in performing the audit no disagreements with management other matters there's more accounting standards on the way the biggest one is how we deal with leases that's coming up for next year betty and then some financial indicators here on the bottom of the slide all positive property tax collection rate 99.3 assessment collection rate high as well 98.4 general fund balance was sufficient to meet the needs that you have set by policy i've got a little bit more on that in a later slide and water and sewer funds rates were set at levels to generate sufficient revenue to meet operating expenses so all positive financial results here's a summary of all funds maybe just focus on the bottom line the total line gives you a perspective of the size of the organization 9.1 million dollars in eight point almost 8.9 million dollars out increase in fund balance of almost 300 000 ending at 38 million a couple of comments on this slide just to give you some a little bit more clarity or understanding if you look at the first line general fund in the third column transfers out of general fund 1.8 million the city had transferred funds to different funds that you have 650 000 to your budgeted projects fund about 580 000 to debt service funds to assist with that service payments and then about 400 000 to the street reconstruction fund so one last comment on this slide you can see in the general fund the increase in fund balance was 492 000 reason for that is revenues exceeded budget by about a hundred thousand primarily in the permit revenue area and expenditures were less than budget by about 318 thousand three areas where the largest police was under budget insurance and snow removal here's a little bit closer look at the general fund as i mentioned you have a policy to maintain a minimum fund balance made up of cash flow reserve because your primary revenue source comes in the second half of the year and then a contingency reserve so you can see here the red is what you desire to have for fund balance and the blue line is what you actually have so you've met your goal of minimum fund balance at the end of 21. just a couple more slides here this is a multi-year look at your enterprise funds first one here is water utility the red line across the top is revenue the columns are the expenditures and transfers out and uh the line is above the columns meaning you uh your revenue uh was sufficient to fund your expenses in the water utility uh very similar in uh sewer utility so good results there some increases in mces which pushed the column up a little bit for 21. and then finally storm sewer utility that you have here again you can see revenues had exceeded expenses so that's what i have for a presentation so good results clean opinion on the financial statements no internal control items noted no legal compliance items noted either so any questions any questions for dave no well betty's doing a fantastic job thank you dave thank you thanks daddy did you want to say anything okay i pull this bag [Music] that can be kind of a nightmare um because we're giving them coffees back beforehand but it was really well and so i appreciate that the thought was helped okay then we'll move on to consent agenda approved bills and investments and i didn't write the numbers down um i'll put it on for the next one approve city not thing to do with the auditor and the audience proof city council minutes march 22 2022 approved city council work session notes march 29 2022 authorize staff to contract with saint croix sweeping for 2022 street sweeping and adopt proclamation for fair housing month i'll move the consent agenda as presented second motion by council member wrong second by councilmember johnson eric excuse me councilmember daugherty yes councilmember johnson yes council member ron yes mayor mccomber yes we have no public hearings so we'll move on to old business which is the water meter replacement andy okay so uh in november 2021 i'm sure you folks remember that it wasn't too long ago but uh the council did authorize seeking bids for a city-wide water meter replacement project um an rfp was drafted with help of stantec they led it for bidding and bids were opened on march 18th of this year we received one bid for our meter replacement project and that was from core and maine a reputable company local company and we do work with them so their uh bid was 675 971 the council did previously approved three hundred dollars for assistance from stan tech for the preparation and uh of the bid package and other related items um and it's anticipated that uh we probably won't need any more significant help from stantec on this project as any coordination between the contractor and city staff will be done in-house it is possible that there be other expenses and so we're proposing a uh five percent contingency just in case um for your consideration and those budget numbers are on the memo that actually eric drafted he beat me to the punch here so thank you eric but in any case um so we've got a total project cost uh anticipated to be five i'm sorry seven hundred and fifty nine thousand seventy one dollars um the city has been saving money uh six hundred and seventy two thousand dollars from prior years budget transfers and uh we do um uh have a eighty seven thousand seventy two dollar shortfall in this case so uh additional funding could come from the available fund balance which is in the city's renewal and replacement account it's got a balance of two million six hundred and twenty four thousand and fifty five dollars as of the first of this year so assuming you folks still want to move forward with this project we are requesting acceptance of the bid from core in maine and authorize authorization for staff to move forward with funding from the budgeted project meters fund and then any remaining funding coming from the renewal and replacement fund well it looks good to me any questions for andy well he didn't wear his asking for money ties so i really do yeah i don't know how to operate i make a motion that we uh accept a bid and do the as laid out second motion by council member wrong sec or dougherty and second by council member wrong all in favor all right i'm going to extain on this um i've talked to the attorney before and i don't think there's a problem but my brother works for corman oh so okay in indianapolis it doesn't even affect here but i think just to be clear that sure i mean abstain from that so he could tell you it's a good company he told me he doesn't know anything about water meters and it's not his department fantastic thank you and then we'll move on to the 2022 sanitary sewer slip lining yeah and i'll cover that as well um again last december uh you folks authorized us to seek bids um for sewer lining we're we're looking to line approximately or exactly 1 950 liter feet of sanitary sewer again stantec drafted the the bid uh documents and they let the project uh bids were opened on march 18th of this year we received two bids for the work um in situ form technologies and visual sewer institute forum was the lower of the two coming in at 123 414 and 80 cents um council previously approved 21 800 for the preparation of the bid package and other related um expenses or elements with that including the contract those sort of things stantec construction services will be necessary on this project and so there is a construction services proposal from lee or from stantec in the in the packet uh and that is included in the project cost we've got a total project cost anticipated to be 165 714 and 80 cents and we're proposing to fund this project using the utility renewal and replacement fund again with the balance of two million six hundred and twenty four thousand and fifty five dollars and uh if you'd like to move forward with this project we would request that you accept the low bidder in situ form and uh authorized staff to move forward with uh the proposed funding scenario including all additional associated engineering costs as outlined in the april 8th memo from stantec looks really clear in all the memos any questions for andy their motion motion by council member johnson second by council member rank all in favor all right now your work begins and just like that our summer is planned thank you paul thank you just wait we're not done yet uh move on to new business norell avenue project possible groundbreaking event on some of our bigger projects we've had ground breakings in the past and with all that we've gone through with working with our legislators and bonding and having bonding tours i thought it would be nice to do some type of a groundbreaking event when it starts some of the representatives and senators that were here when we had the bonding tour said they'd love to come back if there was such an event and since some of them are retiring this year we have something to invite those that made the effort to come out here any thoughts from anyone i think it's a good idea okay so maybe we'll work with the leaves and the schedule as far as when work's going to start and try and coordinate right now the ground's still a little a little frozen to start that you can let us know and we'll get it coordinated uh mayor and council there is a pre-construction meeting coming up shortly and we will be understanding the contractor's schedule better at that point okay and we will bring that topic up as well and coordinate and find out what the window of time is would be best for that be nice to recognize the businesses and how they all work together to get that road going through so if we can do anything do we have a date on the uh neighborhood meeting so we have seen a neighborhood meeting is the 26th okay we decided at the front of your uh council meeting in two weeks so we'll know more on monday and then we'll know more on that tuesday so maybe at that tuesday we can go ahead and set a set a date or make an announcement or save the date type of thing that makes sense is there a motion by the council to go ahead and do some planning on that so moved second okay councilmember then councilmember johnson all in favor aye aye and next is uh covert park garden and historical sign jennifer mayor and council as you've all probably seen the the cover park garden uh are looking not as beautiful as they used to and they become kind of unmanageable and the city in the past tried to reinstate the garden club with very little interest and also hosted a cleanup event a citywide cleanup event with not a lot of turnout so the parks and trails commission discussed options for that area and they didn't think that it was feasible to hire somebody to do just one park as that kind of leaves out some of the other parks and we can't afford to to have somebody working to beautify all of the parks in the same way so something they asked the arborist to do was to come up with a low maintenance downsized renewal plan for the cover park garden to make it more manageable and sustainable for for longevity and that could be handled in-house with city staff that plan is included kind of a multi-page couple of pages because it's a big area it's included in your packet the parks and trails commission looked over that plan that the city arborist prepared and they recommended at their may 17 2021 meeting that that renewal plan moved forward the parks and trails commission also reviewed ideas for a sign and historical a commemorative and historical sign to be placed at cover park to recognize the history of the area and the volunteers for the garden committee the parks and trails commission reviewed different sign ideas and locations and they made a recommendation for a single pedestal sign and they picked a spot in cover park that would be a place that where people would see it very easily and they wanted to include a picture if possible in some language that was kindly drafted by council member johnson and they approved so based on that and the parks and trails commission's recommendations staff is recommending that the city council approve the garden plan and the sign placement to be completed this year we don't have final cost estimates but we did have cost estimates last year and they might be a little bit higher this year just um as is most other things due to inflation but it will be likely less than fifteen hundred dollars and it is within the parks and trails budget so the picture that's going to go on this plaque is that going to be the cobra park school or that's what the parks and trails commission decided they thought would get a lot of interest i have a yearbook from the cover school which has a really good picture of the entire building that might be nice on there yeah i got a question concerning the perennial plants that were put in there um is there any are they all coming out or yeah so they're it's it's going to be like a seed mix that's this the reason i'm asking is i happen to come across something in my church bulletin st michael cemetery expanded did some construction and there's a request in this in this week's bulletin for st michael's is seeking any hosta plants and perennial plants being thinned out of household gardens is that what we're talking about here i believe uh when lisa was planning this out uh we did leave room for um the ability to maybe transplant some of the flowers and plants from from the big hill on peller avenue to the smaller hill on 58. so i think that probably will happen if we have any hostas or anything valuable or beautiful on peller avenue side we could certainly set it aside okay i mean i just it's just my son i'm like hold on we're taking those plants out well all those plants came from all the homes when they were starting to be removed and burned and torn down so that's how the garden committee went down there and dug them all up after the houses were gone and trent so they'd stay in the neighborhood right yeah and so we certainly want to we we understand the feeling behind wanting to keep the the garden but you know and so um we're certainly willing to work with any resident that might want to say can we keep this this this and move it to the 58th street side a lot of those plants are still in the neighborhood i have some in my yard and i know you know pam and some others have a lot of those plants that came from those homes we're still going i think chuck you have some too yeah yeah but i do yeah there's better pictures of the school yeah i think i think this photo didn't print well because when the version i sent jenny and i think that we sent in the parks commission ones was a little bit cleaner than this yeah one of the actually the actual whole building with the principal on the porch and it's from like 1920 something like that i think it's a wonderful idea so i think that'd be in favor of that it was the question did anybody ever check is it the bell what's at the high school the one from the cover park school yes no no no one from the high school is from the old high school i went on an expedition and found the old bell and it was at a um estate sale up in i think scandia eric was going up to get it for the city and somebody got it before eric got there so it's gone it's still floating around somewhere okay i just knew that i hadn't heard the one at the high school i knew no that's from the old high school okay that's what i was talking about i don't remember when there was ever a bell on the old high school i mean well it's still out there somewhere if anybody wants to bring it back dope our kites would be nice um oh is there a motion to go ahead with that the sign for that i'll make that motion for the side and the garden and everything second all in favor all right approve process and timeline for the solid waste and recycling contract uh request for proposals jenny jennifer yes mayor and council the city currently has a contract with tennis sanitation for garbage and recycling hauling and disposal that the city entered into for five years in 2015 and then renewed for an extended three years through the end of 2022 as you recall the city did approach tennis sanitation to discuss possible extensions which did not um was we were not successful in that so uh we will need to go up for requests for proposals for a new contract for garbage hauling into a typical standard contract for this is five years as you all would recall we did have an intern this last year in 2021 who did put together a survey on our services for garbage and recycling and that went out in our newsletter and was on our website and we received 44 responses and overall our residents were very satisfied with the service that we provide in the city but one of the things that they did suggest was possibly switching to weekly recycling pickup as some people's cans overflow for that bi-weekly recycling so um i did recommend that this that the city council consider an alternate in any rfp that we find out what the cost would be to go to weekly recycling right now the city pays approximately nineteen thousand two hundred dollars per month for a current con under a current contract it can be expected that rates will be considerably higher for a new proposal due to inflation and diesel fuel costs and other factors we have 1093 residential customers and you'll see in the chart that i provided in the packet that um the majority of our customers have a medium-sized container and the large container about quarter of our residents have a large container which they do pay a small fee to have so the request for proposals what i did was i reviewed several other requests uh for proposals that were prepared by other communities in in the city to just kind of compare that to what we've used in the past um like i said the term would be for five years commencing january 1st 2023 and expiring december 31st 2027 with a provision for ext extension option as with our current contract what we have in there base proposal would include the same services as our current contract this is pretty standard that would be for weekly solid waste collection weekly yard waste collection disposal the bi-weekly recycling collection personnel and equipment standards service expectations and then the small the spring and fall cleanup day terms that alternate then would be separate for the weekly pickup for recycling and another thing that i saw in other rfps we may want to consider as an alternate alternate is organics pickup that would be food waste just to see what that cost might be if that's something you want to consider as for the adjustments to fees the city's current contract allows for either party to request annual adjustments to the collection and recycling fee based off the private transportation consumer price index and then it also provides for annual automatic disposal fee increases other options i saw in other rfps for determining adjustments would be to require the contractors to include in the proposal their fixed rates for each year of the contract and there would be no adjustments that would be the contract another one i saw was a different index the u.s urban workers index which i thought was maybe not the best index to use i wouldn't recommend that so that's something to consider for how you want the rfp drafted so i also included in the memo a timeline for this um for for preparing the rfp hosting it publishing it sending it out to contractors certified contractors and then for you to review the proposals that come in and make a final determination and then for the transfer from current provider to new provider so what i'm requesting for you to do tonight is to discuss the alternates that i mentioned this evening and then approve the base proposal approve i'm sorry the process and timeline and i will i will prepare a request for proposal and bring that back at your next meeting for you to finalize and approve i know this has come up before about the cpi and i know we're one of the only cities around there's almost none that do a cpi and my biggest concern is putting that in there is that potentially we wouldn't get any bidders um that would be the one concern and right now obviously the price index is high that could always drop again like it tends to be cyclical i do think it's a good idea to if for those that want the bi-weekly pickup they could put their cat out there and if they don't want it they don't have to put it out there but i have gone by and seen some that are overflowing and mine's been one of them lately yeah i agree with the recycling every week pick up or at least look at that cost any questions for jennifer or does anybody have any thought about the cpi on there but it has saved us a lot of money it has but will they be a bitter and will anybody else be bitter if they see that on there i mean it would be my biggest question we don't get any bids we could always put it back out when we got multiple bids last time i believe with that in the bid or rfp so i think we could put it out there and if we don't get any bids we can adjust the approach yeah i do have on the timeline that bids would be due july 1st and i purposely picked that the beginning of the month so that um if we don't get anything we i can come back to council and we can adjust that timeline and do another another round in august yeah i think if that's the case then i say we should leave it in there and i think it wouldn't i don't if we can as an alternative look at the organics because if this is a five-year contract i think that's going to be that's the next big push i know on the commercial side they're doing right now so i agree with that i think the county is looking at it too it's more of a permanent move well your timeline looks good thank you and i think i haven't heard any complaints about tennis i think their service has been very good i like the clean up days i think everybody likes those so is there a motion to approve the process and timeline for the solid waste recycling contract to request for proposal so moved mr second second all in favor aye aye a set date for goal setting continuation eric so obviously uh you're still one short council member here we have some outstanding business related to those things we gave a shot to try to meet prior to this meeting or the next meeting and it doesn't look good for all kinds of people's schedules so um i don't know what to tell you at this point now you said mike wasn't going to be available prior to the 26th meeting as well well we have a room or somebody wasn't going to have that the neighborhood meeting okay right and i know you're gone and he's gone and so we just uh should we do it potentially after the meeting on the 10th instead of before i know that's or during that week i know no one wants a late night but it might one of the i mean it makes no difference to me whatever you folks want but i think one of the challenges we've had is in in not having your full five here to set those dates it just becomes a challenge to find those dates so could we propose like two or three and you can propose them to i'd be happy to do that remember a little yeah can we do a a morning meeting on this or a different time of the day that would be first scheduled but how's yours i probably could make it work i don't know my work schedule off the hand i'm more worried about mike's schedule breakfast meeting sometimes i would hope that the legislature should be wrapping up [Music] i don't think anybody wants to go to special session this year would a weekend day be better weekends are tough yeah what's when you're asking staff to come another weekend yeah should we plan for a wednesday because then we'd avoid meetings on the thursdays so like the fourth or the eleventh i i can't do wednesday meetings anymore oh last time uh tuesday may 3rd going once well we try tuesday may 3rd and do it at 4 30 instead or 5 o'clock and then that's the off tuesday from our council meeting and maybe mike could make it what time did you say i'm sorry say five o'clock just to make it stay safe so carly can get here in time make it 5 30 on tuesday the third is your second day and then if and then if we need to change the date we'll be here back here on the 26th and we can change it again does that sound okay tuesday the third five o'clock does that work for everybody i want to make a motion to put that one in place oh wait it doesn't work for me are you serious yeah my lines and i'm hosting the meeting and it's five o'clock i could do anytime that day right now there's nothing on there and i think all the hearings i mean the hearings are still going to be going on but as far as testimony there i shouldn't have to deal with any of that wanna make it 10 o'clock in the morning i think it must be too hard with mike's schedule unless we get it confirmed yeah unless i want to go earlier that way you know before and you're just going in a little bit later what time is your alliance club at five o'clock but no i'm saying earlier in the morning mm-hmm where that was like 7 a.m earlier going into that's fine they're real they're real jobs 7 a.m on the third it works that'd be fine i'll bring donuts might need coffee we have everyone's coffee order so we've everybody likes too many different things i'd bring coffee but i'm not bringing lattes and mocha sorry i think everyone's a black coffee it's gonna be there okay seven o'clock a.m eric yes ma'am 7 00 a.m on um tuesday the third all right i would think maybe in an hour hour and a half we should be able to be done and then we can get underway yes because you all be nice and fresh ready to go okay all right i have a good uh rattle mr lildren's cage why don't we make a motion to make sure that that is in place for now maybe we make the motion we have the meeting in mr lauren's house we could i think he's back in the office so he wouldn't be there wouldn't be remote anymore yeah just go right to his house okay i'll make the motion for 7am on may 3rd second all in favor aye aye and any counsel announcements other items or announcements the only thing i was going to mention is um i want to send sympathies to the family of um county attorney pete orbit and then also former county administrator jim shook whose funeral is tomorrow any other announcements emily's birthday tomorrow this happy birthday to lee it's your birthday it is can we sing tomorrow tomorrow okay we'll call you tomorrow you don't want it on camera yeah bit silent all day we are going to convene our reconvene our staff meetings in person effective tomorrow okay we've been off live we've been online for a while forever three years i'm back in person everybody's just delighted make sure the entire staff sings to leave yes happy birthday lee thank you so if there's no other announce uh items or announcements is there a motion to adjourn so moved second all in favor you