[Music] good evening everyone um this is a Columbus city council meeting and the date is March 26 2025 and the time is 602 would everybody uh please stand and we'll pledge allegiance IED Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all okay on the agenda item a number three uh I'm going to make a motion I moved uh to approve the March 26 2025 city council amended agenda and that's listed above there so uh we're taking out the uh original agenda had items B2 and then January 22nd 22 and B3 and the minutes in item D7 which is the generator bids will have to be rescheduled for a later date so you made the motion I'll second it okay any questions comments want to vote on it there Jennifer Jenny I Scott I Janet I robbi and ronai we'll stop down to item number B consent [Applause] agenda so I would I would move to approve the consent agenda as presented and the supplemental Bill list which was distributed to the council prior to the March 26 2025 meeting Scott I'll second any discussion on that any comments rob you want to start at voting Rob I Janet I Scott ey Jenny I and Ron I we'll go on to uh item number c presentations and items for Council action number one is the public forum is there anybody in the audience that' like to get up and make a statement or a comment state your name you know how to do this don't you Brenda been here in a while but um good evening um mayor councel and staff I'm Brenda Miller and I live at quinal Street Northeast in Columbus here um I am here as a member of the inoka county election Integrity team we're also known as asit and we've been here before a few times um I know because it's an off election year it's not top priority for you as a council right now but our citizens group focuses on elections and so we continue to research election information and you might be aware that an NOA County um Commissioners recently decided to renew their contract with no wink um an NGO which controls the electronic pole pads for elections the council passed it 4 to two even though they received hundreds of phone calls from citizens asking that they not renew due to cost after raising taxes over 16% on most of us and because of concerns for the lack of security and anything used for electronics in elections and those were two big concerns for the constituents that called them as aset shared with the county the information about the legislation that Texas representative Pete Sessions is putting forward entitled make elections secure again also known as Mesa and this is um included I included um some of that or that information for you this includes shortening early vote voting and hand counting paper ballots and so we asked the county to delay their vote um currently the county has also um put forward their information regarding the amount that these new pole pads would cost and are stating that the county has the authority to tell the municipalities whether or not to use them members of our team who are very knowledgeable in it and in reading and researching statutes have concluded that the municipalities have the right to opt out of their use um I have included a speech that was given yesterday at the county by Robert Kirchner and he worked for an NOA City for over 30 years and he had has extensive um knowledge on how to read through statutes and I included that for you to look at um two cities have already decided to opt out um Columbus currently has about 3,000 eligible voters and according to Mesa and to the Minnesota Secretary of State we would need we will need to to divide up into at least two two precincts um to keep it at500 and this would actually make things much more manageable it sounds a little daunting but it would be more manageable and our concern my concern here living in Columbus is that I know we already have a problem uploading um information from the tabulators on Election Day and now we're supposed to use pole pads that use cellular and that might also be problematic here um we in ASAP believe the county is vastly underestimating the cost of the pads and that they will cost much more for the municipalities than stated um state senator calbar and commissioner Riner spoke about this at the Lynwood Township meeting on March 11th and they agreed with US senator bar commented that the pole pads can only really be used for three election cycles and then need to be replaced and he stated his estimated is that each would cost about $2,500 the um Anoka County elections manager Tom Hunt has stated the municipalities will will be liable for any damage done to them and then he stated that in order to save money they were considering taking the old cases and cutting them down to fit the new pel pads and so that kind of begs the question as how the warranty would work if they did that aset um has continued to pursue accurate data and has requested some information from the county at different times sometimes we're given the information sometimes it's delayed quite a bit and we're still waiting for some responses from foas that we've asked for weeks and weeks ago um we're hoping we can work with them on some of this information um so um we've decided to go to all 21 municipalities to keep them updated on our findings we've heard that Mr Hunt will also be meeting with the municipalities and so we would like to ask that we're welcomed to these meetings and if that isn't allowed if ASA could at least come into a workshop with you so that's what I'm asking thank you thank you Brenda can I can I just add one thing um so I've been in contact with Brenda a couple times I also had um Jack call Tom to see if he would come and meet with us and he declined um I think that was prior to when they did their vote so just today we were talking about this Brenda before I knew you were going to be here and I asked that you know that he' tell him that we really want to talk to him and if he can't make time to come talk to the whole Council then I'll go talk to him because I really do want to understand their side of it the other thing I want to add is at and you were at the local government official meeting when they talked a little bit about that um what Tom Hunt said was that these pole pads would be operating on the Verizon cellular network it's a dead zone here and I brought that up to him I like that's not going to work for us cuz you can't get a signal here on Verizon and he's like oh well then we'll have to do a hot spot which I think to your point is makes me a little nervous so even if you know I I think there's some things to talk about that are unique to Columbus and I really do want to get this dis you know discussed and figured out with them before election time so thank you for the work that you're doing and for you know being so diligent and persistent on this thank you thank you for your time thank you Brandon is there anybody else in the audience that would like to yeah you'll state your name and your address even though we know who you are it's for the record my name is Kim Snell my address is 50321 197th Avenue Northeast in the city of Columbus and I'm here regarding some questions I have for the Davy tree company and did I go ahead and just State them uh uh well we don't got to back up on this one I these the questions yes that I have no that I have that you have are they the I wonder if should we wait until we get to that on the agenda yeah why don't we well that's uh do any anything on the agenda is not for public open Forum right right no we we we we mix that rule but it's just easier to talk about it at the time that we're talking about it on the agenda uh okay I'll come back up when you get to the DAT or else we could take our questions what do you think Bill I think it makes sense to when the items on the agenda so it's all in the same set of minutes and conversation okay okay got it thank you anybody else in the audience how about online on Zoom anybody out there would like to make a comment just statement hearing none we'll close the open forum and we'll go on to um item number two under C which is the Lake Center for Youth and Family 2024 annual report and Jack are you going to read your little synopsis I certainly can thank you Mr Mayor the Lake Center for Youth and families established in 1976 was founded in response to the vision of Forest Lake Police Chief Jim trau and other leaders who recognize the need for a proactive Intervention Program to divert young people and firsttime offenders away from the traditional court system process Lake Center for Youth and families continues to uphold its mission of ensuring success of Youth adults and families through programming and counseling intervention and enrichment to meet the everchanging need of the communities they serve the Lake Center for Youth and Family serve municipalities in Anoka shago and Washington County Linda Matson community outreach coordinator for the Lake Center for Youth and families is present tonight to present an overview and an annual report to the city council of the 2024 activities thank you Linda thank you well mayor and members of the council and staff thank you so much for allowing me to provide a brief presentation this evening I am Linda Matson and I'm currently the community outreach coordinator for Lake Center for Youth and families prior to that I was the executive director for Lake Center um for 5 years and prior to that I was um in the force Lake School District for 36 years with my last eight years as superintendent of schools so you can tell I'm not um truly uh I'm not I'm not very gifted at retirement um yet um so as was noted 1976 is when Lake Center started um the youth Service Bureau as it was called then and it was Jim Trudeau that really LED that charge and served on the board a number of times um and really encouraged um Community leaders and members to really think about that whole idea of when youth um would you know find themselves with a minor offense and there were really two choices at that point um ignore it and not do anything about it um or get them into the court system and he thought that there should be some Middle Ground which was why Lake Center was started so since 1976 we have done that we have we get referrals and from the counties and also from the Forest Lake Police Department and we have those youth come in and talk about their actions along with their parents or Guardians and then there's a plan that's developed and it might be restitution it might be writing an apology note taking a class um Etc if they successfully do that that's turned into the county and um they don't go into the court system and if they don't which is about 15% of the students that are referred then it does go into the court system so that has been the constant since 1976 um other programs um have been developed and have been changed some have been um sunsetted others added as the needs in the community change we have enrichment intervention and counselling as our three areas of focus at Lake Center currently enrichment programming has included youth first which is a program or which was a program in 2024 um for students in grades 4 through six in Chisago County it was an after school program that was free of charge um we had it for eight years and we actually took it over from another nonprofit that folded um it was Grant funded um so we kept um being awarded the grant for eight years unfortunately for 2025 we did not um get that grant funding so that is no longer happening in Chisago County Safety camp is for youth entering grades 3 through five it's held in the summer first aid bike safety and other presentations around safety are the focus of the program and it's planned and delivered by Lake Center um by the Forest Lake Police and Fire Department and other community leaders um as I mentioned intervention we have those contracts with shago and Washington counties um and really um as mentioned not much has changed it's really to help assist youth to develop healthy positive decision-making skills and interrupt those harmful Behavior patterns that they may have um overall in 2024 189 clients were served in the Intervention Program with 258 sessions and um again the three main referral sources are shago and Washington counties and the force Lake Police Department we have another program program that is at Lynwood Elementary and this is also Grant funded um we have a full-time staff member at Linwood and that is in the northern part of the Forest Lake School System and um she works with individual students small groups and classrooms and the idea there is to get to students before we need to have an intervention so it is really about prevention so figuring out where are there issues what what are the places where issues can result in an Elementary classroom in the cafeteria at recess getting on and off the bus Etc and then looking at specific children that maybe um just need an extra helping hand with them um along the way it was very fun last night I was at the Lynwood Township meeting and um the staff member that um has that program um presented and we thought of course that would be a good thing for Lynwood to hear and it was it was great we have um last year over 400 students and those are duplicated so 400 students that have participated in the program and it was very impressive to hear all of the things that she is doing um to help keep kids on the right track and also to help and assist parents as well um this has been funded through a grant for six years it was renewed for two more years and as I mentioned the other Grant we did not get we did get this one they come from the same funding source um we got this one and they doubled the amount that we requested so um we are very happy to um have that program continuing to occur and many of the elementary schools in Forest Lake would also like to have a program such as this um and of course the reason is funding that we are unable to do that but would love to a brand new program and you have a a handout in front of you um would fall under intervention and it's the education engagement program it's serving students in Chisago Lakes North Branch and Rush City school districts we have two full-time staff members that are working on that program um the funding comes from the S Cy River education district and the um Chisago County Human Services Department and it's to work with students that have a high absentee rate or are tardy and um instead of just putting um punishments so to speak after so many days Etc um the the two staff members talk to students talk to families and get to the root of why is it this child can't get to school on time or doesn't come to school at all there isn't one reason that they all fall into so figuring out what that is and then trying to um help and support that student and their family is the goal um behind that new program and then counseling is our third program area we serve Young young children through adults our youngest is um 3 years old and we have um adults in their 70s and 80s that come to us um you can have an appointment virtually you can come to our office or if you're a student in the Forest Lake School District or lakes International Language Academy we go directly to the schools and meet with students we've had inter agency agreements with um Forest Lake Schools um since the early 2000s and when you look at the client counts in various age categories you'll notice 52 clients are aged 6 through 10 86 were aged 11 through 15 and many times when people ask me about counseling they think about that as something that only adults engage in but youth certainly do as well um and they certainly have um particularly since 2020 in the pandemic in 2024 217 clients were served for three 3,468 sessions one of the things about Lake Center is we don't turn anyone away if they cannot pay and so um we've had 33 clients in 20124 use our sliding fee scale uh for 303 sessions totaling almost $33,000 so that is a line item that is in our budget and it continues to grow um every year our income it comes from program fees grants charitable gaming uh special events the taste of the Lakes is May 1st and there's a flyer at your places um regarding that it's at Tanner Brook Golf Course in Forest Lake so you buy a ticket and then you get to come around and um try food from many restaurants that are in the area and then municipalities and counties and on the back of the annual report you will note uh those that have supported Lake Center in 2024 and most have done so in multiple years and that includes the city of Columbus so um on behalf of the board of directors of Lake Center our staff and our participants and clients I want to thank you for your support of Lake Center and with that I'm happy to answer any questions um and if there's something that um I don't have the information for I'll certainly get back to you or um also if you think of something later on you're like oh I wonder about that feel free to contact me and I can always give back to you anybody have any questions well I got a statement are you retiring Linda well what is happening with Lake Center is um I've been in this position since TW all of 2024 and was going to serve in 2025 um but Jamie preter who was the executive director last year decided that she was going to step down and so there needed to be some rearranging and um there they're looking at different things when I was executive director I did the Outreach as I've done this past year um so this position is going to be eliminated uh my last day is April 5th this is my last municipality meeting um and I love doing these and um um and so they um hopefully tomorrow so cross your fingers at their board meeting are going to hire a new executive director um who will start on Monday of next week so and we hope that Jamie is staying I think Jamie is um to do the to do finances and also to bill for insurance which if any of you have ever been involved in insurance billing it is a tangle and she's a master so we're hoping that she's going to be able to stay so I am I am um I'm going to be done April 5th and you know who knows well do you have a job for me might have I I I I just want to uh thank you for all your services and I don't know if a lot of people know this but you graduated the Forest Lake High School didn't you I did in 1977 and then you came back and taught and mov I did I taught junior high for 16 years and then you got into Administration yeah and then you you moved up and then you got over to the youth Service Bureau or whatever but you're a real advocate for kids and and family and I want to thank you for all your services well thank you very much I appreciate it it's a very good program I remember I taught uh for the you Service Bureau for a while fact in fact you know that I think a couple of the uh council members up here uh graduated while you the superintendent oh what how late were you in I mean what when did you read I um as superintendent I was there from 2009 to 2017 oh no missed us just missed the missed the two on the end but you might have been their principal yeah well I was yeah I was um I taught and then I was I coordinated the program for new teachers which was a great job to have I loved it um then I was a curriculum coordinator for three years and then I was the director of teaching and learning for eight and then superintendent eight so well I know one thing about you Linda you won't retire you'll be around thank you again thank where are we here item number three under C is uh lachner Woodland ponds development agreement Amendment hello um Mr Mayor and members of the council I'd like to to bring up for your consideration an amendment to the development agreement for lachner Woodland ponds uh this plat was approved by city council back in 2018 it was a residential plat um lot split that split a single residential lot into two um during that approval process the city required funds um for the future Improvement of that road which is zodiac Street be escro uh the escrow deposit to pave that relevant portion of Zod Street was set at $155,000 which would be returned to um those who paid it if there were no improvements to zodiac Street by October 9th 2028 um in 2019 there was an amendment to that development agreement which allowed a deferred escrow agreement allowing the um developers owners of the lot to pay that $15,000 when the Lots were sold rather than right away when they were split up um it also included a provision that barred the future owners of those properties from ever participating in a petition um for the improvements of zodiac Street this came before City back in November of 2024 um at a workshop meeting Workshop meeting on November 12th of 2024 before the city council to review a s um a language change in one of these one of the portions of the that development agreement which actually made it so when the money was returned it would go to the owners of the property rather than those who um paid it in the first place so we first brought it up to change that and since then that it has come back to us again to review the entire development agreement as a whole um at this point there it is not reasonably possible for zodiac Street to be improved by 2028 and um City staff um has recommended that we wave that escrow requirement and that petition that um provision which bars them from participating in future petitions for zodiac Street um at this point it is preventing the owners from selling those lots as they would have to pay that escot only to be returned immediately back to them in 2028 um does anyone have questions this is Janet um I don't have any questions but I just want to say this the lers were the very first residents that contacted me after I was elected to councel and so I have advocated to make this right for them and not so successfully so I will be more than pleased to vote in favor of this it's been a long time coming yes is there any other discussion Jennifer um no I mean ultimately it comes down the fact that reasonably this won't zodiac won't be repaired within this few years so ultimately it seems fairly cut and dry and Scott do you have any no question I I agree I think the likelihood of uh Jim correct me if I'm wrong the likelihood of zodiac being paved and then before 2028 without somebody the residents wanting it isn't going to happen so not on my radar very small if any risk to the city financially yeah Rob any yeah I believe we just repaired it a little bit patched it up so I it ain't going to be before 28 so okay well I I I agree with most you and Janet and Janet since you started this you say back in what was 2019 well I thought it was like 2000 or 1999 no not not that it only feels that long you want to read the motion then I definitely will so um I move to approve an amendment to the lachner Woodland ponds development agreement dated November 15th 2019 to remove recital 3 escrow for improvements and recital four future petitions this is Jenny L second okay we have a motion on the floor anybody uh have any questions or discussion no I want to correct what I said though I was uh I was thinking of Notre Dame out here Zodiac's dirt it's a gravel R not far from my parents so yeah how come we didn't catch that I knew it but I wasn't going to correct yeah that's fine that's okay no comments or questions or nothing like that we'll take a vote then Rob I Janet I Scott ey Jenny ey and Ron I and thank you Tom for putting up for this yes yeah that's great we got that off to but we did just fix it we added some more gravel to it I just drove down yeah it's all nice and nice and smooth right now I was down there today too funny we didn't pass go down there yeah well thank you thank you again thank you much Tom have a good night uh item number four uh under C Davey Tree Expert company conditional use permit is Travis McDonald online hi Travis I am here sir hello can everybody hear me okay yes you know uh usually we start this off by asking you to give us a little brief about your your business you know but I think everybody on the council has heard so you don't have to give us the whole brief or nothing like that I think we all watched the uh Planning Commission meeting but I do have a few questions I'd like to ask you Travis absolutely yes Mr mine uh my questions go towards uh the wood storage area in that and the chipper okay so when you go out and according to there's laws and you know it probably a lot better than I do but when you transport wood across county lines if it's diseased or whatever I don't know what kind of rules you follow on it but are you bringing those diseased trees into Columbus then no so anything that is quarantined for instance if there is a particular County that is quarantined but the other county is not we're not moving wood from one County to the other like emerald ash for when it first arrived um there was strict quarantine where you can't move firewood from another County to another location but we follow all Minnesota Department of Agriculture um laws and regulations we have to in order to maintain our tree care license in the state of Minnesota okay so would you bring ashor into even though we got it all over it's already there um so when it comes to something like that um you know when we're processing the wood um the Department of Agriculture requires the wood to actually be chipped um so therefore all of our wood that we do chip gets chipped and then actually that product that we would be storing would be getting hauled out and actually brought to an incineration plant um right in St Paul there okay my other question is is uh when you talk about chippers what size of Tri chippers are you talking about and uh what kind of logs are you talking about are you talking like 30 inch logs is this chipper gonna chip up or you pull behind your trailer yeah these uh chippers are like residential chippers um so they would take anywhere up to a 20inch log um anything bigger than that would be hauled out um with like a log loader um and that that wood would be stored and then we would bring in our semi trucks and load that wood on bring it to our mulch facility plant to where we would grind that into mulch product in sou St Paul so the grinding that you would do at this location that you want to go to on Lake Drive there that would just be the small chippers if you had to chip up anything oh yeah yeah exactly but we wouldn't really be chipping much on site it's like when we go out to a residential house when people call us to have a tree removed we would process a majority of the tree right there anything that was too large for us to chip we would put it in the back of like a log truck and then haul that back to the site dump it and then stack it and then it's not a very large area where we're looking to try to just put some of that byproduct we would be having our semis calling and this have them come up loaded up and we haul it away if that answered your question I'm sorry no I think you did but at the same time you're hauling The Mulch away too yeah um so it's it's not mulch yet um we call those just chips because actually a lot of that those chips are not used as mulch um so chips are usually just brought to an incineration plant or decomposition to turned into organic matter um so we don't do anything with the chips if you have anybody that wants chips we'd be more than happy to give them as much as they'd like but um we don't do anything with them they're uh they're just a product that we bring to Excel Energy and they use them actually to produce power okay then another another question I had is uh when you're going out are you just cutting trees are you putting chemicals in them or you know trying to treat them yep so we uh we specialize in plant Health Care um so consider us the tree doctors uh we're all certified arborists um and we have What's called the Davy Institute of tree science where we go and learn the the ins and outs and biology of trees and we just we study disease and insect management and our goal is to help to try to preserve trees for as long as we can um in residential settings so we will do injections on them um we will fertilize them um you know and the fertilizer that we do use is a um a fertilizer that is non-leaching um it's designed exactly like a for Forest mat that's out in the forest um it's a patented fertilizer that DAV trees made since 1960 um but yeah we do a full scope of leaf disease treatments insect management um just pretty much maintaining an entire landscape of people's properties so uh these chemicals that you might have to shoot into the trees or whatever where are you going to store them then in in your Warehouse there yep so um you know the Min Department uh Minnesota Department of Agriculture has certain restrictions so I have many different Davy Tree locations throughout the Twin Cities and down in Rochester and as long as they are in a contained area uh with ventilation along with a lock and key all the products that we do store um is in small quantity because you know we don't want to keep that much on hand um but it's all products that have a nonrestricted use so therefore it's not a harmful product um because our employer Davy tree won't allow any of us to use any products that have restricted use for the particular reason of harming our employees so we don't use anything of that nature so is this something that would be outside in a cage locked up or would it be in your your Warehouse no in the warehouse in an organized you know um facility with you know we would have to meet with you know we would put in an IA station for instance if they were you know pouring product into a truck like we have certain regulations from our safety department that we have to abide by for not only OSHA but uh Minnesota Department of a as well okay and I'm just looking at a couple questions here how uh yeah how should we address Kim's questions out there U Mr Mayor uh and Council if you want to bring her up to the mic she can ask the questions and then uh and she can sit down and and uh the testifier can respond but it should be directed through you so that we don't have back and forth between the parties okay uh uh Kim is on our Planning Commission oh Kim is okay do our questions first Council sure yeah we'll do we'll do our questions first Okay I uh I think that's all I have except for uh how many pH facilities do you have in the Twin Cities then just the one South St Paul and Plymouth um we also have one in edting prair as well um and I started that one back in 2012 um we've got one in Plymouth um which is a DAV owned facility that's been there for about 60 years and then we own another one down in South St Paul um and that's where we have our mulch Division and a residential Tree Care Division along with a landscaping and Commercial grounds division um we recently did um acquire a McMan Brothers right there in Blain so we own them as well uh so they're a part of the Davy tree family and we also have another residential Tree Care operation down in Rochester as well is there going to be anything transferred between here in Mickman's property I mean is there any reason to haul malch or chips over there or bring anything over are there are they like two SE businesses kind of uh completely different like entities uh within our organization like they're commercial landscape um and grounds Division and I'm just a residential Tree Care Division so I would be servicing residential and Commercial Tree Care so if a large commercial property had called us out to say what's going on with my trees we would help figure that out on a commercial land put together for instance uh say the city of Columbus somay and you're looking for a management plan to help preserve your Park trees that's something that we would do on a residential scale okay I one last question I know I'm talking a lot here but a lot of question I sure okay uh yeah so I'm driving down the road or someone driving down the road can they stop in at your shop and yeah absolutely we'll always have somebody there um okay could somebody stop in there with wood chips and give them to you uh no we uh we don't allow um we wouldn't have enough room for something of that nature like you know that land is you know what two and a half three acres um this is just going to be for us to bring back our product that we've serviced the clients for the day and then as soon as we start getting you know a little bit filled up we haul it out um but we wouldn't have access for people to just dump and dispose of because one we don't know what they're actually doing you know what what is the product that they're bringing if they mix something in there we know we're liable for it so we like to make sure that we keep that under kind of a lock in keys if you would call it the most of your customers call you on the phone then stop in at your place is that usually the not not really um throughout my 17 years of being in this business we might have a handful of clients that actually might stop in to they want to hand deliver their payment um but very seldom do we ever get people that just randomly stop in more less the people that would stop in um are people looking for jobs you know hey I'm an arborist you know I've seen you guys everywhere and we usually guide them be like he here's an online application you can do but we don't get I mean if I had two or three people stop per year uh into my my office needen Prairie that would probably be a lot and we're actually probably pretty happy to see them they're long-term clients but no people don't just stop in to say hey I'd like to request a proposal we'd be fine with that um but people usually just call us on the phone okay thank you ja you have some questions yeah so just to confirm this is basically going to be treated somewhat like a storage facility is that correct so you have 16 trucks it said 16 company trucks so this would be more as vehicle storage people would come every day get their truck and then head out to their job site is that kind of what we're understanding exactly like not much really takes place around like the shop area you know that's where we like conduct our safety meetings every morning and we stretch and we go over our day's agenda um but everybody dispatches and heads out to the the work orders the addresses of the properties that we're working at for the day um there would be you know a few people like on the management team that are like working in the offices all day um along with like our client experienced coordinators who answer the phones and help with the billing um and do all the paperwork and stuff for us but you know I would say 90% of our entire team is always you know after they come in get set up for the day they check all their trucks make sure everything's loaded and secured we have a strict policy about everything that we do because you know we're we need to follow things by the book so what kind of trucks do you have do you have a variety of sizes of trucks do you have dual axle what are what are we looking at for I mean just because like drive is kind of become notorious for having volume large vehicles and so we're just curious what that is going to look like with the addition of these 16 trucks yeah so um a lot of our trucks um can vary anywhere from you know 14,000 gbw up to 32,000 gbw so to give you an example like a chip truck um would be like a single axle um a CDL Class B truck um I don't know how to describe uh like the sizes I guess um smaller like um landscape trucks I guess if you'd call it I mean do you know what a um an aerial bucket truck looks like um that's got like you know a boom on it to where you can like boom up and work on I guess an example would be like power lines that you see people pruning back power lines um that would be a bucket truck um so we'll have a couple of those there um basic size trailers with like little mini articulating loaders like a little stump grinder um the chippers that we tow um a majority of them don't even actually require anything um other than a Class D license um so I ask me some more questions if you're looking for um I'm trying to explain them I guess I don't I don't have size but no they're not like everyday like semi trucks and big big box trucks you know like that their size of like moving company trucks or anything of that nature um you know some of them are going to be pickup trucks with like little spray rigs out of the back that you know where we're going out and spraying trees for leaf diseases um you know our sales cars are like you know RAV 4S um so little small sales cars um I'm trying to think like um like an F550 um truck with like a little 12 yard chip box on the back with like a lift gate that's what we use in the tree care side just AET yeah it's a variety like it's all different scales because some trucks are like we need small trucks to get into small little neighborhoods and then if we have like large like big removals that need to be done for the day we'll send out bigger chip trucks with bigger trucks to haul more material um so it's a variety and uh I'm sorry I don't I can't give you exact like Dimensions I don't bu them off the top of my head so would your Plymouth facility uh have the same type of equipment there that would be similar to what's up here yeah they would um they uh they're a little bit larger for sure in in size um you know they've been there for a long time time so they have a lot of equipment um this is a this is a startup pilot office um where we want to try start servicing uh you know that neck of the woods and we've been servicing uh the Columbus area and Forest Lake uh area for quite a long time it's just uh we we're trying to cut down on windshield time um you know because we're driving all the way from sou St Paul up there and uh ultimately you know it with emissions and Fuel and everything it just doesn't makes sense to keep driving um that far every and then my second question links back to what our mayor had asked about um the wood chipping I know you talked about some of the larger stumps maybe ground um on site in Columbus what what does that noise look like because we do have some residents that live in that area and I'm just a little bit concerned about the noise um I know you said it wouldn't be often but I just was curious if that's something that may so as far as you're you're saying on site like at the facility location correct yeah um like when I say like we would be chipping once in a while there it would be like say if a chipper broke down um and we had you know a job on a client's property and a chipper broke down and we had no way to get the rest of the brush so we would take the brush and put it in the back of a truck bring it back to the facility and then when the other Crews got back at the end of the day we would chip it into a chip form and then just dump it in a pile and then have it all the way so we wouldn't be chipping there every day or making an absorbent amount of like noise every day I think that um that was just more of like hey we might have a oneoff I was talking with Eleanor about that like as far as if a chipper broke down how would that I don't want to say that we would never chip there um but if I had to like process a couple limbs from you know something that someone brought back to the shop because it the chipper wasn't working could I chip on site for a couple minutes it it wouldn't be very long by any so as far as noise debb um yeah you'd have to wear ear plugs but it wouldn't be um you know think of it as like you know a leaf blower and a uh large commercial mower all going at the same time for a very short amount of time thank you very much yeah sure those are hard questions actually answer like to give you I didn't know that if I would have I would have got you like the exact noise decimals and stuff that those chippers do produce which I could ask our safety department I I have some questions too um Elanor is it possible to do a Google map of their Plymouth location view because I think it'll the visual will help us understand what kind of equipment they're using it's 2500 Fern Brick Lane in Plymouth and the overview shows that uh council member L and I just shared a picture of the overview from Google um those chippers are are actually trailer chippers and if it's my understanding you're bringing those trucks with the trailer trailer chippers back to the site in Columbus and you're you're dumping the CH already Chi material there stockpiling it so that it can be transported by a large commercial truck when you have enough to stockpile correct that the you are correct y okay so we're not doing chipping there it would be a rare instance and then for the larger pieces that you can't use on these small chippers you're just hauling those whole somewhere once you stock all um a lot of those will be you know we're not logging things out so a lot of those things are going to be say five to six feet long something where a a grapple leg loader can come in and be soft enough on people's grass to where we can go and grab those logs and then put them in the back of a truck um and then we'd haul those and bring them to our mulch facility where they have large Grinders that can process all that yeah so I the concern if there's anybody that's concerned that you're going to have a semis siiz chipper permanently on that lot that's not what's going to happen here no no no no no not at all um nope they're all like uh just residential small tree care chippers yeah and so we're looking at your Plymouth facility I don't know how recent this is but on the um right side those little yellow um things are the chippers um yep yep so nothing massive out there okay and then just a followup um so you mentioned you you do have chemicals that are controlled by OSHA are you required to do any tier 2 reporting with your hazardous material no uh because it's not considered hazardous material this is uh Fungicide and insecticides that is it okay fantastic and then uh any outdoor above ground storage tanks for fuel or or anything like that that you'll be having on a facility nope um anything larger than a five gallon gas can um we're not allowed to actually haul like on our trucks um due to do and federal regulations because we don't have Hazmat uh certifications um so we do follow all DOT regulations and federal um because we're a nationwide company um do you fuel your trucks and your chippers onsite or do you do that offsite do you have a vendor come in with a tanker truck and fuel them no I mean some offices do um but an office of this size uh is pretty small um so we just go to a local gas station and uh you know fuel up there with fuel cards that we all have and uh you know if uh you know majority of the team anyways always wants to kind of stop at a gas station in the morning to uh you know if they forgot their lunch or whatever the case may be so usually we hit up uh fuel up in the morning and then uh head out to our job sites okay good so we're not transferring any diesel fuel on on site that's great uh couple of great gas stations in our city here too for you so I know they're actually really nice yeah yeah last question I have uh on in this is so it sounds like you have no need for a uh mpca storm water runoff permit or spill recovery plan you're not required to have that right yeah I am not NOP okay and then um I know you and uh commissioner um Robin Wood were discussing screening and the fence line uh at the um Planning Commission meeting um going back to that I believe you mentioned that you were planning on replacing the chain link fence with the um screen fencing the decorative fencing like you had in Plymouth and somehow we got off on metal slats and filling those metal slats in with plastic um are you planning any screening for the facility there especially since we're going to have you know up to a 15t high um for lack of a better word debris pile can you expand on that yeah I can um so um you know on the the north side of the property here um we had talked about I don't want the whole thing to look like a um I guess like a you know a prison fence like around the whole perimeter like we like to have some natural buffing uh buffering and so I had talked about back where you know if we pulled up um the plot map that we did uh with our architect um we put a few trees in between the building and uh you know the fence line to try to just soften that area so we're going to put some Evergreens in there um so that when you're driving by you're not going to see that um but yet we we offered to put some trees in just to try to soften that area over there so you would have to literally stop on the main road and look in between the building and the fence line and the storage I think that's a storage facility right next door um to see in that back right rear corner um where we would actually be storing the product but just uh put a couple trees in and then as far as the main gate there's there's actually two gates to the building um you know one coming right off the main road and then as you drive down and then you're going past the main office area there's another gate and that one's got like the barb wire and stuff like that Vines all growing through it we had talked about how you know regardless if you guys told us to clean this up or not like we were going to clean it up and put some just clean up the fence line there put in some you know slats that kind of match the building so that it just you know kind of just gives you something better to look at than a chain link fence okay well I I bring that up because there was it was a little I was at that meeting it was a little confusing to me on what the intent was on the screening from the road side with that fencing um I I believe under our code um that that 15t debris pile and the trucks would need to be screened uh and there's several ways to do that and you had mentioned one of them is the decorative fencing or a burm and you had mentioned the Plymouth uh facility and and I took a look at the Plymouth facility and it's beautiful it looks really nice and was wondering if if that's still your plan or not uh when you mentioned it at the Planning Commission so if you if you uh um as far as fencing in the debris area that was not my plan um and I will explain to you why because um in between the building and the property line um if we put a fence right there um then that just kind of cuts everything off um I wanted to put trees there to make it look a little bit better versus just a a fence and then as far as in the far back of the property if I fence in that debris area that area is going to I've done it before at other facilities and when you're pushing up chips or putting logs and you're dumping logs that fence will look terrible in about two to three years because it's going to get all banged up because logs when they roll they push out the fence it's easier for us to be able to keep a nice clean pile like what we do in Plymouth when we can go around all four sides of the pile and push it up nice and neat but we're not talking a massive mound like it's not going to be higher than the building or anything of that nature it's just going to be back in the back corner neatly just pushed up cleaned up separated out the logs versus the chips so that um it just looks nice and clean so like in between where like the main Drive is going down along the side of the building is where we were going to clean up that fence and put slats in there so that when you're seeing a large opening of that building you've got a nice fence right there to look at but I didn't want to just slat everything and fence everything to where it looked like it was so because it's a pretty landscape out front and I think that I could clean that landscape up and make it look a lot nicer versus just a a fence with Flats yeah what I'm referring to I'm referring to the the screening from the road view yeah and that's where we suggested that we were going to put in a bunch of evergreen trees between the building and that that fence line to just soften that area so you don't see any of that okay that's all I have okay hi Travis this is Janet um I some of my questions have already been asked so that's great um okay you know when I was looking at your application it reminded me of one that we had a few years back um they were a landscaping business not a tree care business but they were doing mulching and things like that so I kind of went back and refresh my memory about what questions we had um when that uh company was going through the permitting process and so some of these are just like they might not apply to you but I'm just asking the question because I haven't heard us talk about it so and I am thrilled to have you uh come to Columbus so don't take any of my questions as an indication of nons support for you well thank you so uh you mentioned that that you follow all the USDA um guidelines and that was one of the things that kind of came up I think Emerald ashor was a little bit newer to us back then I think Mark Beetle was another one so there was actually a person from the USDA that came and there was um a couple of conditions that she had uh suggested that we incorporate into their cup I think things have changed a little bit I think at that time there it wasn't so widespread so moving moving Uh Wood Products between counties was a bigger deal I think now it's like we're we're all in the same boat so it probably exactly yeah I I did deal with that for many years in my career so I know what you're talking about so but I do think it might not you know we have a whole bunch of um conditions that just get put in everybody's cup you know recommendations of the engineer The Watershed District the attorney blah blah blah it might not be a bad idea for this kind of just say you know follow USDA guidelines or something like that just to call it out as they change over time I know that I know you are are um doing that anyways as a matter of course but probably just good practice for us as a as a city to have that as a condition um in in uh one of the conditions that are currently there or I'm sorry in findings of facts it says that the proposed hours are 5:30 to 6 p.m. uh Monday through Friday with an occasional weekend activity how how what is occasional um say uh for like storm response okay um like when a storm rolled through and it's a Sunday evening and clients are calling us to say hey we've got trees on our homes and we can get out of our house okay um that's when we uh it doesn't matter what time of the day or what day it is like we're there to service our people um you know in a time of me um say for instance if uh all week it was D downpouring rain and you know or it snowed for 4 days straight which it doesn't seem like we get that anymore um you know we we have to do production and therefore you know our our crews need hours in order to you know make a paycheck we might send them out for a full day Saturday to try to make up some hours so that they can get a paycheck for the week okay so it's uh it's not a we're going to work people you know every single week can by any means it's more or less dictated based upon like what was the weather for the week did we have a storm roll in now if we had a storm roll in on say Monday and there's a lot of tree damage we might be working a Saturday and a Sunday to service all those people in need because we've have so many people to get to would the hours of operation be the same on a weekend as they would on a weekday or would they start a little later on a weekend 5:30 in the morning it's pretty early that's why I'm asking usually would probably start early um you know it probably wouldn't be 5:30 um you know 7 o'clock is about the time where we would have our crews coming in and dispatching uh 5:30 would be more of like the management team coming in getting all the paperwork and the routes ready um and that 530 is really just uh I needed to provide something but our start time is 7: a.m. okay so one of the things I maybe we'll ask ellar to do is to just you know get get a re you know a reasonable estimate of what the hours would be if it was weekend and just for the fact that then everybody's on the same page I like you know you can tell us what works for you and then we we can have that in the um in the cup um what does winter look like for you guys I mean I I have an idea of what summmer you know the the growing season might look like but what what does this place like in the winter and what are you doing there then yeah we're extremely busy in the winter actually um you know everybody thinks that uh you know oh you guys must not work in the winter no actually um there's certain trees that can only be worked on during the dormant season and so all summer long as certified Arborist we won't touch certain trees um there are tree care companies out there that will not abide by best cultural practices and they will work on trees regardless of when it when the growing season is or dormant season um we go off of the species of trees like oak trees Elm trees any fruit or nut bearing trees um they should only be recommended to be worked on during the dormant season and if you work on them during the growing season you have a higher risk of you know potentially having them get Dutch Alm disease or Oak Wilt um because that's when the Airborne pathogens are actually taking place for the bark beetles flying around and feeding on other canopies of trees and they could actually in there some they're actually attracted to the Fones from that pruning cut so we don't we actually do a lot of work during the winter uh so we build a large winter backlog and we climb trees all winter long or say um there's a client that has a beautiful landscape and they have you know beautiful hostas all around the base of their trees and they're like I don't want any of this ruined so we say hey let's wait till winter when they're all dormant and we can drive equipment onto your property and not do any Turf damage and then that's when we'll come in and remove their trees okay so not really very much different in the winter as it is in the summer I mean let's say maybe um like a 20% decrease in production okay that sounds good um so when you're when you have your pile of chipped wood there's no composting right I mean it's not there long enough to start to compost you're hauling it on no okay perfect no that was the answer I wanted um and then on the on the site plan I didn't see and you aren't required to do this I I was checking with uh Elanor on this but I didn't see any fire lanes and I know again for this other um business they did have on their site plan fire lanes that were um earmarked and I think primarily because they had a lot of wood sitting there that it was important for them to sort of show that they had thought about that I'm just throwing that out there cuz I think that the the fire chief will come out and maybe he'll have you put that on there but um if you already know where it's going to be it might be helpful for us to have it on the on the uh site plan that was one no there uh there would always be access to that particular area um but you know in regards to the wood it's not going to be stored there for that you for a long period of time to where it could you know combust from organic breakdown um that's we move it out pretty quick okay same as like our um our Plymouth location okay um and then one of the conditions that I was uh talking to elanar about that I would ask that she put in there and it's going to sound funny to you because you would probably go like we'll never do this but we have a big problem with parking on Lake Drive and unloading trucks or vehic Les and I know that some of the um parking spots for where you're going to be are you're you know leasing them Mount to waldocks so I'm going to ask that we put that in the cup so that it's really not aimed at you it's it's it's aimed more at your landlord so okay I'm just um because that um yeah um as far because they they take delivery of trucks and a lot of times they can't pull them into to wherever they unloading them so they unload them on Lake Drive and okay that ends up being a problem and we get tons of complaints about that because people are driving and then they've got these you know big huge whatever you call them those vehicle mover trucks that they're yeah sure like the big car haulers and if that's not okay then you know the attorney or somebody can say it's not okay but I just thought this might be a way that we could curb that a little bit I think that that's a very sensible condition they don't there's not a right to load and unload on the and so I'm sorry it'll be in your in your cup just because they're they're part and parcel to that but it's really not aate you yeah um okay yeah as far as that just to give you some a little background during this whole lease um process um Mr waldock um we do we came to terms and agreement to where we're going to have a Community Drive that where they are able to still drive like through the property over to their property to have access for that particular stuff as well now I don't know all their details um but I said that's no problem he just needed to have a clear drive because he liked that area so that he could Sloop like semis and stuff around I think that's for call car haulers um and he asked like can we actually pull down through here and still use this space to you know unload semis and do stuff I said yeah I don't care I mean yeah let's all work together and so I know that that was one of his sticking points and it wasn't a big deal to us at all right okay and that I don't I don't have a problem with that either I just I wanted to explain if you saw if you saw that pop up and you hadn't seen it before why why it's being suggested that we put that there I might add okay that when that condition attaches to the property uh they will no longer be able to do that as well because it's attaching to your property so that might be something you communicate to the to the other owner to waldock that that that access for delivering Vehicles would no you know I don't know if they would still stage them out there on the road but or maybe or maybe Jack you can give them a call and just explain it so that we don't you know create I don't want to create any ill will cuz they're great they're great businesses and we you know we like them a lot but I don't want to uh get involved in Mr bu or anything so yeah I I don't want you I don't want to get you involved either so maybe Jack can call and just give give him a heads up that that's because it's his property it's it's going to it would make sense to put it in your cup so there are no other um other than the wood that's being brought in to be um the chips that are being brought in or occasionally a log or something or bigger stuff um there is no other outdoor storage is that correct you don't have pallets of anything you don't have equipment that you're going to keep on I mean I know you've got TR trucks parked in the back but there's no other outdoor storage of anything outdoor storage as far as like other materials you mean or like because I mean we'll have like zippers and you know say like a skid steer or something of that nature um no I don't well because you've you've said a lot of that is going to be stored inside of the building and and the big trucks are going to be parked behind so that's not a problem I just a lot of times we get into outdoor storage with with u businesses and we don't know that we're a little sensitive to that so I just like to ask the question if you if you can't answer it it probably means you're not going to have any because you don't have anything in mind um I would say probably the only thing that would be very short amount of time is like when we get a tree delivery um you know we don't we're not going to be running a nursery or anything of that nature but um when we plant trees for clients um you know we would have a shipment of trees say like you know 8 to 10 trees like show up and you know we would have them there like two to three days in advance before the um the work is scheduled water them out back and then when we're ready to schedule the job we load them on the trucks and head out for the day no that's not a problem I mean what I'm thinking about is you know you receive pallets of I don't know some compost or something that you might use when you're planting trees and you've got 10 pallets of compost sitting out there so that you can just load them up in your truck and go when you need to go plant trees that would be outdoor storage okay anticipate anything like that we're good we're not going to have anything of a large scale by any means um one you know we like to keep a pretty tidy uh you know a tidy workspace and uh two um we don't like to store product because then you're just storing money you know on the shelves um so we get it on demand okay those are all my questions thank you so much yeah you're welcome Rob do you have anything no and and through the chair to Janet I think um when once they put that uh Street Smart Road in I've noticed that it seems like they unload on that road so it's not on the freeway anymore and I don't know if that makes a difference for you but I know I have noticed that several times traveling that road that they're either backing into their to their own parcel now if they can or if it's too busy it seems like they go down and turn around and then unload and drive across and it seems Seems to make sense why they'd want to go through your lot too because that's a straight shot across the the road from that from that road there so I I I've seen them do that too I just think but I also have still seen them on Lake Drive on occasion not as much as they were it just is a it's an opportunity to just clarify that I think in a way that we haven't been able to address it in the past okay thanks though okay I seen you look at your watch there we'll get you out of here in a minute uh C oh no I I apologize if um were you looking talking about me Mr Mayor um I am actually on spring break right now with my kids and uh you know so I anticipate at any moment I'm G to have a barreling um house full of kids coming in the door so I was just looking at it to make sure I better move to another room that's okay uh Kim you want to come up and ask your question questions or were they answered okay all right well guess that's so well thank you thank you Kim for coming in and uh no other questions no just hey thanks for uh answering all our questions and going through the gauntlet you you spoke well and answer them very well so yeah we thank you guys you're uh this is actually my first time going through um a cup process uh a lot of the times um you know I wasn't in this role um like second year in as far as overseeing operations in Minnesota and uh I appreciate you guys being patient and uh helping guide me and you know figuring things out so it's actually been a pleasure so thank you all Mr Mayor and councel I just was taking notes I I heard um one fact statement on ours that would be incorporated in the findings of fact and I heard one new condition with regard to the truck loading if that's correct then we want to want to make sure that the motion maker includes that looks like Elanor may have another I heard a second moot uh a second condition to be added uh in addition to the no parking and unloading where it's must abide by all USDA um regulations to be added as well yeah that I was just going to add that you you perfect okay okay you got that can you hear that Travis yep that's uh that is perfectly fine by me we uh we have to abide by all that stuff in order to tax be an accredited Tree Care uh company so um that's not only through you guys but uh through our federal licensing as well so so this is just this is just a little educational thing for you so sometimes when we're thinking about these cups we're not just thinking about you because they pass with the land we're thinking about who could go in after you so you might have somebody who's got you know a five star rating and does everything right and then they move on to other places and now there's another tree care company that comes in and having those conditions in place for that transfer the C really helps so that's makes sense yeah so that's sometimes where we're coming from when we're asking all these questions and putting all these rules in place yeah that's cool no problem just mayor council all applicable if You' add that thank you modifier because a lot of USDA reg all applicable perfect y That's why we have an attorney they've come up with those million dooll words yep well I I'll tell you what I'll make a motion I move to approve Davey Tree Expert company conditional use permit at 13733 Lake Drive Northeast with conditions listed in the city staff report and additions as recommended by city council do I have to repeat the two no they're in the record okay all right listen Scott I'll second good we have a motion and it's been seconded is there any other discussion or questions there Ain none Jennifer you want Jenny ey Scot ey Janet I Robie Ron I well welcome to the world welcome to Columbus hey thank you are you the spring break up in International Falls or I no I'm actually in Cabo right now [Music] so I was wondering what the wristband is foring yeah have a good night that's right thank you all very much and I'll be I'll definitely be seeing you all around uh the city there so thank you thanks so much you all right take care bye bye we're GNA go on item number five under C mtw Truck Wash site plan um a conditional use permit for mtw truck wash at 15217 Hornsby Street Northeast was a approved by the city council on September 25th uh 2024 the applicant spent the winter months finalizing construction plans and a building permit um application for the facility was uh received in um mid-march of this year when we were looking over those building permit application um documents there were several small changes from what was submitted in the permit to what was approved in that cup um a site plan view is required to make those small amendments and that goes before the Planning Commission and the city council and that's what you're looking at today um there are a couple proposed changes there's a squaring off on the southern side of the building the addition of an Access Lane and garage door to the mechanical section of the building and the removal of Windows from the back building as well as some accent materials and decorative um materials from the back of the building um this matter went before the Planning Commission last week on March 19th and um the Planning Commission is now requesting that the city council consider approving this site plan change well does anybody have any discussion on this one Jennifer um no this seemed pretty straightforward I talked to James um at the business breakfast about this um he ensured us that these changes were not anything that really affected their current cup um and Elanor confirmed that as well so to me this is a pretty straightforward change SC do you have anything nope well no like Jenny I had a good amount of time to talk with James and uh Brena at at that breakfast and about the changes and how that truck would wash and and both uh or the truck wash would work both having self-service bays and automatic bays and that it's going to be open up to the public as far as uh if you want to pull your your camper bumper pull RV through there and wash it you'd be able to do so so it's it's going to open a lot of opportunities maybe for camper world to to quick wash their their rigs before they send them out so different good good ad for the area good Janet do you have I I actually I did have a question I talked to elanar about it so if you look at the site plan prior to the one um current currently being proposed it looks like the walkway that's in the front of the building and in the back of the building the back of the building the walkway disappeared and in the front of the building there's a big chunk that's not there and I don't know if that was on purpose or if that was just a you know an artifact of this so I just was curious if we knew or could find that out so I can certainly find that out you have a better eye than I do for that one um my I can find out if that is the new site plan where that walkway will no longer continue all the way around the building and instead looks like it just leads to the doors um of each individual entrance or if that was an oversight or if that is a way to limit impervious surfaces that is an outstanding question that needs to be asked and I mean if it is on purpose I don't know that I have a problem with it I just is just curious why it especially in the front it look kind of funny to have a walkway and then like a big empty space and then the walkway continues again that's in the front of the building that's uh close to the Hornsby side yeah it looks um to be smaller walkways that connect um the doors to the different driveways instead of being a continuous walkway all the way around the building now yeah so that's the only that was the only comment that I had this one here you're talking about yes see there's there this it ends so can I ask Elanor even with the changes that were noted by councilwoman hegland even if with the potential changes that they have would that affect anything relating to their current cup um relating to their current cup no we didn't have a condition for that continuous walkway as long as there's still access there's still a walkway from the parking area um to the the waiting area and the front door and access for all of those doors so that can still be approved as a part of the site change but I can certainly go back for clarification as and I think the only thing that it might impact is if it was an accessibility issue like if that sidewalk went down so that you know a wheelchair or something could get in there and now it's not there I mean yeah I I I didn't even look at the cup cuz I knew we weren't we weren't reviewing that we were just looking at the site plan so no yeah there's an 88 ramp listed on there on the new one to the right right side on the sidewalk and and as far as that them being a commercial building they would have to comply with all Ada access before they got a building permit but but you want the safe plan to reflect what's reality that's my point if it's if the picture is wrong then just make it right to what's really going to happen yes up yeah thank you Ron uh I want to say something else that I brought to James's attention was the fact that we've had issues with uh overflow parking from loves going on the side of the road previous to us putting no parking signs so I don't know that it needs to be listed on here but just did share with them that maybe they want to post set no parking uh maybe have a gate at night when they're not open I said because that could definitely affect your business if you have people in there two trucks wide blocking your uh spot uh to take a nap with before business opens and and they were going to take that into consideration cuz I know a Stern drywall across the street they've had that happen often or they cannot pull into their their own business because there's two semis backed in in their uh lot so um just brought that forward to good point any other comments questions discussion anybody want to make a motion I I'll move go for it oh thank I move to approve the mtw truck wash site plan review for the proposed minor changes to the building and site plan as presented in the staff report for this item and then can you just add the clarification on the that clarification I brought up the what the clarifica that we need clarification on the point that I brought up which was what sidewalk the sidewalk sidewalk clarification yeah with clarification of the sidewalk of course thank you hi second this is Janet we got a motion on the floor and it's been seconded any other discussion questions rob you want to vote yeah Rob I Janet I Scott ey Jenny I and Ron I we'll go on to section D consultan the aison and staff reports Brian do you have anything to say be before we get into that uh a lot of Brian's comments relating to the wetlands credits for the Hornsby Street Eureka Avenue project will be addressed under the city administrator report so unless Brian has anything to add other than that we'll bring him in on the comments when we get down to that section of the agenda all right one more time I got a what now Brian we'll we're going to talk about the wetlands credits oh okay down at the bottom at the bottom and that's when we'll bring Brian in on that discussion unless he has anything else to add that's when we'll put him on the spot all right so we're going to skip him and run right to Bill yeah no report well that was quick now now we'll go to the mayor and City council's report you have uh report or anything Janet I mean Jenifer um under city council I have a few things um Monday March 24th I had a k Creek Watershed meeting um nothing major relating to Columbus the only thing I found interesting was that they had long discussion uh relating to lack of green space and how that really affects uh groundwater and runoff and Columbus doesn't really have that issue because we have our acreage minimums and some of the strict guidelines that we uh abide by so while I was listening to um issues with Rapids and Blaine I I gave our our city a pat on the back um also um fallfest we are potentially working on uh or we're exploring the possibility of a potential Road closure between the city park um and city office the city hall um to allow for um basically safer crossing of the street that's um still pending and working with a traffic technician at Anoka County on that so um the only other thing was that um I got to work with Companion Animal Control there was a loose dog um that visited several neighborhoods um but I wanted to just give them a shout out because companion did a great job communicating to multiple residents um and they were able to capture the the puppy that escaped within 24 hours um and then communicate out and a lot of residents were very concerned so great job to them thank you Jennifer Scott do you have anything yep run through a couple things real quick the Forest Lake cable commission did not meet again because they did not have a quorum again however Jill assures us that at the uh next meeting in April 17th she has confirmed that we have all confirmed that we will be there so we will have one in L of that I just want to shout out to Brian Carlson um who did address the missing Council meting meeting videos for us yes yeah he did a great job so we appreciate that Brian you're back in the in the hole back there um give yourself a round of applause no didn't hear it okay turns out uh that Brian was unaware that we had changed the meeting from Wednesday to Monday so Brian worked with City staff to make sure there's communication that when we change a date of a council meeting uh he is aware of it and they can get that video produced for our citizens to watch um at Columbus that all of us uh attended here um was a great event thank you for uh letting me attend I did learn that uh the Minnesota Trucking Association which is a very big deal for the trucking industry in the state of Minnesota if you didn't know is holding their annual truck driving championship at um blame Brothers truck lane here in Columbus um if you don't know that it's a huge event for MTA uh they have companies trucking companies from all over the state that will be in Columbus for two days with drivers who will be competing to uh win Top Dog in several categories the winners go on to the National event I'm not sure where that's held this year uh I am a member of the MTA so I have been involved with this before I can uh understate that that's a a huge deal for the industry they generally they do have grand stands out there they generally don't advertise to the public because the the grand stands are for the companies and the the families um but that'll be coming up I think the second week in June and it might be worth it if you just stop by and see what these men and women in those big rigs can do uh with those um the other good thing with that is a lot of our other companies uh are getting some runoff from that like running A's uh Hotel will obviously be able to house a lot of those competitors and their families and and companies there uh I know they're using several companies in the area for overflow parking so um it's bringing some good recognition uh to the city and uh it should bring some some Revenue uh for the state anyway in sales taxes uh so big deal uh glad that they're they're doing that also I also learned that running Nation will sponsor the special Olympic world's largest truck Convoy again this year where it takes place uh that's also a very big deal um both the trucking industry and law enforcement um are huge um donators of time and money to the Special Olympics and that's a fantastic event which I've had the privilege of being a part of in the past so always glad to see that here in Columbus too good thank you scr Janet you um there's a couple things that I'm going to talk about a little bit later in the agenda but the one thing I'll bring up um is a uh teams meeting that uh Jack and I had with midco so we are contacted um by them uh last week because there was a bill that was passed in last year's um I think big Omnibus Bill and what the bill does is require that any um employee of a company like midco that's installing fiber optic is now required to complete 40 hours of training before they can install the fiber optic and the deadline for that um training is uh at least for the seven County Metro area is July 1st so this has been a big problem um it's a big problem for us because they had to come up with the training they had to get DLI to approve the training the training requires and I can't remember Jack remind me if it's 10 or 20 hours of actually site work so they have to do it during the construction season and this bill didn't get passed until you know the fall and then you had the winter so um they're really struggling they have introduced a and this isn't midco this is the Minnesota cable something Communications Association that Melissa wolf who used to be the Govern government um relations person at midco is now the lobbyist for and so they have introduced a bill um requesting that the legislator legislators um delay the uh deadline for this and push it back a year so that it gives them time to get their their staff uh um trained and also um to reduce the number of hours um from 40 to I think 20 or 10 10 I can't remember anyways to reduce the number of hours the reason they contacted us was because um we have two big projects that are on the construction schedule for midco and if this doesn't get changed we won't get our projects and that's Federal money that has a deadline and it will go back and we won't get those done so it's a big deal um so what they've requested is if we would be willing to come down and be part of their press um press conference which they're going to try to schedule in the next couple of weeks um I'm also going to be contacting um uh commissioner Riner so that he's aware of this because I suspect that they will be asking him to come down too there are four communities in colum or sorry in Anoka County that um receive money like we did through Anoka County to get um Broadband expanded and all of that money has a deadline and if this is not changed we none of us will get on the schedule so that's just a little FYI for you if you hear hear anything about it or you tune in and there's a press conference and you see us down there that's why and that's all I have thank you uh Rob uh before you start off can you also throw the fireboard in there we don't have that on agenda if you want yeah absolutely um I have some notes on it um here uh thank you Jack uh so or uh Ron excuse me how we look Alik well getting closer know who's taller uh so we had a a meeting that Ron and myself attended uh for our fireboard uh we we were both on that uh March 20th uh just last week um uh the board elected uh Ron hanra as the chair uh and president of the committee um and Blake Roberts as uh vice president Nate moltz will remain as the secretary as done in the past um Talk talked about assistant fire chief uh position that we had uh tried to get some funding for in the past um we did not get that funding but still looking to possibly uh still have that position in the future as if something was to happen to Al Newman who was really the the leader of the operation and and the Kno how and all that if in his absence we would kind of be uh at a standstill and uh Ron I guess you'd agree with that right um there was a lot of good conversation and question around it um fire budget uh currently 975,000 195 of that being uh Columbus's responsibility 780 of Forest Lakes um I'd ask about medical calls because that used to be something that would really bog down the fire department those medical calls have have got less and less um the question was in the past a lot of people didn't want to join the from me was a lot of people didn't want to join the fire call or the fire board because Fire Department excuse me um because uh you know they were going to Medical calls when these these individuals were thought they were signing up to you know run into burning houses and put fires out not not take medical calls so uh Ron is going to be meeting with the NOA County of what that looks like uh for the future um but there has been a lot Le less medical calls and that's helped with retention um dual Ro employees they currently have three that are uh work at Forest Lake um two from the building department Nick Finelli and Nate moltz as well as Mike Swanson uh who's on the public works department those people um are are more or less the first responder if there's a call they're able to leave their position within the city and get in a truck and get going right away while the others are uh responding coming from their jobs coming from their homes um it's helped with quicker response times and things of that nature they did talk about how it puts the rest of the folks that work at the city um kind of in dis right who's going to be running the building department when they're on them calls things of that nature the average call was typically only about an hour from the time they left of the station to the time they got back um but but it did affect their day-to- day but they're looking at different ways uh with their new city administrator had some new ideas on how to uh how to work through those uh things with those do roll employees um Public Safety money um is being used for a gas meter testing sense it calibrator is what it was um and we are going to be looking to add some firefighters here prior to retirements there's some retirements coming up in the near future um more of those will likely need to be here in Columbus I believe we only have seven out of Columbus right now um and I think we were at roughly 11 uh previous so we have dropped a few but the idea is to get these individuals in get them mentored up before the other ones retired um and and that things of that nature um that's all on that but uh shout out to City staff rest of the council mayor good job talking at the Eda breakfast uh thanks to truck align for hosting they do a good job they had a nice facility there um we heard from our house rep uh Nolan West heard from Senator KW on happenings uh in government um commissioner Reiner as well um talked a little bit about the county jail and what that looks like currently I think they we're looking at 500 plus stall unit uh jail new jail and County sounds like the study showing really around they really only need around 300 or so uh would be sufficient uh so there's some uh push back on each other for the Commissioners on what that's going to look like on that jail moving forward um folks from ANA County Joel mcferson uh Jerry o talked on upcoming road projects um Highway 97 Kettle River pic uh were the ones of note they did touch on 97 on behalf of mind dot um there was a video played I believe you can find it on YouTube about what the construction's going to look like it's going to be it's going to be nice um from what I I could see from that uh fly over um and then after that did get a couple calls from local businesses that were happy that that they heard about that road construction they didn't know it was going to happen uh but did say it was going to make their commutes a lot easier in the mornings to get to their businesses so that's what I have thanks Rob I just have u i did attend a roundt a round table discussion with Steve Massie of the school district they had all the uh cities in the district from Scandia liono Lakes Linwood Centerville I they had them all there and they were discussing what the school district's looking at in the future here uh nothing really serious in Columbus they're they're kind of toying with changing the B lines for the elementary schools but that's just in the U the baby phase of it or what infant stages of it but they uh did talk about uh the elementary schools now going down to grades 1 through five and sixth graders will be going to the middle school and they are going uh they this is a quote from Mr Massie they don't want to do what Washington uh Still Water School District got into they are closing at elementary school and those are the two Forest View and Forest Lake that sit next to each other they're closing one but they're keeping it open not for students but in case what happens our population's kind of dropping a little on students but they see in the near future in the year couple years or whatever it's going to start Rising again because uh Forest Lake is looking at adding 100 to 200 homes and then you got line of lakes down there that's still up in the air and what they're going to do down there but it was a good meeting anyway uh the second thing I'd like to say can we uh Jack can we write a letter or something to um truck a line thanking them yes and uh they did a great job like you know so I don't know if we have to wait till Eda but I thought we get it off early so that don't forget it or whatever so uh let's see what's next here Personnel committee report mission statement presentation so I I'll take this one if you look on page 69 of your packet there's a memo um describing um two options for mission statement so if you remember when we met at our workshop on March 4th um Aaron kind of walked us through an exercise and got a lot of value statements and things that that we felt were um appoo about about Columbus and from that he proposed a whole bunch of sub mission statements I mean it was like I don't know 12 or something and these are the two that that the Personnel committee kind of came up with they're pretty similar um one is one is more uh what we strive to do and and talking about rural values and the other one talks about rural character so you can't go wrong if either one of these makes them but what I would like to have you do is to vote on your favorite um mission statement and then we can take that back to the Personnel committee and move forward with some of the other work that's kind of contingent on our selection here okay how do we want to make a motion for that oh I'm not I think one of you should well we can talk about it I mean we can go down and see what everybody thinks and if everybody's unanimous it'll be easy to make the motion won't it would you like to say both would you like to read them read both oh sure I can do that so the first one says the city of Columbus strives to provide quality services with a respectful and proactive approach and in accordance with our community's rural values the second one says the city of Columbus provides quality services in a respectful proactive manner that helps preserve our strong community and Rural character and so these mission statements would be a you know kind of a guiding statement for staff for boards for um you know really anybody who's doing work on behalf of the city to remind us like what it is that we're all trying striving to do I like a how's that all right there you go I agree I like a I both are great a is my preference okay I was going B how about you mayor what page are we on 699 69 I got 59 but 69 69 69 there you know I read these things 100 times back and forth and I was at the meeting when this was done um they're both so good I know I know it's just uh we could go either one I I'll go with B oh that just stinks cuz now I'm the tiebreaker and I wrote the first one you set it up well yeah it's on you all right well then I'm going to I I I like the first one a little bit better but I think they're both good so I will make the motion to adopt um Choice a for a mission statement the city of Columbus strives to provide quality services with a respectful and proactive approach and in accordance with our community's rural values this is Jenny L second so now we got a motion and we uh on the floor it was seconded any other discussion uh we'll take a vote Jenny I Scot ey janed I Robie ronai well that was easy thank you very much well I was going to say you know pout they're so close together they are they are Ain will be happy okay we're done uh item number five under D Planning Commission report Jennifer okay this one this one's a little more exciting um so we had um just going over I just wrote everything out just because we have um something to review so I'm going to pass this out um this is a memo provided by uh council member hegland so if you want to take one and pass them just for reference um the Planning Commission met on March 19th to review a minor change to mtw truckwash that was uh approved tonight there was one other uh discussion around the current Planning Commission policy 24-1 that states when a new cup requiring a public hearing is requested like Davy tree for example tonight uh the Planning Commission will hold an open forum for community members to make statements or address concerns but no discussion or approval of the Planning Commission will happen at that meeting um then at a future meeting the Planning Commission would review the application for the cup in the case of Davy tree no resident spoke at The Forum uh they also required no building permits or Watershed approval and are are renting an existing building um and the Planning Commission mistakenly approved them on the same night that um that they had their open Forum this this was addressed and reviewed by all Planning Commission um members at our city plan uh planning meeting on March 19th there was some frustration amongst the Planning Commission um that in that they have no flexibility and again not all Planning Commission members feel that way and I know we have one in here tonight uh but not all Planning Commission members felt the same but U some felt that they didn't have the flexibility um to potentially have this cut and dry situation potentially like you had with the Davy tree um but and several Council members um and several City Council Members also attend the Planning Commission um meetings regularly and in person um and I know in talking to council member hegland a lot of that is for information gathering um some of the members at the Planning Commission felt as though they were maybe being watched over um when really it was more of information gathering um I did receive um a memo from council member hegland on March 24th um as I went through um the Planning Commission so stepping back a second at the end of the Planning Commission meeting I did Express that we do value the Planning Commission and all of us as city council members and our mayor value the Planning Commission for the work that they do I told them I would bring that back to the meeting tonight uh for us to discuss and for discussion um and I also asked for reference and information regarding the policy the original policy as it was intended I did receive that memo from council member hegland on March 24th and provided all of you a copy uh there really aren't any actionable items tonight um but really it's more for reference um I know in in the memo council member hegland uh explains in detail why this two meeting process is important um and really some of it comes down to confusion of the applicant that there were no concerns at the Planning Commission meeting like we had tonight where all of a sudden tonight at at our meeting there were several questions um so going from A to B seems quite a bit when really some of that can be resolved at the Planning Commission level um Planning Commission member Robin Wood felt two meetings was helpful um to allow time to visit a site and to prepare questions but also agreed um with planning commissioner Carver Quinn that it sometimes seemed excessive so really ultimately tonight the question I have for all of us is is this is this two meeting situation at the Planning Commission and we don't need an answer it's really more just a thinking question um is this something we want to review as a policy or do we want to consistently keep what we have here where they have two meetings at the Planning Commission level and then it would move to the city council so that was that was our exciting day I should we discuss that tonight or should we put it off to another night if we want to discuss it Jack or Bill have any comments I I would recommend if you want to discuss it why don't we head it to our work meeting discussion yeah next week next week okay thank you all thank you Jennifer uh oh Parks boards that's me we're going to kind of split this up a little here in a Parks boort uh I'm going to talk a little about uh we did talk to flaw uh Force Lake athletic uh softball fast pitch whatever their acronym is about the Dugout cover uh discussion uh they threw some numbers at us as far as how much they' throw in for dugouts and uh we kind of countered it and threw another number back at them uh like a dollar for dollar instead of you know whatever and um Leah the uh representative is going to take it back to her board and talk about that issue uh the next issue on that was the uh Park maintenance but we'll leave that till uh our Public Works director is talking in the end here and then they talked about the park Master Plan update and it's coming along pretty good uh maybe another few weeks ell or a months or depends yeah it's moving along pretty well um we've got a first draft put together that we're meeting as a subcommittee later in April and then proposing a second draft um once we get a little bit more information on budget and finan stuff then we should be pretty good and uh we we talked about the tennis court uh resurfacing that and uh we're going to send out for bids not that they're approving any they're going to look at the bids and see where where we sit and come back with that later on that uh other than that uh Park maintenance was probably and a Dugout was a pretty big discussion but I'll let Jim do that uh in his next report which is his right now yeah Mr Mayor and councel I want to apologize a little bit up front I'm having some crazy Vision trouble so I'm going to try to power through this best I can um so we've talked in the past uh earlier this year about RVs not renewing their contracts and um the direction was to go out and get bids from qualified contractors which we did um we went to six cont contractors of the six contractors we received three three bids for um Mowing and three bids for the park maintenance those are those start on page 78 um of the three bids um they came back um considerably higher than what we've paid RVs in the past and I believe the closest bid was something just under $30,000 higher um so so we had some conversations at a staff level to try to come up with some solutions for um the situation that we're in because we know that you know we're not going to be able to award contracts at these at these prices um so what Jack and I talked about internally was um that we take it inhouse and Public Works takes over the mowing um we attempted to hire or attempted to interview a part-time seasonal employee to see if that would be an option um we would purchase equipment and then they would work kind of um before my time but I think that's what they did years and years ago um it's been contract Service ever since I've been here but um so so we talked about that and that seems to make the best financial sense for the community um with with that said um I've had some conversations with our vs he figures that he had about 600 hours of time in that season from April to October so you know we're going to hypothetically we're going to you know it's going to be 20% of one Public Works um labor for that for that season whether it's one person or divide it up into three or four or however that works but um I think long term we you know want to try to seek a seasonal employee for this but at this point right now you know it's not not feasible and we're quickly approaching that um season so I mean conceivably we could be mowing next month so um that said I believe that Jack has a motion there for the city council to approve us to pull that from contract Service to the public works department um before we do that if anybody has any questions I can you know through what whatever whatever questions we have um I don't think this is a surprise to anyone we've kind of talked about it a few times so just kind of the nuts and bolts right now I have I have just have a question so on 79 there was sort of like a calculation um it says it would be 600 hours given this expenditure of time 200 additional total or approximately 70 hours so I'm thinking I don't get it so 600 hours I didn't get it either ja and I talked about I thought that we were removing it but I had sent out a email that that was not correct and the corrected report was in the email so the corrected report there reads is estimated approximately 600 hours required for RVs to complete their 2024 work given this expenditure of time 200 hours annually for three Public Works employees would be required to perform the maintenance task previously done by RV yes okay so the 70 hours annually or whatever that I mean it to me it seemed like it would be if you took 600 divided by three Public Works it's about 200 hours that's what you were trying to say that's correct okay thank you so I read that too right and then I I came over here I'm like I didn't see that it's either really early in the morning or I'm not getting it and he said well it's really early in the morning and he wasn't getting it either so then then he rewrote it emailed it out so and then my my other question is you don't anticipate there going to be overtime right I mean you'll fit it into your schedule we're going to work it in the schedule so um I I I you know we're going to be probably more flexible with this process you know what I mean so so are you guys going to do the the striping of the or or we're going to do everything you're do everything that he did oh boy everything that he did okay so and and you know to be quite honest with you um we we may end up doing a little bit more or a little bit less depending on what it is you know so I mean if we're over in the park we're going to work on stuff yep so you know it's just it's it's going to maybe you know we got to try to figure it out we've not ever done it so you know I kind of told the park board that you know we're going to give it we're going to give it an effort right and it won't be due to lack of effort but you know we got to learn it so I I I don't think it's going to be anything crazy I've I've reached out to Ryan and he's willing to give us all the information you know show us how to do things so it's it's not that hard so um I think it'll be just fine okay thank you well thank you for taking this on yeah as an additional task I don't there wasn't really any other options you know it just it is what it is you know I mean it it makes sense y so thank you yeah Ron thank you um got your name right this time uh so are we going to be needing a leaf vaco Ryan Ryan had kind of a toe behind or is that that trailer that you're talking about so or we would just mulch it up and leave it so we're going to need some stuff right so to start off you know we're going to buy a mower we're going to buy a weed whip we're going to buy a leaf blower you know some of those things that I mean we have some of that now but we use it elsewhere too so we're going to just set this up and that's where it's going to go so so there's going to be some things that we end up with whether it's a mulching wagon a mulching kit um you know do we need a dethatcher to pull stuff out I know Ryan uses dethatcher to kind of drag the fields a little bit too so I mean I think there's going to be some stuff that we're going to need to buy that I can't necessarily just sit here and identify but speed whip leaf blower some sort of you know mulching backing system um you know there'll be some stuff and we do have a trailer I don't know if it'll work um so we may end up buying a trailer but you know at this point you know we're entering into a new era right so we're going to set it up for equipment and you know hopefully we find a um retiree that lives in Columbus that wants to work a couple days a week um and get that person on and you know they want to hang out for a while and just try to try to make it as stable process you know and if you know there's a day that that person can't work then Public Works has done it now so we know that we know the game and we just power through it within the current budget we have allocated for that for 2025 which is $37,500 uh we anticipate the startup cost for this with those items that Jim mentioned that we'll have to purchase will be approximately $27,000 so there will be another $10,000 and we will be looking to see if we can still find some seasonal help to get us through some of this this year so we won't be exceeding what we have budgeted for 2025 had we used Ry or we use our services yeah just one more thing um thanks Jim for taking this on and I know I I think I spoke last year the year before about what it looks like bringing it back in house and so I I do appreciate that you de decided to do that and we're going to make the best of it there some very enormous numbers right uh and and I feel like the bids we got to did we bid it out again just to see if Ryan was being competitive like few years ago maybe when I first got on Council or we just got comparables maybe you and I talking yeah to find that he was still probably the cheapest around doing it and um I'm glad we're able to make it work with the city staff so thank you Jim I got a question real quick you use the word retiree all the time have you ever thought of a 18-year-old or a high school kid College college we've talked about that um you know that's that's not out of the realm of possibility right our our thought process on retiree is that person wants to come back year after year and you end up with I'm going to say you end up with a Ryan or a dick and Tom that we used to have years ago they came back every year and they they knew what the job was and you know you weren't training somebody so the the hard part about you know I look at other communities that hire their college kids or whatever it's it's great not no disrespect to any of that but one of my guys will be over there training that person for some fair amount of hours you know what I mean and then at that point do I just do it so I I mean you you know what I'm saying so the the thought process was if we found somebody and and we interviewed a local um that was very interested but his wife said no so to have that person come back year after year at least for you know if you could get somebody on some what I'm going to call long-term 3 four five years is helpful to everyone at that point but you know there's there's no options off the table at this point I'm sure the distinction is not based on age it's based on experience and knowhow yes it's spoken like a true attorney thank you always looking for an angle I mean to to Jim's point a lot of a lot of these golf courses around town here get mowed by you know retired machine or operators or things like that are just looking to fill their mornings and things like that so I think it is with plenty of those people around here that might be a good option but to speak to to maybe the younger I I know I got a good friend that works uh Public Works in a town south of here I won't name the town but in the summer they have youth run the lawnmowers and they find that they get uh they get a lot more beat up than if there was maybe I'm not going to age discriminate a more mature person more mature person operating it they're not trying to pull wheelies and uh spinning the flywheel off and things like that so I agree with that I just sometimes I don't think we got a I limit ourselves to retirees and I always say that because uh liono Lakes hires a lot of their maintenance people right off kids they they work three or four years they like the way they work and they bring them in to maintenance so I mean I point up to that far yet but and I don't even know how many hours you know how many high school kids uh they probably want to in the summer work 40 hours a week and maybe you don't have 40 hours to give them we're looking at potentially two days a week yeah so so I mean it's not you know other communities hire you know seasonal Health they're working 40 hours a week for you know some period of time till they go back to school or you know what whatever they're whatever they do so and and for us it's it's probably two days a week and and you know anybody would be a good employee we're not worried about what their age is a lot of things Jim said regarding the extra training comes into effect but if there's somebody that's a younger person that might make a good employee we're certainly open to them but uh generally sometimes gray whiskers are a lot better than people that just started [Laughter] shaving okay so should we make a motion anybody want to make a motion I can make the motion I move to approve that the city public works department assumed grounds maintenance duties for the city parks in those public areas identified in uh 7 DB of the March 26 2025 city council packet in lie of Contracting the service to outside vendors this is Rob all second we got a motion we got it second is there any other discussion questions hearing none Rob Rob I Janet I Scott ey Jenny I and Ron I we'll go down to the mower purchase you want to talk about that a little or yeah um so so I handed out um kind of a colorful little comparison list I'm going to call it um we we priced out three three mowers so one was a Toro one was a ferris and one was a John Deere um all all very good commercial mowers um the if you look at the John Deere it's a 37 horsepower gas 112 gallon fuel tank 60in mower deck um under suspension I have none so John Deere does not have any type of suspension other than a potential suspension seat um the other two mowers have a form of suspension where um Toro has what they call a my ride which is um it's a suspension cradle so your seat and the little pedestal that you sit on um has suspension U three shocks one in the front two in the back you adjust that to your weight and uh um they they ride very nice Toro is a fantastic Mo um the ferris is um four-wheel suspension similar to what your car would be independent so there's a shock on each Corner um the independent suspension um is different on the ferris versus the Toro the Toro is like a solid front axle so if you're going over divots or you know Crossways through a ditch depending on what angle you're mowing or something like that you potentially have one wheel off the ground at any given time um taking some stability away or um you know your ride quality kind of changes a little bit there too it's um if you look at the spindle housings on the Toro they're a 9in aluminum maintenance free housing um the ferris has a 10-in cast iron with grease xks and the the um John Deere has a 8 in cast iron spindle so those are basically the um blad drives for the blades underneath the deck um like I said all all three of these manufacturers make great MERS my recommendation with um the terrain that we're doing is the ferris not going to lie happens to be the most expensive one um but that said just looking at the terrain and where we mow not just the park across the street you know we're mowing along um corsby Street we're mowing along zri Street there's a lot of you know Hills and side Hills and Valleys and you know rough terrain um so that that said my recommendation is that we purchase a ferris Mo I just like to put two points that's what uh Ryan had that is what Ryan had and I picked his brain a lot yeah about why he buys the one that he buys and you know I know talking to John waldock John waldock knows Ryan and tried to get him to buy uh John Deere for years and and he wouldn't do it and Toro same same way and I've used his more personally um borrowed it from him so I could try it cuz you know I'm looking at buying a more myself and that is the more that I would personally by as well the other thing about the ride and suspension is those types of mow that have the better ride for use operator fatigue and if anybody's ever mowed a lot even with the riding mower it looks like it's easy but if you mow three or four hours you come off there and if somebody asked you to pick up a dollar on the ground you couldn't do it so it's helps in that respect too um this is Janet so and all of these bids are through this department of administrative State procurement I mean this these are the state prices right so the so the John Deere and the Toro are State contract okay the ferris is can't think of the name of it it's another is it the Cooperative thing it's a Cooperative thing I I can't think of the name of it I know what you're talking about yeah um so if you look at the retail price versus the you know these prices they're they're all about $5,000 off is yeah so I mean good pric it's it's a solid discount for sure okay thank you Rob yeah and I would just say you you'd mention on the spindle housings nothing nothing on a commercial mower is is maintenance free so that's alarming that Toro says it's maintenance free right I have a Toro myself and it's greasable it's a commercial unit I I was surprised by that um and that is you know there 6,000 series mow so I mean it's the Toro Z Master not necessarily topof the line cuz they make bigger mowers and you know they make diesels they make all sorts of different things but um commercial grade more all all three so I was a little surprised by that as well but you know that doesn't mean that it's not going to last yeah you know 2,000 hours either so yeah and being I i' done uh lawn maintenance in the past and worked for commercial lawn companies and uh definitely that feris is probably something we'll want to go with the Toro I would say second second best but we're going to get longevity out of that and I think Ryan talking with him he had a lot of hours on that granted his was a diesel right he's had a couple two the last one was a diesel but yeah it's he's he's got good longevity out of him so I my recommendation would be Jims as well the feris actually there's not that big a difference in price between them I mean you're talking A7 something yeah $300 between the John Deere and the ferris and 500 between the Toro and the ferris so they're not they're not hugely different no and and that could be the difference of one spindle assembly that went out on a non-greasable thing you know well I think yeah ergonomically and and just the suspension on that Ferris makes sense I mean your Roi is not having to repair because of a suspension issue right going over the ground you have to cover work comp you have anything J yeah exactly no I feel thankful that you're willing to take this on um that the department is so make sure that they all know we're grateful for that um definitely saves on our budget um and so this seemingly is a pretty cut and dry choice I guess I'll make a motion I make a motion uh I move to approve the purchase of an ISX 3300 feris 60in deck Zero Turn Mower to be used for mowing of City properties this is Janet I said second have a motion on the floor at second it any other discussion comments having none Jennifer Jenny I Scott I Janet I Rob I and Ron I um the last thing that I got Mr Mayor and councel is last Wednesday um we had a little catastrophe in our water department um we had a water main break first one ever in Columbus so um we got our ska system called and you know you pull that up and you can kind of see how your system's operating and we were running at a low pressure um somewhere between 3,300 and 35 gallons a minute of water so you know that there's something going ay um hard part is trying to figure out where that's at right so um the guys went out and started snooping around quick and they they came across it pretty fast so probably within in 10 minutes of getting that call we knew where the water main break was which is a Saving Grace for us um we don't have that water tower that we hope to talk about soon so basically we rely on at that point just pumps running and they were all running everything worked as it should the problematic part of what happened to us is our pressure system is is by Freeway Mini Storage so wellhouse 1 and the Ziggler Pump House South of that um the water main breake was just north of that so what we ended up having to do was shut off the water it shut off three three two businesses and a residence so Freeway Mini Storage um the house next to that which I believe is where Pat and Mary used to live and then uh Gander Outdoors or RVs what I don't know what they're called it it's Gander Mountain to me so those three business was were the only ones affected um for some period of time um once we shut that water off we ended up turning on a fire hydrant by wellhouse 23 and that ran for about 25 30 hours of time just basically pumping water but what we do there is we use that fire hydrant to control the pressure in the system that would would have pressure otherwise if we weren't running that so you know you have to kind of get creative on how you operate at that point so you know we got a bunch of calls saying why why is the hydrant running you know so you try to try to power through as much of that as you can um we contacted um Olson sewer and they do a lot of water main brake stuff um they came out called in emergency locates and um we didn't actually start working on that repair until Thursday because it was late enough in the day that if we would have dug down to it we wouldn't have been able to get parts for whatever whatever they may have been um so Thursday we we dug and found out that the um wet tap saddle that they mounted on our 16-in water main to complete a loop around over to Hornsby Street under the freeway the bolts rotted off that um saddle and that's what gave way so then you know it just it's a 12in diameter hole in the side of a 16in pipe that is just pumping water uh we made that repair um I will say that we used Olsson sewer Columbus res or Columbus business um David's hydrovac was out there Columbus business and we actually got um clean fill material from binus roadways so uh binus roadways actually had some people on site doing maintenance but I called the corporate office and you know they made sure that you know whatever we needed they were there for um so kudos to all of those companies for helping out it was a smooth process obviously took longer than what I what I would like to because you know you want everything to be back online and um the the three the three businesses SL residents that were down were very very um understanding we bought water for the resident and you know the businesses didn't they didn't really care about that um once we were back online we took a bunch of water tests to make sure that um our water was still good and um documented all that with the Department of Health cours and um we were back online by 6 o00 on Thursday that's not a cheap process is it that will not be a cheap process and that comes out of the Enterprise then that will come out of the Enterprise fund so the the capital fund um I will attempt to make a claim to the league of Minnesota cities even though it states that they don't pay it um it's free for us to make a claim and they may so um that's that's going to be once I once I get the bills in um we took all sorts of pictures and documented things and you know kind of wrote up our little history of what happened and I'll I'll send all of that to our insurance agent and you know he'll submit it and they'll say y or nay so hopef hopefully they pay something but you know at this point it says they won't so we'll just see it's a price of being a city huh it's the price of being a city in the municipal business well you survived it so congratulations what's that you survived it congratulations I know Brady was spending the night in the Public Works building that night I happened to be up here for some meetings so you guys you guys look like you were all hitting on all cylinders that night that day it's it's fun I I mean you don't ever want to deal with it you don't ever want to make the news but that stuff is fun for me m because it really shows what what you're good at and it shows what you forgot about MH and you know every time something like this happens you make adjustments to things and and that's just what makes you better in the future and you know what it's it's great training knowing that nobody got hurt right so I mean it just you can talk about all of that stuff you can you know try to simulate troubles like that but you don't have the the shock factor of water pouring out of the ground and the old crap moment that this is real and it wasn't 20 below zero no well that I will tell you that that is the nicest um water main break that I've ever worked on and and I've done probably 25 just at different places but um yeah generally they're mid January 20 below cold as heck freezing as fast as it's pouring out yeah yeah yeah on a street mhm so I I mean it worked out as absolute best that it could I mean good good do you have anything else that is it Jack um December the 23rd we set our City calendar uh we set the April Eda meeting for the 17th of April uh in between the 23rd and I believe the 2 week of January we are informed by the county uh with the selection of dates available for our local board of appeals and Equalization that we could have the 17th or the 24th of April the 24th was a conflict for a lot of people so we chose the 17th of April as our lb& meeting date that conflicted with our meeting date that was set for the second Eda meeting of the year but at our meeting on the 17th of January we did change the meeting date to the 15th uh I've checked and made sure that uh Judy and Karen were still okay with that date and they were so I'm checking with city council to see if that date is still acceptable for your schedules that would be the 15th of April for both our work and regular Eda meeting date so that's a Eda Workshop Jack correct we'll still have our workshop on the what the first Tuesday as well of April uh this would be on the uh 15th so our first city Workshop will be on April the 1st okay that works for me so we would have a meeting the 16th or we would not have one on the 16th because there would be a Planning Commission there be a Planning Commission on the 16th and the 17th their local Board of appeals and Equalization so the 15th would be the re the recommended date at this time to have our Eda meetings if that works with everybody schedule okay I have no problem Jennifer NOP this that's fine Scott no problem I do have a conflict but if if it if I can't get it moved I can be available on Zoom so if that works for on yeah okay D did you say it was okay yep yep it's fine tax day what what time it be 5:30 5:30 5:30 for the workshop meeting and 6:30 for the regular meeting anything else Jack that'll be it on that and now we get to discuss uh a topic that we've had on the last two Council meetings that's the Hornsby Street Eureka Avenue uh project uh on February 26th their meeting our city engineer informed us that the Wetland permitting was ready to start for this project and unfortunately the trail portion of those improvements was not covered by the local government roads Wetland replacement program so the cost of those Wetland credits would be have to be born to the city the cost of that as the information provided by the city engineer was $1,652 uh we did check with the Rice Creek water shed District uh there was some feeling that we did have some Wetland credits out there we checked with their staff their staff informed us that we had no Wetlands credits uh council member heglin remembered that there was some agreement made with the Watershed District several years ago so we checked with the administrator and their Board of managers and were're told that there were some credits out there and we could petition for seeing if these would be eligible for this project however they did tell us in a letter that their criteria were primarily for Wetlands credits use for flooding issues water quality issues and basically ditch repair issues and the trails generally were not considered in this they did state that we could petition for the credits for this and so we set up a meeting with them that was held this morning and uh I'm going to let Janet deliver the good news on that because we were going into that meeting suspecting maybe that they were going to to deny that but we had uh quite a surprise when we walked through the door Janet uh thank you Jack so um you we basically made the request that because a couple years ago we had that conversation with them about uh Wetland credits that we felt were due to US based on this uh memorandum of understanding we had a number of years ago when there was a whole chain of events that happened um when we went back to try to claim those they they did they weren't going to give them to us but what they wrote in a memo was that they would be willing to entertain um or they would be willing to consider uh a request for for credits for projects that fit their their um criteria so we went in with the intent of requesting um the number of credits that we needed which was outlined in the memo that um Brian did and that it's in our packet so it's a very small number is you know a little over a tenth of an acre worth and is valued at uh just a little over $188,000 um what they said in the meeting was that because it did not fit those criteria that that Jack mentioned it wasn't about um ditch work or repairing ditches or or flood mitigation or any of those kinds of things they didn't they they couldn't or they wouldn't um give us credits but what they would do um is they would pay what it would cost for us to purchase them and the reason that they can do that is because they had a fund that they had established prior um it was it they call it their Clear Lake fund but it was basically a fund that set up to improve access to Clear Lake and because this um Trail does that that's the whole purpose of the trail is to provide access to the lake um they felt it was a reasonable use of that money and so the agreement and the unanimous decision of the board was that they would um issue a check to Columbus for the amount that it costs us to purchase these credits so we would be held whole on this which was really good so thank you race Creek Watershed that was worth going to the to their meeting for that um I have one other thing to add to that but is there any other questions or anything else anybody just related to that piece of information and I'd like to thank our city Engineers this morning for replying so prompt to several questions that we asked so we'd have the information to give them thanks for that quick response and and they did ask that question that made a big difference I think having having that so I appreciate that too okay so then the second thing is that um the request so so that was was all really good we went up to to thank the board and their um their request to us was that you know they did that for us that's really that really helped us out do we feel that we are now um that they've satisfied that that uh kind of commitment that they outlined in that memo to us you know are are basically are we good now and I said well I can't really commit on on behalf of the whole Council so I will bring that to the meeting tonight so really the question is if you remember what was in that memo it was it was pretty um vaguely written but basically they said they would they would entertain uh requests they're going to do that anyway um because we're a community in the race Creek Watershed I think it I would recommend that we issue a statement however we do that in a letter form or something that basically thanks them thanks them for our the support that they gave us and um basically tells them that uh we're satisfied with the with the outcome of this and that we bill you had good words I can't remember the words you used but they were very good words you you you used in in light of the consideration we consider the matter resolved yes thank you we can reference the date of theou yes so basically we wouldn't go back to them with that little memo and ask for more um doesn't mean we can't ask for more just because we're part of their District but and I think that they would like to they would like to just feel that that is a resolved issue I think we would like to feel it's a resolved issue too so I think that's a win-win so um if there's questions that we can talk about that otherwise I'll make the motion that we direct staff to draft that draft that memo Rob did you have a question before no so is this in relation to the the motion that's written here as well is that what you're talking on is that so it's saying that it's going to Forest Lake the payment well it says it's going to Forest Lake cuz Forest Lake is the one that's got the purchase agreement for buying the credits so what would happen is that we would pay Forest Lake the 18,000 and they would purchase all of the credits required for that project okay so what they will do and I this is details that Jack and and Nick will work out like how the money yeah I just wanted to make sure it didn't need to say Columbus I I understand it's a good question it's a little confusing so yeah definitely and just just briefly what'll happen this will give us a chance to cut the check because the time is running out to get us in on that permitting process and then on April the 9th we'll send them an invoice and they will cut us the check to reimburse us for that cost great on the about way but we're getting there yeah it's it's all good so with that then I would move to approve the city share of the Wetland credit cost for the trail portion of this uh Hornsby Street uh Eureka Street uh or Eureka Avenue project um for the payment to the city of forest lake in the amount of $1,652 as Ron I'll second that having a motion and spend second uh any discussion questions hearing none Jennifer Jenny I Scott i j i Rob I Ron I I got to say thank you Janet and thank you Jack and thank you Brian for all your work on that I mean it's still 18 ,000 bucks in our pocket hey it'll pay for the more yeah maybe we can send you down B you know yeah uh item e on the uh agenda announcements and reminders city council work meeting April 1st 2025 at 5:30 p.m. Planning Commission meeting April 2nd 2025 at 6 p.m. city council meeting April 9th 2025 at 6 PM Eda work and regular meeting April 15th 2025 at 5:30 p.m. Planning Commission April 16th 2025 at 600 p.m. and local board of appeals and Equalization meeting April 177 2025 at 6 p.m. uh before we get a motion to adjourn I I'm going to meet with um NOA County Sheriff's Department with the uh fire department on Friday morning here we're going to discuss calls that they have is there any questions anybody in the council have for the sheriff's department I mean like get out of jail free card or something were you going to talk to to her business Jessica's going there Jessica's at that rate too uh Jessica will be one of them there there'll be two of them and you were going to talk to her about Fall Fest also at the same time yeah okay in fact I can talk to her about the Fall Fest so that she doesn't have to show up at your meeting oh okay yeah she was planning to come to the meeting we' save her some time but just the same old everything did last time perfect y okay thank you take a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn is a second Scot I'll second okay we'll take a vote Jenny Jenny I Scott ey Janet I Rob I Ron I [Music]