[Music] good evening everyone tonight is March 27th 2024 it's about 6:00 p.m. and I would like to call to order the Columbus city council meeting for today tonight our first order of business is a Pledge of Allegiance please join us I pledge Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one na God indivisible with liy and justice for all our next order of business is the adoption of the agenda for tonight's meeting would someone like to make a motion please so this is Janet I move to approve the adoption of agenda for the March 27th 20124 city council meeting this is Su all second it's moved in second are there any questions or discussion if not I'll call for the vote Ron I sue I Janet I Rob I and Jesse I our next item of business is a uh approval of the consent agenda the approval of the March 13 2024 city council meeting minutes the approval of the bill payments is posted is there a motion to approve so this is Janet I move to approve the consent agenda um item number two I have submitted uh edits to the um minutes that uh our administrator hasn't had a chance to look at yet so we're I'm proposing we pull those all right so we have a motion on the floor is are second to approve the approval of the bill payments as posted Mr Rob I'll second I'll call for the vote Ron I sue I Janet I Rob I and Jesse I we're moving quickly on to letter number c public open forum and we do have someone here to speak at the public open Forum this is Matthew magistad come up to the table please pull that microphone right up so we can hear you Echo and tell us what you would uh like us to hear hi you can hear me oh it's a little loud all right U well I'm Matthew magad I'm a citizen of Columbus here and I'm working on my Eagle Scout project um it's about um Oak wlt and the effects of it um overall education and the plan is to be planting some trees and overall all um giving out posters and flyers um to educate uh people cuz I've seen that in like my own neighbors they might cut down trees or trim trees when um it's not quite quite the appropriate time and Oak W spreads and I've seen you know Oaks dying um so at some point we won't have any Oak WT trees or any oak trees excuse me so um that is uh my plan um as far as um fundraising for it um I have options here like the Stacy allons um and others um but if the city were to have any funds they could allocate would be would be great um that's that's pretty much the plan that I have here so I'm looking at page D proposed page D it says reach out to the DNR for oak tree saplings is that something they always do or are they available or um I was I was planning on reaching out to the DNR um soon and see if they would otherwise I do um have other access um possibly um the force Lake uh FFA is a possible place to get um oak tree saplings but I am currently working on that right now okay any other questions I don't have that and I just had one yeah I'm curious how much you are trying to raise um well about an an estimate that um I'm hoping to get um overall um is approximately $560 or so um that's just an estimate right now um but yeah um and you mentioned that you approached the Stacy line uh I will be approaching them um in the coming days here okay because we have a Columbus Lions too and they may be able to donate and I will I'll reach out to them as well that'll be good when are you proposing to do this um I am proposing here spring huh this spring uh yes it would be probably probably May is when I would for sure have have it started and then um I know it says in here to have it done by the end of August um and that's also including watering these trees as they'll they'll need water throughout the summer and that would be part of my plan as well to make sure that they live yeah good plan good idea how many trees are you going to plant um 6 to 12 uh depends on how much I'm able to get and do you have a certain type of Oak that you're looking for um I'm just looking for oak trees I'm not quite specific yet where where do you plan to plant them um I was hoping that I could plant them in the city park across the street there but if there's a better place that um that you guys need trees I would be willing to go wherever in City well we could talk to the park board about that well didn't they just cut down some yeah I thought they just cut down some o Oak that were infected with Oak wils so maybe they'd want to replace them I think Oak and what else did say JW they cut down a few other different ash trees ash trees well it sounds like a really good project I I I just know that when we were going to cut down trees at our house and we had never cut them down I had no idea there was a time of the year that you are not supposed to but luckily we had hired somebody who knew and he's like well you can't cut them down now to come back and he explain the whole time frame of when you can cut and when you can't and it's important information and I don't know how anybody would know unless you know you were educated yeah so it sounds like a good project so maybe that would be a good idea if you if you met if you showed up at the Park Board there's it's on April 30th right April 16th I believe Ron oh no I had April 30 and also we have a Fall Fest in the fall and September 20th through the 21st 2 16th Matt I was wrong it's the 16th 16th it'll be right here at uh 5:00 Ron do you think that's something the park board would be interesting in right I mean well they could give their opinion on what because they love their trees they have lots of opinions about trees huh no and I I just um I appreciate you digging into this because it's been an issue that I've had brought forward to me and uh many of my neighbors I don't know what it was from all of a sudden nobody had been trimming trees but we have 50-year-old Oaks that are 2 foot 3ot across and it just came through our neighborhood and completely wiped everybody's Oak Groves out and I can't even keep up with cutting the wood as it falls down so um I do appreciate you looking into it and and educating the people on it so and also we have the Fall Fest in the fall maybe you could consider putting up a table and having your leaflets and pamphlets and whatever educating anybody who will listen and uh when is that again September 20th actually the one that you'd the day you'd care about would be the 21st mhm SE 21st well I'm approaching my 18th birthday so I have to get this done by my 18th birthday I do have a deadline October 3rd so I still got time but cut a little close there yeah well then we'll have a bloody mary when you're done how's that oh Jes oh no no no they have to be 21 you're thinking about back back in your day to be 18 but anyway that might be a good Educational Opportunity because the Elms have gone the o have gone the ashes have gone the blue spruce are all infected and they're all going to die but if we can stretch it out and slow it down I think that'd be a benefit to our whole city well and there's in terms of your education too I mean um Jack you could connect him with Connor and maybe we could put something on the website so if you have information that you know you'd like to share that would be of interest to Property Owners about Oak quilt and stuff we could probably put that on our website yeah if you're going to if you're going to do a report and and a lot of people don't know the timing of cutting Oaks which is generally April through about the 1st of September any information like that would be great to share with the residence MH so how does he get in contact with whom to make this happen well I I was thinking that Jack could sort of make the connection with Connor who's our public information coordinator and is the Web Master for the city Jesse has your information on that application so we can reach out and con we'll give that pass that along to Connor and we'll make that contact perfect thank you you have a phone number on here where somebody can get a hold of you yes I do what page oh one second just so that it doesn't get left in the dust on proposal page B which one proposal page b b like boy so in the meanwhile you're looking to gain funds and and grow funds is there a way that uh any of us may able to contribute to you how how do you want us to go about that I don't have the proposal in front of me I think we only you canate okay techically what happens okay it sure anybody can donate okay thank you by the way I'm Christy man I'm his Eagle Mentor so okay to give him some support answering some of those they don't know it all yeah so as far as like ear tagging it um what was your name I'm sorry Matthew magistad okay thank you well and if you were able to come to the park board and talk to them about it I mean there's potentially some Pro some funds that they have that they could maybe put towards those seedlings too so that would be appreciated you'll have to blow them away and then and then make the ask like a good fundraiser and did you get the right date for that that's April 16th not the 30th yep okay well good luck thank you yep thank you for coming tonight yeah thank you like a worthwhile project and we'll see It'll be made before we know it is is there action that you need city council to take as far as approval of a project uh yes on the last page of that packet there is um like a there's box that says beneficiary approval and that's where um I would like a signature uh just so that so you would be the beneficiary to my project who has the packet sorry who has the packet you do okay Jack does okay so do we need a motion or anything Jack or you just put an x on the box I would think it would be good to have a motion for this for the record for his project and here's the motion that I would recommend that the city council approve the oak wlt project for Matthew William mad's Eagle Scout project I'll make the motion is there a second Rob second any other clarifying that you're approving it as beneficiaries for that purpose so I'll make the motion who wants the second yeah I'll second any other questions or discussions we've actually had a really good uh discussion than thank you so I'll call for the vote Ron I sue I Janet I Rob I and Jesse I there we go right thank you very much good luck thank you thanks for coming tonight course our next presentation is from Linda Madson of the 2023 Lake Center annual report and in our packet it's Pages 1 through 13 good evening Linda pull that microphone right up so we can hear you Echo well mayor council members and City staff um good evening and thank you for um inviting me and um allowing me to speak for a few minutes and update you on Lake Center for Youth and families um as was mentioned in your packet you have our 2023 annual report um as well as um demographic and um participation information as well I'm not going to go through those Page by Page um but I will be noting some things and if you have any questions of course um ask this evening or in looking through it or if you think of something later please feel free to contact me and I'd be happy to to talk with you um so just a little bit of History I certainly know some of you in the room but um for 36 years I was part of the force Lake School System um I started in 1981 as a junior high teacher um and did that for 16 years was a coordinator for four years I was the director of teaching and learning for eight and then I was the superintendent my last eight years and retired in 2017 um I was on the board of Lake Center for 12 years and in 2018 I agreed to resign from the board and help um Matt Howard who was then the executive director um with some HR and finance um you know projects within the organization um as many of you know Matt had um an accident and actually that accident occur a car accident occurred the day before I started um so on Monday I was part-time and on Friday I was the executive director um and now it's 5 years later and so I retired from that in December of um 2023 and now I'm the community outreach coordinator um which is a part-time position and I am able to come to City Council meetings and County board meetings and different events in the community and spread the good word about Lake Center so um it's a great part-time position and I'm I'm happy to have it and happy to be here um some of you may know the history of Lake Center um it was started in 1976 so many years ago and Jim Trudeau who was then the Forest Lake Police Chief is the person that started um the youth Service Bureau as it was called then and as youth would get um into trouble make some mistakes along the way um he would describe it as you could either ignore it or put them into the court system um and sometimes really there should have been a middle piece and so that's why he created Lake Center for Youth and families and so we have had many programs throughout the years this is the one program that is consistent and has is still with us since 1976 and I'll talk a little bit more about that um going to jump ahead to 2019 and where we are today we've done many things internally we've updated our employee handbook our board handbook our volunteer handbook policies and procedures um we've done A needs assessment on technology have some upgrades that we've done um we've moved to the cloud um continually working to protect our data and we all know in this day and age that that is something that we all need to do the pandemic during that time um of course created issues for many nonprofits including ours um we had two PPP loans and I can say that um pretty confidently if we had not had those and then had them forgiven um we' probably wouldn't be in existence today and they were extremely important and we are very thankful for being able to to have those loans um we had to move to Virtual Services um and we had a two-year plan to go to Virtual um in some areas of our organization and again we had to um quickly move and within a week had to figure out how we were going to deliver Services virtually um one of the things that we have recent ly done is um as we um looked at going virtual when we had to and then when we had the option to come back many of our services stayed virtual um our clients and um Wanted that and so we had and some of you uh may have been familiar where we were last located it's the old Bakery in Forest Lake um by the round one of the roundabouts and um we moved in in 2017 it was a beautiful Office Space space and there were three of us that regularly came in um of a a full-time staff of 12 and so we each had about four offices and so we waited for a couple of years to see where that was going to land and decided do we want our asset in a building or do we want our Assets in a bank account so we put um the space up for sale and um you know we're told well it's kind of hard to sell office space and don't be disappointed um and we sold it in 5 days for the asking price so we were so fortunate and um it is a accounting firm actually from North Branch who purchased it who were thrilled to get it um and we're thrilled that they're happy to be there we are now leasing space from the Forest Lake school system in the old it used to be the high school years ago Central Junior High um and now it's the central learning Center so where I started my career in 1981 and now I'm back in that space um and it's working out very very well you can see from our annual report that our Revenue sources are varied um we write a lot of Grants um we have insurance reimbursement for counseling we have County contracts that I'll talk about um events and you have a list of events I think that was passed out um individuals business businesses municipalities support us financially and as you well know we have charitable gaming at Running Aces and also um up in Lindstrom at the grill which is um associated with the golf course that's up there um our goals are maintain to maintain and expand our programming um while maintaining stability and financial growth provide salaries and benefits to attract and retain staff and I'm sure many of you are um involved with that in your work as well um and to stay engaged in the community and to really adjust our programming to meet Community needs we have three um areas that we have focused on for the last probably um I would say seven years enrichment is the first um we have youth first which is funded through a grant in Chisago County um at Four elementary schools it's a after school programming that is free so taking that barrier away and it's free um and then we have safety Camp which some of you may be aware of that's been around for 20 or 25 years it's the force Lake Police Department the fire department Community leaders and Lake Center that put that on and it's a one to two day event in the summer um in enrichment we've had 115 clients in 2023 um for 673 sessions intervention that core piece that we've had for years and years we have a contract with Chisago County with the attorney's office and um Washington County as well so they're the ones that refer to us so they um engage with youth that something has happened they make the decision whether they go into the court system or whether they're referred to us when they're referred to us they um the the youth and their parent or guardian come comes in and I say comes in it used to be um before Co it was um that they would physically come in and meet with our staff member and then of course we had to go completely virtual and we wondered well what's going to happen when they can come in 95% of our intervention clients are virtual they prefer that um you know Mom can be in one space dad can be another the youth and then our staff person and it's worked well we have less um or fewer Nosh shows and fewer cancellations um with the virtual option so that's great um we had 189 um youth that came through the Intervention Program um and I should mention too the force Lake Police Department also can refer directly to us as well and for 388 sessions we have another component of intervention and that is at Lynwood Elementary Lynnwood is in the forest lake school system and we have have a grant and we've just received um another grant for twice as much money so 150,000 over two years we have a full-time staff member there and what she does is looks at that intervention piece so if there's a first grade class um that has some behavior issues or she's in the lunchroom or in the playground or when you get on the bus think of all those places where um perhaps negative interactions can happen she also um what we call it intervention and prevention so she does a lot of things to prevent those things from happening so lot I just was up there this morning um and she does a fantastic job and she has lunch bunches so um kids sign up to talk to her about whatever is on a kindergartener mind that day or a fourth grader or whatever K through six is who she serves um as I said service projects they have a school Forest um which you may be aware of at Lynnwood um so one of their service projects let's research what birds are in our forest let's build bird houses that are appropriate and then let's put them out there um as well so that's just one example of many um and in 20123 she interacted with 252 students at Lynwood Elementary and then counseling is our last area um we have five full-time counselors um so these are are and there you know when we say counselors there's school counselors there's psychologists there's psychiatrists these are therapists that can bill for insurance they cannot prescribe medication like a psychiatrist can but they can bill um and they do Bill and we see them in our office we see them virtually and we have an inter agency agreement with Force Lake schools which we've had um probably since around 2003 so so parents make an appointment for their child our therapists go into the schools the child comes out of whatever class they're in has their 50-minute session and then they go back to class and so again it's to take away that barrier of time for parents Transportation um Etc and it's it is very successful we could probably use um three or four more counselors and they'd be filled by just going into the school um we had 214 clients in 2023 and 2,878 sessions um I'll also note we have a grant through inoka County that helps pay when um parents can't pay for the full amount because they have a high deductible they don't have insurance whatever the case they've run into just hard times at the moment um so we utilize that and then we also spend um last year year was 20 plus th000 for 29 clients for 257 sessions for those that just can't afford so we do not turn anyone away so those are our three areas of enrichment intervention and counseling um we are yeah pleased to be in the community working hard um and um as I say we're still we're still uh coming back financially from the pandemic but we feel we're on a very positive course and um again I would um be happy to answer any questions um now or in the future and I do have to say we have September 20th on our calendar and we will be here um with a with a booth and um and we will be ready to play Bingo yeah all right Linda I have a question what do you have to pay the school district for your offices oh um the lease for it I can I can get that number for you I don't note off the top of my head and I can get you the square footage and you know all of that please do okay and I think the service you do is really beneficial to the schools I hope it's a reasonable number so anyway anyone else I just had a question on how much do you think and you might not even know this off the top of your head but growth wise so starting in 1976 until now do you think you've grown 400% 20% well I think the first budget um and you know we we put together a book for our 45th anniversary and I think the first budget was 15,000 um our budget now is over a million um lots of the executive director was part-time Lots of volunteers um and it was it was much more there were many more programs that um I would say kind of student council like um that were at um the youth Service Bureau because the schools didn't have as many um as they do now and so it really was a gathering place right now it's very hard to compete with schools and athletic um you know teams Etc ER so we've really looked at those and um um have have eliminated them actually um just because there isn't the interest but what is their interest in and what can we what can we do and mental health certainly is one um we started that before there was kind of this awareness um but you know we sometimes have 30 to 40 um people on our weight list um and our counselors see youth as young as three and we have clients in their 80s so a wide range interesting thank you yeah Linda do you have an opinion of why there's so much need for this mental health stuff what has changed um I think a couple of things I don't know that it's changed but we have more of an awareness of the need and that there is help available um and I think um through the pandemic that conversation was just out there more and in many different situations um and I think that the youth are more willing to say um I'm struggling and I need some help that doesn't mean they need to go to a counselor like ours it might be a school counselor it might be a group at school it might be talking to their clergy but I think they're more um they're more willing to do that so there was a comparison um in it was it must have been 200 must have been 2020 the number of students the first day of school at the high school that came to their counselor came to the office and said um I'm really struggling and I need some help it was one um in 2022 um on the first day of school at the high school it was 35 so you know there there were probably some stressors that the pandemic created that weren't there before so I think that's part of it but also I think there's more conversation about it and it is um more acceptable to say I'm struggling and I need some help thank you Linda I uh I know a lot about the youth Service Bureau because uh if you remember Bill Hutton yes and uh Schwartz and all those guys you guys still have theft awareness programs or is that just so old the do we still have what theft awareness programs well you know it is in the um for our intervention youth um there are classes that they may take um and we've made it more um generic so it's choice and consequences um and that would fit into that um or they might have to write a letter of apology or you know that sort of thing well that's a great program and I I just remember being as a police officer back in the days that you didn't have nowhere to send these kids you know it's you know you keep seeing the same one over and over and over y then finally when Jim started that program and then it just kind of bloomed but I re I remember when it was over on Southshore Drive oh yeah that's when Bill Hutton was running it then then Barb and and Barb Swanson yeah yeah all of them great program though well and I was a you know a teacher in 81 and so um you know using um that service and I can say as particularly the director of teaching and learning and when I was superintendent most school districts do not have this option and so if you're in a school you know do you you know most schools don't have detention anymore um because doesn't work um and suspension many times doesn't do anything for the Youth that is struggling or getting in trouble it may give the adults and maybe some kids a break from that particular student but it's not necessarily helping that student and sometimes when they're staying at home um that's what could be in some cases a worst case for them than coming to school so having some options and having the force Lake Police Department as I'm sure many of you know um that's where we have our liaison officers um and have four um and I just need to say the force Lake Police Department is fantastic and um working together with that and um Chief Rick Peterson um is just finishing up his term as um chair of the board of um Lake Center and um having those um officers being being able to refer directly to us um and not having to go to the county um saves some time and I think we reach more um students as well and now shago county has agreed that um Neil Bower who's the chief in Wyoming that the Wyoming Police Department can refer directly to us um and we view that and Neil is also on um our board as well so that really helps when they understand what the organization is about can relay that um and we all look at it as trying to help Youth and trying to keep them out of the court system and making more positive decisions in the future yeah anyone else is in NOA County courts referring to you or no no and um we have they have been approached and they haven't been interested in that and I'm not sure why um I know um Chief um John Swenson who is the liono Lakes Chief is interested in doing that and is making some contacts um there so I'm not sure but that I know they've been approached in the past and it just I don't think fits into what they are are doing Linda is there a youth Service Bureau in stillw water there still is there still are there are there a lot out there in the Comm in the pet area not too many um um there's I think there's one other one um in the western suburbs um and the youth Service Bureau you know that's their name and they're located in still water and we used to be the youth Service Bureau um but we were we not we're two different organizations we are we've never been connected although there's been conversation about could we broaden our scope could we save money could we do whatever to come together um and there been some conversations about that but it's never happened but yes they are still active and serving that southern part of Washington County thank you yep anything else for us no well I want to say thank you I'm so glad that you came tonight so that I could uh reconnect with you about Fall Fest I'm so glad you're going to be able to come back again because it was quite a hit yeah well thank you and yeah we're we're thrilled to come back so thank you for asking us no thank you Linda do you want to give us a little advertisement we each got one of these oh good yes absolutely so taste is um really our first fundraiser of the year and it is at the Scandia creamy um so we try to have it in different locations in our service area it was there last year as well um the good news is is you know it's been hard especially during Co or after Co because restaurants could didn't have enough staff they wanted to participate but they didn't have enough staff well hope it seems like that's getting better so we have 14 restaurants that are signed up that will be there so you buy a ticket and then you go there and then you walk around and then you get to try all the food that they have brought with um that evening so um yeah come and join us at gig you want to get in I I know you had it out uh wine out lrom then he had it up at the bowling alley yeah up there yeah I think we've had the taste I think this is almost 20 years we've had the taste yeah it's well worth it very good thank you thank you thank you eight if everyone would look in your packet on pages 14 through 36 this is a driveway variance at 93671 189th Avenue and I think Ron you were there you were I've been to that I mean you were at the Planning Commission oh right it was you're the lead I was no it was Rob yeah Ron covered the meeting before um but uh you want me to talk about it I know most the council members were there uh but just the background of it janiny family um the is the applicant uh 9367 89th Avenue Northeast as a property they were requesting a variance uh to allow an additional lot of a single family home off an existing shared driveway that was already being shared by another neighbor um the applicant is hoping to pursue a subdivision of the 40 acre property uh to smell sell a a small portion I believe it was 5 acres of land uh to their child Adam um to uh build a home so their families could be nearby um so that was basically the gist of it was just they' be adding another uh residential home to that shared driveway so and uh the Planning Commission voted to approve that all right would you like to make the motion yeah definitely um so I move to approve variance for 9367 189th Avenue uh PID 25- 33- 22-42 2 -001 to increase the number of properties receiving access from an unimproved driveway from 2 to three in a residential rural zoning District subject to conditions set forth in the variant staff report PC 24-11 included as part of the application for the request I'll second that motion are there any questions anyone has or any discussion I think we mostly were at the meeting yeah I think yeah we were I was at the meeting I was virtual um I know that they covered everything um answered all the questions your neighbor is okay with it and yeah I think everything is everything is good I just thank you for your patience in our process because this is the third time apprciate it yep yep that was it no questions it was all really well put together and well explained so we really really appreciate that thank you I've been out to that place so you have to pack a lunch when you leave it is long in fact I'm glad to see you came through the snowstorm you made it out huh we have a guy we have a guy that plows that long driveway so I'll call for the vote Ron Ron I sue I Janet I Rob I and Jessie I we go congratulations soon as the snow melts you can Ste it in number four approval of the 2024 preliminary Fall Fest budgets pages 37 and 38 Jack would you like to explain thank you Mr Mayor after an absence of three years Fall Fest was resumed as the city of Columbus event in September of 2023 planning and organizing for the 2024 event has begun and certain expenses will need to be incurred prior to the conclusion of fundraising for this year's activities is requested that $6,000 be made available to cover the initial cost to be incurred prior to the collection of all fundraising donations from local businesses and donors the fallfest account finished 2023 with a balance of $1,392 And1 The City contribution for the 2024 event is $3,000 bringing the total cash available to $ 4,392 And1 as of today as indicated above the balance of $1,392 is currently available from last year's carryover along with the $3,000 allocation by the city for 2024 the fundraising Campaign Will generate the difference 16, $168 between the current cash on hand and expenditures to cover those needs and reservations deposit that will be encountered through May 2024 last year solicitations collected $1,325 it is anticip iated that the contributions for Fall Fest 2024 will exceed that amount as this year's fundraising will begin in April compared to last year's start which was toward the end of June the city contributed $33,000 to the event last year which provided $1,325 in total revenue is compared to $ 13,930 in expenses we' have confirmed that certain startup expenditures incurred last year will not recur in 2024 the elimination of these expenses should cut event cost by at least $3,400 it's expected that the 2024 fundraising will equal or exceed last year's total of $2,325 this amount coupled with the city's contribution of $3,000 and expense reduction of $3,400 will provide s sufficient revenues to cover the expenses for the vent City staff and event organizers are proposing a startup budget of $6,000 to pay for The Upfront expenses to beur incurred through May of this year for the preparation of Fall Fest 2024 anyone have any questions or discussion for Jack well I'm just going to make one clarification there were some expenses as we reviewed that got allocated to fallfest that probably need to be moved somewhere else so there's actually a little bit more cash on hand it's just that that the journal entries haven't been entered to move them around so though though those will be noticed that will give us more than the $3,400 so the $3,400 is the minimum and then the second thing is that um Jack and I are meeting with Lynn um Carver Quinn who's fundraiser extraordinaire and is chomping at the bit to get going again so we'll be meeting next uh Wednesday to sort of set set the I don't know set the gate and Turner loose so hopefully it will all turn on as well as it did last year I don't have any reason to believe it won't yeah no I definitely uh she was she was working the room at Columbus and uh you know getting people to get involved so she's naturally born that's for sure so I think the money sounds reasonable start praying for good weather we need two sunny days in September so I'll make a motion to approve the preliminary Fall Fest budget in the amount of $6,000 and use these funds to cover costs incurred for The Upfront expensive expenses incurred prior to the conclusion of fundraising for this year's activities is there a second this is Janet I second any other questions or discussion anyone I'll call for the vote Ron I sue I Janet I Rob I and Jesse I number five meeting times for Eda City Council meetings pages 39 and 42 through 42 Jack you're on you're up front again thank you quarterly Eda meetings are scheduled on the day of in 1 hour prior to City Council meetings on April 10th August 14th and November 14th of 24 also Workshop meetings are scheduled prior to the council meetings as Eda meetings are trending to be longer than the 1 hour time a lotted them Council meetings have been and can be delayed beyond their scheduled start times to avoid this conflict it is recommended that City Council meetings following Eda regular meeting meetings start either at 6:30 p.m. or that Eda meetings be scheduled for another time establishing a separate day for the E Eda means would be the recommendation to avoid those conflicts staff is requesting direction from city council as their preference to resolve this potential overlap of meetings there are some other conflicts in meeting schedules but we will take these up with the park board and the Eda and those can be adjusted internally but what we're looking to do is give these Eda meetings more time I think we're starting to get some more momentum with the Eda and there's more discussion and there's a lot more to work through so well I thought about um I mean it would make sense to do it it's nice to have it on the same night because then we don't have to come back another time however I think it would be confusing to everybody else to own to have our council meeting start at 6:30 you know four times a year um that should be eight times eight okay you have the EA workshops gotcha um so I I don't know I I mean it makes sense but I think it would be confusing so I I don't know really what my preference is I don't want to go to to Sue's point is it possible just to start that Eda meeting earlier rather than having the council meeting push back later that's always a possibility it it just depends on if it meets with the schedule of this group I did check with the two citizen members and they're open to meet on Thursdays if you want to move it to that day or if we can we can look at starting the meeting earlier uh instead of we could start at 4:30 yeah CU right now they start at 5: so we'd have to start at 4:30 gotcha which I mean I I could make it work it's it's a little bit harder though I don't know about you for because it's on would be on a Wednesday well my thought is that we always end up jamming everything together Suddenly It's qu after 6 and we're only halfway through so what do you do I can come another night and I don't like it anymore anybody else but you know in for diamond for or started at 4:30 started at it's just that there's a lot now there seems to be so much stuff about Eda to do you know over the last five six years you just do nothing now things are happening so if we're cramming everything in and cutting it all short I want more time I don't care where I get it but let's make some decisions and and whatever I know it's harder for you to because you're online and you're on the road yeah but so what's the best thing another night or a start at 4:30 or 4:00 or whatever because I think the board meetings will still be as busy as they have been nothing's going to slack off of this work it doesn't look like so and if you keep going till it's 9:30 at night and you've had two meetings everybody's tired and you think you make decisions that aren't as good and plus you're killing yourself so I don't know Janet what do you think I'm flexible I can do whatever I mean I can do it on Thursdays I can come earlier I mean whatever works for everybody else is fine with me Ron well I I was just thinking that usually when we have a workshop the day before we usually clean up a lot of the stuff that we're going to discuss at the council meeting I mean it's already been discussed yeah and we get in there and it makes it kind of quicker well would we just have the Eda Workshop on a different day cuz we do kind of a combined Eda Council Workshop but are you suggesting we split those we still have the council Workshop the day before because that does work well that that would be the idea of this I think sometimes when you combine them you don't get enough time to get everything to go through so same problem happens with the workshop yeah and and again again the the object would be to either start the Eda Workshop or Eda quarterly meetings earlier or to move it to a different date and again it's going to depend on people's schedules whatever we can work out with everybody well maybe what we could do with the workshop is just you know hold the workshop prior to the meeting you could that way you could kind of like what race Creek does uh isn't it Rice Creek somebody does it where oh no it's Forest Lake that does their workshop like and hour or two hours before their meeting so they do their workshop first and then they do their their meeting so maybe we could do that for Eda and then it would still just be for four additional meetings for additional meeting nights so the workshops would still be on Wednesday no they're on Tuesdays with our other Workshop correct so where Whenever Wherever You Move the Eda meeting you'd have the workshop an hour or two hours or however you want to do it beforehand so the workshop and the meeting would be the same night you just do the workshop first for just for Eda not for councel y so you would do an Eda Workshop no council meeting oh because it's on a Tuesday yeah you do an Eda workshop and then if there was a meeting scheduled for that time you know for those four times you do a workshop then the meeting just Eda then you don't have eight meetings you only have four start it early start your started at 4:30 so we have an hour and a half to do the Ed Eda things hang on I'm confused yep I am I it would work if you move the E okay start start over move the Eda meeting to a different day okay so if it's on a Thursday say you could do the you could do the workshop prior to the Eda meeting and then do the meeting so you'd have four Thursdays a year that you do Eda all things Eda I don't know if we'll run into confusion though or you know with the fireboard you know that's quarterly or it can be up more and that's on Thursdays at 5:00 board is usually the next one is April 18th 6:00 p.m. or you could do it on Tuesdays and just do it a different Tuesday we move them to six or five the last one was at 5:00 yeah I think we moved that up because then Elizabeth didn't have to hang around as long or Jack a tax meeting on April 18th y cancel that hang on but anyway well a couple of us can skip out of this and go yeah okay not the end of the world I guess so if we did and I kind of like that idea of doing them both together on a Thursday a separate night but not on the same week that we would have a regular workshop on a Tuesday so we'd have Tuesday Wednesday Thursday in the same week would that happen I I would let's not let's not have that happen let's not schedule it so it's three days in a row that's when I start to [Laughter] go all right I'm up for that I'm down for that does that work for you rob yeah all right what do you need a motion or yeah since this is an approved schedule we need a motion to change it uh the schedule is not approved by resolution so we can just do a motion here to change those meeting times and make that part of the new city meeting schedule what do you want to give us four Thursday dates and we can make sure that that or do you want the actual dates or do you just want to say TBD why don't we just refer to it as Eda meetings and Eda workshop and then we'll adjust this and send it out to everyone Mr Mayor and councel um since the meeting dates are approved at the beginning of the year um by schedule you would need to come back then with a specific schedule yeah have it be part of your next agenda bring for publication or in approve so are we just are we just directing staff to come back with dates that we can approve then so it's not really a motion it's just a direction that that that that's fine too e either way so so here I'll direct staff to look at uh moving the Eda workshop and meeting to a Thursday concurrent with one another Workshop first then um Eda meeting and not the same week that we have the council workshop and council meeting I'll second any other questions or discussion now I'm confused what do you think Ron well I it's not what I think the workshop's going to be on a Thursday and the meeting and the meeting of the Eda same day same day so the workshop is cons is dealing with Eda yes oh it's not our Workshop correct for the council we're gonna split it because we've had we've had combined workshops for Eda and Council we've run into the same problems we run in we run out of time for Eda because we have to start our Council Workshop okay yeah I'm okay no problem call for the vote Ron I sue I Janet I gra I and Jesse I and this is just for direction and then you'll come back with the schedule cut it and because it's mid year we we need to publish it we avoid publication when we set the meeting schedule for the year at your organizational meeting but changes mid year will need to be published well I think that's a good idea though because there seems to be so much going on all the time if if we have a nice evening just for Eda stuff you can Hammer through a lot of things make decisions get it done and sometimes you're forced to make decisions because you got the council meeting coming well that's not good either though all right uh city engineer report Kevin uh good evening mayor and council members just one quick item um just wanted to bring to your attention and I don't know if Jack has received this notice yet but Forest Lake is conducting an open house for Eureka Avenue on Monday April 15th from 4:30 to 6:30 and so I was I was notified by their city engineer of this meeting and uh if if you would like to have me attend or if you would plan to attend as well I guess maybe just some direction on uh I have no problem attending that open house and I guess obviously it's open house so anybody can attend so did you say April 15th or 16th 15th tax day okay so if you have your taxes done then you should be able to go on Monday what time is it 4:30 to 6:30 thank you and we haven't received that notice yet so yeah you probably will receive it at some point in the okay and where is it at I'm just going to say that you probably said all those things to us at least once and now you get to say it again U at City Hall and their conference room all right yeah we can go up there and see what they're doing why not I remember when it was a dirt road you remember we used to swim in the in the uh ponds that are now 35 W and 35 e so it's all an improvement compared to that yeah and yeah then they just thr recycle uh asphalt on it for a while right just think anything else Kevin that's all I have but before we go on there's another item before that and there's a proposed agenda for our work meeting for April the 9th it's item number six on the on the top skipped over sorry and all I'm asking is if those are the topics you want to discuss if you want to add any more or you want to delete any of them uh can I ask what's on there because I think I've got a couple things that I'd like there are two items for you there's the uh Corridor study Lake Drive Corridor study and the water system Improvement study report correct and then there's also we want to discuss that ordinance Amendment for chapter 14 for the septic changes and I don't think we're going to have a lot and I thought about initially leaving this off because it could be dominate the whole thing but there will be an update on the Cannabis ordinance we've reached out to nine surrounding municipalities to see what their status is to see if anybody's got any kind of ordinance in place and contacted the league again of course everybody's still waiting on the league and we'll just kind of give an update on that I'd like to leave that on there if we can if we don't have time to do it we can postpone it but those are the four items I would like to propose for the work meeting so item four is just staff Le excuse me item four that the Cannabis is just staff Le correct okay and what we'll do we'll give a report on what the status of with the surrounding communities most of them are like us everybody's in a holding pattern the city of isan has actually done one and we'll have that just for everybody's review okay great thank you and Mr Mayor and Council this doesn't need to change the items um I just would note that we receive the uh ordinance Amendment for chapter 14 today so that would be a week turnaround on a pretty extensive ordinance it's beautiful though I've been working hard with with cariss on and and you're going to look at and go there's nothing to do here it's perfect and that would be great so um we will endeavor to get it done in a week um but just uh just a note we love beautiful [Laughter] ordinances clean and concise all right sorry I skipped that so that's fine that'll keep us busy a couple hours and that was it from you Kevin se Attorney report Bill Mr Mayor and councel a couple things first an update on the Columbus Apartments um we were endeavoring to uh get ready for a April 15th closing and um we had held a meeting um virtual meeting during the snowstorm uh with staff and all the parties involved the haros who have a purchase agreement with the city the Fishers which wanted to step into the shoes of the henos um two things have kind of disrupted that schedule one is the financing markets still haven't opened up um interest rates are still high the FED has not lowered interest rates and so initially the fiser family was looking for a longer Runway to start the project as they got into the project details the plans and admittedly um kind of late in the due diligence period they said the the plans did not were not efficient uh did not work for them in terms of their architectural review because um they essentially want uh to change unit sizes unit mix and maximize the number of units to 159 uh units which is allowed um under the current zoning so with that um we said well that would uh necessitate a trip back through the Planning Commission and city council and so essentially you wouldn't be stepping into to the approvals of the haros um those changes were too significant to just essentially run by the council you know and and have you bless them so they understood that they expected that um response from us as a city and so they they essentially said well we would still like to work with you we would like to build this project um but if we're going to submit um new plans then we would need you know approximately 120 days to do that so our options are to um terminate cancel the the purchase agreement with the har jenos which we would recommend in any case there's been any number of extensions um they certainly have had plenty of swings at the at the project um and uh and to continue working with the Fisher family um and the fiser family as we noted back in November has significant real real estate experience uh they have a number of uh properties under management 6 point or 5.5 billion of retail and medical assets under management they've invested over the years in 5,000 apartment units and they have now taken on their own as a developer for projects in the metro area and in and in Mano so if if you prefer not to follow that option so in any case we we think it's time to cancel the purchase agreement with the arenos and I don't think they'll find it as a surprise if you would like us to negotiate with the Fisher family we'll we'll do that straight away they have a high degree of interest in in developing here um or the third option would be to Simply go back to the market and see who comes out uh you know we'd probably have to do more than our our signs you know we might consider a broker we might consider a broker for multiple sites um so that's really what we're looking for direction on I think the advantage you know one advantage of working with the fish is they've done a fair amount of due diligence they seem to be capable they're willing to you know work with the standards that exist in that District we told them that there was no going to be no reduction in materials and quality that was well vetted the last time around um and one of the things we also noted on the conversation is that the park fees will be under the new park fee schedule so there won't be any break on Park fees and that means about $150,000 to our our Parks Park fund um so to recap what the um cost the um benefits to the city would be we'd have a known developer in hand uh we would have an $800,000 purchase price $150,000 of Park fees or thereabouts and approximately $200,000 of special assessments so a decent return to the city doesn't mean that by putting it back on the market we could wouldn't do better but uh we wouldn't have a closing in 120 days would be my guess it would be more like you know next year sometime and you know that's probably a best guess so that's the um that's the update we're looking for your direction uh first of all to concur with the recommendation that we cancel the existing purchase agreement and second whether or not to continue working with the fiser family kind of lost your bill that so if we cancel that deal that 10 and 15 or 20,000 that they gave us one of these extensions we keep correct okay so how much did we get 20 we got 10 uh when they extended last year and then at the end of the year we asked for another 10 in order to extend the purchase agreement that's still alive so so we got 10 and there's 10 in escrow and we have costs um so the question would be would we recover those costs through the escrow or would we recover the cost directly I did say on the call that um we expect to recover our cost whether or not this purchase agreement is alive because those costs were incurred by the city so the haros want out is what I'm hearing so we either let it run out or we cancel it and the end result is the same with the harchenko right uh correct the statute um that's applies here requires cancellation so there's actually a form of cancellation we would wait until April 15th which is the closing date then on April 16th we'd send a notice of cancellation okay and then with the Fishers would they enter into a purchase agreement that would just have a longer uh end date or would they move forward with a cup PUD application I mean how does that work do they do they do both things at the same time or yes they would want land control in order to make an application so the first step would be to enter into a purchase agreement probably on very similar terms maybe probably less due diligence time period because they've already done a fair amount of due diligence but the 120 days is for them to get through our process and and we made it clear at least I think it was clear that the reason we would do that is because we want to close with you on the property whether or not you bill this year we want to have that transaction closed is otherwise then we just go back to the market if you're not interested in buying the property at the end of that 120 days then the city would sit on the property Market the property you know go off to our other apartment developers other users um so that's um that message was the city wants to be able to close on this property they've extended the purchase agreement many times and and I think that message got through to them and I I agree with Bill that was clearly conveyed that that was the time frame that we were looking at and our expectations okay and then um is it your sense that they are going to stick with the building material quality and I mean because you know that's where we fell apart with Apollo is they you know propos something and then when they were crunching their numbers it's like oh we need more units and less brick so um you don't at least anticipate that I know anything can happen but I mean I'm a little worried just with the increase of unit size because I thought that's where we ran into problems with parking we couldn't provide enough parking for and I think Apollo also tried to hit to that maximum if I remember correctly too yeah they they would like to decrease unit size and increase unit uh number so with less bedrooms probably less Les people perhaps less cars I mean that that analysis needs to be done and one of the reasons we said you need to go back through the process so we can see everything you're proposing um we did indicate that and I can if if we if if we get direction to keep working with the Fishers I can reiterate that the building material standard was of Paramount importance the last time around and and would be this time as well I do think I'm just going to comment that we our parking standards are some of the highest that I've seen SE um two per unit is pretty high for the Metropolitan average it's usually 1 1.5 1.1 1.3 so there may be some some ability to play with that um the council did agree to a proof a parking plan on the last one so maybe there's a a dynamic where some of that shifts into the proof of parking plan um so I expect them when they get down to you know final number crunching they will look at that 2.0 requirement and going and say that we're on the high end mhm also our our um dimensions for some of those parking spaces are larger our argument is that you know more people have larger vehicles in the northern suburbs and and some of the out Outer rank communities all I have to do is look in this parking lot there's more trucks here you know than than others so you know those are the areas where we're going to have discussion and ultimately the Planning Commission the council will decide but I I think I think to your point council member it is important for having gone through two developers now um that we convey that one of the areas that we don't want to compromise on are the building standards so if you don't think you can meet our building standards then really you you don't need to yeah to waste your time and our time and they're still looking at market rate correct yes okay y so Phill is this is wouldn't turn out to be a high ve piece of property where they have to build it yes we have changed our um you know it's the fool me once concept we have changed our approach to purchase agreements and we would do so as I Jack Davis and I have already talked about on the other side of the highway um and that is a right to repurchase so if they don't start in a given amount of time we're going to exercise a right to repurchase to get our property back so that doesn't sit um undevelopable and and you know when people push back I hope the council agrees with that that approach that we need to have a right to move the property into development yep all that does is push them a little right speed them up either cut or fish or cut bait or gives them an end date and it and it gives a real remedy rather than just you know calling HIV saying when are you going to build and you know we we we definitely wanted Hive and and we asked for a right to repurchase and they said no uh now we're just telling developers that's the price of playing in this market sorry so go ahead no I was just going to say on the um and I'm okay with the um um canceling the agreement with harchenko the other one you know going forward if we weren't going to go with them and we had to put it back on the market and go through that whole process again we may end up with them anyway right because it's been I mean it was on the market we we didn't have a lot of um companies that came to us a couple did and and we were we didn't go with them um so what I'm saying is we're not going to get a flood of options coming if we did open it up probably this one or I don't know if there would be any other ones but but you know this it's been tied up in a purchase agreement for what pretty much three years over two years yeah I mean so you couldn't entertain another buyer anyway so I it was tied up with Apollo for a year or more and then there was a little break and then harchenko came in so I don't I have no idea what the what the interest might be because it hasn't really been available I think Apollo and Har ankos are the same thing though right they are there was another developer prior to yeah prior to I'm sorry yeah no I knew what you meant and Ebert wanted us to give them the world in return for them to put some shitty building in our facility yes you know indeed um how do you really feel about that oh I just they they were trying to break down our standards I mean you you went through it excuse my l no no I agree it was it was a good one to walk away from yeah I you know you could go either way because um you know it's been a while um and we expect the FED to start taking some action but until they do um you know we don't really have another bird in the hand this is the bird in the hand and and I would recommend that if you decide not to go with either one that you do a much more fome look at marketing Brokers you know really go back to square one because you know we do expect at some point things are going to loosen up in the financing markets and that this is still a good apartment site so really it's your your call you could even um we could wait the two weeks to till April 15th and um we could have a discussion you know even at the Eda or otherwise I just as long as the Fisher family is kind of on the line I'd like to be fair to them and say Yes we'd like to negotiate with you until we have a purchase agreement you know until we cancel a purchase agreement and have a new one the land isn't really tied up is the market value of that property pretty much the same as it was when we started down this path with the hard Enos I mean so if they just made a similar offer we would still that's still a good offer for today's rates or yes I mean I I think the answer is yes but you can always um we're looking at the partial across you know that's closer to City Hall here that's across from holiday and as we look look at that value and update those values we could also do the same the um the two things that affect you know so when you're looking at a piece like hi ve which was higher value it's a small smaller parcel for for high value um commercial use it's always going to be different than a larger parcel that's for an apartment project and we had those two prior developers asking for City subsidy and in this case the Fisher family is not asking for a subsidy so the question is when you add up to $800,000 purchase price to $200,000 of Assessments and now 1.5 potenti or 150,000 of Park fees you're over a million5 something like that so so you know it's it's getting to the point where we're back to is it going to pencil out yeah no okay okay Bill I'm one of the people who thinks the bird in the hand is better than starting pound in for sales says so how do we proceed if the yeah if the council gives us that direction um we will work um over the next couple of weeks to terminate the existing purchase agreement and enter into a new purchase agreement we'll have to bring that to you um for approval we would likely do that in a closed session although we've been pretty open right here about the numbers um and and that would be just like you've gone through on any other the sites that you've sold and then with that goahead if they know that they they can get the site under control I mean they talked in the call about um having the Architects look at the design in the interim so they were talking about investing some time time with their Architects over the next couple of weeks because they they said to us we said okay you want you want time to build if the Market's slow but they said our objective is to break ground in 2024 and if not in 2024 to break ground in 2025 they don't want to keep pushing it out because they're sitting on an asset then that that's not returning anything to them do you need two separate motions for this one to to cancel the purchase agreement and one to move forward with the Fishers or yes so then I would I would uh move to um proceed with canceling the purchase agreement with the henos I'll second any other questions Ron Ron I sue I Janet I robbi and Jesse I and then I would move to have you uh proceed to um uh start working with the fishers on a new a new purchase agreement and uh application for cup PUD I'll second that any other questions yeah I just have a question what what's the name of their development firm is it like the fam Fisher Family Foundation or is it it's uh dlf Investments LLC okay thank you thank you and and then one other thing so now by doing this we're allowing essentially Haren go to sub lead or they're pretty much just handing off what what they had P forth or they're going to have to come through our whole process of building standards again because you You' said they're looking to do lesser units smaller unit sizes they'll have to come through that whole approval process yes before we say yeah we'll sell it send you sell you the land is that correct the prior arrangement was they were going to step into the plans and position of the harchenko development and and their ownership and now they've decided to push that aside because it's not it's not feasible for them okay thank you anything else anyone I'll call for the vote Ron I sue I Janet I Rob I and Jesse I and I dismissed was there a second on the second motion yes yeah Sue or me one of the two yeah there was a tie no she was first I was first yeah but then I heard it doesn't matter we got it well we got it well seconded it's all seconded up seconded up on first Perfect all right anything else yes just uh I sent to you an email earlier today with a a brief legislative update so we have bills woohoo y so I'll just give you a quick recap you can you can look at that uh email if you want to look them up online oh perfect and it worked well it did I it didn't say a lot I I couldn't find where the actual bill was okay but it says up at the top as introduced and that is where you click for the language all all right thanks so so we have um two bills on the Hornsby project um one is a bill that is for uh bonding uh to include it to be included in state bonding that amount would be the 615,000 the number we've been using um and the second is for a a cash appropriation and the reason the strategy is you do both because in the last couple years when there's been extra cash they've made cash Appropriations rather than adding to the bonding requests so that's two bills on uh Hornsby and then one bill on the fiscal fiscal disparities relief program we have another version that's kind of um pending that would be a pilot of sorts it would be an a NOA County only um bill so then the cost of the program would be much less and it would be kind of on on a trial there's no end date we didn't specify an end date that bill has not been introduced it might be offered um if we start to get push back on the on the larger bill so it gives us a total of six bills introduced three in the Senate and three in the house so we're it's like March Madness we're at the dance and now thank you the next step would be to get hearings on the bills in in both bodies so we're working with our authors the nice thing about the uh Hornsby bills is Senator KW was able to find multiple um co-authors so I saw he had quite a nice list yeah so and and I believe he did on the fiscal disparities as well so he he worked to get multiple authors so we appreciate that just send them a thank you well we can all we can all go down to the Rusty bumblebee or whatever it whatever it's called and celebrate if he pulls this one offy bumblebee that's his uh isn't that his Tavern that he owns in Blaine I think it is isn't it C we to look that up yeah it is yes anything else not the rusty cow that's all I have not the rusty cow I've been there too that's a good one but it's not that Public Works report Jim uh just a little update mayor and Council enforcement sure did want to do yours first hold that okay Ron anything May report no nothing um I'm going to let Janet do the Personnel committee report but I may have comments as she goes along uh Ron and I went to the fire fireboard last Thursday nothing drastic there's a little bit of an uptick in cardiac arrest and I said is that cuz so many old people live up here or not he said no it's all fenel everybody's loading up on fent having heart attacks so anyway other than that it's the same old thing and I can't believe that they put their report on black you know how how much ink yeah no kidding that used truck backed up to my house and filled my tanks yeah but it has sort of the look of a fire right it does what is very cool but yep that's for Lake and he said everything on the other side of the doors where the fire trucks are he said that's all great the response times are quick and there's a whole list of them and everything is good the hard part of course is doing the paperwork which is never ending and ever more but I think everybody was in good spirits yeah as in addition to Jesse's comments I did reach out to Mr Newman and he will be at our April 24th council meeting to go over some of the proposed cost for some of the equipment they want to buy and the positions they're proposing to apply for a grant and uh he will go over those with the council to show what budget impacts they would have and I forgot Jack was at the meeting with with us so it was all three of us we had them cornered we had them boxed so the biggest possible expense coming up I have to share this because it just kills me it's a $200,000 electric car fire putter outer what when is that the technical name of it when the electric cars start on fire they're like 5,000 degrees I think he said yeah and there's a a little hole somewhere the size of a quarter and the fire blows out of there like a rockow torch oh my gosh and he said if that's parked in a garage or under an apartment building or under anything you cannot even get in there to do anything about it so there's a robot firefighting robot and supporting equipment 200k so anyway it's kind of on a wish list and there's also a uh Public Safety money available for that but he says the more of these things they build more of these electric cars the more it becomes important and there hasn't been any around Minnesota I think he said that that he had had record of but somewhere electric car pulled under a bridge in California probably and melted the cement Bridge they had to replace the whole Bridge because the heat of that oh my gosh the battery yep of the battery so we can't just ban electric cars here we can but I don't know we got a vote you got to make a motion I sure would so anyway that was our meeting that night it was pretty good yeah are they gonna have a name the robot contest Sparky you could just you could think of some really good ones I think with with that did they bring up like uh you know rechargeable batteries like lithium ion batteries for say or DeWalt or Milwaukee or whatever I know that's kind of been an uptick of fire cause my wife always says do you unplug your battery chargers before we go to bed you know he did bring up one point that uh if you stick with the vender that you get whatever like your phone with their Chargers most of the fires they see come from these what do they call them aftermarket after aftermarket ones is that's where a lot of the fires are starting that they're seeing but it was just amazing that he said they had like 200 apart no 20 apartment buildings Underground underground and we're going to have one over here so maybe we'll use that $200 y robot well when you think of it if that was blown out of there 5,000 degrees well he said it it just destroyed a whole building they said the whole building be shot yeah so what do you do you get Sparky yeah uh report wise yep uh yeah so last Friday I attended the Met Council State of the State event um I had a special invite um but uh so what came out of that is they had a presentation of what's going on with the Met Council um some of the highlights were 36% of projects that were permitted in the state of Minnesota uh were built around Transit whether that's Rail lines or bus lines um which is a big number they said 53,000 residential units have been built around met Council Transit um in the last couple years uh in the last year 45 million rides uh have been taken uh via the train or tram whatever you'd like to call it uh rail um they spoke of some livable communities grants that are available through met Council um there's also money available um to create City centers for communities that don't typically have a city center I know we've talked about you know where's our downtown what is what is that um they said they'll be raising up to $22 billion uh here annually 85% of that will be to sustain existing transit systems whether that be the green blue gold expansions uh bus systems and things of that nature um and was able to sit on and have conversations with our former met council rep sento uh who spoke highly of everyone here on the council that she had met um was able to make connections with Gail sederberg or cedarberg uh who is our current rep she lives out of a Mei area and I'm not sure if it was a workshop I wasn't at did we have met Council come in at all to do some sort of presentation we haven't since Sue left us okay Sue had been out so maybe it was Sue saying that she had been here but Gail was expressing if there's anything we needed from her um I was able to write some of the things you know that were important to us whether it's Parks walking trails things like that that we were looking to you know possibly get grants for or whatever it may be um I did make connection uh with a couple individuals I brought up the fact that um you know bringing possible sidewalk down Notre Dame um from the school to the park to connect those two um was able to actually have good conversations around that about how we can possibly apply through grants through them uh to make uh more accessible sidewalks and avoid people walking on the street and using sidewalks um so I'll I'll keep continuing them conversations thank you rob you said she's going to raise 22 million from where so the 22 million uh was it million or billion that was that was what the M council is going to it's billion that's what they'll raise to contribute back into the M Council that's through taxpayer dollars oh I don't know why they call it raising more like leving so 22 billion more taxes for trails and then did anybody say what the cost per Rider is on that train stuff they did not no next time you're down there push them yeah no definitely like a 100 bucks a ride from the stuff I read yeah and for light rail did no no to write on the that's what it costs to run the trains per Rider did we get reached out to attend that thing so I'd only heard about it through a coworker that sits on met Council for we get the council at like what every week we get a met counil updator every couple weeks through our email yeah so if you read that I think it was put in there but sure well that would be just two good points to ask him okay next time you're down there absolutely bannett you're up well okay um you're skipping above you're skipping uh do you want I I don't have anything for my report do you want to do public works and then I'll do the person we actually have it as an agenda item as the personel committee difference me if you want to go go okay I don't care um Okay so I will I will just go so we have a in your packet on page 44 there's a Personnel committee report there's two items on here the first is requires action the second does not it's just a informational thing um the one that is going to require action is on our counting assistant so this was a position that was approved in January um this is the it's a new position we haven't had before to work um with Cheryl um and really take over some of the day-to-day accounting tasks the accounts payable accounts receivable payroll things like that so that she can focus on the higher level accounting um needs as well as generating reports and doing some forecasts and things like that that we have wanted for a long time um as a council and have not had the ability to get for the most part because because she's too busy trying to do everything else um so we posted the position on uh February 23rd we had a tremendous response we posted in a number of places there were 71 resumés that were submitted most of these were through indeed every single one of them got a response um from me saying thanking them for the response and and directing them to submit their applications through our recruitment website 29 um people did do that so there were 29 applications that were completed that included a resume and a um application and a cover letter those were evaluated and scored by sherff and by Jack and then um from that group eight were eight applicants were invited to interview there were two people that were invited but didn't respond and so there were a total of six candidates that were interviewed um the interviews were done um over a a two-day period three of them were done um with council member wagaman present and three of them were done with me and the other two people were um Jack and and Cheryl that were part of the the um uh interview team I have to say this was really an exceptional pool of candidates there was really um a number of people that could have that could have success been successful in this position but we got a person who was like a dream candidate she came to us um having worked in four other uh cities in an accounting position she also Al uh worked as a as a clerk City Clerk and a Treasurer she knows Banyon which is the um accounting system that we that we use she's done Utility Billing in fact she loves Utility Billing um and she so pretty much she does everything and has done everything and has done it for many different cities and also can do elections in her spare time so she was very excited about um about coming here and uh we um I think we'll be very fortunate to get her I believe she came in and filled on all her paperwork and so what we need tonight is a motion to extend an offer of employment um to her her name is um is Mary tomnitz she is a resident of Scandia but her daughter lives here in Columbus and her husband had a business here in Columbus so she knows our area quite well and um and she's very excited to start working so you anything else you want to add add that um I will move to approve the recommendation of the Personnel committee for the hire of Mary tets to the full-time position of accounting assistant at step one of the 198 Point payscale grade of 25 $ 25.91 per hour with Benefits subject to the completion of a satisfactory background check and I'll second that I have one question or yeah a question how long does this background check take we got notice from the sheriff's department that it could take up to three weeks we were in the process of getting references for some private firms they can do this and possibly turn it around in two days so hopefully I'll have that information received by tomorrow and we can reach out to them and get this done and hopefully maybe get the results back by the 1 of next week and then she would start on the 8th is that correct correct okay anybody um I just had the question as far as this money is in our budget that we just currently approved okay yeah so when we came forward in January we said that we would um we have a budget that we had um set aside for a planner uh planning associate and we've not hired that position and we're still kind of on hold for hiring that so we were going to use those funds okay and it so it's budget neutral and remain with using Dean as currently okay and and Ellie as the Ellie y okay thank you so we have a motion and a second any other questions or discussion we'll call for the vote Ron I sue I Janet I robbi and Jesse I and then the second thing is just really an update um so as you know we have the city administrator position um posted it closed on Monday the 25th at midnight night um we actually received a very uh healthy response to this posting as well there were 38 résumés that were submitted um 24 of these came in through indeed we had seven that uh were uh funnel to us through the league of Minnesota cities or government jobs.com we had four from uh personal uh personal referrals one from LinkedIn and then two we we didn't know where they came from so there were 16 complete applications that we evaluated we scored them yesterday and did a marathon session online to discuss every single one of them and have selected six that would move forward as semi-finalists um I can't tell you who they are because at this point this is still confidential information but what will happen is that we'll be SK we'll be notifying these people that they were semi finalists we'll be setting up video interviews um during the week of April 12th and through the 16th those video interviews will be done by Ellen henrix when she's when she's back they will be recorded and then you all will get access to those as well as to the application packets and we will set up a special meeting to decide who our two finalists will be and I think one of the things we need we should do tonight is set a date for that special meeting so the thought I had was that if we're doing interviews um 412 through 4:16 um we could look at our honor around our April 24th council meeting um you could do it at a council meeting if you think you want to tag it onto everything else that's on the agenda or we could look at the day before the council meeting which is a Tuesday um I looked at my calendar I don't think there's a workshop schedule that day but we could do a spe we could call a a special meeting for April 23rd and then that would be the only um point of business that we would be conducting when you get everything it's going to be deidentified again because they're semi-finalists so it'll be a you know recorded meeting and and and public can attend if they want to so we'll be discussing them as candidate a b c d not as people okay so you're your thought is that we would um the interviews will take place between the 12th and the 16th mhm and then everybody has to review the videos and the all the information and be ready to discuss on that special meeting well that's one way it's it's a tight timeline but otherwise then it pushes on another two weeks so it we can do we can do it if we want to push it on another two weeks we certainly can do we have to discuss it at a city council meeting or I I'm just wondering why why would we have to go two more weeks uh you mean to do another a special meeting we could we could do the special meeting in between two if there was a day that worked for everybody but is it something we have to so we're going to have to vote on it okay yeah we'll have to vote on it and then so that'll narrow narrow down the candidates to two finalists and then the two finalists will be brought in for in-person interview with the council there will be a um opportunity for the staff to meet with them and and talk to them and then a opportunity for them to um be addressed by the public as well that I at least that was the plan that we put forth when we kind of uh laid out the search process okay so I say it's a pretty important decision for everyone like but Sue brings up a really Sue brings up a really good point I mean you're probably talking about if you actually watch the interviews you're probably talking about close to six hours of interviews because it'll be about 45 minutes a piece and then you'll have you know their resume their application their letters of reference their um cover letter to look at and then um what I'm hoping we'll have prepared and I know that Ellen is planning to do this is sort of a summary of her impressions I also think there will be the um uh the assessment that she would give each of these two and I think that the results from that would be in there too the job skills assessment we could could we share the resumés of those candidates prior to 16th that way they could um start reviewing we we can we're going to have to De identify them oh yeah I think isn't that the rule you have to D you everything has to be uh confidential until they're named as finalists I would check with Megan yeah yeah I that's my understand we could talk about it at our personel committee meeting next week yep yep but I think and we can we can pick two weeks from now to talk about this too but then you know it's just pushing it out and and there's nothing wrong with that we can certainly push it out we have a very capable interim but I uh I am anxious to get this resolved so we can move forward so what so if you thought about the 25th of April possibly th that would work that would work D doesn't have to be a Tuesday 5:00 or 5:30 or and it's a special meeting so we're taking action we don't have to you know often times we do our work shop and then we do the the action item and we don't need to do it that way for this we'll be calling a special meeting so you're going to be taking action you don't need to have it be like the next day is the council meeting so that would be the night that candidates come we've already read everything no no you'll it'll be the night that you will have gotten access to the videos and all the paperwork and then we will meet to discuss the six semi-finalists and choose two of from those six to move on to be finalists yeah and there will be no recommendation from the Personnel committee you will get everything we've gotten and you can you will all you will all have an equal opportunity to weigh in so after you guys at your next meeting on Tuesday right then tell us what what do you think we should do no no no we we don't schedule or do you want to schedule that meeting tonight we either can schedule it tonight or you can say we're not going to schedule tonight we're going to wait for two weeks and we'll schedule it at our next Council council meeting so we're practically on April 1st rent so if you go for two more weeks on the 18th is our lbee meeting Thursday well just remember the videos are going to take place the 12th through the 16th so you can't have it before that anyways and you got to have some time after that for us to put it all together and for you to have time to review it so what does everybody think of the 25th we're back to that or Monday the 22nd how are these videos coming do we have to come down on the council here to see them no you'll be able to online yeah well actually we could go any of that week Monday the 22nd 23rd Wednesday the 24th another city council meeting so cross that off Monday Tuesday 22 23 or 25 that makes sense to anybody um I'm in Washington DC that whole week but if it's available by Zoom I'd be able to attend I was planning to attend the council meeting is it is that for the hiring process meeting is that yeah we don't we don't want to have you not be involved in that so we'll yeah I'll be gone that whole so then we have to be looking at the week of the 29th yes well how's Monday the 2th what about the 29th is that work um Monday so that's a Monday I wouldn't be able I wouldn't be able to be here until it'd have to be after 6 how about Tuesday the 30th don't we have 10 we have LBA M oh wait that was a hold for an LBA is that when it is yeah the LBA is it the isn't that oh so that's just a hold let me get r I can make the 30th work yeah let's do the 30th Tuesday sorry to push that off but yep that's good what time do we want 5:30 or 6 what day is this 5:30 this is Tuesday the 30th we had tax that day well I think we had it as a possible date but they chose a different one I had it on my calendar too yeah because our next meeting is May something and that's at what time whatever time you want 5:30 okay nobody gets supper till we're done so Jack can you post that for us please we'll post it and get it called okay I think 5:30 in the morning is a good time 5:30 a.m. all right fat chance you'll see me at that time what was that day April 30th okay Mr Mayor and Council if you do that by a motion that would be helpful so I would move to uh set a special council meeting um for 5:30 p.m. on April 30th to select uh the two finalists from the six semifinalists for the city administrator this is Su all second any other questions or discussion I'll call for the vote Ron I sue I Janet I Rob I and Jesse I that would do it for me all right now J thank you for all your hard work for oh yeah thank you both for it is I mean it took a village believe me it was actually it was a really good discussion and I am so grateful we have we have a very good pool to select from so nice y we were nervous about that I know we were nervous about that but well till Monday afternoon what's that till Monday afternoon yeah I know know I think it was the right decision for us to do this on our own and not I don't think we would have got any better results with the search firm good to hear it always makes it fun to hire people when you have a good pool and you're not you're not forcing something you know like they'll they will work but it's not what I was hoping for well and it's also nice that there's that many people that are interested in coming here I mean and really qualified candidates so it's a great Community how could you not want to be here darn right yep I heard the public works is exception listen to you I like it all right um so so just a quick update um the fireh hall roof is complete and I am glad that it's complete after all the snow that we just got oh yeah good timing there uh you'll see the check is in the bills tonight I'm actually going to hold that check just to make sure that the final inspection was done and everything was good because I didn't personally go on the roof so um once Carissa tells me that everything's good there we're going to send it off they have to shovel it off first before they inspect it I'm hoping they did it before snow so came with a good warranty though so it came with a good warranty so we've had uh a little bit of snow so we've had three days of winter so far this year well at least you it work it it takes your salt pile down a little bit right we so I will throw this at you quick um our newest plow truck is the 2019 and the salt module that we have in there has capabilities of track in um the amount of salt that you use and things like that so I actually signed up for a a like a pre subscription to track data and I've kind of been watching that over the last couple of days just to kind of see how it works and I think I'm actually going to move forward with updating the older truck M I think the cost of that is something slightly less than $500 and then it's a $20 a month subscription for each vehicle mhm but you can download the map of the community in there you can put that online so people can kind of see where the snowplows are at so anybody could watch I can sit at my desk and watch and see where Tim or Bill or Brady are at and then what roads are done and what roads are still to be done how much salt you've put down so far for the day or for that event or potentially on each road so I mean you can get a lot of tracking and stuff on there I think um with the with the way that we're moving um with the amount of salt reduction and stuff like that I think it's a it's a pretty cheap way for us to really track that and know exactly what we put down on each event so I'll probably be moving forward with that here in the near future but um that's all I have so question on that that tracking system would that be something that we'd be able to that the school board would be able to look at cuz know they're always basing you know cancelling school and things like that off what roads might and might not be plowed or corridors and things like that that so basically anybody if if I understand this correctly you can put a link out there or the map out there that people can log into and it's basically just going to be a map of Columbus and it's going to show all the roads in red and then when they're done they're green so you can kind of track and see where they're at and if watch it long enough you can kind of see the route that they're taking so depending on what time you go out you may not do the route the same direction every time because of traffic flows and stuff so if it's you know if you go out early in the morning Tim's going to want to go to the freeway right away because there's less traffic then if he gets over there somewhere between 6:00 and 7:30 there's too much traffic over there and it's really hard to do what you got to do so we try to work around that kind of stuff so we can check that before we clear our driveway so you don't come come through it wa as I F the big huge plow of mountain of snow at the end especially when it's wet and heavy yeah especially like that so you said it's a subscription thing do you have to pay that in the off season is it a every month I mean it's every month so that's kind of the that's kind of the downside so for like right now I'll do the leg work on it I wouldn't start it until October for us but yes it is every month so you're doing it in the offseason too that's kind of a luxurious expense 500 bucks I mean it's $20 a truck so I mean it's not it's not crazy money but and and I don't so there's some things that I don't know about it I mean can I stop and start it I I don't I don't know some of that stuff so I'd have to do a little bit of leg work on it but yeah and this isn't just going to benefit you it's going to benefit everybody in the community right because they can log in and right people could people would be able to log in absolutely like a quick we could put a quick have Conor put a quick link on the website or something of that nature yeah I see benefit for what is it 240 bucks well it's just another add expense think taxpayers are going to pay for it the the thing for me though is at some point I have to it helps me with figuring out how much salt I'm using um so I know how much to order for the next year because the crazy part about how they do the salt ordering is I already had to order for next year mhm so I mean we're not done with this this year yet so I mean most people I actually had to order the salt before we got this last snow so if you didn't if you weren't really watching the weather or anything like that we've used probably 40 tons in the last you know handful of days um you know most people may or may not have seen that and maybe they ordered not enough now because we actually have winter you know what I mean so so there's some nuances out there that you can really track how much you're using but didn't we have a lot less left from last summer you ordered an extra batch last year because of all the snow right but we burned so we came into this year with about 50 tons y left over from last year um so at at we probably only used you know if I had the tracking I'd be able to tell you the number so I'm just guessing we probably used 75 tons prior to this snowstorm yep um and then this snowstorm I think we used about 40 so with that being said I still have an EXT I still have another hundred to order on 20 3 24 salt orders and I've just placed my order for 2425 so it's kind of a It's Kind the salt is kind of a weird thing because it's not it's not yearly it's season wise so the salt that I order in 24 four I actually have to take the final number in 25 so it crosses two budgets for us so it's it can be a little you have to get a little creative all right anything else no that's it I have a quick question sure so for the communities that are starting to use brine is that just a whole another ball game like you have to have specialized equipment for that or how does that how do they do they create the Brian or do you buy it that way yes no um you you can do it both ways we actually have the equipment oh um I am not a fan uh the the hard part about brine is it it works as it says it's supposed to right you pre you pre-wet the roads you can see Forest Lake does it all the time Wyoming does it so when you're driving down the road and you see all those little white lines that's the brine um some people use different products called like clear lane or things like that that's a calcium chloride or magnesium chloride just different products but we actually have a brine maker and we did it for a few years but I found that it's very weather dependent and it's traffic dependent so if you brine what it does is it the thought process is it's supposed to stop the snow from adhering to the road and it does that if nobody drives on it but the second people start driving on it it creates ice on the bottom and then that sticks to the road and then you have to work that much harder to get it off that was our experience some people if you use it on a day like today or yesterday we'll say when it's you know 40° outside or you know that it's going to be warm it it works better that way and potentially if you get a small enough amount of snow it might even just melt it off MH but uh it's it's it's challenging to to do and we did it for a couple of years and we found that it was um more work for us because it it created compaction on a lot of roads just because of the amount of traffic that we have driving at all different times is it better to do to do it on a road that doesn't have high TR high volume or better to do it on high volume that can kind of melt it's better to do it in my opinion on a less volume road so if you did it on like Howard Lake or or Notre Dame it packs right down so there's just there's enough traffic steady all the time that you know it doesn't give us time to go out so if you were like in Oka County and you have trucks running through the whole storm then potentially it's more beneficial that way because it doesn't cause it to stick down as much and doesn't I mean doesn't it result in using less salt isn't it supposed to be better that reason so it's cheap presumably less expensive because you don't use as much salt and better for the environment is what I read That's the intent okay so the trucks that we have today they have um brine tanks on the side M that allows us to make brine and put in the trucks and then what you can do is you can pre-wet your salt so it activates the salt faster so then it's wet when it hits the road and it starts to melt so it doesn't hit the road dry and then it has to absorb the moisture out of the snow and then start to melt so it actually works faster that way MH and it also when it goes down on the road after you've sprayed it with the water or the brine it sticks to the road better because it's not dry so when you drop something that's wet like that it just wants to stay in a in a tighter pattern instead of spatter across the road I just have noticed you know where I live that you know after snowstorm or before you'll see like these big patches of salt I mean they're like a big pile of them and it sometimes they don't ever melt I mean they just get kicked off into the grass and I thought well that's a big waste it's not doing any good it's not good for the environment that's why I'm asking the question but so what happens in those cases you try so you try to keep your spinner running slow because you want the salt to drop in the middle of the road the faster you spin it the more it spreads out and kind of the less effective it is so you want a more of a concentration and then you want your car to run that over and move the salt around and what'll happen is the salt is wet and it's heavy so it sits on the spinner and the spinner doesn't move very freely sometimes so it it'll start jerking around and they're also the Spinners work off of speed mhm so if a car's coming you slow down the spinner then slows down and as you speed up then it ratchets back up and the salt will you know when it ratchets up then it'll it'll spin off a chunk mhm so that they work best if you're driving up a road like Notre Dame you got a steady speed going all the time then everything just seems to spin nicer but those slower roads where you're driving slow the spinner and the augur actually slows down because you're driving slower so okay sorry I took a lot of time thank you for explaining I love talking about that stuff you got all that so if you safe stay home till the sun comes out I will say forest Lake's been bring the road all the way to Iverson on Howard Lake that's been real nice yeah yeah you're getting the benefit for free yeah it's beautiful right jack administrator's report uh I attended a meeting on March 19th with the NOA County highway department in the city of blo lakes the uh potential Road Project to connect County Road 14 to Hornsby Street in Columbus is resurfaced again there's approximately quart million dollars in arpa money that's available for planning purposes the in NOA County highway department is going to work up a program and request this money from the county to start some preliminary plans and work on this section of highway so this may be something we can talk about as a bonding Bill coming up for the the next time we did put it off this time because there wasn't any interest in L Lakes part uh but now it's perked up again so hopefully we'll be ready the next time it's time to submit anything else that's all I've got all right anybody else have anything else you'd like to say nope if not the Planning Commission meeting is April 3rd at 6 the city council meeting Workshop is April 9th at 5:30 Eda meeting is April 10th at 5:00 p.m. and the city council meeting is April 10th at 6 p.m. we might as well move in anyway would someone like to make a motion to adjourn move to adjourn second I'll call the vote Ron I sue i d i Rob I and Jesse I our meeting is adjourned for tonight thank you everyone and happy [Music] Easter