All right, welcome everyone. With it being right at six o'clock, we'll get started. And uh Amanda, if we could do roll call. >> Yes. >> Um Mayor Roberts >> here. >> Council Verto >> here. >> Larson >> here. Ericson >> present. >> Miller. >> All right. And if you are able, please join us in standing for the pledge of >> allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right, council. We have an agenda in front of us. Is anyone willing to make a motion to approve? >> So move. >> I'll second. >> Motion to second. Any further discussion? All in favor? >> I opposed. We have our tonight's agenda. All right. It's great to see a packed house here tonight. We've got a couple special things going on. Uh our first item here is to recognize uh Mike Welch, our prosecuting attorney for the last 43 years. So tonight we are proud to recognize Mike Welsh for his extraordinary service to this community. Mike has served as city prosecutor for an incredible 43 years, an accomplishment that is rare and truly remarkable. Over the course of those over the course of those decades, four decades, he has been a constant and steady presence in our local justice system. His work has required not only deep knowledge of law it also but also sound judgment, integrity, and strong commitment to public service. Through it all, he's been a trusted partner to our police department and a respected figure in the broader community. The impact of his career is not measured only in years, but in countless cases handled handled the standards he upheld and the role he played in ensuring fairness and accountability to our city within our city. His contributions to the administration of justice have been both significant and lasting. On behalf of the city, we express our sincere gratitude for his professionalism and dedication and and dedicate and decades of service. We thank him for all he has done for the community and wish him the very best as he nears a welldeserved retirement. Michael, if you want to come up and join council here that we are Mike for his service. Congratulations on your retirement and for your 43 years of prosecuted city force since February 1st 1983 dedication commitment to justice accountability prosecution will be never forgotten from the city of lake and men and women of course lake Um, so it's sort of odd to be recognized for just doing your job. So, I appreciate it and I I do appreciate the opportunity to uh show my gratitude to the to the council and all the proceeding councils for recognizing it, the value of continuity and hopefully just being able to have a consistent person in this position. Um, I need to thank a few people. I should I need to thank my wife and kids. Um, as much as I tried to leave my job at the office, I I didn't. So, a lot of times they get hear rants about defense attorneys or judges or whatever. So, I appreciate their patience in that. Uh, and I have to thank my daughter, Kelly, who's been my assistant the last eight years. And probably the only reason that technology hasn't totally passed me by because it's um there were six officers on the department when I started. Mel Gro, Sudoner, Dave Pasnik, Bob Cochburn, Ron Hanigraph, and Dave Schwarz. And I think every team um every business and every police department has a culture. And those six officers established a culture that was zealous law enforcement but with integrity and compassion. I don't think it's an accident that two of their sons now lead our department uh Chief Hannah Chief Hannah Grath and Tom Cochburn who's uh a sergeant. Um they've those six officers passed down I think a culture and a legacy that that still exists in the department today. It's it's really a department that that you can be very proud of. Um as much as I'd love to tell a bunch of stories that it would be endless. Uh it's really the relationships that that I'm going to take with me. um you know going all the way back you know I don't want to go on too much but um communication is so much different now and everything happens with the touch of a button we communicate by emails and text messages and it's and it's easy um when I started just about every day we went back and forth with envelopes full of police reports which now they just touch a button and they go in the cloud and they're back down at our office and um but I really got to know the officers well I knew their kids and what sports they were in and and that type of thing. And it's that's the relationships that I'm going to miss. I look and I see, you know, Ron Hanigraph was at my wedding 33 years ago. Um, you know, I said Mark Richard showed up when my dad passed away, came to the funeral. Jake was there when my brother passed. Um, and you know, Officer Warkey has made made it her habit to bring every new officer to my office, then to my house when my office moved home. So, I get to know all the officers uh and for them to know that it was an open door policy that I was always at least try to be available to them. Um, I see Nate Olstead, funny story, my daughter was driving home in a snowstorm on 97 and had a little spin out and he he ended up showing up and instead of saying how fast were you going, he said, "How's your ski season going?" I mean, that's that's just kind of the relationship that I had with, you know, most of the officers. And I see I see Len basically we had two office administrators that were almost the whole 40 years I was there and they were both just a joy to work with and a laugh but a joy to work with and really helpful. Um Kim Lang and then Gore has just made my job so much easier and I go on and on and on but I I have so much gratitude to the police department. Uh they've made me feel like I'm part of the team even though I'm I'm not one of you. I don't wear I don't wear a gun and my family didn't have to worry when I went to work. Um worse than what happened to me is someone called me arrogant or self-righteous or something and rather than what you guys deal with out on the street. So I appreciate you guys letting me be part of your team. I I really value the job that you do and and appreciate the time that I've had. So, thank you. Yep. >> All right. The other special thing here we have tonight is swearing in our new police chief and captain. So, chief handra come forward. >> Handra, you raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, Luke, >> I, Luke Handcraft, >> do solemnly swear >> do solemnly swear >> that I will support the Constitution of the United States. >> I will support the Constitution of the United States >> and the Constitution of the State of Minnesota >> and the Constitution of the State of Minnesota. >> I will fulfill faithfully discharge the duties of police chief. >> I will faithfully discharge the duties of police chief >> within the city of Forest Lake in the state of Minnesota. >> with the city of Forest Lake and the state of Minnesota. >> Congratulations. >> Thank you. No, should have brought my glasses. Please come. >> Happy. If you would raise your right hand, repeat after me. I John Gladder >> I John Gladder >> do solemnly swear >> do solemnly swear >> that I will support the Constitution of the United States >> I will support the Constitution of the United States >> and the Constitution of the State of Minnesota >> and the Constitution of the State of Minnesota >> I will faithfully discharge duties of Peace Cath I will faithfully discharge duties of peace >> in the city of Forest Lake in the state of Minnesota >> in the city for Thanks everyone. Take a little bit of a pause here and let everyone else Some pictures. It sounds crazy. All right, we'll move on here. Uh, item six, open forum. This is an opportunity anyone to come speak to the council on any city matter. We ask that you state your name and address for the record and leave limit it to around three minutes. Uh so there is a public hearing on Tim's Marina later on at in the evening here. You're more than welcome to speak now to that item or anything else or you can wait until uh the public hearing. So is there anyone want to speak in open forum this evening? Right. Not seeing anyone. We'll move on to Oh, >> welcome. >> My name is Blake Roberts. I live at 246626 Hamlet Avenue, Forest Lake, Minnesota. I want to talk about why I think the city of Forest Lake should keep the old flag instead of the new design. I think the old flag more properly represents our state because it has three dates on it. 1893 when the first flag was designed. 1858 Minnesota became a state. 1819 Fort Snelling was built. It has our state flower, the lady slipper. A farmer farming his crops. A Dakota warrior hunting for buffalo. A lake. The war wording on the flag is the star of the north. These things all represent Minnesota. The new flag only shows the North Star. I don't feel it represents our state. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you for coming. Right. Anyone else here to speak on open forum? Come on up. Just state your name and address for the record. >> Hi, good evening. I'm Lisa Bellows. I live at 22965 Imperial Avenue North by Cooling Camp Park. Um, we received in the mail certified mail. Um, I was not home to pick this up, so I had to go to the post office. This letter is $64. What could this be that's so important? Tower company wants to put up a cellar tower in our neighborhood, Cooling Camp Park. I am not for this. Uh, this is not good for my home value. I did not move into this area 26 years ago. We moved to this beautiful area to have a cell tower put up not that far from my home and right next to a children's playground. Um, it came to my attention that over a year ago, April 28th, 2025, this was discussed by the city of Forest Lake and there was no mention of anything to any of the residents in our area because this weekend I was talking with many residents. We do have a meeting coming up April 30th at 4:30 and many of the residents in the area are not happy about this. I'm very sad that the city of Forest Lake did not talk with any of us residents about any of this. Thank you for your time and you have a great evening. >> Thanks for coming. If I can just comment on that, that was talked about back last year. uh this starts the process of all public engagement uh and making everyone aware of that there's a neighborhood meeting as you mentioned so the process is just starting and um more than willing and want to hear everyone's feedback >> looks like the other two items are mentioned on here are Tim's Marina go ahead >> I'm just going to echo Lisa's Mike Statchel Forest Lake resident uh 22919 Imperial Avenue North and I'm Just following with what Lisa had to say. Just want to make sure it sounds like you're aware that the meeting is uh April 30th with tower company and um same thing. We were not informed at all. Got notified last Thursday. Was very surprised to hear that they want to put a cell tower in Cooland Camp Park. And uh I did go back to the meeting minutes for the 416 meeting with the parks and rec recreation committee. And just a comment that was made and I'll follow up why I have this comment but um from chair theon if I'm pronouncing that right um discussed a poll that looks like a tree in Afton so referring to a tower but he said that this was you know in the minutes he said that the towers were a public safety issue not exactly sure what he was referencing but where I'm going with that is in the meeting that the council had on the 28th. There was no reference of any health issues with residents. There was no mention of any of the financial impact to the residents. And there's a lot of data on there. it'll come forward in the um 4:30 meeting, but just some concern with some of the comments um that were made during the meeting that the tower will disappear and the attitude in the meeting definitely changed when the economics were brought forward. It seemed to very excite the council members. But one thing I would say is um one of the comments was that you may put funding aside for the residents for improvements to the park. Just a comment and I'll bring it forward in the meeting as well is you might want to think about putting an escrow account with the lease payment to receive because there's a lot of data around health issues and there's a lot of data around the value of homes when you put a cell tower in a residential area. So just want to bring the concern forward and bring that up in the meeting on the 30th as well. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. Anyone else want to for open forum? >> All right, we'll move forward then. Uh, uh, council, we have a consent agenda in front of us. Anyone willing to make a motion to approve. >> Make a motion to approve consent agenda items 7 A through 70. >> I'll second. >> Motion, a second. Any further discussion? All in favor? >> Opposed? We have our consent agenda approved. >> Right. We'll go to our regular agenda items. 8A Tims Marina 9080 Juel Lane and Abby will start this. So I I think the process will be Abby the staff will talk about this uh present it and then we will um bring it back for council for a little bit and then open up the the public hearing. Thank you. If I can get this working here. Thank you, Mayor Roberts, members of the council. Tonight before you is a conditional use permit and variance request from Tim's Marina. It was submitted by Joe Maslo. Um the property addresses 9080 Jewel Lane. So um for reference tonight, uh Tim's Marina has proposed the addition of 72 additional boat slips on two new docks at their existing facility. This does necessitate 252 parking spaces. So there is a request for a variance of 137 parking spaces. This is an expansion of a legal nonconforming use. Um, the marina itself is non-conforming in that it is located in a single family residential zoning district and then the parking itself is non-conforming in that the property does not meet our current parking standards today um either by the number of parking spaces required and the surfacing requirements for them. So, as a reminder to the council that the environmental review for this application has been complete. you took action on an environmental assessment worksheet maybe about six weeks ago or so. Tonight is a zoning decision. No new buildings are proposed and there's um the only thing that's being considered is that increase in the intensity of use. So, just to review the existing conditions, currently on site, there are 31 RV spaces with 96 boat slips on one large dock, but then there's several smaller docks around. There are 103 vehicle parking spaces, which comes to a ratio of 1.07 parking spaces per boat slip. 144 are required. 103 are provided as noted in there. Um, those spaces are all either grass or crushed rock. At this time, there's 11 truck and trailer spaces and five acres of wetland. What's being proposed are two new additional docks, but with that would be the reduction of RV spaces. Um, those two new docks would allow for 72 new boat slips for a total of 168 boat slips. A total of 115 parking spaces are proposed, which brings that ratio down of parking. requirements to 68 spaces per slip. 74 grass spaces and 41 crushed rock spaces. Again, those um unimproved surfaces are being proposed to remain and new parking places would not be proposed to be improved to the city standard. Those 11 truck and trailer spaces would uh remain as well. So, this does necessitate that def deficiency of 137 parking spaces. Um and that uh means that they would not meet the city's requirement of 1.5 parking spaces per slip. Just going to note for the record, the city's 1.5 parking spaces per slip is codified in our code, but in the region and industry standard that is significantly higher. Some cities have parking space requirements as low as a quarter, so four slips per one parking space. Um the average is about uh two slips per parking space on the seven communities we are able to inquire with in the metro area. So before the council tonight is the appeal of the planning commission's decision. The planning commission held a hearing March 25th and at that time they both they denied both the conditional use permit and the variance. Um, it should be noted that they determined that the variance was a threshold issue, that without the variance, they could not consider the conditional use permit. The planning commission held a public hearing and they took um testimony on that matter. To your role tonight is kind of a doover. You hold a new hearing. You make independent findings and establish the record for formal action. The council's decision tonight is final unless the applicant or some other interested party pursues this in court. So the planning commission's variance findings as noted in your uh staff report um in essence were that the criteria could not be met based on the record that the planning commission found that there was no practical difficulty demonstrated and practical difficulty is prescribed in our code that you need to find um some sort of uniqueness to the property. What they're looking to do is reasonable and they've looked at other alternative um alternative options. Uh the planning commission really determined that the request was driven by the proposed expansion and it was kind of a self-created circumstance. Um they also not noted that that expansion increases the nonconformity. The the planning commission determined that it could not identify any sort of hardship tied to the property itself. So any one of those findings could have been the grounds for the planning commission supported the denial. the planning commission made multiple um justifications for their denial. Um so the the planning commission considered both the full proposal and then also a reduced proposal that was previous or preliminarily discussed with the applicant prior to the meeting. The planning commission's conditional use permit findings had some some key components. The number one was the proposal depended on the variance. Planning commission really hinged on the fact that without a variance the the ex the conditional use permit could not be approved. Um the really that expansion increased the intensity beyond the site's capacity and it did not address the existing site deficiencies. So in the city code it indicates the planning commission can take a lot of different factors into consideration. um the health, safety, general welfare of the occupants around the surrounding areas, anticipated traffic conditions, effect on the proposed use of public utilities, scenic values, and the and the like. Um of those things, however, there's nothing in code that says they need to make any specific findings. So, the planning commission's findings were really based on um the fact that that variance could not be granted and it did not align with the zoning intent or long-term land use patterns. The planning commission took significant amount of public comment as you probably will tonight, as you probably saw in your packet, and as included on the DIS with a couple new um public comments. Key themes of the public testimony to date really focus on a lot of not all but a lot of them are on onwater impacts, boat density, both traffic, boat near miss incidences. Um it's not to say that there were no onland comments necessarily. There have been concerns about shoreline impacts with erosion, sediment control. Also, just in general, some concerns of um traffic overflow onto nearby streets and then surface router water runoff. So, before you tonight, you have a couple different options. Understand in your staff report, it talked about three different options. Staff's going to advise you right now, you only have two. You can uh choose option one affirm the denial of the planning commission deny the variance in the cup but based on f based on the findings that the criteria are not met to uphold the planning commission's decision that would be to uphold the fact that a variance would not should not be approved and without a variance a conditional use permit should not be cannot be approved. The other option you have before you tonight is to approve as proposed or with modifications. Now, both of these do require findings. So, it's not like you can just willy-nilly pick one out of a hat. We'll walk you through those sorts of things. But, as noted in the staff report, the request is for 72 slips and a full variance. Um, it requires those var that criteria can um must be met. As I believe I noted earlier in the staff report, this is a legal non-conforming conditional use. And the city code does indicate the city can allow for the expansion of a conditional use permit. That's in city code section 153.051D. And that indicates legally established non-conforming uses may be expanded with a conditional use permit um in residential districts. And again, we don't really have great standards for conditional use permits, but generally speaking, you need to make the findings that there is not an impact on the proposed health, safety, general welfare of the occupants. It's consistent with the comprehensive plan and in general intent of the zoning district. Just going to go through really quick because this is not included in your packet. The zoning code intent. The zoning code intent is specific that the code is there to implement the comprehensive plan that it is to promote planned and orderly development and redevelopment in the city. Provide adequate light air and convenient access to properties, limit congestion in the public rightway, prevent overcrowding of land and undue concentration of populations and structures. Provide for compatible integration of different land uses and protect from incompatible land uses. Conserve and protect natural resources in accordance with the provisions of this chapter being the zoning code. Facilitate the provisions of water, utilities, sewage disposal systems to property, protect to a reasonable extent the population from fire and other matters affecting public safety. And maintain to a reasonable extent property values in the tax base of the city. And then lastly, provide for the administration of the chapter, the zoning code and its amendments. So, um I'm going to go back up just really quick into this uh council decision options. That kind of concludes my presentation. Um there are lots of people that are here to chat with you. I did note there are two additional public comments on the deis. won't read them into the record, but we will enter them into the record from Steven Hart Dog Hart Dog and Oscar and Val Carlson who are unable to make it tonight. Neither of them are in support of the application. Does the council have any questions for me on this application or what's being asked tonight or any specifics to the request >> at this point? I'm available if anything comes up through this process. >> With there being no questions, um we will open up uh at 6:33, we will open up this evening's public hearing to the appeal of decision by planning commission to deny conditional use permit variance. Um, and so if you would uh come forward, state your name, address for the record, we ask you that you try to keep it limited to three minutes just with the everyone else's time that you're give them everyone enough time to come up and speak and um we'll start. I don't think there's a sign in for this. Correct. No. So, whoever wants to come up, please do so. >> Sure. Uh Joe Maslo, 9080 Jewel Lane, Forest Lake, Minnesota 55025. Uh my name is Joe. I'm representing Tim's Marina in our efforts to add seasonal term season term pontoon slips to our marina. We'd like to thank our neighbors for their passion, support, and concerns. the council for their consideration of our addition and Stephen, Michael, Abby, and the rest of the staff for their patience and guidance through this process. We are thankful for staff's alternate recommendation of a reduced addition allowing one additional slip dock, adding 36 pontoon slips. Tim's Marina has existed for more than 50 years. Our family being the third owners having owned and run the property for over 40 years since 1983. Our family lives on site and Forest Lake is our home. While our offerings have changed over the years, more recently narrowing to mostly season term offerings, we've always been focused on helping members of the community responsibly enjoy one of our city's greatest assets. We expect the additional pontoon slips to aid in the continuation of this purpose. Compared to its pure city of White Bear Lake, Forest Lake is very underslipped. White Bear Lake being of similar size to Forest Lake has over 630 commercial slips compared to Forest Lakes's current number of 132 slips and proposed total of 168 to 204 season term boat slips. We understand the position and concerns of our lake neighbors. However, we truly believe seasonm pontoon slips responsibly connect the non-shore owning members of our community to our lake and city in a way short-term offerings cannot, creating support for our lake from our off lake neighbors. In an effort to ensure we are doing our fair share and minimizing impact, we have worked with Ken at the Lake Association to contribute over $2,800 on behalf of our boat slip users. And combined with our corporate sponsorship, the marina has contributed over $3,000 towards the association efforts in 2026. With approval of one additional slip dock, this cont total contribution will increase to over $4,000 for 2020. 26. We have also worked to restrict boat types on the new docks, allowing pontoons only on the new docks to minimize impact to the lake and our neighbors and the shoreline. We hope the facts in our application support the approval of the conditional use amendment and related parking factor variances and welcome any questions or concerns of the council members or staff. Thank you. >> Thank you. Does anybody have any >> questions at this time? >> We'll maybe after when we bring it back council had applicant with some questions. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. >> So I'd like to speak. My name is uh Bejorn Larson. I'm a resident of Forest Lake. Been on Third Lake for over 20 years. Was a former member of the Forest Lake Association board. Um, so currently the issues that I have is that according to the DNR, Forest Lake currently has more than two times the amount of boat traffic that it should have for a lake of its size. So we are already over congested with that. And now we are proposing that we add more boats to that lake. And when you're adding more boats, that is going to decrease the value of the lake to lakeshore owners. The other part that's even more concerning to me is that Tim's Marina already has nonconforming property. They've already been given, and correct me if I'm wrong, but they've already been given a couple of variances to the property. They know what it is. He's known what it's been for all these years. It's already non-conforming. So, if you have a non-conforming property, shouldn't the bar be exponentially higher to become even more non-conforming to that? I would think so. So, if you have a property that you already know is non-conforming and then you come up here and ask for it to become even more non-conforming and you're not paying any more taxes for it. So, he's not going to pay any more taxes for this. So, where does that tax burden fall? So, anybody here, as I've said before, have your tax burdens gone up? They've gone up a lot. his tax burdens are not going to go up at all. And they're going to add 72 boats to the lake. That's a lot more traffic. That's a lot more lake pollution. It's a lot more weeds. It's a lot more congestion. All that traffic causes a bunch of different things I don't need to get into, but algae blooms and everything else that then falls on the property owners. It doesn't fall on him. It doesn't fall on Tim's Marina because their taxes don't go up at all. And as a property owner, I know where that's going to fall. I have to take care of their weeds. I have to pull them out every weekend. And I have to deal with all the algae blooms. And personally, it's become so overcrowded for us that on weekends, we do not go out after noon. After 12 o'clock, we do not go out because it's too crowded and there's too many boats on the lake and now we want to add even more. The um other part about limiting it to pontoons and specifically I talked about this at the planning meeting as well. They limit it to four stroke engines. Can anybody tell me what the maximum four-stroke engine is available on a pontoon for sale in Minnesota? Anybody have an idea? Is it 50 horsepower? Is it 100? It is 400 horsepower. It is a 400 horsepower motor. It is a Mercury 400 per 400 horsepower Mercury Verado V10 400 horsepower. So we're not talking about a pontoon that just cruises along. >> Um I'm sorry. Point of order. So just during a public hearing, the comments need to be directed to the council and not to the the >> Well, I'll direct it to the council. Do you know what the maximum horsepower is for a pontoon on Forest Lake? >> There's 400. So, they're limiting it to four- stroke engines, which is a 400 horsepower engine. It is not a cruising pontoon. Okay? So, that does not limit them to saying, "Hey, we're not going to be causing a bunch of things going on out here." It is a very high horsepower motor and a very fast boat that's out there. and you're potentially adding 72 of them or 36, I don't care if it's half, 36 of them to the lake. So, you know, when we add this and they're not have they already have a nonconformance, they're asking for even more non-conformance, which is going to add more pollution to the lake. And I'm not going to go into all those details about what that does for runoff and gas and everything else, but that adds it to the lake. and they're not having any increase on their taxes. But who's going to take that? It's going to be the property owners. And what does that do to the value of a property on a lake with more overcrowded population? It goes down. Your taxes are going to go down. Okay? You keep raising this and you keep driving people out of here. The last thing that I want to say is specifically directed to the Lake Association Board. So at the planning meeting, so prior to the planning meeting, the lake association board sent out a survey to their membership. Their membership responded. 71% of the Lake Association members said they do not approve of this. They do not approve of this expansion. 15% said that they did. Yet the president of the lake association got up and said the lake association board approves this and I say that is false. So I will challenge the president of the lake association again to come up and if you give approval to this you are absolutely going against 71% of your membership and you cannot do that. If you do lake association members need to think about contributing to the lake association board because they do not represent you. he does not represent you. He came up and represented himself. 71% said no. And the president of the Lake Association board said yes. How does that make sense? So, the only thing I'm going to say is that I'm going to represent the 71% of the Lake Association members to say we do not approve of this at all. regardless of what this individual individual might say about the lake association because he does not represent us at this point at all. Thank you. Anyone else would like to speak this evening on this? Good evening. My name is Jerry Grutner and my address is 9444 Jewel Lane just up the hill from Tim's Marina. I have lived there for 37 years since 1988. So I've been driving past Tims Marina for 37 years. So, I know it well. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to attend any of the meetings that have been going on for the month of March as I was down south enjoying the warm weather, but I felt it was important for me to speak to you tonight as a as a neighbor and as a resident of Forest Lake and on Jewel Lane. There's three things I want to bring up that concern me about the expansion of Tims Marina. Um, and the one thing I'm not going to talk about is boat density because there's been lots of discussion about boat density. And that's a very subjective um, discussion and decision. And the one comment I want to make on that is I hope that ultimately the city and the lake association can partner to actually do a boat density study of forest lakes so that in the future and there will be a future where these discussions come forward again we have some factual information to look at from a boat density standpoint. The three things I want to talk about um and address are number one is parking. Number two is lake degradation of water quality and the third thing is safety. So, um, parking, there's lots been lots of discussions and I've tried to read the 79 pages that are in the agenda, which took me a long time to get through all that, but I understand that the the number of parking spots per boat slip is is considerably less that is being proposed by Tims compared to what is required by the city ordinances. And I appreciate that Tims did a survey on July 4th of 2025 to determine what that density is of parking spots to boat slips. I would caution us to say that is just one point in time and it can't be reflective of potentially other weekends. Yes, it was 4th July, but who knows where people were on that day. So to say that that is factual, it is factual, but only for one point in time. So, I think that we have to be cognizant of the fact that parking is going to be an issue as far as I'm concerned down at Tims when the parking gets filled up at Tims. Right now, there's no parking on the street along Tim's property and there signs there. However, once you go past that, you can park on the street. So I contend that not if but when parking is full down at Tims people will start parking on the street up towards west of Tims Marine all the way up on Juel. I don't think that's right. Okay. So, I would suggest that, you know, you need to give strong consideration to the fact that that you have an ordinance of so many parking spots per slip and uh Tim is proposing something significantly less than that and likely the spillover will go on to Jewel Lane. Now, do you put no parking signs on all of Juul? That's not fair to the other neighbors who have friends come over and park on the street, too. So, it's a dilemma as far as I'm concerned. Second point is relative to water quality degradation. Um 74 parking spots are parking on grass within some cases within 25 ft of the lake. Um grass is impervious. However, when you park cars on it, you're turning your steering wheels as you're driving in and out, whatever, you're going to start tearing up that grass. And when it rains, yes, some of the water will soak into that impervious, but heavy rain, a good portion of that runoff will actually go into the lake, and that can cause additional uh phosphorus into the lake and and water quality degragation. We've spent a lot of money and dollars with the city, the water district, and lake association in trying to improve the quality of Forest Lake. I would hate to say see one one opportunity or one project that actually, you know, destroys or actually hurts the hard work we've done over the years. So, parking down there on the grass so close to the lake, you know, it's going to run into the lake. That's just point of fact. Lastly is my comment regarding safety. So, Juwel Lane is about there's about 35 residents that live on Juwel Lane. All of us, most of all of us, all go down east to get out onto Highway 97. If you go west on Jewel Lane to 97, it's an intersection where you will get killed. I've had an accident there. Many of my neighbors have had accidents on the west side of Jewel Lane trying to get on 97 there. So, we all go down past Tims to get out on 97. The intersection down on the east side of Jewel Lane, if you've been there, you're lower than 97. You got to go up to get on 97. and you're at an angle to it, it is not a good intersection. So, by adding more car traffic coming in and out of that intersection, I'm concerned about the safety for us as neighbors and just people in general. I don't know what if if this expansion has been brought to the DNR, not DNR, Mindot relative to intersection and the and the potential for the increased traffic at that intersection. It is not a good intersection for heavy traffic. So that is one of my concerns from that standpoint. You know, the staff and planning commission found that Tim Marina did not meet the practical difficulty standard for the required parking and storm water management and I appreciate all the hard work that everybody has done on this. I hope that the council gives us some considerious consideration and that um you know I know there's a proposal for 72 slip edition and a 36 slip edition and or nothing. Um personally I hope that the council votes to uphold what the planning commission has decided. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else like to speak tonight? Plan on doing this. My name is Susan Young. I live at 9950 199th Street North. I do not live on the lake. Uh I am a planning commission member. I am not speaking on behaalf of the planning commission. I am speaking as a planning commission member who was long ago on the township planning commission and have been on the city of forest lake planning commission in two segments. Um I'm I I'm not going to talk about density and and and some of those issues. What I am talking about are the rules that our planning commission follows and the the ordinances in the city of Forest Lake and the zoning code and the way that we are asked told to consider variance requests. It has been the policy of our planning commission when a variance comes in of a n in a non-conforming situation to try and bring that non-conforming use closer into conformance. For instance, um somebody has a house. They they they want to add on a deck that is going to be impervious, but they're willing to reduce their imperous surface by saying uh they're going to um put in brick pavers or they're they're going to redirect storm water. They're going to make things better. Um that is not the case here. This is a case of a non-conforming use greatly expanding their nonconformity. The other thing that we look at is whether or not the applicant is in a situation where they have no other options or they it is not them causing the need for the variance. In this case, the only reason for the need of the variance is for TIMS to expand the number of slips. That is very specifically the applicant causing the request for the variance. We had a couple of other things. Abby did a very nice job of of interpreting our discussion at the planning commission um of of why we voted to deny the variance. Without the variance, the conditional use permit could also not be approved. I am very interested in watching the council and and understanding through your action tonight the role of the planning commission and your the the way that you will decide the variances and the appeal to the variance and if you are to approve it, how we will take those things into account in our future deliberations. It's a policy thing and we will be understanding your policy direction. Thank you. Anyone else would like to speak on this? Last one more time. Anyone else like to speak on this this evening? And if not, at 6:55, we will close this evening's public hearing and bring it back to council. Council questions, thoughts, concerns, questions of staff. Um, I've got a few. Um so currently just kind of speaking to some of the issues that were brought forth to make sure that I'm fully understanding and appreciating what's been shared u in in public um forum. Um the request uh for parking is moving from 103 spaces to 115. Is that correct? >> That is correct. >> And the current parking per existing slip is at what level? One point what? Um, and just one second. Just uh unplugged and then plugged back in. And you know how that goes. I lost everything. Um, the existing conditions is 1.07 spaces per slip. >> With two docks, it would go to 68 spaces per slip. And though I did not include it in my presentation, I was prepared tonight to talk about that at reduced alternative one dock for um 36 spaces would be 089 spaces per slip. >> Okay. >> In in the expanded parking, I mean currently and for decades they've parked on grass and crushed rock. >> That is correct. To our knowledge, has there been any findings by anybody that that has resulted in potential or water quality uh issues that is a potential? >> No. >> Okay. >> Uh that opportunity to for the public to speak is is over. >> I can at least >> Mr. Larson, that opportunity has passed. You had plenty of time to speak. as >> I can at least comment that I do believe it was addressed in that environmental assessment worksheet in which the council did make the determination there would be no uh negative there were no findings in which a environmental impact statement would be required. So under that circumstance I think we would have found that at that time we may have moved forward in a different direction. >> Okay. >> I'd have to review that though to come. So, if I'm understanding, regardless of how this council moves forward tonight, there will still be parking on grass. The potential for the water quality issues that were raised tonight. >> That is correct. >> Okay. >> I had testified last time. >> Thank Thank you for that feedback. If you've already presented that, that's great. the opportunity to speak publicly is is over. >> I that opportunity is over. >> I'll hold my questions for others. >> I mean, there is a mention that uh the DNR was looking into this, but their findings was not completed yet. Do you know is that a possibility that'll be coming soon or do we have any idea where that sits now? Um I'm so a couple different factors. The DNR did weigh in during the EAW process and those were included in that that process. Um I do know the area hydraologist has reviewed a reduced plan down from one dock or from two dock down to one and did comment on um how that design could be more in conformance with their marina permit and an expansion request for kind of that compact development. I do know that there were also lots of conversations that have taken place outside of this conditional use permit and variance request regarding boat density. No additional resources have been provided or analysis has been provided by the DNR regarding that. >> Okay. Thank you. I'd like to make another point. >> Um, your honor, >> just point of order for May I uh >> Yes, please. Please. >> Uh, your honor, council. So, just a clarification there. The way that the process works for an appeal is the council is sitting as a quasi judicial body. So think of this as a courtroom and these are the judges and so the judges call on people to speak and that was the public hearing portion and that is when it is the opportunity for the people to come up and speak and once the public hearing is closed that is no longer the opportunity for the people to speak and it is for the judges jury if you will to deliberate and so that is what is happening right now is that judge jury deliberation portion and just like in a courtroom you wouldn't be allowed to interject. You're also not allowed to interject here. I understand that it can be frustrating, but it is really important to follow the rules of the procedure. You're also crossif. >> Any other questions? Council I I do have a question for Joe. >> Yes, applicant. We are able to ask the applicant questions >> if the council wants to direct couns. >> So Joe, I'm just curious about >> Yes, please. >> Um just a couple of again things that have come up relative specifically to the parking, not the the lake use. um we got many marinas near my house that another story. So, as it relates to parking, in your experience owning the property, have there been spills? Have there been, you know, issues where oil, gas, chemicals could potentially get into the lake? And what's your mitigation plan should that happen going forward? So, we've been there for more than 40 years. Uh, we haven't noticed any issues. Uh, boating is a discretionary thing. If you have a vehicle that's leaking oil, it's probably going to the shop and you're taking your other vehicle to go use your boat. that I assume that's the reason that we have never noticed any issues with spilling and if we did we would notice because it's grass and the grass would be dead. >> In terms of safety and move traffic moving along 97 or entering and exiting you're you're not asking for a lot more parking spaces and you know the option between before us is one or two docks or none additional. Um what are you anticipating from like say let's just say there was two docks that were approved tonight. Um you're going to have potentially 70 more cars there or no you'd have I mean how underutilized is your parking today? I guess what I'm trying to get to and you know what does that look like from a traffic standpoint? >> So very underutilized. Uh we used to have more intense uses. uh we would have boat rental boat rentals all the boats are out unlike slip rental uh season term slips we did a study on the 4th of July and 20% of the boats were out at any given time two cars per boat so we saw 42 cars attributed to the current boat slips uh right now we have 103 spaces for parking so we had 70 additional uh spots that were not used on the 4th of July. And I know it was only one day, but it was a Friday, 4th of July, 92 degrees. Nobody had to get up for work or church on Sunday, you know. U so for a test of the most intense day, a Friday, Fourth of July is a very good test. Uh, and the we're we're not actually adding additional parking spaces. We're retiring for RV sites. So, those 12 spaces that can now be used for boat slip parking were typically or well, they were uh two cars per RV site and then the one RV. So, that's the 12 >> Sure. >> spots that are now available for boats with parking. >> Yeah. Um to add to that, so if the one day of parking um that we looked at is for the 4th of July, which one would assume would be a busy day, then can you just expand on just an average day, whether it's the weekend or a week night, what parking looks like? >> Yep. So Monday to Thursday, boats typically don't get used much. I mean, we might have a few cars around. uh Friday, maybe 10% on a nice Friday. 10% of the boats get used and we always conservatively assume two cars per boat in use. Uh, and then a normal weekend if it's August maybe 10% if it's kind of mid June to mid July is kind of the peak voting season. Uh, 15 to 20% uh, but Fourth of July is, you know, so it doesn't really ever get to 20% except for the Fourth of July. Uh, And for reference, before we even did our survey, just because we've been there so long, we assumed a 0.5 parking factor was sufficient. Uh based on we have our parking is uh split up into what we refer to as blocks. So there's a block out by the main slip dock. There's a block uh along the playground that was used used to be used for boat rentals on the south end of the bay and then the east parking area uh which was traditionally used for uh fishing tournaments and company events and and so just the natural feel of how many of those blocks are usually used. We figured five. Uh we've never lion striped except for this year and we saw a point4 on the 4th of July likely because by line striping everyone parked more efficiently. >> Joel, can you uh in the past I've listened to some of the planning commission meetings in the past and at the neighborhood meeting you you spoke of uh the previous uh part of your business of short-term rentals and Could you talk a little bit about traffic there and what you're seeing what traffic was then compared to just these longer term rentals? >> Uh so from the I came around in the late 90s and we paused uh when I went to school in in '05. Uh so we had 28 and then at the end we had about 16. our median was about 20 uh rental boats and and so that's the the 30 parking spaces is from the playground north to the our main home and then the uh south end of the uh east bay uh they weren't in use Monday to Thursday generally you know it's kind of the same uh usage times as the uh season term boat slips. Uh but we always figured three uses per week per rental boat. Uh and on a busy weekend, they're all out. So you're adding 20 uh in use boats to the lake which uh is similar to the amount of the 72 and twice as many as the staff alternative of the one dot >> if um so I'm assuming maybe talk about a little bit about why this request came forward in the beginning. I mean, you know, the the the presumption uh might be just you just want to raise re add revenue and I understand that is part of it, but I mean, as a small business owner, talk about overhead and expenses that continue to grow and small business owners trying to make it out any way they can. >> Yep. Uh so we we paused, you know, when I went to school and and every year we review it. Uh the short term does drive more revenue, but it is more work. Uh and And over the past years, we've always uh restricted our hours and and restricted our offerings so that we didn't have to hire. And as as we all get older, uh we're looking at we're going to have to hire. Whether that be we bring back the short-term offerings to bring the revenue to pay for that additional help or our preference because it is our home and we like a narrow uh customer base that we're familiar with and turnover is typically 10%. So if we meet somebody it's typically for 10 years. We prefer it. It is our home. We prefer less busy. Uh and and so that's what brought this about. >> So if these if nothing was granted here, you'd likely go back into that short ter short-term rental business. >> Every operator that's approached us the last 20 years wants to bring back short-term because it does drive more revenue even more than the two docks, >> right? >> Uh but it's not our preference. It's our home. We prefer season term downtown can have the boat club and short-term rental. >> Can can you speak a little bit to the size of the slip in terms of what size of a pontoon you'll be able to accommodate? Uh so we restrict it to uh on the new dock uh 24 feet 200 horsepower is what we told everybody on our weight list. >> And those people on the wait list, can you speak a little bit in terms of where they're generally at? You mentioned non- lake residents of Forest Lake. Are they primarily Forest Lake or is that the surrounding area? Uh so our general mix is if you went to Hugo, Lino Lakes, Scandia, you're going to get about 80% of those that are slipped with us. Uh and the weight list would be the same. Uh if you have a boat and you want it slipped, the point of slipping it is convenience and you want to close. >> Yeah, >> we have many in headwaters as well. >> Do you have any sense if those that might end up on that potential new dock or docks, are they currently putting their boat in the water in Forest Lake in the summertime? >> I assume so. And if the ramp's full, they'll go to another lake and maybe come back to Forest Lake the next weekend. >> Yeah. So, I think I read in the packet that studies showed and maybe I'm somebody here can correct me, but it looked like might be a hundred boats a weekend. Feels like there was like five different studies that were done either by the lake association or whomever or DNR. Um, so I just wonder how many of those 100 might not be putting in at the ramp, but instead be more at your place. >> I'm We don't have a way to know for sure, but uh if if we're looking at boats that are possibly tracking weeds to other lakes, a slipped pontoon stays slipped. We might have two that take theirs on summer vacation, but that's kind of a two week commitment because you have to pull it, clean it, let it sit five days. You can go use it and then the same thing when you get home. >> So that was one of the things that was called out was the invasious species which has been a major investment on the part of the city, the watershed district and um lake association. And so if there's an opportunity here to help cut that down, that seems like it would be a win. Slipped boats usually don't move except in the spring and the fall off of the lake. >> So council I um question maybe a comment first. I I'm not in favor of the 72. I think that's excessive for that site. Um I won't go on to speak of the crowdedness of the lake. Um I think that's subjective to people's opinion and what crowdedness is. So for me the concern is more about the actual site. itself. Um, and so 72 is is I'm not agreeable to that. I don't know if um what's the council's feeling of that and if we want to entertain then if everyone's agreement or somewhat agreement if we entertain staff's recommendation of the 36 and if so maybe maybe Abby can kind of lead us to how you staff got there. Um, >> so just so 72 is anyone thoughts on 72 is that >> I'd be a in agreement with you on that. I think 72 is a little much especially uh for that area especially they're already in non-conformance. >> Yeah, I certainly open to hearing understanding staff's uh position on 36. >> Well, so what I'm hearing at least from the council is that um so again we're considering a the potential expansion of illegal non conformity and what I'm hearing is that 72 slips may be in excess of what you think is reasonable on the site given some of the site conditions constraints that you've been discussing tonight. Um I don't know that staff necessarily got at a 36 as opposed to um the applicant shows to you docs and he cut that number in half and now now you have 36, right? Um, I think the essence of the can you get closer into conformance with the code or reduce the expansion of the nonconformity with 32 is really what we need to be focusing on, right? That make sense? I'm just going to go to that reduced alternative um under that reduced alternative design. Again, this would be in essence the consideration of the approval of a non expansion of a non-conformity with conditions to reduce it to in half. Um, still removing those three RV spaces. Um, only increasing by 36 slips, still requiring 115 parking spaces, which has a 0.89 89 space per slip, which is though inconsistent with our code and a decrease of what they'd be proposing today, is still in excess of what is being reported on site and the industry standard of.5. Still having all of those spaces unimproved, but again, that's an expansion of an unimproved surfaces and re retaining those 11 truck and trailer spaces. So, I think the thing that the council needs to kind of talk about is kind of that general um things like the the traffic uh health, general health, safety, welfare, and those site conditions of whether or not it's all conforming with the code intent. Um I will say uh it was brought up about traffic. The um Mindot has commented on the plan. They had no no comments. So, if we're looking at things like congestion in the public right ofway, it's been determined that that would not be a problem by Mindad. Looking at um overcrowding of land and undue concentration, you've been able to find that the existing use does not isn't spilling out into that neighborhood, right? So you're looking and discussing of whether or not this is those 36 docks would place that negative impact on that neighborhood. That's what I think you might need to talk about just a little bit more. Do you want me up here still? >> Go ahead. >> Do you want me up here? >> Do you have anything else to add? I >> question to say that we do feel the Changing the uh parking surface which requires storm water is a practical difficulty based on the elevation. U we understand the requirement for more parking is because of the ask uh which every standard every requirement is a result of a applicant asking. Uh the practical difficulty for us is we can't meet that standard because of the elevation. So we're asking to uh you know retain the parking services as they have been and reduce that parking uh factor variance. Uh we feel it is in the spirit of the code which is to ensure that any parking created is contained on site which we're confident based on our survey and 40 years of officer uh 40 years of uh operating uh shows that we can be contain the parking on site. Thank you. Uh, Mayor Roberts, Council, if I might just make a comment. I know uh Joe focused a little bit on that practical difficulty. That practical difficulty is the litmus test for variance. As I reminded you tonight, you kind of there were um maybe two paths the city could have analyzed this from. One is a variance to the parking requirements to allow for the marina expansion by CUP. The other avenue was the city code allows for the expansion of legal non-conforming uses doesn't require a variance. It's a little un uncustomary. The state law actually says cities can't do that unless they put it in their code they can. We happen to be one of those cities that's put it in our code saying we can. So, I think the first maybe determination for the council for just um setting up some findings for us to work off of is to make a determination of whether or not uh a variance to the parking standard was necessary or whether or not get my city code section here really quick. City code section 153.051D 051D which indicates legal legally established non-conforming uses may expanded with a conditional use permit is the basis for which you would make your decision tonight you've studied that a lot more than us so good question in terms of variances um I remember a couple years ago not long after we got on council there was a local business owner that came to council and the city and wanted us to consider changing our policy around um digital billboards and that our policies weren't in alignment with industry standards. >> We didn't allow them. >> So what walk the group through that because I mean we was was our policy relative to digital billboards out of date or >> we just didn't Yeah. So we had >> I thought it was just something that we required a longer time frame. We had an antiquated uh I would say what would be argued to be an antiquated code in that our code did not allow for digital billboards like many of the other adjacent I35 communities had allowed. So that applicant petitioned to change the code to allow for that use. Okay. >> Um not really necessarily um the same here other than that code was older because um it didn't allow for them. This one is a a legal non-conforming use. The code changed since the marina first had been approved and we would no longer allow for a new marina in our single family residential districts. However, we have put it in our code specifically legal non-conforming uses in our single family district can be expanded by conditional use permit. >> Okay. So, a couple couple comments here. Um, in one of the meetings, uh, Planning Commissioner Paul Gerard, VIP Planning Commissioner, Chairman Paul Gerard made some comments about parking and that the fact that if we weren't at where we're at, which seems excessive, we wouldn't even be having much of a discussion around this. Um, the other comment he made was that um, there are multiple residential properties. Matter of fact, there's a a local pastor that advertises six slips for rent uh in one of the bays in a residential area. Um Chair Gerard also mentioned that his his neighbor uh former neighbor who is a a friend of mine, which will go nameless right now, allowed four boats to be parked on his dock right next to him. And so one of the reasons why I'm open to allowing at least the 36 is that this really does put this in more of a controlled environment instead of truly residential neighborhoods where people are walking through people's yards at 10 o'clock at night after getting off the boat and being loud. This just seems to be a better fit than these random one-offs where people are renting out um their own docks. Not commercial, probably doesn't have the right insurance to include all that. That's happening. and we have a local business that's doing that and with standards of more of a commercial environment. Um, >> Mayor Roberts, could I interrupt really quick? Would you say that that is promoting planned and orderly development and preventing um excuse me uh providing compatible integrated land use in different land use districts? >> Absolutely. Absolutely. >> The other comment um was made is uh around is and about species and boats that are slipped truly do stay on the lake. Um they're not going down the river one weekend and up to Green Lake the next weekend and coming back to Forest Lake. Um I know a number of people who have slips there in Tim's Marina. They really do treat this like their lake. Um they they be they think they belong to Forest Lake. take care of it. And I think that's another advantage of having more slipped boats than boats just coming and going from different uh launch sites. So that's another reason why I'm favorable of staff's recommendation of of the 36. Um I I think I think that Tim's Marina has done a nice job. There was some comments about his taxes won't go up. Well, yeah, they will just like everyone else's. People's taxes will go up, especially on the commercial side. And so I think as a commercial property owner he is he's paying fair share amount of property taxes. >> Chair I don't know for the or mayor I don't know for the record that staff had stated that. I don't know where that comment came from in prior meetings. >> We just got done with a a board of equalization taxing meeting at 5:00 and a lot of people's taxes went up. I don't know any property that there is going to be some way that there's going to be absolutely no way to raise the property taxes. That's just that's just happens. That's what happens. Well, to the degree that that's >> to the degree that taxes go or go up, you know, that couple of incidences that you re, you know, you mentioned about private residencies renting out boat space. I know I've got neighbors that, you know, have non lake owner people using their docks. So when we get, you know, wakeboats coming through, um, they're not 50 horse pontoons, you know, they're and their property taxes aren't changing because they're letting other people use their dock. So everybody's taxes will continue. >> Mr. Larson, enough. >> We're not challenging anyone tonight. enough. >> Enough. >> Point of order. If there's continues to be eruptions, interruptions to the council, we can certainly take a recess um for a while and then, you know, reconvene when everybody can appreciate that we have to follow the the proper procedures. So totally up to the council. If we feel like we need to take a break for a little bit, we can do that. If we feel like we want to keep pushing through, we can do that. And obviously, you have no obligation to respond to any comments that are coming from the the public at this point. >> I think we can push through if everyone agrees to be respect respectful. >> And you were saying, sorry, go ahead. Oh, just, you know, we're just being the being a dead horse on the on the tax situation. So, that's good. Um, >> the other uh comment I think that I want to make that is makes this a better situation is the fact that the goal here is to have longterm slipped boats and not short-term rentals. If people I understand are concerned about Boers out there, near misses, all the things that we've heard here uh tonight and and previous nights at planning commission, um you're going to have more of experienced boater in a slipped boat that owns their own boat. I think that most people can agree with that. And so between the LA less people coming and going in that site and from and from people reducing that number when you t think about that and reducing the three uh RV slips or spots you're really about in that neutral on on the parking. I think too, as you've pointed out, it with long-term rental um slips, people will care more about the lake and care more about the surroundings and the impact and just the area. I think people will shop more in Forest Lake will be here more. Um and again, yeah, just appreciate the area more. >> Your thoughts? So, I'm willing to entertain a motion either way. Um, some direction from staff on what that could be. >> Yeah. So, um I think that there's I think uh you've made many statements tonight that are supported in the zoning code. The subdivision regulations indicate that you need to look at existing and anticipated traffic. um including parking facilities on this adjacent streets. We've talked about Mandat's comments and um the parking on site has not been spilling out onto the street. You've talked a little bit about um the effect and the proposed use in terms of um the things like uh groundwater um surface water. Right now they're already parking. We're already parking on grass and um gravel. This isn't necessarily something new onto that site. You've also looked at um things the zoning code intent. You've talked about um we talked about already the public rightway, but um you talked about the compatible integration of land uses on marinas versus in our other set single family residential districts. conserving and protecting natural resources by keeping slips in seasonally and not moving them in and out. Um, you've talked a little bit about uh protecting a reasonable extent public safety of having long-term slip owners on the lake as opposed to short-term slip owners. I'm saying some of these things because these were some of the things the code says that we should be considering when we're looking at conditional use permits and the expansion of conditional use permits. I'm going to go back just really quick. Um, you know, tonight you had this consideration of the appeal of a variance in a cup. The planning commission and you heard from Commissioner Young tonight who said the planning commission took a look at this and said there's a variance. We couldn't approve the variance. We can't approve the conditional use permit. Um, I think I need this council to determine whether or not um just for a order of procedure of whether or not there may have been an error in that decision of that the code 153.051D indicates we can consider an expansion of a nonconformity and whether or not that's what this council would like to move forward with. And if that's the case, then I think we can move to make a motion. Did that make sense? a lot. >> Your honor, council, could I maybe put a fine point on that for you? Uh, so there's the the pathways. There's two pathways that the council has. There's a pathway to a affirming what the planning commission did and a pathway to overturning what the planning commission did. And so if the council chooses to overturn what the planning commission did, then step one is to on the variance determine that a variance was not necessary in this situation. Um and so essentially that appeal is overturned because the error was we did not need the variance. And then the second item that the council would need to be considering is the conditional use permit. and instead of denying the conditional use permit because you could not grant a variance, you would be granting the conditional use permit with these new conditions. So, it sounds like 36 30 whatever the number is of boat slips or any other conditions that the council would want to attach to the approval of the conditional use permit um provided that they are reasonable and have rough proportionality. But I haven't heard anything that makes me concerned about that. So the first thing would be to determine that there was an error on the requiring a variance and then moving to the conditional use permit. So we'd be looking for two motions if that's the pathway the council wants to go. And what I'm hearing is that the council um sees the city code allowing for the consideration of the expansion of nonconformities in section 153051D. And because of that, the council would move to overturn the planning commission's decision on the denial of a variance because a variance was not needed because the city code allows for that expansion. You got that? >> Let me give it a shot. I'm gonna make a motion that we >> overturn >> overturn the planning commission's denial of the variance because the variance wasn't required because our code allows it. Section 153. >> 051D. >> 051D. And as such, I make a motion to approve the conditional use permit for one additional dock, 36 slips for a total of 132 slips and to approve a variance for 83 parking spaces at 9080 Jewel Lane subject to the findings outlined in the staff report in the following conditions. >> Um, can I just say maybe um maybe instead of with the following conditions and direct staff to draft a resolution back to memorialize the council's action. So you don't have to take that friendly amendment. >> Yes, please. >> I'll second. >> Okay, we have a motion and a second. All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion carries. So that was both. You had mentioned two motions, but >> Councilman Eric, >> we're good. We got >> All right. Thank you. >> We'll bring back a formal resolution at your next meeting, your next regular meeting. >> All right. Thank you. Um 8B 2026 legislative update. Uh looks like we have three weighing in on this. Starting with Jolene, I guess. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um in your packet, you'll see that staff has prepared several bills that are currently under consideration the state legislature. Um, we're tracking these bills because we think that the in the potential impact of these actions is important for the city to keep an eye on. Um, just a quick little overview. Obviously, when laws are passed at the state level, it's much different than how we pass our laws or ordinances here at the city level. So, when we're looking at state legislation, what happens to start off is there's an idea presented. It could be by residents, citizens, it could be a legislator, it could be a lobbyist or a group bringing forward an idea or a concept that they want to move into legislation. A bill is then written um and that bill gets introduced into the legislature, either the House or the Senate, sometimes companion bills, so they could be in both the House and the Senate, the Senate. A committee then will review the bill and they will hold debate on it. They will bring in folks to provide testimony. Mayor Roberts just provided testimony a couple weeks ago on some pending legislation regarding local sales tax here. Um when the committee is reviewing this pending legislation, they can make changes to it. They can adopt it as it was originally presented. And then once the committee review is done, the bill will then move to a vote in the House and the Senate. If it passes both of those votes, um the versions will be matched. If there's need for a conference committee to make sure that the bills are matching, they'll do that and um present one final version of the bill. And then once that happens, the governor will take action on the bill. He's either going to approve the bill, sign it into law, or he's going to veto the bill. So that's kind of a really highlevel overview of of how legislation works at that high state level, much different than our ordinances that we pass here. Um, we've kind of worked out a a presentation to highlight some of the bills that we're tracking here. And I'm going to turn it over primarily to Abby and Ellie to walk through these bills because these bills really live in their wheelhouses of expertise. We'll just walk through a couple of these and then propose some potential action that council can consider tonight where we can push off consideration of that action. So, uh hopefully you took a look at the bills in your packet and you are all following every single thing that affects cities, but I don't imagine that's the case. Um what we're going to do is Ali and I I think we bounced back and forth on a couple, but we kind of tried to keep them a little bit in each other's uh like bucket list. So, uh, the first one I have is House floor or House um 3545 Senate 3683. This focuses on energy code requirements. So, what this bill does is it actually proposes striking a requirement that's currently in state law that would require the city to um would require for a 70% reduction in energy usage by 2038. And what this does is it actually places some restrictions through our building code and it is really um concerning just because there's no way to guarantee that we're going to be able to achieve this. Um it's going to increase costes cost at the time of development. Uh I know that the adverse to that is the upfront cost maybe helps save money in the long run but um we really do think that um there might be a more flexible technologically aligned approaches in the future. So with this one um at least at the moment staff is monitoring I think that we're supportive of this but we wouldn't necessarily be recommending that the council take action at this time. Any questions on that one? Okay, moving right along. Uh, this is a big one. This is one that the city council has actually taken action on the last two consecutive years. So, this is the zoning and housing policy reform. This is House 3895, Senate 4123. This is a bill that's designed to help promote more housing construction and affordability. And what that does is it places control over local zoning decisions. Um, this is a statewide uh provision. It's going to ultimately limit our local authority and not just in design and some livability requirements, but it could dictate that we have lots that are as small as 5,400 square feet. So, this is one of those ones that staff is really concerned about and the city has expressed its um uh opposition in the past, namely because it it definitely doesn't prove that it's going to create more or affordable housing. Um it's just going to limit our local authority. Um I think if it's all right to Yes. So, we did have on the staff um on the slides there and in the packet that we do have a resolution included in this packet for your consideration that would be expressing a lack of support for this um this bill. >> Do we want to go through all of these and then come back to discussion or do we want to discuss as we're talking about them? >> I would suggest that we go through them and then we can come back and discuss each one if if council's okay with that or or if that's fine. Okay. Jolene. >> Oh, thank you. Sorry, I didn't see that the slide changed there. Um, House File 7 4704 and companion Senate File 4649 address what are commonly referred to as unfunded mandates. And these are situations where the state requires city to implement new programs or standards but doesn't provide sufficient funding to cover those costs. um these bills or the bill would propose a constitutional change which would establish that if the state does impose a new requirement on cities that it must fully fund that requirement and in the event that it funding is not provided cities would have the option to not implement the mandate. Um this would you know I if this bill passes it could reduce the pressure on local property taxes. It could improve our budget predictability and provide a little bit more local control over when and how new requirements are implemented. At the same time, it would place more responsibility on our council here and other councils within the area to evaluate new mandates and make policy decisions when funding is not mandated. staff's positions that were generally supportive of this bill because it does align state requirements with funding and reduces the pressure on city's levies and operating budgets. Um, we would suggest that at this time because of where it's at in the process, it's it's very very early in the process that we continue to monitor this and if the the bill continues to gain some momentum that we would bring back a future action for council to consider likely in support of this bill. So, Senate File 4756 recommends property tax levy limits. This is bringing back a pre-established law where there would be limits on how we can set those property taxes. This is the second rendition of this bill. The first one came forward with just setting the levy based on the previous year's inflation factors. um without being in the room for those conversations. It did get brought back with now including both the 50% of the population growth and those inflationary factors. So this would allow for a slight count of growth but still then holding us back to those inflationary factors and we would combine them together to come up with what that max levy would be. However, staff has some concerns regarding this bill as it's drafted because it does really constraint what those revenue sources would be along with expenditures. And so when we come back to this, we would look to take a resolution for lacking support of these levy limits in legislation. uh the transportation uh transit and transportation policy uh house file 4449 and Senate file 4658. Um this one is a bill that's establishing new regional transit planning requirements and funding priorities provisions would kind of create a regional transit investment framework, set some performance benchmarks. Um, where it starts to go a little bit concerning to the city is starting to place restrictions on highway projects that are inconsistent with transportation priorities. There's the potential for reallocation of transportation funding and then also just requirements for transit oriented development. Impact locally is it's could potentially limit our flexibility in transportation planning, how we spend our dollars. Um, it also uh could really kind of significantly start to shift how funding gets shifted from roads to transit and we're in a kind of a lack of transit community. What that usually or what that could potentially do to us. So, our position is to continue to monitor it closely. Um, I do know that this was at the transportation finance and um policy committee today out of their hour and 40 long minute meeting. They had 40 minutes was on this. It didn't um I think they kind of like tabled it today. Um and so I think we just continued to monitor this one to see where that goes. House File 4103 and Senate File 451 has to do with our trunk highway funds use for local uh local utilities. This bill allows us to use that state trunk highway funding to cover the cost of projects that affect um that we need to move all of our utility stuff for that has to do with the highway. And so this expands the eligibility of those trunk funds so that we could then use it to support if we have to mo move some drainage, if we need to look at the way we do our sewer if it is affected by a local road project. So, as a city, we do support this bill as it um aligns with a more appropriate use of funding and it'll allow us to pull on more funding sources as we do move forward with required road projects. >> Oh, sorry. >> And then everybody's favorite topic, tax incrementing finance. Um House File 3994 and Senate File 3608. This bill modifies the um what it takes to be a TIFF district, the returns on TIF district, and it allows more flexibility for us to then collect revenue and then provide those revenue sources back. However, with more flexibility comes more regulation in the front and along with as those projects continue to grow, it is more staff time. So, we are in support of this as it is a great way to bring development into the city and it is a great way to continue to foster and increase that tax base. However, we are monitoring it just in case any potential changes come up as the bill continues to progress because though it could be beneficial, there could be some really steep impacts that are also associated with it. >> Great. Do you want us to go back to anyone? Um, I think we're we have a couple resolutions for your consideration. You want to go back to the ones? >> Just I just want one quick question on the housing one. I think it might have been your second one. Is is this the same policy reform that's come up >> the last two consecutive years? Okay. It's a slightly uh it's a modified version from each year. It kind of gets a little more watered down. This year the kind of fancy new thing is we get some choices. we get to choose like seven of the 10 or 12 um options for how we can achieve the requirements. But I will say that that's that >> still not good. >> Still not the greatest that we'd like to see. It still is a lot of I would say um relinquishing of our local zoning control. >> That's what I thought. Okay. Thank you. >> So this one we you're proposing a resolution be made on this one. Correct. >> Correct. Do you do have in your packet resolution 04132605 expressing a lack of support for that? House file 3895, Senate file 4123. >> Right. We need to entertain a motion on this. What about 04? >> You can do them both at the same time if you'd like. >> Okay. So, I'll make a motion that we approve resolutions 04132604 expressing lack of support for Senate File 4756, the levy limit legislation, and resolution 04132605 expressing lack of support for House File 3895, Senate File 4123, zoning and housing policy reform. >> I'll second. >> Motion, a second. Any further discussion? All in favor? I opposed. Motion carries. Then do we have another resolution on another one or >> that was the Okay. All right. >> The rest we're just going to continue to monitor. Correct. >> That's correct. >> All right. Thank I appreciate you everyone's work on this. Uh it's great to get these updates. So much that happens down at the capitol really does impact us here locally and so it's really appreciate staff's attention to this. >> Right. 8 C public works facility community engagement and education Jolene. >> Thank you Mr. Mayor members of council. Council is very aware the city's advancing planning for a new public's works facility to improve efficiency and address space and safety concerns. As the project has progressed, it's become clear that community engagement has not been occurring to the level um which it should or as early or robustly as it should have been. We're now nearing design development where concepts are being finalized and ideally community engagement would have already been well underway when we've gotten to this point. Um to address this I'm recommending engagement of Goff public to support a structured communications and community engagement effort. While this is very clearly later than ideal, this will help improve transparency. It'll provide clear information and create opportunities for public input as we're moving forward on this project. Um I'm proposing that we enter into an agreement for preliminary services with Goff not to exceed $20,000. And this uh this money would be funded through the public works facility debt service fund which council recently established. Um and staff at this time would recommend that council move forward with approval of an agreement with Goff public so we can get some community engagement underway. Hope happy to answer any questions. >> Can you just kind of speak to their experience a little bit? >> Yeah. Um, Goff does a lot of work in this arena and actually I was just chatting with some of their um team who if council decides to move forward with this um would be working with us and received a list of communities that they have been working with recently um on different projects whether it's community centers, public works buildings, public works facilities or public safety facilities. So recently they've been working with Falcon Heights, Maple Grove, Minnotonka, St. Paul, the village of St. Anthony, Weisetta, and our neighbor just to the north, the city of Wyoming. Um they they fine-tune each city's needs based on what the project is and what the community needs to know and understand about the project. So they would come in, they would meet with staff, probably our public works steering committee as well, so we can get folks really engaged to develop a robust plan to just get the word out about what this project is. Now, we do have pending um bill with the with the state for local sales tax. Goff public would not be promoting advertising that local sales tax option. They're prohibited from doing so by state statute. So, this would truly be focused on education about what our needs are for a new public works facility and truly what our current existing facility is and why we need to start looking really carefully at a new facility. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah, I I I think it it's we're behind the ball on this. We should have been ahead of that. I think a lot of that had to do just with change in the administration position to why we're not where we should be right now in this. And so, um, I would support this if anyone wants to >> certainly >> make a motion. I'd like to make a motion to approve a professional services agreement with Goff public in the amount not to exceed $20,000 for preliminary community engagement and education services related to the uh proposed public works facility and authorize the interim city administrator to execute the agreement on behalf of the city. >> I'll second. >> We have a motion to second. Any further discussion? >> All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion carries. Thank you on that. Next item 8D watershed district regatory program rule changes. Uh Mayor Roberts, members of the council, the as the council's aware, the city of Forest Lake situated in two different watershed districts, Comfort Lake Forest Lake Watershed District and Rice Creek Wershed District. And we've been put on notice uh both of those wersheds are managed by their respective district agencies. We've been put on notice that um the agencies are maybe updating their rules. Um though I will say since this memo has come out, Rice Creek has said they will not be updating their rules this year, but Comfort Lake Forest Lake staff has indicated that they will be working on that later. Staff has put together for your consideration a letter to submit to each of the districts. Even though Rice Creek wouldn't be updating the rules, it's not bad to just uh also let them know that these are some things we hope they look at in the future. But enclosed in the letters is um some concerns for each of the districts. Each of them are slightly different and ways in which they're affecting the community are different. Um first and foremost align with both of them. The city staff has identified that the regulatory rules between these two different agencies, other adjacent agencies and the state are not the same. and how we would really love if we could get to the point where we were working with um a single set of rules that just would make it a lot easier for us as we're working with our land owners and our developers in the future. We're working right now with two different sets and sometimes what makes it really hard is telling somebody what the rules and one agency versus another just right next door are different. Um, next staff's recommending both districts require uh storm water exemptions for utility replacements. So, inind linear utilities. Um, so essentially if we're going to replace water pipes, sewer pipes, um, I don't know, copper, lead lines, lead service lines. Um, those are things that we'd really like consideration of exemptions. right now we will h we may end up triggering storm water rules and may need to put in um new storm water facilities in areas that are you think about old forest lake some of those older neighborhoods we're kind of limited in where we can put that infrastructure new infrastructure in um lastly regarding recommendations to both staff is recommending the council ask the districts to implement regional credit bank in line with the city's 2026 draft MSR4 permit. So there are also in each of the letters some things that are specific. So for Comfort Lake, Forest Lake, um the request for exemptions for low inensity development. We have a lot of rural residential uh land in the city, not guided for urban development, but it is uh land that is still very marketable and still very um highly sought after for new construction. So, one example is the Ingresol Ponds development off of Ingresol Avenue, um, where what we would say is maybe a minor subdivision triggered, um, storm water permitting that, uh, created some pretty significant land disturbance that staff would argue may have had some some impacts that might have offset maybe those future water quality impacts, things that we'd like to consider. And then um caps on fee and loo for stormwater BMPPS for Rice Creek. Um the one thing that we indicated is streamlined alternative compliance sequencing essentially allowing for sequencing through storm water treatment options that demonstrate feasibility in infeasibility. All those concerns are on the enclosed memos for each of the district's regulatory rules and um staff is recommending the city council review the enclosed letters and if favorable move to authorize Mayor Roberts to sign the letters prior for staff's transmission to the watershed districts. I will note too that um the letter to uh Rice Creek Wershed District does have a couple typos that it will end up just fixing before uh Mayor Robert signs it if you wish to. >> Well, um similar to the state situation, I I appreciate staff's attention to this. Um these these regulations affect uh our our residents greatly. uh specifically more so the Lake Comfort Force Lake than Rice Creek. So, but I do appreciate um weighing in on both watersheds. To Aby's point, it would be very nice that when someone comes to Forest Lake to develop or even individual resident wants to do something to his yard, the first question isn't what wershed are you in? That shouldn't have to be the first question. And so I would like to see that be more closely aligned with what area watershed districts are doing. Um and so I would be in support of this and would entertain a motion. >> I'm in support as well. And with that I'll make a motion to authorize Mayor Roberts to sign um both letters for the watershed districts um prior to transmitt to each watershed district. A >> second motion is second. Any further discussion? All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion carries. >> Right. We will move on to our discussion part of the meeting. Lake Comfort Forest Lake Wershed District April 23rd board meeting attendance. >> Uh thank you Mayor Roberts. Members of the council, the Comfort Lake Forest Lake wershed district board will be meeting should be meeting on April 23rd. Um we've been advised the board may their district board may be discussing the draft flood plane resilience action plan. Um staff included just a hyperlink to that plan and some comments city staff have already provided. Um council member liaison who isn't here this even liaison Kevin Miller who's not here this evening will also not be able to attend that meeting. He has another conflict. Staff's bringing this matter to the council for discussion pertaining to city's representation. staff believes that it's important that we have representation at these board meetings and um so I just thought we'd bring this to share with you some of the concerns that the staff have that staff has with the flood plane resilience action plan um the potential for creation of a new flood plane overlay uh project areas that are critical for future city storm water needs and projects that in areas that are suitable for non-residential urban development. Um, so this is just on your agenda to wasn't intended necessarily to talk much about the the plan or the policies, but really more than anything to determine uh city representation at that meeting on April 23rd. >> I think it's important that um sta uh council member and potentially staff member uh if possible would attend that meeting. Is there a council member present this evening that would be available to and staff that is uh available to attend that meeting that day? >> Yeah, I'm I'm able to attend. Okay. I think staff can take a look between uh your staff that's here tonight and and clearly uh public works director Adams who I mean he didn't show up. >> I think we should just nominate him a motion on that. >> Um we can definitely have representation with you. Uh Council Member Ericson, >> I think it's important. Um this this is just is another example of overreaching power by a an appointed body and it needs all the attention we can give it and I appreciate staff bringing this to our attention. All right, we will move on to staff updates. >> Our audit officially took place last week. Um the auditors had a conversation with council member Miller. Um he followed up and said it went great. Um I am a little bit sad because he was really excited about it and it was a five-minute conversation. Um, but I guess that's a great sign. It was only 5 minutes. Um, our financial analyst started today. Um, this position was approved by the council um, a couple months ago and she comes with us with 17 years of experience from Ellers who does our 10-year plan. Um, and so she hit the ground running today and created a fabulous book of financial reports that you guys will start seeing. So, super excited with how quick she was able to take the lead on that. And then um without our within our legislative update, completely forgot by myself, I didn't include our own bill. Um our sales tax will go to the House tax committee on Thursday. And as a reminder, this is step one in a very long process in order to get sales tax eligible at the city. So, what we will have to do is make its way all the way through that legislative process as Jolene mentioned and then it comes back to the city for city and residents to for cities for our city residents to vote on. And so, even if it does get passed at the legislative level, it still has to come back to that city level. But there is a com committee hearing at the house level at 10:15 on Thursday. >> Thank you, Ryan. >> Mayor, city council. Nothing specific to update if you got any questions. Other than that, I'm really tired of reviewing a lot of development stuff. >> So, prepare for the summer. >> Good good problem to have. Uh any the traffic 97 is that issue with that subsided a little bit and the closing of 2002 helped >> first week obviously we got a lot of inquiries since then. I haven't had anything directly to me. Uh we're close with my inspector Chad too who's working with MDOTs and nothing has come our way. Uh we did take a proactive approach and close at 202 intersection because of the situation that was occurring during morning hour and afternoon school traffic that we weren't willing to take that risk anymore. Um so we closed that down and forcing them to go down to the signal at Headwaters Parkway. Great, great decision, >> Amanda. >> No updates, >> Abby? >> Uh, well, I have it on my list to uh let you know about um neighborhood notices that went out for Cooling Camp Park. I debated sending you all an email today because we just received notice over the weekend that Tower Company in consultation with AT&T is moving forward with this council's direction. So, as a reminder to you and the audience that's listening at home, Cooling Camp Park is owned by the city of Forest Lake and a tower in uh the city uh um would require a conditional use permit. this council said, "We may be favorable to signing an application for a conditional use permit, but we want you to go out and talk with that neighborhood first." Um, so, um, the tower company had asked us if we had a preference of whether or not they sent these certified or not. Staff said we have no preference. Um, I wasn't even necessarily thinking about the implication of people signing for things and how it may seem much more important, but actually I do think it's good that it helps draw attention for the neighborhood as this council had asked that developer or that potential development to do. So, the process is they're going to hold this pre-application neighborhood meeting to essentially field the interests of the neighborhood, talk about opportunities and constraints before they would come back before you and ask to submit a conditional use permit. They can't move forward without even asking coming back to ask you if the city's willing to sign on that. So, that meeting is an open public meeting April 30th right here at 4:30. Um, just let me know if you're going to be here. We'll probably just post notice if there's potentially going to be a quorum of planning commission council and or the parks commission. >> Do you have any questions about that? >> I just want to add on Abby. I just based on the comment that we received tonight from one of the residents. I just want to make it clear that it was not the city who paid for that certification. No, that was those fees were paid for by tower company. Those were not city dollars used to mail those out. >> That's a a great point, Jolene. Uh, thank you. I think that to also just a point any actions right now are the actions of the private companies that are seeking to potentially do this. This is not a city action. The only thing the city has requested is they go out and get some public input before we consider signing on an application. So, city staff is not incurring any cost, but we will have representation at that meeting as well, just so that we can hear what the neighborhood has to say. Do you know what um the boundaries are they larger foot per that spot where they've notified than what we normally do? >> I think they did they did in excess. I can go back and take a look and report back to the council. I'll shoot you an email um tomorrow. I do believe they did well in excess of what would be the city's notification requirements because when I did we did talk with them about our limited, you know, that we generally don't end up feeling the neighborhoods definitely don't feel like we've noticed far enough >> and and I appreciate that and and the certified letter I understand, you know, it's a little bit overwhelming. Um, but I think it's a great way that they're conf, you know, they for sure get that. I wonder even though this is the the company that's doing this that the fact that this is an a public city park that we can't help with some maybe social media because you know yes it affects the neighborhood more but also we have residents bringing their children to this park and they might want to weigh in on whether or not I mean they'll have plenty opportunities other than this neighborhood meeting but I just as forward as we can be on this especially since it's city-owned and park I think the better. I think I can definitely work with that company to see if they can help put together a a social media piece for us to post on their behalf. I my only concern is I don't necessarily at this time want this to seem like it is a city initiated action. um should they do this neighborhood, they're going to hold this neighborhood meeting, they'll have to come back and ask the council if the council will consider uh signing on the conditional use permit application and there will be additional neighborhood and public hearings and meetings after that as well. So, um I think we can work to see if there's something they could develop for us. >> Agreed. >> Okay. Anything else, Abby? Uh the only other things uh that I have is very much like Ryan uh development is dominating the planning zoning offices right now that things are moving. We've got another new concept plans kind of that same area east of Highway 61 north of County Road 50. Um just as a reminder your next workshop you have uh you've agreed to meet with Headarters Land Development to talk about some infrastructure roadway infrastructure phasing cost share. um that's on your next workshop agenda uh at at their request. So if you have any questions about that in advance in the meeting or anything you want staff to prepare, please let me know this week um so that we can be prepared for that meeting. And then lastly, you might have seen in the weekly update, we received a rise in deck permit application. So I think lots of people are starting to I think it feels more than just think spring now. These last couple days feel really nice. So, that's all I got. >> Thank you, Amanda. >> Nothing tonight. >> Jolie, >> a couple quick updates. Um, we we talked about this a little bit a few weeks ago, but we're seeing a resurgence in this um just today. Um there has been an uptick in a fishing scheme, which is using public meeting materials to reach out to various applicants to try to solicit um payment to these criminals. um posing as city officials. So, today Abby made us aware of one that was actually sent um allegedly by Mayor Roberts requesting payment and then one of our gambling permit applicants actually came in today and had received the same type of an email notification. So, it's clear that our public meeting materials are being used by these folks to try to solicit some fraudulent payments. It's really disappointing. Um, this is happening. Unfortunately, there's not a lot that we can do because we do have an obligation to the public to publish our meeting materials. So, um, we're going to do a little bit more public education on this with some social media posts just to keep folks aware that this is happening. But if council, if you're hearing folks um comments or concerns from folks, definitely send them to staff and let folks know to not pay invoices or click on payment links that they're receiving through emails that might look that they're like come from city staff. Um secondly, our parks, since Dave's not here tonight, our parks are officially opening on April 15th. I know park by my house has been busy, so I think folks are really excited and anxious for spring. So, um they'll officially be open on the 15th. And then finally, next week at our workshop, we're going to be focusing heavily on the public works project. So, um, let's hope that everyone's prepared to have some really in-depth extensive discussion about this project because I think we need to really get ahead of a couple things on this project to make sure that we're staying on a a good track here. >> That's all I have tonight. >> Thank you, Council Member Valent. >> Nothing from member. >> Just a quick question for Julene. with those people that are um submitting applications, is there are we giving them clear direction that hey, there's some fishing going on and really be mindful. Is there something that we can provide them? >> We we I think we need to start doing a better job of that and and today was our first experience with having a nonzoning planning applicant come forward with a concern. So, the reach is spreading on that and I think we need to do a little bit better education with our applicants to let them know to be very very wary of those emails. >> Yeah. Thank you. No other updates for member. >> Uh nothing further, but uh like to thank public works for coming out on Northshore between uh 235th and Greenway area. They put down a lot of tar filling holes and rolled it out with a roller. So it's a lot better than what it was. So just thank you to them for their extended work. >> Right. I have nothing for anymore this evening. Uh willing to entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> Some moved. >> Second. >> Uh any further discussion? All in favor? >> I opposed. We're adjourned.