[Music] Good evening everyone. Uh this is the city of Columbus and this is the city council meeting. The date today is June 25th, 2025 and the time is 6:04. The first thing on the agenda is uh pledge of allegiance. If everybody stand up, remove your hats. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [Music] Just for the record, I just want to note all the council members are here except for Rob Bush. And is Rob online? No. No. Okay. So, all the uh council members are here. Uh the public works director is here. The the city administrator is here. Our attorney's here. Brian's here for the engineer and that's who's here tonight. We're going to go on to item number three under A which is the adoption of the agenda. Uh Janet would like to have the floor just to move an item. Um so this is Janet. I would uh move to um adopt the city council uh agenda with the following change. And that would be to um move the planning commission report which is under D5 up um to under C um one in between C1 and C2 and that would be so that there was a report um on the two items that follow that which was discussed in fair amount at the planning commission. That's my motion long and it's this is Scott. I'll second. Thank you. We have a motion on the floor. It's been seconded. Any other discussion? Any questions? We'll call for a vote. Jenny, Jenny, I, Scott, I, Janet, I, and Ron I. The motion passes unanimously. We'll go on to the next item, which is the uh, consent agenda. There's some items in here 1 through six. Is there anybody on the council that wants to pull one? Anyone or all of them or whatever? Well, if no Do you want to pull one? I want to pull more than one. Okay, then I will wait. Okay. Um, so let me just explain what I'm where I'm coming from before I make the motion. If that would be all right with you, mayor. Um, I have no problem with B1. Um, I have no problem with B7. Um, I had a chance to go through some, but not all of the minutes. I had one set of minutes which was the May 14th one which were good to go unless anybody else had edits. Um I also looked at the LBAE minutes and there I had some significant edits in on that one. Um I went back and looked at the video that um uh I was sent Jack sent to me and so there were some significant changes. I can do I could read those changes into the record and then we could if you agree with the changes we could adopt that tonight or later in the agenda I'm going to talk about my proposed solution to this neverending headache of minutes that never seem to get approved. Um and so my motion is on the consent agenda um to approve B1 and B uh six and B7 and table the rest of the minutes um for a later meeting after we hopefully can discuss a proposed solution to this. So, just to make it clear, you'd like to pull two, three, four, and five. Uh, yes. Council everybody understand that then? Uh, Mr. Mayor, this is Scott. So, one question. We pro all probably have edits. Is that what you're talking about in a discussion on on how to solve this problem later? Yes. Yes. To share that and not violate the open meeting. Yes. Okay. Well, I mean, yes. I I that is what I'm It's going to put us on a tight timeline, so you guys will have to think about whether or not you can meet that tight timeline, but yes. Okay. I mean, I'll second that motion. Okay. We have a motion on the floor. It's been seconded. Any discussion, Jenny? Um, my only, this is Jenny. My only concern is that if we table these further, I mean, I know that we've all done edits on March 26th and April 9th and reviewed those. So, confirming you have further edits on on B2 and B3. Based on I have not had a chance to look at them to see whether or not whatever edits were made are were consistent with what I had before because there's no revision marks or anything. So that's that's the part that's part of my solution. Okay. And and this is Scott, mayor, if I may uh respond to council member Latin. Uh the edits that I suggested suggested prior for March 26 were not made. So um want to resuggest those as well. So back to you, Jenny. Yes. So it is so that this is Jenny. That's fine. I again my only concern is that we're going back to March 26th now and it's now June and now we're going to push into four months since these minutes will be posted. And so I just I just want again we can discuss that later but we can we can move forward and strike those four. Okay. All right. Well, we'll have take a vote then. Jenny Jenny I. Scott I. Janet I. And Ron I. So, are you going to make a motion? Well, you did make that motion on that. All right, we'll go to item number C, presentations and items for council actions. Number one item on it is uh public forum. And before we start the public forum, I'd just like to make this announcement. The city Columbus City Council welcomes residents and property owners to the public forum. The purpose of the forum is to provide an opportunity to respectfully present issues of concern to the council. The council will listen to the issues but will not engage in dialogue with the presenter. Questions from the council will be for clarification only. The public forum will be used will not be used as a time for problem solving or reacting to the comments made but rather for hearing the citizens forformational purposes only. Is there anybody out there in the audience here in the building that would like to come up to the open forum? Seeing none, we'll go down to the Zoom. Is there anybody on Zoom? Hearing none, we'll close the open forum. And as that noted, we're going to go to on item number two on under C, we're going to go to the planning commission report by council member Janet Hegeland. Council member Janet Hegund has to find it first. probably going to have to do this by memory, but it wasn't it won't be too hard. So, first of all, um the planning commission uh uh met on June 19th. I believe that was the date. And um there was three items I just wanted to bring to your attention. One was that we had a new planning commissioner um and uh Mike um Aust Oswald Oswald. Thank you. I'm getting two resident last names mixed up. And so he he made it through his first planning commission uh meeting and did a great job. And so we are really pleased to have him join us. Um at the last council meeting I had reported that we had filled both vacant spots and we had um and unfortunately after um the events of a couple weekends ago with the assassination, the person who had agreed to fill the second spot reconsidered that option. And so we now have that um uh vacancy open again and are actively looking for planning commissioners. So, any of you out there who would like to be on our planning commission, we have an opening. Um, so that's that. The second uh thing I wanted to bring up was um there were two items that they discussed. The first was the site plan review for um Ryback companies and I know we're going to talk about that tonight and we have Mr. Ryback on in the audience. Um so, first thing is that Mr. Mr. Rybeck has had this a cup for that um property since 2002. There have been two amendments to the cup, one in 2007 and one in 2009. Um in the 2007 review, I'm sorry, CUP amendment. There was a addition to um an existing building proposed and approved by the council and Mr. Ryback would like to now move forward with building that addition. Um so what was before the planning commission was a site review not reopening the cup because none of the um activities of the ryback companies are going to change and so there's no reason to reopen that cup. Um there was uh I believe that the addition is 90 ft by 120 ft if my memory serves me correctly. it will be um space to store equipment and then there'll also be office space um available um additional office space available where um currently I think employees are utilizing warehouse space and cubicles to carry out their work. Um the planning commission did not have any significant concerns with that site plan and re and unanimously recommended um approval of it for the council. And there is um the report from the um from uh Ellaner Han, the uh city planner in our packet. And so I'm happy to answer any questions. Oh, here's my here's my report that I wrote out so nicely. Um let me just make sure I didn't forget anything here. Uh oh, one other thing. Um there were building elevations that uh Ellaner got from Rybacks because that was not um in the original um approved application. And uh Rice Creek wershed is requiring an additional storm water ponding by the driveway, which means four of the mature trees need to be removed to accommodate these. But we are still fine with the number of trees that are being um required. So, this is this is too bad because they're nice trees, but they got to go to make make room for the pond. That's it. That's it. That's it for this one. I have more after the Ryback one. Do you want me to Do you want to talk about Let's Let's go right into Dave Ry. Okay. Because we got him here and Okay. We'll go on to the item number two, the site review plan. Uh Dave Ryback, you want to step up forward? Bring Kurt with you too if you want. I gather that's Is that your wife with you? My wife. Hi. Do you need my name and address? Yes, please. Dave Ryback, 5725 137th Avenue, Columbus. Well, thanks Dave. As with the a lot a number of us council members, we were in attendance at your planning commission meeting and um I know it went kind of quick that night and I didn't see any other option I mean options to talk about other than it's kind of black and white what you're going to do. And uh I don't know anybody on the council here. I know that uh were there. I know Scott was there and Janet was there and and uh I I don't see any issues. Anybody else? Emma, no additional questions. Uhuh. Yeah, this is Scott. Uh I don't have any issues. I just I've got a note here that I can't remember what it means. Maybe somebody can help me out. This is contagious tonight, isn't it? Isn't it? Yeah. Must be the rain. Well, I'm blaming it on my old age, but uh there was an update to building elevations previously submitted with a contingency that was never done is my note here. Um so I can maybe speak to that. Um my understanding is that it was in the 2007 um cup amendment, but it was they were the building was never done. The elevations were not part of that um amendment. And that is why Elellanar went to get get that clarified. And I think that's in our packet now. Okay. Fantastic. Good. That's all I have. Thank you. Jenny, do you have anything? This Jenny, I had the opportunity to go and walk the land uh with Mr. Rabbeck yesterday, so thank you for that. Um I I don't think really my only disappointment was the the removal of the trees because they're beautiful trees. Um we went over a couple different things. You said potentially there you had a question about the well that's currently there. Um, I know that there was um it was noted in the amendment that you would potentially be putting in I'm not I'm sorry, not a different well, but um was it a uh different septic system? Uh the septic system is going to get upgraded. We had an inspection. Uh we're going to hopefully open that up uh first part of next week with a a new design and a repair if need be. Great. So the septic system was originally installed to accommodate the addition of the other two buildings. Uh if we have to enlarge it, we have a designer lined up to to do that or to create the design and we do have the space for it. Perfect. Um really I think that was my only question in terms I I noted that there were no complaints in the last 5 years. Um I did check with all that. Everything seems great. been a wonderful uh resident and um business to have in our community. So, um I really don't have anything of question or concern. I I have one real quick question to come up. Dave, are you still crushing there? We are. We are. We haven't I don't know if we've heard any complaints on it. I don't know of a complaint in 23 years. You do it like what 3 days a year? Uh it's in three to five days twice to three times a year. And you notified the city administrator before you do it. We will be I'll be doing it by by writing or email in the future. Uh all right. Any other questions? Um this is Jenny and you noted I know we walked back and looked at where you do the crushing because I had some questions about that too and um I know that the equipment has improved quite a bit in the last few years. So, it's it's nearly not noticeable at this point in terms of sound. Um, is that what you had said? We we've been running uh the new style track equipment and all of the uh uh it's an impactor, not a jock cone type crushing system. So, as far as vibration and noise, it's very minimal. I mean, when it's running, uh you you you it's it's it doesn't carry sound. It it uh I we've never had any complaints. I think the only resident we have that could possibly hear it is to the north and the east of us. So, any other questions? Having none, I'll make the motion. Uh, I, Mayor Ron Hannigraph, move to approve the Ryback site plan review for an addition to the existing building at 13915 Lake Drive as presented, agenda item C.2 two of the June 25th city council packet. Jenny, I second. We have a motion on the floor. It's been seconded. Any other discussion? Any other questions? Hearing none, we'll take a vote. Jenny I. Scott I. Janet I. And Ron I. The motion. Now would that pass unanimously even though Scott is not here? No, I'm here. Rob isn't here. Yes. Okay. All right. It's those present. Okay. Thank you, Jack. And thank you, Megan. Thank you, Dave. And thank you for providing all the additional information. This is appreciated. Yeah. So, I did put a sketch of the when we when we first moved into the tree growth. Yeah. So, and we're looking at adding more trees. So, you're going to have a celebration on your 100 years. Uh that hopefully July 14th of next year. Oh, wow. That'll be exactly 100 years to the contract I put in there. So, great. That would be our open house. Okay, sounds great. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Under section C, item number three, capping world IUP and development agreement amendment pages 24 through 43. Does Megan want to take this or does this yours? Jeff, it's me. Uh but does uh council member Huggland want to go? Nope. They did not talk about this at the planning commission. Okay. So I but I do I do want to before the next item I will do a report on the wedding venue. Okay. Okay. Uh excellent. So, uh, as as you all, um, I understand are familiar with, uh, Camping World, um, has applied for an interim use permit for, uh, so they have a primary parcel, which is where their their main operations are. Um, but they do have exterior storage on a secondary parcel. Um, and this interim use permit is particularly related to the secondary parcel. Um, it's intended to bring the existing use into compliance with city regulations rather than really authorizing a new project. So this is a compliance side IUP. Uh and the IUP is contingent upon the execution of a development agreement that links the two parcels for zoning purposes. Uh the development agreement which shall be signed by the city, a representative camping world and then both property owners which will again link that primary and the secondary parcel. Uh and in the process of negotiating that development agreement, the representatives of Camping World requested a revision to it prior to signing, which was um removing the clause terminating the IUP upon the sale of the property. Uh noting that a change in ownership would not typically affect the lease or disrupt business operations. Um, and so what we've recommended here for you, uh, this evening, um, is that the IUP should terminate upon the secession of the of the underlying business that's being approved here tonight, and it's adjacent exterior storage. Um, and just a a reminder, as I always I do love a zoning reminder, um, is that our interim use permit process um, is appropriate when a use conforms to the zoning regulations, which it does here. uh it has a date or event which will terminate the use with certainty and permission of the use will not impose additional costs on the public if it's necessary for the public to take the property in the future. So these parcels are used very much together um and have been used this way for a period of time. This again is a mechanism to bring this in compliance and we would tie the secession of the IUP with the um the change in business as compared with the change in ownership of the property. Did Did I miss anything, Jack? No, I think that pretty well covers it. Uh there's been some exchanges back and forth. I think the discussion at the planning commission meeting was to try to tie an IUP approval to the leases that exist, but there's actually two leases, and we found out one's a monthby-month lease, and the other is a lease that expires, I believe, in 2029 with three five-year renewal options. So that may determine a difference in how you want to approach the approval of this. The motion is written up to go back to what the original proposal was the sessation of the business or the expiration of the leases. Uh it doesn't have to be that, but it seems like with those two terms of those leases that are outstanding that we're going to have to look at this a little bit different. Y um and what I would suggest to you is this this concept of terminating the use of the secession of the business is appropriate. Um because you know what we have here is we have the primary use which has all of the services and amenities on the the the main site and then on the secondary site we would not want that to um to operate without the support of that primary unit. And so, so again, this process ties both the primary and the secondary site together um with a known date uh that's enforceable underneath your IEP ordinance. Any comments? I have a couple questions. Okay. Um first question is for Megan. Mhm. Um I'm looking at the development agreement and I'm looking at the 1 2 3 4 5 fifth whereas um so it says the uh whereas the affformentioned interim use permit will allow developer to use a secondary parcel for the same purpose as the primary parcel is being used which is the sales service and outdoor display. My question is, I know that the development agreement is tying the two parcels that are not the former Gander Mountain where the main business lives um together. But that southerntherly parcel does not have any facilities on it. So there's no way that that can be used um for uh sale or service because there's I mean it's storage of out of outdoors. So, I I was a little confused by the wording there as to why we're just saying all of those all of those parcels together can be used for the same purpose when really only two of them are possible for these three uses. Um, and what I would suggest is that's the the distinction here is between sort of the site plan approval um and the underlying development agreement. So, we can be more nuanced in that language um and tie it again to the approved plans. So that uh you don't see the you would you know any expansion of a service style facility um on this area would need to come in for for further approvals uh and to show that they had the um you know appropriate um water management policy and drainage and all of those things that would be needed um that's already been approved for the the primary site. Um, and so I think that that's that can use some word smithing, which is certainly a direction that we can take just to be very clear that this has allowed for an expansion of that exterior storage use um to support that primary parcel. Okay, that would satisfy me. Um, the other question that I have is um let's see here. So I think somewhere in in this um pile of papers it said that there was approximately 200 units that were being stored but I don't see anywhere in the development agreement where we have like a not to exceed value of units and that has been one of the um pain points of the um non-compliance is that they squash in as many units as they possibly can and it's created um some problems in terms of emergency mergency vehicle access and things like that. So my question is and I don't know exactly where this would be um inserted if it would be in the development agreement or what if if there's a way if if 200 units are there now and that seems to work and I I'm assume making that assumption. I don't know that for sure. Is there a way to insert a not to exceed amount so that we don't find oursel in the same position that we were in I don't know previously which started this whole ball rolling. Um well so I think we do have the developer online or we have the the operator I should say online. Um and and so you know so my suggestion primarily would be that uh you know your concern as you've voiced it is to ensure that there's um fire and safety access to the site and that that remains open and and available throughout the term of the IUP. Um and so instead of setting a not to exceed number just because the number of units and their size and shape can change that there would be a general condition that would say that you know the site needs to be accessible to fire rescue and that that could result in the revocation of the IUP in the event that like the fire lanes are not large enough. And I think my my guess if I'm right um is that that would be consistent with the general operating policy uh that the the operations team would have and and they would be okay with that type of a condition. Um before before they answer that question, I mean the other the other problem that was raised um when this was brought up before in addition to the um emergency access was just the appearance. I mean, it just looked bad. Looked bad from the freeway to have that many units squashed in one spot or in in this case, it would have been the Gander Mountain site. So, it would have been from um Zurich Street and how it dumps out onto onto um Freeway Drive. So, um it was also an aesthetics and I don't you know, I know that there is a screening proposed um so that may take care of that problem. Um but I don't know how at what stage the screening would really adequately you know sometimes we give them five years to adequately screen to the point that it's 80 or 90% opacity. So, um, it would be those two concerns together. And and I and I obviously I don't want to pull the rug out from under their feet and say, "Well, you can only have so many." But I thought one of the things that we run into with um some of these permits is that, you know, the city has sort of one set of expectation and the business has another set. And so I always think it's really good to have everybody on the same page. So if there's some number or range of units that makes sense that we could say, "Yeah, that that that fits us too," then putting it in here would make sure that down the road if people positions change or new new um leadership comes in or something, we're not, you know, arguing about what's at what's too many or what's um not enough. So I think it would be helpful to hear from the operator uh a little bit more about the number of units that they've proposed for the site. Um so a couple of things right have been discussed. Uh number one uh that there's a need to ensure that there's fire safety access for the property. Um the second question is the sort of the aesthetics and whether or not the development team and the operations team would be amendable to a a certain unit cap. And I don't know if that varies based upon what type of um items you're storing on that site. Uh and if you can provide any more information uh to the council about the landscaping plan. Uh what I'll just note for the record is that we do have um a significant landscape shity uh for the the landscaping plan and and I think it's probably a good opportunity for the operations group to talk a little bit more about the improvements that they're planning for the site. Good evening council. I can take this and I know we have Camping World on site as well or on online here that they can they can provide some additional information as well. Um, thank you for your time tonight. I know we spoke a few weeks ago, Grant Ducatch with Excel Engineering representing Camping World on this. Uh, we have Michael Bedell and Michael Vanver from Camping World and I know they would be happy to answer any questions that we have tonight as well, but I wanted just uh touch on a few of these items. I've been involved throughout the past year or so here bringing this site up to compliance. So, first item would be number of units. Typically, we don't like to cap it at a at a quote unquote number of units because, as as the attorney um mentioned, there are different sizes of units. Some units are half the size of other units and depending on inventory, that can fluctuate on on what it is, what what season it is, what type of what type of unit it is. So, we would be on board with putting in language as far as maintaining any type of fire and emergency access. That is that is definitely important from a from a user and operator standpoint. And I think that would be a way we could designate that on a site plan if need be what those fire line fire lanes and access items uh access areas need to be. I know we worked with city staff previously and to get this approved from a from a site plan perspective. So that would be our preference to implement that versus a unit cap on a number for those reasons. And in regards to landscaping, we had extensive conversations work with staff to bring this site up to compliance from a landscaping. So we did submit a landscape plan that was approved by staff. There was a shity posted and to date all landscaping has been installed on site. Jack, would you be able to just update us on on that? I haven't driven by there for a while, so I haven't seen it. And I don't remember if we got an update from staff on what the landscaping plan was that was approved by you guys. That was for some additional planning here on the east side of West Freeway Drive in the rear. And to my knowledge, that's been completed. What got installed is my question. Repeat that again, please. What was installed? That's my question. Green trees. I don't know what the species are though. How tall? Uh, probably. Let's see. Grant, can you tell me what the size of those trees were, the height, and the caliper? Yes, I'm looking right now on the approved plan. So, we we did submit a plan in that was approved by staff. That's what was planted. Let me pull it open here. It was the It was the minimum requirement of the city. I looking it up here so I don't uh misspeak. I believe there were a few deciduous trees as well. I mean, I I know that in our packet there was a a sketch with the things, but there's no legend, so I didn't know what those what those actually were. And I, you know, Jack, if you can speak to I mean, do if you feel like when you guys looked at it as staff that it's going to adequately screen, then I'm fine with that. I just hadn't heard any update on that. We did and this was discussed previously at the I believe the planning commission and it was approved. Uh they went and discussed this in detail and it appeared what their plings were were adequate to meet our requirements. Okay. Fine. Thank you. So then I think if we could just have that language in there about the fire lanes and Yep. Um and and we can I I think it probably makes sense just for the preservation of the record and for for folks who are here in five or 10 years uh to uh for Camping World just to provide I mean on this landscaping site plan it looks to me just from eyeballing it that uh all of your placement of your uh materials would absolutely comply with the um with a with a fire lane requirements. Um, but perhaps it's just a simple site plan update uh that just shows sort of where those fire those drive lanes are. Um, and then that's helpful for everyone to be on the same page moving forward. So then I have one other question. Sorry, cuz things come in threes. Um, so I think I might have been the person who was um most passionate about wanting a date because of how we have typically done IUPs, they always have a date. Um, and we were hoping, I was hoping anyways that the lease might serve that same purpose so that, you know, as they went through a lease renewal, then they could update their IUP and it would be um, simple. the month-to-month lease creates a more difficult situation, I think. Um, and I guess my qu I have a question first for um, the applicant, which is when you have a month-to-month lease, is it sometimes um, you know, do you are do you have the ability to let it lapse for a few months like in times where you might carry lower inventory and then reinstate it, you know, so maybe like January through March, you have you you don't have you you let that lease lapse and then you pick it back up again in the spring or are you consistently doing monthtomonth to monthto monthth all the time? Thank you for your question, Janet. Um Mike, Mike, do you want to answer that? Yeah, I can speak to that. Thanks to the council members for having us tonight. Um for a month-to-month lease that's a storage lease that's adjacent to a dealership like this one, we would it would be in continuous operation. So, we would not let it lapse. Okay. So, um, so then I I'm I'm curious how other council members might feel about having a still having a year, a number of years and trying to since, you know, the the one lease is monthto-month. Um, obviously we would not want that to follow that schedule. Um and it looks like the other lease is um expires on 2029 which is what 3 years from now, four years from now. Um so what if we had it be 5 years? So every 5 years they'd have to renew it. That would be a suggestion. or do you not feel as strongly about having a year even though all of our other IUPs for every other business whether it be billboards or anything else has an expiration a time expiration not a cease of operations um I still feel better about having it be a a year like like every other IUP we have in the city I don't I'm not comfortable having the precedent being set because then the next person who comes in is like, well, let's do it our let's do it so when I, you know, stop operations, then the IUP expires. It gives us less control as a city. This is Jenny. I'm comfortable with adding a date. Um, ultimately, I know that the um when it talks about specific IEPs, it talks about residential zone businesses, residential kennels, things that way. Um, I would be fine with 5 years. I'm even comfortable with 10 years. Um, 10 years seems reasonable to me. Okay. Um because at that point they would have one renewal and then they would need to decide if they're going to further renew their own um lease. So to me that would seem like a reasonable solution. Scott, do you have any comments? I have none. I I think putting it off like Jenny said, I would go with 10 years, too. Okay. So, do you want me to make that motion? Pardon? Would you like me to make that motion? You sure can. Um, so then I, Janet Hegland, would um move to approve the Camping World IUP development agreement termination to occur um upon the I don't know if we want to do we I don't know that we need to put in the sessation of the business because that's kind of an obvious one. Um but on on a at at 10 years with the option to renew at that point and also with the additional um uh word smithing that we were discussed that was discussed in the development agreement um related to the use of the secondary parcel and um the additional um indication on the site plan for fire lanes and emergency access. This is Jenny. I second. We have a motion on the floor. It's been seconded. Any discussion? Yeah, this is Scott. Was the sessation of the business on the property part of the motion or not? I didn't include that because I think that is pretty obvious. I mean, that's true for any IUP or CUP. And correct me if I'm wrong. I mean, the business ends, the permit ends. That's correct. Okay. Any other discussion, questions? Having none, we'll take a vote. Jenny, Jenny I, Scott I. Janet I, Ron, I. Janet I. The motion passes unanimously. So, thank you very much, gentlemen. Thank you all for your time. Thank you. You have any Maybe I should say you got any questions? I guess Mr. Mr. Mayor, I do I do have a question in regards to the time frame. Obviously, um we couldn't speak while uh the the council was was making a motion, but I do know in conversations with Camping World if there would be any option to entertain 20 years to go with the the main business because in conversations with Camping World, they have the options the the three different options beyond the termination which would get them out to 20 years instead of 10 years. they they do plan on on exercising those as as far as that being with as they have the the right within their within their lease agreement to go until 2024. So that would be I know that would be Camping World's preference just because that aligns with the parent lease on the property and uh at that point obviously things would have to be renegotiated from Camping World's agreement on their parent parcel lease and at that point it would make sense to uh renegotiate or come back with with the IUP. So, I know that's that would be recommended if there's a term due to those elements and and Mike, you can speak more on on behalf of that, but I know that's that's what our our conversations were on a term. Yeah. Um, agreed. So, we're we're um standing here right now. We're very likely to exercise all of those options. Um, and so we would request and which as Grant mentioned would bring us out to I think 2044 which would be the uh practically speaking the effective date of the termination of the lease. So we would um prefer and request a term of 20 years on the IUP. Megan, you have any comments on that? Um, you know, so ultimately the final language is up to the city council. Um, and you in a term of year approach, I can say that the longest term of years that we do have within the city is a 20-year term, and that's particularly for billboard IUPs. Um, and so it it at the end of the, you know, sort of this is at the discretion of the city council. you certainly can consider the testimony of the applicant here uh in terms of that primary lease um as a as a mechanism for the the 20-year period as compared to a 10-year period. Um you know, furthermore, you do have the the backs stop of the secession of the business. Those so those two things run in parallel. Um and and I I turn it back to you, Mr. Mayor. Well, I'll turn it right back to Janet. Well, I I I I appreciate the the ask and the cl um and I'll just offer a clarification. So, um I don't remember exactly the year we changed the billboard IUPs from 10 years to 20 years, but the reason for that change was because we were requiring them to substantially improve the structure and do some aesthetic upgrades that were going to cost a lot of money. And for them to amateurize that out and get the return on investment back, we had to extend that that time frame. um to 20 years. So I that that was something that was negotiated as part of as part of the um request to make those billboards look a lot nicer. And um and so I there isn't that in play with your request, I think. So I I would also suggest to the to the applicant um and then turn it back to the council that uh in the city of Columbus there are a number of occasions that we can cite to such as uh the residential kennel use um and others where those are for a term of years for a 10-year period. Um the applicants on on a regular basis come in and seek a renewal of that IUP. um the underlying rights for uh that that have led the council to recommend this approval uh and the and you know putting these two sites together. So again, the IUP is really for that exterior storage use as compared to the primary use of your primary site. Um and so the incentive for the council to look at this again in a 10-year period and say yes, this would be uh consistent with our past approvals is a is is absolutely on the table as well. Jenny, this is Jenny. Uh, can I ask is there any kind of burden in in moving this to 10 between 10 years and 20 years? Obviously, there is some work in in renewing, but is there beyond just the preference, is there any specific burden that you see in not having this be 10 years? Um I grant I don't know if you want to speak to that but I I can just speak from an internal standpoint. I guess you know we don't know what the renewal process is. Um but it would just be the um fact of going through the renewal process in 10 years. If that's not, you know, a lengthy process from your standpoint, I don't think there would be a huge objection. But it's more just going through the um you know, knowing sitting here right now knowing that it's probably going to be a 20-year term. Um it just seems um more preferential to us to have the IUP run with the effective lease term of 20 years. Yeah, Mr. Mayor, this is Scott. Um a question for the council. Um, when we discussed this before, my recollection is we were talking about a sens uh cessation of the business and possibly adding 20 years. Was that not part of a previous discussion we had? We the discussion that we had as I remember it was the sessation of the business and a time period and then we directed staff to go and request um information on what their lease was be thinking that you know if it was a 10-year lease or a 5-year lease we could we could tie to that. Um, I I kind of take issue with the it's a, you know, a 20-year ask because you've got a lease right now that that expires in four years and then you have three fiveyear options to renew. So, it's not a 20-year lease, it's a 5-year lease that you, you know, that is going to expire in four years and then you have an option to renew it for 5 years, not for 20 years. So I, you know, I understand why you don't want to go through the process again if you don't have to, but it it does make it more consistent with what we do typically for any other IUPs. And and I explained the exception that we made to the billboards and why we went 20 years on that. And again, the process for renewal is much simpler than the process for a new application. So there's some there's some reassurance for you. Can you explain why that is, Jack? Like difference? Well, on on a initial application, there's so much information has to be provided. Uh if you're just renewing, all we have to do is look at your performance over that 5-year period, and if it's been consistent with the conditions, it's almost no question that the renewal will be granted. I've seen those IUPs come back and it's it's usually five minutes and it hammers down. If there's nothing pertinent that's coming up like a lot of complaints or anything of that issue, they go through pretty quick. I don't know what it's like on filling out the applications, but it's all there. I think certainly a renewal of an IUP um is a less uh administrative process. Um the the other thing uh that is that I'll just note from a consistency perspective is that the uh you know the the 20-year uh billboard lease is specific to that billboard process. Um and for our businesses that receive IUPs as compared to a residential kennel, which is really um a homebased use as compared to a business use. Um the our business IUPs are are really tied to the 10-year period. uh and the city has has plenty of consistency with regards to uh processing that renewal. You have anything else to say? Uh some camping world there? Nothing for me, Grant? No, I nothing I can just just add that appreciate your time and I think that you know in regards to the options, the options are something that don't doesn't need to be renegotiated from a lease standpoint. So even though they are options, they may not seem like that's what the lease is, but Camping World has the right to exercise those options. So it ultimately is a approximately 20-year lease. Um yes, they could terminate early, but that's not the plan here. I mean, there's other ways to get out of leases legally. And you know tying that together would be your preference but 10ear term with a with a renewal renewal would be would be acceptable. Still preference would be 20 years if uh that's amendable to council. Thank you. Well thank you. Thank you very much. Does anybody want to discuss the 20 year or you want to stick one on motion have to take any comments on that? This is Jenny. I'm comfortable with 10 years. Um, in knowing the renewal process is a fairly simple process. It's not as extensive as you're you've experienced in the last few months. Um, so I feel comfortable with with how it is now. Doc, I have no motion to change and I agree I agree with what Jenny had to say. If I'm correct on IUPs when we uh renew them or what does that go to the planning commission first and then comes to us? The renewal does not have to go to the planning commission. Okay. Okay. So, it's a one shot to the council. Well, I think we'll stay where we are then. The motion stands. Thank you very much. Uh hope everything runs all right for you guys. Thank you. Appreciate your time. Thank you for your time. Have a great night. Thank you. Thank you all. Right now, we're going to finish your my report. Okay. So, this is um the last item uh that they discussed which was the backyard wedding venue. So, a backyard wedding venue concept review was heard by the planning commission. Um, the residents, uh, Julie and Chris Harper, um, who live on 180th Avenue Northeast, uh, brought the concept, uh, uh, forward for review. Uh, they wish to host small wedding ceremonies in their backyard. They have done this um, for family and now they want to expand it to beyond that. Um they they um clarified that they would only do this um in May and June, take a month off for deerfly season since nobody wants to stand out there um and get swatting deer flies and then resume in uh September and October. Um everything would be outside. They would have no indoor um entertainment kinds of things. Uh they expect to do this for about 3 to 5 years. um and they're interested in doing this now because um they have recently retired. Um the outline of their plan is in our packet, so I'm not going to go over all of that. Um but the discussion um from the planning commission centered upon whether or not this was a use that could be considered um and they felt that it was and also whether um an event permit or an IUP would be the preferable um permitting tool. the event license and the IUP, the pros and cons of each is also outlined in your um packet. And this is the same outline that they use to work from. Um the event license has typically been used um only in commercial event situations with the exception of one residential use um on Broadway for um the Whip It Dog races. Um, an IEP would require a public hearing, but it could be granted for a year first and then to multiple years afterwards. There's a $200 fee um for each event license versus a 200 I mean $200 fee for the IEP versus a $200 annual fee for the event license. Um, and we discussed the escrow and the possibility of waving or reducing it if this was an uh a application that was not going to require engineering or or uh significant legal review. Um, the residents actually preferred the IUP route and um after discussion, the uh planning commission uh unanimously recommended using an IUP as well. um the first one being a one-year IUP and then um with options to renews for an extended period of time if there were no issues and then they forwarded this on to the council for um our consideration. That's the end of it. Isn't that enough? Well, we go on I was All right. So, now we'll go on to the backyard wedding concept review 7553 180th Avenue pages 44 to 60. And I have nothing to add to Janice report. It was very comprehensive and covered everything. So the question would be here is do you want to approve the concept review for backyard weddings for an intermuse permit with the conditions listed in the staff report? I I have a question. the uh the whippets, was that an IUP or was that that was an event license that was modified from the commercial event license to fit a residential use and they were now they would have to come in every year if they were going to do that. So I I we had a public hearing on that though. I remember that. Or maybe it was open forum back then. I don't think we had a public hearing. I think we just had some neighbors that weighed in on whether they were for or against it, but maybe I'm remembering that wrong. I know with the IUP there would be a public hearing. Yes. Well, that was my I'm if they want to go on the IUP, I'm with that if we have a, you know, public hearing on it and that would go back and that would be heard at the planning commission. This is Scott. Um, so I'm looking at this in the interim use permits language on page 46. It says here that they would get it after a public hearing when they renew their IUP. We should be doing a public hearing. We're not required to do a public hearing on an IUP, are we? Yes, we are. We are. We are. So, we would have to do one prior, correct? To issuing. Okay. I don't know why it says on renewal here. I don't know either. Um so and I also was going to say maybe for um council member Wendell and and Latin's um benefit the with the concept review it's not binding. It's basically just saying we think it's a good idea. We don't have any big objections and then they would go forward with whatever the permitting process would be. So, if our if our recommendation is a CUP, I'm sorry, an IUP, then they would be filling out the IUP form and going through that process versus doing the event license. And I think part of the reason that they liked the IUP was because otherwise every year they have to they have to pay the $200 per year for the event license. So that was I think part of the part of the um plan, part of the decision making for the residents as to why they preferred the IUP. It' be $200 for the IUP for the first year and then if everything goes well, they could come back and say, "We'd like a 5-year IUP and then pay $200 for that 5year IUP and it wouldn't be an annual cost after that." Yeah. Okay. And and then this is Scott again. So under a permitting they would have to follow the temporary structures under that section right and under an IUP that wouldn't be an issue. We would under the IUP it would be you'd put in whatever conditions you want them to abide by depending on what it is that they're they're planning to do. So if they were going to use temporary structures or whatever outside then if if you wanted to put some requirements as to you know inspection of that or then you would put that as a condition. No. Right. But am I correct in in saying that the temporary structures under the permit is required? They would have to do it. We it's not something we would add. If if it exceeded a certain number of attendees or square footage, it would have to beat fire code which would be 50. Yes. And they're not planning on anything over 50, but then that would be a compliance. That's correct. Whereas the IUP, it's not wouldn't be necessarily compliance unless we put it in the IUP. Yes. Okay. This this is Jenny. Um so confirming I believe with the Whippets, if I remember back to that meeting, I think I was on that one virtually watching um because I actually live near the Whippid family. Um but um I know that their events are pre-planned and pres-scheduled if I remember correctly and everything. So in in terms of their annual event license, they notify upfront what that looks like versus um in terms of this with the IUP, they would not need to notify per event. Right. Correct. Right. So there and because they may be planning an event a few weeks in advance and not really having that notice to be able to to apply for that event license and IUP would seem more appropriate in this situation. Yes. And and we did the planning commission did talk about um the fact that you know again the the event license that we have right now is really structured more for a commercial. So I think we'd have to do some work on making it fit this use. Um I we also talked about the fact that you know we could consider an event license that would have a certain number of events of similar size and you know duration and stuff so that they wouldn't have to come back every time. Um but you're right at with an IUP they we would not have they would not have to do that. Am I getting that right, Jack? That's that's correct. And also with an IUP, you have more flexibility in your scheduling. When you apply for the annual permit, we want to know what dates you're going to have it on. With the IUP, you're not going to necessarily have to put it down at the beginning of the year when you apply for your permit. You can just notify us when that event is going to occur. Yeah. And this is Scott. So, when I'm thinking of an event, I'm thinking of, okay, my daughter's getting married. I want to have an event in my backyard. Hopefully, I'm one and done, right? But this seems to me it's operating more like a business where we would want an IUP because it's not a one and done. We're talking 8 to 10 a year. Yeah. That's not an event. Nope. I I that's a business. Yep. I agree. Which is why I suggested that we consider an IUP. Um and and you know, and I look at some of the their comments in here like, "We will not allow parking on the road during these events." Well, okay. What if somebody does park on the road? How are you going to enforce that? Mhm. Um and and obviously there's some concerns on my behalf too when I'm looking at the plans here. And I drove by their house and their driveway, they were right. Their driveway is beautiful. I couldn't go up it cuz it was recently paved. But you know, if you're parking only 20 cars up there, that as wide as it is there, that's still pretty narrow. And if you have to get a fire rig up there, that's going to be difficult. I know they say they can get uh emergency response and ambulance. You know, if you're having an outdoor wedding ceremony, I mean, realistically, there's a pretty good chance that at some point you're going to need some medical attention on somebody on a hot day. Um my concern is is that it's not just a single ambulance trying to get there. You're going to have at least one sheriff's department squad car, possibly two, multiple first responders there. So, I'm a little concerned about that there. And then the other thing with the public hearing, I, you know, I think this is great and it's something that, uh, I would be more than happy to, uh, support a resident doing, but, I also want to hear from the residents around there. Um, and that's what you would get from your public hearing. It would be held at the up. Yeah. Yeah. So, for those reasons, I'm in favor of the IUP. Yep. And um I will just clarify because they did talk about the parking a little bit. Their intent was to have the parking off of the driveway. So if you look at the diagram there, they show those little red dots or the cars and the driveway is kind of between those two rows. And I think that's why they thought there would be adequate access because they wouldn't allow parking on the actual driveway. But as you said, people don't always follow the rules. So yeah. And if they're going to keep it to to 40 people, that's fine. What happens if Aunt Jenny brings five of her friends over, you know, to the to the to to the wedding? She doesn't get invited to the next one. I think there's a lot of little issues like you're talking about that can probably get clarified as we get going through the process because I I've been by the place several times and I don't know it's I don't know how you're going to get that many cars in there, but that's that's something for the planning commission to talk about. So this is a concept. So it'll go back to the planning commission. They'll have a public hearing and they'll bring come back to us. The con go the public hearing for the IUP. Mhm. Yes. Okay. So do you want a motion, sir? Sure. Go ahead. So then um I Janet uh would move to approve the backyard wedding concept review for backyard weddings for an interim use permit with the conditions as listed in the staff report and other amendments as necessary. This is Jenny. May I second? We got a motion on the floor. It's been seconded. Any other discussion? Any comments? Any questions? Hearing none, we'll take a vote. Jenny, Jenny, I. Scott, I Janet I. Ron I. The vote passes unanimously. Goes back to the planning commission. Uh before we go on to item number five, I just want to bring a point out here real quick, Jack. on our first consent agenda form that I got. Item number seven talks about accepting the resignation of accounting assistance. I don't know if we passed that. We did last time and this is the amended agenda. So that that's not on there. What you have there is the first draft agenda that was sent out. What we approved was the amended agenda for tonight. So So that was not on the first. That's corre that that was on the last 6 to 11 meeting. Oh, okay. All right. Thanks. So, we'll go on to item number five, court tennis, city park tennis court bids, pages 61 to 70. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. At the April 23rd, 2025 city council meeting, Bolton, Mink was given approval to move forward for bid advertisements for the tennis court project in accordance with all applicable state and municipal bidding laws and procurement procedures. Bids were advertised for the project received and publicly opened on June 17th, 2025 at the Columbus City Hall in the presence of J. Pomememoroy, Bolton Mink's project coordinator Jack Davis and Jim Windingstead. The base bid for the project was only for the repaving and resurface of the existing facilities and included two tennis courts with pickle ball overlays on each. This is exhibited in attachment two of your package. So that's what the existing facility was. This would duplicate the layout of the existing facility. In addition to the base bid, two ultimate bids were requested and they are as follows. The first one was one dedicated tennis court with two separate pickle ball courts on the same footprint as the existing court. That's attachment two, alderman one in your package. and two tennis courts with one court strap with an overlay for two pickle ball courts use. That's in attachment two, alternate two. The low quote was received from Goodmanson Construction in the amount of $124,600 for the base bid. Goodmanson's bid also included $1,900 for alderment one and no additional charge if alderment two were selected. The bid tabulations for this project are exhibited in attachment three of your packet. Bidding this project is required to award a contract and provides the means to evaluate if the proposal can be done with available funds or if there is a deficit between available funds and the bid costs. As the cost of this project is in excess of the funds available, the question becomes, is this an amount that the city would consider recovering from the general fund or other sources to move this project forward? As stated above, the park capital fund has $79,316 remaining in the count. However, the cost for the project while under the city engineers estimate is $124,600 for the base bid and $126,500 if alternate one is selected. That leaves a maximum deficit of $47,184 for the project funding. Should council consider approving this project, the $470 thou $47,184 could be transferred from the general fund to cover this difference. As been previously discussed, the city could use the proceeds from the proposed sale of a public property that has a potential value exceeding this amount to reimburse the general fund for the transfer upon the sale. Should the sale of the property not occur or fall short of the amount needed for the transfer reimbursement, the city council could also consider the use of park dedication fees that could be generated from the sale of a city property adjacent to and north of Caribou Coffee for a market rate apartment project that's under consideration for reimbursement use of general funds transfer for the tennis court project or use a $47,184 transfer from the general part funds the park's capital fund that could be considered as investment in park infrastructure with no obligation for repayment. In the cases presented above, the use of the city's general funds either temporarily or permanent will be required to provide the gap funding for the projects. Other funding sources to supplement a general fund transfer could include a $30,000 of unspent monies allocated in the 2025 budget for the city hall generator purchase or any savings realized from the docu document management system proposed contract. The city has 45 days to award or reject the bid for this proposal. Should the construction contract be approved for Goodmason construction, this project would be substantially completed by October 2025. Staff recommends that city council consider approval of a means to provide the gap funding for this project, select the project option, and award a contract to the low bidder Goodman Construction for the construction of the tennis court resurfacing and reconstruction project. So, the big question is we've got $79,000 to do the project. The minimum bid is 1246 and are we open to looking at other options to fund that gap? [Music] Well, he's talking to JW over there, but I uh I We're faced with this and all of a sudden in the process we got some phone calls or emails from constituents inside our city and outside our city that uh are proposing two tennis courts and some are proposing pickle ball courts. And I wonder if we should uh Jack was talking about we're getting a lot of feedback. Well, not a lot, but we're getting feedback from the constituents on whether two tennis courts, one tennis court, pickle ball courts, or whatever. If we have 45 days, I know we have the park board going to meet on uh July 15th. When we do a project like this, we're just replacing the footprint, just thinking out loud or thinking that if we want to expand upon it, it's cheaper to do it now than build the footprint now and come back later and build again. Correct. Am I pretty well in the ballpark on that? That would be correct. Anything you can do all at once is generally cheaper than doing it peace meal. Well, I I I don't know about the other council members here, but if anybody's getting any feedback on it, I just want to go back. I I think it was in January or whether you were there, Jack, when we had one person show up and gave their assessment that they'd like to see a pickle ball court there. Nobody was there for the tennis courts. And the minute this got out on the the wavelength out there, all of a sudden, we're starting to pick up a lot of people that want the tennis courts. So, I wonder if we should revisit this and look, I don't know about the monies, but is it more worth it to expand upon it now while we got everybody in it or get rebids or whatever happens? I don't know. I'd like to hear what the other council members have to say. Jenny, this is Jenny. I wholeheartedly agree. I have gotten a lot of feedback and initial feedback was very pro pickle ball. Uh recent emails and and information uh sided with tennis. Wasn't expecting this to be such a hot button issue. Um but I I'm I'm in agreement. I think I think if if we have the time and potentially the budget to look at I mean we've even talked about um um council member Wendell talked about basketball as well. So we have we have some things that we need to consider and I I would agree with you that now would be the time while we have the equipment and everything on site to potentially try to expand and maybe appease everybody the best we can. If you look at the photograph here, you can see the existing layout. Each of these tennis courts has a pickle ball court strapped overlay on it for dual function use. The option that seemed to be preferable would be to have one tennis court that was dedicated exclusively for tennis and then on the other tennis courts there would be pickle ball courts running north and south, two of them on the same side. As far as expansion, as you can see, there would be some room for expansion. This area would involve a little bit of the trail relocation. Uh, and there is room to do an additional tennis court there or put the two pickle ball courts there. This is Jenny. So, that would be on the inside of the track or to the the left side of the track. Is that what you're talking about? Yes. Okay. There is an ex existing playground. Actually, it's just an old swing set here that that's something that we'll have discussions in the park master plan that may actually be eliminated. I don't know how much use it gets, but it's either going to have to be eliminated or probably replaced. So, we did have some discussion on this as well. And the talk of going expanding to this side is way more extensive than if you were to add two pickle ball courts out onto the end in the parking lot because the elevation is very close to the same and the parking lot is still large enough to accommodate a certain amount of parking. So, that was one other option that we did talk about before. Um, but we were kind of voted down to let's keep the existing footprint. Not saying that we can't talk about it, but that's that's my recollection from conversations that we had with parkboard before. [Music] I did talk to uh Brad, the chairman of the park board uh this morning about it about these issues. And uh I think it's a discussion that we should have since we're about ready to invest back into it is now's the time to do it if we're going to do it. I don't know what the cost difference and I'm sure that's always the number one thing. What would it cost to add that on? So, how hard is that, Jack? That wouldn't be that difficult. Do you want to know what the cost difference was? The This project would actually go in and be removing that existing asphalt in there. Be some gradings. It'sund. It's going to cost 60 to $80,000 probably to do an addition on. That's what you believe it. What to put on it? Well, that would be half half of what this cost is to do the base bit here is 124,06. So, we're going to have to do at least half that here with whatever soil corrections work there would need to be to fill up to level it out. Will it be here in the parking lot or on this side? So, and I think Scott has Sure. This is Scott. Um the feedback I'm getting I it has nothing to do it it's different amenities I'm getting feedback on. Uh obviously we've talked about basketball amenities. That's another addition. I don't know where the park board sits on that or where it sits in the master plan. The other thing I'm hearing more about than anything is the the fields and the upgrades to the fields and the dugouts is what getting feedback on. So, I think if we have an opportunity to send it back to the park board and consider all of it holistically and um put it on the park board to uh decide what needs to be triaged and is the most important and what's going to get used the most. Um I think that's the way to go rather than make a decision tonight. As far as the time frame goes, I stated previously we do have 45 days to award these bids. So that would give us time to go back to the park board and still have a council meeting at the end of July if you want to take any action on this without having to rebid it. You have any comments yet? Um, two. one is that I think I don't know if the park board um surveyed or reached out to the um public about what they wanted, but if they didn't, I think that might be a good idea considering the interest that's been, you know, I'm sure Aaron could do a survey monkey or um set something up that people could weigh in on on their thoughts on that. Um, the second question I had was um when I looked at the spreadsheet that was uh um provided on fund 403, which is where they had the $79,000 budgeted. One of the things that we have talked about in previous budget sessions is sort of the the um knowledge that we know we're going to have to replace that walking trail. And there was a fair amount of dollars already put aside for that. And I believe um in the notes here, it reinforced my memory that half of it was going to come out of the Parkland dedication, half of it was going to come out of 403, but I didn't see it in 403 anymore, the half that was going to come out of there. So, as we were talking about these other amenities, I'm thinking, well, we can't forget that we have this scheduled replacement of that walking trail, which is $180,000, or I can't remember exactly how much it was. I'm seeing a nod over there. So, I think, you know, looking at all of these big expenditures and kind of re- uh evaluating or reaffirming where the dollars are going to come from, Parkland dedication is not in here and there's restrictions on how you can use that money, but I know h we we did get um legal um review on using some of that towards the towards the um trail replacement. I don't think I don't know that you could use that towards the um replacement of the of the tennis courts or even if we've had that conversation, but that's another source of funding within the park board's um jurisdiction that we could they could look at too. Yeah. And you know, the park's needs are many and the dollars for those needs are very few. Uh this is the project that we've been focused on and they've discussed most recently since I've been here is the reconstruction resurfacing of the tennis court. It's just a matter of them and everybody deciding, okay, what's the priority? Which one do we want to do first? And they're all the trail repaving is probably 3 to 5 years out, probably closer to three. Uh, it was actually scheduled out and I that's why I'm I I thought it used to be on this schedule, but I don't see it on here anymore. And I can go back to some old budgets, but there there I think there's two schedules, aren't there, Janet? This is the parks capital fund and there's the other one that's the parks land fund. The parks land fund is the one that's funded through the park dedication. No, I know that, but I because we were saying half of it was going to come from 403 and half of it was going to come from the Parkland dedication. it it it was scheduled out when we expected and and Jim maybe you can remember this when we expected to replace um and so we were putting money aside towards that goal um and since half of it was coming out of this 403 fund which is what was provided here I don't see it on there anymore and so that's and maybe it was never I thought it was on there I don't remember I thought it was at 1.2 and I think the The discussion that we had with the trail was is it maintenance or is it new? Yep. And my argument was it's new. It's we've we've maintained it and we've used its life cycle and now we're replacing it with new. And I think our attorneys agreed with you asset which means then you can use the parkland dedication money for it because it's an asset. Right. And we had that discussion I don't know a couple two or three years ago. Mhm. And with that argument that it's lived its life cycle um Bill was comfortable with um that thought process. So and that made it so we could use that money, right? But and what I'm thinking is that at the time we didn't know when the tennis courts were put in. We didn't know what the lifespan of the tennis courts are. We now know that. And we I wonder if you can use that same argument about the tennis courts because we know that they were put in in remember the date 2007 or no later 1997 I think it was 1997. So they're you know darn near 30 years old and that's pretty much what the lifespan is. And so to replace them you might be able to tap into that Parkland dedication dollar those Parkland dedication dollars. I think I think you can make a case for that in any of these projects because if they're if they're into their life cycle, it's a new project and then the tennis courts are definitely would qualify for that because not only are we doing an upgrade to something that's at the end of its life cycle, we're adding new facilities. And I'm just thinking that if I don't have the schedule here, so I don't know what's in the bank for the park uh parkland dedication, but you might be able to cost flow more than one of these things if you use both buckets. I'd have to get it and look at it. But in the parkland dedication fund, there's less money than there is in the park capital fund because we haven't received hardly any parkland dedication funds since uh we've been getting a few dollars in from St. CLA states as they finish out, but there's only been like 10 new homes built in East Bethl, I mean in city of Columbus in the last two or three years. So, we're getting almost nothing from that. I know, but we had put like half of what we got from Hagert Park, I believe, into that. So, anyways, it's it's worth looking at. And then, as you said, there could be more coming in depending on what happens with that apartment project. And and you know that that's the other thing too and we'll probably be knowing a little bit more definitely about that in the next several months. But if that project were to go in the previous we discussed it previously there could be the potential maybe of 150 $200,000 in park dedication fees that would be generated from that which would go a long way towards satisfying this and another park project. But when you do these park reclamation projects with their new equipment or maintenance, it's easy to burn up $100,000 really quickly, right? Um I think I think what I was trying to get across for those who weren't here at the time we were discussing it is that we did not feel comfortable putting the tennis courts under Parkland dedication because we couldn't verify when they were actually built and so we didn't know if they were end of life or not. But now we have that information. So I think you we could we could confidently go forward with that. So, with that, I would I would move to table the award of the bid and um go go back to the planning commission to have them do more uh research as to what the needs and wants of the residents are and then also look at the bigger picture as council member Wendell suggested and then look at both pools of dollars to see what's available and what might be coming in and come up with a more comprehensive of um plan and hopefully within the 45 days of deciding whether we move forward with this bid or not. The park board. Yes. You said the planning commission. Did I say the planning commission? Sorry. That shows good listener. I am. You know, good for you. I think the only the park board just their first thing is going to come out is money. I it it probably would entertain this, but it's always going to be money. Where's it coming from? So, I I I think you say you'd like to push this on and Jenny says push it on, Scott. Oh, yeah. Well, we need a second. Huh? We need a second to my motion. Oh, is that a motion? That was a motion with the correction of the park board from the planning committee. Yeah. I said I I would move to table the award of the bid and then send this back to the park board for further discussion. This is Jenny. I second. Okay. Any other discussion? No comments. We'll take a vote. Jenny I. Scott I. Janet I. And Ron I. The motion is unanimous. Moves back to the park board. We'll go to item number six. Docuare document management proposal pages 71 to 82. Jack, you gonna handle that? I'll take that one. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The city has been exploring a digital record management solution to streamline administrative processes, reduce paper usage, improve efficiency, and better maintain public records. On October 1st, 2024, Metro Sales presented Docuare, a cloud-based document management system at a city council workshop. The Docuare cloud solution offers a secure centralized platform for storing, searching, and retrieving documents. It includes building automation, email integration, mobile access, customizing filing structures, and retention policies. The proposed solution be tailored to meet the needs of Columbus and is a scalable for future use and expansion to all departments. Subsequently, multiple test environments were set up and city staff explored the use and features of the program. The feedback staff provided was that docu is userfriendly and a viable solution for the needs of the city. Since the initiation of this project, the finance department has scanned most of their department documents which can be added by city staff into docuary at a later date. Therefore, the initial focus on digitizing property records using customized file cabinets with document types, partial IDs, permits, and retention settings. The city budgeted $40,000 for this in 2025 to cover the anticipated cost of the project. Metro Sales, Inc. has provided a comprehensive proposal for Docuare implementation including modules such as workflow manager, intelligent indexing connecting the mail, outlook, docu forms, mobile and other positions. Professional services package was included which is a onetime cost of $2,940 for implementation, discovery, training and project management. Docui Cloud4 annual subscription is $5,569.40 per year for four named users and 20 gigs of secure cloud storage hosted on Microsoft Asure. Optional storage expansion is an additional 10 gigs of increments available at $243.60 annually. It is not possible to determine the exact amount of time required to sca scan the city's bulk files. Our Metro Sales has previously scanned and implemented Docuare systems for other m municipalities and has provided a high-end estimate based on visual inspection of our current file volume. They estimate up to 30 bankers boxes may be needed to scan at a cost of $185 per box. On average, it takes Metro sales approximately two hours per box, but three hours per box would be a safer assumption. The final quantity cost may be lower once the files are reviewed and received more thoroughly. Metro Sales is offering a promotion offer of 10 free hours of scanning services with this purchase. In addition, if the city signs a contract before June 27th, 2025, Metro Sales is offering an additional 10 hours of scanning service for a total of 20 hours. The full implementation for the city would be scheduled for July 2025 pending council approval. Staff RI recommends that city council consider approval of the purchase of the Docuare cloud system for Metro sales in the amount of $8,59.40. Consider approving the scanning services contract estimated at $185 per box times 30 boxes or $5,550 and authorize the city administrator to execute all related agreements necessary to complete this implementation. We did go back to them and check to see what other uh storage cost would be and to do another 30 gigs would be $43. Uh we did ask them for examples of cities that they serve so we could check their references. We didn't get that back until late yesterday afternoon, but we did check with the city of Blaine and the city of Waverly who are two of their clients. I called Blaine uh there did not get a call back from them. I talked to people at the city of Waverly. They said they used them. So they had a few little issues initially, but it was mainly based on how the labeling system was used, but Docuare came in, gave them some additional training. Everything seemed to be working fine with them now. So I don't know if you recall, uh this is one that we looked at. We'd also looked at Oracle and Laser Fish, the fishbowl option, and we'd received some reports back on them that weren't uh exactly uh what we'd hoped for. So, this is why we focused on Docuare. So, the initial cost on this are quite a bit less, at least initially, on the front end, than what we anticipated. There are funds to cover this, and this is presented. Is this something we want to approve and or do you need more information before you make a decision? Janet, you always turn to me first. Yep. Um, so I'm glad, thank you for sharing that. Uh, Aaron was able to get a um quote on additional storage. I just thought 20 gig is nothing. I mean, I I don't even think if you add another 30, you're going to be even close to what you're going to need. Um, so that's that's one thought. The other thought I had um related to this is that I know that the finance um area scanned in all of their backlog of documents. Um, and part of this contract is for the um Metro Sales staff to scan things in. So they wouldn't be scanning in um the finance documents, but part of any sort of document management system, an essential part of it is the naming convention that you come up with. And so I got to believe that however they named those files that they spent so much time scanning in, that's all going to have to be amended. And who does that? because I believe you'd have to go in file by file and do that. And so is that a is that a is that something that they would do or is that something that we would have to cover here? That's something we would have to cover here. It would be an additional cost because what we had them focus on was essentially basically that's the cost for our property files which behind you you're looking at them. There's some in the in the in the in the vault in the off sheriff's sheriff's office, too. There's plan files in here. So, our first focus would be to get the property files, then convert those scans that they've made in Banyan over to this so they would be compatible, come up with a naming solution for them, and but that would be an extra cost. So, one of the other things that I um I I would really I mean this is something I'm 100% supportive of and I we need we've been needing to do this for a long time, but it's more than just the property files and the f I mean there's a need to do all of the files. So, has there been any um effort made to sort of estimate what the total um cost is? I mean, similar to the discussion that we had with the tennis courts, I mean, it's better not to peacemeal these kinds of things because it usually costs more money. So, I really feel like if they didn't bid on the whole need of the cities and maybe that gets spread out over a number of years, you're probably going to pay a lot more money by peacemealing it like this. So, has anybody tried to make that um estimate of what the total project would cost and all of the files that we would need to put into into this um document management system? To my knowledge, that wasn't a consideration in this, but just based on what I've seen here, the property files and the financial files would compromise probably around half of what we have to do. So there' be at least double that amount left to scan in. So So I'm a little concerned about approving this bid. I' I'd rather go back to them and say here's the here's the whole pie. um this is all of what we would want to do and could you bid this out however they in phases perhaps because obviously we can't do it all at once but and you if you prioritize the property files as your number one then you'll know that for this year or next year whenever they do it that's what it's going to cost but then you've got something locked in that we can plan for for the rest of the files I guess my question on that is b it out over a phase period wouldn't that be the same thing as doing it peace meal that's we're going to have to do it anyway. No, I think I mean it's just like it's just like any project where you have a phased approach. You get the cost and it gets locked in for those phases. Um so there might be some, you know, inflation escalator that they have to agree to if it's over multiple years, but I think that's going to be a lot cheaper than going back to them with each thing and go, "Oh, now we want to do our, you know, all of the files that are in the mezzanine or we want to do the, you know, minutes or whatever." you know, because that go back to 1800 and something. And you know, the the only reason I asked that is uh the uh timesensitive nature of sending something to we'd get like 20 free hours of scanning if we went with what they have today. So, but again, I understand I would rather do it too, but this is what we had originally discussed them looking at. We prioritized the property files as the number one thing we needed to get done to free up all the space and that's the one that's most used. But uh we can do it any way you want to. [Music] Well, I I I think that's practical, but sometimes I look at it that we're on a mission right now. How do we know we're going to this is the outfit? So, we're going to invest it if we decide. I mean, you stick with one. You don't start with one and then try to go off to another one. I mean, I I I understand that, but I mean, what if we have problems right off the bat or whatever what you know? Well, ideally getting the references from the other cities that have used it will help decide that. But I mean, if we're not sure that Metro Sales is the right one, then we better go out and start shaking the bushes for other, you know, interviewing other um because this this is huge. These this project is huge and it's going to be costly and it's you you pick your vendor and you stick with them. Well, I don't I just think that starting I don't know. I see doing half of it is as appropriate right now. That's what I look at. uh and no no matter what we do the scale of it is as Janet said is huge and it wouldn't be done in in a one-year period. It would be done in a phased effort and probably some of ideally hopefully you could hope to get it done in two maybe three years at the most. So, so what my thought is, Ron, is like when we looked at this original um bid, you know, they say an additional 10 gigs of of space is available at $243 um annually. Well, so we know that that's not going to even come close to what we need. So by by buying more right up front, we're saving a couple hundred bucks annually because it would be over $600 if we went with the pricing that they originally gave. And by just having Aaron go back and say, "Well, we know we're going to need more than that. So what's 30? It's $200 less, over $200 less." So my point is that if you know you have a project that's of this just like the tennis courts um you know you you're going to ask you know the the contractor to push out towards the parking lot or whatever you may as well just figure out what the big hole project is because if you do what's on the books right now and then a year from now go oh now we're going to do this you're you're you're losing the economies of scale so and and this is going to be expensive. So it could be real really significantly more more money by doing it that way. Yeah, this is Scott. I've got that. I'm completely in agreement with you there. 20 gigs is nothing. And then they, you know, 10 gigs at $243. Well, who offers only 10 gigs of expansion at a time, you know, and we're probably going to need terabytes. Exactly. So, I mean, this is a little smokec screen in my eyes. It's making it look like it's not going to be as expensive as it is by that, you know, 10 gigs at $243 every year. I mean, we're talking 60 gigs at least, right? Potentially. So, I would rather just have them say, "Okay, the scope of this project's going to be 80 gigs. here's the cost and get the real cost of it. Um, well, if I might add, in working with Phil and I'm going off of memory cuz I was just looking to see if I had the text message and I and I can't find it, but um, we're talking terabytes. Mhm. Which is what's on the server. Now, I don't know what you guys all have for an iPhone, but my iPhone is solidly over probably 90 gig right now of used storage just with what I have on my phone. So, look at all these cabinets. We're going to be well over 30 gig um and probably well into terabytes to to get anywhere near where we need to be. Yeah. And I think if you bid the project with the size in in mind and again you can phase it out or or do other things so that you're not getting hit, you know, between the eyes with some big huge bill, you're going to get a better price than by buying it a little bit at a time. Well, just odd. I I think these people are into that business that they throw something like this at us. Miss Jenny, I have a question. What kind of do are are these going to be PDF docu? What kind of scanning documents are they creating? I don't know what the file type is, but it's it might be a proprietary file type, but it's basically, you know, it's in the cloud. It's backed up. Um, but the but the real value of it is that you can index these things and you'll be able to find them in multiple different ways. So unlike you know how you might store a file in your own computer and you name it something and then if you don't remember what you name it you can never find the darn thing again. This will have different things like if it's a property it'll probably have something like your your P ID number is one identifier. Um the date is another identifier. The the type of whatever it was that you know building plan or whatever might be another identifier. So there's multiple different ways that you can find these things. And that's then that's why I was bringing up the um the the finance thing because depending on how they named that file, you have to go back to every single one of those and enter in these new identifiers. Someone's going to have to do that, which is kind of too bad because they probably didn't save much time by scanning them all in. This is Jenny. I And some of that may come down to new AI or being able to read some of these and create some of those. Well, I think I think it means that they have to go back to the original documents and pull those things out. So, I I don't know. You might be right though. There might be efficiency. Maybe that's part of what we what we um ask them to bid on. And this is Jenny. And so, for a clarifier, PDF documents I believe tend to be less in terms of storage. And so, that was my curiosity because that may indicate what the amount that we would need in terms of gigabytes. Um, and so that that really I think would be a determining factor is the file type. Um, but I guess my major question would be going back to what our mayor said was if we don't sign, we would be potentially losing quite a bit. But I do agree with you that we would want the whole picture. So hypothetically, I guess it would be the gamble of if we assume if we were to only increase, would they potentially still give us, you know, these free hours or something like that? Um, so I guess that may be a gamble we'll have to take. Or we could ask them to if they bid the whole thing if they'll still go ahead and honor that commitment if we went ahead and Well, they darn well should. Let's just say that. And this is Jenny. In that bid, we would clarify that we would want potentially a phase one and a phase two or maybe even a phase three even but potentially multiple phases would be a clarifier for them as well as well as document type if we could um just so we understand what that looks like. Yeah, I I don't it it's probably going to be a document type that you don't know or recognize because it's it's proprietary to their to their storage system. I mean, it might, you know, convert to a PDF when you pull it back up, but I think the way it's it's um stored is something you'd probably never recognize. So, clarifying this is Jenny. Are we moving to table um item six then? Well, you guys know a lot more about computers than I I would say based on what we've heard, we just get back to them and say, "Come back and look at all of our files." because they came back and they looked at all of our property files, look at everything we have and give us a quote to do it all. This is this is the firm that um former council member Wagaman worked with, right? I mean, she might you you might want to just pick her brain, too, to say, you know, what's the best way to move forward with trying to get like a whole a whole um complete project bid on? um she obviously doesn't know every all the files that you have here, but I think she she would know best how to kind of tee that up with this company or know who to talk to about that. This is Scott. So just a quick couple questions too. So when we're talking four annual subscriptions, is that by machine or end user? That would be by end user. We'd give four people would have access to it. Would we need to expand that in the future? Uh, possibly, but I think for we don't want everybody to have access to it. So, right now, four would be more than Apple. U but, uh, maybe in 10 or 15 years, it may require some two or three people to have access. And I think um I asked it was a very similar question of Aaron yesterday and he said that you know he named the three three people that would have access and then the fourth one would be multiple people could access could log in and I and he had cleared that that was a possibility with metro sales. So, you know, there might be maybe it has some restrictions put on it in terms of where things could go, but it might be something that, you know, if if if there were employees that would need to use it on occasion, not not a lot, then they could potentially all utilize that that fourth license. So, this is Scott. So if my So that would say to me then you have three users who actually can do the data entry and then you have a number of people that would just have um visual only. I I don't know exactly what it I don't think it had that kind of restriction. I think it was maybe I was surprised that he was able to get them to agree to that because usually they don't want more than one person to have a license. But right he he he said he talked to him about it and they were open to that idea. So the fourth the fourth license in his mind was more um flexible. But again that could be if we go back to the you know table with them we can clarify that. I mean I'm assuming what they're looking at is is getting us caught up and then going forward people would scan their documents you know things that are coming in. you get a new cup application and all of those would end up going automatically probably through, you know, permit works or whatever into this document management system and then they get named appropriately and staff gets trained on how to do that and so that you're always keeping up and that's and then that becomes the the um workflow. Yep. Yeah. And that's this is Scott that's what I'm reading and and their doc metro's documents. It's more of a workflow ultimately and using it to scan documents that would mean we'd have more than four end users eventually. Yeah. Yeah. Which I'm okay with. I think that's fantastic. Mhm. Get us out of the 20th century into the 21st. Using that tennis court theory, would this be double the price then? Oh, I think maybe way more than that. Well, you're saying 50% is the property that's in the files, right? Well, that that's just for the scanning. Now, there'll be some other things associated with that, too. So, and I think um when we talked about this originally, some of what needed to happen, and maybe it has, is really identifying our um our document retention. Like we probably have a lot of files here that we don't need to keep records of, but they're on paper files and someone has to go through and say, you know, these are property files. We need to keep them for x number of years and so we're going to scan these in. These are files that we we no longer need to keep and we don't have a reason to scan those in. So you can get rid of those or you can send them off to, you know, paper storage, um, purgatory, whatever you want to do. But um I don't know if anybody's done that and but I know that that was one of the steps that we identified is there's a lot of paper around here and you brought up a really good point too yesterday Jack that you know in some cases if it's p if it's for instance property records that we no longer are legally obligated to keep you know perhaps we then offer the the property owner the option of coming and picking them up and then they have them and I I know we did have done that in the past because I got my building plans that way. um which I really liked and I really appreciated being able to get. So to move it along, we're just going to push it off then Jack let you contact them and yeah, we can go back to them and say let's look at the whole process and not just keep it isolated to the property files and then go from there. Let's come back in and do the evaluation on what we do have left besides that. I do know that most of our permit fi permit works files have already been scanned. But now that we we go back again, we've got different nomenclatures and naming processes for all those. So there'll have to be some conversion and extra work there. Uh there may not be that much, but there's still there's still going to be quite a bit. And then the 50% is just kind of a ballpark figure, but I think it'd be pretty close. And you know, when you said you spoke to Waverly and they had issues with the labels, that's what they're talking about. Yeah. So, it'd be really good to talk to them to say, "How' you how'd you solve that problem?" And they they said the way that problem was solved is is Docu did come in and help them resolve it. And they did some training work with them. So, they said they were real good in working with them in that aspect. So item number six, we don't want to write a motion now. We're just going to send it back to you. Correct. Let's I would say let's table it and then we can get that extra information and see if that's enough to make a decision on this. And I would suggest you reach out to Sue and see if she can help, you know, guide the process a little bit. Okay. We'll go on to item number seven. We'll set the agenda for July 1st, 2025 workshop meeting, page 83. On that, uh there are a few changes that I would recommend over what we sent out. Uh one of them would be the addition of the DDA, wage and compensation study reports to add to that. Uh also, uh Jim and I hope to have a discussion on an ordinance revision. It's a minor one, but we're going to have to wait on that because we can't have a public hearing on that now till the 24th. Um so I'd like to take that one off. And [Music] that's number two on the Yeah. What what I'd like to do is take have the Lakes Area TV podcast presentation and council update with Paul Peterson, the DDA wage compensation report with Mark Goldberg, city council and planning commission packet discussion which should be brief, but we need to go over what we're doing and the use of all this paper we're putting out. We're duplicating a lot of stuff that could probably be uh reduced significantly. and then start with the 2026 preliminary budget discussion and financial reports and then any other items that you would request or think we need to attach to this work meeting agenda. This this is Jenny. I have a question. Would we want to add um review of minutes discussion and review of minutes? I know council member Hegland potentially noted discussing tonight. Oh, you want Okay. So, I'm hope I'm hoping we can get through it tonight. We don't I mean, it's not that complicated and I think if we agree to it, then that will be one step towards solving this quagmire we find ourselves in. Okay. Thank you. Is there anything anybody wants to add to the agenda for the workshop? We always have that never ending, you know, what we're going to do with this building. Uh I talked with Rob. Rob requested he'd like to volunteer to help out to take a look at it. I had a meeting set up with him last week. I had to cancel that. So, he and I are going to get together Wednesday and Thursday and we'll come up with some little report after that. Uh we can do that at the council meeting and then we'll start pressing forward on that. Okay. Anybody else have any additions? So, hearing that, um, I'll make a motion that we move to approve the July 1, 2025 workshop meeting agenda as presented to the city council and the staff report item C6 minusing item number two. Correct. Mhm. and adding DEA uh comprehension report. We're correct. Move. Scott, I'll second. Got a motion on the floor. We got it seconded. Any other discussion? Any comments? Hearing none. Jenny Jenny I. Scott I. Janet I. Ron I. Go down to section D. The engineers report. Brian. Brian Bachmeer, consulting city engineer. Good evening, mayor and council. I have no formal reports this evening, but I can report uh we did submit the DNR water appropriation permit request to increase our appropriation that was submitted on June 6th. Um they have concerned receiving that request and they have not um required any additional information. So it's still under consideration. So that's kind of the status as of right now. Um, still waiting to hear back from the DNR on approving that. I also provided an estimate for inspection services associated with the truck quash utility inspections. I think that's needed for an escrow uh establishing the escrow for that project. And then most recently in the last day or so, I've been working with the city administrator on uh the local road improvement program uh funding as a potential source for the Hornsby improvements. Uh, I don't think we're prepared to talk about that tonight, but certainly we're going to be talking to our partners in Forest Lake and working with the the MDOT representatives to see about that process and be better prepared at the next council meeting to have that discussion. So, with that, I'd stand for any questions the council may have. Um, this is Janet. I have a quick question. Um, has anybody heard from Rice Creek WHED on the rescheduling of that workshop? Is that we've heard we've heard nothing. Okay. Have you haven't been in touch with them? Would you mind just reaching out to Nick to see whether they plan to do that in July just so we're ready for that? This is about ditches. Mhm. [Music] Any other questions to Brian? Thank you, Ryan. Appreciate it. Next item is city attorney. Megan, do you have anything? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, I have just a a minor side uh information on the LRIP uh potential funding for the Hornsby extension. Um, and I know the engineering is going to come back with a more detailed analysis, but one of the questions that the city administrator had uh for us was, you know, what exactly was approved at the legislature this year. And so, um, the program details that were approved for this year is that each program is capped at 1.5 million. um they may be request funds may be requested for the full construction cost of a project up to the maximum amount um and can be leveraged with other funding resources but there isn't a local match or tribal match um with this particular funding source um we would need to come in conjunction with Forest Lake and then also in Noa County um based upon one of the conditions of the grant dollars uh and the the money for the program would be made available to MDOT on June 15th of this year um so we don't believe that the solicitation information would be released until fall of 25 with applications being due in early December. Um, so this would be so we have some time to work together with Forest Lake and to come up with the process for this. Um, but there but there is a 40 uh $42 million are available for programs like these and it's just a matter of I think putting together a persuasive application in conjunction with Forest Lake and Anoka County. You talked pretty quickly there, Megan, but So the $762,000 does it say matching funds? Does not require matching funds. Oh, it doesn't? No. So we fall underneath the 1.5 million. Mhm. That looks good right there. Yes. Um and and they can fund the full construction cost of the project or a portion of it. Um, so we believe it's something that's worth pursuing and we'll be looking forward to working with the engineering team on a path forward there for some additional state dollars. Sounds good. And and the good thing about that, there's no associated rideway cost with that. Generally, those are not approved costs. So, it' be all construction. So, we would qualify hopefully for all 100% grant money for this. It's been a long process, but thank you. Thank you very much, Megan. Can I ask one question related question? Sure. Um, oh darn, now I just forgot what my question was going to be. Good grief. Um, okay. It's about the road. Oh, do we want to um suggest that Forest Lake still pursue the question about whether or not they could amend their grant in case this doesn't come through for us? I have submitted that question to them, but I haven't had a response yet. Don't don't let them forget. I will be talking with Mark Stats in the morning and I will remind him that we need some type of an answer to that. Okay, that it. Yes, you done, Megan. I am done. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. We'll go on to item number four, the uh personnel. Well, we did that one already. Three. Three. The mayor's and council report. Jenny, do you have anything to report? Uh, this is Jenny. We have a few things. Uh first and foremost, Creek had their um latest meeting on 623 presented on community and council engagement. So if there is um if the council has any recommendations for anything that you'd like to see more of from Creek, please let them know. Um that was about an hour of the of the meeting. Um second uh second FallFest um has the next meeting 626 confirming um as a part of our supplemental bill list that we will have a band this year on Saturday of the Rock and Hollywoods. Uh that was confirmed today. Um one other note um I put a a request out to residents uh requesting any volunteers as well. I did have some feedback in response uh that residents do love our city logo. they're very excited about it and wondering if the city would be offering any um logoed apparel or merchandise so people could represent the city. So that was an interesting side note that I wasn't expecting. Um beyond that, that is all I have. Thank you. No report. Okay, so here's the long- aaited idea for minutes. Um so there there's really two big issues, right? One is that we're getting draft minutes that um seem to require, you know, substantial or or at least not just a few typo type um corrections. And then the process that we're following going back and forth is substantially delaying the release of our minutes. Right? So, what I'm suggesting will address the second part of that problem. The first part of the problem I'm going to direct to staff to solve. Um, so what I had in mind was that, you know, we we get the minutes and there's not like an expectation for I need your I need your edits back by a certain time, right? So I kind of mapped out a timeline for this and a process and hopefully this would um kind of help solve that problem. So let's just take tonight's meeting as an example, right? So today's the 25th. If we've if we followed what I'm suggesting here, we would have draft minutes emailed out to us by Monday at 4 PM. Okay. Um, so that would give Aaron at this point three business days to generate those draft minutes using his chat GPT AI tool. And I did talk to him and he thought he could probably meet that turnaround time. Then council would have until 400 pm on Wednesday um to submit that would be June 30th to submit our revisions to Aaron. Right. Our revised minutes that would be made with revision marks would be in our council packets on Friday. And at the council meeting, we would then hopefully have a set of revisions that we could look at and go, "Yeah, we're all cool with that." Right? And you could just approve them at the meeting. If there's some revisions that were proposed that we weren't cool with, we hash it out here and get an answer so that staff can make the final revisions and get them out there. So, the change to what we're doing right now is that there's a deadline for us to to give revisions back. And there's also a deadline and a process for the staff to show us what the revisions were from the first um from the first uh uh draft that we received. And then we commit to the fact that if there's, you know, four of us that are saying, "Well, I remember this. Well, I remember this." We hash it out here and get it done. and then the staff can move forward. And so that way minutes would be approved in two weeks from the council meeting. Um maybe with rare exception if for whatever reason that didn't happen, there's a holiday or somebody is sick or something like that. Um so what do you guys think about that idea? Yeah. So this is Scott. Tonight's consent agenda we tabled what? Four, three minutes. Yep. So So we would use this process for these. So then when we have this many for now, are we going to divide each approval up by item for now? If we're going to bring our edits, you know, that might not be a bad idea for the next council meeting. If so, so just to play catchup because once if if works then we only have one. We only have one a meeting. I I agree. So, um I I guess what I'm hoping is that, you know, we could do it that way instead of having it on the consent agenda for the next meeting. Each one of these would get approved and discussed separately. Might help us iron out the process, too. Um and then, but we'll still get them done by next time. And then after that, it would just be one one per. I mean, so we all have the minutes right now that we didn't approve tonight. you need to get we would all need to get our edits to Aaron by Monday. And how do we do that? How you prefer? Um, you know, I what I typically do is I take the hard copy and I write my notes because, you know, we're only getting these as PDFs if they're electronics. So, unless you are really great with Adobe Pro and have a subscription, you're not going to be editing it with on the computer. So, you're going to have to like write your notes. I I I don't know how else he would allow us to submit edits, whether you could come in and show him what you or talk to him. I don't know. So, you'll have to ask ask him what else he's open to. But the way that I've done it is I I just write my notes on there and then I I um scan it and send it to him. And a lot of be dependent on how numerous and significant they are. If it were just minor things, you could even include it in an email and say the line so and so if there's ones that have the line availability on it or paragraph 2 page three sentence one change and I think and and a if it's minor things like that that's not going to require but if it's it's major things relating to what was said and you thought it was incorrect or something you you said you thought was incorrect you writing the notes in the margins or something like that to give us a indication on what it was would be sufficient. Yeah, this is Scott. So, is there I mean I do it that way and Janet does it hurt. Is there one way that Aaron would prefer to get it that we can make it easier on? I I don't know. I think the the best way is everybody submit their own. Maybe we can come up with a way that's the best even from that. That gives us some options and choices to look at. And and I do do it your way sometimes. I mean, it just depends on, you know, how much I have. And um the other thing I think I I I failed to mention this, but um Jack had sent us an email with a document that we saw at our EDA meeting that really talked about like what should be in minutes and the I think it's the assessor's office that has like like the best practice. Here's all the stuff you should have. So, when we make the edits, I mean, obviously there are multiple kinds. there's, you know, oh, there there there's typos, there's spelling errors, there's grammatical errors, things like that. I think what what Aaron fears is that, and this kind of happened the last time, um, we we um talked about, you know, you had edits, I had edits, Jenny had edits. We're all sending it to him in various different formats, and sometimes our edits contradicted one another. And he's like, "Well, how do you want me to handle that?" And it's like, okay, so let's say that there's a sentence in the, you know, or a paragraph in one of these and, you know, I say one thing, then you get comments from Scott and he says another thing and and Jenny has another thing. Put it all on there, you know, or put it in the com put it in a comment field or something and we'll just have to hash it out. But I think for for those um on the council that aren't used to dealing with minutes, look at that document because that's really, you know, sometimes I add things to the discussion. Um obviously it's discussion that we have, but I ask for more detail to help explain why a motion was made or why people voted the way. That's all okay, but you don't want, you know, this isn't a transcript and you don't want to make these things 15 pages long. So, if you kind of review that list that that um Jack sent to us and that we saw in the EDA meeting, I think that really helps frame the kinds of um edits that we should be kind of sticking to. That's all. Yeah. And this is Scott. For me personally, the edits I'm not I'm not the best speller and I'm not the greatest grammatical person, so I'm not too worried about it so long as it's not changing the content, the facts, right? I don't care about the spelling uh as much as I do if it's changing the facts or it could be interpreted differently from the way it was intended. Those are the edits that concern me. Yeah. And I think um you know I think the other and Megan you can speak to this too like how important they are as a legal document. So I do care about spelling because if you you know you've got a document that's being sent to the courts and they're spelling names of your own council members wrong and it's just clearly sloppy. I don't know how much credibility those minutes then have if you're trying to make a point that you know you're you're substantiating a discussion or a process that that you've stuck to. So I think it's important that they're good. Yeah. And Mrs. Scott, I I having hundreds and hundreds of documents before the court, I can guarantee you the court allows grammatical and spelling errors. You can speak to that. Well, you know, so I think one of the difficulties about determining how to manage and collect and maintain minutes is the distinction between having a good record with regards to the findings you make in particular with um when you're authorizing uh the allocation of dollars, when you're authorizing a project to move forward. um or you're doing something that again is going to require uh those particular findings um in bid allocation or hiring or things along those lines. In those contexts, uh verbatim minutes, you know, are difficult to read. They become too verbose uh and they're hard for a city to maintain. Um but the specifics with regards to findings prior to decisions those should be um well summarized I would say and then um and then the rest of it you know again not a verbatim context but well summarized where the purpose and the intent of the council or the decision making is clear to the court. Um, it's always great as your attorney when the spelling is correct and when the names are right. Um, because you know when we're writing a complaint or responding to a complaint, uh, we then take the snippet of the record, right? All of the the work that we do in terms of defense of the city of Columbus in the event that it were to get sued is primarily going to be an on thereordcord review. And so those records are the sort of the key components of what an applicant is going to be putting forward and saying, you know, they didn't make a decision that was based in the legal authority they have underneath Minnesota law or the city code. Um, and so when there is accuracy there, it's always helpful um when we're excering saying like, no, absolutely uh the mayor said this and this is the underlying basis and the appropriate underlying basis uh for the decision that the council made. So, I don't that's my holistic summary of what I want to see in your minutes. Do you um need a motion on this or can we just I I think you've given adequate direction. Uh is everybody in agreement with it, I guess, is my question to I know it's it's a tight timeline. This is Jenny. So, for example, we had the May 14th minutes come out. I believe we received them Friday. I got my edits back um just in a simple email on Saturday. I emailed them back. I tried to be very quick and turn around because there's so much going on. But from what I'm hearing, it sounds like we all will do our best to edit in the best way we see fit. We'll send those back and we will um have our administrator and assistant administrator um add all of those edits um especially when there are conflicts will go forward. That seems like a fine process. So, understanding Monday at 400 p.m. we will receive or Monday evening we'll receive a copy digitally and we would then have those edits back by Wednesday. What what I will do I'll send an email out to everybody just kind of outlining the process. So, say that again, Jack. I'll outline the process in an email that you just described. Okay. And if we want to memorialize it if that's correct and we can do it at another meeting. Okay. And I and and please assure Aaron he doesn't need to like attribute who said what. I mean just put the edits on there with revision marks and you know I I'm assuming all of us will recognize our edits. So if I you know if I say well I'm not sure I I looked at the video and I don't remember this. Somebody else can say why they why they submitted it. But he doesn't need to I mean this doesn't need to be a two-day long event for him or whoever does this. Jack, could could you also send us the uh EDA? He he did send it out today. Was it today that you sent that that list of that that you want you're talking about the EDA minutes? Well, that that form you kind of Yeah, I sent that out today. You did? Yep. Yes. And that came from a city council meeting, a workshop meeting, I believe, back in early May. So, that Okay. outline or thing that's presented by the League of Minnesota Cities. That was their recommendation. Thank you. That's my report. That's uh down to me. The last one. I I have nothing more to report than other than today uh we got the light put up on uh Howard Lake Drive in Kettle River. I know that they put it up on Howard Lake today. Yep. Oh, good. that I can see on the way home. Yeah. Well, cuz I've been looking for it and I haven't seen it yet. I haven't been that way today either. Well, I got stopped by one of the trucks as they were moving around there. Okay. So, I seen them throw it up there. So, I didn't see it on though, so maybe they didn't turn it on. So, we'll go to the Where are we here? Public works report. Nope. Personnel personnel committee. God, got too many marks on there. Personnel committee report. Uh, item A, city administrators merit a option memo pages 84 to 89. Megan, you going to take this away? The mayor is going to read. Oh, I was supposed to read this. We all got this copy. Uh, [Applause] actually, if I may, I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor. Um, question for council. Would you like to hear the public works report and the city administrator report prior to the personnel report and discussion of city administrator compensation? Right, that'd be a good idea. So, I think it makes sense to have a motion to reorder the agenda to move uh public works report and city administrator reports to number uh five and six uh on the is it because you felt like this need to be in the close session or uh because we're moving into the close session. This merit isn't part of the close session. We have to actually have this discussion and you know Yes, absolutely. But then afterwards we'll I thought transition into the close session. Got it. Got it. Roll together. That makes sense. Correct. Okay. So that our scripts match. Well, thank you. Then uh we'll go to a public works report. But do we need to a motion? Got to make a motion to change the I would move to amend the agenda to move the public works and um city administrator report up before the personnel committee report. I'll second that. Any others? Got a motion on floor. Any discussion hearing? None. Jenny Jenny I. Scott I. Janet I. And Ron I. So we'll go to uh Jim public uh director's report. No report. Mr. Mayor went through all that. Thank you. All right. We'll go that next one down. The city administrative report number seven. I'll make it brief. The only thing that I have is we got the information from Laura Landis uh about night to unite which will be August the 5th. So if anybody has any desire to have a party and register it with the county uh go to our website the directions are on there or call us here at city hall and we can go over the same thing with you. So it's August the 5th, 2025. The information is on our website on how to register with the county or call city hall. Jack, is are the Lions still planning to do do theirs? Correct. They they want to do nightite in the park on August the 5th. I wonder if you should put that out there some because that might alter other neighborhoods from planning. We we we we can certainly make that known and that it's part of our schedule. This this is Jenny. was announced on the city um at least the city Facebook page and shared to the community page. Um I believe I confirmed with Aaron that he did that because I shared as well um confirming as well. I did have a resident reach out and ask about whether or not council members and the mayor would be still going to their um their local parties as well. So they wanted that option still um even though we were doing it in the park as well. Sounds good. Is that it, Jack? Yes. Okay. Now we'll go to personal personnel committee report and we'll go to item A. Now I read what I'm supposed to read. Megan, so preliminarily uh council member Hegland uh will present the memo to council with regards to uh our process and the policy and the memo adopted last. the the uh administrator merit pay policy adopted at the last council meeting. So um so the merit pay was not adopted at the last council meeting. The the process correct the process for the evaluation was okay. Yeah. Yeah. It was discussed. We and we approved it on June 11th. So, does anybody have any questions on that before we move on? No. Hearing none, then we'll go to Megan again, right? Either one of us, I don't care. Oh, it doesn't matter. I can I can I can tee it off and I I know Megan will weigh in. Okay. So, so in your packet on page 84, there is a memo to the council that was drafted by myself and Ellen and um Megan um also weighed in on it. This was in response to a request that was made um at our June 11th meeting when we talked about the procedure for doing our city administrator performance review and um that in the employment contract it calls for um consideration of a merit increase and we did not have a process for determining that. The council requested that the personnel committee come back with some options to consider and that's what this memo does. Um so we have a definition of what a merit increase is which is a um increase to a base salary that is based on um performance. And the difference between that and a bonus um things like that is that it really does it it increases the base salary. So it's it's not just a lump sum um dollar amount which those those are nice too but a merit increase is really um given to to um recognize productivity and quality and leadership and all those things and then um but it it adjusts the salary going forward on a permanent way. So, as you think about what we need to consider um to answer the question about a merit increase and the plan is that we we're we're statutoily um required to have this conversation in a open meeting which is why we're doing it here. And then we will decide what the pro what the procedure will be here. And then when we go into the close session, whatever we decide in terms of the overall performance um evaluation of of Jack, that will get applied by what we decide here. So we won't talk about specific dollar amounts um here and we won't talk about how we do the merit increase in the close session. Those will be separately determined. So for tonight in this in this meeting the first step we have to decide is whether or not we wish to consider a merit increase for Jack. So in the employment contract it says that if all if all employees get a cost of living increase he's entitled to a cost of a living increase and then the council will determine whether or not he's also entitled to a merit increase. So that means that we don't have to give him one if we don't want to. Um, one of the things to consider is that um, all staff received a 3% um, cost of living increase. And I outlined in here that that Jack did as well and what that what that actually um, uh, resulted in in terms of an annual salary increase that was applied in January. Um, from a budgetary standpoint, we will do this differently when we budget for 2026. Um but what we we did not consider in 2025 was to take the total dollar amount that we are um budgeting for compensation and splitting it out between merit and cost of living. Um so we the dollar amount that we budgeted for um for salaries increases in salaries all went towards the cost of living increase. And so anything that we consider for a merit increase is going to be in addition to that. And there's adequate dollars to do that. So we're, you know, we're not going to go into deficit um if we decide to give Jack a merit increase. But I just want you to understand um he did receive a 3% cost of living increase like all the other employees did. And um I think what um is the important first step is to decide whether or not the council wishes to consider granting a merit increase or not. So that's my first question to you all. This is Scott. Yes. Okay, Jenny, I concur. I agree. And I agree the mayor. Okay, so that's good. So now we go down and we say so if we agree that we are going to consider granting a merit increase what's the threshold that would mer that would warrant a merit increase there's lots of different ways you can do it the way that the performance evaluation is set up is using a five a one to five scale um one meaning on satisfactory five meaning exceeds expectations you can see what the rest of it is um how that's defined So, one way to define a uh merit increase is to say, well, if an employee is meeting expectations, that's great. They're meeting expectations, but that doesn't mean that they deserve a merit increase. That means that they deserve fair compensation for the work that they provide. So, the the um often times organizations say they have to they have to rate a score above a three in order to be eligible for a merit increase. And with that kind of logic in mind, I would propose that we adopt a similar attitude. So, uh, Jack's overall performance score has to be 3.01 or greater for him to be eligible for a merit increase. So, my question to you all is, do you agree with that or do you have an alternate uh, definition? So, is this what we're using in the close session? This is if we agree to if we agree to this, this is what we would that's how it would be applied. So in the close session, we will come up with an overall score for Jack. So um and and you'll hear more about this in the close session, but there was lots of different inputs that we got, including council. There were different cohorts that we um that we surveyed and they rated his performance kind of based on how they would interact with it. So council was one cohort. um he did a self- evaluation. The staff were were um surveyed and then there were some various stakeholders. So we had um a number of businesses, residents um and other board members. And so you have all that information in the report that you got from from Allen. At the end of the day, she provided us with um what the council's overall score would be if you took how we rated, you know, how we each rated him and then combined it all and took an average of it. Um but we submitted that prior to when we received that report. So now you have more information. You have Jack's self evaluation. you have the report from the other cohorts and that may alter your your um overall impression of his performance up or down depending right. So, so in the close session, we have the opportunity to say, well, this is the score that we came up with just on the preliminary uh council survey, but now with all this addition additional information, we wish to amend that score to and then pick a number up or down. Um, do you want to weigh on that? No. And I just think that that ultimately what you're deciding at this point in time is whether or not the structure is something that you're supportive of. Yeah. uh and then we can work with the specifics in the close session. Yep. Okay. So, so the question at hand is do you agree with using 3.01 as the threshold for considering a merit increase? This is Scott. I I have some concerns about using the five expectations as being a little too subjective when a city council is is using this methodology. I would rather use something along the lines of task oriented and did he complete the task or not complete the task where it's much more objective than subjective. I know you want to weigh in on this. Well, so I would suggest that we have the personnel committee and then our uh employment consultant speak to sort of the process and the reasons for how this is outlined and um and sort of the background uh for why the the why the personnel committee is proposing this structure for it to answer that very specific question about subjective versus objective. Mhm. Okay. Ellen, do you want to come up? That means you get to come to the table. Do you want to state your name and address for the record and then speak really closely to the mic? Really close. I remember this. Yes. Ellen Hinrich's 9419 Maggie Lane Savage Minnesota. So the question is why did we choose the five-step process for rating? And we looked at what other cities used to determine the performance of their city administrators. And so that's pretty much the pattern that we followed. And um what is the you know sort of underlying purpose for ranking uh performance on this sort of one to five scale as compared to uh compliance with a job description or sort of like a check mark system? Sure. Uh the way it's was developed was to think more holistically and strategically bigger picture of running the city. uh thinking that there's probably a lot of delegation that happens to help make the city run and to run as well as it does. And the ranking is to get a quantitative score uh for discussion which we will do in the close session. Um I and you have the report and I think there's lots to be said about what that data looks like and also comparing to how Jack rated himself because he had the same form as council. Does that answer your question or does that um make you feel better about the the ranking system? I I I know um Megan and I had a conversation um or a couple conversations about this too. And one of the things that she said that really stuck with me um and I'm paraphrasing is that you don't you don't rate your chief executive officer on a task basis. You you rate them on leadership. you rate them on, you know, and which are much more subjective as you as you say, but that's, you know, when you have a job description that says this employee is responsible for these particular tasks, that that's appropriate for um you know, worker level and maybe mid-management level, but for your executives, you have a higher standard that you're holding that person to. Um and that and so therefore you you kind of um use a different a different methodology or or different uh list of things that you're evaluating and you can speak better to that than I just did. No, I think that you expressed it well. So when we think about a step system for employees, we we think about compliance with the expectations of a job. Um and uniquely for this for a city administrator, uh the city administrator serves at the pleasure of this five member body. Uh and it's always difficult to determine um because this five member body often times can be politically aligned in different ways and can have different priorities for the city administrator. Uh and so from a sort of a fairness perspective, that's one of the um incentives for having this type of approach. Um because a city administrator who you might not agree with the underlying policy that they have promoted, but you may un you may agree and appreciate how they got there. Um and and they can be ranked in in the getting there part um underneath this system as compared to sort of compliance with your underlying very specific council member goals. So we think about that from a structural perspective. Um and then you know sort of the other reality here is that um the performance review and then the associated merit-based in process merit-based compensation process um is really tied together with your um sort of one time on an annual basis to review the functioning of the city through the one person that you truly oversee um and that you grant a significant amount of discretion to. Uh and so then the goal is to make sure that that that review process is holistic and has many diverse things that are can be captured in it. Um and and so I think that's the that's that would be my description for um sort of a check mark system of you know are they are is the city administrator responsive to council? Um is the city administrator uh engaged in the workflow preparing agendas on time? All of that's great, but you can really give more substantial and broader both benefit in terms of compensation pay for extraordinary work and direction, policy direction to the um to the city administrator through sort of a more nuanced process. And I think that's what this attempts to to capture. This is Jenny. Um so for what this is, again, thank you for putting this together. I know that this was a lot of work. Um, and I think this is definitely a a good step. Um, for what this is proposed, I I baseline agree with it. I don't think I see any major issues with this. My only question is um the minmax portion. So, can you explain what that looks like? Not necessarily specific to Jack, but just any administrator, why there is not just, you know, one merit increase and why there is a a range. So I I'm happy to do that, but I really want to answer this question for number two first. Oh, sorry. So So I I need to have a consensus here whether or not we want to use 3.01 as our threshold or some other number. This is Jenny. I think 3.01 is a is a perfect place to start. I got a question about 301 only. I I look at this as like ABCDE EF going the other way. So he meets an administrator or whatever meets expectations. So you start in at 301. Yep. Why do you pick 301 and not 305? Because 301 is above three. And it's it says we're not going till five places past the decimal. So it would be rounded up to one place past the decimal. And so that the next number after 3.0 is 3.1. So when we get the evaluations and they're all edited out, they'll be like 3.2, 4.1 or whatever. The you talk about the scores. Yeah. Yes. The scores we all gave are in the whole numbers, but when you take five or four or however many were inputed and she gives you an average, then you're one one point past the decimal. Okay. So I guess it's I'm just looking at you meet expectations from 2.99 or 30 all the way up to 3.9, right? Yes. That that's I'm just wondering about these numbers. That's all this is this is Jenny. I would agree with that. I would I actually agree that it should start at 3.0 and go to 3.49 49 and potentially that because basically if they meet expectations let's say across the board there are three that's meets expectations they wouldn't get any kind of increase right and well that's one way to do it I mean other places might say if you meet expectations you get you know a small merit increase so I think the question is what you know how do we want to define uh a merit increase and really it's a blank slate we have never done this before we've not done this for our own staff I and our own staff are um non city administrator staff. We've talked about it in the personnel committee like what would that look like if we tried to implement a a hybrid system of merit plus you know cost of living or something and and it's like you could do it. It's going to take some figuring out and we kind of put it off until 2026 but because we have this contract with Jack that calls for it we can't put that off till 2026 for him. So um you so so we have to come up with some definition and I'm you know I'm just I'm the the places that I've worked in that do have merit systems and not all of them did but the ones that did you had to be above the meeting at some level you had to be above the the meeting expectations. Meeting expectations was fine. That was not a failure. You're doing great. We're happy. But if you want that extra bonus on top of what you would get anyways just by either moving through steps or getting whatever the cost of living increase, you have to do something more than just meet expectations, but we can decide that's what this that's discussion is for. So when we, this is Scott, we're looking at these five expectations. Are we clearly defining what meets expectations? What the definition is of meet expectations so we're all on the same page? Well, you're not going to be all on the same page because they're meeting your expectations. My expectations may be different. And that's the idea for getting a large pool of input and averaging them so that ideally you're you're getting towards something that is, you know, that can be universally embraced rather than mine or yours or or or the mayors. So, you're right. I mean, you you can put a whole bunch of words around it, but ultimately you've got your prism. I've got my prism. Jenny's got her prism. So it's and that's why when you got your form, it said meets my expectations. So it's based on what your expectations are as the individual filling out the form. And that was true of all of the stakeholders and everybody else. And it, you know, it's kind of interesting to see the spread. Um, and we'll get to talk more about that in the close session. Well, maybe I'm put too much into this 3.1 or 3.0 or whatever. I just look at when you meet expectations, you're there. You're doing your job. If we're rating an employee that does a function work like not like what Jack does, but does somebody else? If they meet expectations, do they get move on to the next step race or All right. So, they automatically move on to the next step race, right? So, if we're going to do it that way with them, you would probably do the same thing here. If you meet expectations, it it's one way to look at it. Well, it's a simple way for me. It's okay. I mean, you can say I want three instead of 3.01 and then we can decide. Well, I I think I just remember in school, you know, if I got a C, it really looked nice when I had a plus on it. You know, it was easier to explain to the dad. But I I I'm I'm okay with this. You want to start at three or 3.49 or and Jenny, I I agree with you at starting at 3.0 as because again, it's not like that that would be a complete bonus. That is that is a small portion of that pie. So it kind of is meeting that marker and then growing from there. So to me I would agree with you that I believe that that minimum merit increase should start at 3.0. Okay Jack Jack Jack you want to throw I don't get a bonus for being here. How about you Scott? Okay. Okay. Well, I still think it should be 3.01, but it's I'm voted, so it's fine. We'll we'll have it start at three. I mean, I I'm not going to fall on my sword over it. It's It's like kind of a non-issue to be honest, at least for this year. Okay. Okay. So, so we're going to say three or greater going forward. And the other the other good thing for all of you who are struggling with all of this is that when this is all said and done, we will have a as part of a workshop, we will go back and say what did we learn from this process and what do we how do we want to do it differently next year if we want to do it differently. Okay. So this is Scott that makes me feel a little better because I'm not comfortable with this. I mean I deal with this in private industry. every job I've had, I'm subject to this, and I and I I'm okay with that in private. I just think this opens the door to some things in a in a public environment that make me a little uncomfortable. And if we're willing to talk about that, do this process now. Yep. Because this is what we started with and I'm okay with that. But I want to make sure that we reexamine it and make sure we're doing the right. Absolutely. We That's the whole idea is that we go back and figure that out. Okay. Okay, now we're moving to number three. Um, so, um, now we have a threshold for for when, uh, Jack would be eligible for a merit increase. And now the question is, so how do you figure out how much it's going to be? And again, that needs to be done ahead of when we know what the real scores are. So, um, I I put together a table and it was based on the city of Lassour who had a similar a similar sort of process. um we could change um this now based on instead of you know it would be three to 3.5 rather than 3.01 to 3.5. Um so I can change this to to accommodate what we just discussed. Um but this would be the the min max and and I I've calculated out what that means for our budget. Um to answer um Jenny's question, it just gives us some wiggle room. So instead of coming up with a number that, you know, maybe Scott doesn't really like, I like it a lot, you're kind of neutral on it. Now you have a range. So it's between 1 and 1.5. If you're if you're closer to the three instead of the 3.5, maybe you lean more towards the minimum. If you're closer to the 3.5 than you are to the three, maybe you lean more closer to the maximum. That's the I think that's the rationale behind having a range. Um, but again, these this I don't want to say I made it up, but I made it up with some information. It it is up to us right now in this in this context to decide what these numbers should be before we go into that close session. So, just put it into context. If he's if Jack's knocking it out of the park here, he's got a 6% bonus and a 3% wage increase. So, you're looking at a 9% total. You got it. I want to go back into public service. Well, you would really want to go into public service in Lassour because their numbers were a lot higher than this. And and I I am aware that Yeah. the land of the Jolly Green Giant where it must be doing pretty well. Yeah. Yeah. I I'm okay with these numbers. Yeah. And this is this is Jenny. I'm also fine just creating one percentage for each and not having a range um just because it again it gives us some you know choice in in what that number is. Um, but to me, again, not that I'm trying to make it more simplistic, but I think just maybe potentially having one percent for um or one percentage point for each uh within the range at least for this year, maybe um as we trial this to see how this works would be um just a bit simpler process. So, are you suggesting that for the future or are you suggesting that for tonight? I'm recommending that for tonight um just for this first year just to to because as we trial this entire process to potentially just go with the again you could pick or choose whether that's the min or the max but but that's just my opinion that we would just have one percentage point for each. So, if they were to be 3.51 to 4, they would just be at 3%. Or or whatever that looks like and not have that range between the min and the max. So, let me make sure I'm I'm understanding you. So, like if if it was between 3 and 3.5, that would be a 1% increase. And if it was between 3.5 and four, it would be a 2% increase. Is that what you mean? So, 1% for each of these. This is Jenny. So if you just take, let's just take the max, then it would just be if they were 3 to 3.5, it would be the 1.5%. If they were 3.5 to four, it would just be the 3%. So just have one percentage um instead of a range for this. I'm sorry, but when you said one percentage, I think they can one, right? Correct. Just go one numerical value for each. And again, it doesn't have to be. It can be you could go in between and do 1 2 3 4 or whatever that looks like for the actual percentage points themselves, but just have one. That's just my recommendation. It does not have to be fact and what we decide. So, this is Scott. Are you are you suggesting this contingent on budget the minimum max just So, this is Jenny. I was just recommending instead of having the range for for what that scale looks like, we just have one percentage, not just one, but a percentage point for each of the scale. And and I'm assuming we have the two different numbers because we're saying that's contingent on the budget where that lands. It could be it could be because it's contingent on the budget, which there is no budget, so there's no contingency. Yeah. Um or it could be because you feel like if they're closest closer to the three than they are to the 3.5, you have the opportunity of choosing, you know, the the minimum rather than the maximum. So, you know, not there's no right or wrong. It's just whatever you're you're most comfortable with. So, you know, if it turns out at the end of the day Jack's overall score is a 3.75, okay, well, that's pretty darn close. you know, they're right smack in the middle of the 3.51 to four. So maybe you pick a number in the middle of 1 to 3%. This is Scott. So then, yeah, I'm kind of supporting what Jenny says. Let's just use one number. Just use one number. At least this is Jenny. At least for this year, just as we trial, not that this is a trial, but as we potentially were to make changes next year, we could become more um ranged in what this looks like. Okay. I'm so uh contingent on the budget. That's kind of There's no budget. I know, but if there's no budget, why do we have it there contingent on the budget? Well, because this is meant for the future as well. So, this this this process is is meant to set us set our stage for tonight, but also to set the process for the future. So there is no budget because we didn't budget for this, but you've got the dollar figure that each of these equals based on based on his current salary. Okay. Well, I agree with Jenny and Scott. Okay. So, what would you like which which column or which numbers do you want to go with? Because before we go in there, we need to have this table. Like we can take out the range, but you got to you got to decide what the numbers are going to be. So, do you want to stick with the minimum column? You want to stick with the maximum column, or do you want to create your own? This is Jenny. I I think I'm fine. Again, we can review this at the end of this year to see how this process went this year um and make any revisions, but I would be fine going with the max merit increase at least as a determining factor for this year um with revisions potentially next year. Yeah. If he if he scores a five, [Laughter] do we have the budget for it? No, we I mean, we have enough operating in reserve that we can cover whatever is on this table. So, you know, no one's going to have to go out and make a do a big sale to give Jack his raise. I I I see where you're coming from. Sometimes you you know uh these things can creep up over the years. Mhm. And all of a sudden you got somebody making whatever, you know, and then you go look at another city and they're not making that much. So Oh, and we'll get to talk about this at our workshop in great detail. Okay. And and this is Jenny. This is pure bonus. So this doesn't then become what their base salary is for the following year or anything that way. It does become their base salary for the following year. So that that that was my point when we when when I sort of did the introduction about what a merit increase is. It is not a bon it is not a bonus. It is adjusting his base salary. Adjusting an administrator's base salary. An administrator. Correct. Yes. Where are we? Um, can I ask the question of Megan? What do you normally see in things like this ranges or one number? So, typically when we see a performance score range, we see a minmax range that accompanies it. If we have straight performance scores, so you know, if you're more than 3.5, you round up to four. There's some policies that do that. Um, then it is more of a consistent single number. And so the fact that we have a range on the performance score front tends to influence that then you would have a range on the back end. And I think that's why it's structured this way initially. Mhm. Where are we? Well, I think Jenny is reconsidering her her vote. I mean, I I I like it the way it is, but then I created it, so you know, I'm a little biased. And this is Jenny. And again, I I know we discussed that we would review this at the end of the year, and so for me, No, we'll review it sooner than that. Oh, well, that and perfectly fine, but but it'll be for 2026, right? But again, so for policy, we may make adjustments for 2026, but this doesn't have to be set in stone forever or the future. But for the sake of this year, I'm still comfortable just having one percentage point. To me, it's at this point either or is fine. I I got to choose. You got to choose pairs at this point. Pick I mean we'll one is fine. So I think it I think we have consensus that you don't want to range. You want to pick one, but you got to give me the numbers. This is Jenny. For the sake of 2025, I would be comfortable having 1 2 3 and 4%. Instead of 1.5, 3, 4.5, and six. Okay. You mean like the top um Yes. 3 to 3.5 would be um up to two 1% to 2%. It would just be 1%. We're just doing Yeah. Oh, we get rid of the low and go with the high and change the the high value, right? that. Yes, this is Jenny. Yes. Okay. Explain that to me one more time. What would like the first one? This is Jenny. So that we would just have one one we wouldn't have the range this year. We would just have one% uh 8 percentage point for each. I recommended modifying from 1.5 just to 1% from 3% down to 2%. So just have 1 2 3 and 4% this year. Okay. Yeah. You're talking on the minimum um on both. Okay. How do you feel about that, Scott? Yeah, I think that's realistic. You okay with that? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'm okay with that. All right. And I am, too. So now we have now we have what we need to go into close session. All right. Good job you guys. This is hard. I mean it really is. You know Jack is sitting right here and it's like if I can take the man I'll wait out of the equation. Easy thing to do. Jack Brian shut. Oh you got I have to say that statement or you're going to say I'll I'll I'll do it. Um so uh as you know a public body may close a meeting to evaluate the performance of an individ individual who is subject to its authority. Uh and the open meeting law allows us under Minnesota statute 13D.05 subdivision 3A to close a meeting. Uh the meeting may be opened at the request of the individual who is the subject of the meeting. This evening's meeting is subject is the city administrator's review. Uh Mr. Davis, would you like this meeting to remain open? I prefer it closed. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. At this point in time, the council is going to go into close session. [Music]