[Music] good evening everyone tonight is Wednesday November 13th 2024 601 p.m. and I would like to call to order the city of Columbus regular meeting the first order business is a Pledge of Allegiance please join us I pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible Justice I'll make the motion to approve the agenda for tonight's meeting November 13th is there a second this is Su all second any other discussion questions I'll call for the vote Ron I sue I Janet I Rob I and Jesse I uh next is a consent agenda I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented in the November 13 24 2024 the city council packet is there a second this is Janet Al second Gaz questions or uh about the council minutes or anything uh he already pulled the ones that I had the questions about then I'll call for the vote Ron I sue I Janet I Rob I and Jesse I is there anyone who would like to speak in person or online at the public forum seeing none we'll move on to item number two the race Creek Watershed District Board of man board manager nominees Pages 1 through 7 in our packet thank you Jesse the city received notification from Anoka County that Steven Wagman's term is manager on the Rice Creek Watershed District board is set to expire on January 17th 2025 Anoka County is accepting applications and nominations for this position on the board copy of the public notice is exhibited an attachment one in your packet Minnesota statute 103d 311 allow cities located within the district to submit up to three nominees for County Board consideration cities May jointly or several severally submit their nominees the County Board must receive nominees if any by at least 60 days before the outgoing manager term of office expires to be eligible for appointment nominees must reside within the Watershed District B boundaries be eligible to vote in the district and may not be a public officer of the state county or federal government city does not need to make three appointment recommendations is described in a memo from the county All City lists will be combined into one list for consideration Steve Wagman has submitted an application to the county and is requesting a formal nomination to support his application Mr Wagman was the only applicant the city received for this position the city advertised for dis position on our website and Facebook page and our email mailing list attached is the motion in your packet as to the recommendation for reappointment any questions anyone I just have one question Jack do you know if there were any um applications that were submitted to the county but not to the city because that's happened in the past not that I'm aware of okay yeah this is Rob online um I was just curious did we end up sending the mailer like that mailer card like we did last time Jack no we didn't weren't there at that time no we didn't we spoke about it uh but there were 945 residents involved the postage would have been around $600 so we El to do the email website and the other list okay thank you so I'll make the motion to approve the recommendation of the reappointment of Steve Wagman to the race Creek Board of managers is there a second this is Janet I second any other questions or discussion we call for the vote Ron I sue I Janet I Rob I I item number three City Hall office closure December 24th 2024 that's page eight of our packet city council is requested to consider consider a halfday closure of City Hall on Christmas Eve Tuesday December 24th 2024 a halfday holiday is on the City calendar for this date and City staff has asked for use of their vacation comp time to be approved for the remainder of the day City Hall was closed in 2023 for Christmas Eve with the same request and conditions as requested above so I'll make the motion to approve the closure of City Hall on December 24th 2024 for the non holiday 8:00 a.m. to noon time period as detailed in the staff report for this request is there a second is Ron I'll second it any questions or discussion so quick question I guess I'm not sure if I UND I didn't read through this all the way so they're going to use half a day for vacation but it's going to be closed 8: a.m. to noon uh that was the period where it was going to be open oh that's open okay yeah so then on the calendar the holiday then was Christmas Eve afternoon okay because it says just in our maybe it's in our um it's moved to approve closure of city hall for non holiday 800 a.m. noon so that's right that's that's not it is a holiday from noon till Santa Claus gets there so we're closed but we're going to be closed all day then correct okay gotcha got it anybody else I'll call for the vote r i Sue I Janet I by I letter D consultant Lis on and staff reports city engineer yeah good evening mayor and City Council Members um first item is in regards to the north Hornsby Avenue uh project um we have authorized a couple permitting Act for that uh for the permitting work associated with the project again this all this doesn't obligate us to any uh project at this point but uh getting the permitting uh taken care of so uh Rice Creek has asked for another action uh from the city of Columbus and it's actually related more to the Eureka Avenue segment than ours but since we're kind of tied together uh Rice Creek Watershed district has asked us to sign this variance that's related to placing fill in the uh flood plane uh which requires uh compensatory excavation in order to replace what's being placed in the flood plane so um so there's more there's 320 cubic yards estimated of fill to be placed in the flood plane which is greater than the the U 100 cubic yard allowance but since they can't um get the compensatory uh excavation placed uh in in that exact same flood plane area that they were requiring a variance and so we're being asked to sign this variance and it's a a variance associated with rule e which is the flood plane alteration rule uh there is a typo on the second page of that variance request that says F rule but it should be e- ruled we'll get that corrected so in any event uh we're requesting authorization for uh the mayor to ass this variance request any questions anyone then I'll make them no no no I have a question go ahead too quick too quick too quick um I have a question about the fill we have a whole bunch of dirt over there are is there any interest that they would use that dirt to fill it and if could we sell it to them and then we'll take a little bit off what we are going to have to pay towards this project I asked the uh question um to the design team earlier this probably even a couple months ago uh letting them know that we had fill that could be available for the project cuz I know we're trying to get rid of that and uh they don't have a use for that particular type of Bill they're they're going to they're going to um preload um the roadway um because there is Pete underneath so they're going to preload uh the roadway but they're going to do that with the with gravel or with a class five U cuz they're going to incorporate that into the section of the roadway so it um the fill that we have isn't of use to them okay and then the second question I have is is Forest Lake paying all the fees related to this permit yes good thank you that wasn't in the packet but I surely was hoping that that was the case yeah yeah there's no way that we'll pay for their VAR we'll sign the we'll sign stranger things have happened well yeah no doubt so all right those are my questions thank you so I'll move to approve the city of Columbus as a signatory to the variance request for the 2025 North Hornsby ureka Street project as required by the race Creek Watershed district is there a second this is Sue all second any other questions I'll call for the vote Ron I sue I Janet I Rob I and Chelsea I item letter B the Wallock letter of credit that's on page 20 of our packet so the uh the waldocks have never requested a release for their letter of credit um until now so the project is complete and so we're recommending that the full letter of credit be released back to the waldocks and that's in the amount of $645,000 I'll make the motion to approve the waldock letter of credit release I have a question go ahead uh this is actually for Jack it's a process question so we had one of these just recently with another business that was requesting it um this project was done quite a while ago whose job is it to release this is it the city's job or is it do you wait for them to ask for it and that's I mean it seems to me like we should have given this back to them a long time ago we normally wait for them to ask for it because they're paying to have that letter of credit inated yeah and normally everybody comes as soon as it's done to get that released as quickly as possible so if it lays out there and actually Jim and I had talked before Jim was down there approximately a year ago and mentioned that to them and they never followed up on his information about requesting a partial release maybe that time up to 90% so really the burden on that is on the person that has the letter of credit I just know that we've had some issues with getting escrow amounts returned in a timely matter and I just thinking that in the past um whether or not there should be a similar process for these uh I haven't seen too many of these that people don't come to us as quickly as possible to get that released else no I just think that we should have given it back to him a long time ago I don't like the idea of the city sitting on somebody else's money well and again they have to request the release though so we can mention it to them and say Hey you might want to consider coming up and requesting a lease of your letter of credit and in this case there was that conversation and they didn't do it so this is one where we kind of we want to get that off our books so we reached out to them to make sure that they recognize that that was still outstanding and asked for the release and I think they were advised during the process of construction too that they have to make the request for the um release of the letter of credit or or a draw down on it and uh I think just being inexperienced developers yeah um more experienced developers that we worked with typically come in with you know requests to to draw that down so okay all right yep all right uh then I'll make the motion to approve the Wallock letter of credit release per the recommendation of the city engineer is there a second I'll second that Ron any other questions or discussion I'll call for the vote Ron I sue I I byebye I'm Jesse I anything else nothing further City attorney yes good evening Mr Mayor members of council uh I I do not have a substantive item tonight but I do have an instructional item tonight that I thought is helpful um as we are conducting an interactive meeting this evening um and there has been some legislative changes over the course of The Last 5 Years years with regards to how interactive technology is utilized uh so that um and you can all uh of course understand where those changes come from in the in the preco days interactive technology or or um tell tell was they called it like telecommuting for meetings um was not part of the overall policy incentive of the open meeting law uh and then during the pandemic of course we all shifted to uh attending meetings by Zoom or by any of the different platforms that are utilized and special po special Co Powers were utilized to make those changes to the open meeting law but then uh sort of quickly in in the fading days of covid uh the legislature adopted a policy that required uh council members um when they attended more than three meetings um remotely to submit a doctor's note which provided a whole slew of problems of course for cities with regards to um retaining medical records disclosing medical it's very messy they become public records ter not not good policy uh and so uh the legislature did clean that up in this last session and we are experiencing the effects of the legislative cleanup this evening uh so uh here's the new solution it is that uh every council member has three remote meetings that they can attend with no notice provided um that's the cap after the three meetings have passed then the council member needs to provide notice to your city administrator uh at least 3 days before the uh the notice or the meeting will be held consistent with when you distribute your packet of where they intend to attend the remote meeting and they have to make themselves available to the public in that place uh and so uh you know council members who may travel often for work um often times utilize you know uh conference room at their hotel as a mechanism to uh provide that public meeting place it can also be the council memb hotel room if they feel so comfortable in that and another city that I represented had a number of planning Commissioners traveling to a planning convention uh and at that point in time we had a highly contested item that come before the Planning Commission was going to come back to the Planning Commission for public hearing uh and three of those council members were going to um be discussing it via remote meeting and we had citizens fly out to Philadelphia to uh to attend the uh planning commission's uh remote meeting that they had that we had properly noticed so that may happen um so I encourage you all that um if you do hit that number three and you move to uh taking those remote meetings um in a place that is not here um that you consider the you know the thoughts the feelings of your friends and family when you make that notice in case you have a whole line of people standing out in front of your your front door um who are looking forward to observing you uh attend the remote meeting uh the other factors um that of course were complied with beautifully this evening uh was a roll call vote for each one of of the votes when it is conducted remotely um so as to show the public that there is interactive communication between the member that is remote and the member that on all of the members who are here this evening uh you could all be remote except for one there must always be one member uh who is present in the chambers uh for the the remote technology exception to apply so that is my um instructional uh opportunity for this evening and I am am happy to answer any questions that you may have about that I guess I just have one so what you're saying is the first three you don't have to give any notice or any note or it can be for any reason do you have to be available to the public you do not you do not okay and then the subsequent ones you can you have to be available to the public and you have to give a three-day notice um and there can be as many of those as or is there only three of those also no as many of those as possible as as as you need as needed uh and the 3-day notice is is actually the the language and the statute is reasonable notice and now Jack and I talked about this a little bit yesterday uh and uh I think reasonable notice is appropriate to be given at the time that we notice the regular meeting when we post the agenda packet that gives people should they wish to fly to find one of you at a conference around uh uh the United States uh then then they would be able to do so so okay that the reasonableness of the 3 days is a is a City attorney interpretation okay thanks and if you're not in a place with the public can attend then you're and you're over your 3-day then you just miss the meeting or how does that work uh so the so the public can really attend in any place um there has not been case law or sort of examination of whether or not a place is is comfortable for the public to attend uh but uh the real Crux here is that they have the opportunity to go to that place that they know that place that the council member will be and if they choose to monitor their attendance and participation they have the ability to do so um but there isn't a distinction sort of drawn between um whether that's been appropriately accommodated or not I just think you know if you're I don't know in a tree stand somewhere that's just not going to be a publicly available place if you're in Europe you're probably not really so I didn't know if there was language that addressed those situations not at this time but I'm sure that revisions to the state law will provide opportunities for for new factual scenarios well and you would have to be on camera right absolutely so if you were in a tree stand you'd have to be able to get access signal right well it it could happen some some of those places up north have better signals than we do here that's true okay uh well counselor since the covid thing we've just always done the roll call vote it started then do other City many other cities do that I mean it's just seems automatic now for us well it's it's excellent especially in the case that there is a split vote um It's very effective so that your minute Taker and your Clerk and the City attorney can record what the votes are um and to make sure that that record is preserved and that is an obligation of the city in regards to its minutes uh so I think that is a great best practice to continue to do thank you anything else nothing Rob online um I was just curious through the mayor to Megan um is this is this a annual thing like yearly or is it uh per the four-year term uh that is a great question I think the assumpt the historical language always tied it to three absences during uh the the calendar year or the council year um okay and so I my assumption is that that that interpretation has continued okay and then and then kind of going back to what Janet was asking about if if you send the city administrator notice three days prior that can happen as many times I mean not saying you want to abuse it but in the event that you needed to use it you you're able to do that yes that's correct okay thank you thank you all I have mayor uh City Council Members report Ron uh I have nothing I have nothing I have a couple of meetings who ENT but Janet's going to go through those my turn sure um so the first one is uh Jesse and I um attended the inoka County local elect elected officials meeting um on Wednesday the 30th um so at that meeting they addressed our resolution and other cities resolutions for the postelection review if you remember we passed that and and had requested it as did I think four or five other cities in in NOA County um Anoka County submitted it to the Attorney General's office and the attorney um the statute evidently reads that when you do a post-election review they have to be precincts that are chosen at random and because this would not fit as a random Choice um if we were directing the county to do our our Precinct and and others were asking for for precincts within their cities um the Attorney General's office said that was not allowed so we are not going to have the postelection review that we requested um normally the county does I believe six precincts is what they said and I think recognizing the fact that there was concern that that wasn't adequate to really um assure that the um the Integrity of the elections they were going to um up that to eight but they would be choosing them at random so that was the answer to the resolution that we submitted I don't know if they're going to send anything El um in writing about that but that was that was addressed by Brad Johnson the the County Attorney the other thing that they brought up was that Anoka County is updating their Hazard mitigation plan they do that every five years and they are accepting public input during the process they didn't have any specific process for that they basically just said if you have any um comments to to uh direct them to the group that is working on that which is the what is it it is the uh Anoka County Emergency Management director is who you address them to so specifically they're asking people to think about you know what are the natural hazards that you feel pose the greatest risk to your community are there specific populations or Assets in your community that you feel are more vulnerable to Future storm events so they're talking about tornadoes floods s things like that and what concerns do you have and what sorts of actions do you feel would um help to reduce damages of future Hazard events in your community or um the county as a whole so Jackie might want to get this on the website just I don't know if anybody will will want to submit comments to that but um that was one of the things that they brought up um the other thing that uh we attended was the Rice Creek Watershed um district meeting on the 31st which is when um they were doing a comprehensive kind of historical review of all the issues related to the ditch um 102 232 so mayor prer was there Jack was there Jim was there Kevin was there Brian was there so um nothing really got I don't want to say accomplished nothing was it was more of a historical review so they went back over sort of the whole long thing but they didn't really end on like action items or anything like that so I don't really have much else to say other than if you're interested in reviewing the history of it you can go and and request a a a copy of the video that I'm sure that they took um I have an update on Mid Coast so I think I mentioned that we were working with the NOA County to get uh funding from their arpa money that they had allocated for broadband and then they decided not to put it towards broadband and then we reminded them of the fact that they had this grant down there that we app we and others applied for long story short we are going to get the money that we requested um which is great we have to um we will have a contract sent To Us by the county that will um specify the amount that we get and that it has to be obligated by the end of this year and it has to be spent by the end of next year it will allow us to do the rest of the um the four areas in Columbus that don't have high-speed internet so we will be um starting the project next year it'll probably go into the following year um there's a match of dollars with from midco and also um a smaller match from the city so we'll we'll spend down thara money first and then we'll do the rest of it in year two from the county money or I'm sorry from midco money and our money but that's really good news I I'm I'm saying it in good faith that we're actually going to get it and we're going to get the contract even though we haven't yet but that's what commissioner Reinhardt is assuring us and and Jim Dickinson the county uh administrator so and when you get it Jack let me know I will um lastly there was a um Sunrise River um wo meeting on the 7th that I attended um as member of the board there wasn't really really a lot going on there they just did uh an update on a shoreline stabilization project that they got funding um from Bowser on and uh Lake is one of the lakes that they're um doing that uh project so they're soliciting uh interest from residents that have property on that Lake I think Martin Lake and there was one other Lake Lynnwood Lake I think um so they'll be selecting um the the uh properties that they'll be able to do the shoreline stabilization um projects on I think in January February is um the contract that that's doing the work is done away here in Columbus so they got the bid to do that work so it's kind of nice that they they're able to do that and I think that's it other than when we talk about our Personnel committee update before we do that Rob do you have anything uh nothing currently mayor thank you all right then let's move on to our Personnel committee Janet and Sue so there was a i i you didn't copy me so I'm assuming the memo that I wrote went out it did okay I don't have a copy of it so I'm not going to I don't I don't know it by heart so I'm going to assume you all read it um there were three parts to it one has to do with um confirming the hire of the accounting assistant and her name is Brenda Oswald if you have any questions I'll pause and you can ask them otherwise I'll make the motion to move forward with that I have none go ahead no okay so then I would move to confirm the hire of Brenda Oswald for the accounting assistant um she will start at step four which is 2911 an hour on the pay grade scale for this position um in my memo I noted that she has 20 years of accounting experience which is why she's starting kind of in the middle of the range this is Sue all second any other questions all call for the vote Ron I sue I Janet I Rob I the second one is for the permit coordinator so this is the position that replaces um Carissa CR um we interviewed uh several folks for that and the hire um the offer is being made to Lindsay Mooney who is a Columbus president um she will start at step one um she is currently a pharmacy tech and has a lot of the same skills in that job that we're looking for in this job Step One is 2631 an hour and um she's starting at one because she is she doesn't have experience actually in a municipal setting doing this kind of work so we're starting her um at the at the beginning of the pay scale and Mrs is soall second any questions or discussion I'll call for the vote hey Jesse this is Rob I just I think it's great that it was somebody from our community that we were able to land in that position so I just wanted to share that so good job take V Ron I sue I Janet I Rob I Jesse I and then lastly um we've been we've been trying to solve the problem of getting minutes done for these meetings and done in a timely fashion um as you recall we started earlier in the year with Contracting with Time Savers and weren't happy with the quality of the minutes that we were getting um we talked to the person who's our media specialist she was willing to give it a go but realized that it was taking a lot more time than what she was willing to put towards that so um the staff is willing to take on the minutes for the Planning Commission for the Eda for um you know parkboard um Fall Fest things like that but we are recommending as a Personnel committee that we post a position which would be a contract position not an employee position for a part-time um recording secretary the part-time um amount would be about we're estimating up to 15 hours a month so it's very part-time and it would be um as I said it would be a contract position not an employee because it is such a such a small amount of um of hours so I um am asking for the uh Council to approve the posting of the part-time position for recording secretary as presented in the Personnel committee report the amount total per year is less than what we were um spending on the timesavers contract so it is within budget this is Sue all second any other questions or discussion yeah this is Rob um so curious on on why we want it to be contract versus uh an employee I know as I realize they're not going to get benefits at that 15 hours but what is the reason why we want to have contract versus a an employee Chan it's a good question we did talk about this in the Personnel committee so there's there's some guidelines that are usually used to determine what would be what would be appropriate as an employee position versus a contract position so the questions that you ask are things like you know does this person have regular hours can they work you know do they do they have full discretion in how they do the work do they use their own equipment all of that is true we're not going to provide a a computer that this person can either come to the meeting they can watch the video they can you know they they basically can do it whenever it makes sense for them so they're really working independently um and um with their own resources to get the job done so that fits more in the category of a contractor than an employee well it kind of fits that nstep plan where whether you're a subcontractor or not yep there was one other thing that we talked about wasn't it um even if it was a part-time 15 hours a month they would still get the uh some benefits the safe and sick time but that's not not true if they're a contractor right Y and that so that was one of the reasons so so you're right they're not they aren't they it's not a benefits eligible if they're Contracting it'll just be an hourly rate for the services provided yeah they'll be expected to pay that benefit on their own behalf correct I would okay thank you so we have a a motion and a second on the floor Ron I sue I Janet I robney and Jesse I I that's it thank you mayor Planning Commission report Sue I think we got cancelled luckily CU I have no notes from that meeting anything else you'd like to add while you have the floor no we were scheduled yep to next next week the 20th don't forget uh Public Works Jim no report Mr Mayor see you administrator Jack thank you Jesse I'd just like to give two big thank yous one to council member hegan for all of her work on the grant for midco without her efforts we probably would not have received that so I commend her highly and appreciate what she did and also the assistance she gives us on all the other fronts the other thank you I would like to give is to our city staff who work tirelessly effortly and a lot of hours and making sure that our 2024 election ran flawlessly we were two staff members short and our election coordinator Lorie Spangler assisted by Elanor Han and Cheryl Jenkins did a fantastic job along with all the election judges and I thank them for their efforts so Jack one of the things that when I was looking at the um the report that you gave us I was it's like almost half of the C the ballots cast were cast as absente ballots and I am assuming most of them came through this office not mailed to the county so the fact that the staff that you had handled all of those in addition to their normal daily work um I know that when we you know the second uh half of the direct balloting we brought in an election judge to help but holy smokes I mean that was that's 45 days of extra work so I agree with you they really deserve Kudos it it's a testimony to their Devotion to their work work in their positions not only did they do their election work they did their normal work too in addition and on top of that and also we're covering for the empty positions correct yeah all right here here I second that all right and all those in favor all all right uh well we're off the hook for two more years right one more year year and a half all right did did you say no report Jim no report for me now anything else to the deer stand so letter e park board meeting November 19th Planning Commission meeting the 20th Eda the 21st Eda regular meeting the 21st City Council on November 25th is there anything anyone would like to add before we adjourn are we can I are we having our Eda meeting at Running Aces oh yeah a question to no I'm sorry that I put that in as a placeholder that a member of the Running Aces staff will be at our Eda meeting to talk about the lodging tax oh good okay that that was an edit that I missed and should have been taken off all right thank you in that case I'll make a motion to adjourn is there a second this is to all second I'll call for the vote Ron I sue I Jed I Rob I I our meeting is a jour turned at 640