[Music] Good evening everyone. Uh this is a Columbus City Council meeting. The date is June 11th, 2025 and the time is 6 p.m. And we're calling the meeting to order. And if second item on the list is the pledge of allegiance. If everybody would stand. 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. Item number three is the adoption of the agenda. And the first thing is a motion. And I'm going to make a motion. And I, Ron Hanigraph, move to approve the agenda for the June 11th, 2025 city council meeting with the additions of the supplemental bill list along with the letter of resignation from Brenda Oswald, accounting assistant, which were provided to the council as a handout prior to this meeting. And item F, which is a closed session. This is Janet second. Did you second? I second it. Yep. Thank you. We have a motion on the floor. It was seconded on the adoption of the agenda. Anybody else have any items, questions? Hearing none, we'll take a vote. Jenny, Jenny, I. Scott, Janet, I. Rob I, and Ron I. We're going to go down to the public forum and this is kind of a new protocol. We're going to start reading what the public forum's about. The 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 concerns to the council. The council will listen to the issues but will not engage in a dialogue with the presenter. Questions from the council will be for clarification only. The public forum will not be used as a time for problem solving or reacting to the comments made, but rather for hearing citizens forformational purposes only. If a majority of the council would like to address the issue in more detail, it can be added to the agenda or can be addressed during the regular agenda of a future meeting or referred to staff for further review and response. So, I'm going to open up the public forum. Is there anybody in the crowd that would like to step forward? Oh. Oh, great. [Music] And is there you signed in, Gina? I did not. I did. You did? Well, good. Well, will you state your name and your address? Yes. Oh, Gina Shervin. I live in Hugo, but I'm here with the Columbus Lions. And Julie Kaidi. I live in Columbus. I am also with the Columbus Lions. Can you move the mic over for you? Thank you. So, we want to um just present a couple things tonight to the council about um building the relationship with the city and the Columbus Lions. So, we are here to talk about um an event another event in the park um in August which would coincide with the night to unite. night to unite and then also to maybe talk about an Arbor Day, Earth Day um co-sponsor event um for next year for 2026 between the city and the lions like we used to do in the past where we gave the trees away, we had arborist here, we had the DNR here, that sort of thing. So um I think Julie has a little bit more information on the night to unite. Oh, okay. Yes. Um, so the Columbus Lines would like to host a community event in the park and it would be a gathering here at the park for night to unite and um so night to unite is kind of parent hosted by Anoka County. I think it might be a statewide event, maybe countrywide, I'm not sure, but it's always the first Tuesday in August. And um it's kind of advertised as building strong, safe, united neighborhoods, crime prevention and awareness, police and community partnerships. And so we would register with Anoka County as an official night to unite site and then um advertise on Facebook and Next Door and probably put something up at the park. Uh we'd like to do it from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. And it will just be mostly all about gathering and talking, you know, not about um a big a big production or food sales or anything. It's just people getting together, but we will have some snacks and some beverages and we'll we'll bring some yard games, maybe some cornhole, just keep it friendly and um social and yeah, and we would just ask if you would all like to join us, please do that. And also we would like to ask if you would put it on the city calendar as a community event. Absolutely. Just drop by. We'll get the permit and everything ready. I don't think it's booked. I think that's a great idea to do that and incorporate that with all the other parties going on in the city. Perfect. Awesome. Right. Um, anything that Yeah, we can. We'll get the per I have to stop on Monday anyway, so we'll get the permit and the check dropped off for that to reserve the park. So, is that the permit you're talking about? Is just to reserve the pavilion? Yes. And then, um, would the city be interested in doing a joint event again for like the Arbor Day, Earth Day situation? If there's no interest, we can just cut it and we'll let it go. Um, I just know we've had some residents from Columbus ask us if we would be interested in doing it again because they really enjoyed it when it was a big deal, you know, like when Cal was involved and that sort of thing. Um, it was a wonderful event. It was busy. It would just be another way to get people here at the city and more involved in meeting you guys and meeting us. Say Jack, you know, I I skipped a Yeah. part of consent agenda, but we're on the the for open forum here. Should we set up another meeting to talk about this issue? You can direct staff to work with them and then get back to you and we can present that approval later. Okay. Everybody agree with that? Yeah, I agree. I think we're all we we've got a new business now, Davy Tree Service, which are arborists that you could tap into maybe uh here in Columbus. Davey's Tree Service. Dave Tree Service is going to be opening up in Columbus here. Yeah. Perfect. Is that all you have Gina? Yep. Well, for tonight. Thank you for coming. I I Thank you. Thank you both of you. We'll go back to consent agenda, but when we talk on open forum, we're not supposed to converse with the people. Okay. So, like when you But this is a different issue right off the bat. So, but that's what the open forum is about the public bringing it to us. So, my mistake here, but let's go to item B, the consent agenda. Anybody like to make a motion on it? I have a question. Um, so we we accepted the letter of resignation up in number A, but now it's also in number B or am I misunderstanding? Number A was to change to amend the was just to amend it to add it. Okay. Um I have not read all of these minutes. There was a bunch of changes or some changes going back and forth and so I was holding off till there was a final version thinking there'd be a final version here, but there's not. So I I I do I I did read the LBA minutes um and I had some edits to that, but I didn't get a chance to read the other ones. So I would be abstaining on on those. That's Yeah, I'm just reading through them too. I mean, there's some grammar grammar errors as well um that I'm seeing. Are you saying on this one here? The one that I that I excuse me, the one that I edited out of the April 17th, the LD because I figured that would be the easiest one. So, I read that one first and then that's as far as I got. My name spelled wrong again. But that was that isn't the only edit that I had. I had a few other edits. Um but there's no video of this one. So when I went back to try to find the video to see if I was remembering correctly, I couldn't find the video. We have it on Zoom. So we didn't I I can send you the video. Well, it's I mean if everybody else read it and they they're okay with it. I I just um there was some things in here that I thought I don't think that's right, but I I didn't have any notes and I couldn't watch it. So anyway, what did you want to pull one? Oh, I I'm just saying that that's the only one I got to and I didn't read the other one. So I'm not going to vote yay or nay on anything I didn't read out I didn't have a chance to read. That's me. I know you guys had comments so you read them. This is Jenny. Would you like for us to strike them and review them at the next meeting? Would that be comfortable? Yeah, that's kind of what I think. And is there any issue with striking them, Jack, through through the mayor, and and just take them off for now and we'll approve them under the next agenda? That that would be fine. These aren't timesensitive at this point. So then you'd be looking for a motion for item number one, bill payments only at this point and the um resignation and number six or five. We we'd be looking to approve one, five, and six. Yeah. Okay. Well, this is Scott. I'll make the motion then to approve uh the consent agenda items number one, five, and six as presented, the resignation letter of Brenda Oswald, and the supplemental bill list, which were distributed to council prior to the June 11th, 2025 meeting. Go ahead, Jenny. Go ahead, Rob. Rob second. We got a motion and seconded it on the floor. Uh, any other discussion? Hearing none, we'll take a vote. Jenny, Jenny, I, Scott, I, Janet, I, Rob, and Ron I. We're going to go to item C number two in a minute, but first of all, we're going to get to it later on, but when we talk about uh AI, uh assistant uh city manager Aaron Berg explained to us that we start interrupting each other, it messes up AI. So AI won't know what conversation's going on and start making Am I correct, Erin? So, for instance, Mr. Mayor, as you allude to, if Council Member Wendell is speaking and is in mid-sentence and Council Member Bush interrupts the conversation, not as in interrupting intentionally in a negative way, but he has some input, chat, GPT or whatever AI version might think that Mr. Wendell is still speaking and it picks up what Council Member Bush was saying. So, um, if we intend on using AI to do minutes to make things more cleaner, it would be nice to let each member formally finish their thought before being interrupted. However, that's a procedural thing that you all need to agree on whether you want to go formal with your meeting um, uh, procedure or if you're okay with the informal. Just it's just a little more challenging. That's all. I have a question, Erin. If if it's not an interruption, so say Scott has his sentence and then Ron says something but he doesn't say this is Ron. Will it also think that certainly will. So really the the solution to that is to ask for recognition to speak which is a very formal right process of Robert's rules of order and um it's a change for some people. It's hard to hard to make that adjustment but that would be helpful. Well, I know that Bill knows a lot about this, but you go up to the state capital, it is so formatted that that you can't speak unless somebody says something. Correct, Bill? Yes. And and that certainly has not been the tradition here. I mean, it's been more free flowing. And so, it's really up to you. I mean, you know, one thing that I would point out is that you're presumably you're checking the minutes against a recording as well. you're not simply relying on AI to produce the final cut. So it's up to you whether you want to adopt that kind of formal approach. Well, I think the conversation came up is that I think this free flowing that we are doing is causing probably some of the problem. It's not the entire problem, but it doesn't help the issue. So I think what we all have to watch each other. We'll keep the free flowing unless somebody wants to change the format. Either raise your hand or watch because sometimes maybe Scott isn't looking at Rob or Rob isn't looking at Jenny or I'm not looking and we both speak at the same time then we back back off and things get confusing. So, is there any suggestions from the council? Yeah, this is Scott. Jen, didn't you what was your suggestion that maybe we do be a little more formal and ask the mayor to be recognized? Well, I think there Yeah, I think there's two ways of doing it. One is to ask for recognition from Ron to speak. And actually, you do that once in a while, uh, Rob. Or you can before you speak say, "This is Janet. This is Scott." So that you're identifying yourself every time you speak. Either one of those, I think, would solve the problem. Yeah. No. Okay. This is Scott. For the record, I'm probably more likely to interrupt Rob than he is me. But, uh, anyway, um, you know, even just saying, you know, Mr. Mayor, this is Scott. Mhm. And if it's okay with the mayor, not necessarily waiting for you to respond, but the assumption being made that we're now being recognized. I I I try to view everybody to watch because I sometimes I'll look down I'll see Rob hold his hand up or or something. So I'm at fault too. So but yeah, if we can get more into saying who we are talking and if you want to talk or something, raise your hand or throw a piece of paper at me or something or pen. But let's we'll all try to get together and work this out. So, let's go on to item number C, uh, which is Camping World IUP and Development Agreement Amendment pages 4 through Oh, no, wait. We're not doing that. Oh, we did the consent agenda. Yeah. Right. Yes. Okay. Got off on another tangent there. Okay. Uh, Camping World IUP and Development Agreement Amendments, pages 4 through 21. And Jack, you're going to start it off, then Bill's going to take it or uh just we're just going to let Bill deliver this at the beginning. He has the extensive background on it and uh is the expert on this item. So, Bill, thank you, Mr. Mayor, Council, City Attorney Bill Griffith, um addressing the item C.2, Camping World and Development Agreement. This is a simple amendment, uh simple in that it's just changing a couple words. It does have an impact, however, and and it comes up in this context after the uh interim use permit was approved to allow storage on an adjacent site. I believe it's to the south of of the site. So, it's the Camping World site uh that is to the south and the adjacent site is south of that. And that was a storage site. For many years, it was not permitted. It was not allowed. Uh and we came up with this uh process by issuing an interim use permit that allowed the two sites to act as one essentially. And this the attorney the inside attorney at Capping World called and said, "Well, if if the property sold, then the the way it was written, the interim use permit would expire and essentially we would no longer have access to that site." The idea with that was to encourage the two sites to be combined if they were ever sold. uh they simply made a request and there there's a gentleman online uh Grant uh Dshock I believe so we can answer questions uh if if you have any uh but we came up with this approach they made a request because it was a change in the condition we said it had to come back to you as the city council. So if you look at the change in the condition it's in um the packet and it's in the development agreement section um exhibit B. So, if you look on page 15 of the of the packet, I believe, do you all have exhibit B in front of you? Yes. So, it would uh it would read now with the change, the IUP shall terminate upon the cessation cessation of the business on the property. the idea there that um that that adjacent property could be sold. Um either property could be sold, but as long as that business continues to operate as a functioning business, they could continue to store um their have their open storage adjacent. So, we felt that that was reasonable. I think ideally, you know, those properties would be combined. Um but we can't control either property. Um we can simply, you know, eliminate the opportunity for storage. So, it's really up to the council whether you want to adopt that change. Um, I don't um I don't know if we'll get to a development agreement without the change and then we'd be back to a non-compliant site. Um and so this is this as uh the administrator suggests this has a long history and while this is not exactly how we would handle it. Um it's it's close enough and it and it makes the use legal uh which is is it's not been a legal use for a number of years and there's a representative on the line if mayor Rob this is uh recognized question for Bill. This is Rob. Are we talking about the parcel that's south of the old Coats RV or are we talking about the mini stores south of Camping World? Because I don't believe that's called like Forest River RV, not Camping World. Uh Mr. Mayor, Council Member Bush, this is a city attorney responding. Um you are correct. It's the former coat site. It's owned by the same group that owns uh Camping World. has a different brand uh I believe different uh advertising and brand but it is essentially the same type of use and so it is that southern property that was coats and and adjacent to it there's a property to the south of that that is the open storage lot okay thanks for the clarification certainly um there's also some questions for Bill this is Janet um so I had to read this a couple times because like I was like who owns what who's on first who's on second so let me let Let me just see if I got this right. So, there's Camping World. They're leasing from J Coats and they're also leasing from uh the owner of the other parcel, which is not in front of my face right now, but um let's see. It's in the it's in the signature page. Anyways, uh there's there's like lots of lots of cooks in the kitchen here. That's correct. Gate Avenue Properties LLC. So, there are two separate owners, right? One for JA Coats, then this Gates Avenue Properties that owns the the lot south. So my question is our usual modem operende for an IUP is that there's a end date and I don't see an end date on this which makes me a little worried. And my second question is um so if one parcel sells and the other does not then what happens? So that was that was the cons since since the operator of the business is leasing both parcels. Uh they're they don't control who owns the underlying real estate. It can be sold at any time and they didn't want to essentially be put out of business at least as to the open storage. The open storage is is what is governed by the IUP. Mhm. And so the argument was, well, either one of these individual property owners could sell their parcel and we, you know, they they perhaps have a long-term lease on on the former coat site, uh, but they don't have the right to control the, um, open storage lot piece without this interimuse permit. And so, they didn't want it going away. You're right. This is different than our our typical mode of operation. typically like the billboards are on a 20-year interimmuse permit. Home businesses are on a 5-year interimm use permit. What's required by the statute is that there is that the interim use permit uh ceases upon some specific condition. So in this case, the specific condition is that the business ceases um and then the interim use permit would go away. So yes, it is it is different than just about every other interimmuse permit in the city. The the reason staff and the city attorney felt comfortable with this proposition is because the the development agreement and the interim use permit is intended to tie these properties together as if they were jointly owned. And and so as long as there's a business there, the business that's on the property today, um you know, then the permit would continue. So this is Janet again. I I guess what I'm puzzled about is that you've got three parties signing this agreement. If one party sells, do you have to bring them back to redo a new agreement? Because now maybe then maybe the party that sells is going to, I don't know, put a go-kart park there or something. I don't know. I'm just, you know, I it may not be that they're in, you know, the new owner is interested in having a bunch of RVs sitting there. So, I felt I felt uneasy about the the um the possibilities of this and I also felt uneasy cuz I don't understand why this is a problem for for Camping World. I mean, if it sells, that's a bigger problem, right? Our agreement isn't the problem. The fact is that they they aren't going to have enough space to to store all their their units that they have on the on the property that sells unless the new owner wants to enter into the same sort of agreement, which I'm assuming would mean that everybody has to come to the table and resign this. Uh again, Bill Griffith responding the development agreement uh because it's a development agreement under zoning, it runs with the land. And so the let's let's just say for the sake of argument, the storage lot sells. Okay, the storage lot sells, the new owner comes in, they don't have to do anything to continue this arrangement. So, somebody could buy that open storage lot. The lease of the open storage lot continues. The intermuse permit runs with the land and continues until the business ceases. Now, if if let's take the the main lot, if you will, the former coat site, if that sells, obviously that either means the business is is ceasing or there's just another owner that is going to be the lasso. And again, if it's just another owner who's going to be the lassor, then everything stays in place. There's no change. The uh camping world doing business as what is it? Forest River um continues. It's if the business ceases, then the permit goes away. Nobody has a right to come in and operate the same business on the property if that business ceases. And this is Janet. And what would be the hardship if this IUP had pick a date, a a fiveyear end date? Um that they would just have to renew it, right? And I and I think the um that is certain. I I checked the uh city code because I wanted to make sure there wasn't a time deadline on this permit and there isn't. Mhm. So the home businesses have 5 years, the billboards have 20. This particular um permit did not have a term. And so we can we can uh the city can approve it in this fashion or the council could say I'd be much more comfortable on a renewal of five or 10 or you know some number of years. So this is Janet. I mean the reason I'm bringing this up is because there has as you mentioned there's been this long history of non-compliance. So a agreement with a no end date on it makes me a little nervous when that's been the history. I and I get this is meant to try to solve that problem, but um I don't I I don't know. I don't have a lot of confidence in in it as a solution. I'm not against it, but I I feel like we have consistently had IUPs with end dates, whatever that end date is. And I'm not I'm not very comfortable with one not having one. Um, so that would be that's my I would rather that we have an end date. Bill, this is Ron. I got a a question. So Coach had a CUP on that property first. Yes. And then Campion World came in and took over that CP cup. Am I correct? Right. And that's permanent use that runs with the property. So no problem there. Okay. So if they sell that property and another camping facility didn't come in and the CUP is done in a year, right? In other words, at that property, if it doesn't, let's say Coats comes back and wants to start it up again, then it's it's back to the same cup it was before. Am I correct? Uh, Mr. Mayor Bill Griffith responding the um what would happen is if if the property was sold, the business ceased. The cup continues to run with the property. Um there is an argument that if they don't use it for the same purpose um after a year that CUP goes away and then it starts all over. Um you'd have a new development application uh for whatever. Um but but the the condition as written is to try and make sure that the business now functioning as a whole can continue notwithstanding who's in title underlying title. And that seemed reasonable to us. It also seems reasonable that like most interim use permits there might be a a term of years. Perhaps it's more than five years. Perhaps it's not as many as the billboards at 20. Um uh because they're not you know most of the improvements are there. We did we did uh as a city condition this intermuse permit on some additional landscaping and uh I don't know the status of that landscaping if it's been installed. So there's a minimal amount of improvement going on to the property um in light of the issuance of the interim use permit. Um, so again, we we wanted to facilitate getting this back to the council at the request of the um applicant whose legal counsel was concerned about the way it was written and we said the only way to to have another pass at that is to get it in front of the city council. Rob, did you have a question? Um, and I had I had concern about this Gate Avenue properties actually being an LLC. I'm not finding them in the Secretary of State. So, I tried it several different ways. So, I don't know that they're actually a registered business or we can we can proper tax identification. That has not been an issue previously, so we can check on that. I mean, typically they would, right, from my past looking properties up, you would you would have some sort of LLC within the Secretary of State. Maybe it's just written here wrong. Um, but I tried just Gate Avenue. I try gate properties. So we can certainly check on that. That's something that um usually before signing it would be reviewed. So yeah, thank you. Mhm. Jenny, this is Jenny. I have one question relating to um something Bill just noted as well. Are there any code or compliance issues that we're currently addressing relating to this property that we need to be concerned about? Uh not. It's my understanding that this would address the primary code issue, which is the fact that that outdoor storage is not allowed on the adjacent lot without some legal approval. And and that approval has already been granted. Um, so this development agreement is one of the conditions of that approval. So the compliance isn't finalized until there's a development agreement signed for this property. And this is Jenny. You noted landscaping as well, correct? Yes. and I don't know the status of of landscaping on on the property. Maybe we could ask the applicant to address that question. Yeah. Are you ready for that answer? Grant Duke with Excel Engineering representing Camping World. In regards to landscaping, landscaping has been installed to date per the approved plan. So, it is in compliance. This is Jenny. Thank you very much for that answer. I appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, Mr. Mayor, this is Scott. I also see that you actually had till October 1st to comply with that. So, you've complied with it early. Appreciate that. Um, while we're at it here, could we make some corrections and some like on the interim use permit, you have the date published as December 5th. Could we make that the correct year on there? Um, page 19 of our packet. It's 20234. I'm assuming that should be December 5th, 2024. Yeah, I did prepare the the staff memo. Found it. So, yeah. Okay. And then on page 21, I think we struck the term of the IUP and line one. Uh, I I'm assuming we don't want to strike the IUP acronym there. We want to keep that. Just a little housekeeping note there. It should say the IUP, but we struck IUP. I don't know where you are. Page 21 of our packet. So for you, that would be uh interim use permit. And then it would be the third page 2024, Camping World Outdoor Storage IUP conditions number one. Condition number one. Okay, that's in the record. Yeah, mayor. Yeah, Rob, I want to retract what I said. I didn't see in the beginning 321. So, I looked it up and it's actually owned by Sarah Coats. So, Coats owns that parcel, too. Thank you, Ron. Thanks, Ron. Mayor, I have another question. This is Janet. Um, uh, let's see. Okay. On page 21 or page three of four, um, the property owners of those two lots are responsible for the maintenance of the storm water ponds. Correct. Mhm. That's what it looks like. It says I just want to So again, if this sells and and there isn't a new IUP, how do you ensure that the new owner would take on responsibility of that stormwater pond maintenance? They didn't sign up. They didn't sign resign a document like this. Right. Again, this agreement because it's under zoning runs with the land and so that requirement runs with the property. So So that was going to be my second question. So when you say this agreement runs with the land, is it like forever like a cup? It's as long as that interim use permit is in existence. So if the that's that's one of the arguments perhaps against having a a term other than cessation of the business because this is intended to be present as long as the business is operating. If you if you introduce a term of years, then you would have to get the new owners because the permit would potentially expire. You might have to get the new owners to sign the development agreement because it doesn't permanently run with the land. So, that's one thing to think about when you propose a term. I don't see that as a negative myself. Janet, this is Janet saying that I can barely hear you. I said this is Janet and I don't see that as a negative myself. I mean, I feel like there again, there's a lot of people in the mix here and we have a business owner that for years have not been compliant and has not been responsive to the city's concern about that compliance. So, I feel like a tighter leash might be a little bit better in this case. And so if you did, I mean I I I don't have a a time frame in mind, you know, 5 years, 10 years, whatever, but at least then you would have a period of everybody's doing what they said they were going to do to base an extension on. Otherwise, if this goes south, we have no recourse. It appears. This is Ron. Are we We're talking about the Coats one, the South one. No, there's two. No, there's two. We're talking about both of them, I think. Well, I I I understand the first one. Every time I've ever gone in there and talked to them, it's always that's the other store. That's not us. So, I'm trying to figure out, can you connect the two like that? No, this is this is the former code site and the the adjacent parcel to the south. They're they're separate permits, separate underlying owners. They happen to be the same operator is my understanding. Different different brands as was noted by the council. Again, this is Bill Griffith speaking. So, um that's whatever happens in that store on the north. That's a separate subject. The Camping World store or RV.com or whatever. There's like so many names out there. I'm not sure how to refer to them either. I I that's why you kind of confused me when you were talking about I know they had the parking issue and we were fighting with them up up there with that, but they're two separate issues. So, we can't bring in that. Well, so this is Janet, but that's who is leasing the land from these two other property owners. So, it's their it's their inventory that's sitting on that land. Correct. Yes. I mean, presumably they have the same or similar inventory. I don't know the their operation that well, but still you can't there there's separate zoning, there's separate permitting, there's a separate cup. We should deal with the application the the amendment that's in front of you, right? Okay. And I and I do want to say just again that that while we, you know, didn't appreciate the non-compliance for multiple years and encouraged the owners to come into compliance, this was their initiative to us about a year ago when they said, "What what can we do under the circumstances to come into compliance?" And our first answer was the same as our long-term answer, which was buy the property, join the property, and combine them and and operate as one site. And that that was not workable because of all as you noted the multiple parties involved. And so our second answer was well there is under law the the concept of a zoning lot where the zoning it's treated as one lot for the purposes of zoning. We would do that through a development agreement which we have in front of us. We would do that through an interim use permit which is subject of the change in condition. And so, you know, it was approved uh with the condition as you see written and then only upon, you know, review of the development agreement did someone in their attorney's office say, "Wait a minute, we can't have this ceasing." You know, now that we're in compliance, we can't have this ceasing when somebody decides to sell the property. So, um you know, we enter we entertain the condition. We said we'd bring it forward as a recommendation. And so now it's up to you to decide whether to to make any changes. Mayor, could this is Janet. Um could we ask the um gentleman on on Zoom whether or not having a uh end date a time stamp on this whether it's 5 years or 10 years if that would present a hardship for the company and if you can explain why that would be really helpful. Yes, Mr. Mayor. May I speak? Yes. Yes, again, Grant Tuk with Excel Engineering. So, yes, uh, appreciate the comments, Janice specifically, and I did want to to to recap some of the the questions here, clear up a few things and and and touch on this. So, first, I know Camping World uh, as a a design partner and engineering partner with them. We work with them um, throughout throughout the country on a lot of different different sites and developments, they did come to us on this one and they are committed to to getting into compliance. They spent a lot of money on landscaping, also a lot uh from a consulting side on our end to get this up to compliance from from a help and and assistance standpoint. So, I do know that they're thoroughly committed to to keeping this site in compliance and and it is important to them and and that's why we're we're here tonight and that's why we've been we've been talking over the past 6 to 8 months to to get this cleaned up. So, so we do do appreciate the time and appreciate working with city staff to to get to a point here tonight on that. I know there's a lot of questions on on hardships and in the different lots. It it is confusing from an arrangement of two separate property owners. It would be a preference if it was one property, but unfortunately, Camping World doesn't have control over that as far as is what that is. They have lease agreements on both parcels and they are different owners, but they are operating it as one contiguous business. So, it it is a hardship because their their leases are long-term. Their leases are not short terms. So, if there was a short-term expiration on this interim use, the they would there would be a hardship that they have a lease that's longer than than what the the duration or the expiration of this interim use permit is. So, they wouldn't have a guarantee that they could keep running their their storage facility, their main building that that we're talking about, the old coats RV. That's fine. As as attorney Bill mentioned, that is under a conditional use permit and and that runs with the land. So there it's not it's not an issue that's not part of this conversation. It's just for the storage lot immediately south that the landscaping was put in for and that cannot go along with the conditional use permit because it's a separate parcel and a separate owner. However, the business operates as one. So, the Camping World needs the assurance that their business can operate, which is why their attorney proposed the the modification of this language here that it would go along with the business and and not the owners because one another thing that Camping World doesn't have control over is the the properties under ownership of Coats, the former Coats and and the private coats ownership. they could potentially sell the the properties for a real estate investment and Camping World could continue their business as as it is today with a different owner and keep their lease their lease going and that lease would transfer to the new owner and they don't have control over that. So that's the reason why they they need this to go along with the business and not the actual property owner. So it's just a south property and and that's the way that it would go. the the developer agreement, the stormwater management maintenance agreement. That all goes along with the property. As attorney Bill mentioned, similar to an easement, if you sell a property, you don't have to get all of your easement documents resigned with with the new owners of the property. They go along in title with that property. So, the key here to protect the city is that if Camping World terminates or ceases their business, then this IUP um expires or terminates. Any questions on that? Uh, this is Janet. I do have one other question. So, um, are you able to speak to the to the length of of the lease and are they the same date end date? Because what thought I had as you were speaking is well, maybe the IUP end date is then synced up with your lease end date. That uh, unfortunately, Janet, I do not have that information. I'm just so this is Janet again um speaking to Bill. I mean that that would be one option that would I think address at least one concern that you have because you'd have to renew the lease to continue operations as you are right now. So if you had the IUP mirror that lease date, then you're satisfying my concern about not having an end date, which we have had with all of our other IUPs. And I think it, you know, it would just it would make sense with the fact that you'd have to renew your lease to continue um operating as as you do today. Anyway, Mr. Mayor, Council Member Heglin, um that's exactly how the um billboards were set up when they were on interimm use permits. The underlying rights uh were 20 years to match the term of the interim use permit. It would require um that we do some in further investigation before you can act on this um because we wouldn't want to have that kind of an open-ended question tonight. Mr. Mayor, um grant with Excel, I would say to that I understand um the the concern from from the council on that. I would say that if the lease is not renewed then the business ceases and then the IUP is is terminated. There were very few Jewish witnesses any wish to talk for longer weren't allowed to because the Holocaust wasn't the subject of the trial. So it wasn't spoken nowad from May 1940 to November 1943. Uh hello and transferred to Nuremberg where he appeared as a witness. Sound like there's some background noise coming through. Yeah. Doesn't sound like it's from Minnesota. Can you mute Can you mute Jesse? Yeah. Is it Jesse? Yeah. I think I don't see the mute by him. Well, I I think what we need, Mr. Mayor, this is Bill Griffith, city attorney. I think what we need is uh if there's a consensus the council wants to hold this over to um learn what the lease term is on the adjacent lot, we can do that. You can approve it as presented or you can turn it down. I mean, those are your options. Is there anybody on the council? I know Janet brings up the IUP and have an IUP. Uh anybody else want to add anything to that idea? Miss Jenny, Mr. Mayor, um, one question. We have a compliance officer now, and so I know a lot of the concern is around compliance, correct? If I'm understanding, and I know that our compliance officer has had some involvement in working on this. So would that somewhat suffice the concern that that we have? Uh, this is Janet. that that does. But the second thing is just consistency with how we've handled all of our other IUPs and that we've, as far as I know, have not had an IUP with an open-ended date. Mr. Mayor and Council Member Bill Griffith, again, uh that is correct. That's my understanding that all intermuse permits issued so far in the city have had been for a term of years, uh five, sometimes 10, and uh in the case of billboards, 20. So, um I this is Janet. I would uh move to hold this over uh to get more information about the lease date. It may be that once we find that out, that's not that's not a viable option either, but at least I think I'd feel better if we could investigate whether that's a possibility. So, holding it over is my motion. Uh this is Ron. I'll I'll second that motion just to clarify just to clean this thing up. You're just talking about if I'm right on this motion that you're making to clarify the IUP. This is Janet. So, I'm saying we won't take action on this until um staff or bill comes back and says here's the terms of the of the lease. You know, it's 10 years, 5 years, 50 years, whatever it is. And then we can we could weigh in whether or not trying to sync up an IUP with that IUP end date with that makes sense. It may not. Then we go back to whether or not we want to end date at all. But I mean, I don't want to create hardship for for Camping World. So, I understand uh what what Grant had shared with us. Um and he doesn't know the date of the lease, so I feel like we can't really investigate that as an option without knowing that. I did I just This is Ron. Did I just second this motion? Yes. I' I'd like to resend the motion only for the idea I'd like to understand if everybody on the council or their views on having it connected. I have an IUP that's not open-ended. I know I see where your comment from on yours, but nobody's talked about the IUP here unless I missed it like uh what your views are on it. Leaving it open or Mr. Mayor, this is Rob. Um, I I get what Janet's saying. We to we typically put a set amount of years like 5, 10, 20. So, this this is left open-ended. So, to me, with Janet there is if we don't put a end date on it, they could just go forever, right? It's an interim use permit with no end date. Council Bill Griffith. Yes, that's correct. that that the way this is written, as long as the business is operating, the interimm use permit would would continue to. And and and looking at it, this is Rob again, mayor. Um and looking at it, if these are two separate parcels and the northerly parcel decides to sell off and decide they don't want to do business with them no more, they can still operate this business on the southerntherly lot for as long as they want without an end date. No, that that is that is not the case. Not the case. That is not the case. Okay. I guess then it's kind of a mute point, right? Or not. Yeah. So, so the idea is that as long as that business is operating, the business is operating on the property, the main parcel, the storage lot would go along with it. If that ceases, then the storage lot goes away. Gotcha. But this is Janet, but what you just said could happen, right? If the Southerntherly lot gets sold, they could continue to lease the former Colts lot and continue to as long as they could squeeze as many um units as they needed to onto that, which is what the problem was before is there was they tried to put more in there than they needed to. Um, and and to your point, I mean, my my other my other concern is, and I I harp on this a lot. I like things to be consistent because if you leave this open-ended, then the next person who wants an IUP for whatever is like, "Well, you didn't put an end date on theirs. Why do you have to put an end date on ours?" And we have put an end date on every single IUP, as far as I know, that this city has issued. 5 years, 10 years. I mean, it is isn't the same for all of them, but we have put an end date on it. So, I I I'm not convinced that there's a good enough reason that we couldn't come up with an end date that doesn't create hardship for the applicant. Any other comments? You want to restate your motion then again? Well, my motion still stands. It's yours that you took away. Okay. Well, then I second the motion by Janet Heglin. Any other comments? Any questions? The staff understand where we're going? Yeah, Mr. Mayor, I I just have a a quick comment here. I as we vote on the motion, I I would also keep in mind that I'm thinking back to um the planning commission. I believe, you know, they became compliant early on their screening quite early. Uh so they're making the attempt um in good faith to be compliant. As I go back to the planning commission, I believe they also as a result of this hooked up to city utilities finally. Um so they they went ahead and did that as well. So they have been taking act been participating actively in trying to be compliant. So okay. Well, we have a motion on the floor. It's been seconded. We'll take a vote on it. Jenny, Jenny I, Scott I, Janet I, Rob I, and Ron I. So, this will get cleared up then and brought back to us, Mr. Mayor and Council. Bill Griffith, I expect it'll be brought back to you in a couple weeks. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Have a good night. Thank you, Grant. I've been jumping around. Mel, what happened to uh Paul Birdsaw that was on there? Is he still on there? No. No, he disappeared. Okay, we'll go on the Northwest Quadrant preliminary and final plat approval pages 22- 40. Jack, the city of Columbus is applying for a preliminary and final plat application to split two existing lots consisting of 32.85 acres to create three new lots and five outlots. The property is a northwest quadrant of the corner of Lake Drive and West Freeway Drive. It should be instead of Interstate 35. One of the existing lots is currently owned by the city of Columbus while the other is currently owned by Steve and Patricia Saunders who have agreed to be part of this plat process. Block two, lot one would be a separation of approximately six developable acres from a larger 27 acre area that is wetlands. The planning commission held a public hearing for the preliminary and final plat on May 21st, 2025. No public comments were received. At the following planning commission meeting on June 4th, 2025, the planning commission unanimously recommended the approval of the Northwest Quad I35 preliminary and final plat based on the findings and contingent on the recommendations outlined in the staff report. Approval of this plat will allow the city to proceed with the reszoning of block two lot one from general commercial to mixeduse high density. The zoning classification will allow more opportunities to market this city- owned property for uses that align with the development division for the I35 Lake Drive interchange area. Staff recommends city council consider approval of the preliminary and final plat for the northwest quad. Thank you, Jack. And one one notation in your packet, there are two plats that are shown. The preliminary and the one below it just says northwest squad. That's the final. They're both identical. There's no changes in either one of them. There were some survey errors that were corrected and these were done before the planning commission's recommendations. So everything is current and to date with that. It also has the approval of the other private property owner that's associated with this request. Any comments by the council? Yeah, this is Rob. Mayor, um not being listened to the uh planning commission last week, um what what is the purpose for this? Is there is there something that's proposed that we're splitting this up for? or is it to be easily marketable? Well, it's been on this has been under discussion for quite a while. One of the things that we want to do is split the very northeast corner where the cursor is there to a separate lot. It is developable. That's the only developable piece of property that's left on that side of West Freeway Drive. That's a six acre tract. If we do that, uh, we're going to have another site the city can sell. Uh, the remainder of that tract outlined in yellow down to the road is wet. Uh, that's a site that we will retain for perhaps future use and some discussions with DNR. That would give us a sixacre site we could market for mixed use, high density. that's their goal to reszone it to that classification which could be used for uh apartment highdensity senior housing things of that nature. Currently, it's zone general commercial but because of its location even though it is almost fronting the interstate it's too difficult to get to in terms of access to be a real attractive site for retail professional or other personal services type businesses. That's one of the reasons we'd like to do that. The other thing is too when we sell the property south of there, the city-owned property is adjacent to Mr. Saunders property. This needs to be part of that plat. Quil, if I can add one little bit of history, going back almost two years, the city applied for a grant uh for some of the costs of this plat. And the idea was to make it uh shovel ready so that it would be easier to sell the the various pieces that the administrator has outlined. Thank you. Um Janet, I do want me to make the motion. Oh, I thought maybe any anybody else have any questions or comments? You can make the motion. All right. So, um this is Janet. I move to approve the Northwest Quad preliminary and final plat as exhibited in the staff report attachment materials for this item. It's Rob. I'll second. We have a motion on the floor. It's been seconded. Any other discussion, questions? Having none, we'll take a vote. Rob, you want to go first? Yeah. Rob I. Janet I. Scott I. Jenny I. And Ron I. We'll go on to item number five which is AI. Use policies pages 44 41 to 44. Jack, you going to talk about this or? No, this this one we'll turn this one over to Aaron Berg. Okay, Aaron. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh at the May 6th, 2025 city council workshop, staff presented an overview of the exploratory use of generative artificial intelligence in city operations with an initial focus on preparation for city council meeting minutes. At the May 28th, 2025 city council meeting, staff presented an update and asked for direction on the adoption of its expanded use. Staff were directed to bring back a draft city policy for discussion. At the June 6th, 2025 city council workshop meeting. Staff presented a draft policy for review and recommendation. At the conclusion of the workshop meeting, the draft policy was edited based on feedback. Uh staff recommends the city council review and adopt policy 25-02, the use of generative artificial intelligence in city operations. Go ahead, Janet. Why do you always look at me first? Well, I always go to the left. Oh, okay. So, this is Janet. Um, thank you for making those edits that that we requested. Um, I this I like this version a lot better. Um, I do have two other edits and then just a question. So, I'm looking on page 43 where um at the top under authorized use, the last sentence where it says use of generative AI outside of approved purposes must be reviewed by the city administrator or designate. I would just add and approved. So, reviewed and approved. And then my second um uh edit or question is under restrictions. It's the one, two, three, fourth bullet down. Um, so one of the one of the concerns that I brought up last time was how do you make sure that staff will review the the the um AI generated document minutes, whatever they happen to be. Um because there's been several recent news articles about big media companies that have had things put out by um AI that have been like completely wrong, lists of bestseller books that don't exist, list of whatever. And so obviously whoever was responsible for reviewing that before it got released didn't do that. They they leaned on it. And I didn't see um it says that they have to be verified to be accurate and factually correct. So one thought I had was to really drive this point home is could you have a sign off by whoever did that on the document like reviewed and verified as correct by Aaron Berg. And then that way I think when people have to sign off on something they might feel more ownership to make sure that it's right and that would address my concern. So if you if you look at the the lack of depth of the policy, this has really been modified from its original version and and it's really what I would say has probably watered down to be very generic to uh protect the city. Uh in this case we are not recommending restricted use with a enterprise or a team account uh wi which we would hold proprietary data. What this policy does is it allows for staff to use open uh source information because the um all of the data that this policy is designated for is public data. Mhm. There's no reason to have it proprietary because as soon as we for the for the case of minutes, the minute we put them on the website as published, Open AI is going to utilize that to create other outputs for other entities using OpenAI as well as us. So this doesn't allow for use beyond anything that's public data. So if you look at the training portion, I have uh researched the League of Minnesota Cities and they have their own memo on the use of AI which I did share with you guys in past meetings. Um, we also have an annual cyber security case uh uh training that we are required by the League of Minnesota's Insurance Trust to complete and sign off every year which is part of our annual audit. Um, there are also five member learn courses on the League of Minnesota Cities on data practices and data privacy. So initially when we would get a new employee or all employees would take those five initial training courses, we would verify that through their completion certificates annually. After that, they would be still be continued to do the cyber security um course as as we already require them to do, but we would also have a sign off that they've reviewed the league's memo and they've reviewed our city policy on the use of AI. So, those are our assurances that staff are not going to use it for anything but public data. And then we've linked the policy um in here that any violation will result in discipline under the city's existing disciplinary policy. I think this generally protects the city from the use of AI and private or proprietary information. should a should a staff member do that, we have leverages in place to handle that um through the discipline process. So, this is Janet. I I I that really wasn't my concern. So, all of what you said, I'm glad I'm glad that you have those in place, but my um what I wanted to do is to make sure that regardless of, you know, if it's next week or two years from now, whoever's and I'm thinking, of course, of minutes, um whoever's signing off on this, giving it to the council to approve, has to sign off that they reviewed they reviewed and found the AI version accurate. Pick whatever words you want, right? because I think that really if someone's stressed for time, I think they'd be very unlikely to sign that unless they actually did that. And I know that sometimes people do a quick review because they've got a million things to do and you know, so I I I just am suggesting and we do that currently with our minutes. Whoever generated it signs that they generated the minutes. So um so maybe that's not even any different than what happens now. It's just instead of saying that they generated it, they would say that they reviewed it for accuracy or whatever word you want. So the the disclaimer, if you will, that I've suggested since day one we started exploring this is that that includes in the disclaimer that this was generated with the assistance of AI with human oversight and review. That's all part of the disclaimer. So if I I want the human to write that they I want the human's name on there just like there is now. Right now when you get it, it says it was generated by Daniel Peacock or it was generated by So I'm just suggesting that they continue to sign whoever's responsible is continue is continuing to sign off that you know this is this is uh verified by their review. That's all I you know if you guys are generating something internally that's never going to you know reach us. I don't care how you do it internally. And I think all the other um checks and balances that you have in here are great. So I don't have any other concerns. I just that that was my one suggestion. So I would just suggest those two edits. Yeah, Mr. Mayor, this is Scott kind of in the same vein of restrictions. In the third line down, it ends um basically that uh well, I'll just read it. Staff must not use AI tools for decision making that impacts individual right, benefit or obligations without human review. My question would be probably a pretty simple question is what constitutes human review? Is this somebody's just sitting reviewing the AI version and and signing off on it? Or is there a SOP or some process that we're following that would constitate constitute human review? I mean, I would hate to think somebody's trying to multitask and not pay full attention and therefore the level of human review is subjective. Yeah. Um and that is something that we collectively as a staff are going to have to define as to are are we confident that this has been reviewed uh before we publish. Now, I guess my question back to the council is I use AI to generate all of the meeting announcements that go out on our social media page. Literally, it's a header for Columbus City Council meeting, this date, this time, and our website. Like, I don't know that that needs maximum human review and a sign off. uh or if I'm using AI to clean up language in a uh job description because the sentence is a run-on and I can't quite figure out how to make it work grammatically correct. I can copy and paste that into AI and it will generate me a grammatically correct sentence using the items that I want. and then I can copy and paste that into the job description as um a grammatically correct sentence. I don't know that we need to sign off on that either. Um but I understand the the uh desire to have that review on items that you're going to approve and or we publish as an official document. I I understand that. Yeah, this is Scott again. But again, what what would constitute human review? Am I overthinking this or is there something we need to add to that as to what human review is? Well, the the the following item down, AI generated information used for city work must be verified to be accurate and factually correct. That's the person doing it. They better be reviewing it for accuracy and correctness. And that's where, excuse me, this is Janet. That's where I would add that. and and whoever's doing it would sign off that they did that they did those steps, they completed those steps. This is Jenny. Can I clarify? You'll have a person creating the document for example, maybe Aaron who's putting that initial document together and then we have to that go on after that. So that sign off be at the end or would it be in would it be who created the docu because there I mean you also want to almost verify who created the document because some of these edits are very small and so I feel like it it maybe I'm not trying to over complicate it either but I want to clarify what that looks like. So this is Janet. My intent is that the final document that goes out for review is what gets signed off on. you know, if if the process is that right now Aaron is the expert in this. So Aaron generates the, you know, the document, looks at it, and then hands it off to another staff person to review it before it goes to us. Then the person who reviewed it would sign off on it because the document's being generated by AI. Yes, it'll be generated by AI based on the inputs that Aaron or somebody else gave them. And there may be an iterative process back and forth in order to get to the end product. All I care about is that somebody and again I'm thinking more about minutes and I'm thinking about it in the context of what's been in the news lately is that it's really easy to assume that this is infallible. You know it's a computer. It's going to it's you know whatever. And if you get strapped for time or you're, you know, whatever the reason is, you just say, "I'm sure it's good cuz the last 10 that I've looked at have been perfect." And you send it out. Yeah. Are we going to be that careful about looking at it? I mean, I just want to make sure that somebody is making sure that AI didn't make something up. And we've already had some examples of AI making something up on these draft minutes. So that's um that's that that's where I'm coming from. And my response to that would be there's seven people with oversight. The original creator, the city administrator, and then all five of you before anything is approved. So I I don't know where the final uh oversight signature needs to come from. If I'm generating the minutes and I sign off that I generated I respectfully submit these then the buck stops with me. I'm the one that did it that and that's what I'm asking for. who I mean, whoever you guys decide the buck stops with is the person who puts their name on the end of it that says we've done the best job we can to make sure that there's no factual errors in this and and if I fail to um review them and they are not accurate and not factual, then we have a disciplinary policy that we put into place and that we utilize and errors aren't are not capable are we're not accepting those. And if it continues, we're going to disallow your use of AI. I I don't think we're going to stop it, right? And so this policy is more general in terms of protecting the city in the release of private and protected data that shouldn't be out there. This isn't specific to minutes. This is specific to complete operations across the city. Yep. And if we if we drill down minutes specifically into a procedure, we can get into the signoffs if you want to, but this is just covering up for general operations. Yeah, mayor. This is Scott. Uh, so you just defined what human review is to me when you said it's being reviewed by seven people. And I guess my recommendation was you put that right in here in what human review is. It's being reviewed by staff member so and so, so and so by title and five council members. That's the human review. This is Jant. That's going to change depending on what it's being used to generate for. I mean, and I think that's why what where I was getting as I don't want to make this right now. We have a and again I'm using minutes as a process but or as a example, but you know, you have a process. Whoever generates the minutes I you know before it comes to us it gets reviewed by however many people I don't know I mean sometimes it's five or six or whatever but they don't all sign it. The person who is ready to pass it on to us to say here's your minutes is the person who signs off on it and all I'm trying to control for is um a laxity that might happen. And I think everybody knows that humans can make mistakes, but it's really easy to think computers can't. And I and there's been big, you know, big errors made by big companies for this very reason. So I don't think that we are immune from that from that. That's all. And I just think that by you know years ago when I worked in a in a medical laboratory and we had procedures, we signed everything that we did. We put our name on everything to make sure that it was our our rear end on the line if that result wasn't accurate or if we said we read a procedure and we didn't follow it and it really made you you read it. You made sure it was because that was your name on it. That's all I'm saying. So the goal this is Ron. So the goal is to find out who okayed it. I don't I'm not finding it out. I'm saying the the act of putting your name on it makes you more makes you you more accountable to yourself for reading it. I'm not I'm not I'm not doing this to say so we can point the finger at so and so and say, "Well, look, they've done five different things." I mean, that might be what you do behind the scenes with your disciplinary process. That's not our business. But, you know, I just think it's it's human nature that if you're signing off on something, you're more careful about making sure it's you read it and it's and it's true. So, this is Janet. You look I can see that you're not happy with this suggestion. So, maybe you can help me understand why. I think we're over complicating it. This is really to protect the city. If if an employee works outside of the bounds of this then then they're eligible for discipline. Our discipline process would take effect and that would be where we would address those issues of inaccuracies on factual information putting the city in a position of liability. So again, regardless of whether um someone's here humanly dictating, they could still also submit inaccurate information, which you guys then would upon review have to correct. But we're not going to go back and tell the person who dictated minutes that what they submitted was inaccurate. It's a draft for a reason. So, so again using the minute, this is Janet, the minutes for an example, we have people sign off on them already. Now, why is that? Why is this different? The person who's the last person whose hands they leave before they come into ours is the person who signs off on it. So, why is what I'm suggesting any different? It it's already being signed off by by the person who did it. the the person who did the review has to acknowledge by respectfully submitted by secretary soandso. Perfect. And that's what I that's all I'm asking for. I just didn't want there to be the statement that says it's been generated by AI. End of sentence. No. And that disclaimer goes after their signature to let the public know that there was artificial intelligence used in the assistance of this creation. However, it has been reviewed by humans for accuracy, lack of bias, whatever the disclaimer that I wrote that with the assistance of the the leagues process and the National League of Cities, the disclaimer came from there. So, I think we're saying the same thing. I mean, I think we're agreeing. All I'm saying is that in your policy, because I think it's important to have things spelled out in policy because who knows, you know, five years from now who's going to be reading this, that you that there is a sign off on there. That's all. And if you want to say specifically for minutes because that's obviously where my head is at so that you're not having to do this for every darn thing you generate internally, I that's fine with me. I mean, if we get a policy, I'm assuming that Jack is the person that we hold accountable or the city administrator. If it's your policy, I mean, I don't need to see that. So, it sounds to me like we're talking about a procedure versus a policy. The procedure for generating minutes would have XYZ steps to it. The policy is this is conduct. This is what we expect. This is what we don't expect. if this this procedure would be I know the difference but often times first of all it's unusual for us to have anything written down which I know you know that so often times we combine policies and procedures together into one document unless there's a real reason to have a separate step-by-step procedure. So if you if you intend to have a separate um written procedure for this then I agree with you. You don't need to put this in there. Is that the intent? Yes. Yeah. Once we identify that this is acceptable use and we define the best way to go from the video to through AI to human review to create minutes to sign them off to pass them off once once these these are all approved we will then define the procedure and the expectations then I'm cool. Yeah, this is Scott. That's exactly what I was asking for was the procedure. I'm assuming you were combining them. So and then we have the protections of the annual training and the requirement sign off as a part of employment uh to know the difference between what's protected data, what's private data, what's public data on top of our protections with the disciplinary process. So do we have this is Ron. Do we have to rewrite this motion or rewrite the policy? Are we just going to approve it right now? I I'll I'll do the motion. Okay. So then this is Janet. I move to approve the AI use policy as presented in our packet. Um, but I will also add um contingent on a separate procedure being drafted after enough usees, you know, enough experience has been uh gained to to be able to accurately draft that procedure. Scott, I'll second. We got a motion on the floor. It's been seconded. Any other discussion, questions? Hearing none, we'll take a vote. Jenny, Jenny, I Scott I. Janet I. Rob N. Ron I. Go on to item number D. Consultant liaison and staff report. City engineer isn't here tonight. No. Uh, city attorney Bill's here. Mr. Mr. Mayor, council members, uh just one update from the legislative session. Uh while a bonding bill was put together late in the process, it did not contain local earmarks. So it was a very much a stripped down bonding bill. Uh in lie of some of the local earmarks, the transportation appropriation includes $47 million of new local road improvement program funds. And we'll just pass out this. It's a one-page memo, so I didn't pass it out earlier, but um what that means is we have the opportunity, as we have previously, to apply for LRIP money for that stretch of Hornsby, North Hornsby that would have been in our bonding request. Um it will likely be competitive, but with $47 million added to the kitty, it makes the competition a little less tight. So um there's an emphasis on uh shovel ready projects and so our project is essentially that I confirmed with the administrator that we had worked on the wetland credits. I believe those are now in place uh for our project. So that um that then makes it uh shovel ready because I believe the engineer has plans uh has a scope of work and would be ready to bid that project in short order. Uh what we would like is is uh Margaret Vessel would like to work with the CAS, the the staff um for Senator Kun and Senator West to see what we can do to advance our project so that it's at least well scoped and ready to go um when it goes in for application. So we would do a little bit more work on our with our public affairs group to see if we can position that application uh for for approval. Do we know the debt? This is Janet. do know the deadline for the application. They haven't even set it set it up yet. They just they just literally this is hot off the presses. So, um but we will we will come back in in future meetings and let you know the status. Okay. When the when it opens, what the deadlines are and what some of the criteria will be. So, a little bit of uh bad news and a little bit of good news. uh a little maybe uh I I think they were trying to ameliorate all of the local ass with some additional funds in that uh transportation budget. I got a question, Bill. This is Ron. Is this something that we can politic on or is it just It's a little less political than, you know, putting together a bonding bill, which is the ultimate political exercise since they need a supermajority. Um, and so definitely I, you know, I want to be able to, uh, check in with our our legislative delegation to see what they can do to help us, but ultimately it will go into mind, be scored um, based upon the criteria they establish, and then awarded by MDOT. [Music] So, this is Janet. So, similar to other LRP grants that we've done. Okay. Yeah. And as you may remember, um a year ago, maybe not quite a year ago, um there was about four times as many requests for dollars as dollars. And so I think this is an attempt to address that by providing more dollars to transportation, local local improvements. Well, we're always on the edge, aren't we? We can feel it. It's a whisp away. So close. So close. Well, we were we were in um we were in one of the uh the bills, the draft bills. It's just the bonding bill was literally put together in the last week. So, we got a chance. Yes. Any other good news? That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Uh where are we here? Uh any council reports? Jenny, you have anything? I've got a few things. This is Jenny. Um Kung Creek had a watershed meeting on 6ix9ine which was this past Monday. A little bit of a technology glitch. Um and so they had a newer employee and so um not super Zoom familiar and so they had some issues with that. Um but updates on that that there were nothing nothing of major concern or question for Columbus. There is a new potential um residential uh area going in with 107 houses at Lexington and Bunker which is close and may impact us a bit um in terms of traffic. But uh that was the only thing of major major question relating to Columbus. Um Fall Fest will have some updates um over the summer. Uh I should have more uh in July. Um, but so far everything is planned and on track with running aces and for Saturday. So, keeping that Friday, September 19th and 20th on your radar. And then I will have one question for council member Hegeland relating to uh Rice Creek. I saw that there was a note about um miniigrants uh potential mini grants that they had posted on I think it was Facebook that I saw uh for anyone within an county within Rice Creek that they um could uh request funds for rain or pollinator gardens. And so it showed that that was open. So I didn't know if that would be something you would talk about, but I did notice that. Okay. No, I I um so this is Janet. I they actually had a workshop scheduled for Monday and they canceled it and I don't know. I think that might have been on the agenda, but they do have those periodically. Um they come in I think through Bowser. Um so they're not the only ones. I think all of the um watershed districts have access to those. So, it's there. I mean, if you want to do it, it's a nice financial help to put one of those in. It's good. This is Jenny. I just know that a lot of our residents have become more conscious of planting wild flowersowers. And I'm in Kon Creek and or with on that watershed or um relaying information on that wershed and we don't have as many residents impacted by that. They also have it. But I thought with Rice Creek because we have more residents impacted by that that it was at least something to note for them. But that's all I have. Thank you, Jenny. Scott, thank you. Uh, June 24th at 4 PM will be the Forest Lake Cable Commission meeting. Uh, and I also want to give Jack and our code compliance officer a shout out. I had a couple complaints from the neighborhood about a blight type condition that they're working on right now. Um, and it appears that uh it's been taken care of. So, you've got the appreciation of a couple of citizens from from the city for acting on that so quickly. That's all I have. Thank you. Uh, Janet. Um, so this is Janet. I have a couple things um besides what I'm going to talk about under the personnel committee report. So, last Thursday, the Sunrise WMO um also had a meeting. Um we talked a bit about um a couple of projects that they're doing. One just is getting wrapped up and that was a um rain garden that was installed on the on East Front Boulevard on Lake. And so they were just planting doing the plantings. Um I think it was this week actually. And then that one is done in Dunaway Construction was the contractor that put that in. So that was kind of nice. So we got some local business out of that. And then the second um is they're out they're um put out for construction bids for the shoreline stabilization project which is a Bowser grant that they got and I think if I remember correctly it's on U Martin Lake. Um so that's a fairly large grant. I think over a number of years they'll be taking applications from people who have um Lake Shore on Martin Lake and um I don't think Lake is part of it. It's uh Lin Wood Lyn Woodlake. Yeah, those two I think are the ones that are eligible for that. And uh our next meeting is on September 4th. And then the other um piece of good news that we had today uh this week is um Jack called a meeting with Midco uh yesterday actually uh to find out where we were at with the construction of you know laying the last lines of broadband um in in the city of Columbus to complete the uh the highspeed internet um project that we started six years ago. There's 100 about 117 between 117 and 120 properties that would be um updated and uh what we were told is that they are in the uh design uh phase right now. They're wrapping that up and um expect to start construction probably around mid July and it will have it done by the end of this year which is a year ahead of when they were talking about getting it done. So they really pushed our project up um early. We have a list of what um addresses will be impacted by this. So, I know I've had a couple of residents reach out to me wondering whether or not they were in in the um on the list, and they were, but I think uh Jack and staff will be working with uh Midco to put out some communication so that the um neighborhoods that are going to be impacted will will know when it's going to happen and know when they can sign up for um highspeed internet if that's what they they choose to do. But um and this will be the last piece. We will have 100% of our city covered after this is done. So pretty happy about that. That's it for me. Rob, no report. Mayor, I don't really have a report, but I'm sure that everybody noticed that if you go down the crossways and Lake Drive, that lights on now, the street light, so it really lights it up. And Jack, I don't know. They just started cutting ditches today. Where has that been going on? It's been going on for just a little while. You know, there's a restriction on mowing ditches in April and May because of the feeasant breeding ground. So, it's been going on for a couple days. They've just started that process. Looks nice. Well, I guess Tim's Tim's doing most of that. Yeah. Very good. Uh, city administrators report. No, personnel committee. What? Personnel committee report. We got a whole bunch of stuff to talk about. Yeah, I know, but it doesn't have it on this list. Doesn't it? It's underneath. Yeah, it's right there. Six or seven D4. Oh, way up there. Okay. Sorry. Apologize. It's all right. All right. We'll go to the personnel committee report. All right. First, Jack. Sorry. It's okay. What's that? Yeah. Um, before I do this, I also want to just add one more thing to council. Thank you very much, Aaron, for putting those beautiful flowers out in front of our door. He went out and went to Wallocks this morning and picked those up himself and hung them and they're gorgeous. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, so the first um first item of business is planning commissioner appointments. So, um, in the report that I sent out, I had mentioned that, uh, the dates that we had, um, solicited applications to be on the planning commission and excuse me, that we had, um, plan to do our interviews this week and we did those. There were three applications that were received um, and we extended an invite to interview to all three of those applicants. one um subsequently withdrew their application. So, we interviewed two people, one yesterday, one today. Um the first person I'm going to talk about is um a resident uh Michael Oswald. Um he I'm going to grab my notes here. He's been a um a resident in Columbus since last September. Um he moved here from uh Lynwood, not Lynwood. Uh, why am I thinking? Lindström. Lindström. Thank you. Lindström uh where he was a resident for about six years. He's a volunteer firefighter um in the Citrus City of Center City. He has also been an election judge here in Columbus. um he's newly retired and so feels like he has some capacity to um even do more volunteer work and is really interested in um serving on the planning commission. He has a bachelor's degree in finance and um extensive knowledge in the real estate field. He's worked in various different um capacities um in that area both in the uh private sector and also with the VA. So he's um used to dealing with property. He is uh let's see, let's see if there's anything else. Yep. September 23rd moved here from Lindstöm. Um he loves it here. It's it's really interesting when you talk to people who interview for the planning commission. One of the things that seems to be a very common sentiment is that they moved here from somewhere not really expecting to like it very much and they love it and they never want to leave. So, it's kind of nice that those are the folks that that want to serve on our planning commission. Anyway, um he he's I think would be a really great candidate. Um and he uh definitely has the time and the commitment to do this and even said that, you know, if there's a conflict with his volunteer firefighting duties that it's probably time to give that up anyways. So, he's going to make the time to to be here at our meetings. Any questions? Then I would um make the motion to approve the appointment of Michael Oswald to the City of Columbus Planning Commission to fill the remaining term of Bethany Jackson um which expires on December 31st, 2026. This is Ron. I'll second that. We have a motion on the floor. It's been seconded. Any comments? Any questions? Hearing none, we'll take a vote. Jenny, Jenny, I, Scott, I, Janet, I, Rob I, and Ron I. Passes. Yep. And our second candidate we interviewed just a few hours ago. Um, her name is Ashley Seuss and she lives actually in your neighborhood um, in the Thurbeck Preserve um, uh, neighborhood on Depal Street. So Ashley is um fairly new to Columbus. She um used to live in Loyl Lakes and moved here um with her husband and her two children. She loves it here, never wants to leave. Um she actually on her application indicated that she was interested in all of our boards and committees. So we spent some time talking to her about what each of them did and um and uh you know what where she thought her interest would lie. And after um speaking with her and interviewing her, she she decided that she really did want to serve on the planning commission. Um she works in sales and marketing. So that's her professional background. She does a lot of her work from home. Um and she uh is readily admits that she does not have a lot of insight or experience um with city planning, but she's excited to learn and she really feels that having a fresh set of eyes um from someone who's fairly new to the community would be would be an asset. She's very um energetic and um positive and she I think she will bring a really um a a high uh level of energy to to that board. Any questions? Then I would uh Janet move to approve the appointment of Ashley Seuss in the uh to the city of Columbus planning commission to fill the remaining term of Lin Carver Quinn which expires on December 31st, 2025. This is Ron. I'll second that. We got a motion on the floor. Any questions, comments? Hearing none. We'll take a vote. Jenny, Jenny, I. Scott I. Janet I. Rob I. And Ron it. Motion passes. All right, moving on to my number two. Um, you all received a um copy of a draft compensation uh philosophy and also a draft resolution. So, I'm just going to give you a little reminder of why we're doing this. You saw um a presentation uh just a bit ago by Mark um Goldberg from DDA. he presented to us on April 1st um kind of where we were at with our compensation study. And one of the things that I think we mentioned at that time is that the council should adopt a compensation philosophy because then that helps guide um the personnel committee and future um councils as to what we consider uh to be the most important aspects of our compensation um plan. and it it will help us draft um what you're going to see at the July workshop um hopefully close as close as possible to what uh the sentiment of the of the councils in terms of compensation. So for instance um you know we're at the point now where uh Mark has gone through you know we we identified what cities we thought we were most like and there was council weigh in on that. He's gone and done the salary surveys. We've updated all of our job descriptions. He's scored all of those. So, um, using their their, um, proprietary system. And so, we're really kind of coming to the finish line. But there's, you know, there's still some questions out there like, well, you know, if I age, the salary data that he's receiving from these cities is about a year and a half old. And so, you know, do I age that 3% 2%? You know, what what how how much do I inflate that for the fact that it's it's a year year and a half to two years old salary data. It's helpful for us if you um can help us make sure that when we refer to the council in general and what they consider, you know, the most important aspects of our compensation plan and goals of the compensation plan. Um we can we can take a stab at where we think those what those answers should be. You will hear that when you get your your presentation, but hopefully we'll be close to where where you want to land. So, with that, um, I would be happy to take any questions that you have on the on the draft compensation, um, philosophy. It's not a policy. It's really just trying to capture um, kind of where where we're standing on this. And, um, and if there's edits, we can take those those back. But then this is what we will hand back to uh Mark and uh we will use to guide um any questions that he has on on sort of the final steps of this whole process. [Applause] Any questions? This this is Jenny. Um, so just to clarify, um, obviously this is the philosophy, but I know that we looked at different versions of what pay scales would look like that would be in a future meeting to review that. Is that what I'm understanding? Yeah. What you're going to see at the December I'm not December, good grief. Um, July workshop is all of that detail. So you will get, you know, reminder of like here are the cities that we we um surveyed. Um, if you want to if you want to see all of the behind thescenes stuff, we talked about that yesterday. We'd be happy to pull it up or you can sit down for a tutorial with Ellen or Aaron or any one of us that we can walk you through all the different tables and um and uh inputs that that have come out. But at the end of the day, what you'll have is um here's here's our staff and our positions that we had scored. Some of the positions are positions that there isn't a person in right now, but we would expect, for instance, when we hired um Elellanar, she was hired as a planning tech. She is now an assistant planner. So, we think about what the promotional pathway is for that position. The next step up will be a planner position. So, we have a job description and that job description has been scored and has a salary range associated with it for both the position that she used to be in and the position that she would move up into um in her next in her next uh promotion if she's still here when when that happens. So, there are some some um positions that we included thinking that we would use them in the future even though there there isn't a person in there right now. And that was all part of the contract that we had with DDA to do that. So you'll you'll get to see it all as little or as much of it as you want. You'll also I mean you'll also be given at that meeting you know if we adopt this this these steps these salary ranges budgetary impact is X. So you'll know what the what the hit is um to the to the bottom line of our budget by adopting this and then you can adjust it accordingly. This is Jenny. Thank you for clarifying. Any other questions, comments? No. I'd just like to add a point here that this is Ron. I did attend most of these meetings on uh this compensation plus the interviews with the uh two candidates. So they were very good candidates. So glad they're coming on. Do you want to make a motion on this resolution? Any other comments or questions? Don't hear any. you want to make. So I will I would uh Janet I move to approve the res resolution 2025-06 a resolution adopting a compensation philosophy for the city of Columbus. And that would be the philosophy as written in your packet. I'm Ron. I'll second that. We have a motion on the floor. Seconded. Any other discussion, questions? Hearing none. Jenny Jenny I. Scott I. Janet I. Rob I. And Ron I. Motion passes with item number C. Okay. So then the third thing is the city administrator annual review. So when we hired Jack as our city administrator, his effective date, I'm trying to think because we hired you as the interim also, but now we're talking about the real deal. Um his effective date was June 1st. So he's due actually a little bit overdue for his annual evaluation. Um what we realized is there is no um information notes policies procedures there's no revol you've this is ne we have never done as far as I know maybe never's too long at least in the last six years and maybe the last 10 or 15 years there hasn't been a review of the city administrator um I can tell you that in the past that was because that was the wishes of the city administrator. Um so we didn't have any template and we didn't have any roadmap for how to do this and that was what prompted um trying to write the um city administrator policy uh city administrator annual review policy that um was put in front of you. Um, I had our attorney's office review this and um, there were some u minor edits and then um, they answered a couple of questions which I I will go over with um, go over with you too. So, um I think before I do that though, I just want to ask if there's any specific questions on this document that anybody has and that give me time to find the notes that I wanted clarify that we got from the attorneys. This is Rob. Was that in in our packet? It was emailed out I think Monday. Monday. Monday morning. Do we have any extra copies here? Maybe you guys printed them at home. I print you one and grab one. So, while we're waiting on that, let me just um go over the two questions that I had for our city attorneys. The first one is in doing the research um on the policy and the policy that we drafted is based on one that was published um by the city of Northfield. So we basically took their their um template and kind of made it our own. I wanted to make sure that I was interpreting state statute correctly and that we could do the performance review in a closed session. and and um Bill uh confirmed that that in is true. We can do it in a close session. We cannot discuss compensation in the closed session. However, so um there is a process that was outlined in here about how we intend to gather um input from both the council members as well as other board members um some residents, some business owners, and the staff. So, we're it's like doing a 360 evaluation if you've ever been part of that. That's that's the intent. Um, Ellen Henrik will be the person who's going to be leading that up and collecting that information, then generating the report that will then go to the council with an executive summary. In the in the council meeting, in that closed session, we'll discuss what's in that report. you will have an opportunity to determine whether or not there's additional information that you want to um you know input or whether you agree or disagree with what's written in that report. Jack is invited to participate in that session. Um the discussion that we have initially will be without him present so that there's no um you know concern about uh what you can or can't say. he's he'll be invited to come back in if that's what he so chooses. Um e if he decides that he doesn't want to do that then uh Ellen and the mayor will um comm communicate what the discussion was in that review and we'll come up with a with a evaluation of him you know and it'll generally be you know he meets he doesn't meet he he um exceeds expectations basically that's what it'll boil down to. Um, and then we and you'll get information about um the compensation side of it. And then that was my second question because in Jack's employment uh contract, it says that he would be eligible for an annual cost of living raise and then upon evaluation a merit increase based on his his uh performance. We don't have a policy for that either. So I and I know that is part of the work that we've done with our um compensation and salary uh survey. We we have the city administrator position within the step system. So I thought well maybe um you know if he exceeds he moves two steps or one step whatever whatever the council would um describe. But I wanted to make sure that that actually met the the intent of the employment contract. And I think Megan weighed in on this and said, "Nope, don't do steps. You have to actually decide, you know, if he deserves a merit increase." And so we're going to have to figure that piece out. And so I'm going to throw that open right now if you have any ideas about, you know, how how the council might define what a merit increase for a city administrator would be. not the amount just basically like you know if you're if you're if if the agreement is that based on all the input in the council's um receipt of that input that you know the uh the city administrator is exceeding expectations would you want to give a merit increase of that and if so how would you decide how much that should be um if they meet expectations does that does that generate a merit increase and if so, how would you decide that that would be? And I'm just getting that because we'll we'll try to put something together for you to respond to, but I just because there's no precedent for this and we don't have a merit system for our existing staff, I'm throwing it out there to see if you have any ideas. So, uh, Mr. Mr. Mayor, council members, Bill Griffith. I'll just read the section that's applicable from the employment contract. Merit-based increases reflective of performance metrics drafted by the council. And that's council member Hegland's point that that doesn't exist shall be considered at the discretion of the council. That's the that's the key. And and I and I didn't I didn't mention this, but when you know when Jack was hired, there were goals that were established um that that you know that he needed to work on for the next year. You will have the results of where he's at with with meeting those goals. Um, and you obviously will have his job description and within the job description there's a whole bunch of tasks which I don't think is and and and um Megan also uh spoke to this is that's not typically what you would evaluate a city administrator against. It's more about um meeting goals and competencies and how and how they do on that. So, um I'm just going to read you what Megan said is, you know, the goal of the agreement and those that is crafted and inspire uh that it is crafted from and inspired by is for the council to determine if the administrator is meeting the goals the council has set for him. Recognizing that the city administrators a job description and a performance can be v can vary based on the issues that are presented over the course of a council term as compared to a more junior employee that has very clear expectations that can be analyzed through the lens of that job description. So basically what she's saying is don't talk about whether or not he puts together you know good agendas for the for the um council meetings. I mean you can you can obviously speak to that but that's not what he's being evaluated on. He's being evaluated on his decision making, his leadership, his and the goals that we define for him to aspire to in the next in that following year. So at the end of the day, we're going to come to a consensus as to how he did according to those goals and those and those competencies. And my question is then, you know, do you how do you how do you deal with the merit part of it? Do you have any ideas? And if you don't, that's fine, too. I mean, but um our goal is to try to is to try to get um the uh tools that we're going to use to um assess feedback from the stakeholders out in the next week or so. and then we'll start collecting the data and we would be shooting for the last council meeting in June for doing the review because that will put us just a little bit outside of the goal of having this done within five weeks of the annual or four weeks of the annual review. This is Jenny. Um, just to clarify, so I've scoured the internet for four or five hours looking at various cities throughout Minnesota for comparables because I I felt that those this is very detailed and it it's very important and I and I appreciate the work that was done on this. I did also find the city of Northfield and that looks familiar, doesn't it? Right. I I mean very verbatim, very very close. My only question before we get into how we define that compensation links back to that part number two um on the second page that goes into the perform performance evaluation. Um again the they're very few and far between in terms of what other cities had to offer in terms of what this looks like for their city administrator. I don't even know that many cities actually have a formal review process for their administrator like we are planning and proposing. Um but I I my question would be this this part two um and I can read it if you'd like but it basically goes over um having three to five residents elected having two to three businesses and doing this annually. My my question would be, would it make more sense to have a detailed um review that includes multiple residents, multiple businesses in that third year as their contract is expiring and do a more informal process that links more to our city staff and our council and potentially our commissions in years one and two. I guess my my question just goes into the how detailed this performance review is because by the time it's put together you're it could be a few months and then all of a sudden we're looking to the next year already and how much have we has he gotten out of that not just Jack but anyone in the future gotten out of that because it's so detailed and not not saying anything against the detail but feeling that that may be a good fit for that third year as we're going to renew a contract. So um that's certainly one way we could do it. I think that um the reason that we selected the the stakeholders that we did is is because we kind of adopted the model of a 360. So you think about someone that's in a position a high ranking position like a city administrator and you think well they have management responsibilities. So getting um re uh feedback from either their direct reports or all of the city staff would be important. Um obviously they're going to get evaluated by the council, but they also um have a lot of influence over the city boards and and so you know asking the planning commissioners, the two um non-ouncil EDA members to weigh in we thought was appropriate too. A big part of what we had um stressed when we were recruiting for this position is that we have a certain culture here in Columbus and the residents really like that culture and so do the business owners. you know, it's it's a little bit more um informal and and open door policy and we really wanted a um city administrator that would that would continue in that in that realm. So, I think um the thought of touching bases with um you know, a handful of residents and a couple of businesses that had been here in the past year and had actually met with with our city administrator um for their feedback to affirm that that is truly been their experience and get their feed would be really helpful. And I think the reason for not putting it off till year three is because if the answer is no, that wasn't their experience, you have an opportunity to correct that going forward. I don't anticipate that's going to happen. I mean, I talked to lots of people that have been in this and they all love our city administrator and can say nothing but nice and very glowing things about it. So, I do not expect that we're going to hear bad things, but that would be the reason why we would do it is in case there was a shift um away from that. We But but this is you. This is your evaluation. So if you're all feeling like well let's not do that, let's not do that till year three that I can bring that back. This is Jenny. One more more point. If we do keep this um the two to three business owners that have worked with the city, I may request that we add a note that their experience with the council because it may have been a very lengthy experience or they may not have a positive review of what happened with the council that they note that that is a separate experience than what they experienced with our administrator because I think people may convolute those two and then all of a sudden our administrator would be suffering because of an experience of their council. Yeah. And I think, you know, our intent is that these would be like face-toface conversations with Ellen. So, I think that's a really good point that I can bring back that she makes sure that they understand what it is that we're asking them to to give us feedback on. So, mayor, this is Rob. Um, question on the when we did the hiring process for the city administrator, it was all all of the council. Is that possible for all of the council to do that review and not just the three on the personnel committee? Oh, yes, you all are. Oh, okay. We would all we would be doing I thought I was reading through and it just said council members serving on the personnel committee and maybe I'm misreading it. Where is what? So, um we would be looking at the meet you know when on page three where it's under five it talks about um you know how we would do that meeting. So the so so you don't have to read through this whole big long document. Um I think it's the 25th that is it the 25th that's the last June 25th. Oh it does state that we would all have involved. We would go into close session. All five of us would be here. We would go over all of the information that and Ellen would be here. She would give you all the feedback that she got. Obviously you have your own experiences. You have his job description. you have what we're trying to, you know, what we're trying to um evaluate him against and then we'll talk about it. Okay. Okay. Yep. You're all part of it. Any other comments? No. Thank you, mayor. So, I'm just saying I mean if you have am I hearing that you're not sure what you want to do about the merit increase and the merit part of the compensation like how how do you want to decide what that should be because again we there it's a blank slate. This is Jenny. I think personal opinion would be that it obviously be tied in a good better best situation. So depending on if we have ranking numbers that that may associate with what that looks like. Um, but I would need more detail as to what those ranking numbers would look like in order to better assess and give you detail as to how I feel that that would look. I would want to see the document. So, you'd rather that we come back to you with a suggestion. That's what I'm hearing. Okay. Yeah. Or maybe Rob, maybe even like a series of suggestions based off performance. Okay. I can do that. Um, I'm going to ask our city attorney because just because this is only like three weeks away, it's not very long. Um, is there a way to get feedback? I mean, I hate I I guess if if someone like Ellen sent an email out to all of the all of the um council members with here's some suggestions. Give me your feedback on what you like. Are we still compliant with open meeting law? Because it's not an elected official that's contacting all of us. I mean, I kind of hate to have Jack send out the email that's about his compensation. It just feels a little weird to me. But could our consultant do that? I believe so. Or you guys could too. I suppose the attorney could if the consultant just wants to use Megan as a bridge. Okay. And it's coming out from the attorney's office. Okay. Yep. Well, I'm following up with with Ellen tomorrow morning on what we talked about. So, we'll do that. We'll come up with some suggestions and you'll get an email from probably Ellen and or Megan with what and you can weigh in that way. And just a calendar note since we're doing every other meeting, Megan will be here at the next meeting. Lucky her. She drew she drew the short straw. All right. So then, um, did anybody have any other questions on this? You're okay with the process that we're that we're putting forth? Okay. So then um this is Janet. I would move to approve the city administrator performance review policy with the one addition that um we will work with our HR consultant and city attorney to send out some suggested um options for determining a merit increase. This is Jenny. I'll second. We have a motion on floor. It's been seconded. Uh any other discussions? Any questions? Hearing none. Jenny. Jenny I. Scott I. Janet I. Rob I Ron I well on item number five the planning commission report. Guess what? That's me again. Okay. But I don't really have much to say on that because we've already talked about the plat and that was one of the things that they talked about. Um the only other thing that I would add is that um Ellanar did a really nice job of updating the planning commission um on some of the projects that they had heard about and I thought oh this would be really good information for the council to have too unless it's in your report Jack. Was it in your report? No. Okay. So then I would share it. So, um, one is that, uh, she talked about MTW Truck Wash and they have gotten their sack and their Race Creek wershed issues all resolved and our, um, permits are all in place and they'll be starting construction like anytime now. So, they'll be breaking ground if they haven't already very soon. Um, the go-kart track fell through. No go-kart track in the freeway. That's the EDA report. Pardon? That's the EDA report. I didn't hear that. EDA. Oh, you're Yeah. Um but for the council, just so you know, they're that evidently isn't going to happen. And then she um also talked um she updated them on the review of the equipment share um cup. So all of the discussion that we had here and she, you know, suggested that that would actually be a good um learning point for them to to listen in on that. uh recording because then they will get a better sense of the kinds of conditions that you can come up with to help mitigate concerns of you know adjoining properties and things. So I thought that was a really good idea. Um and then lastly she talked about um Hidden Park and some new information that that uh Jack has uh come up with in terms of the disposal of that and what how that might affect the planning commission. And so maybe you want to speak to that, Jack, cuz I didn't write down very many notes about that. I just know that she talked about it, which was the last one again, the hidden park. So she talked about how, you know, we we like we we have the green light to go ahead and sell that property. Um, and then what we would have to do with the comp plan amend amendment if that was what we were going to do. And we we had been told for quite a while that that hidden park property was acquired by a land donation for park development fees. In that case, we couldn't sell it. If we wanted to dispose of the property, it would have to go back to the original donor. After doing some research, we did find out it was acquired by tax forfeite in 1987. So, we've held the property for more than 30 years. We did contact the county. They verified all that data. Said, you know, we could sell it. In order to be certain of this since it was dedicated in the conditional use deed and the condition the use deed as a park use, we contacted the department of revenue. They also verified that we could sell the property. The issue with selling it now though is that we're going to have to go back to the Met Council and get a comp plan amendment for that since we'll be changing would be changing it from park use to residential use. So that process could take approximately 120 days. Uh we're getting everything ready. Eleanor has got some information too that we will submit to the city attorney for their review to finalize the authorization that we could actually sell that property. We did look on surrounding values of what potentially that lot could be. Property in that neighborhood is selling for about 60 to $65,000 per acre. This is 1.93 acres. So based on that, the property could be sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 to $130,000 would be the estimated value of it. So, we're getting all those things lined up and hopefully we'll be able to come to you here in the next month or two and say, "Here's a proposal to sell the Hidden Park property and use those proceeds to pay for some of the park improvements uh that we're getting ready or hopefully be able to do this year on the tennis courts and some playground equipment replacement in the future. And that would be a funding source for some of those. Uh, as far as the other part goes, and this relates to this, we will be opening the bids for the tennis court reservicing and restriping for the different options for tennis courts and pickle ball on next Tuesday, the 17th at 2 p.m. So, we'll have that to report, but that's just the the basic outline of the hidden park status. Thank you. That's the end of my report. Okay. We don't have item number six. Jim isn't here, so there's no public works report. Now, Jack, it's your report. I have no report. Tell AI you really mean that so it doesn't make something up. Okay. Item number E, announcements and reminders. EDA June 12th, 2025 at 5:30 p.m. Planning Commission meeting June 18th, 2025 at 6 p.m. And the city hall closed on June 19th for the Junth holiday. And now we're going to go into a close session. So, we thank you all for coming. Got to read the statement. We're just going to read the statement. All post city council meeting will be closed to consider the sale of city-owned real property identified as P243222-11-0011 pursuant to Minnesota statutes section 13D.05 subdivision 3 parentheses C parenthesis 3 [Music]