"ready live good evening welcome to the city wberry city council meeting um for today May 21st 2024 it's 5:30 pm we're meeting tonight in um the newly renovated um Eagle Valley gol course community room it's absolutely beautiful and uh and if anyone gets here go over check out the new bar area and the seating area it's just a really lovely renovation looks very modern clean bright it's awesome um the meeting is taking place here and we also are doing it uh virtually tonight only through teams just this is through teams tonight and of course um just whether you're listening live uh away on teams or in the future if anyone's interested you just click on the um watch the live meeting um green button there that you can see on the agenda other comments are always taken during these meetings as well either before or after we'll have somebody monitoring the public for that um and as is our normal tradition did you PL stand and joining the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge Allegiance to the United States ofer stands one nation indivisible liy and justice for all uh bler city clerk is here CL can would you please do the world call council member Wilson here council member Morris here council member Santini here council member Dae here mayor B here we all here to conduct tonight's bues um this meeting um is the official meeting here is relatively short then we'll be moving on to the workshop meeting um so we'll go ahead and conduct tonight's meeting I just want to State later in uh this meeting we'll be having a um this dis discussion item involves a recording and recordings of meetings I just think it's important now to state that um as council members we should not be recording this meeting it requires it results in a data practices issue so I just ask that council members are not recording this meeting it is available on teams um for clarification point of order then uh will that be available to rewatch then or is it just a strictly a live stream it will be Ava this will be available to rewatch it the regular meeting right um we normally have green sheets I don't have any green sheets for open form do I Kim online all right the we now then move on to the consent agenda all items listed under the consent agenda are considered to be routined by the city council will be enacted by one motion and affirmative vote by roll call of the majority of the members present we no separate discussion of these items unless a council member or citizen s requests in which event the item will be removed from the consent agenda and considered a separate uh subject of discussion by the council with that anybody in the audience want anything removed see none Kim anybody online no council members hearing none uh somebody would like to put forth a motion move the consent agenda items 5A through 5j a second motion a second any further discussion I would like to recognize the the com the communication that the council received ear today regarding item 5G which is the rapid response armored vehicle and I would just like to recognize that we did receive that communication and I'll just it's not going to change my vote at all but I I'll share with the community that I also had some reservations at the beginning of that and through of this purchase of this asset however Communications with the public safety department this is an asset that will be City not a not a shared asset with the community like our SWAT vles and or other armored vehicles and in a response time in situation where there's a rapidly evolving situation the response time is really really critical that we get some armored protection for the officers so that's my initial the Community member had had communicated some opposition to it that it should be a county asset for this for the shared SWAT team the difference between this is this is and I think I've made it clear to Command Staff that I don't want to see this armored vehicle in another Community this is this is for Woodbury use that for our officers in rapid response so I'll be voting yes for that but I just wanted to clarify yes um Morris just from a full transparency standpoint if there's Mutual Aid there may be situations under our mutual Aid agreements that our assets come imployed not as a first responder but as a supporting response so in it's across the board on all of our assets we never know what occurs but I just want to set expectations that it could be situations so just for clarification this asset will not be part of the special weapons tactics County asset group The Swat group that's through the this is a asset right it won't be jointly owned by them or oper y if there may be Omar may be speak but there may be SWAT situations where it becomes part of a greater regional response that's that's I understand that but I just staff understands the my sensitivity the sensitivity to this I just don't want to see this hanging out other cities any anything you want to add to our assistant public safety director you have a comment can you just use the mic because I think in order to pick up any of your comments it needs to be on the mic is that right correct Rob okay and just identify yourself Omar for my name is Omar mad Deputy Chief of uh police the vehicle will be very discreetly um badged I would say it's going to be all black uh but there are situations where our neighbors might ask for a quick response from us where we might respond as well with that vehicle it's not a county asset that's understood so just for clarification um it will be housed in Woodbury though correct yep it'll be at our main station I think that was part of the conversation I think I had was that we don't have to wait for still water from the the county assets to come which is part of that delay why something in house and we already have a mutually mutual agreement with other cities where we Aid and they us so that's that's not anything new it's just this vehicle is a Woodbury city owned vehicle Cottage Grove has one that's owned by Cottage Grove that we do utilize on occasion uh the other closest one would be still water about 20 minutes away or so but this would greatly reduce our respond thanks so any further discussion beyond that we got a motion and a second Noe for the discussion and the roll call please council member Wilson hi council member Morris hi council member Santini I council member date I mayor Bert I content agenda items pass right well now move on to discussion item this is involving the resolution submitting a Minnesota Government data practice this request to the Woodbury city council member Kim Wilson um and I'm just going to read a couple things all cities must comply with the Minnesota Government data Practices Act which also is the mgpa it regulates how cities manage government data government data is defined as all data collected created received maintained or disseminated by a covered government entity regardless of physical form storage media or conditions of use the type of data regulated by the mgpa is not limited to paper files at City Hall but includes computerized files emails photographs charts Maps videotapes audio tapes and even handwritten notes and working documents I should say that that is also subject by staff and all of city council Workshop sessions so I'm going to we're going to speak workshops as well as well as um actual meetings like we're having right now Workshop sessions are open to the public and as of late the meetings have been streamed as Allowed by state law long-term City practice and the city council Workshop protocol policy which is CD Council 22.6 in quotes the workshop session is not recorded and no official minutes of the workshop session s shall be prepared end quote the rationale for this practice is that workshops are part of an educative face of the council's decision-making process and provide an opportunity for discussion between elected members and Council staff workshops cannot be used to make final decisions they can only be made at Council meetings a public official recording workshops phone calls or personal interactions without consent can have transparency interpersonal and legal repercussions and runs contrary to a city's goal of making data management and handling DPA requests more manageable um and I also just want to add to that as I stated at the beginning of this meeting nor shall any council member record or retain any council meeting beyond what our policy states because we've got a policy for it so all this came to light recently due to a data practices request by another party we learned at that time that council member Wilson has been recording discussions we understand those to be workshops we understand those to possibly also be phone calls and other interactions while we understand that the Minnesota law that consent to record is only required by one party that is the one that chooses to do the recording and thus Allowed by law this issue is an ethical one that the city council was not made aware of and which would have been appropriate as a colleague on the council and for which several council members have issue with but more important it impacts our data practices policy we realize that other cities may not have the same policy is ours but ours does put a limit on the amount of time that we keep recordings whether it's audio or video and instead many of these meetings get converted to minutes our workshops are not recorded as I've stated earlier but they're also being live stream in prayer policy again I'm just going to reiterate these are work sessions we are free to learn and discuss the discussions are often organic in nature they involve some give and take hearing from one another offering comment deciding something changing mind if needed and um and in many cases what we end up doing in these workshops is giving staff Direction votes are only taken at official Council meetings so I'm just going to go back and reiterate back to the data practices policy we are a very large city with volumes of information subject to data practices the amount of data is absolutely vast when a data practices request comes in city city staff needs to know where to find the data whether the recordings or documents and all of City staff and city council are subject to this to learn that a council member has recordings unbeknownst to her colleagues or staff raises the question of what those are we need to know because the these recordings create a liability for the city for this reason we the city council are requesting full disclosure of any recordings from January 1st 20120 to present by council member Wilson this is all reiterated and stated in our um resolution so this is a discussion item um I've decided It's my prerogative to allow comment by public if there is any whether online or in person um I will treat this as an open as we do our open Forum so if anyone has any comment we're going to allow three people to speak up to three minutes each if there's several people that want to speak we'll ask that you combine your your comments or questions or what have you so with that I'll open it up to any public comment there is any or anything online and if not I'll then now turn this over to council members we do this is a res e e e e e e e e e e e e e outside SK resolution there there has been made know to City C you're asking to be made aware of what those reporting Council wi is absolutely correct that anyone can make recordings but it's different when you're a council member Rel city is not responsible for any data that we hold in our possession and we are responsible for that data we may be subject to having to provide it under data practices or Discovery but you don't have you don't get to come into my home and tell me what I can or cannot do my home and for you to say that I shouldn't have records from dating back to 2016 from my time but po council is absolutely ridiculous and I'm Sor and I will also point out that this whole entire thing was a breach of attorney client confidentiality that conversation we had that was the Mel that was produced from the team meeting I had was clearly declared as attorney client confidential meeting so the biggest issue that is before us is the fact that you have reached that confidentiality agreement well I keep say that it's different for the fact that a City attorney represents the city and the council was before correct and it can certainly be discussed and shared with you but when it's brought up in public at a public meeting that is a violation the public has a right to know any all records pertaining to the business of the government of the community talking this is ridiculous Steve okay you have a you have a right to create documents no saying that you don't but the public has a right to view those documents you are an employee of the city you are representing the city and the community has a right to those records in order to get a right to those records City must know what records They are that's what this resolution is we want to know what the records are so we can comply with that in practice that's the resolution and just to be clear so that resolution then goes the other way I would like to know what notes you have and so therefore I can get copies of those notes for your full time with councel and every that's what I'm asking by all means and and this is available to anybody that does a DAT proest and getem any and all Nots and that's the key but the city has an understanding of what what that is there's a record of what we have that's don't know what I that's the whole resolution than you remember da that is the point we we don't know what we have and what we'd like to do is to know what you have with that F so the resolution is this is about about all you so what we are charged with based on the law is to manage the data as p and we cannot have parallel systems of data we're not going to go into anybody's but request and our Discovery request we're oig to fill those but recordings are something different and I think Beyond just competing our non Workshop Ting recording I think that's an important part of the conversation here of phone calls of personal interactions recording so the resolution pertains not to all data practices the data PR but it's voice specific to the recording practices and just trying to understand what recorded events com number it's about the recorded the data we don't ask people notes if there is a data practices request and it is specific to what you might have you know we send it out to all but it's the recordings that is the parallel process that this resolution is trying to find out what's there not asking for every recording but what do you have what are the events I'll release do have if I have recordings I'll I'll release them on social media discovery that this will evoke is just a knowledge of what is I told you how it I told you what I did I told you I took the recordings I typed up my own notes since there's no minutes which is a violation of State Statute by the way it's not about workshops and it's the whole you don't know what I have or have not recorded that's what the resolution is to do have is not wrong for me to report the workshops take a vote on that please my statement also be posted council member Morris hi member Santini I'm having a lot of difficulty with this um I have not said anything I am going to take a moment to say something um I don't want to be in a position to vote on this we've already wasted um time on this um I think that's something that I wish that we would be in a different position given our legislature had just spent a lot of time on something that wasn't uh helpful of our you know residents um and things didn't get done um I think it is important to recognize that yes an average citizen can record us um and so that is where my struggle is is that to council member Wilson's point this is not illegal um so to me I feel that um it is you know a struggle to to vote for the resolution given that yes any Resident could could do this um I do think it is important to realize that we are city council members and then that becomes my struggle a little bit too because as City Council Members I don't know if we should be doing the data practices request so to me I feel like it would come from residents if they feel it important for council member Wilson to turn over the recordings um on the flip side because of the call for transparency and because of it is just recordings of meetings I don't know why um these recordings can't be disclosed um and so um there's a part of me that just really struggles um that I wish that we didn't even have to get to this point to vote um but I do struggle with the fact that I just don't know if we are the people in this position that should be requesting this information um and I again wish that it could be um disclosed voluntarily um but I would have to vote nay on this I I pretty sure as I'm I'm assuming this City attorney would tell me I should abstain from a vote uh I don't know that it's technically a conflict of interest or it's not a conflict of interest to vote on a resolution on me okay no that was a okay that um that that wraps as a sign Steve the official part of the meeting except for uh administrator gley has got a city administrator's report went kind of ominous to say this well the Thunder is behind me so neighborhood meetings we do have uh water treatment plan pipeline project open house second which is tomorrow this is uh important part of our community engagement process regarding this large project so that's at 5:30 in the ash north and south and that's just going to be an open house style so and people come people go it's not going to uh be a town hall meeting style and then Washington County um Highway 16 which is Valley Creek Road they're going to have a corridor steady open house on June 5th 4M Ash North and South Conference the Planning Commission meeting of June 3rd easy pickle ball conditional use permit water treatment plant and project Wrangler plan unit development for the joint Workshop meeting with Cottage Grove we have that on May 29th it'll be at the hero Center it'll be uh hosted by Cottage Grove at that meeting we'll be discussing the hero and a report um joint presentation on Public Safety 3M settlement project updates from both communities update from our South Washington Watershed District our annual report aable commission South Washington County telecommunication commission report and we'll also be sharing about our community development activities two weeks from tonight we'll have a retreat at the health East I'm sorry M Health Bo that was a slip M Health Fairview Sports Center at the next council meeting which will be on June 12th we have a number of public hearings easy pick a ball same Ambrose rectory wol Wolford uh pint resoning water treatment plant and project Wrangler plan unit development terms of other meetings we have the economic development Commission on May 28 7:30 a.m. Public Works Harvard conference room and the aut investment commission is meeting on June 6 7:30 A.M Ash north south thank you Clint um all right that wraps up our official meeting so that meeting is being adjourned now we will now move on to our Workshop meeting now"