[6:04] Good evening. Welcome to the city of Woodbury's housing and redevelopment authority meeting for today. It is

[6:09] September 24th, 2025. It is 7:30 p.m. We are here in council chambers. This

[6:15] meeting is also uh being uh recorded and streamed uh by True Lens Media. They're

[6:20] like behind that door back there doing all their magical work. Um you can watch this uh it'll get replayed on channel

[6:27] 799. Meetings are also available on the city of Woodberry's YouTube channel if you'd like to go find it there. Um as

[6:34] usual, we accept information or uh questions or comments from the public uh before, during, after the meeting,

[6:40] whenever. Um, and there is an opportunity, um, if you do want to speak, there are green sheets on your chair, um, if you do want to speak

[6:46] during any part of your meeting tonight to fill that out. And we do also monitor online for anybody that would like to,

[6:52] uh, do that online. Um, so as is our norm, uh, let's kick this off with a

[6:57] roll call from Janelle. Member Wilson here. Member Santini here. Member Morris.

[7:03] Member Stafford here. Chair Bert here. We are all here tonight so we can

[7:08] do conduct tonight's business. We have a consented agenda to begin with. All items listed under the consent agenda

[7:15] are considered to be routine by the H board and will be enacted by one motion and affirmative vote of roll call by the

[7:21] majority of the members present. There'll be no separate discussion of these items unless a commissioner or

[7:27] citizens so request in which event the item will be removed from the consent agenda and considered a separate subject

[7:32] of discussion by the board. We do have one, two, three items on the consent

[7:37] agenda tonight. Does anybody from the public want anything removed? Seeing none, I always check online. Never, we

[7:44] tend tend not to have anybody. Uh, council members or I'm sorry, your commissioners in this meeting. Commissioners.

[7:51] Uh, and if not, if someone would like to put forth a motion. I'll move to approve consent agenda items 3A, 3B, and 3 C.

[7:58] Second. Motion is second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. The roll call, please.

[8:04] Member Wilson. Yes. Member Santini. Hi. Member Morris.

[8:09] Hi. Member Stafford. I. Chair Bert. I. Those pass. And I'd like to just

[8:14] congratulate Jeff D. Besides being our city new city administrator, he's also now the official H executive director.

[8:21] Congratulations, Jeff. Thank you so much. Thank new business cards and everything. Save

[8:27] it for later. Yeah. Uh, no items for the public hearing tonight, but we'll go to a discussion.

[8:32] This is the authorization of the 2026 not to exceed HA levy, and Jamie Fritz

[8:38] is here to tell us more about that. Hi, Jamie. Hi. Thank you, chair, commissioners. Um, so tonight's discussion item is going to

[8:44] be establishing the 2026 not to exceed H levy. The HA under state statute has a

[8:51] levy authority to levy property taxes. And in addition to that, uh, MN law

[8:57] requires that the HA adopt not to exceed property tax levy by September 30th of each year. Uh, for HR levies, there is a

[9:04] maximum that you can set your levy to, and it is 0.0185% of the city or taxing jurisdictions

[9:12] estimated market value. Um the H8 budget for 2026 uh was evaluated at the

[9:18] September 10th city council budget workshop which was based on a series of several other workshops prior to that.

[9:26] Uh the proposed 2026 levy amount for 2026 is going to be $250,000.

[9:34] Um the approximate impact on the median valued home in Woodbury is a roughly $7.

[9:41] Um, and the not to exceed amount once it's established, it cannot be increased from $250,000, but it can be lowered

[9:47] from there. So that's why we set this limit. So staff's recommendation tonight is to

[9:54] adopt H resolution 25-07 uh providing authorization of the 2026

[10:00] not to exceed H levy in the amount of $250,000 and then I will open it up to questions.

[10:08] Great. Uh just to clarify for people that are in the room, uh when we have these, we had a budget discussion a

[10:14] couple of weeks ago and we go into great depth and provide some general guidance to staff on what it is that they should

[10:20] bring forward in a more formal meeting where we actually vote on things. So we they got guidance to continue. We have

[10:26] had $250,000 for a number of years. We skipped one year for detailed reasons I won't get into right now, but kind of

[10:32] sticking with the 250 and that was the general guidance we gave, but now it comes before us for a vote. So, just to

[10:38] clarify that, does anybody have any questions? Just just so I can weed into get into that detail just a little just a little

[10:44] bit. We as a city are going almost like required to continue on with that

[10:49] $250,000 levy at this point. Correct. If we want to receive funds from the state

[10:56] Yeah. I Yeah. Which I didn't want to use because I don't know what it stands for. Local area housing

[11:04] local affordable housing. So I gota right to so to receive so this year we

[11:11] received we're going to receive $840,000 from this tax that everybody in the metro pays into including Woodbury

[11:17] residents and in order to receive that the state wants cities or HASS or well

[11:23] cities that receive these funds to continue expending and using revenues that they

[11:30] have historically used in return for this large amount of money that we can

[11:36] receive. to use for a vast number of items that may come up related to housing. And because we have in the past previous

[11:42] years always had an H and always levied for $250,000. That year we stopped doing

[11:49] it, we kind of got a hand slap, right? Would that be a nice way to say it?

[11:54] Saying you can't do that. It's supposed to be in addition. So, in order for you to receive the money that you're paying

[11:59] into, you have to tax your homeowners or well, if you were using funds from

[12:05] other sources, you would still have to contribute that to. So, if you're using your general fund funds, you would still need to contribute general funds.

[12:11] It all comes from our taxpayers. You can't cut it out. Right. Right. Y

[12:18] H like a lot of other cities do not. So, because we're ahead of the times. That's correct.

[12:24] Any other questions? If not, somebody would like to put forth a motion.

[12:30] Okay, I'll do it. Um, make a motion that we adopt H resolution 25-08 resolution authorization of the

[12:38] 2026 not to exceed HA levy in the amount of $250,000. Second.

[12:43] Motion second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, the roll call, please. Janelle. Member Wilson.

[12:49] Hi. Santini. I. Member Morris. Hi. Member Stafford. I chair I All right. So we approve that

[12:58] $250,000 H levy. Um that is it for the agenda on the H tonight. I make a motion

[13:03] that we adjourn the meeting. Second. Motion a second. All in favor? I. We are adjourned.

[13:10] And now the screen will flip over. It will take just a minute and then we will proceed then into our regularly

[13:16] scheduled regular city council meeting.

[13:27] Good evening. Welcome to the city of Woodberry's city council meeting. Uh tonight is September 24th, 2025. It is

[13:34] approximately 7:37 as uh we kick off this meeting. We just wrapped up the HA meeting. Um these meetings are recorded

[13:42] by True Lens Community Media. For many of you that use that's the former SWCTC. They've got a new name, new logo. Um

[13:49] they broadcast live and they also replay this on channel 799. You can also watch these meetings. Uh they'll be available

[13:56] on the city of Woodberry's YouTube channel. Members of the public may attend the meeting in person. We've got a full room tonight. Good to see so many

[14:02] because we're doing swearing and of police officers which is wonderful. Um but um feel free to come back in the

[14:08] future if you enjoyed tonight's meeting or tune in online and we always take comments and questions online as well.

[14:14] Um so is um which is our norm. Please stand and join me in the pledge of

[14:20] allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the

[14:25] United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation

[14:31] under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[14:37] Okay. Assistant city administrator Ashley Sullivan, who's also our city clerk, would you please do the roll call?

[14:43] Council member Morris. I uh here. Council member Santini here. Council member Stafford

[14:49] here. Council member Wilson here. Mayor Bert here. We are all here tonight to uh

[14:54] conduct tonight's business. We have a few special orders of business to begin with. The first one is the presentation

[14:59] of the Woodberry 2025 outstanding volunteer award which is going to the

[15:04] Woodbury Community Garden Committee. And Reed Smith is here to share. Where is Reed? Coming up. Oh, you're going this

[15:10] way to the podium. to share a little bit more about this award.

[15:16] Um, good evening. U, thank you, Mayor Bur and council members. I'm excited to be here tonight to uh talk a little bit

[15:21] about the Woodbury Community Garden. Um, the 25 2025 outstanding volunteer award

[15:28] um is submitted by staff. I submitted it on behalf of the committee and um it's a

[15:33] a committee of staff that go through the applications and determine who gets this award. So, it's pretty cool that staff

[15:39] get to select who receives this award each year and not every year there's a nomination that goes forward. Um, but

[15:45] this year, um, I've been thinking about it for a couple years and I think it's the right time to recognize the Woodbury

[15:50] Community Garden Committee. So, I have a write up. I'm going to read it because it's kind of long and we have

[15:56] a great audience. So, I want to make sure that everybody can understand what we have going on. Um, the Woodbury Community Garden Committee has

[16:01] demonstrated outstanding vision, dedication, and impact in creating an inclusive and thriving community space

[16:08] that promotes positive social interaction, healthy living, and overall well-being. Their work has provided

[16:14] residents with opportunities not only to grow nutritious food, but also to engage with neighbors, develop new skills, and

[16:21] experience the physical and mental health benefits of gardening. Thanks to the committee's leadership and tireless

[16:27] advocacy, the initiative expanded significantly in 2023 to 48 plots. Recognizing the growing

[16:35] demand and the need for greater accessibility, the committee has continued its momentum into 2025, adding

[16:41] another 48 ingground plots, 35 raised beds, and 12 wheelchair accessible raised beds.

[16:48] The uh community gardens committee committee's thoughtful planning ensures that gardening opportunities are

[16:53] available to people of all abilities, background, and experience levels. The committee's efforts exemplify deep

[17:00] commitment to inclusivity, community health, and sustainability. Through their work, the Woodbury Community

[17:06] Garden has become a model for how public spaces can foster stronger communities, enhance mental u well-being, and promote

[17:14] lifelong healthy habits. So we have 11 community members on the committee. Uh

[17:21] Simei Patna, Sandy Peterson, Bruce Montgomery, Ed Matt, Dave Greece, Ying

[17:27] Lingling, Theresquist, Brianna Oxall, Anna Barker, Roger Green, and Jod

[17:32] Rataka. So with that, I'll let you present the award. Oh, I'd like to just congratulate

[17:38] everybody.

[17:44] I will I'll come down in a moment just present and we'll do a picture but does anybody want to speak from the garden

[17:49] committee on this semi maybe you um just to share like the growth of it the

[17:55] demand you know oh thank you uh where it's located

[18:00] because if anyone's listening maybe they don't even know where it's located. Uh yes so the Woodbury Community Garden

[18:05] is located at Andy's Bark Park which I know all of you know where it is. It's off of Dale Road for anybody else who doesn't know where it is. And we really

[18:12] could not have done this without the deep partnership we have with the city. And we really are so grateful for parks

[18:19] and recreation and for parks maintenance and for everyone else in the city who has really provided us guidance. You

[18:25] know, everything from here is the land because it's on city land and it's worth a fortune and uh all the way to this is

[18:32] oh, we need to go fix the spigot. Someone from parks maintenance can help us do that. It's a really um wonderful

[18:38] partnership we have. It's a great labor of love and we're really grateful for all the support that the city has provided for us over the last four

[18:45] years. We, as Reed said, we started with 16 plots in 2022. We have 143 plots this

[18:51] year and um it has been a true labor of love. Um I kill every plant I touch. So

[18:58] this is also a very ironic labor of love. Um and so we're just really really

[19:03] grateful for all of this. And this is like a huge team endeavor. There's no uh no one of us could have done this by

[19:09] ourselves. We're so thankful. That's Did I miss anything? God, you have master gardeners that

[19:15] bring in their advice and support. I you know, I remember I was there one year when they're explaining just how to plant things and what kind of soils to

[19:21] use and when to water and how to water, when to weed and and there's tools available to help you do all that work.

[19:26] It's it's just really an amazing amazing space. Absolutely. We have master gardeners. We have so uh master water stewards. We

[19:33] have soil experts. We have um Ed, we call him MacGyver because he can build

[19:38] anything out of like rebar and a 2x4. Um we've got Sandy who's an amazing project

[19:44] manager. We've got gardeners who are on the committee who can make sure that we understand what the gardener's needs are. So, we're really trying to make

[19:50] this inclusive. We're really trying to make this something that's welcoming for everyone and something that people

[19:55] really can't wait to to be a part of. Yeah. And is it true that you also grew

[20:01] food and gave it to the the food shelf? Is this true? This is true. So, we have um one

[20:08] dedicated plot which is owned by the Woodbury Community Foundation and then

[20:13] we also work with all of the gardeners to gather their excess produce um from their plots. So, we have a basket in our

[20:19] shed which is down at the garden and we just ask people if you've got excess tomatoes, zucchinis, whatever, doesn't

[20:26] matter. stick it in the basket and then theres or Sandy or someone from our garden uh committee takes it up to open

[20:32] cupboard at least twice a week, maybe more depending on how much we have. So far this year, we've donated well in

[20:37] excess of 300 lb. Wonderful. That's outstanding. And I wonder how many pounds overall you've

[20:42] grown out of all those plots. Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot. Well, it's really outstanding. And just from an org

[20:48] structure, so this you are a representative from Woodbury Thrives, which is really a subset of the Woodbury

[20:55] Community Foundation. So we got this great community foundation that supports all kinds of things. Thrives is all about

[21:00] healthy living, healthy lifestyles. Correct. And from that another piece formed and that's so the garden. Yeah. So the garden is a

[21:06] subset of Woodbury Thrives and you know our as you are aware many of you are aware we're about healthy lifestyles,

[21:12] mental well-being and social connectedness and the garden is really a manifestation of all of our pillars in

[21:18] one area. And then um we were able to have lots of our previous Thrivives

[21:24] volunteers and other people who just heard about the garden along the way join in. So it's a really a really

[21:30] diverse group of people with backgrounds and experiences. That's wonderful. Wonderful. Well, I'm going to come down and officially

[21:36] present the award. Everyone needs to the garden people need to come up. You're going to curve here. We'll do a photo.

[21:42] Council members can stand behind so you're a little elevated.

[21:48] feel like we're on a spot. What's that? Everybody else saw that, right? Yes.

[21:54] Don't go towards

[22:00] the officials garden.

[22:09] [Laughter]

[22:16] Get your picture quick.

[22:23] There you go. Yep.

[22:31] Thank you. [Applause]

[22:43] Yes. organized. [Laughter]

[22:51] We're swearing in police officers next.

[22:56] The lights are done. She's like, "Stop touching."

[23:02] Okay. Our next special order of business is swearing in our new police officers. We I think if I got my count right, we

[23:09] have seven of them. Um, so I'm gonna ask uh public safety director Jason Posel to

[23:16] come up and he's going to tell us a little bit more about all this. And again, so good to see so many of you in

[23:22] the room for this event tonight. Absolutely. Uh, thank you, Mayor Bert and city council members. Good evening. Uh, this is an exciting night not only

[23:28] for the department but for our entire community. Uh, tonight we're going to be swearing in seven new police officers along with conducting badge pinnings as

[23:35] well. So our mission at Woodbury Public Safety is to serve all people with compassion and courage. What makes this

[23:40] possible is us uh hiring people who share in our values of integrity, trust, respect, and excellence. People have a

[23:46] servants's heart who understands that these professions exist to serve others and that we often encounter people on

[23:52] their worst day and work to make them better. Tonight, we'll be conducting badge pinnings. Uh police badges are the

[23:57] most recognizable symbol of a police officer. They represent pride, honor, integrity, service, and self-sacrifice.

[24:04] They represent a commitment to our mission and to our values. Police officers have a unique number and their

[24:10] police badges have a unique number engraved on them. These numbers signify the officer's place in the history of our organization and these numbers will

[24:16] never be duplicated in the future. So tonight we're going to be swearing in police officers Charles Wellelbourne who

[24:23] is a lateral from Hudson PD, Samuel Wellelbborne, who is a lateral hireer from Hudson PD, Tyler Hiller, who is a

[24:30] lateral hireer from Hudson PD. I don't think I'm going to be I don't think I'm going to be welcoming Hudson.

[24:37] Kyle Scar who is a lateral hireer from North Branch PD, Brandon Kaharski who is a lateral hireer from Hastings PD and

[24:44] Sam Hussein Sammy Hussein who is a lateral hire from Duth PD. We also have uh Zachary Kosell who is a state funded

[24:51] police cadet. So regardless of the road these officers take to get here, please know that the department supports you,

[24:57] the city administration supports you, our council supports you, and most importantly the community supports you.

[25:03] This community support is not given but earned on every every interaction every day. So, next we're going to call up our

[25:09] seven new officers for the oath and I will turn it over to Mayor Burke for the swearing in. Um, and I'll just add as you all come

[25:15] forward um this is really exciting for all of us. The council has worked very hard along with staff to make

[25:21] adjustments to pay and opportunities um recruiting to bring uh people in. We

[25:27] want to make sure that we are fully staffed in this city to provide the safety to our public that they deserve and expect and uh just an exciting night

[25:34] tonight to have so many being sworn in. So I'm going to come down um just with the swearing in. So candidates please

[25:40] step forward here.

[25:52] Yeah. Just curve around here so you can fit seven of you in this way. Evenly spread.

[25:59] Why don't you guys scoot around a little bit so that [Music]

[26:04] I know the camera? Look, you can see where you're on the camera. Make sure you spread. Okay.

[26:11] And here's the official swearing in. So, please raise your right hand and repeat after me. I and state your name. I

[26:21] do solemnly swear under oath domly swear under oath that I will support the Constitution of

[26:27] the United States support the Constitution of the United States and of the state of Minnesota

[26:34] of the State of Minnesota and faithfully discharge the duties and faithfully discharge the duties

[26:39] of the office of police officer of the office of police officer in the city of Woodbury

[26:46] city in the county of Washington in the County and the state of Minnesota.

[26:52] State of Minnesota to the best of my judgment and ability. Judgement and ability.

[26:57] So help me God. Outstanding. And now we will invite the family and friends who are actually

[27:02] doing the pinning to come forward. Yes. We're going to be inviting uh Charles and Samuel will be joined by their dad, Warren. Uh Tyler will be

[27:09] joined by Mariah. Kyle will be joined by Alisa. Alyssa. And Brandon will be joined by Paige and his daughter,

[27:15] Monroe. Sammy will be joined by Erica. And Zachary will be joined by his mother an so come up with the badges please.

[27:49] Um, you can stay for the pin for the We'll do a picture of just the people doing the pinning with your because I

[27:55] think that's really special. This dad's got double duty.

[28:02] [Laughter]

[28:08] Oh, that's okay. Just don't poke them.

[28:19] Okay. If somebody want to do a photo with all of squeeze together a little bit. Make sure you're able to be seen. Yep.

[28:28] Put your head down. Thumbs up.

[28:34] Thumbs up. That's great. And we'll ask the people that were doing the pinning to just go ahead have a seat. Um and then we will

[28:41] do a photo with everyone and city council. And then city council members after the photo come on down and we can

[28:47] uh congratulate everyone. Shake hands after members stand.

[28:58] There's not as many people in a little bit.

[29:14] Tom, do you need a ladder? Yeah. It's okay, Tom. I'm on my tippy toes.

[29:26] Okay, council member, come on down, shake hands, and I'll start over here. Congratulations and welcome. All of all

[29:32] the mayors from the other cities you're coming from might be really mad at me. Congratulations.

[29:38] Congrats. And we got the twins here. Yes. Thank you. Team team

[29:44] duo is coming to join.

[30:00] My colleague at the city. Yeah, do it.

[30:22] Oh, Jeff. Jeff. Oh, Jeff's coming down, too. Hang on. City administrator. Yeah.

[30:35] Okay. And let's all give him a big applause.

[30:47] I think is your norm. You all go out and celebrate, right? You really want to stay.

[31:00] Thank you.

[31:15] Yeah. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

[31:25] Well, that was fun. Oh my. No, I get it. I won't take it

[31:32] personally. Thanks, Angel. This is only a budget meeting. Yeah. And and now you should tell you should

[31:38] tell. For those watching online, we did have a full audience. The garden committee left. The officers and their families

[31:43] left. We're left with nobody here. But thank you for if you're listening and tuning in. We appreciate you.

[31:54] Um Okay. I don't open form is next, but I don't do we have any open form? I don't There's nobody here with a green

[32:00] sheet. Nobody online. So, we'll skip that. We'll just move on to the consent agenda. All items listed under the

[32:05] consent agenda are considered to be routine by city council will be enacted by one motion and affirmative vote by

[32:11] roll call of the majority of the members present. There'll be no separate discussion of these items unless a council member or citizens so request in

[32:18] which event the item will be removed from the consent agenda and considered a separate subject of discussion by the council.

[32:25] Anything online, Ashley? No. Council members, anybody? And if not, um, we'll

[32:30] put forth a motion, please. I'll move to approve consent agenda item

[32:36] 6A through 6J. Second.

[32:42] Motion is second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Roll call, please.

[32:49] Council member Santini, I. Council member Stafford, I. Council member Wilson,

[32:54] I. Council member Morris, hi. Mayor Bert. I those items all pass. I just want to

[33:00] make a couple comments um on them. Uh lots of just great things have happened. Our our uh Chris Hartzell and your

[33:07] environmental team have done great uh great work getting um battery storage system for the fleet services building

[33:13] at no cost to the city. So good great work there. Um additional um PAS

[33:19] settlement grant regarding the um priority two which is more of an environmental thing money uh coming our

[33:25] way for that. So, just um just really great work. So, thanks for all the extra stuff you do to make this city function

[33:31] so well. Um all right, we'll now move on to our public hearings. We actually have two public hearings tonight. Um

[33:39] um we don't have anyone present, so I may not read all of the things that we normally do, but if anyone wanted to

[33:45] speak, we do have a time limit. We ask you to come forward or online. We will monitor that. And if we have somebody,

[33:51] then I I might have to share the whole spiel, but I I'll skip that for now. We will just move on to the first item is

[33:58] the 2024 consolidated annual performance and evaluation report for um federal HUD

[34:04] and Jamie will be sharing more about that. Welcome back Jamie. Y thank you mayor, city council members.

[34:10] So public hearing tonight 2024 consolidated annual performance and evaluation report otherwise known as the

[34:16] caper. So, as a recipient of CDBG community development block grant funds, we're

[34:22] required every year to do a look back report that just shows how we spent the money, what money went unspent, and then

[34:29] progress we made towards our goals in the five-year consolidated consolidated plan. Um, and these reports have to be

[34:36] submitted by the end of September each year. So, on this slide, you'll see the funds

[34:42] that we actually received within the program year. So that top line item, that's the actual grant amount that we

[34:47] received. And then the line item below that is program income. So that's the repayment of some loans that we have

[34:53] outstanding that we use CDBG for. You'll see that this total here is not going to

[34:58] match the total on what we spent on this next slide

[35:04] um because it does not account for funds that we didn't spend in the previous year that were still being worked on in

[35:10] the current year. So, in 2024, we wrapped up uh two big park projects. So,

[35:16] Evergreen East Park, playground replacement, did some work at the baseball field, did some ADA connections. There was some sunken

[35:22] sidewalks that were flooding and needed to be lifted up and repaired. So, there's better access uh for, you know,

[35:28] anybody that may need a little extra help across that field. Cover Lake Park, we replaced the deteriorating stairs

[35:35] that lead down from the parking lot all the way down to the beach. We added some handrailing, some resting spots because,

[35:40] as I think most people know, they're very steep stairs and they're not the greatest to get up without a place to break. Uh we also did

[35:48] two first-time home ownership loans. And then we spent $34,000 on administration.

[35:53] That number was much higher than previous years because we had to do all the work for the five-year plan, which

[35:58] takes a lot of extra staff time to do.

[36:04] So the recommendation for council tonight is to adopt resolution 25162

[36:09] approving the 2024 consolidated annual performance and al evaluation report

[36:16] and then I'll open it up for questions. Great. Thank you. Well, the hearing was open. Um we need to close the hearing. I

[36:23] make a motion that we close the hearing because I don't think we're getting any comments from anybody. Motion a second. All in favor?

[36:28] I Okay, the um hearing is closed. Yeah, hearing's closed. Now, just comments.

[36:34] I'll just add a comment, Jamie. We're very fortunate to have you as a housing expert. The details that go into that report are

[36:40] mind-boggling to me, but you do a very nice job preparing that uh detailed report. So, thank you for that.

[36:46] Thank you. One quick question. Is there a time limit? So, I know that um one, I know

[36:53] that this is it doesn't follow it's more of a fiscal year than a calendar year. Um and then I know that yes, we've had

[36:59] projects that will carry over. Is there a time limit of which then those funds,

[37:04] you know? Yeah. So, you just can't sit on them if you don't have something. So, I believe there's

[37:10] there's like an 18month deadline to spend a certain percentage of it. I believe it's 80% of your current grant

[37:16] year. And then after that, there's an additional timeline of you got to spend this entire program year on something.

[37:22] So, it's kind of there are use it or lose it timelines. Okay. Jamie, I'd like to echo what Mayor Bert

[37:29] said. As a the newest member of the council, your extensive report was

[37:35] incredibly helpful to me with history current.

[37:40] The numbers even made sense. So, thank you. Glad to hear that. Thank you, council member.

[37:47] I'll make a motion to adopt resolution 25-162, a resolution approving the 2024 consolidated annual performance and

[37:53] evaluation report with the caveat that next year he wears a cape.

[37:58] I'll second. I'm kidding. I'm removing that. Don't write that down. Well, it would have to have an R on it

[38:04] then. Oh, yeah. A cape with an R. R. Oh, okay. So, I heard a motion. Who is the

[38:10] second? No cape. Council member Santini. Okay, we had a second. I know. I heard I just want to

[38:16] make sure it gets captured correctly. Motion a second. Um, any other discussion? Hearing none. The roll call,

[38:22] please. Council member Stafford, I. Council member Wilson, I. Council member Morris. Hi. Council member Santini.

[38:28] Hi. Mayor Bert. I. Uh, that resolution passes. We now have

[38:33] uh a hearing is open to consider the approval of elite liquor for intoxicating liquor license. These are

[38:39] usually pretty quick, but Ashley u share any more that you have about this one. Yes. Thank you, Mayor Burton, members of

[38:45] the council. Um, I will be brief here. Uh, the, uh, application before us tonight is for Elite Liquor

[38:52] Incorporated, doing business as Elite Liquor. Uh, they have submitted an application for an offsale intoxicating

[38:58] liquor license, including Sunday sales, under new ownership for the store located at 8472 Tamarak Bay.

[39:07] Um, on the slide, you'll see the the names of the new owners, both owning 50% of the business.

[39:14] Um, as required by city code, a criminal history check has been completed and was

[39:19] found clear. All necessary fees have been submitted. Uh, our city attorney's office has reviewed the application. Uh,

[39:25] and then we did send out public hearing notices for for tonight as uh is our process.

[39:31] And so with that, our our recommendation is on the screen for you and happy to answer any questions. Great. The hearing was open. We had

[39:38] someone new come in. I don't know if it's related to this topic or good to see someone new show up here, but anybody have any comments and anything

[39:45] online? If not, I make a motion that we close the hearing. Second. Motion a second. Any discussion? Hearing

[39:51] none. All in favor of closing. I I hearing's closed. Uh questions or

[39:57] comments or put forth a motion, please. Council members, a change of ownership, not a new business. Just for for for

[40:03] clarification. That's not a new It's just a change of ownership. So unless there's any other discussion, I'll make a recommendation to approve the offsale

[40:09] intoxicating liquor license including Sunday sales to Elite Liquor Inc. DBA Elite Linker Liquor under new ownership

[40:15] located at 8472 Tamarack Bay, Woodbury, Minnesota 55125. Second motion second. Any further

[40:22] discussion hearing? None. Uh, roll call, please. Council member Wilson, I. Council member Morris,

[40:28] I. Council member Santini, I. Council member Stafford, I. Mayor Bert, I. That passes and congratulations to

[40:35] the new owners. Um we will now be moving into our discussion on uh the adoption

[40:40] considering the adoption of the preliminary 2026 property tax levy. And

[40:46] Jeff, are you doing it from their location? Great. Jeff's going to our city administrator is going to kind of give us an overview of all of this.

[40:52] Again, we went through a whole budget uh workshop a couple weeks ago and we have to set the max and that's what the

[41:00] intent is for tonight. Jeff, take it away. Thank you, mayor, and good evening, council. Um, I'm going to go

[41:06] through this as quickly as I can. I've got several slides here. Uh, Miss

[41:11] Schmidz is going to uh move the slides, so hopefully this will be flawless. I get distracted easily, so I I thought

[41:17] it'd be better for Miss Schmidz to move it along. Um, okay. So, as as the mayor had mentioned, this is a continuation of

[41:24] a a larger budget process. Um, uh, we do have to approve a preliminary levy. the

[41:30] city does prior to the end of September. Uh then ultimately we still have more time to move forward and and um tweak uh

[41:39] refine the budget. It can only go lower. Uh and ultimately we have to submit our

[41:44] final uh tax levy as a part of the budget process by the end of uh

[41:49] December. Uh so that's where we're at in the budget process tonight. Ultimately, uh tonight we're asking to um approve

[41:58] preliminary appro approve the uh uh general fund levy. There are other

[42:03] levies that uh we're asking the council to approve tonight as well. And then

[42:08] setting the date for the truth and taxation hearing which we're uh recommending to be uh December 10th.

[42:16] Uh and you can see right here in kind of a in a nutshell and I'll go through more detail obviously through this

[42:22] presentation tonight. The uh the levy increase for the overall um levies that

[42:29] are assessed to property taxes is uh preliminarily at 10.7% increase which

[42:36] gets us to about uh almost 58 million. So 57991276.

[42:44] Uh so that's that's that's the uh purpose of tonight's uh presentation.

[42:50] And again, I'm going to try to go through this pretty quickly. Uh but feel free to stop me along the way if there's

[42:55] any clarification questions that are that come up. Um

[43:02] and I can't see. So, so overall, so so here's kind of the process of the presentation. One, just a quick budget

[43:07] background. Um then recapping the budget drivers for 2026, summarizing the

[43:14] feedback that was given at the September 10th meeting, uh and then get down to

[43:19] the brass tax of the increases and the why and what the impacts will be on

[43:25] homeowners. Uh in terms of the the budget process, uh the mayor kind of alluded to it's a

[43:32] long process. It's basically throughout the entire year. Uh most recently, uh

[43:37] the city approved the capital improvements plan update. Uh and then in September, we had a workshop, a six-hour

[43:44] workshop that the public was invited. We did actually have members from the public there who stayed the entire time,

[43:50] which was very impressive. And that leads us to tonight when we need to get a need to adopt a preliminary levy to

[43:57] send to the county. Uh over the next couple months, as I mentioned, uh there will be another workshop to further

[44:03] refine based on feedback from the council and then ultimately the u truth and taxation public meeting that is in

[44:10] the form of a public hearing um that is um mentioned and highlighted and

[44:16] promoted on all the individual property tax statements that will go out uh in about a month or so.

[44:24] Uh in terms of the internal process, this is a really grassroots process that does take essentially the entire year.

[44:31] It it comes from the feedback and the data and the and the resources from all of our divisions and sections throughout

[44:37] this large organization. It gets funneled to the department heads. Uh then then it gets analyzed and there's a

[44:44] lot of back and forth with finance. Uh then it gets to my office and ultimately

[44:49] for the city council to review starting in September. Uh then most importantly

[44:55] as I mentioned before the public does have the opportunity to come to a meeting and provide feedback along

[45:01] through the devel. But you know the public hearing is really when the rubber meets the road

[45:06] and we'll hopefully get public feedback at that particular time.

[45:16] Um, a little bit of background about our not only our process, but our staff. Uh,

[45:24] I think it I think I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this process has uh has worked very well over the years. And I

[45:31] think generally speaking and especially comparative comparatively to other communities, we are in very good

[45:39] financial position. Uh, you can see on the slide a couple examples of that. We've always run a balance balanced

[45:45] budget. Uh one of the things that I think is really impressive is the very low uh debt percentage. Uh we we

[45:52] typically pay for capital improvements with cash. That is very unique. Um, and

[45:58] a lot of it has to do with the robust internal process we have, the dynamics of the community and the diversity of

[46:05] commercial and thriving residential values and just the overall fiscal

[46:10] prudency I would say of the council too along the years. So, we've had a great history of of really um solid financial

[46:18] decisions. A result of that is our AAA bond rating which is the highest you can get ultimately that when we do debt we

[46:25] do issue debt that means our ins rates are going to be a lot lower. It's kind of like a credit rating if you go you

[46:31] know buy a car uh the higher the credit rating you get the lower interest you're going to pay. This is our credit rating

[46:39] and it's the highest and not many cities have it. So good job.

[46:45] And another example of our our strong fiscal health is is uh the processes, the reporting and the the documents that

[46:51] we put together uh we have put together for a long time. And this is really uh

[46:57] emblematic of our our staff, Angela, Lynn, uh Jason, and uh Michelle, and all

[47:03] of everyone that's involved. But ultimately the the budget process stems from our um our core city

[47:11] documents, our mission, vision and values which you know you can see the reoccurring uh word in here word in our

[47:17] our uh organizational documents is premier. Uh we want to be the best. We

[47:23] want to be an employer of choice. We want to be a community of cho a choice where everybody has the ability to

[47:29] thrive and we've got premier level of essential services. So what I'm going through next, keep that in mind because

[47:36] the budget has a big impact on on being premier. Uh also uh in addition to the core

[47:43] documents uh are are kind of more relevant and recent strategic

[47:48] initiatives that do also have an impact on the budget. Our three big ones of

[47:53] course are environmental stewardship, creating a safer community through culture connections and crime prevention

[48:00] and drinking water quality. Some have more direct impacts than others uh but

[48:05] they do have an impact on a resources and how we prioritize them. Getting to

[48:11] the main drivers of 2026 as we've prepared for the last several months I

[48:17] would say uh there are three buckets which have d have driven this increase

[48:23] which frankly is the largest increase in at least the last 15 years. So it's significant but there's three reasons

[48:30] why. There's others too, but these are the main the main um the main reasons

[48:35] for the increase. One is we mentioned earlier and we timely to have uh seven swearing in of our of Woodberry's

[48:42] finest, but we have a fully staffed public safety facility and it's not only just fully staffed, but we're paying

[48:49] we're funding the positions out of operations and not one-time funds. Uh we

[48:55] didn't have that the last several years as as it was very difficult to um uh

[49:01] recruit and retain uh quality police officers. Uh hats off to Chief Posal and

[49:08] all of his team. They've done that. We've got the best and we're fully staffed. And again, exception in the the

[49:14] region because not many cities can say that. That's one uh one of the buckets.

[49:19] The other another bucket is just the overall increase in cost of doing business. That's wages in general. Um, energy, you

[49:27] know, our our Excel bills are are constantly going up, higher than the the

[49:32] inflation amount. Another one of the the reasons why cost of going doing business is going up is because uh the state does

[49:39] have another unfunded mandate, I would call it, and that is the uh commencement of Minnesota paid family leave that

[49:46] starts January 1, 2026. The net impact on the general fund for

[49:52] the city um will be about $134,000.

[49:58] Total impact is going to be closer to $150,000. While that may not seem like a bunch, it

[50:07] does matter. It's still relevant and it is going to allow uh um employees to be

[50:14] out of the office a lot longer. and that there are some obviously indirect capacity issues with that.

[50:22] All which comes back to the budget. The last thing and it's more of a general um rationale that uh this council and this

[50:30] community has been uh faced with for many years. It's it's a blessing and a curse is we're a growing thriving

[50:36] community and that that means that more services are required for the the additional people that are living and

[50:42] and working and visiting our community. Um so those are the main budget drivers.

[50:50] The the specific feedback uh staff received after a lot of robust discussion from the council on the 10th

[50:57] um was of course that uh there was general consensus that there was definitely some um

[51:06] uh there there wasn't comfort in that high of an increase. So uh we are able

[51:12] to we were able to make uh some I would say significant uh uh reductions. One in

[51:18] the general fund was to increase the level of interest. Uh we were probably being pretty conservative on the amount

[51:24] of interest we'd receive as revenue um based on you know the last year or so.

[51:30] We um we bumped the interest number up in revenue by $100,000. that was a that

[51:36] was that bump up was able to uh we were able to offset the levy by $100,000

[51:43] because we had that additional revenue coming in. So we lowered the levy $100,000 by that. And the other big um

[51:51] component of that was the I'll say elimination of the uh debt uh issuing

[51:59] debt for the public safety expansion project for for 2026. It's an elimination

[52:05] it will be likely uh in 2027 we'll have to issue it. Uh we just we're not going

[52:12] to need it in 2026 and we don't know what the number is going to be. So it really wasn't a good um calculated

[52:20] decision to to do that in 26 anyway. Um so all that uh did help to get the um

[52:27] the levy down 1% um from 11.7 to 10.7%.

[52:34] Uh before we get into a little bit more data from about the levy and um market

[52:40] values which are really the two biggest drivers of you know the impacts to the individual property owner. Just want to

[52:47] highlight where the money comes from and then ultimately where the money goes. When I say money I mean all the revenues

[52:54] uh that are generated for all city services. This is a good pie chart. It's it's it's in our on our website on our

[53:01] city documents. you can see if you're interested. I think the the main point here is that property taxes are the

[53:08] biggest share of how we uh provide city services. However, um it's not the

[53:15] majority share. You can see there's a lot of other uh sources that we utilize

[53:20] in order to provide uh services. So it's pretty diverse, but property taxes

[53:26] unfortunately which have the the impact to our residents uh are the the biggest

[53:31] share of that in terms of where the money goes. Um

[53:38] interesting again uh where general fund uh does get the the most of the of the

[53:44] revenue that we bring in. However, it's again it's not the majority. So when you think of general, think of police, fire,

[53:50] public works. There's a lot of other um uh revenues that are brought in to

[53:57] expend on capital projects. Uh all of our enterprise funds, so water, sewer,

[54:03] um golf course, uh M Health, Fairview, um that's where all the money goes as

[54:09] well. One thing to point back to is our debt service amount. Uh 4% most cities

[54:15] you would see that red piece of the pie much bigger. So that means we're able to

[54:20] utilize it for other essential services like police, fire, public works, etc. So, uh, definitely deserves calling out

[54:27] there. Looking a little bit more in detail about where city tax dollars goes. So,

[54:35] uh, the general fund, the general levy, you can see most of it, uh, the green,

[54:40] the orange, and the red are those core essential services that you see on the

[54:45] streets. keeps people safe, keeps our uh streets plowed, uh etc. The that is the

[54:53] majority. I think it's about 63% of the pie. The rest are parks, debt service,

[55:00] and admin. Uh I would say based on my experience in other communities, that

[55:06] admin percentage is is pretty small, which I think is a good thing. You could look at that as kind of overhead. Um um

[55:13] and it's still a significant part of the budget, but it's a fairly small percentage.

[55:20] Okay. Um when looking at what really matters,

[55:26] what which is like the impact to our our residents and our business owners that own property, there's two important part

[55:33] uh kind of factors to that or variables. It really comes down to the levy that we

[55:38] issue and market values. Those are the two variables that have the biggest impact on determining how much people

[55:45] are going to pay out of their pockets. But it is important to note that when

[55:51] people do get their property tax statements, if uh Perfect. Thank you, Janelle. Um, our portion, the city's

[55:59] portion of the property tax statements or the property tax bill is still just a

[56:04] little bit north of a quarter of the entire um statement or the entire uh assessment

[56:11] that each um homeowner or business owner has. most of it, 51% is the school

[56:18] district and that varies depending on what school district it is, but by and large um the the city has about a

[56:26] quarter of the the tax base and we've it's that way because we've kept the

[56:31] increases manageable throughout the years. So with that um as I mentioned those two

[56:39] core or two variables uh market values and levy. Um with that just want to talk

[56:46] a little bit about market values over the next or over the the historical market values and what 2026 looks like.

[56:53] You can see this is a graph showing the the overall value in millions. Uh so

[56:59] those numbers on the left are billions. uh and you can see 2025 was our first

[57:05] year and I don't know how long uh we actually had a decrease in market value

[57:11] and largely probably a correction of of increases the previous few years. Um but

[57:18] that did have an impact on the overall um you know impacts to property owners.

[57:23] Uh as I as I mentioned again levy and market value are the key determining factors. uh this year good news we do

[57:30] have market value overall increase of um I think it's on the next slide of

[57:37] approximately oh it's on the slide after that I'm sorry Janelle um of about a little under

[57:47] uh 400 million or a little under $500 million of market value that's a

[57:52] combination of actual just uh value increase uh and new construction

[57:58] ruction. So, we're we're back on the the the growing side of market value, which again is a good thing. Uh it it it

[58:05] essentially um makes the pie that we we cast to get our our taxes. It makes the

[58:12] pie bigger. We're able to get um um spread the the the burden out a little

[58:19] bit more. Um overall market values on a on a home. This is kind of good data to just make

[58:26] it more relatable uh for property owners. You can see the average home in Woodbury went from 441 last year after

[58:34] again a decrease from 2024 to 451500

[58:39] which is almost the highest it's ever been. It's almost getting back up to 2024.

[58:46] So that's that's market value. And now the levy as I mentioned before um 10.7

[58:53] is the the the biggest increase in at least the last uh 10 plus years. Uh I

[59:00] think the city has done a very good job over the last you know 15 or so years of

[59:06] keeping the levy lower than I think are our comparable and our neighboring

[59:11] communities. But given uh the prioritization of public safety, um you

[59:17] see that we're playing catch-up a little bit with this year's levy, unfortunately.

[59:25] Uh looking at how the 10.7 uh ranks with our uh comparable cities, you can see we

[59:31] are not the highest. I don't like to brag about, hey, we're not the highest, but um we're up there. Uh, and I think

[59:39] we're we look forward to getting back uh closer to the middle, if not further down. But for 2026,

[59:47] there's a lot of big increases and we're towards the top end looking at Washington County. So, the

[59:53] the previous slide was more of the similar sized and similar demographic

[59:59] suburbs in the metro area. This looks at Washington County. I just was at a a

[1:00:04] Washington County meeting today with all the administrators and these rates were

[1:00:10] still held true. Um there are four as

[1:00:15] you can see communities with higher uh preliminary levy increases and those are rates I would or cities I would say that

[1:00:21] are more similar to Woodbury than some of the ones that have lower rates this

[1:00:27] year with the exception I would say of Oakdale and and obviously Washington County. But still again proves the point

[1:00:34] of 10.7 and the significance of it. It's high.

[1:00:41] Um so ultimately when you look at you know the the the variable or the

[1:00:46] mechanism that determines um the uh the impact on property values,

[1:00:52] it's the tax rate. Uh typically your tax rate goes lower if the levy increase is

[1:01:00] less than the property value increase or the market value increase. Typically,

[1:01:07] especially in times of fast growth, um having development, you know, fund a lot

[1:01:12] of the the the levy or the the budget, um you have a reduced tax rate every

[1:01:19] year because again, the levy is not increasing faster than the market value. The last two years, you can see that was

[1:01:27] not the case as as as property values have has reduced or kind of flattened

[1:01:33] out. Meanwhile, our levy has increased. That's why you see the increase in tax rate, which does have an impact.

[1:01:40] Unfortunately, on our um property owners with the tax rate though, looking at our

[1:01:47] comparable cities throughout the metro, we are still even with this year's rate,

[1:01:53] uh still uh at the low end, which I would say says that uh our residents

[1:02:00] still get a pretty good bang for their buck and we do a good efficient job of

[1:02:06] expending uh valuable resources. This is another graph that kind of shows

[1:02:13] the the dynamic of of tax rate

[1:02:18] uh well this the the um market value and

[1:02:24] um tax levy and how that impacts tax rate. You you want that tax rate to be

[1:02:30] on the low end, the purple lined. And you can see the last two years it's been higher than um uh the uh market value uh

[1:02:39] increased rate. So hopefully as you can see the blue line is coming back down. That trend will continue and we'll get

[1:02:45] back to a levy amount that'll be less than market value um increase.

[1:02:55] Okay. Uh this is I think the slide uh that gets to what it means to residents and I think probably the most important

[1:03:02] data is the impact on an individual taxpayer and our our residents. You can

[1:03:07] see here uh estimated 2026 is $130

[1:03:13] increase. So generally right now the average city tax is around you know

[1:03:18] $1,200. So next year it would increase uh by

[1:03:24] $130 with that 10.7 levy increase. Uh looking at the past several years, you

[1:03:31] can see that um it was much lower. Uh last year it was 81 and this year is

[1:03:37] proposed preliminarily to be 130. What does that mean? So,

[1:03:43] um the levy is one, but that doesn't mean that the levy number is is one um

[1:03:49] number, but that doesn't mean the actual uh property is going to increase that

[1:03:54] amount. Um looking at kind of some examples of of

[1:04:00] kind of bigger neighborhoods that people would recognize to just give you a taste of what that would actually mean and the

[1:04:06] amount of uh uh taxes that residents would pay. That'd be 11.6% at the high

[1:04:13] end for the Ridgegate patio homes. And in Sto Stonemill Farms, that would be a

[1:04:19] 5.8% increase in their city taxes. Can I ask

[1:04:24] Lynn a question on this? Because these are specific homes, not the neighborhood. Is it a do

[1:04:32] you track a specific home every year? Is that true? Okay. The answer to anyone

[1:04:37] that's listening is that's true. So you have found this is just a um a selection

[1:04:42] of the different types of homes in our community and you picked have picked an address and we followed this every year.

[1:04:48] Okay, just to clarify. Good point of clarification. So all to say, where does that leave us?

[1:04:55] Um with again the three budget drivers, you're looking at the kind of the key

[1:05:01] components of this year's overall budget which is 154 plus million. Um the levy

[1:05:09] portion, which is why we're here tonight because we do have to set the preliminary levy, is is uh um

[1:05:18] recommended to be 57,991,276, which is a 10.7%

[1:05:26] increase. The key numbers associated with that I think just to recap that

[1:05:31] means an average or not not average but a median increase of 130 per per home

[1:05:37] which is a 9.6% increase in the dollar amount that um

[1:05:43] folks will endure. Jeeoff that's annual correct? That is annual. That is

[1:05:49] $30 annually. So if you divide that by 12 you're looking at a little over $11 per month.

[1:05:55] Yep. $11 per month more than what you've paid in the past. Yeah. Uh 6.8% property tax rate increase and

[1:06:04] again 10.7 tax levy increase.

[1:06:10] So with that, I'm I uh am happy to take any questions that the council has.

[1:06:16] Again, we do need to um set the ceiling. We can further refine and reduce the

[1:06:24] levy. and we do have a couple of months to work on that. I will say that staff

[1:06:29] is working on that. Uh we've got a lot of ideas uh in addition to the feedback that we received on September 10th. So I

[1:06:36] look for another I look forward to another robust discuss discussion in November. Uh but regardless, we do need

[1:06:43] to set that ceiling tonight. Um and then establish the meeting date uh for

[1:06:48] December 10th uh as our truth and taxation date. Uh and if there's any other feedback tonight um that you'd

[1:06:55] like us to focus on, we happy to take that tonight um uh prior to moving

[1:07:01] forward with the uh recommended actions. So with that, I'll just pause there and

[1:07:06] see if you have any questions. So just then the process for our um homeowners and and residents that are here when we

[1:07:12] set this this information then goes to the county and the county will will provide in the next whatever month or so

[1:07:19] what the ex expected is and it's the highest. We can't go any higher but the public gets to see that information

[1:07:26] ahead of time so they know what their bills might look like. There's an opportunity for then each of the taxing districts to lower those if they see fit

[1:07:33] or a need to. But that at least uh the public can look forward to getting that estimate in the mail in the next month.

[1:07:41] That's exactly right. Yep. Administrator Doll, I have a quick

[1:07:46] question. When you talked about one of the factors of the increase, it was 13 FTEEs to public safety. Did that also

[1:07:54] include our firefighters or was that only Woodbury Police Department? Uh Council Member uh Stafford, that is

[1:08:01] fire and police. Okay. Yep. I'd like the general public to know that we're they're working on all areas

[1:08:08] that they've asked for and need desperately. Yeah. And that's we we saw the seven swearing in swearing in tonight. There

[1:08:15] there'll be more fire uh in the near future as well. And I always just like to clarify because we always talk about fire, but

[1:08:21] the majority of our calls for the people that we call fire people are actually EMS um medic calls and those are dual

[1:08:29] trained. So, in terms of it's it's a it's really more medics and the ability to have more medic calls. Again, they're

[1:08:35] one in the same people, but traditionally we just always call them fire, but it's again the biggest portion

[1:08:41] of what they do are those uh ambulance calls. Exactly. And I would say we we do have a

[1:08:46] premier level of service with those. Most cities rely on hospitals, the hospital system, and u there that's a

[1:08:54] struggling industry right now.

[1:09:00] Is this just open question? I I never know what I always get confused on whether we have to close. I guess it's

[1:09:06] not a hearing, it's a discussion. Um, two things. The 10.7 does that I

[1:09:11] always get a little confused. Does that then include the um 250 H or is that then in addition to

[1:09:19] that? That's a part of it. The increase that's all lumped in as part of the overall levy to the community. Janelle, would

[1:09:26] you go back to the spreadsheet because it actually showed in there? Is it in this one because I feel like then so when you

[1:09:31] look at the um if you were to contact the county then the the tax levy is actually lower and then

[1:09:38] they say there's an HR levy because the H shows up as a separate line item. Exactly. Good point.

[1:09:44] That is a good point. Yeah. So if you were to take that out, would it adjust the calculation at all? Lynn,

[1:09:50] do you happen to know like how much can somebody do the math? it. I would just say it would it would

[1:09:56] go down in I know. Sorry. She's just like really you're gonna make I would say it would it would make the the increase slightly higher because we

[1:10:04] are not increasing the H levy. [Music] I don't Yeah, you lost me on that one.

[1:10:11] Oh, no. It's Yeah, this is an increase over last year

[1:10:17] because it's in the base now. You you're you're including that in the base and there's zero increase. were increasing

[1:10:22] and the basis stayed the same, but from a percentage standpoint, it would actually be worse. Right.

[1:10:28] Good point. When I'm explaining math, you know, we're screwed. That's right.

[1:10:33] Well, if I could understand you, then we would really be bad and then I can't. So, I'll talk to Lynn afterwards.

[1:10:38] Sure. Um, and then you said that the public hearing as we're going to possibly set

[1:10:43] here tonight for approval on the 10th of December, I think, is what it is. So, if

[1:10:49] the public comes in and we have this room filled with people, wouldn't that be great?

[1:10:55] And uh they're all complaining and council takes it under advisement and maybe says, "Okay, we need to um drop

[1:11:02] that levy a little bit lower, how when do we have to have this budget approved and passed?" And then what are

[1:11:09] our options after that? Council member Wilson, Mayor Bird, that's a good question. Um a couple

[1:11:14] things. We I I do think we'll have a good idea once the tax statements come

[1:11:20] out how much feedback we're going to get because that's going to alert the our

[1:11:26] residents. Um but regardless, given that circumstance, a couple of options. One

[1:11:32] is, you know, this is an active open meeting where we could work through it that that night and uh have some options

[1:11:40] ready to go for that night. We'll likely hear kind of feedback by the workshop.

[1:11:45] So, I think we'll have a good idea what we need to do. Um, the levy ultimately

[1:11:51] needs to be submitted to the county by the end of the year. So, we could certainly table and have another special

[1:11:58] meeting and pass it later on in December because I'm looking to see when would we have another meeting that that's usually

[1:12:04] our last. I think it would. No, we'd have to call a special speech.

[1:12:11] I I don't I don't think that's a preferred way, but we certainly could do it. And just to be clear, we're not paid

[1:12:17] extra for that special session. Just want to make sure. Um the other thing, uh so November, what's the date

[1:12:26] for the November workshop? Is it 14th? The 5th. The 5th is when we'll be

[1:12:32] Yeah. working on this some more. So, if there are a lot of people out there that want to come and provide some feedback, that

[1:12:38] would be probably an even better opportunity. Yep. Or you can email or you can call or

[1:12:43] see any of us prior to that. You can call Lynn directly

[1:12:48] flash on the bottom of the screen or number on the bottom of the screen. No, no, but all the way up to it's not

[1:12:55] like they have to show up to that meeting or tune in. They can send us Yep. postcards

[1:13:00] anytime. Yep. Yep.

[1:13:06] I would one other comment uh mayor is that in most years the city's levy is

[1:13:14] less than the county in the school district. Uh this year it's going to

[1:13:19] likely be the opposite. So, in terms of the overall tax statement that residents

[1:13:25] receive, the their taxes are going to go up likely less than the city's portion

[1:13:32] because they're weighing us down, which in this this year will be a good thing. Well, I would say that that's not we

[1:13:39] were up against a couple of referendums in 834 and 833. 622 has a referendum on the ballot this year. So then the

[1:13:46] southwestern or western Woodbury that may not be true in western Woodbury depending on how that that particular

[1:13:51] referendum goes. Yeah, good point. But we are just on the sunset side of not on the sunset just on the you're

[1:13:57] removed from A33 and A34 referendums. And just to be clear again when you look at the the split of how we have that

[1:14:03] dollar bill split up still 51% of tax dollars goes to if you live in 833 goes

[1:14:10] to 833. I think it is less in the other district. Yeah. But yeah.

[1:14:15] Yeah. But again, we are talking median price increase is $130 a year, which is

[1:14:22] $11. $11. And the total, sorry, you had that slide, I think, at the beginning. The total nut for the month, the the bill

[1:14:29] was $124 on average for the median house. 130 increase. No, it's the total the

[1:14:36] total bill. So for our il4 I think it was was like one of the first slides. I don't

[1:14:42] uh we've had it. It was in our It was in our um is our I think it was our infographic.

[1:14:48] It was in here. Oh, keep going. There you go. There you go. Yeah. Yeah.

[1:14:53] Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Me. $124. Doing math. But but again, and and we said this at

[1:15:00] the at the workshops, if I look at my personal bills and what I pay for a cell phone bill or I pay for a for TV or

[1:15:06] internet, $124. Jeeoff, you said it really really well. bang for your buck

[1:15:11] in what we receive for city services. $124 a month for the average median house for city services, parks, trails,

[1:15:18] but all the things that we public I'm not speaking for the for the the bulk of the council. Just for me, we

[1:15:25] hate I hate to see a 10 point a 10% increase. I hate to see that value of increase. But then this slide for me

[1:15:31] brings us back home for everything that that that I get for my dollars. Am I comfortable with $124? Would I like it

[1:15:38] to be less? Absolutely. If somebody can figure out how to how to pay people less and get the significant

[1:15:44] and the great staff that we have for less, I'm all ears. Somebody figures out how to plow a street treat cheaper, all

[1:15:51] ears. But it's got to get done. Okay. So now, so now this slide, thank you for pointing this out. Now this

[1:15:57] slide totally confused me as I'm looking at it up here. Um, so 12417 is the cost to the median

[1:16:05] value home per month. Mhm. per month for their city tax bill.

[1:16:10] Okay. Got it. I understand now. I was thinking I'm sorry. I was thinking that was the increase and then we were going

[1:16:16] to add in the HR. Got it. So that's $124 a month. Okay. And then regarding the HR, which is up

[1:16:23] for approval here, 8A number three. I just want to Oh,

[1:16:29] I know you can handle it. I just I just want um so we had the HA meeting

[1:16:34] beforehand. I want residents to understand that um we have to levy

[1:16:40] $250,000 for our HR um because we have in the

[1:16:45] past and that the um um dollars the our and I'm not going to Yep, you

[1:16:53] said it. the LAA dollars that we receive from the state. Um they are mandating us

[1:17:01] in order for us to receive that money. We have to continue on with our HA levy of $250,000. We did um we didn't do it

[1:17:09] one year and that's where we got our hand slapped and said you can't decrease it. You can't eliminate it. It must stay

[1:17:16] at that amount. Council member Wilson passed the legislation. Yeah. Yeah. To make sure we do it. So, it was

[1:17:23] uh again one of these um yeah, Council Member Wilson, members of the city council, the language that they use

[1:17:30] is must supplement and not supplant. So, that that's really what that that comes down to. You need to continue kind

[1:17:36] of doing what you were doing um and funding it to the level that you were funding, which was our H levy of

[1:17:42] $250,000. So, that is dedicated to the loan program. the additional LAA dollars will

[1:17:48] be on top of that and provide additional affordable housing benefits to our community. And to be clear, not all cities were had

[1:17:56] an HA levy um which is why we eliminated it the one year because we were

[1:18:02] following suit with what other cities did but but now we have to maintain it. What do other cities have to do? They

[1:18:09] again I think what um Jamie Fritz had said at the earlier meeting was other communities might have been doing things

[1:18:15] maybe through general fund they have to again continue at those same levels whether it's an H levy or

[1:18:21] some other funding source. And the other thing is about the LAAHA dollars is some of the needs to um

[1:18:30] administer some of these programs and so forth you can't use the LAA dollars for such as administration costs. So having

[1:18:37] the levy helps also that at least support that then we can use those dollars a little bit more effectively as

[1:18:42] well. Ultimately not having that levy will cost our residents more. Yeah,

[1:18:51] you know, there were a number of things that you talked about unfunded mandates and and you know, not to go 55 pages

[1:18:57] deep into the into the budget, but you know, the paid family medical leave has not just the dollar value of that that

[1:19:03] project, but you talked about and one of the things that you're consistently trying to get me to understand is the

[1:19:08] staff, you know, the the impact and and I think at the the workshop, one of the directors had stated that smaller staffs

[1:19:15] are impacted harder because there's less people when somebody goes out and and so that's kind of that that unexpected

[1:19:21] increase that that we have to account for because the city still got a job to do. We still have to get things done. Um

[1:19:27] we could have done it with two two folks, but now uh with leave that now can be 12 weeks or 18 weeks or whatever.

[1:19:34] We have to we the city still has to get things done. So I administrator doll has

[1:19:39] has made attempts since the workshop attempts to get me to understand that a little bit more and I'm not quite there

[1:19:44] yet. But um that that's one of the things one of the things that we have to think about is the workload. The other

[1:19:50] thing that you didn't note in here that though is the is the cannabis that that's been a significant burden to

[1:19:56] cities in the application administration of those permits of which we get next to nothing from from the actual license.

[1:20:02] We're capped at the like we have to do it. We're bound statutoily bound to do

[1:20:08] it and administer it and and no pun intended but police it and verify and do

[1:20:13] all those things. But we don't get any of the the revenue. Well, it's not that we don't get any of the revenue. We get a very small percentage of the revenue

[1:20:20] and it's not shared. That that's just that the the burden is again on our taxpayers. Where you see that in these

[1:20:25] line items, well, it's administrative services. Right. Right. So the this isn't the cost of

[1:20:31] doing business in the state or in the city is not always things that we've decided to do. It's things that we we're

[1:20:38] statutoily obligated to do and we can't get out of. But those increases, you know, those decisions in in St. Paul

[1:20:44] have direct impacts to us because because just piggybacking off of that, we are required, we are mandated

[1:20:52] to take one cannabis shop per 1,2,500

[1:20:59] 12,500. So we are going to have to have seven seven shops. Thank you. It's past my

[1:21:05] bedtime. So we so we are required to take seven

[1:21:10] shops. So it's such a great business opportunity that the state has to force

[1:21:16] us to take a business. I've I've never heard of anything like that before. But

[1:21:22] we are here. All right. Anything else related to the budget?

[1:21:28] Not several. We got four different Yeah. Three resolutions. You can go for it. Okay. I will move again. We have many,

[1:21:36] many more conversations about this and highly encourage resident feedback up to and including to that date. But I move

[1:21:42] to adopt resolution 25-163, a resolution approving a preliminary property tax levy and budget for 2026.

[1:21:49] I'll second. Motion is second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, the roll call, please.

[1:21:55] Council member Morris. I. Council member Santini, I. Council member Stafford, I. Council member Wilson,

[1:22:00] no. Mayor Bert, I. That passes. I'll move to adopt resolution 25-164,

[1:22:07] a resolution authorizing the county auditor of Washington County to cancel or change certain ad valorum debt levies

[1:22:14] for 2026. I'll second. That's not how you say that, is it? Yeah, it is. Motion a second. Any

[1:22:20] further discussion? Hearing none. The roll call, please. Council member Santini. I. Council member Stafford.

[1:22:25] I. Council member Wilson. No. Council member Morris. Hi. Mayor Bert. I. That passes. I move to adopt

[1:22:32] resolution 25-165, resolution approving the preliminary Woodbury Housing and Redevelopment

[1:22:38] Authorities tax levy of a special benefit tax within the authorities's area of operation for 2026.

[1:22:44] I'll second. Motion a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Roll call, please. Council member Stafford.

[1:22:50] I. Council member Wilson, I. Council member Morris, I. Council member Santini,

[1:22:55] I. Mayor Bert, I. That resolution passes. Make a motion to invite everybody to the party

[1:23:00] confirming the truth and taxation public meeting and scheduling for Wednesday, December 10th, 2025 at 7:30 p.m. at

[1:23:08] Woodbury City Hall. I'll second. Motion is second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor?

[1:23:15] I. Any opposed? No. We will hold that on December 10th. Thank you everybody. And city administer

[1:23:23] a very good overview. Thank you for providing that information. We'll now move on to staff reports. Chris, you're

[1:23:29] up for the transportation report and we're very excited. I know a lot has been going on. I didn't wear

[1:23:35] You could have worn your traffic cone. I did not wear my traffic.

[1:23:40] Well, good evening, mayor, members of the council. I'm pleased to present the transportation report tonight. As uh

[1:23:46] you've mentioned, we've got a lot of active construction projects, but I'm pleased to report that we're nearing the

[1:23:51] finish line. Um, most of the construction this year has been related to the water treatment

[1:23:57] plant and pipeline projects. Everything in Orange there has really been under construction all summer in different

[1:24:03] phases. Uh, I think things came to a head. I was at a birthday party this last weekend and my nephew was there and

[1:24:10] uh, he said his boss was really bugged about all the construction traffic in Woodbury and his response is, "I know a

[1:24:16] guy." [Laughter]

[1:24:22] So, uh, to see details of closures, if you really want all of the most up-to-date information, and this is

[1:24:27] really changing all the time based on current construction activities, material delays, weather delays, all those types of things, it's really to go

[1:24:33] to the the city's web page. Uh, it has an info line number and email to answer all the water treatment and construction

[1:24:39] related questions. Uh, and there's also an email subscription uh, for regular updates.

[1:24:45] These are some pictures of Interlock and Parkway and Pioneer Drive spanning from Valley Creek Road to Juniper Lane. Uh

[1:24:52] they're open to traffic. Uh and the current closure from Pioneer Drive from Juniper Lane to Bailey Road, all the

[1:24:57] water man and storm sewer pipe installation is complete and uh road building is currently underway, but

[1:25:03] those are starting to look really nice. Uh these are Oh, yeah. Uh I think we're going to make

[1:25:10] Lynn really happy when she's trying to get here, but Valley Creek Road and Radio Drive. Um the westbound Valley

[1:25:16] Creek from Interlock and Parkway to Tower Drive is open to traffic late next week. Uh we have some intermittent turn

[1:25:22] lane shoulder closures uh that will occur throughout October. Uh restoration, testing, and punch list

[1:25:27] items are now really the focus of these areas. Um, you can see on the left side they're using a vibratory screed to to

[1:25:35] pave the concrete and on the on the right side you can see they're connecting pipe segments and you can see

[1:25:40] how deep that water man is with a trench box and the work that they have to do to keep um employees safe. Uh this is a

[1:25:47] nice little video. This is some drone video that was shot on the eastern end of uh the projects along Valley Creek

[1:25:54] Road from Settler's Ridge Parkway going west to uh Cottage Grove Drive.

[1:26:00] And um here they tried to impact the road as little as possible to u be good financial stewards, but you can see

[1:26:06] there's pretty hefty impact on the north side of the road. Um and you can see those spoil piles. They're really just

[1:26:12] moving dirt back and forth uh from the from the holes to the to the west to the to the holes to the east and then moving

[1:26:19] it back as pipelines further constructed. All right, Chris, where is this again? This is on Valley Creek east of

[1:26:25] Settler's Ridge. East in the Settler's Ridge Cottage Club. Moving which direction? It's moving westbound.

[1:26:31] Okay. So then I was just going to say so you just passed sort of that house on the north side.

[1:26:38] Yeah. Um right there would be the north side before you get to dancing

[1:26:44] waters. How have they been getting in and out? I mean they've got secondary access along the

[1:26:50] roads. Oh, okay. Yeah. The same thing with three or four houses on Pioneer

[1:26:55] just north of Bailey that I don't know. really inconvenient for them, but residents are provided access to and

[1:27:01] from their homes. Yeah. Okay. So, they can get Okay. Yeah. And so, you just got one lane of

[1:27:07] traffic, one lane of travel there. That's actually No, that's fully closed. But I uh I Okay, let me let me uh you

[1:27:14] road. Yeah. When they dug up, what we're seeing one only one lane. It's actually on the northbound lane.

[1:27:20] Yeah, there there's probably some weaknesses on that on that north or that westbound lane.

[1:27:25] And then uh this is just a picture of Dale Road and Chestnut Drive. You can see kind of the curvature as the

[1:27:30] roundabouts being constructed. What they're constructing there is just the curb lines. Uh and you can see they're

[1:27:35] using a a machine and going back later and cutting in the curb lines.

[1:27:41] And then for the 2025 road rehab projects, phase 1, two, and three, which is the yellow, blue, and purple are

[1:27:48] substantially complete with some punch list items. Uh phase four will begin soon. Um, that's the area that's

[1:27:54] actually uh right next next to adjacent to Central Park Place. I'm pleased to report it'll be under construction over

[1:28:00] the next month, but it'll be for sure open uh for Michelle before November 1st, the official grand opening of

[1:28:05] Central Park. Um, East Pew Road, uh, which is the other green segment, that's

[1:28:10] actually going to be delayed until next year because Met Council, um, their project for the forest main is also

[1:28:17] delayed. And so, their project for what? There's a force main that goes through there. a force man. What's it?

[1:28:22] Oh, sorry. So, a lift station. What it does is it it takes um sewage or other types of and and it

[1:28:29] lifts it up and then pumps it through a pipe uh in the ground to uh fall again

[1:28:34] into some uh level of gravity sanitary sewer. Okay. So, it's a a pipe under pressure filled

[1:28:41] with sewage. Yeah. Is really what it is. So, Met Council has a line that goes right through there

[1:28:46] and uh their project's been substantially delayed. So, we really can't start our project until they complete it. Otherwise, they'd be

[1:28:52] tearing up the new road. So, that's already been bid. Does the contract hold until They're They're under They're currently

[1:28:57] working on it now, but they've got holes all over the place. So, it's just not a good idea until they get a little

[1:29:03] further along. May I? But the contract Yeah. the Met Council's project is being

[1:29:10] basically what it comes down to is Met Council when they did their spec uh they didn't tighten up the delivery dates

[1:29:17] enough and I think the contractor used the maximum flexibility they have to not be there essentially is what's going on.

[1:29:24] No. So I think if Met Council was to revisit this project, if if they had a time

[1:29:29] machine, they would have said, "Hey, get done in this time frame and then it would allow our project to proceed

[1:29:36] thereafter." Okay. But again, we have a contract with the contractor to do the work.

[1:29:41] They're going to just complete it next year at the same price. It doesn't affect our cost or is this right? It will be a

[1:29:48] slight price increase and we're gonna have to talk about that with with council and other Oh, yeah.

[1:29:53] That's a that's a future discussion. Uhu. Okay. Cones will be up on the east

[1:30:00] all winter. They hope they need to patch everything back before the winter is done, but that

[1:30:06] the roads just by the time they get done, it'll be too late to start any real activities and get this completed

[1:30:11] to have our project wrapped up. Do we need to do some communication through that neighborhood about that so that

[1:30:17] they understand that it's not a city issue that or something? Our team is doing all the communication.

[1:30:23] Okay. But I'll I'll ask a little deeper level question. I mean just for every for you know that

[1:30:28] whole neighborhood to understand what happened. Not our fault. Yep. Yeah. We'll make sure that occurs

[1:30:34] properly. They did make sure that the access Fox ground station was done first which was

[1:30:40] nice. Yeah. I would hope so. We're thinking just of you doing

[1:30:46] um and this is the last one. You know, it's a it's a small little project. Um but this is the Woodlane Drive trail.

[1:30:53] This was really several years ago a big uh request of the council and we did a

[1:30:58] nice lucrative deal with Washington County for the license center. But I find that's a really high value anyways

[1:31:04] from a pedestrian access standpoint through this area connecting the gold line, the businesses and everybody that

[1:31:10] might use that. Let's do a round of applause for that one. That's a push. That was a push by council and everyone

[1:31:16] complied. Thank you. Good job. Y and then I'll just move to uh roadways are opening, which is always a fun uh

[1:31:23] topic. Eastbound Tamarak Road has been opened. Uh westbound Valley Creek Road is open. Uh Tower Drive will be open

[1:31:30] very shortly. Uh as I mentioned, westbound Valley Creek Road will be opening up next week.

[1:31:37] In terms of roadway closings, not so fun. the Central Park place that's going to be intermittent uh closures. Uh we'll

[1:31:43] still provide access of course to Central Park, but there'll be a lot of work happening over the next three weeks

[1:31:48] and there is a small closure that's just a maintenance on Military Road by Washington County. They're just replacing a culvert for it's going to

[1:31:55] take a week or two. What is Central Park place for? What? So that's the access road along from and

[1:32:01] then Prominade the gravel road that it currently is. I'm sorry. It was paved. It's pretty much gravel road at this point. I mean it's craters

[1:32:07] but it's not pro promenod's the one off of interlock and this is off of radio

[1:32:12] it goes central park place and then it goes to promod and it connects it's doing it's the whole connection

[1:32:18] correct got it correct it was hard to drive draw that so tiny but okay

[1:32:23] it's got a weird configuration cuz park is actually kind of an L that goes up you're not just doing an overlay there

[1:32:29] are you we're fully replacing the pavement really unsettled

[1:32:34] okay and Chris these are going occur yet this year? Yep. There it's not going to take very

[1:32:39] long once they get started, but once they when they get going, it's going to be a lot of uh activity and it's very

[1:32:45] tight corridor as you know, right by Central Park. Yeah. And so when we have the soft opening of Central Park next week,

[1:32:51] people may not be able to get there. They'll be able to get there. That's all. So, our teams have been talking with parks and wreck and they're working

[1:32:57] through a lot of that. Okay. It's a just a soft opening anyway. Softer. It won't look as pretty as it will be

[1:33:02] when it's done. No, there's there's a lot of hub of activity and we wanted to make sure to coordinate contractors so

[1:33:08] they're not getting in each other's way or damaging the other contractor stuff. I mean, you're you're you're going to turn into a pumpkin here at some point

[1:33:15] pretty quick with asphalt. Like, you've got a lot of paving to do in a very short window.

[1:33:20] It's amazing how quickly it comes together once you get all the other underground stuff done. What's the date

[1:33:25] like is it temperature dependent, but it's end of October. So, so normally paving ends uh the last drop dead for

[1:33:32] most of the region is around Thanksgiving. Okay. Traditionally, it ends around October, but uh almost none of the paving outfits

[1:33:39] are open anymore after Thanksgiving because it costs too much to heat the asphalt. Yeah. Okay.

[1:33:44] Westbound Tamarak Road, uh we'll be able to start working on this uh when Valley Creek is open, fully opened again. So,

[1:33:52] that's really been on hiatus. That's why there hasn't been a lot of activity up there because we've made sure to keep

[1:33:57] that open. Well, Westbound Valley Creek was not open. Very smart. Yeah. And that'll close and open again in the

[1:34:04] same within, you know, by open Yeah. by probably uh mid to end October.

[1:34:09] It's not going to be all winter thing. No. Okay. Nope. No. All of our projects are going to be are on time on target end of

[1:34:16] October, early November at the very latest. And then future openings, um, the Valley

[1:34:23] Creek Road segment, that was the one that we saw the drone video shot at, that's going to be open by the end of the year.

[1:34:28] By the end of the year, is that what you said? Yep. Well, end of o end of October. Yeah. I94 ramp. If Mandat gets their act

[1:34:35] together and completes their maintenance work up there, that will also be open mid-occtober. Can we just Can we talk about that for a

[1:34:41] hot second? is all did they just put a median in the thing and that's what we

[1:34:47] closed that we I think there's some loop detectors some signal 80 ADA APS improvements and some

[1:34:54] medians it's cuz putting some cement in the middle of the deal was not appreciated

[1:35:01] I would say we didn't appreciate the short notice notice or timing

[1:35:07] the the timing yeah um you know even though we connect and try to coordinate with all the agencies

[1:35:12] gencies. It all it requires partners to be just as collaborative and communicate with us and that doesn't always happen

[1:35:17] perfectly. Uh Dale Road is open will be open as

[1:35:22] well as Tamarack Road, Pioneer Drive and I'm really happy to report pretty much everything will be open. Now the really important thing I had know it has

[1:35:29] nothing to do with transportation but the street sweeper um Obi-Wan Queen Obi

[1:35:34] has swept its last street. Oh yes. Yeah. What does that mean? It goes to

[1:35:40] retirement. That means we peel off the sticker and put a new name. I was going to say it just gets reame. It just gets a rename. Just get a

[1:35:47] rebrand. I thought this was an incremental sweeper. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. Oh, I see. Okay. Why though? Why do we

[1:35:54] do that? Why? Because it's a fun little activity. Gets people engaged. How many sweepers do we have?

[1:36:01] Uh, three sweepers. Oh, okay. We have multiple sweepers. in particular. This one uh I think at least

[1:36:07] two of those sweepers I believe are funded by South Washington Watershed District. And part of the reason why

[1:36:13] they do this is it elevates the importance of street sweeping. I think I've mentioned it before. The

[1:36:18] reason the uh South Washington wershed district is so interested in helping us both from a labor and capital

[1:36:24] investments in our equipment is because there's no bigger bang for our buck in terms of removing phosphorus and

[1:36:29] nitrogen out of our system. And so this really helps keep keep our water bodies clean. less algae, less toxic metals.

[1:36:36] So, it's really important. But I will say the voting for the the name is out the names are out there and I'm just

[1:36:42] going to read them off because I think they're all pretty pantastic. Uh less pantastic. Yeah. Less phosphorus

[1:36:49] le James Clean Latifah. That's my favorite. Just so if you want to vote,

[1:36:55] uh Bumma Thurman, Bruce Spring, and Big Time Brush. So get online, vote, tell us

[1:37:02] what your favorite one is. they'll go ahead and put a new sticker on and hopefully a new graphic. Uh but again

[1:37:08] getting the community engaged in all those activities. Very fun. So I had a question. Can we go back to

[1:37:13] roads? So um so with the uh 94 to Radio Drive

[1:37:18] ramp closed, everyone's being diverted up to Woodbury Drive. Correct. We have a tremendous traffic

[1:37:24] jam up on Woodbury Drive because one of the left turn lanes heading um south on

[1:37:31] Woodbury Drive is shut down to turn left or eastbound on Hudson Road. What the

[1:37:37] heck is going on that is causing this massive backup? Then what what are we doing on Hudson Road that is causing the

[1:37:44] turn lanes to be closed and backing up through the stop lights? I am not 100% sure I can answer that at

[1:37:52] this moment. There's could be a couple of different things. There could be there's a lot of utility projects that are going on, but there was a recent

[1:37:59] MINDOT uh project. It was related to timing rel of the signals and a few

[1:38:04] other things. So, not 100% sure. I'd have to follow up on that question. So, it looks like the works on Hudson Road though and not on Woodbury Drive.

[1:38:10] They just shut down the turn lane. So, cars are not able to Yeah. So, I'm not I'm not positive on

[1:38:16] what that is off off the top of my head. Okay. We can loop back with you. Yeah, we'll we'll get back to you.

[1:38:22] I will say that, you know, we found out today that um I was on my lunch break and I went over to uh grab a sandwich

[1:38:29] out of the, you know, business park there and there was a

[1:38:34] shutdown of the left turn lanes at Beenburg and Valley Creek today. Yes. And it was horrific. And I had no idea

[1:38:40] what the project was because it's a county project, so we don't issue permits. um called the county and said, "Hey, you really got to pay attention to

[1:38:46] this." Uh, and what we found out is they violated the terms of their permit agreement with the county that those

[1:38:52] that work was only supposed to occur between 4:00 a.m. uh and like 9:00 a.m. and they were never supposed to shut

[1:38:58] down the turn lane. So, the county kicked MJ Electric off site and they revoked their permits and that is really

[1:39:05] they're providing the trans the transmission line going to the data center at the end of Beenberg Drive.

[1:39:10] Cool. So, when I talk about, you know, sometimes we work together and sometimes we don't. Sometimes it's contractors who

[1:39:17] violate the terms of their permit agreements that cause traffic issues that we only find out about when, you know, the director

[1:39:23] to lunch and you can't get to where you're going. Yep. And everyone just assumes traffic's really just screwed up in Woodbury. So,

[1:39:29] they don't call us and complain. We just find out ourselves. So, it's another example of things that happen. You should just drive around every day.

[1:39:35] Yeah. I wish I could get paid to do that, but I know a guy.

[1:39:41] Yeah, you know a guy. He wants to be honorary code enforcement, so he would do it, too. Oh, waiting for my watering police

[1:39:47] badge. Yeah, sign removal. Um, okay, Chris, thank you

[1:39:52] very much. And, um, Administrator Dah, anything for you on administrator's report?

[1:39:57] Yes, Mayor. A couple quick things. Uh just in terms of events, we've got three um three uh dates I want to mention real

[1:40:05] quick. One is first and foremost uh one Woodbury uh is it our second annual? I

[1:40:11] think it's third annual third event of course it's a vibrant community celebration of diverse people's

[1:40:16] perspectives that make us wonderful. Um it's at Ojiway Park. It'll be from uh

[1:40:23] 11:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. this Saturday. Uh there'll be food trucks, cultural

[1:40:29] performances, uh local partners, uh with resource tables that will be

[1:40:35] sponsorships, uh links to other city services and community services all in

[1:40:41] order to uh bring people together, learn, grow, and celebrate. So looking forward to it. And apparently the

[1:40:46] weather is supposed to be like 70 and sunny. Perfect. Perfect. Come out and enjoy.

[1:40:52] Pushing 80. Well, better yet, cuz cold's coming. So, I'd encourage everybody to come out there and uh celebrate

[1:40:57] together. Uh so, that's Saturday. Uh next week, uh Mayor, you had alluded to

[1:41:03] it briefly. We're going to have a soft opening of uh Central Park. That's going

[1:41:09] to be on October 1st. Um it's not there's no celebration or anything, but

[1:41:14] the doors and uh a large part of the new facility will be open to the public. uh

[1:41:21] warning to uh people in the community that are listening. There's still a lot of work to be done and it's going to get

[1:41:27] done over the next month, two months, but at least some of those public spaces are really impressive. We saw it tonight

[1:41:34] in our workshop will be open to the public starting October 1st. So, really

[1:41:39] excited about that. It's a long time coming. And I know staff and council and community members have been really uh

[1:41:45] waiting a long time for the project to uh be completed and we're almost there.

[1:41:50] And lastly, I just wanted to mention the October 8th workshop is going to be a

[1:41:57] closed session. It's going to be a workshop where the city council is going to uh discuss emergency management and

[1:42:06] crisis training through like a a tabletop exercise. So public is not allowed. Um so I just want to make that

[1:42:13] clear and uh for the council it's it's going to be uh closed just given the nature and the context of the uh the

[1:42:20] meeting. So that's all I have. Thank you. Great. Thank you. You didn't want to call out the award

[1:42:25] winner sitting at the deis? Well, I didn't want to because I know you would.

[1:42:32] Janelle, would you like to share for the public? And I'm sad that there's no picture.

[1:42:38] Thank you, Council Member Morris, members of the city council. So, last week the city uh did have a a a city

[1:42:46] team registered as part of the Woodbury area Chamber of Commerce kickball tournament. I was the designated mascot

[1:42:53] and I wore a traffic cone that was volunteered or borrowed to me by Council Member Morris. Our team name was the

[1:43:00] detours because of all the road closures. We did not do super well, but we didn't get last place either.

[1:43:07] But you won the award for the best costume. I got the best individual costume, so that's all that matters.

[1:43:13] Congratulations. And the trophies in my office if anybody wants to see. All right.

[1:43:18] Um, okay. That wraps up our meeting for tonight. I make a motion that we adjourn. Second. Motion second. All in favor?

[1:43:25] I. We are adjourned. Wow.