##VIDEO ID:CRM9cXi5TTc## a [Music] minute unless you want unless you want to say question for you after the meeting you did you sent it as thank you good you're a good person your shows it pays to be late right on time that was very some good point the one bright shine through the dark clouds right now in my life SoJO all right all right we'll call the meeting door please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance indivisible all right good evening everyone uh Tom could you please take the role mayor King present council member at large Austin present council member Basin present Fisher present pusta present KY present HMA present Baker right here we have a quorum your honor thank you Tom it number one is a motion for the adopting of the agenda moved second all in favor opposed motion carries it number two is a motion approving our minutes from October 7th 2024 meeting so moved second uh all in favor I I opposed that motion carries item number three under recognitions and awards we have nothing item number four is a motion for the consent agenda so moved second all in favor I opposed and motion carries under public hearings item number five is uh well five cheapers uh looks like 5 through 12 for assessments so we're going to hear from Bri on one of them item number five um is a resolution public hearing on sanitary sewer assessments uh adopting the assessment role Bri so in the council packet in the council packet I listed the assessments that we be holding the public hearings for this evening each property owner was mailed a notice of the hearing and a notice was published in the Austin Daily Herald the clerk's office requests that you adopt the assessments that are set forth in the resolutions presented tonight the property owners will have until October 31st first to pay the assessments with no interest otherwise the assessments will be placed onto their property taxes please let me know if you have any questions thank you Bri questions council is is that October 31st you said Bri that's only like 10 days that this isn't like new to them right they knew this was something they needed to be pay correct okay all right any further questions public is there anybody here from the public wishes uh to speak on the public hearing for sanitary sewer assessment hearing none looking for resolution for a adopting the assessment rle moved second Tom council member Baskin hi Fisher hi pusta hi Kelly hi HMA hi Baker yes council member large Austin I resolution passes 70 your honor thank you Tom I have number six resolution on a public hearing for assessments for miscellanous sidewalk and driveway projects anybody here from the public wishing to speak on this matter if not counil any questions otherwise looking for you're not going to object to any to your name on this what's say you're not going to comment on your you being on bre is there a way we can make him pay double I kind of put that out of my memory already sorry about that yeah I over to each resolution I tell you what just as a sidebar that was that was the first time i' ever participated in a street project in any home I've ever owned and it was pretty seamless uh really well done all the underground work they do and the amount of holes they can dig in an hour and fill them back in in an hour is crazy so yeah it was a good experience all right looking for a resolution for 6A second time council member Basin I Fisher I pusta I Elly I bosma hi Baker yep council member at large Austin I resolution passes 70 your honor thank you I have number seven uh is a resolution for for public hearing on assessment of snow removal uh anybody hear from the public wishing to speak on this matter hearing none Council any questions or comments looking for resolution show moved second council member Basin hi fiser hi pusta hi Kelly hi HMA I Baker sure council member at large Austin I resolution passes 70 your honor thank you I have number eight is a resolution for a public hearing on assessments for garbage and junk removal anyone here from the public wishing to speak on 8 a council any questions other Bo looking for resolution so moved second time council member Basin I Fisher hi pusta hi Kelly hi HMA hi Baker yep council member large Austin hi resolution passes 7 z y honor thank you under public hearings uh nine is a public hearing on assessment for weed and grass removal anyone hear from public wishing to speak on the assessment for weed and grass removal I am sure up to the podium please give us your name name and address if you could my name is Matt Ralph and I have quite a few properties here in Austin and I have bills uh multiple bills for mowing my grass one time I was just wondering uh I watched a mle in May and they charged me $780 an hour to mow I was just wondering is that typical what you guys do to the citizens or I'm not sure about a rate who would answer that question Tom uh Jason grass was probably through the Parks and Rec Department I've asked him and he hasn't responded hasn't gave me a question at at one answer for an hourly rate you you have that off hand Jason otherwise we can set in a meeting with this uh Mr sure I do I did uh request that any um information that uh Mr Ral was um asking for in writing and I'd be happy to get back to him excuse me the hourly rate is nowhere near uh $700 an hour I believe um what he's refer refc in is the amount of time it took the contractor to mow and the amount of time um that that that Mr Ral thinks that it takes I was there I had pictures of it it was two hours that's $780 an hour tell you what Mr Ral the best way I think to handle this is we get folks that come up once in a while during this is to least have the initial meeting with uh Mr Sean so please schedule that with him before and he can probably step out in the hallway and schedule that with him so it gets done very soon so we can review that later if there's new is okay thank you uh okay you want to remove that one you want to table that one councelor do you want to move forward I would move that we approve with the exception of Mr mat Ral Ral Ralph thank you okay all right um any further public wishing to speak on this matter just to clarify that's to put it on the next Council agenda for consideration so I don't have to post the yeah yeah the notice again okay all right I'm seeing one one line item for $390 is that right or is there more than one there's five properties so that it actually comes out to be almost $11,000 an hour if you add all five are they all list property numbers so we can get them all right here um 1305 1303 20 this is all 28th Street I bought them on the the tax foreclosure sale from the city Austin 1309 uh yeah 1303 1305 basically the whole corner all right I would suggest you just make a appointment with Mr Sean and discuss it further and then we'll I guess we got a motion to table this one um Le just this these addresses I I don't have addresses I just have a legal description and a property owner name and I only have one under off am I missing something they're listed under Advanced Builders okay is the other properties that he owns it's actually one big parcel now I tried to uh go through Planning and Zoning to do a development so it's one giant parcel now and uh kind of that went sideways too okay so we had motion to move nine forward with the adoption of the rest of the weed and grass pending uh the meeting with Matt r so holding that one off Advanced Builders is there a second three second Tom council member Basin I Fisher I pusta I heli I postma I Baker you bet council at large Austin hi resolution passes 70 your honor thank number 10 is a public hearing on assessments for administrative citations uh we got several of them here 10 a is adoption of the assessment rule for the par wreck anybody here wishing to speak on this matter from the public if not Council looking for a resolution so moved second Tom council member Basin I Fisher I bisha I Kelly I HMA I Baker yep council member at large Austin I resolution passes 70 y thank you 10B is a public hearing on assessments for administrative citations for zoning anybody wishing to speak on this matter Council looking for resolution Z moved second Tom council member Basin hi Fisher hi pusta hi Kelly hi HMA hi Baker yep council member at large Austin hi resolution passes 70 thank you 10 C uh public hearing on assessments for administrative citations for the rental housing anybody wishing to speak on this matter from the public hearing none Council motion to approve second Tom council member Baskin i fiser i bashista i Kelly I HMA I Baker yep council member large Austin I resolution passes 70 thank you 10d is a public hearing on assessments of administrative citations for the sump pump anybody hear from the public wishing to speak on this matter Council motion to approve second Thomas council member Basin I Fisher I pusta I Helly hi HMA hi Baker sure council member large Austin hi resolution passes 70 you're thank you Tom 10 e is a uh public hearing on assessments for administrative Citation for the building department anybody hear from the uh public wishing to speak on this matter hearing none Council looking for resolution second Thomas council member Basin I Fisher I pusta hi Kelly I HMA I Baker yep council member large Austin I resolution passes 70 thank you have number 11 uh is a public hearing on assessments for unpaid vacant property fees anybody hear from the public wishing to speak on this matter if not looking for a resolution for 11a so moved second time council member Basin I hi Fisher hi pusta hi Kelly hi HMA hi Baker yep council member large Austin I resolution passes 70 thank you Tom the last public hearing is item number 12 a public hearing on hazardous housing abatements anybody here wishing to speak on this matter from the public hearing none looking for the resolution councel on 12a so moved second Tom council member Basin hi Fisher hi vusta hi Kelly hi HMA hi Baker yeah council member large Austin hi resolution passes 70 you're in thank you under awarding bids 13 is a resolution receiving bids for hazardous demol demolition hly we sent out requests for bids on uh to three contractors we received one bid back for $1250 uh that's pretty uh average for this kind of project uh the project will be used uh funded for uh with the dollar set aside uh we would recommend awarding the project to Hansen hauling and Excavating Inc and this is for a garage and then another property at 8 12th Avenue Southwest for a garage and a house very good thank you hly Council any questions for Miss Wallace motion to approve second Thomas council member Basin hi Fisher hi pusta hi Hy hi HMA hi Baker yeah council member at large Austin hi resolution passes 70 your honor under petitions and request we have item number 14's a motion approving additional stop signs to uncontrolled intersections Mr Lang at the last work session we discussed a number of intersections throughout our community that are uncontrolled at that time we talked about um four-way intersections there are 79 of them that we would install two a stop signs and there are 203 uncontrolled T intersections um we've looked at those a little bit closer here since our last work session we originally had indicated or recommended uh two of those T intersections to be um stop controlled and after additional review we feel that there should be seven more so this would be a request for stop signs at 79 four-way intersections and 11 T intersections those are all detailed out um in the back of the memo for Council consideration very good thank you Stephen councel any questions or comments on this regard from Mr Lang I fully support this um have gotten a ton of very very positive feedback um from the community and so I think this is a a great step forward so thank you Stephen and team for the work on this move to approve all right second Motion in a second to approve uh all in favor I I opposed motion carries thank you I have number 15 under petitions and requests as a resolution approving a parking parking variance for Milan main 2 Oly just getting there uh at the October 15th 2024 meeting of the Austin Planning Commission the Planning Commission reviewed a request from Milan main for parking variant uh requiring 154.50 parking stalls which is 1.5 per unit uh for their new 103 proposed 103 unit Milan main 2 Apartment project uh Milan main is the third apartment building the stencil group has done in Austin which includes the the existing mil on Main uh located at the former YMCA site and the 82 unit Flats on 21 located on 21st Avenue Northwest Milan main 2 uh proposes to provide 125 parking stalls uh which equates to 1.21 spaces per unit which is approximately 30 stalls less than required uh the applicant noted that at capacity parking is about 70% utilized at their original Milan main um and see the applicant notes that uh penants currently utilize approximately one space per unit uh the planning commission based on the information presented found that the variance request is in harmony with the general purposes and intent of the zoning code is consistent with the comprehensive plan that the applicant has established that there are practical difficulties in complying with the provision and that the property owner proposes to use the property in a reasonable manner not permitted by the provision after review the Planning Commission with eight members present recommended granting the appeal with the following vote uh five A's and oh sorry that was six members present five A's and one exstension zero Nays all right thank you Oly uh Council any questions otherwise looking for a resolution for this uh paring Peri so moved second council member Basin hi fiser hi bashista hi hi HMA hi Baker sure council member large Austin hi resolution passes 70 your honor thank you I have number six Mr Mayor I just wanted to make one quick comment uh mostly for the benefit of the rest of the council um it just so happened that in my work life it came across my desk this week that the city of Northfield has um completely abolished any parking requirements for um market rate housing in their Community as a way to make it easier to develop um housing so they have a zero City requirement it's up to the developer to decide how many spaces they want to provide um because they're the ones that are then going to have to sell them to their future residents and meet that um parking need so just wanted to put that out there that that's an option for us um that we might want to look at and it would make something like the mill on Main 2 even easier to get done in Austin very interesting thank you Laura yeah I noticed that too there was an article on the star tribunal not recently there several communities are looking at reducing the required number of parking spots for developments like this so definitely something worth looking into how is that something we could have I mean would it start like in the Planning Commission to have a discussion about it or yeah I mean previously our our requirement was 2.25 parking spaces which we reduced to 1.5 when we redid our zoning ordinance but we certainly can look at making that even less and yeah we could I mean typically we would probably do some kind of you know reach out to some of the property owners and see what the capacity that you know what util how much their parking is utilized and kind of make some decisions from there but it would go to the uh Planning Commission and then to council for final decision so essentially uh an amendment to our zoning okay very good thank you uh item number 16 did we get an approval on that we did right we did on 16 on 15 we approved yeah yes 16 is a bunch of approving of memorandums of understanding for the bargaining groups and we have addendum uh in addition here on 16f and G so looking for uh approving the mo MOA with the wastewater treatment plant parks Austin Associates organization mnpa LEL l s i a and aea take them all as one U and Craig do you want to explain any more on that uh sure can um we approved Street and Sewer maintenance at our last council meeting uh this is renewal with Blue Cross Blue Shield with a slight increase but our contribution levels stay the same um so just a slight uh change to that and authorize the mayor to sign and record or attest the moas I would move that we approve all the in front of us okay is there a second second Tom Council me member Baskin i fiser i boua i heli I postma I Baker yes council member large Austin I resolution passes 70 your honor thank you Tom I have number 17 is resolution approving police officer recruitment incentive program Craig I thank you mayor remembers we uh previously had a a recruitment incentive based on student loan and forgiveness as well as relocation assistance of $5,000 we're suggesting to uh modify that so that just be a straight recruitment incentive moving them out from $5,000 to $7,500 appreciating the difficulty that we've had in recruiting police officers to the city we also have a um second part to it for an employee referral program previously we had that at $11,000 we're suggesting moving that to $2,000 to also help with our recruitment challenges and trying to do everything we can to position ourselves uh to be an attractive uh decision for a perspective police officer recruitment be happy to answer any questions thank you Craig Chief mck do you have anything on this uh only again that I support it this was an idea that came up from our staff on how to make our openings more attractive I know two Friday ago Sergeant Osborne hosted a gentleman from out of town who previously worked for hanapin County and this was something that I know they talked about in a selling point uh Ryan McCormack one of our officers reached out late last week said he's got someone he went to skills uh with at Riverland who he's been working on uh and was again inquiring about this and presenting it uh so there's a whole lot of interest and I do think we would put it to good use and uh is in line with other other cities looking to do this so very good very supportive thank you Chief Council any questions for Mr Clark or chief mck I've just got one and it's more to do I think it's a great idea I'm just more interested in the timing so it's paid out in two installments the first one is after only 30 days and I know we've had a couple of folks who haven't made it through the process but we're here longer than 30 days what's the mechanism for a payback or what is that look like or do would they not have to pay it back if it's only if they've made it through 30 days we would re withhold it from their paycheck is that would it be big enough to withhold the whole that's the only thing I worry about is like a payback situation um yeah I mean we would still hold it and ask for repayment but the practicality of getting that back I don't know Mr Daner if you have suggestions of what we would do if that we that occurred we PID two weeks after the fact so there's always a two we delay in the paycheck so a that would more than likely cover most if not all second if they didn't we'd ask them to repay it if they didn't then third we could go to revenue recapture if councel if staff so desired to recoup any balance remaining which Revenue recaptures state of Minnesota program the the city can partake in in which future tax returns lottery winnings Etc come to us first to pay off any balances I anticipate the paycheck would cover most of that that money back and the requirement is minimum of two years correct that they'd have to stay right correct Chief how many open positions do you have right now uh we are currently staffed at 29 out of 36 officers so we have this is an attempt to fill those seven jobs correct motion to approve second second uh Tom council member Basin hi Fisher I pusta hi Kelly hi HMA I Baker yes Council LGE Austin I resolution passes 70 your honor thank you Tom uh item number 18 is a motion approving additional payment to the sakur Consulting Group Craig I thank you mayor members who've had some additional work by sakur on the employee engagement we're looking for authorization to um for those expenses in the amount of $5,200 very good thank you Craig Council any questions for Mr Clark looking for a motion to approve the additional payment so move second all in favor I opposed motion carries item number 19 is motion approving additional funding for discover Austin great um yes we've had a demonstration project with discover Austin which was a three-year uh project to help with bringing increased number of events into the community uh with some of the hardship that uh discover Austin has had with uh one of our uh hotels doing a remodel one of our leading hotels doing a remodel that caused some downward pressure on the uh lodging tax um so they've asked for an additional year in consideration of $115,000 to continue that uh with hopes that they would move towards supporting that in 2026 be happy to answer any questions very good thank you Craig Council any questions for Mr Clark on this matter otherwise looking for a motion for 19 so moved second all in favor I opposed that Mo no that was a no no one no just got it in Under The Wire hi motion by council member hel second by council member postma to approve the additional 15 grand for 20125 and I vote is in favor of such council member Basin I Fisher I boua I heli I HMA I Baker no council member at large Austin I resolution motion passes 61 your honor thank you Tom under the additions item number 20 is a resolution receiving bids for the 2024 flood damage from East Side Lake uh Dam Plaza Stephen yes during the June 23rd event high waters came over East Side Lake and impacted the landscaping and Plaza area that we have there came over the East Side Lake Dam I should say washed out an area uh we received quotes from two local landscape companies both very close in in number uh Dolan's Landscaping Center was the low bid at $1,557 and .99 uh we're currently working with FEMA and we anticipate that these funds will be uh eligible for reimbursement through the programs that we have with them and we' recommend awarding this work to Dolan's landscape Center very good thank you Stephen Council any questions on item number 20 if not looking for resolution so moved second Tom council member Basin I Fisher hi pusta hi Hy hi HMA hi Baker yeah council member lar Justin hi resolution C passes uh 70 your honor thank you Tom moving on to Citizens addressing the council is there any citizens in the audience wishing to speak with councel on items that weren't on the agenda Tim want to come to the microphone please give us your name and address right good evening Tim sorene Austin Minnesota 507 438 8069 uh I'm here to address the new cannabis laws that are ever changing and my understanding is that we were allowed two licenses per 10,000 and there were two additional licenses granted who can we attribute the other two licenses who how that were requested and granted for how was was that process done who can I thank uh Council I guess we had the opportunity based on our population to take on I believe the whole County if we wanted to um but Chief mck's really well versed you got something to add to that Chief well at this point in time I'm not aware of uh ordinance having passed uh this is still being worked on and ultimately the ball is still re remains in the council's uh council's Court to make those final decisions uh we do believe under statute we would have to approve three based on our population size however again this is a public policy decision that has not yet been officially made by Council very good thank you Chief anything else Tim yes oh boy being that why' I ask that now the uh tribal RS where they're already selling product in the stores has now expanded to off the reservations in different subsidiary stores and being that that is an option I'm wondering why somebody like myself would go to the effort of buying a license and everything that goes with it when we can hook up with the Indians and not wait till a year later because they have been even uh we got a new office of cannabis management director because the other one failed and so being that we know it's going to be delayed this far we know that our tribal brothers are going to be able to take up some of the slack because honestly I've been running myself ragged trying to help people as you know um being that I've been handing out cannabis at the courthouse for the last month to whomever may need it I think that if there was a way to let the people know that there is an option for them to be better and better themselves without having to wait for some put off date that we don't even have nailed down I think it would do the public a lot of good and as I've offered before as much effort as I can to make it better for the people and I appreciate what you have done so far my understanding and anything I can do to Enlighten anybody being that we don't have the the meetings anymore maybe that's something we should take up as having a special meeting to get some of this out on the field because it's happening so fast thank you Tim yeah the States can be the one that selects who gets be license holder for selling uh cannabis when it comes so that something that they'll determine until that time we don't we don't the city doesn't have any problem with the Indians I don't I don't know how the legislature crafted that that cannabis law but I'm assuming that they carved out a little bit different way of doing it for the uh natives Native American the tribes but thank you Tim I appreciate you coming forward thank you for your time you bet take care um honorary council member comments James how are things James thank you I don't have anything to come command all right thank you uh let's go with Joyce under uh reports and recommend sorry Craig Des or anybody I have nothing all right Joyce I have nothing your honor pa um I was out at the uh airport yesterday where the uh officers were doing an emergency vehicle operations course basically a obstacle course with speeds up to 80 miles an hour where they have to test I don't know how many times a year they have to do it um and if they hit one cone they're done they start over they have to do it in I think under four minutes and 20 seconds so I had the privilege of riding with walski uh flying into a couple corners at 80 miles hour was uh exciting so thank you walski but he really impressed me on his driving and all the officers that took most the day yesterday until 10:00 at night that took the time to go out there to do these courses on their day off on summer working and all the other officers who did it on a different day it just goes to show what they will do to um help their skills to better our communi so thank you to all the officers thank you Dr walski and also Lieutenant Wallenberg explained to me kind of how the course worked how the vehicles are set up with the weight distribution the lights so it was a good couple hours I spent out there just learning and watching and so thank you to all those officers very good thank you Paul Jason uh two quick updates one is just wanted to thank Chief McCoy and the fire department excellent work on the fourth grade education is always know you know having a fourth grader that that certainly came home we've got new batteries and all our smoke detectors we got an Escape Plan drawn up in detail so know that the kids definitely do hear what you say and it does improve the community so thanks for your work on that I know it takes time outside of it um and then second is just a reminder for anybody watching that voting is now open um through at the ma County Government Center um today through November 4th if you want to get your ballot in prior to election day or we'll be out of town during that time frame so very good thank you Jason Jeff uh yes the library board did meet last week uh some of the highlights uh Julie is rolling out an raci model to the staff so that the library has authoritative scope and chain of command a functional Communications Matrix and attempt to make decisions at the right level the library is using a 2X two Matrix to evaluate Library programming and the board is excited to learn about Julie's 360 feedback process and application Julie also wanted me to mention that the library will be closed the 24th and 25th of October very good thank you Jeff that's all I have Jeff nothing thank you thank uh two things uh discover Austin been hard at work bringing folks into town so we've got the Minnesota VFW state tournament that's going to come at the end of July early August of next year we've got the AAW conference coming in March of 2025 and and the Goldwing group just booked 75 people the first week in June for 2025 so bringing more and more folks to town so congrats to them on their efforts and then uh for the HRA we actually had the Twin Towers had their recent um government inspection called Inspire used to be called react um these are very re very very rigorous inspections um most sites are lucky to score somewhere in the 80s if you crack 90 you get to have an extra year before your next inspection because you did so well um their preliminary score on the Twin Tower site was 98 out of 100 so congratulations to them for running a tight ship over there right on thanks Mike great um I wanted to just give a shout out to Lynn Thompson in the Parks Recreation and Forestry Department he's um jumped in and taken over a lot of the duties that um Randy um Hoffner um did uh for his job as ry's um home recuperating from a Health Challenge and so I appreciate that and um really when something like that happens and you lose a major person overnight um the whole department has to pitch in and make things work so thank you to all of them um for keeping it going I also want to let um the public know that the culture and arts commission has um heard public concern about um graffiti and perhaps accelerated graffiti especially on utility boxes and we've reached out to Austin utilities to um collaborate on a project to wrap utility boxes with artwork um we've applied for some funding hoped to do a demonstration project on just one box yet this year and then do a whole program of them next year in 2025 and then uh I also wanted to encourage um folks to vote and um to have confidence in our uh local elections um I know the people who run them um some of us sitting up here on the de are the people who run them and they are um fair and conducted according to all the rules and regulations very good thank you Laura uh I have before me the October anniversaries of the city employees want to recognize them for their years of service Rick wayer 25 years in the sewer maintenance Troy tigner with fire 25 years Greg yokom Street department 19 Tony Hill Street department 19 uh Holly Wallace uh 10 years congratulations Holly Travis Martin police 10 years Mike nordine police seven years Dwayne Selenas buildings uh six years Jeff Marks police five years Daniel Osborne police five years Brady Johnson police five years Nick Zago Police Department five years Clint perile congratulations Clint four years at the wastewater treatment plant and rally whito at the park and Recon forestry one year so we appreciate the work uh and the all the years of service that they've provided so uh with that I would take a motion to adjourn to our November 4th meeting so moved second all in favor opposed that motion carries we'll take about five minute break and then come back to the work session I'm clearly out I didn't [Music] jul e