##VIDEO ID:OC86WPuYhWQ## [Music] thanks for joining us for city council comments I'm Steve Ericson along with mayor Jerry Cook today we're talking about both our October 1st and October 15th City Council meetings thanks for coming in today absolutely thanks for having me here we are I heard you were at a fire open house uh last weekend at our the first one at our new fire station yeah the yeah we were we were hoping to have it there last year and of course construction got delayed um but yeah last Saturday was the um fire station open house had three and it was just really well attended and it worked out perfect was you'd be able to have all your resources in one spot um there was tours of the new building um yeah there's hundreds of people there was very well attended and of course the LifeLink helicopter came flying in low at about 11:00 and that was a big hit and it was it was really nice yeah I'd asked them like are they still going to have the helicopters this location but really you there's still quite a bit of space over there with the parking lot and then there's still in noar Ramsey's parking lot oh we have so much space over there you know they were able to use the parking lot across the street for parking plus barricade off a third of it for the helicopter okay and uh no and it's so fun to see all the kids in their little firefighter costumes you know they're ready for Halloween too spraying the fire hose and all that spray spraying the fire hose and then they had they borrowed something this year that was kind of cool um it was an electronic fire and then they had electronic um fire um fire extinguishers that that showed you where to aim to put the fire out you know I was aim at the base and uh and if you were successful then you would put the fire out and it was It was kind of cool so yeah that made a little fun and then uh well just all kinds of things going on up there all right so we kind of used to have at all three stations then we kind of moved to Sand Creek Park to do it all in in one spot and now it sounds like we might be at the new Fire Station 3 for a while well at least next year again yeah yeah yeah well yeah we kind of got to the San Creek Park because you know we got shut down for the pandemic yeah and then when we came back for the for the fire station open house it was like you know what let's just do this outside yeah so so we went to S Creek Park and that really worked well to have all the resources in one spot so now Fire Station 3 is so large there so much concrete and so much parking around it from the college that it just works great all right well if you didn't make it this year mark your calendar next October uh they'll be there again I thought you were going to give a date I went I was like I I don't have the date yet it's usually the Saturday of fire prevention week is about about when it happens all right well let's jump into Council business here uh we're going to start off first talking about our Tuesday October 15th meeting uh one of the first items there was proclaiming October as domestic violence Awareness Month yeah it's a it's a real important um thing to remind folks that you may not see it but it's going on right and to make people aware of it and uh and to acknowledge the great work of the Alexandra House you know because we're one of the few places that has a shelter for folks that are struggling with domestic abuse um so we've got a lot of resources and we just really want people to reach out for help if they are in that situation yeah and I know our Police Department partners with them and works uh with them uh also we just covered something within the last month or so they broke around on a project uh a Pet Haven I believe it's called but there's going to be pets in some of the they're building runs or something for pets to be there and they're uh that's starting in January at the Alexander house well that would make sense because a lot of folks aren't going to want to leave without their pets yeah um so great great project that they're doing there and uh we hope to do a followup with them but uh yeah yeah they they broke around on that just about a month or so ago so and then if you're driving by City H too you should also notice at night uh you'll notice the purple lights are on that's another thing they ask you to do is to you know light up things at purple at night yeah so all of our all of our exterior lights around City Hall are wrapped with a purple cellophane so it looks pretty cool yeah all right moving forward Council adopted a resolution approving Parks and Recreation Commission appointments we have two new members correct correct so we have a lot of great commissions that do a lot of work for the city um and this is the park and Rex commission and for the most part they really they pick their own they pick their own folks to join them and these folks have attended a meeting or two and the Parks Commission has said yeah we think they're a good fit but then we still have to officially um put them on the commission through the council okay and uh so we would like to welcome Julie rolson and KY and I think it's umac it's u m o l a c okay and I'm sure somebody at some point will go are you kidding me that's this you but well if you know give us a call we'll know for the next time so yeah we welcome them and uh like you say you did a lot of the work you do you know you get a lot of work done at the commission level that recommendations get on uh sent on to council y oh I mean yeah gosh we've got so many commissions and that's really the on the ground connection to what's going on and what we need to do and yeah yeah all right well if anybody's interested in serving we always mention this but just go to the city's website coonrapids mn.gov and uh you can actually fill out an application form and rank which uh commissions you'd be interested in serving yeah it's it's really nice you get a list there and if feel like boy I really want the Planning Commission just put that down as number one and arts commission or parks or whatever it is yeah and then when openings come up they'll get in contact with you yep all right moving forward Council accepted an easement agreement uh this is for the Foley Boulevard monopole this involves basically that has to do with the whole water tower that we're the new one we're putting up right well it's it's to do with the new one in that we are taking out the old one exactly so the the old water tower that's up at Foley in Northdale right next to the McDonald's there we had to do an easement with McDonald's because Singular Wireless will be constructing a temporary monopole there so that they've still got their Singular Wireless signal around there um and that'll be happening like this month yeah and then next spring like between May and June then we will be dismantling demolitioning the water tower taking that down and then um from August to September we'll be constructing the permanent monop pole there okay and then the singular singular antennas will go up onto that the temporary one will go away and then we will be open to I think two more um two more wireless companies that may want to rent space on that pole okay so but but this action was all about working with Jeff Smith at the McDonald's so that we could have space there for staging and for the for the temporary monopole and you know and especially when we're dropping the big water tower that requires some space as well and y so all right and the new one you'll see now you see it all around  Rapids if you haven't noticed yet from Foley Boulevard and Rapids Boulevard it's near that intersection um they just recently finished painting the bowl yeah it's it's incredible I didn't realize that when you're like when you're driving down rabbit's Boulevard you're looking at it up there in the East um you know and of course we we laid it out so that when you're going across 610 you would see the city's logos or on Rapids Boulevard near there um but I just didn't realize that how many places you're going to see it yeah yeah and it's it's pretty cool it's a million gallons yes it's are one up on Hansen um near the North End of Rapids that's a 2 million gallon Bowl this is a 1 million gallon Bowl all right and we're taking out a 500,000 gallon bowl that isn't even up to 500,000 right that we can only put 250,000 gallons in or it overfills the other water towers yes so once we get this other one online we'll we'll be good for any emergencies fire suppression adequate water flow all of that right yeah and it's it's nice it's down near the industrial park where if you ever had an emergency a big emergency down there that I think that's where you would want your water all right and I learned more than I ever wanted to I think when I went out there to do some of that uh videoing on the on the water thing but they have to be at certain levels to maintain pressure you know all the bolt like there's a lot of work that goes into figuring out how to do this they're all connected by a big main Underground and and water self levels so they all have to be the same height um so there's a lot going on there all right and I would encourage anybody if you have not seen it to check out the CTN Studios videos you've got videos on lifting the bowl into place you've got videos on the painting I mean it's you've got some really cool Drone footage and yes it was cool when we sped up the one when they brought the bowl up you just see it teetering on its way up to the top and uh yeah that was pretty cool to to witness in person they did it pretty quick and within a couple hours yeah originally thought it might take up to 8 and it just went boom it was done and and has so many things uneventful that's how we like them to go uneventful it didn't it didn't crash to the ground or anything so I thought that was successful yeah all right uh moving forward Council held a public hearing on establishing a housing Improvement area for the Village Manor Condominium Association we have not done one of these in a while correct I think the last one we did was the was the condos the Carriage homes right off of Robinson Drive felt like we're doing these for a long like quite a few times for a while then it stopped yeah yeah yeah and and I'm sure it's to do with the age of them um but but what happens is this is a little eight unit Carriage Home Town Home Association down um flora and 109th Avenue kind of just down behind the ice center and they've just got a lot of work they need to do with only eight units they don't have the resources or the reserves to do take on big projects so this sets them up with a housing Improvement area where then the city will help facilitate financing for them to get all of the work done with they what they need you know whether it's roofs garage do driveways parking lots it's it's a very wide scope of upgrades that can be done with it and it just really gives them a refresh and kind of a restart um then they will they'll this City isn't liable for the money we will we will recover you know they'll they'll pay back all the loans on it but it really gives a nice refresh for housing units in town but like you said it's been used by many many places to get them caught up yeah for a while I think and maybe that was some of the associations were learning they were maybe not getting enough into reserves so they didn't have money to do these big projects hopefully some of that has been corrected in recent years is maybe why we're not seeing as many um but yeah it's been a great resource for the those associations that needed and again you said like taxpayers aren't on the hook for any of this correct right right right and it's and it's not supposed to be they're supposed to have their own reserves to keep their own work up but at the same time if they don't have them we want to make sure that the housing stack stays nice so this is a nice way to facilitate that Council adopted an ordinance authorizing the sale of real estate uh this is at 12258 Crooked Lake Boulevard yes yes when they uh when when they rebuilt the slip ramp in Crooked Lake Boulevard I don't know 25 years ago or whatever it was um they the project they bought up all the homes along that service road there there were several homes there and this was the last home it was on the other side of 122nd and apparently they didn't really need it at that time um so what they did is they gave the owner they bought the home and gave the owner a life estate so for as long as they were alive they could live in that home and it was their home to use okay and to have and she I think she's in a nursing home I still don't think she's passed I think she's like 105 oh wow you know it seems like one of the things that gives you longevity is having a life estate you know there's there's a lot of these out there but yeah yeah yeah um but but at any rate they have finally turned it over to the city and so we've done some some uh testing our police did some drills there and fires done some things there um and now we were originally going to tear the home down but it's actually pretty good bones we really don't need the home for that project um we've got the third the we've got the adelan project going on Highway 10 with all the sound walls we don't need it for that so it was decided that if we can the the home is currently built as a duplex up and down duplex yeah so as long as the buyer converts it back to a single family gets stairs back in the interior of the home eliminates the curb cuts on two of the driveways we've just got one standard driveway up to the garage um and we sold it to an investor that's going to do all of that work and then they will only sell it to an owner occupant okay so it if you look at what it's sold for I think it's sold for like $60 some, it seems vastly under Market but it was sold with some very strict criteria to get an owner occupant back in that home again okay so this was this was adopting that ordinance and in any real estate we sell is done by ordinance all right sounds good Council introduced an ordinance uh establishing fees for 2025 and there's some I know different groups of fees in here one including our water rates for 2025 yeah so it used to be and you were involved in the research on this um if you needed to rent uh rent a room at the Civic Center or a building or a park aazebo or something at the Ice Center or what am I paying for water rates or I mean we had all these numbers all over the place and what what they've worked on is consolidating all the fees into one publication so you don't have to look everywhere to find out what something costs in the city um so this was getting them all in one book and then establishing the new fees for 2025 and for the most part they're little like you know 2 and half% bumps they go from like 165 to 170 for the most part they're not significant there are a few that they realize that we were significantly under where we should have been based on staff costs um so there were other adjustments but all right but most of the time it's usually just inflationary yes okay yes all right well right because any fee that we charge has to be justified by by the staff time and what it costs yeah yeah we can't this isn't a profit deal yeah all right so this will be coming back to council for for final adoption but again uh you can go look at that uh and and the Really the water rates and that type of thing are are not a surprise because you guys had a study done and the study basically recommended that you needed to keep raising them for the coming years correct yeah every Everything has gone up for water um and what we paid to get rid of the sewage to met council is going up so so we're stuck and we we are stewards and we need to make sure that we are covering our expenses we don't want to get behind on our on our infrastructure rebuilt reconstruction so it's we've had to go much more than inflation increases on Water and Sewer right and and I'm sure everybody's feeling it and seeing it in their bills but if uh we're not sure how else to do it yeah and there's those are self suating funds the water sewer and storm storm water fund yeah they're they're Enterprise funds they have to support themselves correct all right uh that is all we wanted to talk about on our October 15th jumping back to the first meeting we actually had it on the first of the month it was a Tuesday uh we had a fun item here you you actually melt met the well the new police Wellness dog in a work session right so you kind of got a preview but he was actually introduced at the uh regular council meeting yeah yeah so K do K9 provided a a dog for our Police Department that's not the typical k9 for helping as an officer in the field it's an emotional support dog and his name is Gizmo and it's beautiful beautiful black lab and they brought him into the workshop and talked to us about the process and I met the dog at the workshop and apparently you know I got him a little revved up so so all of a sudden he went up and went gave me a big kiss right in the lips so so at the council meeting it was just supposed to be a handshake so so that's we kept it you should have done the other part of counsil you need to flip those um yeah beautiful lab and he he's he's just great with with kids if they've been through trauma um they'll they'll if our fire department realizes they need they need them for for emotional support for firefighters or people that they've found that have been through trauma um he's just it's just a very wide range of things that he's going to be good for all right you know and and everybody knows your blood pressure goes down when you're petting a calm dog you know you call call them animal and uh and and if kids have been through tough things where you're trying to get them to relax and talk to you you know to be able to sit and hold the dog and play with the dog and then hopefully they open up all right and we'll be seeing more of Gizmo I imagine around town as the the months go on yeah all right I I would imagine he would be a Rocky's pumpkin patch Saturday maybe Saturday that's coming up here the 19th of October 19th of October at San Creek Park all right okay moving forward we have another event we want to talk about because of uh Council approved a waiver of a fireworks display license fee for the Rapids Community strength Foundation it's fall so uh only one thing this could be would be our tree lighting right this is our tree lighting uh which is this year will be Saturday December 14th we didn't want to compete with the inoka tree lighting again um and this particular item was to approve fireworks and it's spectacular yeah you know know we've had the uh the Rapids um their show choir on the stage performing wonderful holiday songs and and then we count down light up the tree the choir starts singing and the fireworks start going and the choir is singing the whole time the fireworks are going and there's like five minutes there are people that are go my community's fourth of July show isn't this big yeah cuz the first year I thought it was just going to be like a couple fireworks shot up yeah you know it was like five full minutes yeah yeah it's kind of crazy but people have been looking forward to this event now and it's it's become a great event yeah and it runs from 3:30 to 6:00 but the key and you'll have some time to get this down 5:30 is when the tree is lit up okay and dress warm yeah because no matter how unseasonably warm it might be it will be cold Yeah by once you're standing out there for a while yep y all right uh we had another fun item actually this is I know it's on sale wine 3.2 malt strong beer and Sunday liquor licensing the fun part I want to talk about this is there's a new owner of Pizza Hut uh Pizza what or sorry Pizza my pizza's mixed up Pizza Flame sorry sorry uh Pizza Flame uh we have a new owner third owner of that and um they're bringing back uh alcohol yeah yeah um Pizza Flame has been an important part of Rapids since the 70s I mean Pizza Hut was here at one point they were Point yeah it was and so was kenos but Pizza Flame is still here yes going strong it sounds like and the the new owner has worked there for six years and now was at the council meeting to introduce himself and Tyler U beroy I think his name is um and it's remarkable he's 21 years old but he just has this passion for making keeping Pizza Flame like like it the same recipes same great thing same same great pizza we're used to but bringing back some some of the things that have kind of Gone Away over the years which some of that was due to covid yeah yeah yeah so it's it's it's nice and again you guys CTN did a nice special on them yeah it was great to to meet him and um so people do support him I know people will still go out there and support him um but yeah alcohol is back they're also open open now every night they're open Mondays they were closed on Mondays for a while so they're open Monday evenings again and then they've also added online ordering which has been a great thing so you can actually you can go on and order online oo I haven't seen that yet so yeah getting into the modern era here but uh congratulations to him and uh hope things keep going well there at Pizza Flame congrat congratulations to them and it's good for us yeah certainly all right Council adopted an ordinance amending city code section 5-500 this is prohibited practices for solicitors I know this is a big one people do have some complaints about solicitors well well they do you know and and what we do is we require solicitors to come in and get licensed with the city so that we can do a background check and we can make sure they don't have a lot of complaints against them or criminal you know or criminal backgrounds um so what we did though is we added two things we added um to our peder's ordinance um they cannot create a public nuisance and they cannot if they're doing sales at the door or they can't do any knowingly misleading statements so it calls them I guess just a good behavior okay um but but I guess this is a good time to remind folks to make sure that anybody that comes to your door has to have a liens from the city that they'd wear dis it's displayed um and that gives you some it it it doesn't say you should buy what they're selling it just says that we've done a background check on them okay and again most stuff is for sales right the door too solicitor is sales uh it's obviously election season so candidates can come knock on your door and talk about ISS candidates candidates can come and knock on your door no matter what if you've got a no solicitor's license if you have whatever it is candidates are welcome to knock and then sometimes a kid selling things door too well that's also exempt y all right if they're there for the high school yeah yeah or one of something like that yeah all right Council adopted a resolution accepting a DWI Grant from the state of Minnesota I guess it's great that we keep getting this funding from the state to fund this position yeah um I don't know how many years we've done this but this this funds an officer to work DWI and and that's really that's all he can do but if we need him to help with something else he can break away come and help but then he has to go back and do the DWIs again yeah um I don't have a lot of information on that I didn't write anything down that's all right we keep having it I know they're usually busy on Highway 10 out there y so we have another one that's sort of related to uh Traffic Safety here this is a resolution accepting a safe road Zone Grant and approve the grant agreement with the state of Minnesota yeah and this was sort of a takeoff from um last June yeah um but I think we just got a little extra money so we had to kind of do it again yep and there's some education components of this as well yeah it it uh it creates a safe road it's a safe road Zone Grant for Education public awareness behavior modification and traffic engineering efforts on Northdale Boulevard between Hansen and University Avenue so everything from that new car wash yeah you know East over to Blaine y on Northdale okay um which which will include trying to slow traffic down yeah on that road I believe it's 35 a lot of the way it's maybe 45 in some segments but that I imagine they'll be focusing on that 35 M an hour Stretch A little yeah yeah I think it's 45 until you get to the tracks or thereabouts or Exon and then it drops to 35 for the rest of that and since it's been repaved it's really smooth flat and straight you know and so got to get people slowed down there's a lot of kids and a lot of things going on up there yeah all right uh one other item here we want to talk about Council considered the appointment of election judges approve their salaries and set the canvas date for the general election results this is now we less than three weeks away we're boy we're right in it aren't we home stretch yeah and starting the 18th which is um it'll be tomorrow Friday so October 18th you'll be able to do direct balloting so right now if you go in and votee to the Civic Center today you'll put it in an envelope and then it'll get run through the machine on on Election Day y if you go in anytime between tomorrow and the general election you'll actually be able to vote and put it into the machine okay um then oh and then they're going to be open both Saturdays for election or for voting and then the Sunday before the the general election yeah basically there's additional absentee voting hours this year that were part of I think approved in alleges last legislative session to allow people more time to vote absentee you have absolutely no excuse to not vote I mean I mean you there there's you don't have an excuse yeah it's General hours right now City Hall hours up until election day and then these extended hours as well you can find out much more by going to the city's website uh all the hours are listed there and anything else you need to know about absentee voting yeah all right and then we should remind folks uh the next council meeting should be on Election night so we can't have a meeting until the polls closed so the meeting is actually moved to the next day which is Wednesday November 6th are you sure we didn't go Monday really yes okay that's what's advertised so okay Wednesday the 6th will be our next council meeting um so obviously tune in for all the results and then one other item we wanted to talk about before we go uh some exciting news going on up at Bunker Hills correct Bunker Hills so in 2010 they tore down the old Clubhouse and built a new Clubhouse and they set up an area in the end of The Event Center because they wanted The Season's dinner theater to come back yes and then couldn't couldn't make it work couldn't make it work and the dinner theater went to another venue and we have wanted that dinner theater back in Rapids ever since they left and this year they're coming back so we have the season Dinner Theater which is the Tom and Patty McCarthy yeah and they're being they're going to be back at Kendall in the Bunker Hills event center with their um Oak crud it's Christmas and if you've never been to their they're great plays and if you have been there you know how good they are you'll want to go back each year right they've always been great we've we've always done when they were at least at Bunker Hills uh each year did a preview of their show and uh they're always just funny and and great to see so if you haven't get out there and check them out they'll be back here in  Rapids it's great very excited all right anything else you want to add I don't think so all right when I see you the next time or whoever I see the election will be over and uh we'll know we have obviously a couple four seats on the ballot uh four city council seats that are up for election two are two are uncontested so we know they'll be back unless things go horribly wrong and then the the other two are contested Y and so we'll have we'll have two new council members yeah next year First of the Year all right well thank you for being here today and talking to us thank you at home for watching and we'll see you back here again after our two meetings in November [Music]