##VIDEO ID:VZfXYRH8hkM## um the okay the time is 6:36 we'll now uh call our meeing to order roll call starting um actually that's me never mind Patrick Knight pen Peters William Lois myself Michael Cary Mike Roth and uh is Kim online yeah and then we're not having the City attorney tonight right is it that's right okay so's not joining us so that was everyone at the moment we'll now move on to open Forum does anyone have any questions about bills any of the line items this includes the tobacco license renewals I see we have just five sellers um is that one L or two is that our normal I believe that's the same year okay we had maybe one more um Okay so anyone like to make a motion for the well I scooped right ahead I'm sorry John let me back this up if we will we did our roll call open Forum there's nobody here I presume for open Forum but there is John here for our city hall and liquor store update so let's do that yeah so you can get home good evening everyone uh again my name is John hegan Miller with mgov construction I'm the site superintendent for the new Municipal liquor store and City Hall uh I just want to give you a quick update on what's going on uh the windows for the office area uh were delivered last Friday to our supplier uh all the glass or the frames were delivered all the glass will be delivered to them on Friday this Friday and they'll begin installing on Monday of next week uh at this time we're uh taping of the drywall is about 95% complete framing is about 98% complete towel work uh in the bathrooms is about 85% complete uh painting is about 65% complete um and actually we are polishing the floors and the liquor store and the bathrooms this week also so um and ceiling grid is going to start uh in the uh City Hall area starting next Monday um we're waiting on a on some wood beams uh we should have a delivery date for those tomorrow or Friday um the four doors at the liquor store those are the ones that we going to be held back till first part of January they're actually going to be shipped before the the end of the year and we should get them within uh 5 to 7 days so that's big isn't it that's real big so that'd be all the glass wow so um and we're waiting on approval for some anchors anchoring system for the employee entrance canopy um that is expected hopefully tomorrow and as soon as we get that we can um get the parts the structural parts that we need install them and then complete the siding on the building it's mostly on the west side that we have to finish up uh that's about it if anyone has any questions or if anyone wants to stop by please do I appreciate your time thank you stay warm yeah you you guys this must have been quite a day does it I mean it do you feel a lot of air moving through or is it not too bad when it's actually not bad uh I just before you came in I said the ambient temperature inside the building is about 72° and our heaters are at the lowest setting that they can go so got my house by 8° lowest we could go so that's not too bad even windows I guess the beach parties down there then I guess so yeah thank you thank you very much for thanks yeah appreciate all right so now we'll move on to the consent agenda which includes the tobacco licenses and once again does anyone have any uh comments about the agenda or the minutes or anything from bills motion to approve the consent agenda second that second all right all in favor I I I we don't have here yet so good with that and now we can move on to the budget and Levy it's uh our public hearing Mike this is our public hearing which no one is here to comment on um I'll take that as a good sign that you're doing the right things that people don't have any major concerns about it's also I'll note typically terrible terrible weather on the day that we do this I don't know how that happens mhm we schedule this meeting months in advance so it's amazing it it's not been cold and windy the last few times um and I think last year actually it was kind of nice but typically we get a lot of snow on this day which is fun so yeah uh I we didn't receive any comments at City Hall any questions of any variety so I will just recap what's occurred since your last meeting when we went through this budget a little bit uh only some minor changes so we'll start with the end the spreadsheet at the bottom the draft budget summary this is all the details there's just a few minor changes that are in here are we looking at that the vertical this one or the I think it's this one right that's the one yeah y okay and I'll go into detail about what those changes were um there's only two that we made since your last meeting one we upped the amount of Revenue that we're counting on getting from the liquor store contributed to the general fund and I'll talk a little bit about more of that in a second and then the other change was we updated the library expense budget to account for the reduced health insurance and property insurance costs so those changes were made uh what OCC what what did effect did that have now we'll go to the middle spreadsheet which is entitled draft budget changes summary September to current 2025 and the part on the expense table on the top that's new is the library it used to say no change it was still in there at $513,500 as of two weeks ago so today there's a $967 reduction in that amount half of that reduction counts towards property taxes for the city Levy half of that reduction will be passed on to the county for their contribution and then the other change is in the revenue in the clerk Administration dep Department we added $16,000 of additional revenue for the liquor store there was $50,000 in there uh in the earlier draft so now there's $66,000 of revenue from their liquor store which is approximately uh the difference between the amount that the liquor store is going to pay on the new debt payment about $134,000 in the $200,000 that we've historically contributed from the liquor fund to the general fund so in 2024 this year we did not count on any contribution from the liquor fund to the general fund we just took that out and in 2025 we've backed in $66,000 of it uh I think that is a fair way to start but as we know uh it's a new store and I expect that we'll be able to contribute significantly more than the $200,000 but not day one uh day one we've got a lot of startup costs to deal with um but I just think the because of the volum volume we're going to be able to do in the new space this year that it still seems very safe to imagine that we're going to be able to match that $200,000 contribution that we've done in the past so between those two numbers the 4,800 in library reduction and 16,000 in additional Revenue that's how we got from we'll go to the top now about 4.9 to 2.97% so that's the levy uh increase that I'm recommending is 2.97% you can see that it's a significant reduction in what we consider General Revenue Levy and a significant increase in total debt Levy which makes sense I hope because you see there's a brand new $228,000 debt Levy for the city hall liquor store project that Levy is in addition to the $134,000 that the liquor store is contributing to make the debt payment on the $6 million uh bond that we've we've got it's not that uh drastic a reduction though you can see in 2024 the General Revenue Levy was $782,000 and it's $611,000 now we didn't actually cut $170,000 in expenses that's not how we did it we've been building up the General Revenue side anticipating a very large debt payment coming up and so it was collecting a little bit more than we needed last year uh well really for the past five or six years and and so we just transferred that expense item from the General Revenue side to the debt side which is why the levy really only has to change about 3% rather than well if you look at the whole debt payment of you know about $400,000 that was be closer to 40% increase so this is the the effect of many many years of planning for this project and getting ready for it and saving up for it and here we are year one of our big debt payment and we're going to be able to do it with a modest Levy increase does anybody have any questions about any of the numbers that looks very good very good thank you yeah thank you so at your next meeting there'll be a resolution for you to consider that'll include these numbers authorizing the levy for next year great got it okay is there any sort of like opening and closing to the hearing we need to do or no I think it's probably more important to be formal if we had a lot of guests but since we don't not really all right well thank you for you and cim very much for all this work putting this all together tracking this all making decisions about where to move and how to make this move forward so I appreciate itate both of your work on this um we will move on to councel and staff reports we'll start over here nothing could been the holiday week could it could be Ben nothing nothing ah I'll have to make up for everyone else we knew you would yes um we were awarded grant money from the Great Lakes cities initiative in St Lawrence St Lawrence Seaway which I believe I mentioned in the last meeting it'll be about 120,000 for design work but the more important thing is that Mike and I and Dave titig met with their she their CEO I don't remember Bridget's title but we need a clarification about what this really meant because they were talking about artist point and like wait a minute but it was really a good conversation because when she further understood our bigger issues with the Coast Guard Station the parking lot and all the other work we have a lot of question about what's going on underneath the ground with the parking lot the sink HS the whole deal and then eventually the Coast Guard um I think if this is a 2-year Grant and there's multiple cities involved we don't have to be right out of the gate on this but there's possibility that she can help us find more money and broaden this as things happen and if nothing else if we get just get stantex as always super excited to help us up here and even if they help us better understand what might it take it's a step forward for us we have more information more knowledge than we did before so it's a great start I think um taking on to that though I would I had promised you all would send a note to the Coast Guard Station that's right which I did and I got a better Christmas present back than I imagined out of that so um yeah that one made me like super happy um thank you for following up the property has been finally approved for divesture I'm currently working with our legal office and environmental office on next steps will need to do an environmental assessment of the property before it transpires and also he's asking us to do some help him with some of the legal work um as far as the um reversions and things of that nature so we' brought in I copied in our city attorney on that so there's actually some action steps he said the environmental assessment can take up to a year plus but he realizes we're seasonal and they use an outside company and we can send out this email so he's hoping to get it on for this spring or summer so that was actually something concrete we could yeah work on um that said and and I was not in on this meeting but you guys met on Monday with our East Bay piece and um then and I'm going to let you fill them in Mike on that but getting back to that Grant and this seeing opportunity that maybe some of this bigger stuff can maybe inch along better I have reached out Tom Hall from the US Forest Service directed me to to K over here locally we're going to meet on the 19th I'm just going to give them an overview where we're at but at some point they are obviously stakeholders to all this with artist point so we just want to get them in the loop and if any of these projects get bigger whatever I know they've had a lot of environmental issues down there with artist point it's like I think one of the nation's most trafficked Park you call call it a park I don't know anyways so we want to bring them in we've got other stakeholders to engage but get them on the up and up on this too to do that so that was my big news and um why don't you fill out in on Monday because I think this all relates and then there's our grant our newest Grant opportunity so on Monday the small group of Representative of soil and water Shane and myself had a brief conversation with uh our newer partner in the East Bay project the Grand Portage band and they're very excited to be a part of it which is great for us uh it allows for um a a realistic funding plan which is which is nice but it also uh gives us another local partner to help evaluate the ideas that the core comes up with I think it's going to be really important for us locally to weigh in on whether those are going to work for us or not and so it's great to have gr Portage to to help with that process um cuz uh kers war and Margaret Watkins have um expertise to have them at the table is really nice yeah it's it's really it's terrific yeah and they have issues up there too so they they uh want to be sitting with the Army core of engineer as well and make contacts and their stuff so I want to go back to the the harbor side um the project that you first started announcing with that funding when we last talked about that we were discussing whether or not that would be a good piece to include in our own Coast Guard Point artist Point Master planning process it might be a catalyst for that it might actually be a way to fund some of it or to leverage other funds to help do it and so that's kind of what we're imagining right now our next step step on that will be to talk to the engineer that that's hired to do that project and see what they think about that and maybe develop that idea a little bit more and I think once we have a little more development on that it's going to be something we'll bring to a council meeting as an agenda item just as a report to kind of go over it thoroughly and talk about what's all included in it what we hope to get out of it yeah I think this all is starting to maybe blend together a little bit more and more people we get to the table the other piece is this new Grant that's coming out of of all things the Minneapolis Foundation um that I was emailed on the other week it's the Great Lakes environmental justice thriving communities Grant making program but the really cool thing is it involves all the Great Lakes it's designed for smaller communities under 10,000 along the lake including the tribal communities but it's Wastewater it's healthy homes it's food food I sent it out to all of our partner oh emergency preparedness so I you know my keeport are you aware of this Elena Hansel um Sarah waddle because she does a lot with food just everyone here's an opportunity for just about anything that way but I think it could we need to spend some time seeing if it it can help us with these projects if it can help us with our Wastewater um and that's got I I just started reading about it last week it's several years and you can be in different points like maybe you know we have to have Community engagement for this bigger project around the Coast Guard well that's part of the one of the things you can be applying for you can be applying apparently for the Project's in motion already so we just need to spend some time reading about what this means but it I'm sure it'll be super competitive but it's I think really geared to stuff that could positively affect what we're trying to do so there those were my updates and I met with the kids from the school and we had a fun afternoon together we'll see if they get done by Friday then we will judge yeah well the league will yes so that's is that it has every got everything I've got one more oh sorry M uh I wanted to give you an update about the our board openings so oh yeah oh yeah as you know we've been advertising for openings on the park board on Planning Commission on the library board on the Pu and on the Eda uh almost all of those positions have incumbents that are in the spot that are able to continue serving and have expressed a willingness to continue serving oh great which is great news yeah the one exception that we know right now is the Eda position my bersheim he's eligible for another term but he has told us he will not be serving another term and we do not have any applicants right now for that position so it's a really important one we need to have quality people to help sort out some of the bigger issues that are going on in the Eda right now if somebody is passionate about that please reach out to somebody here and talk to us the the city council needs your help and if any of you have anybody that you think would be good ask them and there's other switch over on the Eda board this year as well so I really would hate to have that spot sit empty for any time yeah cuz there's other people leaving the board too so and we have a new but not this year next year right well January 1st county seats though yeah since I don't okay okay I have a feeling we may have a potential chair but we still are losing our current chair as one for sure so maybe more thank you that was an item we talked about and I still forgot start is Big all right and with that we are complete thank you thank you all very much go home stay safe and yes all of that just to get home see you all next week that's right back again everyone else has left the call