##VIDEO ID:C_2C0lodlN8## all right um I'm calling the meeting to order this is the work session meeting um for the city of Minista October 21st 2024 and um present this evening myself Lisa whan council members present are Kathleen rkin an McGregor Peter vicory and Claudia Lacy and staff present our director of it of Public Works is Gary Peters and um my Myer Hoff is our city Clerk and then Jasper um kral of administrator Brian Grim Finance director and David AEL community development director we have a number of items on our agenda we have the storm surfaces water budget discussion we have recycling fund budget discussion cable fund budget discussion and then we'll have a closed session regarding some litigations so with that I'm going to open it up I believe it's Brian yes storm water okay we approve it let's go on to the next one just kidding I was going to say the yeah of those three items are yeah the the first three uh there's only one that's was like a question of a raising rates so I think that's always a little easier right then if all three of them had some component that uh right wanted to or our staff was suggesting to raise the rate so but yeah I think as far as the uh the storm surface water um fund the uh the balance you can probably see um by the trend there in the pack and and even as we've talked at the quarter the um updates of the um financial report updates that the fund has uh actually grown over the last several years I think um we've um you know had some projects but nothing too you know large or extensive in the storm you know water fund um you know Gary you know helps plan that out with uh obviously our n city engineer and stuff there as far as I guess yeah highlighting the memo on page two the right you know the current cash balance right now is about 890,000 so you know staff would commend just keeping the uh quarterly rate at the $29 a quarter you which is basically $116 annually for the year which should be fine with um funding our um operations and any um capital projects we we would do during um 2025 as shown in the packet so if anyone has any what do you know um what do we have in revenues total revenues for this fund annually annually it's about uh if we go to page four um the packet it's been about yeah 400,000 or so so that's about what we've been bringing in but we're not spending at all correct yeah it's a lot of times um you know activity and project dependent so yeah in the last few years we've been spending um you know more 250,000 225,000 you know so that's where we've had some of the uh but some years we've had larger projects and then we do spend you know four 500,000 so um seems like 890,000 seems to be a pretty big balance for this for this fund that's all I'm saying so if we're not spending if we have say continually underspent the 400 and some odd thousand revenues then I think we should actually lower it I mean why do we keep taking in and not well I think some of it's probably and Gary can probably speak to it I mean if we city council does decide to be more agress of our change policy your thoughts as far as with our with the storm water will we need some of this money for the water treatment plant no no we won't use this um I can kind of weigh I know Gary's a little yes we will well for storm water management we will but yeah I mean storm water also plays part for Street Maintenance and projects and stuff like that we use this for uh any of the curb work that we need to done uh catch Basin rehabs that's all related to this um another big factor is weather and time permitting for our guys that for my staff to do ditch work that all comes out of here doing uh you know all these Ditch Projects and redo redoing the ditch uh um designs and flow lines and stuff like that so you know it some years it's more some years it's less you know so right it's also culverts c replacement projects Street sweepings in here so there's a lot of factors that are in this program yes some years we don't use a lot of it other years we use a lot of it if I if I could also add I know council member vickory and I have talked about storm water Pond management and um quite frequently it's good uh but during the strategic planning session for 2025 we're going to talk about stormw water ponds we have to eventually develop a strategy on how we're going to address some of these ponds if it's going to be through our utility fee or if we're going to go after HOAs or if we're going to assess the the catch Basin you know however we're going to do it eventually some of our ponds are going to need maintenance um some of the HOAs don't have that capability to either fund it right away or even really know what they're supposed to do so you know in all likelihood most cities have the city take care of it and and figure out how they're funding it so this could be a component of that I would just um caution against lowering it because if we do depending on the path we go we might have to increase it shortly after that if we say we're going to just charge fors HOAs though are um so for instance we we've done an overlay um a taxing district overlay over the newer HOAs so if they don't um maintain their ponds we can go in and do it and then special assess those properties so that's one thing but the other thing is maybe what we need is a long a longer term big picture plan so that we can see because I don't think we want to end up with a million dollars in a fund balance on our storm water fund especially if we're only spending you know 400,000 a year or even less so if I think we should get a bigger picture and I'm fine just leaving it for now but I think maybe during the strategic planning session that's where we maybe do a little deeper dive and take a little bit bigger look and overall a long-term plan because yeah I understand the storm water ponds we own some of those so we're going to have to pay for some of those I get that but um I I just kind I have a issue when we have nearly $900,000 just sitting there so we have been on the other side of the coin where I can remember 10 12 years ago we had like 50,000 in the fund and the state auditor would say your storm water fund is is uh very low you know so we need to figure out what is a good balance for that fund you know is it a million dollars or is it 500 so I think we we should maybe um look at that and see what would be a good fund balance um in fact we should do that for all of our fund balance Bal es um not just for our general fund we have a policy for our general fund but I think we should have a fund balance policy for all of these is is this something that we would call other cities that are around the water I mean is this mostly a water a community that has a lot of water and Marsh and wetlands or is this all cities have big oh yeah I I can answer that all cities over I think it's 2500 people have an ms4 permit that they that they have to manage themselves we had we have one um and that's where most of the money goes into is managing that and the requirements related to some of those best management practices so most every city in the in in the state has to have some sort of state water or storm water plan um the cities over 2500 have a little bit more robust is there a way for you to see that without calling them up and saying tell me how much you have in your budget you know oh yeah I mean we can we can look at that it it varies though from Community to community they might they might have a lot somebody might have a lot more storm water projects than we have um right or L I think it's a good idea to velop a fund balance policy that gives us some guidance and and some some you know but just know that you know we might have you know one year we might have a $700,000 project and deplete it and then we have to figure out we want to kind of balance it out so we don't have a huge increase after that big project to get us back up to that fund balance that's why a long range plan is also we want to kind of normalize it so we can do that definitely um okay here he's already taken notes of all the future storm water projects that he's gonna do well it looks like we got a lot of them on too pricey head of Egan's surface waterram and you know that they do spend quite a bit on that and that's just the city just does it and it's kind of part of their you know service so they tax according okay any other questions or comments I mean and for this is not directly this but like you know how we pay a third out of storm water sewer and water for for this replace the truck if we have tons in this balance could we just pay 100% out of this fund for a vehicle if we needed to if potentially if we wanted to allocate it differently especially if it's going to be spending more time in a certain area I think some of it is you know G splits it between multiple funds when how much it's used or whatever but yeah we a lot of the equipment's used between all them yeah no we'd have no problem especially I mean if you really want to look some of the the mini ES that we're looking at is for getting into the backyards um and then housing establish um the neighborhoods so that we can get to the outfalls to do cleaning um we have our big 316 you know we taking that through people's yards that's what we're looking at buying this little mini excavator we're kind of demoing some right now to kind of see what we have I mean that could conceivably you know Brian I can sit down a look at it I mean we have $25,000 into four different funds I mean we could look at upping this you know because it will be used more for this than anything else but yeah I mean we could be way to spend the money that we have but keep you know allocating legitimate just moving it around but like okay this needs this equipment okay like just a can I ask another question of course how how often do you use this kind of Machinery we don't have one right now but we are going to start needing it uh quite a bit because we have quite a few Al Falls that are starting to um build up so what happens is is the you know all the street water you know that fls into our system all that'ss into ponds that are you know in backyards so that's where this is going to come into play where we have to get in there and start cleaning them out we have uh a lot of substantial tree growth uh starting around them we have a lot of Delta starting to form the pipe itself is starting to back up with sediment leaves and that stuff so that's where this is going to come in really handy we're we have quite a list of them to do right now already so it'll be it'll be used a lot especially what's nice now with the street projects getting done we don't have to spend three months during the summer patching so we have other opportunities now to you know you know to buy this equipment and do other projects which is really going to be nice for us well that's a good point because then if there's more activity in storm water you'll see more expense allocated to the fund too Gary says there's more opportunity in time so right that's you know there's just been some es and flows over the years based on public works deal I mean if that builds up and then goes into streams or LCT really damages it's really a water quality issue for our LS too okay all right sounds good we'll leave it leave it as is yes okay thank you all right so the next one is the recycling fund and this one has a different Trend you'll see that the cash balance is going down not up so and that was planned and based on what our our fund balance at the time you know from a few years ago and and that the waste management contract especially in the first year back in 2020 21 had really taken a big jump based on market conditions at the time so um what you'll see in and in um we've had some plary discussions with Waste Management seeing the contract ends in August of 2025 that they said they'd be compl discussion be willing to keep the rate the same for the first year and then just do some maybe 4 I think like 4% increases after that so there shouldn't be any this last 5year contract had some drastic changes to it based on um the big back in 2020 like no one wanted to take recycling or you know there was a lot of different uh I guess um you where Waste Management's cost went way up there I guess all providers of the service went way up they gave us a really good deal for so long it was actually and that was part of it too we had some you know our our rate was really good for a long time so it was multiple s that pushed us that we had to have a really big increase and um so we didn't want to pass on and do like a $5 increase you know per quarter in a year back then which really our rate went up about 5% so we were doing you know a dollar a dollar 50 to try to get it caught up and if um you can see I guess on page eight where our balance now was about at 75,000 you know a point in time with our um recycling rate being at $14 a quarter right now so if you go to page nine I've ran a couple different scenarios where you can see the cost of the contract in a monthly basis is you know basically you know 579 so obviously you can see we're subsidizing or you know we're using fund balance you know because the uh that's $17 a quarter you know 1737 and we're charging 14 so you can see the the trend has been coming down um so I guess I ran a couple different scenarios where we you know would either increase at a150 quarter for each of the next two years to get it to, 1550 and then 17 you obviously we look at it every year otherwise the um the second one on page 10 I I just did a $2 increase in the first year to get 16 and then 17 in the second year fund ends up in a little better financial position and then the nice thing is we're almost basically right to you know by getting to 17 we're you know pretty much matched up with the contract then finally um based on with hopefully not going you know we're still being above break being being a positive cash fund balance and not going negative or whatever so um I don't know if anyone has any real preferences to doing a150 versus $2 dollar next year I mean I don't some ways I it's better to keep in an even dollar amount and go 16 or 15 or whatever and we've done you know so you're saying 17 will get us even and we're 14 right now yeah we're at 14 right now so yes yeah if we want I mean yeah I guess I didn't propose jumping it from 14 to 17 seeing especially seeing Waste Management says they'll keep it's $12 a year if it's an increase of $3 yeah I mean it really in the grand scheme of things isn't a big difference it's more been I don't know whe you know perception of it I guess yeah the dollar increase is really nothing percent is it's so small or whatever so um I yeah I guess that would be I mean I guess at some point we're running out a fund balance to spend down you we're you know 75 50 you know you know 35 that whether yeah what do we want the ending cash balance to be that's all it comes down to right yeah I mean it would be nice to probably I mean I guess if we go to page um 11 here you know we're spending about you know 250 275,000 a year and you can see up above we're we're collecting you know we've been collecting 220 2 you know 225 or whatever so you can see that's why we've been spending down the cash balance I mean from a pure Financial perspect respective it would be nice just to get to 17 this year and you'd pretty much be at where the contract's at right now right um so that would be even better and it sort of hold us more in that you know 50 to 60 to 70 hopefully versus you know dropping down to 25 to 30 um right okay all right how many are for 15 how many are for 16 how many are for 17 I I will say last year around the exact same time this discussion and we did the 14 agreed to the $4 and then the1 1550 for next year which would be, 15550 now so if we want to go with what we voted on last year and hold that the 1550 would make sense so I like round numbers 16 yeah that's why I guess I sorted 16 just I'd be good with 16 16 Peter there wouldn't be any sudden draw on this balance would there I mean I don't shouldn't know shouldn't be shouldn't be I mean most the only thing is um do we know for sure from henen County that we're going to get the amount that we we have pretty steady I know at first I know I think they've been slightly decreasing it based on the push for more Organics but I think they've been they haven't drastically okay cut that or whatever I think last year yeah we were at I think I've built in even a little bit in case they reduce it a thousand or two but we've still been getting 16 17,000 from the county um so right yeah I guess 16 and 16 16 16 thank you all right okay we'll go with that and then yeah we should still be good and then hopefully if we'd get to 17 or 18 the next year we pretty much would be back at where a contract is and stuff and cover just for curiosity what's the overtime that's paid for out of this account oh it would be like um a cleanup day and stuff so some of that's our staff time and stuff so yep all right so then I guess the last um fund that is in there which we really don't have any rates to sit or anything it's more probably of an informational item is just the uh the cable fund um you can see with some of the obviously we've you know done the contribution to the Broadband project over the last couple years and and we've you know uh done some different improvements in the chambers I guess and or ongoing right out it's an improvement but yeah it should it's wor good so yeah we might we might see more coming into the cable if midco gets more new yeah B customers that do cable I mean we don't know so yep yeah I guess help to me if they switch it's just a wash right or whatever it's a wash it is yeah they did I think they're they're now serving 500 residents or so maybe a little bit more that could potentially sign up for video that didn't have that once we get the franchise agreement approved which should be the agenda on the 18 okay yeah and I was going to say there there were you know 520 homes in that North West section of Ben Trista that had nothing so now if they are able to have cable I would think some anyway would take on but it won't be huge amounts but something so if if anything it'll you know instead of losing 5% a year we might lose it might go down 3% or 2% aw but optimistically we hope it goes up to 3% right okay so ultimately probably something we might have to look at even I mean obviously each year with the the budget if whe if we have to even allocate salaries a little differently between the general fund and the cable fund and and even and pay for some improvements out of more of our Capital Improvement equipment fund versus the cable fund there'll be different right I guess things we'll have to look at to match up to what our you know ultimately we've been getting about 50,000 or so in a uh Revenue or you know 45 to 50,000 from franchise fees and uh that's what we basically will have to sort of spend out of that fund and okay adjust from there so if anyone has any questions but otherwise that's yeah not one we have much control over except on the expense side really I guess so and do we get the peg fees so we get those as well franchise yeah I think for a while they were going I mean that was years ago for the improvements that were done right back in the day but yeah now they all come hearing I'm aware of all right any other questions all right then um now we have we can go to our close session we want to close the doors if you want to do a motion do a motion read okay about why we're closing it and then then we'll close it and I'll turn the audio off and then we can proceed um so the city council will hold a closed session pursuant to Minnesota statute section 13 d05 subdivision 3B to discuss matters protected by the attorney client privilege relating to the pending litigation matter before the head of County District Court entitled Smith and visy versus e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e --------- ##VIDEO ID:H_KlFfaY9Ts## not recording yet we still have a minute oh we can always add it okay we have 7 o'clock so I'm going to call the meeting to order and this is the uh city council meeting for Minista October 21st 2024 A first order of business I'd like to ask that you join me in Pledge of Allegiance Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible withy and justice for all so welcome everyone that's here this evening and also for those of you later on joining us uh watching us on YouTube um I'm Lisa whan I'm the mayor and to my left our council members Kathleen rkin Anne McGregor Peter vicory and Claudia Lacy and then also with us this evening our staff is uh Gary Peters who is our director of Public Works and city clerk is an meeroff off and next to me um to my right is our city administrator Jasper kral Brian Grim is our finance director Sarah Cala is with Kennedy and Graven and she is our attorney and then on the end we have our deputy chief Craig Squires so again welcome everyone we have some special people with us this evening but first we're going to um approve the agenda are there any changes or additions to the agenda hear none is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented so moved thank you Miss Lacy is there a second second thank you Mr Vic any further discussion hearing none all those in favor signify with i i all those opposed motion passes 5 so again uh like I said we have some special people here this evening we're going to start out with our Henman County Assessor assessors of Josh Hogan and Kevin wi we know Kevin for has been around for many years so you're not a new face H Josh you are so thank you please come forward and we're um anxiously awaiting your report thank you madam mayor members of the council again my name is Josh hogland County Assessor Kevin is here for all the hard questions just to be clear right we're just going to go through briefly a little bit of you know what we do um how we kind of fit into the process and then we'll talk a little bit about you know some of the different growth statistics related to the assessment for 2024 pable 2025 just make sure we got this figured out okay close enough um so there's several different uh components to the budget process the assessor is is one of them what Kevin and I do for a living our responsibility is determine the market value of each property in the county in the city of Minista and then also determine the state classification based on a property's use that that's what determines the tax rate um and then each uh taxing Authority such as the city or the county or school district will set their levies and their budgets um once all of that is figured out at the end of the year when when the final budget is approved in December that information then goes to the county auditor to calculate how taxes are are basically allocated to each property throughout the county throughout each taxing Authority and then the County Treasurer is responsible for collecting all of that and then Distributing it out to the the different authorities specifically to what we do um assessors uh assessors are statutorily required to have specific training much of it from the Department of Revenue we're also governed by the State Board of assessors and our our licensing requirement uh for instance County Assessors required to have the highest level of of of Licensing to even have the position um our process very briefly right now I always like to start with wherever we are we are in the point of the process ev's probably collecting new construction so anybody that's pulled a permit with the city Uh Kevin taking a look trying to figure out what new value might be attributable to those new improvements uh and then establishing that for the next year's assessment pretty shortly here we're going to start tightening the screws on the 2025 assessment for taxes payable in 2026 uh once we go through that process that's kind of a lengthy process pretty much re re resolves about the month of February we send valuation notices in March people call us and tell tell us how great we did um or not and then we go through that process a lot of those conversations are are kind of explaining what the process is that we undertake throughout the year and some of the the requirements that we have are a lot about sales and and value what contributes to Value those sorts of things and then the city man Trista has opted for what's called an open book meeting it's somewhat of an informal option for appeal at the local level if the taxpayer is not satisfied at that level then we'll get into a County Board of appeal which is a little more formal it's at the county level there's still a a a third party body that makes a decision and then we get back into collecting data in the summer months uh we target uh market value 100% of market value on January 2nd um that's our statutory uh uh responsibility the uh statute also requires us to look at all properties in a jurisdiction within five years we break that up into what we call a quintile 20% of each each City basically in a given year um and then the Department of Revenue conducts what they call a sales ratio analysis and you may be familiar the sales ratio analysis starts so for the 2024 assessment that sales ratio study periods started on October 1st 2022 and ended on September 30th 2023 that that's basically the stretch of sales that the Department of Revenue used to grade how well we did our job January 2nd still our our Target that's to see if we're kind of within a range the henpen county targets 95% the Department of Revenue requires us to be within a a range of 90 to 105 um as far State classifications this is what determines the tax rate for each property there's five major classifications residential um that's three units or less we have agricultural we have commercial industrial and uh utilities excuse me and then we have Apartments the class four has a lot of miscellaneous type stuff that's where where you'll find seasonal Lake seasonal Lakes Shore restaurants seasonal marinas there several different types of property but it's primarily for apartments four or more units and then the fifth class which we do not have in henin county is unmined ore and everything else they do have a catchall specifically to the 2024 assessment this is countywide data and this is net of new improvements so this is kind of looking at what did the market do throughout the County Agricultural we had a 2.4% growth we actually saw a downturn at 5.1% down commercial negative 2.7% uh industrial we were up 3.1% and res potential was effectively flatted about 0 4% uh little bit of a an advertisement we have a annual assessment report that we advertise each year in March if you ever curious what's going on in the city of Minnetrista you can certainly take a look at that and see what growth is occurring out here or change the next is the same numbers in the 2024 column but a comparison comparison against the prior two years uh change statistics um I'll spare reading those out to you but and that's countywide this is countywide which is a great segue to the Minista specific data um the this is basically the same report um the three years leading up to the 2024 pay 25 agricultural is at 2.4% uh commercials at 18.2% which actually this is net so it's actually under probably under reported here based on uh your new project on Highway 7 there there's additional commercial that wouldn't be included in this because it's new Improvement and then apartment show 0% that's also like I said net because all of the apartment value in the city is new Improvement for the 24 assessment uh industrial we're up six% and then residential is pretty consistent with the countywide stat at 6% this next slide is specific to single family this is just a heat map uh by jurisdiction showing what each uh each uh city did throughout the county you can see countywide 6% you can see minist is at the 0.5 there in the bottom left corner and the red indicates negative uh change the next slide is the exact same type of a mat the biggest difference here is this is actual this actually gross growth so this is going to include new construction so you can see a lot of the the orange red more yellows areas of the county that are seeing a lot of growth with new housing stock um and then the blue is negative value turn change I kind of show the breakdown here between Minneapolis and all the subbs next couple of slides are just showing a comparison against Lake minetonka communities minist is kind of in the middle there off lake6 on lake4 across the two and then you can take a look at how that compares against some of the other communities on the lake then to put that into further perspective this is the the median home values for the last three in each of those communities so it's interesting you don't have Victoria on there because it's not all in hopan County yeah right Y and this is the last slide this this is just to show uh what the Homestead market value exclusion looks like as a total of of all estimated market value in the county um you can see let's just do countywide at the bot pay 2023 so that was a 22 assessment we're at about 1.28 6% %c excluded from the total residential market value uh we had a pretty Monster growth here within there that that number dropped pretty substantially to 7 77% and then we had a legislative change that changed the calculation for Homestead market value exclusion which is why we see it brought back up for the pay 2025 to that 1.46 five the legisl previously the Homestead market value exclusion capped out at a value of $413,500 and in the 2023 leg legislative session they changed that to $57,200 which uh basically excluded an additional almost $2 billion from the overall County tax base or value base could you explain that a little bit more so how how does that work then U that one say one point whatever is excluded from being taxed and then the 99% or 98 is taxed is that so um when a property's homesteaded they qualif ify for an exclusion in in statute and there's kind of a math equation that um if the property is valued I believe 95% that's when the the the exclusion maxes out and then it's basically kind of a slow burnout from that $95,000 in estimated market value up to the the 57200 at 51700 there's there's zero exclusion so for instance this is not going to be the correct math but if a property is worth $250,000 a portion of that 250 is basically going to be excluded from the tax calculation so they're actually going to be taxed on a reduced number you could see the rise in percentage of total that was primarily a product of a legislative change last year okay thank you they probably did that because of inflation and because of Home pricing going up and so on because I think that 4113 or whatever it was um had been around for quite a while 20 years yeah yeah y it was about 20 years when uh when the homestead credit was created the math really didn't change so okay there is a deeper description of see the sales books that we send out in the spring there's there there will be a graer okay you works [Laughter] okay okay how many adjusters or appraisers adjusters appraisers um would take on Minista um as far as res Kevin it's pretty much a while I have for the Quin tile or the when you do that just want you're doing all the houses there some exceptions to that or crunches whatever P somebody pick up a little bit of slack for me but said there's nobody on Earth who has seen the properties in your city well he's been around a long time because I actually called and they said there were 10 appraisers in a certain area and nine of them weren't from this area I thought how would they be qualified to get age how much a property should go up does that sound crazy a just kind of looking on a computer and Street sing City several times over over my um and so it's not any you know any qu qualified appraiser is going to be out the streets learning the nuances and talking to taxpayers and finding out why this and that may affect value doing appeals digging into the data and digging into the characteristics of the city and houses and whatever might be Cas might affect value of the jobs just to try to make sure that we're valuing what's actually there in more no less Trea everybody the same like their tax they should know that only their fair share and so are all the neighbors I probably get a bigger percentage than you might guess of of not so much concerned about I'm not people saying I don't care so much about my own value I just want to make sure my neighbors paying their so is the entire job fa and Equity else that I've been here doing it for this many years but um if I take over a new city like when we took over St Bonnie within a couple of years I had it pretty well nailed down over other cities days process over so when you say take how many cities do you have right now I'm back I'm G to be back down to three SOA you're you personally are doing all of homes in every one of these cities you don't have any other appraisers or adjusters not not I'm the leader Appraiser for for I have been Appraiser for Spring Park Minista in St Bine for seven or eight years all all those together I've had Spring Park on and off a couple different times where somebody else wanted different project um was the one that I don't want to let go off because say I've kind of watched the draw my over the [Laughter] years long as long as I keep winning that battle with my managers princi um that's hopefully that'll be the case but we take over we taking over other cities uh right now now handle everything on a few years ago we didn't so um yeah thank you thank you maybe to add a little bit said we have 34 appraisers on the entire staff and if you know two years ago we we got bombarded by phone calls because the value increases and in those scenarios we did have to bring in staff from other locations that maybe weren't getting as many phone calls to assist with some of those conversations that's I would average Maybe 110 calls a year and you have reviews to do on 30 or 40 of them um that year I had 350 calls just fromista plus my other cities and so no I couldn't handle I was one of those calls and you all were delightful do you change any uh uh value if say the house is wellmaintained versus not so wellmaintained yeah that's part of why why we need to look at them in person as much as we can um because that changes what we What's called the effective age of the house and changes the depreciation um simple example you have two identical houses next door to each other and they were built you know 5 years apart and they're otherwise you know twins one of them's Got 5 years worth of wear and tear on that it's depreciated more and that shows up in the appreciation rates that we apply and and those are developed based on analysis by our data people of of sales of white houses all over the county so so yes if so if a house has particular deficiency of some kind um sometimes I see myself sometimes it's brought to my attention when somebody calls for a review no way I can sell it for this and I get out I oh man I got some issues here that have a cost c number um maybe it's $20,000 for re uh for installing grain tow or something um we make an adjustment for that and then the problem was corrected and we put the value back again once this C same way we address somebody putting in an an addition on your house whole house isn't effectively 1850 house if it's at a um had an addition put on last year it's effectively somewhat newer than average is a little bit newer than changes the depreciation curve do bring it up the brand new house light Brands it up somewhat and then we apply similar logic when there's you know like a whole house remodel or something like that try it's all it's all to try to just match what what houses actually do sell for what people what R willing buyers and sellers are agre for PR do you uh collaborate at all with our inspectors or uh I talk to Robert Robert a lot and Ryan once in a while Robert and I email I email him a questions all the time and then I'm in there of course looking a new construction you know pulling plans bringing blueprints back to my office to draw them up before I go to see them in the field um or once in a while just calling to say I see something going on at this house you have a permit on because I haven't seen anything about it I don't get surprised very often but once in a while I do come across something going on that looks like it ought to have a perent it doesn't so you let I don't care whether I don't personally care whether it does or not um it doesn't affect whether whether I value it or not is um the value changes if somebody does like a kitchen remodel they may not need to pull permit to change cabinets it's not necessarily require a permit if there's no Plumbing change change but that doesn't mean would sell you bring it to Robert's attention I'll still I'll still address it and Robert may may or may not okay anything else that you wish to share uh just any questions from you generally home values what are you seeing happening in the market today just kind of General again um we're in the early stages of of starting to analyze that for the 20 25 assessment I would say generally speaking we're not going to see 20% increases like a couple years ago but it's a little bit of a mixed okay I think it's a little bit dependent on the location for the most part probably in that half to percentage range up more of a mixed bag some places where it's actually showing signs that it might slide just a little bit in certains and bays and other areas where it's where I'm still you know seeing 15 20% under what they're selling for um so but interest is always like get get pushed up by purchases and right people then start I can't afford that so they go look over in this other ble terms like that and just real quick a real quick question um so if you don't m u hit that 90 percentile then um let's you're under it what happens then so uh in May the Department of Revenue runs those ratio reports based on what we come up with for the 20 for instance the 2025 assessment if we're below 90% let's say in the city of Minnetrista then the commissioner of Revenue acts as the State Board of Equalization and can increase the entire City's assessment 5% increments okay so for instance if we're at 89.9% the city will be at 94.9% based on that action um I don't think we've ever I don't think it's ever happened right I it's just good to know because I think a lot of people think oh you know I don't raise my value and and yet I know that you have to be equal across the board and also have to keep an eye on that 90 percentile so you're not undervaluing um properties too so all right how much of the gigantic increase in property value had to do with you know fixing properties in Minneapolis and but needing more tax dollars to address the decline of Minneapolis I don't that doesn't really impact anything we're we're looking at the sales activity specific to the jurisdiction and then responding to that our ratio I'm sorry our ratio study is actually just the city of Min that's what we're great thank you what what has happened or what did happen um is when all of the commercial properties in Downtown Minneapolis took a nose dive then what happens is the Residential Properties had to pick up a larger portion of that and those communities that had higher valuations or or increased valuations actually ended up in in essence picking up more of those tax dollars I mean that's that's just how it works but so all right thank you very much um thank you for taking your time coming out and I know we'll see you again so thank you thank you Kevin thank you all right and so next we have um Michael Kirkwood with us um he is um the city's representative to the lmcd Lake minona Conservation District um just kind of FYI there's 14 cities that surround Lake min conka so there's 14 members on the lmcd board and each city has a representative and Michael has been our representative for a number of years I want to say thank you thank you and thank you because it's a lot of work there's a lot of meetings and there's committee meetings and we really really appreciate your service thank you enormous power thank you Michael thank you all U Madame mayor council members um I was just going to highlight a few of the things that were going on that would be relevant to this city and some questions and issues that we have um you're familiar with the save the lake fund which was a fund that started back actually when pretty much when lmcd started it was a designed to generate Revenue um to support improvements around the lake U we've been using it in the past for uh different kinds of um equipment for fire departments and police departments that they'd be able to find you know lost people in the lake and whatever so it's been very useful kind of purposes uh about three years ago a couple of the members of the board were concerned about not having adequate um water Patrol protection for the lake and so they decided to to they raised some funds the first couple of years and then we that ended so now we were looking at trying to find $95,000 to support two additional water officers on the lake and the donations this year are down to around $30,000 so we're we're stretching and scratching our heads as to how to get that back in there but from the water Patrol perspective it it it's a significant concern normally there would be eight full-time year round deputies spread over four separate shifts we have a ninth Deputy apparently will be starting in 2025 but that's basically on a regular duty cycle that's two deputies covering 104 County lakes and three rivers and historically one has been assigned to Lake minaka which makes its pretty Limited coverage um for a true Water emergency it can take a deputy 10 minutes to get on scene in normal circumstances sometimes they can do it in less than five so um we have we've uh we granted them $95,000 three years ago or two years ago excuse me in order to get two extra deputies on the lake uh daytime and into about two in the morning uh this last year the actual cost for that was $76,000 um so this donation begging model which historically we've had has made several of us uncomfortable that it is um very unreliable and it may not get us the spending that we need so we haven't given it up yet we're still having another campaign coming out you'll see it probably by email in the near future that says we want to again continue to raise money for two more officers uh but the question has been raised should we be going back to the cities for kind of a notion of an additional kick on the on the assessment uh to support the police officers that might add to minri maybe five to $6,000 on your current assessment which I think is around 30 35,000 it hasn't been decided yet but it's been talked about so we're we're trying to focus on the safety perspective of appreciated this panel in the past has given me kind of positive perspectives on the idea that safety is something that you are concerned about and believe in and a stop sign is as important as a water patrol officer from time to time so that's kind of where that stands were no final answers yet but we're looking at trying to address that um solar lights in the past came out of the save the lake fund and now we've made that a actual part of the line item budget because we thought that was pretty important as well so maintaining the solar lights uh and that's about $5,000 a year so it really helps people navigate on the lake at night and avoid collisions and so on uh questions anytime let me know but votes for higher we've had individuals were advertising their very expensive boats for hire on the lake to make a few dollars on the side in order to help cover the costs and those things and some of the issues that come out of that was they were most of them were not going through the water patrol inspection process and safety upgrades so there were some risks in that environment um they in some cases were picking up and dropping off people at private residences which make the neighborhood looked like a business site and that was a concern for a number of people so uh they've been excuse me executive director and the staff have been creating uh new requirements for licensing for those who would want to rent their boats uh and there are some restrictions as to depending on the size of the boat to what they need to do to be qualified to be a rental boat on the lake um we provide as you know some seed funding for Lake water Improvement projects brought To Us by the volunteer Bay associations I think Harrison Bay was one that you've worked with in the past so we're still have some funds available for doing that uh we've been spending a lot of time in the last few months investing in website improvements to make it an easier search function and updating contents in the past year all of our relevant past legal documents have been scanned and we'll be cross referenced online we we had one of those horrible situations where someone was going to sue us and demanded all the paperwork from Time Zero that was a huge project although did get to looking into a lot of boxes and throwing things away we didn't need anymore so there was a major clean up from that process as well but but now that we have um uh are making everything online on the website so it's a lot easier to find the historic documents uh we saw a wonderful and scary electric water safety presentation there's apparently an expert who's from this area who was talking about how many deaths have been not necessarily on Lake minaga but in the country from electrocution uh on homeowners on the shores if someone falls into the water and there's a electrical leak somebody will stop swimming and nobody knows why so someone jumps in to save them and now you've got two victims or or the fire department comes and they're at risk so this if you have anybody who lives on the lake with wiring down to their dock you would encourage them to go to the website and take a look at the safety guidelines for electricity on the water because it was a surpris uring surprising presentation I thought uh let's see here wgbs last next to the last one wgbo studies are proceeding Across the Nation on the impact of prop wash not only creating wiges but now they're also finding that it's scouring bottom of the lake stirring up all the sediment and creating problems in that regard so a lot of other uh excuse me states have been doing some some studies in that area uh and we're still waiting for results from the University of Minnesota St Anthony Falls research Center on the impacts through the water column and the lake Bottom from Wake bolts which are have a incredible thrust to stir up the bottom so that may at some point require us to establish some procedures we put a 350 fot setback on the lake rule two years ago and I would ask Claudia if she's seen it en forc it all in her neighborhood I'm not seeing it in mine so it's a challenge uh for the water Patrol to to enforce that at a level that makes it difference but it's available uh if we need to and people have been stopped for that uh lastly as you may or know we have had an interim director for the last year year and a half who is fabulous unfortunately he's 83 and we're losing him oh wait wait Marvin Johnson is 89 and he was still the mayor in Independence so Jim vme can stick around a while longer right Kirk was have been here 30 years too and he's no chicken either oh well we're hoping that he'll hang on as long as possible because in more ways than more ways than cop him on this right right but he's been an outstanding resource to the board with deep knowledge professionalism he'll likely stay to late winter of 2025 and then a search for replacement would be going on although there's some debat as do we want a fulltime person do we need a full-time person so there's going to be that discussion too he's hired coach the very effective staff that's working right now um so that concludes my thank you I don't have a I do have two questions question um one would you ever consider deputizing people that wanted to volunteer there are volunteers that that's what I want to know about Sheriff Department well volunteer drive out and go you're an hour past jet ski here's a giant fine I love fines um I would invite you to have that conversation with the water Patrol see what they say but uh they do have volunteers the the they used to have volunteers one the other things they pointed out to us is that at one time they had eight or nine Volunteers in the last couple years they only had one or two okay but I don't think um that they can um issue citations say they can maybe issue warnings or tell people what they're doing wrong I don't think I think it's similar to the police department they they can't issue citations but but but maybe we need to get J so I'm all for business business people doing enjoying the lake life but the jet skis that are being rented um are being rented jusis are powerful dangerous scary things and they're being rented to people without any classes they get on these things that go 60 miles an hour and many times they're out one hour past the deadline it's dark and I watch it every night in front of you know I watch it on the lake and and we are out there just beside our and by the time we call they're gone yeah and it's constant so I I don't know what you know you talk about it's just a very prevalent constant issue and I know that they're attending to it as best they can they've the the water Patrol people I've talked to are very frustrated by what's going on over at Surfside yeah as where they're launching from there and they are coming out they're coming out from all over all over the city no experience on the water I had one fall off in front of my house they couldn't swim to shore we're out there throwing things for them and it happens probably lots of places on your side as well so and it's it's every Lake um and so really I think it needs to be addressed at the state level and they need to make it mandatory that they have to um get licensed or have some kind of training before taking these these a boat or a jet ski out because it's dangerous or even you know Governors on the speed yeah um yeah because you know when kids were we had Governors on them and they couldn't go faster than 25 miles an hour yeah and there is a law that's passed it now everybody has to be licensed take a class in any boat okay going forward next year starts that process I think unless you're a certain age well uh no it's my understanding is it's any age okay and that's partly so that when people come from other states right go to a resort rent a boat the boat renting people will know they have some basic knowledge knowledge okay let them be short of that but yeah so if um anybody in the city has issue or has questions regarding the lmcd they should contact you right sure not okay all right thank you very much thank you yeah really appreciate it all right next we move on to persons to be heard uh we don't have anybody signed up we do have it um bill right you will you have questions regarding the feasibility because I'll give you an opportunity then if you have questions okay all right so we're going to move on then um to um our consent agenda items and uh giving you an opportunity if you wish later um so consent agenda are there any you wish to remove otherwise they consist of a approve our work session meeting minutes from October 7th 2024 B is approve our city council regular meeting minutes from October 7th 2024 C is approve a conditional offer of employment for Community Service Officer Caleb vanderplas and D is approve a parking lot use agreement with the West hunka recreational Association an e is a resolution to approve claims and F is a resolution approving the Henman County mitigation Plan update any questions hearing none is there a motion to approve consent agenda items a through F so moved thank you Miss rkin is there a second second thank you Miss McGregor all those in favor signify with i i i all those opposed motion passes by vote we have no public hearings this evening so we will move on to our business item which consists of our street Improvement project for 2025 and Emily Brown is with us this evening with wsp good evening and welcome thank you very much Madame mayor members of the city council I'm here for the 2025 uh Street Improvement project for the city uh so just a little background uh we looked at three areas for this year Street project that's windbridge Trail Pine Circle and the Trillium area that includes Trillium Lane West Trillium Lane East and Trillium way uh the city initially evaluated these streets and then pavement cores were also taken looking at the existing conditions you can see the pictures here on the screen Pine Circle was originally built in 1973 it's experienced alligated cracking and po holes tril Mar was built in 1994 asphal has been losing bond with its Aggregates this is really apparent in the coring that we took um I know that there's been uh a lot of people will visually inspect that surface and think that it's a reasonable driving service but you look down at the cores and it's debonding from the top surface which shows uh strain that's really getting in and then the water will go beneath the surface and start really breaking up that top layer over time so that's why uh the street was included in the street project and then Windridge Trail was built in 9 1995 uh the base layer has shown failure on the cores that we uh we took uh so we are proposing full depth Reclamation on each of these streets that includes pulverizing the existing pavement surface into the aggregate surface below what this creates is a aggregate material that can be compacted and used as the base layer for the new pavement section so essentially this machine that you see on the screen grinds up the existing pavement with the aggregate layer below that creates like a gravel-like surface it's recompacted um in place and then uh Paving crew comes and paves in new pavement section over the top of it uh so as far as the street improvements we're not proposing any Lane widths or Street widths um we'll match as closely as we can with the existing grades Match Into driveways things like that there have been are that were identified as holding water will make um improvements to remove any areas that are are low or holding water showing ponding things like that um we'll be doing spot curb and gutter repair in the Trillium area again to try and get after those curv sections that are cracked or holding water and then we're looking at uh a 1ot aggregate s shoulder on Windridge for Pine Circle we looked at the existing culdesac Island that's been a maintenance issue for the city staff so we're proposing two different options for the council to consider uh one option would be to remove the uh the culdesac island and pave it uh so it' be entirely a PVE surface the other option would be to reconstruct the cues culdesac Island to existing um or current standards that would include installing curban Gutter and putting a median nose on the end uh that would help U reduce any sort of plow collisions that would happen in the winter do those would you have to remove the trees then too um the the tree uh we' have to look at that in the field giving that it's so close to the edge of the pavement it was likely be that the tree would be removed okay okay's not in yes the the fencing would come down and that could be reinstalled after project depending on what the city's why is there fencing there I assume it's an aesthetic thing looks like there's some um uh edging there so maybe there was an additional Landscaping under the do you remember when the family came they like that Island I remember kids there and it slows people down and they really like it I'm just confused about the fencing uh for utility improvements we're looking at installation of in ey and ey barrias glow in infiltration and areas that have none this is exclusive to Pine Circle Trillium area has already had these inii barriers installed uh there's also a leaky valve that would be repaired with the project that's a Trillium way and Trillium Lane that intersection uh so the proposed costs for these improvements the surface improvements uh range from 1.4 mil10 th000 to 1.4 million 17,000 the difference in that is related to the Pine Circle Island uh the lower cost would be Paving over the island the higher cost would be reinstating it with the the new curb section sanitary sewer improvements are estimated at 32,000 uh water main improvements are estimated at 177,000 uh that would bring the project total cost to approximately 1,460 th000 uh the city Minista assessment policy um uh excuse me properties are assessed in accordance with the city's assessment policy and um Minnesota State Statute 429 historically properties have been assessed roughly 50% of the project cost uh in 2022 the city did a special benefit analysis and at council's directions assessments are proposed to be capped at $10,000 per unit uh project cost when I refer to that it related to the surface and storm improvements it does not include the sanitary and water uh improvements those are paid for by the city 100% there are hardship deferrals available for senior citizens disabled persons members of the National Guard or military res reserves and payments are typically issued on a 20-year period uh assessment questions can be directed to Brian Grim uh for those uh that would have further questions so for proposed assments uh Windridge T um met that threshold for $110,000 so that is what is proposed per unit on Ridge Trail Pine Circle the assessment range between uh $8,100 and $8,700 per unit uh 8,100 would be in association with removing the culdesac and Paving it 8700 would be associated with reinstating it with curb Trum area assessments are estimated to be $9,700 per unit so the total costs and the proposed funding for the project are shown so I have broken out the surface improvements for each area um I should have probably made this clear earlier but each area is assessed for the work on that street uh so windbridge uh is assessed for the Windridge improvements Pine Circle Etc uh so you can see the breakdown of the costs there in addition to the assessments those are based on the assessments on the previous slide uh and as you can see these sanitarian water main improvements are solely the city's responsibility so looking at the project schedule uh right now we are at uh accept P's Bill report and call the public hearing at the council's discretion tonight this October 21st assuming that the council decides to move forward at this point we're proposing the public hearing be on November 18th um at that point uh the council can choose to move forward with plans and specifications we would look to open bids on this project February 5th uh and then the assessment hearing would be early next year construction would be from June to September of 2025 just to be clear the June to September time frame since these are uh three separate project areas it is not expected that construction would last for all areas during this entire time frame it's a window in which construction would likely happen each of the constructed areas would be on a shorter time frame roughly a month to six weeks that's what we're expecting with that I would like to thank the council and I'll stand for any questions you may have okay I think um well questions first and then we'll talk about the um Island um and then also do we talk about assessments tonight do we establish those um Madam mayor thank you um so the feasibility report uh presented the options based on the council Direction provided at the last meeting if the council is comfortable with um that $10,000 cap and the assessments as proposed through here um those are the amounts that we would share with with folks in the um at the public hearing um it does not commit the council to that assessment methodology or those numbers um but at least gives people um both the council and the residents um an idea of what the anticipated costs would be okay all right so if we don't have any questions right now um did you have any questions may just so come to the podium and just state your name and address just for the record and then hopefully we can answer your questions hi I'm Bill Kennedy I live in trillian Bay and I'm president of the HOA um one question I had is as those numbers are being established is is there a correlation between the length of repavement on the roads uh between the various neighborhoods in other words is one of those charges for a net two miles of roadway and another neighborhood might have a mile and a half is that how those numbers are calculated um so it's basically based on the whole project so not um and of course the this the length of the road is going to determine the cost of the project right but um so an assessments are on a per parcel basis not on aage Frontage basis that we determined that many many years ago um I think he's asking whether or not trillion is only paying for trillions Road well kind of I guess uh is the length of the Improvement in one neighborhood based if you know one unit one neighborhood was 2 miles and Trillium was a mile and a half would you assume all things being equal that the charge would be 75% of what the overall bill for the other neighborhood would be assuming that you don't have Gutter and things like that that come into play and and change the number Emily I mean um so the the costs are based on if the the streets are comparable so comparable with compfortable um uh work being done yeah we use similar pricing for each area so that the the cost would be comparable on that manner um that said Trillium is a little bit wider Street than than Pine so there there would be a difference there if we did a per mileage basis the good thing is that because we're going to bid these together um but there're separate projects each area is actually going to benefit from kind of overall having yeah bulk bulk yeah exactly so now the second question I had was um if I recall from the last meeting uh people had the option I think by November of next year once their assessment has been established to pay it in full to avoid any interest charges correct interest charges would be based on what the bonds are put out at uh that would cover that or whatever funding costs would be linked to it well for this one we're not going to do bonding so what we do is we look at the market and we say let's just say interest rates are three and a half% our policy is to do 2% above the going rate so that it covers our costs as well so I'm going to guess I think um for the last year it was five 5% five or five and a half we issued the the other one that we just did it was three and a half% probably going to be around five five and a half% and just to clarify on uh the payoff of uh an assessment I thought I heard at the November meeting that if the homeowner didn't do it by November of 2025 that they wouldn't have an opportunity let's say a year or two later to pay it off no you can't you can't you just can't make any the first year you can make partial payments say if you want to pay from you know five out of the 10 or something okay we' had people do that in the first year but after the first year it has to be paid off in full in the subsequent year by November 15th of that that next year that okay that new amount you know if you've paid one year you know to the county and then there be the remaining 19 years to so if you had a $9,700 assessment somebody wanted to pay 4700 before November then the five would be remaining and would you have to pay that all off or could you pay it that five could then that five would be then the new principal amount that would that initial amount that would go to the county and they the assessment over the 20 years would be on the five for that individual parcel and then they would have the opportunity to pay in full but not they couldn't make any more partial they could make increments okay correct all right thank you those just thank you all right um Council so I think there's a couple questions um we should give people some um idea in terms of what they might might expect for assessment and then also the uh Center Island I I I agree with Claudia we should keep the center Island sorry Gary I just think you know happy happy residence happy life it's not like it's costing 50 Grand more it's $7,000 more seven seven oh yeah 7,000 more to keep it so and so here's here's what I would propose I know you said um can you pull up those numbers for assessments it was 8700 for them just round it up to 9,000 because they're getting their Island and then let's just do 9,000 everybody it this will make it easier yeah I agree what what are you Whispering yeah sorry M mayor the question why would we do that do that when it's I mean I it's only three different amounts it's three different amounts I would say it's if it was like 30 different amounts i' maybe probably agree with trying to win went down but it's it's we did like with lowering Hard Scrabble and storri we had like three Minneapolis we had like three or four different amounts that year I think I think it's fine to do three handle three we can handle it yeah basically I was thinking for the Pine Circle then they would pay a little more to pay for the Centra Island but okay anyhow that was just my thought how much of a loss would that be of assessment because of course the well see well what what is windage without the $10,000 cap oh we calculated it to be over 20,000 Okay so I mean like they're they're all it's pretty good discount real mean yeah and that that that follows what we said at the last meeting of this is what we were going to do seems It's a slippery slope to keep yeah yeah okay bargaining down one Peter okay that's making things easy okay the road budget can I just ask this question on Pine Circle um how many families did we hear from one two about the island yeah we well the one gentleman was here saying that they really wanted to keep it what if we find out that no one really loves it except him and they didn't want to pay the extra 8,000 no they're only paying $600 more oh okay it's only $600 Island it's it's $7,000 for the project $600 per the person no one else wants the Isen do we send do we call him up and say you should talk to all your neighbors and you know because what if we do this for one neighbor put it this way I think if they don't want it that they would have been here saying goad and that's that's my opinion Devil's Advocate they'll get another chance to come in and say we don't want the island before the job is finalized correct yeah there's the public there there will be a at least a couple more touch points plus a public hearing for the assessment so if everyone shows up and only one person wants it then we can always pull it back they have to do plans and specifications that's that's the difference mayor will and if I may I think what might be beneficial is in the special in the public hearing notice um we include the estimated assessment amount and you could indicate that this would be to keep the island in place and that would certainly generate questions if somebody thought well how much is it if it's not um and I'm there isn't that many properties on Pine it's like four five maybe I wanted to say six six I was off by one excuse me to your point it's a very low number and that if we if we indicate that in the um but only to the Pine Circle correct yeah correct because each notice would be specific yeah okay all right sounds good so I think so what the council is saying we're we're good with these assessments all right yeah and um and keep and right now we're looking at keeping the island and you'll send out that notice all right thank you very much and any other questions comments all right with that then um I believe that that is the end of our um yeah we need to receive the feasibility report so that ends our business items except so a motion to uh receiving the feasibility report and then we can do this all together um call for the public hearing and the public hearing will be on thought nov 18 November 18th so is there a motion to that effect so moved thank you m rkin is there a second second thank you Mr vicory any further questions so public hearing November 18th receiving the visibility report all those in favor signify with i i i all those opposed motion passes so that is it thank you very much and we'll move on to administrative items such as the staff reports elections yeah uh and can just give an update about how things have been going with direct balloting which started on Friday so we started Direct balloting on Friday um prior to that we were doing it with the envelopes um since September we processed here in Minista City Hall 462 envelopes that were picked up by hennipin County before on Friday and so then Friday our first day we had 129 voters today we had 83 voters so we're up to 2 12 already in just two days wow using the machine yeah good all right and then we're open um we'll be open from 9:00 to 3 on Saturday October 26th Saturday November 2nd and Sunday November 3rd W okay so and and and that's also on our website those times right and those times are only here at City Hall not at the respective polling places which will be open on November 5th correct thank you all right and I just wanted to thank staff an for being here all those hours there's some additional hours that we didn't we haven't had to do in the past so it's yeah taing on staff for sure giving up your weekend yeah thank you for democracy all right any other staff reports none all right wait wait we have Council staff but since you volunteered to be first Claudia go first um I would respectfully like to ask that we um revisit at the next work session talking about the glesby center I think there was some pertinent financial information that wasn't addressed and shared with you and I think it's worth a little bit more discussion okay um let me first ask staff what do we have on the 18th are we full or do we can we add it there do we want to add it maybe at the December 2nd give me one second I'll this up I don't know the top of my head and I'm fine with December 2nd whatever works okay yeah right right now for the work session on the 18th we have the park dedication and tree replacement budget discussion that's it okay so we'll put it does the council want to have this on the work session for the 18th okay we'll put that on the work session for the 18th thank you all right um anything else um well the Three Rivers Park District did Coring on the wh tail project to see how effective the Alum treatment was so we have they'll give us a report I think at the next okay all right good yeah Lisa and myself and Jasper attended the fire partnership meeting um is that last week or the week before the week before I think or the eth October 8th um it was not much was determined hopefully at the next meeting we decide if we're going to move forward with discussing having a jpa that's literally the update so it's been kind of a slow slow moving process I think to our frustration um we we so here's a thing we you know and that number of reasons why and I'll try and get into it very respectfully because I understand I think Kathleen and I and even Jasper we kind of look at things up here we look at the big picture we we we don't want to get down into the weeds and know all of the little minutia details but there are people that really need that that really need all the little details and they need all kinds of information that may not even be pertinent to it but they want it able to be given this stage and so I think that's what the hang-up is and so we have to be patient and um and we have to kind of allow them to uh go through their process and um and respect that so uh what the previous meeting it had been asked well why don't you tell us what different incremental changes you could make to the existing system that would make it work and both the city um both Chiefs from both um fire departments came back and said here's incremental changes we can make but these are a Band-Aid they are simply a short-term solution they will not be a long-term sustainable organizational uh change or solution and there's going to be cost to those and um in in our minds we're like thinking um we don't want to do a short-term Band-Aid solution we need a permanent big long-term solution and the other some other people felt like they wanted to have the numbers what do the numbers cost for these short-term Solutions and they felt that they couldn't make the next step because they they didn't have their council's approval and so um I just want to make clear here I'm assuming we're all on the same board here and we want to move forward and you are giving us your blessing to make some decisions um at these meetings and then we bring them back to you we get to make a decision we are only going to be making recommendations ultimately and ultimately the cils are going to be making those decisions those final decisions but I think um it's a little slower than we'd like so it's moving forward but um and we're being patient okay all right get it all right um I also attended anything else I will be attending the next one yeah and the mound fire meeting is November 7th which I will be attending okay and then um I also attended um the mayor's um Minnesota Mayors Association meet up last week and it was interesting they actually asked how many people how many mayors were running unopposed and it is amazing there's like more than 50% are running unopposed so we need to get people interested in and it's not just um mayor's positions it's Council positions too you don't like running on a post well very relaxed well okay full disclosure I like running out of PS but there is I mean I don't think that there has ever been an election where there have been so many um positions being unopposed everybody went back to work yeah right yeah maybe so it was just um kind of interesting um and then some really good networking the other thing I just want to kind of um keep your eyes open the U Middle missing housing bill will come forward again um apparently this summer a lot of checks have been passing between lobbyists and elected officials so um just you know campaign contributions so um it's going to be a tough battle um we'll have to keep our eyes on it they don't know for sure yet if it's going to be a bonding year but if it is um um whoever is elected we are going to start lobbying them to go for a bonding Bill immediately because we want some of that money we need some of that money so we will be going after that if they do a bonding bill this year or next year um that's basically it so with that I'm finished and then remember um we have the special meeting for the um uh Camp uh canvasing the um results that's on the 11 12th on the 12th okay and um that's just just for that there won't be anything else on that agenda and I think Kathleen and I will be there and'll be there okay and anybody you can join I mean it's a unless by phone I won't be there okay no that's fine we have three at least yeah um and then of course the 18th is our meeting and then the second um of December will be our last meeting of the year and we'll say goodbye to an yes and then of course December 5th coming up is a fabulous holiday event so um we're looking forward to it it was fabulous last year and it's going to be even more fabulous this year it's going to have fireworks so and we have um we think we have about $10,000 worth of um sponsorships and if you haven't um sponsored yet you're certainly welcome to do so and um like I said last time lifetime is I think so far the biggest sponsor so we want to thank all and we'll be thanking all of our sponsors I think WSB Kennedy and Graven um a2s they are also so big sponsors we want to thank them as well so with that we can be adjourned so moved thank you Miss rkin is our second second thank you Miss McGregor all those in favor signify with i i all those opposed motion passes thank you