##VIDEO ID:pWw47sliuo4## e e e e okay good evening everybody uh we will call to order the regular council meeting Tuesday November 19th 2024 7.m uh we'll do the start with the Pledge of Allegiance if I can get everybody please stand I pledge aliance to theat okay we can get a motion to approve the agenda Mr chair is it appropriate just to mention we're going to move the old business item before new business that is correct so we do have uh an adjustment based on order uh for having old business move directly after reports so we will have a Woody and Verizon tower uh topic um at the end of the reports if I can have a motion for that please I'll make a motion for that I'll second all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed passed uh for the consent calendar uh all matters are listed and if anybody has any comments or questions um please po them now otherwise we can get a motion to approve I'll so move second all those in favor I opposed pass open Forum uh this will be a moment for the public to make comment on uh anything that they would like to discuss um in regards to what we have listed here or not heing none we will close the open Forum uh next we will roll to the presentation from the University of Minnesota extension regarding the local option sales tax report thank you Mr chair um tonight we have um Dei lamir and Eric King here to present to the city um their analysis and findings for the modified local option sales tax report uh this information was requested and evaluated uh simply for the city's benefit of having some data and information um at our hands and kind of relative to our community with respect to if or whenever the council would like to pursue um a local sales tax um as an option for uh future Revenue considerations and um thought it would be a great at least report for you to have for future reference um as I mentioned so with that um DD has uh prepared a short overview for the council just to summarize the findings and if you have any questions for either of them I think they'd be um they'll be ready to to answer them so Dei Eric welcome thank you so much I really appreciate your time today um and Jenny if it's possible to have the share screen turned on um I think we just did that so yes wonderful there um can you see my slide now yes okay perfect so um as Jenny mentioned I am Dei lamir and I am the Regional Community economics and tourism educator that is based out of brainer um so I serve niswa um and um a number of counties in the kind of Northern Lakes area and then my colleague Eric King is also on the call and he'll be joining in for some of the Q&A um but he is also a regional educator but he's based in the Metro and um has led the local option sales tax analysis process with our team um for number of years um so what I have for you today um we've got a few different things to cover I wanted to take a moment to talk about the project itself because it is a little different than a typical um local option sales tax analysis um we'll cover a little bit of the data some of the methodology that's included in the report and then some of the highlights of our findings uh before I go on I also recognize that um I will likely kind of switch into an acronym and so I just wanted to really kind of clarify that um if we're saying lost or if that's included on um the slides it's not that we are lost or anything um but it just is the acronym that stands for the local option sales tax and that's just the the sales tax that can be collected within a geographic area um and so in this case we're talking about um a tax option that you all have as a city so this project um as I mentioned is a little bit different than a typical local option sales tax analysis process and we're really excited to have been able to partner with you on this um the typical like established lost analysis program is a good fit for Mid siiz Cities and larger um because it uses tax revenue data um to calculate projections and so if you have um you know only a couple of businesses within each different category we can't get at the necessary uh kind of refinement to the data in order to make the calculations so in the past a community like niswa would not have been eligible to participate in that kind of established program um when Jenny reached out it actually happened to be really really great timing um to have you express this need that you had for Community because we actually have this like new mobile data that's available um we have a paid subscription we've been working on kind of building our understanding and applying it to Community Development work over the last few years and um it was really a pleasure to be able to collaborate with Jenny on this in order to get some key information to Aid the analysis process and then also some feedback on the material as well to make sure that it's it's relevant and usable for you so you guys are really on The Cutting Edge of a new technology um and are leading the way way to be able to make this material available to other small communities like nisah so when we're talking about this analysis process there are several different components that go into it but we're really kind of trying to estimate you know potential sales versus actual sales we're getting at this this number we're trying to make sure that for you all as Community leaders when you're making decisions about implementing a local option sales taxs that is a defensible number and that we can for sure you know back up what we're sharing with you so that in turn you all can make an educated and informed decision um to support your community and we definitely air on the side of conservative estimates um which have proven to be um successful in the past uh but you'll definitely see that from our from our estimates as well and then we're also kind of looking at some of those like traffic pattern assumptions as well just to double check that we're not uh making too many um assumptions based on the sales tax so when we're talking about potential sales and this is included in the report as well but we're really calculating it using some of the per capita sales in Minnesota and thinking about what are typical trends that we see in sales looking at the population of niswa and also the income and then we're also kind of thinking about okay how are you doing as a community if there's kind of that you know what was the actual of your sales tax versus what maybe the potential was or what we might have expected and where we can help to identify some opportunities or gaps one of the key data components that goes into this process is really thinking about your community context so often I know with niswa you know we're thinking and talking about tourism as part of that context but it's not just that kind of EB and flow of people through your community it's also thinking about your resident Workforce and who's showing up to work in your community there's a great resource that we use on a regular basis through the census called on the map and using that tool we were able to identify that there's approximately um 1,266 people coming into nisada work daily and about 77 that are leaving niswa to work outside of the community and only about um 120 people that are living and working in niswa so this really shows that your community has got um not just those those tourism numbers that we know or have a good idea about um but also that your Workforce uh is coming into the community in in meaningful numbers the primary data for the local option sales tax is coming from the Department of Revenue and this diagram here shows the taxable sales information that we were able to get from the state um over time and so they've grown considerably where it's you know 85 million in 2018 and has grown up to 131 million in 2022 the sales data is only available currently until um 2022 and so as this goes over time you may be able to revisit these calculations using updated numbers but we're really limited to the reporting dates from the state now the sales tax is kind of our core um component that goes into all of our local option sales tax analysis and then um as I mentioned earlier for this one we were able to tap into this new data source um using mobile data um mobile data comes from cell phones so if you are using mapping software um you have data location turned on for different apps on your cell phone all of those things are picking up little bits of information about where you're traveling um in your day-to-day life and then um the software subscription that we use kind of helps gather that from hundred hundreds of different sources to help understand and estimate how many visits are happening at different Geographic locations every day and then some background information from that data as well it should not be construed as being a onetoone count this is not the same as somebody standing outside of a store with a clicker um Counting the individual people coming in that's because it does not include miners so any device that's known to be connected with Miner or um that they can guess based on the usage is connected to a minor would not be included and then um if a visitor didn't have a mobile mobile device with they left their cell phone at home they don't use one they would not be included in that count as well all of that to say though we have been integrating this into a number of our different tools and have found um it'll be some really helpful insight to come from it so I'm excited to share that with you today so two big questions well I'll start with one of the big questions but we were wondering based on those calculations initially what Eric found was that from your sales tax numbers it seemed like wow you guys are H you have way higher revenue for your community than what you would expect based on the number of residents that you have so that leaves us to some questions now we know the community that there's a high volume of Tourism activity so that's not you know cause for alarm but um because of the limited sales tax data available through the state it was important that we find another data source to help support that so what we did was using mobile data we were able to ask okay of all the visits that residents made how do we know like what percentage of their visits to different business categories were in nwap so that we can be thinking about how might a resident be impacted by a local option sales tax like their dollars that they're spending within the city um versus that they're spending outside of the city now keep in mind I don't know if they spent money going to a hotel or grocery store or restaurant but these are categories that are consistent with a traditional um analysis process and we believe that it's a pretty reasonable assumption that if somebody is going to a grocery store or they're going to a gas station they're likely spending some money while they're there and so you can see in the burgundy um on the report that when we looked at just niswa residents that they had a much smaller percentage of their visits to these categories were in niswa than to outside of niswa so for example um of all the residents that visited a restaurant in 2022 12% of those were at restaurants within the city limits of niswa and 87 or almost 88% were outside of the city of nisah so that shows that that your residents in all of these categories are actually more likely to be visiting these categories outside of the city this is a lot do you have any questions about this before I move on to the next piece of this maybe just with all this data the first thing that jumps out to me is how much of this is solely Grand VI Resort from the employees coming in the town you know you look at the top ones the hotel beauty and spa um dining you know do we have any idea what Grand View do they have 90% of that market or what what is that component or how how can we figure that out because yes that'd be important to know yes so there are a couple of elements to the question that you ask about how much of this is Grand View um so what I'm hearing from that question is a kind of a question about market share maybe um and then also a question about employees does that sound fair yeah I I I I think we need to look at Grand View Resort in all categories and how that impacts this because I think that you know uh they have over 600 employees there themselves so that was 50% of your number yes yes so this number is a little bit year when we're thinking about visits to a particular category so it's possible that some of these would include some um employee visits to a location because what I was measuring were where do visitors I'm sorry where do residents go for um businesses in these categories and so that doesn't control for where do those residents work but what we can tell from that earlier information is that um 120 residents live and work within the community so we know that those employees are not necessarily being pulled just from the res number if there's 600 employees um that they're not necessarily showing up in our data as being residents of nisat regarding market share um with Jenny's help I was able to um look at the lodging facilities in nesa overall and I found that um this number actually seems like very consistent across the different lodging category so this is it's not necessarily like being skewed by um Grand View but that was a question that I had along the way too of like oh we need to just double check this and so um by being able to look at all those different lodging categories um I was personally I was surprised by how consistent they were that it wasn't just Grand View as an outli outlier I do want to go to the next slide though and I'll show you why um were there other questions about this in particular about Resident visit patterns does this seem consistent like maybe even some of you see yourselves in this of like yeah maybe 20% of the time I go to the grocery store and the rest of the time I go to Costco or backer seems pretty reasonable I think so okay so I'll go to the next one so this this slide kind of like inverts our thinking from the last one where we were thinking about residents and when Eric and I were digging through the data and trying to understand okay is this right are we understanding this correctly we realized that we had to pull apart those two components we had to look at like the resident piece like as in the earlier one and then separately have to look at visitors to niswa more broadly in order to understand those patterns so because of the limited number of businesses Within These categories we're not able to get at that grouped data that we would through the state sales tax data um with a larger community and instead what we did was um I selected sample locations within the most common categories and then looked at actual visit data for those selected locations within niswa so this was was done intentionally as well so that we're not calling out particular businesses in that um but we also know that there's very limited um numbers of businesses Within These categories uh so for example with the grocery store there's one grocery store in town um we know that but we also didn't want to you know call them out in a really like targeted way because these are much more like broad Trends in general um versus one businesses patterns but what we were really trying to understand is of all the people that walk through the door at one of these sample locations how much of that traffic is coming from the local community and how much is coming from outside of the community so in this case then I did control so this does not include any employees so like when we're looking at this lodging example this is just the visitors to that location and so we can see that for like a the lodging example that it's a very very small amount of those visitors that are coming from the niswa zip code and because of the way the data is set up the smallest group we could get it down to is the niswa zip code so I know that that includes the city limits plus a little extra um but so for this this lodging sample location that I selected and again this was consistent with several lodging examples in town it's a very small amount that are coming from the local area and over 90% are coming from outside of the community this is consistent with the lodging sales tax estimates that Eric had originally generated with thinking like that a lot of the calculations were pointing to um significant dollars that were coming in through that tax revenue um that really outsized the size of your resident you know the size of your community and the number of residents that you have so it's not surprising to us that of all the visitors to these different locations that there would be so few from your local community but we were frankly kind of surprised to see that even when we kind of dug deeper and we looked at Like Home Improvement thinking like well maybe visitors wouldn't go there as often but even in those categories the vast majority of the visitors to those locations are from outside of the ZIP code did you have questions about this or observations does this seem consistent with what you may have expected I think it would be for the rest of us all of us that are residents here kind of understand the flows of traffic especially during the cyclical summer months so yes yes probably consistent with everybody's assumptions yes yes good so what we found from those calculations um with the local option sales tax is that that sales tax revenue is estimated to be 35% from residents and about 65% from non-residents which translates into um the 655,000 in tax proceeds and the major categories that we were able to get down to um using the the state data is retail trade and accommodation services and then in the report you will also find some projections thinking if if you were to go forward with implementing the local option sales tax trying to understand what might that mean for you for those Revenue projections um they're based on that 2022 data that's available and then we um do not recommend projecting more than about three years out again you know taking a little bit more conservative slant on it um but that's why we provide the numbers that we do so that you can see the range of potential um sales sales tax revenue that would come from that additional report or from implementing the local option sales tax so that's what I have for you today um and then Jenny has provided the report for you and then we have our contact information as well um are there other questions that either th Eric or myself could address any questions on from the rest of the council hearing none uh uh Miss Le I appreciate the presentation uh information is greatly appreciated Jenny I do notice that there is a council motion uh put behind this um what motion would you like um if the council's inclined um just to accept the report that's been presented um really just simply to finalize this if the council is inclined to do that okay I'll make a motion to accept the report as presented on the local option sales tax all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed pass thank you Dei and Eric for being here tonight thank you so much thank you and Jenny on that note it's to be put to the vote for sales tax by the local constituents is that not the case correct local sales taxs yes are always required to to come to a local vote um currently the process is after the legislature approves the request no then it would follow at a subsequent general election to the local okay all right thank you for that uh with that we'll go to reports City administrator thank you Mr chair good evening again members of the council my report is in your packet I am happy to answer questions about it I just wanted to also mention as I stated last month I I did include the list of legislative priorities from um that the league board adopted for 2025 and potentially this would be a great topic for the council to um consider or discuss in in the new year uh as far as if there are any legislative priorities from the city's perspective that we would like to pursue with the upcoming legislative session uh with that I will stand for any questions specific on my report otherwise I will then speak to my memo that I have in regards of the pickle building project and pfm being engaged and seeing that the initial analysis has been completed do we want to try to get a liquor committee meeting before the end of the year uh we can certainly do that I have asked pfm to provide a couple of different scenarios so we have some Base information and some options to look at um once they have that I did mention that to Terry Wen as well that they're working on that then we would reach out and see based on timing um holidays and everything coming up um if that if we want to have a meeting in December or if we wait until the new year so yes that is on our on our radar too once we have that we will reach out any questions for the city administrator you're none we'll move to the City attorney good evening everybody sorry I do have one memo one additional item that's okay um I wanted to take a moment if if the council is interested um we're getting towards that time of year where we're preparing for the truth and Taxation meeting and I wanted to take an opportunity to provide an update with respect to the city's 2025 budget um provided an update as far as some of the items that we have been able to um further on your agenda um request to purchase this year with 20124 funds to be able to offset the 25 budget which is great usually we're able to do that to some extent um this time of year on an annual basis but um ultimately looking for Council direction if um you would like to provide with a a target for a final Levy number that allows staff to do our work and and prepare the final documents so ultimately that would be ideal if there was a final Levy percentage we wanted to aim towards um just wanted to open that up for discussion if there's any feedback so if I have my numbers correct about 7.5% to the would be payroll benefits correct well to the budget yes right yes and so um I'd like to see the levy the final Levy be below 10% that's just where I stand coun M London I agree I too agree yeah I'm not going to disagree with that that needs to get down there um with the wages benefits those were from the contract negotiations from over the last year correct uh that that was set in place over multi- years for that right that's mostly um incorporating the compensation study that the council approved and what is should be in line with um where contracts we will go we'll have a a discussion about that later tonight but but yes essentially that's the goal I think we're all working towards that same Target so to get it under the preferred 10% range that's going to require us to be able to you utilize that 2 and a half% Delta between 10 and S and a half to figure out what we want to be able to utilize then from the general fund if that's what I'm understanding or other sources that remaining balances in budget for this year is that right Jenny well based on some quick math earlier I would that I was looking at I mean essentially if you were to take off the new requested items from the budget um and probably some reductions in the capital Improvement plan line item you will probably get to right around the 10% or just under so if that is the goal of the council um I would appreciate a motion to that and then that would be my the priority in list which I would start with new items requested that would come off um Capital Improvement plan or any sort of reserves would would be adjusted Ed before um remaining existing operational items are there any other current you know ongoing items or expenses that could be added to this list to look at cutting do you have any specific ideas I mean certainly can that yeah department has always look at trying to be mindful of not over budgeting and trying to whatever the needs are for the upcoming year so we we do make the effort to do that yeah I guess I didn't know if you know in the past different departments has said you know uh you know we don't need that this year we came up with a different option already do you know of anything like that out there for instance like last year I'll just pick on Craig because he's not here he said he wanted a little shed right and he said ah I don't need that you know I'll put that back sure right sure people kind of remember that from a year ago yeah we did one of the it was like for Tom in public works you had two pickup trucks that was shaved down to one correct right and then there was there's been employees that they might need so we've correct said start here instead of there not two just one mid mid year there's always been that um but I will say that sometimes they're I say push back but it's kind of hard um we had a conversation some years ago I think it was 2021 where you know I just basically said we have to be the bad guys and get out the red pin and start doing it but um I know uh I think the fire department was the only one under budget this year like I'm going to pick on Sean but I think they were the only one on budget this year everybody else was at budget came in lower yes right right um no that was good you you worked hard on that yeah it's not like the federal government where you get an automatic 10% um but I think that's that's what I think going forward what we need to look at is is for a lot of pencil sharpening working departments department heads do some cutting back if possible um and then I also think is I don't know if we discussed this before but to have like um the year it's these two departments you know we look at what their needs wants are but not the other departments I mean move that back and forth each year um and I think since the institution of the CIP I mean that's helped out a lot um so no there I mean most of the department the department has work real well at trying to do that you know yeah certainly I would agree with that I think the direction you know ideally every year earlier in the year is to get a sense from the council as where we like to land um and certainly with the Strategic plan we've been presenting ideas and ways to move that forward so that's been part of I think some of the variables that we've been working to the last couple of years but ultimately um the council can decide how much that that moves on an annual basis or if it has to stay a little more stagnant and then adjust is is fine as well so if that's 10% if that's n and a half if I mean if that's something that the council would like to set a parameter that'd be great I'll make a motion to that I'd like to see the final Levy at 99.9% second it I think that we have some flexibility to be able to get it between that 9 to 10% M based on some discussions that have been had ready to be able to try to get it to that final window so you know if 9.9 is your magic number okay my magic numbers I think we can squeeze the lemon to be able to get it between that N9 to 10% range right so okay then resend that motion I'll make a my motion would be 10% no higher than 10% for the final Levy I'll second any further discussion all those in favor say I I opposed move so when do we want to talk about what we want to do well based on not based on the not to exceed 10% essentially that's what we would work towards and if I can if we can bring that lower than 10 um we will do that and that would be what was what will be presented to um at the truth and Taxation the council can certainly at that point still determine they set a lower final Levy um so once you see that information you could you could make another adjustment as well right um based on that approval and that's going to come forth the early part of December correct the 17th yeah right yeah yeah I guess right away for myself this admin software I'd put the hold on that in the management system software they're both little line items um that could be paid with cash pretty easy down the road um but I just kind of put the hold on both of those at this time um and then the you know the parks equipment you know um the camera for the police department and the um the replacing of the truck you know I'd also look at just taking that out of cash you know I don't know why we have the money available so I don't know why do we tax people to pay some of that stuff when we already have the money in the account well candidly it's setting a levy at 10 not to exceed 10% I mean likely all of these things will be put on hold and or we'll discuss in the New Year if there are items we want to use on reserve funds to pay for that um or things of that nature if there's other Reserve B bces we can utilize potentially so that would be likely the outcome would be to pair this down to what I'll say the minimum needs are for the next year yeah I was just saying you don't write away that's some of the stuff that i' pair down okay uh with that we'll go to report from the city attorney Mr attorney good evening everybody excuse me other than working on excuse me various matters as usual with City staff I don't have anything else to report thank you city engineer good evening everybody um I just been working on the uh 2025 Street Improvement projects trying to get that plans and specs prepared for the November 27th meeting public meeting thank you thank you there no more comments from the council to either the City attorney or engineer uh we will move to the next order of business which will be old business as amended from the agenda we will turn it over to the Verizon tower ver cell tower site plan update discussion and we do have Woody Crow gone so I'll turn over to you Jenny thank you Mr chair um and thank you Woody for being here tonight uh we have a quick update for the council and just looking for some direction on a component of this to ensure we're we're all moving forward um kind of with the same expectations we've been working with Verizon on some of the variables with respect to city ordinances and what might work at the location proposed um you know at the the fire hall property we've been discussing um potentially having a share generator and um you know saving in in that cost with dual purposes and things like that I think the the one question that we're looking for Council Direction on is the initial proposal from a few years ago that we have been working with um and correct me if I'm wrong Woody but I believe it was for a tower at a height of about 80 ft and with some of the conversations that have come up with respect to um ideally expanding and improving the the service range um that would mean that we would look need to look at a higher Tower our ordinance allows currently um Towers up to 150 ft um but as that's a significant increase we wanted to bring that to the council to get your feedback before um potentially Verizon would come here and do some on-site visiting and and do some analysis of the location and start to put plans together for Planning Commission approval processing um so looking to gauge your thoughts on a height if it were to be towards that higher end of what is allowed in our ordinance um certainly there's some considerations for the neighborhood impacts and things like that as well the current tower that is there that the fire department uses um for their pager um signaling is approximately 90 feet just for frame of reference but Woody did I accurately describe that at least from our discussions yep you got it down great so any initial thoughts or feedback um as far as the tower height would be helpful yeah I think last time I said it you know to the the height of the towers kind of irrelevant to me um you know I think if you're coming into this area um as a Verizon Customer too I'd like to see the service improved as much as we can around this area from outside of the city limits a little bit all the way across the lake and so do you have you know last time we had talked that's what I had asked do you have any numbers or ranges and go okay at 150 ft we can reach out a half mile at7 75 ft we can reach out 3/4 of a mile do you have any area maps or information like that versus us just picking a height and going well this didn't do anything for the yeah yeah thank you for having me uh this evening um I did share some maps with with Jenny uh they're they're not for uh public dissemination uh I guess you can maybe look at them in her office but uh uh uh that do demonstrate the increased coverage as the height of the tower increases um and uh you know as far as the 150 you know the 150 ft uh uh elevation would you know significantly uh decrease the the dead zones that that we've already discussed in the prior meetings um and as uh as discussed previously uh Verizon is you know aware of the other uh you know the attacking the dead zones from the other sides of those as we discussed I forget uh the exact one that we discussed at the last meeting a couple months ago but uh uh yeah that's the best I can tell you now is maybe check see if uh you can see those maps that I sent to Jenny yeah I guess for me that's kind of the information I'd be looking for so do you have any sort of reference or do you know what was on the map Jenny like hey over to BR view it re approved or out on Highway 18 it went this far I mean the the most significant impact is going to be um downtown Main Street and kind of the neighborhood um pretty much I'd say between like here in Centennial Lane I mean it's going to be in this in this area so that's about the the coverage um Woody stating the information you know was in public so um if I can share that with the accounts on an individual basis I'm happy to do that um I just wasn't sure based on kind of proprietary information from from Verizon at that point but um I would say no it's not something that's going to carry towards like the Grand View side of town or things like that it's going to be very specific and there will likely be additional towers that I think Verizon's exploring in different areas of not only this but Beyond to help broadly improve that coverage so then would we be looking at multiple Verizon towers within the city limits in thisa because if it doesn't even carry across the lake then what are we doing I guess is my question I mean if it if it doesn't if this Tower doesn't service the Nisswa boundaries at least then I don't want to see multiple Towers later I would say let's just do one big tower and service this town otherwise yeah there's no our time yeah so there's no other plan for any other Tower in the city limits no what do what's the largest tower that you'd be able to that Verizon would be able to accommodate can it go up to a 200 foot Tower to be able to expand service coverage yeah that's that's one one one reason I would need to pay a visit to the site with the engineer you know as as you uh since we've been discussing the fire department location you know we haven't had an on-site eyeball looking at it uh visit so uh the 200 feet uh probably could be done from what I've seen uh uh but uh uh a site visit is definitely needed and uh uh that would be the next step is to to get have a site visit with a a necessary engineer and and myself and whoever from the city to see what we can actually make fit there because uh a 200 foot self- support Tower you know a triangular three-legged Tower it's it's gets to be pretty big at the base of the Tower with a a general rule of thumb is the face of the tower is 20 or 10% the height of the Tower so each side of that triangle at the base would be 20 ft so there's not a whole lot of ground space available there at that location uh at the fire department so um you know the next step would I think really needs to be to uh to schedule a visit uh to to look at those type of details do you have any sort of percentages though that you could share with us like every 20 feed it increases 5% more coverage or anything like that or no um I don't math really have that information um uh I'm trying to trying to do a quick uh look see here at at the maps and see what uh um what's jump if anything here is going to help me answer your question uh there's a lot of factors that go into that and while what is's looking at this I I think some of the at least initial goal from from a rizen perspective was um to improve the coverage downtown when we have major events and the accessibility in that way just based on the the information that um initially that was the the goal and the reason for the location here so I think if we have a broader conversation um we're probably looking at a different location to allow for a larger base a different type of power um to facilitate a potentially larger Improvement coverage area yeah and I guess that's my question with it I mean obviously Like Jesse just said you know we're looking at purchasing new real estate do we just put one larger Tower down there that Services a much bigger area you know right well that would the 150 foot Tower would certainly is certainly going to uh uh you know cover a significantly larger uh area good so so looking always mean better what's that higher doesn't always mean better yeah I guess I don't you know I mean that that's that's what I'm asking now is you know what are we going to gain by what are what are we gaining by putting this Tower right in downtown is it is it worth it right so so the the I don't know I don't the the the coverage maps that we have don't show the city limits so I'm not uh uh uh able to address exactly the city limit uh question but at the 80 80 foot versus 150 foot the the coverage increases over 50% or it's twice I'm sorry I should say the coverage is more than twice the distance what it would be at at 150 ft the coverage is more than twice you know in in distance what it would be for a 80ft tower 190 ft increases it a little a bit more and 250 you know maybe another uh uh you know third but uh 250 would really be the max height that we we could go if if if the ground space will uh uh support it I think it would be helpful for the council to be able to get some information to be able to show what the radius coverages would be even for this location uh behind us here in downtown um whether it's disseminated via email discreetly to us to protect whatever he's got um and then in regards to potential new property for a larger Tower structure there I think that should be definitely be considered here here as well so um is there a council motion that you need for that no I think that's good good direction for if there's any dis agreement on that for the time being I mean we just we're not looking at anything here we can Circle back in December as well okay so could I just insert one more one more comment maybe that might be helpful um um if we could set up a a visit uh at the site you know we could uh we could look at the maps uh you know at that at that time and you know we don't have to decide on the height of the tower tonight obviously so uh uh a visit to the site determine what could actually be done there as far as the tower goes and then uh you know we could share the the a better uh uh viewing of of what the coverage impact will be at the various Tower Heights would would that be something that would work for for the city council I think that and then I would say show both locations yes both I I think I think what intent would be to focus on the fire hall at first and see if that develops into what would work and then if we need to and correct me if I'm wrong with you that's just that was my takeaway from what you said I guess I didn't follow along to what other what the second location would be the original location is that what you're talking about we have the original location but we're also looking at in the process of purchasing some new property that might be even better suited for a bigger Tower I see and so if you're in town I would drive the mile difference and look at both locations while you're here certainly certainly so the new property is about a mile away is that what I I hear you saying roughly yeah okay okay okay all right yeah but but yeah Jenny is correct that you know we've been focusing on the fire department location uh uh that would be the preferred location to proceed but uh certainly we can look at other options yes okay we will do that and bring back additional information right thank you thank you Woody okay thank you okay with that we will go to new business want me to take it away uh go ahead so the first two items um under new business is we have uh resolutions uh providing for the issuance and sale of General obligation bonds uh we have series 2024a and 2024b um this morning we we had the bond sale and um left for the council uh when you arrived here was a memo that will provide a high level overview of the each of the bond sales and then um updated resolutions to authorize the issuance and awarding of the bonds um we have Heather casperson here tonight from pfm and she will walk the council through uh first the 2024a and then we will have um a motion to approve the resolution for that and then we will move to the 2024b and do the same so Heather great thank you Jenny um thanks for having me tonight so as Jenny mentioned you should have in front of you a letter that provides a summary of the sale the city initially went out for bids and took bids this morning on two series of bonds one in the amount of 1, 645,000 those were the general obligation bond series 2024a and then we will also get to the second sale that was done at the same time which was power amount of 1.1 million General obligation a baitman bond series 2024b those are taxable bonds and we presented the projects for these two bonds to the mayor and council at your October 15th meeting so as Jenny mentioned we will do this in two different series but the first one that we would like to present to the city council is the general obligation bonds which the original par before the bond sale was 1, 645,000 and after the bond sale the par decreased to 1,5 180,000 um still netting the proper amount for projects from that issue two bids were submitted for those bonds the low bidder came from Robert W Baran company out of Milwaukee Wisconsin with a true interest rate of 35544 and it would be our recommendation that the city council passed a resolution awarding the 1,580 th000 general obligation bond series 2024a to Robert W baren company um I also before before we get to the motion Jenny want to mention that in conjunction with the preparation for these sales um Jenny did an excellent job in presenting the city's financials and your forecast to Moody's investor service and the city's outstanding rating was a A2 which was confirmed on the outstanding Bonds in addition to placing a a A2 rating on these bonds that were for sale this morning happy to answer any questions or if Jenny you want to walk through the motion I'll first ask if there are any questions about the first series of bonds if not I we'll need a motion and a second and then we will need to do a roll call vote please Jenny how do you want the motion made uh if you could if whomever would like to make the motion if you took take the packet F1 there is um a set of verbiage it's an all caps kind of right in the middle um so you can just do a motion approving the resolution and read that verbiage that would be great it's a resolution number again we it's okay that we don't have one yeah okay I'll make a motion to approve the resolution authorizing the issuance and awarding the s of $1,580 th000 and0 General obligation bond series 2024a and pledging for the security thereof tax abatements and levying a tax for the payment thereof I'll second it all those in favor signify by saying I if we can do a roll call please roll call that's okay you just want to the may call each individual yep they can they can approve or no roll call please starting with me um yes yes yes yes motion passes thank you very much great thank you so again the second bond issue that was offered for sale this morning the original Power amount offered for sale was 1.1 million of General obligation AB batment bonds series 2024b The taxable series series after the bids came in the bond size was reduced slightly to $1,900 and the city had five bids for that bond issue with the low bidder of Piper Sandler and Company uh at a true interest rate of 4.62 3599 and we would recommend that the city council award the 2024b taxable bonds to Piper Sandler and Company happy to answer any questions what was the rate again the true interest rate 4.62 so taxable bonds um by their very nature are are more more expensive than tax exempt bonds and which is reflected in the rate but because this is financing the portion of land which the city anticipates selling they need to be conducted on a taxable basis what was the percentage [Music] used for the land percentage of of land versus non-sellable 50 5050 5050 are there any questions from the council before we take a motion would anybody like to take make the motion same process as before item F2 I can Sab again I'd like to make a motion for the resolution authorizing the issuance and awarding the sale of the 1 million 90,000 General obligation bond series 2024b taxable and pledging for the security thereof tax abatement and leving a tax for the payment thereof r call please starting with second I can't I just can't get it today yes yes yes yes motion passes thank you thank you heather for your help with this project I know we have some followup and finalizing of of documentation and everything but uh we do appreciate all the work that you and John and Jenna have put into this you're very welcome thank you okay out one and two all right moving on to number three uh recommendation from Planning Commission regarding ordinance Amendment for chapter 20 regarding ssts regulations Mr Steve thank you sir uh so a public hearing was held at the November 6th Planning Commission um regarding the ssts set backs and a ordinance Amendment reflected in the documents to follow under F3 um The Proposal in summary was to reduce the uh lot line setbacks across all districts um shown to a 10 foot side setback which is um synonymous then with code 7080 does council have any questions or feedback back for our City Zoning if not I will entertain a motion I'll make a motion to accept the Planning Commission ordinance Amendment for chapter 20 reg regarding ssts regulations as presented second okay all those in favor I I opposed so pass Mr chair can I also please have a motion to publish the ordinance summary in the newspaper so moved second all those in favor I opposed motion carried thank you number four recommendation from the Planning Commission regarding ordinance amendments for chapter 8 and 20 regarding cannabis and THC we got a couple here C so I will turn it over to you sure thank you so at that same Planning Commission meeting November 6th uh an ordinance amendment was proposed for adoption of an ordinance Amendment for for chapters 8 and 20 of the niswa coordin of ordinances regarding cannabis and THC use within the city of niswa um first ordinance in front of you here requiring motion would be for um chapter 8 um article seven for cannabis businesses regulation of business use in city of Nell hases everybody had a chance to go through this and does anybody have any questions No my only question is it the most uh restrictive that we can be by a city on this pretty much if you go through the state what the state is looking at what what they've told municipalities they can't do when they try to put it in there I think this is the as strict as we can get there was a good discussion at the at the commission meeting two weeks ago regarding it as well um you were there for that yeah I just you know obviously I don't know how I you know what's the max limit we can do but that's my only statement I guess is you know I don't care to have this in town or around town or well the state's pretty much set it up to where you can't say no yeah I don't want to walk down Main Street and smell it either so I just want make sure that the rules are as strict as we can make them on it yeah did you go to rib fest last two years yeah Not only was it that's where I guess law enforcement's going to have to come in yes I think we did our best to um take the council's feedback over the last year plus on how we'd like to approach this and try to of course follow the statute the state statute language but also keep in mind what the desires are of our community so there is no more is there a more discussion Mark no I'll make a motion okay I'll make a motion to uh to amend ordinances for chapters 8 and 20 regarding cannabis and THC has presented doing everything at once all of them at one time yes okay that's fine thank you a b and c all of them at once I have a motion do I have a second um yeah I guess if we don't question if we don't don't pass anything it's just a freefor all so right if if we don't pass a motion then we fall under every guidance of the state which we don't want which we don't want yeah so I guess I'll have to second it even though and we're all sad to be in a state where we got to deal with this I agree very much so so we have a motion in a second Jenny before we go to the vote one motion for all three a b and c and then can it be the same for the publishing of the ordinance I do need a separate or motion for that piece of it for all three though we can do that as a do it all yeah we can we can do that yes and I'll just clarify just so for the Public's um awareness to ensure and this would be effective January 1 2025 right okay all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed passed if we have a motion to publish the ordinance summaries in the paper I so move now second all those in favor signify by saying I I hi opposed pass I would also mention that in December we will bring forward the application forms and just some of the procedural components of this we wanted to get the ordinance piece approved and then uh there is still just that licensing component and we will bring forward the fee schedules and those forms to the Council for approval in December just so we have that and can understand what that piece will look like but wanted to take one step at a time thank you thank you uh moving on to number five recommendation from Parks Commission regarding the GW Trail final proposal Miss Amber good evening evening um so before you tonight um you have a memo for myself as well as a proposal from wood Seth regarding the um updating of the plans as well as preparation for bidding um for the goic trail we call it many different names Casa 77 4B you name it um it's our final section this is the grant that we are awarded um these plans would be eligible for Grant reimbursement as well so we are looking for approval tonight to get it all updated prepared updated the specifications and everything the plans were prepared but we do want to go through them one more time with Lessons Learned um and pull those out from the master plan set that was prepared previously I make a motion that we move ahead as presented to have wsn um do the proper paperwork as defined not to exceed $24,000 I'll [Music] second all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed passed thank you thank you H number six resolution authorizing direct purchase this is land relating to said Trail project good for motion yes please okay uh I will make a motion to approve the authoriz authorizing of the direct purchase for the land owner last name hemmer as presented for the price of $12,900 I'll second it all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed number seven spirits of nisad wage scale recommendation thank you for letting me present this to you Council appreciate it we've been talking about this for a lot of years and I believe it was two years ago that we changed it from a 177% difference to a um 7% difference and we wanted to do that in steps so that we could see how it affected our business if we did I did went back and looked and our business is exactly where we want it to be we did um everybody knows that we did have some um Heyday with Co and the with the pandemic we are back to normal and we are still a very successful business we want to eliminate the difference between parttime and full-time we're a business that thrives on full-time or part-time employees and if we had to go with just full-time employees it would cost the city a lot more so we don't want to penalize the part-time workers by paying them less than we would a full-time worker at the same page so I'm asking the city council to approve that we make that change January 1st 2025 I would make the motion that we uh approve this to have the pay be equal for full-time and ptime employees starting January 1 2025 if I can just make one little change here with our pay schedule is is that fine Kiki to do it on January 1st or do you want it to do it on a pay cycle I would say January one well consistent with with all the other staff okay yes thank you I have a motion I'll second and a second any further questions all those in favor I I opposed approved thank you very much thank you number eight Public Works requests regarding purchase of lawn tractors good evening gentlemen um what this is is um we had two lawn tractors in the budget for 2025 uh we have some left over road maintenance money in 24 the lawn tractors are available um locally now I would ask to make that purchase now and remove that from the 25 budget I'll make a motion to accept the Public Works request to purchase lawn tractors as presented with the do you want me to put a cost in there you can just say as presented is fine okay quick question are we just adding to or replacing ex replacing the other ones are selling on go deals or someplace uh we believe we're going to trade them we're getting a pretty good trade deal on it yeah second and that was removed from the from what you had for 2025 correct yes okay have a motion in a second any further discussion this is part of the sourcewell contract yes correct okay any further discussion all those in favor say I I opposed approved thank you number nine parks department request purchased lawnmowers all right what Tom said same um just borrow his he got two new ones I'll make a motion unless you want to add something Amber happy to answer questions but go for it I'll make a motion to accept a request from the parks department to purchase uh I got to find the Mower John Deere x735 four mower uh $1,328 52 that's presented second any further discussion all those in favor I opposed approve awesome and then your second one here um for item 10 is the snow Pusher this again is in an effort to reduce um the 2025 uh budget we do have confidently I can say we have enough room in our budget this year to purchase this $2,900 attachment I'll make a motion to approve quote from vering snow Pusher as presented second so looking at the budget expenditure for the levy oh you do have snow push it's just cross off it's my spending so I don't even know why we're glasses you want to borrow m we have a motion a second any further discussion all those in favor say I I opposed pass thank you thank you number 11 resolution certifying unpaid sewer charges for 2024 this is a standard item that uh we present to the Council on November uh to send to the county for the upcoming years's taxes I was almost on this list because I forgot to create a login for the new system so I would imagine some people are probably um I mean on that note do we need to would it help to send update or a reminder to those that the new system that we have they they have received letters yes okay got it well of course yeah okay I'll make a motion to uh approve the resolution certifying unpaid charges for 2024 presented I'll second second any further discussion all those in favor say I I I opposed pass number 12 approved public work supervisor job description update good evening gentlemen as you know we've got one gentleman retiring and so we've promoted or we're working on promoting someone from within and so we reviewed the job description there's a few minor changes um that we making to job description I think you have a copy of that in front of you if um there are any questions about those changes I would look for a motion to approve that I went through it today I think it looks pretty clean both of them was that a motion no that was not a motion that was a comment I make a mo to approve the Public Works supervisor job description as presented I'll second any further discussion all those in favor say I I I opposed appr number 13 recommendation for starting wage for Mike deck as Wastewater supervisor uh has everybody read through that I'll make a motion to accept the recommendation of starting wage for Mike deck as w a Wastewater supervisor as presented second any further discussion all those in favor say I I opposed approved one more for you Tom recomend number 14 recommendation to hire Corey Larson as Public Works supervisor this is a promotion from inside back filling might move over to the Wastewater Department I'll make a motion for the recommission for the recommendation to hire Corey Larson as public work supervisor as presented second any further discussion all those in favor say I I I opposed pass um promotion right yes yes thought so sorry you have one more Yep y so I didn't move I'll make a motion to approve Public Works maintenance tech job description update as presented second any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed so moved awesome thank you thank you okay number 16 recommendation to move Janelle Waterman from probationary to permanent status I think she's an excellent addition to staff um just a side note so I I my four-year-old grandson came they come in the summer he's dressed in his police uniform because he he's just into police spur the moment I called up Janelle said hey she said come on down we come down he's in his full uniform going there we had Chief Taylor there and I think uh I think Jeremy was there he loved the time I mean it was just 5 10 minutes but he just loved it and now they get their little ID cards for Nissa police I think that was a great thing similar to what uh you know fire department does with their recent thing it's just great what you guys do um so I'll make a motion to accept the recommendation to move Janelle Waterman from probation to permanent status as presented second it any further discussion from the council all those in favor say I I I oppos pass number 17 approve fire department sourcewell boost funds Grant application I had a chance to go over this today um even spoke to Chief yeah about it um well written I would say MH well written um just looking for a motion I'll make a motion to approve fire department sourcewell boost funds Grant application as presented second any further discussion all those in favor say I I I opposed approved number 18 sourcewell board of directors nomination recommendation this is an opportunity uh if anyone on the council is interested to be placed into nomination to uh participate uh on the source board of directors uh so I wanted to provide this to the council if you are inclined no obligation but the opportunity is here uh you would submit uh some uh bio of some kind so that that would then get mailed out to the members and then there would be an election process Etc but just presenting that to you for your consideration and if you would like to pass on that that is fine as well don't nominate me I passed what's the what what what would be the benefit of any of us being on that for the city this it's out of curiosity I would say that uh um sourcewell is a very um influential organization St um they are speaking with some of their employees this past week um at a conference they are going to be exceeding $15 billion doar in contract um activity this coming year they also have new contracts with um the US government military and so they are quickly expanding and they bring a lot of their resources and revenues back to the member the Five County member area including niswa for um like you just approve for fire department so there's um grants and other opportunities for us to obtain funding so it's a way to learn more about that potentially influence where those programs and services are directed um and they provide a lot of great training opportunities and just other ways to connect with well yeah I think one of the benefits would be is we could stop them from poaching our employees you took my punch line come on I mean that's that you know that's kind of is anybody interest I am not Mr London I'm not more than fine thank you thank you okay number oh you got to make a motion to no no I'm just joking number 19 employee retention committee update thank you I wanted to provide an update to the council um on the employee retention committee and get your feedback on potential next steps uh so each year in October um staff can apply to be on the employee retention committee the committee is comprised of six members uh with five full-time employees and one part-time um I did include um the flyer that was distributed to staff um for your information uh so as of the close of the filing period at the end of um October um for the open seats for next year uh I did not receive any um letters of Interest by staff to participate on the committee so I did check in with the chair of the committee and asked for his feedback about next steps just perspective and we both thought it'd be appropriate to bring this to the council just to gauge if you had any thoughts um I did provide some considerations for you to think about um we could still conduct an election where we'd simply have right and vote opportunities and if you know a name was written in enough times we would ask that person or individuals to participate if they wanted uh we could admit an election and just leave the remaining committee members as the ones who are starting their second year um on the committee um there are two um or we could pause the activity for 2025 re-evaluate um and see if there's maybe another way to approach it um there may be other options staff is here as well certainly would be happy to hear their feedback but wanted to just take a moment and my thoughts are number three is there any staff here that would like to speak on this seeing none um being on the Personnel committee now I enjoyed I enjoyed working with the employee attention committee I thought that there was good discussion even the luncheon that we had I thought was helpful but um if there's not enough interest I'd like to be able to understand a little bit I'd like to know deeper as to why and then I think uh that can be had perhaps at a personal committee beginning of the year to be able to get transparency across the board the whole intent of this was to be able to have just that to be able to help these guys and gals uh have their voices heard so um I'm in favor of number three for the time being you want a motion for that I'll make a motion to pause the committee's activities of 2020 let me rephrase I will make a motion to C to pause the employee retention committee activity for 2025 in Rio valuate in a year to see if the committee should continue second all those them any further discussion we're just going to re-evaluate in a full year or are you g to have conversations this next calendar year about it good point you know what I'm saying yes good point I would like to have discussions about it um with the new incoming mayor and having I guess without knowing what the Committees are going to be looking like or liais on appointments Etc I think that'll give us us a better understanding of where we're going to probably want to Pivot to and then make sure that staff is being able to have their voices heard so maybe make an amendment to just re-evaluate in 2025 yeah in the calendar year I'll second that amendment I just made for councilman Frey good I love democracy all those in favor say I I posted fast okay um we do have one more item uh number 20 um to move to close session but before that just to close things up we will uh go to the council reports and then move then back to uh make a motion to go to close session so we can kind of close things up so Council reports uh our acting mayor is out ill wish them all the best council members start with you Joe any report uh um I guess my only thing would be is going into 2025 and it was touched on a little bit tonight even with the business owners but I feel um you know Stephen's here but I feel like we want to right away um maybe have a workshop or something that we can all discuss um moving ahead with um I know I've talked to Stephen a little bit about it and Jesse a little bit um moving ahead uh Bethany had started the process of going went through all our ordinances and um Chris pence from the county had been working on that but I would like to see that um have some time devoted to it right away here in the new calendar year to continue that process to to keep getting stuff updated because there's still a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done that in within that to um kind of alleviate some of the ongoing issues that the city seems to have in that area with PMZ yep um on that note the elections wrapping up earlier this month congratulate um mayor elect Jennifer carahan for her uh Victory had a chance to be able to meet with her you know just even as recently as today and I encourage rest of the council if they have not already to be able to find some time and sit down with her uh get to know her a little bit more especially with what we have on the horizon um she does have quite a bit of insight to be able to provide as to how we can go about things a little bit different a big pitch that she provided was transparency getting the communication out to to not just the constituents but the businesses and then also working with the chamber for example on this downtown uh master plan committee um she does think that there's a lot of areas that we're going to be able to improve on that um she does have ideas for us to be able to uh work on and I think she's ready to hit the ground running in January uh she did speak about trying to get some access to an office space in City Hall um before she's actually brought in as mayor what are the options for her to be able to do that jenus what I'm curious about is that appropriate I would say until um I guess my thoughts on that and if Tom has any feedback just from a procedural standpoint from a um you know official time taking office I mean that that will be official in January um I have already established um a budget workshop with mayor elect carahan and department heads to help her dig into the specifics of the budget and so I'm going to certainly facilitate those conversations and work with her we'll meet probably a handful of times between now and the end of the year um to um get her up to speed um but I think that that would be I think that's that's a lot this time of year especially with the holidays and so just trying to work through the budget component and then getting her officially sworn in um right away in January and then facilitating um some of that office time uh will definitely be achievable so what is the January timeline in regards to her coming in so as long as I've been on Council it's always been John so we kind of understand leaz on appointments Etc but um when will she be sworn in will that be at the January meeting organizational meeting organization it will likely be before that um it doesn't have to be at a meeting it's usually you know come in and and do that so I anticipate that we will um Kiki will work with her to do that pretty much right away January 2nd I would imagine uh we've been exchanging emails about the organizational meeting date because I think there are some conflicts between um potentially winter break time and availability for Council and um mayor elect carahan schedule so we're trying to find that date in early January um I'll likely send out an email to get feedback from everyone on availability for that organizational meeting as well but um also just shared that I mean that first week in January New Year's time it's it's really quiet so I think if we want to set this up the right way and not need to be too rushed for you know getting all of that um I know she has some a lot of ideas and I encourag her to present those to the council and get your feedback and direction to then start to move those things forward which I think would be most appropriate okay that's all that I had um the only one thing I want to bring up is is I've had talks with Jenny I'm and I'm sure others have too about it Economic Development Authority and last month but I think that's something that we need to look at especially with the land purchase uh things you know with downtown and everything um but I think that's something we need to look into set and move forward with that the sooner the better and I where's our starting point with that my recommendation uh would be uh to as just a starting point we could invite the council could invite um Tyler Glenn who is um the president um CEO of bladek um he facilitates edas and other communities um in our area and could just provide some just found ational knowledge to the council for ways to look at that and then maybe take that another step in the new year and and move forward from there so that would be my my first recommendation to the council is we can invite T Tyler to our December meeting and hear some information and you can ask them questions and go from there but certainly open to other suggestions if you have it so we can do that with the December meeting invite him in and discuss if the council would like that I I would say let's just wait until January till we're all up the speed and Jennifer's here if if she's not going to be in here earlier working in whatever then I would say then let's let's let's put that into January spe all that in January so she's up to speed with it not you know something brand new um also um with that um or in conjunction to that too we didn't do it this last year but the year prior we had uh an all day kind of Workshop events to talk through a bunch of this I think that would be appropriate again especially this year uh new mayor coming in to you know go through all this stuff and to try and get one or maybe two of those set up it doesn't have to be you know 100% with staff either necessarily unless Sean wants to sit there all day but uh just with everything going on I I think that would be appropriate I think it was useful before before it was more geared towards staff but I think um sure open to that but us as council members I think it'd be great because of that that Workshop we had at the community center right 2023 y it that was it was long but there's a lot of good takeaways from that and then additionally town halls in 2025 as we start to have a little bit more development of what is this land uh acquisition closing it out the development of it what does that look like how is it going to be affecting citizens no surprises let's just get the information out there the closed door meetings for the land Etc are behind us now so we're in the final stretches looking forward to a new year I think there will be a lot of um options for councils kind of brainstorming evaluating in January to to work through at that meeting so it will be good right okay anything else from the council I will wait until I will engage Tyler to Temporary kind of schedule for January sometime in January we'll firm up a date after the New Year okay okay okay well with that uh I will make a recommendation to move to close session pursuant to Minnesota statute 13d .03 regarding Union negotiations no second all those in favor say I I oppos we are now moving to Session 5 minute recess five minute recess then moving to close session thank you all