##VIDEO ID:Pnl78Uk3E8I## good evening everyone I'd like to welcome me to the ATO city council meeting audre can you have the record show um tonight is Monday September 23rd our City attorney our city planner our city Engineers present along with all council members and our assistant City administrator absent this evening is our city administrator I will ask you all to join us in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which One Nation God indivisible withy andice for all thank you our first item of business this evening is open Forum this is the portion where you can come to the residents can come to the podium state your name and address and limit comments to five minutes or less would anyone like to speak Genie's walking right up looks like you got a full house today uh jeie Holland County Commissioner for District 3 just want to say uh thanks to everybody that Prairie Fest was amazing as always a special thanks to Connie she worked really hard and I know our Public Health uh group was super thrilled with how much work uh uh she put in and they were really really excited to be here I don't know if you saw their Booth but they came out in forest and that was really nice and that will continue it's really great when a commissioner pushes hard to see what we what I can come up with and that was really nice a lot of a lot of moms use the the trailer for uh you know changing babies and just some baby time and so yeah super excited about that it was really fun to sit with uh and visit with people uh from ego the other thing is tomorrow we are going to approve our Levy and it will be 5. s which the average home rate uh the average home in rake county is $350,000 you guys probably drive that up a little bit um that will that will equate to about4 to $15 a year per household at that rate so of course if it's over that it will be a little more but we're really excited about that because was coming in at eight Cola was 6.5 uh a lot of our our expenses as you know as staff um so we did a lot of work it was uh two hard months of uh making sure we drove that down to an acceptable level so that's where we're at so hopefully that helps your budget because that that does impact my cities and that is why I F fought to keep that down and and then any other questions any questions for jimie how was DC oh yes yes we just came back from the I94 uh Coalition and it's the it was the um fly in for the state of Minnesota so a lot of mindat people there um I represented OD SEO well told them it would be really nice if we could ever get a neighbor exchange to help with a a commercial industrial on your end of uh 94 this end and so basically it was a thank you tour because uh the project is funded now from uh a from Albertville to um monel they were happy to hear thank yous and not more money because they were in a pressed time to get get uh the budget passed uh and so a lot of tired uh legislators out there but they were really happy really happy to see the Minnesota contingent so yeah we made some really good progress out there and and they were really happy to see us and um definitely worth the exhausted time out there so yeah it was great but thank you for representing yeah you're welcome it was fun any other questions for Jamie all right thank you thank you all right any other public comments go ahead and talk with somebody else so Charles Norris I go by Chuck so free to make fun of me have a good question we're here for is just to laugh and learn more about this stuff um who am I like I said Chuck Norris I live at uh 15399 76 Street Northeast um not too far from here not far from oo Elementary Boulder Creek is a neighborhood I'm in uh so I just want to talk about three things tonight uh my experience with Fire Department job of firefighters and safety in general uh so I'll admit I moved here it was December of 2017 I had zero clue didn't have a fire department Charles you got to speak to the me as well too they can see you on the TV all right perfect so I had no idea oo didn't have a fire department um just assume that they did no big deal uh it would have been August of 2018 um was the first time I actually call 911 when I was here um called 911 at 7:41 p.m. uh 7:44 pm. Sherburn County page the Elk River fire department I learned from the Elk River fire chief that the average dispatch time can be one to three minutes uh so in this case it was three minutes it was on the longer end so one of the challenges we face is obviously being in three different counties when it comes to three fire company or fire departments that service us depending on where you're at you're either going to go to Sherburn County W County or henpen County my case it's Sherburn County since it's Elk River um so 7:44 PM that call went out to or that page went out from Sherburn County Elk River again it was dispatch time of three minutes from Sherburn County to the aler fire department uh 7:53 PM so 9 minutes later the first emergency vehicle non-fire truck arrived on the scene I was a fire Lieutenant from River uh I was able to learn as I've argued with one of you before on Facebook here that that does not qualify as a response uh it's not how the fire industry evaluates the response time it's not how cities evaluate it it's not how the National Fire Association does I believe it's the NFPA and nfirs and had one other one to ISO is an organization that rates fire departments and the same thing with them they do not count one person just showing up fire as a response so the first official response came at 7 let's see here 58 it was Elk River fire engine one so that would have been 14 minutes after dispatch it would have been 17 minutes after my 911 call then at 800m is when they entered the garage to suppress the fire so that was 19 minutes after called 911 S pardon me uh 16 minutes after dispatch so again 19 minutes for the fire suppression to begin 16 minutes after dispatch 19 minutes after 911 call at the time again this is 2018 so this is going back six years that bothered my wife and I that it that seemed like it took longer than it should have I believe at the time actually the first person we reached out to was the mayor uh she acknowledged that that was you know something that was unfortunate for our situation that that at the time something they were looking into um so what are fire standards when it comes to response times um NFPA 1720 nfirs OS type of things that people site uh it's 10 firefighters in 10 minutes with the ability to fight the Fire Within 80% or 80% of the time uh nfirs it's the first arriving apparatus and an apparatus is going to be a fire Tru it's going to be somebody that's got access to water um again and one of the things that I to here is I've kind of got back and forth with one of you is start to research more of this so last week I sent over a thousand emails to different people within the fire industry mainly Fire Chiefs across the Midwest so far I think I'm up to 31 responses and the common theme is you cannot hold communities that support yours to those standards because at the end of the day what they're doing is a favor for you and their primary responsibility is to their own community so you're always going to be subject to the additional distance they have have to travel and if it's a volunteer fire dep Department like it is in al River getting the people to the fire department getting them out on time across the river across the train tracks wherever it is they're coming from so you can't necessarily hold them to that same standard um the example I use today if you're a baseball player playing for the Twins and you're hitting 225 it's not criminal obviously love to have them hit 300 but at the end of the day it's not criminal it's somebody's un underperforming so as a city we have to be able to decide are we okay with the numbers that the other communities provide to us other thing for me too is you what else do firefighters do uh EMS calls I personally had to call 911 two other times that I know for sure I've got a dollar that's got a very severe seizure disorder so we've had to call 911 um Charles that's your five minutes okay we have a lot of other people that may need to speak sorry sir thank you thank you for your comment thank you uh Jacob Olsen 15572 78th court and also current uh candidate for for mayor um you're going to hear a lot of people I'm guessing from both sides of the fence you're going to hear people that are in favor of the fire station I'm sure with the crowd that we have tonight you're also going to hear people that are against the fire station I think what's important is that we kind of peel the onion back and we actually listen to the people on why they're against the fire station I think it's fair to say that nobody is actually against the fire station I think what people are against is the way that we're going about building the fire station and some of the questions that aren't being answered all right this is about uh this isn't about being pro- fire versus anti-fire uh the way that we've gone about building a fire station my opinion is very very irresponsible all right it's like walking into a Kindergarten class and saying who wants a free pony just about hand's going to go up in the air if I turned around and I said hey who wants a fire station in the city I'm guessing just about every hand would go up until you start talking about the negatives that come along with the fire station and how we are going to get that fire station what's not being talked about is uh the price tag yes it's been mentioned on the slides the $22 million price tag but we keep asking the council how much is that going to cost how much is it actually going to cost to run a fire station sure we can do the math and figure out what it cost to pay back a bond but to actually operate that that uh uh that fire station between paying back the bond and actually operation all the estimates that people have actually gone out and done themselves is between four and7 million um how are we G plan on paying back that we still haven't gotten an answer on that if you just Levy taxes we're looking at at least a 45% tax increase to the uh the residents of ATO uh we have overwhelming support it hearing but yet we spent a million dollars to set up an Eda re uh Revenue bond that would take it off the ballot why in 2018 we paid for an independent fire study and yet we only we only reference back to the fire consultation that we paid for in 2021 that laid out the options of a fire station I appreciate Mr Norris coming up here and and stating his opinions and and how his personal needs for the fire station I'm not discrediting that but why are we discrediting a professional fire evaluation that said we do not need a fire station in this town until likely 2030 and that's if Elk River and Rogers do not build a secondary station which they both have and then my final question is why did going off of the fact that we obviously have no plan to pay for this fire station became very evident in our August uh budget meeting when we opted or I should say you as a council opted to structure the bond in a way that it pays interest only in 2025 not only do you have no plan to pay for a fire station you're actually going to pay interest only on that fire station you're going to put that fire station essentially on a credit card for an entire year and then we'll look at it next year because if you guys had a plan you would have either addressed it on the 2025 budget and the only reason if you had a plan that you wouldn't address it on the 2025 budget is because you're concerned with getting reelected so instead of sitting up here and complaining about all the problems with our city I'm one of the candidates that actually has a plan to pay for it I'm not going to kick the can down the road I'm not going to Levy our taxes and our residents and I'm not going to run a campaign on how I'm going to cut spending and and trim our budget because quite frankly there's nothing in our budget that we could trim to account for a$ four to7 million tax increase to pay for fire station so with that being said I appreciate your time thank you thank you hi I'm Martha Carol you can call me Marty I live at 871 O Brien Avenue Northeast I moved to at SEO 43 plus years ago I raised my only child here she's since become a not SEO homeowner also we love and are very engaged and involved in our community and our city City and the fire station thing has brought a lot of feelings of negativity that I'm so sad to see and I don't know the answer hopefully you guys have information that I don't have I I only ask because I'm a senior citizen I'm on a fixed income and pretty much every day something takes a chunk out of that you know I latest one was homeowners insurance and boy are we paying for that now so I'm only asking you to examine your consciences and when you vote on this issue to vote confidentially that you are picking the services at the right time you are financing it in the right way and that you are meeting the needs of all the citizens of this community that I love so much thank you thank you thank you Mark nrom 9565 Avenue Northeast I've been a resident for 36 years do we need a fire department yeah eventually will one fire department take the place of four no way we will have two fire departments in the future could be two years three years I don't know all I know is three firefighters at one station is not going to be able to cover o SEO and they can say all they want about these other uh firefighters from Alber whatever taking over if we can't do it well we'll see about that and we don't know the cost versus the present system it it's like nobody wants to tell us that what it's really going to cost we need more commercial businesses here not coffee shops liquor stores dayc carees and preschools we are not Maple Grove they have 160 plus restaurants they have a lot of tax base coming in and I see the city-owned L Lots with tax ta incentives we need these Commercial Business to pay taxes not those warehouses on 101 they don't pay any tax it's ridiculous and why are we letting these housing developers push everybody around Florida has impact fees that means you build a house you can pay anywhere from 15,000 to 40,000 for that house as an impact fee because they got to put roads in and all this other stuff uh I just I think you guys are fiscally irresponsible and there's no transparency it seems like there's a lot of back room deals going on without citizens input and we can't keep spending 16 million for Parks 20 plus million for fire departments and I don't know you said you're going to put this out for bids I saw cross Anderson's name on that picture there so what is it do Carl Anderson gonna do this or are we putting it out for bids thank you thank you thank you thank you my name's Chuck hediger I live at n9th I'm sorry 9539 Parkington Avenue Northeast my question for you is you guys want to build this fire station I was here at last week's meeting and saw a picture of the fire station my God does it look like a Taj Mahal why does it need to look like that why do we need acid etch brick for a fire station it's a fire station it doesn't need to look pretty it needs to be functional next is the way you Council and mayor are trying to push this through with the Eda is just downright wrong so wrong that it's it's infuriated most of the residents here in oo I guess we'll find out come election time who's left have a good night thank you thank you thank you good evening jozea 15377 81st Court Northeast here in not seagull uh I come tonight once again to speak in favor of the implementation of our City's Fire Department I don't want to stand up here and reiterate everything I spoke of at the Eda meeting several weeks back but still mindboggling to me that we are a community torn apart by the need and want for better Public Safety the ample amount of misinformation out there spearheaded by certain individuals is disappointing and frankly irresponsible I've been very vocal on this subject not only because I'm educated in this field spending 23 years in the fire service but because of the amount of very false information out there this this misinformation was abundant as I spoke to candid and citizens at Prairie Fest this past Saturday one mayal candidate told me Albertville had no idea this was happening which couldn't be further from the truth they were part of the fire study and have been kept in the loop on progress throughout another Resident said this was sprung on them and the community and no one knew that they were doing this again incorrect this is years in the making and there have been ample opportunities to learn about what is happening one resident tracked me down after a conversation earlier in the day and thanked me for clearing the air on response times what they mean and how they are tracked as he felt misled on what he read on certain Facebook groups see that's the problem with groups like concerned citizens in the bulletin board everybody becomes an expert and if you sound convincing enough everyone will believe you and then instead of doing your own research they base their thoughts on the fear mongering that is happening on set platforms being un being uneducated in 2024 is a choice stop listening to so-called experts and seek facts for yourself research ISO on the impact and potentially lowering your homeowners insurance stop listening to council members that argue with lawyers and try to discredit official eners documents regarding respons times take the time to truly understand what a staffed fire station is versus Staffing on a fire department there is a difference no one is discrediting the work that Alber Al and Rogers are doing not in the least but this community is growing and the need for this will only continue to grow town of nearly 25,000 people should not be without proper fire service with within its own boundaries our surrounding cities are getting busier and busier which means more cost for them translating to more cost for us I ask what what point do we stop funneling money to other communities and invest in ourselves many of you continue to use the word taxes in many different forms but the fact that we will send almost 1.4 million tax dollars out of our city in 2024 in a projected 1.7 by 2027 is what should concern you do the math over the last 10 years and then for the next 10 it adds up really quick this project is INE is inevitable we need to stop kicking the can down the road at the expense of our taxpayers and invest in not eagal thank you thank you Judy cyber 9721 jandelle Avenue Northeast and I'm a member of the public safety commission um the previous gentleman just said everything perfectly that I could have said so did what he said Thank you thank you hi there Dan Gates 7503 Lal Avenue noreast been here four years just invite everyone to take a look at the map of the city behind the die here please what do you notice a whole lot of Choke points for the cities that are responsible for our fire protection BR River to get here they have to cross the Mississippi Rogers has to cross the Crow River Albertville has to cross a railroad 994 there's only so many places they can do that it creates a lot of Choke points there other thing to consider I've read how it's become so difficult for our tradition fire department model of paidon call volunteers to continue to recruit and retain talent because it's become a much more complex job a lot more training a lot more continuing ed that's necessary for it that people full-time jobs find out hard are to keep that up and sorry that with the Departments located where they are there's a whole swath of Oda residents that can't even apply to be firefighters for the area that's for the Department that serves their area because they live too far from the fire station um so that's something else to consider that it's really hard to retain and recruit and there's a whole pool of applicants in there that can't even do it because they don't live close enough to a station so I mean I support moving forward I don't understand all the complexities of Finance all of that it just needs to happen just trus in the council to uh pay for it in the right way thank you thank you thank you thank you any other public comment Nancy Anderson 9031 Mason Avenue what I don't understand is they talk about spending 1.2 to 1.7 million for our service are we going to be able to run that whole fire station for a little over a million to $2 million a year I mean to me that doesn't make sense the the salaries the upkeep the whole thing and the other thing I don't understand on County Road 22 oakr has this little fire station it's got a couple Bays for their fire trucks and stuff it's a very modest building why did we have to go with some huge fancy building why couldn't we have started out with a little modest building like Oak Gro has and start from there thank you thank you thank you any other comments Gabe Davis 6689 Packard Avenue Northeast last December you guys tried to sell us a $32 million City Hall plan that you said the whole city was behind and there's a majority wanted it that wasn't true they didn't want to spend 32 million for a city hall Palace this time around oh the majority of the city wants a fire department last time I talked on Monday I talked to 400 res knocked on 400 residents door running for city council at that point I had exactly five people that supported the fire station one of them was moving out in the beginning of October so we're down to four another one of them was an 80-year-old woman who said well how much is this going to cost and she did support the idea till she found out how much it was going to cost so you're down to three this week I knocked on another 50 door yeah last week I run knocked on another 50 doors I didn't find anybody that supported the fire station what they're worried about is their property taxes they feel safe with the service we've got now the seniors are on fixed incomes and they just laugh most common thing I'm hearing is we need a new city council that knows how to run things and listen to the citizens fire station now I think it's a bad idea just like a city hall was that was a bad idea at that time too eventually we may need it but now is not the time and there's no reason that we can't save 105 million for a nice down payment on a fire station so it doesn't hit this residents as hard as this is going to nail them thanks thank you thank you good evening my name is Vincent Peterson I'm candidate for mayor of oo uh I live at 14064 67th Circle um I've done a lot of door knocking talk to a lot of people very few of them stay there for the fire department so tonight you know I would like to say that I'm opposed to the spending of a new city Hall I'm opposed to the spending for a new fire department and I'm opposed to New Park expansion $16 million the fact is is that we have f Services uh we could save that $2 million and fund what we have bolster what we have we have Elk River Rogers and Albertville what's wrong with putting three full-time staff at Albertville they don't like that idea we've got other options that would love to have that my understanding that Dayton's having a hard time with Staffing um B through what we have save the 20 million um in closing I would just say that in the words of a man we all know in love uh Mr Mayor you're fired thank you h Council Michael HD 17524 59th Street Northeast SEO uh just a a couple points um you know our our taxes are already high enough on a less than a quarter acre um we pay my wife and I pay $4,900 uh on a quarter acre um adding a fire station is gonna obviously increase that I don't know what it will because I've never seen any numbers and people throw out a lot of numbers and I'm not going to say what it is cuz I don't know but obviously it's going to increase it the second thing I wanted to to bring up is As I sit and think about okay what are the benefits for me and my family or my community where I currently live so I'm talking about close neighbors uh as it sits right now Dayton's fire department is six miles from me uh elk Rivers is about seven miles Rogers is about four and a half or 4.8 miles uh this new location is about 6 and 1 half to 7 miles away from me so I'm going to pay higher homeowner or I'm going to pay higher taxes for a fire department that's further away that makes no sense people keep coming up here and saying well your homeowners insurance is going to go down imagine going to my homeowners insurance and saying hey good news we have a fire station built it's further away can I get can I get a decrease in that now what do you think they're gonna say no I mean make it make sense that makes no sense to say your homeowner uh insurance is going to go down when a fire department is further away from me um next we we hired somebody as a EMS coordinator I don't know how long they've been employed is that I mean that's that's crazy to me is this individual going to be the one building the building I mean what what are they working on currently everybody's asked that and no one can give an answer is he designing it is he building it is he sending it out for bids nobody's seen three bids four bids five bids either it sounds like we've already picked somebody but I I don't know and the final thing I just wanted to bring up is if you guys actually truly cared about what the public would would want you'd put it out for referendum and you guys know that deep down inside you know that but you won't do it because you know it'll get shot down you know it you absolutely know it but you won't do it because you want to put it up so you can go to your coffee shops here and say you see that beautiful building that was 2030 whatever million we did that we built that it's completely fiscally irresponsible to do it and you guys know it thank you than you Barbara Holberg 11537 80th Street Northeast when we talk about transparency in a community I find no transparency in the monthly or the bimonthly uh brochure that comes out talks about fluffy whatever things I had no idea that this fire station situation had been going on for so long there was never any talk that would be made public to all of the residents about this situation and so therefore I believe you have gone ahead without making all of these minute decisions that add up to a lot of money and we residents aren't even aware of those particulars and I truly believe that we as residents taxpaying residents deserve to know more of what it is you are deciding on our behalf it doesn't it doesn't seem like you're interested in wanting to know the opinions of your residents um I I've never had a fire in my home but I don't see the practicality of it at this point when everybody is really trying to stretch their dollar why not continue with what we have because I don't I haven't heard of any complaints about it if there were some problems why wasn't that in that newsletter that's the kind of thing our residents want we want details and it doesn't have to be a book that comes out it just has to have some real definite priority information for us to to make a reasonable decision and come to you and say you know I have a problem with this 20 some million dollar fire station and then we have to get it funded for the hired help and the fire engine I mean there's a lot to it and that should be itemized out a lot more than what we've heard thank you thank you thank you any other comments I um Melody bruan 17681 52nd Street Northeast um two questions so I had a very thoughtful uh email conversation with Mr Raj this week and I appreciate that um I was uh emailed a map that said to get to my house was 6.1 2 minutes and then you add the two minutes for the prep time to get in the truck seems like the best case scenario timing he actually took the initiative and drove this path to my house himself wrote back and it was 6.53 minutes which gives you with the 2 minutes is 8.53 minutes which is under the 9 minutes but this seems like a very best case scenario for my house and um I I think I said at the Planning Commission that in 2018 there was a a document referenced in 2018 that was used for some of the studies my development did not exist then and so I really am concerned that we are going to be stretched past that 9 minutes and maybe I should just anticipate that my house will be a total l maybe get some fire extinguishers like that those are the things that are running through my head as a citizen and then secondly um I believe we bought the property in 2018 what have we done to save money in the last six years knowing we wanted to do this thank you thank you thank you thank you any other comments Isabel Grim um you guys already know my position about the fire station which I spoke last week I'm just want to say United together I'm feel so proud of aigo because we are stronger together and I love to see everybody talking tonight I promise uh one of our um community that I'm going to bring some letter the people give it to me so it's two of these and I would like to give it to you today sure you can give it to the clerk and thank you we can do Ito thank you thank you right any other Mike Reese uh 12096 68 Circle um I'm a lot closer to the Albertville fire station than I will be this OD seagull fire station um it concerns me that the spending for this isn't isn't going to be beneficial for people that live super close to these contracted agencies um I tried to get a hold of Albertville they did not get back to me I tried to get hold of Rogers they said talk with your city council I said um I talked I the chief of Elk River got back to me and I asked him um I said are you having any trouble responding to any service calls and he said no we're not uh we're doing fine and uh you know they they and he told me that uh their fire service contract is ending in 2027 with the city of vgo and I want to know is why is that already planned when there hasn't been a vote on this issue yet like it sound it sounds predetermined that we're going to get the city uh fire department going without doing it properly you've made decisions through other cities um the 2018 fire study says right now we should be um in a period of attempting to find common um a common method to pay for contracted fire departments to ease uh to ease the imput implementation of um the closest response areas without increasing cost to city and this this fire department the the financing is just outrageous I can't I can't go get a mortgage and then get a second mortgage just to pay the interest on on the first one I would be homeless um you know and uh so there's a sheet that said uh 1,500 calls or something for service well anytime an agency responds to that it gets multiple counts now Elk River said that they were doing fine with their service I looked back at that and I counted all their service calls non EMS EMS fire when I added it up on that sheet if I did it right it was 798 it was over half of that 1500 um document and they say they're having no trouble responding to service calls in our area so I need I want the council to seriously think about this um it it needs to the financial planning needs to be reworked we can't jump in head first into this and think it's all going to be okay I don't know what my bills are going to be next month or you know next year whatever they keep going up every year anyway I don't need that to go go up any faster than they are unnecessarily um just the council needs to re-evaluate this plan this financial plan and it sounds like from what I heard from uh Elk River it's a done deal and I really just want a pause from my Council and city government uh for me and the other residents so we can figure this out the right way thank you any other comments Mark nrom 9565 par um I don't believe everything that I hear or read on the internet either I I try to get the facts right um so I looked into fire departments in Minnesota and this is old because they probably only do it every 10 years but in 2015 there were 17 cities with full-time firefighters in the whole state of Minnesota every fire department needs volunteers they're not getting them so I get the fact that you want a full-time apartment you know it's the best best thing you can have but I was told that Albertville Albertville budget we pay 60% of their budget I don't know if that's true or not but I do know that Minneapolis is going to pay 4.6 million in the next three years for 15 additional firefighter training and like I said three firefighters in this city aren't going to cut it you're going to have to have double at least so you know it won't be 46 but it might be 2.3 million more for training and you know I I get it we need one but I don't think we need one this minute thanks thank you thank you any other comments Ronda Rosine uh 8863 kway um I just want to say that I hope every one of you at night when you put your head down on the pillow you think about um you have a great responsibility when you are on this Council that every one of you is serving we the citizens of ATO you don't serve of anyone else but us and you were elected by this community you were not elected by yourself there's an election coming up and I think the fact that you have not been transparent with the citizens of this city is really a shame I see it in our government I'm tired of overreach I'm tired of government spending without the concern of us the citizens and I pray that God would convict you when you put your head on the pillow every night that you can go to bed and sleep knowing that you've done the right thing because there is going to come a day where we're going to stand before the Lord on judgment and you will all be judged for the decisions you make in this life none of us will not go without judgment and so I pray that you would take seriously how the citizens of this city feel and that if you truly I I'm not disagreeing that we someday don't need a fire department I'm just not sure it's now and I think that it's wrong and irresponsible that you are not putting it to a vote and allowing the citizens of this city to vote for it that you are going to do an Eda where you're going to take a and put a huge financial responsibility on our city and that it's wrong we the citizens of the city should have a right to vote on that and we should have a right to say yes or no to it and I thank you for hearing me thank you any other comments Mike Reese again 120 9668 um couple things I forgot about to ask um has there been any evaluation with any of these uh other agencies um about contracts and mutual Aid I know in the Planning Commission there was a lot of talk about Mutual Aid and this and that for fire help now has there actually been gu has there been talk about that in City Council meetings you know if cities are going to have that respon you know that response for us if we have our own fire dep department or are we going to be stuck and um you know with our um with our own fire department and then they still want contracted money for us so are we going to get a double whammy with um they they still want contracts and we're paying for our own fire department it has that been looked at I don't know but uh definitely something that should be thought of financially too in this fire station thank you thank you sure awesome Chuck Norris 15399 76 Street Northeast I just wanted to add one more piece to this um I actually got Mr Dunlap to admit that where I live would benefit from having a new fire station so what is right near my house right down the street at SEO Elementary there's numerous inhome daycares there's one child Center where my daughter goes to so I mentioned before our 911 call response time was three minutes for our fire so one of the areas I reached out to was Department of Homeland Security one of the things they sent me was talking about response times for 911 so us Regulators right now estimated at least 10,000 lives can be saved every year by just improving 911 response time by one minute so again I ask you right down the street from my house ATO Elementary School my neighborhood the neighborhoods around us fill multiple school buses with children one minute save our kids lives somebody from at SEO have to pass away so that somebody will take this seriously we're talking about our kids lives here I have three young children ages 10 and under I coach girls softball I coach girls hockey most important thing to us is safety for our kids this is what we're talking about it's not about taxes it's part of the issue things cost money but this is about safety for myself my family my neighbors the kids I coach the kids at my daughter's schools everybody in this room as well too this may not be perfect but it's going to improve the situation here what we have might now might not be broken but it's going to make it better it's something we can continue to build upon again this is personal to me because I've gone through it you know the end of the day the worst thing that happened to me is I had to live with my in-laws for two months but outside of that this is going to make us better as a community it's going to track more somebody brought up can't remember which candidate was they're going to pay for this by increasing the tax base some reasons companies can't move here right now is because we don't have a fire station the cost for insurance for them doesn't make it worth it this will help our community grow by just having the fire station will attract more businesses it'll attract more people to the community I talked one fire chief who said their biggest struggle right now is volunteer firefighters starting with 10 firefighters full-time some of the Chiefs I talked to they would be in heaven right now if they had that that's going to allow us to grow build more fire stations eventually it's going to continue to serve all the people in the city I think the communication around this could have been better because there's a lot of misinformation out there so I get I just ask everybody do your own research talk to other people just because you see something on the Internet whether it's myself Mr Dunlap or somebody else don't accept it as absolute fact I know there's a lot of support in this community from the fire station my wife and I started that petition back in 2018 I think at the time we got about 450 signatures we've gotten almost 100 in the last two days so there's more support than what is here tonight thank you thank you thank you any other comments any other comments Nancy Anderson 9031 Mason Avenue Northeast I think at some point you have to play the odds um I understand that there has not been a fatal fire in SEO in 20 years um and you can talk about being close to the school and things happen a tornado could hit the school you know I mean we haven't had big problems so I think we're trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist that's my comment thank you Chuck Huer 9539 Parkington Avenue um Mr Norris here just stated that uh he wants the council in the city to make him feel safer well I was raised as it is your own responsibility to make you and your own as safe as possible buy some fire signature do that stuff I mean how many homes have fire extinguishers mine has five I have two in the garage one in the kitchen one down the hall three downstairs put them wherever you need to put them I mean you're your first line of defense not firefighters 10 minutes away six minutes away seven minutes away a house is on fire you're going to get damage water damage you you're going to lose things my family had a fire when I was seven we lived 10 miles from nearest Volunteer Fire Station it took them 20 minutes to get there the house was a total loss but all of us who see and that's all that mattered have a good night thank you thank you Chuck Norris one last Point again so he brought up a very good point here one thing we really haven't talked about is what else firefighters do so just going straight from the Elk River site they had 109 calls for atso in 2023 20% of those are motor vehicle accidents 22 and a half% of them were for CO2 alarms 16% were for gas leaks 67 year to date 20% of those Motor Vehicles 20% medical assists 70% pardon me 17% n natural gas leads there's more than firefighters do than just fight fires talking about making us more safe or safer they're First Responders car accidents right on 101 who doesn't want to have a firefighter or somebody there faster you get into the river like there was last year just coming over one1 firefighters are gonna be the First Responders talking about making our kids safer at schools yeah tornado could hit the school First Responders are going to be firefighters there's more than just fighting fires that they do I think that that's an important thing for us to consider here um I mean I really some of the stuff I've seen on Facebook this this is not a political issue I understand taxes increasing nobody wants to spend more money we're talking about safety again not just firefighting responding to accidents whether it be motor vehicle accidents natural gas leaks there's a lot of things that firefighters do that we don't talk about enough here um like I said I reached out to a ton of these different Fire Chiefs and one of the last things I wanted to say was there was one Chief who was the deputy fire chief of beloy Wisconsin again my asked question to them was you know did I understand these guidelines correctly for response times which I did the second piece of it was making sure water was on the scene that was correct as well too uh that person said PS and this was unsolicited I didn't even mention who our fire chief was going to be he said P.S Chief R was the chief of two departments close to where I'm currently working he was a great fire chief let him lead and you will have great results so I encourage people ask questions of the right people make sure you truly understand this issue and not make it just a tax because that's where this gets lost thank you thank you than thank you Dave Davis 6689 Packer down Northeast earlier this year probably February time frame I sent a questionnaire up to all three fire departments in all the three cities and asked them if they had any plans at all to not continue with the contract they all assur me there were no such Plans by either by any of those cities um as far as safety um we're talking about what you can do to protect yourself at home you know fire extinguish smoke alarms I just went through all of mine this past week and as Jessica knows last week Thursday when I called her there was another fire in that complex down here that three units burned it was a lint fire how many people checked their lint in the thing and into the tube that exhausts it personal responsibility the other thing is to know about CPR I know what it's like to wait for help when somebody has a pulmonary imis because I've gone through it like six or seven times you wait and you wait and it seems no matter how long you wait three minutes seems like three hours um best thing you can do is prepare yourself to know how to do CPR and unfortunately I had a situation where I Came Upon a car accident out the middle of nowhere one one other car had stopped to help and I ended up doing CPR on a 24 year old guy for half an hour by myself I had no idea how tired that would make you a half hour later the cops showed up and the fire department showed up and they literally pulled me off the kid they worked on him 20 minutes and they finally gave up and he died I look at it like yesterday so so you'd have to take a lot of accountability yourself for taking care of things prevention is the main thing thanks thank you thank you any other comments M GRE 1 1209 668 Circle just want to say we're talking about all these uh First Responders and stuff law enforcement is also a first responder thank you thank you David Chapala 16592 72nd Court North Feast uh mayor for Ado candidate uh lived here for 22 years um I call this home most people that have moved out here have moved out here for a reason because of the lower property taxes and as a I have a new family and I live in a town home and we pay almost $3,000 in property taxes for a lot that I even own pretty much and you know money's tight nowadays with inflation and a lot of lot of people also in the OBO Community are retired and they also live on tight budgets and with everything going in price people are struggling with that $15 there $20 there it adds up our HOA fee just went up $40 this year we're having an HOA meeting next month I don't know how much we're gonna have to raise it up you know so just with money just going left and right we're just being squeezed and I just see that the city is spending money left and right without looking at the budget and just making smart decisions I'm not against the fire department for the future but right now the current situation is I don't think people are financially in a good place to be able to afford that like people have said maybe we should save up money put a down payment for a fire department maybe we build a smaller substation you know and there's other Albertville River Rogers Rogers just built a brand new fire station Dayton is much closer to me we can be in contact with them I know they're struggling to find firefighters themselves but there's a reason why people have moved out here and have lived here is because it's been a place to live cheaper than hennipen County but now it's turning into hennipen County so I would just reconsider this you know we don't need to build one right now but we can push it off you know this doesn't need to happen right now so I just encourage you guys to just rethink your guys' decision so thank you thank you thank you any other comments hello hello Mark Wares 15423 76 Street Northeast um I grew up in a family of firefighters and police officers to me the added benefit of fire station is that it is also a community center I grew up going to numerous open houses birthday parties fire training exercises I take my kids these days to the ones in Elk River and the one in Rogers and they feel that sense of community that comes along with having these events having the pride and having something that's yours and as much as I love seeing everybody once a year at the Prairie Festival I would love to see it more often than that and I think the community center in the fire station is one of the best ways to do that so I'm fully supportive of the fire station thank you thank you thank you any other comments any other comments PA one more time for any other comments okay we will close the open forum and we will move on item two to consider agenda for approval does anyone have anything that they would like to add or delete at this time changes that a motion would be in order Madame mayor yes could we bring down item 3.12 off the consent agenda okay request to move it would you like it to go to item 7.1 7.1 that works okay I'm sorry 3.12 correct 3.1 two correct okay any other changes otherwise a motion to approve would be in order Madame mayor yes Ryan I move to approve the agenda as amended second motion by Ryan seconded by Jeff is there any discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I all those oppose same sign motion passes next item is our consent agenda again item 3.12 has been removed Audra Madame mayor I move to approve the consent agenda as amended motion by Ryan seconded by Britney is there any discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I I all those opposed same sign motion passes next item is a public hearing for Queens Avenue easement I will turn this over to the city planner thank you mayor uh the city has initiated a vacation of a drainage and utility easement along the property at uh 5861 Queens Avenue that's Metro home insulation this is being done in conjunction with a storm water Improvement project that was just approved by the Council on the consent agenda that's on the south lot line of this property between voma insulation and Canvas Craft that Improvement will put in place a storm water pipe to convey storm water underneath uh Queens Avenue and address some longterm drainage issues in that area that uh initially developed under Frankfurt Township jurisdiction as part of this uh working with the Metro home insallation property owner uh the city's proposing to vacate what was a drainage and utility easement that bisected their parking area uh with the storm water Improvement project the drainage and utility easement no longer serves public purpose vacating it would allow the property owner the opportunity to use the property to a fuller extent EV than they are now with that easement in place uh so the vacation is appropriate for both those reasons uh public hearing is required by Minnesota statutes in order to consider the vacation of the hearing or the vacation of the easement uh which would be conducted now City staff's recommendation is that the uh easement be vacated as set forth in resolution 202 24- 66 provided in your packet this evening thank you Audra has the city received any comments mayor we have not received any comments okay you at this time I'll will open the public hearing this is again can come to the podium state your name and address limit comments to five minutes or less regarding the drainage and utility ement vacation ask again if there's any public comments and for the record I'll ask one more time anyway we can have more information about it because I just before I even say any comments I would like to be have more information to Mayor yes Dan um so as I explained the city is doing a storm water Improvement project along the South property line uh that will include a pipe overlaid by drainage and utility m in that location to carry storm water as part of the regional drainage in that area City previously had easement across this property uh for storm water purposes that is not needed once this Improvement project is completed so the city is releasing its uh drainage and utility easement rights over that portion of the property back to the property owner allowing them more full use of the property this is appropriate because the city maintains those easements only when needed for public purpose with the completion of the storm water Improvement program and project along the South property line there is no public purpose associated with this easement any longer and it's appropriate to turn that property back to the property owner okay all right so I will ask again if there's any public comment regarding this project any other public comment we will close the public hearing and we will move it back up to the council for questions for staff on this or a motion to approve it be in order there any comments motion yes Tina motion to adopt resolution 2024 66 vacating drainage and utility easements for 5861 Queens Avenue second motion by Tina seconded by Ryan is there any discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I all those opposed same sign motion passes moving on to item 5.1 under Public Safety it's our fire and Emergency Services building project authorization to bid I will turn this over to our Emergency Services director thank you mayor in November of 2022 this body uh voted to move forward with formation of a department um the directed City staff in relation to that to come up with plans and specifications to move the project forward incrementally we started out by uh looking at the design of the apparatus since there's a very long lead time on those apparatus the next logical step was to work on design of the building Russ Anderson uh is our construction management partner has help been helping us with estimating uh wal architects uh is the design firm that was retained by the city uh through action by the city council to uh help design the building both of those folks are here tonight and I'm going to ask them to uh speak a little bit about uh what they've done to bring this process to the point that it is now and then I'll come back and answer questions for you and then uh discuss the motion so if you have the next slide please so I'm I'm going to have U I'm going to have Wall come up and talk about the design of the station so we got Jonathan rth who's one of the principal at wal and Jacob BAC who's uh been helping us on this project in particular thank you Daryl uh thank you Council um as darl said this has been a ongoing project we've been working on for quite some time a lot of Staff involvement um some Council involvement along the way we'll just give a really brief overview of kind of the the site plan a little bit about the building plan then I'll turn it over to Jake to look at um some of the um just design aspects as well but uh try to make it pretty brief we've had a lot of other comments and things like that and I'd like to get it back to darl when we can so um what you're looking at here is just a um the actual site forces diagram of the building um so it shows um kind of the north end of the building um is where a lot of the administration and staff areas are um the south side is where those apparatus Bays U will be located um it's in configured in such a way to have drive-thru apparatus phase um again that increases response time um and allows for just a more efficient operation of um fire apparatus moving in and out of the station so they don't have to back in um they can always be moving in a singular Direction um through the station and I think um that was one thing just aspect of the site plan and looking at sort of operations of the facilities in general um was that response time and just uh very key focus on um the movement through the facility um and around it as well so whenever we're um looking at the different needs within the building um we're also looking at the needs out of the building as well um so definitely focus on how they're getting um off of each of the um cross streets there um we looked um quite a bit in detail at the grade of the facility and making sure that um we didn't have slopes that weren't advantageous to vehicles moving in and out of there um and then the other thing I would say is that we looked at um different areas where the public would experience that building um when they're coming to visit I think it was mentioned earlier about um likely having some open houses and things like that um so it's definitely a facility that is intended to be for the entire city not just for um firefighters as well but uh we can go into maybe the plans a little bit as well and talk about that too then um so as I said that North half um is M mainly the administration and staff areas um at the East side you're looking at that main entry um and kind of a a training and Citywide um conference room that could be used uh and then south of that is where you've got the administration off uh and then really to the east or the west side of that area um that's really the living areas for your um duty crew that would be using that station and responding to the south side of that where the apparatus pays are um so we've got some of the trucks some of the apparatus that are being purchased um sort of shown graphically within the station now and you can see how they kind of fit within those different areas as well as a mezanine that U bicep apparatus area that has some of the training features bless you uh but then also has also has some of the um actual storm shelter feature within that building that's actually a more recent Development in Minnesota building code so you have to have um a portion of the structure that can house um a number of Staff within that area and so um that actually has ended up increasing cost of a lot of fire stations I'd say um throughout the state and with in the um boundaries of um where that's required it's not throughout the entire state but there's kind of a line that you draw um where the storms tend to be more severe and that's required so um you kind of see thicker lines um around that area on the Southeast side that's what that's intended to be for um so again a real focus on safety within the facility and operations throughout the facility to make sure that people can respond um to those emergencies as quickly as possible um but also have it uh be a building that is available to the public for um those training things and open houses and things like that as well um from an exterior standpoint really wanted to kind of minimize the uh cost and make this an efficient building so we are um using pre-cast panels um around the entire perimeter we've got a little bit of wood finish uh we do want to um have you know this is a a point of Pride for the community so we wanted to make sure it felt warm uh so there is a little bit of wood but as I mentioned we're primarily using architectural pre-cast uh panels um what that means is these panels are going to get made in a factory uh shipped to the site here and the building will go up pretty quick it'll probably be a couple weeks uh and you'll have a a fully uh a full perimeter of uh building with those walls that go up um so we did put a lot of care and effort into minimizing cost and making sure that this building um was efficient uh for the city and um we are using some different finishes on that pre-cast it's not a huge ad for cost on that front but um we're trying to do everything we can to you know keep cost down on the overall project and design any other slides is just one at um so this is a kind of a side elevation view another thing that we're trying to do with the building is Implement different training areas throughout within the building and on the outside so you'll notice on the upper right corner uh is a hose tower for hanging hoses but it also doubles as a training Tower and has a couple openings on the exterior for um doing different uh training exercises with the Department um but again uh primary material was the preast that you see in the gray there uh sprinkling in a little bit of the wood and glass where it makes sense to have daylight for the different Living Spaces thank you thank you thank you guys so as we said U the direction that we were given U through internal discussion and and from the council was that we wanted this facility to be able to uh handle the services for the community as the community continues to grow as well yes we could have built a much smaller structure which would then probably only serve the community for a few years before we would need to expand it again so the the goal here was to make this a 50-year building uh that also led to the use of the pre-cast concrete panels makes it a very resilient building very stor proof much more so than a steel frame or wood frame buing would be um so wal has helped us through that process uh to get to where we are today uh CR Anderson um has been helping us with the estimating and we're also proposing tonight that they help us manage the bid process uh the bid process will then put the project out to multiple contractors uh who will look at the project and come up with an a bid to actually do various portions of the project so there likely will be in excess of 20 different contractors that will be involved with this car Anderson helps manage all of those pieces and make sure that the the schedule works well uh in the Future car Anderson will also help us with construction management to manage the schedule and how that all comes together um so I've got Mike Phillips from car Anderson he is been our project manager for this project he has helped us with the initial estimate one of the things that the council has been asking for is uh to get a better handle on whether our our estimates that we presented if you remember back in March we had a very detailed presentation to the city council um that laid out a lot of these things including cost for the building the cost of the apparatus the cost of Staffing a lot of those things were covered in that presentation uh that presentation for anybody who may be listening that presentation material is available on the city's website lays out much of the operating cost uh and those other elements as well so I'm going to ask Mike Phillips to come up and talk just a little bit about the estimate how we develop the estimate uh that we've been using and then also talk a little bit about the process to manage that bidding as we go forward thank you thanks Daryl mayor council Mike Phillips Carl Sanderson appreciate the opportunity to speak my eyes are a little bad so I apologize that's hard to see um I do have it up in front of me here just so I can speak to it as well um in the four columns from left to right uh we start with the original budget and then there's design Milestones uh throughout this process so at three different points very early in the process after the original budget update which was done back in Fall of 2023 uh we put together a concept estimate in March of 24 a schematic design estimate which is another design Milestone within the design process in June and then most recently here about three weeks ago completed a design development which is the last stage of design before you get to construction documents are going to bid um and what I would say again I know these numbers are hard to read uh in the the red line brownish red line in the middle that comes across that sometimes refer to as hard cost or construction cost the bricks and mortar of what it takes to to put together a building and to build a building um back uh in Fall of 23 through March of 24 that was roughly a 17 and a half million dollar number uh the number designed development again back in on September 5th here of this month um at 17 44 million so uh where we thought we would be back in the fall of 23 is where we're at now in the fall of 24 uh the numbers down on the bottom to the orange are what we refer to as soft costs in construction those costs are typically on the owner side of the construction project and those include things like design fees uh construction manager fees permits plan reviews uh construction testing and inspections uh bidding processes um Furnitures excuse me Furniture fixtures and equipment what's known as FF and so the things if you think about shaking a building upside down what falls out that's typically FF and those expenditures uh we had originally pegged those back in the fall of 24 uh at about just shy of $4.5 million uh from March of this year uh through this fall uh that number is between 3.5 to 3.75 million um what does that mean in totality uh again uh a budget original budget that was put together back in Fall of 23 uh at roughly $22 million um and uh today uh happy to report we're just a hair over 21 million dollars so under where we thought we would be a year ago at this time uh which is good news that a credit to uh the the individual of the city and W as a as a design team excuse me this is a partnership as we work through this process uh multiple user group meetings getting input from Key stakeholders and working through a design process to bring a purpose built fire station to the seagull um just to speak quickly because I know we're probably running a little bit late on time um where do these numbers come from so as we go through and we do estimates at each one of these design stage milestones we are looking at uh recently bid projects that kuss Anderson has put out other projects whether they be fire stations or not in terms of the individual unit cost of what are mechanical systems what is concrete at what's steel what's Roofing and we look at that in totality and then right sides that for the project that we have an ATO we also will reach out to specific key contractors that are likely to bid on this project so to go out for bid uh we would reach out we reach out to those contractors and ask for real pricing on this project specifically I think the the estimate that we put together uh in September off the top of my head I want to say we reached up to about 12 to 15 unique contractors uh to gauge pricing so we're very confident um in the pricing that we've put forth uh for d team those there anything else that you wanted me to hit on okay thank you any questions not right yet thank you thank you you Mike thank you so the process that we've gone through has brought us uh to this point um the next logical step uh in order to take this project any F farther is to actually see if our estimate is correct we'll do that by putting the project out on the street asking for bids uh verify that those numbers are correct we'll bring that information back to the council for Action uh I would like to add a couple of things um there was a comment made and that's been made quite a number of times that you know what does this guy do when we don't have a fire department this is what I and City staff have been doing for the last 15 months literally thousands of hours have gone into specking equipment writing policies is designing the the building working with Partners uh a lot of the questions that were were asked tonight have been considered and there's a lot of moving parts that still have to come together but we're meeting the Milestones that we laid out back in January February March uh of this year and even before that uh going clear back to last year during the interview process we laid out a lot of dates and I was given a lot of Direction by the Council on what they wanted to see and and how they wanted to do it I will point out that this decision to move forward with this with this project was made in November of 2022 prior to me being hired City staff and I have been following the directions that the city council gave us we City staff and I have stayed out of the politics that are involved purposely because we're following the directions that you all have given us if that direction from the council changes staff and I certainly will follow the direction given at that time but until that direction has changed we are moving ahead with the project that we were asked to provide with that I will answer questions you I have a few questions and this comes from questions that were at the Planning Commission and along with tonight um contracts people ask are we going to be contracting once this is operational so can you talk about contracts now and what that looks like for the future yes so right now we contract with each of the Departments they all three of the contracts that we have are open-ended contracts they are not going to expire in 2027 I think the the date 2027 was was set as a Target date for our department to come operational that's probably where that Cur comment came from there is no uh termination date and I have not had any indication from any of the three departments that they are imminently going to terminate the service contracts that we have um one thing that we've seen with the contracts though is the previous four years up until now we've seen a 14% increase annually in those contracts uh the increase for next year is 15.9% as projected by the initial budgets that each of the contracted agencies sent us so if you carry that number forward to 2027 2028 uh the cost to operate our department will actually likely be less than the cost for the contract of services based on that rate of increase I've had people tell me that you know a 15% increase is an anomaly but it really has proven over the last five years that it's not necessarily an anomal uh some of those contracted departments are moving towards career Staffing and a model very much like what we have proposed uh if that happens those contract costs very likely could increase at even faster rate we believe that the model that we are proposing with a limited career staff backed up by 20 paidon call volunteers is the model that many of the sub Suburban communities are are going to or will be going to largely because you can't expect volunteers to provide the the quantity not the quality the quantity of service that's now being required by these growing communities every Community that's in our area is growing exponentially and we can only expect if to see what iGo is doing what those other communities are increasing at the same time I know there are some merger conversations going on in some other communities but certainly most of the Metro uh Suburban departments have already gone to the model that we're proposing or even gone past that model and going through full Career Staffing can you talk about that Staffing just because I believe the comments were made even tonight and at the previous meeting that there'd only be three people there as you mention yeah our proposal is to to begin with three people on duty every day backed up by the 20 volunteers uh the three people will be be able to handle uh quite a number of the more routine calls however on more advanced calls such as structure fir car accidents and those kind of things the volunteers will still be called what the three people on duty does is give you an immediate suppression response to the the incident so that's not an SUV arriving at a fire that's a fully staffed fire engine with a th000 gallons of water three people on it and know essentially a rolling toolbox of all the things that they need to deal with most of the emergencies um we we went through and did a hand count of all of the emergency calls that happened within the city of o in 2023 based on that we anticipate on the first year of service for this department this department will respond to 202 fire related calls so fires car accidents carbon monoxide calls those kind of things and about 659 EMS calls uh EMS presence will be much more robust one of the things that we don't control in the city of oo is who provides Ambulance Service and how they do it those ambulance services have protected areas they're regulated by the state uh the city has really no oversight and no ability to affect that our community is divided into three different sections for aim1 service so some of it comes from El River some comes from Al out of St Michael some of it comes from monel because those ambulances are coming from outside of the community there quite often is unacceptable delays for for EMS response our three people on duty every day will respond immediately they will be EMT trained they'll be able to do Advanced life support help support the patient until that transport unit or paramedic unit from one of the annual Services arrives uh our response will be much more uh robust than the current contracted services um the current contracted fire departments have a very limited EMS response and when 80% of our calls are going to be EMS I think that we need to address that uh delay as well as addressing the fire response my goal would be to bring an ambulance service into our building not that we would take over EMS and do transports I don't think that anybody uh in on City staff or on the council want to go that direction although some departments have uh but we will provide that Missing Link Between the the emergency happening and we can get that advanced level care to help our EMS will work under likely work under Al uh medical director our protocols will match their protocols uh and through the discussions that we've had with them we'll be able to to provide just about all of the Care that align provides with the exception of doing being able to administer drugs in order to administer drugs in Minnesota you have to be a paramedic so but early defibrillation CPR Airway management anaphylactic shock all of those type of things will be able to help manage that until that higher level of care gets set other question also other questions yes darl can you because this was brought up as well tonight in previous but about Mutual Aid are we going to have do we pay them um once we have our own and how does that work with mutual Aid so there's two levels of Aid uh number one is automatic Aid uh that happens based on the type of call the dispatcher can make the decision to dispatch more than one Department that's essentially what we have with the three contracted departments today so if there's a structured fire in the city today all three of the contractor departments are automatically dispatched through the conversations that I've had with the Chiefs and Adam has had with their city managers that automatic Aid will continue without any Interruption Mutual Aid can be a bit different we have to call and ask for that okay we could have mutual aid from any department whether it be an adjoining department or even farther away um I should add on the automatic Aid side we currently have automatic Aid with three departments our goal is to have automatic Aid with monacell Albertville St Michaels uh Dayton and Rogers as a minimum so we'll actually be adding many more departments uh what we would do though is rather than calling all three of them no matter or all of them no matter where we are in the city we would set up a box alarm system which is depending on what part of the city that you were in that Aid would come from there so if you live over on the east side of town Frankfurt Park area where the East Wastewater Plant is likely the two Mutual a or automatic Aid departments there would be Dayton and Rogers consequently if you're on the other side open by Albertville it may be elville and mon solo could be eltville in St Michaels depending on where which departments are closer so we're actually adding quite a much larger capability when it comes to that automatic Aid okay further I've not found any department whether they're adjacent to us or in the metro area that has said if we called them for Mutual Aid that they would not send a resource okay the only thing with both of those is they need to take care of their own communities first so if they have the resources available they may respond to us all the Departments that I've talked to have indicated that that would not be an issue with continuing M mayor that's right Chief can you clarify something you said in our budget meeting then because I think you had mentioned that there's some concern from some of the other communities that we would not be able to that the mutual Aid would be very unmutual and you said we're probably going to have to add staff higher than what was previously estimated in order to uh I guess assuage some of their concerns to make sure that they're not always just helping us I don't think that that's true Mutual Aid again we would provide Mutual Aid based on our ility so as long as we have volunteer response we certain certainly would be able to send that Mutual Aid I don't expect that we would need Mutual aid for routine incidents within the city most of the aid that we would need just like the contractor departments do now most of the aid that they need are for significantly large incidents so I don't expect that we'll need to call for Mutual Aid on a daily or a weekly basis our our department with the career staffing as the initial response followed up by the volunteer paid on call staffing which would come to man secondary units I don't believe that that's a significant issue I'm having problems with that because I think what you said in the meeting was we're probably going to have to add staff above what was originally estimated I don't ever recall saying okay I spoke with Elk River Rogers Albertville elk R Rogers said that they're kind of in a wait and seee approach they want to see what our capabilities are before they really say that Mutual Aid makes sense because of the location of our station I think it would be reasonable to have some concern about whether we can get there in time actually our response will be very good because we have career people in the building we we we lose that six to seven minutes of the volunteers responding to the station doesn't matter how many people are in the building if the drive time is what it is and so when I spoke to Albert bill they had a much more significant concern and what they told me is that they're likely going to expect us to continue the contracts some fashion and I don't believe that the conversation with Adam had with their administrator reflected that at all okay okay other questions for Carol yeah I have a few more um operating budget as you referred to there is the information that we covered back in March yes and the capital expenses and then there would be the fire station are you able to cover that for the residents in the audience so the operating operating budget or capital budget um let's take a sabot all of that okay so the capital budget according to the estimates that Adam has put out somewhere around $150 to $170 on an average home annually there will be once the department is established within the corporate city limits of at Seagull there likely will be a reduction in insurance rate certainly not to that extent but it will help offset that tax increase on the operating side our total operating budget for 2027 including Personnel um all of the equipment maintenance and and operating the building is uh 2,148 63 based on the 15.9% increase that we saw this year that will equate almost exactly what our contract cost could be in 2028 so there will be a a slight uh cost increase uh to the community of about $163,000 the first year over what they're paying today additionally there's some State training aid and state um funding that goes now to the contractor departments amounts to about $230,000 a year which then would be retained by the city of Ville rather than handing that off to the contracted Department can we just clarify though that the numbers that you just gave per household are just for operating costs it's not the total cost of ownership of a fire department that does not that that's the capital cost for the startup for the the equipment to building those things we're talking about bonding for okay the opting costs again largely offset almost entirely offset by no longer paying the contracted departments and retaining the state um state aid and the state training reimbursement money other questions um I'm going to um just because it was asked you know that is some comments that were this has been sprung on us um I want everyone to know that back in 2016 there was a proposal with for a jpa with the city of Albertville so it's a joint Powers agreement that model was done with Springstead and they looked at how we could combine or what what it looked like for working together for that section of the city um when the jpa was proposed the councils between Albertville city of oo couldn't come to an agreement on that um there was discussion during that time also about there needing to be a fire station in ATO then you move ahead to uh five bugle study which was done by the city of El River and That Was Then presented to the city council in 2017 so as we've said we have three departments that serve us and each of those cities were doing their own studies on where their next fire departments would need to be during that five bugle study that presented the the um need for Elk River to relocate their I'm sorry not relocate add to their system and that was building a fire station over by Twin Lakes which they have since opened and it talked about needing a fire station in ATO to cover the section that they cover for the city of Tigo so during both two different times and two different departments a year apart from each other there was discussion about needing a fire station Noto to be managing the city at that time um in 2018 then a year later the city took on the abil the ability to go out on her own and look at having the fire a fire study done and that was done with Beacon GIS so as we've heard a few people say you know in 2018 it says you didn't need it well the fire study did show that working with those departments always looking at where their fire stations were moving to that there needed to be proper prop purchase in the city of oigo which we did go ahead and do we did purchase property in 2019 we had already owned property that was along County Road 42 at the Round Barn we own a section um on Park Avenue and 85th Street that was purchased many years ago when when Target was being developed and the county was looking at um where we needed to um have additional fire suppression that was pointed out with the City of Elk River aw where we should be looking for property and at that time that piece became available from L fave so we were able to secure five acres of land in 2022 to 2023 we did the cap Zone study because at that point we were looking for direction on now we own the property what should we be doing to look at increasing and looking ahead to what will make our community safe so these discussions have gone back and forth for years and I can understand that maybe some people don't feel as though they were involved in the beginning but I want you to know that our job here is to look at all residents and the future of our city so please understand that this is not being taken lightly by any of us and we do hear the comments from the community but our job is to look out for everyone in the community and what's best for the resident scoto is there any other comments Madam mayor on that point I think kind of rushed over the 2018 study there and it's something that I think kind of frustrates me because it says in here in the justification for this project that we are implementing the recommendations of Prior studies the the 2018 study said keep the contracts it said build a substation here for Albertville to operate and manage we ask the question what happens if we get rid of the contracts and build a station there for oursel and the fire study said that results in the worst possible performance of all of the scenarios they examined we are completely ignoring the study the study was also U planning for a non-career department correct M May so the 2018 study involved three components the first was looking at the existing service boundaries from the contracted departments to optimize those they hadn't been reviewed in many years and looking at the growth that had happened what was the best way to continue with the current Services the second element of the study was to identify locations for fire stations in oo t r is correct that it looked at options both for volunteer only and career um but that was it was where if you're going to build a station at ego where should it be the number one choice in multiple scenarios was the location where the city purchased property at 75th OD the third element of the study said to continue with the development of a fire station as a shared facility with one of the current contracted partners with the expectation as Chief R said that automatic Aid and mutual Aid would also continue so that you don't look at just the one station at ATO it was located based on where all the other stations were um not only the ones in place at that point but where they were going to build new stations so that this is the optimized location and then here's how it recommended operating it that third element was essentially Revisited with the Capstone study when the council said okay what are our next steps and one of the options was to consider a joint Powers agreement shared arrangement with one of the Departments the council and looking at the pros and cons of those options chose to move forward with its independent Department locally control um so in essence that third element of the 2018 study was updated in 2023 um the other thing I just wanted to emphasize is that 2018 study yes it was done now six years ago but it was based on existing and future growth so for areas that weren't developed in 2018 it still acknowledged what the city's comprehensive plan said would be in those areas at that time it also looked at where the existing roads are but also where future roads will be so 75th Street West of Odin Avenue at some point will be extended West to connect with Nashua Avenue and provide a more even more direct route uh to the West Sewer District versus driving South to County 38 then West so um these three studies in essence all work together uh and the council throughout that process reached its decision to move forward with this option BR mad I was to picky back up Dan's comment that was also my my comment would be that the study did look at what our population was and growth in 2018 but also thought of future growth as well um we have numbers in front of us tonight um you know I've heard that people say that we don't have any any numbers and so tonight we have a pretty good idea here um I will say that we don't have a pretty good idea as to what numbers look like in five years in 10 years in 15 years whenever the council decides at that time that it is time to have a fire department and and stop pushing this out so unfortunately it's here and our it's in our lab so I would I would point out that the estimates that are shown on the screen here do include a 5% uh inflation factor for construction next year since we're essentially a year out from construction we did build that into that buget so we've been seeing 5% is a little more realistic I built a fire station in 2019 in Fort ainson Wisconsin 2019 to 20 21 because of Co it took the build it the inflation Factor on that building was 11% per year ended up being almost 20% increase over the original estimate largely driven by the supply chain issues which are not completely corrected at this point they're somewhat better but they're still not as well as they could be the same with equipment if we delay purchasing apparatus um in 2015 I built two fire a matched pair for $736,000 for the pair in 2018 I built a new engine for Fort aninon Wisconsin that engine was 542,000 in 2018 I updated that quote just before I left to come here in 20123 that engine was then 855,000 that department just ordered that engine last month it was 1.3 million exact same spec so costs keep going up so you have to kind of think about that side of the the equation as well the city did have there was a comment made that the city has not set aside any money for this project the city had 5.4 million in reserve to help pay for some of that equipment unfortunately with the cost of that equipment as it is today um that money is pretty much used will be used up by the time we get the apparatus in the small equipment that's needed operate to Department that cost is there correct to cover those items I just want that noted for the residents corre and that was all done by previous councils and City staff that has worked three years at that I had nothing to do with that mayor just to kind of build on that the setting aside of reserves goes back more than 20 years because the city has contracts with three different providers um each of the contracts had a different value calculation certain fire districts cost the city more than the other fire districts um but the city council in the early 2000s late 1990s made the decision to level the fire fee at the highest rate uh and then use that additional money that was collected from the lower cost districts to put into the fire reserve fund to do things like acquire the property at Park in 85th Street the property at bin Avenue and uh 75th Street complete the fire studies Etc and then the addition of the aid money that was uh included in that Reserve fund as well other questions or comments mayor yes CH if I can thank you again uh ladies and gentlemen for C for coming up here and talking I know it's nerve-wracking if you've never come up here and talked and if you're already blood's already boiling about what we're doing up here thanks again uh for coming up um one thing I discussed last time uh we disc back in December was our taxes I hear taxes that's a you know a lot of that a lot of comments are all of our taxes what's going to go up everything goes up it sucks it's annoying one thing I said back in December was when you get your tax form this is the biggest thing to look at not just the city we're talking about for me 21% of our taxes some of you are 22% some of you are 23% look at this document it's easy to look here and look at our bill that sucks when you see that number oh my God here we go what you should be looking at is up here I said this in December I'll say it again when you look at this number here what is your home valued at what find out where they get that number where they is County County gets a number by your neighbors what do they sell their house at that's basically the same as yours that's the number you key on okay what does that mean why am I talking about that well my first year here is 2021 and just like you we saw our taxes go nuts well who do you talk to I talked to one of our tax assessors why did this get so high he kind of looked at me and said we used to be evaluated at 60 to 80% of the value Val of what our neighbor sold for 60 to 80% okay that's different that was when I moved here it was 2013 now we're valuated at 100% 100 to 105% so if your neighbor sells at 400,000 guess what your house is worth yet you live here you've lived here 30 years 20 years 10 years that's what your house value is County decided that why did they decide that because the state told them to so what I said again in December that is the the key number who is in charge of that well we have two Representatives here we have an East and a west side nney and uh who's he who's the other guy nney and Hudson you talk to those two guys those are our state reps now if you talk to lero he's our state senator three guys represent us those are three of 200 people at St Paul that represent us to get this number call them get to know them get on a first name base with them that's the key to start with one thing we liked last year is remember we didn't have a homestead credit because our house value is too crazy now we finally got a homestead credit back so we got that back but if you look at that you go by those you talk to those three first if you get you know depending on what side you're on east and west then you figure out what their plan is because they're not in session now their session starts next year okay what are you doing thanks for you know making our homestead credit bigger what's your plans for next year because you know things have been crazy now one thing nice hopefully some you got a nice reset thanks to our inflation and whatnot but if you look at your again your tax sheet think of it then as a dinner bill when you go to dinner and you're with friends and you go out you see the bill oh my God it's that much do we just complain about the bill or do we look over the bill who ordered the nine Stakes who ordered the 15 beers no you look at what was the cost the big start cost is your county what did County do well we're paying still paying for a new Sheriff's Office anytime go over there go to Buffalo check it out right next to that is your new government center that's within the last two years check those places out for what our commissioner said is only went up 6% or 5.7 fantastic those have already been built that's after the fact so know your county you care about your money go check out Buffalo check all that stuff out what your sheriff department is what your Government Center is we paid for it we're part of it we are one of 17 cities and 18 townships in wri County go enjoy part of our money in Buffalo especially when it comes to 5.7 where is that going well raises the our deputies raises the lawyers raises the judges raises the all the admin staff those buildings so that's your county Bill what about your schools okay remember everybody was here in 2016 remember we had the vote is not how you're going to pay for or remember it's not if you're going to get prayer review Elementary is how you're going to pay for it vote Yes you get you get bonds and whatnot or excuse me you another count or another uh uh School referendum 35 million okay that passed when it comes to schools we also have Elk River Rogers and Zimmerman not just us those are your top two bills schools is your stake the dessert is a county now you look for your appetizer oo what is he go do well let me see we don't when you look at what we have here we have Parks we have our maintenance for people we have you know streets and then we contract for fire we contract for our police hopefully you don't need police but we still contract form them hopefully we don't need fire but we still contact for them it's better to have it and not need it right that need it not have it well that well that you kind of look at that like okay is that an improvement well I guess the fact is out of 21% of years taxes what does defunding public safety and public service look like well if you look at what city of vgo has been taxed we're actually pretty good for the largest city in Wright County we're actually the lowest taxed in rri County comparatively to other cities surrounding us that's another thing I'm sure that will come up and you will see to say what the heck is he talking about so it's kind of like you'll see all that tax percent you'll see all that stuff so when I said what does defunding look like when it comes to our Sheriff when it our deputies when it comes to our fire well if you guys want when I started in 21 we also voted to up our coverage for our right County deputies to 50 hours what does that mean we get five deputies 10 hour shifts and I asked how the deputies work with that how did that work for you how's everything oh it's great I get my own shift I get you know it's a lot more it's not uh it's not bouncing all over the place they like steady they like it you know a they like it regimented enough so they know what their 10 hours is going to be that's it and of course one thing great about our right County Sheriffs most of them live in our community so when they leave the driveway they're on duty of course they have a police car or a deputy vehicle you're not going to have that with fire wouldn't that be nice but then you look at our five deputies we have one in back technically we don't have a police department right well we don't have have a police station either or do we if you go down the hall here and make a right and you see that room and the left and that last door that technically in other words more words than one is your Police Department our deputies go there for non uh emergency business with residents Noto what's one thing great about this fire station is we get to expand for them to have more room in that station plus more community room this is your community room nobody wanted to expand our Public Service behind us with the uh U Public Works building which needs to be doubled because there's equipment our equipment sitting outside over $7 million in equipment one a million and a half or over a million dollars of equipment sits outside that's money we've already spent you guys have already spent to get it when it comes to Public Service wouldn't it be nice to have our sideways sidewalks pull out well we can't you need more people you need more equipment that's not available for that yet there's also no room to store it so when you watch what's going on with your city you know where your money's going with r County with your schools then you look at your city on the 21% portion of your taxes or 23 or whatever the math is on your taxes where then does the money go so you look at everything it's time to fund our Public Service it's time to fund our public when it comes to deputies when it comes to fire one person said too what about you know you were oo uh you're you're the oo Council yes we are we also one weird thing is we've been paying for our fire Services since 93 from other cities why is that money leaving here we are T we're putting money into other taxes we're helping out other communities and not us so if you look from 1993 anybody can get this information 93 to 2024 we've spent 12.6 million on fire services so if you add 12.6 million plus what you're seeing today with fire services this is what delaying fire Services costs 12 million 12.6 plus the four uh 1.4 next year which is 14 million and then whatever you see here so add that all together to wait it have been great if they said 93 when they plann five years ahead hey let's get something didn't happen here we are 31 years later figuring out fire services so again thank you for everybody for coming out look at your taxes study your numbers see what I'm talking about out then we'll still have this again in December so thank you for your time other comments I would like to add one thing if there's no more comments before I ask you to consider the Motions here I want to be very clear that I am not criticizing the service of the department at service they have provided what's been asked of them in the contract I think where the problem lies is the contract and the service delivery model that we're Contracting for really doesn't fit a community of 24,000 when I tell other Fire Chiefs who are my contemporaries that I'm I went to a community of 24,000 people to help help them start start up the fire department they're all incredulous that there's a community of 24,000 that does not have those Services um yes this is not a cheap Endeavor and I fully understand understand the comments of the people that were here tonight U but understand that we've gotten a lot of communication on this uh both sent to Audrey and a lot of uh questions that have been posed to me uh I will tell you if you have questions whether it's the council or the public uh send me an email I Endeavor to respond to every single email that I get and answer the questions that are asked I think once you see all of the documentation that's been provided in multiple different formats in different forms uh I think that you will agree that the path that we're taking probably makes the most sense longterm for the community the building there was a comment made about the building being too large too fancy what one of the things that we were done asked to do is make the building resilient so that it could withstand weather events that it had some longevity we expect this building will serve the city easily for 50 years and the Staffing model that we're provided will allow us to operate from one station much longer than if we were working under a volunteer only system volunteer only system because of the geographic area of the city being 31 square miles would likely require more stations in order to serve appropriately in order to reduce that response time um Public Safety members uh commission members are in the back row back here uh we spent all day at the Prairie Festival on Saturday we talked to over 200 people there were some very thoughtful questions that were asked uh but I would say that the vast majority of the people that we talked to uh were supportive of this plan so to portray this as that there's nobody uh in support of this in community I think is incorrect Madame mayor yes I'm sorry but on that point if that were true the council wouldn't need to go around the process of allowing the citizens to petition on this and using the Eda charging the residents an extra million dollars just to avoid a petition if we really felt like this was popular then why are we preventing the citizens from from actually voting on it point of I believe it'd be time sensitive um if we delayed it till November that would be 2 to 6 months before we'd start building and that might go into 2027 which means in 2027 we would have to pay our three fire Services the extra $2 million so we'd have $2 million for that contract like people were fearing we'd have our contracts for our full-time firefighters and then also the cost of our fire station and also I think somebody said why do we need a Taj Mahal well due to the uh way fire services are now you need sleeping quarters for fire services or the fired up Fighters also when we want actual ambulance here instead of our three neighbors wherever that wherever they come from with either Elk River St Michael or monello you also want to be able to have the option of getting an ambulance service here and they need those sleeping quarters also so to have the ambulance in central of the city to have our four fire trucks and the reason why we ordered four fire trucks because that was use it or lose it money 1.8 million ARA funds was use it or lose it money we didn't spend it and get that by the end of this year residents I mean of course you wouldn't have seen 1.8 million but we had it then be like oh sorry yeah we don't need it you know that's 1.8 million plus in 26 those of you have diesels EPA come down and fire trucks because they run all the time well what happens when diesel trucks run EPA wants to make sure black smoke don't come out so then 70,000 a truck so 2, 80,000 all of you would have to pay for if we didn't get those trucks it's another cost a part of that plus finally when we get this open when you hear all these uh I I solos and all those other ratings from firefighters who are for this after we finally get this going then we can finally start to get our grants so it's more money we would lose if we don't get it more money if we lose if we delay as you can see anybody can find the numbers that I saw the 12.6 plus the 1.4 million 14 million you've already spent and to me I when I swore an oath in January 21 I swore an oath to all of you all 23,000 residents over 14,000 voters what does that mean why do I have to why why do I have to when it does the right but the that money so then Madam mayor you had Mo you had a motion you had time to do it so it is point of order point of order point of order so basically we're spending money for we're we're making we're spending money in El River in Rogers and Albertville you are paying their taxes along with your own here so four cities tax taxes that Council goes through because we have to have fire services for you we have to have our deputies for you where's that money go you're paying taxes for four cities so that's so that's what I mean when we defund when we have defunded this long our fire department this money is going to the other three cities now it's time to keep our money here so you're not paying taxes for Rogers you're not paying taxes for Albertville you're not paying taxes R River it's up at the council at this point Sorry Madame mayor yes Britney I would like to make a motion to approve the plans and specifications and Order advertisement for bids for the ATO fire and emergency service building project motion to approve an amendment to the AIA agreement documents between the city of oigo and cruss Anderson construction companies are approved in form subject to modifications by the City attorney and to authorize the mayor and the city clerk to execute the agreements on behalf of the city second a motion by Britney seconded by Jeff there any more discussion I have I have a comment um again putting this out to bid gives us real numbers this does not mean this is going to happen but in any project that we've ever done in the city road projects water and sewers we have put it out to bid to find out the numbers these are estimates engineering estimates at this point we have to find out the real numbers and to the point from the resident in the audience we don't know what our interest rate is so that is why we need to find it it's we aren't buying anything at this point everyone we are putting this out to bid we are putting this out to bid okay is there more any more discussion we have a motion in a second is there any more discussion from the council all those in favor signify by saying I I all those oppos same sign I motion passes four to one thank you thank you moving on to item 5.2 fire and Emergency Services building zoning and subdivision actions Dan you need to be quiet otherwise you're out Sher come take your out please may point point of order point of order staff leave please Isabelle point of order everyone it is up at the council we are discussing this and we turned this over to item 5.2 out council member gaty please please Council we are you don't respect me I'm not respecting you point of order Madame mayor we have some order at the chambers point of order no way point of order Council we are please stop residents I'm asking you to please stop we are in discussion up here at on item 5.2 I understand you might have some comments but please follow the process mayor thank you um related to the um proposed fire Services building uh it is subject to the city's uh zoning and subdivision ordinance so there are a number of actions that go along with the potential construction of that including a zoning map Amendment to rezone the site to ins institutional District uh which is the zoning District that encompasses all of the city's properties as well as other public properties and also quaz public facilities like churches schools Etc uh there's a conditional use permit required for the facility uh that includes a public hearing that was held by the Planning Commission with notice mailed to surrounding Property Owners within 350 ft uh the city is subdividing the 21 acre property uh to establish a lot upon which the fire station emergency services facility would be uh constructed and then finally a vacation of easements that were platted when uh the property was originally subdivided from the Ashwood development north of 75th Street uh so the prelimary final plat includes the approximately five acres at the northeast corner of the city's property uh establishing that uh with utilities available to the property at the southeast Corner uh there's also a grading plan that's been prepared as part of the site developments uh set of plans for lot one block one the city would pay for uh the utility connections U that service the building as part of the project the same as any other developer pays to utilize those services and easements would be established based on the proposed boundaries uh the project Architects with regard to the previous item detailed the exterior and interior of the building so I won't repeat what they did uh essentially the zoning ordinance establishes material requirements for uh buildings within this zoning District which are the same as app to industrial buildings so uh the use of the pre-cast concrete panel with the two different finishes on it and the inclusion of the architectural wood panels and the glass windows for the structure all exceed the requirements of the zoning ordinance uh then finally the building height within this zoning District the structure can be up to 35 ft the tallest portion of the building is 34 feet so it complies with the zoning workout the site plan is set up to comply with perimeter setback requirements uh access would be provided uh primarily for in and outbound traffic on 75th Street emergency vehicles will have a direct access to Odin Avenue to be able to travel north and south then East and West uh to respond accordingly pedestrian access though will be uh sidewalk from the front of the building out to the trail on the west side of Odin Avenue there's also a trail on the north side of 75th street but no connection is planned at this time there may be opportunity for uh connection in the future depending on the future use of Outlaw a once that's uh established the Planning Commission as I said held a public hearing to consider the uh zoning and subdivision applications or actions that they're meeting on September 16th project is consistent with the city's comprehensive plan the plat complies with the subdivision ordinance and site development plans comply with the zoning ordinance uh the minutes of the Planning Commission meeting were included in your packet in draft form that included written comments that were received prior to the conduct of the public hearing uh in our included as part of that record but after closing the public hearing and Planning Commission did vote six to zero recing and the approval you have an ordinance included in your packet to amend the zoning map resolution vacating the existing drainage and utility easements and then findings of fact and decision to approve the preliminary plat final plat and conditional use permit those actions subject to 14 stipulations as outlined thank you Council questions comments mayor I can make a motion motion to adopt resolution 2024 67 vacating drainage and utility easements adopt ordinance 2024-the liin plat and final plat the out seal Elementary Services right one SE Emergency Services addition and additional use permit and site and building plans for lot one block one oigo Emergency Services addition subject to condition stated on the findings of effect and decision is presented second motion by Jeff seconded by Tina is there any discussion any discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I all those oppos same sign I motion passes 4 to one moving on to item 6.1 is our preliminary property tax levy I will turn this over to our assistant City administrator thank you mayor uh I don't have too many slides prepared for tonight as this is the preliminary Levy and um I am human resources so I'm not as well bured in finances unfortunately um but I just wanted to kind of go over briefly so we've had five budget meetings so far uh and this what is presented tonight in front of Council on the packet is what the meetings have um moved forward to um this will be technically the seventh meeting on the preliminary tax levy this is not approval of the budget um with the preliminary tax levy there is until December to actually continue to decrease the tax rate and Levy that is presented tonight um I just included one quick slide just to kind of show uh property taxes are very complicated and I understand that um this is a very simplified version of how it works when it actually comes to tax rates and the market value um I did include a adjustment of market value after Homestead exclusion um I didn't include the equation but um with the change that happened for this most recent year for the market rate or the homestead exclusion uh did include more homes that previously were not included into the um exclusions uh so this shows a rough estimate of what um the median value home and not see go would pay in city taxes so um the median value home for this year actually decreased from uh 20124 technically or 2023 uh to 386,000 um I'm just showing the city portion of the taxes uh we do not have the county or School District um numbers at this point as they're also going through the preliminary tax levy at this point um these are estimates as well as the tax capacity sets what that tax rate will be and this is working off an estimate that the county has provided us uh I Tred to include some information just for what the tax rate history has been in ATO um and to utilize kind of the previous slide showing kind of how the tax rate actually impacts what people pay in taxes um and then since we do have three school districts that are within City Limits uh depending on where you live in the City you pay for different School District uh taxes so not everyone in ATO has the exact same tax rate it depends on which school district you are living within um but kind of just to show the tax rate history within oo um 2020 was 35.99 um and this year we're this is Levy increase not the actual tax rate increase of a roughly 8% from 2024 to 2025 uh and like I said this is preliminary and so there can still be changes made till December uh I wanted to show comparables just from 2024 as that's previously been shown um so even with the proposed 2025 tax rate it is proposed to be lower than what St Michael had for 2024 um So currently in 2024 the tax R notse was 23108 uh like I said I did not have a lot of slides prepared um as we've met on this and uh since this is not actually going over the budget itself um I did not want to go into details of line items as that's not when it's getting approved tonight this is just the preliminary Levy um so there is three different op or three different different motions that are requested with this uh preliminary tax levy uh the first one is to approve The Debt Service property tax levy um and then actual preliminary property tax levy and then also set the truth in taxation which is when the final Levy would actually get reviewed in front of uh residents and then also the budget would be getting reviewed as well at that evening I will now turn to council for any questions or comments I I guess I will note I know that previous at the count last Council meetings there was a few items that we wanted to discuss further so I have made notes of that for continuing forward for our finance director to be able to have information to be able to be prepared to provide options um so I do have those noted um I do not have those included with tonight as we haven't had a discussion on them yeah also questions or comments Madam mayor Mr Right uh earlier tonight we heard uh I know it was a long time ago but we heard from uh commissioner Holland and she said that the county started out at an 8% Levy increase and they worked really hard I think when she was here a couple weeks ago she said they were going to try to get it down to 5% maybe even 4% and they ended up at 5.71 we started out at 8.29% and we ended up at 8.29% not one single penny was taken out every single project was approved in full and this budget shows two very important things you heard it from this day as tonight and you've heard it for years that the increase in property taxes are the fault of the county because the county is the one that's responsible for your property value but last year we actually reduced property taxes in the city because even though your your property values went up 26% because we reduced the levy this year residents are going to experience the opposite phenomena their property values have gone down but their property taxes are about to go up that's because the city property taxes are the responsibility of the city and not the county but the second item this budget also proves is we can't afford a fire department next year the first payment on the lease will be due but there's nothing in this budget to be able to pay for it that's because we've been locked into a decision a decision to only pay the interest on that lease and use the proceeds of the bond to make that payment we are borrowing money and then using that money to make a payment on the money we borrowed in other words the fire department is not fully funded and we can't afford it if this budget were honest about that expense the tax levy increase would have been north of 27% in 2026 residents are going to feel it you heard earlier tonight that it's time it's time to fund our public service this budget is not doing that our fire department is not fully fonded with this budget we are quite literally kicking the can on the road it's irresponsible and I'm not going to support it I have a question um to Mr dunlap's point about us paying interest only have we done this another occasions with our funding for East and West yeah I don't have the exact numbers up of what that cost would be but uh typically yes Bond payments are usually done in two portions the first one is usually just interest and then the second payment would be interest and principal uh bonds are usually structured differently than a mortgage but they also kind of work under the same method as a mortgage um that there's only two payments during the year um typically when there's an ongoing project and the actual expenses haven't been completely dispersed uh it isn't uncommon to just be paying the interest at that point as they don't have the funds fully dispersed and they don't actually have the finalization schedule so like the West tour plan for example billion correct with the current project that we have with uh the West wastewater treatment facility uh the Project's roughly 34 million but uh expenses are still getting dispersed with that actual financing so uh we don't have a current payment the first payment will likely be on interest as the project is still ongoing it will be for a couple more months um and then that will set the actual final payment amount that will be due other questions or comments um and I will dry into your point when you talked about the county I did talk to Derek fetch because we had the right County mayor association meeting and I asked him you know we had had some numbers from Genie and then he presented that same amount of moving it down to the uh 5.7 is what I have listed correct Genie um and I asked I said is there plans to do more then or is that what you will most likely work off of and his comment was we worked really hard and that's most likely the number that we will present as preliminary and that will be our final and as you heard tonight again this is our preliminary we still have time to go through it there was many questions that we brought up during the budget meeting um we talked about Cola we talked about other items that as Sabrina mentioned that we have not covered yet so to to say that we're done and this is our last number is not true we still have until December to lower that number menir yes here's why it is true because you can't increase it I understand we can't increase it we can decrease it so so this number by voting on this number we are agreeing that we cannot afford the fire department payment for next year we're not even making a payment we're using the proceeds of the bond to make the payment which we have done in the past I'm just telling you that we we had no plan to do that with the city hall project other Council questions or comments there again we're up at the council so I'm sorry we can't take comments from the audience Madame mayor yes Britney I'll make a motion to adopt resolution 202468 adjusting the 2025 Debt Service property taxs Levy certified in the original Bond resolution I also make a motion to adopt resolution 2024 69 adopting a preliminary property tax levy for taxes payable in 2025 second are we I'm going to do M no Madam mayor I would request they be separate they we I would agree they should be separate oh okay okay so let start off motion to adopt resolution 202468 adjusting the 2025 Debt Service property tax levy certified in the original Bond resolution second motion motion by Britney seconded by Ryan is there any discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I all those oppose same sign motion passes I'll make a motion to adopt resolution 2024 69 adopting a preliminary property tax levy for taxes payable in 2025 second motion by Britney seconded by Jeff is there any discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I all those oppose saying sign I motion passes 4 to one I will make a motion to accept the truth and Taxation public hearing for 5:30 p.m. on Monday November 25th 2024 the meeting will be held at the council chambers at 8899 nashv Avenue Northeast oo Minnesota 55330 second motion by Britney seconded by Ryan there any discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I all those oppose same sign motion passes moving on to item 7.1 Ryan had asked to move 3.12 to that item yes madame mayor no issue with this I just wanted to make sure there was a separate vote in case there were any council members that had a conflict of interest there is no conflict of interest City attorney so someone canot serve it as elction as an election judge if they're running in the election I sorry to clarify I have no issue if a council member serving an election judge I have an issue with a council member voting to increase to to take payment that's a conflict of interest oh I see so you're saying the payment is make that clear there's a conflict of interest because this council member will be paid the same as other collection judges she's voting on her own th this council member is voting on her own employment I I don't think that's a conflict of interest she's she she'll be paid the same as as everyone else I would say it's akin to like a special assessment project if you're going to be assessed similar to everyone else uh I don't think that's a conflict of interest I mean if if council member Gat thinks it's an in conflict of interest she certainly could recuse herself very well with that uh I will move to adopt resolution 2024 63 appointing election judges for The 2024 general election second motion by Ryan seconded by Jeff is there any discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I all those opposed same sign motion passes okay we are now under city council reports and updates we will go to Heritage preservation thank you thank you madam mayor uh HPC was obviously at PR Festival this past weekend and um they were there protecting protecting their goods for the first first two storms that rolled through um but that's really all they they had a great time people went to their Booth yes they did their their new laminated VI were pretty a hit next item is park and rec commission updates for thank you madam mayor uh parks and recck we went on a tour um in we took a bus and went touring other neighboring communities and looked at their um Parks some of them have had Park improvements um we were able to see a little bit just of what what St Michael and Rogers have um again getting just the feel for what their Community asks for and what they're wanting and requesting in their Parks also asking about how they finance things and where that money comes from because they're bigger projects so um it was a good overall I thought it was really knowled ible it was very helpful to have other cities um just provide feedback and and be welcoming and help us kind of navigate where we're what we're going to do down the road so otherwise that's all we that's it that's what I have okay moving on to Planning Commission um at the last Planning Commission it was a public hearing on the wining and subdivision of the city old property for the fire station which we had this evening next is Public Safety Public Safety the biggest um discussion was uh that next meeting for Public Safety October 8th at 6:30 we will be touring the 911 dispatch in Sheriff's Office so looking forward to that all right we are still under city council reports and updates does anyone have anything um mine was that as I said earlier the right County mayor Association update uh jeie gave a number a little bit lower but they're anticipating the 5.7 which for homes around the 400 to 425 they anticipated to be around $20 increased um moving the county is moving ahead with the compost site update and demoing the old building um is what dererk provided we did get an update from the attorney on just kind of ongoing cases that he was able to share information on along with um an update from Sheriff daringer at that meeting also but uh we had two County Commissioners president at that meeting the and two were in DC as jeie Holland said earlier this evening so also reminder for the council uh which R May cover it but have our meeting next Monday make sure your calendar are updated for that 5:30 okay any other Council reports and updates um one other plug to our staff that helped pull off a great Festival as we've you know if you were home this weekend Mother Nature really tried to mess with us um two storms wasn't on the radar back to back that they popped up but um Everybody jumped in and covered stuff up to make it a great day and by the end of the day the sun was out and lots of people here loose were busy so I'm hoping that um food trucks did were successful along with any of the vendors that were here but also just a a big clug for the tremendous amount that our staff puts towards making this a great day for our community um it's a long day but really fun to see all the residents come out and get to see all the awesome things that hoto has to offer so I appreciate um everyone that made it possible for Saturday all right we'll move on to staff reports and updates Sabrina thank you mayor I have no updates tonight okay ra thank you Mary just wanted to give a little election update absentee balloting started last Friday and as of today we've issued out over more than 800 ballots so it's been really busy and we are currently at over 15,000 registered voters in the city perfect thank you and thank you for the long hours that you've been putting in we've had some great staff helping out so thank you right da no updates thank all right Dan mayor no update the next possible Planning Commission meeting would be the second meeting in November because we have one the first meeting in November the city CLK would not be very pleased so we might have a problem with that all right Ron thank you mayor uh update on some projects fre Park is almost complete it's just the sport back stop that needs to be placed uh the park is seated everything else is complete so um seed should be starting to grow here any day uh Carrick Park Improvement that's well underway um 70th Street Trails extension completed by uh developer there from paland Avenue Crossing Parkway that's complete we have four developments that are underway the meadow sakman Meadows Tanglewood and Anna acres and the raw water M from well number 11 which is located near West wastewater treatment facility to pump house number three that happened last week um and that's uh nearing completion also perfect thank you we did try to try by friedrick on our our tour last week but got it was already dark so it was too dark so we could see it so but we have heard from residents that were on that tour that um live close there that they're already people using it so it's exciting all right right County evening good evening uh no major updates for City to give to you guys this month uh just a couple points I to make um I said in the past uh about juvenile issues kids are back in school so basically the num switched from kind around the streets of ASO to increase of calls in schools yeah um school resource app correct so another thing to point out I just said the PSA for assistens uh if anybody has been following any Police Department Sheriff's Office agency within the state they've probably seen a couple of the scam alerts um I just want to point that out um we have seen a few uh uh specifically in too and just it's really unfortunate that's just how how things are the braders from usually out of country keep changing um how they do things so uh don't open any suspicious emails take a second look at everything um if it something does happen call us try to figure it out for you uh another just something to mention just on the sheriff's office in general fortunately we have been fortunate enough to hire a a DEC of people so far four uh there's class of four about a month and a half ago two after that and two started this week so uh it was nice that we could get eight people uh hired to kind of restock our numbers um and that was after about eight months of not being able to hire any so no applicants or not being able to hire okay can't say so we still have more uh potential applicants in the works so we hope our numbers up so to provide the service you guys PA for so uh any other questions comments other concerns for city thank you proba you do yes thank you and please pass on to um all of the additional people that came to help on Saturday at the festival so good to see you thank you thank you all right if we don't have anything else and a motion to adourn would be in order second motion by Tina seconded by Jeff is there any discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I all those opposed same sign motion passes thank you all for attending this evening thank you