##VIDEO ID:4cxY9SoAXsg## e e good evening ladies and gentlemen um it is 7M on September 10th and I'm calling to order this regular meeting of the Richfield city council if you are able please rise and join us for the Pledge of Allegiance thank you um we are now at the open Forum portion of the meeting and if you are listening online you can call into the open Forum by dialing 1415 655 00001 use webinar access code 2634 781 8135 and password 1234 is there anybody currently online all right we'll leave the information up there so people know how to call in I have two people that have um submitted requests that are here in the room and I believe the city manager has a number of emails that were sent in requested to be read and we'll be timing all of these for three minutes whether it's an email or whether it is an inperson um resident that's giving the feedback so first of all um when you're giving your feedback can you please state your name and your address and you'll have three minutes and so I'm going to welcome Kathleen Balaban first thank you do you want me to sign in or you have my card I have your card so as long as you fill out the card you're good to go okay thank you for checking my name is Kathleen Balaban I live on 65th in Stevens Avenue South and what I'm like to talk about today is on your computers you have the agenda you have the packet and I have Pages 330 through 336 here and it's the audit report and what it says here is our material we weaknesses where we lack segregation of accounting duties due to a limited number of office employees we go down further and it talks about the material audit adjustments detected as a result of this audit procedures the next page oh it talks about the ice arena and the receipts don't match the revenue accounts it talks about the next page it talks about other deficiencies and the next page talks about further deficiencies talks about not having procedures major losses these things that I've talked about to you over the years about lacking procedures policies processes it's here you know it shows up here it goes on to page 333 while our audit provided a reasonable basis for our opinion it did not provide a legal determination on the city's compliances with those requirements it goes on through six pages of poor management of our accounting systems I clearly now understand why our new Finance director doesn't want to work here anymore plain and simple we have some serious issues serious issues in our accounting process and how we read our budgets and it states it in the audit please look at that please think about that and think about how we're going forward in the future because this is not it thank you thank you next we will welcome Larry ernster good evening Council uh my name is Larry erster I live at 6727 eli8 Avenue South tonight Item B of the consent counter Council calendar is a resolution approving the budget for the affordable housing half I am in support of this fund because I support homeowners and Home Ownership however at the August 14th meeting my wife and I posted a series of questions to the city manager that seem to conflict with the goals of the affordable housing trust specifically while the trust fund is wanting to help individuals purchase homes the city is systematically destroying homes destroying whole entire neighborhoods eliminating opportunities in fact eliminating the possibility of home ownership by eliminating over 30 single family homes I must again point out that home owners homeowners pay the majority share of property taxes in the city and that homeowners fund the majority of the city budget which is on the docket tonight it has been nearly a month since August 14th when we first posed these questions to the city managers and they are question number one what documentation declares that the state level micro unit ordinance 32730 specifically applies to home ruled cities question number two three supportive building developments at Penn Station mic CC compound Aster Commons require 14 buildable Lots my questions are after they are built which ones will be paying property taxes and which ones will require additional taxpayer support and assistance and how is that additional support going to be budgeted and generated question number three the 2040 plan intends to reone 33 residential homes at 75th in Morgan to MR2 what is the city's authority to reone these residential homes and have you notified the residents of these homes of the intended resoning and lastly does the City intend to destroy the market value of these 33 homes by resoning and destroying the neighborhood so that some developer can swoop in and buy them at fire sale prices I will again provide the city manager a copy of these questions and iwait her response thank you and I'll be leaving early to watch the debate tonight um just since you're leaving early um the I believe the city manager was planning to answer those during her report so make sure you watch online she it was my understanding she was going to answer your questions so if we're not to that point by the time you get there I want to make sure you get the answers to your questions good thank you um is there anyone else here that wishes to speak this is our one chance for people to speak if anyone wishes to come forward and say anything is there anybody online I believe that city manager Rodriguez has a number of email submissions and I'll do the same for those as far as um timing and that type of thing thank you mayor um the first one the first email is from and I apologize if I get names wrong Carrie cely deik um and she writes good evening Richfield leaders I'm reaching out with some concerns about the balance of our public safety budget I know we have excellent police and safety officers in Richfield but I would like to see more funds being allocated for social workers mental health responders and crime prevention based on what I understand it appears that only 25,000 is being spent on mental health and prevention out of a million dollars I would like to see a better balance in this funding could this be increased to 300,000 this would be more a more balanced allocation of prevention and reactive measures as a former teacher and school administ Ator I know how important these services are for children and parents who are struggling in our communities uh and then ask me to read it tonight the next one is from James jaffy um his message is hello my name is James jaffy and I live at 6900 blazedale Avenue South Minneapolis I am very interested in the conversation around the upcoming City Public Safety budget and I would appreciate it if my comments could be read at the open Forum on Tuesday I have been a Richfield resident since 2019 first as a renter and now as a homeowner I appreciate the professionalism of the Richfield police department and the hard work that officers put into maintaining a positive relationship with the community I support the 700,000 in the proposed Public Safety budget as endorsed by the police Union the city must show our officers that we need them and will compensate and equip them appropriately however I would like Richfield to consider alternative uses for the additional 300,000 in the public safety budget the police are faced with an Ever growing number of calls for mental health crises and a medical emergencies more and more of the officers take officer time is taken up with calls that may not require an armed officer I would like to see an expansion of the Department's paramedic social worker and mental health professional staff I think that these resources would help revive I'm sorry relieve the current heavy call load and continue moving Richfield Public Safety towards a more holistic approach to policing I love living in Richfield and I look forward to what we can accomplish together for our shared future thank you for your time uh the next email is from Megan Paul dear mayor and City Council Members my name is Megan Paul and I am one of your constituents in Richfield as someone with an interest in public safety I am hoping that the Richfield city budget while still supporting our police can also invest in alternative models of Public Safety alternative models may include investing in the mental health of our community with trained Behavioral Health responders taking a preventative approach to violence and crime by investing in the needs of our community and providing Rehabilitation efforts for those with prior offenses among other resources please consider a joint investment in alternative models for Public Safety alongside investing in our police alternative models also serve as a form of support for the work our police officers already do and they deserve various alternative models of support thank you for your time and reading this email I would like to request that it be read during the open Forum on Tuesday our next email is from uh D Ericson at 6718 Clinton Avenue um and good evening mayor Supple and esteemed members of the city council thank you for the opportunity to express my opinion on an issue that is being discussed I come before you not only as a concerned resident of our community but as someone who deeply believes in the power of collaboration and constructive dialogue the decisions made in this chamber have a profound impact on the lives of all of us and I would like to respectfully share my thoughts on the following a group is proposing to take the money allotted to Tire two more officers and instead hire a paramedic and social worker I'm opposed to this while I respect and value the roles of paramedics and social workers in addressing critical social and health issues in our community I firmly believe that our first priority should be enhancing Public Safety our police officers are already stretched thin and in a time when crime and emergency response demands are growing we cannot afford to weaken our capacity to ensure that safety of our neighborhoods law enforcement officers are uniquely trained to handle dangerous and unpredictable situations that can't always be addressed by social services or Health Care Professionals alone I would like to point out that we have a full-time on duty fire department who have excellent response times for emergencies balancing Public Safety with Social Services is important but we need to ensure our city remains well protected I urge the council to reconsider this proposal and retain the resources for law enforcement as initially intended thank you for your consideration uh our next email is from Rory Coleman Woods I am writing to provide my comments as a potential council member regarding the city's budget reallocation for Public Safety while I holistically support the need for our Public Safety officers our traditional model of Public Safety needs to progress with the state of the community we are great need of for alternative responses to the safety of our community members from my understanding that alternative response team has only has only an available one shift out of four shifts and shared with the Dina I believe we need to invest in more shifts in order to meet the greater needs of the community I would agree with other council members that are leaning towards the allocation of 300,000 to the behavioral crisis response and alternative response teams I also agree with need to keep the good officers that we do have and to retain that good talent unfortunately I am unable to attend tonight's meeting and would please request that these comments be read at this evening's meeting uh the next and I believe this is the final comment um that was sent in um and this is from Gina Van arnam and um and I believe it's on behalf of a group we have received receiv received the Axel group's Richfield Department of Public Safety organizational and Staffing assessment report it notes that and this is in parenthesis while the population the number of calls for service and crime in Richfield have remained relatively Ste steady the demands on the city's police officers have increased significantly officers are responding to a growing number of mental health calls often received under a different call type and difficult to prject predict or or recognize until officers arrive which often require more time on scene additionally more training is required of officers social media cell phones and other technology have made investigations more correct I'm sorry complex that's page three of the Axel report the report goes on that while again in parenthesis while the RPD has adjusted its services and training to meet changing needs tag found that Staffing and scheduling have remained largely unchanged for decades page three this has led to many of our officers frequently issuing their own vacation time to respond to this increase in volume as they worry that if they do so their colleagues will be unfairly burdened with the additional work with this come stress mental health fatigue and adverse effects on retention and the concern that this pace is ultimately unsustainable to address the concerns related to the current Staffing levels in return attention the preliminary 2025 Richfield includes funding for wages increases for the current officers and lieutenants the public safety budget increase also adds officer positions and while it is understandable that this is one suggested solution there are other ways that this approximately 300,000 could be used research and experience show the high value of having additional embedded social workers in the police force is any of the funding slated for this for example since Richfield is basing the alternative Response Team pilot on Brooklyn Center's successful approach we know that it is very likely going to call for funding at least of at least one additional embedded social worker and EMT in order to be able to have multiple shifts research is also showing Nationwide stopping people for low-level traffic violations is not contributing to a reduction in crime is there an effort to discontinue this practice in Richfield thus springing up time for our overworked police officers if this practice practice needs to be continued because of state county regulations does a strategic plan include lobbying efforts by the city and the police department ask our legislators to pass the required legislation we believe that this remaining funding could be used to increase the number of embedded Social Service workers continue to provide training to dispatch and officers on how to handle the growing number of Mental Health calls or to reduce the time on the scene and to support lobbying efforts to stop using valuable police time on infractions that do not contribute to reduced crime thank you Richfield for Equitable Public Safety and that's the final one thank you has anyone else um logged in online okay and then I'll do a last call if there's anyone in the room that wishes to speak okay we will then close out the open Forum thank you and thank you to everyone who participated could you hand this over to the city clerk thank you all right now we're going to move on to approval of the minutes of the city council work session of August 14 20124 city council meeting of August 14 2024 the special city council meeting of August 15 2024 and the special city council work session of August 20th 24 so moved second okay it's been moved and seconded to approve those four sets of minutes is there any discussion all in favor please say I I I all opposed all right we have approved those next we'll move on to approval of the agenda approval second been moved and seconded to move approval of the agenda agenda is there any discussion all in favor of approving the agenda please say I I all opposed we have approved the agenda next we're going to move to the proclamation celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month and I would like to welcome Miguel Hernandez to join me to receive the proclamation microphone it is working okay thank you this is a proclamation of the city of Richfield whereas National Hispanic Heritage Month is an annual celebration of the history and culture of the US Latino and Hispanic communities whereas September 15th marks the anniversary of Independence for five Latin American countries Costa Rica El Salvador Guatemala Honduras and Nicaragua they are all they declared their independence in 1821 in addition Mexico chile and bis celebrate their independence days on September 16th September 18th and September 21st whereas Lynden B Johnson on this day in 1968 signed the national Hispanic heritage week bill into law from 1968 until 1988 presidents Nixon Ford Carter and Reagan all issued yearly proclamations setting aside a week to honor his Hispanic Americans whereas in8 1987 US Representative estan Tores of California proposed expanding the observance to cover its current 31-day period and in 1988 senator Paul Simon of Illinois submitted a similar bill that successfully passed Congress and was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on August 17th 1988 whereas National Hispanic heritage week was expanded from one week to one month on September 14th 1989 President George HW Bush became the first president to declare the 31 days from September 15th to October 15th as National Hispanic Heritage Month whereas in the decades since National Hispanic Heritage Month proclamations have been made by every sitting president of the United States whereas the national Hispanic Heritage Month 2024 will last from Sunday September 15th 2024 through Tuesday October 15th 2024 the events can commemorates how those communities have influenced and contributed to American society and our nation with the strength of closely knit families and proud communities that help to build and defend our nation now therefore I Mary Supple mayor of Richfield on behalf of the Richfield city council to hereby Proclaim September 15 2024 through October 5 15th 2024 as National Hispanic Heritage Month in Richfield and call on the people of Richfield to observe this period with appropriate programs activities and ceremonies and continue to honor the contributions of our Hispanic American Community Proclaim this 10th day of September 2024 thank you thank you and Mr Hernandez would you like to say a few words yeah well hello and thank you for having me it's good to see new friends and and old um but uh yeah uh my name is Miguel and uh Hernandez and I have worked at elte haban since I could uh I would like to uh Resto this honor this proclamation to my parents I think about Heritage and honor and uh what being Latino Tano Or Hispanic is and I think about the Immigrant class that has brought all the great heritage and culture to Richfield to Minnesota and without them we wouldn't have great culture we wouldn't be able to be who we are today here so it's with a great honor to you know celebrate my parents who have been here for 16 years at Elton Mexican Grill uh without their support I've seen them uh not only you know hire and and work with the community but also mentor and be leaders in the community as long as there's so many other Business Leaders here who are Hispanic Tino or chano and without them I could say that we wouldn't be able to take the next step as a new generation honoring culture here in Richfield So yeah thank you for having me and this means a lot thank you thank you I you can keep it yeah thank you is there anyone else that want to say anything as I'm walking back I just want to thank um Miguel and his family um for being incredible community members and um it as somebody else who's also been here for for four generations of Latinos here in Richfield um we appreciate your leadership and we appreciate who how how we collectively uh can participate in our city and I'm glad that you're able to to to to represent uh all of us here today so thank you thank you again for joining us and thank you for all your contributions to our community all right next we'll move on to our audit review and so I'm going to turn it over to city manager Rodriguez to introduce the Pres presenters actually I'll turn it over to finance director kud Verma thank you Katie good evening mayor and council members um I'm pleased to inform you that the 2023 annual Financial audit has been successfully completed the city engaged audit firm Bergen kdv to conduct a comprehensive review of our financial records and transactions the Auditors have provided an unmodified audit opinion the audit report has been submitted to the state auditor office and to the government Finance Officers Association the city shall also publish the summary audited statement in the local newspaper on behalf of the finance department I would like to extend sincere thanks to the city manager Department directors and their staff for their support um and collaboration throughout the audit process today we have with us Caroline startsman from Bergen kdv to present the audited Financial results Caroline is an audit shareholder with Bergen kdv she has been with the firm for 24 years and has worked on the city of Richfield audit since kdv began working with the city for audit services with that over to Caroline thank you thank you is there anything that's on the screen and while they're working on that can you introduce yourself again thank you absolutely good evening mayor members of the council I'm Caroline stutsman so I am the partner involved in the audit for the city of Richfield we do have a PowerPoint presentation to walk through tonight with a summary of the results is it on or do I need to just lean in a little more youed have to talk louder talk louder too all right I can do that thank you all right we have the document camera on but not the PowerPoint I'm getting closer yeah thank you for your patience while we're doing that I I do have to admit to being a kind of a geek because I was really enjoying reading the statistical information so there's lots of good pages of stats if you're curious about all things Richfield so I would Point people to looking at like things like Pages 323 in the agenda packet so if anybody else is a data nerd you can look at that too all right now that I've talked and we've got this going I think we're ready to go thank you thank you everyone for patience oh we lost the screen well spoke a little too fast it worked and then it didn't there we go there go all right I'm not going to touch for a minute here um the main reason you ask us to work with you is to provide an opinion on your financial statements that opinion is housed within the independent Auditor's report also within the independent Auditor's report both Management's responsibility as well as our responsibilties as outlined so Management's responsibility is for the preparation and fair presentation of the financial statements in accordance with gap what that means is management determines the numbers then our responsibility is to audit that information and provide the opinion we aren't allowed to do both um standards don't allow that a line drawn in the sand if you will the opinion we're providing is what's called an unmodified opinion that's the highest level that you can receive and not a change from previous years meaning we believe the financial statements are fairly stated in all material respects as of December 31st 2023 um outside of looking at the numbers we also cons conducted our audit in accordance with government auditing standards that requires us to consider internal controls as we go throughout that process there are a couple of items listed there this year in relation to that we did discuss those in detail with management I wasn't going to go through them in detail with you here unless you had specific questions um but the first one I will just high level indic discuss that that is very very common for cities or um other governmental entities any entities for that matter to have lack of segregation of accounting duties um duties overlap occasionally especially in times of turnover um so that is common um for I would say 90 to 95% of our clients an additional component because the city received or spent more than 750,000 worth of federal expenditures a single audit is required um the two programs that we tested were the highway planning and construction program as well as the coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery funds there were no findings related to either of those additional components and then one final component before we look at the numbers is in relation to Minnesota legal compliance the office of the state auditor um compiles a number of State statutes that they ask us to ask a number of questions about we did not have any findings related to any of that either all right um before we go on does anyone have any questions I had one for the city manager um I had asked you earlier and I I think it should be stated publicly um with regard to the um ings that were made what have we done to correct those if you could tell me about that yeah uh Finance director burmer can um correct me at any time but um so uh in terms of Staff turnover we have stabilized our staff and we are um we are fully staffed and actually we have a proposal in the budget to add an additional person to help with the segregation of Duties until we can modernize our proess processes and um we may be able to um eliminate that position over attrition but we'll see um also we hired a really key position um we have a new uh payroll accountant who had a lot of experience and is very Adept at our our current accounting program and she has stabilized that and we're um making good progress and and making uh improvements there as well and then with the um the Ice Arena they're actually have they're going to do an Excel program to track it in the Excel program so we don't have that problem again and then um they're going to make sure that that tracks with the various reports in jde and then also their software that they use to um to for their programs and I I think I've got it all correct but we some of that work was done in 2024 so there could still be findings in the 2024 report but it has now been rectified but it was during 2024 so does that actually make sense okay okay yeah yes with that we'll move on to summary financial information and we begin here with the general fund um looking at total revenues total expenditures as well as fund balance so at the end of the day fund balance for the general fund um did increase by just under 500,000 and ended the year at a total fund balance of just under 11.5 million and that represents 40% of the general fund expenditures based on 2023 spending levels that's total fund balance so there is a portion that's considered nonspendable it's related to prepaids you've already spent those dollars so you can't use them for future operations that leaves unassigned and that unassigned balance is what your fund balance policy is related to or or looks at and your fund balance policy indicates that you would strive to have 40% of unassigned fund balance um 40% of current expenditures and unassigned fund balance you have 39.8 if we run the calculation so you're you're very close to that um goal that you've established for yourselves and here we have a little bit of a deeper dive into the general fund revenues in total revenues increased by 1.3 3 million with some fluctuations happening between the categories that you see presented there property taxes increasing as well as um miscellaneous revenues in relation to interest income and just the time the the market conditions at the end of the year December 31st right at that snapshot and then um decreases in the licenses and permits with less building activity for the year and then a similar presentation here for general fund expenditures expenditures increased 5.6% um with wages across the Departments that you're seeing there being a component as well as um purchase of extraction equipment in the fire um Department as well as equipment purchases and Recreation services and here we have a budget to actual snapshot so the First Column there is the final budget anticipating a break even year that middle column are the is the actual results where we see that total increase there at the bottom and then the far right column is the variance column so looking at total revenues there in that variance column if we apply a percentage to that variance um it is 2.3% and then if we look at kind of some of the above categories there seeing that investment income is over budgeted and again that's due to conservative budgeting because that number can be very volatile based on market conditions and we've um experienced that over the last few years where that can fluctuate so very common for that to be on the conservative side of things and then on the expenditure side of things things if we follow the chart down total expenditures if we apply a percentage to that variance it's 0 4% so very close from a percentage standpoint to the plan that you had established for yourselves next we have tax capacity the levy and the tax capacity rates so taxable tax capacity the dark blue there has increased at a greater rate than the levy percentage has in or the than the levy has increased so as a result that tax capacity rate has decreased mostly driven by U Market values this year so next we we um switch gears to your Enterprise funds and we begin with your liquor fund here sales for the liquor fund decreased just under 2% and cost of sales decreased as well the impact of that was that gross profit percentage increased to 27% for the year and here we have some comparison to some neighboring um cities as well as the Metro average so showing that um that increase that you did increase for the year but still slightly below um the Metro Stores we have included here as well as that Metro State average seeing a nice um Improvement there water and swer utilities fund is the next fund that we have charges for services did increase this year um um as a result or due to increased rates and then operating expenses increas as well but actually pretty consistent changing by only .1% at the end of the day um operating income for the fund both with and without depreciation expense and we include that kind of as a means for you to analyze those charges for services to help set dollars aside for future replacement of capital assets because that's a significant dollar um investment for you when the time comes up for that so it's an analysis for that and when you uh when you're seeing both the orange and the gray bars above the line there it's indicating you're fully covering depreciation expense with the charges for services that you currently have similar presentation here for the storm sewer fund charges for services increased here as well and operating expenses increased you had the Sheridan pond dredging project as well as some increased street sweeping costs for the year so seeing an increase in the expens for the year um which did lead to that um operating loss for the year and that is common in storm sewer funds in years of projects that there's kind of a buildup for the project and then spending that down so also common theme and so if we analyze then the orange bar and the gray bar charges for services for the current year are covering about 75% of depreciation expense and again a year of project cost so keeping that in mind as well the last two charts that we have for you take a little bit of a different look and it compiles all of your governmental funds together so Debt Service funds Capital project funds special Revenue funds all together and we then have the ability to compare to some Statewide average information as well from 2002 22 and and prior um so starting with that analysis it it is by population so um when you compare 2022 to the population some things just of note there city of Richfield has lower special assessments than um the Statewide average and higher property taxes as a result of that and then intergovernmental revenues is also a component that is a a bit higher for you for 2022 um then when we look at 2023 some changes just to note there would be that those intergovernmental revenues um were going down a little bit with the spending down of the the arpa and Co dollars as as that's working its way through and an increase in the levy there and then the last piece is looking at that same information just now the expenditure side of things and again if we compare um the 2022 data the current and capital expenditures are slightly higher for for you than the state average but then lower on The Debt Service side of things and you know some things that can come into play for example you have a full-time fire department so when you're comparing It's Not always completely 100% Apples to Apples it's really just a um some information for you to kind of analyze where things lie but that's one piece that does vary from one entity to the other and then um Debt Service slightly um or increase slightly there but pretty consistent just move right past that page I'd be happy to um answer any questions that any of you might have that was what I had prepared to go through all right first of all thank you for the very thorough report and I really appreciate that and also the information that was given to us ahead of time is there anyone that has any questions um so I I do want to again say thank you because I know in years past we've asked for more information and you provided a lot more this time and so that was really helpful especially the comparisons with other cities across the state and again I encourage people they really into statistics look at the agenda packet that's posted online for like page 323 through 325 it goes through the 10-year history of Richfield employees of the different jobs that we do and all of the um assets like you know how many fire trucks there are and that type of thing so it's it's pretty interesting data so if anybody needs something to do on a on a rainy night you can check out the Richfield audit any other questions questions all right thank you so at this point what we're going to do is we will come back to this item later to approve it oh go ahead can I add something um I just want to mention that this will be uh as the finance director this will be my last audit submission to the council and also my last budget submission I would be leaving the city at the end of the year to spend more time with my family I have enjoyed my last two and a half year here at Richfield and my colleagues have been wonderful I feel the current Finance team is stabilized and will continue to improve and I wish the city and all my colleagues and my team uh the very best of everything thanks thank you so much for all that you've brought to our city as well I really appreciate that city manager Rodriguez uh yes mayor I I had a thank you for after the budget because um director Burma has two big things on the agenda tonight and she actually is staying um with the city until the end of the year so happy about that um but I do want to thank you very much because we had a lot of turnover um we had people that left and they had all the knowledge in their head and so we didn't have a lot of documented process we are doing that now we are upgrading our processes and I'm um I'm very grateful for your time here and your leadership and also um I do feel like the staff have stabilized and are going in the right direction and thank you thank you um when we get back to other business we'll we'll receive this whole financial report uh right now we're going to go on to the consent agenda and then do we need to change the screen out so people can see the speakers again are we working on it oh okay so I don't know if people could hear that but we're having some technical difficulties and staff is in communication with the IT person so we'll make sure that we talk loudly and continue on next we move on to the consent calendar so I'm going to turn that over to city manager Rodriguez thank you mayor the consent calendar contains several separate items which are acted upon by the city council in one motion once the consent calendar has been approved the individual items and recommended actions have also been approved no further Council action on these items is necessary however any council member May request that an item may be removed from the consent calendar placed on the regular agenda uh on tonight's consent calendar item a consider the approval of the first reading of an ordinance amending the Richfield city code appendix D fee schedule related to building Planning and Zoning fees and schedule a public hearing and second hearing for September 24th 2024 Item B consider a resolution approving the 2024 revised and 2025 budget for affordable housing trust fund item C consider the approval of a resolution authorizing a grant agreement with the American Force in the amount of $498,000 75 as part of the United States Department of Agriculture USDA Forest Service Urban and Community Forest forestry program item D consider approval of a temporary on sale intoxicating liquor license for their R Richfield High School B fundraising event scheduled to take place October 5th 2024 at Fred Babcock BFW number 5555 located at 6715 Lakeshore Drive item e consider approval of an amendment number one to license number l344 between the city of Richfield and the Minnesota Department of Health for air monitoring equipment at the Richfield water treatment plan item F consider adoption of a resolution of support for Richfield application for federal funding for a quarter planning study of 76 and 77 streets via the US Department of Transportation reconnecting community's pilot RCP program RCP grant program item G consider adoption of a resolution accepting a henan County Youth activities Grant in the amount of 200,000 for Donaldson park playground improvements and the Pillsbury Plaza playground item eight consider extending the American res resue plan act Professional Services agreement with the conflict resolution center to November 15th 2024 item I consider the approval of a resolution pertaining to filing of the pay Equity Report with the Minnesota management and B budget and I submit all these items for your consideration it was part of the consent calendar thank you is there a motion to approve the consent calendar so moved second it's been moved and seconded are there any comments or questions I did want to point out that um there's quite a lot of information about the this is the first reading for the ordinance for the city codes and so we'll have that come before us as a second reading on September um 24th so this is just the first reading which is why is on consent calendar but I also want to draw residents attention to the affordable housing trust fund information there's a lot of really good information there and it is a very good program and thank you to the American forest and the USDA for the grant that we're receiving as very very helpful I know there's been a lot of concern about um emerald ashor and loss of trees and how to replace the urban canopy and so that funding is very very needed with that any other questions or comments all right right all in favor please say I I I all opposed we have approved the consent calendar next I will um turn it over to council member whan for the receipt of the city of Richfield annual financial report for fiscal year ended December 31st 2023 thank you mayor as required by state law all general purpose local governments must be audited in accordance with us generally accepted auditing standards by a firm of licensed certified public accountants in addition state law also requires that local governments publish within 6 months of the close of each fiscal year a complete set of financial statements presented in conformance with us generally accepted Accounting Standards unless a formal extension is applied for and accepted the city requested and was granted an extension this year to August 16th 2024 accordingly the city's auditing firm Bergen kdv has completed the annual audit of the city's Financial records and has issued an unmodified opinion on those records for the fiscal year ended December 31st 2023 the financial statements will be published locally and have already been submitted to the government Finance Officers Association for the certificate of achievement for excellence and financial reporting program in addition the audit annual report has been filed with the office of the state auditor pursuant to state law therefore staff presents to the city council the annual financial report for fiscal year ended December 31st 2023 I believe at this point staff does not have anything additional to add so then I would make a motion that we accept the annual financial report of the city of Richfield for the year ended December 31st 2023 second it's been moved and seconded is there any further discussion or questions beyond what was asked earlier all right all in favor of accepting the annual financial report please say I I I all opposed all right we have accepted the annual financial report next we will move on to a discussion regarding city council attendance at the 2024 National League of cities City Summit conference council member Troutman thank you mayor uh this is a discussion regarding the city council attendance um at the the national league of cities uh Summit conference according to state statute for 7166 the governing body of cities and school districts must adopt a policy that controls outof State travel for elected officials the policy was adopted by the city council in November 2005 and stipulates that the city council must approve in advance and by motion attendance at outof State conferences and so we um would um excuse me I would move that we design designate and approved city council member Christensen to attend the November 13th through 16th 2024 National League of cities Summit in Tampa Florida second all right it's been moved in second it is there any discussion I will say I'm looking forward to hearing the report of what you learned I've heard good things about these conferences so it would be wonderful to hear what you bring back for us um I do a procedural question for that report is that at a work session or a council meeting or how does that work mayor and council members uh there that is not prescriptive in the policy it actually is a pretty prescriptive policy but it could be either so if you have a preference just let us know all right thank you any other comments or questions okay all in favor please say I I I all opposed we have approved the attendance thank you next we'll be moving on to consider a request by brickmore for a conditional use permit an amended planned unit development and final development plan for retail use of over 50,000 square fet of gross floor area at 14066 Street West in order to ret tenant a building with a new grocer and I'm going to turn that over to council member hay for ly thank you the former Rainbow Foods building has been closed for 6 years a new grocery store lomma Bonita would like to now occupy the 52400 Ft building because the building has been vacant for more than a year the conditional use permit has expired and non-conformities must be brought up to current code to the extent possible consequently the property owner bricks Moore is requesting a new conditional use permit and amended plan unit development and final development plan at this time the proposed changes repair and enhance the look of the grocery store building improve problematic on-site circulation patterns decrease the parking and increase the Landscaping the attached report dated August 12th 2024 itemizes the code requirements bricks Moore's response and the staff's recommendations staff finds that subject to the stipulations recommended in the report The Proposal meets the intent of both the comprehensive plan and the C2 zoning District the Planning Commission held a public hearing on August 26th BR brickmore asked for concessions in regard to the staff recommendations for architectural relief along the blank wall area above the north building elevation they plan to create some fax columns but an awning that runs the length of the building is quote unquote Pro cost prohibitive the commission voted 5 Z to recommend approval of the request as recommended by staff brickmore hopes to address the council regarding the same issue staff is open to a comparable trade-off the council could recommend approval uh of the attached resolution with an amendment authorizing staff to approve a trade-off proposed by the applicant um and I know we will be hearing in from the applicant shortly but does uh Community D staff have anything to add yes thank you I did want to mention that we have continued those discussions about the relief on that uh north wall and that I believe that brickmore and staff have come to an agreement on the the articulation of that wall and the design of that and so um I I don't believe you need to make a specific action or a change to the resolution I believe it is just covered under letter I of the proposed resolution that allows the Community Development Department to approve that but I did want to mention that we have um we have agreed that there is a solution that will um en liven that wall and make it um make it more attractive for everyone who's who's viewing it from that North Side okay thank you um um I had one other question for staff at the Planning Commission there was discussion about the EV charging unit and it was explained what would happen if they were unable to find a contractor to do it can you go through that that what was explained yes thank you madam mayor um I I cannot tell you the specifics of the Planning Commission meeting I actually didn't attend what I can tell you is that the code does allow for tradeoffs and so um if the applicant is not um able to find a purveyor who will install those Chargers on the site for whatever reason there may not be a market here is what we're hearing um they would be able to propose something to staff that would offset that need um that is what a planned unit development does it offers flexibility um and so we would we would be open to another proposal by brickmore if they are not able to do that thank you that's helpful I'm not sure what that noise is is raining outside all right well hopefully um at the Planning Commission it also rained really hard and we got the feedback that you have to speak louder in the microphones because the people at home can't hear you when the rain's going on so from here on out if we can speak more loudly that would be helpful all right thank you thank you and actually just to clarify with staff so and we may be hearing more about this from brickmore are there still outstanding issues about The Pedestrian or vehicle circulation that need to be resolved between staff and brickmore thank you that's a great question what you're approving tonight is um a plan that includes a pedestrian connection from 66 Street a fairly direct connection to the sidewalk in front of uh the grocery store if the applicant is unable to secure the approvals needed um from the adjacent property owner and and provide us with documentation showing that then we would continue to negotiate to find a different pedestrian route so if they are unable to do this then yes we would continue those discussions okay procedurally does that require an amendment or is that covered under what we said earlier about the negotiations yes thank you Madame mayor there are Provisions in the code that allow for minor amendments that can be approved by staff and we would anticipate that this would be one if there if the changes were large enough to um exceed those thresholds it would have to come back but we wouldn't anticipate that and I will just make a comment appreciating that it is uh um useful for staff to have the ability to act nimbly and and figure out some of these final details after for the EV charging I I just encourage you to hold firm to our standard or really find something that addresses the concern that that's intended to address which is reducing carbon emissions um I what the materials I read suggested that because their preferred vendor wouldn't do it for free they won't do it and and the intent of code is not that it happens for free for the applicant the intent is that the EV charging stations get added so I would just um encourage staff to to know that uh you have at least my full support and I would guess much of the council support to get those stations um and I believe the brickmore applicant also wanted to speak so uh please come forward to the podium good evening my name is Lauren Robinson and I'm a Project Director with brickmore Property Group um I just had a few remarks thank you Melissa for providing those remarks on our ongoing conversations we have been working diligently with staff to come up with resolutions on the facade um I think we've reached a a great compromise on that um so again I'm really excited to be here seeking this approval um as the application outlines we do have a signed lease with Super Marcato lomma Bonita to back fill the former Rainbow Foods and just for background lomma Bonita is an established family-owned Hispanic grocery chain with four locations in the Twin Cities in Savage St Paul Crystal and Hilltop the family's been targeting Richfield for a while as an ideal market for them to create a fullscale grocery store unlike anything else in the market and so I want to high highlight a few things in our application first off the schedule has changed somewhat from what was submitted we were targeting store opening at the end of the year but due to this process and the requirement to construct the various site improvements which do require other approvals it's difficult for us to provide a specific date but we are anticipating to open six months after receiving the other approvals secondly the budget has increased through our work with staff regarding ways in which the property no longer complies with code we've committed to several new items which were not in the original application our application has a 3.6 $3.7 million spend but we're now projecting to spend closer to $4.2 million and I want to emphasize that our scope reflects an entirely new experience for the customers we are installing new islands at the entry off of 66 which will create a more rational drive a pattern to access the grocer and the main Center the islands will will feature Landscaping something we all know is lacking here there will also be a p a landscaped pedestrian walk from the bus stop on 66 leading to the grocery entry and it will have bike racks located for customer use the facade will also be significantly upgraded to include painting of The Met metal canopy a new metal a new canopy hung with metal cables a new tower elements to signify the store entry and then third I wanted to touch on um the the EV item that was mentioned we are going to use our best efforts to realize this requirement we support and we've implemented EV charging at many of our centers across the country we but we contract with an electrical charging network provider who installs and operates that infrastructure we do not install that infrastructure on our own and so as mentioned we've reached out to a number of thirdparty providers to make determinations on whether installation is viable um we have had encouraging conversations with one group who's expressed interest and so we're hopeful that that will pan out but as mentioned we will work to find an equitable solution if that does not happen the last thing on my list is probably the most critical and that is the issue of getting the adjacent owner popey's approval some of the new islands in The Pedestrian path are on their property we've contacted po eyes and they have been uncooperative in providing an approval as an alternative we do have a proposed plan that provides the same outcome but removes any changes to their property we are refining this plan and want to work with staff to resolve this via a minor Amendment as mentioned again we are super excited about bringing this grocer to the community and we hope to receive your support thank you thank you um any questions for the applicant before she Stone council member Troutman thank you mayor and this is a question for for either the representative from brickmore or or our staff um I I I really appreciate uh the the improvements to the to the parking and some of the flow issues um and we we may or may not call a car getting bumped in the Hub parking lot as getting hubbed um and so the opportunity to improve that I think is is great for everybody one one of the transition points I just didn't see it in the the in the the the drawings and the renderings is where the the grocery store parking lot connects with the the mall parking lot and maybe it's there and I just didn't see it but I wondered if somebody could maybe address some of the some of the confusion where one parking lot bleeds into another which I think is sometimes a place where confusion can arise we consider the we look at it as a Holistic Center so we're not dividing the parking lots to be specifically for the uh grocer or for the main Center I think the islands their main point of the islands to to help direct traffic because right now you just dump into parking stalls um and so if there is a great demand for Park parking stalls people can park at the main Center and walk over or park behind the center along 65th and walk to the grocery store okay and I just want to make one comment um first off I do want to say of course uh while we're disappointed that this isn't a larger Redevelopment proposal I think we're all excited to see something in that building again certainly the lack of grocery in that space has been noted by many residents and we're excited to see new investment in the center um I do want to say although I'm happy with the improvements as they're coming um I was just a little bit honestly bothered by the comments that the budget was a surprise because the building has been vacant for six years we have a very consistent policy that you lose your you lose your nonconforming status after one year I guess I just want to say it shouldn't be a surprise um and if if our staff are ever unclear about what we require um I I would want to know that but I don't think that's the case I think brickmore just needs to be more proactive about this and be aware that we we do expect the same thing out of you that we do out of any of our commercial property owners okay thank you um one thing going back to um Council troutman's point I did notice when I was at the Planning Commission there's going to be a four-way stop installed outside of um Crossroads Panorama so that may deal with some of what you're asking about thank you that that absolutely would because that there's a right now people can drive just naturally drive through the parking area so if you have one or two cars and what people kind of treat as yes yeah as a as a road um that's that's excellent I had a oh did you have a question before I had a a similar thing um there was a gentleman at the Planning Commission that was with the sitech um school that's right there and I was really pleased to see that they're going to put like a permanent curb and gutter there so that you can't won't have people trying to race through by the park playground so it should be a lot safer than just putting out orange codes cones out there so I was really pleased to see that so that we can have everything work together and I was um hopeful that that will help safety issue as well um council member whan yeah I appreciated that change as well I was just curious um if staff have any comments on um the efforts to get cooperation from popey's or um I'm curious if if we don't hear anything from them just looking at the renderings and where the lot lines are it it seems pretty complicated to try and find a clear pedestrian route and so I'm curious what the backup plan would be so we have not fully discussed this with staff yet but one option would be obviously removing everything from their parcel but Shifting The Pedestrian path to just beyond their parcel line so that it' be on our parcel so instead of cutting through their parcel it would be on ours so if you're looking at the plan just shifting at Plan East the other Island that prevents you from turning left when you enter off of 66 that would be removed but the existing median in the entry can be modified so that left turns can't aren't allowed okay I I trust staff's judgment on what is and again we have to work through it but you as specific so yeah yeah no I appreciate it right council member Wayan I'll just add that it if they cannot get popey's approval it's quite complicated um that is obviously the best place for a pedestrian conect ction from the bus stop from the intersection um that's our best option if it's not it will be difficult but we we will work with them to find the best option that we can thank you so to be clear on that we're the efforts are going to continue to get cooperation from we're just at the initial I just came up with the plan last week so it has not been vetted with staff yet but getting back to like if we can document that you're trying to work with Popeyes and they're not St working then yeah staff has expressed that we need to have documentation of our conversations with Popeyes and so we can provide that thank you I just wanted to clarify that before it's actually two entities with Popeyes which also complicates it it's corporate owns the actual ground and the franchisee ground leases it so it's two entities that require approval thank you um and I'm going to Echo what council member Hayford L said I really do appreciate that your bringing a grocery option to this area because it is something that the community has asked for for years and so we're really appreciative of that you're working with staff and that we're trying to find a way to move this forward because I'm look really looking forward to being able to shop at that grocery store thank you I hope you all vote for it ironic that it's also Hispanic Heritage Month so got that thank you I think you can step down um so I will make the motion to approve the proposed conditional use permit plan unit development and development plan Amendment second it's been moved in seconded is there any further discussion all in favor please oh oh there is I'm sorry I didn't look over quick enough council member tropman thank you mayor and I I just want to say um since it is Spanish Heritage Month um I remember growing up here in Richfield and waiting for for family members to arrive from Puerto Rico because there were no go Goya products whatsoever um in in Minneapolis and Richfield I mean it was really it was really hard to get and so what it means to have a restaurant like this is just or not a restaurant but a grocery store it is beautiful and and for folks that aren't aren't familiar I mean it's it's great food and it and I and I'm sure it's it's going to be a resource for all community members not just Latino members and um and I was wondering mayor if it would be appropriate I it looks like the the Grocers are here would it be appropriate if they want NOP oh just the contractor nope fantastic so that was that was it all right thank you any other comments or questions all right it's been moved in seconded to approve the proposed conditional use permit planed unit development and final development plan Amendment all in favor please say I I I all opposed all right the motion has passed moving on we will be going to consider the 2024 revised and 2025 proposed budget resolutions adopting the 2025 preliminary property tax levy setting truth and Taxation hearing date authorizing budget revisions authorizing revisions of the 2024 Department budgets and setting City fees for 20125 before um council member Christensen presents that information I have a question for this the City attorney um do can that be made as one big motion or are we going to have to deal with them separately uh mayor Supple I would recommend that you take each resolution separately so four separate uh resolutions four motions please thank you okay so when we get to that we'll do them each separately thank you all right then I'm going to turn it over to council member Christensen thank you mayor on August 20th 2024 a special city council meeting was held for the purpose of presenting And discussing the 2024 revised 2025 proposed budget and 2025 preliminary property tax levy at this meeting staff presented to the city council a preliminary gross tax levy of 29,8 182,183 m628 1800 a Debt Service Levy of 4,1 101,325 and equip an equipment and Technology level of Levy of 1,528 18800 and an economic development agency Levy of $623,500 the proposed Levy increase presented at the August 20th 2024 work session was 5.36% since that time time the Public Works budget has been revised and has increased by $50,000 the increase will fund contractual services for Street Maintenance this has been funded by decreasing the reserve contingency Additionally the public safety budget has been revised and has increased by 25,000 the increase will fund one additional community service officer position the new position is $75,000 but there were other savings found this is being funded partially from Reserve contingencies and partially from additional Levy with these stated changes staff is now presenting to the city council a preliminary tax levy of 29,9 7,569 this includes a levy for general fund operations of 23, 65451 a Debt Service Levy of 4,1 101,325 and equipment and Technology level Levy excuse me of $1,528 1800 and an economic development agency Levy of $623,000 the proposed Levy is an increase of 5.45% over the 2024 Levy accordingly the 2025 preliminary gross Levy represents a 5.45 increase from the 2024 gross Levy once the preliminary Levy is approved it may be further reduced at a later city council meeting but it legally cannot be increased over the preliminary approved amount in addition the city must certify its proposed property tax levy for payable year 2025 to the county auditor and set a date for its truth in taxation public meeting on or before September 30 2024 the truth and Taxation public meeting must be held between November 25 and December 30th 2024 and must occur at 6: p.m. or later the city's truth and Taxation public meeting is scheduled for Tuesday November 26 2024 at 6:30 pm at the August 20 2024 special city council meeting staff also presented the proposed City fees for 2025 the staff is asking Council to adopt a resolution setting City fees for 2025 a separate trans transitory ordinance related to building permits zoning and other land use permits established fees established by appendix D of the city's code are included in a separate report as they are set by ordinance not resolution the recommended action is by motion to adopt a the attached resolutions establishing the 2025 preliminary property tax levy and proposed date for the truth and Taxation hearing authorizing budget revisions authorizing revision of the 2024 Department budgets and the city fees of for 2025 is there a motion so we are supposed to take each of these separately so the first one I would entertain a motion to approve the resolution adopting a proposed budget and tax levy for the year 2025 and setting the truth in taxation um date and time for that hearing that's all in the same one all right is there a motion to do that so moved is there a second second all right is there any discussion I know um are we've had a few budget conversations already um I'm wondering if staff uh could highlight some of the um some of the factors that lead to the budget proposal as is both um some of the external factors and then I think particularly highlighting some of the um some of the new positions and major changes on that front would be helpful thank you council member um and I'll turn it over to director bur I just wanted to say again thank you thank you thank you to director Verma also to our directors and their teams I'm learning more and more that um we in Richfield have very much a team approach to the budget it starts in May it's a long process um we have uh work sessions long work sessions with you as well um this year's budget is it's focused on a a a couple key priorities one is dealing with the very tight labor market and so you'll see that reflected in the increased numbers the second thing is getting the Staffing that we need to keep on track with some of the goals that the council's laid out in the Strategic plan and so we have recommended um it's actually seven and a half positions um we we had very few the last budget but we do feel that we need those positions not all of those are supported by the Levy some of them are supported by like utility revenues or um there's score in for example to help with a recycling position um uh also I I did want to um point out that tonight's resolution you're actually not passing the budget that comes in December what you're doing tonight is you're you're uh passing you're appropriating to the by Department level in the general fund to pass that preliminary Levy which needs to be filed with the county by September 30th so I just did want to clarify that um and also I wanted to just briefly address some of the community feedback that we've gotten on the budget um we agree that exploring alternative uh programs in public safety is really important that's why we've been working on it since I've been here so for the last five years we've been adding positions and funding these alternative programs these Innovative programs we currently and I I I have a long response that I've sent to the people that have emailed us but I'll summarize it here we currently have three programs in place uh we're proposing to add more programs um two more programs actually um one would one is an expansion of um this what csos are doing for us um and then we're interested in an additional program but we won't be able to do that without additional Staffing um again we've hired four positions to support these programs in the last five years that's hundreds of thousands of dollars um it's also important to note that you can't you can't totally untangle you know the traditional policing from these alternative programs because there's been a lot of things that we've done differently with our officers that take more of their time there's more training that we've done the um upgrade and dispatch takes more time on the traffic stops for example deescalation takes longer um so we are asking more of our officers in terms of time so this might be not a dollars that you're going to see in the budget but it is a factor that we have to take into account for operational purposes um as you know we've been short staffed um it that is common to all cities right now is just an extremely tight labor market um and I I I believe the the first thing that we need to do is to do everything that we can to fill those current positions and really encouraged by this um grant program um and we did just find out that we did get the we we don't know if we got one or two positions for that grant program but we we did get at least one position so excited about that we can also participate in that grant program by funding it so we wouldn't get the grant money but they would be able to do that accelerated program to become police officers um so uh also there was this there's this suggestion that we shift that funding that would be for the two additional police officers over to an alternative uh program and right now just the alternative response program it's brand new and I did ask uh the Chiefs to look at how many calls they were going on and we do expect this to ramp up um but right now it's like one call per shift and that compares to like our our our sworn officers who respond to 10 to 20 off 10 to 20 calls um so it's just premature to expand that right now um and and at the same time we're having our officers Again part of this is due to staff shortages we're having our officers respond to calls um just with you know without backup we also have stacking of 911 calls and that means that they're having to triage those those um 911 calls and I believe that by filling the current vacancies and adding these two additional positions uh it will be absolutely critical not only to the public safety but also to the statey safety of our officers and so that's why I'm I'm recommending it so strongly and I know we've discussed it in previous work sessions I was really grateful for the feedback and the suggestion to also add the addition CSO because and to look at what what duties that they were doing and how could they help relieve some of the other duties that the officers are doing they can't relieve all of it um it's limited what they can help with but one thing that they can help with is through Support Services is to help with that environmental health and that Code Compliance which is something that we just heard about in the community survey that people are noticing that um the you know the the condition of city um they they rated us less well on that um the other thing is we're seeing an increase in hoarding across the city that is a mental health condition and so those csos can connect um to the embedded social worker and and have followup and connect those folks to services so I don't know if the Chiefs have additional questions but we're we're all available to answer questions we also have our social worker that's working on the art team here Cassie so she's available for questions as well are there other additional questions or comments council member whan um thank you for the summary I I Know It uh I I don't think there will be much discussion since there's been agreement on um these fronts in the previous meetings but do want to highlight um some of the positions I'm really excited about uh par particularly the additional um person working within sustainability um specifically on the solid waste and recycling efforts um that frees up our sustainability coordinator to um have more time to focus on our City's climate action plan that we have uh put somewhat uh on hold or delayed because of capacity reasons so I'm very excited about that um there's several other positions that are um maybe not quite as clear of a uh direct Community impact but certainly uh have been hearing from a variety of departments the need for for greater staff capacity so uh want to lift that up and um for residents who haven't heard this before um a strong majority of the budget is to invest in our staff who provide our our programs and services for our community so that um when we talk about Levy increases um that is most of what that's supporting is our our people who are supporting uh all of you the residents um I will say uh what I think will be a a bigger part of the discussion um or has been at the last two um I continue to I I don't disagree with everything that's been said I continue to have some reservations about uh when we are making the uh biggest reinvestment additional investment in public safety that we've made in at least in my time on Council for uh roughly 93% of that to go to the our our very needed very important uh traditional officers traditional approach um and only 7% of that going uh with the CSO position I I'm happy about that addition um but I would like to see us uh explore more about how it can be a greater balance between the traditional approach and more of the alternative models um I talked with some of the people who reached out um I don't know all of them and so somewhere there's been a community discussions that started Beyond people that I reached out to um but I pretty consistently um I'm not going to pretend I didn't hear from people who said yes the right answer is the two officers that that's what we should be doing but that was consistently around 20 to 30% of the 20 some people that I talked with um that there's a a very strong Community interest in our alternative models and I know um um that uh that the cities um city of Brooklyn Center City of Minneapolis who have introduced um the behavioral crisis response team in Minneapolis uh something very similar to our model in Brooklyn Center um within a year or year and a half they wanted to expand it and the end of this budget year that we're discussing it would be a year and a half from when it started yes right now we're only uh 3 months in if that um but uh yeah so I all that said um I see many of our our officers are here I am very uh supportive of uh appreciate the the staff who are part of and any union members who are part of negotiations um all the work that went into the comp and class work that we are investing uh almost a quarter of a million or three qus of a million dollars in paying you what you deserve what making sure that our wages are competitive with other cities um we know that your jobs are getting more complicated and want to pay you for that I also was very excited uh for chief henthorne um the update you shared and now with the uh the um update about our grant proposal that that puts us on a real path to hire at least four if not all five of the open positions right now um that that to me I agree that seems like the uh strongest potential uh sort of immediate intervention to some of the uh overtime crunches and stretches that our Department's been facing um so I I recognize that this is not um it's not the 's role to dictate exactly what positions get hired um and I'm just one person so I guess my main question would be to the rest of council um I I would like to see between now and the final budget proposal um in December to see a proposal of what would it look like to spend more of that uh that total allotment that total increase on some version of the Alternatives uh I I don't know if that is best used in the alternative response team or csos or crime prevention or various other options but I I guess I would ask my colleagues um if if that is of interest to more of the council or uh if that's not um if there's not a majority that's interested in that then we can move forward with the proposal as is so I'd be happy to answer that question but I have one question it's before I go ahead with that um it's my understanding that once we do this preliminary we can only move downward we can't increase anything is that correct yes mayor so if we add something in December we have to take something else away that is correct okay thank you um so I'll I'll comment and answer your question um I received a lot of um input from a lot of residents and the message that I sent out to them is that I don't think this is an either or conversation I think it's a both and conversation because it is very important to support our officers that are out there on the street it's also important to be looking at alternative response programs and what I shared with a number of the residents that contacted me is that you can't just look at richfield's Bud budget to figure this out because because we have been doing a lot of really good intergovernmental um cooperation and collaboration so for instance we are part of Bloomington Public Health Bloomington Public Health serves Richfield Adina and Bloomington and when the state did the um what do you uh the opioid settlement we received a significant portion of money that's going to be spread out over several years so we're right just got that money so we're in the beginning stages of that but I was really great um grateful to find out that our Public Safety department is going to be working with Bloomington Public Health for how we can provide support for people that um are dealing with addiction issues and help get them Mental Health Resources but if you just look at our budget you don't see the Bloomington Public Health because that's a separate entity um another thing that I think is important um I'm really looking forward to the alternative um response program moving forward but since we just started in June and that's also in cooperation with the D we need to figure out with Adina working together how we can expand that and I'm guessing it will be expanded Brooklyn Park did see a lot of um use for it and I'm guessing optimistically that we will probably be able to do something similar here I think right now though it's premature to put money in there before we've had a chance to talk to a d about it and to see how the program is going so I'm hoping this time next year we're going to be having a recommendation to put more money into that because I think that to me makes sense um there are also support from hanpen County they've put the cope program in place for those of you that aren't aware of that that's 247 you can call and get um assistance if someone's having a mental health crisis and so we're getting a lot of support from them and and we've got our embedded social worker project um program here that we've supported and even as henpen county has funded less of it we've put the um correct me if I'm wrong but I think we've emphasized that we want to make sure we budget for that so there's a lot of really good programs and I support those programs but I also want to say that in the short term it's really important that we support and make sure we have well-trained well-rested officers so I'm supporting adding those two positions because we need to add those two positions to make sure we have um the Staffing that we need um I was talking to a friend of mine trying to think through all this and she suggested I look at the OSHA website and so I started so I pulled up some OSHA things and it talks about what happens when you work irregular and extended shift and that would be like if you're having to do a double shift because somebody had to call in sick and we've had people tell us that they try they don't want to call in sick when they really should because they don't want their colleague staff to work double shifts so if you have people that are tired working extra shifts putting in overtime it fits under this area and according to this website from OSHA that irregular and extended shifts are common among Health Care Providers transportation workers First Responders firefighters police officers military personnel construction workers oil field workers service and Hospitality workers and many others so the groups of people we're talking about here are included in that list that can be affected by that and the study found that worker fatigue increases the risk for illness and injuries accidents and injury rates are 18% greater during evening shifts and 30% greater during night shifts when compared to day shifts Research indicates that working 12 hours per day is associated with a 37% increase of risk or injury so to me it's very clear that we need to make sure we invest in the appropriate Staffing so people can be well rested get the time off they need get the training they need and not be trying to work double shifts and covering because we don't have enough people to cover it and I think that'll provide the best outcomes for the public that we serve as well as for our officers and staff so I'm in support of adding the two positions and I that would be my opinion so thank you for asking is there anyone else that would like to comment on that council member hey I think my my primary concern and I think it's clear that the whole Council has no doubt in the value of obviously the union negotiating negotiated raises um and in general paying what's appropriate I'm I'm still concerned about the two additional positions um and it's still although to some extent my concerns have been allayed the fact that we still have unfilled positions um we are we are approving and we're committing to adding these two officers that we may not be able to fill those positions in the time that we're approving this budget for it is also become even more clear over the last week as I've received feedback from both sides and I received um significant amount of interest and this it's a very emotional um and important conversation for people about whether or not to add police officers it would be politically impossible to remove these positions later um that is abundantly clear so when we say we'll also invest in Alternatives later we want to be clear that we're going to continue to disproportionately um increase the budget of Public Safety at the expense of other departments and I I think that's important because it's not that Public Safety isn't doing an excellent job it's not that they don't need more resources it's that we do have the rest of the city to worry about and I do worry about the fact that we're continuing to increase Public Safety at a higher rate than other departments and I do worry that the solution may or up although I'm glad to hear that you want to invest in both traditional and Alternatives would further increase that disparity between other departments um I appreciate um you know the city manager's response that it is not appropriate or helpful to just increase more money to the alternative response team when it's just getting off the ground but I I guess share council member Wayland's desire to um hear how that would be better spent um if it were're not in those two officer positions um and not in the alternative Response Team um that said for the purposes of tonight it seems that we do have consensus that the total amount that is proposed as an increase is appropriate so I think I support the the question before us of whether the levy is appropriate um I would like to hear alternative ideas from staff brought to us uh that would be an alternative to adding the two positions and just to clarify I completely support the CSO and I appreciate adding that all right other comments or questions council member Christensen are you reaching for the microphone all right thank you go ahead um I do appreciate the uh the comments from other Council people about uh looking for Alternatives however I agree with mayor Supple we are well needed for these officers um from personal experience over the years with my family different family members being very trivi trivial things coming out to very for them coming out to very serious things coming out um you can't say much more uh appropriate kudos to these people those men and women that uh put their life on the line every single day you don't know when you wake up in the morning how many calls you're going to get you don't know how many what type of calls you're going to get you don't know if you're going to come home that night we just don't know and for for us to say that that um sure you know having alternatives are great that's that's perfectly fine and that would help in a lot of cases we do need well-rested mentally fit physically fit uniformed officers out on the street that the people the residents in our community have come to rely on so thank you council member Troutman hey thank you mayor and um I I really appreciate the process that we've gone through over the last couple of months uh or or maybe number of weeks and um one of the concerns that council member heyer raised that I thought was was valid and I think has been addressed is that we we have not filled the force completely and that you know if you need if you need five people advertising for seven doesn't doesn't add any people uh and doesn't add any so I I really appreciate that in the last few weeks one of the fruits of this process is finding and making sure that we're going to be able to add more officers through the the I poit program and fund that further and and also achieve some cost savings there and I think the cost savings are are honestly I just want to say this directly to everybody more SE like not secondary to actually getting the the team members that you need to do the work uh that you have to do um and have been here for a number of generations uh I appreciate that uh in the in the 80s and 90s when I was growing up here there was um more crime and less people um so I think there are a couple of conclusions one um that there's Improvement on your side also when I think of Jamie and myself um our our cohort committed more crimes than our kids are committing and so we have to give our we have to give our kids as a cohort some some credit too um for for for being a a a safer Community uh to live in um and so I um I'm I'm grateful to see everybody here and I have I actually have a number of questions that maybe aren't aren't appropriate because it's not a it's not a work session um but I but I'm glad to see everybody here um I I'm glad that we're investing in alternative programs I and part of my advocacy here as wanting to say that in in addition to uh recognizing that calls take longer and and another thing I was just going to going to mention that I I thought was really persuasive is that you sure that not everybody wants to work the amount of overtime that maybe people did a generation ago and I've certainly found that um where where I work and so I recognize that and I think that I think that's probably true in every industry um but um I didn't want and I don't want to let this this opportunity pass where we're not looking at investing not just in in in officers um and uh our mayor talked about both and but not just not just um Bo both and but really adding capacity I have a lot of questions about you know if if our social worker is only going on one call uh I I'm not presuming that that's the only thing that that our social worker is engaged in but that that creates I mean there's certainly a huge cleavage between the mental health problems that we have in our community and how we're able to respond and one of the the the things I really hope for Public Safety which is which is our officers but it's also we have our Public Health uh Team here and we have social workers here that that in with alternative staff we can be on offense in a way that we can't where our officers I know I know all of you if not or if not all of you most of you are out in our community not just responding to to crimes but present in our community but giving you more tools um I hope you continue to ask uh and reach out to to get more tools um including social workers including um community resource officers and um and I would I would Echo what council member Wayan said that if for some reason between now and December uh and we talked about this too chief that if you if it doesn't look like we're able to fill these positions um I recognize that alternative um uh uh team members maybe not can't do everything that that police officers can do but I'm I'm really concerned that we wouldn't be able to hire officers so we're expanding the budget we don't have the officers that we need um and so I would be interested in reallocating those in the coming months if for if if if we found out that we can't uh actually um hire the officers that we need to in the 2025 budget so in followup to that where are we in the hiring process if I think that needs to be addressed yeah I'd like to ask Chief hendor to give you an update because we have a very positive update on that thank you got to press the button first Madame mayor council uh those are all good points that you brought up from the Das and and listening to some of the things that the people wrote in um we've been always been a progressive Department dating back to the early 90s um when we were one of the only cities that had a social worker um we had her for about 10 years uh until budget cuts obviously um caused us to to make some tough decisions and let that program go but if you look at the positions that we have currently now and we have five to get back to full Staffing three are filled um and our our great staff out here in the audience is doing a great job recruiting Because we have additional applicants in the process that we're looking at so I I believe that we'll have those five positions filled uh hopefully sometime this year ear 2025 and the fact that we got the io Grant again um for early 2025 uh would give us then that additional cover um to hire those five positions uh and put us back at full strength um when we look at alternative models and what we're doing um we're looking at that pilot program U through henpen County for the Unseen victims um that's going to require a lot of time on scene by our officers and I don't know um all the details of meeting with henpen County here in the fall and we're going to determine what training needs to be done um what we actually have to do um I'm concerned about it I I like looking at Alternatives but if an officer has to stay on scene longer now um or longer uh then to fill out forms and and do interviews and things like that I'm concerned about that I want to do the program I like pilot programs um we're sort of looked at as sort of the test market for the county but at the same time I have to have that additional Staffing to be able to do some of these programs um that's the same with the Bloomington public health model of using opioid money uh to be able to uh have uh therapists respond out and deal with people that are in crisis due to their addiction and mental health issues with narcotics um we don't know yet if we have to send somebody out uh with those therapists but again that's going to be a situation that's going to be more demanding on our staff when we look at these alternative models um so those are unknowns at this point that we don't know but those are some of the things that I'm planning and hopefully that we can Implement within the city of Richfield along with being able to look at our CSO program and I've met with with uh Jennifer Anderson our support services manager to to look at how we can expand the CSO duties and what we need to do um to sort of take some of the burden off um our officers um that's something we've never done before um our csos do just Support Services we're looking at doing you know um unsheltered uh education transports we've never done transports in the history I've been here those are all things that will help the officers um deal with their daily duties so um but all that also depends upon you know having staff sworn staff to support some of the issues that we want to do and that's important otherwise um you know we're going to have people responding uh out on calls that they don't know necessarily uh what is going to happen and that's when probably the risk is going to be extremely high so go ahead I I know council member Trump had a question but I think we'll go ahead um to the soci our social worker first and if you could tell you push the button it should turn green and then tell us your name and perfect so just to kind of uh okay but just I sorry I just I just had a question before before we moved on um and I really want to hear from you but I just want to understand when you said staff you meant um uniformed officer staff or all so specifically not just all of your staff but just the the just I just want to make sure I understood when you were talking about you you need staff to support those Alternative Program you were talking about police or all staff or I was I'm sorry I specifically mean sworn staff that that's what I I I thought I just wanted to make sure thank you thank you and then if you could introduce yourself and go for it yeah absolutely my name is Cassie uh I'm the alter natives response social worker that we've been talking a lot about tonight um and I would just like to bring to your attention that even though we may not necessarily always need a full handful of officers at a call maybe calls will go from like three officer minimum to one officer but we're still taking away from their ability to go out in the community and continue to serve so however long we're on scene until we get comfortable and ascertain whether this is a safe situation for us to clear everybody we're still taking away from public safety's ability to respond to other calls um there have been a couple of calls one specifically in Richfield that I can think of that if I did not have an officer we would have been in trouble um there was a lady with an 8 in butcher knife behind the door and had I answered that door we don't know what could have happened I'm not armed I'm not trained in self-defense these are things that these guys show up and they're able to do um the idea of not having additional staff to support ongoing operations within the city of Richfield um and kind of just investing in this team well is very very well intended um and I think is very needed this is a great team we do work really well we do great work these guys are great um I think it is really early in the process to look at adding another team um that's my perspective from both working here as an embedded social worker in your department prior to you starting this role um and then also as working as your alternative responder um I just wanted to provide that feedback because I don't get to talk to you guys during your work sessions and um figured this was a good opportunity to do so thank you any other questions um Chief doish were you coming up to speak oh okay um council member hey for L I just wanted to clarify one of Chief tenor's comments when you said three of the five positions are field does that mean like you have a an employment contract but they haven't begun work yet or is this more of like a like they will go through theot program and in a year you will have an officer in that position we have uh Dom he's not here he's he's is he here no so he's he's out on the street now so that's one we have uh Serena Williams who's going to start shortly um and then we have uh um I can't remember the last name um Megan who Miller excuse me thank you Megan Miller who is also going to start um she'll go through the Intensive IO program but but she'll be ready to go here probably by the end of the year okay okay thank you can you for the people that are listening online explain e poet program that haven't been through all the work sessions with us um IPO stands for intensive um police officer training program it's somebody that uh we can hire that already has a degree whether a two-year or four-year degree um we receive state funding to put them through a three-month skills program uh and they get paid while they go through that program and they usually finish the program within two and a half to three months council member whan um I guess since it it seems like the the most important question is where what the council is directing of staff I I wanted to clarify uh with council member Troutman if you could it seems we have two clear uh voices interested in the proposal as presented uh and two voices uh council member Hayford o correct me if I'm Mis summarizing but two voices interested in uh staff coming back uh maybe before even the December meeting but between now and the December meeting with a a proposal of what would it look like to invest that money uh in alternative options since we we have not seen that kind of proposal yet and I I guess I'm curious Simon if you are it sounded like maybe you are saying that if we get to December and it's not looking like we can hire those positions you would be can you clarify yes yes so that thank you for the clarification and I I support the ask for new off officers um I don't support the ask for posting new officers that we don't we not confident that we're able to hire um I support giving you the tools that you need um and and I think and I and I support aggressively encouraging you to explore alternative means um and not to let budgets be a constraint to to hiring more community resource officers more social workers and like you said doing things you've never done um with staff in ways that when I say staff I mean all your staff not not just police but that can can maybe you know like our social worker pointed out instead of having three officers you have one officer instead of instead of 40 minutes or an hour on a call it's 15 minutes on a call and so anything I can do to encourage you and our and our Public Safety department as a whole to move in that direction I want to do that I'm I'm comfortable I would say I'm com I I'm supportive of of the two of the two officer positions if we're going to get two officers I'm not supportive of two officer positions if we don't think we're going to to get those uh to hire those in 2025 and in in in that includes the five that were that were're that are open that we're trusting will be uh included uh so that I know that's that's maybe slightly different than what where council member whale and and council member haford or lry are at um but hope thank you for clarifying can I ask one other clarification question yeah so procedurally if we approve this funding and we approve those positions and then we find out in February that we're having trouble hiring them at that point does the city manager have the option of following through on what you said and redirecting the funds at some point down the road can you explain how that procedure would work yeah thank you mayor so uh according to the Charter the city manager actually has I have authority uh to change things within budgets so um the department budget so within the department budget I can shift things around according to the line items depending on operational needs including hiring and firing um and I have to come back to the council if I'm going to move or propose to move things um from one budget to another above the appropriation that you approve with the budget so you would be able to follow council member troutman's direction of you know trying to hire and working really hard to get those two positions filled that is correct I'm I'm still unclear what your direction is um cment I so like are you saying that if these if the two remaining outstanding positions that are already funded were not filled by December then you would like something like council member will is asking or would you say you would not no in this is and thank you uh council member uh oi this follows up the the the last uh work session that we had where um you were unclear uh Chief forgive me if I'm wrong uh how how confident you were that we could use the IPO program to fill to as a pipeline for additional officers and whether you had you you were you said you were pretty you were pretty sure but you weren't 100% sure and you weren't sure you're going to be 100% before before this meeting um and so and maybe maybe you have that clarity now but what I'm trying to be clear about and forgive me if it's if it's not clear if if between now and the end of the budget or also in February or but you get clarity and you are less confident than you are right now that you're going to be able to make the hires that you want the purpose of hiring new officer the purpose of posting new new positions is to hire them um and hopefully by December you have a good you have a good sense of whether or not you think we're going to be able to hire seven officers in the next 12 months um if we're if we're not um I I would like you to reconsider allocating um resources within your budget uh to other to other team members also um and it's no longer my my call I hope you Contin to consider adding other uh team members so I can I can just obviously the last work session we didn't know that we got another Eggo Grant so with the three officers I mentioned we have the ability after talking with henpen County uh and minsu that they're going to open a class in November for us to pay and fill two positions to send people through the the pseudo IO program yep so that would be five okay that would get us back to our sworn strength of 46 the you're GNA post the two I'm sorry excuse me no that's okay the new ioic grant that we just received is for early 2025 okay so we have to take or or sign off on that sometime in October that would be for 2025 and then we would probably hire that that last position in early 2025 then I so so I'm I'm supportive of that um I I I support adding additional officers if you're confident you can add additional officers um and I also I I would fund more I I wanted I wanted two additional uh non officers and we got one and hope hopefully a public safety is our or C cro or hope hopefully Public Safety you hear that that our our goal was to get you more resources not starve you of resources and if you don't want to do excessive overtime I'm very sympathetic to that um and I want to facilitate that all right any further comments um um council member Wayan um I it clearly um my my proposal only has two so I'm uh acknowledging that there's the majority of council I just want to also acknowledge um that it's a pretty uh it fluctuates a lot um I certainly hope that all of our officers especially with the um the raises that are coming that are part of this budget um I hope no one leaves um and that we continue to have a fully uh fully staffed Department um whether that is the the 46 or 48 um but I I guess my feedback to council member Troutman um that I I don't think impacts tonight's vote um but I I guess I would agree with council member hiford O's uh confusion that it it feels less clear if there's a point when you would change your mind and you don't need to but if you are I guess maybe I am asking do you currently have enough information that you are saying a full-throated yes or if if there is something that could change before December Y what what would that be I still don't feel very clear about that I think now I have the information to say ye yes my my my my biggest concern was that you if you're if post posting for jobs is not actually the support of getting the team members on on the team to do the work that needs to be done um and so I have more confidence every every time we've talked I've had more confidence that we're not um we're not virtue signaling that it's hard and you should have more team members but you're you're saying it's we need more team members and you'll have them um and I also not don't want to Signal or faint towards alternative responses are like a good thing that we want to talk about but I want we want those resourced and we and I'm I'm willing to make that investment I'm willing to say yes and so so very clearly yes um I'm supporting the two officers um because I'm now confident that that we're not talking about them we're going to engage them and I'd like to see more Investments not less in in in alternative team members and I appreciate that you're looking that way and if I were if I were here next year I would be advocating for the same thing great thank you councilman be for the lri I do just want to make and I I appreciate the clarity uh council member Troutman um and it's it's sort of clear that that's where the consensus is landing I I do want to be clear though and just to ask the city manager at any point having the vacancies you had did you consider removing an officer position and allocating it to something else I did not I feel very strongly which is why it's this has been a these have been tough work sessions and a tough meeting tonight that by having less sworn officers we compromise not only the safety of our residents but also the safety of our officers and that is one reason why I think we need these two additional positions I also it uh we have been able to help stabilize Staffing Levels by going up above sworn levels um temporarily um we've done that and it's not just sworn we've done it in other departments to like Finance um so uh we we did it in in the fire department and I would continue to do that to make sure that we're trying to stabilize those levels because it has been there have been more staff turn over the other um the other thing that I just want to stress with you all is the urgency of applying to this i poet program like we have been it well not we Chief and his team have been very Innovative and asking if we can pay the 50,000 as opposed to getting a grant for it and to to get our off you know to get um candidates through that program I am worried that once other cities find out about this that they're also going to do it so I think there is urgency in making sure we're in that first program where they allow the cities to pay for it um because I think it will get more competitive it's it is there if you go look at the LMC website I I haven't counted recently but there are like seven pages of uh openings for cities for officers M thank you and yeah my intent in asking that was certainly not to suggest that you should have done that because I certainly agree we do not need a smaller force it was just to say with one of the comments you made c trumman i I think it is unrealistic that if the positions are not filled in in February or July or August that they're going to not have those positions anymore I am expecting by us giving the direction that we're giving tonight that they are going to continue trying until they get those positions and I I mentioned that you know um not to criticize you but just to kind of like Eyes Wide Open that that's what's going to happen like they're going to get those positions they're not going to they're not going to give them up um and and I think that that there's clearly a demonstrated need for it it's it's money well spent I still continue to worry about the opportunity cost relative to the rest of the city um and the disproportionate amount of money that's going into public safety it will still be well spent and I think I'm I'm I'm fine with that um but I do want us to be clear that if if there's more money to go into alternative response it will be added on to the million dollars that we're adding this year and thank you and just just in response to that my concern arose in our first not not our first but the first the the last several Works work sessions where the question was asked do we think we can get to full Staffing in 2025 and the response was yeah no probably probably not and and yeah and and now now I think I think this is maybe the fruit of the convers I think we're in a better place we're we're we're funding both what what you've asked for and maybe what you didn't ask for but hopefully is is helpful and and thank you and the thank you will continue probably on into the next uh agenda item and I do appreciate that we had that conversation because then the creative solution came about and we need to have those kinds of Creative Solutions because I think it's really important that we're out there and we're finding quality officers to fill our ranks so um council member Wayan um thank you mayor I'll just say uh clearly this is the the direction we're going I I don't to be clear I don't think this is bad um I think this will be good I think you all will appreciate the extra help and that it sounds like we have uh promising routes to hire more officers um two I I would uh I won't be weighing in on a future budget uh but for what it's worth I do not share the the overall concern about um or to me what feels like a scarcity mindset of if we do this now we can't invest more in uh alternative models later and just will highlight for the three of you that will still be on Council um one of our two social workers is not yet in our general fund budget they're still funded with arpa funds um that will be up next year and so if we want to maintain the levels there that will be an investment next year um and again that uh at least the two other cities in hennipin county that I know have uh a model like this um or a model for uh alternative response behavioral crisis response whatever they they call it um that it was around a year and a half in that they wanted to expand to be more available and in Minneapolis that is 247 um and I think is obviously there's very different levels of of need and a gigantic population difference um but all that to say that I I hope we continue with the investments in the Alternatives um and that uh that's that's going to come back in Future years and um three of the the people that I talked with are the three primary candidates uh for this seat and uh council member Troutman seat and I think they uh were not All Uniform we heard one's comments but I certainly expressed an interest in continuing that direction and so I hope uh that conversation continues thank you so my parents always said you should learn something new every day and so the thing that I learned was when Chief henthorn talked about the fact that if you're going to be successful in implementing the alternative models you have to have the support from the sworen officers so in some respects I do think adding those two sworn officers is helping us to be more successful in implementing the alternative models and i would support in future years investing more more in those alternative models but we do need to make sure that we keep that base there that can support them because we don't want to have a program that's there and not support it and so that was the the new light bulb that went off for me when you said that we need to have those forign officers they are in order to support the alternative models so I appreciate that thank you for everybody that was part of the conversation thank you for everybody that stuck around for all of this tonight and all of the people that um emailed us and called us and did various things that way so at this point our acting City attorney has told us that we need to do these as separate motions so can you remind me do we have the motion on the floor or do we need to remake the motion okay and that would be to adopt the proposed budget and tax levy for the year or the resolution for the proposed budget and tax levy for the year as well as setting the truth and Taxation hearing date all right is there any further discussion all in favor please say I I I'll opposed all right we've passed that one now moving on to the second one that council member Christensen was reading about earlier this would be I would entertain a motion to um let's see entertain a motion to adopt the resolution authorizing the budget revisions so moved second it's been moved and seconded is there any discussion all in favor please say I I all opposed okay we've adopted that one next um we need a motion that would make sure I get the right word here um approve or adopt the resolution that is authorizing revision of the 202 for Budget of various departments so moved second it's been moved and seconded is there any discussion all right all in favor please say I I all opposed all right we have approved that and our fourth and final resolution so this would be um a res approving the resolution to establish the 2024 license permit and miss miscellaneous fees pursuant to the provision of appendix D of the ordinance code of the city of Richfield and resending resolution number 12127 so moved second second okay it's been moved and seconded is there any discussion and I actually did have one thing I wanted to talk about on this one um if you go to page 410 in the agenda packet mayor um sorry there is a mistake in that resolution and it says the 2024 license permit and miscellaneous fees it's actually for the 2025 oh so the maker of the motion and the second would you say the for 2025 are you okay with that yes I would move with the correction that it's for 2025 okay so for 2025 so on page 410 and now my screen has gone gone weird here hold on a second it has the section that has to do with the Cannabis fees and the trying to figure out how to make this bigger um at any rate it talks about that it hasn't been we haven't gotten official guidance from the ocm and so I had asked staff about that because it says to be determined and we're SO waiting on official guidance from the ocm the office of cannabis management so I just want people to be very clear that this is what we think is going to happen but we're still waiting from the state of Minnesota so the opinion was that in year zero the business would pay for the registration and the renewal fee and then in year one they probably would have no fee and then in year two they would have to pay the renewal fee so at that's our best um knowledge at this point of what the intent is but um I just wanted to put that since it says to be determined and we're waiting for the ocm I wanted to make sure we were clear on that are there any other questions or comments and I don't know if the staff wanted to nothing more to add mayor what was that okay so the motion before us is to approve the um let's see the set of the city fees for 2025 all in favor please say I I all opposed and we've set the fees all right so next we're going to move on to item number 10 which is considering the adoption of a resolution approving the contract with Teamsters Local 3 320 the lieutenants for the bargaining unit for the period of January 1st 2024 through December 31st 202 and authorizing the city manager to execute the agreement council member Troutman thank you mayor this is uh agenda item is to consider the adoption of a resolution approving the contract with Teamsters number 320 Lieutenant's bargaining unit um for the period January 1 through January uh 2024 through December 31st 25 uh the city staff has completed the labor negotiations with Teamsters uh number 320 uh the lieutenants uh Provisions for the 2024 to 2025 labor agreement cover all three Lieutenant positions a 2-year contract uh provides for the following changes an increase in vacation sell back from 48 hours to 64 hours to match the non-union policy and to increase the total annual holiday leave from 96 hours to 104 hours because of the additional juneth holiday to include the same uh employer provided health care and dental insurance contributions as given to the non-represented employee groups and wage adjustments to include 3% cost of living adjustment and an 8% Market adjustment for the top step in 2024 and a 3% Cola and a 1% Market adjustment for all steps in 20125 the higher starting pay is consistent with the wages required to compete in the historically high or excuse me the historically tight market for law enforcement Personnel uh and so the motion uh before I guess before we make the motion staff is there anything um that you'd like to add uh thank you again sack Tom on the assistant city manager I'll make it quick I know tonight it's been a long night for everybody so I'll make it quick uh I just wanted to thank the the work of our HR manager and also the support of our city manager in this process and I'll stated again like I stated in the previous meeting uh I continue to be very impressed with u the police department especially the leadership from the police department from the chief all the way to the support staff within the department uh there's a lot of dedication passion professionalism for the city of Richfield and I wanted to continue to uh uh state that and also to thank the lieutenants for working with the city and continuing to be a vital part of the city so thank you all right very go ahead so I would move we adopt the resolution approving the provision of the 2024 to 2025 labor agreement with the teamsters uh number 320 bargaining unit and authorized city manager to execute the agreement second it's been moved in second and is there any discussion I would like to just thank everybody that was involved in the process on both sides of the table and I'm glad that we are reaching resolution here any other comments all right all in favor please say I I all opposed and we have adopted the resolution next we will be moving on to the city manager's report thank you mayor um I will email these answers to Mr erster um uh one of the questions the first question is what document documentation declares that the state level micro unit ordinance specifically applies to home rural cities uh our City attorney answered that I answered that um again I'll email it to him but it was in the definitions in the statute um three supportive housing developments I'll repeat the questions too three suppor of housing developments Pen Station micc compound Aster Commons require 14 buildable Lots my questions are after they are built which ones will be paying property tax property tax exemptions occur um through an application to the county uh a state statute sets the standards for examp ions um information is available at the County's website and while the city does not make this determination none of the proposals would appear to qualify uh the question is which ones will require additional taxpayer support and assistance uh we're not clear exactly on what he is asking about for additional but uh the information is that the pre the three preliminary development agreements between the H and the developers of the Penn Station and asra Commons projects that agree to provide up to financial assistance in the form of the money from the city's affordable housing trust fund 500,000 and 485,000 respectively as well as the sale properties at a reduced cost uh there are currently no other pending request with the city or HRA for financial assistance there is no request for financial assistance related to the micc project um and then and how are the additional taxpayer support going to be budgeted and generated um the money has been budgeted and is available in the HRA funds uh the 2040 this is a question the 2040 plan intends to reone 33 residential homes around M micc at 75th in Morgan to MR2 what is the city's authority to reone residential homes uh this is a power provided to the and prescribed by the state statutes chapter 462 um have you notified residents of the of those 33 homes of the intended resoning notice of the public hearing regarding the 200 regarding the 20 240 comprehensive plan was published uh in October of 2018 if if and when the properties are to be considered for rezoning notification will be sent directly to the impacted properties the city policy has been to avoid rezoning until there is a proposal for a Redevelopment that requires it to allow the greatest flexibility of current uses uh do you plan on forcing sales of using or using eminent domain to gain ownership the city cannot force sales of private property eminent domain may only be in cases of public use of or purpose as defined in statute chapter 117 no public use or purpose is in is proposed for any of these properties and the final question is a rhetorical question thank you is there anything else in your report or just those answers for open form just for those answers thank you thank you we'll move on then to claims and payroll I would move claims and payroll second it's been moved and seconded twice to approve claims and payroll any questions all in favor please say I I I all opposed and we have successfully approved claims in payroll moving on to hats off to Hometown hits council member whan thank you um this is your reminder that between now and our next meeting um starting on September 20th is actually the start of early voting for the general election already um and so if you are uh an election nerd like me you will get excited about early voting um and then the only other thing I had but I am guessing there are others who will want to say it is that this Sunday is pen Fest and uh so encourage people to attend but I'll leave it at that thank you council member Christensen yes there are two things before we gather again and one of them is pfest um and it's a great celebration they are still looking for volunteers to help out 90 minute shifts to help out the vendors uh that type of thing um you can go on uh Richfield pfest more about that and then the only only other thing is next Saturday the 21st from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the Richfield History Center at 69th in Lindell will be a gathering of uh uh local authors again this year so thank you council member hey fori I just wanted to share my excitement and my thank you to the Transportation Commission and a public works department and especially those who have been working on nickolet Avenue um I noted in the meeting and the leant trans ation um that I'd been in different hats involved in that commission for 11 years um as a liaison and you know talking about the exciting moments of 66 Street in Portland Avenue and that this was one of these other big chapters of of them recommending a preliminary layout for Nichol that we're going to be seeing at a future meeting but it wasn't until after and I really wanted to note it it was actually 10 years to the day that they had recommended the 66th Street layout in September 3rd uh 2013 20 sorry 2014 to 2024 so it's pretty cool that they were recommending another sort of Major Street uh that also was really based on public input um that will also make a huge difference to a large section of Bridgefield so I'm really excited to see the project moving forward I'm excited with the work our staff has put in and the county staff uh the county has shown really more flexibility and a more open mind than they did on 66 Street so I think this is going to be even better but of course we'll be discussing it more at our next meeting but thank you so much to the staff who made this happen and the trans Commissioners and I'm not going to name names but there's a couple that have been like from the beginning to the end of every public meeting really present really showing up um I noticed it I know that the staff noticed it and appreciate it and I'm just grateful for the time that they put in for our community thank you council member Troutman yeah thank you mayor for all all our staff and especially all our volunteers that are making pen Fest possible thank you and this is uh the the great Richfield uh get together here and uh and so so so come on out on Sunday and uh and and also in our in our last week we had the opportunity to to just begin to to see some of the some of the great work that um that our um our contractors and and team members have been doing and putting together uh a vision for our new Wood Lake Nature Center and it's just uh just stunning uh due to some health problems I haven't been able to walk around Wood Lake uh this summer this is the first uh this week was the first time I was able to do that and it was uh just extraordinary and I'm really grateful um that we have a park like that and that we have an opportunity to put a a place where people can enjoy it there that I think um Generations from now are going to really appreciate um hats off to to our our public our public or our uh our Recreation team and uh and The Architects that are visioning with us thank you and I'm going to reiterate a hats off we did earlier in the meeting and say thank you again to director Verma for all that you've done for Richfield and all of your hard work and we get to see a lot of the fruition of that tonight with all the various reports so we appreciate that um I also want to you know do a shout out to pennfest and I think we all know that that's going to be fabulous and we're all going to be there on Sunday and oh I believe it's 1 to five am I correct on that one to five and it's fabulous and I I haven't looked at the football schedule but usually it's better if there's not an actual professional football game going on at that point so I think hopefully we can all be at pen Fest and nobody will be watching football um finally I want to do a plug for the Farmers Market on Saturday that's the other place to be in Richfield so please come to the Farmers Market with that we have reached the end of our meeting so I would entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second it's been moved and seconded to adjourn all in favor please say I I I all opposed We Stand adjourned thank you all