City of Bloomington, MN City Council, 11 Oct 2021

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From YouTube: October 11, 2021 Bloomington City Council Meeting

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Bloomington Minnesota City Council Meeting

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Good evening, everyone and welcome I'd like to call this meeting of the bloomington city council to order tonight is monday october. 11Th.

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We've got a couple of technical issues. We've got to work through here there we go we'll start our meeting as we always do with the pledge of allegiance. If you please stand and join me in the pledge.

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The flag of the united states of america.

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And to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

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Well, good evening, once again to everyone uh everyone here in the council chambers and to the folks who are watching at home, glad to have you here tonight.

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We will call now the role of the city council, mr billard.

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Councilmember beloga here colter.

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uh Lohman, not here uh councilmember martin, I'm here councilmember nelson here and mayor bussey here.

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We have five of the seven members of the city council here this evening. Council members, lohman and councilmember carter are not with us this evening for a variety of reasons, so we will forge ahead without them.

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Item three on our agenda is the approval of tonight's agenda council: are there any additions or corrections to tonight's agenda and folks watching at home and folks here this evening? uh Our final item this evening item 8.5 is a closed session, where it will be a discussion for the fleet garage acquis location acquisition during a closed session. We do clear, the council chambers and what we will do is clear: the council chambers we will go officially into closed session.

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We will have our discussion we'll then come back out of closed session and uh make any decisions we or vote on any decisions. uh We may have made it during the closed session and then close the meeting then so, just so, you know. As we get to item 8.5, we will have to make sure that the the council chambers are clear, except for the other, relevant staff, so council, if there are no corrections or additions to the uh tonight's agenda, I would move approval of tonight's agenda.

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We have a motion, and a second by council member beloga, to approve tonight's agenda. Hearing no further council discussion on this. Mr billard beloga.

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Hi colter aye, martin hi nelson hi, mayor busse.

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Motion carries five, zero counts, remember below you're gonna. When you speak, you gotta push the button, so the green light it comes on this. Is uh we reversed it since the last time you've been here, the microphones are only on if you turn them on and they're off, the default is off right now. So all right, thank you.

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We will move on to our public comment period. Tonight. Public comment period is a 20-minute period at each council meeting where we allow residents to up to five minutes to address the council on items not on tonight's agenda.

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We do typically start, and we will start again tonight with item 4.1, which is a response to the prior meetings. Public comments, mr robrugy.

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Mr mayor and council members good evening no response to prior comment. Thank.

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You any questions of mr verbruggy. We will move on to item 4.2, which is the public comment period. As I said, 20 minutes for folks to address the council on items not on tonight's agenda. We do limit it to five minutes to each uh presenter to make sure things are uh equal and consistent for everyone. uh It's uh questions from the council will be for clarification, only there's no back and forth.

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This is an opportunity for us to listen, not necessarily for a time for us to interact or act on any uh anything brought forward by the public at the time. So uh we had a couple of people call ahead and reserve time on tonight's public comment period. uh Mr walletsko is first and then I believe sally ness also is on the list. Mr aletsko.

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Thank you, mr mayor and council members. My name is chuck walletsko, and this is my wonderful wife of 40 years denise. Will let's go I'd first, like to thank all of you who responded and.

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Chuck excuse me: do you want the overhead on.

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Yes, please, oh I'm, sorry thank you. Let me know what it is.

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Do you want to turn on the microphone as well? It sounds like you may not be on. Oh now,.

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We'll stop interrupting you. I promise. No, that's fine.

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You for clarifying, um I wanted to. First of all, thank you for responding to my open letter, which is displayed here, especially to the five that took time out of what I know is your very, very busy schedule to have phone conversations with me and to talk the points through on the letter, which I thought was very kind of you.

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I also wanted to thank you on behalf of all bloomington residents for the enormous amount of time and energy you spend on the council on behalf of the city of bloomington, which we all love, mr mayor and council members.

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It was exactly 48 hours ago I stood with my dear friend rosella decker at the minnesota police memorial at the state fair at the state capitol grounds on saturday night rosella decker was there to honor her 32 year old son officer tom decker, who was killed in the line of duty in cold spring minnesota. On november 29, 2012.

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rosella was joined by many members and representatives of the other 295 officers killed in the line of duty in minnesota, who represent what the thin blue line stands for in minnesota.

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They gave their lives so that we may have our way of life and our liberties protected and that thin blue line stands exactly for what it means in that it stands for those police officers standing in the gap, so that law and order can prevail versus anarchy.

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Contrast that scene, if you will to the what I consider unfortunate situation when mayor bussey apologized, for flying the thin blue line flag in bloomington. Mr mayor, with all due respect. In my personal opinion, sir. I think that apology most certainly undermined the morale of our excellent police department.

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But even more importantly, I think it dishonored and disrespected the 295 police officers and law enforcement officials who have died in the line of duty, who are actually the representatives of the thin blue line in what they've done to protect our liberties and allow us to have our way of life while they've defended our communities.

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Contrast that apology, if you will, with the excellent comments during my conversations, particularly with mr baloga mr loman, ms carter and mr nelson, where they correctly said we are indeed fortunate in bloomington to have perhaps the best police force in the entire state and arguably in the entire country.

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But I think this has led to a lot of consternation, confusion and concern amongst bloomington residents. They're, not sure which message is which they have confusion, but they're, not sure.

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If the apology is what we stand for in terms of standing for our police or if it's the statements from the other council members and they're concerned, depending on which way it will be their, the council is leaning, whether it's leaning in the wrong direction that we could end up to be like the dumpster fire, which I believe is the city of minneapolis, which certainly does not support and defend its police force.

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So, ladies and gentlemen, in this chamber, let me please share with you where there is no confusion.

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There is absolutely no confusion when the rosella deckers of the world step up to that brightly lit thin blue line at the peace officers memorial by the state capitol, and even though she may have tears in her eyes, you can be absolutely sure that she is very clear-eyed of what that thin blue line stands for because it's families like hers that have done the ultimate sacrifice so that we can live and enjoy the freedoms and liberty that we have for our way of life in the united states.

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So I'd like to implore everybody in this chamber to honor and respect the rosella deckers of the world and to have their voices be heard above the noisy crowd.

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So where do we go from here? I have a couple of proposals which I think, at least symbolically are a good step forward for all of us.

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Six years ago my neighbor was still walker and I let's go.

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Your five minutes are up, sir.

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I was told I'd get a couple more minutes because of my disability, sir.

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I don't know who might have told you that, but uh I think we try and limit this to five minutes for everybody to keep it fair and keep it equal for everyone.

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Would you please yield me just 90 seconds? I can wrap this up very quickly.

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uh How about 30 seconds, mr olympia? Okay, I.

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Would like to ask then that we return the favor like when the police department six years ago, honored, stu walker and I by autographing the thank you, bloomington police signs and I'd like to request that the city council do the same tonight by signing it to endorse our wonderful police department and then officer giles would accept that on behalf of chief hartley tonight, so that we can stand behind our police force. I've.

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Also, given you the thank you bloomington police signs, which I'd ask that you proudly display in your yards in neighborhoods over the coming days weeks and months. Thank you very much.

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Thank you, mr oleska. What I'd be comfortable doing if you could deliver those to the council secretary and then after our meeting the council, if, if they choose to sign that the council can sign them, then after the meeting.

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Thanks eighth circuit opinion for nest versus city bloomington states. In october, 2019, two city police detectives in a community lazeon met with ness at her home. The detectives informed nest that she was a suspect in a harassment case. The detectives stated they wanted to talk about the reports that were made this school year yet begin by talking about last year. Detective. We were here last year talking to you about an incident that happened over in the parking lot and then out in the street. Is that correct? I replied.

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It was a park detective park and then also the parking lot and then talking to kids and motioning over to homes where they lived. I replied four kids approached me once in my name. I engaged them. I heard one child say: are you afraid of her, and I said we know each other. You guys live in those homes right there and then I left the park and as I was leaving, I took pictures, but you remember talking to us right, I replied and since you're recording I want it to be accurate.

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When I was leaving, I took pictures of the overuse and non-compliance use of daryl fruit detective. We were at your house and we talked to you about your be how your behavior made those children feel. Is that true? My attorney said not to answer this question detective.

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Well, for the record, we did talk to you about how those actions made people feel, and we explained to you that it was harassing behavior and it was making the children feel frightened and threatened by speaking with them and motioning to their home and cause, and it caused alarm in them.

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Talking to children is not threatening or harassing behavior and saying it is, is wrong and it should not happen. I asked the detectives: did you guys look at the video from the park that day detective? You wouldn't show it to us. Once again, I did not take video. That day, I replied. No, the video from daryl fruit came from the park to show whether or not these children were frightened at the time detective. It doesn't pick up sound recall in 2018.

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I was told by the detective about the obligation to follow up on felony reports and that the detective said I'm going to review some video footage and another detective said so when we go review video from the mosque and now the detectives are questioning the purpose of looking at video from daryl, farouk and the park. That is a concern. I replied well, no, but it picks up what they did. They were riding bikes. They were enjoying the time. It would pick up that stuff detective.

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So you can tell by the way, someone walks and moves that they're frightened or not. Is that what you're suggesting I reply? I just asked if you guys looked at the video, because it would show what happened that day and you had two videos, one from daryl fruit and one from the park and the children afterwards, I said hi to them wave to them detectives. So what's your point to ask if they saw the video I replied to clarify, I did not take a video or pictures of four people in the park.

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I took pictures as I left the daryl fruit. I left of the daryl fruit overuse and non-compliant use of the property again. Last year you came over and asked if I videotaped and I did not detective. We have that on record. I reply and you guys had two videos to look at to prove. I did not videotape detective we're not charging on that case. I'm just asking. If you remember us coming and talking to you about it, I replied and then hopefully you guys didn't pursue it, because you saw did not tape.

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You saw the videos, you understood what happened. Four children approached me detective, but you did take photos right, though, though right I reply of a parking lot detective. Were there kids in the photos when you took those, I replied not any of those four children. Later when I looked at the pictures, there was a young child of a woman who was sitting in her car and she was hidden behind a tree and there was a little portion of this young blonde child and nothing to do with the four children. Thanks.

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Thank you, ms ness.

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Would anyone else like to speak this evening.

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Anyone else in the chambers zen do we have anyone on the phone who would like to speak to item 4.2. Our public comment period.

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If you would like to ask if you would like to speak or make a comment, please press star one on your telephone keypad.

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Yes, we have uh joshua eiberg on the line.

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Good evening welcome.

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Good evening, please identify yourself uh state your name for the record. Then please go ahead.

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Yeah, my name is joshua eiberg and I promise I'll be less repetitive than what we've pretty much heard, and I just want to wish everyone a national coming out day and indigenous people's day. Thank you for the time you're giving me to voice my concern. So over the past summer, we've had a couple instances involving someone who is actually running for city council and I just thought it'd be great to go through their whole message because it really does contradict who they are and what they try to be about.

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So I just want awareness there one. This is from the sun currents, and I I thought this paragraph was really revealing. I support making bloomington a safe, inclusive and welcoming city for all residents, really when you decided to dox my friends and accuse them of being a pedophile in their attempts to be woke, our city councils lost sight of true equality, which has only perpetuated the divide instead of bringing the community together again. Another mistake.

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Yep, uh I I appreciate your comments, we're trying to trying to move away from the personal attacks during our public comment period. I would like it if you could keep it on a a a rather higher level, not necessarily attack a specific person and uh deliver your comments in that way. If you could do that, it would be greatly appreciated.

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Yes- and I don't do this as a attack actually because you know one person said words, don't hurt, but words do have consequences and the behavior is outrageous and we cannot be divided anymore.

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The city council is just in their motions and behaviors, and this person's not so thank you. I'm done.

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Thank you, mr ibers.

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Anyone else in the council, chambers or zen is there anyone else on the line who would like to speak to adam 4.2.

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There are no public comment at this time. You may continue.

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Thank you. We have no one on the phone and no one coming forward. So at this point council, I will close tonight's public comment period and we will move to item 5 on our agenda, which is our introductory items and specifically item 5.1, which is the introduction of new employees. We've been doing this since we've been back together, an opportunity to meet employees who have uh who have been hired in the past year and a half or so, and tonight mr verbrui is going to introduce us to the new assistant city manager. Mr verbuge.

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Thank you, mr mayor and council members. uh This evening I have the pleasure of introducing, uh as the mayor said, our new assistant city manager, mike sable mike. Please feel free to come up to the podium uh I'll say a couple things about them and then mike can expand on anything that I may have left out, which is probably a lot uh mike. Has a really nice background for coming into this position.

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He was most recently the assistant city manager in the city of maplewood and prior to that he was the director of facilities at hennepin county. He was also the assistant city manager in brooklyn park and worked for a time down in uh in iowa in cedar rapids after the major flood incident down there doing disaster recovery, working with the city manager and prior to that he was a private commercial.

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Appraiser he's got a masters in business administration uh and uh he comes into this position with some really unique skills that are going to benefit our organization. A lot, especially a uh focus and and skill in organizational development he's an excellent facilitator and he's just got a tremendous experience. That's going to really complement our executive team well and help lead our organization, so mike.

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Bergie mayor council members mike sable assistant city manager, city bloomington, this is the first chance. I've had to say that.

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It's a it's an honor and a privilege, and I'm really uh looking forward to to working with this team. I have known.

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uh Many of them professionally over the course of my career and.

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This is a place where people want to come to work and I'm really excited to get started and to serve all of you and then residents of bloomington. So.

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Thank you well welcome, mr sable glad to have you on board. uh I've we've had an opportunity over the past couple of weeks to say hello, and I know it's an opportunity for the council to meet mr stable for the first time face to face and uh looking forward to your tenure here. So welcome aboard thanks.

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Mr mayor council,.

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Beloga. Thank you, mr mayor. um I see that mr volesko is still here and I believe his request was is that during the course of the night's meeting we passed to sign down the diaz and those council members present who sold desire to would sign that so that he could be allotted a minute or so to present that to the police department. So I'm going to request that uh we honor that uh request of mr wallet school.

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I appreciate that council member it um as it pertains to the public comment in the public comment period. I mean, I think the general rule of thumb had been that we there's that no interaction, there's no back and forth, there's no work that goes on with that and so uh council. If we're.

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If we are comfortable with that, I can't necessarily say that I would be just because it would be a break from precedent, and it would be something that we haven't done in the past, and I don't know that we want to necessarily establish that we do do that regardless of the out. You know, regardless of how, um how good the, uh how good the the uh the reason for doing it.

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So uh I I think what we would need uh council member below is is a motion from you to to waive the rules or procedure perhaps and to and to see. If we have enough folks to agree with that council member coulter.

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Thank you mayor. I would likewise agree. I think it's it's, it's not something. I'm comfortable with, I think in the past, when folks have brought things forward to the council, whether it's petitions or letters or whatever it is, they deliver them to the council secretary and then we go from there and I, I think, that's just the better way to approach things generally speaking,.

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So councilmember martin.

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uh Thank you mayor, and I appreciate the uh speaker being here tonight and the comments he made, but I'm kind of along the same lines. I just worry about this becomes an opportunity for anybody um with a topic to come forward and pass something for signatures down the dais, whether it's about parks or storm, water management or anything, so I'd be happy to sign it after the meeting, but just for standard procedure.

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So, council, member blog, if again, if you, I think this would require a waving of the council rules or procedure to allow this type of thing to happen. And if you want to move that move that forward.

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Well, it appears obvious that the motion will fail, but I think it's uh incumbent on me to still do that, so I would move. We waive the rules of procedure.

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Do we have a second.

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I'm not hearing a second, so I'm afraid the the motion dies for lack of a second.

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We will move on to item six on our agenda, which is our consent agenda council, member member uh council, member nelson has our consent. Business tonight, councilmember nelson.

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Yeah, thank you mayor. um I did not hear from the city manager that anyone had any hold. So if, if you do please, let me know now.

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All right not seeing anything, I would move items 6.1 through 6.4.

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Second, we have a motion by council member nelson, a second by council member coulter, to accept tonight's consent agenda. Hearing no further council discussion on this. Mr billard beloka.

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Hi colter aye, martin aye nelson aye.

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Bessie aye motion carries five zero moving on item seven, which is our hearings, resolutions and ordinances. We have two public hearings this evening. The first public hearing is uh for a new on-sale wine and 3.2 malt beverage. Liquor license application for fiddlehead coffee company, our licensed examiner doug juncker, I'm assuming he is either online or coming along. Oh he's going to be on the phone for us this evening good evening, mr junker. Are you there.

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ah Good evening, just can't seem to get the.

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You're cutting in and out there you are, I see your video now.

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So good evening, man, council, uh yes tonight we have fiddlehead coffee.

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Coffee wine bar, if you will um over on the on the south loop, um looking to uh get open.

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Here, hopefully, in a couple weeks and uh looking for a wine and beer license combo and your approval, please.

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Counsel, any questions of mr junker on this item.

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No counsel questions: this is a public hearing, I'd like to open the public hearing now on item 7.1, which is a public hearing on a new on-sale wine and 3-2 malt beverage license application for fiddlehead coffee company. Is there anyone here who would like to speak to item 7.1 on tonight's agenda.

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See no one coming forward zen. Do we have anyone on the phone who wishes to speak item 7.1.

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Zen, do we have anyone on the phone.

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You would like to speak or make a comment. Please press star, one on your telephone.

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There are no public comments at this time. You may continue.

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Thank you, zen council. I see no one in the council chambers coming forward. No one on the phone wishing to speak to item 7.1. I'd, look for a motion to close tonight's public hearing on that item so moved. Second got a motion by councilmember coulter, a second by council member martin to close the public hearing item 7.1.

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No further council discussion on this. Mr biller baloga.

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Aye colter, I martin hi nelson.

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Hi, I'm bussey aye motion carries 5-0 to close the public comment period or the public hearing on item 7.1 council anything additional on this any questions or clarifications for mr junker.

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If not, I would look for action on m7.1.

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I can make the motion mr mayor councilmember,.

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I will move to prove the on sale, wine and 3.2 malt beverage licenses for fiddlehead coffee, friendly llc, doing business as fiddlehead coffee, company 80, 61, 33rd, avenue, south bloomington minnesota five, five, four, two five second.

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Got a motion by council member carter or excuse me, coulter second by council member martin to approve the on sale and three two malt beverage list license for fiddlehead coffee family.

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No further council discussion on this, mr brillard beloga.

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Aye coulter, I martin hi nelson aye.

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Bossie aye motion carries five zero.

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Our second public hearing this evening is item 7.2. It's a public hearing regarding chapter 10, noise code, amendments for soy, source, noise and exemption procedures. This was a discussion we had uh not too long ago and uh asked staff to come back with some suggestions on this lynn, moore. Our environmental health manager is here to lead us in this good evening. Ms moore welcome.

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Good evening, mayor and council members, um I have a short power point. I would like to share.

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So this is a public hearing to amend, chapter 10 and appendix a of the city code for updating source noise and noise exception permit procedures, and just so you know, I haven't received any comments on on this uh on this proposed code. Amendment.

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The main reason for the proposed ordinance amendment is because the current city code for source source noise is stricter in some state cases than the state's standards minnesota statute. Section 116.07 prohibits local governments from having stricter standards for noise.

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The state's source noise requirements are in minnesota rules, chapter 70 30 and are based on noise area classification activities. Instead of the land use categories we use in city code, you know generally defined as residential commercial and industrial.

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In comparing current city code to the proposed amendments from the states code, you will notice that the state's residential night time and daytime levels are 5 decibels higher for the l10 level. L10 means noise exceeding the decibel level for more than 10 percent of the time for a one hour survey or six minutes of an hour.

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The state code also has a l50 level, meaning noise exceeding 50 of a survey hour or 30 minutes. That is the same as the current city l10 noise level. So what does that really mean? So, for example, if we had commercial air handling equipment that operates for 30 minutes or more an hour on average, has the same source noise requirements of 50 decibels at night as measured on neighboring residential property under current city code or state code, but really no difference there.

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The difference is source noise that lasts 6 to 30 minutes over an hour can be five decibels higher under state code standards when measured on that same residential property, commercial source, noise, measured on commercially used properties, is five decibels higher in state code than current city code and industrial source noise. Measured on industrial property is 10 decibels higher.

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Those are the main difference is in the in the decibels. Another important difference is where the noise is measured. Current city code measures at the property line of the source and state code requires measurement at the point of human activity nearest the source.

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The proposed code amendments maintain the requirement for assessing future noise before zoning and building permits are approved. This is important in providing sound level data for public engagement, commercial laundry and car wash equipment are proposed. Additions for noise impact statements based on complaints received to the list that already contains generators and ventilation, heating and cooling equipment.

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Assessing the impact of future noise is key for engaging neighborhood property owners and tenants about possible increases in source noise.

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Other updates include adding leaf blowers, weed trimmers and parking lot sleeper sweepers to the list of outdoor power equipment, limited two hours of operation during the day. Other changes under nuisance, noise and restaurant hours were done for clarity and removing redundancy.

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In addition to updating source noise requirements, having a better procedure for noise exception permits that reflects current practice and has an appeal process for denials is very important. The proposed language separates type 1 permits which are temporary and commonly issued from type 2 permits that are more permanent and rarely issued type 1 permits are staff reviewed at no cost and are generally for utility installations and amplified sound at community or special events.

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Type 2 permits are council reviewed as part of a public hearing, and the permit is a resolution with conditions, because the public hearing has a notification process. There is a five hundred dollar proposed application fee.

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The city has approved three conditioned noise exception permits to date, as you can see, they're quite rare. The proposed amendments also includes an appeal of denial procedure, which were which, which will be very helpful in city code,.

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Lastly, I just want to draw your attention that these draft amendments were used in testing the racial equity impact assessment tool. The findings indicate the state required amendments, allow for louder source noise under certain conditions, which negatively impacts residential areas near commercial and industrial uses.

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These transitional residential areas tend to have lower value homes and more rented dwellings. The city's black indigenous and people of color population has a higher rate of living in rented units and lower value homes when compared to the city's white population.

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Continuing to require noise impact statements to assess future conditions and provide facts to affected residents before a permit is issued to install new noise. Creating equipment is very important.

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Possible mitigation of these impacts may include home improvement loans or grants to reduce indoor noise at affected homes and incentives to encourage commercial industrial uses to reduce their source noise, and there are many ways to do this with sound walls, better installation, landscaping and upgrades to equipment.

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Staff recommend approval of the ordinance as attached using the following motion and, if council does approve this ordinance staff also recommends adoption of resolution of summary publication using the following motions, but now I'll see. If anyone has any questions.

A

Thank you, ms moore council. Any questions on this.

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Council, member bologna.

C

uh Mr mayor, uh it's it's not uh particularly to ms moore, but I think we talked about it during the last session, and that was is to talk to the state legislature about the current level of sound. And I want to make sure that that doesn't fall off. The radar.

A

That's a good point council member below we did talk about that. I know we will we'll look at our uh our legislative agenda and our legislative policy. Obviously later this year, mr fabregi is.

E

That still on the agenda, mr mayor council, members, logan, council members, that's correct, uh we'll be bringing the legislative platform in november or december and we'll make sure that we have language included in there.

C

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Also anything additional.

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No questions from the council and if that's the case, then I will open up this public hearing at item 7.2.

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This is a public hearing on the chapter, 10 noise code or amendments for source, source noise and exemption procedures. Is there anyone in the council chambers who wishes to speak to item 7.2 this evening.

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Anyone wishing to speak zen do we have anyone on the phone who wishes to speak to item 7.2 tonight.

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You would like to speak or make a comment. Please press star, one on your telephone keypad.

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There are no public comment at this time. You may continue.

A

Thank you, zen council, uh no one of the council chambers coming forward. No one on the phone wishing to speak to item 7.2. I look for a motion to close tonight's public hearing on item 7.2, so moved second motion by council member below the second by council member martin to close tonight's public hearing on item 7.2. No further council discussion on this, mr billard beloka.

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Aye martin hi nelson hi and mayor bussey.

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Aye motion carries five zero to close the public hearing on 7.2 council, anything additional on this.

A

They said it uh and, as ms moore mentioned, this was an item we discussed earlier in in response to uh an issue, and we did decide to look at it. We directed staff to look at this and look for ways that we could make improvements, and I think this might be our our first fight at that apple council.

C

Member martin, uh thank you mayor, and this is going to be something just to keep in our heads for down the line: uh the the suggestions about improvement to noise insulation, potentially loan programs options to consider down the road, I'm just thinking of the airport noise mitigation program. That's financed largely and administered through the mac.

C

So I'd just be curious to have some additional conversation down the line about how some of those loan programs could be financed by the causers of some of these more egregious noise situations, as opposed to that necessarily falling on the city to have to set up those loans. So if we come back to that down line.

A

I understand thank you, councilmember martin, anything additional.

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If not council, I would look for action on item 7.2.

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uh Mr mayor, I'd offer that motion council.

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Member bilogan.

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uh So I moved to adopt an ordinance updating noise standards to be consistent with state requirements for source noise and procedures for processing exceptions, thereby amending chapter 12. Excuse me 10 and appendix a of the city code. Second, we have a motion.

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And a second to adopt the ordinance updating noise standards to be consistent with state requirements.

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No further discussion by the council, mr billard.

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Beloga aye colter aye, martin aye, nelson aye.

A

And mayor bussey aye motion carries five zero counts. Member.

C

Below thank you, mr mayor.

C

I moved to adopt a resolution authorizing summary publication of an ordinance updating noise standards to be consistent with state requirements for source noise and procedures for processing exceptions, thereby amending chapter 10 in appendix a of the city code. Second,.

A

We have a motion and a second to for summary publication. No further council comment on this. Mr billard baloga aye.

C

Colter aye martin aye nelson aye.

A

And bussy aye motion carries five zero. So thank you, ms moore. I think this is uh a step in the right direction. Well done, and I think it will address uh some of the concerns and some of the issues that we've heard about this, and uh hopefully you can mitigate some of those issues that we've heard regarding noise in the city. So thank you very much for this.

A

That is our last public hearing for this evening. So I believe zen. uh Thank you for your help this evening. I believe we can. uh We can let you go for tonight. Thank you.

C

You're welcome.

A

Have a good evening.

A

Up next on our agenda is our organizational business and item 8.1 on the organizational business is a review of our project at old, shakopee, road and xerxes avenue that intersection that was discussed. uh I can't even recall a couple months ago now. I believe I can't recall when we first discussed this about some possible alternatives to what was originally suggested in terms of adding turn lanes and and the acquisition of some property and we've got kirk roberts.

A

Our traffic engineer tonight- and I believe, julie long- is here as well to help out mr roberts good evening and welcome good.

B

Evening, mr mayor and council, thank you, yeah kirk roberts traffic transportation engineer with the city engineer, julie, long to help me present get our powerpoint going here. If you could advance one carolyn.

B

So, just for some background, the project being proposed at all shakopee road and xerxes proposes to add dedicated left turn lanes at that signalized intersection. This is being done as a safety project to reduce crashes.

B

The project is a partnership between hennepin county and the city, and part of the cost is being paid for by federal funds under a highway safety improvement program that grant was sought and funds were awarded in 2018 2019 time frame.

B

The reason that if you can advance one, the reason that we're talking about this is as part of that work, easements were needed from the neighborhood and so on august 9th staff came forward. The project was ordered just compensation for that land value was approved and staff was authorized to make offers to the affected property owners council at that time asked for additional study on the project.

B

That's why I'm here tonight since then, on august 30th, council authorized legal representation for the right-of-way process and then a resolution approving the use of a domain for those easements and at that time, and since then, we've continued to hear public comment, including on september 13th, about the project and alternatives that we should consider with the project. So um this brings me forward tonight to talk through those ideas.

B

So in terms of background, as noted, the biggest issue is with left turning vehicles at this intersection and the right angle crashes that occur because of those left turning vehicles. The project goal is simply reduce crashes. The alternatives we're going to talk about are adding turn arrows, restricting turns photo enforcement and increased police activity, and so on.

B

The the issue at this intersection is, as you can see from the diagram here, is the the lack of dedicated left turns, meaning you have to make your left turn from through lane with through traffic.

B

The lack of those left turns, combined with the slight skew of the intersection, create an issue where you have two opposing left-turning vehicles, the one screens, the view of oncoming traffic from the other. It makes it hard to see and judge those gaps in traffic, and so you get these right angle. Accidents from the turning vehicles.

B

As we sampled crashes over five years, 26 crashes total over half of those were because of this left turn issue or other associated issues, with the lack of left turn lane rear end crashes, for example, as people hit a car waiting to make a left turn, you get some side swipe crashes as vehicles quickly maneuver out of the lane to try to get past the the vehicle that's waiting there.

B

So the the majority of the crashes at this location were from that situation and then a question was asked: how does this compare to other intersections um the? If you can back up one slide, carolyn.

B

So the best way that we use to compare intersection crashes are by a rate and that sort of normalizes the volume and so what you're the numbers you're seeing here are the number of crashes per million entering vehicles at an intersection and of the intersections west of 35w xerxes at old shock. If he does have the highest crash rate at 0.54 crashes per million entering vehicles, there are the two highest on old, shakopee, road or xerxes, and the other is old, cedar avenue, which is 0.66 crashes per million entering vehicles and council.

B

We've talked about old cedar and the issues there, so I won't belabor that one but you'll notice a similar situation. There there's no left turn lanes and there's a significant intersection skew, and so you have these crashes.

B

Let's see one more slide forward, a couple other comparables, that of interest brandt's avenue at old, shakopee or advanced avenue at 102nd street excuse me: 0.39 crashes, per million entering vehicles still lower than xerxes and then penn avenue at 98th street 0.22 crashes per million entering vehicles. So this is the highest crash intersection in the area and the second highest on old shakopee road.

B

So it's significant, it's not the highest in the city, but it is it's the highest in this area in terms of crashes, if you can advance one more so the solution uh under development is just to add, left turn lanes at this location.

B

That gives adequate visibility and improves the visibility enough that those left turners can see and anticipate oncoming cars can judge their gap through traffic. Accordingly, it also gives us the ability to add a left, turn indication and then operate that according to time of day, so in the in the peak hours, when there's just no gaps for a car to safely turn left across, we can just restrict the left turns to green. Only.

B

It also moves those waiting cars out of traffic, so council. This is the project and the solution that we brought forward to the federal grant program and we're awarded funding based on under those programs.

B

You're allowed to change the scope somewhat, but they want to see something that will substantially affect crashes, reduce crashes that is known to substantially reduce crashes and that's what we've proposed those funding projects, those funding programs are always over subscribed, there's always more projects than there are money, and so we're somewhat fortunate when we do receive money like this, we'll often apply for a project through several rounds of funding over many years. It can take 10, sometimes 20 years, to get funding for a project like this, so the money is coveted and it's sought after.

B

A couple alternatives that we considered and have been talked about. The first is just to add those left turn arrows, don't add the lanes but add the arrows. This type of operation is actually used. The the most well-known example nearby is over here at 98th street and penn, where we call it split phasing, and essentially, when the green indication comes up, you also have a green arrow that comes up and it's it does improve safety in this circumstance it would.

B

The biggest downside to this type of operation is that you can't have your east and west traffic going at the same time. So it's tremendously inefficient that can work some cases, for example, at 98th street and penn traffic volumes are a bit above 11 000 cars a day they're over 22 000 cars a day at this location, so not and you're. Stopping that most significant movement, you're shopping, those 22, 000 cars a day, half of the time, and so it it leads to a lot of delay if you can advance one.

B

So in this circumstance, what that would do at xerxes is right now, in the worst of the pm peak, the queue length is shown in yellow up here. It's about a 50 second per driver delay existing in the worst of the worst of the evening traffic. um It extends about to zenith avenue.

B

If you change the intersection to the split phase operation, traffic cues would back up well past beard and then get to about 160 seconds to lay per vehicle.

B

If you could advance one, what that essentially does is opens up a time advantage to drivers by cutting through local streets to get to their destination. It makes it faster to cut through our neighborhoods than to stay and wait for that green light, and so as well as this solution could work and as affordable as it is. It introduces a whole another raft of problems that then we're going to spend a whole lot of time trying to solve for these neighborhoods, and so that's one. We don't wouldn't recommend.

B

Another consideration that was put out was just restrict the left turns and if you look at when the crashes happen by time of day, this has a lot of merit. If you could restrict those left turns through the pm peak, it would reduce those crashes.

B

The trouble again is that people are still going to want to make those left turns carolyn. That's one and they're going to start using the side streets to do that and there's not a significant disadvantage for doing so in the way of lost time. So those hundreds or thousands of left turns again are now introduced into your side streets to eliminate that if you can go one more forward, you'd likewise have to restrict left turns at those streets.

B

You still have to find a legitimate way for people that live there to get home and so you're going to radically with this alter traffic patterns throughout this neighborhood.

B

Old shakopee roads under the jurisdiction of hennepin county, so they would have the ultimate say we haven't asked them. If we could do this, I don't think they would allow us- and I wouldn't recommend it just because the other issues it creates in the neighborhood.

B

A couple other suggestions: we heard about photo red light, running enforcement because of several court cases in minnesota. That's not permitted um and legal staff has more understanding of that, but we've never been able to do red light running enforcement in the state since I've practiced here, people often think we do it because they see the cameras above the intersections now and what those actually are are just detection cameras.

B

They just detect cars, so the signal can run more efficiently. We don't record that data. There's nothing kept just detection, other ideas, red light, running enforcement by police, that's ongoing and it's good.

B

The thing I will note about that is as much as they do of it. We have over 3000 intersections in the city. 150 of those are signalized. We have probably twice as many always stops. Several thousand two-way stops, and so the police do enforcement. They will continue to do a great job at photo or red light running enforcement, but it's they're stretched and the other issue is. It doesn't really address the highest crash issue with this location. We have a geometric problem here.

B

You can't just solve that by by a police presence, we need to to fix those geometrics, but red lights. Red light running um is something that that of the four crashes we've had this year. One of those was because of a red light runner, it happened mid-cycle and they just weren't paying attention. So that's work that continues to go on one other thing, not so much related. But since I have my five minutes up here, I'm going to say it restricting truck traffic.

B

We can restrict truck traffic, but we can't restrict truck traffic on state aid routes and so 106th street. For example. State aid is essentially our allocation of the gas tax and we cannot restrict truck traffic on roads that use that money. The state doesn't allow that, and so we can on local streets, where we have a truck issue where it's not just local and delivery. We do have that authority, but we can't do it on old shock b road. We can't do it on xerxes. We can't do it on 106..

B

Not only could we not use any more state aid money, but we would have to pay back the state aid money we've used for about 20 years, so that would amount to significant amounts of money.

B

And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to julie long to talk about property acquisition.

A

Thank you, mr roberts. Thank.

J

A

Evening, islam.

J

Good evening, so I wanted to briefly go over the easement acquisition. We are acquiring the pink and they kind of look a little purplish up there.

J

Those are permanent easements for sidewalk, bikeway and utility use, and then you'll also see some yellow behind there, often in driveways, where we have a temporary construction easement as well, that we need to acquire to actually build the project, but it would not be a permanent instruction next slide, please.

J

So, as mr roberts mentioned earlier, we applied for federal aid funding, based on the crash rate that we are seeing it's a competitive process and while minor changes are allowed to the project, the original intent must be met and we proposed the project with the left turn base the right-of-way certification we need to have in place so that we can submit it at the latest on april 1st, to maintain our federal funds and the titles to those easements must be free and clear of federal, federal funds and contingencies are not permissible.

J

I know one of the suggestions we have heard is with the offers. Could we put a contingency on the offer to the various parcels that is possible prior to council ordering the project like you did on august 9th, but once the project was ordered, we are no longer permitted to do that. So we clarified that with mndot and we have two of the seven easements acquisition have verbally been accepted, but because we had discussed it with council previously about putting in contingencies.

J

We wanted to clarify that that is not permitted, and so we haven't gone forward with those. At this point.

J

So our staff recommendation is to proceed with the project in easement acquisition, as previously approved on august 9th, without any other conditions.

A

Thank you, council questions of mr roberts or ms long on this.

A

C

Member veloga. Thank you, mr mayor uh kurt. uh Just a couple quick questions. uh You mentioned that this is not the highest crash site in the city. uh Where does it rank on that? Is it number 10 number 100.

B

Mr mayor councilmember veloga, it would be in our top 20. the list that the recurring list that we use. I want to give you a short, concise answer, but the state's been migrating their database, their crash records database over the past couple years, so we actually are a little out of date on our list, because that's what we rely on this would normally be in our top 20 intersections.

B

The good news on that and the end of my answer is that you will be receiving an updated top 10 list for all the intersections. The top 10 highest crash locations in the city over the winter are, and we had interns gathering traffic data all summer. We're compiling that now and should have an updated list for you of the top 10, if not the top 20 intersections ranked by all the glorious details sometime over the winter months.

C

Thank you, and I know that in your last presentation you did give us and I just can't recall the volumes at penn and 98th street and the volumes at xerx, seasonal, shakopee.

B

Mr mayor council, remember a little bit the yeah, the um east-west volumes at 98th street and penn range in the 11 000 range. um The east-west volumes at old, shakopee and xerxes are about 22 to 24 000 cars adjustable just about twice as many about twice as many yeah. That's actually one of the busier segments of one of the busiest roads in the city.

C

Thank you, councilmember coulter,.

D

Thank you mayor um a few quick questions here. um I don't know if this is, if this one is for kirk or julie, but um to sort of break it down here, you know you, you applied for these federal funds with this specific proposal in mind, and I guess to just sort of be very clear about it.

D

If we were hypothetically to move forward, one of, for example, one of the other one of the alternatives brought forward tonight I mean would that federal funding be limit, I'm not eliminated, but would we just lose access to that federal funding I mean is that how tight the strings are.

J

Mr mayor councilmember coulter: yes, because we proposed a left turn bay and we we could not go to left, turn signs or the just the signal work. We would have to turn back that money because, as mr roberts mentioned earlier, it's a very competitive proj process.

D

Okay, thank you um just a few other quick questions here. So um you know, as you were just discussing this, it's certainly not. It is among the highest crash intersections in the city, but certainly not the highest and not even high the highest along old shakopee. So why? Why not prioritize a different intersection? Why I mean why was this the one that was was is moving forward right now,.

J

um Mr mayor councilmember colter, sometimes practicality has to play into our prioritization so, for instance, the old shock and old cedar intersection, because it is a hennepin county road we've been working on various alternatives that both agencies can agree with before we go and apply for a funding grant. So that takes time it isn't that they're not on our radar, but some of projects are easier to proceed with than others, and so that is how we've prioritized them.

B

Sure to add on just to add on to that as well: there are higher locations, many of them are being picked up as part of the 494 work that's taking place. We have some on portland avenue that are being addressed with a project that the county is spearheading and so we're always working on all of them pretty much all of the time. This is just this one's time um on the on the stage so.

D

Sure, sorry, and just a few more quick questions, let me go back, no only um so going back to this this crash rate. um Just can you give me a sense, so I see I mean I see all these numbers, and I I mean I see the differences but that I don't have a lot of context. There is there a sort of best practice rate I mean? Is there a rate, that's sort of considered you know below this? It's it's acceptable above this. It's it's not that kind of thing.

B

Mr mayor councilmember coulter, it's a little bit of a challenge to get your hands wrapped around this, and so the whenever we get uh an intersection above one, that's a severe issue that we've gotta we've gotta move to address as quickly as we can and so anything less than one is it's on the it's on the list. It's a problem and it's something we should address if we can just for context some of these intersections the rate changes.

B

Naturally, according to volume, the the number of crashes we might have in a five-year period range from 20 up to 35 crashes over a five-year period. So I hope that gives you a little bit better feeling for it.

D

Yeah I mean I think that gets understanding how you know some of this works. I think that gets close enough um and then, uh let's see oh getting to just quickly some of the alternatives.

D

um You know I understand as far as the the backups and delays that would be caused by, for example, the left turn arrows. Are we I mean? Is there a way to quantify? If that is a a safer alternative, I mean delays and and backups are are frustrating, but if, if something is for example, if it's safer, if it's a safer, if there would be fewer crashes with that alternative, that'd be good to know.

B

um Mr mayor councilmember coulter it would, it would be a safer alternative. um It would eliminate about half of your crashes there and drop your rate correspondingly.

B

If you added the split phasing, and so the question here is one of balance: does that safety benefit outweigh the mobility issues and the neighborhood issues that you're going to incur, and, in my opinion it doesn't in this case, given that we have a viable alternative, I'm going to recommend that viable alternative. So.

D

Sure, thank you and then um just one one last question here: um you mentioned with with restrict with the left turn restrictions um that that would involve, and let me get back up my ipad's being slow here that it would, it would necessitate left turn restrictions at a number of other intersections on that stretch, and I guess my my question is if we were not to do that, if we were to only restrict left turns at that particular intersection, would we just be spreading out these same safety issues along that entire stretch I mean, would it would it just be?

D

Instead of you know, however, many accidents? It is that xerxes an old shock fee, but it's you know, 20 percent of that at vincent and 20 percent, york and and abbott, and so on. Councilmember.

B

Coulter, it's a good question. Would you just be sort of moving the crashes to different intersections in this case? Probably so, given that the rest of the road is similarly configured? Yes, you would probably do something similar. You might have a few less crashes overall, but essentially yeah you'd just be moving your crashes to other locations.

B

Okay, thank you.

A

So that the two things that I I hear from folks along this this stretch, I I understand the the the fear and the danger, though those right angle, crashes, but the two things that I hear from folks. A lot of times here are sitting in that left lane, with your blinker on and waiting for it to clear and looking in the rearview mirror and seeing cars, come roaring up behind you and wondering how many rear end crashes are possible.

A

So that's my first question: I mean what what what is the rate if you have it of rear, end collisions at intersections like this and then the other thing I hear from people is just the speed on old shock. If you wrote all the time, and so looking at those two issues that I keep hearing about, uh we have put many other cities or many other city streets on a road diet, bring them down to three lanes.

A

They have that center lane dedicated to a left turn lane which eliminates the uh the potential for a rear, end collision and really you know, limiting the number of lanes slows traffic down we've seen that happen. Many times is that doable and if not, why not.

B

Mr mayor council members, it's a really good question. I mentioned portland and the crash rates we had on portland the city and the county went back to portland that those high crash rates were when it was a four lane. The new data we have we'll show that as a three lane, which is a much safer, fundamentally a much safer cross-section where we can do that now, portland volumes peak on portland at around 11 000 cars a day at basically most of old shakopee.

B

The volumes are simply too high to make it a three-lane cross-section, it's well beyond what you'd you would just have extensive delay all along the road. If you tried to convert it to a three-lane section, there are some portions we can and we should look at those with all of our roads, 98th street, all of them anytime. We can convert them to a three lane. We should- and we we have done so in the past- the speeds on old shakopee road. That also is a very effective means of reducing the speeds.

B

Ultimately, that's a hennepin county roadway though so everything we do has to be run by them. So and I guess the short answer to your question: the volumes are simply too high to make that a three-lane road.

A

So the 22 000 cars a day just make it an impractical possibility and practical solution to.

B

That it does, for example, one of the higher volume roads that we have done, that to 106th street between humboldt and xerxes avenue. That's 11 000 cars a day and since we've done that, so we've had a steady stream of complaints from people that don't like it. We've done. Others such as 86th street, where it's worked, fine and we don't get those same complaints.

B

So a lot of it depends on the nature of the traffic 106th street is well used by the commuters, and so it has a very distinct evening peak that really makes a three-lane more of a challenge. Old shakopee shares that same characteristic got it. Thank you.

A

Councilmember nelson.

D

Thanks mayor, I just have a quick follow-up question for mr roberts um when councilmember coulter asked about, if um the I forget which scenario it was, would be safe, for you indicated that it would reduce uh traffic accidents by about 50 percent, but I just want to clarify that is base. That is compared to the existing condition correct, and how would that compare to your recommended solution?.

B

Council member, it would reduce crashes if you put in the split phasing today, it would reduce crashes likely by about 50 percent. um Adding the left turn lanes will probably do a bit better than that, because it'll also help reduce the number of rear, end crashes, so um slightly better, but I don't have a specific number I can give to you.

D

Okay, thank you for the clarification just want to make sure we're, comparing or at least I was comparing the right things.

A

Counsel, any additional counsel, member coulter.

D

Sorry me or sorry kirk. I just want to clarify something, because I I think I may have misheard you before. um Maybe I just asked a question poorly because it sounded like you said something different just now when you answered councilmember nelson. If so, if we have the dedicated left turn lanes versus the the green arrows and the split phasing which of those two would be a safer alternative.

B

Mr mayor councilmember culture, the safest alternative for that intersection is to add left turn lanes along with left turn arrows, adding going to the split phasing essentially doing. That would reduce your crashes, but it comes with the delay.

D

Okay, but so so the the left turn with left arrows is I'm I'm still not following this, because in that split phasing is it? I understand the difference here. My my question is which of those reduces crashes.

B

More the dedic council member culture, the dedicated left, turn lanes, okay, reduce the crashes okay. Maybe I just misheard.

D

B

Sorry I found it, it sounded.

D

Like you said, it was the other way around, and I just want to make sure that I I understand that correctly. Thank you.

A

Council additional questions.

A

So officially, this is an information item, we're just hearing uh more information on discussing it.

A

uh I'm hoping this answers the questions we had and I brought forward in the different alternatives we asked them to analyze for us and look at what I would like to do is um is take this information, but before I don't want to do any, I don't want to take any direction tonight, because I would rather have next monday night when all seven of us are here, which I think would be a better solution or a better, better discussion uh to hold off until then before we take any action or make any official vote on this things are still moving forward based on our previous actions and what what has been uh what we have voted on and discussed in the past, and um but I would like to wait until next monday night, if we could do that, if everybody's amenable to that before we make a final decision on this everybody good.

A

E

uh Thank you, mr mayor and council members appreciate that uh summary. Mr mayor, uh two things one. We don't have a meeting next monday, so it'll be in two weeks uh and the second is um because of the the um council members uh being absent today, just a little bit of uh process note for council that when we're doing resolutions and ordinances, it requires a majority of all council members, that's irrespective of their attendance or not. So it's a majority of seven if you're doing motions it's a majority of those who are present.

E

So if, if you wanted to move forward this evening, you could do a you could do a motion to proceed as previously directed that would require three votes.

A

Thoughts on that council, I mean my my thoughts. I even if we were able to move it together forward on three votes. That's I mean it's not a majority of the council and I'm hesitant to do that. So I um and I apologize- I didn't mean next week- I didn't mean our next meeting is what I obviously meant, so I would prefer to hold off until then, if everybody's amenable to that okay, we are good. Then thank you. Thank you for working on that. Thank you for the information appreciated.

A

Next, up in our organizational business is item 8.2, which is a discussion on portions of our 20 20 20 20, 22 budgets. These are utility funds. Our internal service funds, kyrie carlson, our budget manager- is with us this evening good evening. Welcome.

K

Good evening marion council and um yes, I will be reviewing the four utility fund budgets, as well as the eight internal service fund budgets. This is your kind of first look at the 2022 proposed budgets and they will be coming back next month um and before I get into those I'm going to take the opportunity to just to highlight some important dates with the budget.

K

So in a week and a half on october 20th, we will have another community budget information session. This is also a roundtable discussion. It'll be featuring mayor bussey that is going to be recorded. It will be virtual on zoom from 7 00 pm to 8, 30 pm and then the following week, the following wednesday october 27th.

K

We will have an another community budget info session and that will be here in the council chambers and that's going to be featuring fire chief ulysses, that'll be in person, oops um and and then uh november, 8th I'll, be here a few weeks ago, a couple months ago, we had talked about future plans for if there, if you wanted to have a standing community budget advisory committee or what the plans would be for future community engagement into the budget and so we'll bring that discussion back and make some decisions for next year's budget process november 15th will be back.

K

That is the official public hearing for the 2022 utility rates, we'll also be bringing these utility fund budgets and internal service fund budgets that we're presenting tonight we'll bring those to you for uh resolution approval and then november. 22Nd is another special council meeting just for budget for 2022 to narrow down finalize the 2022 budget and tax levy and then just to review the feedback from the community sessions that we're having in october and other feedback we've received on the website and on lunchtime bloomington and go into more detail in the general fund.

K

Highlights from departments the four recreation enterprise funds, the communications fund and the fire pension, all of those funds have property tax support and then december 6 is this year's truth and taxation, public hearing so um and then one more slide before we get into uh the specific budgets.

K

I just wanted to take a moment, we'll be talking a lot about working capital and we do talk a lot about working capital in these separate individual fund budgets and the technical definition of working capital is current assets, less current liabilities, so the current assets is basically cash or other liquid assets that can easily be converted to cash, and then the current liabilities are typically outstanding bills that need to be paid to vendors that are due soon and so the easiest way to think about working capital as you're looking at these budgets and looking at long-term models is that it's the cash available and the fund and all of these budgets that we will be presenting, have they're separate funds and they'll.

K

They all have their own separate cash reserves or separate working capital, and they each have a working capital goal. That's based on their long-term forecasted purchases and contingency plans so having these reserves on this last point on the slide. It allows for major expenses such as equipment or infrastructure, to be managed over time so that a large purchase or you know, significant cost increases, are less likely to spike and vary um each year.

K

So are there any questions about working capital or before.

A

Thank you for that clarification and council. I was one that asked that we just kind of clarify this, because I think it um we talked quite a bit about working capital and I think, if you just look at the numbers, it's a big pile of cash sitting in there and what is it for and obviously it's it's used for major expenses over time and um it it prevents the big budget or the big tax levy, spikes, because we're building up that that that fund over time to to pay for those type of things.

A

So thank you for clarifying that. I appreciate it.

K

Yes, thank you maren, and I guess I'll also just add it just. It allows us to thoughtfully plan for long-range capital needs, and it also helps our triple a credit rating. The rating agencies really like to see that we are that we have thoughtful reserves and that we are adequately adequately funded and meeting our working capital goals, all right, so starting off the four utility funds, um the numbers there, the 6100 6150.

K

Those are the numbers in our financial system, but there's four utility funds: there's water, waste, water, storm, water and solid waste, and they are all enterprise funds, which means they're, business type, funds that provide services to the public and they are predominantly supported by fees that are on utility bills.

K

In this case, and so there are four people in the council chambers that are going to help me with this presentation and starting off, um we have utility superintendent, scott anderson, he'll, be presenting the water and wastewater, and then water resources manager, brian griedl, will be presenting stormwater and then the public works project coordinator, laura horner, will be presenting solid waste. So I'm going to step aside and I'm going to turn this over to scott anderson.

A

Mr anderson.

H

Good evening, good evening, mayor, busse council members dive right into to the water fund. This fund accounts for all the costs related to the operation and maintenance of the city's water infrastructure. So the day-to-day delivery treatment at the water treatment plant water quality lab customer service group et cetera it also speaking to the the capital balances that that kari mentioned. It also is responsible for the future renewal of the water infrastructure, revenues and and expenditure activities within the fund, like I said, include, distribution, treatment and customer service.

H

There are two two key drivers, um two to what kind of pulls on this fund and and one is demand which, which I'll go over a little bit um in a few slides and the other is, is asset management of that infrastructure.

H

H

So this is, this is a snapshot of the asset renewal model for water infrastructure. The blue line is what what I've referred to as the forecast. This is the age-based.

H

Forecast for replacement of infrastructure, so this is just the sim, the simple age out of infrastructure. You know whether that piece is is 75 years or 100 years out and and simply based on that those those are the the expenditures that you could expect.

H

If, if that's how how the system was was simply run where infrastructure was was run to failure et cetera, the orange line is, is what I refer to as the actual that's based on not only age, but that's that's condition based it's risk-based criticality of infrastructure and and level of service, and so the the goal of the fund is to manage that orange line and manage the the infrastructure renewal at a pace that again avoids those spikes to to our ratepayers and and manages manages that work workload next slide.

H

So this is where a lot of our rate discussion originates.

H

So, in the past, for a number of years, I've come before you and we've talked about the weather and and wet summer is impacting our revenue when it when it rains, people don't water lawns outdoor water uses is far less and and frankly, it's that it's that outdoor use that summer spike, where where the utility will see significant revenue gains in 2020, um I don't think we paid much attention to the weather because we had other things going on, and that was that were that was the effects of covid. So what you've got here?

H

You've got the red line, which is sort of the what I call the recent historical average of demand uh in the city. The blue line um is 2020, and- and so there you're looking at demand, as was affected uh due to kovid, which was similar to 2019 that'll, show up in another slide, but 2020 ended up being quite similar to 2019, which happened to be the wettest summer on record.

H

You can also see sort of what we saw early kind of that march to late april may, where you know that's before any. You know significant outdoor water use, irrigation and things are getting started, but you can see the the the impacts to you know whether it's the mall being closed or hotels or restaurants or or other businesses.

H

You know really having an impact on that. What's what's interesting, as that as that pertains to 2021, I mean, as you know, and again, we'll talk about the impacts of the drought a little bit later as well. Certainly that had positive revenue implications for the utility, but to start the year, 2021 looked somewhat similar to 2020.

H

In that we, you know we're still and, as everyone knows, is we're still dealing with with impacts due to to the pandemic, so that that you know that played a role in our 2021 demand and ultimate, ultimately, revenue as as well next slide, please so this is this. Is our water distribution comparison again? The red is that kind of that that recent average 20 you know 2013 to 2019 and I'll point out that those years are, you know, generally considered wetter than historical stock than historical average.

H

But nonetheless it's what we've been um dealing with for a fairly significant part of time, 20, uh dark, plute, dark blue, is 2019, which again, as I mentioned, was that was the you know. The wettest year on record light blue is, is 20 20., so you can see the if the effects of covid even hurt worse than um than the wettest of of wet years and then yellow is 20 21, which again you can kind of see in the in the spring part of the graph. Didn't didn't look.

H

You know all that different than a than a wet year, but certainly in that june july august we were able to you know, demand increased and then we we've we've kind of seen. You know kind of more normal demand and and so really at the end of the day, we're going to probably come in pretty pretty average for 20 21, which is a great thing compared to the last year.

H

Next slide, please so we'll talk about tiers and rates a little bit, we've shown a version of this slide in the past, and and what this this shows you is, is the average tries to graphically show you what you know how people are using their water so on the left, you've got your average annual single family residential water use per month.

H

Blue is tier, one red is tier two and on the right, that's the average single family residential water use during the winter, and I think if we, when we had this discussion before um you know, we we talked about how that tier two use is really driven by those those summertime activities.

H

Next slide, please.

H

um And here's here's another um another look um at that where we actually break down the average annual which you just saw and on the far right, the or the the middle, um the winter average and then on the far right. There's that average summer water use and again those those numbers um kind of at the top of the bars. Those are those are the gallons used per month and just as a reminder that tier two threshold is at six thousand gallons per month. Now, that's that's and that's that's for a bi-monthly period.

H

So two, you know twelve thousand gallons per billing cycle is, is the allowable use before you? You trip into tier two next slide, and I guess I could mention too. You know, on average tier tier two use seems to hover around about 20 22 in 2020. It was 30 percent, and then this year to date and remember any data you see up here for 2021 is incomplete as we're we're still uh in 2021, but that was recently at about 39.

H

So obviously, the the summer weather significantly impacted that that summer, water use here's one more um snapshot of of tiered water use per season and per per customer class, so that light blue on the bottom is our commercial, our commercial users, yellow multi-family, and that dark blue is the single family, residential and again, just like the highlight that that winter water use and the amount of tier 2 water that's being used, and this pertains you know to to some of our discussions on on affordability and and discretionary versus non-discretionary water uses um also with this one again taking 2021 out, because we don't have that full year.

H

Yet um I just draw your attention to that declining overall use over time.

H

Next slide, please.

H

Historically, this has been one of our favorite slides and it holds two again. This year's is we get to put our rates up for 2021 and we feel very comfortable as we compare to to similar communities this. This is a rate comparison for softened water, so the communities in in blue eden, prairie, minneapolis, richfield, etc provide softened water to their customers, the red part of the bars. That's that's non-softened.

H

Water and then the white is the the typical home softening cost to to a to a homeowner to to achieve similar a similar product, and so, um as you can see, for softened water, bloomington still um rates very favorably compared to to similar communities.

H

H

So comparisons are great, but we we were asked the question about. You know water, water, affordability, so we we've looked at and are continuing to look at. You know what that means to to residents in bloomington, past affordability, markers would reference two and a half percent of median household income as a previously accepted benchmark. I think you know, based on discussions in other areas.

H

Comparing anything to median household income is is, is one thing, but it's not maybe particularly useful in understanding, true affordability, bloomington's rate has typically been in the area of one percent for most customers and for 2020.

H

The the typical water bill landed at about point four percent of the median household income for what that's worth and 2.1 percent of poverty level income. So we tried to look at different thresholds to try and understand um what that what just the water bill portion of a utility bill means to to our residents.

H

We've started to to work with some other outside groups, as well as our agency partners, on on how to get a more accurate, more deeper understanding of affordability. Looking at alternative metrics such as you know, a different ratio of water bill, two to hours of minimum wage, labor and, and things of things of that nature also a way to try to take into account other essential household uses, needs and expenses.

H

One of the things that that we're finding is we need, we need more data, we we need more community engagement. We need to to understand really. What's you know, ultimately, the end of the day. We need to understand, what's going on inside the home, that that account is attached to, and that can be really challenging. So so that's that's some work. That's that's going on right now.

H

Next slide, please so. Drought impacts and I'm sure everyone's heard enough about the drought but significant precipitation departures. It was a fairly hot summer which contributed to that yellow.

H

You know the the spike in the yellow line in the earlier demand graph and, and so the the graphic on the left is just is just the current drought monitor map we're in a little bit of a unique situation when this, when this drought arose that that folks at the dnr didn't totally consider and it's okay, but the we're in the in the minnesota watershed which, which currently is, is now in the drought watch phase and and does not trigger any restrictions, but requires suppliers to continue to have conservation, information available and and things of that nature.

H

The mississippi watershed which city minneapolis is in is still in the is still in the moderate drought phase and in the drought warning phase, and why that's important is: it means that their restrictions, they still need to to employ restrictions to meet that there's a there's, a a goal in the drought warning phase, where you need to meet 50 50, plus your january demand so january, plus 50 percent to to be in compliant with your water supply plan. So they so minneapolis still has restrictions in place per our contract.

H

As a customer of the city minneapolis we're required to adopt the same restrictions and apply those to our customers, so so we can't work we're currently still under sprinkling restrictions, even though our demand has dropped way off. It's not something we were not actively pursuing at this time. We still have educational information up. We still answer questions.

H

We still communicate those it's my understanding that october 15th minneapolis likely will be dropping those restrictions, despite being in the drought warning phase, because they're they're kind of that's sort of their summer winter movement where their demand drops way off, and they feel that even without the restrictions they'll easily be able to meet that january, plus 50 percent, so we'll be following suit at that next council meeting with the resolution rescinding the the restrictions as they're in place so kind of a side note with regard to that next slide, please in case you were wondering um what did you know what how did the drought impact revenue?

H

So here it is from. You know, difference from 2020 to 2021 a difference of about 1.7 million dollars when you adjust for the three percent rate increase.

H

Last year it's 1.4 million when you and I should have gone back a little farther when you, when you take into account the revenue that was missed based on the projection in 2020, we're about even um so again I'll take it. But it wasn't. You know it wasn't the silver bullet, but it it's it. Obviously um it was obviously helpful next slide. Please here's a short history of past year rate increases.

H

And for 2021 we had a long discussion about what to do kind of in response to the needs of the fund balanced with pandemic related impacts to to residents and businesses, and- and we had a three percent rate increase next slide. Please um so for 2022 again trying to trying to maintain that balance, but also trying to keep in mind trying to maintain that delivery of of of water, along with maintaining the necessary funds to to stay on track with, with our asset renewal model, we're recommending a five percent increase.

H

And with that, I think kari has the next slide. Unless there are questions I can take any of those now.

A

Any questions of mr anderson council.

A

Okay, thank you well done. Thank you.

K

Hello, uh so I'm gonna just do this one slide and then scott's gonna come back and do the waste water. But what you have here is the long-term budget model and it has the highlighted 2022 budget request, column and when we were talking about working capital balance earlier this fund, um our working capital balance is not where we would like it to be, which is why it's highlighted in red.

K

So when you see the working capital balance in red, that's where it's a lot less than the goal that we have for this fund green is what we'd like to see um and which is the reason why you know we did have a lot of discussion about rates and we are proposing a five percent increase because, as even with in the revenue section, we have a row.

K

That's highlighted for the american rescue plan funds that we are planning to have four million dollars of that those funds designated for water utility infrastructure projects and even with those coming in the the working capital balance it's still positive, but significantly lower than the goal and the overall projected revenues, including those american rescue plan.

K

Funds is 16.8 million for 2022 and then the proposed expenses are around 18 million, which includes upcoming capital, water projects of about 3 million and then there's long-term projections for capital in the next years on the model, depending on the year from 2 million to 7.9 million.

K

So the american rescue plan funds are helping to keep this working capital balance positive.

K

But as scott mentioned, the several years of the wet summers and then also the impacts of the pandemic have contributed to lower than anticipated revenues.

A

I see a question uh council member nelson.

D

Yeah, thank you mayor. uh I am just wondering if the numbers for 2023, 24 and 25 include projected uh rate changes or if that is holding the rate, steady.

K

uh Mayor councilmember, nelson, those do include uh projected rate increases, so that was something else we looked at even with american rescue plan funds coming in, we still need to project those um increases.

D

Okay, and so in a couple years, this fund will have uh will be approximately 10 million dollars below the working capital goal, which is what is needed to pay for infrastructure updates and improvements, and things like that.

D

um I'm understanding that working capital correctly that we're significantly behind.

K

Yes, uh mayor and councilmember nelson, that is correct.

C

A

Also anything additional.

A

All right, no hands coming up.

K

A

And our wastewater utility fund.

H

Your busy council members, this one's a lot simpler and a lot shorter, predominantly because it's not impacted by that that tier summer demand your wastewater charges are, are somewhat fixed based on on that winter usage. So it's a little more predictable, but this fund accounts for the city-owned wastewater collection system and our metropolitan council environmental services wastewater treatment charges.

H

So the biggest chunk of of this budget is a pass through to the met council for the treatment of the wastewater, that's generated from the city of bloomington, and then the city maintains a city-owned collection system, 28, lift stations.

H

And and all the the the pertinences that that go along with that infrastructure next slide.

H

So the next so again we have a comparison of residential wastewater rates and again this is this is based on customer customer, water use and those charges, those those the funds that are necessary to to operate and maintain the system on an annual basis. um Those those pass-through met council charges and then and then our asset renewal next slide.

H

So for 2022, and and for just as a reminder for 2021, we had a zero percent rate increase in this fund. That somewhat corresponded to what we saw from that council for 2022 we're looking at a three three or three and a half percent increase for met council.

H

So we're recommending a three percent rate increase in this fund and again that's that's also got that that capital uh capital balance in mind as well, so that that concludes my wastewater presentation. But if you have questions, I can take those.

A

Actually, I do have a question. I I understand that um there isn't the seasonal adjustment for the wastewater, but I've got to imagine with hotels and and our retail being shut down, as it was for that significant period of time. There must have been a drop in wastewater collections at that point as well. Is that correct.

H

Mayor bussey, yes, I think our we were about 1.7 million dollars off of our projection for 2020, based on on those shutdowns and non-use. Thankfully, this fund is, has kind of historically been in a little better shape. Again, I think, because it's it's dodged, some of that seasonal seasonability- that has hammered the water fund for so long.

A

Some questions on this.

A

Very good, thank you much thank you.

K

Thank you, scott, and this next slide has the long-term budget model for the wastewater fund and, as scott said, this working capital balance is much healthier. It is showing as green. It is above the goal, and the recommended budget proposes revenues of just over 13.5 million and expenses of just under 13.2 million, and the working capital balance is projected to be in line with the goal of this fund. As I said, and we even project out a little further out um and with kind of modest increases going out.

K

This does start coming back down to where it's not above goal, but at the goal.

A

So again, a question regarding working capital balance, and I think this is a question that council member baloga has asked in the past. um Are we able to work between our capital, our uh our our capital funds? Are we able to move money between if so, for example, if our wastewater is is flush, if our wastewater is flush, can we move that to the water fun? Thank you very much. It just came up with that. Can we move that to the water fund as well.

K

um Mr bussy, that is something we can look at there's. What we have to be careful of is the long-term capital needs are in this fund as well. If we start moving too much, that starts looking, yellow and then red fairly quickly, but it is something that um the council could look at and we could analyze in.

C

The future right.

A

Additional questions all right moving on then.

K

All right and then next I'd like to bring up um brian greedle the um to do the storm water utility fund.

A

Good evening mr greedle.

L

uh Good evening, mayor and council members good to see you um so, as kari said we're talking about stormwater utility, so the stormwater utility fund provides for the operation, maintenance, replacement and renewal of the city's drainage infrastructure.

L

In bloomington we have over 150 miles of mainline storm sewer pipe. You know: 8 000 catch basins like 1, 600 manholes and over 300 water bodies that are part of our drainage system.

L

So, in addition to the infrastructure, the stormwater utility also supports the work of the richfield bloomington watershed management organization and also our permit related work with our mpca issued.

L

Let's see I'm trying not to use too many acronyms, the municipal separate storm sewer, permit otherwise known as the ms4 permit. That is issued again by the minnesota pollution control agency. Next slide. Please.

L

So just a brief snapshot of where we were in in 20 20 21 and where we're looking to go at a recommended increase of of two percent for uh 2022..

L

um As you know, uh the there are five different classes of storm of the stormwater rate um and they are charged based on the area um in in acres uh with a single-family residential lot being considered one-third of an acre next slide.

L

I'm comparing how how bloomington looks in comparison to the some other neighboring cities.

L

These are the 20 20 20 21 storm water utility rates for uh single-family homes, um so you can see in 2021, uh you know kind of kind of in the middle, with with a bunch of the other cities and then again here in 2022, I'm kind of sticking with that with that same place with you know, champlain being the lowest and then the city of minneapolis being the highest and what cities support from their stormwater utility does vary from city to city.

L

Here in bloomington, we support a lot of our maintenance activity, including street sweeping and our annual cleaning of our storm water, best management practices that are out there. In addition to various projects, uh our stormwater maintenance project, we usually have a pond maintenance or other environmental projects such as that we also fund asset renewal and replacement as part of our pmp program.

L

Next slide, please.

L

So I just wanted to take a few minutes and touch on um on the new municipal, separate storm sewer, permit otherwise known as the ms4 permit. So this was reissued. This is reissued on a five-year rolling basis. It's a general permit that the minnesota pollution control agency has been delegated authority to manage by the epa and so in november of 2020. They did issue reissue that new permit and we have been working through the application process.

L

Currently, as the timeline indicates, we have completed our 30-day public notice period, which ended in september, and so we are currently awaiting notification from the mpca that they have extended our permit coverage, at which point we will have a year to make any necessary changes to our stormwater pollution prevention plan, and so some of those changes that we're looking at implementing over the next year there's a lot on salt and chloride management. In there we will be reviewing our internal mapping of our gis gis system for storm sewer infrastructure.

L

There are a couple of total maximum daily loads, so basically pollutant reduction projects that need to come forward.

L

Penn lake has been identified as impaired for nutrients, so we are looking at ways that we can remove some of the phosphorus from getting to penn lake to improve the overall health of penn lake and all that is managed through our ms4 permit.

L

I think there's one more slide for kari.

L

So I can take any questions now or.

A

Any questions of mr greedle.

A

I think you're good to go. Thank you.

L

K

Thank you, brian, so the long-term budget model for the stormwater utility fund you can see the working capital balance is in line with its goal. It is showing as green and then the yellow, highlighted 2022 budget request. The total revenue is almost 7.3 million and then the proposed expenses for 2022 7.6 million- and that includes 3.2 million for capital projects.

A

Also any questions so the one question just the observation I made, I mean one of the first things that we listed with the the storm utility funds was uh the parks, golf courses and cemeteries, which is obviously the city, and I mean it's an important point to make.

A

I think for anybody watching that as we talk about these different funds, especially the water and wastewater and storm water, that the city departments pay these charges as well, and um it's I mean it can be looked at as a pocket transfer, but at the same time it should also be looked at, I think, is the use of the water, the use of the storm water, the wastewater and the different organizations are paying for it. Just like anybody else would.

K

Thank you mayor.

A

Any other questions onward.

K

All right next we're going to go to the next slide, is the solid waste utility fund and laura horner will be presenting those slides.

A

Good evening miss warner welcome.

M

Good evening, mayor and council members, my name is laura horner and I'm the city's public works project coordinator.

M

So the city's solid waste fund accounts for the city's residential, solid waste program that includes the collection of garbage recycling new in 2022, organics, recycling yard, waste and bulky items. It also accounts for forestry and the removal of diseased trees such as the emerald ash, borer cleanups after major storm events and private property, environmental health, abatements.

M

So tonight I will walk through next slide. Please thanks tonight, I will walk through our rates for the residential, solid waste program, beginning with our garbage rates, so the garbage rate is made up of four different components.

M

The first component is the collection rate that is set in our contract for 2022, that collection rate will increase two and a half percent following the price escalators that are set in our contract with the consortium.

M

The next component of the rate is the disposal rate, and that is also set in our contract and it's based on the garbage tipping fee as well so the fee at the hennepin energy recovery center. That processes our garbage will increase 4.6 percent in 2022 from 63 dollars a ton to 66 dollars a ton.

M

The garbage rate is also includes an administrative charge for the city's billing customer service and education, and this will not is not proposed to increase in 2022, and it also includes the minnesota state, solid waste tax and the hennepin county solid waste fee that will also not increase in 2022.

M

The city collects these taxes and fees on behalf of the county and state and passes those on to them.

M

I wanted to note here that residents have an opportunity always to downsize their garbage carts to save some money on their utility bill. This year we have begun studying how we could modify our rates in future years to further incentivize residents to reduce the waste that's sent to the incinerator by downsizing those garbage carts. So we can share more information about this later in the presentation next slide, please, the next trade is for our every other week, recycling service.

M

So for 2022 we are proposing to keep this rate the same as 2021..

M

The recycling rate is made up of our collection rate, which is set in the contract with the haulers that will increase two and a half percent, and it is also made up of the recycling commodity adjustment offset fee.

M

This is established annually in october, and it is based on the previous 12 months of published commodity prices, the composition of our recycling, that's determined by annual recycling sorts and the tons of recycling that are collected each year in 2021.

M

The recycling markets were very strong, and this recycling commodity adjustment offset fee does offset that two and a half collection price escalator. So we are proposing to keep that rate the same for 2022.

M

next slide. Please so organics recycling will be a new service that begins in march of 2022.

M

The solid waste working groups of city council and the sustainability commission met throughout 2021 to discuss how best to offer organics in bloomington and city council finalized the programmatic components of that service. In june of this year and like regular recycling, the charge for organics will be paid by all residents with city garbage and recycling service residents will need to opt in to receive that organics card.

M

Our citywide communications on this new service will ramp up pretty heavily next month. Residents will receive a mailer promoting the organic service that will include a postage paid postcard that they can fill out and mail back to the city, indicating if they would like to participate in the program.

M

We will also be creating a new web page for the program, as well as translated information available online about the services.

M

We will also be working with communications to create videos for this new service and work with them to do photo shoots of different organics recyclers in bloomington.

M

We did have over 400 residents express interest in being part of that promotional campaign, so the rate for organics is made up of the haulers collection rate that is set in our contract and an administrative charge proposed at 40 cents for the staffing education and outreach on the program and waste sorts do continue to show that about a third of a resident's. Garbage is organic material that could be composted.

M

So by using this new organic cart, residents do have the opportunity to downsize their garbage cart and offset most of the cost of that new service. The difference in price between our garbage carts is just about four dollars and 25 cents, including the taxes and fees.

M

So council may recall seeing information about organics rates in other communities earlier this summer and, as you can see, our organics rates are competitive with what we are seeing in surrounding communities that have the everyone pays. Organics programs, as you can see, communities with those subscription programs have significantly higher monthly costs for the service and it results in lower participation rates in the organics program.

M

Next slide. Please.

M

And, as you will recall at last, monday's meeting council did approve the new bulky item management program, components and these include a reimagined every other year, curbside cleanup with limited items accepted a regular curbside collection of reusable bulky items, an annual community drop-off event for recyclable items and one or two swap events throughout the year for smaller, reusable items.

M

Again, the goals of the new program include reducing the volume of waste that is sent to landfills, increasing access to bulky item management to residents and multi-family dwellings, keeping the program convenient and also reducing overall program costs.

M

So for 2022 we are proposing to keep this curbside cleanup rate the same as 2021.

M

I want to note that this will be the third year that the rate for this cleanup has not increased and based on our research. As we had developed the new bulky item management plan, we found that the proposed changes will likely cost less than our current curbside cleanup program.

M

We will have to take parts of this new plan like that regular collection of bulky items and the drop-off events out for bid this year. So, by keeping the rate the same this year, we can, we will be able to finalize those program, costs in 2022 and then propose a likely reduced rate for 2023.

M

Also, as a reminder, a small portion of this rate does go towards building a reserve in our solid waste fund for major storm. Cleanup events next slide. Please.

M

So this slide here shows the monthly cost for residents for all of their solid waste services. Again this includes garbage recycling, organics recycling and that curbside cleanup fee, with the difference being the size of the garbage cart in each of the lines.

M

So, as you can see, the costs appear to increase a lot next year, and this is due to the the new service that will be offered to residents organics recycling at five dollars and fifty cents for that service.

M

um Aside from that, organics cart, the only other service that would be increasing in prices garbage based on the contract, escalators and the disposal rate at the herc next slide. Please.

M

So these are just a few things that are likely to drive our rates into the future. We do have price escalators, as mentioned that are set in our garbage and recycling contract and those will be ongoing.

M

We are anticipating again that that disposal cost for garbage will likely to continue to increase at the herc, with pressure put on the herc and on local landfills.

M

It is challenging to really predict where recycling markets will be from year to year. This year was a really good year for the recycling markets.

M

There may be future years where those markets are lower and that could impact our recycling rate and staff is really continuing to look at methods for structuring our rates to help incentivize waste diversion.

M

Some of these items we could look at in the future are to turn on that every other week, garbage service level and also look at more aggressive pay as you throw rates to further incentivize residents to save money by downsizing their garbage, cart and utilize, the recycling and organics recycling programs more heavily.

M

So we do hope to have more conversations with council about these ideas in the near future and, as mentioned earlier, as we get a better sense of the final cost for the bulky item management program. There's the potential to reduce that rate in future years, so that wraps up our proposed rates and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Otherwise, I believe kari will speak to the long-term budget.

A

Thank you, council. Any questions of mrs horner.

A

Not seeing any councilmember nelson, I don't have you on a screen. So if you have a question, please speak.

A

Up very good, thank you. Thanks.

K

Thank you laura, so the solid waste fun long-term budget models in front of you and total budgeted revenues for 22 are proposed at 10.6 million and total budgeted expenses for 22 are just over 10.5 million.

K

There is some property tax support in this fund of 185 thousand dollars. If you recall, when we're looking at the overall tax levy, there is an amount for forestry and removal of diseased trees, and that comes into this fund and the diseased trees, such as the emerald ash, borer infested trees and looking at the working capital balance that we have highlighted in green, yellow and red.

K

Here, the the working capital does dip down a bit below the goal and 22 and 23, but then is projected to come up in 24 and be on goal in 25.

A

Council any questions or comments on this.

A

K

So the next two slides here I have is just kind of a recap of all of this for the utility funds so the next slide. These are some samples of residential utility bills, just comparing 21 to 22 and we've done three different scenarios. So one has a small garbage, cart and a smaller usage of water, and then we have a medium-sized garbage and medium kind of usage of water with eleven thousand dollars.

K

And then we have a large garbage large due to the large usage of water and then those um for residents come out uh every other month so six times a year and we have the increase for that buy monthly amount at the bottom and then also an annual.

K

What that looks like annually and as laura pointed out before the reason these these increases look a lot more than 21 is the line item for organics, where it's five dollars and fifty cents a month which is eleven dollars for the bi-monthly period, and when you multiply that out annually, that's driving the bulk of the increase along with there is some increase in garbage.

K

So that's how it looks um kind of bringing it all in total there and then the next slide just has the um kind of a simpler graph on the next slide, with just the proposed 2022 rate increases.

K

So this is what we'll bring that we're going to be publishing for the public hearing on november 15th and the five percent for water increase wastewater three percent storm water, two percent, the garbage I have there- is just taking those different garbage ones and kind of averaging that and then, as laura said, recycling, uh bulky rate no increase and then the new, the new organics recycling that will be added.

K

So next I just again november 15th, that's the public rate hearing and.

E

K

Be bringing these budgets to the council for your approval.

A

A

Questions on this one council, seeing none on we go.

K

All right, so next we're going to go into the eight internal service funds, so I will just be presenting these, but we do have um people in the council chambers also online on webex. If there's questions, we have the managers of these funds. The experts here to answer your questions so as I uh go through each one I'll take a pause and if you have questions uh for them or for me, we'd be happy to answer those and it's still the same presentation.

K

Yes, it's just the next um slide, so we'll we'll just bring that up and go on we're going to start off with the fleet fund.

K

And um as we're bringing that up I'll just take a moment to talk about what the internal service funds are, they are they're used to account for the activities that provide goods and services to other funds within the city. So it's money coming into these funds from other departments but they're paying out outside of the city, so the revenues that are coming in they're charging out to each benefiting department, and then they use those funds that they receive to pay for the items and the services that they provide.

K

So they allow the departmental budgets to more accurately reflect the true cost of providing a particular public service and also, for example, if we didn't have charges from like the fleet fund with all the vehicles or the public safety technology and equipment fund that has all the radios and the mobile data data computers that are in the police and fired vehicles.

K

If those weren't allocated to the police department, then their, but their total budget wouldn't accurately reflect the total cost of running a police department without those costs of vehicles or portable radios or squad car computers and then um as we're.

K

Looking at all these internal service funds, one thing that we'll be looking at is what is the um money that's going out of the fund, so that's actually going out of the city and that's expenses, a lot for paying the salaries of the employees that work in within those funds or materials or services that they purchase or a lot of times, capital, large capital purchases and then again the money that's coming in is from other funds from other departments.

K

And then we are saving for um working cap like the working capital balance goal for those funds.

K

And so, if you go ahead- and these are the the eight funds we're going to be going through so fleet fund, the vehicles, public safety technology and equipment, the insurance fund, the employee benefits fund, the accrued benefits fund, the support services fund, information technology and facilities. So if you go to the next couple slides, I just talked through those. So um with that. Okay, here we are fleet fund perfect.

K

So this fund pays for the cost related to the operations, maintenance, repair and replacement of city vehicles and equipment, and so the departments that have vehicles used vehicles and equipment are charged for those but to their departments.

K

So in the next fund, the expenses of the fleet fund include staff salaries and benefits the materials, supplies and services that they need, and then they also do have internal charges from other funds like the it fund or the insurance fund, for example, and then a big part of their expenses are purchases of vehicles so, on the next slide these, so these charges are based on the maintenance and replacement costs and then they're charged the departments to the departments based on the assigned vehicles.

K

So if you go to the next slide, um there's two different charges that, when departments looking at their budget, they have a line item that is, the fleet, equipment and maintenance repairs that cover those expenses, and then they also have a line item that goes towards their future vehicle replacement when it's time to replace those vehicles.

K

So, on the next slide, some of the challenges that this fund has faced is uh an outdated and undersized facility, as the fleet services study. That was done and it was identified as a safety hazard by the consultant in 2014 and also in 2019 identified as under undersized and then both these studies recommended right-sizing the building to improve safety and hiring some more full-time technicians to reduce outsourcing needs, and then the funding in the past had hadn't been adequate to replace units when scheduled, which was resulting in higher operational costs and more vehicle downtime.

K

If we go to this next slide, that has a long-term budget you'll see that the working capital goal is very healthy. There's been a lot of positive changes that have happened in this fund. The size of the fleet has been reduced, there's been changes in staffing and reductions in staffing and efficiencies that have been made, also changes in being very transparent to the departments about what is causing their charges and splitting out between the repair and maintenance and the replacement.

K

So for 2022, the total budgeted revenues are just over 7.4 million and total budget expenses are just over 7.7 million and, as I said due to the downsides of the fleet as well as reductions in staffing, this, um the working capital goal is looking uh very positive.

K

Any questions about the fleet fund.

A

Questions council.

A

K

Next one is the public safety technology and equipment fund, and so this is police and fire mainly.

K

It covers the portable and dash mounted radio operations and replacement for the city and also the mdcs, and that stands for mobile data, computers that are in police, cars and police and fire vehicles, and this also this fund also has activities for funding other police and fire equipment purchases and for the radios there are some charges that go out to public works and public health.

K

The public works also has some radios and public health has a few too. The next slide um just talks about the different charges. So if you're looking at a department's budget like, for example, for police or fire you'd see line items for radio operations covering those costs and the different activities within police and fire, also public works and public health for radio operations. Also, radio replacement are separate calculations.

K

We also have mdc operations and mdc replacement. They're newer in this fund, our body, camera data fees. When the body camera program and the body cameras um were purchased by the police department and then police have a small equipment fund. Within this fund, and also a fire, has both a small equipment and a large equipment activity and then on the next slide is there's a schedule showing the purchases that are planned for radios as well as mdc's for the next few years, and just this just highlights why we're talking about.

K

We use these, um for example, the internal service funds to um plan for long-term purchases and gather enough money within these funds so that when these huge purchases come, it doesn't skyrocket, um expenses in the tax levy and so for 21. They are purchasing some fire, mdc's and docking stations. We don't have things planned for 22 and 23 other than ongoing maintenance and support and repairs things like that.

K

But in 24 we have quite a few um mdcs that were purchased they're, going to purchase and also radios and individually those those items aren't huge dollars, but when you're buying so many of them, they add up so that we have 714 000 scheduled for 2024, and then we have 269 025.

K

So that's the radios and mtc list and that list does go on further, but just wanted to show you next year's coming up. So for fire equipment, there's two different activities: there's the large fire equipment and the small fire equipment, the large fire equipment are the vehicles mainly, and you can see uh 22 we don't have. We just have some smaller vehicles, but we have a ladder truck planned for 23 and that's almost 2 million dollars.

K

So this is where again, we have some very large purchases that don't come every year, and so we try to be planning conservatively and get ready for those and then for the small fire equipment that includes things such as turnout gear tools, protective equipment, things like that and those are also on a schedule that we have planned out and then the next slide just some dollars for police equipment. So you can see how that also varies.

K

It's um those include things like tasers and defibrillators and vests and guns, and things like that, and they are also on a purchased schedule. That also varies so we go to the next slide. All those things together are combined in this public safety technology and equipment fund and overall, their working capital goal or their capital is in line with their goal and their revenues for 22 are we're. Looking at 1.4 million and total budget expenses for 22 around 760 000.

K

there any questions about this fund questions.

A

Just in general, how quickly is the technology changing with the the radios and with the mobile computers and so on, and is it changing so fast that these become obsolete in a short period of time.

K

Mayor, I don't know if I'm the the best person to answer that question, but I it seems like the the program that they're on that they're able to keep up with technology. I don't know if um deputy chief giles would like to answer that question.

A

Deputy chief charles good evening, good evening, mayor and city council.

C

Members, um the technology is all always changing on the computers, especially it's hard to keep up with them. They do have a shelf life. They get pulled out of the cars to write reports, they take wear and tear, so they do have to replace. Often the radios are managed by hennepin county, and so we sort of when they decide to upgrade and get better radios.

C

Then we upgrade and get better radios, so they do wear out they're expensive as.

D

They are, but they're, obviously really valuable equipment. So I don't know if that.

A

Helps but that's what I got it does. It sounds like technology. Just in general is what I heard so thank you for that.

K

A

There's some questions: if not, please.

K

The next fund I'm going to talk about is the insurance fund, so if we go to the next slide, this is the fund that pays for all the costs, including premiums and losses related to these different types of insurance.

K

So workers compensation, general liability, automobile property, and then we also have a miscellaneous category with fireworks, medical and liquor for the golf course.

K

And go to the next slide, so basically, for this one I just have the long-term budgeted model, and so the total budgeted revenues and expenses for 22 around 2.3 million and again these are charges that are charged out to the other departments.

K

Workers compensation, for example, actually runs through the payroll process so depending on the type of job that employee has there's different risk factors for workers, compensation, and so that runs through payroll, but is an internal charge that comes into this fund to cover any expenses that are necessary and the working capital. So both the revenues and expenses for 22 are around 2.3 million and then the working capital balance is projected to be in line with the goal of this fund. It looks very healthy.

K

You will probably recall from last year that we did increase the working capital goal in this fund in the area of workers, compensation, and I have that highlighted in yellow towards the bottom.

K

So it was at 1.8 million and was increased to three million five hundred seventy five thousand, and that is because the legislature extended the covid presumption for first responders through the end of this year, and um it's likely that it will be further extended, at least until kovid is better under control.

K

And so because covet is a recognized occupational disease. Under the statute for for the group of employees of first responders, an employee who contracts covid would be eligible to make a workers compensation claim. So we do feel like we do want to have a reserve, at least for um for 2022, that's higher and- um and so this. This is what we have for the insurance fund, long-term budget.

A

Questions on insurance.

A

All right good to go, I think.

K

So next employee benefits fund- um this includes health, insurance, dental insurance, life insurance, long-term disability and there's also a health club reimbursement and a tuition reimbursement that all comes through this fund and so on. The next slide. So the goal of this fund. The reason why it's an internal service fund is to stabilize insurance expenses in departmental budgets and so we're trying to moderate large budget spikes due to increases in benefit costs, especially for health insurance. Health insurance is the biggest expense in this fund, so on the next slide, you'll show so the revenues. Again.

K

These are internal. It's a charge out to departments based on the number of employees, full-time employees that that can receive benefits, and so for 2022 budget. That amount is seventeen thousand five hundred and ten dollars per time, full-time, employee, and that is the same charge that we had in 2021, but the expenditures that's based on the city's portion of insurance premium costs and then the what the enrollment is of the employees that are eligible on the next slide.

K

I'm going to talk about our current health insurance provider, and that is peep, which stands for the public employees insurance program.

K

So the city switched to peep for our health insurance for 20 in 2020, and that was because we were facing a premium increase of over 20 percent with the health insurance provider we had at the time, and so when we did that our premium expenses were reduced and so um significantly for both city and employees for 2020 and 2021.

K

So right now we have received our. We just recently received our peep renewal rate and it's 9.3 percent of an increase which is higher than historically they'd, had increases about five percent, which is what we were hoping.

K

But what we have budgeted in right now is this 9.3 which we received, but since it was higher than we were expecting, hr has worked with our broker and has um been meeting with the benefits committee that they're going to be meeting again this week and they're deciding if they're going to stay with peep or possibly go to a different health insurance provider. So what I have here that we're showing you could change a lot next month when we bring the final budget, but what's in here, is what it would look like.

K

Staying with peep at this 9.3 percent increase, and so on that next slide. That's that's what it shows so total budget revenues would be just over 11 million dollars and total budget expenses around 11.4 million and the working capital balance is looking good for this fund. So I I want to point out when we did change to peep in 2020, we had a gain of over a million dollars in this fund, so it was a pretty significant reduction in our premiums, um and so what that's doing since that really helped grow.

K

This working capital balance is, if we're projecting some losses in 22 and 23, maybe even you know going on at least for a while it's starting to come down, but um it's not going to cause a spike where we don't have to go out to the departments and drastically increase our charges so, um depending on what hr and the benefits committee decide, this this model could change, though, are there any questions about this fund.

A

A

What a working capital balance go to in employee benefits.

K

uh Mayor the the reason why we have a working capital like goal um a balance for this is basically for huge spikes and insurance premiums. So if we hadn't, if we were faced in a situation where we didn't have a choice other than take a 20 premium hike, we would use this capital balance to bring it down and kind of smooth it out. So we're not hitting all the departments with really high.

C

Internal charges.

K

Okay, thank you.

K

Thank you. Crude benefits fund, so this fund is where we pay out accrued leave time. So we're talking about vacation personal time, comp time and it's based on a total liability for all the employees whatever employees have on the books for their vacation or personal leave, is what we have as a liability in this fund, and it's not just what we're anticipating, anticipating paying out in the for years, because it doesn't actually get paid out until they leave the city.

K

So the next slide just talking about how the revenues or internal charges come into this fund, it's based on a percentage of the wages and salaries which right now is three and a half percent, and um they said so the number of recruit hours that are on the books.

K

It's you know, based on employee leave balances and when they, when they leave the city, their departures and the value of the accrued hours that they have it's going to grow over time for an employee like a long-term employee as their pay increases, if they're not using those hours and I'll show you on this next slide, something that happened due to the pandemic. A lot of employees did not use their personal or vacation time in 2020, which caused a large increase for that accrual.

K

So we have to accrue um what is in what people have on the books, and so you can see on the the left. Column is the total of the accrual. So this is the change to our reserve and you can see it's like 450 000 in 2015 453 000 2019 was 854 000. Almost in 2020 it was 1 million 747 000.. You can see how that's broken out into comp time personally vacation and then we did add.

K

Part-Time employees are able to regular part-time employees are able to have some approval of a personal leave as well. So there's some small balance for that, but you can see um just people, I think, not going anywhere last year, so we'll see what happens at the end of 2021..

K

So the next slide is a long-term budget model and total budgeted revenues for 22 are just over 2 million and total budgeted expenses are around 2.2 million. So this fund is different in that, rather than looking at the working capital balance for this fund. What we're, comparing is our total assets are basically cash to our total liability and, since the likelihood of the city closing and having to pay out, all of the accrued vacation and personal leave on the books would be extremely rare.

K

We're comfortable having cash reserves that are over 80 percent of the total liability, with a the longer term model kind of shows that eventually being 100 funded in um like 10 years, which is how we show our auditors what what our plan is, um but realistically we would not be paying out um 19 million dollars of accrued time off.

A

We're not in danger of closing.

A

Questions on this.

K

All right so the next um fund- this is the support services fund and the support services fund includes the mail room, the print shop and the information desk and that's all within this fund, and so they provide these services to all the departments throughout the city.

K

And then these activities are supported by these user fees to department departments. And so one thing I'll point out is for the print shop.

K

A long-term, a full-time employee is going to be retiring this month and when, when he retires, that's going to be changed from a full-time position to a part-time um position and the same when that happens, the same printing services are going to be available to city departments, but due to the the decrease in volume that we've experienced over the last 18 months or so, um and even a little bit before that, the shop's only going to be operating 24 to 28 hours per week.

K

So it is going to be kind of a reduction internally so that we feel we we can have a part-time employee instead of a full-time in the mail room. There's two part-time employees that work in the mail room and then also at the information desk, there's two part-time employees and on the next slide, the way that these charges are charged out is for the print shop.

K

Those are when there's a you know um like the budget book is printed or other actual job printing jobs like that, that's charged out on a per job basis, and then mail rooms based on annual postage and service usage by department, and then the phone charges are what fund the both the information desk and then also part of it as well so on. The next slide is the long-term model for the support services fund.

K

This is a much smaller model or smaller fund than what we've been looking at so far tonight, but to cover these three services. There's a total budget revenues of 512 000 and total budgeted expenses of 532 000 and their working capital balance um is looking healthy compared to their goal, which is smaller and mainly for their future purchases of like printing copying equipment and the machine that does the mail sorting.

K

Any questions about support services.

D

A

K

Have two more there.

A

K

Go okay, so next is it information technology so it um that's. This fund is the whole department that is this fund and it provides the city with computer hardware and software and coordinates the kind of networking and communications of the system in accordance with their long-range I.t plan and interacts with customers on a regular basis, their technology technological support.

K

It also affects the public by providing a better experience for the events that they attend so such as, like the farmers market, the ice garden, art center groups, public health clients, all of it and they especially um were a huge part of helping employees to work remotely in a very fast amount of time. During the pandemic. They did some amazing things. We have a excellent I.t department and their expenses include staff salaries and benefits materials supplies services.

K

They also have some internal charges from other funds like insurance and facilities, annual software maintenance fees, those especially as more and more software's, have higher subscription fees and maybe they're more cloud-based.

K

Those costs have gotten bigger and bigger, that's a big purchase and then new software purchases, as as new softwares, are required to be purchased and replaced, and then there's also hardware as well. Capital outlay for computer hardware and servers and those expenses could be a lot also.

K

Their revenues come in mostly internally. They get a little bit of outside revenue, but for the most part, it's all internal and it's based on an employee technology charge fairly recently that changed where there was a realization that the technology that employees use wasn't just people that were working in front of a computer at their desk. There's a lot of technology that supports all city services. So it's it changed to be based on a per employee charge.

K

And then, um if you look at their long-term model, this one is not again. This one has some challenges and it's had challenges in the past. There's been transfers in in the past, from strategic priorities and from other funds. I think we've been trying to do different things so as not to kind of shock people's I.t charges across the city, but their total budgeted revenues are 6.2 million dollars and total budgeted expenses around 6.9 million dollars. And you can see the working capital balance it's positive, but it remains.

K

It does remain significantly lower than the goal for the fund, which is why that's highlighted in red and- um and we did pretty recently bring in um there used to be employees that were in the public works like utilities, budget engineering that were also I.t and that's all been brought in when they had their service assessment done and it strategic plan they're all within iit now and so um continuing to just look at how we can run this fund and try to improve the long-term working capital balance.

A

Any I.t questions.

A

All right bring it on home last.

K

One they have is facilities fund, so the um facilities maintenance they pay for the costs related to all the capital, repair maintenance of the cities, not just the buildings, but also the fire stations. Those are also buildings, but we have a separate activity for that and then the cemetery as well, and the cleanliness and appearance and setup the safety security temperature.

K

All of our facilities impact all the events that happen within them and if you recall from some of our other budget presentations on this next slide, one big change in this find is that park maintenance used to be in this fund, so it was facilities and park maintenance. Now it will just be facilities because in 2022 park, maintenance will no longer be an internal charge from facilities to the general fund to parks and recreation.

K

It's now going to be a direct charge to public works um in the general fund, or it's going to be a direct expense. I should say, and so the net impact of that will be zero, but it's just it's gonna be more. It's gonna allow for some greater transparency and tracking part maintenance expenses. Just right within the general fund in public works.

K

um This fund on the next slide does have a staffing change request, so included in this facilities. Fund budget is a request for a facility's manager position, as opposed to hiring outside consultants to do strategic elements of facilities, management, and what that would do would allow the current assist one of the assistant superintendents that currently oversees both facility maintenance and parks, maintenance, to focus entirely on parks and and the parks master plan.

K

There is identified as an additional need for leadership for natural resources management, and this additional capacity would fit nicely with that, and so what that would do is a portion of the so right now, a portion of the assistant superintendent, salary that was in the facility fund, the is about 43 and that would be transferred to the general fund since that's now in the general fund, and so that that portion, what is currently in the general fund that has a 2.75 percent tax levy, increase.

K

um And then the next slide just to go over what kinds of expenses are being um paid out of this fund staff, salaries and benefits, utility bills, custodial services, contractors, uh city garbage removal and, of course, internal charges, and then there's a lot of capital improvement projects that happen. That are a big expense in this fund and the on the next slide. The internal revenues that are coming in from other departments.

K

They go out in two different line items: one is space and occupancy charges that are based on square footage and the other is building repairs based on past projects and capital outlay needs.

K

So last slide I have is this: is the long-term budget model for facilities, and there also is some money that is in blue there for revenue that we're having designated for to be used from american rescue plan funds.

K

But total budget revenues are 2020 for 2022 are just over 18.7 million, and then the expenses are just over 16.5 million, and so the working capital balance is uh projected to be in line with the goal. There's a little bit of a dip projected in 2024, but then comes back up and something that's really helping. This fund is the two million dollars that we're looking at doing using american rescue plan funds, so that is the end for facilities. Are there any questions.

A

Council, do we have any questions on this.

A

I do not see any hands going up. Well, thank you. I know this is. This is always a bit of a slog and there's a lot of information there, but I think it's really important to do it every year.

A

It is not only for the council, and so we understand best and understand really what's going on with the budget, but I think to do this publicly like we're doing it now, I think it's an incredible resource for the members of the community, so they can really start to understand better exactly how the budgets work, how it all kind of comes together- and I think you know for years doing it up in the hague conference room when this information didn't get out there as extensively as it is now.

A

I think this is a this is a better way of doing it. I think it's it's an important way of doing it. So thank you and thanks to the staff members who chimed in and were able to explain things and uh put some meat on these bones so well done. Thank you very much.

K

Thank you very much.

A

Item 8.3 on our agenda is our proposed 10-year capital improvement plan and our cfo lori economy. Shoulder is with us or will be with us. I think there she is.

A

To lead us through this good evening and welcome.

N

Good evening, mayor and council, so carolyn does this work. Okay, so before you, council is the draft cip, and I brought the laptop up because I didn't print the 310 pages of the cip. So in case you have a specific question, I can go to that page in the cip.

N

So this evening, I'll give an overview of the cip purpose, the executive summaries that we have in the document, some of the project- information, that's updated in the system. Some of our priorities highlights funding sources and some of the cip and charge upon information.

N

So the cip purpose: this is a planning tool, long term we put as a city. We want to make sure that as cari went through those budgets just on the utilities and facilities and several of those we put that long-term information, that's in our cip in those budgets, so it's very coordinated between those activities so long-term planning, these projects include all items over 50, 000 and then within the document. We also have an executive summary that kind of lists the total dollars and pieces within that, and then it has section highlights.

N

We have success, six section sections um and then, uh when the council approves this document in december again it's not a guarantee that that project will move forward again. This is a planning tool, so a project will only go forward if all of the funding and all the approvals are in place and then to procure the activities we follow. The state guidelines and the council approved purchasing policy.

N

So, just to give you some numbers in the executive summary in the six categories, uh the total amount for the document for 2022 through 2031 for current projects in that 10-year period is just under 670 million dollars.

N

On a quarterly basis, finance provides this updated document and provides it to counsel through one weekly, and then it is also posted on the finance website on a monthly basis. We meet with the project managers for these capital projects, so you would see that the green projects are moving forward. The yellow projects are under review. So in this document we list both the 21 and 22 projects, the 22 projects. You would see in yellow that they're under review and in the planning stage.

N

The red projects are projects that were scheduled for 21 and are now delayed, and then the blue projects are the ones that have been completed.

N

So, just to give you some pictures of changes that happened in the western maintenance building before and after and then fire station 3 in floor heating, when that happened in 2020.

N

Some activities so far in 2021 are changes in the black box and some schneider theater soft good replacements for the drapes.

N

In the city facility area for 22 13 total projects, the project cost in that area. Right now is just under 13.3 million. The largest one is fire station 4, and that is at 11 million in 2023 14 projects for 34 million, almost 35 million and the largest project. There is the ice garden.

N

Oh now it went on park development. Let me go back to the pictures.

N

Okay, so you had the dred scott wheelhouse in 2020 that was rebuilt and then one of the new activities out at dred scott was the new electronic reader boards.

N

And the park development highlights in 22, there are four projects: the largest one is the normandale lakes maintenance building for reconstruction, and I believe we have some grant dollars for that and then 23 projects. We would be looking to do another cip bonding for capital projects there for parks.

N

In the sewer and water area, these are just some sanitary sewer pitchers. um It's very interesting to look at all the how they dig the holes and how they place all the equipment down in there um not stuff. I normally see, but it's interesting to look at.

N

So in 22 the largest 14 projects in the sewer water and storm areas, 10 million dollars of total projects there, the 3.8 million, is in the south loop area. I know the sewer is listed here, but the south loop fund will be transferring funds over to pay for that improvement in 2023 eight projects, 15.2 million again the largest- is a 4.7 million in the pan-american area. So there's where some of those utility fees will be paying for improvements.

N

South loop in general has smaller projects so there's two projects 625 the large one. There is 475 on american boulevard at 28th and in 2023 four projects. 604 thousand 295 are trail, headed in connections, so some smaller activities in the south loop port authority area, surface transportation, just some bridge maintenance on auto club and american boulevard.

N

Again nice clean improvements there and just changes of improvements on the bridges as they're happening.

N

Some payment management program activities in 2021.

N

So in 2022 nine projects, just over 20 million dollars, the large ones are the street reconstruction and the overlay just normal project management. There again in 2023 11 projects, almost 18.9 million, the pmp and overlay. There are just normal street improvement activities.

N

So this is just a pie. Look at the next two years of costs. You will see surface transportation and city facilities, kind of mirroring each other in high costs of where we're going to be concentrating our dollars again. City facilities, the two large ones there, where the ice garden and fire station four and surface transportation was the pmp project in overlay.

A

How's that pie chart pretty typical of what we see over the course of years.

N

um I would say that city facilities has increased.

N

Because, just what, as we've had numerous conversations about city facilities as um they have been, moved around and shifted for a number of years and now they're coming home to really where we need to focus our attention on how to afford them and here's the 10-year look again surface transportation, 35 density facilities, 38 really mirroring what we need to look at for the next 10 years.

N

So a lot of the funding sources are here as it breaks down, which is in the document for you, city funds, and in some of those uh you know, you see the cip bonds. You see the charter bonds, you see um the pir bonds and other funds, so a lot of projects in 2022, 46 million nine and in 2023, just under 74 million.

N

So cip bonds was 11 million. I mentioned that when we had the um set sail two weeks ago that we would probably be coming back in april for that one and the pierre era bonds were in the middle of selling those. So on the 25th we'll come back and let you know the rates, the interest rates for selling those bonds for 21, but we would have that same time frame each year for the pmp plan and just green lighting.

N

I'm just reminding council that when we look at this document we want staff to start the planning phase to look at what it costs. You know, as you know, fire station 4 we've hired consultants for that they'll be coming to council in the next few weeks to look at steel costs and other pieces of that. The bids that start going out at the end of the year we'll be coming back to the council to authorize the issuance of the charter bonds.

N

So I mean that one's moving along for you and we'll continue to look at all the projects in 22 and 23. That way.

N

So the next phase is council's questions and on the planning tool, as it is as it's drafted, then it will go to the planning commission on november 18th and it would come back to council on the 13th of december.

N

That would include a public hearing.

N

So any questions on the cip as we have it.

A

Questions councilmember, martin.

C

uh Thank you mayor, uh thank you for, for this presentation sure appreciate it um on the slide with the 2022 and 23 projects, I know for the 22 projects that had 7.9 million roughly in grant funding. Is that secured grants or anticipated grants.

N

uh I'd have to um look at that. Some of that is grant funding say for the normandelli improvements there for the shelter or the specific buildings that are there at normandale lake. Okay, we're not.

C

Anticipating that 7.9 or so to fluctuate too wildly based on grants coming in the door or not.

N

Those could be grants for specifics. Capital improvements. Okay, so I mean we have numerous grants coming in. These would be some grant dollars that could be coming through msa. It could be coming through variety. I can get you a breakdown of what that is, or we could look at the funding source. Okay,.

C

So that is just curious if there's any we're still really crossing our fingers on or if those are kind of already in the door.

N

I would council member martin if it is in this document that they think it's going to be grants they're pretty certain. It's grandfunded.

C

Okay, thank you very.

N

Much my certainty.

A

Additional questions comments.

A

I am hearing none thank you for this. This is always a big presentation and- and I know it's always a big document- and um I encourage anybody if they're watching and want to learn more, it is available online and take a look at it. Look at uh what some of the needs and the priorities that have been laid out and uh ideal plans, uh thoughts knowing full well, there's no guarantees.

A

This is all this is a planning document and it's a document that is helping staff and helping uh the council try and make some decisions down the line, and um it's an interesting it's an interesting document. I think it's worth taking the head, if you're at all interested in what the city is doing so.

N

Mayor and council member martin, one of the things that's your comment reminded me of- is that to apply for grants in the future for any of these projects. We have to have the project in this document for them to apply for some of those funds in the future, so it helps.

A

All right anything else all right, and we will see this at as a public hearing in mid-december. Yes, thank you very good. Thank you.

A

Next on our agenda, council is 8.4. Our city council policy and issue update mr barbugi.

E

Thank you, mr mayor and council members, a couple items for you. Since we're talking about budget. This one is timely. We recently received a letter from fema.

E

It's not the kind of letter we wanted to receive that we did not receive the grant that we had applied for related to the fire, department, staffing and so chief seal, and I and the rest of the team will be putting our heads together in the not too distant future here and reviewing what our options are going forward and we'll come back and have a council discussion at a later date here.

E

So that obviously has some influence on the budget discussions as we get into november and december, so we'll try to have more information for you about what that intended. Future looks like with the fire department staffing model.

E

uh The second item I wanted to make council aware of is there's an event next monday to celebrate the new transit station at 35w and lake street that is monday morning and there's an email waiting for you if you're interested in attending that, uh let mr brillhart know- and he will coordinate your participation, there's going to be a larger uh uh event related to the orange line that'll be coming in december.

E

So that's another one to look out for and then we also have the 35w river bridge crossing event is coming up as well, so we have plenty of uh celebratory activities for elected officials and key staff. It's it's nice to see some of these long-time large infrastructure projects coming to completion, uh so we can get started with some other large infrastructure projects like 35w and 494 and and a few others that pop to mind. uh Those are the two main items that I want to share with you this evening. Thank you, mr.

A

Fabrega any questions of mr verbogey council. Anything to add here as part of our policy and issue update, councilmember martin.

C

uh Thank you very much mayor, uh just just real, quick and again something to kind of float uh to maybe circle back uh from additional conversation from my understanding. So far, looking at uh the hardship to referral program, we have four street assessments. I've been approached by a few different families that had emergency medical events or loss of a job during the pandemic and are just kind of in a tough spot and again from my understanding, the hardship deferral program we have now is pretty strictly limited to being a senior or a disability veteran status.

C

So just circling back around to take a look at there's a lot more qualifying life events. It seems like that, could potentially fall into that umbrella and just wanted to put that out there. So I'll follow up with everybody about where we had from there at.

A

An extenuating circumstances category and maybe a case-by-case decision made on those that would make good sense. I would think councilmember belogan.

C

A question to follow up on councilmember martens: we follow the rules of hennepin county. Don't we on the deferral program? Aren't those established by hennepin county kind of rather than just our city, I'm not sure.

A

Those are rules or hennepin county rules.

I

Mayor members, state law authorizes cities to adopt an ordinance or regulations related to deferrals, and in the past we have had deferrals on a couple of different topics. We have a, I believe, it's a resolution that we amended recently to to change it to add trees. If you may remember that, and we added it military.

N

But the state law is pretty specific. We can give you.

I

A more thorough report and see, if there's any other items in there, that might have some room that we can add.

C

That would be appreciated. Thank you.

A

Spouse member nelson.

D

Yeah, thank you mayor. I have uh two items uh one. uh When deputy chief giles came up, I noticed that his badge was pink and I am just wondering if he can talk to that. I believe that is being used as a fundraiser. um If he's still in chambers, there.

A

He is indeed deputy chief giles.

C

Council member nelson mayor council member, it's part of the pink patch project that police departments throughout the nation, but locally here in minnesota or participating in it is a fundraiser.

C

Last year we got into it a little bit late, but this year we're ahead of it, and deputy chief kim claussen is heading up that project this saturday we'll be selling the patches at a cancer walk, that's taking place at the mall of america saturday morning, they're making the patches eventually available after that for purchase by the public. We had a lot of people inquire last year if they could buy the patches, they're, unique and people really connect with the program. So to answer your questions.

D

It does and thank you for for doing that and being out there this saturday um uh so great cause and good to see you uh getting involved in the community like that. It's always um it's always good.

A

Thank you. Thank you absolutely. Thank you much.

D

um Second item I have um involves redistricting, and I know that process is going on and we have to wait for the state and county and things like that. But one of the questions that I had is if, um if I understand correctly, our charter requires the four districts that we have to be divided first, east west and north south, or maybe the vice versa, and then balance by population.

D

And one of the concerns that I have heard from people is that the majority of us live to the west of 35 w. Actually, I think, six out of seven other than council member martin uh live uh west of 35 w and- and I respect on my colleagues and I think we all work very hard to make decisions in the best interest of the entire community. But I do think that there are some that have concerns with that, and my question, I guess, is: has the charter commission looked at this issue?

D

Looked at a different way of dividing the city council districts that may make sense um something like that. I don't. You know, frankly, think that the council, because we have obvious personal vested interests in this, should take it up, and I guess my question is that's something the charter commission can look at um and or could they at least consider looking at it if they thought it was an issue as well?

D

A

E

uh Mr mayor and council members, I think it if the council is interested in having a reconsideration of how the districts are drawn. That would be good to have the council make a referral like that to the charter commission, and if you were interested in doing so, an expedited schedule we could. We could try to arrange for a charter commission meeting to have that discussion. I think the process uh of changing the charter, especially with redistricting looming in the relatively uh imminent future, means that a.

E

A redrawing of how the districts are established is probably probably not going to be done in time for redistricting, and it is right in the charter that there are the the districts are quadrants.

E

So it's right in section 2.03 under the elective officers that uh there's the southeast quadrant southwest northwest and northeast, and then it has additional detail about how the center lines are drawn and things like that. So it would. It would take a fair amount of study. I think, but certainly if the council is interested in looking at a different design for uh district description, we can put that into the charter commission's lab.

D

So and mayor can I follow up just quickly? Please do um just you know, I guess you know. I think it would be interesting to know where the city council, if they're interested in that, but I think even just the basic question of the charter commission at whatever time it makes sense for them if they're interested in it again.

D

I you know, I think there are some uh clear reasons why maybe this isn't a decision that the city council should take the lead on um but see if they think it's worthwhile if there, if there's any merits to it um and is worth their time to do.

A

I would agree councilman nelson. This is yes, this is a charter commission issue and I think the best habit in their hands, I think, would would be the the optimal answer here. Mr brookie, no okay.

E

I think it is just to uh reiterate again the charter amendment process is generally not if not a quick one, um and even if there was unanimity of the council after a charter commission consideration, there's still a 90-day effectiveness week.

E

You know, I think that, realistically this is discussion for the future, um but still I think if the council is interested, we can certainly uh put it on their radar screen.

A

I think that would be makes sense as a longer term discussion. You know acknowledging, of course, also in addition to, however, you want to draw the giant lines. Geographically, it's got to balance by population standpoint as well, so that sometimes adds the.

A

I think, that's what adds the the tricky part in at least one of the districts as it crosses the line. It's just a matter of how many people live in that district, so also anything else on our council policy and issue update.

A

If not, we will move to item 6.5, which is a closed session for a discussion about the fleet garage location acquisition. I think, as I've mentioned in past instances, where we've moved into closed session, city councils are allowed to go into closed session for a small number of reasons.

A

The negotiations of the terms of a contract is one of those reasons, and that's basically what this would be. So we can, we will go into closed session here after we adopt the the resolution and we will come back into open session after we are done with our closed session. We will then, if there is a vote to be taken based on the discussion we had in closed session. We would do that in open session, and we will be back in open session to adjourn the meeting. Ultimately.

A

Did I get that right this time? Good, all right! Thank you very much council. With that in mind, I would look for a motion to adopt the resolution to uh directing the closure of a public meeting of the city council so moved. Second, we've got a motion by council member buloger, second by council member coulter, to adopt the resolution closing this public meeting of the city council.

A

Hearing no further council discussion on this. Mr brillhart.

C

Beloga aye colter aye, martin hi nelson.

A

Hi bussie hi motion carries 5-0, we will move into closed session and, as I said, we will come back into open session to uh if a vote is necessary and then to close the the meeting for tonight.

A

And we are back in open session.

A

Are we back in open session we're officially back very good there? It isn't there. You see us. We are back in open session and as we're back in open session here, I would uh like to make a motion I'd like to make a motion directing staff to uh return and place an item on the 1025 agenda, uh which is a resolution to authorize the mayor and the city manager to execute a purchase agreement for the purchase of 1750 west 96th street consistent with the terms discussed in closed session.

A

Second, we have a motion by the mayor and a second by council member baloga to uh for the the motion is stated any further council discussion hearing none uh mr brillard.

C

Beloga hi colter hi, martin hi, nelson hi.

A

Bussie hi motion carries 5-0 and with that that completes our agenda for this evening, councillor look for a motion to adjourn so moved.

A

Second promotion by call council member coulter second by council member, but logan adjourning this evening's meeting no further council discussion, mr brillard beloga.

C

Hi colter hi, martin aye nelson.

A

Hi bossie aye motion carries five zero. We are adjourned. Thank you all thanks. Much for the good discussion, thanks to staff, thanks to everybody, who's tuned in to watch have a good night. Everybody folks.

A