City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, good evening. We'll call this meeting to order for the September 10th.

2026 Apple Valley City Council meeting. Welcome, everyone. As your item is called and you come to speak, please approach the podium to address the council. The first item on our agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance, and I would ask everyone who is able to rise and join us in the pledge. Very nice job of everyone staying in unison there. That was impressive. So the next item on our agenda is to approve the agenda. And Tom, I know as we get to the calendar, we'll have an item to add on there for an additional informal. But are there any other changes? there are no other changes all right great thank you uh so do we have a motion to approve the agenda as uh presented motion from council member grendel second from council member hebert all those in favor indicate by saying aye aye opposed that carries unanimously unanimously the next item on our agenda is the audience participation portion of the meeting and this is for items that are not otherwise on our agenda and tamara tamara did i pronounce please correct me um come on come on forward I've got your name and information here, so please go ahead.

Hi everyone. The main reason I'm here today is I just wanted to introduce myself and let you know that I will reach out separately to request a meeting to talk about some concerns that other residents on Lac Le Bon and I have regarding lack of weed control that's making it nearly impossible for boats to pass between the East Bay and the West Bay, as well as some activities that have been happening on the East Bay recently this year, as well as in some prior years, too, that we believe are inappropriate for the lake as well as unsafe.

Perfect. I think you have an email from me, so if you want to shoot some times back, I'm happy to help coordinate between you and us and staff and that kind of thing.

Perfect. Thank you.

Perfect. Thank you. All right. That was the only way to sign up. Is there anyone who would like to speak who didn't sign up? All right. Seeing none, we will move on to our consent agenda. And these items are considered routine and will be enacted with a single motion unless a council member or citizen requests to pull an item. Council members, are there any items you'd like to pull? All right. Citizens, any items to pull? Seeing none, do we have a motion for the consent agenda?

Second.

Motion from Council Member Millander and a second from Council Member Bergman. All those in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Consent items carry unanimously and we'll move on to our regular agenda. And the first is kind of a fun one and we have Eric's gonna come up and we're gonna proclaim September 10th, 2026 as Pat Sesso Day. I know Pat loves being the center of attention, so this is perfect.

Mr. Mayor, members of the Council, so today we're asking you to designate today as Pat Sesso Day. As the Council is aware, and hopefully many in the community are aware, Pat has been very involved in Freedom Days for I don't know, 40 plus years. So a very long time. And most people in the community probably really don't know how does Freedom Days happen. And a lot of people might think it's done by the city, but it's really not. Certainly the city's involved in it, but it's people like Pat Sessho and her committee that make sure that Freedom Days happens every year, year in and year out without a hitch. And so Pat is saying, you know what, after 40 plus years, I think I should spend some more time with my husband and my family and my grandkids. And so she's deciding to step away. And we just want to recognize her and thank her for all of her volunteerism and her community building, etc., that she's done over the years. I think there's a proclamation, and Mayor, do you want to read that proclamation?

I'd be happy to read it. Would you like to invite Pat up so we can further embarrass her, I guess?

She would love to be the center of attention.

Not really.

So, Pat, I know you would tell me, because you have, right? You've wrangled this event for a long time, but you haven't done it alone, right? And you've said that how many times? I know you've got some of your pretty key folks here. Do you mind just introducing them? Because while I'm here to recognize you, I don't want to forget the work of your team.

Okay, so first I want to introduce Patsy here. Patsy has been a key person in this organization, in this group, for 30 plus years. So she's been with me for Michelle and her husband Russ. Russ is out working in Michigan. Michelle's been here for, I don't know, 25 plus years. And Pat. Pat was a true member of the car club. He was always at the car shows. And finally, he offered his assistance with the car show, so he's been around, I don't know, 10, 15 years probably. He's 20, he's been around. But I also want to mention my friends from Rosemont, Kathy and Mike Busho, they've been with me for as long as I've been doing this. They have been in charge of parade staging, and... They've done a wonderful job. All these people, I want you to thank all of them because they've all done well, but I, in the 40 plus years that I've chaired this event, I have had so many wonderful, wonderful volunteers, true arts, true committed people, and there's way too many for me to mention, and I don't want to forget anybody. So you all know who you are, and I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. So some have gone to their heavenly home, and I hope they can hear me tonight thanking them again for everything.

Thanks, Pat. Thanks for recognizing the others who have done this as well. Council Member Grendel.

I don't know what we're going to do, because I've been in the parade 30 years. And every time I saw you, I'd say, you lead such a charmed life. Only one time in 30 years, I remember that it rained and we were shut out. What are we going to do without your charm?

Well, it took a lot of talking, I'll tell you, and a lot of prayers. But you know, the parade, my RMC, Chuck Brooks, He used to always tell me it doesn't rain on the parade. And we would be out seven o'clock in the morning marking the streets. And then a rain shower would come through. And it would just, you know, so we sat in cars and then we had to go back out and remarket it before 11 o'clock. Because I can tell you if those numbers aren't on the streets before 11 or by 11, we're in deep chaos.

Mm-hmm.

because the people start coming in and the parade semis are being delivered and it's just, it's chaos over there. I have a lady friend that helped me a couple, she couldn't help every year but she helped a couple years ago and she's a lady somewhat like me where she, She ran the PTO and I ran the PTO and she was room mothers and room managers and team managers. Anyway, she said to me at the end of the parade, she said, excuse me, she said, how in the hell do you do this every year? She said, this is chaos. And I said, it's only chaos until one o'clock. everything falls where it's supposed to but it does if if you don't do it all the time you I when I first started with Margaret Patton um and um I just thought, oh my God, this is never, ever gonna work. And it does. At one o'clock, it's just like magic.

It's magic.

It's all.

You've made magic for a lot of years, Pat, that's for sure. So it's done. Well, if you don't mind, I'm gonna read this proclamation. We're gonna actually adopt it, because sometimes I forget to ask for that vote, but we do wanna make it official. And then if council would indulge us, I would love to just have us get a quick picture with Pat and the proclamation before we let you go, and then we'll quit embarrassing you publicly that point. Okay. So the proclamation reads, whereas Pat Sessho has been a longtime member of the Apple Valley community and has been instrumental in the ongoing success of Freedom Days. And whereas through her extraordinary work with countless volunteers, Ms. Sessho has demonstrated leadership and enthusiasm for the Apple Valley community. And whereas Ms. Sessho has led the Freedom Days committee for well over 45 years and helping make sure that Apple Valley families have a safe, fun, and accessible event to attend while celebrating our country's freedom. And whereas, after many years leading Freedom Days Committee, Ms. Sesshaw has decided it's time to take a step back and spend more time with her family. whereas the Apple Valley community celebrates her achievements in creating a well-rounded community experience that has built community pride, opportunities, and positive memories which will stand the test of time for many years ahead. Now, therefore, the City Council of the City of Apple Valley, Dakota County, Minnesota, hereby proclaim September 10th, 2026 as Passage Show Day in Apple Valley. Proclaim this 10th day of September.

So moved.

Second. Motion from Council Member Grendel, the second from Council Member Bergman. All those in favor, indicate by saying aye. Aye. All right. Let's give her a round of applause.

Thank you. thank you can i can i just add one more quick thing of course i want to i really want to thank all the city staff police fire you guys have been awesome and um and all the departments in this city it's uh I can't thank them enough for the support. And I know we locked horns a lot.

She's not looking at me, though, yet.

But we got it done. And John, I got to tell you that we have a rule. There's 10 rules in the parade.

He's broken all of them.

And you broke all of them. I will, I, every, and I, I really like you. I'm just going to give you a little crap, but I'm used to it. We wrote these. Nope. We wrote these rules and I wrote, we wrote these rules with the park committee and Randy Johnson years ago. And I sit in my golf cart every, every 4th of July and watch you get everything organized in the back of your pickup truck and cover it up so you think, I don't know what you're doing.

But I do.

But I do. And God bless you. It's worked for you. For about five years, it really pissed me off. But I got used to it. I got used to it and I dealt with it because that's what I do. And I'm glad you have a good time. And I'm gonna miss Ruth's bubbles. Ruth's bubbles are the best. She gave me a bath all the time.

I had water and it was giving me time to...

But the best time was this week newspaper, the photographer got a picture of you in the back of your truck with your water guns. And it was on like the front page of the paper.

And I thought that was awesome. Finally have evidence. Finally have evidence. And I will say if I may. Thank you. Mayor, if I may.

Some of you folks know about it, others don't, but Pat did a beautiful job every year handing us out cards that were well done. And I have everyone at home, and I forgot you were coming, but they're beautiful.

Well, you might be surprised. Keep your eye on the mail. I've got one more for you. All right, let's get a quick picture.

I'm going to hold that one. Yep. We'll get everybody squeezed in here somehow. Okay.

Charles is going to sneak over there. Yep, I'll let you sneak in there. Let's balance it out.

Well, this is the expert, so I'm going to take her advice.

Okay. Come on, you guys should get up here too. Come on. No, no.

Thank you. MR. Thank you, Pat. So we're going to move on to the next items on our agenda, and we're going to talk about a bond in the budget. Pat and team, if you all want to leave because you have an issue, we will not be offended in the least before we jump in these items.

I have to go two and a half hours, so I'm going to.

Yes, I know you all have other places to be. Thank you. Thank you. We'll move on to 5B, which is our general obligation bond series 2026A, and Candy's all ready for this item. Teach Eric to put things back where he found them.

Wasn't sure how far back I could push it. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council. Tonight we're going to talk about the 2026 bond issuance. This is for the park referendum bonds, which were the voter-approved bonds back in 2023. The amount that we're planning on issuing this year is $14,300,000. Our issuance calendar is to set sale tonight on September 10th, or set the sale. The rating calls are going to be held with Moody's and S&P on November 16th and November 17th. We'll get our rating report sometime at the end of November. We'll come back and set the bond sale and award on December 10th, and then our proceeds should be available on December 29th. The 2026A park referendum bonds, the investments include Overall, the park referendum bonds, the development of Kelly park. We did the redevelopment of the Redwood park, which include included the replacement of the community pool. Additional improvements are the community center improvements in the senior center, which are well underway. We have the Hayes youth baseball and softball complex, the parks and trails throughout our community. The splash Valley family aquatic center was completed and the Hayes arena has already been completed. The referendum authorized by the voters, $73.25 million, which included the $6.5 million for the Redwood pool. In 2024, the issuance was $16.3 million. In 2025, we did $29.4 million. And now in 2026, we're issuing the $14.3 million, with the remainder to be issued in early 2027. This is the schedule of the various issuances totaling the $73,250,000. So tonight, our actions that we're requesting is the resolution providing for the competitive negotiated sale of the 14.3 million general obligation series 2026A, and also the motion to approve the municipal advisor service agreement with Northland Securities, which we do have a representative here from Northland. Tammy Omdahl is here with us if you have any questions. On top of this, we just wanted to review the impact of our bonds for the parks. So as you can see, we were at a little over $200 for the 2026 budget. And in 2027, we're expecting to go up to $253 per year. That's included in the 2027 budget that we're going to review tonight and in the 2028 second part of our biennial budget. In total, the max is going to go up to $253 for the total issuance of the park bonds. The impact to our median value home does reach $481 a year, and this is with all of our debt issuances. As we've discussed previously, we are not going to be issuing the CIP bonds for 2026 or 2027. We are expecting CIP bonds in 2028, depending on how we handle the CMF facility. And then this is our annual debt service requirements. We'll see a little bit of a spike in 2029, and then it'll level off in 30, and then we'll start going down in 2042 and continuing the decrease through 2050. And that is the end of my presentation. Does anyone have any questions?

Council members, any questions for Candy on this one? If not, I think we can, if there's no questions, we'll just move on to the items in front of us, which the first one is to adopt a resolution providing for the competitive negotiated sale of $14.3 million of general obligation bond series 2026A. Do I have a motion to that effect?

Second.

Motion from Council Member Bergman, second from Council Member Malander. All those in favor indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? B1 carries. B2 is to approve the Municipal Advisory Service Agreement with Northland Securities. Do we have a motion?

So moved.

Motion from Council Member Hebert, second from Council Member Grendel. All those in favor indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? That takes care of everything for item 5B. Candy, thank you. All right, we're going to move on to 5C, which is our proposed 2027 city budget and property tax levy. Candy's going to walk us through this one as well. I know this group up here has seen this at a recent informal budget meeting, but the audience certainly hasn't, maybe in all cases. So we'll let you jump in and we'll take questions at the end.

Good evening again, and we're back for the 2027 budget and tax levy meeting. Our agenda tonight is to go through the budget timeline, our budget climate, our levy updates, our budget challenges and strategies, the general fund and property tax levy impact. We'll walk through our enterprise funds. We'll review the bonds. We'll go over some tax relief programs, and then future items remaining on our schedule, and then council discussion and direction. So our budget timeline, staff starts to prepare the budget starting approximately the month of May through early August. Our draft budget was just was distributed to council on August 13th. We had our budget workshop on August 27th and tonight we're scheduled to adopt the preliminary budget and levy so that we can certify that to the county by September 30th. Now, just to be clear, this levy cannot go up after we certify it, but it still can go down until we certify our final budgets in December. The county is required to send the parcel-specific notices between November 11th and November 24th. Therefore, we'll hold our budget discussion again, or the truth in taxation meeting, on December 10th. We'll adopt the final budget and tax levy on the December 10th council meeting, and our backup date is going to be Tuesday, December 22nd, with final certification due to Dakota County by December 29th. In the budget climate, I think we're all very well aware of the economy and how unsettled it has recently been. Our residential property values have increased 2% in Apple Valley, and our median home value increased 2.02%. Our commercial property values are increasing 5.1% for 2027, with 4.5% of that due to appreciation and new construction related to that increase of 0.6%. So our levy updates for the budget. We met back in April for our goal setting session, and at that point in time, we believed that our levy was going to be 15.38%. That included the park bond debt service of 5.76%, an operating levy of 9.62%. Since then, staff's worked very diligently to go through all of the costs in the budget at a detailed level, and we've also done a re-evaluation of our park bond issuances. Therefore, we'll be issuing the remaining park bonds over 2026 and 2027, which brought down the debt service to $891,000 for 2027. And the affiliated levy will be 6.76% for the operating levy and 2.17% for the park bond issuance, bringing the total levy down to 8.93%. So our revised budget, the levy increase includes 3.987%. or 8.93%, and the makeup is driven by the 2026 park referendum, the debt service affiliated with it, the increase in our existing park and CIP bond levy debt services of 291,500. We do have the COLA and the step increases, which is the impact for the general fund, of 1.7 million. We're seeing increases in contractor and subscription prices of around $698,000. And then we do have two new positions starting in 2027 for a cost of $333,000. So what are some of our budget challenges? We do have our contract settled through 2027. We have three labor union agreements. There's the anticipated pair of costs. We have wage pressures on COLA and market rates. And then we have felt the full impact of the Minnesota Paid Family and Medical Leave Act. We will have our new debt issuances, but still to be determined, which is not included in this budget, is fiscal disparities, the TIF value breakdowns, and, of course, the CMF facility project schedule. So our budget strategies are holding the issuances of those facility CIP bonds and making sure that we have a good strategy for the CMF facility. We're only issuing approximately 50% of the park referendum bonds for this year. We're working on finalizing the PFAS facility rate study. We're diligently pursuing and preserving our grants that we currently have with the federal and state government. And we're trying to protect ourselves through our investments from the market volatility. So the positions added for the 27-28 budget, we have a police detective, which the benefit and wages will be funded by the state public safety aid. And then we have a human resource leave and benefit specialist that we have added due to the additional work of all of the mandated work demands that we're seeing for state and federal reporting. There's five positions that are not currently budgeted. We have a police officer in 2028, which would be funded by the state public safety aid. There's a parks recreation supervisor and a parks maintenance worker, which would be related to the new improved senior center and Apple Valley community center, a fleet mechanic, and then a public works supervisor for building maintenance, which is, would be added for all of the new building demands that we have across the city. So items of note, the preliminary levy increases 8.93%. Debt is 2.17% of that, and general operations is 6.76. Again, our medium home estimated market value is increasing 2.02, and the taxable market value increased 2.2. That means the tax impact to the median value home is 10.16%. That equates to $172 per year, or $14.33 per month. Of that $172, debt service is $98, and general operations is $74, which includes the $5 loss on market value homestead exclusions. Our health insurance... Premium is flat for 2027. We just talked about that in the informal. We have our COLA impacts. We have the bond issuance in December of 2026, which was $891,000 for debt service. Our capital outlay for 27 is 37.6 million, which is lower than 2026 by 6.5 million. Our enterprise funds are down 3.9 million. Water is up by 1 million, but we did lose a state grant, which was 5.4 million from our stormwater area. Liquor sales are budgeted to be 0.6% lower than what they were budgeted in 2026. And the transfer to the general fund from our liquor stores, which have supported public safety and parks for many years is $976,500 for 27. So what are the overall revenue drivers? We do have new growth for 27 and that will contribute to $128,000 in new revenue. We're also monitoring reliance on our outside revenues, which include our police aid of $570,000, our fire aid of $542,000, our cable franchise fees of $280,000, and potential tax appeals, which are holding at $60,000 or 5%. And then, of course, we have our unknown fiscal disparities. So in our general fund, Taxes make up 75.3% of our general fund revenues. We do have parks and rec charges and rent is 3.8%. Other charges and services for the city is 4.2%. And licensing and permitting is 3.8%. And then we do have our grants, which is around 3%. This chart just shows the expense comparison of our wages, mandated benefits, employer provided insurance, supplies, utilities, repairs, our transfers out, and our capital outlay from the last two years, plus our budget for 27. The general fund expenditures, because we operate on a balanced budget, is also 54.3 million. Large majority of that goes to our police department of 17 million. Fire is at 4.3. Public works, which is all of our streets and maintenance, is 9.5. Parks is 7.9. General government, which is all your administrative services, is 5.2. Finance and IT is 1.3. And of course, we have legal fees of 663. So this is a chart that I'm sure you've seen before. This just breaks down our public safety aid. And just as a reminder, this eventually does phase out. And the levy you'll have to take over to pay for the police officers that we hire or the detectives. We have bought police cars with this. We've gotten rugged laptops. And of course, we've been able to expand some training opportunities for our officers. So the property tax levy. There's multiple uses for the levy. We of course have our general fund. We have several other funds that we use to make sure that we have funds available for situations where we have to do maintenance on our buildings. So we have the municipal building fund, the fire facilities and park facilities. We also contribute to the street maintenance program because we don't do special assessments in the city of Apple Valley. We will be adding a police equipment fund, which will help with the technological equipment that our police use to keep them safe. There's pieces of equipment that actually are on an expiration date. So they have to replace every five years or every seven years. And we want to stay ahead of that. So we don't have these huge swings in expenses for our police department. We also do some support for our ice arena. And then we have our debt. So the total levy is going to be $48,653,122 for 2027, and that's up the $3.9 million from $44,666,000 in 2026. This is another breakdown of the general uses, which is general operations, our street maintenance program, our CIP bonds, and park referendum bonds. So what are the tax impacts to the median value homed? So if our property value median is, the median home is $378,300, and again, this is only the city portion. It doesn't include the school system or Dakota County's tax impact. We take off a homestead market value exclusion, which is $12,503, which gives us our taxable market value of $365,797. Of that, our state class rate is 1%, which gives us a tax capacity for that home of $3,658. To that number, we apply the property tax rate, which we're estimating to be 49.717%, which means the gross taxes paid by this particular homeowner would be $1,819. On top of that, there's a market value based only referendum, which is $52. So the total property tax paid to the city would be $1,871. And just a reminder, this is preliminary. There's a lot of changes that can happen between now and the end of the year. But if everything stayed the same, the current homeowner would be paying in 2026 $1,698 will have the increase to $1,871, which is the $172. And that means 50% of the homes are at this level or lower in the city of Apple Valley. So on to the enterprise funds. So our enterprise funds are not supported by the tax levy. They're individual funds that have revenues associated for the services that they provide. So our liquor fund is expecting $10,831,000 in revenues. Their expenses are $11,408, and they'll have capital outlay of about $40,000 next year. The water and sewer fund, the revenue is expected to be $17,107,000. with expenses of $18 million, $28,000, and capital outlay of $8.2 million. A lot of the water and sewer fund, anytime that there's capital updates for when we're doing reconstruction of the roads, we're also reconstructing a lot of the utility services. The ice arena, the revenue is $1.1 million with expenses of $1.3 million. Storm drainage, $5.5 million with expenses of $3.4 million. Streetlight utility, 870,000 with expenses of 665,000 and the cemetery fund revenues of 359,000 with expenses of 319,000 and capital improvements of 291,000. So we're in the middle of our PFAS rate study. We have been working with the contractor to get through the statement of work, and then we'll kick off the rate study to have better rate information by the end of the year. Right now, we're predicting that we need at least a 7% increase on water, sewer, and streetlights, but the dollar amount per quarter for water would be $3.98 to an average bill. For sewer, it would be $5.20. For storm, it would be $3.99, and for streetlights, it would be $0.43. For a total increase to a residential homeowner of $13.60 or $4.53 per month. So just to give you an understanding of what's included in our utility projects, these are the larger projects that we have that our enterprise funds help to offset the expenses. These are just the large projects. So we have in total for 27, 23.7 million in utility and road improvements. We have the project on 147th, which is Cedar to Galaxy with the roundabout. That's $9,479,000. We have the Apple Valley additions, which is along the County Road 42 frontage roads of $6.3 million. The 145th Street Hayes to Pennock, which is $3 million. The reconstruction of Jermaine Avenue at 130th Street, which is the $2,633,000. And then the overhead to underground electrical project is $650,000 for 2027. And this will continue into 2028. So you'll see some of these projects listed twice because they'll go over two years. Again, we have the Apple Valley additions, which is the Dakota County 42 frontage roads of $6.3 million. We have the Ellis trail, Johnny cake, Ridge road to pilot knob 5.5 million reconstruction of Jermaine 2.6. The Florence trail Gadwell forum path, Flanders path 1.1 95, replacing our streetlights of a million dollars. And then the continuance of the overhead to underground electrical project of 700,000 in total, the improvements for 2028 are $22.6 million. So our bond issuance, which we just went over, it's all related to the park referendum bonds. So I won't go into as much detail on this part of it. But in total, our park referendum, which was voter approved, was $73.25 million. And our issuance for this year, that number needs to be updated. It's actually 14.3 is what we'll be issuing now. Park bonds, again, the median value home reaches $253 at its peak. And with all bonding, we'll start to see it cap off in 2030, and then it'll start to decrease in 2042, starting to phase out in 2045 to 2050. But at its peak, it'll be $481 a year. So future items. We still need to work through the CIP bond issuance strategy. We will have the 2027 final park bond issuance. We will look into and identify if we need to do 2028 water and sewer utility revenue bonds because of the road situations we have and the aging of the city. We'll have additional Metro city analysis is available. So onto our remaining schedule. So tonight we're requesting for approval of the preliminary levy for the County certification. And again, it would mean our levy could not go up from the 8.9, three, but it could go down. We'll submit for our truth and taxation insert to the county September 15th. We'll do our truth and taxation meeting on December 10th. And so for the council, is there any additional information that you need? Are there any suggested changes to the levy or the budget? Are there any additional budget review dates that you would like to have?

Is that it? You're done. Perfect. Well, your questions are in front of us, so I'm going to turn it over to council to see who has questions for you. Who wants to start? We've all had some opportunity to go through this, so it's not like the first time we're seeing it, so I'll be shocked if questions are light, but we got the time tonight, so let's go through them.

I don't have a question on the budget, but we were looking at another review date. So that's all I was looking at.

Yeah, we've got, what did we talk about for an additional budget review date, Tom? I know we chatted about it yesterday.

Mr. Mayor, yes, the idea was to use the informal meeting, first meeting in October, as an additional budget review time. So you would not need to set an additional separate meeting, but we can incorporate that into our regular informal.

Does that work for everyone to use that date? Okay.

um other questions other information um thank you mayor um i i just i know we've had some conversations about it and i appreciate sitting down with you candy and tom with questions and making sure we're under i'm understanding all the details of the of the budget um one of the things that uh wanted to just again throw out here is the idea of the truth in taxation that people can you know come and and talk and ask that you're available and people have questions about this i think that's really important that they understand what the budget is about and what the levy and their and their tax implications and so i know that you're very available for that and appreciate that and i know we've talked about the idea of last year we did a budget town hall session not a lot of people came but Definitely would be again interested in doing something similar Maybe not so staff intensive as it was last year But just an opportunity again for people to who have questions to come in and speak with us as council members and or And in staff as well so people can really understand again what the budget is about and how it impacts it impacts them and their households

Thanks. My only other question is just additional info as we think about this. Like you said, we can still bring this down. We have that opportunity. But I think for us to give direction to say less is really hard to do. So where are those categories? And what's helped me in the past think about that is a reduction of X results in what? So if you slice $250,000 out of the budget, how does that impact the whole thing? And you can kind of put that a little bit in perspective then of what that impact is. And I don't need it tonight, but I think if we can get to that, It just helps, right? Because I think what you see is moving $100,000 out doesn't move the needle a whole lot, but it's pretty impactful maybe to a program when it starts to come out of those, so you can kind of measure that. The other one that came to mind as you went through this that I hadn't thought of before, as I look at this, we've absorbed a number of... really HR-related cost to administering some of the program changes that come to the state. And I'm not saying those are bad changes, but I would like to understand what that cost kind of is. So we got one person, but then lumped in your personnel cost is the paid family medical leave kind of impact. And I know that's a little harder to get at a number, because sometimes you've had to add extra staff to come up with the differences. But I'm just understanding how much of those, where those other changes hit us. I often feel like we're kind of the bottom of the funnel and we're left catching all the things that kind of get thrown at us. And we're seeing the county made some changes this year. Some of those may have some indirect impacts. Some of those may have some more direct impacts. They're going to be really hard to measure in future years. If the county cuts some social services help, and we end up with more public safety stuff as a result, that's going to be really hard to actually measure. But I think it's worth watching. So I think any of those would be helpful and understanding.

So on the Minnesota Paid Family Leave Act, so what's happening is when people are taking that and going out on the leave, either the rest of staff is having to jump in and put in overtime to cover for it. We've seen that in the police department. We've seen it in other areas that have been impacted for it. So you're having an increase in overtime this year that we didn't have necessarily in the previous year. So we've got that cost. We have the added cost of the actual cost of the insurance that we have to cover. So we can get more information for you and be ready for that in October.

Perfect. I may have some others. Those are kind of the top ones that cross my mind is just great informational items to kind of understand the impact of all of this that maybe isn't all are doing right, but we're getting hit with and we need to deal with. I mean, if you look at the county's budget, you see a great a pretty significant portion of that too. That's mandated that comes through that you kind of have to do right so. Anything else? Lisa, that's my favorite.

Just also wanted to acknowledge and I think you know Starting out with the idea of a 15% What tax levy and bringing it down to eight point nine three is you know? Appreciate, you know all staffs work to really sharpen those pencils and kind of figure out how to move this move this around to lessen the impact will will still balancing and keeping our services to our community Kind of at the level that they're at so And again with all the increasing costs across the board so just wanted to acknowledge that that was a lot of a lot of work and a Pretty significant drop and jump down.

So, thank you Any other questions If not, this is our opportunity to consider adopting the proposed budget levy. Again, with the note that we have the opportunity to come down, but this kind of sets our maximum going forward. So the first item on 5C is to adopt a resolution approving the 2027 proposed budget and property tax levy. Do I have a motion to that effect?

So moved.

Motion from Council Member Hebert. Do I have a second? Second. Second from Council Member Bergman. Any additional discussion? All right. Seeing none, all those in favor, indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? All right. And the second item is to set the 2027 public budget meeting, formerly known as the Truth in Taxation hearing, for Thursday, December 10, 2026 at 7 PM. Do we have that motion?

So moved.

Motion from Councilmember Hebert and a second from Councilmember Grendel. All those in favor indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? That carries. Candy, thanks for the work. Thanks for you and your team and honestly all the staff for the, I know the hours that go into this behind the scenes, right, that don't begin to show up in the presentation, so thank you. That moves us on to staff and council communications. And I know that Eric was gonna come up and talk to us about the grand opening of Kelly Park.

Mr. Mayor, members of the council and the community, just quickly, just a friendly reminder about the grand opening of Kelly Park coming up. It's Saturday, September 26th. Here's our schedule. You can find out more information on our website, but at noon the food trucks will be there. We've got a kids DJ from noon to 1.30, live music, continuing education from 1.30 to 3. Then while the main event, the Urban Classic Presents, is setting up, we're going to turn on the large screen TV and turn on, whether it be a Twins game or a Gophers game, some type of a sporting event for people to watch as the band sets up. The mayor and the council and the parks committee will be invited up to the stage around 5.30 for the actual ribbon-cutting event, and then we'll have the live music starting from 6 to 7.30. And that music is in cooperation with the Apple Valley Arts Foundation, and the music will be done by Urban Classics. They'll be doing some Earth, Wind, and Fire, again, from 6 to 7.30. we will have food trucks on site and so if you come please come hungry and patronize the food trucks that we'll have there and parking we expect we're kind of planning depending on the weather we're planning about 4 000 people so parking will be at a premium close to or in or around the park but we we are partnering with mvta to provide some shuttle bus service so Park at City Hall, park at the Western Service Center, jump on a free bus over to Kelly Park, jump on the free bus after everything's over. The bus will be running every 15 minutes, so it'll be easy and convenient, and you won't have to worry about parking a long ways and having to walk a long ways. And then these are some of the groups in town that are helping make this event possible. And the Apple Valley Arts Foundation works with these groups to help with donations and paying for the band, et cetera. So patronize these groups as well. again it's saturday september 26th noon to 7 30ish hopefully the weather will be awesome and we'll have a great day thanks eric thank you excited to excited to get this day here right we've been waiting for a long time to get this reopened so tom any other staff items yes mr mayor one more item uh our police chief nick francis also has a special event coming up that he'd like to share with the council

We'll see if I can get it on here. On the document, there we go. So we have our public safety in the park, which is kind of a picnic format, inviting the public to go out there. We've been promoting this on our social media channels, on the city's website. But this is kind of an outdoor open house, so to speak. Come chat with some of our staff. It is going to be Wednesday, September 23rd, 5 to 7 p.m. Johnny Cake Park West. So if you're anywhere near the Aquatic Center, the new skate park, the Goodwin Pickleball Complex, you'll find us over there. Typically, it's the time of year where there's football practices going on. There's fall sports. So there's a lot of activity down there. And we get families showing up who just happen to be down there and come across it. Our new hot dog wagon will be running on full capacity. steam at full capacity, and so usually we go through a couple few hundred hot dogs or more during this event. So while supplies last, you can get a free meal, hot dog, chips, and a drink. There's gonna be all sorts of public safety vehicles there between police vehicles, fire vehicles, SWAT vehicles, I think our SOT team. And we also have someone from Minnesota State Patrol with a crash simulator, rollover crash simulator. So all sorts of things to kind of engage with. And finally, we'll have our bike patrol out there. If it's nice enough to ride a bike, we're inviting folks to ride down. We'll do a little safety lesson and take a little safety ride with our bike patrol through the park. So come on down. We will be down there. I won't say rain or shine. It's not going to be, we're not picky with perfect weather. But keep an eye on social media. For the most part, we get great fall weather. We have not had to cancel one of these yet. This will be our fourth annual public safety in the park, and we're inviting everyone to come out and join us.

Great. Thanks, Chief. Thanks. Tom, anything else? Council members, anything this evening for council communication items? All right, seeing none, that'll take us on to our calendar of events. Our next city council meeting is, a regular city council meeting, is 7 p.m. on Thursday, September 24th. As we get to the upcoming calendar of events, note we're going to add an informal council meeting at 5.30 p.m. on 9.24, and that's here at the Municipal Center. So that will be added to the calendar of events that is published in your packet. And with that change, do I have a motion to approve the calendar of upcoming events?

So moved.

Motion from Council Member Grendel and second from Council Member Bergman. All those in favor indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? All right, that item carries. And do we have a motion to adjourn?

So moved. Second.

A motion from Council Member Grendel and a second from Council Member Hebert. All those in favor indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? And we're adjourned. Thank you.