City Council - Regular Meeting

Hello Bloomington, I'm Mayor Tim Busse and this is the Council Minute for the week of May 18th. This week, the City Council received a detailed update on response times, staffing, and future service needs for the Bloomington Fire Department. As you know, Bloomington is in a years-long process to move to a fire department served by a combination of full-time and part-time firefighters. The main reason for the change is, of course, improved public safety. The men and women in BFD do an outstanding job, but they are very busy, and staffing shortages continue to be the main reason why response times are not where we want them to be. When I say busy, back in 2025, the department responded to more than 11,700 calls for service, including 19 structure fires and thousands of medical emergencies. So far in 2026, call volume is already up another 4%, with about 70% of those calls being medicals. and the need for service is citywide. check out this map. the white dots show the locations of our fire stations, and the red dots show where they have responded to calls. just this year alone. the update also highlighted the importance of response times. the city's goal is for the first fire unit to arrive at a scene within 7 minutes and 30 seconds after receiving a call, and to do that 90% of the time. Currently, the response times are around nine minutes, with some cases even longer due to staffing shortages. To address these challenges, Chief Seale and Deputy Chief Forster presented a long-term staffing plan that would expand full and part-time staffing, consistently staff six fire stations, and improve emergency response across the city. The plan also includes construction of a new fire station number two and future upgrades to other stations. I think everyone in the city is well aware that this fire department transition is a heavy financial lift for Bloomington. I also trust that everyone appreciates how important it is to do this. This community's willingness to step up and support these efforts says a lot about our collective commitment to public safety. Thank you. And thank you to our firefighters, paramedics, inspectors, and support staff for their dedication and their service to this community every single day. I'm aware of some chatter online over the past couple of weeks regarding Smith Park and the City of Bloomington's use agreement with Dar El Farouk, so I wanted to take a minute to clear up some confusion and misinformation. First, it's important to understand what a shared use agreement actually is. It's basically a contract that allows the public to use facilities on property that the city doesn't own. In this case, the property we're talking about is adjacent to Smith Park, but belongs to Darrell Farouk, not the city of Bloomington. Back in 1999, the city partnered with the property owner at the time, Lutheran High School of Greater Minneapolis, to help build the football field and improve the parking lot and utilities. Bloomington's total investment was a little over $82,000. Then in 2015, the City entered into a broader shared use agreement with DAF that gave the public access to the rectangle field, to the tennis courts and basketball courts, and to the parking lots. The City also agreed to help maintain some of those facilities. Fast forward to this year. On May 4th, the City Council approved a revised use agreement that scales that arrangement back. under the new agreement, the public will still have access to the tennis and basketball courts and the shared parking lots, and will of course have total access to all of smith park, the walking pass, the pavilion, the ninja skills course, but the football slash soccer field, the rectangle field, is no longer included in the agreement. and that detail matters. because the city is not giving away parkland. Bloomington has never owned the Rectangled Field. It has always been part of privately owned property, now owned by Dar Al Farouk. It's also important to note that Bloomington youth sports organizations were notified earlier this year that this change was likely happening. Last year, Bloomington Athletic Association was the only organization using the field, with around 50 reservations total. The city is working with them to find alternative field space. It's absolutely the case that taxpayer money helped build the field. But keeping it operational long term would require much larger future investments. Ending the agreement is expected to save about $6,000 to $8,000 a year in maintenance costs alone. That doesn't include major capital upgrades that will likely be needed very soon. Things like irrigation and replacing the lights, which could cost around a quarter of a million dollars. AND WHILE IT'S TRUE THERE ARE ONLY SO MANY LIT FOOTBALL AND SOCCER FIELDS IN BLOOMINGTON, THE CITY'S POSITION IS THAT PUBLIC DOLLARS ARE BETTER SPENT INVESTING IN FIELDS ON SITES THE CITY OWNS AND CONTROLS LONG TERM. Finally, some people have asked why DAF can opt out of the agreement, but the City really can't. That comes down to zoning and legal agreements already in place. In 2020, the City approved a conditional use permit for the property that requires shared parking and access to continue. Because of that, the City can't simply walk away from those portions of the agreement without going through a formal legal process or getting the property owner's consent. So, this is not the city selling off a park. It's the city reducing its financial responsibility and involvement in maintaining and scheduling a field located on privately owned property. Finally today, the 2026 Minnesota legislative session has wrapped up and Bloomington came away with a couple of wins. First, the city received approval to allow liquor sales at Duan Golf Course. Yes, I know it sounds a little strange that Bloomington needed special legislative approval to sell alcohol at a city-owned golf course while routinely issuing liquor licenses to bars and restaurants. But under Minnesota law, municipal golf courses can't sell anything stronger than 3-2 beer unless they fall under a specific legal category, usually as a restaurant or a private club. Duan didn't fit those definitions, so the city had to seek special authorization from the legislature. Getting that approval is good news for the course and for its long-term operations. The second major win is that Bloomington secured four million dollars in state bonding funds for the north central sanitary sewer project. That funding will help design and construct critical sewer improvements needed to support future growth and redevelopment in north central Bloomington, including the penn american district. The timing could not have worked out better. The state bonding money was approved late Sunday, and then on Monday evening, the city council approved the bond sale to help fund the project. Originally, the city was planning to borrow $24.6 million for the work, but thanks to the state contribution, that number dropped to $20.3 million. That's real savings for Bloomington taxpayers. I want to thank our Bloomington legislative delegation for their hard work in getting this done. That will do it for this week's Council Minute. Thanks so much for tuning in. Until next time, stay safe, Bloomington.