City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. I will call our Bloomington City Council meeting to order. Tonight is Monday, July 20th, 2026. Thank you to everyone in the council chambers who has joined us, and thanks to all the folks watching online. We appreciate your participation here. We will begin our meeting as we always do. If you are able, please rise, remove any head coverings, and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Once again, welcome to everyone. Council, good to see you all. Thanks for being here tonight. We are waiting on Council Member Carter. Oh, she is on. Okay, when she is on. We have Council Member Carter remote this evening, so all of our votes are going to have to be roll call votes. So a little added level of complexity, but I'm sure we'll be fine. Our first order of business here is to approve tonight's agenda. And we've got a full agenda again tonight, Council. Under our introductory items, item 2.1, we have a Minnesota Recreation and Park Association Award of Excellence presentation. And since they are here, I bet you know who the excellence is celebrating here. Looking forward to that, and I'm very excited about that. Our consent business is 19 items long. Council Member Lohman has our consent business tonight. Under item four, hearings, resolutions, and ordinances, we've got one public hearing and then one approval that we have to do. The first is a public hearing on item 4.1 regarding a resolution of support for a Minnesota Investment Fund application in connection with Seagate Technology. Item 4.2 is to approve the type two preliminary and final plat of South Town Shopping Center fifth edition. Under item five, our organizational business, we have two items there as well. Item 5.1 is the Minnesota Valley State Trail, the Bloomington Phase II segment. And item 5.2 is the second amendment to the 2016 Master Redevelopment Contract for private redevelopment of land. We'll wrap up with our council policy and issue update, and we will have a meeting, council.

Are there any additions or corrections to the agenda as stated?

Hearing none, I will move approval of tonight's agenda. Motion and a second by Council Member Rivas to accept tonight's agenda. No further council discussion on this. Ms. Ryan.

Council Member Carter. Aye. D'Alessandro. Aye. Rivas. Aye. Nelson.

Aye.

Lohman.

Aye.

Robertson. Aye. Mirabasi.

Aye. Motion carries 7-0 and we have an agenda. And we will start with item 2.1. This is a presentation for the Minnesota Recreation and Park Association Award of Excellence. We've got Anthony DeBellis. Are you going to kick it off for us, Anthony, or are we going to go right to Mitchell? Right to Mitchell. Right to Mitchell. Very good. Mitchell Check is with the city of Shoreview, but you're the president of the organization this year?

Is this automatically on? Yes, it is.

Okay.

I'm with the city of Shorewood.

Shorewood, excuse me, not View. I'm sure you get that all the time.

My apologies. Trust me, I get calls for the Shoreview Community Event Center all the time, and we don't have a pool in Shorewood. But I'm a part of the awards committee for the Minnesota Recreation and Park Association, also known as MRPA. It's my pleasure tonight to be here to present not one, but four awards of excellence for the city of Bloomington's outstanding contributions to the park and rec field in 2025. Awards were very heavy carrying up here, so bear with me there. Before I dive into the awards themselves, I'll just give a brief overview of Minnesota Park and Rec Association, as well as kind of the awards and where they come from. So MRPA was formed in 1937 with the basis of fostering growth and development within the parks and recreation field. Presently, there are around 850 professional members. That includes cities, counties, districts, retirees, students, as well as some commercial and private agencies as well. The awards committee was created in 1987 with the purpose of acknowledging things that are being done great within the Parks and Recreation field. It's important within the committee that we increase awareness about the outstanding things people are doing throughout the communities. Myself being on the board, it is awesome to just see all the things happening. As a smaller city, some of them aren't always feasible, but really sparks some ideas reviewing the applications and just seeing the outstanding work and the professionals we have in the field. This is an annual program. The awards committee is comprised of a good cross-section of people throughout the state. So we have representatives from all over in roles from directors to supervisors to kind of all over the board. So we really get a good segment of people working in a variety of fields to adequately assess the nominations. mrpa members may nominate a project for an award of excellence in seven different categories those categories are administrative or management strategies communications park and facility programming and events sponsorships and partnerships sustainability and volunteer initiatives once nominations are received they come in front of the committee we review them score them and then deliver them out so that's why i'm here this evening So with four awards, I'll kind of go one-on-one. I'll provide just a brief overview of each award. We'll call up for a little photo opportunity, and then we'll move on to the next award. So first award received this evening is in the Administrative and Management category. It's for Bloomington's data-driven park maintenance and operations plan. So this plan developed a maintenance and operations plan that delivers clear community-centered benefits by improving consistency, quality and sustainability of the city's park system. The plan responds directly to community expectations for safe, clean and well-maintained parks by establishing defined service levels and aligning resources to meet those standards. So with that, I will call up whoever is accepting that award.

Thank you. There you are. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you.

Our next category is under the Park and Facility category. This is for the Logan Lodge Interim Senior Activity Center. So following the closure of the Creekside Community Center, staff needed to find a solution to maintain senior programming while the voter-approved Community Health and Wellness Center was constructed. They're able to create a welcoming and functional interim senior activity center at a decommissioned DMV facility for this interim center called Logan Lodge. This creative reuse of an existing facility has allowed the city to maintain very crucial and important city programming until the new center opens in 2027. So with that, I will call up the Logan Lodge.

thank you you're welcome congrats guys

Third on the list, we have the Programming and Events category for the Bloomington Indigenous Art Fair. This new innovative program established a permanent platform in Bloomington where over 40 Indigenous artists can showcase their work, tell their own stories, and foster deep cross-cultural understanding through immersive arts and performance. It provides outstanding artist representation, cultural immersion, interactive learning, and community leadership. And lastly, under volunteer initiatives category, we have the Dred Scott Field Improvement Kickoff. The goal of this project was to enhance fields three and four at the Dred Scott Playfields to better serve the fast pitch community and the city's partner, the Bloomington Fast Pitch Association, to improve the overall field safety and playability. Through community partnerships, engaged volunteers, and partner organizations, they collaborated on a work event that combined financial investment, labor, and shared resources. The Toro Company supported the project by providing specialized equipment for turf maintenance and field renovations, and this coordinated planning effort allowed the city to reduce its costs while improving its valued amenities.

One, two, three, four.

So I will say not every city receives four awards, so you guys should be very proud of your Parks and Rec team and the staff. They truly have done some phenomenal work this year, and thank you for having me this evening.

Thank you, Mitchell, and I agree. Yes, I think everybody up here is very proud of our Parks and Rec staff, and everybody in this community should be. What struck me, Council, is so we had programming, we had arts, we had community engagement kind of thing, and we... And volunteers, I mean, we really went the gamut on everything, the entire spectrum of work that we can do in our Parks, Arts, and Recreation Division. So congratulations, and well done. I appreciate all of you, and thank you to our folks. That was a great event out at Dred Scott when we had the opportunity to get that cleaned up, and you guys did great work, and we're seeing the fruits of that pay off now, and some nice trophies that... fast pitches bringing home to the city of Bloomington. So well done. So thank you all. Thank you. You're greatly appreciated. Very proud of you. Very proud of the work that you do and how you represent Bloomington every day. So thank you all very much. Councilmember D'Alessandro, where are you?

Okay, very good. Very good. If you have a question, I'm here.

I was just curious if I may. Please. Thanks for being here. I was just curious what's the like do did just a very quick understanding of how do we apply as a city to do we nominate ourselves and then you go through a review process or are you as peers like proactively finding projects. I just was curious how that worked.

So there's a little mix. I'd say most of the applications are by the cities themselves. However, there are some times where, whether it's a sponsor, an organization, they'll nominate the city. But a lot of times for the legwork for the application, staff needs to be involved for those to get the budgeting numbers, get the timeline, all that fun stuff. So it is a bit of a mix.

Okay, great. Just want to understand. Appreciate it. You're welcome. Thanks, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. Have a great evening. And Mitchell, thanks for being here with us tonight. Absolutely. Appreciate it. Thanks. All our best to Shorewood. Thanks. Next in our agenda is our consent business. Council Member Lohman with our consent agenda. Council Member Lohman.

I've got 312. Any other holds? Seeing none, I'll go ahead and move 3.1 through 311 and then 313 through 319.

Second.

Motion by Council Member Lowman, second by Council Member Robertson to accept tonight's consent business as stated. Council Member D'Alessandro.

Point of clarification, I thought we had up to 3.19. Did you say 1.7?

No, 1.9.

My bad. I misheard you. Pardon me.

Yeah, you got to turn the page.

No, no, I thought he said 1.7. Oh, I'm sorry. But I misunderstood. Apologies. Thanks.

Okay. We have a motion and a second to accept tonight's consent business. Any further questions, comments? If not, Ms. Wright.

Carter. Aye. D'Alessandro. Aye. Rivas.

Aye.

Nelson.

Aye.

Lohman. Aye. Robertson. Aye. Mayor Bussey.

Aye. Motion carries 7-0. Item 3.12. Council Member Nelson's hold back.

Council Member Nelson. Thank you, Mayor and Council Member Lohman. I just wanted to hold this one again. I appreciate... that we've had conversations. We've held this item over a couple times here, and for some very good questions. Frankly, I found this to be one of the more interesting things that I've looked into. I got to spend time on the revisor's office website, going through our city code, breaking out my building code book, cross-referencing definitions. I think most people would have been asleep. I actually found it very interesting and fascinating. I'd like to thank the folks from the neighborhood that have come out. Gavin, I apologize that I did not take you up on your offer, but I have been out there to look at the property situation multiple times. Also been in the neighborhood on other previous occasions throughout the past eight years of my service here. And as I've gone through it and reviewed it, The reality is, is it meets the code and we are obligated as are all agencies of the government to follow codes, ordinances and laws. And it meets all of those from all of my review. I spent hours on this and it meets those. um and you know we can agree or disagree with that we can we can look at any of those that may need to be changed um you know there are some quirky provisions in there honestly um you know with regards to uh you know choosing your front yard and things like that but you know it does meet it does meet the codes it does meet the building code it does meet all of the things that we want and so i can't find a reason why we would not move it forward um THAT'S JUST THE REALITY OF IT. AND LIKE I SAID, I DID CANDIDLY REALLY TRULY ENJOY LOOKING INTO IT. IT WAS QUIRKY AND INTERESTING AND A LOT OF DIFFERENT MOVING PARTS IN THERE. BUT AT THIS POINT, EVEN THOUGH I'VE HELD IT FOR TWO DIFFERENT MEETINGS, I'M PREPARED TO MOVE IT FORWARD. I'M SURE MY COLLEAGUE COUNCILMEMBER LOWMAN WOULD BE WILLING TO MAKE THE MOTION.

Council Member Lowman. Mayor, I'll go ahead and move 312. I'll move to approve a preliminary plat and adopt a resolution approving the final plat for Olive Isle addition located at 8350 Amsdale Ridge Drive, subject to the conditions and code requirements attached to the staff report.

Second. Motion by Council Member Lowman, second by Council Member Nelson to accept item 3.12 on tonight's consent agenda. Is there any further council comment on this?

Council Member Lohman, then Council Member D'Alessandro. Council Member Lohman. Just briefly, I just want to thank both the mayor and the manager and the entire staff team for having the ability to let us kind of work it through. We appreciate the work that you did to bring it forward, and it made a lot of sense. I appreciate that. Thank you. Councilmember D'Alessandro.

Thank you. I echo those sentiments. Anytime we have these things, I go back to the challenge that we've had about passing these ordinances in these zones across the entire R1 spectrum and it's 77% of the city and this is the kind of thing that starts to happen when we do that large papering. Why I was frankly a fan of smaller cuts at that early on, right? But so what I would encourage staff to do is if as these things are happening if there are things that we need to kind of revisit that we could please have them brought forward so that we could take another look at them you know maybe if we have enough of these types of situations where they require this additional effort there's something central theme or something that bubbles to the top that helps us understand how in certain circumstances we might look at the code differently. So I think that will be important to us. We've kind of gone broad paper and now maybe cut back versus smaller cuts and increment our way out but either way there's an opportunity for us to look at that so I would encourage staff to do that but appreciate the effort here. Thanks.

Thank you. Thank you Councilmember. And I'll just add, thank the three of you for your comments, and thank you especially, Council Member Nelson, for your thoughtful comments on that. And I agree, this may be a matter of taste or thought or whether or not it's right, but it meets code. It ultimately does meet city code. And we are obligated, I think, to move it forward based on that. No further council discussion? Ms. Wright.

Carter? Aye. D'Alessandro? Aye. Rivas? Aye. Nelson? Aye. Lohman? Aye. Robertson? Aye. Mirabasi?

Aye. Motion carries 7-0. Thank you, Councilmember Lohman. We'll move on to Item 4, our hearings, resolutions, and ordinances. Item 4.1 is our only public hearing of the evening. This is a resolution of support for a Minnesota Investment Fund application in connection with the Seagate Technology LLC. Alan Thorpe from Report Authority is here. Good evening and welcome. You can turn either one of those around. This one works as well. There you go.

It's like this is my first time. Good evening, everyone. I am here to do the presentation for the public hearing for MIF, which is the Minnesota Investment Fund Program through the state of Minnesota DEED. Okay, so the Minnesota Investment Fund provides financing to help add new workers and retain high quality jobs in Minnesota. So how the program works is Minnesota DEED will grant the funds to the city of Bloomington and then in this case, the city of Bloomington would loan the funds to Seagate. And a quick overview of some Seagate project background. It is a established mass capacity data storage company in Bloomington. It has previously applied to the Minnesota Forward Fund in December of 2025, and it completed a build out of an 81,000 square foot facility on its campus. In March of 2026, city staff was contacted for additional potential project, and Seagate is evaluating Bloomington and two other sites. Seagate is applying for MIF funds, as well as the job creation funds, or JCF, which the council passed a resolution of support for that on June 29th, 2026. This is the potential council action, and then I'll open it up for questions, I think is the next step.

That is the next question, that's the next step, absolutely. Council, any questions of Ms. Thorpe here? All right, pardon?

Hey Mayor, sorry, I have a really quick question.

Oh, Councilmember Carter, I'm sorry, I didn't see you there. Councilmember Carter.

No, no worries. Maybe just something to clarify for the public. You know, this is for a, I think you use language, mass capacity data storage center or something. I can't remember the exact language. And with all of the debate around data centers, I think it might be useful to clarify for the public the difference between what Seagate is and what a data center is.

Yes. Thank you, Councilmember Carter. Excellent clarification. This is not a data center. They manufacture technology that does mass capacity data storage. So think of like a hard drive as kind of the, yeah, the technology. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember. I'm sorry I missed you there, but that's, yes, that's a good point to bring forward. Yes. Any other questions, Council? No questions? All right. Don't go far. We will open a public hearing on item 4.1 here in just a moment. If anybody wishes to speak, what I'd like to clarify here, you will have, anybody can come forward and speak on item 4.1. You will have three minutes to speak, and the clock on the wall will tell you when your time is up, and when you get to the end of your three minutes, I will stop you, just because I want to make it fair for everyone who is taking the opportunity to speak. As you come up, if you could identify yourself, state your name, and then when you finish up, sign in, and I know our, I don't see our clipboard, but I'm sure it's around here somewhere. AND IF THERE ARE ANY QUESTIONS THAT COME UP DURING THE PUBLIC HEARING, WHAT WE WILL DO IS ANSWER THEM AT THE END OF THE PUBLIC HEARING RATHER THAN TRY TO ANSWER THEM ON THE FLY. SO WITH ALL OF THAT SAID, I WILL OPEN UP THE PUBLIC HEARING IN ITEM 4.1. THIS IS A PUBLIC HEARING REGARDING THE RESOLUTION OF SUPPORT FOR A MINNESOTA INVESTMENT FUND APPLICATION IN CONNECTION WITH SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY. ANYONE IN THE COUNCIL CHAMBER WISHING TO SPEAK TO ITEM 4.1 THIS EVENING? NO ONE COMING FORWARD? Ms. Rye, is there anyone on the phone?

Mayor, we do not have anyone online.

Last call for anyone in the council chambers. Council, no one coming forward in the chambers, no one on the phone wishing to speak. I would look for a motion to close the public hearing on M4.1. Motion by Council Member D'Alessandro, second by Council Member Robertson to close the public hearing on M4.1. No further council discussion on this? Ms. Rye.

Carter. Aye. Dallis Handrell? Aye. Rebus? Aye. Nelson? Aye. Lohman? Aye. Robertson? Aye. Mirabasi?

Aye. Motion carries 7-0, closing the public hearing. Council, any comments, questions on this? Councilmember D'Alessandro.

Okay. So I think I'm confused about the intention of this. So this is an application by Seagate to the county for $5 million in assistance in building out this new thing. Is that correct? Is that what it is? And then we're the fiduciary that if first off this is a letter of support from us saying we like the idea of it happening in Bloomington and then if they were to be awarded we'd be the fiduciary that doles out the money at a zero percent interest rate. Is that, do I have it in like real sum up?

Except for the point where you said county, this is in fact a state program. State program. Sorry, my bad. Okay.

Right. Okay. Why is it no interest? I'm just confused by why it's no interest, given the fact, I mean, Seagate's stock price is $800 a share. They don't really need free money from the state at all to do anything, whether it's here or not. So I'm all for supporting like, hey, I love the idea of it being in Bloomington. What I'm confused by is why they need $5 million in free money from the state. and why we would support that when they made, I don't know, I'm going to guess, probably a 40% profit margin on their products last year. So I would just hold that thought is what I'm getting at and try to understand why it would be imperative. Now, if somebody could explain to me that the jobs that we would get from them are more than $5 million worth, to the city, I would buy that, but I don't think that that's true. Especially if you believe that with the advent of AI, the guarantee is that most of those jobs are half of what they would have been if we had done this 30 years ago. So maybe it's 100 jobs, maybe at $150,000 a year, which means our tax basis is, you know, what, $4,000. If they buy a house, it's $8,000. And then it takes a long time to get the $5 million. and so I just am confused. I love the idea of, I'm a huge fan of Seagate, have held their stock in the past. I'm currently not encumbered by their stock, so I don't have any stake in this at all, to say one way or the other. I want to be clear about that, but I get it and I use them, the products, you know, but I don't understand the free money thing. I don't. And so if somebody has some insights, I'd be happy to hear them.

I'd be happy to try and answer.

Sure, thanks.

The Minnesota Investment Fund originally was the Minnesota Forward Fund, which was approved, I think, six years ago, five, six years ago, when the federal government was working their way through the CHIPS Act. And the CHIPS Act was a reinvestment in microprocessing the semiconductor industry to try and reshore that in the United States. And it was the acknowledgment that without support, financial support, CHIPS INDUSTRY IS GOING TO CONTINUE TO BE IN SINGAPORE AND ELSEWHERE. IT'S NOT GOING TO BE IN THE UNITED STATES. IT'S IN TAIWAN, ELSEWHERE. SO THE MINNESOTA FORWARD FUND WAS AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE CHIPS ACT BECAUSE THE CHIPS ACT REQUIRED A LOCAL MATCH. AND SO FOR THE FIRST TIME, AND I ONLY SAY THIS BECAUSE I WORKED ON IT, AND I'M NO LONGER INVESTED IN IT EITHER. I'M DIVESTED MYSELF. The CHIPS Act needed the local investment, so the Minnesota Forward Fund was that local match. And we've seen our local companies, Seagate, we've seen Polar, we've seen Skywater, all use this local money to match at least portions of what the federal government made available through the CHIPS Act. It then evolved because it was a sum of money that the state of Minnesota had never received. earmark for this type of thing before and it was the understanding that uh... frankly in terms of the semi-conductor industry we were uh... we were getting our lunch eaten by just about everybody else that even though we were basically the hub of the semiconductor industry the beginning of it uh... we we were not we'd we write a competitive disadvantage because in phoenix in columbus ohio in boise idaho they were getting substantial public subsidies to build there. And so if we wanted to move forward, if we wanted to kind of level the playing field and get in the game, this money was necessary. So that's where the Forward Fund came from. And we got to the point where there was a significant amount of investment, but it still didn't match. I think the original, was it $400 million or $250 million? I can't remember what the original number was through the Forward Fund. A law was passed this past legislative session, or maybe it was last year, changing the Forward Fund to the Minnesota Investment Fund, where it was no longer now a matching fund for chips, but rather it was funding available for the technology industry just in general, just to provide, again, funding and support and local support for the efforts that they were trying to do. Because, again, we're continuing to get our lunch eaten by a lot of different places. This is an investment, and it's an opportunity and opportunity. A DESIRE TO CONVINCE SEAGATE TO STAY HERE. THEY HAVE OTHER SUITERS AND OTHER POSSIBILITIES WHERE THEY COULD GO. AND WE WOULD VERY MUCH LIKE THEM TO STAY IN BLOOMINGTON. WE WOULD VERY MUCH LIKE THEM TO STAY IN MINNESOTA, ACTUALLY STRADDLING BLOOMINGTON AND EDINA, IF I REMEMBER EXACTLY. SO IT'S BASICALLY AN INCENTIVE FOR THEM TO STAY WITHIN THE STATE OF MINNESOTA. And the United States as well, because the competitors right now are all offshore. So that is what the Minnesota Investment Fund was designed for when it started as the Minnesota Forward Fund. That's what the Minnesota Investment Fund is for. And it's just an incentive to try and entice a large, very successful company to continue business here in Minnesota. And whether or not that's an adequate answer, that's the answer.

I appreciate the insights and the information. It doesn't necessarily change my feelings about it but I do understand and I appreciate where you're coming from and the background is very helpful so thanks very much. I appreciate it.

Councilmember Rivas?

I do have a question concerning the Seagate moving overseas or outside the country. It's not feasible for any company to try to do that at this point? All the tariffs that have been implemented, that's one of the heaviest ones that is in place right now. So for a company to mention that they will move outside the country is just unfeasible. And secondly, did the 600 million that we got as a grant from the feds a couple of years ago have no contribution to Seagate at all? Was it just for the other two companies in Bloomington?

The initial Minnesota Forward Fund was a Minnesota-funded. It was not a federal grant. It was Minnesota-funded, and we were then matching the CHIPS Act, which was, I believe, a $51 billion investment.

So we did get a grant from the federal government two years ago that was $500 million to $600 million for the companies here in Bloomington. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I know I participated at Congress with this. We went and made a presentation. I think you're right.

And I don't know if that was the infrastructure bill.

Specifically for chips. That was what we went for. And I'm aware that we did get that grant. So what happened to all those $600 million? Were they invested in only one or two of the companies that produced chips in Bloomington or they were diverse? on to each and every one of them that's my question today i'm just curious to what happened to that so do you know anything about that or i uh council member rivas the

question, if I understand it correctly, is what happened to previous allocations to Seagate in regards to chips?

Yeah, because what I know specifically is that we did get a grant that was in $600 million specifically for the chip industry in the city of Bloomington. two years ago, perhaps a year ago. Wait, us, the city.

So I think what you might be thinking of, Councilmember, if I could, so Skywater and Polar both have applied for and received CHIPS funding.

Okay, so that's my question. The only two was Seagate part of that also.

Seagate has not received chips. That answers that question.

And the other one is I'm just curious, why would they be trying to move out of the country? It doesn't make any sense for anyone to do that. All companies are moving in to prevent being – have to pay tariffs. You know, Toyota just announced billions of dollars invested in the country. Why would Seagate try to move out of the country? Perhaps another state. And to compete with another state, I would agree with you, Mayor, that we will have to do something to – to make sure that they stay in Minnesota. I mean, I'm all for that. But, you know, I just, I'm curious to know if they're using that as leverage, saying, oh, we're going to move outside the country, which I would say, go ahead. See how it goes for them.

I would answer that, Councilmember. First of all, yes, they are using this leverage. They certainly are. And the second part of that, their world headquarters are in Northern Ireland. So they're not a United States company.

They're officially a Northern Ireland company. In that case, like I said, if it's going to benefit the state, of course I would support this. Other than that, it's very hard. I kind of agree with Council Member Alessandro that it's a senseless thing. But if it's to keep him here in Minnesota, yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am.

Council Member Lohman? Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to just thank you for giving us and the public a better understanding of the background of that. I did not know all that information, so I do appreciate that. And I also want to thank my colleague, Council Member D'Alessandro. bringing forward this idea where so many people are struggling to get by. Well, why are we, you know, giving a 0% loan to a company? I just think that's key that you brought that forward. And, you know, I appreciate that you, you know, that you brought that forward. The only other thing I'd say mayor before I'll move this forward is the way I kind of look at this is there's the other side of this as well. So we could lose jobs and that's the thing I'm more concerned about with this by not contributing to that. So with that being said, mayor, I'd be happy to move this.

I will ask one last call for the council. Any additional comments, questions? Council member Lohman.

Meryl moved to adopt a resolution to support for the Minnesota Investment Fund application in connection with the Seagate Technology LLC.

Second.

Motion by Councilmember Loman, second by Councilmember Robertson to adopt the resolution supporting Minnesota Investment Fund application in connection with Seagate Technology LLC. No further council discussion on this? Councilmember Dallis.

Is there any option to have this loan not be a 0% loan?

It is not the city's money. I mean, it's state money, and part of the state program is that we are simply the fiduciary. We're a pass-through.

Is there any option to not forgive it?

Mayor, council members, if I may, this is an approval for an application to the state. This is not an agreement of the loan or of the grant agreement. of it. We're just saying that, yes, we support this application to the state of Minnesota. And any of those discussions would be held publicly again when we go through the agreement process. And technically, not to be specific, although I know that our city attorney loves specificity from our attorney this morning, that they have to meet certain job and wage goals for that money to be considered. So I understand the concern of it being free money, but it is a grant from the state and in order for that to be in the correct agreement, it is set up that certain goals would be met and there would be some sort of verification of what they have applied for, and then that those goals were met.

So maybe you can explain to me, Mr. Muir, what the value of our support for it is, because it doesn't sound like we have any authority one way or the other. We don't get to set the goals, we don't get to set the price, we don't get to set the terms, we don't get to set anything, but we're going to support it because why? Maybe these jobs will be in Bloomington?

Well, their jobs will either be in Bloomington or Edina, depending on which side of the building they work on, I guess.

And all of the jobs? Or will Minnesota go like, oh, no, that's cool. The targets that you have to meet for these jobs to count towards your money don't actually have to be in Bloomington because they get to set the rules, not us.

If I recall the rules of the forward fund, as Ms. Thorpe said, I mean, it was pretty stringent about job creation, local investment, and where the money has to go.

Mayor, if I can just offer a couple of things. I just want to clarify that the Minnesota Investment Fund is a separate program from Minnesota Forward Fund. Minnesota Investment Fund's been around for a while, but they do, in my experience working with these bigger companies, oftentimes the state is working on a package and they go through their different funding sources. And in this case, they landed on the MIF and JCF as programs that would support the initiative that they're doing. So and I think it's a good question around the partnership with the state. It is a dance. Staff spends a lot of time working with all of the involved parties around these things. In this case, the state is working to have job growth be here rather than in other places outside of the US. And so that's kind of very common in these situations. And I'm happy to talk more about how those negotiations happen. But At the end of the day, today they're asking for support that do you want the state to invest these state resources to support Seagate in a possible expansion of a facility here? It would be new space, new jobs, pretty exciting project. But again, we're competing on a global market for these jobs, and this is the program that the state uses to try to incentivize these businesses to stay or to grow here.

And thank you for the clarification between the MIFF and the Forward Fund. I appreciate that.

Anything else, council member?

Very good. No further council discussion or questions on this. Ms. Ryan.

Carter.

Aye.

D'Alessandro. I'm going to abstain if I can. Thank you. Rivas.

Aye.

Nelson. Aye. Lohman. Aye. Robertson. Aye. Mayor Bussey.

Aye. Motion carries 6-0 with council member D'Alessandro abstaining. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. And we will be hearing from these folks again, I'm hoping, very soon. UP NEXT IS ITEM 4.2. THIS IS TO APPROVE THE TYPE 2 PRELIMINARY AND FINAL PLAT OF SOUTH TOWN SHOPPING CENTER, 5TH EDITION. JULIE LONG, OUR CITY ENGINEER, IS HERE. GOOD EVENING AND WELCOME.

THANK YOU, MR. MAYOR. HOPEFULLY THIS ONE GOES SMOOTHLY. THE APPLICANT FROM CROWS ANDERSON IS CROWS ANDERSON. received approval from council in September of 2024. Since then, they have not filed their plat with Hennepin County, so their approval has expired. They decided to reapply, and that's what is before you. So it's the same plat you approved in September of 2024. They're just resubmitting it for approval. And the first, the development, the first thing that would be built is the Dix House of Sport, which council has seen previously.

Very good. Council, any questions on this? Basically approving, as Ms. Long said, approving what has been approved previously.

all right no questions i'd look for action council on it in 4.2 i'm happy to make that motion councilmember alessandro sure uh move to approve preliminary plat and adoption and adopt resolution approving the final plat for south town shopping center fifth edition located at 7803 penn avenue south subject of the conditions and code requirements to the staff attached to the staff report second motion by councilmember alessandro second by councilmember robertson to approve the resolution for the final plat of south town shopping center fifth edition located at 7803 penn avenue south

No further council discussion on this? Ms. Wright.

Carter. Aye. D'Alessandro. Aye. Rivas. Aye. Nelson. Aye. Lohman. Aye. Robertson. Aye. Mayor Bussey.

Aye. Motion carries 7-0.

Can I not read the right thing?

I'm double-checking to see if this is a public hearing. Typically, we would have it listed as such in the packet. I just want to double-check later on in the staff report.

It is not officially listed. Type 2?

Okay. Thank you. Just wanted to be sure. Thank you, Julie.

Okay. All right. We will move on to Item 5, our organizational business tonight. First up is item 5.1. This is no action required on this item. It's a discussion on the Minnesota DNR, Minnesota Valley State Trail Bloomington phase two segment. We've got Mr. Jack Distel here. Good evening, Mr. Distel and Alex Yellick. Is that very good? Welcome. Thank you. Mr. Distel.

Mayor Busse, council members, thank you for having us. I'm bringing forward a presentation on an application for replacement and no loss under the Wetland Conservation Act. I assume that many of you have not seen much of the Wetland Conservation Act, so we're gonna do this, and the acronym WCA is colloquially called WACA, so if you hear me say that, that's the Wetland Conservation Act. I'm going to give you a speed review of what the Wetland Conservation Act is and the city's role in its administration. I will then turn it over to Alex, who is representing the Minnesota DNR. Alex will talk about the project at hand and the wetland impact in question, and I'll end it with a discussion on what our decision next steps are. So the Wetland Conservation Act was established in 1991. Its sole purpose is to stop the net loss of wetlands across the state. It is a policy that regulates the draining, filling, or excavating of any wetland. That's considered the impact. All projects have to attempt to avoid first or minimize their impacts to wetlands. This is referred to as sequencing. If a wetland loss occurs, anybody who does that wetland loss is required to either replace that wetland in a restoration nearby or they buy credits out of the wetland banking system. It is preferred that the credits purchased or the restoration occurred nearby to the wetland that was impacted and it replaces the same type of wetland that was impacted. It's a state policy which is run by the Board of Water and Soil Resources, but it's administered by local government units. The City of Bloomington is the local government unit that administers the Wetland Conservation Act within our full jurisdiction. Our responsibilities include providing a trained and knowledgeable staff member, at your service, coordinating the applications that come through and or issuing concurrence that a particular project does not need to go through the Wetland Conservation Act. A part of the application is coordinating with the Technical Evaluation Panel, or TEP, that is made up of a member of the Board of Water and Soil Resources, the DNR, the county, and the local watershed district, whichever one it is in, and the city itself. The vast majority of decisions made under WACA are done by city staff and signed by Julie Long, the city engineer. The only decision that requires city council approval are replacement plans. In Bloomington, because we are a fully developed city, we don't see a huge number of wetland applications come through. Mostly they're boundary and type, which is just figuring out where they are on the landscape so we don't mess with them. The replacement plans are particularly rare. This is my first one that I've done at the city. So I've been here since 2020. I believe the last one was in 2018. So the big things to keep in mind are that a replacement plan needs to minimize and avoid impacts as best they can and the applicant goes through the process of proving that they're meeting those standards and then if they show that they provide the evidence of Going through the process of replacing the wetland at hand whether it's a restoration or purchase of banking credits So we received an application by the Minnesota DNR on June 17th. And this pertains to the Minnesota River Valley State Trail, which is a project that we've already approved. A part of that trail construction is going to be in the application proposed to impact wetland. That means that well and will be permanently. And because of that, they are, the DNR, proposing to purchase banking credits to replace that well end. In the application, if you want to read through any of the details in your packet, they go through that sequencing process, that minimization and avoiding process that they're required to do to prove that that impact is the only option available. So why don't you all keep in mind, we're not making a decision today. We'll bring this back to you. The schedule right now is that we'll bring it back on August 3rd council meeting. However, if there's outstanding items, it can be delayed. So this is just to bring you all in as part of that evaluation, application evaluation process. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Alex.

Yeah. Thank you, Jack. All right. Mayor Busse, council, my name is Alex Yellick and I'm a senior environmental scientist with Anderson Engineering and Department of Natural Resources Parks and Trails consultant charged with leading the wetland delineation and the permitting process and so just a note on that as Jack had indicated The wetland permitting process, it follows a two-track parallel process by which it's reviewed by the state agencies, in this case, City of Bloomington, state delegated agencies including City of Bloomington, as well as the federal government under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act. That's maintained by Army Corps of Engineers. So there are two concurrent applications moving forward at this time. Both the federal government and you folks have received that. So today I'm speaking to you as the delegated state regulatory authority and, you know, which is including your packet. So in general, regulatory review agencies asks, has the project avoided and minimized wetland impacts to the extent practical? And my role here today is to show you our work. So I'll just get into it. So the Minnesota Valley State Trail It was initially authorized by the state legislature in 1969 and then in fiscal year 2014 funding was approved as capital bonding and this bonding requires that the trail is located on the north side of the Minnesota River. and that the use shall be for as a paved trail for walking and biking. So this project represents phase two of a multi-phase trail project basically from Fort Snelling up here I'm not going to do that. But basically from Fort Snelling down to Sibley County. And so this project is a subset of that 2.23-mile Petumas Trail with a bridge crossing between the 35W Bridge and just west of Nine Mile Creek outlet into the Minnesota River. All right. So before we dive into some project details, you know, it's always useful to review project history. This is no different. So we've already discussed the legislative actions. But in 2018, Department of Natural Resources completed their EAW process of the corridor. and upon acceptance of the findings and conclusions of that study the DNR executed an agreement with the city basically outlining roles and responsibilities for the project, location of the alignment and that sort of thing. I was a member of the city of Bloomington. Subsequently in 2023 some federal funding was received. It was awarded to the city of Bloomington for this segment. The design engineers had enough of a project for us to complete the wetland delineation. And so completed that. And it was a process to get it reviewed and approved. There was an additional segment that we needed to delineate. So that's kind of why it's a long process. long window there. But yeah, in general, the application for the wetland boundary and the community type was approved by Jack in consultation with Board of Soil and Water Resources. and other technical evaluation members. So currently I'm just standing here before you to discuss how we've avoided and minimized these impacts. So before I dive into how wetland impacts were avoided and minimized, I think it's important to understand sort of the engineering design constraints that are applicable to this project. So, of course, we want to avoid and minimize wetland impacts, but engineers also have to consider and abide by reducing and minimizing and avoiding impacts to threatened endangered species to include abiding by seasonal habitat restrictions. there's a northern long-eared bat in this corridor, and yeah, so there's seasonal tree clearing requirements associated with that. Trail also has to be accessible for all users and abilities, so it needs to comply with Americans with Disabilities Act. And then importantly, the bridge also must accommodate maintenance vehicles. So that goes for the bridge as well as the trail alignment to facilitate maintenance. We are in an active floodplain and so the bridge design has to consider erosive forces of flowing water and so you know, and we live in a changing climate, and so things have to be kind of built pretty sturdy to protect our infrastructure investments. So yeah, you know, you can have the best project on paper, but it also has to be constructed, so that's another consideration that engineers have to make. So major part of any project is schedule. So as I alluded to earlier, tree clearing is anticipated in early frozen season of 2026 here in November. Like I said, that's to minimize impacts to northern long-eared bat, popping and habitat. Later in the winter, It's planned to complete the bridge construction and in-water work, and that is really to limit impacts to fisheries and movement of fish populations, as well as allow the future selected contractor to work under low water conditions that are not subject to you know pulsing flooding and that's really to also improve water quality outcomes and prevent sediment from from going downstream so and then finally in April of next year we'll be able to start construction of the trail build the the profile make pavement or lay the pavement and then do a final stabilization of vegetation which would probably happen later in spring of 2028. So how does this affect our wetlands? The engineers were able to avoid wetland impacts by weaving the trail alignment throughout between our delineated wetland to the north and the Minnesota River to the south. I do wish I had just blown up this picture, because it does help. But yeah so you can kind of see the trail alignment is in yellow so you know the big driver of our ability to avoid impact is our we're minimizing our footprint and so I have cross section A there referencing pages 16 and 49 of the application that's describing the cross section so here it's a negative 3 to 1 slope just for a point of comparison. Transportation projects when they're constructing adjacent wetlands, they usually minimize impacts to a negative four to one slope. So this goes above and beyond above that. So yeah, I guess I'll just go into the impacts here. Oh my gosh. Maybe you can see that. So I guess the first red polygon that's a that's signifying a permanent impact that is within the nine mile creek uh that signifies riprap impacts um basically just to prevent that riprap will be placed underneath the bridge span to prevent scouring and undermining of the structure and then there will be a transition period following the same trapezoidal three-to-one slope that kind of curves around and joins back to the wetland. And so, you know, basically we had a meeting with, you know, a TEP meeting with Hennepin County and, you know, they had had suggested, like, oh, hey, Alex, why didn't you guys build a boardwalk here and completely avoid Wetland 1-1 there? That's a good question. You know, boardwalks do not support, you know, our design vehicle, and, you know, they're not resilient in a floodplain setting. In order to construct them, they have to be constructed above 100-year thresholds. floodplain elevation in this setting, you know, at this elevation here, there's about 12 to 14 feet of water over top that. So it's not very practical from a design perspective. So, yeah, so that's sort of avoidance. As far as impact minimization, you know, we, you know, at the narrowest crossing of Nine Mile Creek. I believe there was a question that came up earlier today about, well, hey, why didn't you place the trail alignment on the embankment further south? Well, it's an issue of protected species. There are state protected mussel species in this channel and in the river for that matter. And so any regulatory process is full of you know contradictions and so you know we're trying to minimize impacts to state protected species here as well as minimize impacts to federally regulated waterways so and then you know i guess as far as you know we put the uh the the three to one cross section was was applied throughout the project corridor so minimize impacts that way um and then there was also indirect impacts that that we had to think about as well so um you know anytime when you're putting fill or an embankment through a wetland and cutting off lobes uh that can result in hydrological impacts so if you don't do anything about that water will collect and change the wetland type, community type and that is viewed as an impact by regulatory staff. To get ahead of that, we installed a or the engineers installed a equalizing pipe to allow flood water to go in and out and drain and be functionally the same as the adjacent flood plain forest. In addition, we also, you know, installed sediment erosion controls. It's pretty standard stuff but still it helps to minimize potential sedimentation from construction mobilized sediment. So it's my understanding, it's my belief that we have done what we can to minimize and avoid these wetland impacts and what you see before you is unavoidable. And so I've identified .2 acres of permanent fills to floodplain forest as well as a 128 square foot impact due to a temporary span crossing to facilitate construction. So the proposal here is to mitigate those impacts with wetland mitigation credits. Wetland mitigation credits are a market-based economic incentive designed to achieve no net loss at the watershed scale. In Minnesota, we are held to siting criteria, so it all has to do with watersheds and different subcatchments. But in general, for this project, we were able to locate all mitigation within the same subcatchment, same bank service area, and same county. And If we hadn't been able to do that, then we would have been required to go find the credit or mitigate at a 2.5 to 1 mitigation ratio. So in this case, we met those criteria. So we're mitigating to 2 to 1, meaning for our 0.2 acres of permanent impact, we're planning on purchasing prior approved wetland mitigation credit from an adjacent bank upstream and yeah, it's going to replace it. So yeah, so it's .2 acres of permanent and then replace it with .4 acres of restored wetland of the same wetland community type. I think that's all right.

Okay. So before we get to question and comments, I want to give you a bit of a rundown on the review process that's occurred so far. The technical advisor evaluation panel has met. We met with the county separately because of the scheduling conflicts, but. The review resulted in the questionnaire on, as Alex mentioned, if a boardwalk was evaluated as an avoidance measure. We found that there was not sufficient material in the original application to provide enough detail on how that evaluation was done. An addendum is requested to the DNR to be supplied that provides that detail. We do concur that the implementation of a boardwalk would not be practicable in this area due to the flood regime and the load capacity that requires the maintenance vehicles. the board of water and soil resources and dnr we met last friday some notes there is that they also found it was insufficient of detail for the bridge placement scenario with that said we do concur that the restrictions put on where that bridge can be placed across nine mile creek does meet the standards for the practicability of moving it where it is. Alex had mentioned in the application, and this will be detailed more in the addendum that we're requesting, the bridge at the narrowest point could be placed in a different location. It was scooted to a slightly wider span across the creek in order to avoid wetland impact. If it had been put in the narrowest point, it would have forced that path to cut through more well-in than it does. So it's a toss-up between trying to protect the creek itself, which is not permitted under WACA, it's a separate review with the Army Corps of Engineers and the DNR, but we concur that protecting that span of creek is vitally important, and that engineering standard restriction is apparent. We found that the mitigation measures to install drainage beneath the path where it is impacting wetland is an appropriate measure to avoid changing the type of wetland that will be now cut in half by the path itself, so basically the path doesn't create a dam. The floodplain forest that has been identified in that area, a silver maple floodplain forest, is listed by the DNR as a sensitive plant community type, so avoiding changing that type is an important measure within their application, and we concur that that was done correctly. Henneman County wanted to point out that while it's not a requirement under the Wetland Conservation Act, they do have a county policy to attempt to replace all wetlands and or purchase banking credits in the county itself. And this application does successfully do that. In fact, it's just a short jaunt up the river with a newly built bank that was done by the county. So they do appreciate that move and wanted to pass that information on. So our goal here is that on the August 3rd meeting or later, it will be brought back to you to make a decision on does this project meet the applicability standards of WACA. There are two parts of this application you might have seen. There's the replacement plan, which is the one we spoke about most. There's also a no loss. Usually no losses are approved by city staff. No loss just signifies by the name, no wetland is being lost, but it is being impacted. And it's usually a temporary impact. In this case, it's construction impact. So the wetland will be restored post construction. So just getting the equipment in and out, it's gonna kind of tear up the wetland a bit, putting in a temporary crossing to build the bridge. And so that will be replaced. It is meeting the standards of no loss. And as that avoidance mechanism, mostly a lot of those come down to the rare species. An important point of clarification, we cannot approve the decision until the take permits, which are the permits required by the DNR to work in these rare species communities when the assumption is that damage will be done to those communities are required. So we need to wait until DNR proves that they have received those take permits. As to date, we have not received copies of those permits. We anticipate that those permits will be received by the August 3rd meeting, but that is one example of an outstanding item that we will not bring this back to until those permits have been proven to us that they have been received.

Very good. Mr. Distel, Mr. Yelich, thanks so much. Council, questions, comments? Council Member Lowman and then Council Member D'Alessandro.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to just be just make sure I understand kind of what you're kind of looking for tonight from us and just also establish some kind of some stuff here at EAW is?

Oh, environmental assessment worksheet. It's a standard environmental review process. required by the Environmental Quality Review Board. Appreciate that.

Sometimes the folks who are listening don't necessarily know what that is. So not a problem at all. I just saw that and I'm like, wait, I don't know what that is. Folks may not know what it is. So then this is a state trail that was established back in 1969. Uh, and then, uh, the alignment in our agreement from the city was kind of locked in back in December of 2018. Stop me if there's something I'm saying that's wrong here. Uh, And then at that time, we had signed a cooperative agreement to kind of administer this trail during that period of time, December 2018, to make sure this kind of moves forward. So the discussion today is really around the replacement plan and whether or not that makes sense. And then the no-loss wetlands, that's really what you're looking for today. I just want to be sure I understand exactly what you're looking for from us today?

Yeah, Council Member Loman, that is correct. We are specifically doing the administration of the Wetland Conservation Act. So that is the role we are playing right now as the city. So we're looking at... Not necessarily the entire trail, although the fact that they went ahead and avoided impacts along most of the trail does count in our assessment of impact avoidance, but we're focused specifically on that section of trail that is impacting wetland and triggering those parts of the Wetland Conservation Act that are included in the application. The replacement for the impacted wetland that cannot be avoided and the no loss signifying that there is wetland being impacted, but it's only temporarily restored post-construction.

So then really what my, my only real question that I have, cause I think staff has brought forward some really good things here and, you know, I think I've already seen it in the, in the pre-work that was, was sent out to council earlier. because it sounds like the alignment really can't be moved around at all unless there's a really justifiable reason to kind of do that. And what I've heard both of you say here tonight is that, you know, if you move it one way, it makes it worse one way, and kind of this is kind of where we're at with that. So I guess when I look at that replacement plan, I guess to me, from the untrained eye, I'd say that looks – you know, looks reasonable to me. And then it sounds from the no loss standpoint for the wetland part, I don't know what else we could do short of, you know, not building the trail, but we've kind of already established that that's what's going to happen. So I don't have any other comments. I think that what you've put forth here makes a lot of sense to this council member. So thank you. Councilmember D'Alessandro.

Thank you Mr. Mayor. Just a couple questions of clarification if I could. Thank you for being here. So the first one is the in one of the questionnaires it was asked whether or not we were going to be replacing or planting non-native plant species and the answer was yes and I was curious as to why we would be planting non-native plant species as part of any kind of probably restoration. Sorry.

No. The smoke last week made me a little sensitive so I apologize. Understood. So as I understand the seed mix should be a native seed mix. don't have that information in front of me right now, but I can certainly look into that.

Yeah, I could probably have given you the name of the... It was like question number 16, but I don't remember on which response form it was. But I was just curious as to why... It wasn't the bat one, it was the other one. Why we wouldn't be assuming that native plant species would, oh yeah, it's this one here. Qualification interview that you have in like 221 of the packet says, Does the action include or will it cause planting or seeding of non-native plant species? And the answer we gave was yes. So just was curious about why we would do non-native. And to your point, if the seed mix is a combination, maybe that's why, or you can't confirm that it'll not or whatever, that'd be a fine answer. I just wanted to curiosity about that.

Okay.

Yeah, so usually the seed mixes are specified state seed mixes that are applied elsewhere along this trail. So this is phase two of the trail. Phase one A and B are already constructed. I believe they would have used the same seed mix. So I can certainly look into that. I'm sorry I don't have that at my fingertips right now.

That's okay. That was the first question I had. The second question I had was and I don't know this is more of a general question about how when you either bank credits I'm assuming that this bank that you're talking about is some area of wetland that's been set aside that cannot be developed and you kind of buy against that meaning like at some point that bank's going to be used up meaning everybody's decided that they're going to take their piece of it and it'll then be preserved for ad infinitum or whatever is that like how that works okay it does that include the species itself so like one of the things i saw was pretty impacted would be the take associated with the cricket frog so like do you actually try to like make sure that there are cricket frogs in the bank? Like I get the wetland portion, but like what about the species considerations associated with the wetland? And do you try to bank those or like populate those so that, you know, we're moving the cricket frogs downstream or upstream in this case or whatever it is? I'm just kind of curious how that part of it works.

Yeah, absolutely. So state wetland mitigation banks are again a joint state and federal regulatory process. There's guidelines that we must follow that specifies the frequency and duration of hydrology that's monitored. We have to identify and reestablish and restore native plant communities and they cannot be invaded by non-natives. And so and then the degraded wetland that's being restored has to be actually completely drained or farmed or manipulated in some way that it's not functioning, that its functions, values are not not addressing the ecosystem services that are needed here. And so these wetland banks are restored ahead of any project permit. and they're all approved with credit and the project proponent purchases that and in so doing creates an economic incentive for more banks to be created. And so basically to answer your question, in restoring the wetland functions and values within natural self-sustaining wetland, if you build it, they will come. So the cricket frogs should come, but as far as a compliance standard, I have not seen anything like that in bank plans? Okay.

I can just so one of the my understanding is one of the rationale of why we require to see the take permits in hand is we're relying on the process of that permitting system to ensure that we're meeting our obligations to not cause outstanding damage to whatever sensitive species that is. So while the wetland bank is a tight community issue um, we kind of rely on a separate pruning process to ensure that we're sure.

I mean, this is where I'm going with that. Right. So you have a, you have a restored wetland. That's great. If the cricket frogs are taken from here before they can get over there, then there aren't any cricket frogs to go over there. Right. And so like, especially when you're talking about a species that is really like, I mean, according to the logic that's in the documentation, it is a very very isolated air pockets of places where that cricket frog exists. So it almost feels like you have to kind of pick them up and move them to the new one or else you'll take them and then they won't have the chance because their communities are isolated. And so I was just kind of thinking through that and hoping that maybe there's an opportunity for us to think about that. And I didn't know if... those take permits to your point also include that it's not just how many can you kill in the process of doing this, which I'm sure that's part of what that is, but also can you kind of have some guarantee or some assurance that the bank that you're betting against here has enough of those to kind of mitigate the take and I that's what I was curious about so if you have more information you can get us before the third that's absolutely yeah okay uh and then just to confirm it's only 0.2 acres total that is being permanently filled in correct yes okay it's a seven and a half mile two and a half mile trail

Correct yes.

Okay and so the rest of it is kind of the standard issue you know planes that we have flood planes that we have down there nothing nothing ecologically special about them I mean aside from the state protected species and all that yes. Okay excellent thank you appreciate it.

Thank you council member. Council member Nelson.

Thanks Mayor. A couple quick questions here the bridge over nine mile Why does it need to support vehicles? Is that law? Is that regulation? Or is that just convenience?

I think it's a maintenance consideration. So it is a dynamic floodplain. If you walk out there, there's sediment and, you know, trees that blow around. So it's dynamic. And so I imagine... maintenance crews are going to need to have some way of getting equipment back there to clean up the trail or make repairs or what have you.

And I appreciate that. The only thing I'd point out is that the intention is to extend this all the way over to Bloomington Ferry so you'd have access from both directions and would not need to cross that bridge to do maintenance. You could go from either direction eventually. And would that reduce cost and impact? Because I think from my understanding is you have an obligation to minimize the impact and the impact is at that bridge area and that so I strongly question the need for that to carry vehicular traffic. Second thing that I had is part of this plan any type of habitat restoration we may have Talked a little bit about that earlier tonight. And as you go in there and you're doing this stuff, and we talked, you know, Councilmember D'Alessandro brought up some of this stuff, but, you know, you've got the equipment, our dead disease trees, our invasive species removed, and to what extent are they removed so that we can set proper expectations for people when they get down there.

That is a good question. I understand that there's a number of trees that are being protected with this project. So I believe, I don't want to overstate it, but I believe it's 30 or so trees that are being preserved. As far as invasive species control, you know, I'm going to have to get back to you on that. I don't believe there is anything but certainly I can look into that.

Next question I got is in the information that I read As I think we're all aware, there's an existing trail that people use down there. It's maintained by a local group and with some partnership with the city. But it sounded like that will go away. In my understanding, did I read that correctly? Yes, I believe so, yes. I will just tell you that for me, that seems like a big shift from my prior conversations. And I know that there's always been conversation that both of them will be maintained. We did that to the east of Lyndale and maintained both. And so that is something that I want to make sure that people are aware of if that is the case. The last question I have, and this is probably very tangentially related, there's a property that someone bought and there's signs up, no trespassing and so forth on it. I believe it's further west. this area do you have any update on the status of those conversations there I'm just gonna be perfectly blunt if somebody owns that property and you're not able to cross it for your path what's the point of building this mm-hmm so yeah so I am sort of on the the wetland replacement and in terms of like right away acquisition that's a good question but I can certainly

research that and take a look.

Thank you. Thank you, council member. I would think also the bridge would serve a safety feature as well, a safety purpose for when our, if anything happened down there, we would be able to get vehicles across that bridge. Yep. Yep. Yep. All right, gentlemen, thank you much. We appreciate it. Thank you, council for the discussion. This will come back to us. And if not our next meeting, the meeting after that.

So very good.

Thank you. Thank you. Our final item of the evening, Council, is item 5.2. This is the second amendment to the 2016 Master Redevelopment Plan for Private Redevelopment of Land, or Redevelopment Contract for the Private Redevelopment of Land, and this is in the South Loop District. So, Mr. Kevin Knace is with us. Good evening, Mr. Knace.

Yes. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. So as the Mayor said, I'm Kevin Kanais. I'm with the Port Authority here. And I'm here to present the Second Amendment to the 2016 Master Redevelopment Contract for Private Redevelopment of Land. So that's a long name. And in summary, the contract provides terms for financial assistance for future redevelopment projects on the MOA property. So think of the property to the north of the mall itself. AS WELL AS TIMELINES FOR PERFORMANCE. AND THAT'S REALLY WHY WE'RE HERE TODAY. THE CONTRACT HAS ADDITIONAL GOALS THAT IT OUTLINES ABOUT MAKING PRUDENT PUBLIC INVESTMENTS THAT SUPPORT THE LONG-TERM VIABILITY OF THE MALL ITSELF AS WELL AS PROTECTING THE CITY AND THE PUBLIC RESOURCES THAT GO INTO THOSE PROJECTS. THIS CONTRACT REALLY IS KIND OF THE OVERLAY THAT GUIDES ANY SPECIFIC CONTRACTS FOR REDEVELOPMENT CONTRACTS ON SPECIFIC INDIVIDUAL PROJECTS. The proposed amendment itself is a recognition of delays that are caused by the pandemic, so COVID-19, and as outlined in the staff report, the contract language does contemplate that there may be unavoidable delays that exist, and it includes an opportunity for an extension for the performance period, and that is why we are here today. THOSE TERMS INCLUDE EPIDEMICS, GOVERNMENT ACTION AS WELL AS FORCE CLOSURES AND AS STATED THEY ARE ARTICULATED IN THE CONTRACT ITSELF. IF THE COUNCIL APPROVES THE EXTENSION AS PROPOSED TODAY IT WOULD THEN GO TO THE PORT AUTHORITY TOMORROW NIGHT. THEY ARE ALSO SIGNER OF THE CONTRACT ALONG WITH THE CITY COUNCIL AND MOA LAND WHICH IS A DIVISION OF TRIPLE FIVE CORPORATION. Port staff and Triple Five, which is the owner of the Mall of America, worked together to come to the terms of what would be a reasonable extension in light of the pandemic impacts on future projects. And the result of that is what is here today, which is a two-year extension to the performance period. So there are two terms by which performance needs to happen, and that is at 10-year and 20-year marks, and this extension would provide for two years of extension at each of those. So from 10 to 12 and then from 20 to 22 years. Additionally, it does modify a provision that requires an amount of valuation of construction in or at those terms and it reduces the $500 million valuation at that 10-year term, which would now be 12 to 400 million, but then increases the amount at year 2020 or year 22 to 800 million. And then it's important to note that there is a requirement for $1.2 billion of estimated value of improvements that still would remain and is not modified. So with that, I will answer any questions, and then I know that 555 has Kurt Hagen here as well as his council, and then the special council for the port is also online.

Very good. Thank you, Mr. Canese. Council, questions on this? Council Member Nelson. Mayor, I don't have any questions.

If anyone else does, they could go. I just had a few comments.

Any questions, Council? I'm guessing we're to comments, yeah.

Please, comments. To be honest, this seems extraordinarily straightforward to me. It's a simple extension. It ties in with other actions we've taken with SDTIF and things like that. I'd be prepared to just move this. It seems very straightforward and simple to me. We're all just trying to work through and negotiate the details of this and appreciate everyone's thing. Thank you.

Council Member Rivas, question?

If you all agree, I'll move it.

Yeah, all right. We'll need your microphone on council member.

I move to approve a resolution approving an amendment to the 2016 master redevelopment contract for private redevelopment of land with MOHC land holdings.

Second. Motion by council member Rivas second by council member Nelson. TO APPROVE A RESOLUTION APPROVING AN AMENDMENT TO THE 2016 MASTER REDEVELOPMENT CONTRACT FOR PRIVATE REDEVELOPMENT OF LAND WITH THE MOAC LAND HOLDINGS.

ANY OTHER COMMENTS, QUESTIONS ON THIS COUNCIL? COUNCILMEMBER MOLLMAN? JUST A QUICK ONE. GET IT DONE. MY KIDS WANT TO GET IN THERE, MAN. THEY'RE LIKE, WHAT'S THE PROBLEM, DAD? LET'S GO.

NO OTHER QUESTIONS, NO OTHER COMMENTS ON THIS COUNCIL? VERY GOOD. MS. WRIGHT.

Carter? Aye. D'Alessandro? Aye. Rivas? Aye. Nelson? Aye. Lohman?

Aye. Waterpark? Aye. Yes.

Robertson? Aye. Mayor Bussey?

Aye. Motion carries 7-0. Thank you much, gentlemen. Thanks for sticking it out with us. Thank you, Mr. Case, for your work on this. I will be missing tomorrow night's Port Authority meeting. I won't be there, but you have my affirmative vote on this because I think it's a logical extension and makes perfect sense. So thank you so very much. Council, earlier this evening we heard Ms. Manderscheid checking out whether or not we needed a public hearing for item 4.2 and she was able to confirm that we did indeed. need a public hearing on item 4.2 and it wasn't listed in our documents. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna ask you to reconsider that item so we can hold a public hearing. You might recall this is a two-step process. First we vote to reconsider, then what we'll do is reopen item 4.2 and we will hold the public hearing and then we will vote once again. So Councilmember Nelson.

We can hold the public hearing tonight?

We can, that's when it was. Okay, it was advertised? It was advertised for tonight. All right. It was. It was. It just was, it was incorrectly stated in the documents. So I'm going to move a, I'm going to make a motion to reconsider the vote on item 4.2.

Second.

Motion and a second by Council Member Robertson to reconsider the vote on item 4.2. Ms. Rye. Okay.

Carter. Aye. D'Alessandro. Aye. Rivas. Aye. Nelson. Aye. Lohman.

Aye.

Robertson. Aye. Mirabasi.

Aye. Motion carries 7-0. Opening up item 4.2 for reconsideration. So we've had our presentation. We've had our discussion about item 4.2. What I would like to do now is open the public hearing on item 4.2. This is the preliminary and final plant of the South Town Shopping Center 5th edition. Is there anyone in the council chambers wishing to speak to item 4.2? Ms. Rye, do we have anyone online?

Mayor, we do not have anyone online.

Last call for anyone in the chambers. Council, we have no one coming forward. We have no one online to speak to item 4.2. I would look for a motion to close the public hearing on item 4.2. So moved.

Second.

Motion by Council Member Robertson, second by Council Member D'Alessandro to close the public hearing on item 4.2. No further discussion. All those in favor, please signify by saying, oh, I'm sorry. Ms. Rye, could you please call the roll?

Carter. Aye. D'Alessandro. Aye. Rivas.

Aye.

Nelson. Aye. Lohman. Aye. Robertson. Aye. Mirabasi.

Aye. Motion carries 7-0. Now, Council, I look for a motion added in 4.2. Council Member Robertson.

Thank you, Mayor. I move to approve the preliminary plat. I'm going to start over. I move to approve a resolution approving the final plat. South Town Shopping Center, 5th edition, located at 7803 Penn Avenue South, subject to the condition and code requirements attached to the staff report.

Second. Motion by Council Member Roberts and second by Council Member D'Alessandro to accept item 4.2 as stated in tonight's agenda. No further council discussion on this. Ms. Ryan.

Carter. Aye. D'Alessandro. Aye. Rivas. Aye. Nelson. Aye. Lohman. Aye. Robertson. Aye. Mirabasi.

Aye. Motion carries 7-0. Thank you for your indulgence as we corrected that council. It was good to get that done, and I wanted to make sure that we did. And thank you, Ms. Vanderscheid, for catching that for us. And we will make sure that that is done. Moving on to our final item tonight, this is the council policy and issues update. I will start off, as I do, I will recap our city council listening session. We had one, two, three, four, five, six, seven speakers tonight, and they broke down basically into two camps. So we had Connie Roth, Mark Mercer, Matthew Hallett, Erica McMullen all speak on the Nine Mile Creek restoration process. With the exception of Matthew Hallett, they were opposing it. Mr. Hallett was in favor of it for a variety of reasons. We also had two speakers regarding the Olive Isle addition, Mark Hanson and Kevin Johnson spoke, and is the item that we voted on this evening. And Sally Ness spoke to us once again about the Smith Park Shared Use Agreement. Once again, a good public listening session, and just to reiterate what I said, we will consider that Nine Mile Creek contract at our August 3rd meeting. We are kicking around the idea of perhaps having a public comment opportunity on that because I know there's a lot of folks who would like to address that, and I think that would make sense to be able to give people an opportunity to speak to it. Beyond that, I do not have anything. Mr. City Manager. Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. Mayor, members of the council, a couple of items for you tonight. You may recall earlier in the year, city took a number of steps to support the community in response to Operation Metro Surge. One of those actions was taken by our port authority. A small business loan program of up to $400,000 was approved by the port and administered by our port authority staff. The port authority is going to hear a more robust update on this tomorrow night, but I did want to share for the council's business or for the council's update and awareness. THAT AS THE FINAL NUMBERS HAVE COME IN ON THAT, WE WERE ABLE TO SUPPORT 25 BUSINESSES TO THE TUNE OF $180,000 THROUGH THAT PROGRAM. AND AS YOU'LL SEE IF YOU WATCH THE PORT MEETING TOMORROW NIGHT, REALLY GOOD CROSS REPRESENTATION OF AGES, GENDERS, RACES, ET CETERA. SO I THOUGHT OUR STAFF DID A REALLY GOOD JOB OF GETTING THOSE DOLLARS INTO THE COMMUNITY AND ENSURING um, uh, that our business community was supported in that really difficult time. So kudos to them. And, and again, thanks to our port commissioners and our port staff who administered that program. Secondly, I want to remind everyone who's watching tonight, uh, that the Bloomington remembers veterans dog tag sale, uh, will, uh, close on August 1st. Uh, those funds are being used to help support the cost of constructing the veterans Memorial. AND I THINK REALLY IMPORTANT CAVEAT TO REMIND OURSELVES IS THAT YOU NEED NOT HAVE BEEN A BLOOMINGTON RESIDENT TO BE HONORED THROUGH THAT. JUST NEED TO CONFIRM THE PERSON YOU'RE HONORING'S VETERAN STATUS. SO THAT CAN BE DONE ONLINE, BY MAIL, OR HERE AT CITY HALL AT OUR CITY CLERK'S OFFICE. I WANT TO CELEBRATE OUR COMMUNICATIONS AND ENGAGEMENT DEPARTMENT. LAST WEEK THEY WERE RECOGNIZED AT THE MINNESOTA ASSOCIATION OF GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATORS NORTHERN LIGHTS AWARDS WITH five different awards. There were over 200 award entries and we brought home five awards across several different categories. So kudos to our team and I also want to thank our deputy city managers who were able to attend and support our staff. I was slinging root beer floats at our employee summer picnic. So I'm glad we had good representation at that. And then finally, just a reminder for everyone that we will not have a council meeting next week. Originally, we were scheduled for one. The council calendar that was approved last year had a July 27th meeting, but we are canceling that meeting. So August 3rd will be our next meeting. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. Walker. Any questions of Mr. Walker on anything? Very good. Council, anything to bring forward tonight? With that, it looks like we've completed our agenda. I would entertain a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Motion by Council Member Roberts and second by Council Member Rivas to adjourn this evening. No further discussion. Ms. Rye.

Carter? Aye. D'Alessandro? Aye. Rivas? Aye. Nelson? Aye. Lohman?

Aye.

Robertson? Aye. Mayor Bussey?

Aye. Motion carries 7-0, and we are adjourned. Thank you, Council, for your participation this evening. Thanks to the staff, and thanks to everybody who joined us or tuned in. Everybody have a great rest of your week.