City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone, and welcome. I will call our Bloomington City Council meeting to order. This is Monday, August 31st, 2026. Welcome to everybody joining us here in the council chambers, and welcome to everybody watching online. Thank you much for being here. We, as part of our agenda this evening, we are going to be swearing in new police officers, so we thought it appropriate to start the meeting, as we always do with our... or the Pledge of Allegiance, but the presentation of colors by the Bloomington Honor Guard. And so we are going to do that to get us started. I'm going to turn it over to Deputy Chief Damon Bitney to call it, and we will be on our way. D.C.

Officers, come to attention. Officers, present arms. 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. Officers, order arms.

Thank you all for that, and thank you to our honor guard. It's always a great way to start a council meeting, I think, to have that take place. And we see there have been so many places around the community. So extend our thanks to them, if you could, Deputy Chief, because they do outstanding work, and we are deeply appreciative of it. Council, first item of business tonight is the approval of our agenda. And on our agenda, under item two, our introductory items, we have four items. First will be the introduction of our Public Safety Cadet Ambassadors Program, with an overview of the program as well. Item 2.2 is the main event that I think most people are here for this evening, the swearing in of our new Bloomington police officers. Item 2.3, we will have introduction of new Bloomington City employees. And Item 2.4, we're going to have an update on our Three Rivers Park District partnership. Three Rivers and the City of Bloomington have worked together for years, and it's a wonderful partnership, and we're going to get an update from a couple of representatives from the Three Rivers Park District. Our consent agenda is a bit beefy. We've got, I think, 19 items on it, and Councilmember D'Alessandro has our consent business this evening. ITEM 4 IS OUR HEARINGS, RESOLUTIONS, AND ORDINANCES. ITEM 4.1 IS THE BLOOMSHIRE VILLAGE TOWNHOMES REZONING, FSBP AND THE PLATTING AND SO ON. What I would like to do, if I could, Council, at the request of Councilmember Rivas and I believe Councilmember D'Alessandro also, if we can move item 3.16, that's the award of 2026-803 West 90th Street Retaining Wall Project, if we can move that and let that become item 4.2 just as an information item, because that feeds into item 4.3, which is a public hearing regarding the city code amendment for the donation of surplus city property and disposition of abandoned or unclaimed property. We're good with that?

Mr. Mayor, just a point of clarification. 3.16 on our agenda is the approval of the surplus equipment donation policy itself, and that's why we're asking them to be co-located.

SO THAT'S THE 3.16. MY APOLOGIES. NO, NO WORRIES. AND I KNOW THE NUMBERS MESSED UP BECAUSE OF THE ITEM THAT IS THE APPROVAL OF SURPLUS EQUIPMENT DONATION POLICY. I THINK WE LOST 3.12, I BELIEVE. SO THAT WILL BE THE ONE MOVED DOWN AS ITEM 4.2. THANK YOU FOR THE CLARIFICATION, COUNCILMEMBER. I APPRECIATE IT. THANK YOU. AND THEN ITEM 4.2, OUR PUBLIC HEARING FOR THE CITY CODE AMENDMENT FOR THE DONATION OF SURPLUS CITY PROPERTY AND DISPOSITION OF ABANDONED OR UNCLAIMED PROPERTY. Very good. And then we move on to item five, which is our organizational business. We have a closed meeting this evening, which will be item 5.1. What I would like to do, council, is move our council policy and issue update ahead of item 5.1. So then we can go into closed session, come out of closed session and not have to do the updates. We can simply act on the business in the closed session and move on. And then we will adjourn. Is that clear to everyone? Really? I'm surprised at that. All right. If that is clear and no one has any questions, I would move approval of our agenda as stated. Motion and a second by Councilmember D'Alessandro to accept tonight's agenda as stated. No further council discussion on this? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries 7-0 and we have an agenda. And our first item on tonight's agenda is item 2.1. It's the introduction of the Public Safety Cadet Ambassadors Program with a quick overview. Sam Davern, Officer Davern is here to give us an overview. Please, come on forward.

Hi, Mayor, City Council, City Manager. There should be a PowerPoint associated with this as well, if you're able to pull that up, please. Thank you. Just a real quick clarification. So the Public Safety Ambassador Program is formally known as our Explorer Program. We'll kind of cover that here. But we just switched for making it run a little bit smoother. Next slide, please. So as I kind of mentioned, my name's Sam Davern. I'm one of the lead Explorer or Ambassador Advisors for the program here. Thank you. So in 2026, we switched from the Explorer to the Ambassador program. It went from the Scouts over to a program that's more fit and ran by law enforcement from around the U.S. And so instead of learning from a broad program of the Scouts, it's learning from specific public safety individuals, and it's more focused specifically on public safety. It's through the public safety cadets. Since we already have cadets, we just switched the name to Ambassadors. Next slide, please. Kind of like the Explorers as well, though, it's for anyone 14 through 20 years old. They're doing the exact same stuff they used to do, engage with the community, community engagement events, volunteering where they can, and then once a week during the winter, fall, and spring, they're learning from police officers in Bloomington about a different variety of tasks and stuff, kind of like before. Next slide, please. This is from our competition last year. We had 25 ambassadors or explorers in the program. So that was significantly up from previous years. We're hoping to kind of maintain that. That's kind of where we cap out. So once again, this year we had to unfortunately turn people away, but we just can't accept more from making sure everyone's getting a good education on it. Next slide, please. So kind of quick numbers. October of every year, we go to Duluth and compete in kind of like a small state competition. And then in April, we go to Rochester. We compete in a large competition. Last October, do you guys remember what we placed in? A couple different things. We placed first on crime scene, second on unknown trouble. Yeah, so we took home three different awards at that competition. Then in 2026, this year in April, we went to the Rochester competition where they competed against 44 other agencies that all either brought one to eight teams with them. They placed in a couple different things. It's kind of seen on the bottom. They placed first and third in traffic stops, second in retail crime, and then fifth in street decisions. For the awards they do there, it's first through fifth place, and they each do about four different events per weekend, I guess, down there. So they have a Friday and Saturday that they do the events, and they all did really good this year. I think we brought seven teams with us this year. Next slide, please. So these are just some photos from the event this year. This year, we also were able to take over running the traffic stop event. So there's a bunch of different agencies, obviously, and they all help out with running the events down there, bringing down role players, judging the events. And so we were able to help out and take over that this year, which is super nice to get us more involved with the whole program overall. Throughout here, you just see the kind of different awards, along with a signature orange jumpsuit, of course. We had to bring that with us. So thanks to the chief for bringing that down there with us also. Yeah, so up there you'll see all that and then a couple of different scenarios. That one with the binder is just them kind of prepping. So they get the scenario 30 minutes beforehand and that includes walk time through Rochester to be able to get there and then prep for it as well. Next slide, please. Yeah, then there's the team that we brought down with us this last year. I think we only had one or two that couldn't go with us just from other scheduling stuff. We'll go to the last slide here, and that should have my contact information. If anyone knows anyone that wants to participate in the program, feel free to reach out to that email or give that phone number a call, and they'll get it forward to me. We will introduce a couple of our ambassadors as well here, and I'll let them present about themselves. Thank you, guys. Very good. Thank you, officer. Ambassadors, please.

Mayor, city council, and city manager, my name is Thomas Satuma. I grew up in Bloomington. I've lived here all my life. Grew up on the east side and just recently moved to the west side. I just graduated from Jefferson. I'm studying law enforcement at Normandale. I'm looking forward to applying to the cadet position for the city here soon, and I'm looking forward to maybe getting that opportunity.

Thank you. Thank you for being with us tonight.

Mayor, city council, city manager, my name is Selma Joffrey. I also grew up here in Bloomington. I've lived here my whole life. I'm a senior at Jefferson right now, and I'm on the swim team. Welcome.

Welcome. Good evening, Mayor, City Council, and City Mayor. My name is Uri Vasquez-Rubio, and I've been part of the It's Forest Now Public Safety Ambassador's Program for the better part of three years now. I've lived in Bloomington for close to 10 years, and I'm going to head up in Technical College for Peace Officer Program.

Well, thank you. Thank you for being with us. Thank all three of you for being with us and for introducing yourself. I know that's not easy a lot of times in front of a room full of people, but you did a great job. Thank you much. And thank you for your commitment to public safety and your willingness to step forward and do this kind of thing. Very impressive. Very glad to have you on board. Officer Davern, thank you for your leadership in this. And thank you to Chief Hodges and the rest of the department for your welcoming and your mentorship and your training of young people like this. Well done. Thank you.

Thank you.

Item 2.2 this evening is the swearing in of our new Bloomington police officers. I'm going to call Chief Booker Hodges forward and let him handle the swearing in. And I will say, family members who are here this evening, family members, raise your hand. This is going to happen once. So if you want a good picture, do not be shy about it. So, uh, as they stand up and raise their hands, if you want to come up here in front of the council desk and just, uh, if you want to get the best picture you can, don't be shy about it. You won't be blocking our view. Please do so.

All right. Um, I'll say my remarks for after. So first, uh, we'll start off with badge four to seven and then we'll end with a four 35. So you guys know your badge numbers and you know the order. So you'll come up, um, Say what's on the sheet here and then tell people a little bit about yourself. So, all right, who's first? All right.

Mayor, city council, city manager, my name is Jeremy Morrison. I grew up here in Bloomington. I graduated from Normandale Community College, and I served here as a cadet for about two years before moving up. Thank you. Thank you.

Mayor, city council, city manager. My name is Justin Schweigert. I grew up in Big Lake, went to Princeton, did school in St. Cloud, got my four-year degree there, deployed to Iraq when I was in the Army for 12 years, did that when I was 20, and now I'm here. Welcome.

Thank you. Thank you.

MAYOR, CITY COUNCIL, CITY MANAGER. I GREW UP IN MINNESOTA. I HAVE A COLLEGE DEGREE FROM MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY AND MY LAST JOB BEFORE THIS I WORKED FOR THE HONOLULU POLICE DEPARTMENT FOR A HANDFUL OF YEARS.

DID YOU GET THE SHOT? SHE'S DOING DOUBLE DUTY THERE.

Mayor, city council, city manager, my name is Kevin McCabe. I grew up in Burnsville. I went to Metro State University. I have a bachelor's degree in law enforcement. I previously worked at the Metro Transit Police Department and the Prior Lake Police Department before coming here.

Welcome.

Thank you.

All right, Mayor, City Council, I'm gonna talk really slow so they can hear me. Mayor, City Council, City Manager, my name is Nick Monahan. I am from Chicago, Illinois, a little suburb called Darien, just south of the city. I have a degree from Henneman Tech, but I also went to the University of Missouri, go Tigers. Before coming here, I was a police officer for two years in St. Louis Park. I'm super excited to be here, as well as my family as well.

We're excited to have you. Welcome.

Mayor, city council, city manager, my name is John Tamburino. I grew up here in the Twin Cities, West St. Paul. I got my four-year degree in economics from the school out in Milwaukee, but then I moved back to the Twin Cities about two years ago and then got my criminal justice degree from Hennepin Tech, and this is my first police job. So thank you. Welcome.

All right. I'll keep this brief. Uh, just to remind the public, uh, when I became chief, one thing I changed immediately was we only bring people before you who have completed all their training on our off FTO. Uh, some of our bigger cities don't do that. I just think it's, um, not appropriate to bring people before you when they just graduate the Academy and they haven't completed their training. So all these folks here are out on the street right now, patrol in the city of Bloomington. So we will have additional swearing in as a other folks come off their training. And just to them, you've been fortunate enough to be hired by what I believe is the best police department in the country. And the reason I get to say that is I believe Bloomington is the best community in the country. And it's an honor that when you put that badge and you wear that patch, this community loves this police department. Don't do nothing to screw that up. All right. And then to our ambassadors, I'd like to thank Officer Davern for all the work he's done in that program. And, you know, a lot of people in law enforcement will say that they don't want their kids to go into the profession. The first picture was actually. my oldest, and for those of you who have kids, the oldest is always the baby, even if they're still the oldest. But I'm not one of those people. I believe this is the most noble profession in the face of the earth, and if any of my children decide to do this job, I'll support them 100%, especially when it comes time to work in in the city. So again, thank you all for your support of this police department and, um, to our community members. Thank you all for your continued support of our city and our officers. And we are grateful for that every single day. So now that I got through talking, uh, you guys can get up and go shake everybody up here's hands. Cause you have a good council. All right.

Hold on, stand by, stand by. Pause. We need to do a swearing in first. Oh, God, okay, all right. All right, and this is another spot for you. Family members, come on up here. They're going to raise their hands once, get up here, and get a good picture. Don't be shy.

That's why we're here today, right? So all you guys can come up here. No, we'll bring the cops up here. The family members can come behind here. Sorry. Just for people, one, formalities, they do this today, they get hired, so this is a symbolic one for them. All right, so you're gonna raise your right hand, then you're gonna state your name, but, you know, state your name, not state your name, if you understand what I'm saying. All right, I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States AND THE STATE OF MINNESOTA. AND FAITHFULLY DISCHARGE THE DUTIES. AS A POLICE OFFICER. FOR THE CITY OF BLOOMINGTON, MINNESOTA. TO THE BEST OF MY JUDGMENT AND ABILITY. CONGRATS AGAIN. ALL RIGHT. NOW YOU MAY SHAKE HANDS.

Thank you.

Now, I have been told to remind everyone who is associated with the swearing-in, go up to the Hague conference room because there's a party going on up there. And you're all invited, so. Or stay.

Or stay.

Mm-hm.

Council, we will move on with our agenda. Item 2.3 is the introduction of new employees. We have, I think, I see three new employees, one in our community development, two in our IT department. So I'm going to do Kim Bergeron or Kyle Johannes. Who wants to go first? Kim Bergeron is going to go first, please.

Okay. Hi council. Um, good evening. I'm Kim Berger and director of community development. And I'm here tonight to introduce one of our new staff, Ryan Solberg. Um, he is the new housing development specialist in the port authority. It also works for the HRA. He started in the city in June. Um, he comes to us with a bachelor's degree in political science, science, and also a master's degree from the Humphrey Institute at the university of Minnesota. Ryan has spent six years working in community and economic development with the city of, or with Sioux Metro Growth Alliance, the city of Fridley, and the Minnesota Extension Office. He's excited to have joined our community and where he can do more housing work at a broader scale. And on a personal note, Ryan is from Mitchell, South Dakota, which is best known for the Corn Palace, which I just got to visit this summer with my family, so.

Good evening. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council. As Kim introduced me, I'm Ryan Solberg. Today marks the end of my third month here on the job, so it's been a great experience so far, and I look forward to getting to work more closely with you all in the future.

Welcome. Thank you for being with us, and congratulations. Glad to have you here. Thank you. So we are informed, Council, that our two IT specialists are not here this evening, so Ryan is our only introduction. Ryan, I will tell you what I tell everybody who is hired. While we are the ones who sit up here, in a lot of cases, it is all of the employees of Bloomington that are actually the face of Bloomington, that people recognize and that they count on and that they... consider it to be Bloomington when they need something from the city and you folks deliver the services. So it's a big responsibility, but I have no doubt of your ability and your willingness to keep that responsibility true. And so welcome aboard and thank you for being with us and looking forward to seeing you out and about in the community. Welcome. Thanks. Item 2.4 on our agenda council is Three Rivers Park District Partnership Update. Renee Clark is going to kick this off, but we have the chair of the Three Rivers Park Board, John Gibbs, is with us this evening, as well as the guy in charge of it all, Bo Carlson, is also with us. So good evening, Ms. Clark. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. We're joined tonight by Three Rivers Park District Superintendent Bo Carlson and Board Chair John Gibbs to provide an update on the city's partnership with Three Rivers. Bloomington, as you've said, has a longstanding partnership in the Highland Anderson Regional Park Reserve and our regional trail system. In recent years, that partnership has expanded with Three Rivers, operating Highlands Green Golf Course, and beginning in 2025 assuming the responsibility for the management and operations of the city-owned portions of the highland bush anderson regional park preserve tonight's an opportunity to hear how those partnerships are going and some of the investments and accomplishments to date and what's ahead it's also an opportunity for council to ask questions and continue the conversation about how our two agencies are working together So with that, I will turn it over to Superintendent Bo Carlson and Commissioner John Gibbs.

Mr. Chair, good evening. Welcome.

Mr. Mayor, thank you very much, and members. I am John Gibbs, 7601 Auto Club Road. I chair the Three Rivers Board right now, and with me is the superintendent, who, as the mayor pointed out, really runs the show, Bo Carlson. We're respectful of the agenda you've got tonight. So we'll get right to it. I will do a short setup, which is to but you know that we uh... established a twenty forty system plan for the through his park district a few years ago and it had a few fundamental tenants and the first of which was you belong here it was outward facing and that you is there really everybody in this region who might have occasion or an interest in participating in other tenants were to try to lead and collaborate with others to get the mission of nature-based recreation well done here in our metropolitan area. And I think we're succeeding at that. We have just received some data that we had over 16 and a half million visits last year. That's more than twice the number of visits when I joined the park board. oh so many 16 years ago, but it shows some success and we appreciate that. Most of it's based on maximizing partnerships and there are none that are more meaningful and in my opinion successful than the partnerships we've been able to develop here with the city of Bloomington. Hopefully our approach to partnerships is creative but also to engage in them with humility. you know, institutional humility as well as individual. I think we're trying to do that pretty well. We are pledging to take care of what we have to not leave the next group of taxpayers and commissioners and council members with deferred maintenance burdens and I think we're making progress on that. We're quite focused on that as we look at our levies this year and budget, you know, for going forward. So with that, I'd like to introduce or reintroduce Bo Carlson because he's the one who really knows the answers, and we do invite you to interrupt or to ask any questions. I'm certain you will, but we're game for it. So thank you very much, Bo.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Carlson, good evening.

Welcome. Mr. Mayor, Council Members, thank you. As was mentioned, Bo Carlson, I'm the Superintendent of the Park District. Very happy to be here tonight. This has been a wonderful partnership. This is a great opportunity for us to share just some details, some information, some of the developments that have gone on out at both Highland Greens as well as Highland Bush, Anderson Lakes, and just what's happening in Bloomington in general. So as John mentioned, yes, certainly jump in and ask questions if they do pop up. And actually, I am going to go through some information first and then I'll kind of run through the pictures. So if we could take just a step back, I'll give you a little bit of detail. I'm Just tickling your curiosity maybe with some of those pictures, and then we'll run through all the pictures and kind of see everything. But just wanted to start with some general information. So the Highland Bush Anderson Lakes Park Reserve, last year actually in 2025, had 1.7 million visits. When you factor in the amount of visits that we had at Highland Hills, which is about another 200 to 220,000 visits, we're pushing 2 million visits as a system, as a park itself. which is pretty amazing. That puts us number seven overall in the metro regional system as far as overall visitation, which is an incredible number. That's the highest visited park in our system, in some cases by far, when you factor in all the other elements. Overall in the city of Bloomington regional facilities, so if you take not only the Highland Bush Anderson, but you take some of the regional trails, Bloomington's at about a million visits total within this system. Between 24 and 25, interestingly enough, we saw a jump of about 40% in visitation. It actually went up 39.7%. I don't know what the factor of that was or why the significant jump, but that's a positive sign. Obviously, people are coming to the parks. They're using the parks. That also puts a lot of pressure and responsibility, certainly, on us to recognize that we have to do what we can to keep that good spirit going and keep that good customer service flowing as people are coming into the park and set the expectation high that they want to have clean, safe facilities that they can utilize. And I think we'll show some enhancements and some examples of that going forward. Just for your interest, last year in 2026, excuse me, we had 297 reservations at both Bush Lake and at Normandale Bandshells. So reservations remain strong. That's a nice revenue stream for us that helps support or offset the operational costs of the system itself. I think it shows a good transition from one organization to the other from a fee structure that we didn't see a significant dip or drop or anything. It stayed pretty consistent. So that's a very good sign. In addition to that, those reservation groups, I should mention we also do a lot of partner programming through the Optimist, other community groups that we try to provide those programs free of charge that we do see as a community benefit. And in fact, this Halloween, we're going to be hosting the Optimist Halloween event down at Highland Hills Chalet. So we're very excited about that. So get a plug in for that. Everybody come out to the Chalet. Okay. Highland Greens, as Renee mentioned, has been a great partnership dating back to 2021. That was the first year that we took over operation of that facility. If you'll remember, that facility was closed in 2020 and did not have any rounds of golf that were played. We were able to reopen in 2021. We had 17,000 rounds in 2021. Last year, we had about 24,000 rounds. So we're seeing growth in rounds. That's awesome. We have a goal in 2025. We think we can get close to 25,000 rounds, which would be great. It's been a great fall so far. We still have a little summer to go here with one more week, and weather looks fantastic in the 10-day at least. So that should be an achievable goal. That would generate about $800,000 in revenue for that facility, and we're in line to make that. We did extensive tree removal when we first moved in. If you remember, there was a lot of ash borer. I think we had about 164 trees that we had to take out. We've been doing a lot of replanting, which is really exciting. It's been a great opportunity to see some fresh growth out there. We also went through an extensive bunker renovation. All of this work has been done in-house, so this is all stuff that our staff took on. Again, the benefit that we have from a scalable system where when we have Crews come in from all of our golf courses. We can bang out a lot of work in a very short period of time. So the benefit of the partnership really is reflected in that work that can go into doing some of these really significant renovation projects that otherwise would require contractors to do that work. So it's cheaper. It's more efficient. We can get it done on our schedule versus their schedule long term. This last year, we created a new par four hole, so we converted holes four and five into one longer hole to give people that par four experience where they could actually bring out a driver and hit a driver. We thought that was going to be a well-received addition, and it certainly has. People have appreciated that opportunity to have some diversity, a little bit different experience when they're out there. And some of those folks that maybe don't want to just play a short course with their kids, or maybe some of those folks that still want to test their metal and how far they can drive it, have that opportunity with that. So again, that was something we were able to do just in-house, and it, again, been very well received. Some really good news we're excited about. The fence that's along Normandale Drive should be removed this September as part of that road and trail project. Again, a great example of the partnership between the park district and the city. The city is actually leading some utility improvements along the right-of-way of the road. That's going to require bumping that fence back. They'll actually remove the existing fence. We'll have a reinstalled black vinyl clad fence that will be much more robust attractive to look at as much as a chain link thing is going to be attractive. But yes, we're very excited about that happening. So that's going to move forward. One of the things I just wanted to mention a little bit about, we do have the Highland Mountain Bike Trail that we've been in a lot of discussions about. This started this last May. We had kind of a conceptual open house with the community. We actually had two different open house meetings at that time. We had one for the general public just to come and hear kind of the thoughts, the ideas that we had. And then we had one explicitly for the neighbors that we invited everybody in the neighborhood, specifically around North Commons, or North Corridor, excuse me, to come out and take a look, kind of see what the idea was, what the concepts were. During that period of time, we also collected feedback through our Let's Talk website. We had about 380 commenters in that process where people gave us feedback. That also benefited in giving us an ability to develop a list of all those contacts of folks that are interested in that project. We had an open house just last week to kind of share the conceptual design and what a posed alignment might actually look like within the park. We got about 95 people that showed up. Obviously, the mountain bike community is very enthused about this and very excited to see this happen. We do have some neighbors that have concerns, and we're working through some of those. We'll continue to accept comments on that plan over the course of the next couple weeks and then proceed from there in a plan kind of going forward on that. So I just wanted to make mention of that as we go forward. Some enhancements of the current facilities, and we'll talk and I'll show some examples of this as we go further, but we added shower towers out at the beach as well as some shade structures, just some things people can get out of the sunlight. Obviously, if you've all been out there seeing that, that was kind of an exposed area, so just give some people the opportunity out there. We did add our paddle share program, which is a self-directed phone-enabled system to provide opportunities for people to rent boats, which has been very well received. So we had that at the Bush Lake Beach, and it was very popular. We installed an ADA-accessible kayak launch, which, again, made opportunities for folks to get on the water that much more accessible and available. We installed the fishing decks and upgraded railings and decking. So this was a pretty major initiative undertaken by the city of Bloomington where you were able to actually purchase those piers. And then our crews installed them and put them in place, which, again, another example of the great partnership and the great relationship that we have with the city. Throughout the park, we've been doing a ton of preventative maintenance. Again, it goes to what John was mentioning about taking care of what we have, recognizing that we've got to keep these things in good condition and make sure that people have good, safe experiences when they're out there. And then we've been doing a number of preventative maintenance things on the picnic shelters. We're going to have a new roof that's going to go in actually on Shelter 3 in the next couple weeks. You'll see that work happening if you're driving by on East Bush there. We're also going to be doing improvements to the beams, just staining, painting, refinishing them, get Shelter 3 cleaned up a little bit. We were able in 1 and 2 to do some significant bathroom improvements, so we refinished both the floors and both bathrooms, and it looks very nice for a picnic shelter bathroom, so that was exciting. The Bush Lake Beach building remodel. This is one of the more significant capital improvements that we're embarking on. We're going to be looking at totally reconstructing that building itself, making it more functional. Right now, it's not real functional. It's a little out of date. The bathrooms are a little rough, a little rough shape. So I think a facelift will look really good. It'll make it more efficient for use of the space. We have a lot going on there when we have Camp Coda going on. We have the beach activities going on. We're going to add some boat rental facilities there as well. So we'll have boat rental paddle boards available for folks to utilize. So fitting all that space together is going to be a little bit of a challenge, but I think we're up to it for sure. We're hoping to construct that in 2027. Design is going on now. Actually, city staff is on our planning team to assist in that and provide feedback. We've got accessible restrooms, changing rooms that will be included. We're going to have a boat rental space, as I mentioned, and then space for Camp Crota where they can both have storage but then also have a safe shelter when they can get out of the elements as need be. On the natural resources side, I'm really excited about this. This is one of those elements that I think is a value add that we bring to the table being a natural resource based agency. These are some of those things that we can focus on that maybe are a challenge for the city just from the standpoint of all the other needs and things that go on in a large scale city government. We can focus our attention on this and we can really take the time. So we've got a number of different things we've been doing out at the park to improve kind of the natural resources out there. One of the big things has been dealing with hazard trees, trimming and removing trees in the park. We've had to remove or prune about 100 different trees within that facility that were either dead or dying or were hazard trees ultimately. The good news is we're going to roll in this fall with some bare root tree planting with our tree spade that we're going to be able to replace a number of those trees as well as some different areas we'll be able to rehab in the future. We're also partnering with Bloomington and the Isaac Walton League and Nine Mile Creek Watershed. We're going to be doing some buckthorn removal beginning this fall. There's about a 10-acre area around Walton Pond that we're actually partnering with them, and we're going to do buckthorn control in that area. So really excited, again, to see the Ikes as part of that program and a great partner as well as the watershed going forward. So, again, trying to bring as many of those resources to the table as we can, show some love to the park and show some action in kind of dealing with some of those invasives that are out there. And then lastly, I want to mention we have a new wayfinding program that we're instituting district-wide. Highland Bush Anderson is going to be our first park reserve. We've done French Park, which is a regional park, and it's been very well received. We're going to venture into a much larger space with Highland Bush, but we think it's going to be a great program, and I'll show a couple pictures of that as we go forward.

Do I have control on this?

Okay. Okay. Maybe not. Oh, yeah. So there you go. We can see the shower tower on the left there, or I guess my left. You've got the accessible dock in the middle. Just an example of some seal coating that went on in some of the trails. Again, taking care of what we have is a very important element, as well as the new piers that went in. The building itself, as you can see, not a real efficient use of space, a little bit of a dated architecture style, but nevertheless, a very needed building out there. So we're excited to see this undertaking. One of the things I should mention within the capital improvement program that we have for the entire park, that's something we've gone through to identify utilizing Metro Council dollars as well as legacy funds for these capital improvements. So that'll be the capital dollars that'll cover the cost of the replacement. Natural resources, I mentioned some of the details of that. Buckthorn removal in an urban environment is a very large element of it. One of the things that I didn't maybe mention in my summary is also dealing with some wildlife management, recognizing we have some issues out there with goose populations as well as deer populations. We were able to include our aerial deer survey this winter to get an assessment of kind of what's the magnitude and scale of the deer population. that we're dealing with in the Bloomington area. So again, just some of those elements and expertise that we bring to the table that I think is a real benefit long-term. And then finally, our wayfinding signs, I think are very user-friendly, easy to use, easy to interface. It's a combination of the long kind of narrow signs that will be at a variety of all the intersections that will give you an idea of the type of trail. It will have the distance to the next sign. It will show you what the allowable uses are. It will include a QR code also that will have a map, and it will link right to where you're at. within the system, so it's pretty neat, a great way for wayfinding on the trail system that sometimes can be fairly complicated, so we hope it's helpful for folks. We will often also have the You Are Here signs, which are the Highland Lake Park Reserve, gives you just an identity of where you're at on the system, how far it is, maybe do a significant landmark, and get you to that point. Again, a QR code that shows an interactive map picks up right where you're at. Really excited about this program. I think it's going to be great, something the public's going to appreciate. We have some very active hikers as well as bikers down at Highland Bush Anderson, so I think this is a system they're very excited about. We've already gotten some feedback from them, and they love it, so we're excited to see that installed this fall. I think that might be it. And with that, Mr. Mayor, Council Members, happy to answer any questions.

Mr. Carlson, thank you. Council, do we have any questions for Mr. Carlson or Chair Gibbs, Council Member Nelson, and then Council Member D'Alessandro?

Thank you, Mayor. First of all, I'm very excited about the fence. Yes, I agree. As we all are. Especially the location. Someone tried to take a shortcut to the clubhouse, but... THAT'S A DIFFERENT ISSUE. THE QUESTION I HAD IS IN TERMS OF THE BEACH BUILDING THERE THAT YOU'RE LOOKING AT, HAVE YOU LOOKED AT OPTIONS FOR FOOD AND BEVERAGE? AND ONE OF THE AREAS I'M FAMILIAR WITH, I THINK IT'S ANTLERS PARK IN LAKEVILLE ON LAKE MARION HAS LIKE A RESTAURANT TYPE, I MEAN, IT'S NOT FULL SERVICE BUT HAS THAT TYPE OF OPTION AND JUST WONDERING IF YOU CONSIDERED THAT OR WILL BE CONSIDERING THAT AS YOU GO THROUGH THE PLANNING PROCESS.

Mr. Chair, excuse me, Mr. Mayor, Council Member Nelson. Yeah, that is very much an element of this plan. It'll be some level of concession that'll be available. And we have the gamut in our system. We have full service kitchens like we do at Highland Hills, Elm Creek Park Reserve. We have much smaller traditional concessionaire facilities at some of our swim ponds that are more ice cream. ice cream snacks, that kind of thing. It's going to be a hybrid. It's certainly not going to be a full-scale restaurant-type facility, but I think it certainly will have a variety of different options available for the public just to have some refreshments and that kind of thing. So that's very much an element of it.

Thank you for the update. This is great.

Council Member D'Alessandro.

Thank you Mr. Mayor. Yeah thanks for being here. Really appreciate it. Always great and appreciate you coming prepared with some of the questions I know we've been getting asked. I think the way finding is really important so I'm grateful that you're doing that. And I'm curious if whether or not some of that QR code for those signs, I know there's always the attempt to have both visual cues as well as written cues. We have lots of different languages spoken and things like that. It might be worth it to have that QR code offer alternative languages as well. So just throwing that out there. Two quick questions. One, I'd be very interested in understanding the results of the study that you do on deer populations in the area. At National Night Out, I was over in the Norman Ridge area and got a lot of questions about deer management over there. So they'll be happy to hear that we have a plan to do some population studies. So I would just ask if we could make a note to bring that back to council, even if it's just a BTW update or something when you have that finished over the winter, that would be great. There are a lot of people interested in that. And then on the Bush Lake Beach building question, so you know we've been going through with our park system master plan a lot of capital investments in our buildings. I was just kind of curious whether or not there was any plan to like normalize the look and feel of the building to match the other buildings that are going up right now throughout our parks, whether you think of like the new Bryant Park buildings or the ones that are going over in the Nine Mile Creek area. Just curious if we're sharing planning around that to number one, save costs, but also to create the kind of common aesthetic.

Mr. Mayor, Coach Melmer, D'Alessandro, great suggestion. Yes, absolutely. That is why we try to have somebody from the Bloomington team on our project team. We're not quite to the stage yet of finishes. We're still trying to figure out square footage and size and all of that. But that's a great suggestion. We certainly can do that.

I think we paid a lot of money for those designs. We might as well use them, is my point. For sure. Right on. Thank you.

That's great. That's great feedback. Appreciate it. The other thing I just want to mention on the deer management side of things. So we are hosting in September a deer management consortium over at Silverwood Park where we invite all local professionals to come and hear resource managers to hear how we go about our system and how we go about planning for that and doing some of the inventory and surveying and then recommendations for management. We are more than happy to reach out. We've done that in the past and welcome Bloomington staff to attend that and hear some of that information, and that can show kind of next steps of how we would go forward.

Sure. If D.C. Bitney is still here, he knows that we had those questions during our ride-along, so he and some other members of BPD might be interested in hearing about it from a public safety perspective.

That'd be great.

Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks.

Council, anything additional? Councilmember Carter.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to say thank you. This is great. And I want to, I guess, specifically point out or emphasize the fact that you said taking care of what you already have and the maintenance pieces. And I think that's super important and not kicking the can down the road. having other people deal with it in the future. And so thank you for all of your hard work. Thank you for getting rid of the fence. And as somebody like many residents who uses the facility daily, I just, I can't tell you how much it means to me living in Bloomington. And when I talk to people across the community, the number one thing that they love about Bloomington is the parks and green space. And so thank you for your stewardship and making sure it's well taken care of.

Thank you. Thank you, council member. There's nothing else, Council? Very good. This was an information item only. So, again, thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Mr. Carlson, thank you much for joining us here this evening, and thank you for your continued partnership with the City of Bloomington. Thank you. Thank you much. Council. Item 3 is our consent agenda. Councilmember D'Alessandro has our consent business tonight. Councilmember D'Alessandro.

Thank you Mr. Mayor. Per our agenda modification from the first part of the meeting we are going to skip item 3.16 and move that to our item 4 business. I am holding item 3.4 as a point of personal privilege. Nothing wrong there. Just comment from my end. With that, I'd be happy to move approval because I heard of no other additional holds. Move approval of tonight's consent business. That's items 3.1 through 3.3, items 3.5 through 3.15, and items 3.17 through 3.20. Second.

Motion by Councilmember D'Alessandro, second by Councilmember Carter to accept tonight's consent agenda as stated. No further council discussion on this? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Council Member D'Alessandro, item 3.4.

Yes, thank you. So this is just me saying thank you to the team members who were willing to table that discussion from the last time and meet with me personally. It meant a lot to me that you guys were willing to understand my place there. For all of you who may not have noticed the slight differences in the thing from the last time to this time, it was mostly about making sure we had a clear understanding of city council's role and our position in the new policy so that we knew that on a regular basis that we would be getting that as part of the annual budget and that we had ultimately the authority over it as it stood including changes that would be made to it so mostly just a definitional thing but to make it really clear where our job was in the scheme of that new policy was what was important to me and I feel like they did a great job so just wanted to say thank you and with that I'm very happy to move item 3.4.

Motion by Council Member D'Alessandro, second by Council Member Carter to accept item 3.4 on tonight's consent agenda. No further council discussion on this? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Thank you much, Council Member. I appreciate your bringing it forward tonight. We will move on to item four this evening, our hearings, resolutions, and ordinances. And our first item is item 4.1. This is the Bloomshine Village Townhomes. We actually had this discussion at a previous meeting. We had the public hearing at a previous meeting. We closed the public hearing, asked staff to continue to working with the applicant and to come back with a revised option if possible. And Liz O'Date is here to bring us up to date as to where we stand now and I will turn it over to her. Good evening, welcome.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. As you just mentioned, this is for Bloomshine Village Townhomes, continued from the August 3rd City Council meeting with direction for staff to work with the applicant on some revised plans that kind of reflect the feedback that was heard at the public hearing. So just a reminder of what's being requested before you this evening. So this is a rezoning request from R1, single family residential, to R3, a final site and building plans to construct 30 townhomes and associated improvements, as well as a plat, two or plat, six single family lots into 30 individual townhome lots in one common lot. So the rezoning request from R1 to R3, currently the six single family lots are currently zoned R1, so consistent with the medium density residential guidance, the sites must be rezoned to R3, which allows townhomes as a permitted use. So a little bit more about the R3 zoning district specifically, allows up to 12 units an acre. It's consistent with the existing land use guidance. It's designated to be compatible with nearby low density residential. It has adequate access to transit, as well as access to a major collector road, 86th Street, and a regional trail along Old Cedar, and also close to two parks. So originally the applicant proposed 33 units. You can see the three units that they removed at the top. And so what's before you this evening is a modified plan, 30 units, which ultimately reduces the density from just shy of 12 units an acre down to 10.9 units an acre, increased side yard setbacks from 10 feet to 19 feet and 15 feet, increased open space by 14.4%, which allows additional storage space for snow and reduced impervious surface. And then they also revised the building height just modestly. So before it was just shy about 41 feet, reduced it to 39 feet, four inches tall. So with that, pretty short presentation for you this evening. Planning Commission and staff are recommending approval, and the applicants are here in attendance if you have any questions.

Very good, thank you. Council, any questions of Ms. O'Day this evening? As I said, this is not a public hearing, but I think, are there any questions of the applicants that we want to address directly to them? No?

No?

Very good. Don't go far. Questions may arise. With that, Council, we've got this in front of us, and I know we've had the discussion. We had it last time, and I guess the question for us is we brought concerns. We heard concerns from the neighborhood. We brought concerns forward. We tabled this and asked Council or asked staff to work with the applicant a bit more. I guess the question is, does this meet what our expectations were? Does this bring it to a level where we're comfortable moving this forward? Council, any thoughts on this? Council Member Rivas.

I don't think it does from my point of view. They have made some compromises. Of course, they reduced the amount from 33 to 30. They extended the green areas from 12 feet, I believe, to 15 feet, right? So that's still a very minimal area that has been extended. I'm just concerned about how the residents feel about all these. And also, I don't wanna mix a lot of things, but it's part of it. When I was reading about the transit or the cars that go to that area study, there is a bus stop right on 87th, I believe. And so there's also a driveway into the townhomes in the same spot. So I was wondering if they measure a 50-foot bus stopping in the area and how would residents will go in or out of that location. Yeah, that's one of the questions I wrote down earlier. So I'm curious how that traffic study took place and if they took into consideration a bus stopping at that bus stop. And then if the project is already finished and residents have moved in, how would they be accessing the driveway into the location or in and out? I was wondering about it. I don't see the engineer here today, but

We do have Mr. Roberts here. I see him in the back. I don't know if either Ms. O'Day or Mr. Roberts have any insights into the traffic study and if that question was considered.

Mayor, Council Member Rivas, there is a Metro Transit stop on 86th Street. Is that what you're referring to? Yes. Okay. So we did provide the plans to Metro Transit, and they are aware of this project taking place, and there is a condition of approval for the applicant to work with Metro Transit on moving that bus stop further, I think, east.

Yeah, I did read that part. So my question in regards to that is, you know, Metro Transit hasn't said yes to that moving that bus stop there. The possibilities are there, though, of that bus stop being moved before construction starts so it doesn't interfere with people using public transportation as well.

So they'll need to maintain they'll have to work with Metro Transit temporarily to still maintain that bus stop. I don't know what that would look like but I know that they are working with Metro Transit to come up with a solution. Invite the applicant if they have any additional modifications that they want to present.

If I may I have a follow up question on that. So if the bus stop gets moved, I'm sorry, I don't wanna get too confusing here. So in the event that the construction goes in and this gets boarded in, the construction will take place in stages, right? So construction will start on 86th or 87th, but one of the two roads will be only utilized on construction at the time, right? Not both of them. Is that true? That question is probably more for the developers than you, I guess.

Yeah, I would invite them to address kind of project phasing and how they plan on addressing that.

Good evening. My name is Dean Davolis, DJI Architecture, 333 Washington Avenue North, Minneapolis, Minnesota. advisor to Hung Lee, who is the primary architect of the project, we would adjust to protect the buses. So we're not gonna cause harm to the stop. And if approval comes later, we would temporarily move the road and not do that. Yeah, so we wouldn't, intentionally or even accidentally cause traffic to be stopped or cause the bus to overshadow the driveway. So, yeah, that would be a consideration. We'd coordinate that with Metro Transit. So, absolutely. Okay.

And if I could ask just a moment for a clarifying, when you say move the road, you mean move the access into the townhome development? Yeah, temporarily during construction. Yeah, so my apologies. Not move the public road. A little clarification. Thank you. Sorry about that. Council Member Rivas, additional questions?

No, that's all I have. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Robertson.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I was going to say that I am in support of this project. And for those who may recall, this is something that I was in favor of previously, but I do agree with my colleagues that some revamping was necessary and was a good thing. But I'm pleased with the modifications that have been made, and I think that it does get it, for me at least, to somewhere where I can approve this tonight. I appreciate the... developer and everyone listening to the feedback. I really appreciate staff taking in that consideration and everyone taking their time to do that. And for me, this works. I'm looking forward to hopefully welcoming new neighbors to the east side, and I think everyone did a great job.

Thank you, Councilmember. Others? Councilmember D'Alessandro.

If we're in the comment portion of the program now, if that's fine.

We are indeed.

Okay, perfect. Yeah, so thank you. So I was the main, well, one of, I was the loudest complainer at the last meeting. So I want to thank you for coming to the table. with something that took the consideration of the group to heart. My issues with this aren't really related to the specifics of this development as much as it's a function of how we could potentially plan things differently. All that having been said, because you have done what you've done You've shown that, you know, these are the kinds of compromises that we can make when we work together and to manage projects like this. So it probably reinforces bad behavior on my part in the sense that I'll be asking for these kinds of things in the future, you know, on other projects. But I think it's because it's important. Now, on the letter of things, there was nothing that, you know, if we wanted to not vote for the zoning change, we could do that. But in terms of, you know, how it fits and how, you know, Mr. Johnson and Ms. Bergeron were kind enough to sit down and talk with me directly about this for quite some period of time. to talk about it, we need to do a better job, I think, as a city to help people understand exactly what their neighborhoods are subject to, to begin with, right? Because ultimately, the developers here didn't do anything outside the bounds of what the city allows. And, you know, so there's no foul play here, there's no, anybody trying to get anything over on anybody and, you know, the neighbors sold their houses to them and stuff, so it's not like it, it wasn't all above board. But I think most neighbors are caught off guard when these types of things happen. They don't know that they live in a medium-density housing area per our comp plan. Why would they know that? We don't disclose it as part of time of sale, and we don't do a very good job of making it easy for you to figure that out when you look at your own plans, your own plats. And so... I think we have opportunities, this taught me something, which is we have opportunities to do a better job. In the same way, and I know Kim and the team are looking into this, in the same way that you can say, where's my polling place? And there's a lot of data behind your polling place, but all you need to know is what your address is and it tells you where to go, right? In the same way, couldn't we say, what are the zoning laws associated or what are the land use laws associated with my house? here's my address, tell me what I have to work with. Then you can figure out what the compliment tells you, what the zoning tells you, what the recent changes to our our plans have told you, et cetera. And you can make it a better experience for the homes. You can also disclose that stuff as part of time of sale, which makes it a lot easier for people to know what they're buying and maybe make a decision about house A versus house B, depending on what they think about those things. So there's opportunities for us here as a city. I think the learning was really great. I'm very appreciative of the work that you did in the sense that I know the long-term impact of not having three additional places is not nothing and I want to be respectful of that and I also think that the changes to the shade as well as the open space and the snow plow removal addressed several of the concerns that we heard at the night so I'm happy with the results and I want to just thank everybody for moving with us on this one. Thank you.

Thank you council member. Other thoughts? Well, I will weigh in. I mean, we brought forward a number of questions on this and a number of concerns, and frankly, I was a bit skeptical for a couple of reasons, and I think we talked about all of them. I was less skeptical on some of the other things we talked about, but in particular, the density. I thought it was just too tight of a site for what we were looking at, and especially for where it was. And so I was glad to see a bit more breathing room, a bit more space in between. And also, you know, lowering the rooftop is not – it wasn't significant. A foot and a half isn't enormous, but it is lowering it by a foot and a half. And I think that will make a difference ultimately. I do think some of the questions that we brought forward and that staff considered and that we heard during the public hearing last time, about traffic. I don't think there's going to be a noticeable increase in traffic. This is just 30 homes. This is not that... Just by the practical numbers, it's simply you will not notice it. You're on a collector street. You're on 86th Street. There's already plenty of traffic there, and you're not going to notice the extras. You will notice the... I think... I THINK WE HAVE EXAMPLES ACROSS THE CITY. WE TALKED ABOUT HAVING TOWN HOMES MID-BLOCK AS OPPOSED TO ON A CORNER, WHICH I THINK WAS LEGITIMATE, BUT I KNOW THAT WE HAVE, WE DO HAVE EXAMPLES WITHIN THE CITY WHERE THAT EXISTS NOW. AND IT DOES WORK. IT LOOKS, IT CAN LOOK VERY NICE AND IT CAN BE MADE TO FIT INTO THE NEIGHBORHOOD AS WELL AS POSSIBLE. AND THEN I THINK THERE IS ALSO THE NEED IN BLOOMINGTON FOR THIS TYPE OF HOUSING. THERE IS THE NEED ACROSS THE METRO AREA FOR THIS TYPE OF HOUSING. AND WE HAVE TALKED ABOUT THIS AS A, EXCUSE ME. PLEASE. WE HAD A PUBLIC HEARING AT OUR LAST OPPORTUNITY. AND I'M SORRY YOU WERE SICK. I AM. I THINK THE LAST POINT BEING THIS IS THE TYPE OF HOUSING THAT WE HEAR THAT PEOPLE WOULD LIKE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR. HOUSING THAT THEY CAN OWN. housing that kind of fits right in the middle in between single-family homes and larger apartment buildings, and the type of housing, again, on transit, close to parks, just the type of housing that we hear people. I do think it was unfortunate that the folks sold their homes and the homes were torn down right away before we were to a final development plan on all of this. I think that was unfortunate. THE TIMING WAS NOT IDEAL AND THE WAY THEY PUT IT ALL TOGETHER, BECAUSE IT'S A STARK CONTRAST NOW. WE HAVE A BARE SPOT IN THE MIDDLE OF A BLOCK, AND I DON'T THINK THAT'S IDEAL. BUT AGAIN, AS COUNCILMEMBER D'ALISANDRO TALKS ABOUT LESSONS LEARNED, YEAH, THERE ARE LESSONS LEARNED THERE, I THINK, AS WELL. SO THIS IS THE TYPE OF DEVELOPMENT WE'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT IN TERMS OF IN-FIELD DEVELOPMENT, OPPORTUNITIES FOR PEOPLE TO OWN, AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR ADDITIONAL HOUSING WITHIN THE CITY OF BLOOMINGTON. THOSE ARE MY THOUGHTS. COUNCIL MEMBER CARTER?

THANK YOU, MAYOR. I JUST HAVE A QUESTION, KIND OF A FOLLOW-UP TO THE COMMENT YOU MADE. IS THERE SOMETHING THAT WE CAN DO AS A CITY TO PREVENT MULTIPLE LOTS BEING BOUGHT, HOUSES BEING TORN DOWN, AND THEN DEVELOPERS COMING TO ASK FOR THE REZONE? BECAUSE, I MEAN, IT KIND OF FEELS LIKE NOW WE'RE AT THE POINT, I MEAN.

YEAH, I AGREE. THAT'S WHAT I WAS THINKING HOW IT'S, YEAH, IT'S KIND OF BACKWARDS.

YEAH, IT FEELS LIKE THEY SHOULD HAVE COME TO THE CITY FIRST WITH THE PLANS. YES. BY THE LOTS COME TO US WITH THE PLANS AND THEN. GO THROUGH THAT. SO, YEAH, I WOULD DEFINITELY BE IN SUPPORT.

AND I TURN TO OUR CITY STAFF. MAYBE WE CAN TALK ABOUT THIS IN THE FUTURE WHETHER IT'S FROM A LEGAL PERSPECTIVE OR A DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVE WHETHER OR NOT THAT'S DOABLE. SO, SOMETHING TO PUT ON THE POSSIBLE TO-DO LIST.

THE OTHER REALLY QUICK COMMENT I WOULD HAVE, I WASN'T AT THE LAST MEETING, BUT FOR THE AFFORDABLE OR THE OHO PIECES, THE AFFORDABILITY PIECES, I WOULD REALLY strongly suggest and my preference would be that the three units be reserved for affordable home ownership. I think in the packet it said that it might be home ownership or for rental. And I think this would be a great opportunity for families or individuals, whoever, to get into a home ownership opportunity. And so if they could be under the OHO, really specifically for home ownership, I think that would be great. So those are my two comments.

Thank you, Councilmember. Any other comments, Councilmembers? Councilmember Lohman, do you have a comment? If there are no other comments on this, Council, I would look for action item 4.1 on tonight's agenda. I'd be happy to make that motion.

Council Member Lohman. Mayor, I'll move to adopt an ordinance rezoning 1525-1601, 1603-1605 East 86th Street and 1604 and 1606 East 87th Street from R1 Single Family Residential, R1 Middle Housing Residential. Second.

Motion by Council Member Lohman, second by Council Member Robertson to rezone the properties as stated from R1 single family residential to R3 middle housing residential. Any further council discussion on this? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 6-1 with Council Member Rivas in opposition. Council Member Lowman.

Mayor, I'll move to adopt a resolution authorizing summary publication of ordinance number 2026 and an ordinance rezoning 1525, 1601, 1603, 1605 East 86th Street and 1604 and 1606 East 87th Street from R1 single-family residential to R3. THREE MIDDLE HOUSING RESIDENTIAL.

SECOND. MOTION BY COUNCILMEMBER LOMAN, SECOND BY COUNCILMEMBER ROBERTSON FOR SUMMARY PUBLICATION ON THE REZONING. NO FURTHER COUNCIL DISCUSSION ON THIS? ALL THOSE IN FAVOR PLEASE SIGNIFY BY SAYING AYE. AYE. OPPOSED? MOTION CARRIES 6-1 ON SUMMARY PUBLICATION WITH COUNCILMEMBER RIVAS IN OPPOSITION. COUNCILMEMBER LOMAN.

Mayor, I'll move the final site and building plans for 30-unit townhome redevelopment is located at 1525, 1601, 1603, 1605 East 86th Street and 1604 and 1606 East 87th Street, subject to the conditions and code requirements attached to the staff report.

Second. Motion by Councilmember Lohman, second by Councilmember Robertson. Councilmember Nelson, a question.

Yeah. Would this be where we could consider a council member Carter suggestion with regards to, um, the home ownership and what would the path look like to do that? Would that be a condition? Is that something we can actually do? You know how I like to add conditions we can't do, so.

Mr. Mayor, council members, it's a really good question and a very good suggestion. We have to look into the code more, but I'm not sure that we have the ability to say it has to be ownership. The requirement is to provide three affordable units based on the total quantity of units. I think we have the authority to say it has to be ownership, but it's a great comment and suggestion that we can look into.

Mayor, if I might, could we just ask the applicant if they're open to that and if they'll do their best efforts to do it that way?

Yes, I'm very glad you clarified that because our intent was not along to have the whole development ownership. So this just helps clarify it. So yes, thank you.

Very good. Thank you. So additional questions, counsel? We have a motion and a second to approve final site and building plans for the townhome development as stated, subject to conditions and code requirements attached to the staff report.

May, if I may. Council Member Rivas. I would like to see the city staff to communicate earlier to the public that are affected by these developments. I have no opposition about this kind of construction happening because as we are all aware, we need that type of housing in the city. However, bringing the residents' attention at the last minute like it happened this time, and it happens many times, I think it creates this difficulty of, you know, it's a challenge for everybody, the residents and, you know, for us to vote, I guess, you know, we all have reservations. In my case, I agree with the residents. If they don't know what is happening, what's coming, they have more difficulty supporting it. But if they do know in advance, and I know that they mentioned, the Planning Commission mentioned last time that they don't do it until it's a reality. But before it becomes a reality, the neighbors need to be aware of it. I think that we will have a lot more support from the neighborhood if we were able to communicate to them at an earlier time instead of bringing these things when it has already been, architects are already involved A lot of funds have been already spent on the project, and then we have a difficult time saying no to that because everything has met requirements, except with the fact that the residents didn't have a clue that this was coming. If we can remedy that situation in the future, I don't think that we will have any opposition on these projects. But that's all I got to say.

Thank you. I think, Council Member Rivas, I think you're saying you're in agreement with Council Member D'Alessandro. That's exactly what she was saying earlier, and I agree with you both also. We need systems in place where we do a better job of that. I agree. So once again, we have a motion and second to approve the final site and building plans for the townhome development as stated. No further council discussion on this? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 6-1 with Council Member Rivas in opposition. And finally, Council Member Lohman.

Mayor, I'll move a motion to approve a Type 3 preliminary plat and adopt the resolution approving the final plat of 8060 Bloomington Flats to subdivide 1525, 1601, 1603, and 1605 East 86th Street. and 1604 and 1606 East 87th Street into 30 townhome lots and one common lot subject to the conditions and code requirements listed on the resolution.

Second.

Motion by Council Member Lowman, second by Council Member Robertson to approve the preliminary plat and the final plat for the 86th Street Bloomington flats to subdivide as stated. No further council discussion on this? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 6-1 with Council Member Rivas in opposition. Thank you to staff. Thank you to the applicants. Thanks to the community coming out. I appreciate the comments that were brought forward at the public hearing, and I appreciate that you took some of those to heart and appreciate how we're moving forward on this to meet some of the needs in the city of Bloomington. So thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you.

We will move on on our agenda, and this is where we made the change, Council. We moved item 3.16 to this spot in our agenda. This is, 3.16 is the approval of surplus equipment donation policy. I'm not sure, is this, Mr. Zuniga is gonna kind of tie these two together for us?

I can certainly do that, Mr. Mayor. But also, before we get into that, wanted to introduce our presenter on both the policy and the ordinance that's before you. In the city attorney's office, we were fortunate to have two summer law clerks this summer. We had one law clerk in our criminal division that worked alongside our prosecutors, was able to attend and appear in court. We also had a law clerk, Jackson Snyder, who you'll hear from in a minute, in our civil division. Jackson was able to work on a number of projects for our division this summer. Uh, one of which is this policy and ordinance. And we thought as he was getting ready to start his third year in law school, that'd be a great way to wrap up his summer experience with presenting his work to you. And so he's going to be on the hot seat, not me. Um, just to tie these two items together, uh, Dakota amendment is allowing for the donation of surplus equipment, which is authorized under state law. as well as how the city handles abandoned or unclaimed property. In order for us to be able to donate surplus equipment, state law does require us to have a policy, and so that's why the policy is in front of you today, too. So I'll turn it over to Jackson.

Very good. Mr. Schneider, good evening. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor. Good evening, Council. Thank you for having me.

Absolutely. Where's year three of the law school? Where do you go to school?

Mitchell Hamlin.

Very good.

There you go.

Very good. Welcome. Glad to have you here tonight.

Thank you. Well, I'll start tonight with just some background. Mr.

Senator, could I ask you to get the microphone right in front of your mouth so we can all hear you? Thank you so very much.

Okay, I will start tonight with just some background on why these amendments are necessary. So Minnesota law authorizes municipalities to donate surplus equipment, and surplus equipment is defined by state law. And although Minnesota law authorizes municipalities to donate this equipment, our city code does not currently provide a process for the city to actually exercise that authority. So as a result, when qualifying city property is no longer needed or has little or no resale value, the city may have limited options for disposing of it. In some circumstances that can leave trash or recycling is the only practical option. even when the property could still be put to productive use by another entity. The proposed amendments would provide an alternative by allowing qualifying property to be donated rather than simply discarded. The second issue addressed by the amendments involves unclaimed and abandoned money. Money can lawfully come into the city's possession in several ways. For example, it may be found or seized by a police officer in the course of their duties, or it may be turned into the city by a resident who found it. Our city code currently provides procedures for disposing of other types of unclaimed property, including through sale. But those procedures do not translate well to cash or money because money cannot be sold or converted into proceeds because it already has a fixed monetary value. As a result, the city does not currently have a clear process for the final disposition of money that lawfully comes into its possession but is never claimed. In practice, this has resulted in the city retaining unclaimed money for extended periods of time. The proposed amendments address both of these issues. So first, with respect to surplus equipment, the proposed amendments would authorize the city to donate surplus equipment to nonprofit organizations. So the surplus equipment donation policy that's on the agenda tonight is required by state law and provides the procedures for donation. So first, the department seeking to dispose of the property would attempt to transfer it to another city department. And if that's unsuccessful, the department would receive approval from the purchasing manager who would then consider whether the property could reasonably be sold on the open market. And basically if sale isn't pursued, probably because the property would have little or no resale value, the purchasing manager would prepare a resolution for city council to approve the donation of that property. The amendments would also authorize the transfer of city property, including property that does not qualify as surplus equipment to another city for public use when approved by city council. And finally, this portion of the ordinance would clarify the city's existing procedures for disposing of lower value property. So currently, the code provides that property valued at $10,000 or less may be sold by quotation or on the open market. Because that language technically includes property that's valued at zero dollars, the code does not clearly distinguish between property that has some market value and can be sold, and property that has no market value at all. So this amendment clarifies that the existing sales procedures apply to property valued at more than zero dollars. It then establishes a separate process for property with no estimated market value, which includes the donation of surplus equipment. The second portion of the amendments establish a process for handling abandoned money. Under the proposed ordinance, money that lawfully comes into the city's possession in the course of municipal operations and remains unclaimed for more than 90 days is presumed abandoned and may be retained by the city and deposited into the city's general fund. The amendments also establish notice requirements during that 90 day period. If the apparent owner's identity and address are known or can be reasonably determined, the city must mail written notice informing the owner that the city possesses the money and that it may be claimed upon satisfactory proof of ownership. The ordinance also provides an additional safeguard for an owner who does not claim money during the initial 90-day period. If the owner comes forward within six months after the city retains the money and provides satisfactory proof of ownership, the city must reimburse the owner from the general fund in an amount equal to the money that was retained. So for example, if the city retains $100 after the 90 day period and the owner subsequently establishes ownership within the six month reimbursement period, the city would reimburse that person $100 from the general fund. So taken together, these amendments provide clear procedures for two situations that are not adequately addressed by the existing code. They give the city greater flexibility to put surplus equipment to productive use rather than merely disposing of it, while also establishing a clear process for handling money that remains unclaimed and protecting the ability of a rightful owner to recover that money. So with that I have a recommended motion and I'm happy to stand for any questions.

Thank you Mr. Schneider well done.

Thank you.

Council any questions? Council Member D'Alessandro.

Thanks Mr. Mayor. Real quick before I get to your question just a point of clarification are we to pass 3.16 before we do this and do they look like does one have to go in one order or the other I'm just curious does it matter?

Mr. Zuniga, what are your thoughts on that? I'm assuming it does not matter, but what are your thoughts?

Mayor, Council Member D'Alessandro, I don't think it necessarily has to go in a particular order, but in order for us to effectuate any ordinance changes, we do need that policy adopted. Understood.

Yeah, that's no problem. I understood. Okay, two quick questions for you. Thanks for being here, and congrats on your upcoming term. Third year is last year, correct? Yes. You'll sit for the bar sometime. That's nice. All right. So does property – does money that is seized in the course of – related to a crime count as unclaimed money after a period of time, or is that subject to a different thing altogether because it's considered part of a criminal investigation, for example?

Mayor and council member, that is included in these procedures. So any money that is seized by the police department ultimately would be held for a period for investigation, but it is still subject to the city's retention procedure.

Okay, so for example, if we had $5,000 that was seized as part of something, but that trial took five years to get done, it would be five years, and then when it's done, the 90 days kicks in after that. Does that sound right?

Do you have some clarification here?

Yes, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member D'Alessandro. Just to qualify that, there are certain circumstances where there is a state law that governs how certain proceeds are forfeited. If they're used in the commission of a certain crime, there is state law that governs how the police department and the city would forfeit those funds. And so that process would still govern those types of crimes. But Jackson is correct that... YOU KNOW, IF A CRIME IS COMMITTED AND MONEY WAS SEIZED AS PART OF THAT CRIME AND IT DOESN'T QUALIFY FOR FORFEITURE AND IT'S STILL IN THE POSSESSION OF THE CITY, IT COULD POTENTIALLY BE PART OF THIS PROCESS.

GREAT. THAT'S HELPFUL. I REMEMBER SOMETIMES WE'VE GOTTEN REQUESTS TO MOVE THOSE FORFEITED FUNDS SOMEWHERE ELSE. I WANTED TO MAKE SURE I UNDERSTOOD THE CONNECTION THERE. Okay. And the second part of it was the, I'm assuming there's no, because there's no value placed on the property when it's donated, there's no concerns, not that we have tax concerns, but there's no concerns for tax on that property either than either to the nonprofit, to us, or to anybody else that might have been involved, including the people that might have donated it to us in the first place. Is that correct?

Mayor, council, that is correct. All costs, any costs associated with the donation would be placed in the responsibility of the nonprofit organization receiving the property. So the city would take on no financial burden from the donation.

Okay, great. That's all questions I had. Thanks. Thank you, council member.

Mr. Mayor, my questions were already answered by his presentation, and also I had some questions that got answered by the city manager earlier. Very good.

No further questions, Council Member? Very good. And Council Member Rivas, no further questions? No? Okay.

Councilmember Lohmann. Let me see if I can give a softball one to you. So, you know, you were doing all this work and bringing this forward, and I'm happy to see that this is finally done. Well, not done yet. I don't want to get ahead of myself here. But I'm curious to know, you know, as you were working through this process and looking developing this for us to review are there any insights or things that you learned or things that we may want as policymakers kind of looking forward on this particular item or maybe some other items that are tangential to this we may want to think about as we kind of go forward if we were to pass this tonight mayor counsel I would say

While it may seem unclear what exactly is able to be donated, a lot of it is going to be a case-by-case basis. So in terms of, say, how much property the city is actually donating, it's going to vary year to year. So it's going to often depend on how often is the city replacing property, how often does our property become outdated. So I think the policy really... isn't going to be something that's used extremely often it's more going to be used to govern the specific cases that come up that we currently have nothing to address so I think I guess what I would say is it's you know it's not going to be a big part of our lives but it will be helpful and come in handy in certain scenarios and it'll allow us to reduce waste which will be exciting yes thank you anything additional council

If not, council, I would look for action on item 4.2 this evening. Council Member Robertson.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Mayor, this is a public hearing. Oh, I'm sorry.

I went out over my skis. I apologize for that. This is a public hearing. Yeah, given what we have in the building right now. This is a public hearing on item 4.2. I'd like to open this public hearing. This is regarding our city code amendment for the donation of surplus city property and the disposition of abandoned or unclaimed property. Anyone in the chambers wishing to speak? Priyanka, do we have anyone on the phone?

Mayor, we do not have anyone online.

Last call for anybody in the chambers. Council, no one in the chamber is coming forward. No one on the phone wishes to speak. I look for a motion to close the public hearing on item 4.2. Motion by Council Member Riva, second by Council Member D'Alessandro to close the public hearing on item 4.2. No further council discussion on this. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries at 7-0. Now looking for action on this, and I will turn to Council Member Robertson.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I don't have it on the screen in front of me, so I'm going to read it out of the packet that I have here. So I move an ordinance amending Chapter 5 of the City Code to authorize the donation of city surplus property and to provide for the disposition of abandoned or unclaimed property in accordance with state law.

Second. Motion by Councilmember Roberts and second by Councilmember Lohman to approve the ordinance amending Chapter 5 of the City Code. No further council discussion on this one? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Council Member Robertson.

Thank you. I move a resolution authorizing summary publication of the adopted ordinance, thereby amending Chapter 5 of the City Code.

Second. Motion by Council Member Robertson, second by Council Member Lohman for summary publication on item 4.2. No further council discussion. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries 7-0.

And then, Mr. Mayor, we'll need to move 3.16 then to just cover it off. Would you like me to do that now?

Let me call it first. My bad.

I thought you were going to say goodnight to these folks and move on.

No, I was going to thank Mr. Schneider for his work and wish him the best of luck in year three in law school and whatever you end up with. So thank you for your work here with the city of Bloomington. It's appreciated. And your legacy will live on in this ordinance. Well done. With that, I will call item 3.6. This is the approval of our surplus equipment donation policy. Council Member D'Alessandro.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Sorry again for jumping the gun there. I apologize. I would move to approve the surplus equipment donation policy. Second.

Motion by Council Member D'Alessandro, second by Council Member Robertson to approve item 3.16. That's the approval of our surplus equipment donation policy. No further council discussion on this? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Thank you all very much for that. Next on our agenda is the second thing that we kind of moved around, council. Before we head into closed discussion, I'm going to move up the council policy and issue updates, and I will kick us off recapping our listening session from earlier this evening. We had... Six folks speaking with us this evening, a full group that everybody had some good thoughts. Matthew Hallett spoke about the Humboldt Avenue repaving and the need for bike lanes or the possibility to put bike lanes in there. Sally Ness spoke about the Smith Park shared use agreement. Chris Scanlon talked about code requirements and specifically how it impacts her neighbor and we directed her to speak directly with a member of staff to get that neighbor's address so we can try and work towards solutions there. John Minx talked about, had general questions about long range planning, more specific questions about the Gateway District. Brian Emerson had continued questions and concerns about the impact of the Community Health and Wellness Center construction project. And Pam Palmer talked to us about the Neighborhood Watch Program and the suggestion for the program, including mass emails set up for that for folks who would be interested in the Neighborhood Watch Program. Oh, and I'm sorry, we did have a seventh. I forgot Mr. Thule. Andy Thule talked about parking on Park Avenue. So once again, a robust discussion that we had, and I appreciate everybody who came out and spoke to us this evening. With that, I have nothing else. Mr. Walker, do you have anything?

Briefly, Mayor, just a few items. First, I want to give a kudos to a couple of our staff members who are being recognized for their outstanding work. Barb Wolf, our Assistant Port Authority Administrator, is being recognized with the Karen Evans Immigration Champion Award by the Immigrant Entrepreneur Summit. That is an award that recognizes a non-immigrant individual who's dedicated to making a positive impact in the immigrant community, particularly helping immigrants foster their business and entrepreneur skills. So congratulations to her. And then Marianne Wilson in our public health department is being recognized with the 2026 WIC Everyday Hero Award for the metro region. And that is an award that recognizes somebody who works in PROGRAM AND EXEMPLIFIES PARTICIPANT CENTERED SERVICES. SO I WANT TO CONGRATULATE MARIANNE AS WELL. PROCEDURALLY JUST A REMINDER TO THE COUNCIL AND THE PUBLIC NO MEETING NEXT WEEK BECAUSE OF LABOR DAY BUT THE SEPTEMBER 14TH MEETING WILL INCLUDE CONSIDERATION AND ACTION ON THE PRELIMINARY 2027 PROPERTY TAX LEVIES INCLUDING PUBLIC COMMENT ON THOSE ITEMS AS WELL.

THANK YOU MR. WALKER. COUNCIL ANY QUESTIONS OF MR. WALKER ON HIS ITEMS? None. Council, do you have anything to bring forward tonight? Council Member Lohman.

Just ever so briefly, this is related to the item 4.1, and I made a lot of my comments last time we met a couple weeks ago on it, but I wanted to just kind of, some of my colleagues have already talked about it. Mayor, you spoke to this as well on that 4.1. I do think there really is an opportunity for us to look at our procedure, which has been discussed in a in detail around the housing zoning and the development component of it so that we can try to get ourselves a little more in sync with where the developers are. They're very aggressive to try to take advantage of some of the things that we're trying to do within our comprehensive plan. You know, we have other plans that we've done, Mayor, You know, for other parts of our town, you know, for example, the Penn, you know, Penn and American area, maybe it makes some sense to look at some of these other neighborhoods on the east side that are, you know, getting a little longer in the tooth. And, you know, look at some of those individual neighborhoods and maybe look at maybe there's a plan for those areas. I know we kind of already have the comprehensive plan there. But just for these, to the point that my colleague raised, Councilmember D'Alessandro, this idea that folks don't know until they see the tractor there getting ready to plow the houses underneath, it makes for a really difficult situation. I mean, I do think this made sense where it was, but I just think there may be some other opportunities for us to ever find a way to make it a better opportunity for those folks. So just one council member's point of view, and I wanted to make it more so so it was on the policy side of things as opposed to when we're discussing the actual item.

Thank you, Council Member Lillman.

Council Member Nelson.

Thank you, Mayor. I've just got two quick things. One, following up on our listening session, Mr. Hallett talked about bikes on Humboldt. I'd be in favor of taking a look at that. I think that actually came up often in our conversation about bikes down along the creek or somewhere through there. AND IT WAS REFERENCED THAT YOU COULD CREATE BIKE PATHS THERE TO CONNECT INTO EXISTING INFRASTRUCTURE AND SOMEDAY THE COUNTY MAY PUT BIKE PATHS ALONG OLD CHOCOPEE TOO. WHO KNOWS. IF THEY EVER FIGURE OUT NORMANDALE. SO I WOULD BE INTERESTED IN TAKING A LOOK AT THAT. IT SOUNDS LIKE A SENSIBLE SOLUTION. I WOULD LIKE TO TALK ABOUT ITEM 4.12. it wasn't pertinent to the discussion that we had here, but should we be looking at all of the property that is R1 and guided medium density? Because we only rezoned six of those or however many they got replanted as or whatever but the rest of that neighborhood is in the same identical situation and if we said hey that's what we should do should we just go through that that just to a certain extent will provide some notice to those residents that may be in that situation and also be honest i mean i believe we have the authority if we looked at and said you know this doesn't make sense here um we could re-guide it to low density AND SAY, NO, THIS DOESN'T ANY LONGER MAKE SENSE BECAUSE THERE IS A LITTLE CONCERN ON MY SIDE THAT, I MEAN, IT'S BEEN GUIDED THAT FOR 50 YEARS, WHICH IS AN ARGUMENT LIKE, OKAY, IT'S ALWAYS BEEN INTENDED FOR THAT. OR IT'S JUST NO ONE EVER THOUGHT OF IT UNTIL SOMEONE CAME ALONG AND DID SOMETHING. AND IT JUST KIND OF GOT MISSED AND IGNORED. AND SO I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW EXTENSIVE THAT SITUATION IS THROUGHOUT THE COMMUNITY. I ALSO WOULD SAY THAT, YOU YOU KNOW, I WAS OBVIOUSLY SUPPORTIVE OF THE PROJECT IN ITS I do have a little bit of concern making zoning decisions based specifically on a particular development because it may box us in in the future and you know so I also don't know that frankly it's fair to the development community to use withholding of the zoning to force negotiations on an otherwise code compliant project. So I would just like to avoid that in the future and then have those two things as much as possible separated. And we should just make the zoning decision based on the merits of the zoning and understand what it is. And I have heard now on this one, as well as Penn Lake, that there's a discomfort with how much density these townhomes are. should we be looking at that level of density? Should we be looking at our density levels in R3 and town homes and just modifying that to where people are more comfortable so that we don't have to have that conversation every time and just say, hey, you know what, 12 is maybe too much. We're just not feeling that. Maybe that needs to be 10, something like that, and do it through those changes as opposed to having to go through this back and forth and negotiated process, which costs our staff time, which costs the developer time, And all of that. So just, you know, in addition to the other process, things of notification of the neighborhood and things like that, bring that forward.

All good thoughts. And I think with your thoughts and with Council Member Lohman's thoughts and Council Member D'Alessandro and Rivas, your thoughts on making sure everybody knows. I think we have a package of things that staff can consider and we should continue this conversation and make sure that we... CAN MOVE IN A MORE SMOOTH FASHION AS WE LOOK AT THIS IN THE FUTURE, THIS TYPE OF THING IN THE FUTURE. SO THANK YOU FOR THAT. ANYTHING ELSE, COUNCIL? IF NOT, COUNCIL, I'M GOING TO CALL ITEM 5.1. THIS IS FOR A CLOSED MEETING FOR AN ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGE DISCUSSION. WE'VE TALKED ABOUT THIS BEFORE. THE MINNESOTA OPEN MEETING LAW ALLOWS CITIES TO CLOSE MEETINGS FOR A HANDFUL OF THINGS, INCLUDING NEGOTIATIONS AND HR ISSUES AND SO ON, BUT IT ALSO DOES does state in part that meetings may be closed if the closure is expressly authorized by statute or permitted by the attorney-client privilege, and that is what this is. So we are going to meet with City Legal Counsel for the purpose of considering litigation strategies related to federal rulemaking. And after our discussion and closed session, the regular meeting of the city council will be reopened to the public and adjourned the city council meeting. So with that, I would say thank you to everybody who's here, but we're going to close the meeting now. And we will go back into open session to close the meeting in a bit here. So thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. We do need a motion to direct the closure of the public meeting. Actually, I will move the resolution directing the closure of the public meeting of the city council.

Second.

Got a motion and a second by Council Member Rivas to accept the resolution directing the closure of the public meeting of the City Council. No further Council discussion on this. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 7-0. So we're headed into closed meeting.

... ... Thank you. Thank you.

We are back in open session. It is now 921. Council, I would make a motion to authorize the mayor, the city manager, and the city attorney's office and other required staff to take actions consistent with the closed meeting discussion this evening. Second. Motion and second by Council Member Robertson to authorize the mayor, the city manager, and the city attorney's office and other required staff to take actions consistent with the closed meeting discussion. No other council discussion on this. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries 7-0. With that, council, it concludes our work for this evening. I look for a motion to adjourn.

Second.

Motion by Councilmember D'Alessandro, second by Councilmember Robertson to adjourn this evening. No further council discussion on this. All in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Thank you much, Council. Thanks for the work tonight. Thank you to staff. Thanks to everybody who participated. And congratulations to our new police officers. Everybody have a great Labor weekend.