City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone, and welcome. I will call this Bloomington City Council meeting to order. Tonight is Monday, September 14th, 2026. Thank you to everyone joining us here in the council chambers. Thanks to everybody watching online. We will begin our council meeting as we always do. If you are able, please stand and remove any head covering and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Once again, welcome and thank you for joining us this evening. Council, our first official order of business is the approval of tonight's agenda, and as I'm sure you noticed, it is a beefy one tonight. We've got a lot on our agenda this evening, and it's going to take us a bit to get through it. Our first introductory item is item 2.1. It's a proclamation for the International Day of Peace, and item 2.2 is our second proclamation of the evening for Suicide Prevention Month and Week. item two point three we will be celebrating our twenty twenty six hats bloomington program winners and looking forward to that to uh... uh... celebrating them in the work that they have done item two point for an introduction of new employees and item two point five we're gonna make an appointment to our merit board our consent agenda this evening has twenty four different items on it comes memory bus i think as our consent agenda this evening thank you for doing that councilmember UNDER ITEM 4 ARE HEARINGS, RESOLUTIONS, AND ORDINANCES. WE HAVE EIGHT DIFFERENT HEARINGS, RESOLUTIONS, AND ORDINANCES. THE FIRST, ITEM 4.1 AND 4.2, THOSE ARE RESOLUTIONS, WOULD BE ADOPTING THE PRELIMINARY 2027 TAX LEVY AND OUR 2027 GENERAL FUND BUDGET AND THE CONCEPTUAL GENERAL FUND 2028 GENERAL FUND BUDGET. OUR DISCUSSION ABOUT THE PRELIMINARY TAX LEVY WILL PROVIDE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR PUBLIC COMMENT FOR FOLKS IN THE CHAMBERS. Then we go into public hearings. We've got five or six of them. Item 4.3 is a public hearing regarding our delinquent water, sewer, stormwater, drainage, garbage, recycling, and organics assessments. Item 4.4, public hearing on our tree removal assessments. 4.5, weed brush removal assessments. 4.6, our public nuisance abatement assessments. And 4.7, our public hearing for civil fines for property-related violation assessments. Item 4.8 is a public hearing regarding a rezoning for the James Avenue city homes. And our organizational business will wrap up with our city council policy and issues update as it always does. As I said, council, it's going to be a busy one. So looking forward to the conversation. Also looking forward to making sure that all of our comments are to the point and Brevity is our friend this evening. So let's keep that in mind. Council, unless there are any changes or anything to add, I would move approval of our agenda as stated tonight. Motion and a second by Council Member Rivas to accept tonight's agenda as stated. With no other discussion on this, I will note that Council Member Carter is remote this evening, and so all of our votes are going to have to be roll call votes, which is going to add also to the time we spend this evening. So I'm going to turn it over. Ms. Rives, you can call the roll, please.

Council Member Carter. Aye. Aye. To Alessandro. Aye. Rivas.

Aye.

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

Aye. Motion carries 7-0, and we have an agenda. And the first item on that agenda is a couple of proclamations, and I'm going to head down to the podium. As I mentioned, our first proclamation this evening is for the International Day of Peace, and I think we have Laken Kennedy is our youth commissioner for HRC is here. Is Laken here with us? There he is. Actually, we've been trying to get a hold of him.

We confirmed earlier he would be here, but he's not here right now.

Laken is TBD, okay. We will wait. We will welcome him if he arrives, so very good. So the proclamation for the International Day of Peace here in the city of Bloomington, September 21st, 2026. Whereas the shared goal of peace inspires and unifies people across the world as one of the humanity's deepest hopes. And whereas the theme for this 2026 United Nations International Day of Peace is invest in peace for everyone, everywhere, every day. This powerful call to action honors the grassroots architects of stability, reminding us that long lasting harmony is built through daily local acts of compassion, equality, and community dialogue. And whereas our journey of peace and the priority to create a connected, welcoming community is defined and emphasized in Bloomington's strategic plan. And whereas in light of the ongoing, repeated tragedies in our communities, including the killings of Renee Good and Alex Preddy, our resolve for peace takes new life and meaning amid the heartbreaking impacts on our neighbors, friends, and families. And whereas the year 2026 marks 19 years of Civic Plaza as a peace site, which represents our commitment to seek peace within ourselves and others, reach out and surface, pursue environmental sustainability, respect diversity, foster inclusivity, and be responsible citizens of the world. Now, therefore, I, Mayor Tim Bussey, do hereby proclaim September 21st as the International Day of Peace. data this fourteenth day of september twenty twenty six uh... as the proclamation indicates this is a an annual proclamation that we do read and and i do recall when the civic plaza was designated as a uh... uh... place of peace and our peaceful out front indicates that and i think it's it's a good reminder every day that we it's something that we can't just take for granted and something that we have to work toward, and I appreciate this proclamation every year, and I'm happy to present it on behalf of Bloomington. And if Lakin shows up, we'll get him a picture a little bit later. Very good. Item 2.2 on our agenda is our second proclamation, and this is for our National Suicide Prevention Month and National Suicide Prevention Week. The month, of course, is September, and the week is September 13th through the 19th, and so we are in the midst of National Suicide Prevention Week. I believe we have with us Jen Owens, the Director for Programs for SAVE. Are you here, Jane? Come on up, please. Please. You can join me here, and I will do the proclamation, and I'll turn the microphone over to you. All right. Proclamation for National Suicide Prevention Month, September 26th, and National Suicide Prevention Week, September 13th through the 19th, 2026. Whereas suicide is a major community issue that requires vigilant attention and preventative action with 845 Minnesotans dying by suicide in 2025. And whereas each death by suicide directly impacts numerous family members, friends, loved ones, and by extension, the entire community. And whereas the City of Bloomington is committed to ensuring that those in need have access to services by health care providers trained in best practices to reduce suicide risk and to reducing the stigma associated with using behavioral health treatment or losing a loved one to suicide. And whereas the City of Bloomington recognizes organizations such as Suicide Awareness Voices of Education, or SAVE, and its own internal bloomington cares team for their efforts in educating the public and providing services for those at risk and whereas the bloomington police department is utilizing the first of its kind in minnesota local outreach to suicide survivors it's a team initiative the lost team provides immediate direct support to people and families in bloomington who have experienced the loss of a loved one to suicide And whereas the month of September is recognized as Suicide Prevention Month, and September 13th through the 19th is recognized across the United States as Suicide Prevention Week. Now, therefore, I, Mayor Tim Bussey, do hereby proclaim September as Suicide Prevention Month. And September 13th through the 19th is National Suicide Prevention Week in the city of Bloomington, Minnesota. And call upon the people of Bloomington to observe this month and week by working with your families, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and leaders to become more informed of mental health issues that contribute to suicide. dated this 14th day of September 2026. This is also an annual proclamation that we do here in Bloomington, and I think it's one of the more important ones because we don't often do proclamations that actually directly and impactfully affect people's lives and talk about the need for people to step in and to support and to do what we can to prevent the terrible tragedy of suicide in our community. So Jen, Director of Programs at SAVE, we are so glad you are here this evening. I'm gonna turn over the microphone to you.

Well, thank you, Mayor, and thank you to the City of Bloomington for this proclamation recognizing Suicide Prevention Month this September and Suicide Prevention Week, which is this week. While September is an important time to elevate suicide prevention, I especially want to recognize the City of Bloomington for your support of our postvention work through our loss teams that you mentioned in the proclamation. a loss team stands for local outreach to suicide survivors is a community-based team that connects with individuals and families after a suicide loss offering connection resources and support from people who've been there they've experienced a similar loss we believe that postvention is prevention when we support people after a suicide we can help further reduce isolation that often survivors feel after a loss we can connect survivors to resources much sooner than they would naturally reach out for care or for support. And we can also connect them to, or ultimately helping prevent further harm that can come from a suicide loss. So we're incredibly grateful for this partnership we have with the city of Bloomington, with Bloomington Cares, and the Bloomington Police Department, which all makes this program possible. We value this collaboration deeply. We look forward to another year of working together to support this community. So thank you again for this recognition and for being a part of the work to build a community where people can find hope, connection, and support. If you want to learn more about SAVE and our work, you can head to our website, save.org. And then I also just wanted to highlight 988. If you or someone you know is currently struggling with emotional distress, thoughts of suicide, or even issues around substance misuse, you can call, text, or chat 988. They're there to offer support 24-7. Thank you all for your time tonight.

Next on our agenda council is item 2.3, which is our Hatch Bloomington 2026 program celebration. Sean Lundy is going to come up and lead us through this, and we're going to then eventually meet our winners this year. I think that the video explains it. If not, Sean will, but this is a remarkably successful program. For the past three years in the city of Bloomington, Hatch is absolutely a success item that we can be proud of and that, as I've said in the past, when cities do good work, other good cities copy it. And we copied this, and now other Minnesota cities are trying to copy us as well. So we're very proud of that. Sean, thank you for being here this evening. Welcome.

Yep. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, city council members. As the mayor pointed out, my name is Sean Lundy. I am the Special Projects and Initiatives Manager with the city of Bloomington. So I wanted to just talk a little bit about the Hatch Program before we recognize these five winners. I want to showcase the impact of the program as a whole, talk about some past success stories, and then invite them up here to be recognized. Can you click it forward? I'm going to start dancing here in a second. So the $100,000 Hatch Bloomington pitch competition was launched in 2024 originally to be in support of entrepreneurs looking to launch the retail brick and mortar space in the city of Bloomington. UNDER THAT DESIGN, WE HAD TWO SUCCESSFUL WINNERS OVER THE FIRST TWO YEARS OF THAT PROGRAM. AS YOU CAN SEE IN THE SLIDE, YEAR ONE WINNER IN 2024 WAS SCRAMBLING EGG. THEY WERE A FOOD TRUCK THAT WAS LOOKING FOR A RETAIL SPOT TO MOVE INTO AND EXPAND THROUGHOUT THE CITY. Year two, we had Book Mother with the founder, Twilight Dang. That is an independent bookstore designed as a welcoming third space, and she is moving towards getting a retail spot open later this year. So this is where we get to brag a little bit about the program. Slide before, oops. So beyond direct financial assistance to small businesses, the program also shapes the wider conversation about the city of Bloomington that's taking place in the media ecosystem. Since 2024, the program has gained significant traction across all media platforms and is IT'S IN THE MEDIA ECOSYSTEM EVEN AS RECENTLY AS THIS PAST WEEKEND. SO, I JUST WANTED TO DRAW YOUR ATTENTION TO A COUPLE KEY NUMBERS THAT YOU SEE ON THE SLIDE. ACROSS ONLINE AND PRINT MEDIA TO INCLUDE RADIO, TV, YOUTUBE, AND SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS, HATCH HAS REACHED AN ESTIMATED AUDIENCE OF ABOUT 250 MILLION EYEBALLS. THIS HAS RESULTED IN AN ESTIMATED PUBLICITY VALUE FOR THE CITY OF BLOOMINGTON OF $11.7 MILLION. This coverage includes WCCO, CBS, KSTP, Carol Levin, Fox 9 Morning News, Axios, Twin Cities, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal, and like I said, even as recently as this past week in the Star Tribune ran an article. So getting into year three, what we're here to celebrate tonight, the start of this year brought significant and broad economic pressure to the wider Minnesota small business community, exposing Bloomington's ecosystem to additional financial strain. So for the 2026 program, we adjusted our strategy to meet the small business community where they were at. INSTEAD OF AWARDING $100,000 IN FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE TO ONE ENTREPRENEUR, THE 2026 HATCH PROGRAM WAS REDESIGNED TO SUPPORT MULTIPLE EXISTING LOCAL BUSINESSES THAT ARE FACING CHALLENGES OR LOOKING TO EXPAND IN THE CITY OF BLOOMINGTON. THE WINNERS OF THIS YEAR'S COMPETITION ARE HERE TONIGHT AND THEY'RE ALL SITTING BEHIND ME HERE. AND WE ARE EXCITED TO RECOGNIZE THEM. BUT FIRST WE WANT TO PLAY A QUICK VIDEO.

We've been serving the Bloomington community for 12 years now. We do repair, mechanical, as well as anything that has to do with collision. This was a dream that my husband had. We both worked side by side until he passed last year. We want to keep going, not only because it's something that we built with him, but it's something now that I'm doing with my daughter, who is my right hand now.

We get a lot of visitors from other states. We get a lot of orders from the airport. We serve authentic Afghan cuisine. I own this restaurant with my brother and my family. We've got five greenhouses that we fill in the springtime.

Quirky is kind of the best way to describe our place. We want it to feel light and fun.

We are a brewery and taproom, the first in Bloomington. It has been a Bloomington endeavor. All of our investors are either from Bloomington originally or they currently live in Bloomington. We really wanted to be part of the community.

Zeek's Place has been around in the Bloomington community for a little over 40 years now. My dad and mom are the current owners. This will be our 21st year. We're just a more classic diner that offers a lot of burgers, sandwiches, and roasted chicken.

I think some of these initiatives by the city are going a long way to really promote the fact that the city is open to small businesses and encouraging small businesses.

My brother told me about the HASH program and I applied for it because I was so convinced with the program and the way it's going to affect my business. So I was so excited.

I really appreciated the fact that Bloomington was investing back into what is already here, because there's so many amazing little spots in Bloomington that people don't know about. It's kind of exciting the city wants to keep us here. It's flattering.

You feel like you're part of Bloomington. and people care out there. Even the locals, how many people found out about the Hatch, like customers will come up and tell us, it's so nice that you got selected, they high-five you, and I don't know how they know. It goes to show that people follow stock.

I know we served our community for the last 12 years, but this last year, we felt a lot of support from them.

It was amazing to have them stop by and just check in on us. Thanks to everyone who's helped us and supported us all this time.

Invite Mayor Busse to come down here.

Thank you, Sean. As Sean said, we had two very successful Hatch Bloomington years, starting entrepreneurs, new businesses in the city of Bloomington. And we got to it this year and realized that we had a lot of folks who wanted to start a new business, but we also had a lot of businesses that were already here that were paying rent, paying employees, serving our community, becoming a part of the community, and they needed some help. And so this pivot to Hatch Bloomington Loves Local really came as an understanding and an acknowledgement that we want to keep businesses, we want to keep them in town, we want to have them keep hiring employees, keep serving our community, keep being part of this community. And so I'm very proud of, first of all, the work that Sean did. and the rest of our staff did to pull all of this together. They did outstanding work. As I said, this is the envy of a lot of cities in Minnesota would love to have something like this and to be able to do something like this. I'm so proud of all the businesses that applied and we're going to meet five of them tonight but there were a lot of folks who applied and all of them had a definite need and we definitely want to support them. I ALSO WANT TO THANK OUR BLOOMINGTON PORT AUTHORITY. ORIGINALLY, WE STARTED WITH THIS POT OF $100,000 THAT WE WERE LOOKING TO DISTRIBUTE TO OUR WINNERS, AND WHEN WE SAW THE VALUE AND THE QUALITY OF WHAT OUR WINNERS WERE DOING, OUR PORT AUTHORITY, LED BY HOLLY MASIC, I THOUGHT HOLLY WAS HERE, SHE WAS HERE EARLIER, DONATED, CONTRIBUTED AN EXTRA $24,000, SO WITH THE TOTAL Total budget of $124,000 we were able to fund and support five different businesses in town. So this is a community-wide effort, and I'm so proud of our winners tonight. I'm proud of the community that supports this. I'm proud of our past winners and staff. This is really something very cool and unique to the city of Bloomington. So give yourselves a round of applause. So thank you so very much. And now we're just going to do the official formalities here, get everybody up here to receive your plaques, to do the grip and grin, and to make sure that you get a chance for people to see who you are. We are going to start with Otto's Auto Body Collision and Repair Center. Come on up.

Congratulations.

Very happy for you. Congratulations.

WHY DON'T WE, WHY DON'T YOU COME ON UP? CAN YOU HOLD ON TO THAT? EVERYBODY SMILE AND WAVE. VERY GOOD.

CONGRATULATIONS. THANK YOU.

NOW, I WILL SAY I'VE NOT brought my car to your business because I've never had a car worth fixing, honestly. So I just don't bother. So I apologize to you. If I can eventually afford a car worth fixing, I'll definitely look you up, I promise. I have also, unfortunately, not been yet to Afghan Darbar. Join us. Thank you. I have in fact been to Nine Mile once or twice. So congratulations to Bloomington Brewing and Taproom, our Nine Mile Brewing folks. Bob, congratulations. Absolutely. And I have also been many times and spent a lot of money with our friends at the Bloomington Garden Center and Landscape Company. And I will say the folks, our last ones, the folks at Zeke's Place, Zeke's became a special place for my family. When we were going through a rough patch with my mom who was sick, and we would meet a lot of times at Zeke's because it was kind of a central point. And that's kind of, it became an important place in our lives. So I'm happy to present this to Zeke's Place as well. Let's give all of our witnesses a big round of applause, please. Council, next on our agenda, as we have our Hatch folks WORK THEIR WAY OUT. INTRODUCTION OF OUR NEW EMPLOYEES. WE'VE GOT THREE NEW PUBLIC WORKS EMPLOYEES AND TIM BARON FROM OUR PUBLIC WORKS STAFF IS GOING TO DO SOME INTRODUCTIONS AND WE'RE GOING TO SAY HELLO TO THEM. MR. BARON, GOOD EVENING. WELCOME.

GOOD EVENING, MAYOR AND COUNCIL MEMBERS. IT IS MY PRIVILEGE TONIGHT TO INTRODUCE THREE OF OUR NEWEST PUBLIC WORKS EMPLOYEES. I WILL START WITH AMY HYAM. AMY CAME TO US FROM A NEIGHBORING CITY. SHE WAS SMART ENOUGH TO CROSS THE BORDER. I WON'T SAY WHICH CITY, BUT WE CAN KIND OF IMAGINE. So Amy holds a certification in vehicle title and registration which helps process motor vehicle documents which is perfect because she works in our fleet division as our office support specialist. Amy grew up in Bloomington so she is a local resident as well. She loves spending time outside work traveling with family and spending time with her family. So Amy, welcome. Hello.

Glad to be here.

Welcome, we're very glad to have you here, welcome.

Perfect. And our next employee, Everly Goleman, is our equipment operator within our street division. Everly comes with 20 years of equipment operation experience and most recently working with a local asphalt company. He holds a Class A commercial driver's license, and when he's not working, he enjoys spending time exploring national parks with his wife and three kids, along with snowboarding and skiing in the mountains. Everly, welcome.

Everly, welcome. Thanks for being here.

And third but not last is Jacob Stone. Jacob Stone is a service technician within our facilities division. He has over 15 years experience in facility maintenance operations. Some of his work includes maintaining public schools and county facilities, and most recently he directed maintenance at a assisted living facility. Jacob holds a Minnesota First Class C Boilers License, a Class D Water Operator License, and a Commercial Pool Operator Certification. Jacob grew up in Richfield, and outside of work he enjoys hunting, fishing, camping, and hiking, and pretty much anything that gets him outdoors.

Welcome, Jacob.

Thank you. Glad to be here.

Well, thank you all for being here. Thank you, Tim, for the introductions. Thanks for joining us here at the City of Bloomington. We're very happy about that. I tell all of our new employees, it's a big responsibility because for a lot of folks, you are the face of Bloomington. They may or may not know who sits up here, but they'll certainly know the people who are working out there, either on the streets or in our public works department. So it's a big responsibility, but I've got complete confidence that you're going to be able to manage it and do very well with it. So I look forward to seeing you around town and look forward to working with you. Welcome aboard. Thank you.

Thank you.

Council, our last item under our introductory items is an appointment to the Merit Board. We had an opening on the Merit Board due to the tragic passing of John Locks. John was a long-time Merit Board member and was a great leader in this community, and we're going to miss him a lot. But we realized we needed to make the appointment, and so we... PUT OUT THE CALL FOR APPLICANTS, AND AS WE DO WITH ALL OF OUR BOARDS OR COMMISSIONS, WE HAD AN INTERVIEW PROCESS. WE HAD, I THINK, OFFICIALLY FIVE APPLICANTS AND FOUR PEOPLE THAT WE DID INTERVIEW, AND THE INTERVIEWERS, IT WAS PETER ZUNIGA AND MYSELF THAT DID THE INTERVIEW FOR THIS, AND SO IT WAS STANDARD. IT WAS THE BASIC THINGS THAT WE DO AS WE, AS I SAID, FILL ALL OF OUR BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS. AND I DO WANT TO SAY I WANT TO THANK EVERYBODY WHO DID APPLY. WE HAD A NICE GROUP OF APPLICANTS. THEY WERE WILLING TO STEP FORWARD. THEY WERE WILLING TO SERVE THEIR COMMUNITY. THEY PUT THEIR TIME IN THE PROCESS INTO THE APPLICATION, AND I APPRECIATE THAT. AS I KNOW YOU ALL KNOW, THE MERIT BOARD REQUIRES JUDGMENT, FAIRNESS, AND THE ABILITY TO CAREFULLY CONSIDER DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES FROM A VARIETY OF DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES. AND I'M CONFIDENT ANY OF OUR APPLICANTS WOULD HAVE DONE THIS VERY WELL. I'M ALSO CONFIDENT THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN THOUGHTFUL AND DELIBERATIVE IN THEIR APPROACH. AND AFTER CONSIDERING ALL OF OUR APPLICANTS, AND PETER AND I HAD A GOOD CONVERSATION, I BELIEVE AND WE ARE MAKING THE RECOMMENDATION THAT PAIGE ROMAN IS THE STRONGEST CHOICE FOR THE APPOINTMENT TO THIS POSITION. For a variety of reasons. First of all, Paige brings extensive leadership and management experience at the University of Minnesota, where he has served in senior leadership roles, overseeing the operations, budgets, and a significant number of employees. In his current role, he leads operations across the system with more than $250 million in budgets and more than 1,100 employees. That experience gives him strong understanding of organizational management. AND THE RESPONSIBILITIES THAT COME WITH MAKING BIG DECISIONS THAT AFFECT EMPLOYEES. SECOND, PAGE ALSO HAS SUBSTANTIAL EXPERIENCE WITH LABOR RELATIONS, POLICY INTERPRETATION, AND WITH SENSITIVE PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT AND ISSUES, WHICH OBVIOUSLY PLAYS RIGHT INTO THE MERIT BOARD'S RESPONSIBILITIES. AND FINALLY, PAGE HAD SIX YEARS OF SERVICE ON THE BLOOMINGTON PLANNING COMMISSION, AND HE WOULD BE ESPECIALLY VALUABLE, I THINK, AS A MERIT BOARD MEMBER. THE EXPERIENCE MEANS HE ALREADY UNDERSTANDS HOW BLOOMINGTON OPERATES. HE HAS FIRST-HAND EXPERIENCE WITH THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF PUBLIC SERVICE, OBVIOUSLY, AND HE KNOWS THE IMPORTANCE OF APPLYING CITY POLICIES FAIRLY AND EVENLY ACROSS THE BOARD. SO I REALLY DO THINK THAT ALL OF THAT EXPERIENCE, THAT BACKGROUND, THAT INFORMATION, THE KNOWLEDGE THAT PAGE BRINGS WILL ALLOW HIM TO STEP RIGHT INTO THE MERIT BOARD WITH A GOOD LEVEL OF UNDERSTANDING. AGAIN, I WANT TO THANK THE APPLICANT POOL. I THINK THEY'VE DONE A WONDERFUL JOB COMING FORWARD, AND I THINK THEY WOULD ALL DO WELL, BUT IT IS MY RECOMMENDATION TO APPOINT PAIGE TO THE MEMBER OF THE MERIT BOARD. SO THAT'S THE RECOMMENDATION OF THE INTERVIEW PANEL. AND AS WE ALWAYS DO, YOU ARE FREE, AS WE TAKE A VOTE NOW, TO VOTE FOR ANY ONE OF THE APPLICANTS, AND YOU HAVE THE LIST OF APPLICANTS THERE IN FRONT OF YOU. We will call the roll, and everybody will have one vote on this, and we will see if we get to four votes, and if not, we will take our next steps that we will decide what is next. So everybody clear on that? Very good. Ms. Ryan, could you call the voting, please?

Carter. Paige Roman. Talisandro. I'll concur. Roman. Rivas.

Roman.

Nelson. Nelson.

ROMAN.

LOHMAN.

PAGE ROMAN.

ROBERTSON. ROMAN. MAYOR BUSSE.

PAGE ROMAN. COUNCIL, WITH A 7-0 VOTE, I WOULD MAKE A MOTION TO APPOINT PAGE ROMAN TO THE MERIT BOARD FOR A TERM FROM THE DATE OF APPOINTMENT, WHICH WOULD BE TODAY UNTIL DECEMBER 31ST OF 2026.

SO MOVED.

MOTION BY COUNCILMEMBER LOHMAN AND SECOND BY COUNCILMEMBER D'ALISANDRO TO APPOINT PAGE ROMAN TO THE MERIT BOARD. NO FURTHER COUNCIL DISCUSSION ON THIS? MS. RYAN.

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

Aye.

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

Aye. Motion carries 7-0. Congratulations, Paige, and welcome to Bloomington's Mayor Board. Next on our agenda, Council, is our consent business. Council Member Rivas has the consent agenda tonight. Council Member Rivas.

Sorry to interrupt, but I can't hear anything, so I'm not sure.

We're not quite there yet, Council Member. Oh, okay. Do you have any holds?

Do you have any holds, Council Member Curry? No? Okay. I move items 3.1 to 3.11, and items 3.12 to 3.24. Okay. I'M HOLDING ITEM 3.12. COUNCIL MEMBER LOWMAN IS HOLDING ITEM 3.12. LOOKING FOR A SECOND.

WE HAVE A MOTION. DO WE HAVE A SECOND?

SECOND.

MOTION BY COUNCIL MEMBER RIVA, SECOND BY COUNCIL MEMBER LOWMAN. AND TO CLARIFY, THIS IS TO APPROVE ITEM 3.1 THROUGH 3.11 AND THEN 3.13 TO 3.24. NO FURTHER COUNCIL DISCUSSION ON THIS?

Carter? Aye. Alessandro? Aye. Rivas?

Aye.

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

Aye. Motion carries 7-0. Item 3.12. Council Member Lohman.

Thank you, Mayor. I don't want to make this into a big deal. I just don't agree with the changes that are being suggested here with the bylaws for the Advisory Board of Health and Rules of Procedure. I think everybody pretty much knows my... My background on that, so I don't need to elaborate on all that, but I just wanted to hold this so I could vote no.

Very good. With that, Council Member Rivas, could you please move item 3.12 for us? We're going to need your microphone, Council Member.

I move item 3.12. Second.

Motion by Council Member Rivas, second by Council Member D'Alessandro to accept item 3.12 on the... CONSENT AGENDA THIS EVENING, THAT IS TO APPROVE THE ADVISORY BOARD OF HEALTH BYLAWS AND RULES OF PROCEDURE. NO FURTHER COUNCIL DISCUSSION ON THIS. MS. RYE.

CARTER. AYE. D'ALESSANDRO. AYE. RIVAS. AYE. NELSON. AYE. LOMAN.

NO.

ROBERTSON. AYE. MIRABASI.

AYE. MOTION CARRIES 6-1 WITH COUNCILMEMBER LOMAN IN OPPOSITION. THANK YOU, COUNCILMEMBER RIVAS. APPRECIATE IT. Moving on to our hearings, resolutions, and ordinances. Item 4.1 on tonight's agenda is a resolution adopting the 2027 preliminary tax levy with an opportunity for public comment. Kari Carlson from our finance staff is going to lead us through this one. And what the plan is, we will do the presentation, and then we will open it up to public comment. Anybody in the chambers is able to speak on the resolution. And there will be a two-minute limit for comments, and then the council will take it up after that. Ms. Carlson, good evening. Welcome.

Good evening. Good evening. Good evening, Mayor and Council. So yes, tonight I will walk through the preliminary 2027 tax levy and general fund budget, along with the conceptual preliminary 2028 tax levy and general fund budget. So here's our agenda for tonight. So I will walk through basically what's driving the changes and some key highlights around the budget. And then we'll open it up for a public comment. And then council discussion and consideration of the resolutions. Okay, so before we get into the 2027 levy, I want to provide some historical context. So in 2026, the preliminary levy was 9.44%, but we were able to bring that down to 6.96% by final adoption. And then over the last four years, our preliminary tax levy increases have averaged 10.23% for preliminary average, compared with an average final increase of 8.32%. So just this shows that the preliminary levy is a starting point, and we will continue working to reduce that before final adoption. So here is the proposed 2027 preliminary city tax levy. It is $100.2 million and that is an increase of $6.24 million or a 6.64% increase. And you can see on this table that the largest increase is in the general fund, which we'll break down in more detail in the next few slides. And you can also see that that increase is partially offset by a $1.9 million reduction in debt payments and a $150,000 reduction in the Normandale Lake District tax abatement capital projects levy. You'll also see that forestry, we're moving that from a special revenue fund into the general fund. And also shifting $200,000 of the levy from the ice garden to the Community Health and Wellness Center to help prepare for operations and opening in late fall of 2027. So here's a combined Bloomington levy with the HRA and the port. So in this chart, the city levy itself is increasing, or in the previous chart, we showed that the city by itself is increasing by 6.64% from last year. Also, when we combine the city, the HRA, and the port levies, the total combined levy is also increasing 6.64%. AND OF THAT COMBINED INCREASE, THE CONTRIBUTION FROM THE CITY IS 6.26% OR PERCENTAGE POINTS FROM THAT COMBINED CITY LEVY. So now, looking ahead to 2028, and I want to stress that this is a conceptual levy for planning purposes, but since, and the reason for that is that the actual 2028 levy will be established next year. And at this point, we're projecting a total levy of about 110.1 million, which is an increase of 9.85 million, or 9.82%. AND THAT INCREASE IS PRIMARILY DRIVEN BY THE GENERAL FUND AND THE DEBT PAYMENTS FOR TAX LEVY. AND THEN ALSO WE'RE PROJECTING OUT AN INCREASE FOR COMMUNITY HEALTH AND WELLNESS CENTER JUST AS THAT FACILITY MOVES INTO ITS FIRST FULL YEAR OF OPERATIONS. So we'll continue, of course, refining both the general fund and the debt levy as we move through the 2028 budget process next year. And I just want to point out, without that increase in debt service, that the projected levy increase would be about 7.14%. AND THEN ALSO AS A COMBINED PRELIMINARY, CONCEPTUAL PRELIMINARY FOR 28, WHEN WE TAKE CITY, HRA, PORT LEVIES TOGETHER, IT'S ABOUT 116.5 MILLION AND OVERALL INCREASE OF 9.59. SO THE CITY ACCOUNTS FOR THE VAST MAJORITY OF THAT INCREASE. SMALLER INCREASES FOR THE EACH AREA AND PORT THAT WE'RE PROJECTING. AS I MENTIONED ON THE PREVIOUS SLIDE, A SIGNIFICANT PORTION OF THE CITY INCREASE IS THAT $2.7 MILLION INCREASE IN DEBT SERVICE. SO AGAIN, WITHOUT THAT, THE CITY PORTION WOULD BE AROUND 7.14. AND AGAIN, I JUST WANT TO SAY THESE ARE CONCEPTUAL NUMBERS AND WE WILL BE REFINING THEM BEFORE THAT'S ESTABLISHED NEXT YEAR. So this slide just shows how our tax base has changed over the last five years. So after significant growth in 2023, the growth has been much more modest in recent years. And then if you look at the last line of that chart for 2027, the local rate tax capacity is growing 2.1%. And the residential values are growing 2.6%, while commercial, industrial, and apartment values are essentially flat. So we're seeing tax-based growth, but it's also a shift toward residential property. And so, because the median value home increased by 2.9% from last year, and the homestead market value exclusion decreased as a result, this shows how a 6.64% tax levy increase would translate to about a 7.75% increase for the median value home. And that is roughly $2.47 per week increase. For a month, that's $10.71 or for a year, it's $128.49. So getting into our budget direction, as we've talked about before, our budget mission for 2027 and 2028 has these two guiding principles, to sustain and enhance the excellent quality of life that makes Bloomington an endurable and remarkable community where people want to be, and to develop a budget that is sensitive to the economic stress and shifting demographics that define our community. And so as we developed the budget, we continued to focus on these priorities, on finishing what we've started, on improving how we serve the community, staying financially strong, and being disciplined on taxes. And ultimately, the goal is to make sure our budget decisions align our resources with the city's overall priorities. And as we move forward with our budget direction, we also need to stay in sync with what's happening across our workforce. So personnel costs do make up 74% of our general fund budget, so changes in our workforce do have a significant impact on the budget. We're seeing changing workforce expectations, Minnesota paid leave, and other state policy changes, as well as continued recruitment, retention, and succession planning needs. And at the same time, we need to make sure our staffing keeps pace with service needs. So while we're being thoughtful about adding new positions, there are areas where additional staffing is needed, especially in the fire department, and also in the new community health and wellness center. So it's just part of balancing the service needs and supporting our workforce and also keeping the budget sustainable. So one of the ways that we've been talking about this year to help manage the levy is through our capital and debt management fund. So for 2027, we're reducing the debt levy by about 1.89 million, and we're able to do that by using available fund resources to reduce the property taxes that are needed for debt payments, for paying off eligible bonds early, and also using some cash for capital projects where it makes sense rather than issuing additional debt. And so that helps lower our levy today while it also reduces future borrowing and debt costs. then in addition to the debt levy reduction we've identified another 910 000 in reductions in the 2027 budget and so as i mentioned before this does include reductions to the normandale lake district tax abatement levy and elimination of the ice garden levy along with reductions throughout the general fund so within the general fund departments reduced professional services seasonal staffing and overtime training and travel technologies supplies equipment and other operating costs And these reductions are part of our ongoing effort just to manage the tax levy while maintaining our core services. So just talking about investments in this budget. So the first area of investment is really about finishing what we've already started. And about 1.79 million of that 2027 budget increase continues investments that are already underway. So the largest piece is fire. So we have nine additional positions as we continue the transition to a combination full-time and part-time department. along with new equipment for the new hires and a new fire cadet program. We're also continuing our investment in the Community Health and Wellness Center with the facility that's scheduled to open in late fall of 2027. And we need to begin staffing and preparing for operations so we're ready when we open the doors. So we're also continuing along with that investments in urban forestry, preventative park maintenance, and climate action plan initiatives. And another area of investment is public safety technology. So the goal is to increase the capacity of our existing police staff by using technology to work more efficiently and effectively. So we've included an additional $500,000 in both 2027 and 2028 for tools such as AI and workflow technology, drone first responder program, and an integrated Axon platform. AND WHILE THE DRONE FIRST RESPONDER PROGRAM IS PRIMARILY A POLICE INVESTMENT, DRONES CAN ALSO BE USED FOR FIRE, PUBLIC WORKS, PARKS AND OTHER DEPARTMENTS. THERE'S ALSO POTENTIAL THAT THERE COULD BE AN ADDITIONAL 558,000 ON TOP OF THAT BEGINNING IN 2029 AS THIS WORK CONTINUES. SO THIS WILL ALLOW US TO MAKE THESE INVESTMENTS NOW WHILE CONTINUING TO JUST EVALUATE THE LONGER TERM NEEDS AND LONGER TERM COSTS. So let's break down these numbers a little bit. So here we have the general fund revenues, and you can see the property tax levy is our largest revenue source in the general fund at over 69% of the total. And next is lodging and admission taxes. Local lodging and admission taxes are the next largest source, followed by permits and licenses, grants and transfers from other funds. So overall, the 2027 preliminary general fund budget is about $129.9 million in revenues. And here, this next slide is just a chart illustrating, really illustrating the impact of the general fund is on the property tax levy. So nearly 70% almost, seven out of every $10 of the general fund revenue comes from property taxes. while all other revenue sources combined make up about 30%. So it shows why changes in our other revenue sources can help but ultimately the property tax levy has the greatest impact on our ability to fund our general fund services. And then going to the expenditure side, for the 2027 preliminary general fund budget, it's also $129.9 million. Public safety makes up nearly half of the general fund budget. So when you take police and fire together, that's about 48% of the expenditures. And then public works, parks and recreation are the next largest areas, followed by community development and public health. So the remaining departments make up a much smaller portion of the overall budget, as shown On this slide, you can see when you see it in a pie chart, it gives you more of a visual sense of how those expenditures are distributed across the city services. looks like the titles didn't come over as well when we put those out here, but we'll fix that in the packet if it's not like that in the agenda materials. So you can see though, what it's showing is that police, fire, public works, and parks and recreation are making up a large portion of that chart there. And what's not showing, the next kind of pink, magenta, community development and then the lighter green one next to that is public health and then the next three smaller slices of that chart are finance and legal, administrative, city council and communications. So you can see it's a much smaller portion of our overall general fund expenditures. And so the last time we were here and showing some preliminary budget information, there was some requests to show this tax levy broken out in different ways. So these next few slides are going to do that. So this one is a breakdown by department. So this shows the 6.64% levy increase by department. So public safety, you can see, is the largest driver of the increase, with fire and police together accounting for 4.23%. then after that Parks and Recreation and Public Works are each around 0.85% of that increase and then the smaller increases are in the other areas and you can see looking at the the change between 26 and 27 that for finance legal administration communications is actually a very slight decrease Another way to break out that 6.64% tax levy increase is to look at it by category. So you can see salaries and benefits are the largest driver. So it's almost 7% of the levy. And then materials, supplies, and services are about 1.64%. JUST A LITTLE BIT OF AN IMPACT FROM CAPITAL OUTLAY. BUT THOSE INCREASES THEN ARE OFFSET BY THAT 1.9 MILLION REDUCTION IN DEBT PAYMENTS. SO THAT'S ANOTHER WAY TO LOOK AT THE 6.64%. THEN I HAVE ONE MORE. And so this is looking at it by kind of budget drivers. So when we talk about what increase is necessary for maintaining our current services, that accounts for 6.22 percentage points. When we talked about the finishing investments that are already underway, that's another 1.9 points. And then the new public safety technology that we're talking about adding is about half of a percentage point. And then again, showing how the reduction for the debt levy that we are using from capital and debt management fund, how that affects that. And then just here's a graphic just to kind of help put all of that together more visually in a kind of a vertical chart there. So you can see that cost of maintaining services is really the primary driver of the increase. And then the investments we're continuing to make in the new public safety technology add to that and then that debt levy reduction provides a bit of an offset. And then, just talking about some highlights here. So for community engagement, we've had a lot of community engagement throughout the budget process. We've provided a variety of ways for residents to participate, both in person and virtually. So that includes Let's Talk Bloomington online. We've been at community events such as the Farmer's Market. There was a questionnaire and the briefing that people mailed in. Really the goal has been just going to meet people where they are and provide multiple opportunities for residents to learn about the budget, ask questions, to share their priorities with us. And here's the map that we had in the in-person events that I have shown in the past, but just to show it again that we talked with people at community events and shows where they live throughout the community. We had a different color for each event, but you can see that we did hear from residents that it was spread out across Bloomington. And then when we summarize the feedback across all that engagement, we've heard some consistent themes. Residents value Bloomington. They're proud to live here and the services that the city provides, but definitely affordability and rising property taxes are a real concern. They want us to demonstrate as a city the value for their tax dollars. They want us to prioritize investments carefully. and reassess when circumstances change and continue thinking about the city's long-term financial sustainability. And then here is the calendar that we've been working through for the 27-28 budget process. And many of the opportunities and dates have passed. We've got the yellow highlight around September 14th tonight. It's color coded, I'll just say again, the dark blue boxes were things that city staff did. The light blue were our community budget information tables. The orange represents public comment opportunities like tonight. It's also part green because we have a representation for council. And then right now, as I said, we're at the preliminary levy and budget stage, but there still are several opportunities for council discussion and public input before this budget is finalized in December. And before I end, I also want to make sure residents are aware of Minnesota's property tax refund program. Both homeowners and renters may qualify for a refund based on their individual circumstances. This is a state program. And the Department of Revenue website, the phone numbers, and a QR code are included here for anyone who would like more information or wants to see if they qualify. And then also I want to highlight there's another option specifically for seniors in the state's property tax deferral program. So for eligible homeowners age 65 and older, property taxes are limited based on household income with the remaining amount deferred by the state. There are additional eligibility requirements, but you can ask our city assessor's office. They are happy to help residents understand the program and whether it may be an option for them. And with that, that concludes my presentation. So at this point, I will turn it over to the mayor.

Thank you, Ms. Carlson. Once again, very informative and well put together. And I appreciate the different breakdowns of the increase and where it comes and where it falls in. And I think it responds to what the council was asking for. So thank you for doing that. That's helpful. Council, any questions of Ms. Carlson before we get to the public comment? All right. Let us dive into our public comment opportunity here. First of all, just kind of the ground rules here. Anybody is able to speak, come on up, and you just introduce yourself. Make sure you tell us who you are, and then you can sign in. We have a clipboard here. You can sign in after you're done. You can kind of take the clipboard and step to the side, and that will get the next person up and speaking also. We have two minutes per speaker, and our handy little clock on the wall will let you know when the two minutes are up, and when the two minutes are up, I will stop you. not because I'm a mean guy, just because I want to make sure that everybody has the same amount of time to speak, and we all have a fair shot at this. So, and we will hold, if you have specific, if you have comments, we certainly want to hear the comments. If you have specific questions, what we'll do, we'll collect all the questions and answer those questions, or do our best to answer those questions at the end of the public comment. We'll collect them all, and when everybody's done, then we'll try and answer those questions. So with that said, I will open our public comment period tonight. Is there anybody in the chambers who wishes to speak regarding the proposed 2027 general fund budget or the proposed levy for next year? Mr. Hallett, I saw you back there. I would have been disappointed if you didn't come.

You know it. I know for a fact I do not have enough time to read this entire thing. Because of the great presentation that was presented, I learned some things, so I do have to make some edits. But I came here mostly for three reasons. One... I actually think the levy isn't high enough, but I think that there could be exceptions and ways to move stuff around. As was presented with the homestead exception, clearly there's ways to make this more equitable than either a regressive policy or a blanket policy. But I don't believe from what's coming in our future in terms of Trump's policies about energy, foreign policy, the bond market, the economy in general, and all of the other federal services that have been cut in the past few years. And then on top of it, El Nino, which is going to change. climate into the real emergency that we are not prepared at all to face right now.

So that's, that's point number one.

Point number two is that Axon, um, is essentially the sister or the competitor to flock. And I remember last November, a resident spoke about the many warnings against these kinds of cameras. And I distinctly remember the council saying that there was no budget for them and not to worry about it. That was obviously last year. This is this year. I don't know who proposed that, but if it came from BPD, who has stated publicly that they are not working with ICE, Axon is a direct connection to ICE. Axon shares data with ICE. It is the same technology as Flock. It is just as corrupt towards ICE and Trump. Both of them are personally benefiting off of these funds. So that would mean that the city of Bloomington... Mr. Allen, I'm afraid your time is up. Directly paying.

Thank you. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COMMENTS. OTHERS WISHING TO SPEAK? GOOD EVENING. WELCOME.

GOOD EVENING. MY NAME IS DAN BELL, LONG TIME RESIDENT OF BLOOMINGTON, AND I HAVE A SLIGHTLY DIFFERING VIEW ON BUDGETS AND SPENDING. IT SEEMS LIKE IT'S A PRETTY MINUSCUAL AMOUNT, AND THE BUDGET WAS PUT TOGETHER VERY WELL BY MS. CARLSON. in terms of understanding where it's spent and how it's spent. But each one of these little pieces that affect the older folks, making under $100,000, that's a pretty tough barrier to even finance a house and live in a house with that kind of income. And so when it's Bloomington that raises its rates far greater than the rate of inflation, not maybe in recent years, but what's being proposed is slightly ahead of where the budgets have been. I just think that you have to think about how that money is spent, how we can do it more efficiently, and it just keeps adding up. It's a little piece from Bloomington. It's a bigger piece from Hennepin County. It's a bigger piece. Every time you spend a dollar, it's 10%. And so it really hurts every time you see spending go up. I'm very happy with at least the thought process that's used in terms of how our money is spent. But I look around the city and I go, wow. Some of this stuff is done pretty inefficiently, so I think there is some opportunities to do better. So that's all I really have to say.

I appreciate your comments, thank you. Others? Ms. Rye, do we have anyone on the phone wishing to speak?

We do not have anyone online.

Last call, anyone in the chambers? All right. With that, council, I will close our public comment opportunity on item 4.1. And I appreciate the comments made by folks. And I heard comments. I didn't hear any specific questions. And I do appreciate that. Mr. Bell, I appreciate the it all adds up context is absolutely right. And I will not deny that. And Mr. Hallett, the... THE WORK, YES, THE WORK THAT WE'RE TRYING TO MAKE IT MORE EQUITABLE, I THINK WE NEED AS A COMMUNITY, BUT WE ALSO NEED ON A BROADER SCALE A LARGER LOOK AT THINGS. WE NEED TO LOOK AT HOW WE PAY FOR THINGS IN A MORE EQUITABLE FASHION, ESPECIALLY PUBLIC SERVICES. AND I DON'T DISAGREE ABOUT THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY DISCUSSION. AND REGARDING AXON AND FLOCK, I DON'T KNOW THAT THEY'RE DIRECT You know, they're exact cousins or brothers. I would have to get back to you on that because I'm not sure exactly. I do know that BPD specifically would not work toward flock, didn't want flock for a variety of reasons. I don't know whether Exxon is an equivalent to it. I just don't know off the top of my head. So thank you. Council, with that information to us, it's up to us now. We've had a number of different meetings on this. We've been talking about this for a couple of months now. We're looking at a resolution establishing our preliminary tax levy for the year of 2027. With the understanding, as I think we all know, and it bears repeating every time, that whatever levy we set as a preliminary levy, It cannot go up. It can come down as we move forward into our budget process here. So based on what we've heard, based on what we understand, where we're sitting right now at this level, appreciate your comments, Council, and see where we go. Council Member Lohman.

Mayor and Manager, I had just a few questions I wanted to just be sure I was clear about, just to kind of make sure I'm framing and understanding this correctly. You know, in terms of the CPI, the 12-month CPIU through August is about 3.4%. Our proposed levy is 6.64%, roughly twice that. I wanted a clear explanation so that residents could follow and understand the municipal cost drivers outpace standard inflation. We kind of talked about a little bit of that in there, but just so that folks could understand that. Mr. Walker?

Yes, thank you, Mayor and Councilmember Lohman, for the question. It's a fair question, but I would say it's probably not the best measure. CPI is really a measure of, as defined by the Department of Labor, a MARKET BASKET OF GOODS ACROSS A WIDE ARRAY OF CONSUMER ITEMS. AT THE CITY, WE'RE NOT BUYING THINGS LIKE BEEF AND MILK AND EGGS. I MEAN, THE FIRE DEPARTMENT MIGHT BE, BUT THE REST IS NOT. THAT WAS A JOKE. INSTEAD, WE'RE IN THE PEOPLE BUSINESS. YOU SAW THAT 74% OF OUR COSTS ARE IN PERSONNEL. SO WE ARE LARGELY tied in our budget to things like cost of hiring and compensating our employees, health insurance, our property and liability insurance for the services that we provide, commodities and goods for the infrastructure that we maintain or add into the city. So it's important to continue to monitor our spending. The line is well taken that it all adds up, but that's really not the best apples to apples comparison when you're looking at CITY SPENDING AND THE COST INCREASES BEHIND IT. APPRECIATE THAT.

WITH THAT BEING SAID, SERVICES AND QUALITY BASELINE, AS WE REDUCE THE SPENDING TO MANAGE THE LEVY, I WANTED TO CONFIRM THAT WE'RE NOT COMPROMISING THE SERVICE DELIVERY AND THAT WE'RE HOLDING THE LINE AND THAT RESIDENT SATISFACTION STAYS INSULATED.

Yeah, I would say that as our budget core team has deliberated and we've worked with our staff across the city and getting to this point in the process, and again, this is not the end of the process. One of the key tenants for us has been let's not compromise a really good thing. And in Bloomington, we have really high levels of citizen satisfaction with our services, with the perception of the value that a resident gets relative to the taxes that they pay. And we want to make sure that while we are continuing to look at ways to contain spending increases, it's happening in such a way that residents aren't noticing a decrease in the number of or quality of services that they're receiving. And I think to this point in the conversation, we've met that objective.

Just a couple more here. The thing I'm most concerned about is unforeseen economic pressures. August alone, we saw gasoline prices up 3.9%. We run a plow fleet service and construction programs with different things we're building. What are our reserve cushions and commodity costs if they spike mid-year or into next year?

In our budget deliberations, when we've been meeting with staff and departmental leadership, One of the things I think we have done a good job of is to the degree possible forecasting those known increases that are there and where those trends could go. So I think we've struck a good balance of trying to tie our spending to some of those historical averages, but also then understanding where some of those vulnerabilities and pressures could be. And I would say as you dig into the granular detail of the budget, areas like that that you're referencing do have some forecasted increases built into those. Of course, things are, as was referenced by one of the speakers, very vulnerable and unpredictable at best right now. But with the information that we have available, I think our staff have done a good job of trying to forecast and budget in a responsible way for that.

then i think finally here i'll just tie these last things together here uh you know the staff training and retention i wanted to to just make sure that uh as we look to make these reductions that we're not cutting the the pipeline development to save short-term dollars uh in a way uh so that we later on have to pay higher wages later on just wanted to make sure really uh that where our long-term fiscal sustainability OUR RESOURCES. WE'RE NOT JUST MAKING THESE SHORT TIME CUTS HERE IN ORDER TO MAKE SURE THAT WE CAN STILL SUSTAIN THIS TYPE OF LEVEL AS WE GET IN THROUGH THE END OF THE DECADE.

YEAH, GOOD QUESTION. ONE OF THE THINGS ALSO THAT I THINK OUR STAFF HAVE DONE A GOOD JOB TO THIS POINT IN THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS HAS BEEN TO LOOK AT HISTORICAL AVERAGES IN OUR SPENDING AND FIND THE PLACES WHERE MAYBE OUR BUDGET HAS BEEN HIGHER THAN ACTUAL SPENDING. and then try to true up our proposed budget this year closer to what those historical averages have been. Thank you, Manager and Mayor.

Based on that, I think I can support this.

Council Member Carter.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to thank the staff for all of their really hard work on this. I think it I guess I'll just say personally, I'm kind of pleasantly surprised at where we're at for our preliminary tax levy. And I know a lot of really hard, diligent work has gone into getting to this number. And I know that you're going to continue to look for those areas that we can improve efficiencies and reduce costs without compromising our service. Um, really thank you so much. Oh, I also want to thank you because, um, I am thinking about all the feedback that we provided at the last conversation and I think all of it is represented in this. This presentation tonight, and so thank you for incorporating all of our. Our desires and what we wanted to see in this discussion. I think you did a really, really good job. Um, I also want to thank the residents who showed up again tonight to testify and all the residents who engaged throughout the process. I do have a question based on the comments tonight, and I was wondering it myself because of everything going on at the federal level and some of the changes that might be happening. What would we do in an emergency situation? We just need to find some additional funding to address X, Y, Z, whatever it might be. Or maybe we lose a ton of federal funding because of some of the changes that might be made. Like, what is that kind of emergency valve that we could pull if something did happen and we needed some additional funds?

Mr. Walker.

yes thank you mayor thank you councilmember carter in those situations i would say the city would be faced with really two choices one would be more drastic which would be are we desiring to continue on the budget that we've adopted and if so then we would need to tap into the city's reserves. Consistent, of course, with our financial policies and recognizing that we need to keep minimum reserve levels. The other option would simply be immediate reduction of spending, whether that is ceasing services or hiring freezes or other things like that that would provide some one-time relief while we got to our next fiscal cycle and then made decisions about uh, what we wanted the city's operating budget to look like, uh, in light of those, um, drastic changes.

All right. Thank you. Um, I do also just kind of want to point out that, uh, we have had a situation like this, like when the pandemic hit and we all of a sudden lost a ton of revenue that we were expecting. And that's when we had the citizen advisory board and made lots of hard decisions and, and kind of did so did go through a process. And so we do have experience, um, in that kind of situation. Obviously not a situation any of us wanna be in again, but thank you for that explanation and kind of the reminder that we do have reserves and we do have the ability to modify our budget and our spending should something happen. So thank you for that. I do have a couple other questions, but the answers are not going to impact how I vote tonight. And so I will be voting in support of this preliminary tax levy. You know, I think we're in a good spot. And given everything going on in the country right now, I actually don't know if I'd want to go much lower at this point. So I will be supporting tonight. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember D'Alessandro.

Thank you Mr. Mayor. I want to echo the appreciation I have for the staff work on pulling this together. I think I've been an advocate for trying to make sure that people can walk out of these conversations with a clear understanding of what it costs to do what we do today, what it costs for us to make the investments we've been telling people about for a while and then what is it on top of that that we need to consider and what does that do to our levy. The fact that we – hopefully everybody who is here tonight listening to us can walk away answering that question in a very easy way is really important. That's the way I think about things too, right? So I appreciate it very much, and I know this isn't the end of the line for us. I know that you'll keep working on the pencils – with the pencils and everything. VERY MUCH APPRECIATE THAT. THERE'S ONE QUESTION ON THE STRATEGIC SIDE AROUND OUR FIRE DEPARTMENT WORK THAT I WANTED TO THROW OUT THERE AS SOMETHING THAT MAYBE WE CAN BRING INTO THE CONTEXT OF THAT AS WE CONTINUE TO WORK ON REFINING THAT INVESTMENT AND THAT IS JUST SIMPLY THAT I THINK WE'VE TALKED A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE FACT THAT IT DOES COST US SOMETHING TO NOT HAVE THE FULL-TIME FIRE DEPARTMENT THAT WE HAVE. It may cost us in our insurance costs. It costs us in the potential for economic distress associated with not meeting our obligations from SLA perspective and all that kind of stuff. And so I'm wondering if there's a chance for us to look at those in comparison to say that this investment is also going to offset operationally long term. some of these downstream impacts. So I just haven't asked that question before and it feels like something that when we think about these strategic projects we might want to think about why we've chosen to make the investments. I think the thread has been lost a little bit because we started the conversation on the fire department way back in 2022 or whatever. about why we decided to do this. And it came down to the fact that we couldn't run a truck meaningfully with enough staff to meet our obligations, not just from a legal perspective or an insurance-oriented perspective, but a moral one, frankly, like an ethical one, right? And so how do we continue to make sure folks understand that each of these investments that we're making, whether they're capital or operational, are against that thing, right? no different really than the climate conversation or the federal conversation should we have to come back and say here's what happened to the money that we thought we would have it went away because of xyz policy now we have to do something differently and if we can continue to make sure that those threads are clear um you know it's it's a you have to agree with it but at least you can explain it and i think that that's a really important thing i like to be able to walk out of here being able to say THIS IS WHY WE'RE DOING WHAT WE'RE DOING SO HAPPY TO SUPPORT THIS TODAY KNOWING IT'S NOT THE END OF THE CONVERSATION BUT A REALLY WELL DONE THOUGHTFUL PERSPECTIVE. I'M HOPING THIS IMPLIES THAT PRIORITY BASED BUDGETING IS ACTUALLY WORKING RIGHT NOW SO I'D LOVE TO HEAR MORE ABOUT THAT AT SOME POINT TOO. THANKS.

THANK YOU COUNCILMEMBER. OTHERS? COUNCILMEMBER

Thank you, Mayor. I'll do my best to keep it brief. To echo what my colleagues are saying, I think I'm pleasantly surprised to use Council Member Carter's phrase at where the number is. I'm happy to support this today, certainly saying the same as Council Member D'Alessandro. This isn't the end of the conversation. I'm really, really, I have to say, very impressed by all the work that's gone into this. And this, I just have to note, on page 182 of the council packet, THAT BEAUTIFUL GRAPHIC THAT I KNOW COUNCILMEMBER DELISANDRO IS A HUGE FAN OF AS WELL, FOR ME AT LEAST THAT WAS A GREAT VISUAL TO HELP UNDERSTAND WHERE ALL THE MONEY IS GOING, WHY IT HAS TO INCREASE AT ALL, AND I JUST THOUGHT THAT WAS REALLY GREAT. SO CERTAINLY, AGAIN, THIS ISN'T THE END OF THE CONVERSATION, AND I THINK BRINGING UP The concerns about potential change in energy costs is huge and something we really need to be talking about all the time, especially with the news over just the past few days. And so, again, I think this is a good jumping off point. It's not the end of things. I think this is really, really helpful information. And I certainly appreciate the folks who came out to speak to us tonight. We appreciate your time. And so, yeah, I'm happy to support this as it is. And I'm also excited to see where the conversation goes.

Thank you, Council Member. Well, my two cents, Council, it boils down to actually a couple of numbers, and you've heard me say them before, that 81% of our budget goes to police, fire, public works, community development, park and recreation. Those are the five absolute cornerstone building blocks of what city government should do, and 81% of our budget goes to that. And of that total budget, more than 70% goes to people. We don't make widgets. We provide services as a city, AND THOSE SERVICES ARE PROVIDED BY OUR CITY EMPLOYEES AND BY OUR PEOPLE, AND THAT'S WHERE THOSE COSTS COME FROM, AND THAT'S IF WE EXPECT THAT TYPE OF SERVICE DELIVERY THAT WE HAVE COME TO EXPECT AS RESIDENTS, WE'RE ALL RESIDENTS, WE'VE COME TO EXPECT THAT SERVICE DELIVERY WITHIN OUR CITY, THAT'S WHAT THE COST OF DOING IT IS. THE ONE COMMENT THAT I WOULD MAKE, I'M STILL TO SEE OUR DEBT LOAD CONTINUE TO INCREASE BUT NOW TAKING THE STEPS TO REDUCE THAT DEBT LOAD. I APPRECIATE THAT WITH OUR NEW FUND AND I'VE FORGOTTEN WHAT WE RENAMED IT, THE DEBT REDUCTION FUND OR HOWEVER WE NAMED IT. I THINK THAT'S A POSITIVE STEP FORWARD AND I THINK IT'S A BETTER USE OF THAT rather than to use it as a strategic priorities fund. I like that as a use of it. And frankly, I wonder if we had used it in that way over the past 10 years, what would we be looking at right now in terms of our overall debt? And it might be a little different. So I think there's work to be done on that. But overall, I think this is a good starting point as we continue this conversation and a good place for us to jump off on with an official stamp and move forward with all of this. And council, if there's no more comments on this, council member Lohman. All right.

Mayor, I'll move to adopt a resolution of the preliminary levy, establishing a tax levy for the city of Bloomington for the year 2027.

Second.

Motion by council member Lohman, second by council member Robertson to adopt a resolution establishing tax levies for the city of Bloomington for the year of 2027. No further council discussion on this? Ms. Ray.

Carter. Aye. D'Alessandro.

Aye.

Rivas.

Aye.

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

Aye. Motion carries 7-0. With item 4.1 comes item 4.2. Council Member Lohman.

Mayor, I'll move a resolution adopting a preliminary 2027 general fund budget. Second.

Motion by Council Member Lohman, second by Council Member Robertson to adopt a preliminary 2027 general fund budget. No further council discussion on this? Ms. Wright.

Mr. Mayor, I apologize.

I just wanted to make sure because of the way it was presented we had 6.64% was the number but that was 6.24 plus the HRA and port authority levy.

So if I can just get a clarification on what exactly we're passing for the city of Bloomington versus that. I know that some stuff was in our consent agenda as well. So I just wanted to lay it out if that's okay. Absolutely.

I can answer that question. Mayor, council members, council member D'Alessandro, they actually happen to be the exact same percentage when you do the combined and the city by itself, just how the math works out.

Thank you. Appreciate it. So clarification for that then is 6.64 is the preliminary. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Very good. We have a second half of item 4.2 where we need a motion for the conceptual preliminary 2028 general fund budget. Thank you.

Thank you for clarifying that for me. I didn't see that. Mayor, I'll move to adopt a resolution approving a conceptual preliminary 2028 general fund budget. Second.

Motion by Councilmember Lohman, second by Councilmember Robertson to accept the resolution approving a conceptual preliminary 2028 general fund budget. No further council discussion on this? Council Member Lowman.

And just so we're clear, I know I heard it during the presentation about the 2028 general fund conceptual budget, that that is in itself just conceptual. It's not binding.

I think that's what conceptual means.

Yes, that's exactly right. Just want to clarify that for the public.

If we could put another wiggle word in there, we would. All right. Any further council discussion on this? If not, Ms. Wright.

Carter? Aye. D'Alessandro?

Aye.

Rivas? Nelson? Aye. Lohman? Aye. Robertson? Aye. Mirabasi?

Aye. Motion carries 7-0. Thank you to our budget staff for their work on this. And as I think has been said a couple of times, thanks for your response to the council request for different presentation, different looks at things, the way it looks. I think you met the council's needs on a lot of things, and I appreciate that. Thank you to our folks who spoke this evening, and looking forward to continue this discussion. We'll have additional opportunities for public comment and public hearings as we move through all of this. And I appreciate that we're... I think headed in a pretty good direction here and with more work to do, certainly with more work to do. Thank you, Ms. Carlson.

Thank you.

Council, next on our agenda are a series of public hearings regarding assessments, and we do this on an annual basis. It's an opportunity for the city to move and act on delinquent assessments or tree removal assessments and so on. So what we'll do is typically we'll have a presentation on this, and I believe all the presentations will come as one. Okay. Yes, it will all come as one. And then we will have public hearings on all of the different ones. So item 4.3 through item 4.7, we'll break those out and have specific public hearings on that. But the presentation will be all rolled into one. Ms. Economy Scholder, who has done this many times and knows how to lead us through this very well, will be doing just that. So good evening and welcome.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. With the items that you have before you, the five of them, our agenda this evening is just quickly going through the different definitions of what the assessment types are, the timelines that we used in 2026, and then we'll go through the public hearings, and as the Mayor mentioned, each of these will be separate hearings. So in the definitions, the delinquent utilities cover water, sewers, storm drain, garbage, recycling, and organics. In the tree removal, and it's the removal of dead or diseased trees. For the weeds and brush removal, it's mowing, weeds and brush removal, public nuisance and abatement, property conditions declared to be nuisance, affecting public's peace, welfare, and safety. And then civil fines, nuisance, surface calls, and administration penalties and orders. And then the, whoop, it went one too fast. the timeline all of the assessments were mailed and sent out on July 1st which is a state statute date right for us on August 13th we published in the Sun current at the notice of all the legal advertisements on August 26 there was a administrative hearing held here at the city and there was a neutral third party administrative judge taking care of that and And then this evening we have the council assessment hearings. And then November 24th would be the last day to make the payments on those before they get certified onto the property taxes for next year. And so we'll start with a public hearing first for delinquent utilities. And that would be the motion, but I'll go back one for the public hearing piece on that.

THANK YOU, MS. ECONOMY SHOULDER. COUNCIL, ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS REGARDING WHAT WE JUST HEARD? AS I SAID, PRETTY STRAIGHTFORWARD KIND OF THING. WE'VE DONE THIS IN THE PAST. So what we will do then is go through each of the different public hearings, and everybody will have the opportunity to come up and speak if you have something in specific that you want to talk about. And we will just work our way through all of this. So we're going to start with item 4.3 is our public hearing for delinquent water, sewer, stormwater, drainage, garbage, recycling, and organics assessments. I will open that public hearing now. Is there anyone in the council chambers who wishes to speak to item 4.3 this evening? Okay. Ms. Rye, do we have anyone on the phone?

Mayor, we do have someone online. Caller with phone number 5077, do you wish to speak on Public Hearing 4.3?

I have a general comment. I'm not sure which one it is. It's regarding Exhibit B on page 254. and the dismissal of debt. And I'm wondering why the city isn't somehow recording that debt to ensure that when a property is sold, that the title company or the closing company uncovers it. And should the city be doing something differently to ensure those fines are known when a property sells? And one thing I thought of is if I assume they would find water trash sewer debt When they do their title search and if that's the case could Any sort of fine somehow be added to the utility system to ensure any other kinds of debts show up it just seems ridiculous to be letting someone sell a property without a PAYING THOSE FINES OR RESOLVING THEM IN SOME WAY. THAT'S ALL I HAVE TO SAY.

THANK YOU. COULD YOU IDENTIFY YOURSELF SO WE HAVE IT FOR THE RECORD, PLEASE?

MARLIS JOHN-HANSON.

MARLIS, THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR COMMENTS. OFFICIALLY, THIS IS PART OF ITEM 4.7, SO I APPRECIATE THAT YOU We're on 4.3, and this is part of item 4.7, and I appreciate you bringing this forward. What I'm going to do, you asked a good question there, and what I'm going to do is look down the table here to our city attorneys and see if they can work on an answer. By the time we get to item 4.7, when it's appropriate to answer that, we will definitely do just that, if that would be okay. But I appreciate you bringing this up.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone in the chambers wishing to speak to item 4.3? Mr. Halleck.

So I needed some time to think about it. So for this one specifically, I feel like, it feels though debt forgiveness, there should be a path for debt forgiveness on this one. Specifically, essentially copying, there's a policy in Denver, there's a policy in Aurora, Colorado. There's now I think an entire state policy in Colorado. as well as several other southwestern states that will pay you to convert your lawn. So it's a different program than the lottery system that Minnesota currently has for grants. And it pays you, I think, like $14 an hour. Or sorry, $14 a square foot. to convert your lawn. And if we adopted a program that's like this, water usage would assuredly go down and it could build a pathway for people to do it themselves. I'm looking specifically, actually what really inspired this was the stormwater drainage section. So there's actually an ability to do a curb cut for a rain garden. And if you do a curb cut for a ring garden, it costs you, the homeowner, whoever owns the curb or whoever's at the curb, about $800 to do. So that's a pretty steep thing, but it also essentially removes the need for watering anymore. So for residents who want to have an out, If they get into debt for this, the path to remove that debt could be a payment plan or something like that. But one version of that payment plan could be to be on conversion into native plants, which is now legal. I've worked on that ordinance. I can assure anyone, if you have an established native garden, you don't need to water it anymore. So that solves the problem in perpetuity after it's done, which seems like a pretty good solution.

Thank you, Mr. Hallett. Others wishing to speak to item 4.3? Is there anybody new online?

We do not have anyone new online.

Council, we've heard from folks in the chambers. We have no one online or on the phone wishing to speak. Seeing no one coming forward, I look for a motion to close the public hearing on item 4.3. Motion by Council Member D'Alessandro, second by Council Member Rivas to close the public hearing on item 4.3. No further council discussion on this? Ms. Rye.

Parter. Aye. D'Alessandro. Aye. Rivas.

Aye.

Nelson.

Aye.

Lohman. Aye. Robertson. Aye. Mirabasi.

Aye. Motion carries 7-0, closing the public hearing. COUNCIL, ANY COMMENTS OR THOUGHTS ON THIS? I WOULD TURN TO STAFF, AND I HOPE THEY TOOK NOTES ON WHAT MR. HALLETT BROUGHT FORWARD ON POSSIBLE DEBT FORGIVENESS. I THINK IT WOULD BE SOMETHING AT LEAST WORTH LOOKING INTO, AT LEAST AS A CONSIDERATION FOR THE CITY. NOT THIS YEAR, OBVIOUSLY, AS WE'RE TRYING TO WORK THROUGH THIS YEAR. WITH THAT, COUNCIL, I WOULD LOOK FOR ACTION ON ITEM 4.3 OR QUESTIONS. COUNCILMEMBER D'ALLEZANDRO?

NO, IF YOU DON'T MIND ME MAKING A COMMENT, MR. MAYOR, BUT I'M HAPPY TO MOVE THE ITEM AS WELL. Yeah, I think the last, one of the challenges I think we've talked about in the past on this is to try to understand why this happens in the first place, right? Because I think that to, you know, if it is about lawn usage, if it is about, you know, PAY DUE TO ECONOMIC FACTORS. THERE'S LOTS OF THINGS THAT COULD COME INTO THIS. I THINK EARLY ON IN MY TIME HERE I EVEN SAID WOULD IT BE POSSIBLE FOR ME TO ROUND UP MY UTILITY BILL AND PUT THAT TOWARDS A FUND TO HELP PEOPLE OFFSET THEIR BILLS. I KNOW I TALKED WITH MS. There are absolutely ways to do this, but one of the challenges we have is simply that we don't know why this is occurring for people. And that's a hard question to ask people. It's a hard question to ask why they're having trouble paying their bills. Some people just don't want to pay them. That's fine. But some people do and can't. And understanding that distinction is an equity consideration to some degree. Yeah. So anyway, I would encourage us to continue to look at ways we can mitigate this problem, whether it's providing them with the capacity to reduce the utility use in the first place. Y'all know I have two rain gardens and 20 solar panels. So I am definitely on board with that piece of the puzzle here. So I try to lead by example on that front, but it also does make a difference. I have not watered my lawn this year at all. I haven't. DOESN'T LOOK GREAT BUT I DON'T CARE. BUT IT'S NICE AND CLEAN AND BUTTERFLIES AND BEES LIKE IT. ANYWAY, I JUST SAY THAT BECAUSE I THINK THAT THERE ARE OPTIONS FOR EVERYONE AND A LITTLE BIT GOES A LONG WAY WHEN THE COMMUNITY AS A WHOLE IS DOING IT. SO WITH THAT I'D BE VERY HAPPY TO MAKE THE MOTION TO ADOPT THE ASSESSMENT ROLE FOR DELINQUENT WATER SEWER, STORM WATER DRAINAGE, GARBAGE RECYCLING AND ORGANICS UTILITY CHARGES.

Motion by Council Member D'Alessandro, second by Council Member Rivas to adopt the resolution for the assessment role for delinquent water, sewer, stormwater drainage, garbage recycling, and organics utility charges. No further council discussion on this? Ms. Rye?

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

Aye.

Lohman? Aye. Robertson? Aye. Mayor Bussey?

Aye. Motion carries 7-0. We'll move on to item 4.4. This is another public hearing. This is regarding our tree removal assessments. And I will open the... And we do have three different motions on this. We do have these assessments. As people get their trees removed, the city can do it, and then we have options for people to have those tree removal costs spread over three, five, or ten years. This, I think, is in response to a couple of years ago, we realized just how expensive it was to remove a lot of those dying ash trees. AND I OPTED TO GIVE FOLKS THIS OPTION TO BE ABLE TO SPREAD THE COST OUT OVER A NUMBER OF YEARS. AND THAT CONTINUES BECAUSE WE CONTINUE TO REMOVE TREES AND LOSE TREES IN OUR YARDS. BUT THIS IS THE PUBLIC HEARING REGARDING THIS AND THEN THE TREE REMOVAL COSTS THAT COME WITH THAT. SO, WITH THAT, I WILL OPEN THE PUBLIC HEARING ON ITEM 4.4. IS THERE ANYONE WHO WISHES TO SPEAK ON ITEM 4.4 THIS EVENING REGARDING TREE REMOVAL ASSESSMENTS? Mr. Howell.

Yep, for sure. So there is a company called, oh my gosh, am I really going to forget it right now? There is a tree company, and I can't remember, Whole Trees. So there's a company based in Wisconsin called Whole Trees, W-H-O-L-E. I don't know why I got flustered on spelling me there. So Whole Trees will buy your tree. It will buy your tree. It will pay for the removal. It will buy your tree. if it meets certain criteria that they're looking for, because what they are trying to do is take a tree and use it as biophilic architecture that we could have been using for our community center or any other future type of thing. So essentially what they are doing, they're grabbing your tree, they're trying to sell it and put it into a nice looking building or a structure. It's a great thing to do. We should absolutely be doing it. It could save people thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. That's number one. The second thing you can do is turn it into biochar or activated charcoal. Activated charcoal, super, super valuable. Great for sequestering carbon that we are currently wasting. And you can use it to clean water. In fact, I think I saw somebody make a post or comment about how they're concerned about Bush Lake. Obviously, there's been a huge debate about Nine Mile Creek. And if I have more time, I'd definitely get into the Minnesota River. But all of these type of things, they don't have enough funding to really solve. It's extremely expensive to do. And it's a cost-saving measure that we should be taking advantage of. So whole trees, activated charcoal, biochar. Do all three of them. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Allen. Others in the chambers wishing to speak to item 4.4? Ms. Rye, 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 chambers coming forward, no one on the phone wishing to speak to item 4.4. We look for a motion to close the public hearing on item 4.4. Motion by Council Member Rivas, second by Council Member Robertson to close the public hearing on item 4.4. No further council discussion on this. Ms. Rye.

Carter.

Aye. Sorry about that.

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

Aye. Motion carries 7-0. Council, any thoughts on this? Any conversation we need to have on this one?

No, I'm just going to endorse, Mr. Mayor, everything that Matt says because I like it. No, to be serious, I do think that there's opportunities for innovation all around here, and we should be unearthing, no pun intended, all of them.

I DON'T DISAGREE. WE CAN TAKE A LOOK INTO THINGS. RIGHT ON.

YEAH. HAPPY TO MAKE THE MOTION IF YOU'D LIKE.

COUNCILMEMBER D'ALISANDRO.

ALL RIGHT. I'M MOVING A RESOLUTION ADOPTING THE ASSESSMENT ROLE FOR TREE REMOVAL COST THREE-YEAR LEVY.

MOTION BY COUNCILMEMBER D'ALISANDRO SECOND BY COUNCILMEMBER ROBERTSON TO ADOPT THE RESOLUTION FOR ASSESSMENT ROLE FOR THE TREE REMOVAL COST FOR THE THREE-YEAR LEVY.

CAN I DO ALL THREE OF THEM? IT SAYS AND ON HERE. I THINK WE HAVE TO DO THEM INDIVIDUALLY.

No further council discussion on this. Ms. Wright.

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

Aye.

Nelson. Aye. Lohman.

Aye.

Robertson. Aye.

Mayor Bussey.

Aye. Motion carries 7-0. Council Member D'Alessandro.

I will move to a resolution adopting the assessment rule for tree removal costs five-year levy. Second.

Motion by Council Member D'Alessandro, second by Council Member Robertson for the resolution adopting the assessment rule for tree removal costs in the five-year levy. No further council discussion. Ms. Rai.

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

Aye. Motion carries 7-0. And Councilmember D'Alessandro.

Last one. Resolution adopting the assessment role for tree removal costs 10-year levy. Second.

Motion by Councilmember D'Alessandro. Second by Councilmember Robertson to adopt the resolution for the assessment role for the tree removal costs and a 10-year levy. No further council discussion. All those in favor. I'm sorry. Ms. Rai.

Carter? Aye. Chalasandro? Aye. Rivas? Aye. Nelson? Aye. Lohman? Aye. Robertson? Aye. Mirabasi?

Aye. Motion carries 7-0. Item 4.5 is our next public hearing. This is regarding weed and brush removal assessments. Pretty straightforward there, I believe. I will open the public hearing on item 4.5 for our weed and brush removal assessments. Is there anyone in the council chambers wishing to speak to item 4.5? Ms. Raya, is there anyone on the phone?

No, we do not have anyone online.

Last call for anyone in the chambers? Council, no one coming forward, no one on the phone wishing to speak. I look for a motion to close the public hearing on item 4.5. Motion by council member Robertson, second by council member Rivas to close the public hearing on item 4.5. No further council discussion on this. Ms. Rye.

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

Motion carries 7-0, closing the public hearing. Council, any thoughts on this one? Council member Robertson.

Oh, I'm moving it? Okay. Thank you, Mayor. Well, I didn't know. I've moved to adopt the resolution adopting the assessment role for weed and brush removal costs.

Second. Motion by Council Member Robertson, second by Council Member Lohman to adopt the assessment role for brush removal costs. No further council discussion on this. Ms. Rye.

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

Aye. Motion carries 7-0. Item 4.6 is our public hearing regarding the public nuisance abatement assessments. Ms. Economy Scholder explained this one. Also, any questions on this? If not, I will open the public hearing on item 4.6. This is a public hearing regarding the public nuisance abatement assessment. Anyone in the chambers wishing to speak to item 4.6 this evening? Good evening, thank you for your patience with us.

Good evening.

If you could pull the microphone down. Yes, sir. There you go, thank you, sir.

My name is Mohammed Abdul Hafiz. I lived in Minnesota for 47 years, 36 years in Brompton. I live in a corner of 86 and Crest Road and 12th Avenue. For the last 36 years, we've been collecting the leaf after the tree, like these days. We put them in a bag and we remove some and we keep some. We keep some. We're using to prevent the draft from getting into our patio because our house is in the corner of 12th Avenue and 86th. So we use the leave but like about three or four.

Grant, could we please have the overhead camera, please?

And if you put your piece

OK. Here's the house. Here's my house. OK. Here is my patio. We collect some of the leaves in a bag, in a garbage bag, like a black bag, and put them in the front of the patio to prevent the draft getting into the house to try to save some money for the heat during the winter. Unfortunately, last winter, about January, I had to go to Egypt. My mother was so sick. She's dying. I had to leave. So we went, me and my wife. Only me and my wife live in the house. We went to Egypt, and we didn't realize that can cause a lot of problem. Somehow, an inspector or whatever passed by and see that he get one of the guide to remove these bags, and he send it to me in notice, but we were not here. If I'm here, I will remove them. Otherwise, it's a big problem. Anyway, they sent too many notice. We are not here. Unfortunately, we came back. And the guy called Corby, handy service man, he charged $155 for nine bags, nine bags, nine leaf bag you see over there. nine leave back. And he charged $155. And he said that, according to the paper here, according to the paper, he said that here. According to his paper, it's one and a half hour to move nine leaf bag. That mean 10 minute for each bag. That mean you go outside this building and come back 10 minutes. OK? And not that only. He charge $75 an hour. $75 an hour. In my 47 years, I never made $75 an hour. I never. $75, that means each bag is $17.20. $17.20 for each leaf of bag. That's unbelievable. Nobody in the city asked that guy, where did you do? What did you do with one and a half hour? What did you do with $155? CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?

THIS IS PART OF THE ASSESSMENT RULE, IS THAT CORRECT? YES, SIR. IT IS, OKAY.

$155.49 LEAVE OF BACK.

I APPRECIATE THAT. WE'RE GOING TO FINISH THE PUBLIC HEARING AND THEN WE'LL DISCUSS THIS. BUT I APPRECIATE YOU BRINGING THIS FORWARD AND I THINK MAYBE WE CAN FIND A WAY, WE CAN FIND A PATH FORWARD HERE FOR THIS. LEASE. I APPRECIATE YOU BRINGING THIS FORWARD. YOU'RE OUT OF TIME NOW.

MINNESOTA IS THE BEST State in the whole world. Thank you. And I love the justice here. Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak on item 4.6 this evening?

You're killing me, Matthew.

I didn't get your name.

Mohamed. Mohamed, thank you. So Mohamed actually inspired me a little bit because one thing I didn't get to mention or I forgot to mention was that the organics recycling is going to be extremely important next year. And his specific issue with his leaves has multiple different solutions. Obviously, I think you guys are going to talk about the policy one, but he can either leave them in the yard, garden, chuck them in there, but usually doesn't catch any... fines or anything like that. It shouldn't because native gardens do it all the time. It's a very common way of overwintering any type of garden. And you're going to hear this in the next listening session on the mat. With the risk and the brittleness of our food system, specifically of how logistics is going to work in the future, how El Nino is going to impact us. And there's a lot of stuff that's up in the air that I'm waiting basically this week to see as to how it's going to land before I get an accurate idea of to what to tell you. But in his case, and with our volunteer corps, which is growing, there is opportunity to say, hey, This is organic material. We need to get it. We need to put it someplace else. It could be used for something, right? That doesn't cost anything if people can actually get connected and do that type of work. I'm willing to do it. I know plenty of other people are going to be willing to do it. There's going to be a lot more people who are going to want to do it next year. Thanks.

Thank you, Mr. Hallett. Others wishing to speak? Ms. Ray, do we have anyone on the phone?

Mary, we do have someone online wishing to speak. Caller with phone number starting with 5077, do you wish to speak on item 4.6?

Comment. It really applies to all these points, 4.1 through 4.7. If there's been a fine or assessment made, then it should be done in a way that it shows up for closing or title company searches.

I'M SORRY, COULD YOU GIVE US YOUR NAME? COULD YOU PROVIDE YOUR NAME FOR US, PLEASE?

THIS IS MARLIS AGAIN. MARLIS, YES.

OKAY, I DO KNOW THAT I THINK ULTIMATELY IF WE HAVE UNPAID ASSESSMENTS, THAT DOES SHOW UP, AND IT IS PAID UPON THE SALE OF THE HOME. SO I APPRECIATE YOU BRINGING THAT UP.

OKAY.

THANK YOU. OTHERS? Council, no one, no longer on the phone and no one coming forward wishing to speak on item 4.6. I look for a motion to close the public hearing on item 4.6. Motion by Council Member D'Alessandro, second by Council Member Robertson to close the public hearing on item 4.6. No further council discussion on this. Ms. Wright.

Carter. All right. D'Alessandro? Aye. Rivas? Aye. Nelson? LOWMAN. AYE. ROBERTSON. AYE. MAYOR BUSSE.

AYE. MOTION CARRIES 7-0. COUNCIL, ANY DISCUSSION ON IT IN 4.6? COUNCIL MEMBER ELVISANDRO.

THANK YOU, MR. MAYOR. THIS IS PROBABLY A COMMENT RELATED TO THIS ONE AND MAYBE 4.7, BUT THIS IS WHERE THE WE ARE ON 4.6, RIGHT? YEAH. SO THERE'S PART OF ME, WE SAY AT THE CITY OF BLOOMINGTON THAT WE WORK TOWARDS COMPLIANCE, RIGHT? THE GOAL IS TOWARDS COMPLIANCE. And what I'm a little nervous about with the fairly sharp uptick on both this one and I could say the same thing related to 4.7, uptick in the number of fines that we're going to assessments with, is that that may not be working. And I want to make sure that if we think that we should be doing something differently, I'm not a huge fan as you know already Mr. Mayor of having laws we don't intend to enforce I don't know why they're on the books if we're not going to enforce them right and and in the intent of these things is to ensure compliance but there's a mismatch if people can not comply, and paying the fines or not paying the fines doesn't necessarily ensure that they're actually cleaning up the act anyway, right? And so given the uptick in the number of folks that are going to assessment here, plus the uptick in the number, I shouldn't say I know that there's an uptick, but given the number of people that have contacted me in the last year with concerns in these two spaces specifically, I don't know if we have an opportunity potentially in an upcoming year work plan item to look at this particular section of our system and whether or not we can do a little bit better for it. It's just been something that my constituents have stated more often. I DON'T KNOW IF PEOPLE ARE UNWILLING TO PAY THE FINES, WHETHER THEY'RE ACTUALLY DOING THE WORK OF COMPLIANCE ANYWAY. AND THAT MAKES ME A LITTLE CONCERNED. SO.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU, COUNCILMEMBER.

YEP, NO WORRIES. THANK YOU.

COUNCILMEMBER LOMAN. THANK YOU, MAYOR. SO JUST KIND OF LOOKING AT THIS SITUATION KIND OF DIRECTLY HERE, MY NUMBERS AREN'T ADDING UP, SO I NEED A LITTLE BIT OF HELP WITH THAT. I'M SEEING SOMETHING LIKE If I cut the numbers right, I think I saw like 142 50 Maybe there's some other piece that I'm missing maybe there's some kind of administrative piece that gets it up to 150 but if we had nine nine bags and We're just you know a couple of us customers were up here looking to see what that would have cost if we had charged the bag fee which would have been 481 and Um, which I know these are, again, you know, mere two different services. I know for removing something that's, you know, completely different kind of thing, but just trying to get a picture for what this might cost. Uh, if our, um, you know, if our service had picked up, it'd be 481 a bag. And so if we did nine by that, uh, 43, 29, again, just the bag pickup itself. And I don't know. So just trying to figure out, you know, kind of, you know, I, and certainly we could, um, try to eliminate the whole thing given the circumstances that he was in. And his family was in it wouldn't have gotten the notification anyways, and I think there's some good sense to kind of doing that or You know alternatively maybe another way to do it as well. Yeah, that's true but you know there is a cost to doing doing this and so maybe a One way to go would be to do the 481 per bag I'm kind of open both ways But I wanted to just kind of throw a couple ideas out there So we could kind of kick it around and see what kind of makes sense moving forward.

I

Other thoughts?

Councilmember Nelson?

Yeah, thanks, Mayor. So, am I right to understand the bags were just sitting against the house? They were...

The bushes on the bottom, if you can see the picture. You can see the picture, the bags were like preventing, yeah, no, but they were put on the patio afterwards from what I understand. The bags were actually in the bushes preventing the wind from blowing towards the house. That's what the purpose of the bags being at the location that he had them. What I don't understand is how some of the bags are still there and four of them are at the door. So that's the one part I didn't quite get. And I don't want to run this meeting too long, but that's what I got myself.

Because I was looking at the photo with the bags and the door.

It looked like they were trying to be like a barrier.

That's what I understood it to be as well.

I'm sympathetic to the situation, and I think there's a reasonable way to work this out. I also would just note that maybe we should connect him with our team that can get them in touch with Excel because they will come and do an energy audit and they will provide you things to stop that wind to weatherproof that door and help you out with those things. So you've got a more permanent solution than utilizing your leaves and stuff. And it's a, you know, it's a good way. It's a good thing to do for your entire home, but there are programs that'll help you with that. And so, I just want to make sure he's aware of that. I think we can help with that. You know, I was looking at it with council member Lohman and, you know, I mean, if we sent, if he had been in a position to make the phone call to get those bags picked up, it would have cost him $4 and 81 cents a bag for the city service to do that. And somebody did come pick them up, but I don't know why we're allowing somebody to charge more than what our, our fee is for picking up a leaf bag.

I don't disagree, and I also question why this became such an urgent issue. It looked like that bill was marked in March. I don't know why it's an urgent issue to be picking up bags in March. I would agree. I'm sympathetic to this also based on the circumstances. I do understand from staff that the fine was waived, has already been waived, but I do think it might be appropriate to to waive the cost of the removal as well, because I think extenuating circumstances, and I guess I'm not exactly sure why this became an issue in March of the year. We good with that? So what we will do then, staff, I'm going to make the motion that we adopt the resolution adopting the assessment rule for public nuisance abatements, exempting the assessment at 8724 Crest Road. I will make that motion. Motion and a second by Councilmember Lohman. to accept the resolution for the assessment role for the public nuisance abasements while exempting 8724 Crest Road.

Any further council discussion on this?

Hearing none, Ms. Wright.

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

Aye. Motion carries 7-0. Thank you very much. Our last public hearing on this topic is item 4.7. This is regarding civil fines for property-related violation assessments. I will open the public hearing on item 4.7 right now regarding civil fines for property-related violation assessments. Is there anyone in the council chambers wishing to speak to item 4.7 tonight? Ms. Rai, do we have anyone on the phone?

We do not have anyone new online.

Last call for anybody in the chambers? If not, council, I will look for a motion to close the public hearing on item 4.7. So moved. Motion by council member Lohman, second by council member Rivas to close the public hearing on item 4.7. No further discussion on this. Ms. Rai.

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

Aye. Motion carries 7-0.

I JUST WANTED TO MAKE SURE THAT THE CALLER, I THINK THE REASON THE CALLER SAID WHAT THEY DID, MR. MAYOR, IS BECAUSE IN THE PACKET IT STATES CLEARLY THAT THE REASON BEHIND THE WAIVER OF THE ASSESSMENT IN CERTAIN CASES WAS BECAUSE THE PRIOR, IT WAS ASSESSED AT THE PRIOR OWNER AND THE NEW OWNER DIDN'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IT SO WE WAIVED IT. which implies that it isn't getting dealt with that title and that's why i believe that the question was asked so i would like for us to potentially just take a deeper look at that and make sure we understand how that works unless uh council has a thought i i think that's that's a good point councilmember uh ms manderscheid

Mayor and members, this is largely a timing matter. So when assessments are in their pending stage, what is very common practice in the industry is that the realtor or the title company or someone calls the city and we tell them. We tell them about all the different pending assessments that might be on the property. and they do what they do with that information. And so often those are caught and captured and reflected in the final paperwork. When that comes on later in the year, it gets picked up in this part of the process. But there is a period of time just based on the assessment schedule where some of those charges are sitting there pending. So we do our best to share all that information, but they have to reach out we can't keep track of every single sale that's pending.

Understood. Is there an opportunity for us to add any details around this to the time of sale disclosures that we do? I know we do it for energy disclosures today or whatever. I was curious whether or not – I mean, is it – I agree with you that it's – the burden shouldn't be on us to get that. And so what you're basically saying is there's no requirement that that's disclosed. We will disclose it to the purchaser if they request it, but we are not under obligation to provide it.

Yeah, mayor members, we would certainly always provide it whenever we were asked. We just don't know when there are pending shorts. So they reach out. We always share the information. And then it's reflected typically in the closing statements and, you know, get sorted out and in the closing process. So we share everything we have. We can certainly look into whether it's possible to put something specific in the time of sale process if it isn't already there. I haven't had the opportunity to look.

Sure. It might be a way to do that. The open question would be whether or not the city deserves to recoup those dollars, which I think we're saying we do, which is why we do this in the first place. Thanks, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. Council Member Nelson?

I'd point out that in a real estate transaction, the seller is obligated to provide all material information, and I would think that would be all potential assessments and costs and things like that. They have an affirmative duty to do that. So if they don't do that, that's on them, not us.

Thank you, Council Member. With that aside, Council? Any other questions, comments on this? If not, I'd look for action on it in 4.7. Sure.

I'm happy to make the motion, Mr. Mayor.

Council Member D'Alessandro.

This is a moving a resolution adopting the assessment role for unpaid civil penalties and fines.

Motion by Council Member D'Alessandro, second by Council Member Robertson to adopt the assessment role for unpaid civil penalties and fines. No further council discussion on this. Ms. Rye.

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

Aye. Motion carries 7-0. Thank you very much for that, Ms. Economy-Scholler, and thanks for our staff who stuck around to lead us through this as necessary. We will move on to item 4.8, and thank you for the patience of the folks who are here for that item, and I know there's more than a couple of you. What I'm going to do, counsel, because I know this is going to take us more than a half hour, I'm going to move that we extend our adjournment time to no later than 9.30 this evening. And I will make that motion.

Second.

Motion and a second to extend our adjournment time to no later than 9.30. Okay. No further council discussion. Ms. Rye?

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

Lohman has stepped away.

Robertson? Aye. Mirabasi?

Aye. Motion carries 6-0. Extend to no later than 9.30. With that, we will move on to item 4.8. This is a public hearing regarding the James Avenue City Homes rezoning. The final site and building plans planning for 9025 and 9033 James Avenue. Ms. O'Day, you're with us once again regarding one of these. Thank you.

I am, yes. Thank you, Mayor and City Council members. The last public hearing on your agenda is for James Avenue City Homes. The... Subject property address is 9025 and 9033 James Avenue South, just located off 90th Street and James Avenue, just a little bit north of City Hall here. Surrounding land uses are mostly single family dwellings with a place of assembly directly to the east and some industrial properties further to the south. So the applicant is requesting a series of entitlements, the first including a rezoning from R1 to R3, final site and building plans to construct nine detached townhomes, and then a plat to replat two single-family residential lots into nine detached townhome lots and one outlot. So the subject properties are guided as medium density residential in the comp plan. The subject properties have been guided this way in multiple comprehensive plan iterations going back as far as 1981. The guidance allows a minimum of five units an acre up to 15 units an acre and the proposed density is nine units an acre. So the two single family homes are currently zoned R1 single family residential. The applicant is choosing to rezone to R3, which is consistent with the land use guidance. So staff reviews the purpose and intent of the R3 zoning district, and so the R3 zoning district allows up to 12 units an acre. It's consistent with the existing land use guidance. Detached town homes are similar in design with single family dwellings, so therefore it's compatible with nearby low density residential. These properties are close in proximity to 35W as well as 90th Street is a close proximity to Logan Play Lot and then abuts directly to Place of Assembly, an industrial area to the south. And it's also worth mentioning that 90th and Penn and 90th and Lindale are also very close by. So when evaluating rezoning applications, there are no STATE STATUTE FINDINGS. THEREFORE WE KIND OF EVALUATE THE REQUEST BASED ON THE CONSISTENCY WITH THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN AND PUBLIC BENEFIT. THE GOALS AND STRATEGIES IN THE 2040 COMP PLAN INCLUDE PROVIDING A RANGE OF HOUSING OPTIONS AND IDENTIFY NEW AREAS FOR HOUSING. RECENTLY ADOPTED MISSING MIDDLE HOUSING ORDINANCE WAS RECENTLY ADOPTED EARLIER THIS YEAR SO THIS PROVIDES A MISSING MIDDLE HOUSING TYPE. So getting into site photos that were taken earlier a couple weeks ago, the property at 9025 James Avenue, the home was demolished I think about three years ago, but the property at 9033 James Avenue is still standing. So getting into the site plan, There'd be one curb cut off of James Avenue. Nine total detached town homes. Five would be on the north side, four on the south side with a private driveway. And the end of the private driveway would end in a cul-de-sac with two guest spaces located just south of the cul-de-sac. And plans identify two-stall garages with a double-wide driveway. The applicant is also proposing above and below ground infiltration systems. Getting into a little bit of the traffic, the project is anticipated to generate 85 trips a day, which is a net increase of 66 trips when you take away the trips from the single-family dwellings. James Avenue has a standard width of 32 feet with sufficient capacity to handle the increase, and James Avenue has no parking restrictions. So the applicant is not pursuing any vertical construction at this time and is developing the lots for sale. But building plans are required to be submitted for final same building plan applications. So the plans that are provided with the application are conceptual, but the plans do show that the structures would be 20 feet tall. Floor plans show one bedroom, 750 square feet. Building materials would be made out of stone veneer and lap siding. So the design will likely change, but the plans must be code complying. Getting into parking and sidewalks, two stalls a unit are required and they're showing, excuse me, two stalls a unit are being proposed and then two guest parking spaces are provided on the southeast corner. And then as far as public sidewalks, a six foot wide public sidewalk is required along James Avenue. And then getting into the landscape plan, 18 trees and 54 shrubs are required, and that's what's being shown on the plans, kind of scattered all throughout the site. And then this project does not require tree preservation, so just a note about the tree removal. And then lastly, getting into the plat, which just shows the individual lots and the outlots for the private driveway, just to note that the stormwater sidewalks and other site improvements must be completed with the plat approval. And lastly, just getting before the recommendation, just to note that Planning Commission reviewed the application at the August 20th meeting and ultimately recommended approval with the addition of a construction management plan condition, which followed concerns raised by the Planning Commission and the public. So the management plan would specifically address items like project phasing, contractor parking, hours of construction, dust control, signage, equipment deliveries, and stormwater and erosion control. So with that, Planning Commission and staff are recommending approval, and I know the applicant is here for any questions.

Very good. First, Council, any questions for Ms. O'Day? No questions? I know that the applicant is here. I'd ask if there's anything you'd like to add, Mr. Furlong? Oh, I'm sorry. Council Member Carter, is the question of Ms. O'Day on this one?

You know what? I accidentally raised my hand. I do have a question, but I will wait until after that.

An inadvertent hand. Very good.

Yeah.

Mr. Furlong, anything to add?

Yes. Good evening, Council Members, Mayor Bussey. Thank you for... during this application so our intent here obviously is to create places for new homeowners to build a house kind of new kind of anything for bloomington uh... brief history of the say here so we acquired the uh... single-family home in ninety twenty five james about four years ago it was uninhabitable and so we raise that structure and since then we're looking for plans to redevelop the site And I had a neighborhood meeting about three years ago to talk about ways we could use that one single parcel, maybe build a twin home or a duplex, something like that. And then the opportunity for us to acquire 9033, James came along making the site, the full acre that we're discussing this evening. So the financial feasibilities of developing this site were not great. We looked at twin home plans. We looked at different ways to uh... create different layouts and and nothing really seem to pencil out very well on a pro forma until the missing middle housing ordinance was enacted and that allows us now to present this plan if the site is to be uh... rezone to our three where we can make this financially feasible and doing it as lots reduces our uh... capital burdens that reduces our risk And it offers the purchasers of these an opportunity to create a home for themselves that is more attainable. And so I think for those reasons, it's a great plan. A few notes from Planning Commission that I picked up, a question was raised about these becoming rentals. We're not gonna prohibit that, but the intent here is an opportunity for someone to buy a lot and build a house for themselves. So we're not looking to build this out as a rental build out. That's not the intent. Another question was, what if one house gets built? What happens? Well, the developer is going to maintain control of the site until all nine lots are sold, so we'd be responsible for maintaining the site until it's completely developed. the construction management plan. So I learned something new every time I come up with one of these, and this time was in this site, due to the size and the number of units, I can't imagine having nine homes under construction here at the same time. I TOLD THE COMMISSIONERS THE PLANNING COMMISSION LET THE BUILDERS FIGURE THAT OUT BUT I DON'T I DON'T THINK WE WANT TO DO THAT SO I THINK THE CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT PLAN IS A REALLY GOOD IDEA AND MAYBE SOMETHING ALONG THE LINES OF AFTER DISCUSSING WITH STAFF HERE AND THINKING ABOUT THIS AND I THINK ABOUT THIS HOUSE DOWN THE STREET FOR ME THAT HAD A NEW ROOF PUT ON LAST THIS SUMMER AND JUST HOW THAT WAS JUST DISRUPTION IN MY DAY I think it makes sense to probably limit us to maybe three shells under construction at one time. It's probably feasible to minimize the impact in the neighborhood and then have that be a first come, first serve on the permit process. So I'll create some construct around that so that we don't have nine different framing crews in here all at the same time trying to build nine houses all at once in this space. I don't think it would work. There were some other questions too about group homes in the neighborhood. We're not talking about group homes to be constructed here. I don't know what that is. And then traffic, it sounds more like there was a routing of traffic through this neighborhood that's more of an issue than what this development will create. As you heard from Ms. O'Day, the new trip generation is only 66, so minor. I do have something additional to add. we're talking about money earlier this evening and there's this new federal innovation find has spoken with staff about this and uh... the basics of this are uh... there the federal uh... allocation as an annual two hundred million dollars to municipalities that adopt forward-thinking housing policies that yield creation of additional housing units And Bloomington's already well underway on this. And so I think a project like this, what the HRA is doing, the townhomes on 86th Street, all those things, I think that lines up Bloomington very well for some additional CBDG funds. And I know that we could use some of those dollars for sewer infrastructure. So that's something else I'm thinking about. The last thing I have, unless you have questions for me, is I'm not a far off corporate capitalist. I've been a resident of Bloomington for 23 years. I do this for fun largely, which I usually get laughed at, like why would you do this for fun? I thought about this as if I'm a neighbor, and I want the neighborhood to know that I'm available through this process. I recently mailed out my contact information to everyone in the neighborhood again. Please call me with questions. If we gain approval and we're underway, the neighborhood's always welcome to reach out to me. I'm happy to be available. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Furlong. Council, any questions of Mr. Furlong?

Council Member Lohman? Just a real quick one. You had mentioned with regards to your financing and how many you placed on that particular couple of parcels there. Could you talk a little bit more about that in terms of why nine is the number and you can't do eight or four? I know that's a question that has typically been raised. What it would take to kind of And again, I'm not trying to be a developer up here, but just want to ask that question so that I understand that and so that the public has a better understanding of what that means.

Council Member Lowman, Council Members, Mr. Mayor, excellent question. I'd be happy to take anyone who would like to through a pro forma and show you what it costs. This site seems relatively simple. You look at the site plan, it's a single drive, it's nine lots, there's a cul-de-sac at the end. What should it take? Maybe a bulldozer a few hours to carve this thing out? No, it's $400,000 just to put the street curb gutter and pipes in. And that's before a single house gets built. So that in itself is almost $50,000 a lot. And then to acquire 9033, I'm not buying that property at a discount. I'm buying it at market value and the costs that we already have into the civil engineering, the planning, the surveying, the platting. DOCUMENT CREATION, ALL THOSE THINGS, OUR COSTS ARE LIKELY TO BE ABOUT $100,000 A LOT OR MORE. AND SO, IF YOU TAKE A LOT AWAY, Now you have to increase the price of each one of those additional lots to make up for that. And so this is a risky business. And one of the first things one of the planners told me when I came into this building 15 years ago is I've seen many, a very good developer go bankrupt in this business, so be careful what you're doing. But I think the risk is worth taking because it's our community. We desperately need more housing. We need opportunities for people to build a house in our city. And right now there are about one, I think. I think there's about one opportunity for someone to buy a lot and build a house themselves. So I'd be happy to run through a pro forma though. Nine is a necessary number in order to spread the horizontal costs out. So we can keep our lot price as attainable as we possibly can.

Thank you for clarifying that in terms of the attainability and the affordability, I think I heard you say. Thank you.

And I might have missed it in your statements. What is the expected list price for these homes?

Mr. Mayor, council members, that's an excellent question to one I do not have an exact precise answer for at this point. I will say that there have been single family lots in Bloomington that I have been able to sell for under $120,000. And so just simple ratios, if the cost of a lot Is 20% of the overall build price. The expectation is that you should be able to create a housing unit for, if the lot is 120,000, a housing unit for under 600,000, which sounds expensive. But when you look at the broader south metro, there isn't a new construction single family detached home for less than a million until you get down to like new market. So for someone acquiring one of these lots to build a house for themselves, they eliminate the builder's risk, the builder's profit margin, the builder's carrying costs, and you might be able to create a new housing unit here for $400,000 if you did it right, potentially.

So just to be clear here, so you won't be building and developing the homes. You'll be selling the lots. Is that correct? Mr. Mayor, council members, that is correct. Very good. When I heard townhome development, I thought perhaps you would be constructing and then selling. But even though you're not building the style of home, the look of the home, it has to meet the standards of what you prescribe. Is that correct?

Mr. Mayor, council members, that is correct. It would have to meet anything that's within the association bylaws for requirements, which our intent is to keep minimal. And secondarily, it has to meet all city code and all state building code requirements.

Okay, thank you.

Other questions, council?

We'll save the comments. We'll get to that eventually. Let's get through the questions in the public hearing, and then we'll make some comments. How about that? Any additional questions or questions of Ms. O'Day on this one?

I have a quick question.

Councilmember Carter.

Yeah, so I guess at least in my time on Council, I don't think we've had a proposal like this brought forward. And how common is it to, you know, just like have lots that people buy and then they kind of build their own town homes within kind of the constraints of the HOA and obviously city regulations and state regulations. And then have an HOA. Like, I guess I'm just kind of, I'm wondering how typical this model is. And not saying I'm not supportive of it if we move it forward, but I just am curious.

Mr. Furlough? Council Member Carter, Council Members, Mr. Mayor. It's not that common. Typically in cities where we have a lot of single family development, like what we had in Lakeville, uh... and as other south metro communities a developer would create a subdivision and then sell block of those lots to builders and that could be the case here i i would certainly entertain builders wanting to acquire two three four of these lots and maybe build a spec home and then offer the others That's common, so a builder might own four lots, build one spec home, model home, and then allow the homeowners to come in and acquire the other three lots and have that builder build a house for them. So this isn't that far removed from that type of process where a homeowner-to-be would purchase a lot from us, contract with a builder of their choice, and have the home built.

Okay, thank you. I have 1 other question and this might be from a so day, but. If we were to make this zoning change. And let's just say worst case scenario. There's not a lot of interest in building on the different lots and, like, maybe. Steve decides, you know what, I want to put up just like a one big house or a couple like duplex, whatever. But would that be allowed? Do we have a minimum amount of units that have to be created once we make the change or is it just a maximum? I can't remember.

Thank you, Mayor. The minimum amount of units is zero, but the maximum, would you say is five? Sorry.

I think it was. Yeah, and I was more curious about the minimum. I didn't I didn't think we had a minimum. So if it sat empty, if the loss just sat empty for a while, it's it is what it is, right?

Yeah, Mayor, Councilmembers, so R3 doesn't have a minimum. The comprehensive plan has a minimum of five units to the acre, and that's the guidance today. So any subsequent entitlements or zoning actions, we would be evaluating it in terms of its consistency with the comp plan. So that could present a wrinkle in terms of what our minimum expectations are for unit creation in that. They'd have to go back through an entitlement process with the preliminary and final plat. You'd certainly have to move those lot boundaries if the plot was recorded. So we'd basically be going back to the drawing board, I would say.

Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. I don't have any more questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Lohman.

I know this will probably have other parts on here, but I just had a question in terms of the discretion that we have with regards to these four motions that are here. I just wanted to be sure that as we're kind of working our way down this, I see a platting on here, and I'm just a little bit nervous about quasi-judicial and which one fits with that. I just want to make sure I'm clear in terms of what we need to be concerned about as we work our way down through this.

We are... Staff is checking on that one. Why don't we keep this moving along, and we can double back to it if we could. How about that?

I can take a crack at it if the city attorney wants to kind of affirm what I'll share with you, but the, I didn't mean that in like a bad way, sorry. Oops. The rezoning is a more discretionary action. You're looking to the guidance of the comprehensive plan and those things. The plat and the final site and building plans is quasi-judicial. That's where you're subject to findings of fact in the city code. Yep. Agree. And the fourth motion is just a resolution of summary publication, which is at your discretion. I'm related to the rezoning action.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right, council, we ready to get into the public hearing here. Let's do that. We're going to open the public hearing on item 4.8 this evening. The just as a reminder that what I mentioned earlier stands here as well. You'll have an actually an extra minute So you're up to three minutes for your comments, but I will cut you off at three minutes as you come up please do state your name and Then be sure as you finish up if you could sign in and I think our clipboard is up here somewhere So you can find the clipboard and sign in we will hold all questions until we get to the end of the public hearing and then we'll try to answer the questions best we can and and everybody gets one bite of that apple. So that's what we do. So I will open the public hearing on item 4.8 this evening. This is a public hearing regarding the James Avenue city homes, rezoning, the final site and building plans, platting, and these addresses are 9025 and 9033 James Avenue. Who in the council chambers would like to speak tonight? We are plenty patient.

That's good because I've been sitting plenty long.

And things don't like to work after you sit too long. Well, good evening. It's my bedtime. Welcome. I am Kathy Jones, and I have the pleasure of living next door to where Mr. Furlong wants to do this project. So I would like to start with, do we have to change it to R3? Is there a reason it can't stay R1 and still meet some of the middle housing hole that Bloomington has in its system? Because my understanding is R1 keeps us to a little smaller profile home, which is the conceptual design that he's proposing. Excuse me. And would maybe let grass grow in my backyard instead of having many mansions overtowering my yard. My other concern that I have, Steve, if it's too expensive, don't buy 9033. Just build the half that you already own. and keep that cost off your books for having to come up with more money. I believe their little map that they have for 85 cars or 66 additional cars coming in and out of James Avenue, that's all great if they think they're just going to go 300 feet to 90th, but you'd be surprised how many people cut through our little 12-block neighborhood and go out on 91 1⁄2 Street because you can't get out on 90th. So it makes a huge difference not being able to just shoot down the street and turn. You have to go through the neighborhood. And it's very, very annoying for the other people who live there. The other thing that I'd like to add... Are we going to end up with an empty lot? It sounds like there's a chance we might if the lots don't sell. It'll sit like 86th and Penn, which has been in limbo since 2019, and I guess I'd be okay with that because then I don't have to worry about having many mansions next door to me. Right now, I've got an empty lot that's been next to me for four years, and I've learned to adjust to that being empty, so... I think that's a big avenue. And of course, you know, you sit and you write down all this stuff and you think you got a good notes and then it's like, ah, but you know, it's, it's just really challenging because it's going to take the population on my half of the block. It's going to increase it by 140% by putting in nine homes on that one acre. There's only going to be five homes on one side, and we're going to take it up by 140%, and I don't think it's only going to be 66 trips up and down James per home. I think it's going to be a lot more than that. So I only get one bite of an apple, and I got 30 seconds to go. What else do I want to say? I'm just very concerned. I want to make sure that Steve gets to... celebrate being a Bloomington resident and do what he can for the city of Bloomington. But I also don't think he needs to do it next door to me. So I would love to see him develop 90-25, put a couple of homes on 90-25, leave 90-33 alone. keeps his costs low, lets everyone still get a little bit of something, and I also want to take a few seconds and say thank you, Lona. I sent her an email. We asked her to come, and she worked on Habitat for Humanity one day, came over to my home and met with a handful of neighbors and answered a few questions, and then she even responded back to an email. So she's been very supportive, and I appreciate all that. Now if we can just tell me why we can't just stay R1.

Our time is up, but thank you very much.

So that's my question for you before I go home.

We got that. All right.

Thank you. And I'll sign in.

Please.

Yeah. I'm slow. Don't tell me I'm up here alone.

Hi, my name is Luann. Luann, can we get your last name too? Oh, Mikhail. Mikhail, thank you.

And could you pull the microphone down just a touch? Sure. Thank you.

You're not quite as tall as me. I would like to address the traffic analysis on that James Avenue has sufficient capacity to accommodate the additional trips and no significant impacts to the adjacent traffic patterns. I feel that we've addressed the concerns on the August 20 meeting and the amount of current traffic flow in 90th Street, James and 92nd have additional approximately 85 more trips. So in the meeting, Julie had said that they used the generation manual calculator which averages 90 average trips a day. I used the calculator for James' total traffic with proposed townhomes. There's 17 homes, 17 times nine is 153 trips, 85 daily trips for proposed development, making it 238 daily trips. This is just the people that live on James. That does not include Amazon, FedEx, food delivery, school buses, garbage, recycling, yard waste, trucks, mail delivery, daycares, group homes. James is a two-block street, starts at 90th Street, which is the entrance and exit for James, because James ends at 92nd. How can a two block street have sufficient capacity to handle approximately 238 daily trips, just the people that live on it, plus the added other traffic that I just mentioned? and have no significant impacts to the adjacent traffic. On 90th Street is the entrance. 90th is the feeder to the 35W. During different times, it backs up and blocks off James, because it's close to the freeway. Getting across all four lanes can be a real challenge. The stop lights at 35W backs up in front of James, and the light goes, you get to go forward. uh... and west ninetieth and east of penn avenue very close to our neighborhood there's thirty uh... penn village townhomes and one apartment building and their only entrance is out onto ninetieth street all that traffic goes up and down ninetieth street past james and past our area so little boundaries of our neighborhood east to west it's one ninety first and a half street to James, and 90th Street to 92nd Street is two blocks. 92nd is a T Street that runs along Oliver, Newton, Morgan, Logan, Knox, and James, and it feeds out to 91st and a half Street, which goes out to Penn. There's four entrances into our little neighborhood. East side, no entrance. South side, no entrance. WEST SIDE, 91st AND A HALF STREET, ONLY ONE ENTRANCE ON TO PENN.

MS. MCKAYLE, YOUR TIME IS UP. I'M SORRY. IT GOES FAST, DOESN'T IT? I KNOW. I'M SORRY. OTHERS? DON'T FORGET TO SIGN IN, PLEASE.

HI. MY NAME IS JAN MILLER. I LIVE ACROSS THE STREET FROM development and I agree with the two previous people about the traffic especially and also the need for rezoning. I don't see the need to change it from the R1 where he can develop that vacant lot. I would also like to keep the home that is there at 9033. It's always well maintained. The people have lived there for a number of years and have neighborhood. The R1 with my understanding the difference is like the setbacks and I think R1 is more compatible to the current neighborhood. We're not our homes are not right on the street. We all have pretty decent front yards. If you have an R3 and you're able to build a street. It just is not compatible with the neighborhood. And I think that many homes, that number is far too many for our small neighborhood. So I do not see a need to rezone, let him build what he can and wants on the vacant lot. I would prefer that he keeps the other home there. And I guess that's it. Thanks.

Thank you, Ms. Miller. Others?

Hi. Dan Bell again. Good to be talking to you. This is the issue that concerns me the most. We have a property on 9109 Knox. And when people talk about traffic and winding through, and you can't get out on 90th during rush hour. So you can just see the people that will be coming up and down the street. And again, it's unnatural. I mean, most of our lots, the way neighborhoods are currently constructed are a quarter of an acre. So even if you said, YOU KNOW, FOR, YOU KNOW, THE OFFSETS TO THE STREET, IT WOULDN'T FIT IN. I WASN'T QUITE SURE ON SOME OF THE NUMBERS THAT WERE GIVEN TO US. THE LOW NUMBER WAS 400,000 PER UNIVERSITY.

MR. BELL, IF YOU COULD ADDRESS US.

LOWER COST WAS 400,000 UP TO 500,000 AND WE'RE CALLING IT AFFORDABLE HOUSING. I'm telling you, if you do the mortgage payment on something like that, you're not going to be living in a $400,000 house. You're going to barely be able to afford rent, you know? I mean, a payment, when you figure the assessed tax value and all the other costs, I don't see how that's solving much of a problem anyways. And to change the whole makeup of the neighborhood, change the traffic pattern, I sure wouldn't want that next door to me like this poor woman's having. And there's this new, there's this twin home that was built on 90th. And I know there's rules and regulations about how many cars you can have in the driveway, but I swear, there's at least five or six. It's right across from the new bike park. There's five cars in that driveway or more on a pretty regular basis plus two in the garage and the next one, and I can just imagine that I did hear they were single family, I mean single family, but I don't know if they're single room, multiple room, I don't know how big these houses are planning to be, what square footage, you know they are and the design is a little bit uncertain so to me the only way you could do is go up and you have to bait for the storm and all that other stuff that adds a tremendous amount of cost. It's just unnatural to the whole neighborhood and I would just like to echo the fact that switching it from R1 to R3 just seems over the top and I understand the goal of trying to provide affordable livable housing for the middle class, but I don't see this providing that solution either when you do the numbers on a mortgage on a $400,000 house with taxes, insurance, and everything that goes along with it. That's this.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Thank you much.

I'll sign it again. Nothing else I'm good at then.

Others wishing to speak tonight?

good evening good evening my name is scott thiers i live on 90th street my my backyard butts up to the adjoining property uh i've been a resident i've lived in that home for 47 years i'm not sure if you people understand but uh What the plan shows is that the first house on the property will be 40 feet in front of Kathy's house, and it will be built 10 feet away from Kathy's property line, and vice versa on the other side. I CAN'T BELIEVE ANYONE WOULD EVER WANT SOMEONE TO HAVE A HOUSE THAT CLOSE TO YOU. WE'RE NOT IN MINNEAPOLIS WHERE PEOPLE ARE SQUEEZED IN. THAT'S WHY WE BOUGHT IN THE SUBURBS. I ALSO DID WATCH ALL THE DEVELOPMENT ON 86th Street or whatever it was, and that you all voted for it. So I'm very concerned that this is going to happen. I do want to know... Is there a privacy fencing needed to be put if this happens between R1 and R3 development? And if so, why not? I mean, if you don't have it, why not? And if so, I would think the developer would be in charge of putting up the fence because he's asking for the rezoning. and then I guess we found out about the possible management plan and so and then according to some of the literature that was sent out in the packet so sorry we need to be sure that the deliveries and stuff are done between the hours of seven and 10 and no construction parking on the street is part of what it said on the stipulations. So I don't know how it's, some of it said in that packet said all construction and post construction parking and storage of equipment Materials must be on site. Use of public streets and private construction parking.

Mr. Dearest, your time is up. I'm sorry. Thank you.

My name is Sue Winchester. Going up what he said. they're saying anyone who buys a lot can take their own builder. That could be nine different builders. We don't know how many are gonna be built, how many lots are gonna be, construction could be going on for years. And there's gonna be no room to move in there, let's say there's four houses built, where are these construction vehicles gonna park but on the street? And all the people that have to come there to work, they're gonna be parking on the street. When people move in, they're gonna have company, they're gonna have parties, somebody might be running a daycare. That's all extra traffic, all extra people coming into our neighborhood. Right now we have 128 homes in our neighborhood, not counting the nine. times nine trips, that's 1,152 trips a day just in our neighborhood. They're talking also about one-bedroom house. Nobody's gonna buy a one-bedroom, 750-foot house for $400,000 with no yard. It's gonna be two-story houses. They can build up to 50 feet, they said last time, which is... more people are going to be there, more cars, people visiting. It's just going to be a mess for the whole neighborhood. Would you want this in your neighborhood? Would you want this across the street or next door to you? No. Why build it right in someone's neighborhood, in the middle of a neighborhood? Most of us have been there for 40, 50, 60 years. And you're driving people out of Bloomington. People are talking about selling their homes because of what's going on. And I think it's totally ridiculous.

Thank you, Ms. Winchester. Nope, you cannot. Doesn't work that way, sorry. Anyone else? Mr. Hallett going for a new indoor record I think tonight.

So I heard a lot of good points, and I don't want to invalidate anyone's point. I just want to offer a couple suggestions. So I don't know a ton about the major structural differences between the different types of zoning, but what I do remember asking the planning division about how this could potentially work as a general concept, My ideas were stemming from eco villages such as Kalash in Portland. And there's another one, I can't remember the one in Arizona, but the one in Arizona is actually really important because I took a, like while everyone was speaking, I took a really quick look at Google maps and there is a seek center literally right behind the lot. and uh we keep running into time and again with this community center or any other structure that we're building we keep running into the problem of parking minimums i know the sustainability commission is currently working on that in fact there's a whole bunch of stuff that i would love after this meeting i'd love to talk to you about the sustainability commission because there's a ton of people with a wealth of knowledge to help make the buildings more sustainable and more affordable uh affordable um there's a concept called the streetcar suburb uh i believe i heard when the presentation was going on that there's a sidewalk being built because i looked at the map uh james avenue or i think it's sorry james road james avenue um goes directly to city hall right here and uh from here there's buses so that means that there is access via um again another protected bike lane Going down James Road, sorry, Avenue, I can't believe I'm messing up all these street names. Another protected bike lane, get ourselves off of this continuous cycle of continuously forcing more cars and becoming more and more problematic. while solving all these other issues of the middle housing and respecting people who already live here. I'm from Richfield. I've already gone through all this. I can tell you that there's definitely a wrong way of doing it and a right way of doing it. I've seen both happen repeatedly and middle housing in general is not the enemy. it's just how it's done Washington DC also has the most green roof space adoption in the country because of a stormwater policies and this also this whole thing of ripping up the curb and all this other stuff that was talking about the stormwater goes right back into the ordinance that I was talking about essentially of the question of what does restoration mean and if we build an eco village use better materials. I personally didn't like the architecture. I believe it's probably something kind of like it kind of stems from the suburbs of Lakeville rather than the streetcar suburb, which I find much more appealing and easier to do ecovillage style stuff where you end up with more food. Oh, dang it, I'm running out of time. Anyway, that's it.

Thank you, Mr. Hallett. Anyone else? Ms. Rai, do we have anyone on the phone wishing to speak to this topic?

We do not have anyone online.

Last call for anybody in the chambers? Council, no one coming forward, no one on the phone. I'd look for a motion to close the public hearing on item 4.8 this evening. So moved. Motion by Council Member Lohman, second by Council Member Robertson to close the public hearing on item 4.8. No further council discussion on this. Ms. Rai.

CARTER? AYE. D'ALESSANDRO? AYE. RIVAS? AYE. NELSON? AYE. LOWMAN? AYE. ROBERTON? AYE. MAYOR BUSSE?

AYE. MOTION CARRIES 7-0. CLOSING THE PUBLIC HEARING. IF WE COULD ANSWER A COUPLE OF QUESTIONS I THINK ABOUT THAT THAT WERE BROUGHT UP. AND I'LL JUST TICK THEM OFF HERE. MS. JONES ASKED, IS THERE A NEED TO REZONE TO R3 OR IS IT SOMEHOW DOABLE IN R1? Ms. McHale talked about a traffic analysis and a calculator. Is there actually a calculator out there somewhere that you can access? Really, I didn't know that. That would be interesting. And the trip numbers differed from the trip numbers that we had been talking about. Privacy fences between R1 and R3. I think there were questions about construction management plan. Other questions that we had heard. Who wants to tackle some of these? I know you were writing them down as well.

I will start, Mayor and Council. So the main difference between R1 and R3 are the setbacks. So the minimum setback in R1 is 30 feet for a dwelling. R3 is 20. So if this were to be kept as R1, I imagine one or two lots would be eliminated due to that increased setback in R1. As far as fencing goes, it's not identified on the plans. I know that Steve maybe addressed it at Planning Commission that it's potentially an option. I'd defer to him to speak to the fencing. I heard traffic. I'd defer to Kirk Roberts. Roberts, do you want me to pull up the slide, Kirk?

Yeah, okay. Mr. Roberts, there's a lot of questions about traffic, the actual number of cars there, what the capacity might be. BACKUPS ON 90TH AND DIVERTING TRAFFIC THROUGH?

MR. MAYOR, COUNCIL MEMBERS, YEAH, THERE WERE. SO LET ME RUN THROUGH THESE WITH YOU AND I'LL BE BRIEF ABOUT IT. IN TERMS OF THE TRAFFIC CALCULATOR, THAT IS ME. I AM THE TRAFFIC CALCULATOR, ALTHOUGH I WILL SAY MRS. MCHALE'S TRAFFIC CALCULATIONS WERE PRETTY GOOD AND I REALLY APPRECIATE THAT. ANYONE THAT'S WILLING TO CALCULATE TRAFFIC, I HAVE A CONNECTION WITH. one of the first things I want to touch on is the residents didn't see road tubes out here. We rely less and less on road tubes. We actually have data providers that we can get this data from using like GPS devices and things like that. So we do have traffic volumes for the local roadways here. James Avenue, WHICH IS THE HOT TOPIC TONIGHT, HAS ABOUT 200 CARS A DAY. ALL OF THE ROADS IN THIS AREA ARE ABOUT 300 CARS PER DAY OR LESS. AND IN TERMS OF CONTEXT, THAT'S A PRETTY QUIET LOCAL STREET. WE DON'T EVEN START THINKING HARD ABOUT STREETS UNTIL THERE ARE OVER 500 CARS A DAY FOR A LOCAL STREET. AND THE VOLUMES CAN RANGE 800 OR MORE. and how that affects residents. People's sensitivity to traffic varies, but generally at these low volumes, we don't hear a lot of complaints. We don't get a lot of requests for traffic calming. It's not to say that there isn't somebody that makes everybody in the neighborhood really angry because they drive fast or that every neighborhood has somebody like that, but in general, NEIGHBORHOODS, THE TRAFFIC IS FAIRLY QUIET. AND SO MOVING UP IN THE VOLUME NUMBERS HERE, 90TH STREET, 12,400 CARS A DAY. THERE'S YOUR APPROACH 35W. PENN AVENUE IS A LOWER VOLUME, 8,000 VEHICLES PER DAY ON PENN You remember the 86th Street townhomes? We were looking at that. That was about 5,000 cars a day. So this is a much higher volume situation. That's a three-lane collector, and this is four lanes to handle that volume as you approach the freeway. Now, the question, and one of the points we heard a lot, is James Avenue is... is difficult to use sometimes in that peak hour, and I believe that. The traffic approaching 35W, you can get those queues that build up. It is probably, some residents already likely divert to other roads just depending on where their destination is by the time of day in those morning and evening peak hours. That happens pretty much in every neighborhood as people sort of select based on their trip and where they feel comfortable going to. And so this new development is going to generate about 66 new trips. And what does that do? How does that affect neighborhood traffic? Well, it's going on to James Avenue. Most traffic in Bloomington wants to take the shortest route to the highest, the higher status road. So in this case, that's going to be most traffic is going to want to get up to 90th Street. If I were real serious about these numbers here, I would probably put two thirds of the traffic wants to go up to 90th. AND THEN ANOTHER THIRD IS GOING TO WANT TO CUT OR MOVE THROUGH THE SORT OF WEAVE THROUGH THE NEIGHBORHOOD OVER TO PENN AVENUE, USED 91ST AND A HALF STREET. AND WHAT HAPPENS TO TRAFFIC WHEN THEY DO THAT? SO WORST CASE, YOU ADD ABOUT 50 TRIPS ON JAMES AVENUE AND YOU ADD ANOTHER SOME NUMBER OF TRIPS TO 92ND STREET, YOU ARE STILL LOOKING AT VERY LOW VOLUME LOCAL STREETS THAT LOOK LIKE THE MAJORITY OF STREETS IN THIS CITY. SO IN OTHER WORDS, THERE ARE 300 CARS A DAY OR LESS. they're well under that 500 car a day threshold so we're not real concerned about the need to do traffic calming, traffic mitigation, traffic management. Going through my Yeah, I think I covered most of the comments. Council, if there's others that you want me to touch on, please let me know. But in general, the trips generated by this development, the proposed development, one other thing that's worth touching on is the context that's the other thing that if you have a like a business inside of a residential neighborhood or you just have straight up cut through traffic where it's coming from outside the neighborhood through the neighborhood and back out that's the kind of thing that really drives people crazy this isn't that it's residential traffic this is your neighbors that doesn't tend to generate the kind of complaints that we hear about when we have straight up cut through traffic and that's why I think probably James Avenue has those nice THE CURVES THERE, THE DIVERTERS, IT'S BECAUSE EVERYTHING TO THE EAST IS INDUSTRIAL ASSOCIATED TRAFFIC AND THEN EVERYTHING OBVIOUSLY UP JAMES AVENUE TO THE NORTH IS ALL RESIDENTIAL AND SO THEY JUST DIVIDED THOSE UP TO ELIMINATE THE ISSUES THAT YOU SOMETIMES HEAR ABOUT. SO THAT'S WHAT I HAVE FOR TRAFFIC AND TRANSPORTATION. IF THERE'S OTHER QUESTIONS, I'M HAPPY TO ANSWER THEM.

COUNCIL MEMBER RIVAS? QUICK QUESTION.

I'M JUST CURIOUS. I HAVE NEVER HEARD you or anybody from the city actually have had an actual traffic study, like you would see on the highway when you drive, you have the cable sensors across the road, and then when cars actually drive over those, they're counting cars. And also they're using GPS sensors above that. So have we ever had an actual study like that in the city that you can bring to us? I've always been curious about that because I've never seen the cables outside. I've never seen the GPS sensors out there either. Can you enlighten me on that?

Mr. Mayor, Councilmember Rivas, we do the tube counts all the time. We have an entire program throughout the summer to do those tube counts. A lot of that is to report back to our state aid. for allocation of the federal gas tax, we have to report back on the volume on most of our local and arterial roadways. You don't see the tube counts done as frequently inside neighborhoods, just because we have fewer questions about those and those don't have to be reported the same way. But we do indeed do studies using tube data and we collect tube data pretty much continuously throughout the summer months. OFTEN THE STUDIES THAT WE DO NOW IF IT'S A VERY SPECIALIZED THING LIKE THIS WILL ENGAGE THE SERVICES OF A CONSULTANT JUST FOR WORKLOAD ESPECIALLY THE LARGER STUDIES THAT WE DO LIKE THE CORRIDOR STUDIES AND THEY DO THAT. MORE AND MORE THE TUBES ARE BEING ALSO REPLACED BY VIDEO AND SO WHEN WE WANT THAT ACCURACY THEY'LL PUT VIDEO CAMERAS UP AND THAT'S AN AUTOMATED SYSTEM THAT DISCOUNTS THE TRAFFIC USING THAT.

THANK YOU.

Council, despite our best intentions, I'm going to make a motion that we adjourn no later than 10 o'clock and see if we can get our work done.

Second.

Motion to extend until no later than 10 o'clock. Second by D'Alessandro. No further council discussion. Ms. Rye.

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

Aye. Motion carries 7-0. Council, any additional questions that we need answered based on the questions that you heard from residents or questions that you had? Council Member D'Alessandro.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, thank you. I would like, I don't know if Ms. O'Day or Mr. Johnson can answer this question, but one of the conditions that we put in here is the construction management plan. And it came out of Planning Commission trying to provide a mitigation for some of the resident concerns around what does it mean to build in the neighborhood during a period of time, et cetera. But what we're looking at right now doesn't tell us anything about what's in that construction management plan. And so my question would be, like, what can we expect from a construction management plan? Has this ever been done before, number one, putting a condition of approval on this like this? And then what is it going to look like so that we can have some understanding of what it is we're expecting to be supporting if we choose to support it?

Mr. Johnson, tell us about it.

Yeah, Mayor, Council Member DelSandro, thank you for the question. And actually, it's really helpful if the council kind of voices or shares their ideas about what they would like to see in that document, because we have done it for other larger scale projects. We haven't done it as frequently for smaller or middle scale projects. But the things that are typically in it have to do with kind of the comings and goings of all of the contractors and staff who are constructing the project. On the front end of things, that's the roadway, that's the utilities, those things. A lot of times they can create a construction parking area or a lay-down area for all their equipment and materials, but then you'll have the vertical construction of the homes and the concern that was raised around having multiple crews going at one time. I mean, I heard the applicant tonight say that he would find it acceptable if there was limitations around the number of homes being construction under one time, so that's something that's certainly under consideration. On other construction management plans we've done, I can think of Friendship Village, the large expansion that happened at Friendship Village. public works actually didn't allow parking on the public street on Highwood. So the number they had to either park within the campus itself during construction, or they actually had to shuttle some staff in for the construction of those buildings. Now, obviously that's a much larger project than what we're talking about here, but these are the kinds of things that if there's some sensitivity or some impacts that could be visited upon adjacent property owners, that we would take a closer look to figure that out. And in terms of the staff teams that would be involved in informing the contents of that document, we're talking about Public Works, the building official, planning staff, in some cases, environmental health, because they're doing the enforcement on noise or other things. So we try and pull a team together and try and think through, okay, what are all the potential impacts that could cause harm to adjacent properties during the construction? And we try and mitigate that through the contents of the management plan. But we actually invited Planning Commission to give us their thoughts when they added this condition. So the more things you can put on the record that gives us more than just our own expertise, it kind of helps. And the applicant being in the room, it helps set the expectation of what the city wants to see as far as being sensitive to the neighboring property owners.

Okay. So thank you for that. So a follow-up question to that. Does the construction has the construction manager or can the construction management plan also include, you know, some of the limitations that bridge the gap between what is being proposed CONCEPTS HERE AND WHAT ACTUALLY IS ALLOWED BY THE ORDINANCE. MOST SPECIFICALLY I'M THINKING ABOUT THE FACT THAT WHAT WE'RE SEEING IN FRONT OF US HERE TODAY IS HOUSES THAT ARE 20 FEET TALL AND YET IN R3 SHOULD WE PASS THE ZONING CHANGES IT COULD BE UP TO 50. WE DON'T WANT THAT. I HEARD IT VERY CLEARLY. THE RESIDENTS DON'T WANT 50-FOOT TALL BUILDINGS IN THESE AREAS. IT WON'T BE PREVENTABLE FOR But if it was a condition in the construction management plan, we could add that. I just don't know if that's the kind of thing you can put in a construction management plan. That's why I'm asking the question, because it will help me understand what the boundaries of that are.

I appreciate that. So, Mayor, Council Member D'Alessandro, I would say no. And the reason being is that the construction management plan is really focused on the impacts of the physical construction, not the structures that will be there for the long term following its construction. So that's kind of the... of that document if you will. Now certainly you have the right or the question to impose other conditions of approval so long as it meets an essential nexus. The issue that we have sometimes is that if you're imposing conditions on a code complying application with respect to a project that meets our code, that does take some back and forth or some collaboration with the applicant in terms of whether or not they're willing to entertain those types of conditions. So I would certainly invite them, if you're thinking along those lines, I would invite them to at least to raise that with them to see if they're open to a condition along those lines, specifically to structure height. One thing I would say just to clarify that issue a little bit is it's true that the height map allows structures up to 50 feet. I mean, I invite the applicant to speak to this, and I know we did have the townhome project more recently, so I'm sure that's top of mind a little bit. But in terms of what we see for new single-family home or Villa lot construction where the market typically does not build a three-story Villa I don't see that product very often in addition to that Specifically for the lots that are closer to single-family homes and to the south of them That's when you have the greatest impact from a structure height standpoint because you're casting shadows our code does have provisions in it that does offer protections that if you're casting shadows at both in the morning in the afternoon and And it's most impactful in the winter months, of course, when the sun is lowest. You're not allowed to do that. And so in those particular lots, it would be staff's expectation that the architect is providing a shadow study for their specific home to ensure that those shadow components are being complied with in our code. So that's a little bit for you to chew on. I don't know if it resolves the question.

no it helps and you know mr. Johnson you're always super thorough and I totally appreciate that and I want to thank you for for being willing to address my my concerns you know I guess from from my perspective the I guess the last question I would have is we are we are we are being provided with conceptual studies here of what houses might look like and I could choose to say I like them or don't like them but they're based on they're based on we've been asked to look at a table that says, here's the requirement, here's the proposed thing. right over and over again except they're not the proposed thing because as soon as this is over that could be something else and that's the thing that I'm trying to I'm struggling with so I guess the question I would I guess the third question I would ask is what is there what is there within our our framework can we do you know to say these are the these are the the the home plans that you can build in this area like you know it's almost like a plan development right where it has sets of conditions and it has pre-approved, if you will, you know, construction concepts, you know, it just so that we're not at a point where, you know, two years down the road, two of the homes have been built kind of sort of in alignment with what we've seen today. And then somebody comes in and, you know, is a completely off, completely outrageous person. I don't mean to be like, I like lots of different kinds of architecture, so I'm not necessarily going to be the guy that goes, what in the world, you built a castle? But, I mean, somebody might try to build a castle, like, you know, a really tall castle with turrets. And we can't really say no at that point. And I'm trying to just understand what we can be doing now to put bumpers around what looks reasonable for these property owners that are adjacent to this neighborhood.

Yeah, first, Mayor, first I'd say, like, all this discussion is really helpful for planning staff because we're taking notes, we're taking note of your conversations around what our standards should be in these particular instances, and that's going to inform future policy work that we do, right? So I appreciated Council Member Nelson's comments, maybe at the end of the last meeting. Or if our standards are wrong, let's change our standards. So that's just kind of my first more broad comment to that. As far as the imposition of additional height conditions on it, no, I don't think that we can say that it has to be this style or this design of the home. That's typically what HOAs do, and as they were mentioning, kind of mass builders, yes, they give you five options and you pick one, and that's how they do their work, is at scale. this is a different situation. But I think we're finding that in the space of missing metal housing, it's going to take different types of developers to deliver that product because there isn't the scale that the national builders or that the big builders use. So back to your question about what conditions you can add. Again, I mean, I invite the city attorney to speak to this too a little bit, but every condition you impose on development should meet some essential nexus is the test that it's called. So what is the condition doing? Is it reasonable to solve the problem that you have identified? In this particular case, the city code allows 50 feet if the site is rezoned to R3. And so that's where I mentioned that I think it does necessitate some discussion or some invitation to the applicant to see what they're willing to, what their appetite is to allow for additional conditions around structure height. If that's of, if they're amenable to that and the council wants to do that, then I think you kind of kumbaya and you're in a good place and then maybe you THAT'S KIND OF WHERE YOU HAVE A TRICKIER QUESTION TO ANSWER BECAUSE IT IS CODE COMPLYING MINUS THE SHADOW ISSUE THAT I MENTIONED BEFORE.

THANK YOU. APPRECIATE YOUR HELP.

SO I HEARD MR. FURLONG SAY SOMETHING ABOUT AN ASSOCIATION AND IS THAT BASICALLY WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT? I MEAN AN ASSOCIATION DETERMINING HEIGHTS AND STYLES AND that kind of thing to help limit or determine what a different house could look like.

Mr. Mayor, I thought that the whole idea because these are nine individually developed places and yes there would be a requirement for an HOA I guess for common space and area but it wouldn't necessarily have legal standing on the

Yeah, Mayor and Councilman Delson, just to clarify, state law doesn't allow us to require an HRA anymore. HOA. HOA, excuse me. But it's my understanding that is their plan to have an HOA. Yes, they can have private rules, but the city cannot enforce an HOA's private rules. So I think what I'm talking about, what I think you're talking about, is some type of condition of approval on the final site and building plan approval. BUT, AGAIN, WHEN YOU'RE IN A SITUATION WHERE THE CODE SAYS THAT YOU'RE ALLOWED TO DO THAT, I THINK THAT TAKES SOME GIVE AND TAKE OR SOME DISCUSSION WITH THE APPLICANT ON WHETHER THEY'RE AMENTABLE TO THAT.

COUNCILMEMBER LOWMAN. THANK YOU, MAYOR. I GUESS I'M A LITTLE CONFUSED. SO WE'RE TRYING TO GO FROM R1 TO R3, BUT IT SEEMS LIKE THE BUILDING THAT'S GOING TO BE BUILT IS BUILT IN A STYLE THAT'S AN R1. And this is where I'm having a difficult time trying to ascertain or just figure that out. That's where I'm really confused with that. So that's kind of my first question. I'm confused about that. If you could help me kind of understand that. And then the secondary thing that I'm trying to understand is, you know, we have a comprehensive plan and this space or this area is guided towards R3. Is that my understanding? Or guided towards, pardon me, towards higher density?

Yeah, Mayor Councilmember Lowman, so the R3 zoning district was designed to be that gentle density district. It was designed to accommodate missing middle types of different forms, not kind of more higher density medium, like a multiplex or a small apartment building. But detached townhomes, cottage courts, townhomes, attached townhomes, that's what R3 can accommodate. So is it a medium density residential district? Planning staff would actually argue that it fits in both the high end of low density residential and the low, did I just say that right? The high end of low density and the low end of medium density. Does that make sense? So I think I just confused you more. The point is that you can build some of these missing middle types if you recall in the missing middle policy but they're subject to different standards. There's greater restrictions on height and there's bigger setbacks if it is R1. I don't want to speak for the developer, but I think from following this process along, the reason they've decided to seek rezoning to R3 is based on two things. One, the site is guided, medium-density residential, and two, it offers them reduced structure setbacks, which allows them to gain more units, back to the point he made about the pro forma. So that's just my analysis of it. I'm trying to be objective or neutral in that regard.

No, I appreciate that. Am I understanding that correctly with the R1 to R3? So that's what we're trying to do. So those first couple motions here try to get us into that thing. I guess the dilemma I'm having is I don't know what – it is that's going to be there and so that i just i can't i'm having a hard time figuring out and i get what what's you know the developer is trying to do i think is trying to make it so you can basically build your own home but if you want to build your own home then what's the restriction from stopping you from going and building it all the way to the r3 standards

Right. So Mayor, Council Member Lohman, there are structure setback requirements in R3. You have to have a minimum five foot separate or 10 foot separation between each dwelling, which effectively is a five foot side yard setback on both sides. So there are standards within the code.

I get that, but there's a level between, you know, what I'm hearing being proposed and what the final person that's going to, since they're not controlling that, can do with that. And that's where I'm a little bit hesitant to do that, that R3 part, because I just don't understand, you know, is it going to meet that middle, the middle that we're trying to achieve? And that's the part that I'm confused with, is that, you know, and then they could do whatever they want. So there's no real restriction here. So I'm reluctant to want to make that move to the R3 until I have a much better understanding of that. And there's some other things that are here that are going on here too, sewer and some other things here that I have questions about. So I'm just, you know, and we've never done this before, so I want to do this right. And so I'm just, at this point, Mayor, when I look at this today, I'm not ready to make this decision tonight. You know, I want to, you know, kind of have a little more understanding in terms of what this R3 thing looks like. And I think it's a great innovative idea, but this could be a lot of different things in that neighborhood. And I don't really know what that is. And it's one thing if you're coming back and you go, here, this is exactly what it is. And it's going to be two stories. But I just, again, I ask the question again, a $600,000 house for a one-bedroom? That doesn't seem to quite fit what's going on here. So something's not making sense to me here. So I'm just trying to make this make sense to me. So I'm not ready for this right now tonight, the way this is presented to me.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Councilmember Rivas. I had a comment to make. My only comment is I like the fact that the builder or the developer stated the facts why 9 and not 304. It all comes down to money. And the reality is for an investor to put their capital into anything, they had to look for profit. We live in this world that is a capitalist world. So that said, I did like your explanation. That's reality. And it's good for the public to hear that. That was my comment, and I do understand what's going on with the amount of land and how you can make it profitable and fit as many units as possible, because of the 30 to 20, is it yards? What is it, yards, right? Or feet, feet, actually, from 30 feet to 20 feet, right? I understand all of that. My only question is, it comes down to, They're gonna be, whoever the builder is, even if they're all, the concept is there. They have guidelines already, from what I understand, that they will have to follow, even if, let's say, I buy one of them and I build something, the interior could be very different than the others, but the outside would have to assimilate the other units, right? Or correct me if I'm wrong, from what I understand. Go ahead.

Forgive me, Council Member Rivas, can you describe that question one more time?

So what I'm trying to say is that within the guidelines that the city has and everything that we have in the ordinances, right, even if there are nine different builders in there, the outside of the buildings will be very similar. The only things that I can think the owners would do, almost like in any other development, you only design the inside. of the home as a private owner. You go in and you ask the architects or engineers to do whatever you want on this setup that you want in the interior of the house. But the outside has to follow standards, right?

Yeah, maybe Mayor, Council Member Rivas, maybe I can answer, address Council Member Lohman's question and your question together, if I can, is when we have a lot in Bloomington that's just a typical single family lot, right? We get a building permit. We review it to meet all of our zoning standards, height, setbacks. The building code has requirements around exterior materials. We do have zoning standards for exterior materials for our commercial, industrial, our high density buildings. We don't have exterior material requirements for, single-family homes or detached townhomes or villas whatever you want to call these and so to the question of I You know to the question of we're not knowing kind of what's going to happen here What what exactly is the application seeking every single one of these lots if a building permit comes in for a new dwelling? We will review it according to the standards of the zoning code just like we would a typical single-family home setbacks height all of those things that we typically, impervious surface, all of those things that we typically look at, making sure that it's meeting our parking requirement. So I know it's a little bit different that this is conceptual in terms of the building plans that they've provided to you in the packet, but it's very similar to actually if you were to just subdivide, if you were to subdivide one lot into three single family lots, we would review the building permit of each individual three single family homes according to the requirements of our zoning code through the submission of a building permit. And that building permit would not get issued until we verified that it complies with our zoning. So it's very similar to that process. I don't know if that cleaned anything up or cleared anything up, maybe not.

It does to me, thank you.

Council, based on our discussion, I can't tell which direction we're going to go here. I don't know that we've got an answer one way or another. But what I hear is all kinds of confusion and misunderstanding or a lack of understanding of what we're voting on, to be honest. I think it might be prudent for us to table this, ask staff to maybe regroup a little bit and come back to us and get a bit more information. You know, wherever we want to go, you know, however we want to go with this, it's up to this group, but I want to at least make sure that we understand what we're voting on and what we're talking about here. And I don't hear that right now in the questions that are being asked in the discussion that we're having. So I don't know. I would look to staff. We're not under any time constraints, or maybe we are?

The 120 day is November 12th.

Oh, so we do have time. Okay. I do think, Council, that that makes the most sense right now because I'm not hearing understanding or comfort in this decision that we're making. Either way that we're making it, I don't hear comfort in that. So, Council Member Nelson?

THANKS, MAYOR. CAN I ADDRESS A COUPLE THINGS? I DON'T DISAGREE WITH YOUR DIRECTION. CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT PLAN, CITY OF MINNEAPOLIS HAS ONE, ST. LOUIS PARK THAT COULD BE TEMPLATES. I HAPPEN TO FOR DIFFERENT REASONS HELP WRITE THE MINNEAPOLIS ONE. SO IT'S PROBABLY NOT THAT GOOD. AND IN TERMS OF AN HOA, I MEAN, THEY'RE VERY FLEXIBLE. I THINK MR. FURLONG INDICATED IT WOULD BE FAIRLY LIMITED SO THEY COULD PUT ALL SORTS OF REQUIREMENTS IN TERMS OF AESTHETICS AND EXTERIOR YOU CAN'T PUT PINK FLAMINGOS OUT OR WHATEVER. BUT YOU CAN MAKE IT MUCH MORE LIMITED AND, HEY, IT'S JUST A GROUP THAT TAKES CARE OF ROAD MAINTENANCE, TRASH HAULING, UTILITIES, THAT SORT OF THING. SO THAT CAN BE VERY LIMITED. IN TERMS OF IF THIS IS REZONED TO R3, ANYTHING THAT MEETS THE STANDARDS OF R3 COULD BE BUILT. I MEAN, IT WOULD PROBABLY HAVE TO BE REPLATTED BECAUSE OF THE PLATTING, BUT ANYTHING THAT MEETS ANY OF THOSE STANDARDS COULD BE BUILT IF IT'S REZONED. So, I mean, I understand that they have conceptual stuff. It could go... Am I wrong? Can I address that? Just one second.

Mr. Johnson, this is exactly what I'm talking about in terms of confusion. Maybe we should just... Maybe we should just put a pause on this. It's getting late. I think there are more questions than answers right now. There's more confusion than understanding. If we back this off until October 12th, perhaps, or we could do it maybe the Monday that I'm in Kansas City. Maybe we could do it that way.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I appreciate the willingness to send that to me for acting mayor duties.

I'm going to move that we table item 4.8 until the October 12th meeting, direct staff to direct council to formulate questions and get to staff and get a better understanding of direct staff to see what we can do to try and make a better sense of this and so we can come to a decision based on understanding what we're making that decision on.

Second. Second.

Motion and a second. Any additional questions or conversation on this?

Mayor, just to note that the public hearing is closed, so there will not be a subsequent public hearing on October 12th.

And again, October 12th, unless we want to go to September 26th. 28th. No, we're good. We have a motion and a second to table this until October 12th. No further discussion. Ms. Wright.

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

Aye.

Robertson? Aye. Mayor Bussey? Aye.

Motion carries 7-0. Thank you for your patience, both the developers and neighbors. Thanks for the patience. I want to make sure that we understand what we're talking about and we get this right. And so I appreciate your patience. I appreciate you sticking it out with us this late onto a Monday night. But you're seeing the sausage being made. I hope you enjoy it. It's how it works. So thank you. Council, that concludes our agenda this evening. We are up to council policy and issue updates. We didn't have a listening session, so I have no listening session to report on. Mr. Walker, do you have anything tonight?

Very quickly, Mayor, some good events the community should be aware of. This Saturday, September 19th, from noon to 4 p.m., there will be the 50th anniversary of the Normandale Japanese Garden at Normandale Community College. I believe the program itself starts at noon, but there are events throughout the day. Also Saturday, keep the fun going at the Bloomington Street Arts Festival and Nine Mile Oktoberfest. That runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. And then no meeting next week, but there will be a Boards and Commission Connect opportunity for Council and our Board and Commission members to get together and update and dialogue. That will be from 6 to 8 p.m. here in Council Chambers.

Very good. Council, anything to add? Hearing none, I would entertain a motion to adjourn.

Second.

Motion by Council Member D'Alessandro, second by Council Member Robertson to adjourn. No further discussion. Ms. Rye?

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

Motion carries 7-0. We are adjourned. Thanks much, everybody. Thanks for the conversation tonight. Thanks to our neighbors who joined us. Thanks to staff. Well done. Have a good rest of your week.