City Council - Regular Meeting

Huh? Yeah, he was planning on coming. It is now 4:00 and I will call this work session of the Burnsville City Council order. We are meeting earlier than usual as school district 194 has a special election today and public meetings cannot be held between 6 and 8 p.m. And uh with the clerk, please note that uh Council Member Schultz is absent. And I know council member Workman is on his way. He is.

So, but um members of the public are welcome to attend in person. Uh they may also choose to watch the meeting at Burnsville.gov/meings or on Comcast channel 16 or 859. So, the public can also participate through Zoom by joining us at zoom. usjoin. And more information is available on our meetings web page and in the council agenda packet. So welcome everybody and uh this is a work session. So we'll go directly to the items on the agenda and the first item on the agenda is fire station 2 replacement project and our chief uh BJM is presenting. Chief, the floor is yours.

Thank you madame mayor, members of the council. Thanks for having us to talk about uh fire station 2 replacements. So, we'll dive right into this. Um, just some history on this. Back in 2015 when we had a municipal facility study, uh, identified the need to replace fire station number two to either renovate or replace it. Uh, this informed was further informed by a space study in 2022 and the council prioritized major facility investments of police city hall, then the fire station 2, and then maintenance facility. Uh the space study uh particularly around fire station 2 uh with CH architects uh recommended relocating station 2 to a new site after we looked at what was possible on the existing site. It's a pretty small corner lot there uh and not really feasible for building a new fire station. Uh in December of 2024, the council approved a capital improvement plan that includes the construction of the police city hall project and design funding for fire station 2. This is one thing we learned out of the fire station one construction to include the next project if we have something planned so that any uh excess proceeds as well as some design funds can get us started on that project. Um and that was done with the police city hall project. uh since 2023 uh I've been estimating somewhere between 30 and 32.5 million for fire station 2 replacement and that's been included in the financial management plan. And then based on the updated standards of cover in 2025, uh we identified that station 2 really needs to be operational in 2029 to meet the growing demands for service in the community. So when we looked at where where could we possibly put uh a replacement station to if the current site doesn't work uh given the importance of response times uh to emergencies for the fire and EMS

response uh that was a major consideration the site fit making sure that we can fit today and future needs into that site. um operational efficiency and effectiveness. And then uh looking at that, we had identified or looked at four different parcels uh including the existing site. And really Cross Town Park, Cross Town East Park uh really is the best option from a response time standpoint from a large enough lot uh to make a site fit to make it efficient and effective. So um that is really where we think station two should be replaced to is cross town east. This is uh a a drive time map. The left map is the current fire station one and fire station two with a six minute drive time from both stations. Uh and what you notice in the station two areas, it covers the northeast. Well, it bleeds a bit into Egan. And there's uh kind of the center part of town that's outside of both station one and station two's six-minute drive time. The map to the right is cross town east park relocation for fire station 2 and the existing fire station one. And what you see is that that center area uh is much more covered uh by drawing station two a little farther to the west and we overlap into Egan a little bit less at that six time six minute uh drive time mark. So a little better coverage of our own city at that point within the six minute uh drive time. This is uh a site fit uh that the architects had done for us just at a very high level to make sure that would this even fit there with some square boxes on it and make the efficiency uh work. And part of that is being a critical infrastructure facility, we want to make sure we have access to two roads, right? If they if we have a water main break or need to replace a road, we need to be able to still get out and respond. So, uh this site does accommodate that. We also had uh the city attorney's office uh do a legal review of the land

to make sure that we could actually do this on that site. Uh there was no clear restrictions on the current property which is being used as a park. Uh the city received the park in 1984 with a warranty deed and it it we can't interfere with any of the current easements which are along the uh rightways there. Now, that doesn't mean that we won't need to deal with the zoning of it, but um at least from a legal perspective, uh we can use the land. So, in order to make this operational mid 2029, um it's hard to believe that we're already talking about this project. Uh but talking with the architects and construction manager, they recommended that mid 2026 we start design on this fire station. Uh they really need 14 15 months of design before we're ready to bid this out. Um, so the the goal would be to get an architect and construction manager under contract uh in the next month or two if we want to move forward with this timeline. Uh, be in design development for a good year. Uh, and then get to construction documents and bidding late 27, early 28 so that in early 28 when the frost is out of the ground, uh, we can start construction. That would make the 2029 uh, facility opening a reality. So all that comes together and puts us in middle of 2029.

Okay.

Thinking about this from the the council, uh there's a number of decision points. Obviously, the one uh if the council uh were to move forward and give us direction to move forward, we'd come back on consent with architect and construction manager agreements. uh we would provide an update as we go through design development particularly when we conclude that the council would need to adopt plans and specifications and then authorize construction contracts. So these are the definitely the cons the council decision points. This does not contemplate the public engagement that we need to do. Obviously, there's a fair amount of that that we're still working to outline, but as we move forward with this, there there would be a a fair amount of public engagement, uh, as we know, you know, locating this on a park site, uh, can can raise quite a bit of interest. So, uh, staff will be very proactive in that approach to engaging the public and informing the public along the way and getting input where we can. So um so this is the financing plan that the council saw when we financed uh police city hall in the three phases when the projects were prioritized. So police city hall is project one station two is is a second project and maintenance being the third one. Each of these are independent CIP projects and would need to go through the CIP process. Um but again just a reminder of of how we had gone about those. The plan would be to come back with a uh a uh financing plan and financing options as we get further into design design development when we have some more uh true numbers and we're farther along the police city hall project. And I know our deputy city manager and CFO could speak to this more than I can. So I don't know John, you got anything to add on that or

Yeah. So, as as we as BJ said, as we get more information on um what the what the design cost of the facility is, then we can start looking at what what franchise fees um would need to be increased um to fund that debt service as well as do additional study of franchise fees, you know, um like we did the first time, right? So, look at our peer cities, look at other cities in the area and kind of see where we land. um do some additional work in that area too. So um we'll be doing many of the same we'll have many of the same discussions or similar discussions that we did uh preceding the police city hall project.

Okay. So with that the policy question that we proposed to council is does the city council support moving the fire station 2 project into design at cross town east park. So would stand for any questions at that point. we'd be looking for council direction whether to move forward or not.

Thank you, Chief. I mean, we're on target and uh I appreciate that we're continuously moving on target uh with what we had planned to do. And so, what we're doing this evening is reaffirming what we decided on uh for fire station 2 and the location being cross town park so that you can continue your work. Any questions, comments for chief gentleman? Yes. It's been a long time coming and I'm glad we're on schedule with this thing. So, some support of us continue to move forward. Yes. Yes. Please.

Uh well, I 100% support the project. It is part of what is uh been a bigger longer term plan that we started uh many years ago. Um, I know we all have and I'm sure the community will voice uh concern over uh removing a park. Um, however, um, you know, I I think we all look at it through the lens of of uh, you know, public safety being one of the most profound responsibilities that we have uh, in government. And uh sometimes there's trade-offs and this is one where um where we deeply value our our green space. Um we're fortunate to have a very high number of parks per capita. And uh when we balance park versus life- saving uh facilities, uh to me it's a clear decision, a clear winner uh on what the priority really has to be. Uh so I'm sure we're going to have some very interesting discussions in the future when this comes before us and and the public is more aware of uh the process through the public engagement. But um this is uh I'm I'm just glad that it's you know considering how long ago we did the first fire station and the cost that this one is not higher than 30 million. And I'm I'm really obviously personally because I have favored the funding source for a long time before we even took it uh took it on and approved it. But I'm glad that this is running through the franchise fee system because uh every single person in the city with a meter, electric, and gas will be contributing to the cost, not just those properties that are on the property tax roles, which is a there's a big drop in

the number of properties when you look at every property with a meter versus who's on the property tax levy roles. So um everybody I believe collectively is responsible for funding public safety in a city uh along with some other things like water streets. So we'll have that discussion in the future too. Thank you.

Thank you. And um chief, I think um when we start to engage the community because I have once we talked about this particular location, I talked to some of the folks who live around fire station 2 in that area because there's a lot of residents around there and they never had any incidents or any complaints about the fire engines going in and out. and that's all residential that surrounds that. Um the town houses came in after, but the ones to the south of Traveler's Trail and to the west uh have been there uh all this time. And then I also talked to some of the folks who live close to Fire Station One and they love it. They love having fire station one that close and they don't have any complaints about the movement of our fire trucks in and out. So, I think as people get to know more about what we're doing and really absorb the information about the location, uh, and really understand and have some of the other folks speak positively about being close to the fire station and not having any incidents or any concerns, I think they will realize that it's it it's a good thing. And because I visited all of our parks, that's the only one if you're looking at our response time that's going to meet that. And so this is really uh a great plan and a great site and I think everybody will agree that uh to meet our response time, it is the right location and all we're doing is reaffirming decisions that we have made in the past. So,

uh, with that, uh, members of the council, I think our staff is asking us, um, to give them direction to move forward. Everybody's on board moving forward with the plan. Okay. Madame Mayor, members of the council, we appreciate the support and look forward to moving the project along. So, we stay on track. Yep. Yeah. Because now you have to do the design. Yep. So that we have better numbers. For sure. Thank you, Chief. Could you introduce our guests? Your guests, I guess. Well, we know them all, but maybe maybe the public does. The public does it. So,

yeah, for sure. I I dragged all three assistant chiefs with us in case there any specific questions, but uh uh to my left is assistant chief Neil Dwire of Professional Standards, uh Assistant Chief Chris Walker of Operations, and Assistant Chief Nate Voy, uh who's our fire marshal. So lucky to have them as part of our command staff and they do a great job supporting the fire department and the city and providing great service to the community. Yeah. Thank you and welcome. Yeah. Okay. We've got big work big work yet to do now. So you guys have to get get going.

Mayor and council, the next thing you'll see on this item will be uh agreements with both construction manager and architect uh per BJ's previous comments. uh then the not only the design development process will continue but uh our community engagement community communication connection around the project will happen. So certainly will be more information available both to you and the community in the weeks and months to come. Okay. Wonderful. Excellent. Okay. The next item is our infrastructure trust fund study and uh you know great background and great study. So, presenting is Jenny Rodeo, deputy city manager and uh CFO. Floor is yours. Jenny,

good evening, Madame Mayor, council members. Uh thanks for having us here tonight to talk about the infrastructure trust fund study. Um the purpose of this study really is to um align our funding with our street system needs and community expectations. So, really provide some background on the ITF and its history. um align with the pavement management plan. That plan was presented in November 2024. So um and and present some funding options for council feedback and direction. Um one of one of the things to remember, a couple things to remember, we really strive to maintain alignment with our existing levy guidance. So the infrastructure trust fund is funded through a property tax levy. And um in the options that you'll see later on in the plan, we have um maintained alignment with the levy guidance and that a non-binding re resolution that prescribed property tax increase amounts through 2027. So 2027 is the last year of that. Um also keep in mind this is one of many budget priorities um that we'll be discussing over the next few months as we prepare the budget. And so we understand that this along with those other priorities need to be integrated into the budget and are keeping that in mind. Um the pavement management goals. So first of all we want to be in line aligned with the pavement management plan as presented and um there were two go there were goals outlined in that plan. Um that being uh we're striving for an average of average PCI of all city streets at or above 75 and no more than 11 miles or 5% of the system in critical condition. So a pavement condition index um score of less than 40. Um, also one of the other um, strategies that was outlined in the payment management plan is a more integrated utility funding stat strategy

and that was introduced there. And what that does is reallocate some of the street that has historically street costs um, on projects to the property utility fund really matching the funding with the reason that we are making the improvement. And a later slide will talk a little bit more in detail about that. um next steps. So it started with the present presentation of the pavement management plan in uh 2024. Um following that uh the infrastructure trust fund study was completed and presented in November 2025. And today we're talking about the ITF study or infrastructure trust fund study. And these three studies were identified as one of or as three of 13 studies um starting in 2023 that staff um was going was to undertake to really inform our capital improvement plans going forward. Additionally um based on council feedback tonight, we will um we will incorporate any plans, any strategies into our utility rate study analysis. We do an annual utility rate study uh prior to the budget um budget adoption. And so we'll integrate anything uh we learned tonight and over the course of the next few months in the budget process into that study as well. A little background. Um, streets are one of the city's most visible and heavily used assets and really the long-term system health depends on our consistent sustainable investment um in that in that system. Right now, current funding is no longer keeping pace with system needs. So, um we know that without additional investment beyond what we've planned, um street conditions are will be declining over the next decade.

the history of the ITF fund. It was established uh through a 1996 ordinance and it established a pay as you go property tax levy dedicated to streets and park infrastructure. um that originally original 15-year plan, it ramped up over the life of the plan from 1996 through 2011. And it really um that original ordinance um laid out um specific levy goals um for for that ramp up plan at about um 1 and a4% in increase of the property tax rate annually. It's been amended two times uh once in 2010 and once again in 2022. That 2010 amendment did um it changed uh the levy goals and really um didn't set it didn't state a specific levy amount and was really done around the time of the recession where that ITF levy had been reduced. So um it was amended to be consistent with the plans at the time. And then in 2022 it was also amended. Um just to be consistent um just some minor updates as well as it did remove that parks levy portion from this. In 2020 the city just um established a separate parks levy as to just have a parks levy for the parks and the ITF levy separately. So it didn't change the overall financial picture for either fund. But that um ordinance did just really clarify that change. Um and all three of these are included in the back of the ITF plan. So all three of the ordinance um ordinance and the ordinance amendments. Um the goals of the study are really uh making the right investment at the right time. So we'll talk a little bit about the rehabilitation window and the difference

in cost of you know being able to catch those streets when they can be uh rehabbed rather than doing full reconstruction on the streets. uh we talk about a sustainable investment in the public infrastructure and alignment between financial planning and system needs. So what was identified as a need in the pavement management plan and talking today about how can we align that funding uh through the ITF study preventative maintenance um appropriate preventative maintenance to reduce long-term costs and then reliable highquality streets for residents and businesses. So that's these are all things we took into consideration as we um reviewed the study. The current financial picture in the ITF fund uh the ITF fund currently manages or funds street improvements for 182 non MSA miles within the city. It supports a pay as you go street replacement strategy. Current annual funding through the ITF levy is about $3.1 million annually and based on the pavement management plan, the target annual needs to meet the goals uh from the earlier slide is about $6 million annually. That that creates a gap of about $3 million or just under $3 million. As we reviewed the original ordinance and the original plans and compared with kind of where we stand today, what what did we end up levying? Um we calculated an estimate about uh $12.3 million in underfunding since um 1996. So we wanted to look and see what got us to this place. Um and so and that's um that's what we estimate at this time. current funding structure for street improvements within the city. Uh the

main funding source especially for um non MSA streets is the ITF fund um and the ITF levy. Special assessments also fund um nonITF street improvements as well. municipal state aid that those that funding is available for uh larger um more heavily traveled um streets within the city. It also kind of main arterial roads as well as regional improvements that that the city participates in. Um there are a few opportunities for grants and intergovernmental revenue. Those are mainly for eligible um MSA type streets. So while they provide relief to the MSA needs, they don't really provide a lot of relief on the ITF side since um residential streets typically we don't have a lot of grant or intergovernmental funding available for those utility funding. Right now utilities fund the street or the infrastructure under the under the streets that that is theirs. Um that's storm water, sanitary, sewer and water. Um so that those are the three main utilities. Uh again, as we'll talk a little later, we are proposing maybe a little um a shift in how much how much the utilities fund on street improvements. And then finally, bonding. Uh although the ITF is uh supporting a pay as you go structure, there is um there is an option for limited bonding within the ordinance. Um the city has bonded about twice in the last 15 years. One for a very large project and one uh for a year when we were um implementing the organizational analysis to really you know help with that uh that strategy. But um if we are

pay as you go, we typically wouldn't anticipate to rely on bonding for that property tax levy portion of the street improvements. Um a little bit about the system condition. The system condition um as uh outlined in the pavement management plan will decline without additional investment. The current state right now is 11 miles of critical streets. The current funding path that we have, so what what we have in place in the current financial management plan, we anticipate approximately 40 miles of critical streets in 10 years. So again, the goal is to really keep those critical streets about where they are at um 11 miles or under. As we talk about um the investment in streets, when we defer that investment, it tends to cost us more money over time. Um that's where we came up with this concept of the rehabilitation window. So when pavement conditions are above 40, uh rehabilitation is feasible. So really that millan overlay of that um top those top layers of streets and that costs about $425,000 a mile. If we see more miles of declining uh pavement condition and we're you know we're faced with uh those those type of improvement projects, a reclamation or reconstruction is required. So where we're digging up the entire street and that almost doubles the cost of each mile at $825,000 a mile. So getting to those streets earlier is going to save money over the long term. The integrated utility strategy that was introduced in the payment management plan that really realigns funding sources to the type of work being done. So it isn't a change in the total overall project. It really focuses the

funding to the um to the work being done. So while the ITF focuses on pavement, utilities will pay more of their own infrastructure. So sometimes there is work done on the street that is really because um is really needed because the utilities um need the work. Maybe it's curb work or some other things. And um right now the ITF is paying for that. We would propose that we shift some of those costs to those um to the water and sewer fund and storm water fund. um it it would um reduce the ITF levy needs but it would increase um what is coming from the utilities. So um it would increase rates over what we have been anticipating because we haven't yet implemented this kind of a strategy. But if we were it would really shift just shift where some of those costs are coming from. Um, so as we looked at it, there's there's kind of two two options really maintaining our current approach. Um, really without a long-term without a near-term impact uh to overall property taxes, but it does result in declining long-term system conditions. And that's why, you know, we wanted to talk about um wanted to talk about that tonight. And as we looked at the pavement management plan, we knew we we wanted to have this discussion. um it does result in higher learn long-term costs. Um or we can increase investment in that ITF levy. Um it really has a higher near-term impact, right? in there will be some pressure on the overall property tax levy, but it really will help stabilize or improve the system resulting in lower um long-term costs overall because in this scenario, in an increased investment scenario, we would strive to do additional rehab when we're in that window before streets get below a 40 PCI.

So, we'll start with a couple options. This really just is the current wanted to go over what is the current plan. It's um levy growth in the next five years. So 2027 to 2031 of 3 to 6% annually and that is growth within the ITF fund. Not overall that's not overall increase on the city levy but really growth within the fund itself. Yeah. For clarification, you're talking about 3 to 6% of the ITF fund itself, not the overall levy. Correct. Yep.

All right. Yep. Again, as we as the pavement management plan indicated, that would result in an overall system condition decline over the next 10 years, really increasing maintenance and reconstruction costs. Uh, with that, we looked at what are a couple of different options to get us to that $6 million annual investment. Um, we looked at a year, three years, and five years. So, this option two is a one-year increase. What would happen if we immediately uh made that shift that would um result in a 93% levy increase in 2028. As I mentioned earlier, we are this plan is in um in alignment with the levy direction as we have it now. So, we did start that levy increase in 2028 as to not uh cause additional pressure in 2027. It's the most costefficient long-term in that you get the immediate results and you can start implementing um implementing the pavement management plan goals uh right away, but it is a significant one-year tax impact. Uh you would see some immediate system stabilization with that with that plan. Option two is a five-year phase in a more balanced approach. Um this would result in 21% annual increases in the ITF fund. Again, not overall tax increases, but just in within the fund of 28 to uh from 2028 to 2031. And then after that, you would go down to just normal inflationary increases at about 4%. It smooths the property tax impact over those five years. um system improvement or stabilization begins within two to three years and we think we will meet those uh goals of the pavement

management plan by 2035. So in the next 10 years. Option 3A, this is the same five-year plan. Uh what we wanted to show is um that integrated utility strategy which could be used with any option but what that does um how that impacts the ITF levy and that reduces the annual increases from 21% to 15% over 2028 to 2031. Um again utilities fund more utility related work. It reduces the property tax impact, but on the other hand, it will increase utility rates above what we've currently projected because um that our projections are based on um a plan without that additional utility study. That would also meet our goals by about 2035. The fourth option, uh we looked at what does a 10-year phase in look like? So extending that out a little longer really, you know, it has the lowest annual impact of any of the increase options, but it does slow the progress quite a bit. Um, there would be about 11% annual increases within the ITF fund from 2028 to 2036, so over nine years. It has the lowest annual tax impact, but much slower system improvement. um again does increase those long-term costs because we wouldn't be getting to as many streets um as we could under the other methods. Um I think also with this you definitely want to take a look at this periodically and make sure um we're not falling behind at that at that increase. And again with all of these as you get every budget year we would look at this. We would look at the progress as well too, right? So you know this is a plan and we would definitely look at the progress to see where we're at and

make sure you know it's not too high too low. We want we would make sure to make those adjustments. So with that, what kind of impact does each of these options have on the overall um property tax increase or decrease in every any given year? So um we made made some projections um under each op under each option. Obviously the current option is about.3% annually of the of the total increase. Uh option two would be 5.2% 2% in 2828 and then after that about4%. Option three would be 1.2 to 1.7% annually over the 5 years through 2031. Option 3A with that utility change it would decrease that levy pressure from8% to 1.1% annually over that 5 years plus some increases on the utility side. And then option four is about point 6 to point8% annually.

Yeah, correct. When you talk about utility fees, what utilities are you specifically talking about? Storm water, um sanitary sewer, and um water. Okay. So, an apartment, multi- tenant apartment, unless they pay for their own water individually as apartment, the apartment owner would be paying that fee. Correct? Yeah. Yeah. So if they have their own meter then they would be paying they'd be paying for them. Yep. And secondly, how does that affect our small businesses in our city?

So depending on how many meters they have, how much usage they have. So they would be impacted based on you know what their what their structure of fees are. So, um it would just be an a flat increase over, you know, the types of fees, but depending on how many meters because it depends. Some businesses might have one, some have multiple. So, basically, this becomes just a pass through through the landlords to their tenants for either housing or or for commercial then, unless they have their own water me unless they have their own water meter. Unless they have their own water meter. Okay.

Yeah. And we tend I mean just we tend to be about the middle of the road for our utility rates as far as where we fall uh within our kind of our comparable cities. So just kind of as context um as we looked at this we also wanted to talk a little bit about fund balance. Our current target the minimum we've targeted about $2 million as a minimum balance in this fund. uh that's been the minimum for I I think at least 15 years and as we look at the inflation on project costs um we would recommend to increase that minimum target to about 3 to 3.5 million really kind of providing about six months of cash flow on average. Our most recent audited balance is about $ 1.9 million and that's about three to five months depending on the projects for that year. So, um, just to make sure that we're keeping up with inflation and we we'd look at that every year and make sure we're we're targeting that correct amount. But that that fund balance really just supports cash flow, especially in yard large project years. This fund is reliant on tax um settlements that come in June and December. So, we want to make sure we have enough to take us through that first six months of the year.

Question. Yeah, Dan, what what are we spending? Because on a chart that's in the background, it shows 2026 planned levy, actual levy, basically 3.4 and it's you can see it it grows a little bit over year over year. Is was that intended uh the fund balance to be equal to one year's expenditures? And would that policy approach actually help it just consistently maintain and absorb inflation because we're going to spend more every year anyway, right?

Yeah. I mean, you can look at it that way because we need, you know, we the levy is supporting the projects that come through. We have both um state aid eligible projects and non you know, so non non MSA and MSA projects in this fund. So kind of that cash flow funds a large a large doing more than just our ITF projects, right? Yep. So that's where that six months comes in. All the more reason I think N's a little on the low side, right? Just especially if just our I you know ITF projects are about three and a half million. You add in all the MSA projects and

Yep. And um yeah, so we want to make sure Yeah. we're being consistent and we're looking at that balance and um making those changes and every year we see what the MSA is charged when we see the yeah so and then it comes down to that total and we also see what the utilities are paying for the project that MSA construction funding funding is also generally reimbursement based so we've spent the money or we've incurred those costs before we get get that money from the state right I have a followup Madam,

so this I never caught this before when you talked about the utilities and uh your option 3A where it talks about the utilities utility fund taking on more of utility costs with regard to road projects. Yeah. Isn't all of the costs associated with the utilities already

Yeah. being paid through the utility fund. There's a little bit of a nuance to this and if if you have addition I'll try to I'll try to answer this and if you if Logan had our city engineer has additional detail we can uh he can add that but yes they were paying for their own infrastructure but I think it was more streets were paying all all what you would consider typical street costs but let's say we would need to replace let's say curb and gutter but we do need to because of storm water We're not going to have the street pay for that portion. That really is a storm water cost because we need to pay for that. I Is that capture that? Yeah, exactly. The most

rehabilitation and uh reclamation, right? Yeah. So, typically if you're just focusing on maintaining your pavement, you're just looking at rehabilitation or reclamation. We're not doing reconstruction where we're replacing all of the curb and gutter. Um that is almost always driven by the need to replace water mane. Yeah. So, it really would diverting the the costs that are directly correlated to the replacement of the water man helps us um plan the street costs since they're really different funding sources, right? Yeah.

So, if we were to ch let's just hypothetically say we choose 3A, your math shows the storm water taking on more of the cost burden. Yeah. as opposed to option three without that. Correct. Um which tells me that today we could do that. Yep. We could in theory yes

we could be just approaching it in a way that the storm water takes on more of the cost and it's directly attributed to it anyway. So it that's what I'm that's where I came up with my comment that it seems like the levy or the ITF is actually covering some storm water related today but we could move into a direction where it could be more finite and we would shift some costs over to storm water. That's the integrated approach. Yep. And and water and sewer as well. It would be both of the water and sorry

both of them. Um Yep. And I think that's that's what started in the in the pavement management plan. We introduced that option. It's not typically what we've done. So, we wanted to make sure that we talked about it um before before any change was made. But that's where you can see on option 3A. That's why it only the t property tax only increases 15% here rather than 20% under that other option because that gives you a little bit of a little bit extra funding from that part. Seems like we're just you know, we're getting more specific, right? We're just really find the focus is much more clear on the separation of what is being paid by what fund y

and it so you know you could derive from that that for many many years the ITF has been covering some storm water and that has helped unfortunately drain the ITF uh to some degree where the burden should have been on the storm water but it's in the past it's water under the bridge pardon the punctically Um the I I'm I'm getting a clear picture uh having taken office in ' 07 and uh mayor going back to the

uh first year of the ITF and Dan earlier you know in between there that when we hit these years uh like the great recession where we put off it was like okay we we put off because we needed to we had to it was hard decision but we had to we had a zero levy increased that year and and there's some other years where you know there was a little bit of a okay well if we need help over here let's let's rob Peter to pay Paul right well we did it funds we we did it with the parks uh for a lot of years

and we we decided at some point that we robbed them too long they needed a lot of attention there was a lot of capital needed so we bit the bullet did what we needed to do and we caught it all up we're not caught up but we're investing heavily and the parks are showing the dramatic increase. Um I think the the clearest way to say this is your significance of the cumulative shortfall your comment in this background correct

is true right we've we've taken 12 million out of the ITF that should have gone into the roads when the roads were in the early phases of half the cost of repair and some of those roads stayed in that many of them probably floated into the oops now it's so bad you got to tear it all up and redo the whole at twice the cost. So robbing Peter to pay Paul is now costing us a lot more on the back end. Then you add inflation, right? I mean construction certainly roads, infrastructure. I mean I was just reading the article about uh the Highway 13 project. You know, every year it's delayed. It's $10 million more in inflationary costs. And that's that project's big, but it's not one of the biggest, right? Um, so when it comes to construction, especially infrastructure construction, we're better off taking care of it now. It's cheaper in the long run if we just maintain it properly today and not continue to kick the can down the road because the can cost of the can gets exponentially larger uh to get it back. So, well, I I'm a fan of 3A.

Mhm. Uh, in a big way. It's taking nine years to get it up to snuff, but um I think it's it's like a lot of things when it comes to the levy.

This is infrastructure. When the roads are the roads are being driven on now, they've been driven on for 50, 60 years. They're going to be driven on for, you know, into the future. So, it's one of those things that I don't I like paying it. That's what I love about the ITF and I bragged about this at the NLC to a hundred people from different cities around the country. I always bring up like how do you fund your roads and said, "Well, we started this ITF." It was an idea back in the 90s and and now we're PGO and uh it's and some people light up like how do you do that, right? Well, you just got to get started, right? um paying taking today's money to pay for an infrastructure project that's going to be around for decades uh makes me think well we should bond for it. why would we pay with today's money on something that's going to, you know, um so the ITF really is the best solution to that without bonding

uh building it up over time. And uh I just so that same philosophy of that longer view, let's let's ramp it up over a period of time rather than say, "Oh, let's just bomb our levy all at once and and do a one-time fix." That to me is it's not sustainable. it isn't logical to the people that you know pay the property tax including all of us uh type of thing. So I think I think it's the smartest move for something that is long-term. However, we are openly admitting by if if everybody else agrees with 3. A 3A, we're openly saying, well, we're going to put off more work because we're already $12 million behind and we're going to put a little bit each year more to try and catch it up. But in that nine years between now and 2035, more roads are going to fall into the well, it would have been only this if you'd have fixed it two years ago. I'm afraid now it's going to cost twice as much. But it's the reality that we have to live with.

Okay. Yeah. And I'm going to go to uh Dan Gustoson then uh then Vince. I I agree, Dan. Uh from what I can tell tell from our chart since about 2003, we've been kind of underfunding the ITF all along. in 2010 was the big year where we did the zero and that was a huge underfund and it's caught up with us. Uh my and it's time we catch up with this again. It's very important to our community.

Uh I have a question for you Jenny. Now the 3A which I kind of leaning towards myself. I'm not a always a big fan of utility funds but this the money we're going to collect from 3A to do this and the money from three is the same money. It's just we're splitting out in two different sections. And like Dan had alluded to, some of it's going to go to our storm and sewer that will take care of they'll they'll take care of the curbing and things like that when we do some of the major things now, but that will come out of that fund instead of the ITF fund so we can focus that more on the streets and that. Is that correct? Is that what I'm hearing? Yes, that is correct.

Okay. All right. So, I'm I'm I'm with you. Uh I think the 3A is the way to do it. It's a either either way. It's a whether you want to call it a property tax or utility fee. It's a three-letter word that we're going to have to use to to collect the funds. And the funds are going to be the same. So, it's it's not more or less on either way we do it. Correct. The overall cost of the investment is the same. You'll be using uh you'll be funding it at the same amount. It's just where is it coming from shifts a little bit. And then how much are we going to be delaying some of our work by going with the 3A process, Logan? Because that's what kind of control anyway. So, correct.

Yeah, I probably don't have a great answer for you on that other than it's a it's an it's an immediate improvement on our trajectory, right? So, um Jenny's slide, I think, said in the next two to three years. So we'll we'll start to increase our investments in our streets. So that that would be the simple answer is in the next two to three years. Okay.

Mor member of the council Logan to your point just for clarity particularly for the community we and Jenny helped me here too. Uh we believe that an option like 3A or three uh would also keep us within the goals that were established or the targets that were established in the pavement management plan as to not increase miles of critically of streets that have critical needs from a pavement management index perspective and now our team can correct everything in incorrect that I just said. Okay.

Yeah. I think generally speaking, yes. Right. So we we still expect to be So we're at 11 today. At the end of 2035, we expect to be at 11. So we're not going to I and correct me if I'm wrong, but we're not going to see a big increase in our deteriorated streets. We're not necessarily going to be able to address them as quickly as we could in a one-year change, but it still is a significant impact. Yeah, correct. and we'll be able to start catching those uh mil and overlay streets in the rehabilitation window, which is something we're we're not really doing very well right now. Yeah.

And that and that really helps future condition, right? It it explains the it primarily explains the delta between do nothing, which would be increase in a 5year window or a 10-year window, I can't remember which now, to 40 miles of critical streets. It it allows us to do just that, which is maintain kind of that that current target as to not as to not get behind. Correct. Yeah. Correct. And every year I'm going to go to Vince because he has a a hard stop for himself and I want to I want to honor that. Vince

and I apologize for being late. My day job over overlapped over overlapped um this a little bit. Um, just to Dan's question, Logan, the way I'm picturing this is rather than maybe getting four or five projects a year, we might be able to bump that up to five or six with this additional funding. Is that kind of an accurate way to look at it? Or we're able to assess, I think Greg said it well, too, that we're able to get ahead of those projects from deteriorating into a stage two. We can catch it earlier. Is that am I on point there?

Yeah. So with option three and 3A, we're really seeing increases in available funding in 2028 and beyond, right? So kind of status quo for 2027 and then starting in 2028, we're we're doing everything we've been doing in terms of tackling the really poor condition streets and we're starting to get some of those uh fair condition streets that are able to be rehabilitated at a lower cost. So, we're just adding that on, which over time puts us in a way better position.

Okay. Um, my initial question was, and I apologize, I don't remember, but where is our current levy outlook for the next few years? Again, Jenny um for the total increases. Yes. Um, I if I recall, so obviously 7.69 69 is the target for 2027. In the financial management plan, we did have um I think a couple years of higher increases to get us to 45%. But I think overall we've been about six and a half 7% is what we think where we think we're at right now.

Didn't we have some out years that we're going to be closer to three or four some out years? Yeah, it go it decreases. We It decreases as the years go out. keeping in mind that the near-term years are definitely more accurate because we know more about them, right? Those out years, a lot will happen between now and then. So, but I would say 6% is a good estimate if you're kind of just estimating long term right now. Right now, madam may remember me, the couchi odds might not be in our favor that far out for eight years that it says it's a four doesn't mean it's going to roll in as a four. Greg,

madam mayor, members of the council, I think it's also an important reminder with that question that uh the FMP is an incredible tool over a five and 10 year period of time. Uh however, any budget conversation is a snapshot in time, right? So that's that I think that's the first important reminder. Uh and to to your experience, Council Member Workman, um uh th those out years, well while the current projections might look better in terms of lower properties, year-over-year property tax levy increases required, there are a number of assumptions that then become baked into neareryear budgets. Right? So set said set said set another way, I think there's a a cautionary tale to um uh to tell there. Uh and uh I also think it's an important reminder that that right now just to keep the lights on just to just to deal with keeping our employees whole uh and the increases that are required just to just to operate a basic budget. We're talking between five and 6% year-over-year property tax levy increases uh to not cut services to not do less than we are doing today tomorrow. Uh and that number has changed again the inflationary environment and just the the general financial and economic conditions we find ourselves in that number has changed from the time I started here we were talking 3 or 4% 7 years ago uh to now five or 6% to do the same thing. So I think those are two important reminders as we look at those outyear assumptions and then as you all consider what are the additional priorities. Uh do we do new things uh or do we look at reducing current services or are there changes in customer community expectations or demand that would require us to change what we're currently doing. So obviously those are factors as well

and we update kind of that we update that long-term projection at the budget time and then we update it again at the FMP. So we kind of take you know we take a look at the beginning of the process and kind of towards the end of the process. Um and that changes you know over the six months that we're kind of really hardcore focusing on the budget. Okay.

I just I'm always wanting to be intentional about any increases to the levy, but in saying this and having this discussion, um, roads are a core function of municipal government along with, you know, police, clean water, and all those things that we've talked about before. So, um, everybody uses roads. So, I don't think this is something we should delay. Um, but I do want to be sensitive to that levy as we are every year because it seems like it's a constant battle. Yeah, we have to prioritize. But okay,

so 3A in reading through the report and everything else. Um, you guys are you are even ahead of me. How did we get there? So I I'll just move the slide. But yeah, this is exactly what the question here is is.

So in reading through the study and I like all of the studies we've done simply because it informs us and then we can make good decisions. So what 3A does, it doesn't mean that the uh cost of the infrastructure is not the same. It just means that it's paying if we're doing rehabilitation and reclamation, it's driven by utilities. And so you're making that pay for opening up the streets and uh doing the repair work. So it's driven by the utility rather than by the stuff above the road. So when we do road construction, we're addressing the same kind of principle except for rehabilitation and reclamation where it's driven by the utility. So from my perspective, 3A allows us to really look at how we're paying for it and how it is funded appropriately, if you will. So it's in the same thing we are to what everybody's talked about. Roads are important. We needed to get to where we need to go. And so I am grateful for all of the studies that have been done and this particular one as well so that we can address uh the issues that are before us. So 3A is it appears to me that it is the the consensus here to move forward with. So um Greg and Jenny, I think that's what you wanted us to consider this evening and to give you direction.

Thank you for giving us five options. Yeah, good selection. Yeah. So thank you. that that is the feedback we were looking for tonight um from the council and so we will take that and and you'll be reviewing the uh current ITF uh ordinance and recommendations amendment.

Yeah, I didn't focus a lot on that, but we want to make sure we're consistent with Yeah. with council directions. So, we'll just we'll make sure that ordinance and policy is um is consistent. So that there may be a few some minor changes that we bring to you as part of this, but really just to be consistent with direction tonight and we'll look at incorporating a plan into our process as we work on the budget. Maybe we should talk about trash haulers to reduce the impact on our roads again. You wouldn't go down that road again. It'll be the fifth. Are you bringing that up? I did not say I'm bringing it up. Okay, Greg, is there anything and Jenny or do we have you have everything?

Madam, members of the council, thank you for asking. Uh we have the direction that we need from you. We we'll continue with option 3A. Uh another part of that uh that Jenny has talked about but maybe is not on the slide in front of you is just a reminder that with that integrated approach then we will be doing additional study uh from a utility rate perspective. I believe that's a September city council conversation. Yeah, correct. Jenny, am I correct about that? You are. Uh, so uh that additional funding need would be reflected in that utility rate analysis that you'll consider in September uh and provide us direction on through the budget process because we'll see the fees and charges correct policy. Correct. Y

then also because we adopt that before we adopt the the levy and budget. Yep. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. So all is done. You got what you needed. Okay. Okay, we're moving to the next one. Mayor, if I can just just pause for just a minute. I know that we're we're short on time, but uh this is an example of one of what is now how many studies, Jenny? 13. 13 studies. Yeah. And I like all of them and I read all of them.

Uh that inform our our capital budgeting or capital planning process. This study is just a very good example of uh Jenny and her team did this themselves. Uh this was not consultant work. This was uh this was all the talent of our staff in house and I um I think um all too often we miss sometimes the opportunity to celebrate the good work that happens not only with Jenny and the finance team but really a collaborative effort with uh with Jeff and our community operations folks particularly Logan and the engineering uh division. So uh just a good opportunity to thank staff for the important work that's happened here. And frankly, we're we're in a far better position than most cities from

uh from our pavement management plan to now a renewed strategy that started early in the '90s uh to to take care of of the the core drink, drive, and flush functions uh here that the that the community depends on us for. So, uh I think it's important to stop and recognize staff and the important work that's gone into this. So, congratulations. Thank you. Thanks. appreciate the help from Logan and the uh community operations side as well. So, okay, good work. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you so much. Okay, the next item is um our arts commission and uh uh Garrett, you're going to be presenting and introducing our consultants who help who's helping us with this work. So, Garrett, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Good evening, madam and our council members. Uh so tonight joining me uh are members of our project team which include uh recreation superintendent JJ Ryan and then um two members from our consultant group. Uh Carl Swanson is with Cass Consulting and Anisha Marwa is with Square Loop Planning and uh they've played a major role in helping us get to this point for this update that we're providing this evening. Well, welcome again.

So, just some quick background. In September of 2025, council asked staff to create an arts commission uh that would serve as an advisory body to the city council. It would help focus on convening and connecting our arts community and it would uh help to coordinate communications and our commitment to arts and events in city activities. So uh in partnership with our consultant um our strategic objectives have been to uh help establish that landscape analysis and asset mapping which we'll talk about later on here in the presentation uh create that framework for collaboration uh without operational control and decision- making um for the the commission and then just serve as central resource for arts information and sharing and there's a lot to that we have more work to be done. Um, but this can include um a having a calendar of events for the for the community to be aware of what's taking place. It could be a resource for uh different performers, food trucks, um opportunities for grants, uh that people could apply for, uh things like that. So, there's three major milestones that we will be accomplishing throughout 2026. Uh the first one has been accomplished and that's what we're here to update on. Uh but really researching and mapping uh the different art activities and groups that exist in Burnsville. Um and and some engagement along the way to uh help uh provide information to the community on on what we're doing uh and also get some of their feedback in the process. Phase two will be really documenting uh the specifics of the mission and the scope and the structure that a commission would have for the city. And then in phase three it would be about implementing that so that we could be

prepared for um being operational in 2027. So again in phase one um we have a creative asset inventory and and mapping of art activities in Burnsville. Um, we reviewed uh best practices for arts commissions. When you talk about arts commissions, there's there's a broad range of things that they could be doing. So, uh, we took a a deep dive into the possibilities of that. Um, the other thing we did is we looked at a number um of different local municipal arts commissions that uh currently exist to understand uh what their models look like and and what they're doing. um started our consultant has started to to document the different grant opportunities um and understand what uh if there's ongoing dates each year and in different type of groups that provide grants that uh people uh in the art community could consider applying for and then started to look at uh I know from discussions and in our engagement with people in the community uh having some type of calendar and different tools for managing that calendar uh is something that we're very interested in. So looking at the and trying to understand what those possibilities and options would be from an engagement standpoint. Uh we started with um targeted interviews of known community uh groups who are connected to the arts. Um even joining us this evening is Brian Luther from our AIM center. Uh he was part of the the process. uh we met with the um the Burns Community Foundation, different groups like that. And from there in those interviews um those folks started to share other people that they were aware of that were uh doing art in in Burnsville. And so uh then kind of the snowballing effect of expanding out and

and having further contacts from there. Uh we these interviews took place in person, by phone, and online. Um and it was really about just gathering feedback and building interest in participation. Um the the next phase of this after feedback from this evening will uh through those contacts we uh became aware of individuals who would be interested in in joining a a focus group who will work with staff and the consultant uh to help um complete the things that we talked about for this next phase. Um and so we'll we'll have a group of people that can uh from the community that'll be helping with that process. So this was not a broad robust engagement plan. It was really just um connecting with different groups. But still that said we uh connected with 21 different uh groups or individuals which included five artists or art leaders, five businesses, six community leaders uh and city staff and leadership. So, it was kind of a well-rounded um connection with people from from different parts of the art community. What we heard through this process is that there is a desire for stronger coordination of information. Um there's an openness and excitement about uh creating an arts commission. Uh there's a need for a calendar uh and alignment uh which can help support audience growth. And then uh just that the operational intent of this commission would be to be budget neutral and to be additive to our arts community and not try to duplicate or compete with already existing efforts. Um this particular slide just kind of shows how we have art all over uh the Bernzo community and it kind of just looks at the wide variety of of different things that we considered. Um,

included in this map are are 66 different dots. Um, it can be business spaces. It can be uh sporting events like Buck Hill and whatnot that do different concerts at times. Uh, restaurants and cafes that may have a night where they have an art event and whatnot. So, uh, it's, as you can see, we kind of have art taking place in a variety of places in in in a variety of ways throughout Burns. As we looked at our best practices, um again this is just uh taking a look at the the different things that arts commissions are currently involved in. Uh they are part of coordinating information and promoting arts activities. Uh they can serve as a hub for arts and uh to connect and help to discuss ideas. um they're part of supporting arts and events and competitions and uh they can also support opportunities for arts and creative grant activities. Again, it could be actually doing uh acquiring the grants and and sending them out or it could be just as simple as making folks aware of, hey, here's a group that has an opportunity to apply for a grant. Here's the deadline. Um and and then it's up to the individual to do that. After we receive feedback from council this evening and as we look into phase two, uh as I mentioned earlier, we'll be looking to convene a working group of individuals um to expand this ex current project team uh to include members of the community. Um we'll look to document the and get the actual details of the arts commission's purpose and mission and what their scope will be. uh then start to establish with those roles and guidelines and and the need to update our our code to add another commission to the city process and then ultimately recommend a database and and calendar of

tools and how that's administered uh as we uh look to to operationalize this commission. As we look at our next steps, um we have again already accomplished our our phase one and we'd be looking to use May through September to accomplish the phase 2 process. Um once that's complete, we would be looking to uh go ahead and advertise the commission's uh opportunity and and look to select folks to participate in the commission with the goal that that first meeting would be in January of 2027. And with that, um, we have our consultants here and myself, and we'd be happy to answer any questions or take any feedback that you would like to provide as we look to move into phase two.

Okay. Any questions? Yeah, Dan Keely. Um, looking at the list in the background, I didn't see Lakeville and they've got an arts commission. I'm curious why they weren't included in the research. We pulled out some of the highlight organizations. I would say that Garrett and JJ in the before the September meeting gave you a really long list of other uh arts commissions and organizations and so we can go back to Lakeville, but they were already included in that list there. So, we were narrowing it down to have some more representative examples and I think Hastings is maybe the most has a has a similar setup to Lakeville, but is also very similar to that structure. And so, that's what we highlighted in that. Yeah. And it's Minneapolis is a much much bigger much different much more different. Yeah.

Yeah. As a second tier suburb, having them in a comparable seem to stick out, but I'm sure there's something you can learn from that room.

Yeah. And I think that one of the things that's also true about the Minneapolis Arts Commission is that it is also shifting and in flux right now. So, it's an interesting moment to watch how they are constructing things and how they're moving through their process. Uh this notion that it is not a fixed system, but that there can be different updates and changes. So that's why I want to keep an eye on that and how that might influence other arts commissions or other other groupings and organizations. Um and I will say that as absolutely as this as a a suburb here, places like Hastings, places like Bloomington that have sort of longer little bit longer histories too, I think are really good comparables of what might come as the commission develops.

Yeah, I would agree. And and part of our next phase is also to do a work session with Bloomington to talk through kind of the history and trajectory they've taken. They now have Bloomington Center for the Arts. They have a placemaking festival that the commission's heavily involved in kind of those activities and ideas, but it didn't all happen overnight, right? It didn't happen just through starting the commission. So, how do we kind of get to some of those points? and I used to serve on the Minneapolis planning or arts commission and planning commission. But um the point that ACA now the arts and culture affairs has taken over so much of that role that the commission used to provide a much deeper role in kind of advocacy for the arts and explaining what the arts and culture sector needed for staff to know kind of where is that outreach pieces and where where does initiatives need to take place that have kind of rolled up now to staff there. So they're, as Carl's mentioned, they're also refiguring out kind of what is that role the commission now plays versus here it would be starting kind of where that commission was used to be.

Yes. I just I'm curious because there are like Lakeville has and some others uh Egan Apple Valley uh Savage models are are a little different. They don't have a commission. They just have a nonprofit entity that works with the you know similar to our our our festival events. or nonprofits collaborating with the city to put on an event. This is more of a structured, right, city commission. So, it's a little bit a little bit different. Um, but because there are so many around and we're all, you know,

we're all close neighbors, right? Isn't there some synergies to collaborate with other arts areas or is there any concept of of a south metro arts uh collaborative where multiple city commissions work together? Uh or is it all just you know well city limits of Burnsville we're going to do our own. City limits of Lakeville we're going to do our own. Is it all really so focused locally that the pride of authorship and the gerineess has to be in that city only? Yeah, I mean I think that you're thinking uh you're thinking maybe a step or two ahead of where things might be, right? And it's it's not a thing that exists right now.

Um and I would say that if Burnsville wanted to participate in something or lead in what is the South Metro organization or the South Metro Collaborative around arts commissions, you should have your own structure first. that can be your node inside of that constellation of other arts councils and commissions. Um, you know, as somebody who tries who looks for what is the collaborative opportunity in things that's not that's an exciting prospect and maybe again a step or two beyond what the scope of this, right? Yeah. Thank you. I always think of it too of through the eyes of the artist. Yeah.

Uh, my my daughter is an art teacher and an uh um an arts um vendor, right? She makes her own earrings and sells them. She was just down at the the one in downtown over the weekend and it was great weather. Yeah, it was huge. Um and

so the artists are boopping from city to city, right? Y so it seems to me like there's a driver there of a little bit more of a collaboration to allow them to, you know, better organize and and find right us our and our neighboring cities events. And anyway, I'm I just think it's uh we're just repeating something over and over and over again in every city. And and um I don't know that every city's is really that dramatically different from the next. Certainly from a BB standpoint, um it's it seems to be replicating the same thing and so there's no efficiency there uh from an oversight standpoint.

I mean, one of the conversations that we had was with Jason Sers from ISD191 and covers sort of a range of communities, right? And their continuing education program brings a lot of artists into communities, Burnsville, Lakeville, Savage, Egan. And those artists do are they're they're city agnostic. They're happy to go wherever there is a place

for them to for them to do a class, for them to sell work, for them to travel around. Uh, and so to the idea that you're that you're proposing, what is the what is the efficiency amongst other arts commissions and councils, ISD 191 is doing a version of that for teaching artists already, right? So, there is a structure and a system that exists there. Um, and because they're in Burnsville, you're able to bring more artists in to the community here. uh Anisha shared through her mapping uh found uh a newborn photography uh a photography studio that's based here in Burnsville. Uh so their their retail space their photography studio is here uh in the in the city. Uh but they live in Egan. But so there is there's a fluidity there and uh you're right there is not a level of efficiency amongst each individual town having its own arts commission and also if we're going to have a collaboration there has to be a container for Burnsville to also participate in that.

Agreed. Yeah. Then through some of this collaboration, go ahead. Excuse me. In the um early 2000s, Dakota County was thinking of pulling together an arts um collaborative, but nobody wanted to take hold of beginning to do that heavy lift. Yeah. because it it took a long time for us to get the DCC going and then to think of getting a commission and then how is that going to be done to have a collaborative and then it just nobody was interested or had the

um fortitude to do something like that and that's so it just you have to have willing parties I mean we have models like this all over I mean the I35 solution has cities from Minneapolis to Elco new market. We come together, you know, as a as a joint powers, we come together as a unit and representatives from every city. We meet every nine months of the year roughly. And, you know, we're we're like that model, right, of of how to collaborate and bring different cities together and and and u I know hopefully we'll get there. Yeah.

Yeah. And the the thing about Minneapolis, Minneapolis seems to do things a little different. Um because the performing arts is under the Henipin County, right? The trust, the Henipin County Trust, theaters and all of that. That's not the county. Um Madame Mayor, that's a that's a separate nonprofit, the Henipin Theater Trust. Yeah. It's its own separate nonprofit. It's not a county institution. That's what I mean. Yeah. It's a separate nonprofit. Yeah. from what the city does where the city is it's like what we're doing creating a commission. Yeah. So it's not all integrated. Some of it is

it has bits and pieces all spread bits and pieces all over the place. Yeah. Because their festivals are also not within the arts piece too. No, it's all individually

nonprofits. It's all individual nonprofits and arts and cultural affairs of the city of Minneapolis has started to do some more coordination amongst pulling those different festival organizations together. And they're actually I think what's interesting in that is that with the new arts and cultural affairs department, they're using that city convening power to pull the different nonprofits together and to have conversations about what would make permitting easier and how we're talking about resources that we're sharing. Um, which I think is an interesting thing for other arts commissions to pay attention to or other city bodies to pay attention to. How are you using that uh that convening power that you have to bring people together to share information resources?

Isn't the Adina Arts Show Arts and Craft also a nonprofit? So, it's not part of the city. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The Adina Arts Center. It's all very different. Yeah. With the same goals. Yeah. Well, every single one has the exact same goal. Bring everybody together, facilitate, collaborate, right? And and make it uh crossunate. I mean, there's just so many synergies with within what we're doing, right? It just we're just doing it the city borders, right? Yeah, absolutely. That's why I like the the school district boundaries that cross city boundaries is actually a good thing

in the case of this because it it they become the bridge. Now they're the collaborative. Yeah, I applaud what Jason's doing. I'm going to go to uh Council Member Gustoson. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um I like the idea of an arts commission in our city. I mean, we have the AIM Center. We have had many art schools in our city over the times. We actually had BASA at one time. It was here. It was pretty active and they ended up merging with Egan and so we kind of lost control of that. My question is maybe this gets answered in phase two when you're figuring out the scope of this, but who identifies the grants? Who writes the grants?

Who who decides what goes on the calendar? Who's in charge of that calendar? Who's responsible to make sure that that's maintained? And definitely can anybody get on it or I mean we we already have a calendar at at Experience Burnsville which our CVB and people can actually put put events into that thing if they want to do that. So there there is a resource and I'm not saying there shouldn't be another resource for the arts, but if we're going to do an arts commission, it should really be about the arts. Yeah. And that's performing arts, that's visual arts. You know, it's a lot of different, as you guys know, there's a lot that goes with it. And

yeah, I appreciate the question, uh, Council Member Customsson. Uh, absolutely face two questions, right? It's like how what's the nitty-gritty? What's the rubber hitting the road? Uh, these are what we want to have come out of the working group and the other and the work that we're going to do over the summer here. And I think that one of the things too that we want to be really mindful of is knowing that there is that the parameters that we've been given are that there is no separate budget for this commission. This is a volunteer and advisory commission. With that constraint, what are the existing resources that we can help bring together in a more structured way to amplify and build uh to build up what what already exists? And I think that a calendar which has been a part of the RFP and a part of this conversation from the very beginning uh is a really good example of that because there's always two components to that calendar question. Uh who is going to put the things on the calendar to make sure that it's useful and relevant and timely and then how are you getting the audiences to actually come and know that the calendar is there so that they can then go and do the things. And in that sense as we've been going through this and in the conversations with people there's a desire for audience growth. People want more people to come out to their events. Uh and I think that that is a you know a general good goal of the city. We want more people to be coming out to more things to have more activity generated here. Uh and in that with those parameters and with that drive uh looking at these existing resources looking at what we can build as a through through collaboration in the arts commission so that we can have some tactical answers to those questions about who is doing what. uh if we are talking about you know a a volunteer a volunteer arts commission without operational control we're also what is what does ambassadorship looks like look like and where do we have these assets of calendar and of connection that already exist uh that we can be driving people to through the arts commission vehicle

thank you

so we'll we'll be working with our working group to come up with a lot of the ideas that we've seen other commissions have right and help prioritize what does this commission want to work on next So if grant prioritization, building a networking list, building out the calendar systems, like what is it that this group that we've identified who want to join in really feel are the priorities and the needs for Burnsville. So that's kind of we've given a you know top level view down of what we think could kind of be addressed, but we want them to kind of understand and take ownership of some of those. So the calendar, we don't want a duplicative and start a brand new calendar when the CVB has such a good one already with a place that there's so many different activities on there, but how do we make sure people are going to that one or um is there you know the city has a calendar as well. So how are we either connecting those dots too?

A quick followup. Have have we identified people that want to serve on this commission or is that part of the next step as well is starting to identify people who want to be part of this? So my so we've identified people that we want to invite into working group for this next phase two and my understanding is that there is a standard commission process and that we should follow the standard commission process for the city of Burnsville with an application and so our phase two runs through September in which we're putting forward the mission scope recommendation so that it can be accepted by the city council hopefully and then you can go through the regular city council commission's process for applications um and for interviewing so that the commission can start on January 27. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Any anything else?

I wanted to just add to the question about kind of the Dakota County Arts Collective idea, which I think is really neat. But I do think there is there's so much happening in Burnsville and what we heard from our discovery was that it's very siloed and people don't know what's happening or people don't know how to find out to join a festival or where there's an event space or where there's that cool newborn photographer who's the hottest in the Twin Cities market who I found to do my photos. Like she's here she's in Burnsville. That's amazing. Where do you kind of collect all of that? And I think once Burnsville and we can set this up and then the working group and the commission can come up with their next priorities. I think that collaboration is really key because making sure there's a summer festival schedule for all of these areas, right? And if you're a vendor that's here, you can make sure you know how to get on to every um event. But first, getting that Burnsville collective to kind of feel what do we need here is going to be key and that's what some of that working group will be doing.

Okay. Anything else? Thank you so much for the report. Absolutely. I'm very grateful for the work that you've done and it's nice to see the report and know that uh the direction we're going to to have all the information that uh that's articulated so well. Great. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay. All right. And now we will move on to um round table. Um Michelle, the first one is yours.

Thank you, Madame Mayor, City Council. We are looking to just confirm the schedule for commission interviews later this month. Um right now we do have uh May 26th and May 28th earmarked as potential dates for interviews. We did get 27 applications of which uh five were incumbents. So um incumbents have the option of whether or not they'd like to interview. They can have their interview uh waved. It's not required. But even so, we are still looking at probably 5 hours worth of interview time. And we've uh I'm suggesting that we start approximately 5 or 5:30 on Tuesday, May 26th, and again 5:30 on Thursday, May 28th, and we'll go approximately three hours on the first night and two and a half on the second.

Good. Okay. Unless somebody has any other Vince and Dan. Uh, I think we blocked this time out before, didn't we? I think we did. I just It was just We didn't have a start time because we didn't know how many applications we were going to get. We dates were again May May 26th and 28th. I believe the Tuesday and Thursday after Memorial Day, the two nights of baseball. And Andy has got a thing in my calendar. Um, I could, but that starts at three. What time would we start? 5:30. 5:30.

5:30. Regular start time. I mean, of course, if we want to go early depending on You could We could start earlier to be done earlier. Yeah. What time is I may not Well, I got to check with Andie because she's got a thing a work thing at three. Okay. So, I may have to catch the kids um from daycare and off the bus that day. So, 5:30 could potentially work. If Cara's here, just let Greg and Michelle communicate with Greg and Michelle because um but then that Thursday I'm fine.

Okay. It's the Tuesday. The first one was the Tuesday, right? Yeah. Correct. Then the second one was Thursday. Yeah. Was Wednesday the 27th out of the picture because of some reason? Um I believe that that is no longer an issue. So Wednesday is an option. You have an MVTA meeting that day. Yeah. Tanya's retirement. Retirement is until I believe 400 p.m. that day. Yeah. So, we would be evening like Yep. 5:30 or 6.

That would put them both Wednesday, Thursday. Put them back to back. I would suggest we do that if we can. That would be easier for me if we did that Wednesday, Thursday. Do go what? Wednesday and Thursday. Yeah. 26 27th to 28th. I think I don't think I see any conflicts with those dates. Board meeting goes till six. Board meeting goes till six on Wednesday. Yep. I'm not the chair, so I can't control the time anymore, but the new chair is pretty fast for Oh, for uh

MBTA. and you'll be done because we have it's scheduled till 6, but we could very well be done by 5:30. Be safe if you want to just schedule this at to start at six. The interviews that would be insurance give me time to go from behind Pepsi to So you have an MVTA meeting on the 27th? Yep. It's done at 6 or before. So I think if we scheduled these at 600. So are you going to make it to Tanya's? It goes till 4 meeting starts at 4:30. Tanya's thing is over by then.

Yeah. And then and then you're going to come here. So yeah. And you can make it. I'm going to be at Tanya's, but I don't think I'm going to stay for three hours. Okay. Is there a three-hour like like stage? No, no, no, no, no. I think the program is what at 3:00. The program is at 3 3 to 4 and then I'll just buzz over to MBTA and I'll come back over here. Okay. Can we do six on the 27th? Not me. But you go ahead. Oh, you can't do Wednesday night. No. Oh, did you wait till speak up till we're

just I've been speaking up, but you haven't been listening to me. No, you said you had a board meeting. You're talking about NVTA board meeting. No, I've got another board meeting at 6:00 that night. Okay. So, at 6. Gotcha. CVB. No. So, the thing is, what your HOA need you? My Yes. The ones that have been neutered. Yes. So, so the thing is Wednesday is not good for you. Not good for me. And Tuesday and Thursday is good for you. Okay. About seven or Wednesday when How long is your max? Let's not do that because then it's going to go so late and you're getting old. Come on. What's going on? But I'm lucky enough to get old.

That's true. It's good to be seen. Um, so we're back to Tuesday, which is troublesome for for uh and Monday's Memorial Day. You can't do it then. So, I mean, you should do Tuesday. That would be fine. I just I'm not sure right now if I can make that or not. or I would maybe potentially be late. Yeah. And that's okay. We can cover it until you come. So, we'll stick with Tuesday and and Thursday. All right. And we'll start at 5:30. Yeah. Okay. Okay. You you you better go. You're going to go. Okay.

Sorry. Okay. The next one is yours. Commission interviews. Oh, that's what we just did. That's what we just did. That's the confirm for schedule for Okay. Uh reports. Do you have to me? Yeah. Nothing.

Okay. Um we had a good um Burnsville Savage meeting and uh most of it was reporting on 13 and 35 water. Um um the Cargill plat for Savage that's for waste management uh and uh talked about that and then the transit opt out legislation. So oh and the SRO's for schools. So we were just updating each other on those issues. So there was nothing else. So anything else Greg? Michelle, Jenny, Chief, Jeff. All's good, huh? All right.

With that, we stand by acclamation, huh? National Law Enforcement Week. Oh, yes. National Law Enforcement Week. We did We did do that at the council meeting last week. Yeah. Yeah. And observe them the week. Yeah. Yeah. So, we did it ahead of time. Yeah. I think you're on a beach. Okay, we stand adjourned by acclimate. It's happening this week and Greg and I are according