City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, can I get a motion to approve the agenda? Please?

I'll make a motion to approve the agenda.

I'll 2nd, 2nd, by Conrad any further discussion. All those in favor say aye aye opposed. Same sign. Motion passes. All right community comments presenters are welcome to address the city council for matters relevant to the city of Carver's authority for up to 5 minutes for matters that are not listed on tonight's meeting agenda. Specific requests for information may not be immediately available in which case follow up will occur with the presenter after the meeting. The city council should not be expected to immediately act on requests. However, they will follow up accordingly and may schedule items for future consideration. Is anyone here for community comment? Great. Come on up. Um, it looks like the green light is on. So if you can just introduce yourself, share your address. Can you hear?

Yeah.

Yeah. Just sit down, make yourself at home. You got 5 minutes. Welcome.

Okay, good evening, Mayor and Council Members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Tom Chart with Chart Grading and Materials out of Belle Plaine, Minnesota, and I appreciate your time and consideration. Our company is currently in a purchase agreement with landowner Bruce Gerson out of Belle Plaine. The purchase agreement is contingent on a mining approval permit. His land is 36 acres and it is out by Halsey and County Road 40. We understand this is an important decision and we take that responsibility very seriously. Aggregate is one of the basic building blocks of every community. It is used in roads, utilities, schools, homes, and businesses. Every extra mile that gravel has to be hauled adds costs to the public roads, infrastructure, and private construction. By maintaining a responsibly operated local source, we help keep construction costs more competitive, stretch taxpayers' dollars further, support local jobs, and reduce unnecessary truck traffic in the area. While there are other operations in the area, our region continues to grow and the demand for aggregate grows right along with it. If we don't responsibly preserve the access to our local resources now, future projects and future generations may face higher costs and fewer options. Responsible long-term planning means keeping those options available before they get lost. An example, covered up with homes, et cetera. We are committed to operating responsibly minimizing impacts to our neighbors and complying with all permit requirements the county township and the city would have We want to be a company the community can trust and work with through the entire project Just as important, this isn't simply about mining aggregate. When the resources are being removed, our plan is to reclaim the property by bringing in suitable materials, compactable fill, and restoring the land to a condition that is more usable and valuable than it is today. Our goal is to leave behind the property that provides opportunities for the future development and long-term community benefit. We are also, as a company, open to any ideas whether the township, the county, or the city would have for future desires of that property once it is mined and reclaimed. We recognize that questions and concerns are a natural part of this process, and we are committed to listening, communicating openly, and working with the city and whoever's involved throughout the life of the entire project. Thank you again for your time and consideration. At this point, we respectfully ask for your support in this permit application, and we welcome any direction on a path forward. We also look forward to working together to make this project that benefits the community today while also meeting the needs of our future generations to come. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yep. I do have a plan. I'm not sure if you know, it's, we just have an X where the property is. Um, if you guys need that, I think we already received that. Yeah.

We received that in an email.

Thank you. Yep. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else for community comments? All right, um, we have no presentations and reports this evening. We have no public hearings. Can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda?

I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda motion by Pascoe.

I'll 2nd, 2nd, thank you. 2nd, by Conrad any further discussion. All those in favor say aye aye opposed same sign. Motion passes. ALL RIGHT. BUSINESS ITEMS. WE HAVE THE DESIGN SERVICES AGREEMENT FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICES FACILITY. MR. SIMMONS.

THANK YOU, MAYOR AND COUNCIL. THIS EVENING I GOT THE SAME ISSUE BRENT HAD.

Too close to his computer.

I always love it when a computer thinks it has two screens and it clearly doesn't. There we go. All right. Uh, this evening we have Andrew Cooper from architects with us to discuss, um, the construction drawing phase of the public services facility. Um, before we get into, uh, the construction drawings portion, uh, we can follow up on the solar rate discussion that we had 2 weeks ago. So, having some discussions with Andrew and Brent, so we have the upfront cost of the panels and infrastructure at 120,000 dollars and baked into the cost of the building. There was a 78,000 dollar enhancement to the roof structure to carry the load. So, if you're going to put solar panels on the roof. it's basically $198,000. The $78,000 wouldn't be needed if you're never going to do the solar panels. But if the decision gets made to reduce the load structure of the roof, and then five years from now, we want to put solar panels on it, the cost to make the roof structurally sound for that is uh probably what three to five times more than 78 000 so there's a cost today and there's a cost tomorrow um so again they've run the the numbers on basically what that investment would be and it's you know still looking at that 20 to 25 years um and then in most cases the solar panels have a lifespan of 30 years And then again, costly to retrofit costly to retrofit the structure of the roof if we want it in the future. So if council has any questions Andrews here you can answer anything And we can gather some more information, too.

So I said a number of questions over earlier today. Do you you have those?

That's awesome So I'll kind of take some some general information kind of answering your questions Holistically, and then if you feel, I did not answer your specific question, go ahead and fire it away. Um, as Andrew mentioned, the, the structural improvement, um, I'm gonna kind of go top down here. Um, the 78,000 dollar improvement is just a weight, a material, additional weight of steel that is necessary to enhance the roof structure. It's not labor to install any more roof structure that's already built into the project cost. Um. And so that value at seventy eight thousand dollars is just a material cost. The hundred and twenty thousand dollars that we have estimated for the solar array is the panel, the framework that the panel sits on and the rough ballast that holds it down on on the roof. So, and that also includes the interconnection of that into the building. The model which we used, it's called PV Watts. It's a very early design stage kind of thumbnail software that says how much square footage you're dedicating of the roof or the building project to solar. It takes into account where the building is located. So, exposure based on latitude and longitude for solar net gain days, the average amount of daylight that is received in our area also considering weather. trends in historical data. And so that is where the 40 kilowatt design system, the 40 KW system that we are kind of forecasting on the roof plan generates about 50,000 kilowatt hours based on that model. So how much daylight is it going to receive during the course of a day all year long? How many days are rained out? How many days are snowed out? That type of scenario. That's where that fifty thousand comes in what we then used for a rate was from Minnesota Valley with their code generation rate schedule for the large commercial building is roughly eight and a half cents per kilowatt hour. So, that fifty thousand kilowatt hours at eight and a half cents is roughly forty five hundred bucks. Per year, so that is what generates that 20 to 25 year payback. It's actually like 24. Right on the button for 4,500 and. Per year over the 120,000 dollar investment. The reason why we give a range of 20 to 25 is because sometimes those rates. Go up and down and it's 8.57 cents. So we just kind of factored at 8.5 and the. The 50,000 kilowatt hours per year, because it's so early thumbnail that. Plus minus, that's why we give the range of 20 to 25 years for payback. Um. What we don't factor in at this design stage is a full life cycle cost analysis for the solar panels and the energy that they would generate over the life of the facility. So as panels get older, they do degrade in their ability to generate. That usually washes out with rate increases from the utility. So you're... You're taking 1 and elevating it and the other 1 is decreasing. It usually ends up in that average. So we feel pretty good at this design stage with that kind of thumbnail ballpark of that. Power generation and that payback. Real quick on the structure, then I think that base. We covered most of your questions there council member, but real quick on the on the structure augmentation. If we went to, like, a 5 year example, it's probably going to be more along the lines of double, maybe a little bit more than double the initial 78,000 dollar infrastructure costs. So, if you just went like a 5 year or 5 year plan, 5% material escalation on the steel. Which for steel is probably a low escalation that roughly ends up to be about 100,000 dollars in 5 years. And the labor to install those pieces is usually about 50% of. Of the material cost, and what they do is a structural steel provider will fabricate the pieces necessary. They will get on a lift. Drive throughout the building and lift themselves up and additionally tack on additional steel to parts of the choice to reinforce it where that. Steel would be necessary. The 78,000 dollars you see here. Is to augment the entire roof. for now. It's $78,000 later to do it only where you're going to do the roof, the solar system, the solar... Panels not the solar system. We're not putting the solar. So, you know, that that. Becomes a very localized then reinforcement of the roof. And so that's where you're going to have to place those panels right now. That's 78,000 dollars is covering the entirety of the. Rough structure was about 45,000 square feet. of roof, so about $2 per square foot premium for that.

Which is also to say that would give flexibility on the location and amount of panels in the future.

Correct. And the reason why we start at this design stage with a 40kW system is because that is the limit of the size before you need to start metering the solar system or the solar panels differently from the rest of the building system. Um, once you get above that 40 KW, all utilities, but Minnesota Valley also has a range between 40 and 100 KW, where they have different rates. And different interconnection agreements with the building owner, where they will meter it separately and have the ability to. run that system and how it feeds into their utility and how it impacts how you buy energy from them. So we start with that 40 KW and we don't have a roof plan in the presentation today, but it's a very small, that 40 KW is a very small percentage of that roof. So that rooftop, that 45,000 square feet can fit a substantial amount of solar on it. We're just right now looking at what that 40 kW would do. Um, we have not fully scheduled out the building electrically. So we have a really good idea based on previous projects. Um, initial discussions we've had with Andrew and staff and with the design development phase. Generally, how many outlets what kind of outlets they are? We know the lighting design. So we know the. Within a pretty decent range what the total electrical load is on the building. Um, but we don't have all of that scheduled. As yet, so we couldn't. We can't 100% say what it would be what the solar if it fed directly into the building. What it would be specifically used for. What we're able to say is that it would, that 50,000 kilowatt hours would power about 80% of the lighting if the lighting is on all the time, all day long, year round. So that's kind of, you leave the lights on all year, about 80% of the time you're going to be able to cover that power demand with that 40kW system. Now you're not leaving the lights on all day long. Then, so there's, there's not a, we're not looking at how we would model. What is actually being used within the public works facility that the challenge with public works facilities is that there's a lot of high power demand and it's not constant. It's not the welder is not being run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It's being run very specific times in short duration. So that kind of power draw demand. You're not going to get that from the solar. You need the solar to power something that is constant. That's why we use the lighting as an example, because lighting is constant.

But in the summer, it could also be powering the air conditioning, which is running heavily in the summer.

Depending on how the electrical load is being used day in and day out, you can use it to power other things within the facility other than just lighting.

Correct. So I would like to go through these questions, but I don't want to stop you if you... No, that's kind of my preamble to cover. Okay. So the first question was at the last meeting, we talked about this cost, the $78,000 being baked into the building. So it's fortified for whatever we choose to do in the future, whatever solar looks like. Mm-hmm. It was a 20 to 25 year recovery at $120,000. Correct. Now we're talking almost $200,000, and it's still a 20 to 25 year recovery.

Because the way I view the structure is that it's the minute you decide to put solar on now or in five years, the recovery of that is immediate. Or you can look at it and what the cost is it in five years and kind of amateurize that over five years. We're looking at terms of the payback, because I can't really model an energy payback on structural steel, but I can model a payback on how much power is being generated from the solar panels. Understood.

So if we make a decision, though, that we are going to... It was already built in. We don't know what solar looks like in five years or ten years, but we do know today that it is a lower cost than liquefied natural gas than coal than other things that's why we're seeing so much of it that's today so we make a decision that will allow the building to Give us the flexibility to do what we need in the future. Then we're talking about $120,000 extra. And that recovery wouldn't be 20 to 25 years. That would be closer to 12 to 15 years, right? Because we already made the decision to do the roof. Now we're talking, in the last meeting, $120,000. So the recovery on $120,000 over and above what we were going to do to the building is a lot lower time, isn't it? That was the question, the specific question.

I see what you're saying. I think the only thing I can say in terms of the math is that the $120,000 you'd invest for the solar panels would negate you having to buy power from Minnesota Valley at $0.085 per kilowatt hour. So that's how we come up with 20 to 25 years. That's the data that we can feed into the PV Watts program, the software, and it tells us. here's your range of solar stuff, not systems, solar stuff.

But we were basing that on $120,000 spend, additional spend over the building. And if it's just that spend creating that much power, it would be a sooner recovery because now we're $200,000 and we're still saying 20 to 25 years. So there's a difference in the math there. There has to be.

Yeah.

There has to be.

But if you're spending more...

If the decision was already to build the structure to tolerate solar panels, wherever we may choose to do them. We may not choose to do them this year, but in five years, it could be completely different math. The other thing is power goes up, right? About three and a half percent a year. That's kind of been the average.

Power goes up and power generation out of the solar cells goes up as well. so you could have a solar cell on that roof today that can generate 50 000 kilowatt hours and in five years that might generate 60 it might generate 75 solar panels that i put on a project five years ago we bit them at one power generation the shop drawings came in at higher power generation and they installed them at even a higher power generation. We went through three generations of solar panels during the course of design, bidding and installation. technology moved that fast at that time. I don't know what technology is doing right now with solar panels.

And power companies are adjusting what they allow for total kilowatt production.

And that is where the rates are tough to forecast because different utilities are engaging solar in different ways.

So one of the questions was, are we factoring in electrical rate increases? Your factoring is... Rates will go up, the capacity of those specific panels will go down, and it evens out. But we're not really factoring in all that square footage that additional panels might be added to in the future. Correct.

We are only using the 40 kW as kind of that initial point of departure.

Are we factoring in peak demand hours? So 8.5 is an average. These panels are generating most of their power at the sunniest hours of the day when the air conditioner is running. Are we factoring in peak demand rate?

The primer from Minnesota Valley Electric is that is the rate they give you. So we're not experiencing any fluctuations? They don't. According to the one-page document that they sent us, that's the rate.

If they say that we don't get a peak charge, are we... Any excess generation. So air conditioner's not running, lights are all on in the building, and we're still generating more power.

Do we sell that back? You can sell that back. There are interconnection agreements and additional infrastructure that needs to be put into the project. And that ranges from several hundred dollars to a couple thousand dollars for that infrastructure. And then... Minnesota Valley will buy that back at just under two cents.

Okay, I'll kilowatt-hour was that factored into any of this So and that That can be a significant offset especially if we in five years it makes sense to add more panels a Significant offset to the to the infrastructure correct. Okay, so not factored in I I think those were the questions I had. Do we want to have any discussion about this?

I have a couple of questions also. So we're talking just strictly rooftop solar, but you see a lot of space. We have a lot of land out there right now. So what about ground panels?

Ground panels are... really good in much larger installations that's why you see them out in fields in very expansive installations um the they're more subject to um Maintenance issues from access from ground from the ground when stuff is up on the roof. You have snow removal in the winter, but for the most part, we've stayed very. Clean and clear of debris, so there's there's less maintenance up on a roof for a building owner. Now, when you see these larger field installations. What we've been talking about with others is that. you really do a ground-mounted installation on a project as kind of a demonstration. Hey, you can use this as a carport cover. You can use this as these different things, but you need to put so much out there that it's really something that utilities want to do themselves as opposed to have a building owner or a site owner install it and have it feed back into their system. So we haven't, we have not had a lot of, I've never done a ground installation.

Because there's just some out, I used to live in the country out here and there's some small areas of farms that's smaller, right? Like it's not the whole field, right? Are putting in spaces of them that, how many acres do we have out there again? 22. 22. These are not 22 acres worth. These are not 10 acres worth. These are probably not even, I mean. Getting to 5 acres is probably a big stretch, right? I'm thinking like, some of them are senior, maybe 3. um, so I just didn't know if that was via like, a viable option to have them on just ground solar panels instead of.

We have not investigated that fully if that's if that's a direction, we would certainly go that. Okay. Look at that.

That was my question. Don't we have an ordinance against ground? I don't know.

I would say, though, Mayor and Council, in my experience, those are typically leased to power companies by those owners. The owners don't own those panels and sell the power. They lease the space to solar companies and other generators who have deals with the energy providers. At least in my experience, that's what I've seen.

That would make sense.

I think there would be a way to do that and own them and and sell it back necessarily other than through a lease. So if you had space and you wanted to do it, that's a bigger picture question. Um. But I do know ground mounted solar is an accessory use in our residential districts. I don't know.

how this property would end up being zoned and or what we would even be able to do from a zoning code perspective about yeah i know in residential like our two presidential areas that you can have an undergrowth but not on the yard yeah i didn't vote it that way but that's fine that's where it ends up but okay that makes sense thank you sure

Dave does mention the lease to own. We have had past clients have companies come in to put solar on their roof it is not interconnected into their facility it's the same way as like you'd have it correct the same way you didn't install it on the rest of your property if that was something like that so that is a possibility but then you don't you're just getting a

rental of your roof as opposed to the ability of the you know what i'm looking at so i know that we don't have the return on what the sellback would be right we don't have if you said it's like two cents right or something back to the power company 1.98 cents okay okay so for the 1.98 cents but so we that isn't really factored into this number here um would we be generating enough that we would be you would think we would be able to sell back

I can't say you wouldn't, but I also couldn't say you would. The model right now shows that if the lights are on all day long, we would be able to power 80% of those. The best anecdote I have is from our New Ulm project with the National Guard where the city owns their own utility, currently shuts their solar panels off because they are generating too much power to feed back into the system and they can't handle it. So it is possible to have a solar array that actually generates more power than you intend especially if you go through several generations of solar cells in the course of one project installation. That is an anomaly, but it is possible to generate more at different times when you're not using the building. That's a part of that interconnection agreement with Minnesota Valley that you would have to discuss during the construction documents phase to understand What that looks like at the transformer and what that looks like at the building panel as well. So we, we know what kind of equipment needs to be planned for, uh, what kind of shut offs are there. Where everything is connected so that even if it doesn't get done today, there would be the space to do that in the future.

Okay, so what I'm looking at, Eric, I'm going to kind of point this to you because you had a lot of the questions about it. So I'm looking at, you know, possibly 25 years to see our ROI back and we're looking at 30 years that we'd have to replace the panels, five to 10 years, right? So is it, is it mathing? Is it, are we, are we getting there? Are we getting the bang for our buck if we are waiting that many years and be like, all right, it's all great. And now five, maybe 10 years, maybe, right?

So I'll give you some opinions. First of all, I think these folks are in a really difficult position to make statements about the value of this system, what it generates, what you can sell back. Because anything that, you know, they have to be careful they're not making promises about the capabilities here. So we have to infer some of this. We have to discuss this. Two separate things. Maybe we look at it this way. I think it would be irresponsible not to spend $78,000 to fortify the roof for the future. That's the kind of mistake that past city councils made when they sized pipes. Didn't think about the expansion of the city, how soon it would be, and now we're paying for it. So... I think we'll probably make a decision that it is absolutely worth doing that when the building is being made because that allows us to use whatever the technology is. Whether we make a decision to do that today or in the future, panels are getting exponentially more efficient and they're dropping in price. So the day will come, if we don't think it's worth doing today, a future city council in five years may absolutely think it's worth doing. So that to me seems like money really well spent. So now we're at $120,000. If we back that $78,000 out, the ROI is different. It isn't 25 years on $120,000 spend. It wasn't calculated that way. So it's less than that. It also doesn't really include... You know, it includes the cost of power today. It has an estimate of future cost and degradation of the panels, but the panels have also gotten much better. They don't degrade as fast as they did five years ago. I think a lot of that modeling is based on older technology, so it doesn't include... I don't know that it really includes the cost of power in the future. It doesn't include selling back costs. I don't think all the lights are on on the weekends, but those panels are always generating power. So we spend hundreds or a couple thousand to ensure that we can sell power back. There's a revenue stream back to the city there as well. So what is the ROI? i think to protect you know what what you say to the city you have to put it at at the extreme 20 to 25 years realistically is it that from what i know uh in my study of this my personal experience no i don't think it will be 20 to 25 years um but That's one council member's opinion. And I am not a solar panel engineer. But I did do, you know, I spent a little bit of time on this before postulating these questions. And again, a little personal experience. I have a home in Florida that June, July, May, June, July, my power bill has never been more than $20. my neighbor's power bill is three to four hundred dollars a month the roi on that system with that math was about 12 years on a well it doesn't matter but the at the very least we don't want to lock ourselves out from having panels in the future.

Okay. Thanks, Eric. I'm glad to hear your opinion on that, but it's a researched opinion, so I appreciate that. I think for me, I was leaning towards doing the enhancements to the roof, not jumping to the solar panels right now. But again, we don't know what is coming down the pike for energy, what it might look like five years, 10 years from now. So I do agree with you that I don't think that I don't want a short sight to say, all right, we under did it and now looks this has come about and we wish we'd done it. Again, I'm not I can't quite jump on board at the 120,000 to put panels on today, but I would I would feel comfortable doing the 78 to know that we are ready for whatever that technology or that power industry looks like five years from now, 10 years from now.

Does anybody else have any thoughts on solar? I'd agree. 78 now. Figure out the panels later.

Same. I like to think that we'd have a rough being panel ready. Based on the research my peer has shared.

I agree with the group that I don't think I can stomach 120 for ROI of 20 to 25 years, knowing that we'd have to replace them in 30 years. And I get what you're saying that we don't want this to be the not right sizing a pipe or ending a pipe at the end of County Road 40 and not bringing it down to the bluffs. um of this council but i also think that if we want to sharpen the pencils the 78 000 should go to because i do there's a big part of me that thinks that solar much like improved landscaping on county road projects is something that us or a future council would never say hey you've got an extra hundred thousand dollars what should we spend it on Oh, we should spend it on solar ground roof. That's 1 person's opinion and I am out ruled on this. So it sounds like we will go ahead with the enhanced. Roof structure, but no solar at this point. Good with that.

Thank you. So, moving on from the solar discussion, we're going to move right into what our construction documents that's the phase that we're going to be moving into. And so we're really. Andrew can probably explain it better than me, but in my opinion, we're like in a, we have boxes designed for our building space and now we're really going to get into the actual details and Andrew can take it from there.

Yeah.

So thank you, Andrew. Uh, the, uh, construction documents phase is where we get into a considerable. Uh, more amount of detail and. Um, it gets down into picking out what are the polls on the cabinetry? You know, um, what is, how are the pipes size down at the end of the line? And hopefully that they're big enough for building expansion as well. So, um, those types of details are, uh, what we will engage in. Our engineers have been engaged in. like the solar design thumbnail engineering, this is where they actually do the calculations. They are sizing pipe down to the half an inch. They're sizing and designing what the electrical panels are look like. And structure is sized specifically for each specific condition within the facility. So it is the most amount of detail that we will go through. And it's a point actually where Andrew and Brent and Andrew's staff actually have less involvement with us now as a design team, because we are focusing on feedback from them that's very specific and pointed, like really looking at. one specific outlet or one specific specific cabinet pole or what this sink looks like in this room as opposed to larger picture things which we've done through the end of design development So that's what the construction documents does. And then Tara will also have at least one additional estimate during this time frame as well to refine that cost.

Any specific questions off the bat on the construction drawing phase?

Looks like we do not.

Okay. So again, looking at the budget for the project, right now the construction drawing phase is budgeted in the 32-1. Where do we have it? Should be under the design and construction management engineering inspection, so it's out of that. that bucket of that project. So just looking back at that cost estimate.

I can jump into this part. So this slide is similar to what you've seen before. You've seen the contingency at that 5Million, but if you can move 1 slide ahead, Andrew. We presented kind of for the 1st time to, I would say, like, a inside group that's outside the HPC kind of folks that for the most part, they were aware of the project, but not in detail. And they had a. some feedback that I thought was really good related to what would this cost if we waited the five years? And so we tease that out with the help of Tammy and Jessica at Northland. And so using the estimate that was from the space study at that 41.4 million, what the debt service or property tax impact would be for those variety of home values. And so You can compare that if you go back to the previous slide, Andrew, to what you see now. And I think it gives kind of everybody on their own individual basis an opportunity to do a value assessment. Going back to the other slide. Oh. ahead. Yeah, that we still have work to do. And by the time that Tara does another cost estimate based on the takeoff from the CD phase, you'll have another input and comparison opportunity.

So does the greens table that I'm looking at right now, does that include our projected growth?

It does not.

Okay, I think that's important for people to understand as well. This is what it would cost if this is how big the city is in 2032.

Correct it's based on our existing tax based tax capacity. Yes.

Are you asking to see what it looks like?

Not necessarily, but I just, I think that that needs to be communicated because I spoke with some people at the county fair this weekend that they did not understand that. Because from what they were saying, I thought something like this had been presented to them.

Sure.

And they didn't under, you know, we were talking about it and they were really concerned about this. And I said, well, you do know that that's based on the city today, not how big the city will be in five years.

Yeah, we can make that notation. We chose to not try to speculate. I mean, we have documents that speculate. Yeah.

And I understand not speculating, but to communicate that that is not included in this calculation, I think is important.

Yep. We can certainly do that. And then just refreshing the council's memory on our engagement plan. So we're working with the Bolton and make team right now on the community newsletter that should come out sometime in September, then gearing up for the fire department, public services, open house, and then. Our series of listening sessions, and then moving on to that. Process schedule plan, so we'll have an opportunity to do a check in with the console with or tell and Tara, but really gearing up for that 1st meeting in January to do a presentation of this CD phase. And then just kind of based on kind of. How you're feeling about process, you could order a public hearing to talk about the financing. And again, that financing sets a kind of kind of, like, how the preliminary levy works. It sets a budget for that. That gives residents an opportunity to comment on that. So, again, further down the line, but just kind of wanted to show the council and the community kind of the full spectrum of how the schedule works together. So. Happy to answer any questions on any phase of this project as we stand here today or emotion.

I'll make a motion to approve a supplemental agreement with or tell architects for construction trying services in the amount of 677,750 dollars. I'll 2nd.

Motion by Conrad, second by Sayre. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion passes. All right. Let's go back to our work session topic, talking about... Thank you, Andrew. Sorry, that was a real quick exit. All right, see you.

Bye.

Thank you. Okay, work session topic. We were talking about the 2027 general fund budget. The 1st draft of that that Miss Judy shared with us again, this is kind of going into the kitchen table conversations. This is the 1st time that we have seen. Kind of a real budget for 2027 and if anyone is interested in that presentation, that is in the video recording from our work session that happened earlier tonight. We are now at the point where we will. TALK ABOUT IT AND PROVIDE FEEDBACK. SO WHO WANTS TO GO FIRST?

I SAID A LOT OF THINGS IN THE WORK SESSION.

GO AHEAD, LAUREN. I CAN GO FIRST. I HAVE FEEDBACK ON OUR PARTNERSHIP WITH THE CHESCA REC DEPARTMENT. LOOKING AND SEEING THAT IT WILL BE ANTICIPATING AN OVER $7,000 INCREASE. AND THEN ALSO IT WAS EXPLAINED There's around maybe 19 to 20,000 additional when you look at what was at the end of the presentation. That would be for the programming. I don't know that I'm explaining that right, but I understand there's additional things they provide for us. I am open to taking a break from that partnership. for several reasons.

I don't know if we're really getting the value.

And sometimes you just take it away and then you find out how bad people missed it. It's maybe not the best strategy, but every year we entertain, you know, oh, are we getting the value or are we not? I don't even think, especially knowing if it's anticipated for this, and I don't know enough about the details of the changes they're doing. I don't even know that we're going to get like $7,000 more worth of value. I almost feel like we'd get less value in the next two to three years. So I feel like it'd be a good time to just pause.

Laurie, 1 thing that was talked about, it's been talked about in the past too, is that all the residents are paying for this right? So, and this is a, this is not your utilities running. This is not your snow, your streets being plowed. This is someone who is choosing to use a facility outside of the city limits of cover. that the entire city is subsidizing. There's a flip side to that that says some of this we can't provide right now, right? So I think it worked and it works some for a while. I don't think, I feel like every year we've asked, what are we providing? What are we getting? And staff does their best to get all the answers from us, but we're not, I don't feel that we're getting everything we should from Chaska. Not just on the reporting side, but some of the services side for this 100,000, they tell us it's because they're willing to give us a resident rate. Certainly that's nice in some instances, but I don't know what percentage of city of Carver is using that at this point. You know, there's different places. Now there's. You're going to lifetime, you're going to a snap or wherever it might be. You know what I mean? And I know there's different programs that they run there. So it will certainly would certainly affect some people, but it wouldn't affect. Every person in the city of Carver for service wise. Um, if we didn't have it, I just, I don't know that I think that it's super equitable and I don't, I don't. Feel that I have gotten, like, the answers from them on the, like, the value of the money we're giving them every year and it keeps getting higher and higher and higher. I mean, things go up, right? But 100,000 dollars is a lot of money to pay to another community for services that are optional.

I agree, especially with the new construction going on at the community center. I anticipate that this is going to go up quite a bit when that happens. And while I love the beautiful drawings they have of the new community center, and my family utilizes this. My family, in the winter, we have a Chaska Community Center membership. But I don't think that our value getting that is that cost difference that we're getting for it is worth almost $101,000 that the city would be paying for it.

So the question I asked in the work session was, can we get a report of the aggregated benefit of what Carver residents are receiving? I think it makes sense to request that and see that. Because if it is a low number... There are other programs that they put on that our residents benefit from. If it's a low number, that might better support this argument. If we're astounded to find out that it's double what we're putting in, well, that might change how we think about it. I think it's worth at least asking for that and finding out what that number is before we make a decision.

That's a fair argument, and I would be okay with having that additional data.

I feel like I'm overruled on this because we already have three votes to cut it. But I feel like this is one that if we want to get resident engagement, we should cut this event, this benefit to our residents. Because I think we'd hear, I know we'd hear from our folks who use it. like your family does, as a fun place to go in the winter, as a economical place to work out year round, as a place to build community, like you name it. I also think, and I mentioned it before in the work session, I think we need to be careful if we're looking for a straight one-to-one dollar value that we are completely missing the value of the vehicle fair that was just last week or the week before that probably had easily dozens if not hundreds of families from carver that were participating or the value of the concerts in the parks that by the end of that night that i saw you downtown had dozens of people down there um so i just worry that yeah there was there was more than when it started that's for sure there We're dozens of folks down there. But I think, I just think that we can't. I don't think that that's going to be a popular decision. That said, I'm overruled. I'm overruled on that one. That's not the hill I'm going to die on.

Well, I don't know that we've made a ruling, I think.

I would like to see the data. I am definitely leaning towards not renewing this, but I'm happy to look at more data because I don't think that that's a bad... I mean, more information is not bad. I... You know, yes, we would get we'll get some resident engagement from this. We're going to get some resident engagement if we have an 18 point something. Tax increase, I mean, we're going to get this is this is a hard year, right? Like, I think this is the hardest when it comes to tax. INCREASES THAT WE'VE EVER HAD. SO TO ME IT'S WORTH LOOKING AT. I'M NOT IN FAVOR OF KEEPING IT. I'D LIKE TO SEE THE DATA. I THINK THAT MAKES SENSE. I THINK KAYLA SAID SHE WAS FINE WITH THAT. BEFORE WE SAY, NO, LET'S SLASH THIS MOMENT.

OKAY. LET'S PUT A PIN IN THAT AND LET'S DO YOU HAVE ANY MORE COMMENTS? NO. THAT WAS YOUR ONLY THING IN THE ENTIRE BUDGET. YES. OKAY. ERIC, DO YOU WANT TO GO NEXT?

I THINK I ASKED MY QUESTIONS IN THE WORK SESSION. OKAY. I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING ELSE.

OKAY. Kayla, I would also like to add to what Christie said that there are with this 18% levy increase. I'd like to see some of these capital purchases. Pushed, I know that, you know, we're looking at maybe needing a new transmission if we do that and we're pushing reducing our recovery monetary recovery when we auction some of these things off, but we have got to make cuts somewhere to this budget and we can't make it to personnel and. We can't, you know, there are places that we can't make it. And pulling some extra life out of these capital purchases, out of these capital things, is a place that we can make these pushes. Because, yeah, 18%. When I saw that number this afternoon, I got quite a lot, or this morning, I got quite a lot of heartburn.

Do you have a dollar amount that you want to see cut?

Um... I, well, so here's the, last year we got a really nice chart that said this is how much you need to cut to lower an average home by this. It's a dollar amount. The dollar amount to lower the percent to the levy is in there. Last year, we got a table that said itemized by an average value home. So we could see this is going to be lowering it down to 10.59 is going to lower the tax burden by $50 or something like that. That is a more useful number to me because that's the number that people see when they do that. Okay. We are working really hard to make the jump if and when the public facilities building goes through to be minimal. But part of that needs to be making cuts in the lead up because we can't have these big, we can't have big jumps leading up to the big jump.

I'm not sure if this is helpful, but if it is cut by the $450,000, the impact to the average valued home would be $100. Okay. Is that helpful? Yes, that is helpful.

Okay. I mean, I would like to see the cut down. I mean, ideally, and I know it's not going to happen, but ideally, I'd like to see it $450,000. $100 is nothing to sniff at for our residents, especially because they had a $100 increase last year from us too. But I understand that I am unlikely to get to that number, and I understand that.

So I'm going to continue to press, though. To get to $450, what do you want to see? Because I think we need to come here with solutions that we can provide and share with staff and not just say it's too high. I'm looking for some as well.

I have some that I would like to cut too.

Yeah, so we talked about cutting the recreation, that's 100,000. If we push the command vehicle, that's another 90. So that puts us at 190,000. let's say we replace one more instead of three, that gets us another 37,000. So now we're at 220,000. Um, you know, the, the truck, if we, if we push the truck, you know, I don't, what is our mileage on that, on the, on the Chevy that we've got? Andrew, do you know?

I don't know off the top of my head.

Okay. So that's another, so that, so we've got two, so I would say 210 that puts us at 260. Um, The if we don't do the church by the river this year, that saves us another 45. so now we're at 300. You know, that that gets us a long way and that's just what's. In front of me right now, reading through these. Slides I know there's. we want to be able to keep some of these things up at a higher pace but lowering the capital improvement levy temporarily would go a long way to being able to get closer to that 450 number um and and i know that that is hard but That would be what I would want to see happen is is. Cutting some of these things that are hard. And those would be the ones that I would recommend right now. And I can dig in line by line if that's what's necessary to get. Close numbers.

Yeah, I. I agree these are some of the things I brought up in the work session. My original 1 is to push the command vehicle out. I also was going to say 1 more instead of 3, we're going to replace them at a different rate. So great. I guess we're on the same page for that. For me, the park sorry, the recreation partnership with Chaska can go away. I, with the church by the river. I guess I didn't think too far into that one at this point. I think... is fair to also say this is our first kind of blush at this so I think that it don't have all of the answers but I think there is more to go through but I wanted to hear the presentation before I got down to like every single line item to make sure what I was hearing from staff too so those are my initial ones that I would say those are my cuts okay um thank you for that I just I think it's helpful for staff because I think we can say it's too high

You're like, cool. Okay. I need action. I'm going to press you guys. I'm going to press all of us for actionable feedback of, you know, even though I don't like take out the recreational services agreement, take this out, um, that's actionable feedback that staff can take a look at and because you know how this works this is not anyone's first budget season up here we're going to see this very realistically three four or five more times between well a couple more times between now and September. So, and, like, actually, probably not that many times. September's next month, and we're going to have to have our preliminary budget set. For me, I think that it is... Wiser to do the chopping after the preliminary budget, because I think that's the way that we can get resident engagement. There's a carver county mayor who always sets their budget high to see what the residents say they in their council. So, I not that I. I want a higher 1, but I am struggling to come up with what we could cut. We've worked so hard for. having our capital plans and our streets so that we could make the kind of investments in them that this community is looking forward to and expecting that here we are so

Mayor, I agree with you. I agree with you on that, that we worked really hard on the capital improvement. I don't know that I agree with not cutting some things and just going forward with this for the preliminary, but I do agree that, yes, the capital was worked really hard on, but sometimes... The world doesn't present itself and the economy doesn't present itself that we can do all the things that we had planned. And that's why I think as a council, we can. And it's important, too. And I'm so over this word from COVID, but pivot in a way that came out of my mouth. But that we really have to make some hard cuts this year where we've been working. We've been pretty good about hearing what staff is requesting, working with it, and getting, not getting what they want, but generally being able to say we can fund this and this works for us. This year, it doesn't work for me. I can't talk for anyone else, but it doesn't work for me. So we're going to have to make some hard choices that this is definitely the first one, right? This is the wants, this is the needs, and this is some of the things that can help us move forward. But I just think we're going to have to pull back hard this year.

I want to make a comment on some of these specific line item cuts we're going to make. And maybe we make them. But I'd like to know what the consequences are. So I don't know how structurally sound the church by the river is. I saw a picture tonight that looks like the bottom of the door could be pulled off by hand. I don't know if that's just cosmetic or we've got rotting wood. If we don't paint it, I want to know... Are we looking at $100,000 worth of damage to siding because we kicked the can down the road two years? If we're not, if it's just going to look a little untidy for a couple of years, yeah, maybe we can. But I want to know the consequence. On the command vehicle, $10,000 transmission, if it gets us four more years? That's reasonable. But if, and as the chief said, it's got equivalent to 155,000 hours on the engine, is it a transmission? Then is it an engine? Then is it the suspension and everything else? And did we do ourselves a disservice? so let's know the consequence the mowers sounded like we're not sure maybe they could go longer maybe that is a a place that we can refurbish and get x number of years and i don't know if we have a program in place i don't want to go too far down that what our our equipment maintenance plan could take those out to The Chaska Community Center. Yeah, that's why I'm asking the question. Are we getting that aggregate benefit? Because people will be unhappy. But if the aggregate, if the discount that the community receives is $30,000 on $100,000 spend, that changes my opinion. If it's $200,000 on $100,000 spend, then we have another discussion. So let's better understand the consequences of those line item decisions. I think we have time to do that, but we've captured a few and maybe we could get those consequences. The other thought here though too is, We're making decisions that are going to raise the cost of living in Carver. The responsibility though is also to maintain the quality of life that people come to Carver for. Everything is going up. I'm sure that my homeowner's insurance is going to go up more than $300 in 2027. It's been going up double digits for years. So there has to be an eye on we're going to have cost increases. Everything is increasing in cost. Are we doing the right things to provide an extra $300 value or 500 because the house is a $600,000 house? That's a good point. Not everyone's going to see a $270 increase. It could be a lot more. The survey helps with that. The survey tells us that people feel like they're getting a value for those tax dollars. The last time we did the survey, I think it was pretty overwhelmingly positive that they were, but let's keep an eye on that. Our job too is maintaining the value of being in this community. Those are my thoughts.

Mayor Johnson, I have 2 additional thoughts also looking at, like, what are actionable items we can give for feedback and also piggybacking on what a council member person said, like, I would want to also know what the consequences are. So, 1 of them is the. Under the building inspector, we budget for credit card fees. So that must mean it's a lot of small transactions. I realized. So the city's paying those credit card fees and we're projecting over 50% increase. So. Maybe I guess don't know, but like, is it can we. Pass that on to who's ever applying or maybe we can't, but let's look at that to see if maybe that could be completely eliminated or stayed the same or decreased.

So, I understand what you're saying. So, like, when you swipe the card, like, you'll go to a restaurant and they'll say, like, there's a 3% additional fee. If you use the card, if you could pay by cash or whatever. So that's what I think.

So I got the information from on the general fund.

Yep.

So, our fees are incorporate that cost. So we have to show them a line item, but when we build. Her fees, it's that cost is calculated into what we charge folks. So it's highlighted as special. But people are paying for it regardless because that's because we, the person applying for the permit.

Or all the taxpayers, I'm looking at Lynn's face too. So, like, let's say it's 5%. So, if I use my credit card to pay for this permit, and there's a 5% fee at the credit card company, we tack that 5% onto the permit that they're paying for? So, they're covering that 5%?

Not individually, no. We take all the fees that we are charged for a year on any specific service. So, water bill, building permit, etc., and that cost of that swipe fee and our staffing fee our staff and insurance and fuel and vehicles is all put into a big bucket and then from that bucket we arrive at what that cost for that service is and the cost was four thousand but we're budgeting for six thousand seven hundred fifty right so my I guess my response would be is you could start charging the individual user that but then the charge for that service would I would argue would be would prorated come down so yes someone who is paying cash or check you know might be paying for that might and we've talked about this quite a bit at um Just as a staff level, because there's different points of view. I've always and we'll take the direction from the console. I've always advocated, especially in 2026 that, you know, when I go to fill the blank gas station, if they'd want to charge me 3% more to use my debit card, I would find another gas station to go to. I just. But that's my editorial opinion. But the council can, if they want to start charging individual for fees on that.

I'll say that's not the typical, I mean, maybe the gas station, right? But if you go to a lot of restaurants or things like that, I mean, you're nodding, you've seen it, I've seen it. There's often like kind of a split. The company or business eats half the cost and then that 3% they charge back. So if you're paying in cash or... a check, I guess. I still pay my water bill as a check, so. But if you're paying that, if you're paying that, then you eat some of the fee as the person to say, okay, I'm going to use my credit card here. I know I'm going to get charged this extra fee or I come in with cash or a check and then I don't get charged that. So that's what I was just wondering how that system was working.

So Brent, what I'm hearing you say is that we have included the cost of service fees in our calculation when we set our rate.

Correct.

Okay.

And you could depart from that. Um, but you could certainly, yeah, you could depart from that and just say, if you're going to use this card, we're going to charge you a 3% fee. My only response to that would be is, um, it's just going to change who's paying for the fee, but we're not going to make any more revenue.

It just caught my eye because it was a significant increase from one year to the other year. And then the other one was with our seasonal staff. It looks like we're planning for over 3% increase for the wages. This probably isn't popular, but what if we look at having a few less seasonal staff? Because if the idea is we have new lawnmowers, are we going to be more efficient, more productive? So maybe there's something we cut back there.

Sure. I can speak to, so the fees I'd like some, and we can pause on it and get some more information.

I'd rather pause. It's such a small amount. I am like, I regret bringing it up.

Moving on. Yeah.

Moving on, please.

To Andrew on the seasonal, because I think there's.

Seasonals would be tough for us to decrease on for the amount of stuff we have to do in the summertime.

THAT'S FAIR. JUST TRYING TO GIVE IDEAS OF THINGS TO CONSIDER.

HOW MANY SEASONS DO YOU THINK YOU'RE BRINGING IN?

WHAT IS IT? SEVEN. TWO GARDENERS. TWO GARDENERS AND THEN FIVE. AND THEN I THINK UTILITIES HAS ONE.

And, like, fundamentally, you're getting, compared to, like, paying a full-time staffer with benefits to mow a community park, you're paying a column.

And, Brent, I'm not looking for an answer now. I'm just having the conversation. Right. But it's hard to, like, bring something up and then be told no right away. I'm not saying no.

I'm just giving you the information. Yeah.

You just need to listen.

If you don't want me to respond, I don't have to respond either. That's fine.

Yeah.

He was providing an explanation. And you jumped down his throat. So let's just turn down the temperature. And just chill. Okay. Okay. The one thing that I just wanted to point out. Is that I would really like to see the money for church by the river continue to stay in the budget. We do a lot of talk about. Our historic district and what a. A point of pride that is in downtown Carver. We do a lot of talk of. what it's going to look like for somebody from Scott County coming over that Merriam Junction Trail Bridge and seeing our downtown. And we've also done a lot of talk of it's not an awesome vista right now. I think if we can do anything to level that up and a new coat of paint on Church by the River, which is really looking not awesome these days, I am totally in favor of that. The doors are wonky. that front door, that picture that we're all looking at does look like it could be kicked in at any point. And, you know, I think Eric's words were that you could peel it apart with your fingers. Let's not let it get to that point.

Can I ask a question then for the $75,000 worth of repair? So like I'm thinking about an estimate I got to paint my house, which isn't, We don't obviously have a steeple on it, but it's a, you know what I mean? It's in the historic district. And then obviously a new door and just 75,000 feels like it's really high. So I know it's a siding repair. Like, Is there something I'm missing about how much repair besides the door that we need to do? Because I'm happy to... You know, this one was one I wasn't settled on either way, Courtney. So I'm happy to really consider this one and which way to go with it. But $75,000 for what I'm seeing, it seems high, but that doesn't mean I'm seeing everything either.

I think there's a lot of detail work up top.

Okay.

Or a lot of those... I should have the architect here to describe all these features. But, I mean, there's a lot of slats and there's a lot of vents. And a lot of those boards look very suspect to me. So I think we can work on getting a cost estimate, updated cost estimate for what, you know, some of those items would be to tackle. Okay. But I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

75 is right on. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I mean, it's plus a two, it's all one color. So I was like, they're not switching for trim. I don't know. Okay. If you, I mean, if it's something you want to, if it's.

Well, I mean, we should get an estimate if we're going to do it next year anyways. Right. Right. So. Okay.

It'd be probably a good time to grab a couple of different ones then and see what's competitive for that. Okay.

Thank you. Has gotten a few estimates. Okay. Informed that number. Yep. I asked the same questions that you did. So, but we'll, if it's funded, then we would get some more at the current estimates. These are probably a year plus old. Okay. Okay.

And then, too, I know you were talking about the slats and stuff up on the steeple there. That, I believe, is really a great bat house now. So is it something where we don't need the slats anymore and we can just wood it, like, put, you know, like, wood them off? I don't know. It's a historic building. I don't know if you can do that or not. Maybe the State Historic Society or Preservation Office can tell us that. But, you know, does that keep... for future that too like we don't have to worry about that any longer right so they just become kind of a decorative piece it's hard to show you something be put behind that that's what i mean yeah or behind it too metal or yeah or even if it's something that kind of secures it up but i don't know if that makes any difference but the slats i'm sure because there's some that look like maybe they're missing or or deteriorating so get your baby shots um i don't know i just if there's something i mean it does need a good power washer if nothing else

Okay. Any other feedback for staff on the draft budget?

We're looking at the sheriff's office again. Oops, I just had it. My screen, I flipped it to the different, where was I at here? Sorry. There's a couple of questions I had about what they have on their sheriff's office. Okay. Law enforcement, there we go. Patreon. 33. So we're looking at a lot of this and we're paying for dues and subscriptions. We're paying $12,000 for dues and subscriptions. What is this? There's just some numbers in here that don't always make sense to me.

Just trying to get to the page. Sure, it's 33 on the...

For the fire department or for law enforcement? It says law enforcement right here. Oh, no, that was above it. Sorry. There's a subscription under the fire department. I was looking at the header that was right above it that said law enforcement. We're fine because I know what that's for. I know what the fire department one is for. I thought, what are we paying the law enforcement $12,000 for? Okay.

Okay, last call. I'm going to have to dig through this line by line, but.

Okay, we have 2 more meetings, right? So, can you talk us through next steps? We'll see this again at our next.

Yeah, in case. Get the consoles and support what I would probably do with. Lynn support is we just develop some scenarios. The console is welcome to go through it line by line, but I think I have a good grasp. Of maybe a spectrum of choices, and so we prevent, you know, we've had some success with past budgets of providing, like, I would call it different menus. So, like, you, you know, if you want to be at this number, here's some examples of some things that you could cut to get to this number. And here's another menu that gets you to that number and maybe you take a combination of maybe 3 or 4 different about 3 or 4 of those menus to build something that feels good to you.

Okay, that works for me. Yeah, that works for me. Nobody's objecting. No, I know, I know.

I'm sitting back and I couldn't see anyone's faces, so I didn't want to be like, it's fine. And then, yeah.

Christy says it's good. We're good. Okay. Thank you for staying late.

Thank you.

All right. Let's see. Communications. Kayla, you want to go first? I do not have anything.

Christy? I do not have anything because you covered the HPC meeting. Thank you very much. Yeah, no problem. Lori? No updates.

Eric?

Well, on Monday, I was at the ribbon cutting of Taco Bell. It was the first city event that my children thought it was important enough for. Along with a couple hundred other people. I'm not sure the size of the crowd. We had an opportunity to meet with the CEO of Border Foods. He was there along with some leadership for the company. And I had asked, was this a typical response? And they said no. So people were excited. The community was excited to have it there. It was, you know, and... This is Carver growing. So it was really fun to see that kind of response. So I was there with some city staff friends and Mayor Johnson was there with me as well. And we went up and down the line just chatting with folks waiting in line who were pretty excited to receive their free tacos for a year golden ticket.

I texted Brent that morning because it was on Fox 9 News.

And I was like, I think it's a slow news day because Taco Bell is on the news in Carver.

But we made it to the news.

We made the news. That's it.

All right. Let's see. Just going in sequential order. August 4th was Night to Unite. I rode around with Detective Sandberg, formerly... deputy sandberg who was our town cop and we hit five um five parties always good to see folks um i we did not win the night to unite food drive challenge one was a bummer i think jessica okay so um but good for them we had our moments in the sun last year we can pretend to be happy for them um but all in all and all joking aside it goes to powerful basket and that's as good of a cause as any. On Wednesday, the 5th was the Carver Vehicle Fair. And again, it is no exaggeration that there were probably hundreds of families there enjoying that event. Let's see my app where I wrote my notes isn't apping. So I'm kind of just going through here. We had a Carver County mayor's meeting on August 7th. Um, that was in Victoria. And I've mentioned that those before kind of part ideation of, have you heard this? What are you doing about this? We're struggling with this and support group. And it was absolutely that, um, East Union church had a car show on August 9th that I attended, which was very lovely. Um, Eric already talked about the grand opening of Taco Bell on August 10th, which was fantastic. The kids, and I had no idea that Taco Bell's demographics skew so much younger, but I was talking to the folks from Border Foods, and it's like 18 and younger is their target demographic. Um, but it was talking to the first group of fellas that were in line and they spent the night in a tent, uh, out there and they were very proud of themselves and like super amped up for nine 30 in the morning.

Um, that's awesome. However, we did it for concert tickets, I guess.

However, for me, the highlight of that event, which I don't want to diminish, it was great. It was a fabulous ribbon cutting. It was so exciting to see the line that still, like, continues in that drive-thru. And... Another highlight of that event was hearing from the Pershman children who gave me a little bit more of insight as to what it was like growing up in that family. So if you ever think that he is not making a financially secure decision, this is a man whose children were not allowed to get anything but water when they would eat out in restaurants when they were growing up. This is a man whose children did not know what appetizers were until they could pay for them themselves. His children are in so much trouble.

This is a man whose children embellished their child.

I don't know. But anyways, it was so much fun connecting with them.

There's going to be some phone calls made tonight. Is Callie back at school?

Is she going to be safe?

We'll see what comes home for dinner tonight.

Let's see. And then last week covered the HPC meeting where again, we went through the plans for both the levy and the public services building and just had this really aha moment from Tim gear, who was the one who suggested like, what if we saw what it would break down to if we waited on this and that might be beneficial in the letting folks know like what the costs are if you wait. So we were all like, yeah, that's a really great idea. Why didn't we think about that? But like, just again, with socializing this with folks, just hearing the feedback and it was all positive feedback. Nobody said, no, we hate this. And really great feedback from Tim, the others on the HPC. And then on Wednesday, Brent and I went to the cover on the Minnesota show. meeting to connect with those folks. There too, we were talking about some of the, the levy project and kind of how that is going to impact downtown, especially with like the kiosks and those kinds of things. And they brought up having something, we talk a lot about Carver's history and we talk a lot about Carver's history and which is almost more of a modern-ish history starting in 1852 when it was founded and moving on. And they talked about what if we took a look a little bit further back and talked a little bit more about the story about the original settlers of this land and talked about the Dakota history and those kinds of things. So another like, yeah, why don't we? That's like a really great idea. Why didn't we think of that? So again, like just engagement when we sit in this room we see way too often exactly how many people we have sitting in the gallery right now, which is exactly zero. So the one thing that I've learned is that we have to be proactive in telling a story and reaching out and asking for feedback, which I think we're going to do with the public, which I know we're going to do with the public services project, but we've also been doing with smaller groups and it's just yielded really, really great results. So again, I think that is it, Melissa.

I just want to speaking of cover on the Minnesota call, so I just wanted to shed some light on that specific topic that we, when we met with them, and I've sent a few just update emails, but the tugboat at the end of Broadway is located in what will be our future levy maintenance area. We also have a storm sewer pipe. That's going to be installed as a part of that project. So we socialize with the carver on the Minnesota. um that that tugboat can't go back into its current location there's actually uh jimmy fletcher took a video of that so if you want to see what christy and i look like in 2011 i wish i looked like that But it's interesting. But my point is, it's going to look a little different. And we've already taken one step. That old wood carving was actually of cottonwood and was deteriorating and pieces falling. We talked about public services removing that just to prevent any additional vandalism to that piece. But this talked about that the Northwind, which is the name of that tugboat, was donated to the city in 2011. Its history isn't actually directly connected to Carver. It was from the Chesapeake and Potomac was kind of where it originated. It was donated to the city and started talking about what we should do with that. Do you want it at another park? Do you want to try to sell it? And so we do have to, we not expedite it, but in short order, we're going to be having that project bid. And so, um, there is a cost of, like, Andrew did some pricing somewhere between 3 and 5,000 to get a crane to move it somewhere. Um, and so just wanted to kind of take the council's temperature on, you know, is it a priority for you to, like, have it still in Carver or would you be okay with, um. Having a sold, we're actually working on the purchasing policy, Dave and Lynn and I. And we started off with the cover on the Minnesota group just talking about. Could we find another museum? I reached out to the folks up kind of in canal park where you see that out there. Uh, interesting enough, they said they don't have space, but also that it's not connected with kind of their history, which I think speaks a little bit to kind of the situation that that we're in. And we did communicate to the mayor's point. Like, it doesn't mean that it's the end of it. It just, it might be recreated differently when the levy project is done. So, with that, I just wanted to kind of get a sense of. Where you all were at, because whether it's on the meeting on the 8th, or later in September, we'll. want to do something. I just don't know what that is without some feedback from you folks.

Can it be upfitted to a command vehicle?

I have no emotional attachment to that. I've shared this with you before and I struggle with it not being aligned with Carver's history or having any kind of meaningful connection. So I, on a scale of one to five of being heartbroken if it never lived in Carver again and one the opposite end of that spectrum, I'm a one.

So as the person who had to put that tugboat where it is now, we overshot the crane because we had no idea how much it weighed. So that's why you see the biggest crane ever coming into the video. And yes, it was about 35 pounds ago. So anyways, I don't, I thought, I know I see people stopping to look at it and I think having interesting things like for points of, Just points of interest, I think, are important. I don't, I mean, again, I don't have a huge attachment to the tugboat itself. I was thinking, well, could we put it down at Depot Park, which is obviously a train depot, but it doesn't fit really well there because of the water tower and the train, because I was thinking of it more as like a park of those type of, I don't know,

Historical memorabilia.

Thank you. I was like, what is the good word for that? I don't know. Is there a place that it belongs anywhere? And if not, I guess I don't know. I haven't been able to come up with something. wonderful idea but i do like it because it is a point of interest i do see people walking around i do see people reading the sign i do see them kind of looking around it and the occasional kid jumping around on it but um that can happen to any of our stuff so i don't know i think that's the rub and they talked about that a little bit at the hbc of like we don't really want kids on it so it has signs that don't but but putting it at a park encourages

Kids. That's what kids do at parks. It's not really the fit.

Did they have a strong viewpoint either way, though, really?

They thought to see if we could get it to a museum.

Isn't there some deterioration there, too? I mean, if we're going to have to choose between money going to restore the church by the river or a tugboat.

Yeah, I mean, there's we haven't. I have bolted and make teed up to do, like, a structural analysis on it, but in light of, like. Costs if the idea was to sell it and maybe someone takes it somewhere, maybe someone takes it and scraps it. I didn't want to expend any, like. City resources until there was a clear picture of. You know, and that was the, you know, because I, not to put Andrew on the spot, but I ran it up the flagpole with Andrew about Depot Park. And he brought up a good point of, like, we're going to redo that intersection. And the last thing we want to do is put it in the spot. And then in two years, like, oh, we actually have to move it over, like, 30 feet here because we have to move this there. So I'm trying to be still on this.

Let's put it right by the bolt launch and then just see what happens.

So the origin of this is the East Coast, right? So has there been any reach out to a historical society there to see if anyone is interested in repatriating it? What if it had historical significance there? What if it's a one of one left and maybe some organization there not only wants it, but would come get it?

Yeah, Brian, I couldn't do that. And Brian Parker with carbon in Minnesota was doing his own research. That's a great idea to reach back out to his point of origin and see if there is an interest.

I have no big love to keep it.

I have no big love to keep it. I'm Mary Johnson scale. I'm also a 1.

Which I think is what you guys said to me. Yeah. Yeah.

I remember the 1st time my husband went down inside, he was really excited to see the historical significance and then everyone was disappointed when it didn't have anything to do with the city of Carver the flowers in the back. They'll look great.

Yeah.

Okay, with that, I would entertain a motion to adjourn.

I'll make a motion to adjourn. I'll second.

Second by Sarah. The pregnant pause always makes me think you guys want to stay here all night long. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Same sign. Motion passes. Good evening.