City Council - Regular Meeting

So, at uh 7 o'clock, it's a committee of the whole February 25th. Um call the meeting to order. Uh roll call, please. Here, here, here, here, here, here, here.

We have a quorum. The first item for discussion is truck stop ordinance and I will call upon cla with all my tech. All right. Good morning, mayor and council members. Um this [clears throat] is an item that is new before you but has once been before planning commission and was the outcome of discussions with a subcommittee of two council members um one of who attended the meeting but both of whom have been included in emails um regarding truck stops. So, at the end of 2025, the city was approached with a plan for a possible truck stop off of um exit 55 here in town. That uh request has been um tabled. It's not currently active. It was uh removed by the applicants, but the conversation started of do we need some sort of an ordinance that is defining truck stops and then including them very clearly in a section of our zoning code. So, um, the subcommittee met. I was given language from Canonf Falls, Minnesota to use as a starting point. Um, based on discussions with that subcommittee, a first draft was written, distributed to that group, and then brought to the planning commission at its January meeting, um, where the planning commission had some really good conversation about uh, the the language that was used, you know, how it relates to other sections of our code, um, how in-depth we want to get with the with the language. Um, they suggested uh they suggested changes that did things like refine the canopy and signage standards that were listed in the draft ordinance, reduced or consolidated lighting language because we do reference it elsewhere in our city code. Um, also accounted for our MS4 permitting process which we had not initially had included in there. Um and

then further language that I've also added uh references different federal and state standards regarding placement of things like the um gas filling equipment etc because that's that's regulated um elsewhere including through our building and fire code process um which which are initiated when a plan is submitted to the building department with a full application. Um, another question that the planning commission had been wrestling with or members of the planning commission had wrestled with was the proper place to put the ordinance language in the code. Would it be B2 where we're also accounting for gas and convenience stores or does I1 language make more sense? And I think it could go either way. It would just kind of depend on the the direction that this body would like to go. Um, another option that we can also consider is whether we adopt an ordinance at all. Do we think that there is genu genuinely a need in the city limits of Fergus Falls for a truck stop ordinance? We have limited available locations where a truck stop would likely be placed within city limits. Um, so just raising that also as a question and looking to this body for a little bit of feedback on the direction that you would like to go based on the draft that's been presented to you by the planning commission and the definition that's also in front of you. Would you like me to go over the definition this morning or have you all had a chance to review that?

Maybe for the public just define the definition.

Yeah, so the draft definition that we're working with now and then just just a reminder none of this has been adopted. This is all very much in draft form. We're still waiting to get the feedback from you to decide where we're going. The ordinance process does take several meetings for it to play out entirely and this ordinance, should it be moving forward to adoption, would also require a public hearing as it is a zoning ordinance. So, the draft definition that we have for truck stop today is a facility including any pertinent parking or service areas that is distinguished from a typical gas station or convenience store by its design and purpose to provide services for commercial motor vehicles. In addition to service for non-commercial vehicles, including fueling, charging, or servicing, regardless of fuel type or electrical mode of power, that is a located within 2500 ft of the interstate highway system, and B includes one or more features primarily designed to serve commercial vehicle operators, such as extended truck parking, driver amenities, or trucks scaled fueling or charging infrastructure.

Thank you, Cla. Mhm. Does anybody have any questions of uh Clara regarding this ordinance? Laurel, when you talk about reduced options for where these could land in the city limits other than the SP spot that's had a previous application, are there really any? We know there's some soil quality issues on the one side of the interstate on 210 that would probably preclude that, but are there really any other spots or are we writing this for literally possibly one location?

It is possible that is that this is for one location. I suppose it's possible that a private land owner could determine that their property is an appropriate use for a truck stop and could offer it for as such. But at this point in time, I don't know of a lot of options for placement, especially if we're thinking of it as some sort of business that's, you know, wants to be located directly off of the interstate. Yeah. I think the only land I could think of would be more than 2500 feet away from the interstate. Right.

I mean, that's when you get to the point where I don't think a person or a body should necessarily write an ordinance for one piece of land. That's where I'm I'm struggling just from my planning commission background. I'm struggling with the concept of writing an ordinance for a parcel. That's and I don't know, it might be logical. I'm not saying it's not, but that's where I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it.

Yeah. Yeah, and that's where I would look to this body for some direction on on what you see as future cuz we don't want to write an ordinance for one project. We really do want to futureproof this. If we do see Fergus Falls becoming a hub for truck stops or if there are other options that, you know, we could annex land that could potentially invite future development in this direction. So, you just you just have to weigh what that looks like into the future and and how you want to move forward today. Any other questions or statements? Scott, [clears throat]

I think that there probably are places that a a facility that does these things, even though it wouldn't necessarily, you know, be what we would imagine something like the Clearwater Travel Plaza, but I mean, there were there would be places in town that currently could take on this kind of activity uh that are farther than 2500 ft away. I mean, take for example the old Pomida where Vector Windows set up their factory for doors and on 210 and and Pebble Lake Road. That corner would be a spot where you could see a truck facility. Um, you know, and we don't know what could happen with the businesses on that corner and to assume that it's always going to just be what it is now. Today, uh, doesn't look back to just see how much it's changed in the last 20 years. So that alone for me makes this a real puzzlement to try and tie this whole ordinance to the distance from the highway is is a problem for me. I don't see how that really works.

We can certainly change the definition as it is today. Do do we know where the 2500 ft came from? Yeah, it was from um federal regulations that were defining truck stops as within 2500 feet from an interstate. I don't I I think we should just leave it as is. There's nothing to to waste [clears throat] waste time, but excuse me just to u to look at what we're doing right now. We've already accomplished what we needed to do with that other piece of property. I think are coming in the future. I just think we should just uh we're trying to create something we don't need to create yet. Okay.

Did the planning commission have discussion at all about um a cup with this? So the cup option was brought up at the subcommittee level and the direction of the subcommittee was that they were they did not want to consider a conditional use permit. We so we did talk about it at the planning commission level but just as a report of the direction from that subcommittee but it can certainly be included. Mike, you had a question. [clears throat]

Your honor, I appreciate that. Um I I think um you know if we were just sitting here and we didn't have somebody come in front of us uh talk about what they were going to do, I would say we wouldn't even be talking about a truck stop parking. It was called a travel center. uh it it kind of was a catalyst to where we were headed with this. And I think one of the things that I sit here and I look at this is um and I had said in the other meeting is I I want Quick Trip to be able to be successful here and be here. Uh but I also wanted the residents of this city to be protected in a way that it wasn't uh uh detrimental to themselves. And I still stand by that. But one of the things here that if if this truck stop if you if you say extended truck parking, you know, just extended truck parking is your definition of a truck stop and if Quick Trip has extended truck parking, then I think this needs to be addressed. It needs to be addressed that is this a broad enough term for a truck stop or not? Uh when I look at this cuz this this and you did I'm not saying anything against you, Mrs. back with this at all. But, uh, this is pretty vague to what a truck stop is. I think when I look at a truck stop, I can look right down the road and I see 24-hour service. I see over 40%, maybe 50% of their lot is for truck parking. I see a restaurant there at Big Chief. I see showers in there. I see diesel pumps that are separate. So, a truck stop is definitely different than a gas station. And this project, I want to make sure that we get it right for Quick Trip. I want to make sure we get it right for the city and I want to make sure we get it right for the residents. And so I think to just discard it would mean that we're going to go forward with thinking this is not a truck stop, which may be the motion of the council, which is totally probably right. But to bring it on as truck stop,

then we need to make sure that we state it in a way that it looks like a truck stop. That we don't stop a somewhat modified enhanced gas station from being here because it's a truck stop in in our language. So I think I think it it's worth the effort of what we're going to do right now uh with it uh for one the citizens, but also Quick Trip uh so we make sure that this is right. I don't know if I explained my point well or not, but at least I went for it. I think what I'm hearing is maybe changes to definition are in order or define ex define the word extended, right? That's probably the only [snorts]

because as you say, what does extended mean? Does it mean 12 hours, [clears throat] 24 hours, 36 hours, you know, a week? Laurel,

I I agree with Mr. Mortonson. Uh, I think it's important that like that percentage that he referenced and I don't know what the percentage is that is dedicated to commercial truck driving. I think that's an important thing. Um, and possibly saying something to the, you know, includes one or more. Maybe we go to includes two or more features. We may have an in town filling station that has two spots for overnight parking, for example. I or maybe we put a number in there or list some of the driver amenities because I mean some people could say I mean you could argue that selling candy to over the road truck drivers is an amenity to them. You know I mean it has to be something that differentiates that the average driver isn't necessarily looking for um in my mind but I I agree with what Mr. Martinson is saying that we need to do something there that that works for the citizens but also works for businesses any business not just quickrip but any business on any lot that if we're going to do this it works for

you know just to kind of clarify too you know across the street there are trucks sitting there I mean they can probably attest to that all the time sitting and running in the winter time waiting to unload in the morning or in the afternoon whatever so I mean it's

we're trying to go and well I they're a customer of mine So I know but I just that's okay. But so we're just trying to balance uh if you look down behind uh whereas trucking used to be behind uh the old um uh Burger King, you know, truck sat there all the time with their reefers running all, you know, right in the middle of town and it was nothing said. So I think that it does raise a point if we write an ordinance, we have to be we have to be cognizant because like Olen Oil, I mean they they park trucks there. So, I mean, you know, is that defined as a truck stop?

So, we be careful we don't write other businesses into a corner where they they're not compliant all of a sudden, you know, that have been there forever, basically.

So, what what is the direction we'd like to go then? So I think I hear Laurel saying that you know the and and Mike saying that you know if if like 40 40 50% of the area is dedicated to truck parking then that would be kind of a definition of of a truck stop.

Yeah, your honor. I I I spent quite a bit of time thinking about this in all different avenues. everything from, you know, what's a gas station, what's a what's a truck stop, what's the public health aspects of this, uh what's a residential zone. And I think I think we can win. We can all win. I think with this, I think we can win as a city uh to get an entity in here that I think is is growth for us and good for the the citizens of this community. I think we can win for the the residents in that area and I think we already have won some for them. And I think we can win for Quick Trip as well. But the one thing that is paramount is if if we're going to call this a truck stop, then we have to have a truck stop ordinance. If we're not going to call this a truck stop, then we absolutely don't need a truck stop ordinance. So, I think what we need to define as a council is what is a truck stop? Do we even need the ordinance? When when Quick Trip first came, I thought, hey, they called it a travel center. Uh this is a truck stop. Uh this needs a truck stop ordinance. uh we we can't just call it a gas station because it was far beyond that. Um Quicktrip has moved considerably in their position from where they were and I think that is a a great win for the city. I think it's also a great win for the residents that they took this thing from what was a travel center uh in design and makeup and brought it down to more of a enhanced gas station. And so I started thinking about it. if you just have diesel pumps off on the side, does that make you a truck stop? And the answer can't be yes. Uh because there's all kinds of other entities that have a diesel pump off to the side or three or four. They're not truck stops. If you have a restaurant in your facility, does that make you a truck stop? Maybe, maybe not. But what I started thinking about

was if you go to Underwood and the Underwood Cafe and you look at that on that corner, is that a truck stop? Is it a convenience store? Is it a restaurant? It's got offsite diesel right off on the one side, which is there. You could park trucks there if you want, but they don't really. And it has a restaurant portion to it, but I don't look at it as a truck stop. So, what I think we need to do is we need to look at what a real truck stop is. They're 24-hour. They have almost 40% of their parking lot is trucks sitting there. Um, they have a restaurant attached to it usually. Uh, they have showers inside and they have separate diesel pumps. And in my opinion, if they don't meet those criteria, if those things are not included in somewhat of a package, it probably isn't a truck stop then. And I have no problem with using a conditional use permit on a truck stop if we think that's what it is. Um I don't believe anymore after digging in and looking at the things I've looked at that Quick Trip is proposing a truck stop anymore. Yeah, they have a a side diesel and they've got some parking spots, but if we put this ordinance in as a truck stop the way it sits and that's extended truck parking for nine slots, then it is a truck stop. But I don't believe it is. I don't believe it is anymore. Uh I believe it's uh an enhanced gas station uh with side pumps and a couple spots to park. So I have no problem if the council wants to wave doing a truck stop right now and move forward with Quick Trip, but I have no problem if you want to go in and do the truck stop, but I don't think they are anymore.

Your honor, I I agree with M, you know, Mike when you explained it that way. I just it's right. I mean, if you got 40% or even 30%. You know, I think Quick Trip's going to be probably less than 10% the way it looks cuz you have to have some place to park your truck when you put fuel on if you want to stop, take a little break, but it doesn't mean it's going to be overnight parking. When there's 29 spots, then I can kind of say, yeah, there's probably something there. But with [clears throat] that, I would uh I agree it's not this new one is not going to be a truck stop. It's going to be a what you call it extended.

So, ultimately then, what is what is the desire of the council? Do we do you want to adopt an ordinance on a on a truck stop? Um, as obviously as Scott said, you know, potentially, but that's that's, you know, the corner on Pebble Lake is is an area that potentially, you know, somebody could sell land and make that a travel a travel center, but it's more than 25 ft from the interstate. So, you know, this this wouldn't apply. Um, or do you want to just leave it? And and I mean we and theoretically you could still go down the use of a conditional use permit, right?

If uh if there was no ordinance and and and obviously stipulate in there these are the conditions by which we would we would allow you to have a building permit etc. And you can still go down the route, your honor, of uh doing the truck stop ordinance knowing that hey uh Quick Trip's not not part of that. No. Right. With a different definition. Different definition. So, [cough] so what what would you like to do

from a staff perspective? Are you feeling like a def like this ordinance would be helpful to you or this is just not coming up enough where you really feel like this is going to impact your ability to answer questions? Um I guess when Quick Trip first came forward and the closest use that we had was gas station/convenience store, that seemed to be an issue for this council that there was not a definition.

I It's the first request that we've had for a truck stop since I've been with the city, so six and a half years. Um, can I predict the future and say that we'll never get one of these again? No. But the same could be true the opposite way. So it's if if you if you feel strongly as you did that you need to have a definition of a truck stop so that we can respond appropriately to requests into the future then I would stay say continue on the path of creating some kind of an ordinance that you feel captures what you think is a truck stop. If you are looking at the map of Fergus Falls as it is today and you don't necessarily see that there are places or options for future truck stops, then you could probably feel fairly secure in setting this aside for now. But then you run the risk of in the future somebody coming forward and having this conversation start all over again.

Your honor, I hate to take up all the time. I apologize so much. Uh I would like to go down the route of of creating the truck stop ordinance uh for the simple fact that um I think it will make this project easier for people to understand what we're doing here that hey this is or isn't a truck stop. Uh to me today Quick Trip is not a truck stop. But if Quick Trip somewhere along the line or they sell out to somebody else changes the footprint or they buy the land adjacent to it for 80 trucks or they do something else. I think it's a benefit to us as a council in this city to know that hey that changes what you are that changes where you're at. And so I think having the ordinance and doing it knowing it probably is not going to affect quick trip because they are not going to fall into that truck stop ordinance, but we have it for future use, but also if this use changes, let you never know what people do in business. They they'll say 8 nine trucks and all of a sudden there's 63 trucks in there. So, I'm not saying that's what it is, but I think for us as as a council, that's what I would like to see. And uh um I would make that motion to uh to go ahead and change, correct me, your honor if I'm wrong in doing that, but I'd make a motion to amend the the truck stop definition um to to look more like a truck stop of what we're looking for um for this the city.

I would second that. Is that then sending it back to the planning commission, I would hope, I would assume, or is it staying with us? That's up to you guys. I I I would from to expedite and move it forward. It would be better off to kind of stay with us. I'll second that. Yep. Can you address the 2500 ft from the interstate? Are it didn't seem as if everyone was fully on board with that? Would you like a different distance? How how would you like even need to have a distance? I mean, if it if we're going to put in all the different things that qualify for a truck stop, is the distance in some ways irrelevant? Personally, I would think not. But you think it would be relevant or wouldn't be? I don't think it is relevant. I don't either. Um Okay. Because,

you know, there's there there is land, you know, I mean, if you took if you took kind of the other interstate, obviously 54, and you know, you went on land that's kind of, you know, adjacent where Harvest Homes is in Walmart, you know, and somebody bought that for a truck stop, that's more than probably 2500 ft. So you know and and also no there's one but then you know and then and then you know as technology moves you know the land that is on the corner that's vacant today on exit 54 you know maybe

you know coming back to Mike's point you know in business things change that somebody could come along and and and say well we want to make that a truck stop. Mike, are you okay with taking the the out in your motion the distance? Define that as you get as you get into that. Okay. Okay. So then my next question I do sorry to keep going on about this

the zoning the underlying zoning district designation is still an up in the air question. It's drafted currently as B2, which matches our gas station/convenience store uses, but it is also reasonable to consider an I1 use. that has creating an I1 district has more um hurdles than creating a B2 district just based on the fact that an I1 requires a 10,000 um 10 10 sorry 10 acre minimum for that I1 size unless it is directly adjacent to an industrial zoning designation that already exists. But what the I1 does accomplish is five foot deeper setbacks from residential zones than the B2 requires.

Isn't that something we can just do in our meetings or we can you can bring that all out and we can kind of decide that instead of trying to do that? Sure. It Yeah, it's just helpful for the way that I'm I'm thinking about this moving forward. But yes, we can consider that other than you still [clears throat] going to have to make a decision, right? You got to make a decision. But I mean, is it Yeah. One or the other? Did you did you guys do any maps on this with planning commission at all? Did you guys go through any maps? No, we didn't do maps. Okay. We didn't have maps created.

Thanks for your questions um to us. You know, it just makes it a lot easier. The other thing, number one, I'll apologize for bringing up that question. What is this? Is it a truck stop or what's a C, you know, travel center? Um but I think definition is a big thing. And did do you know what the ratio is as far as the land that they have are going to purchase and the trucks parking that they want to have is is what percentage is that Mike? Do you have that?

It's got to be about 5%. Uh if that even there's nine stalls. I I can give a little overview your honor if that's all right. Um so this this initially when this uh was set up um it it had um the quick trip set there and it had about 30 trucking spots individuals for trucks on the east side of this uh which put it about 300 ft away from an R1 district. The trucks sitting at that time RA district

wellund 50 ft from RA I'm talking R1 and that's something I'll talk about too just a little bit. There's a there's a difference in in my opinion between an R1 district in our city and all the things that go on and and Mrs. Becku and I have talked about that and an RA district. And one of the things that that I'm concerned about if we go forward is that if we designate that a truck stop or something cannot sit next to an RA a residential, if we just broadly put it residential, that could really limit the ability for things to go in here because all of the property around our city that is just kind of acquired over time is RA and they do not have the same uh benefits and the same criteria as an R1 through 4. So they're different in my mind a little bit. So this even if it was a truck stop does not abut an R1 district. It abuts an RA which is a little bit different but we won't get into that. But anyways they had 30 trucks on the the east side that were sitting there. They had over 120 ft of swing where those trucks could come in, pull in, back in, turn and sit around, which would lead to 30 trucks, but it would lead to about 60 trucks sitting there overnight on a bad night because they would fill in that 120 swing that they had there. And those trucks were 300 ft from a residential R1 at that time. What they've done now, Quick Trip, has changed their format. and and I I they've done that because of the residents of this city. And I think it's it's something to not take lightly that a national corporation has moved their footprint from 30ome trucks on the east side to nine slots on the very southeast side, which now puts those trucks about a,000 ft away from an R1 or 8 900 ft away from an R1. So that was a big move. The other thing that they did

is they upped they had absolutely no barriers on the north side between any of the R1 district or the houses. And what they've done there is they're going to put a a bankment along there. And by the grids, it looks like it's going to be a 15 foot high bankment on that side. And they're going to put in anywhere estimate between 25 and 40 trees along that north bank. And they're going to be starting out as 10-ft pines. There's going to be oaks in there. there's going to be a lot of shelter on that north side to where it it goes to uh the residents. And so this has been a a huge change. They also changed the entrance a little bit to where uh instead of coming in way on the north side, they're going to come in a little more on the south side and go around the back of the building to get there, which will cut down the traffic. They also where they had that 120 ft where trucks could have parked all night, they made that all green space. now in that area and they only have a short little route for trucks to go out which will limit trucks from being able to sit along there and sit overnight. And so this was a drastic change in my opinion from what uh I had initially seen and what we had initially gone to. And I think uh the citizens of this community that spoke up about it can be commended to get this change. But I also commend QuickTrip for doing this change. they could have easily just walked away from our community and they didn't. They wanted to do what was right for the residents as well. And so I commend everybody that's been involved. I think this is a great project going forward. Um is it perfect for everyone? No. But I I think it's the best for this city.

Do you have enough? Yeah, I think so. So we have we have a a motion on the floor. Um all those in favor say I. I. I. All those again, same sign. Oppose or pardon me, abstain. Thank you. So, we'll obviously look forward to a reddraft. Um the next item on the agenda is boards and commission ordinance update. And again um Clara

this came about about obviously we're you know reducing kind of boards and commissions in the city and looking to delete the public safety advisory uh board the and combining pedestrian pedestrian bicycle and natural resources into park and wreck. So this is kind of ma mainly a housekeeping uh piece of language. So over to Clara.

Yeah. Thank you mayor. Um, we are making a few fairly significant changes to the board and commission language. You will have a more fully updated draft when it comes forward for a first reading should we get to that point. But essentially, we are making changes. Um, we're we're trying to shorten it up a little bit. Right now, there's a lot of language [snorts] in there. So, we're shortening it up, making it a little bit more clear that there are um requirements related to attendance. So it's giving stronger ability for the um board and commission members who are actively attending their meetings to have an avenue to remove members who are not actively attending. Um we are also removing a couple boards and commissions that over the past several years have really struggled to maintain a quorum of members. Um [snorts] a few years ago we did make a change to the number of people required to be on a board or commission just to try to help solve for that quorum issue. So now most of our boards and commissions only require five members in order to have a three member quorum. Um this has proven difficult even for some of our existing boards and commissions. So we've made some changes to um our other existing boards and commissions to maybe absorb some of the duties of those boards and commissions that we are considering removing from the ordinance. Um including the bike and ped group uh which uh has had active members over the years and a couple of those members have agreed to serve on the park board. Um, so they're bringing in that interest for bike and ped uh improvements in the city to the park board, getting more engaged with the public works process. Um, we feel that's a really good fit. Um, [snorts] also made some changes to the public safety advisory board and I can maybe let the chief talk about that if there are questions, but removing that um, with the understanding that our chief and our officers are open and and available for discussion at any point. don't necessarily require there to be

some sort of a board in the in the middle. Then [snorts] the am I hitting oh the natural resources advisory commission that was um another one that was established in city code not too long ago because it was having staff representation at the time that they were meeting even though it wasn't officially adopted as a city board and commission. So we did that adoption process a few years ago. That's another one that's really um had some struggles I think keeping active membership. So again, we've thought that a good place for some of those topics would be in the parks board or um liazing with the public works department who's leading that that park board. Yes. and we're leaving o options open for the creation of subcommittees for boards and commissions to be able to have some of these deeper conversations should um matters arise that requires some conversation. So that's that's the gist of the changes. Again, you'll see an updated draft, but um just want to get a feel for how the council is um perceiving these changes and if you'd like to see anything happening differently. The the one thing I would like to see on the section 6D where it says on an annual report basis each board or commission shall provide a written report to council. I think we should add the word and presentation.

I agree. So that because I think it's good for the the public and that might also facilitate more people wanting to be engaged if they actually hear and see what Yeah. what a board actually does. Yep. Great. Scott, you got it. Uh, one comment just on section three, the new u suggested language that would allow people that are not residents of the city to serve on various as of various appointments.

I think that's probably not a bad idea to bring in people that have got either qualifications or interests that you know makes it useful for them to be there. [snorts] But I would like to add that uh no committee or board could have a majority of people that are not residents. Something to that effect. So that you know more than at least a majority of whatever committee or board is actually residents of the city to avoid a circumstance where we could end up with a group of people that aren't residents making decisions. The discussion on that was also that they kind of you like work in the city you know that there was a connection to the city

versus just somebody that lived as you say in the county and then worked in Fargo. there had to be some sort of connection to the city. A little I had one on the attendance. Um I know some boards don't meet monthly and when we're saying three consecutive meetings, having been on a board where attendance sometimes was a struggle, it's hard to get that continuality and have things that you're working on move forward when it's hit and miss on people so often. Is there anything to be said for saying anything about so many meetings in a year or a percentage of meetings, not just the consecutive meetings? Because three consecutive, if you're only meeting quarterly, you're barely on that board.

Yeah. Well, we could remove the word consecutive and just have it be three meetings over the year unexcused or however. Yeah. I I don't know. Or for however it works, but I think we should talk about that because all the boards don't do the monthly thing. We can do some Yeah, we can do some talking about what that could look like. Okay. Any any other comments? Your honor, just a point of clarification. Section five, um it says vacancies shall be filled by the council and appointees shall serve for the remaining unexpired term. Are you anticipating again where you kind of bring the name mayor and the council then votes it in? Same thing. Okay. I

think that's in our charter. Any other comments? If not, you you don't really need a motion for that. Just instruct staff to kind of reading. Yep.

Yep. So, um thank you, Clara. The next item is uh again, um Clara on uh this got brought up obviously regarding ebikes and scooters. Um and I think you know we discussed this in the retreat about establishing uh some form of or city code u regarding the use as we've all seen there's been a prolification of of kind of you know electronic kind of you know minor transport and um you know they ride on the pavements and there's sometimes a little bit irresponsible on the streets and we recently obviously had an accident involving you know one one of these and so I think the council wanted some form of ordinance. We've talked about it in the past as it potentially being a nuisance and now you know we've had an injury. So um you know in order to give kind of ultimately public safety some direction as to what how they go about you know policing this um the goal would be to get something written uh so that there's something out there for not only you know public safety to fall back on but the public to know what the rules of the game are. So with that over to Clara again. Yeah. And I, you know, I started this process anticipating that maybe there would be some clear examples of ordinances that have been done in other communities or that there was a starting place that was clear to me for something that we could easily regulate within city limits. And instead, what I was left with was just a lot of information about ebikes and then hoping to get some direction from how you would like to see it um potentially included in our in our city code and then ultimately enforced. Uh but first of all there are state statutes that um are in involved in the regulation and control of ebikes. Uh the state of

Minnesota classifies ebikes in three different classes. Class one, class 2, class 3. Each of them has um slightly different uh it it all comes down to the the motor size and when it kicks in or how it's used in the uh in in the way that the bike is operating. It does not have anything to do with the top speed or any kind of regulation of the speed of the motorbike or of the ebike. It's just how the motor is used. Um, in the state of Minnesota, a person under the age of 15 is not allowed to operate an ebike under Minnesota law. Um, I don't know that that's widely known. I think a lot of the concerns that pop up around ebikes are that kids are going to be riding these. Um, it is it is not legal for someone under the age of 15 to ride an ebike in Minnesota. So, one thing that has been floated as an option is in the city of Fergus Falls requiring that a rider have a driver's license. So, they would be 16. That I think could be an option, something that we consider moving into the future. Um, I think helmets are another thing we could also consider, but I'll keep going a little bit into the ebike regulations that exist currently. Um, ebikes are treated in state statute essentially the same way as bicycles are. So, bicycles are allowed on most roadways. is they are required to stay to the right of the road. So, they should not necessarily be weaving in and out of traffic or be part of the traffic pattern. They should be keeping as far to the right as they can. Um, which I think is why you see such a push for bike lanes in in our projects just to give an option for riders to be able to stay safely to the right of the traffic that is going. Um, if they are on the roadway or if they are biking through town, they are required to follow all of the traffic laws. So stopping at stop signs, um signaling their turns, that that is all a requirement um for ebike riders the same way it is for regular bike riders. In Fergus Falls, we do require um not

necessarily through an ordinance that I've been able to find and we've been doing some historical looking. It looks like the last ordinance was 76

46. I was going to say 72. I was way off. Um we do restrict bicycle usage in our downtown area. we have very a specific outline of what that looks like. Um so we have signs up that say please walk your bicycle. Um so that's already in place. Ebike riders would have to be following that. Uh what the state and other ebike advocates um recommend for ways to regulate ebike use is through um posted speed regulations. So right now in the city most of our streets are are 30 miles an hour. we could take that down to 25 which would then the ebikes have to also follow that rule. Um there are state processes involved with taking a speed limit down further from 25 but it's doable. It's been done in other communities. You can see that in um campaigns like 20 is plenty. Um the other option is to further restrict where bicycles are allowed to be ridden in the city. That's another um option that's open to you. But essentially my question this morning I guess is is do you want more research on ebikes? Do you have ideas for what you'd like to see in an ordinance already based on the information that you have? Um are you comfortable simply regulating through the existing controls and then maybe considering some additions to that like the age restriction having a driver's license or closing off further streets to bicycle traffic. So, open for questions or kind of like well, not as much questions as what you would like to see. Scott,

yeah, I've got a couple of comments. I guess as long as bikes, ebikes are considered under the umbrella as any other bicycle, I think what we've already got covers it. And so, adding a great deal of information or qualifications to things, I don't know that that gains us a lot. And that's what other communities have seen where they've started the same process and then they've ended up kind of deferring to what's already existing and maybe doing some sort of an educational campaign reminding bike riders that hey, you do have rules that you should be following. You should be stopping at your stop signs. The only option there is an option for bike riders to um treat a stop sign as a yield sign, but that's only if there's no other traffic nearby. Sorry, just throwing that out there. And that I think that's understandable where I guess I've seen personally the greater issue isn't with ebikes but with the powered scooters something that doesn't have pedals you know where they're zipping along with the scooters that just have the handle and up like a skateboard with a handle you know those are the things that have in my view been a greater issue and this doesn't seem to address that at all and how you would address that I don't know I mean obviously you wouldn't Not the concern for me is you don't want the powered scooter type thing going down the sidewalks downtown because that can be a real problem. But to just rule off something and say you can't have a powered whatever going on the sidewalk then now you got to talk about powered wheelchairs and things like that. So that's where I guess I see the greater need for some something. But I don't know that doing anything with ebikes gains us anything specifically you know with what's here. So that's my comment. Thanks.

Okay. Mhm. Laurel,

I agree with Scott that scooters have been more prevalent lately. I would say the last three months of fall and summer last year, all of a sudden ebikes were more of a thing. At least down in Ward Fort, we have a whole row of paved alleyways and other areas do too. And those ebikes absolutely love going at top speed down all of them, barely going to stop as they cross the roads. and they're coming full speed down these alleyways that oftentime have short driveways with vehicles barely, you know, barely out of their garage and off their property when they hit that road. And what I heard from constituents is we need to do something about the risk in these alleys because it and at least on the roads, you kind of have a way of seeing them, but these alleys are so short with short driveways that you're backing up and there they are going full speed. And when you've got a whole bunch of paved alleys where they're not hitting any traffic, they fly through there.

Do we have a speed limit for alleys? I don't know. That would be that was one of my questions. Well, I think the city has like once you enter the city, you technically you're at 60 unless it's at 30 rather unless it's posted differently. Let's look into the options for alley speed. I don't know what you But the other thing is the age of these. Yes. These are these are young kids from what 10 to 15 that are riding these things. It's not adults doing it. No. It's the kids that don't understand the rules of having a driver's license. So, that's another avenue we need to look at. Yeah. And and I would say Laurel, too. It's not only on alleyways, it's on the main roads. That too. Yes.

I mean, I have individuals that are flying by my house. This one in particular is usually swerving through the road going top speed. He wears a full helmet with a face mask that's blackened out and jumping off sidewalks to curbs to, you know, and it's like, you know, really. Um, and it's top speed and somebody's going to get hit. Um, be it because a lot of people walk there with their families and strollers and things like that

and it just takes one one mistake and one incident like that. The other thing too is downtown I've had numerous calls of people coming out of businesses that have in you know kind of recessed entryways and the bikes are just flying by and uh I've had it one gentleman in particular almost three times got hit. So something to think about.

Mike, your honor, I got to I got to break this way back down to the to the basics so I know what I'm kind of doing here. Are we are we here to protect the ebike person from themselves or are we here to protect the public from the ebike or a little bit of both? I guess I'm assuming both. But if you're going to protect the the ebike guy, they can't go on the road. They got to go like a bike or whatever, you know, somewhere else. If you're protecting the public, well, then they can't go where other bikes go. Uh, in my my opinion. So, I guess I need to know exactly what the goal of our city, what the goal of our council is, and maybe what our law enforcement is looking for. Who are we looking to protect? Who are we looking to uh to cater to here?

You know, the other thing is enforcement. I mean, we can talk all we want about rules, but it's hard to enforce because you're not there. You're not going to see it. And and there's no teeth. And if something get caught doing it, there's really not no teeth there to get anything done. It's not going to stop it. Sure. If we did an ordinance that said 16 must be licensed to be on an ebike or if we said something about electric scooters, I don't even know if we can regulate that. What would happen if one of your officers, you [clears throat] know, saw a 12-year-old out on an ebike? Like, is it a warning? A warning, a warning, we take the bike. Like, what happens? Plug in.

I mean, I think Yeah. The biggest thing is like we're not going to write a 10-year-old a citation or a 12-year-old a citation. Like we're gonna get a hold of the parents and try to have that conversation with the parent about the safety concerns and everything. So, it's not really about citations. It's just about education and trying to, you know, get everyone to realize that, you know, bad things can happen and we would not want that to happen to your child. And so just trying to trying to do that community education almost literally at times one individual at a time to get them to kind of realize like this is reality and this could happen.

Chief, not to put you on the spot and I appreciate your time. Uh do we have a public safety issue with ebikes in this city? Do you think is that because if it's a public safety issue for individuals walking on the sidewalk, coming out of a business, uh whatever that makes it a lot different for me. Do you think that's what we have?

I mean, I guess the information that I have at this point is more of a public nuisance as opposed to like a true public safety issue. Now, there are it could be a public safety issue if if individuals, you know, if it continues and there isn't that education and and everything because it is growing. The ebikes are growing, the power scooters are growing. So, you know, it only takes one individual to get hurt to have it be now it is becoming a public safety issue. But right now it's more of a public nuisance where individuals are like this is a close call. I could have been clipped, you know, um, you know, somebody could have been hurt. So I would say we're on that tipping balance right now, but right now it's really a public nuisance.

It's probably worse in the summertime obviously than the winter time. But it is amazing how many bikes are out and scooters are out there even now in the winter. Does the school have a policy for can kids ride them on school property? Has the school done anything with all of their property? I'm not sure.

Honorable, I think everyone's brought up some very important comments. Um, we're focused on ebikes and Mr.Wami brings up scooters. Uh, we can bring up skateboards. Uh, Mike indicates, are we really trying to protect the writer or the public? I think if we're going to spend the time on a on an ordinance, I believe it should be, you know, if it will cross the board to cover these kinds of things, not just bicycles, not just ebikes, not just skateboards. what if what if everybody starts rollerblading again and we're going down Main Street really fast on a sidewalk. So I I think the policy should address all [clears throat] all those forms. And secondly, um what is downtown? If we redo cavore, is cavore downtown? Uh we don't have a definition.

We do. I just don't have it in front of me.

Thank you. Um, and then [clears throat] finally, I can appreciate uh Councilman Councilwoman Kild's position on on the alleys. Kids are going to be kids. Um, they're going to ride their ebikes, bicycles, skateboards, rollerblades, scooters on the streets, on the alleys completely out of control. That's kids. I think we want to protect downtown and define what downtown is to protect that citizen walking on a sidewalk coming out of a store. Um very difficult to con control all the roads and all the highways in in Fergus Falls. Um I think we have to respect uh the intelligence of some of these young kids. Uh when they fall down and break their arm, they heal up. they learn. Um, and that would then take the the pressure off our law enforcement to be chasing bicycles in in in over disrespect alleys. No different than a kid driving his car fast on the streets off off site. So, let's broaden the scope [cough] and [clears throat] then let's just define downtown. And my opinion is the streets and alleys out of downtown are kind of just follow the law. Uh speed limits, stop and go, which is already statutoily written.

So to that end, we do have the regulations that are controlling bicycle and skateboard and rollerblading use in particular in our downtown area saying it is not not to be done on the sidewalks. um you must walk your bike or you are not rollerblading skateboarding downtown. Those are the two specific wheeled conveyances that are uh noted already. Do you want to expand that definition then to be including things like scooters etc.

I I think that would be the consensus. Well, also I wonder if you should we shouldn't just extend that to you know pavement sidewalks everywhere that because you there really isn't a difference between somebody riding a bike on, you know, on any any other street, you know, when they're on the pavement. I mean, you know, we want to encourage people to obviously walk and and use use the town's amenities like that. And so if you're riding a bike on on the footpath, it's it's there's a you know, we have a street and we have a footpath or a peyton sidewalk, you know, and it's there for sidewalking, not for riding your bike. And I don't know maybe I maybe have to have sort of some sort of you know obviously yeah we don't want to stop a family going out and the little kid you know riding their bike with their parents walking but

you know there's ebikes ride on the on the sidewalks as well. So I think that's I think you know if we're going to do an ordinance about riding your bike there definitely should be no ebikes on the sidewalk. The other thing too is we've got all the bike paths which Yeah. Why' we put those in? Yeah. You know. Yeah. I mean that's it. We spend a lot of money every year painting

painting that for for the use and and maybe that's the other thing is that we say that's the place where you should be writing your electronic you know pedal human I don't know as you say whether there's a sort of a an encompassing definition of something that's electronically assisted you know child vehicle. Yeah. Okay. I I will definitely want to do a little bit more research on

bike rights for for sidewalks and and see what we can do with that. Your honor, in closing, uh, as we move into the bicycle season, uh, maybe the clarification of downtown would be beneficial with the utility bill if we send that out uh, as a a poster or a reading because I would lay odds 99% of the people don't know what downtown is in regards to the ordinance for bicycles, etc. But I think if we went down saying on sidewalks in the city full stop that you wouldn't. [snorts] So it'd be beneficial to put that in a in a insert.

I think also if we're going to do an insert even if we don't put it in our ordinance the age I think we need to talk about the Minnesota statute that has an age for ebikes because I would say a lot of people don't have a clue. Yeah. Yeah. Then we should move on. I think you've got enough. So the next item on the agenda is a task order for landfill groundwater monitoring. Kyle Maya requested action. There's a recommendation to the council to approve a task order for Houston engineering to conduct groundwater monitoring and maintenance of the MPCA permit for the landfill. Over to Kyle. Oh, that's

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council members. Uh so the city of Fergus Falls has a landfill. uh portions of the landfill that we have today. Uh a portion of it is closed, which I'll refer to as 184. That's what we call that. And then a portion of it is open. 572 is what we'll call that. Uh the open portion is the piece of the landfill that we're currently utilizing. The old portion 184 has been closed which means we have um put dirt over the top of it and we are not using it anymore. As part of our permit, we have to and the type of landfill that we have, we have to monitor uh what we're doing to the environment. And part of that requirement is uh we have approximately just over 20 wells uh out surrounding the landfill today so that we can monitor what's going on under the ground to make sure that we're not polluting uh the groundwater source. So as part of that we have to sample, test, and monitor what's going on underneath the landfill today. That's part of our permit. So, uh, doing that over the next year is a piece of this, uh, uh, agreement with Houston Engineering. And then on top of that is, uh, this year, our permit has to be renewed. Uh, it is expiring this year. So, as part of that, uh, we have to renew our permit. Um, not getting into the gory details. uh through MPCA there are some new regulation changes that are coming down that we're trying to make sure that we have all that in place and then on top of that we're building we're in the middle of building a new cell as

well. So, um, this new renewal, we are, we have had meetings already with Houston engineering, with city staff, with MPCA trying to figure out how we're going to and what we're going to include in this new permit. So, as part of that, uh, permit renewal process is also a piece of this, uh, agreement with, uh, Houston engineering. So, the city has been utilizing uh Houston engineering uh for years to help uh navigate through uh all of this monitoring and permitting uh because they have the expertise in uh solid waste. So, as part of that, uh this would be the annual agreement that we would have uh with Houston to help us with that monitoring and with that permit renewal for 2026. So [clears throat] with that, I'll open it up to questions. Scott,

uh, the permit, assuming we get it, it's good for how long? I would have to look into that. I think it is it 10 years? 10 years? A 10 year period. Okay. Thank you. Question. I I have no issue with Houston. I mean, that's fine. Uh, but this is a lot of money. It's hundred and some,000. Have we in the history ever gotten a quote from anyone else? because I'm sure there are other people that do do this, but I mean it's just it's a lot of money. Do we know any other numbers?

I I don't know if we have in the past. We we did not look at um looking at somebody else uh for this one. I did go through the numbers and verify are these competitive type numbers that we've been using. I verified what we've been doing with Houston in the past. They're reasonable and this is an hourly contract. Um, so it is, you know, I will help monitor what they're doing, um, and oversee what they're doing, um, at as far as an hourly basis goes. So, we will only get charged per the hours that they put into the work.

So, does that mean the contract is like a not to exceed number? So they could we do this work and it's not not going to be more than this 100,000 no matter what they do or is it is not it's an estimated number in ours uh throughout the year. Now again uh we oversee that as city staff to make sure that as we go through this we're making sure we're we're sticking to the budget to hit the end of the year number. So if we at any point in the year foresee that this is going to go over, we would definitely have a conversation about that.

Yeah, I think it would also be fair to say that like the actual testing portion of this is actually over it's $37,000 the analytical piece of it which typically those have to be done at a certified correct lab approved by the state. Yeah. So, all of that sampling has to uh get sent into a certified lab and tested. Yeah. I mean, between the two wells, it's actually 39,000, which is 40% of the of the bid. Correct. Way to go. Are you looking for a motion then to move this forward? Thank you, Scott. I'll offer that. I'll second. Thank you.

Any other questions? If not,

yeah, your honor, just a bit of conversation. Kyle and I have had long conversations on this, and I appreciate his time and [clears throat] his focus on this matter. I'd like to have some conversation with Rasmmanson. Uh maybe the city uh consultant in St. Paul, Minnesota has the worst pollution control regulations, I think, in the union. And if there is anything we could do uh inside with those gentlemen's help, uh I can't I can't look into the the next governor of Minnesota, but we need to relax these burdensome regulations. U I understand groundwater. I understand the importance of it, don't get me wrong, but uh with the businesses I have with pollution control, Minnesota is terrible compared to North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa. Thank you.

Thank you. All those in favor say I. I. I. All those again, same sign. Everybody good with it on the consent agenda? Yeah. Thank you. Right. The next item [cough] is easement for with the school district again. [clears throat] Kyle Meyer looking for a recommendation to the council to approve a 75- ft easement from the city of Fergus Falls to the Fergus Falls School District. Over to Kyle.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, city council members. Uh uh I've I've had some conversations with the school district on a project we're doing on Fryberg. uh we need an easement from the school. And it and through those conversations, they brought up uh this piece of property uh on Cascade in Hilltop Drive where they have uh some property there with a just a small sliver of uh a piece of of land that ties their property to the roadway on Cascade. And so they and the city owns a lot there. The lot that we own is one lot uh which has a wetland on it. And I think through some of the discussions, one of the future purposes of that lot is a potential uh um pond for for uh storm water, which be which due to the wetland that's on there poses some uh some issues with being able to do that in the future. So, um, looking at the lot and the and the property that the school district, uh, has and the request from them, um, I see it's fine to give them, uh, a sliver of that piece of property to potentially use for future ingress egress onto that property. So, uh, through those discussions, uh, I put together, uh, an easement, uh, for a 75 strip of land along, uh, their piece of property that they potentially could use in the future. So, that's what we're asking for today, uh, to grant that easement to the school district. [clears throat]

Any questions, SC? I just wanted to point out that this would be uh perpetual so that any future owner would still have the same uh rights to that easement. Correct. Correct. So whether the school did this, that or anything else or if the property became residential or whatever it was, this allows for a road access directly across from Hilltop um in however that might be developed. Correct. Correct.

Yeah. Thank you, Lauren. Is there any value if we can't use it for storm sewer whatever would be needed in the future and it's probably not developable instead of us maintaining keeping it on our roles do we just sell or give or transfer to the school district and go down that path because I mean obviously we're paying to mow we're you know those things we're insuring whatever y is there any value to that

yeah I I can't tell the future so um but when I look at the lot, you know, I don't know what it would be used for in the future, uh, personally. Um, but never say never type of thing. So, um, potentially, yeah, we could sell it or get rid of it. Um, I don't I don't know how we're going to be able to use it without doing something with the wetland on that piece of property. To me, if we're paying to take care of it and we're never going to have a use for it, let the school district mow it. Yeah. I don't I don't even know if we even do anything on that lot. I don't think it's cut a tree down and just it's all we did like maybe a month ago. Yeah. I don't even think it's

I mean if we give them an easement who would actually pay them for like the road, you know, and and I think sorry

if if we give them the easement I mean any type of improvement that would be done there, they would be responsible for doing that. And then I mean and and I know when you know they were proposing the school there was quite a few residents in that area that were concerned about traffic you know uh coming coming from that and uh you know would would a 75 ft eastman give kind of enough room for like a you know a right a right turn lane and because they were you know that was kind of one of the things there as I say that the residents were kind of concerned about was increased a increase traffic and then b just blocking the road with kind of school buses.

Yeah, I think it would uh because the the easement we would give them is 75 ft plus they do have a strip there. I don't know what the distance is. I think it's another 50 to 75 ft of property on top of that. But I mean, but I also like Laurel's idea of if we're not going to use it, then sell it to the school district. Anybody else got any other thoughts? I think it'd be a good idea to get rid of it. We don't need it. Would the consensus be to look at uh get get some sort of valuation on it to just sell it to the school district? That's what I would make a motion that we look into that

second. So, we have a a motion from Laurel and seconded by Al. Can I say one thing, your honor, before you vote? Yep. Um we we we need an easement on Fryberg and I don't want that to be held up because that that is a project we're doing this calendar year

and so I [clears throat] think it's fine to explore this but it would be nice for us to know that if the school district wasn't interested in purchasing that you would still move this easement forward so they would have the comfort level to give us the easement we need to get fried back. I I if even if there's not a value to it, my thing is if we don't need it, if if there if this is a nominal value, I I I agree with you. I don't want to cause issues with school. We need to work nicely with them. I mean, that's an important thing for us to do as a council. Um but I don't know that I'm I'm more looking at it as why are we keeping on our roles for open-ended expenses in the future than necessarily a money maker. Now, personally, I

I think in our conversations with the school district, as long as they understand that, we're willing to move forward with giving them an easement or or the property, they'll sign the agreement. I don't I don't see an issue in that. Let's go. I just get the easement done and we can can pursue the land thing in a later date. I mean, I just that's my opinion. Get the get an easement in place. We get other But but I think if you put an easement in place, there's no there's no reason to buy it. So I I think uh but I think the I think the consensus would be that we're not going to inhibit access. So yeah, I I [snorts] think I can go through that with the school district and work with them on that option.

So we we basically have a motion on the floor to explore um the sale transfer the sale transfer of that [snorts] land um to the school district. So all those in favor say I. I I [snorts] all those clarification you're doing a sale transfer but no easement at this time. Correct. Correct. Correct. So So just let me repeat that then. All those in favor say I. I. I. All those against same sign. I motion is approved. Everybody good with it on the consent agenda?

Is it possible by Monday to get some feedback on that? when it it will come back when we get some some definition. Okay. So, it won't be on the Monday's agenda.

The next item on the agenda is a visit Fergus Falls agreement. Um [clears throat] so finally um as uh as as everybody is aware obviously there's been um extensive discussion with visit Fergus Falls and um I think we finally came to clarification on what kind of everybody is kind of you know wanting to try and achieve you know ultimately uh the quest of the city was basically to reduce the burden of the Bigwood Center by increasing utilization of kind of the of of the of the Big Wood and um you know and and reminding people that ultimately this is obviously a city asset and it was paid you know by a $3 million kind of investment in the community and we want to kind of try and obviously enhance its its usage. Um just for kind of background um the average income uh that's come in to visit Fergus Falls over the last four years has been about 186,000 in a combination of uh lodging tax as well as grant income and that's varied anywhere between 180 to 192,000. the lodging tax um you know portion of that as being anywhere from you know 166 to 176 and so you know uh we we're looking at how how best that we can utilize that that funds and um the expenditures have been around 46% on labor and about 37% being on marketing. You know, at the same time, the fund balance since 2022 has grown from 186,000 to around 270,000. So, roughly a kind of a 20 28 $29,000

increase perom. um what the the city you know and uh I should thank combination of of uh Laura and Scott um Rachel's you know um in terms of like meeting and and helping this and and basically what we were looking for was you know just realignment of kind of like you know priorities um obviously the you know the revenue split um would would go from 95 from 3% to 5% which would help cover the, you know, additional kind of labor charges that the city has incurred over over time. It's not being altered. And we're looking at the contract being a two-year um length. Um so that basically, you know, we it's going to be hard to see, you know, improvement in in 26. So the efforts that we're looking to kind of make um would hopefully have more impact in 27 um when we can see that um you know we're looking at obviously capturing lodging tax from you know the the private kind of Airbnb VBO that's obviously income that you know there's there's a benefit from other people um getting kind of what the what the visit Fergus Falls board is spending on marketing and promotion. um looking at communication and accountability that the annual marketing plan would be presented to to the city of the council or a committee of whole uh so that you know the council and the public at large get to see what's happening. Um equally looking at quarterly updates uh to to try to monitor like where we're going and what directions. You know, we know that ultimately nothing is set in stone and that, you know, sometimes you have to eb and flow. And looking at getting

assistance with local event incubator program, you know, allocating $15,000 to, you know, encourage, you know, more, you know, events in in town and getting that initial support, some dollars to kind of help help that happen. um the convention center, you know, look at um rebranding that, you know, the the website and the photographs on it are, you know, a little bit dated and old and um you know, that's something that definitely needs to get up up updated and then obviously ongoing and linking the two sites so that visit Fergus Falls and and not just obviously on the the Bigwood convention, but we also have a lot of other uh creating spaces that are available in town. Um, so that they can also get kind of like some promotion out of it and then increasing the marketing budget to around 45% of the gross revenues so that you know the goal of of kind of like collecting the lodging tax is to promote the city [snorts] and uh, you know, not really to kind of obviously you know bank the money and and build up a war chest. And then this year particularly uh with obviously the closure of exit 54 um you know that's going to impact local businesses significantly. Um and uh you know we we had a meeting and you know discussed about increasing you know generic billboards on the interstate to help direct traffic to come off junctions earlier uh to get into town. And then, you know, whether it's kind of food, drink, um, you know, accommodation, you know, stores just so that we can help, you know, get that traffic before they get to 54 and

realize it's it's closed. Um and I think you know the you know the the conversations and discussion have been good and I think you know we're at a point now whereby obviously we can bring this to the council to get this language then incorporated in in a revised contract for circulation. So [music] with that um [clears throat] Mayor Hicks is it okay?

Yep. Yep. Yep. And with that if Thomas wants to come up and and speak that would be great. Thank you. Good morning, mayor. Good morning, council. My name is Thomas Bales. I moved to Fergus Falls 5 years ago after purchasing Swan Lake Resort and Campground a couple miles south of town. And I am here on behalf of the Visit Fergus Falls board. I've been serving for two years shortly after Rolando joined as executive director. And as as the mayor kind of teed up for us, we've been in negotiations for the last several months. This really came to a head really just from the administrative contract that really facilitates the flow of funds, right? That's we're talking about the 3% lodging tax that goes to the hotels, paid by folks, it's a pass through, goes to the city, you guys take a small cut. Historically, it's been 3% bounces over to us as a nonprofit independent who then administer and and you put that money to work. Um, there's really looking forward, there's like three big paths you could go down as a as a council, right? You could decide to just kill this tax entirely, right? 3% lodging tax. Goodbye. There's maybe appetite on the council to do that. Just from a philosophy standpoint, that's not something, you know, we're obviously in favor of. And I think it should be called out that the majority of that tax is paid by non city residents. It's folks coming off the interstate from out of town. And that's, you know, to to the numbers we shared, you know, $170,000 every single year that we can put to work to promote the city and to promote the the hotels uh here in town. You could kind of go somewhere in the middle. All right? You could take the function of marketing and putting that money to work in-house if you have the talent, if you have the knowhow, the skill, and you think you could do it better. Um, then that's something that you could bring and manage your yourselves. But I would caution that's a huge responsibility, right? There's a lot of moving parts. There's coordination amongst different stakeholders. There's the digital

strategy of it, right? Modern marketing is ever increasingly complicated. And putting that all together, you know, credit to Rolando for the work he's done the last two years. He's revamped the entire website. We're launching digital pay-per-click campaigns. It's an option, but obviously we feel that we do a strong job of it, and obviously there's areas we could improve. And so I stand before you today to ask for option three which is to amend the contract include this memo um which is really a list of you know it includes a list of negotiation points right the last few months we've met with lore we've met with Mayor Hicks and we've started meeting with Scott on what do you as a council want to see from us as a board and the last letter that we got had 10 or 12 bullet points and we kind of took those bullets put them into buckets and and the mayor just went through them. But for the most part, if I'm reading this correctly and and we understood the letter, we're at 95% agreement. There's really not a lot of daylight between us. And so my hope as a as a board member is that any concerns were captured in that letter. And if there's anything unspoken, I really hope that now is the time that they're voiced. We have is the executive director. We have members of the board listening online and here in the room that can address any concerns. Um, you know, you guys were asking for 5% of that administrative fee. We're happy to do that to do that if that's what you guys need to keep keep the lights on here and keep the keep the money flowing. A two-year contract seems more than appropriate. Um, you know, anywhere between one and three. Uh, you know, cut it in cut in the middle. collecting short-term rent um lodging tax from Airbnbs and VBOS's. Happy to help connect the dots there with city staff and the folks that are actually responsible for tax collection. And we would love the opportunity to present to you on an annual basis what our marketing plan is. And if you guys want quarterly updates, we're happy to

do that as well. Right? Rolando is well versed in what's what's happening. The board meets on a monthly basis. We can pull together that report and present it to you. Um, a big thing that I noticed from being on the board in the last two years is how, you know, we're we're supposed to be good stewards of this money. It's a good pot of money. And this board consists of folks who run the Children's Museum to the Cadets Galleries to independent hotel operators to chains and they have a whole portfolio to resort operators, right? uh we are, you know, pat we're going to pat ourselves on the back a little bit that we've been good stewards of that money and we're not necessarily throwing it, you know, left and right at projects that maybe don't have an ROI to them. It we understand the pressure from you guys that, hey, maybe we need a little kick in the behind to get going, spend a little bit more, um expand the scope of our project and and I think the negotiations have revealed that yes, we can do a little bit more. We we acknowledge that. Um, and one of the big things is that we don't just spend on ourselves, right? It's not just a heads and bed strategy. If you look at the website today, the vast majority of that website is really promoting the entire city. It is not just pumping the hotels to kind of close the circle on who ultimately collected and then remitted that tax. It promotes, if you look at the Facebook and the Instagram page, the vast majority of those posts are also promoting the city. And so to that end, another one of the bullet points that we acknowledge and agree on is promoting local events. And the way we want to do that is through this incubator program. And folks can apply to receive $1,000, $2,000, $5,000 depending on the scope of their project. We'd be happy to give them some of those funds. And the idea is that that those are seeds. That's like an angel investment to start running and starting events and get this place dynamic and entrepreneurial. And some of those ideas will die out, right? one or two years, it turns into nothing.

Others might turn into like legitimate events that bring in hundreds of people year after year. So, I think that's a great idea and a nudge that we needed to hear as a board and we're willing to go meet you halfway. The big one is the big one, right? That's a city-owned asset. Um, it really benefits everybody if that's doing well, right? Um, you know, I think there was a little bit of tension during the negotiations. How much independence do we have a do we have as a board versus what you guys need as council and and kind of closing the gap for taxpayers? I think we've come a long way. We are willing and I think it falls under our statutes and the board actually has voted in the affirmative. We are more than willing to help put the time, the energy, and the money to revamp dramatically the the Bigwood Event Center website. There's it's tired to say the least. And there are web developers out there who specialize in not only modern websites but 360° shots, virtual 3D um kind of navigation so that folks who are booking weddings, booking events can get this done. And so that was probably the biggest vote and the biggest bullet point where we've we do feel that we've come, you know, 95% of the way there and say yes, that is actually a good idea and it was the pressure we needed. And so we want to communicate that we are we want to remain a strong partner for the city of Fergus Falls. We have a wealth of experience as I just mentioned serving on the board and as executive director and we're here to to really go hand inand with you in the future. Um the one sticking point where I keep saying 95% instead of 100 is that the ongoing maintenance of that site really cannot fall to us as like a third party, right? We don't have the insight, the knowhow, the operational expertise to be making small website adjustments. And so in the future, that needs to come from somebody living the big wood. And that that might just be hours. It might be pricing. It

might be a quick photo update. It might be that a room is currently down for AV issues, you name it. But that ongoing maintenance needs to be someone in the operation. And so we push back there a little bit. um marketing budget, you know, to to the numbers that Anthony shared, we have underspent arguably, right? That pool has has really gone up in the last few years. I think we kind of froze after COVID things stagnated in the 2022 boom, 2023 boomed and so that really really increased dramatically and we're starting to realize, right, with a little kick that it's time to start spending again, especially with Interstate 94 maybe causing some disruption here. And so, uh, you guys put a metric forward in a bullet point that says, you know, try to spend 45% of your gross revenues on direct marketing spend. We're happy to agree to that. We have the undesated funds to do that. Um, you you made a distinction between labor and marketing. You know, yes, it's labor, but labor is at times marketing, right? It is taking the photograph, it is editing the video work, and it is posting it to platforms. So, it is not a it didn't necessarily flow to a third party like a Google, like a Meta, but it was definitely marketing efforts. Um, the last one, I think this is a no-brainer, is the interstate signage. It's a big disruption for the hotels, for the for the restaurants, the shopping. We are happy. Um, and we've actually already, I think, secured, not signed, a contract for like a temporary billboard, I think, coming from the Minneapolis direction to say, "Hey, exit exit 54 is going to have some construction. um you know, you might need to be look at exit 55 or earlier if you're looking to stay in a hotel here. So, we're going to figure out what that signage looks like, but we're happy to foot the bill there as well because that's going to be a win-win for everybody. You know, if this organization, for whatever reason, come Monday doesn't exist, right? That's a huge decision. And I think it would be not only a loss for the hotel operators, but a maybe a bigger loss for the restaurants and the

shopping who really don't eat that 3% tax. They don't pass it through. Their all end customers don't see it. um the hotel operators might be okay, but I think the city would suffer more than anybody else. And so our ask is come Monday, uh you know, vote in the affirmative and allow us to continue being good stewards of that money. And if there's any push back really, I would like to hear it now because we have the team to answer any concerns.

Thank you, Thomas. Um any questions of Thomas SL report? I mean ultimately Monday we would be looking for kind of like this to be um you know pushed to the city attorney to you know obviously update the contract. I mean that would be the decision on Monday but now is a good time to get any questions of of visit Fergus Falls.

Yeah. Thank you your honor. I appreciate it. Appreciate your time and coming up front. Uh it's not always easy to do that especially when the city's looking at doing some different things with you. So I commend you for that. How many are on the board? And maybe Rolando has to answer this. I don't know. How many are on the board? And how do you get selected to the board and off the board? And how does that work?

Yeah, that's kind of the administration of the board, which I I haven't gotten too in the weeds on, but my understanding is that we have to have nine. And there's a segment, I think, a city council representative. It's historically been Laura, now Scott. I think uh council member Fish has been on there before my time. So, one from the city, then I think there's got to be like three or four from the hotels, and then I think we need some from shopping and dining. So, it it is designed in, you know, in the statute to to be a broad swath or representation of the city of the city businesses. Okay, Laurel.

Okay. I have a kind of a a bunch of things that are questions because I'm new to this as a bunch of us are that haven't been part of this. So, don't take offense. It's nothing personal. Um, when you look at kind of going through this in order of how you've laid it out under communication and accountability, the annual marketing plan presenting to the council, I would like to see that happen in the fourth quarter of the previous year. So, we're not having that conversation January, February, March when so much of tourism in our area happens between April and October. So, I feel like being part of that conversation and having it laid out in the fourth quarter would be important. Um, kind of piggybacking on what Mr. Mortonson [clears throat] said, uh, in regards to the board, I understand the hotels are collecting so much of this and that tourism is some the money is coming from hotels. I I don't know if a third or four members of the board need to be from hotels. I don't know how your bylaws look or if that needs to be talked about. Um the marketing budget the 45% is that number of gross revenue that so that is or is not including staff in my mind that needs to be outlay on top of staff. I don't know when you referred to that if that's been decided

it is on it would be on top of staff. Okay. And then this year with the exit 54 that 45% does not include whatever is being done for exit 54. That's in addition to that 45%. Because you guys you have that buffer of not spending. Can that buffer be used for exit 54? Bingo. Yeah. I really don't think that the board is hesitant. We've been maybe slow to spend, but we are primed when an opportunity presents itself. So this is a great example of having a bit of a war chest that we can deploy 10 $30,000 to get something done that otherwise had we not [clears throat] been as conservative on the spend side we would be our hands would be tied.

So I guess my thoughts would be to have that called out separate and you referred to already having signed a direct for one direction on the interstate for exit 54 and you referred to that you know if you want a hotel get off here. I think that campaign needs to be a lot more than if you want a hotel. It needs to be if you want to shop, if you want to eat, if you want to go to a park, you know, it's it's more than just get off here for a hotel. And in my mind, we need to look at both directions because we have a lot of people that come down from Canada and come from North Dakota. It needs to be both ways. Um, I'm glad to see the local event incubator program. I think allocating 15,000 to that, it'd be lovely if we could maybe say that numbers 20 and 10 of it. you called out uh over the river and Summerfest and yes, those are great things that need money. I think some of that money needs to go there, but then we need to identify a kitty money that's for new and and so if we if we're identifying those under the incubator somehow, I think they need to separate and have some money for new things, too. Um okay, I'm hurrying because I know we all want to leave. Um,

okay. [laughter] You want me to address them one? Go ahead. That's fine. I have one other, but yes. Yeah. I mean, right off the bat, I I don't I can predict the board is not going to have any issue with what you're asking for. You know, how detailed do we want this memo to be? This is really what we're asking to be just appended to the otherwise regular, boring, vanilla administrative contract that for decades has just kind of been signed and we just keep renewing on a two-year basis.

Yeah. And I more as an action document, you know what I mean? Like as if you're working through on the plan with the people negotiating. My last thing was I think working with you said you have Otter Cove on there and that you have arts represented, but I do think a portion of the money needs to go beyond restaurants and retail. We need to talk about, you know, our city assets, our library, Magnes Park. We need to talk about D Lagoon, which I know you guys do some already. Um, we need to talk about the splash pad, the sculpture walk, things like that. I think there needs to be pretty clear talking about the things a city offers, too, because I see this beyond tourism. Tourism is great, but sometimes people come to a town because they're a tourist and they decide they like it here. And I think there's a benefit to the city to make sure we make sure all of our assets are visible to our tourists.

I'll call out one distinction. One is who's representing the board, right, from these entities. And one is the the other side of that is what we've marketed in the past and will continue to market. I I think we have campaigns promoting the regional state parks. We have campaigns promoting the museums to the library to the great things that you can do, the dining. We have little itineraries. you can kind of poke around on the website, but the marketing is much broader than just who who have we pulled in the past to serve on that board.

And I and I think that was the goal of kind of coming with an annual marketing plan and kind of like those quarterly reviews. So if as you say if there is a tweak of direction that you know there's a there's something new coming to town like this year for example is the first year we're going to have an air show. Um so yes we can promote that but you know who knows whether next year there'll be an air show but I think you know um and I think that's going to be the you know there's two critical pieces also to this in the sense that we also need feedback you know um you know there's there's part of the big wood where ultimately you know we as a city are going to have to look at how we execute the inquiry and and actually turn it into a sale and you And likewise, you know, community members that are thinking about an event, you know, get that word out, not kind of like, you know, a couple of weeks before the event, but get it out there in in order that, you know, promotional kind of work can get done to to spread the word, you know, near and far that this is going to happen. Um, it's not the first air show that the city has actually had. I learned that, but it's the first for a long time. And so, you know, I think as as as the relationship, you know, flows and and we get kind of people coming in and and talking about what's going on, hopefully we can, you know, we can give that feedback and we we collectively as a body probably can get feedback from constituents that then we can channel, you know, to V Fergus Falls

and and we'll acknowledge, you know, I think over the years we've maybe missed the mark in communicating to you as council. What are we doing, right? We have to tell that story to you as well. So, you know, it makes sense to renew the contract and when and where you have to apply pressure, [cough] right? You guys were elected with some mandate and you guys are exercising that and we're responding to that pressure. So, hopefully, you know, my mother was always scolding me for, you know, being in the backyard. I, you know, maybe a little reckless busting things up and she always said, you know, it's really easy to break things, to dismantle things. It's much, much harder to build, to create, to cooperate. And so one concern is whether something that's been around for decades, if we wind that down to zero, getting that back off the ground is a serious struggle. Mike, you had a question.

Yeah, your honor, I appreciate it. Uh, is a board voluntary? I would imagine. It's a voluntary meeting on a monthly basis. We email dialogue and when stuff like this comes up the last few months, it eats up a lot more time.

I commend you for that because it's always hard to be on a board voluntary and then be doing certain things. So, what I'm about to say, don't take it personally, but I need to know this for my constituents, is do we have the right to even bring this in house, take it under our wing, and do we have the resources, if we have the right uh to be able to do that? I'm just generally asking uh so I can go back and say, hey, when someone says to me, hey, you needed to can those guys. It it needed to happen now and you needed to bring it inhouse, I can answer them. So, we're going to we're going to get a response. So, I appreciate it. Yeah, that's an interesting legal question. I think just to tout our accomplishments just a hair more, explore Minnesota recognizes these DMOs yearly at their big gathering. And the last year, I think we won um some [snorts] general award, we we were top three finalists and this year our website went into the top three finalist. So of the I don't know how many are out there, tens if not hundreds of these. The work we are doing is getting acknowledged by other folks in the marketing world. Right. to Scott to your point, maybe the navigation isn't perfect for everybody and there's going to be bugs, right, as a website breaks, just like any other property. It's just a digital property.

I think it's a generation thing is what it is, perhaps. Yeah, it's a generation thing. It's Gus's case. But our our website hits our our, you know, we're approaching 200,000 website visitors a year to that website. Our social media following has grown, you know, by not tens of percents, but hundreds of percents, right? We got 6,000 Facebook followers, maybe 3,500 Instagram followers. So these are right. We're posting on a very frequent basis and so taking it in-house is ob is an option. It's um it's no small task.

Yeah. To that end, your honor, council Mortonson, we could certainly take it in house from a legality perspective. I could not look you guys in the eye and say we have the capacity or the expertise to do the work. So you would quickly see us back before you uh looking for some sort of consultant or to engage somebody beyond city staff to do the work if it were in house. So um just being fully honest and transparent about that. We do not have capacity or expertise today to execute that strategy. Scott,

I guess the dilemma I see here is that we don't have a contract that we can neither approve or not and this one's going to expire. So you know what are we going to do on Monday? I mean, what do we have to approve or not approve? Do we just, you know, stamp the old one and say keep going and we've got a little memo attached to it or do we really have a contract to approve? You don't have a contract to approve. The the the work on Monday would be to uh direct city attorney to, you know, amend the contract to include these bullet points. Okay. And so then the existing contract expires, then we're just sort of in no man's land for a while till that happens, right? Yep.

Well, if they can live without any contract for a while, I guess I can live without a contract for a while, but the reality is there be there'll be nothing after Monday for a while, right? Would it take us a two week time frame? You do have the option, your honor, to extend the existing agreement for another 60 days with both parties consent if you wanted to. if you're worried about operating another contract. [snorts]

Well, I just I don't know that there's a gain in extending the contract other than if there's some payment due during that window of time or something, but if we just I mean obviously they got the money, they can operate without any payment due. So, how about there's just nothing until you get it done? That's what I guess I'm suggesting here. But I don't know if that's if that crushes something that can't be revived as you talked about difficulty of rebuilding something or if we can just operate without a contract for a period without it being some uh

my one concern I have if we have no contract we'll visit Fergus Falls Rolando and others. Are you guys planning on participating in the exit 54 meeting next week that James is putting on? Because I mean I I don't want to not have a contract so you guys don't participate in that. I think it's very important that visit Fergus Falls is a seat at that meeting. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Participating from the beginning. We already had a meeting. Yeah. And I I knew you were. I just don't want to not have a contract. So, you don't I mean, I don't know. Administratively, I don't know how difficult it is to sign a 30-day extension while we hammer out the details, but that's that's the paperwork.

I mean, we could bring on Monday evening kind of an extension of 30 days to the to this while the contract gets drafted. I don't know. I mean, Ralph may or may not be able to get a draft of the contract out by Monday. That's because technically it's got to go out Thursday, which is only tomorrow afternoon. Yeah. I guess I'm not excited about the idea of extending something that we've already extended. So, I'd rather just let it expire and, you know, get the thing done and bring it back. We would much rather see this come to a close. It as a board, it has consumed a lot of energy and at times at the detriment of some other things that we would like to start hammering out for 2026 here. So, I mean, in actuality, it's it's really going to be like a two week time frame is what we're looking at here. Not not that it's going to be

it will be a month or two for the next the second 16th or whatever. You know, I know we've eaten up a lot of time. I am curious if anybody's still on the fence, you you know, if you don't feel comfortable asking your question now, uh, you know, you can reach out directly to any of us on the board via phone, via email, or to our executive director, and we'd be happy to answer any questions. So, we would be looking for a motion today to uh bring this to the agenda on Monday evening for to instruct the city attorney. Motion, your honor. I second that. Thank you, Laura. What was the motion?

The motion to bring this to the city, instruct the city attorney to draft a new contract including these points. So, your honor, I'm just going to abstain. I I own a billboard company on the interstate. Not that I'm doing business with them, but I'm going to abstain. No, that's uh very clear. Thank you, Mike. So, all those in favor say I. I. I. All those again, same sign. I The motion is approved. We can bring that probably on the consent agenda. Thank you everyone. Have a good day.

Thank you Thomas. Thank you kind of group. So um one addition to the um agenda this this evening feels like this evening [laughter] closer. Yeah. Is um from Bill Som um regarding request for proposals on on municipal advisor for structuring and selling municipal bonds. With that over to Bill.

Thank you your honor. council. Um, what we're talking about here is our bond consultant. We have been with Baker Tilly for many years. You probably remember Doug Green coming and talking to us over that time. In the last year, Doug did leave the firm. Um, so we've been working with other staff there. But as we put these projects together for this summer, um, I, you know, you've talked as a council some about RFPs relate related to um, municipal adviserss and I wanted to get your feel for that. Is that something you're wanting me to pursue? because if that is, I want to get going on it now so that I'm ready to put those financing packages together um when bids are coming in for our summer project. So, we kind of get our arms around that. Um like I said, we've been with Baker Tilly for a number of years. There's probably four main firms that do that. These names are familiar to you because Clara just talked to them about the t the tiff consultant. It's the same firms um Baker Tilly, David Drown, Ellers, and Northland. Um, the other one I put in here is DAD Davidson. They may not really be a municipal adviser, but if we go this route, I would probably talk to them. Um, Paul Donna, who used to be our municipal adviser years ago, um, he is with DA Davidson and has reached out to us in the past. So, I'll be very brief there. Just want to get your feeling on that if that's something you want us to pursue at this time. Scott,

I appreciate the long-standing history that we had with Baker Tilly and I think they've given us good advice and it's been a good working relationship there, but we recently had a contract where I think it was David Drown that came in really substantially less expensive. So, it might be worth looking at the options just to see if there's really a significant cost savings there.

Yeah. And I'm there may be some cost savings. I know a lot of these firms I my gut kind of tells me they'll all be pretty much in the same ballpark but um we don't know until we get that back and um I did you get cost from Baker Tilly on tiff for this round so we didn't even have from Baker Tilly to figure out what the cost would have been on that but your honor I make a motion that we uh go up for bids on our municipal advisor. Thank you. Would somebody second that? Thank you, Al. I think Laurel had a question. I was just going to make the motion if no one else was. So, all those in favor say I. I.

All those against the same sign. Hearing none, the motion is approved. Everybody good with the consent agenda? And if you're comfortable with that, I may put out some emails to these people and get them working on it today even um instead of even waiting for Monday. Are you good with that? I am very good with that. Okay. Thank you. Good. Then um last but no mean means least this morning uh something that we haven't done for a while is an annual report and uh with with over to Andrew.

Yeah. Thank you honor members and I may ask for a delay in this item. Um we are approaching the 9:00 hour. We have an investment committee scheduled for 9:00 which is hard to move. So, I think this particular item and all the work that's gone into it from our department heads and from Lynn and everybody else involved deserves uh the appropriate amount of time. I would estimate that I probably need 45 minutes to do it justice and I don't want to do that to you this morning. So, my proposal is this. I could do it at 4:30 on Monday night and we could do a special session or I could just uh put it on the top of the next committee of the whole and that will be the focus of the meeting and then other business can can get pushed from there. So, whatever the council's desires are, but I I really don't think we can do it justice in the 12 12 minutes, 15 minutes, whatever we have. Um I did present this yesterday to Rotary or uh yeah, Rotary and it took over a half an hour and I didn't even go in depth. So, um I I think we need to do something differently if we're going to do it justice. So, whatever your desires are, I'm happy to uh to uh accommodate that.

We've wait, you know, we've waited this quite a while on this anyway. I not wait, I shouldn't say I use those words. We haven't had one for quite a while. So, we I think another week or even a month. It's not going to hurt a thing.

I'll plan for the next committee of the whole. Um I will say this, you have a copy of the report in front of you. We uploaded it to the city website last night. So, if the public's itching to look at that, um, go on the city website at the top there's a tab that says departments, click on administration and it's on the administration page on the website. Um, this to that point that Mr. Rachel's just made, this is the first annual report that the city of Fergus Falls has done since the year 2000. So, we're 25 years in the making. Maybe leave it hanging for another couple weeks here, but um, you know, there's a lot of good information here. I've put a a presentation together with the help of Lynn that really pulls out some of the highlights, some of the fun facts and recognizes some of the uh accomplishments over the last year and and I really do want to give some attention to those things at the right time. So,

and I think it's important that the public get to actually Your honor, I appreciate Mr. Rachel's position. I do. Uh but 4:30 on Monday night would be a good time if if we're available. Whatever you guys want to do, I'm at your disposal. or not. James has a meeting in here on at 3:00. Yeah, that's true. Uh Dr. Leone has a meeting in here at 3:00 regarding the exit 54 closure and that could run long. I I was going to mention that as part of my slides. So, I think but I think that's an hour and a half and I think that would be fine. Whatever you guys want to do as long as there's a party break between

I'm good with 4:30. I mean, that's fine with me. I just I'm okay with that, too. The way that these meetings are done, they're streamed or recorded. If this was done at 4:30, would it also then be streamed or recorded? So that minute break between that'd be the difference. If it's a committee, the whole thing, it just becomes part of the normal streaming and recording deal. Whereas if it's 4:30, is it not anymore or we can we can as long as we don't run right up to 5:30, we need time for the video to upload to YouTube, rest, and then kick the new video off. So as long as it's got that option for the public, I think it's important. I think actually it [clears throat] wouldn't be good if it was probably as a single recording anyway. Happy to do that.

Put it on the Facebook page this week and put it out there in the packet. So when people look at the packet or see Facebook, I'd like the public to see this or hear this. So if we could put out there that that's going to be talked about. Ginormous. Oh, okay. No, no, that the 4:30 meeting is going to be available, not the packet. We can promote the meeting.

We will link we can put a post on Facebook that the annual report's complete and we can put a link to it on our website. I I'm not I people see it great. I mean, that's not going to steal, you know, the show, so to speak. And I don't have a show. I just uh we have good information to cover and uh the more people that lay eyes on it and the more hands that it touches, that's the that's the whole point of doing something like this to show them where their tax dollars are going. Mr. Bith, is there a golf meeting today at 8? We had a golf meeting scheduled at 8. I will be reaching out to those of you affected to hopefully reschedule for this afternoon because obviously we've went way beyond our 8:00 meeting. So, um we'll we'll touch base here as soon as we get offline.

Yeah. So, with that then I'll just say we can send out a meeting invite for 4:30 on Monday then. Yep. Should we touch on the fact that there is a meeting on Monday and talk about at least that so anyone that's watching this knows there's an extra 54 meeting?

I can do that. Yes. Uh so, Dr. Dr. Leone, like I mentioned, will be hosting at 3:00 on Monday in the city council chambers here an initial meeting to talk about the impacts of exit 54 with all interested parties, but really really strongly encouraging businesses to attend that meeting in partnership with Visit Fergus Falls and the Chamber of Commerce. And um at that meeting, he's going to start talking about strategies and ways that businesses can think about this closure, get ahead of this closure, and things that they can maybe do to uh sustain the the major disruption that we're going to see this summer. Beyond that, he's also going to be launching a three-week um virtual session once a week. There's two different sessions each week on the same topic uh going deeper into some of those strategies. So, people should uh keep an eye out for that. We will be sending out a direct mailer to um businesses kind of between the western boundary of the city to Tower Road trying to capture uh that area and then the mayor is going door to door to the downtown businesses to uh make sure he's interacting with them face to face as well. So

just got one section left.

Excellent. So a lot of outreach to try to really push people to these resources. James has done a lot of work to uh begin to prepare uh businesses. He's done some research on what similar projects to this one have done and meant for communities during the construction season. And again, that could be, you know, April to October in this the end of October in this case. It's going to be a significant period of time for some of these businesses that, you know, may have some small margins. So, very important that we get ahead of that. And uh one thing we talked about yesterday, um within the next probably month or so, we'll have Kyle give a a quick synopsis or reminder recap of what that project uh is so it remains relevant in the new cycle and also talk about kind of the sequencing and staging so people really understand what the impact of the construction will be. Um the exit on the interstate will be closed for the entirety of the project. So um it's going to be very disruptive. 210 east west will be maintained throughout the project. Um, but that interstate traffic is is really going to be impacted. So, I'll leave it at that. But, uh, there are some resources out there and and we're encouraging businesses to engage the city and engage Dr. Leml and and, uh, get ahead of that issue.

Thank you. with that. Um obviously announcements was city council meeting obviously proper at 5:30 um and uh on on March the 2nd and March 11 7:00 committee of the hall. With that we are adjourned.