City Council - Regular Meeting

Yep. Sure can.

Oops, I didn't mean that. Sorry. It wasn't on the actual gavel. It just was Ryan's head.

Well, this meeting should be ten minutes. Except for public input. Okay.

Oh, yes, sir. Maybe you should be Mayor Pro Tem. All right. Call to order the City of Cannon Falls City Council meeting Tuesday, June 2nd. Roll call, please.

Diane Johnson.

Here.

Zimmerman.

Here.

Jepson. Here. Nobach. Here. Cronenberger.

Here.

Montgomery and Chad Johnson are absent.

All right. Stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. All right, can I get a motion to approve the agenda?

I'll move. Second.

Motion by Jepson, second by Nobach. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. Public input. Public input is intended to afford the public an opportunity to address concerns to the city council. The public input will be no longer than 30 minutes in total length and each speaker will have no more than three minutes to speak. Speakers may address topics relevant to the governance of the city. Speakers must sign up in advance and must provide their name, address, and the topic they intend to address. Comments must stay on topic be respectful pertinent to city business and adhere to the applicable data privacy rules Any speaker that violates these rules will be asked to sit down and if the speaker refuses to comply may be removed from the meeting. I Speakers shall not address topics that are subject of a public hearing. All such comments shall be made at the public hearing. The City Council will not generally act on issues raised by the public input, but may choose to schedule consideration of the item on a future agenda. Tim Dahmer.

It's Tim Dahmer at... Riverside Terrace and Cannon Falls. I wish I wasn't having to be here. But it's a good... I gave some messages to Mayor Montgomery. I don't seem to... He listened to. I don't have. He says he's going to talk to the chief. He said that to me twice. Just the last time was just bumping into him coming out of the grocery store, and he's just not. I'm just looking for, which I don't see happening. It's non-biased. I don't know if it's the same in a small city. They're not like partisan side, but to be bipartisan, both working together. There's things happening on a weekly basis. Just on Sunday, something occurred at a church. I regularly go, or not that regularly, but I've been there plenty of times. two weeks ago I've been, a police report was called for service was had by two police officers showed up at the McDonald's. I asked for the case number. They said it's not, there is no incident numbers. So they were bait. They were telling me it wasn't a call. They told when I spoke to him in inside the tour, they're up against the counter inside the lobby and they said, um, They're just doing a business check and other things they, in our short interaction, it just didn't, something wasn't right and sure enough, you know, they got out back, they left in a hurry. They were like wanting to get out of there. There was no, what they got called there for wasn't happening and it was against me A man and a dog. And so then to find out, the very next day I came down and got the police report. He said there's no incident report made. And sure enough, there was. And talked to the chief, Chief McCormick. He said they should, I believe is one of the things Chief McCormick told me, they should have provided that to me. And so is that considered a lie? Are they lying when they tell me there is? It's just something's got to be communicated with me. We hear it all the time about accountability in communities, not just here, it's everywhere, to have integrity, courage, and knowledge. It's a simple acronym, ICIC. So where's the integrity? I get the nods and the thank yous and I'm sorrys, and that's unfortunate. Thank you, Tim.

All right, that moves us to the consent agenda. The consent agenda items may be adopted under one motion as presented or may be removed for discussion and resolution as council business. A, just and correct claims accounting period ending May 28, 2026. Meeting minutes for May 19, 2026 city council minutes. Approve user agreement of John Birch Park with ISD 252. Approve user agreement of tennis courts with ISD 252. Approve Jason Helgren for general maintenance one position and authorized staff to advertise and fill general maintenance two position. Resolution 2878 regarding the administration of the Minnesota Wetland Conservation Act. Is there anything anybody would like to pull down or can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda. So moved.

Second.

A motion by Diane, a second by Jepson. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. All right. That moves us to reports. Do you happen to have something from chamber?

I do. Let's see. Two upcoming events that Carrie asked me to report. The first is the summer kickoff, which is Thursday, June 11th from 3 to 7. A community, family-friendly event downtown with food, live music, vendors. Please plan to bring your family for an evening of fun. And then the second event is the golf tournament, which is Monday, June 15th at 1230, Shotgun Start. If anyone is interested in getting a team together, contact Carrie to get signed up.

All right. Thank you, Sarah. Joint Powers Trail Board, Lisa?

No new updates, but they've been just working.

Ready for the spring or summer? All right. And Planning Commission, Diane?

We dealt with an issue of granting a variance for a fence to be six feet tall, and that will come to the next council meeting.

All right. Finance Committee, we just met. Do you want to do an overview of what we just talked about?

I can discuss that.

We had three items that brought forward for discussion at the Finance Committee. The first is on the Cannon Mall property. There is a party that's interested in buying that, has a purchase agreement established with the owner. And so back in 2001, There was actually, that part of town was annexed, or a little earlier than that, that part of town was annexed. There was street and utility improvements that were made to service that area, and the mall property was included on that. And there was a settlement agreement on those assessments with the owner at the time and the city that was ruled by an arbiter. So as part of that, there are still a few outstanding deferred assessments on that property. However, The way the deferrals worked is that they accrue interest from the time of that settlement agreement. So over 25 years, a lot of interest has accrued on the remaining principle of $118,000 for that. So we discussed options for how to potentially work through that assessment agreement because it's going to be very difficult if those assessments are still accounted for, need to be paid in full because they've accrued to almost $500,000 just in the interest for anything to kind of develop or happen on that property. So we'll be bringing more back and likely seeing something at the next council meeting around a potential assessment agreement with the potential new owner. The other was with the nursing home property. So the owner rep of the nursing home, I've been in contact with them regarding the conditions of the property and what needs to be done. And at the time of our last conversation, they were interested in potentially offering the property to be donated to the city. And they would like to... see what our response was on that. So I'm still waiting for the formal acknowledgement of that is agreed upon, but likely that is something that we talked about. And obviously last fall, we were discussing what our potential options were if the property owners weren't able to or willing to make the necessary improvements on the property for it and going so far as to M&O main and taking and all the legal costs with that. Melissa would avoid a lot of those hassles if it would come to us, but still coming with a significant liability. The benefit is that's a very eligible redevelopment area of the community. But our struggles that we have had, because there was a purchase agreement with Quick Trip on that, has been around MnDOT and District 6 and what can be done that would have an increase in potential increase in traffic flow and how they would be able to access the property coming off of Highway 19 and whether or not they'd be able to use Dow Street for both left and right on and off entrances. The last is we have been proposed from the Episcopal Church and their representative in potentially donating that property. And I asked for direction from the Finance Committee if they're willing to for us to move forward with hiring an inspector to look at that and whether or not there's anything with that property that we should be concerned about if we were going to receive that as a donation as well. I also spoke with the Historical Society Board. They are interested if that were to be donated to the city and taking that and belt that into the fold of the management agreement that we established with them with the museum. so that they would be kind of our stewards for the property to operate and maintain that space for the community. It would be the church and the Guild Hall, and I know the Guild Hall still has active users, and that they do have groups that maintain that property as well. So I think there's a good opportunity there for a partnership if they're interested. And the Cirque Society board did indicate that they were interested. So next steps would be to get on the property to do the inspection and just verify what we would need to do. Now I know that conflicts a little bit with what we're talking about with the nursing home, but I have been in that property and I don't believe inspection is necessary because the assessment there is that building needs to come down. So it's just a matter of getting proper quotes and understanding the cost to demo. And we do have grant opportunities that we can apply for through Minnesota Deed. There's redevelopment grants for demolition that would reimburse up to 50% of the cost of the demolition. They are competitive and they have two application cycles, February and August, but if we can... understand and know how to have direction on the nursing home property, then we would be prepared to be able to make a pretty firm competitive application process by the start of August to deed. And that's it.

Oh, on the church or no?

Oh, on the... I talked about the church.

Sorry.

You guys gave me direction to... Get somebody to inspect property. I was going in... And then I went backwards. Sorry. So that's my fault.

I was going through agenda orders.

All right. And I step back to talk to the nursing home just to compare the... That we wouldn't need... I wouldn't necessarily say we need to do inspection of the nursing home property because, you know, we all know it's bad.

Yeah. Got it.

If the city did have it, I would say, you know, there's been interest in assets in the chapel. And I would... I think we would definitely be open to exploring getting those back to those that donated materials there if they're still salvageable.

Okay. All right, Chief McCormick.

Yes?

Do you have anything you would like to share?

Oh!

Yes, you are mixing it up. I was like, what is this?

I don't know. Going around the corner.

What did you want to know about the church? I don't know.

I'm going to keep you guys on your toes.

Apparently not me. We are into summertime. Hard to believe that we're less than a month away from the fair. So we're starting to do work on our plans for that. On the 11th will be the Chamber's downtown fun activities. So there will be a little disruption to normal traffic that day on Mill Street. But it's the same activity people are used to, so it shouldn't prove too daunting. But everybody should come down, have a good time. Lieutenant Berg is working on what he wants to do for the booth. I know he's also working on our activities for the fair. I think he is getting a seatbelt demo for that one. But that stuff will firm up by our next council meeting. I'll be able to give you further details. That's what I got.

Great. Sarah? John, anything else?

I just want to let you all know that I do have a vacation with my family next week, so I will be out of the office all of next week.

All right. Becky. I'm sorry, Nicole. I don't know why I thought Becky.

I don't either. Okay. So summer reading has begun. It started yesterday. It is for all ages, so... Sign up. I try to make it a family affair. So if you're signing up your kids, sign up too. Make it a bit of a competition to see who can read more. We have prizes for all age groups. Chocolate for adults and teens because who doesn't like chocolate? And so the theme this year is reading gives you wings. I'm Really shouting out to Alexa and Kira for coming up with this theme all by themselves and organizing it. They're really fabulous. And so our kickoff party for our summer reading is going to be this, wait, tomorrow, the 3rd, at Eastside Park tomorrow afternoon. So bring the kids, have a party. It'll be fun. The library is also going to be at the Fun Fest on the 11th. We're going to set up a tent right outside the library to get people to sign up for the summer reading, maybe get library cards. We're going to have some games and some prizes and whatnot. So it should be pretty fun. We have a Seeds Women exhibit going on at the library right now through... Oh, through the 23rd. So that, the description is, at the turn of the 20th century, Carrie Lippincott, Emma White, and Jesse Pryor ran seed-selling businesses in Minneapolis that influenced competitors nationwide at a time when few companies were woman-owned. Their stories are preserved in the Anderson Horticultural Library at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. With the support from the Minnesota Digital Library and the AHL, this traveling exhibit was created to showcase these pioneering women. So stop by the library to see what these women have done. The exhibit is right next to the fireplace. Very pretty spot, pretty exhibit. And my last thing is that we have gotten an induction cooking kit. from the state for free that we'll be able to start loaning out to people. We are in the process of processing it. Process of processing. And so it should be ready to check out by the end of this month. And Kira and I are planning on doing a program for how to use it. So a food program for people to come and get free food and learn how to

cook on this induction stove so that's all i've got right now all right thank you izzy chad um hardwood estates third edition uh they poured curb last week and asphalt the first lift of asphalt was put down today um Correct me if I'm wrong, John, but this will be the only asphalt until next year after a freeze-thaw cycle. And then they'll put the second lift. And if there's any issues, they'll fix that. So they've already broke ground on a couple of houses on Maple Lane. It's moving right along. 2026 project is broke ground two weeks ago, or right, well, the day after council. Yeah, two weeks ago. And they've encountered a lot of rock, which was kind of anticipated. It is slow moving. There's a ton of rock. There's a rock shelf that they're going through. But they're making their way towards the railroad tracks to get all the infrastructure under the railroad tracks. And possibly will be a delay on when they get there, but... Anyhow, but it is moving right along. Dakota Street is closed right there on Dakota and 4th. Everybody that lives there already knows that, but just to reiterate, it's going to be closed for a minute while they're laying infrastructure through there.

Then last, this isn't necessarily a city project, but it affects Veterans Lane.

The VFW is reciting the VFW. With all their equipment there, we've allowed them to kind of shut down the Veterans Lane while they're working so they don't run over anybody. So yeah, that's all I got. Thank you.

CHRISTIE WOODARD- All right. Thank you. Miss Diane?

DIANE DEBACKER- I'm good.

CHRISTIE WOODARD- Lisa? LISA HARTMAN- Good. CHRISTIE WOODARD- Good.

CHRISTIE WOODARD- Good. CHRISTIE WOODARD- Chris. CHRISTIE WOODARD- Sorry. Can you give the public a one-minute version of the noise analysis with the Fairbanks? CHRISTIE WOODARD- Yeah.

So we did get the results back from the noise study with the demolition derby, and I apologize I haven't been able to share that out with everybody yet. But nothing from the results that came back from the monitoring equipment was out of compliance.

Thank you. All right. Well, I don't have anything further, so with that I would take a motion to adjourn.

So moved. Second.

Motion by Diane, a second by Lisa. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries.