City Council - Regular Meeting

Call to order. The City of Cannon Falls City Council meeting Tuesday, July 21st, 2026. If I could get a roll call, please. Diane Johnson.

Here.

Zimmerman.

Here.

Chad Johnson.

Here.

Jepson. Here. Nobach. Here. Cronenberger. Absent. Montgomery. Here. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

If I could get a motion to approve tonight's agenda.

Motion.

Motion from Lisa. Second. Second from Jep. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That carries. Nobody signed up for public input, so we will skip that and go straight into our presentation, the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities. Darren Lee, the floor is yours.

I thought there'd be a consent agenda before me, but that's all right. Thanks for getting me on the schedule. My name is Darren Lee. I am with the firm Flaherty and Hood, and we represent the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities down at the Capitol. We love to come to our member cities during the interim between legislative sessions just to kind of let you know what we've been working on on your behalf. I think Cannon Falls is a recent addition to the coalition, so welcome. We appreciate having you join us. So I'll just get into it here. So a little background about who we are. So we're more than 100 cities outside of the metropolitan area, which distinguishes us from the League of Minnesota Cities, which is a lot of metro members. So they have a kind of a wide diversity of cities in their group. The coalition being that we're Greater Minnesota, it allows us to focus on issues that are mainly important to Greater Minnesota. So those are some of the issues we work on. We added a couple here in recent years. We've been working a lot on housing and EMS, and so we added those. I work on transportation issues. And so starting off with a recap here. Um, but before I do that, I should, I'll just describe what I passed out in those folders. Um, you've got our session report, which we'll go into a little bit more detail on what I can't get into here and the amount of time I've got. And then, uh, frequently asked questions, CGMC basics, uh, what sets us apart, our labor and employee relations program information on there. Uh, Our event schedule, so our summer conference actually starts tomorrow. I was talking to John. He's going to be joining us tomorrow in New Ulm, but I think any last-minute additions, we can make accommodations for you if you'd like to join us. It's going to be a great event. We've got some governor candidates coming, some legislators that are going to be speaking on a panel, some great breakout sessions, that sort of thing. And then we have our fall conference coming up in Waite Park in November. And our Legislative Action Day next year is already on the calendar. So you can come advocate with us at the Capitol next year. We've got our housing report. This one was kind of a lengthy report. So I just included a sheet that has a link. And you can read the full report on there. environmental program that was also telling me you've got some PFAS issues in town right now and so this is one that you'll probably want to take a look at and our staff contacts I'm on there we've got our all of our other staff that work on these various topic areas so if you have questions on any of those issues please don't hesitate to reach out and contact us so 26 recap so Divided government brings low expectations. And I should say, I'm actually surprised at the end of session how much they did get done at the end. They passed like 24 chapters of law on the final weekend. So they exceeded my expectations, at least. But very narrowly divided legislature, House's 67-67 tie between the Republicans and Democrats. And the DFL has a one-seat majority in the Senate. So it makes everything a four-way negotiation. Some of the topics that were at the forefront during the session, fraud, of course, guns, school safety, bonding was a big one, which we'll get to. And then Hennepin County Medical Center kind of was floating out there as an issue that hospital has had some financial issues. And so, uh, they put together a rescue package or a sort of a, uh, financial stabilization fund, if you will, for, uh, HCMC. And that was one, one thing that, uh, did pass at the end. Nothing really on guns, uh, at all. They did do some things on fraud. Um, So our agenda for the session, from a CGMC perspective, protect LGA, no LGA cuts, pass a bonding bill, which contains all those infrastructure projects that are so important for our cities, lead line funding. I think you've got some lead service lines in town as well. So we'll talk a little bit about that. And then something that just keeps coming up year after year, housing, rezoning. issue where the state is trying to preempt your local authority over how you do your land use policies here in town. And so that was something that we had to lobby against again this year. So starting off with the forecast. So the thing about this slide is there's kind of a lot going on on this slide, but I think the main thing to highlight is February of 2025, we had a $6 billion deficit. And so in that second biennium, fiscal year 28-29, you can see there's just a little bit of money on the bottom line going into the session. And then we have the structural imbalance is just the difference between money coming in, money coming out, which isn't quite the same as a deficit, but if the structural imbalance continues, you end up with a deficit. So the legislature still has some work to do to correct some of those issues. But they've gone quite a bit of the way. And then the forecast, because of the economy changing and revenues coming in, to improve the budget situation. Very little spending contemplated. They did end up making some cuts primarily in human services area to help address those fiscal challenges. In 2025, the Senate Democrats proposed cuts to LGA. That was defeated in large part because local government groups like ours were there and working with the House and saying, no, we're not going to accept anything like that. Um, and then focus on bonding bill. Uh, and luckily this year with the improved budget situation, there wasn't any discussion of LGA cuts, but, we'll have to watch those future budget forecasts to make sure that that doesn't pop up again next year. Because if the budget outlook deteriorates, that's something that lawmakers could target to try to save money on that. Bonding. So, of course, this is one issue where you have to have bipartisanship It takes 60% to pass any bill that borrows money. So this is one area where the minority party has some leverage into getting the kind of projects that they want. The governor's proposal is on here. Public facilities authority, $99 million. Business development, public infrastructure, $2.5 million. And being the transportation guy, I thought this is, I think, the second time in the last couple of years that he's proposed nothing for local roads and bridges. Most of his proposal is on state-owned assets like the MNSCU system, the U of M system, state buildings, state parks, that sort of thing. And then very little set aside for local projects. So that was the governor's proposal. Um, here's some of our, some of our folks, uh, testifying, uh, lobbying in favor of passing a substantial bonding bill. Um, and so then here's what ended up happening with, uh, quite a strong, uh, strong support from both parties. It ended up being a total of 1.24 billion, uh, and then 400 plus million for public facilities authority. for those water, wastewater projects that, as you know, are so expensive. And so more than four times what the governor had proposed. And then there was a little bit in there for roads and bridges. So I was happy to see that. In addition to the $25 million for bridges and $47 million for roads, there was another $100 million in earmarked projects. you know named projects uh you know unfortunately a lot of those are in the metro area so i would like to see a little bit more in those two categories that 25 and 47 rather than those earmarked projects but legislators you know they like getting those projects in their districts and so um such as it is And then unlike the 2025 bill, which had nothing for local projects, there was quite a bit on local projects this year. So lead service lines, you know, this is part of the bonding bill, but we thought we'd break this out and talk a little bit more about it because it's something that we've been working a lot on. So... You know, there's an issue with if you don't get enough funding to fill the construction season, you know, that's a threat. You know, in 2023, they initially allocated $240 million. The EPA is mandating that by 2037, all lead service lines have to be replaced. And so, you know, a total of $1.5 billion. We were asking $250. There's the inventory map that you can check and, you know, you can identify it down to each household so you can see if you have lead service line at your home or not. Not all of them have been identified, I should say. So some of those are question marks. I know you've done a lot of work to get those identified. So that's helpful. So this was one where there was a little disappointment here. We only were able to obtain $15 million in this year's bill. And so there's a lot of other competing priorities, of course. So we're going to need to work on this again next year and try to find a dedicated, ongoing source to find. Because the way I was talking about this the other day with somebody, we've got a coalition built of labor folks, environmental folks, and city government folks that have been working on this. And there are some of the people at that press conference from those different groups speaking to the press there. So if there were to be more money for the lead line replacement projects, that would be less of that $400 million that went to those other wastewater and drinking water projects. And we want that money, too, because those are important. it's kind of like we don't want to cut into that too much. And so that's why we're going to be looking for some additional sources, which we're thinking about right now. So housing and zoning. This is just one that just keeps coming back like a bad penny. So in 2024, missing middle, they called it 2025 yes to homes. And then this year it was rebranded again as the starter home act. So, It's a lot of the same things that we've seen. Preemption, materials, aesthetic standards, require alternative dwelling units, parking, getting rid of parking requirements, you know, mandating certain densities, uh, commercial, uh, residential with commercial, that sort of thing. So I think they, the intention of the proponents of this was to allow a little bit more flexibility this year by saying, well, you got to, you know, do it on a third of this area, you know, but you get to pick what third, but you know, it's still, it's still way too prescriptive. You know, it still is preempting, you know, how you want to decide how to do it. Um, One thing, so cities under 5,000 would have had to, that first bullet there, all cities would have had to do those things under the proposal. Then cities over 5,000 would have had to do those additional things, that second set of bullets there. And then cities over 10,000 would have to do yet additional requirements, like the parking minimums, additional upzoning, creation of a housing trust fund, subsidy programs. So you could kind of choose your own adventure there, as we say. You'd have to pick some of those. I don't know how many of those you'd have to pick. You wouldn't have to do all of those, but you would have to do some of those. Pick a couple of them. it was us and then, uh, Metro cities, uh, municipal legislative commission. We both, we all testified. Um, there's our executive director, Bradley Peterson, who will be at the conference this week, uh, testifying on housing issues. And, you know, we know that, uh, zoning preemption of zoning is not a silver bullet. That's going to solve housing problems, you know, solve a housing crisis and economic development issues. in our cities in greater Minnesota. So didn't get a hearing in the Senate. It was defeated in the House Committee. Luckily, nothing there passed with the exception of there was something done on homeowners associations that put some restrictions and added some protections. I guess you would say like limits on fines for folks who live in those. It would say that Cities can't require the creation of a homeowners association for development. But outside of that, none of those other proposals that were worse than that passed. So looking ahead... We've got, of course, Governor Walz is not running, so we've got an open primary race for governor. There's two or three folks on the Republican side. And then we've got a US Senate seat, of course. All legislative seats are on the ballot this year, both the House and the Senate. We've got congressional seats on the ballot. Um, so, uh, we have, we actually, I just got an email today. Our candidate packet is available. So, uh, we've got that ready. And so that's going to be going out to candidates, uh, particularly the ones that when their primary. And so then we've got session convening again in January. Oh, and I should mention, you know, we had like over 40 legislative retirements. And so, regardless of what happens with the election, you know, there's going to be a lot of new faces. It's going to be a totally new legislature. I think like the tax committee, the Senate tax committee, I don't think anybody that's on that committee this year is coming back. So we're going to have to educate all these new, uh, new legislators about our issues. And so, um, and then again, there's my, my list of events make a final plug for those. Um, and then I think I just have, Oh, and that's my boss's name on there. I didn't change. I didn't swap it out. But yeah, no, you can direct questions to him. No, I'm happy to answer questions. And my contact information is on this sheet. So any questions for me? Thanks again for having me. Really appreciate your time. Any topics the council wants to ask Darren?

Thank you for coming tonight and thank you for your presentation.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Have a good night.

Yeah, you too. That brings us along to our consent agenda. Consent agenda items may be adopted under one motion as presented or may be removed for discussion and resolution as council business. Item A, just and correct claims for the accounting period ending July 15th, 2026. Item B, meeting minutes for July 7th, 2026. Item C, authorized out of state travel for ICMA conference. Item D, approve the street closure. Item E, approve professional service agreement with WHKS for Hardwood Estates fourth edition phase three. Item F, approve gambling premises permit application for St. Pius Church. G, resolution 2883, accepting a $1,500 donation from Invenergy Cannon Falls to the police department. Item H, resolution 2884, accepting a $1,000 donation from Invenergy to the ambulance department. Item I, resolution 2885, accepting a $1,000 donation from Invenergy to the fire department. Item J, resolution 2886, accepting a $9,821.89 donation from Goodhue County to the fire department. And item K, approve request for historic district ordinance amendment. Is there anything the council would like pulled down into council business? Hearing none, I would seek a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda.

So moved.

Second. Motion from Diane, second from Chad. Any further discussion? All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Carries. Moves us on to council business. And tonight we have resolution 2887, approving the concept plan for Cannonball 2, a 69-unit apartment complex. Izzy.

Alrighty, so at the last Planning Commission meeting, so July 13th, we presented the concept plan for Cannonball 2, which is 69-unit apartment complex. So with that presentation, the Planning Commission did consider and recommend approval for that concept plan. And I'll just do kind of a quick overview. So this is a planned unit development. So it's a three-stage process. So this is just the first stage, which is the concept plan. So a very high-level overview of what the site and what the project can and could look like. So with that, after a concept plan, we move into development stage, which is where we get into the fine-tune details, so everything from grading plans to water and sewer to actual building plans for the apartment. And then after that, the final plan to fine-tune everything. So again, this is very high-level overview. of what the project could look like and it's an opportunity for the planning commission city council to ask any questions and let us know any major concerns that they have and what we can address within the development stage so just a overview of the project so Like I said, a 69-unit apartment complex. So quick overview. So it would be tentatively about eight three-bedrooms, 26 two-beds, 27 one-beds, and eight studios within the apartment. So... pretty similar to the first one obviously more three beds on this one so they'll be both above ground and underground parking so if you remember from the last one the parking garage is at grade this one will actually be underground parking and then of course surface level with that there are within a planned unit development the purpose of it is to you know allow flexibility and setbacks in zoning and things like that so requested waivers for this project are very similar to cannonball one so I'll just run through those quick so that they're in your mind so The first one is just allowing a smaller studio unit. So in our code, you have to be at 500 square feet, just pushing it down to 480 for the studios. The rest of the units would meet code. Second is for height. So the same as last time, we would just allow three stories or excuse me, allow four stories. The city code is a max of three. Next is parking. So per city code, we require 2.25 parking spaces per unit, which is a lot of parking spaces. And the current one definitely has more Plenty of parking. It's a little bit over parked. So we would be asking for 1.5 spaces per unit on this one. And then next is about the studio apartments again. So the city code only allows a max of 10% of the apartment to be studio units. This would be a max of 30% for those studios. And then next is just lot size so where this is sitting It's just south of where the current Cannonball 2 is so junction of 4th Street South and then 318th there so I just want to mention so we kind of have, I think Laura might be bringing it up now, but for lot size, the lot size has to be 2,500 square feet per unit. What we have with the land right there, it would be about 1,956 square feet per unit, and that's really similar to the waiver from last time. I think it was around like 1,600 or 1,700 square feet, so very, very similar. And then the last waiver is just about parking. So just allowing the leased parking to be an a la carte provision of the tenant's lease. So those are the waivers. They're very, very, very similar to the waivers that were approved last time. Just a few, obviously, difference in lot sizes and things like that. And then the addition of the parking waiver. So very, very similar to those from Cannonball 1. So I just kind of want to go over. Let's see. Yeah, Laura's showing kind of the site plan or concept plan currently. So right below Cannonball 1 there and by the McDonald's. So this is very overview. There's still a lot of things we need to figure out in regards to access and things like that. But this gives you a really great idea of what the current plan is. And I kind of just want to go through a little bit of the schedule and what we have to get done for this project. So obviously we got the recommendation of planning commission for the approval of the concept plan. Today we're presenting the concept plan to you, to city council. So after tonight's approval, we would hopefully move on to presenting the development stage. And then with this property, we do need to rezone. So we would be rezoning from B2 to R4, which is high-density residential. So along with the development stage, we would be presenting you with an ordinance to rezone the property. So from there, obviously two readings of that, and then we would move forward with a final plan presentation, of course, to both Planning Commission and City Council. I do want to note both the rezoning and then the development stage both require... public hearings so next planning commission will have public hearings for both of those so everything was in your packet images here for the concept plan so open for any questions on the project if you have any again this is very high level for the project but open to any questions any questions or discussion from the council

Hearing none, I would seek a motion to approve resolution 2887, the concept plan for Cannonball 2.

So moved. Second.

Motion from Diane, second from Chris. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Carries. Gets us to our reports. Carries not here from chamber. Planning Commission, we basically just covered what was in the most recent meeting, so no report there. We'll do a round the horn. Jed.

We broke ground for reshaping the ice rink. We're going to try a new plan this year, see if we can make and keep ice. So our 2026 construction project is moving along. We're making good progress there. Everything seems to be on schedule.

Awesome. Thank you, Jed. Izzy, anything additional tonight? All right. Laura. Laura.

I just got a photo from the fire department. They got their new extractor and dryer installed and everything. I told them to send me a photo so we can get a press release out to Alex. You'll be getting that soon. That's great because if you're not familiar with what that does, it takes the carcinogens that are that they get on their gear when they're out fighting fires and everything. So it gets that off of them. It's like a big industrial kind of washing machine. So theirs broke down. We got a grant for it. So they just got that installed. So that's a good thing for our firefighters. Otherwise, we've got two houses that are framed in Hardwood Estate, so that's good. We closed on four a couple weeks ago. You've got the permits for the new four. So I think that's good, and you've approved our PSA to get the new concept going for the next phases. So that's good.

Thank you.

That's all I've got. Chief.

Chief. a couple of things council you uh approved a road closure for river road uh that'll be on the 28th of this month from about 9 30 till 1 for the residents it may have some impact if you use river road as a transit way it will be open to city hall so you'll be able to reach us if you need to but it'll be closed from there up to st cloud or st claire excuse me The other thing is we have National Night Out, Night to Unite. That will be occurring on August 4th, which is our next council meeting. Right now we currently have four parties. I would expect we'll probably get another two or three before the final meeting. Run list is made for the police, fire, and ambulance that go out to these parties. So if you're interested in hosting a party, please contact our office and Karen will get your information and we'll get you on the list. For the residents who will be at those parties, police, fire, and ambulance will be trying to make our rounds to all of them. Some of them overlap, so the amount of time that they get to spend varies depending upon how many parties we get. So that's what I have.

Thank you, Chief.

Sarah? Just a reminder that the elections are signing up for candidacy is open until the 28th at 5 p.m. So if anyone's interested in the positions of mayor, a four-year city council term or a two-year city council term, we have five positions total open. So come on in, bring your $2 to sign up, and we'll see you when you get here.

Thank you, Sarah. John. I just want to say thank you to council members Diane Johnson and Chad Johnson for attending the employee cookout we had last week. Good attendance from our staff. I really appreciate it. We had actually a really nice day despite the heat. We had a good breeze, so it was a lot of fun. I appreciate the opportunities to help and serve and give back to our staff. They do a lot for our community. Just wanted to note, we've had interviews for our maintenance operator two position, and we're getting close to the finals and actually discussing offers to position. Very excited about the candidates that we had and interviewed. It was for something that's kind of a hard position to fill generally across the state. I was really pleased with the quality of the candidates that we got. And as Darren said, I'll be at the coalition conference the rest of this week. Awesome. Thank you, John. Laura.

I'm good.

Chris. Nothing here. Ryan. Nothing. Diane.

On behalf of Chad, my thanks to John and Jed and everybody who helped with the picnic. It was great fun.

Awesome. Lisa. Chad.

I guess this is the first time I think we've approved as many donations to the department all at once. And so I'd like to thank Invenergy for really picking up there and going to the ambulance and those guys. So thank you.

I just want to say the group, the comprehensive plan, we had a meeting right before this. It was really nice to sit down and talk about these issues. And one of the things that we covered tonight was our local, what would you call it, our local food system. like I forget the extra word that they use, but the Minnesota Department of Ag is doing a study on Cannon Falls because of like our umbrella of food production. And when we were having the discussion, it made me think that as a local, I think so many of us might overlook how many different products are produced right here locally. Because if you look at our neighbors down in, you know, Kenyon, Wanamingo, Denison, Zambroda, you name it, Goodhue, other than the farming and ag community, which is obviously important to this region, but the city itself, the businesses that we have that produce food, Cannon Falls is actually very strong in that area, enough that we're on the state radar. So it's kind of a feather in our cap that I think sometimes we forget about, and I think we can utilize it as something to grow into the future and continue in those industries. So thank you to everybody that was at that meeting. With nothing else, I would seek a motion to adjourn. Motion from Chad. Second. Second goes to Lisa. All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? We're adjourned. Thank you, everybody.