City Council - Regular Meeting

Call to order for the City of Cannon Falls City Council meeting on Tuesday, August 4th, 2026. If I could get a roll call, please.

Diane Johnson. Here. Zimmerman. Absent. Chad Johnson. Here. Jepson. Here. Novak. Here. Kronenberger.

Here.

Montgomery. Here. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

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

Second.

I'm going to give the second to Diane. All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Carries, it's been approved. 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, must provide their name, address, and the topic they intend to address. Comments must be on topic, 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, they may be removed from the meeting. Speakers shall not address topics that are the subject of a public hearing. All such comments shall be made at the public hearing. The city council will not generally act on these issues raised by the public input, but may choose to schedule consideration of the item on a future agenda. Tonight, we've got Tim Deamer.

Hello, everyone. Hey, Tim. Tim. CHRIS RODGERS. Tim Deamer, Cannon Falls, Riverside Terrace. So topics relevant to the governance of the city. I should have asked this. Well, I really would like to ask a question. But since the city council will not generally act on issues, the questions get unanswered. So why even ask? I do have question, plural maybe, one question, more questions, but they will not generally act on issues. So anybody have questions for me? Hearing none, I'll just continue wanting to, I really would like to ask some questions.

All right, nobody else to sign up for public input, so we will open up the public hearings tonight. We have a public hearing for resolution 2888 certifying unpaid utility charges to be collected with taxes. So the public hearing is officially open. If anybody would like to speak on. Unpaid utility charges collected by taxes going once. Going twice. Third and final call. All right, we will close that public hearing. The second public hearing tonight, Small Cities Development Program Grant. John, do you want to say anything before we open the?

Vote on the resolution.

Oh, we need to vote on that? Sorry. Resolution 2888, we'll take a vote if I can get them. Motion from Diane. Second. Second goes to Chris this time. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That carries. Now we will move on to the Small Cities Development Program grant. Before we open the public hearing, John, do you want to say anything about this one?

Yeah, quickly, just the project I think originally was back approved in 2021. We worked with SEMTRA to administer the Small Cities Development Program. This is a pretty common projects that have been exist in throughout the state to help uh, qualified homeowners and make improvements to their home, uh, through low interest and grant funds. Um, so the requirement before we close out the grant is that we have to have a second public hearing. We had one when it was established, another one to provide an update. Uh, so at the end of 2025, the city had an allocation of grant funds of $514,500. And there were qualified projects that allocated out $408,524.14 to 18 projects within our community that was administered by SEMTRA. That is all.

All right. So the public hearing for the Small Cities Development Program grant is officially open. If anybody would like to take to the podium to talk about the grant. Going once. going twice third final call all right we will close the official public hearing uh this one does not require because the act of having the public hearing was the requirement.

Yep, and it's sort of we just have to submit the affidavit of publication for the public hearing and recording of the minutes that the public hearing took place.

All right. Moving on to the 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 on July 30th, 2026. Item B, meeting minutes, July 21st, 2026, council. Item C, approve hiring of C. Pierce for maintenance operator two. Item D, approve the alley paving. Item E, approve 2026 crack ceiling estimates. Item F, accept Timber Ridge first edition project. Item G, approve alley parking restriction. And that is the consent agenda. Is there any that the council would like to have removed for council business? Hearing none, I would seek a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda. Motion from Chad.

Second.

Second from Lisa. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? It carries. Gets us to tonight's council business, Spring Garden Road and the future direction. Jed, if you would like to introduce this one.

Mayor and Council, we brought this up to the Public Works Park Board. Spring Garden Road goes from First Street all the way out to 25. There's a section that is paved from first up to the first driveway of that first residence that is in dire, in need of dire repair. I had some estimates on what it would cost to To reclaim and repave that, which came in at about $116,000. To do it a little bit better and actually put some curb on it, came in at $152,000. And then what it really, really needs, if we want to keep it, would be to put some storm drain in there, because that's the biggest issue is all that water coming off the bluff is eroding the asphalt. Puts us at almost $350,000. I discussed this with the Public Works Park Board and we ultimately decided that it doesn't, because there's only two residents at the top of the street, which is served by the gravel road of Spring Garden, it makes most sense to just shut it down permanently. We'd leave the asphalt in there because it'll keep everything from eroding even more. Um, and initially when, uh, the towering bluffs development was proposed, that is supposed to be abandoned. And I think council, uh, approved that years ago. And yeah, we just, we have been maintenancing it and now it's, I feel like it's, it's a waste of money, honestly. So end time.

Yeah. Uh, questions or discussion from the council?

Yeah, so it used to get...

The gates were closed in the winter and we didn't maintain that. For some reason, the last few years, I'm not sure why, but they have been maintaining it since I've been here. But there's been a couple of close calls because it's so steep and so slick. It's on that north facing hillside and it does not melt like a normal road. It doesn't see sun, so it doesn't have any chance to melt. We've had a couple close calls, and it just, you know, for safety reasons and the cost of maintaining it, we'd like to just close the gates permanently, put some barriers up, and it'll still be access for walking and even bicycling, sickling or whatever, but not close to traffic.

You say close to traffic, so it wouldn't be just letting it degrade naturally and not be taken care of? It would actually be put the stop arms there and shut it out?

We would close the gates, and we'd probably even put some cement barricades in to keep people out.

Okay. Okay. Any other questions or comments from the council?

Both homes up on top are in city limits?

Yes.

Can we talk to those residents about their feelings?

Jablonski owns the one, and it's a rental, and then the other one is Althoff's, and I think she is moving out, so...

OK. And the fact that they have access with that gravel road.

They have access from the gravel road from 25. We're just getting rid of that. Oh, yeah.

The gravel part of the road is not pleasant.

Right. We do maintain that. We added, I don't remember, 80 tons of gravel to that this year to try to maintain that.

Do we know, related but unrelated, do we have any idea of future development in that same region with the landowner that you had mentioned? Because I know that in the past eight years I've heard multiple times different ideas because I think that would change because let's just say 10 years down the road we do start developing up there, then we're going to have to reopen that road and then the cost of now doing it and then maintaining versus doing it 10 or 15 years from now.

So if I understand right, that section was to be abandoned when those subdivisions go in. So I don't think we'd ever reopen it. I think the access was only supposed to go through down to 25. Why it was left open this long? Well, we left it open thinking that those subdivisions were going to come in, and then it would be abandoned. But now nothing's come to fruition. So now it's just a- Sure. really rough, rough, steep road.

Thanks, Jed. Anything else from the council? I would accept a motion to approve the planning or Public Works Park recommendation of letting the road close. So moved. Motion from Chris.

I'll second.

We'll give the second to Diane. Any further discussion?

Oh, just one more clarification. But you said it's going to remain open for walkway, maybe bicycles?

Yes. Well, we'll close the gates, but people can still go around the gates and walk around the gates and whatnot. So we're going to leave the asphalt there because that's holding things in place. Otherwise, if we take it out, First Street would be full of gravel. Yeah, yeah. So thank you.

All right, motion from Chris, second from Diane. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? It carries. gets us to our reports. Joint Powers Trail Board, whoever wants to take that one.

I was there. The meeting kind of, a couple of items that were on the agenda were cut short. But one of the things we discussed is just a barrier, putting a barrier there. The trail, the signs, the, what do you call them? Like the pads where you could sign up and buy a wheel pass. Those are not necessarily working. I think they call them trail bird. And so that was one of the things we were discussing. And no action yet on it, but. getting new ones or just going with a different type of system. All right.

Uh, library board, Nicole, you are present. So thanks for coming.

Yeah. Um, so at the meeting, basically it was discussing various things about the library and, um, they approved our preliminary budget for 2027. Yeah, that's next year to send, um, To you. So, yeah, that's, in essence, the news from the board. I have other news for later.

All right. Later is coming up really quick. Public Works Parkward met on July 30th. All the items in consent agenda?

All the items on the consent agenda and council business. Perfect. Perfect.

All right. Well, then we'll go around the horn and start with Jed.

OK. Our 2026 reconstruct project is moving along. They shut down County Road 17 today. There's a detour going around on Dakota Street, which they did open. That's going to probably, 17 is going to be closed for probably the next two weeks at least. They're putting the sewer in this week and then the water next week, tying the water in next week. Thank you. Our 2026 plow truck showed up last week on Friday. So we have both of our new plow trucks. They are here. Yeah.

That's a sign we're going to have the softest winter ever.

Probably, that's how it goes. We're hoping for that. And then lastly, the council, we had direction to redo the ice rink, the pleasure rink. We dug that down, removed a whole bunch of sand and gravel and put some base of... clay, and we will see how it goes this year. So it is ready to go for this winter.

Awesome. Thank you, Jed. Quick question.

Jed, you guys are patching. I saw this the other day. You're patching 3rd Street right now. Is that true? Yes. Okay. Do you have any plans to do anything with Water Street or 2nd Street there?

There is. They're going to be patching every day this week. Our roller broke down. The main seal on the motor went out, and it was in the shop for the last few weeks. That's why no potholes were patched. Lately, so we are catching up. Thank you. All right.

Izzy.

I will just note that the next planning commission meeting has moved from August 10th to August 17th. So that is just one week later. Still 630 city council chambers.

All right.

Thank you. Nicole.

OK.

So I thought that I would start giving just kind of a highlight of some of the statistics from the previous month, every month at council meetings, just so that you all see that the library does get used by people. So the highlights as far as visits, we're averaging about 133 visits per day. We were open 26 days in the month of July. Between physical circulation and Libby, which is digital, we're averaging about 280 checkouts per day. And last month, we had 46 library programs in the 26 days that we were open. And that averages out to about two a day or 10 per week. And about 16 people per program. So... People are coming to the library. They're using it for various different reasons. I also have the statistics of Wi-Fi use and public computer use. But that's just kind of like people come in and use them. Oh, and also, we gave out 36 new library cards last month. So some of these new library cards, and I'll probably say this every month, are people who have had a library card for a long time, but they haven't come into the library in like six years. And so their library card expired, and then it was purged from the system, and so then they had to do a whole new application. But then we also have new people moving into town, and they're applying for library cards. And we have young children getting their first library cards. So... That shows people want to read. They want to use the library for many different things. Having a library card is very, very important to people. So, yes, that is looking back and now looking forward at what we've got going on at this month. I'm just going to highlight a few of the programs. Tomorrow there is a wellness retreat from 4 to 7 at the library, and that's hosted by NAMI Minnesota. NAMI is the... the National Association of Mental Illness. And so that's a program they're doing for us. There's going to be a sound bath, all kinds of cool stuff. So stop by, feel well. And next Wednesday, the 12th, from 10.30 to 11.30, Bruce Caldwell is going to have a coffee talk about the book that he wrote about the sanatorium that Amy was talking about last month. And then summer reading is wrapping up next week. I can't believe it's already next week. So on the 13th, we're going to have the National Eagle Center coming in from 2 to 3. And then the prize basket drawing for kids is going to be after that program on the 13th. And the adult and teen basket raffle drawing will be the following day at 1. And then our book sale is coming up for the entire week of the 17th. So we do accept books. Just basically today, yesterday and today, we started talking about planning forward for a candidate forum for the candidates for Cannon Falls City Council.

returning groups as well as some new ones this year. Awesome. Very happy. Thank you.

Sarah. Just elections is already next week. Primary. I can't believe it. Snuck up on us. Voting here in this building, Ward 2 is actually here and Ward 1 is across the way where the chamber is. And voting begins at 7 a.m. on the 11th and ends at 8 p.m. Thank you.

Thank you, Sarah. John. Thank you. So we did have a meeting last week with Tract on the 30% plan review for the infrastructure to go serve the site. So that's in the works and being developed. Did get a target date for final plat of October 6th. We will be having our staff department budget meetings this month and then want to have that larger meeting with the council We are going to donate the property to put some restrictions on in terms of how it could be used. They wanted something that's going to serve the community and provide a space for all community members to be able to use it in some form or fashion, not just put it up for rent or restricted use at all. So they're just waiting for their kind of next direction. that front but just wanted to let the councilman and community know that those are are moving forward all right thank you john laura just a nice question john go ahead that's all right uh you said we've done the due diligence to make sure the buildings are yeah yep yep i have the keys i've been able to walk through um you know walk through with contractors and uh the furnace in the church Property was put in in 2018, so that's very new. You know, looking at everything, you didn't see any visible signs of water damage in the ceilings. The foundations are pretty, actually in really good condition, considering the church itself is one of the oldest buildings in our community. Actually, we would assume those liabilities, and that's not something we'd be willing to accept. Right. Otherwise, they are on notice that the building is hazardous, and if they stop moving forward and progressing with satisfying that, then we will initiate our actions to order the cleanup or ultimately mitigation of the hazardous structure, aka demo. Okay. Thank you. It's still moving.

Thanks. Ryan. No. Diane.

Just one more question for John. It's your time. Go for it. On the track thing, the four-year requirement, when does that four years start?

That starts from the time of the final plot.

Which is what we're working on.

Yep.

And I have nothing else.

All right. Lisa.

I'm good.

Chad.

I'm good.

I just want to say thank you to everybody who, including the incumbents who are up here with us tonight, putting themselves filing for office. I really appreciate it. You guys know firsthand what it means to be a public servant, so I really appreciate everybody who is going to put their time and energy to be willing to serve this community. Doing it for eight years, I know it takes a lot, so I'm glad to see all the people that are signed up to do it. And so I think that event that Nicole was talking about, October 3rd at the library, very valuable to the community so that people can get out there and meet them. So with that, I would take a motion to adjourn.

Motion.

Motion from Lisa.

Second.

Second from Diane. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? We're adjourned. Thank you, everybody.