City Council - Special Meeting

Call the special works session of the city council meeting for March 16th, 2026 to order. We do have a quorum public forum. Individuals may address the city council about items on the agenda or not included on the agenda. Speakers are required to state their name and address for the council record and limit their remarks to three minutes or fewer. Speakers are requested to frame their comments around items that fall within the authority of the city council. Generally, the city council will not take official action on the items discussed at this time, but may place the item on file, take the matter under advisement, refer the matter to staff or a committee for a future report, or direct the matter to be placed on an upcoming agenda. Does anyone wish to speak? Does anyone wish to speak? If you would please just

and if you just state your name and address for the record, please.

Certainly. My name is Andrea Lowour and I um live at 13610 Gulf View Lane. And I'm here today because uh I've been watching the conversation about the Rosen Meyer property that the city council has been uh working on for a couple of years. And uh most recently, I understand that Lynen Hill had uh come up with a possible solution for that property. And I'm here along with several others who are in favor of that uh that going forward that Lynen Hill and the city would be able to work uh something that would be positive for the Rosen Meyer House and uh I think this is a win-win for the city and for the uh residents of the city. Thank you.

Thank you. Does anyone else wish wish to speak? Okay.

Um, good afternoon. My name is Martha Simonette. I was born and raised in Little Falls and um I came back a few years ago when I was here. My dad purchased some company up on the um river in Fort Ripley. So, I've retired up there. I'm thrilled to be back. I'm thrilled to have been asked to be on the board of directors for the friends of Lynden Hill and um I'm very much in support of working with the um women interested in um keeping up the Rosen Meyer home with the coffee shop idea, all of that. And I just think that such a part of the history of the state and the town and that the home is a perfect fit for us. And coming back, you know, I left Little Falls in after I graduated from high school in 1974. And coming back, I'm just amazed at what a wonderful job you folks did in um turning what had been sort of an industrial little town back when I went to school in the um 60s and 70s into just a beautiful place. And I think the Rosen Meyer home is just is too precious a part of the history. And also it fits in so well with the other two homes. It's the first thing you see when you drive by. So, I think as a group, we're really excited. I'm personally very excited to be back in this town. And thanks for everything you folks do.

Could we get your address, too, please? Pardon me? We could use your address for the record. It's 14481 253rd Street, Fort Ripley. Thank you.

Anyone else like to speak? Good evening. I'm Sue Gustner. Um 18 Edgewater Drive. Uh also a board member on Friends of Lynen Hill and have been for several years. Um awesome work going on over there. Um support of the estate is fantastic. Um and thank you for all that the board has done to help us with that, too. Um we are pondering this um partnership or potential use of the Rosenmeer House. Um the Rosen Meyer House right there on First Street that everyone sees and I think the community is um looking forward to something positive happening there. So, we're all hoping that that will come about and I just want to um express my support for that as well. Thank you.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else that would like to talk? Good evening. My name is Julia Mueller. I'm the executive director over at uh Lynen Hill, Friends of Lynen Hill organization. Um I don't live in Little Falls. I live in Swanville where I was born and raised. Um but um over at the estate uh we have been working with um conversations, special meetings and things like that. Really taking this possibility as um a serious opportunity uh and and taking it um in stride um taking the pieces we know that is still in discussion. We know that there's um things that'll be considered and and that it is on the discussion board. Um, and there's a number of additional friends of Lynen Hill here and board members. I don't know if they'll all get up to talk tonight, but I do know um that they're here because they care about preservation. They're here that they because they care about um the ability for Friends of Lynen Hill to continue on doing the things that we are doing to sustain the estate. Uh and and many other reasons. I'm I'm certain there's people who are excited about the concept of a bookstore coming back in. the idea of, you know, the the house getting to stay as it is, preserved, bring it back to the the sparkle that it had um before and just kind of bringing those preservation um aspects back to that corner um of the of the street. Uh so just welcome the uh conversation and and consideration uh and appreciate again the opportunity that we have to be able to care for the estate. We are in our 18th year uh 19th year rather. We're 18 um years old in our 19th year of

operation and and right now we are already doing strategic planning to be looking at what the next 20 years are going to look like. We want to be able to announce what's happening um in our 20th year, what's going to happen in the next 20 years or our goals for that. Uh and we hope to have the Rosener alongside of us for that. Thank you. Thank you. Julia, can we get your address for the minutes? Absolutely. 1615 Highway 27 Swanville. Thank you. Anyone else that would like to talk?

Good evening. Lyn McCarthy, 410 First Street Southeast, Little Falls. I am also a board member of Friends of London Hill and I first of all I want to thank the council for all you've done to support the partnership thus far and help us out and I just ask that you continue to think about that because it is a precious jewel to Little Falls to have Lynen Hill and the Rosen Meyer house together. Thank you.

Anyone else? My name is Kathy Ashwald. My address is 44101 Brickyard Road, Sock Center, Minnesota. And I just want to say that I'm one of the people that are interested in preserving the Rosen Meyer House. And I feel like we have been given a huge gift in um the Lynen Hills group saying that they would be a mentor towards us and take us under their wing. I feel like it's a huge win for Little Falls and um to use their knowledge and their wisdom to um guide us in this and preserv preserving the house. I feel it would be really great for your city to be able to use that house and to have people come and see it. I know that Mia's really interested in having a children's reading program and I can think of not a better place for them to come and be in this historic home and it would be cozy and interesting for them even to see the past. And I feel like that is really important for um the younger generation, too. So, I just want you to seriously consider the future of that house. Um it would be a shame if anything happened to it. It sits pretty prominent out in front of um the Lynen Hills property. And if something were to happen to that house, I'm afraid there may be a kind of

a domino effect for Lynen Hills. And they're doing everything they can right now to um keep that moving forward. And it would be a huge shame for it to go backward with all the effort that everyone has put into it. So, just asking you to really consider your decision strongly and I hope that it's in favor of preserving the Rosener House. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? My name is Anthony Brixius. I live at 2852683rd Street in Piers, Minnesota. And I'm also here in support of uh the Rosen Meyer home staying as part of the community. Um when we were small, we came into the town that was one of the you saw the three big houses there. Now you've got a beautiful park right next door. It ties that whole area together in one nice uh area along the river there. So, I think keeping the Rosen Meyer house um as it is, you know, obviously getting it back to what it used to be in in the glory of its days. So, I support that.

Thank you. Anyone else? Anybody else? Seeing none, we'll move on to uh bills discussion. Uh any discussion on the bills tonight? Hearing none, we'll move on to the consent agenda. Any discussion on the consent agenda? Hearing none, we'll move on to council information only items. First on the list is the Rosen Meyer House uh update. Uh Alex,

thank you, Council President. So, just to recap, the last time that we discussed this, uh, we had three different presentations come to council. One was a nonprofit or intended nonprofit organization, um, one was the coffee shop idea, which I'm just going to refer to as the lease option, and there was also an option regarding sale of the building. How we left that was instruction for staff to follow up and get more information on possible lease options so that council would have more information. So today, um, I've had the opportunity, you can probably tell Lynden Hill has been, uh, actively discussing possibilities of getting involved. They did have our presentation. Was it last time? It was, yeah, two weeks ago. Um, so where things have gone at this point is Lynen Hill would like to get involved should we go down this lease path. Um this would involve so on the city's logistical side if we were to take this path is for Lynen Hills agreement which is coming up due in 27. So it would be renewed a couple months early. We would add the Rosenmeer house onto the campus of Lynen Hill. They're asking for around a five-year trial period for this. They initially had a 5-year trial period with Lynen Hill. So, it gives them an opportunity to uh really have a solid go at it, but not be obligated past that. Our current agreement has a 90-day clause in there as well from either party. There would be a little bit of updating of the agreement, but otherwise, it would allow them to sublet the property to, in this case, Kathy and Mia. There's a lot of negotiations we can put into the agreement, modifications there, but that's the short version. Um things that we can include is if they were to lease it out to anybody else, the council would have to approve any

agreements with them. Any work on the buildings I believe currently has to be approved by council anyways. So we can have um specific terms to that should the council wish it if you want to go down that path. Uh just as a reminder, Kathy and Mia were looking at coffee shop, bookstore, I believe some gifts, some smaller items like that for sale, as well as some of those programs like the children's reading program. Um they're also requesting the ability for Mia to live on the upper level. Since our last discussion, I have gone through the building with uh Greg Kimman hasn't come with. We've had the building inspector out there. We've had the health inspector out there to walk them through what would be required for modifications to this building to make it up to code to allow them to do these operations. Um, and Julia has been involved in all of these discussions as well as our, if you will, our old building expert. She knows how to handle uh these modifications while keeping the integrity of the building. What we've it seems like it's floors need to be covered. They don't need to be replaced. walls can be covered, not replaced. Um, to again keep the integrity of the Rosen Meyer house as a historic property. U I have made it very clear to them that the city does not have any dollars budgeted for this and at this time does not I mean we haven't done the next year's budget but to assume that we will not have dollars available for renovations and items from our end which all of this and I'm looking over at our I'm getting a lot of nods. This is agreed on. Yep. So that is the kind of initial filling in the gaps on a possible lease route. So today what I'm looking for is clarification on if you would like me to spend my time further pursuing this lease path or if I should redirect towards focusing on selling the property.

Mr. President, if I could go ahead. I think it's a great idea. I love the thought of pairing Lynen Hill with the Rosen Meer House. I think it'll, you know, it'll be like a snapshot and uh I think it'll benefit both of them.

I agree. I think it's a to pursue the lease thing. Um, like many of you guys out there has stated that it's uh to me sounds like a a win-win if we can pull this off um to keep something historic and and uh part of the um grouping that we have with the uh Lynen Hills. I think it's an excellent choice and I'd like to see you further look into that. Um Mr. Council President, if I may, uh Kathy, or is me and you not interested in buying it anymore?

It's it's a possibility, but it it's diffult to know because we don't have a price on it. Well, okay. I feel like it belong it should belong to your town. Okay. My personal feeling.

Okay. Yeah, I was just wondering cuz when you first came here, you were wanting to buy it and I was just wondering if we gave you a good price, then you could have some money to fix up that porch is all I'm saying. And you can still work with Lynen Hills on tours or whatever you want to do. It's a possibility, but um one of the one of the reasons why I had inquired about buying it was because when we very first toured it, um we were kind of led to believe that um it wasn't um up to code as far as letting somebody live in it. But in reviewing everything, it looks like it it really is very good. It needs in meeting with the building inspector, it needs some fire detectors that are that speak to each other. Okay.

In order to um to make it work, and that's an easy fix as far as I'm concerned. But once again, I I just feel like the fate of that is so important that I I think it would be silly kind of for the city to give it up. It's a it's a huge part of your community. I'm finding out as I speak with more and more people.

Okay, that's the way you feel. That's fine with me. I mean, I was just wondering because you did want to buy it and I just thought if we could give you a very good price on it, you could use any extra money to We all know the porch needs fixed up. was face it. And I don't know how Lynen Hills is going to come up with the money to fix unless they got from last I heard it was 250 300,000 to fix that porch. And I don't know where they're going to get that money. So I was that's why I keep asking if you're interested in buying it. I'll do whatever the council would like to do, but I would love to save it. Believe me, I just thought it might be easier to do it the other way. But that's my opinion. We're still working on those details of where that money will come from. I will be honest with you

because it's not easy to find a pot of gold. Oh, you're right. Especially Wait till tomorrow. It's St. Patty's Day. You might find it. You might find it. I'm hoping for it. Well, especially with the economy the way it is and stuff these days, it it's tough. And that's the only thing I could suggest is if we could give it and you had the extra money to fix up that porch, that would be a a good thing, too. And you could still work with Lynen Hills, obviously, you know, to do the tours or whatever they want to do. But, you know, it's up to you guys. If you want, you don't want to buy it, you want to do the lease, I'm all for it. Mr. President,

go ahead. Uh from the onset uh I want to most of all see the house saved uh and keep the integrity. Uh it does fit in like Dave has mentioned quite a few times. It fits in with Lynen Hill Maple Island Park and uh I think this is a doable thing. I like the idea Lynen Hills involved because they have worked on some of these things in the past and they know how to approach it in working with uh the excitement of Kathy and Mia. I think it's a it's a really good idea as far as coming up with the money to fix it. Uh there's that's down the road here and that's uh something you know maybe there's a few contractors who wouldn't mind chipping in a little bit. You never know because they have a group of people who are interested in saving it and uh let them be creative how they're going to get the money. Anyway, I like the idea.

Any other discussion from the council? Yeah, Council President, I mean, you guys knew I wasn't going to be quiet about this. Um, I I I'm going to just kind of recoin the phrase, you know, we've been saying the phrase win-win, and I'm going to actually kind of recoin it and say, well, this is really a win-winwin, you know, and there's three wins here. There the wins are from Lynen Hills perspective is it does add a lot to their campus. um this um will give the building a purpose to where it's still open to the public and the citizens of Little Falls still get to enjoy this and it also with you know I know there's going to be a lot of fundraising efforts and maybe a lot of grants being applied for and whatnot but it's also you know it's not going to cost the citizens little falls any money and that's always been the big issue is we have we cannot levy for this project and um I've I've said it before and I've sat on a lot you know, church councils and I was on the parks board for quite some time and you always sit there and you say, you know, wouldn't it be nice if somebody just had the heart and some and and the time and the energy and the effort and all the resources that it takes to put it to go into one of these projects? Wouldn't it be nice if somebody just came along and just wanted to do it? We found that individual. I mean, that this the stars aligned. Lynen Hill decided that they're willing to come come along and partner with um Kathy and the city of Little Falls and take on this project and keep this campus together. And um and then also if you know with the with the bookstore coffee shop I I mean it's going to add to so much to that campus and it gives the building a purpose. And that's was also another question that was raised many times in the past is um you know what are we going to use it for? If if if the citizens of Little Falls had to fix up that building then what will we use it for? Well, now we found a use for it. And I think this is really just this is I don't know. I could sit on this council for another 12 16 years. I don't

think I'm ever going to see another situation where this came together so perfectly. So I am really excited about this. I appreciate everybody showing up in support of it and speaking out in support of it and I think uh this is going to be just a great direction for Little Falls. Any other comments from the council? If not, then I think Alex uh council basically wants you to in summary here to just uh go ahead and pursue the lease and uh look into that a little bit more and then bring that information back to us at a future date. All right, easy enough. We'll do. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, moving on. Moving on. Item B for under council information only items is UTV ordinance. Um we're going to start out with uh Alex and then uh we'll move to uh chief of police to uh continue on the discussion here. Alex.

Thank you, Council President. So the subject has come up numerous times to include at the open house and that's kind of where um Glaze had brought up wanting to discuss this further. So I'm going to the moral of bringing this up today is to find out if council would like to direct staff to revisit this subject with the possibility of changing our ordinances that we have today. Um I know that these discussions took place before me and I know that they heavily involved the police chief. So, I'm going to let him talk a little bit more about that. I know Kim and can key in if there's key items there, but um again, we're just want to know if council would like us to revisit this subject or not. It's all yours, Chief.

Okay. Um yeah, I guess just to kind of get that background again. So, what the current state law is now is that UTVs, ATVs are not allowed on city streets. The only way that they are allowed is by a permitting and an ordinance scheme. Uh so that was kind of the question is uh if we continue doing what we're doing, they are not allowed. We can continue enforcement action as as it is currently. Um if the city council wants to allow some of these vehicles on our city streets, we would have to create an ordinance and there would be a permitting scheme for that. There's some other things too as far as like trail connections, getting the these vehicles through town on designated roadways. uh those are also options as well, but again that's another city council type decision that would have to be made. So I guess we're just kind of looking for uh you know if we want to start looking into that again, we can start looking at drafting another I think we had an ordinance kind of put together previously. Um otherwise really we just needed direction on what what what you guys want to see as far as those types of vehicles go in the city.

Mr. President, if I could go ahead. I believe in following the state law ordinance. Um I just with our downtown I I think it's a little too tight for ATVs or UTVs to be ripping through town. Um and I've seen some do that and uh to me it's a little bit dangerous. Um, Mr. Council President, if we're going to do that, do we need to do that for all vehicles like golf carts and that type of thing? Those are How would we do that?

There none of those are allowed at all currently. I know. Currently, but if we were if we were to do our own, if you did an ordinance, you could allow those things on designated streets. Yep. You can determine what would be allowable and what would not be. Um, so if you were to want to say you would allow um an ATV that has seat belts and headlights, but you wouldn't want to allow four-wheelers, you could uh clearly designate what is and is not and where it would be or would not be allowable. Council President, if I may, go ahead.

Um, the, you know, ATVs and UTVs are becoming very very popular. Um, they're very safe. They're safer than motorcycles, quite frankly. And um I feel that I think I think we'd be doing our community a little bit of a disservice if we don't allow them because if people can spend 50 60 grand on these ATVs, UTVs, sidebysides, you know, usually, you know, they'll go out on a Sunday afternoon, they'll do some trail riding and if they come into our our community and spend some money at a at a restaurant or a bar or anything like that, they I I feel we need to keep an open mind about this. And when it comes to the traffic laws, as long as you're not breaking any laws, I mean, you lots of people can break a law in a one- ton truck. I mean, I think if you follow traffic laws, I feel that people should have the freedom and right to drive their ATVs as long as they're street legal. Um, as long as they fall, as long as they're responsible with them. And uh of course not everybody's going to be responsible, but not everybody's responsible on a motorcycle or a crotch rocket. So um I would I I guess I would like to pursue an ordinance. I know we've kind of waited on the state for a lot of this stuff, but I guess I could like to be a little more proactive and pursue what the verbiage of that ordinance might look like. And um you guys know how I feel about golf carts because that's something that's more of a personal issue for me because I live a block away from the golf course and I'm not allowed to use my golf cart to get to the golf course. It's just kind of ridiculous. So, I guess exploring um long story short, explo I'd like to see us be a little more proactive with this and get this to where um the citizens

that are responsible with their machines can use them on city streets. Mr. President, I was going to say Le, you've been in contact with the state legislators about I have. If you want to share some of the information,

I I will. I will actually. Um I seeing this on the agenda, I did reach out to uh Representative KCA and and Senator Wezenberg. And so I I I think the subject is well timed and council member Meyer is correct that we should move forward because the report I'm getting back from representative KCA is he's willing to carry the bill. He can't get it out of committee. He can't get a committee hearing on it. And quite frankly, it is because the state is so dysfunctional right now. I probed him a little bit and asked him why. And what it comes down to is the right side of the aisle doesn't want to talk about anything if it isn't pertaining to fraud. The left side of the aisle doesn't want to talk about anything if it isn't gun control or giving away money. So, anything in the middle isn't happening with a tide house. the Senate. Uh there's a one seat majority one way. So they dictate everything that comes up there. I I did ask Representative KCA if if this is something that we should move forward with our ordinance so we're ready and let the state kind of catch up. uh he indicated that might be a good idea. Um my whole intent in going to our state representation was to get some language

in the statute corrected. I even pulled down the the statute, put the hash marks through it, updated the language. My intent is that we can have a discussion on what and where they're allowed and where they're not, but I was kind of focused on getting the state language corrected that requires us to administer a permit program which I feel is over overly ownorous to our city staff. Frankly, there's a bunch of logistical problems with doing that. And what about people passing through? How how are they supposed to know about our permitting process? So, uh, I didn't look it into the definitions of permit. The chief mentioned the same thing that we have to have a permit program. Honestly, I don't know if that's as simple as we write in our ordinance, we permit. Is that a permit? uh uh you know, words matter, but uh yeah, I've I've I've been working on this going back to the last session and it didn't get a hearing. The report I got was he feel representative KCA feels like this has a less than 50% chance of getting uh a hearing this session. So I if that means we have to do some kind of permit program which I was trying to avoid I guess that's what we have to do.

Mr. President. Yes.

We have a trail for ATVs and UTVs. The city took money from Camp Ripley Veterans Trail Group. They put in a trail alongside just east of Walmart and going down through there. We have plans in play to when the roundabout comes in how that's all going to work. We're almost uh into Little Falls with the trail. It would be nice and we could push this a lot quicker if we knew the trail is going to be able to go through the town. We have all these things in place. what would be the purpose of building them and not using them? So, uh, and I'm a I'm a proponent for using them if you if you do it right, legal age limits, uh, having uh, you know, uh, markers on it, uh, blinkers and headlights and things like that to go through town. Uh, I think it's a good idea for the community. We're looking for people to stop in and spend their money here, and this is one way we can do it. But it has to be done. And I feel through an ordinance, the state's going to drag their feet for a few years, and then we could be talking about it every six months. I think we should pursue an ordinance, something that has worked in other communities and something we feel fits our community and at least pursue it.

I know planning and zoning has talked about it before because Leif and I are both on there and we had gone through there and talked about it when we first got the uh uh information and we kind of tabled it based on waiting for the the state. Um, but I think we're at the point now where, you know, we should maybe be proactive with it. Um, anybody else on the council have any other comments? Mr. President, go ahead. I've got a side by side with a snow plow on it. I can plow my driveway, but legally I can't even go over to the neighbors and plow because I can't drive on the road. Right. Is that what it is legally, Chief? I mean, that's isn't it? Or drought.

And I can understand why. I see these other people got some junker flopping down the road. I can't understand why I can't or why we can't let people at least drive a I got lights on it. I got signal lights on it. I got flashers on it. What more do I have to have before it's legal for me to drive it? That's my question, Mr. Council President. Also, um I'm assuming and I think other cities have already got change ordinances. I would just want to make sure we check and see what their orders are. I'm like Greg. I It's great if we have them. I just don't want to go through downtown. I don't want And it's like at the park by your place. I I You see that every day, don't you?

Oh, yeah.

And so, um but I'm all for getting an ordinance. I have been for a while. So, let's do it. So, anybody else have anything to say? So, I guess in summary, what we're leading here to is to uh um look into it a little bit more. Um possibly come up with some ordinance, maybe get it before the planning and zoning. Um that's not going to happen overnight. It's going to take a while to do that. Uh, in the meantime, I think, uh, chief, it'd be your job to enforce the rules that we have right now. Um, just so that we don't have why can he do it and I can't do it and this kind of stuff. Uh, whether it be giving a citation or warning or whatever. Um, but maybe just picking that up a little bit so that we have a little bit more control in that aspect of it. Um, does that sound logical for everybody up here?

Mr. President, I would like to see the chief in on the discussion. Oh, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Um because I think that his input would be very valuable. Okay. Unfortunately for the chief, he's probably going to be leading that discussion actually. So, no problem. Okay. All right. Moving on. Um any constituent messages? Hearing none, then we'll adjourn at 7:23 to our regular meeting at 7:30. Thanks for all the work on that late. Yeah, well, I didn't get anywhere.

Yeah, but you tried. That's the possive. I I I hope how Ped