City Council - Regular Meeting

It is 7.30. I will call the regular city council meeting of June 1st, 2026 to order. We do have a quorum. Please stand for the pledge.

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.

All individuals are asked to either silence or turn off all cell phones, pagers, and other electronic devices that may disrupt the meeting. Approval of the agenda. Before we can do that, we have to amend the agenda. We have three items that we have to amend tonight. The first one will follow under consent agenda, and that will be number 6G. And under that, we need to add grade 10 Step four, $35.79 per hour. $35.79. The second item is we are gonna have to add 7B, letting, And under that, number one will be Appliance, Bulk Garbage, Electronics, and Tire Collection, Bob Lemire, Rolloffs, Refuse, and Recycling, Inc. So just put Bob Lemire, Rolloffs, instead of writing it all down. But that's gonna go underneath the lettings, bulk garbage. And the third item is under on new business, and that will be number 9D. And that will be the match commitment letter, federal railroad administration grant applications, trunk highway 27 bridge project. Everybody got that? All right, so with the amended agenda, what is the wish of the council?

I'll make a motion to approve. Second.

Motion by Council Member Glaze, second by Council Member Liljegren. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Carries. Approve the minutes. Special work session meeting of May 18th, 2026 and the regular meeting of May 18th, 2026. Approve. What is the wish of the council?

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes. I'll second.

Motion by council member Meyers, second by council member Glaze. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Carries. Approval of bills, electronic checks 4257 through 4282, and checks 114438 through 114491, totaling $582,441.37. Approve. What is the wish of the council? I'll make a motion to approve the bills. Second. Motion by Council Member Glaze, second by Council Member Hanson. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Carries. Awards, donations, presentations, and proclamations, we have none this evening, so we will move on to the consent agenda. under which we have appoint seasonal golf course attendant to golf, except a point. Application to conduct excluded bingo, American Legion, auxiliary unit 46, Morrison County Fairgrounds, June 25th through the 27th, 2026, approve. Fire report, April 2026, receive lower potency hemp edible retailer license. Asit Ayan, Inc., DBA, Little Falls Market, approve. Out of State Travel, Police Chief, IACP, Annual Conference, authorize. Post Public Works Collections, Worker Position, authorize. Promotion Recommendation, Michael Stoner, Equipment Operator II, accept, appoint. Sale of Fireworks License, Temporary Structure, Walmart, and TNT Fireworks, approve. What is the wish of the council?

I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Second.

Motion by Council Member Goshek, second by Council Member Lundberg. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Carries. Public hearings, we do have one tonight. The first thing is resolution 2026-28, modify development district number one, modify development program relating thereto, establish tax increment financing district number 48, adopt tax increment financing plan related thereto, Barrett Land LLC, adopt. So at this point, I will turn that over to Jason Murray.

Good evening council. Just a few points here for the opening of this hearing. You are considering tax increment financing TIF district number 48. It is for Barrett land as the president indicated. A couple of questions that I've received is this is their second TIF district. We did just finish up at the end of 2025. Their original TIF district which was supported the land acquisition from the school district. We are transitioning now to a new TIF district, a new nine-year TIF district. It is the economic development. This public hearing is covering both the tax increment financing and the business subsidy piece of this. Because the size of this assistance exceeds 150,000, we must follow business subsidy guidelines. business subsidy law also in this, and that's mainly disclosed the amount of total assistance and potential jobs. And as far as this TIF district, the potential assistance to the company targeted towards pretreatment and some of the infrastructure related, uh, items out there on the, on the site is about 3.15 million. And the jobs that we're asking the company to create through the business subsidy and TIF TIF agreement is 35. Now I know Barrett has shared, numbers that are much greater over a year period, exceeding 90 to 100. Sarah and Carol can talk to you about that. But really for this agreement, we're asking them to create about 35 jobs as part of the compliance with the TIF and business subsidy side of things. As I noted, this is an economic development TIF district. It is a one parcel TIF district. Again, council, the plan governs how the council and the city's going to use the increment. We will have a secondary agreement with the company and the city. The TIF contract that will lay out how much, how long, those parameters that I just mentioned, just the job creation and compliance is gonna be a piece of that. With that, Mayor and Council, I'll pause my comments. And Sarah and Carol, I'm sure, have comments on the project also. Any questions for me, Council? All right, thank you.

I'm Sarah Barrett, owner and operator of Barrett Pet Food and Barrett Land LLC. I'm asking for your support in the TIF district. This is to cover a pretreatment facility for Barrett Pet Food. As we've been working with the city on our wastewater, our wastewater carries a higher level of solids. than what the city's infrastructure can handle. And so this pretreatment facility is designed to remove the solids from our waste prior to entering the city's wastewater system. And then also to cover the cost of rerouting the storm water that currently runs through our site from the east side of It'd be like the fairgrounds, the school, and North Freeze-Dry. That cost to reroute the stormwater is about $150,000, and then the cost of the pretreatment facility is about $4.1 million. So we're asking for the TIF district to help us cover the cost of that. The project will hopefully start soon. We plan to add... but 180,000 square feet of warehouse and about 90,000 square feet of production. Um, we intend to add one more production line. Currently we're operating two production lines. And then roughly about 100 jobs over the course of the next three years as we bring shifts on to fill that production line. Currently, we're making about 200 million pounds of pet food a year between our two facilities. And this will help us continue to expand and grow. We're nearing capacity right now. So that's why we're asking to be able to add on to our production and not overwhelm the city's uh, wastewater system. I think that probably covers it.

I have a question. I'm being completely serious besides this. Is there anything else we can help you with? No, I'm just, I'm open to try to help you as much as possible.

No, we just need to fix the wastewater issue. I would say that's probably the only issue that we've had. Otherwise, I do believe we paid off our TIF district early, and we intend to do that with this one as well. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Any other questions?

Thanks, Sarah. Okay, so with that information, I will open up the public hearing. It is 741. Is there anyone else that would like to speak? Carol, you kind of know the routine. I need your name and address.

Carol Anderson from Community Development of Morrison County, 316 East Broadway. And I'm here to support this application. I've been working with Sarah for years. Helped her with the first project. That TIF district got paid off three years early. And so I think we're in a good position now to help with this. It's really to help the city with their treatment facilities so that it just makes it easier for everyone the company and the city to treat the waste that comes off of there. Um, you know, right now between the two facilities, the one North appears and this one, they have 403 employees. They have 238 right now here in little falls and they've chose to grow their business here in little falls. and they've had a pretty good relationship with the council. The council has been in, some of the members have been in on some of the meetings on where do we site things and all of that. And so, We're there. They're very pleased. I'm very pleased that we've got a good working relationship now with the city and I think this is a business that is growing and they've chose to grow here in Little Falls and that's what we want. So thank you for your consideration.

Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak? Anyone else? Anyone else? If not, I will close the public hearing at 7.43. Council, any discussion?

Yeah, Council President, if I may. I just want to say thank you to everybody involved with this process. I know this was a very quick process in comparison to what it normally takes, and I think it's a great example of leadership And when everybody works together, how we can get things done quickly and efficiently. So everybody, city staff, thank you for making this happen. And Carol Anderson and Sarah and Jason, thank you. Any other discussion?

Hearing none, resolution call. Roll, please.

Lundberg.

I'll make a motion to approve resolution 26-28.

I guess I forgot that part, didn't I? All right. So we have a motion from, uh, council member Hanson and a second by the council member glaze. All right. And we had a discussion. So now we'll go on to resolution.

Call roll Lundberg. Yes. Liljegren.

Yes.

Meyer.

Yes.

Canofla.

Yes.

Glaze. Yes. Hanson. Yes. Goshek.

Yes. Curries. Move on to Resolution 2026-29, Approve Business Subsidy to Barrett Land LLC, Adopt. I'll kind of turn that over to Jason again if you want to just kind of come up and give us a refresher on that.

Sure, Council. Mr. President, one of the things this agreement, or this resolution does is just recognize that it is a business subsidy. Again, as I noted in my opening comments, what we try to do with this resolution is also put some of the terms to it, and as I noted, Total assistance is gonna be roughly about that 3.15 million and then the 35 jobs. One of the things with this council I will share is because this came about fairly quickly and we still got some moving parts yet as far as total costs and some of the final plans as it relates to the pretreatment and that stuff. One of the things we've held off on doing is the formal TIF contract that TAF law firm normally drafts for the city. The next step in this, I'm gonna ask council tonight to approve this resolution, which creates some parameters, but you will see the final TIF agreement once that is drafted, and we'll ask for your approval of that agreement. That'll formally put the, dot the I's, cross the T's on the legal side of this summary. But for tonight, for disclosure purposes, the terms that are associated with this business subsidy resolution is an outline of those terms that'll be presented in that contract.

Okay, thank you. With that being said, I will open up the second public hearing on this resolution at 7.46. Does anyone wish to speak in regards to that?

Sarah Barrett, Barrett Pet Food. I just wanted to add that this project is being estimated at about $40 million. the overall project at Barrett Pub Food. Not the wastewater project. That was 4.1. So, that's all.

Okay.

Anyone else wish to speak?

Carol Anderson from Community Development 316 East Broadway, and I will I mean, this is a major investment in our community, and so I want to thank the Barretts for making that commitment here.

Chair Jerry Cook Anyone else wish to speak? Seeing none, we'll close the open meeting at 7.47. What is the wish of the council?

Trustee Jerry Cook I'll make a motion to approve Resolution 2026-29.

Motion by Councilmember Glaze, second by Councilmember Meyer. Any discussion? Hearing none, resolution call roll please.

Lildgren, yes. Meyer, yes. Canafla, yes. Glaze, yes. Hanson, yes. Goshek, yes. Lundberg, yes.

Carries. Moving on to old business first on the agenda is policy 13 bylaws, authorities, boards, bureaus, commissions, and committees approve Alex.

Thank you, council president. So this is a continuation from our last council meeting. Uh, there was a request to add some more clarifying language through that. So the recommended edits have been. Uh, completed. So I know council member Lumber had a, had some thoughts there, but otherwise it's the same that was presented last time, aside from those clarifications.

What does it wish the council?

I'll make a motion to approve the bylaws. Second.

Motion by Council Member Goshek, second by Council Member Lodzegren. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Carries.

Council President, not to interrupt, but we did forget the appliance bulk garbage under public hearings and lettings. The amendment to the agenda.

Right, that one that's under 9.

Under 7. 7B. 7B.

Oh, there we go, yeah. Okay, too many stickies here. My fault, sorry. All right, so let's back up just a second. We'll go to 7B1 under Luddings. On the title of the item for that is the Appliance Vault, Garbage, Electronics, and Tire Collection, Bob Lemire, Roll-offs, Refuse, and Recycling, Inc. Sony's going to take that one, I guess.

Thank you, Council President. The city called for quotes on an appliance tire and bulk garbage collection with bids being opened Monday, June 1st at 12 p.m. This collection is for one and two family residential properties, i.e. not businesses, apartments, or trailer parks. Staff has included the quotations from the following companies. We only received one quote back from Bob Lemire-Roloffs. The quote was at $10,314. Residents will be required to sign up for the collection. The collection date will be July 24th and 25th of 2026. And this is an annual collection that we do for our residents. So the action request is the City of Council award the low quotation for the appliance, bulk garbage, electronics, and tire collection to Bob Lemire-Roloffs, Refuse and Recycling Inc. of Little Falls, with the collection to be held on July 24th and 25th of 2026, charged to the SCORE grant.

CHRIS RODGERS. Thank you for that. What's the wish of the Council?

I'll make a motion. CHRISTIE WOOD. I'll second it.

Motion by Council Member Liljegren, second by Council Member Lundberg. Any discussion? Yes.

Mr. Council President, if I may. Sorry, Frank. Want to go first?

Yeah.

Go ahead.

Okay. Who authorizes the items on here? Is it us or?

There is a list, so it's authorized items. You're asking who authorizes the items that are on the list?

Yes, because Mr. Hanson here brought up something earlier. He was telling me there's other things like electric heaters, infrared heaters, tillers, lawn tillers, but things like that that aren't on this list. How would we go about putting it on there?

I will have to check. I know that this list has been the same list as last year while I was here. I'm not sure if it's part of the grant that we get to fund this or if it's part of what the refuse collectors can actually collect for this particular cleanup, but I can, I mean, it won't, it won't help us for this particular year, but I can definitely get into that and give you guys some answers.

Yeah. Because you look at something like an infrared heater, it's pretty close to a microwave and, Similar size, why they couldn't include that. It would be nice because you do see them sitting around in front of people's yards sometimes. Very rare, but sometimes.

Okay. And if there's a specific individual who is looking to do that, they can always call in and talk to Kelly. She'll be able to answer any specific questions to them at that time. Or if we are able to collect that and it's just not on here, but we can collect it as a microwave, um, have them call in and we can deal with that on a one-on-one basis for this year. But we will look into that for next year. Okay.

Sounds good.

Can I? Go ahead. Just a quick question. It was open Monday, June 1st, today?

Physically opening the bids that we received.

Oh, okay.

I thought you opened, okay.

My misunderstanding. Understandable mistake.

Any other discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Carries. Okay, now move on to new business. First item is administrative forfeiture acceptance, 2016 Dodge Ram 1500 pickup for the police. So I'll either go to Sonny or Kyle, either way, okay.

All right, thank you, Council President. On April 20th, 2026, an administrative forfeiture certificate was signed by Morrison County Attorney authorizing the Little Falls Police Department to take ownership of a 2016 Dodge Ram 1500 pickup. The estimated cost to transfer the title is $392.88. Little Falls Police Department intends to use this vehicle to tow a firearms training trailer to and from training events. This trailer is currently being towed by one of the department's squads, so adding this forfeited vehicle would reduce the wear and tear on our patrol squads. Per the terms of the administrative forfeiture, if the vehicle is sold, proceeds from the sale after payment of seizure, storage, forfeiture, and sale expenses would be 70% to the city and 30% to Morrison County Attorney's Office. So we are requesting that the City Council approve the acceptance and transfer of title of the 2016 Dodge Ram 1500 pickup to the Little Falls Police Department and authorize the payment of the associated transfer costs of $392.88 to be charged to the general fund.

What is the wish of the council?

I'll make a motion, Council President.

Second.

Motion by Council Member Meyer, second by Council Member Glaze. Any discussion?

Yes, Mr. President. I'm guessing the chief could probably answer this. I'm just wondering if you're at liberty to share any of the details behind the forfeiture of this. I'm not asking you to get into any confidential information, but as a general principle, I'm not a big fan of civil asset forfeiture, so I just want to make sure that the means in which this was forfeited is not contested by the owner or it was not contested.

Um, and it was a criminal, uh, forfeiture for a criminal, uh, DWA. And, uh, there's a whole process that they go through. They are allowed to, um, contest it. And the owners decided not to, there's no, no court hearing or anything with this.

Thank you. Mr. President, go ahead. You're just going to use it for a tow truck. I mean, for towing. Correct.

Yeah. It's not a squad. It's not going to have any of that stuff. It's mainly to pull this. It's a heavy trailer. We need to have new steel targets. Um, so we're trying to avoid any excess wear and tear on our squads, um, to get it basically from here out to the range and back.

How often do you use it?

You think, uh, in the summer, uh, we're probably twice a month.

I'm just thinking if it's cost efficient because you have to pay insurance on it and maintenance and that, and just for moving a trailer back and forth, it's, it seems like excessive, you know?

Um, yeah, I, I don't know. I mean, also the reason for other types of trainings, um, that's the main one and the main reason we wanted a truck that we've been kind of um, looking at for, for a while now. Um, we figured this was probably the best way to go about that. This kind of came up and we felt that this was a good opportunity for us to get something that we didn't have to go out and purchase a vehicle or something else. Um, separate just for that so we felt this was a good alternative probably cheaper than uh replacing a patrol car yeah yeah i mean it's like i said we so with one of our last um grants that we received uh some large steel targets and um they are they're obviously quite heavy so um it's a lot of wear and tear on those on those squad cars so this will definitely help with that and i get your point with you know the amount of use that they get, but I still feel that this is better than using our squad cars to do it.

Well, if you can find other purposes for it, go for it. Makes it a little more palatable.

Yeah, there's, there's other equipment, you know, uh, with the sheriff's office, they have boats and stuff. Sometimes we have to use their boat for the river. So certainly there's other opportunities where this can get used. Yes. But I guess the main point is that it's not a squad vehicle. It's not going to be on patrol or anything like that. So it won't have any equipment or anything like that. So any other discussion?

I got another question. Go ahead. How long this agreement here. So how long do you have to keep track of this distribution? 70% proceeds and to the city and 30% to the count. How long does that have to be tracked? How long is that?

Forever? At any point in time that that vehicle gets sold, that is how we'd have to disperse it. I'm going to, if, if approved tonight, this will be printed off and attached to the title. So if in 20 years it gets sold, I don't think it'd be worth anything, but if it did, this information will be physically attached to the title. So it'd be very easy for whoever is in my position to make sure that that happens at that time.

Is this common? Yes. It just seems cumbersome to me.

Yes.

Any other discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Carries. Second item, policy 47, lodging tax and restaurant sales tax, compliance checks, update, adopt. Alex Orsoni.

Thank you, council president. As it was discussed during the special work session, the restaurant sales taxes did not make it to the floor of the state legislature, so we are having to sunset that on June 30th of 2026. Our current policy 47 references lodging tax and restaurant sales tax compliance checks so we are requesting to amend it to just be lodging tax compliance checks if and when in the future we are able to do restaurant sales taxes again we will create an additional policy that references just restaurant sales taxes so they are listed separately in our policies the other change that we are looking to make here is this current policy which was established in 1996 authorizes only up to $1,000 from the 5% administrative fee collected from lodging receipts, currently actually states lodging and restaurant receipts, to fund compliance reviews. The quote I have received from Schlenner-Wenner to do these compliance reviews is $5,000 to do five restaurants and one lodging, so one lodging is roughly $1,000 for them to do the review every year. So I'm actually requesting that we change the wording from $1,000 of the 5% to the city to appropriate up to 25% of the 5% administrative fee collected from the lodging tax receipts for the compliance reviews. The intention here is as the lodging tax increases, as lodging fees increase, the amount that we would be able to use towards the compliance checks would increase as the fees increase over the next years. Uh, the intention here is to not have to bring this back to you, um, and request more money of that administrative funding to be used towards those compliance reviews. And again, these, uh, amendments are administrative in nature and intend to align with the city's policy and current statutory authority. So we are requesting that the city adopt policy 47 lodging tax compliance checks as updated.

What is the wish of the council?

I'll make a motion to approve.

Second. Motion by Council Member Glaze, second by Council Member Hanson. Any discussion?

I do have a question.

Go ahead.

You said we couldn't do restaurants. Is that what the state says or can we make up our own ordinance to do restaurants?

I'm going to let Alex answer that one. The restaurant tax needs to be approved at a state level. It's the lodging that is allowed to be approved fully local. State statute.

Do you think they do this intentionally just to confuse us?

I think it's a dysfunction.

Perhaps.

Any other discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Carries. Item C, Resolution 2026-30, Supporting a Minnesota Forward Fund Application for the Expansion of Barrett Pet Food. Adopt. Alex.

Thank you, Council President. So with the TIF district moving forward for Barrett Pet Food, they will be working on the pretreatment plant, which they had discussed. With that, there is a gap in funding in order to afford that. So they are looking to apply for a grant through deed for the forward fund program. In that they are just looking for a resolution of support from the city council for that grant. This is at no cost to the city, simply a resolution of support for the application.

What is the wish of the council?

Making a motion to adopt resolution 2026-30. Second.

Motion by Council Member Lundberg, second by Council Member Liljegren. Any discussion? Hearing none.

Time out. I'm sorry, Jerry. I don't mean to do this. Yes, I do. Never mind. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

No question?

No question. Okay.

Okay. Any other discussion? Hearing none, resolution call, roll please.

Meyer?

Yes.

Knopfla?

Yes.

Glaze? Yes. Hanson? Yes. Goshek? Yes. Lundberg? Yes. Lildegren?

Yes. Curries?

Enthusiastically.

Okay, 9D. match commitment letter, federal railroad administration grant applications, trunk highway 27 bridge project. And I'm turning that over to Alex.

Thank you, Council President. So the city has an opportunity to apply for a very large grant for our 27 bridge project. There is a lot of acronyms in there and words. But this grant overall is a total of up to $80 million. That's $80 million. With that, the max award amount would be $64 million. requiring a 16 million match if that full maximum capacity was met. What we actually have is $13 million from the state, $2 million from the city's state aid, which is not something we would need to budget for. This is dollars that are provided from the state for these roads, and $1 million from the railroad. So there are no additional match dollars required from the city to apply for this grant. So today what we are asking for is the council to approve the commitment letter to apply for this grant for our bridge project.

What's the wish of the council? I'll make a motion to approve.

I'll second. Motion by council member Meyers, second by council member Glaze. Any discussion?

Yeah, I got a question.

Okay.

The $2 million is from our LGA?

No, this is from state aid. This is specifically dollars that are allocated for the identified state aid roads, and I believe parking, or it's... Roads and bridges. So this is a project that is cleared for that dollar.

They've already approved the $2 million for this?

So that is already allocated from, or in... earmarked, there we go, that's a good word, earmarked from the state aid program to us. Yes, so this is not something that we would need to budget for.

Okay. Well, it's not necessarily for the bridge. We can apply it to the bridge, right? This is for our entire state aid, right? So any state aid road that we have.

Correct, yes.

We're going to dedicate these funds to the bridge.

Correct.

Like 11th Street Northeast, that was a state aid project.

So our recommendation would be to use the dollars on this project.

Right.

Thank you.

Any other discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Carries. Any announcements?

Thanks for coming, Sarah. Appreciate it. I appreciate all you've done for Little Falls, too, believe me.

I will adjourn the meeting at 8.06.