City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, it is 6.30. We call Monday, August 24th, 2026. City Council move to order. If you could please join me with 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.

Thank you. With that, do we have any additions to the agenda tonight? No additions tonight, Mayor. I'll look for a motion to approve the agenda as presented.

Motion. Second.

We have a motion, a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries 4-0. With that, we will move to public comments. If there is anyone who would like to discuss anything that is not on the agenda, please come forward. Seeing none, we'll close public comments and move to consent agenda. Is there anything on the consent agenda that needs to be pulled for further discussion? Hearing none, I'll look for a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented.

Motion.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries 4-0. And with that, we will move right into business items and start with consider adoption of resolution calling for a public hearing on the issuance of senior housing revenue notes and authorizing the publication of a notice of the public hearing.

Thank you, Mayor. I would like to welcome our representative from Presbyterian Homes. We have been approached to issue conduit debt financing on behalf of Presbyterian Homes, and we have issued conduit debt with them prior. We talked a bit about those projects, but we're here today to consider this resolution. This resolution will call the public hearing on the issuance of said debt. it sets the public hearing for the next city council meeting september 28th at 6 30 p.m uh which case we'll have more documents before us i assume in resolution format much thicker ones than we have today uh which will continue on with the conduit financing process should council wish to do so so with that i'll turn it over

Well, good evening. Thank you for letting me come and speak for you tonight. My name is Jenny Wade. I'm Vice President of Capital Markets with Presbyterian Homes and Services. And so the project that we are looking to do is for McKenna Crossing Community, which is in Prior Lake, Minnesota. That community has been open since 2007. And today it has 154 units for senior residents. 85 independent living units, 36 assisted living, 15 enhanced assisted living, which is just higher acuity, and then 18 memory care units. And so what we're looking to do is to add 72 independent living apartments to that community. So as you may know, there's a great need for senior housing over the next 15 years. The baby boomer generation is exploding. So this just helps us serve more residents in Prior Lake and the surrounding communities. We're looking to... start construction in mid October. And the city was very helpful before in 2016, we did a refinancing of the existing campus and you were one of the conduit issuers then. So this will be very similar. The city has no obligation for payment or taxes. It's paid purely from the revenues of the community. And we can use the proceeds of tax exempt bonds, but we cannot issue them on our own. So that's why we look for the conduit. Are there questions about the project?

Any questions? No, we've been through several times. Yeah, I think it's pretty straightforward. For one, I appreciate you coming in and just going over everything with us. We look forward to continue to work with you and helping you see the end to your project.

Thank you.

Perfect. I appreciate that. Any other questions? Nick, do you have any? Nope. Perfect. Well, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. I'm trying to find the dates. Nick, when did you have the date for the public hearing?

Public hearing will be at the second meeting in September, which will be the 28th at 630 PM.

Perfect thank you so that I look for a motion you don't have to stay to approve. Resolution 2026 dash 7 calling for the public hearings of the issuance of revenue notes for the senior housing project motion second motion second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries 4-0. So with that, we will move to consider adoption of ordinance 254, amending our fee schedule.

Thank you, Mayor. This was introduced at the last meeting, amending our fee schedule, specifically the right-of-way fees that we had talked about. So replacing them with more modernized, where we have a base application fee and then a escrow with small and large projects, as well as a per-linear foot charge over $200 for trenching and boring operations.

Wonderful, and as we talked about this at the last meeting, so it should be pretty straightforward. So I look for a motion to adopt ordinance 254, amending the fee schedule.

Motion.

Second.

We have a motion, a second. Any further discussion?

Have we, not Comcast is fully aware of everything? No, okay.

Yep, after we introduced at the last meeting, I got ahold of them the day after. to let them know the changes, and I kept them abreast of what we were looking at, and so I let them know that it was introduced, so it would likely go into effect. Sounds good. Any further discussion?

Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries 4-0, and that will move us to business item 11, consider action on change of non-union health insurance carrier and plan.

Thank you, Mayor. Each year we get renewal packages on the non-union health insurance. So this covers myself and another family who is not on the city's payroll, but through state obligations due to circumstances we are required to cover. And so the AT group is who we work with through this, and they provided us with renewal amounts. And currently you could see that we are paying $696,000 $1.45 for single coverage, and then $1,870.71 for family coverage for this year. And this renewal, the renewal period is always December 1st of each year. So we got the health partners renewal back and they had the largest percent increase at 13.9 which you can see up there puts their single rate at 793.04 with the corresponding family rate blue cross blue shield was the second lowest there you can see and then medica was the third lowest we also were fortunate to get rate projections out into the next uh the next cycle, so not just for 12-126 to 12-127, but 12-127 to 12-128. And when we look at that, bring that spreadsheet up. So we take a look at that. So health partners, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Medica, we have our current rates right here. These are the renewals we're looking at here, but we also have those updated figures going into the next renewal period. period, so we're going to know what those look like. So bringing it to Council, one, what switch do we want to make when we look at these? Because what you have here is in the current renewal period, Medica is the lowest. But when we look at the next renewal period, Blue Cross Blue Shield is the lowest. So the question becomes, do we want to switch to Medica this year and then go to Blue Cross next year? Or since Blue Cross Blue Shield and Medica are reasonably similar, do we stick with Blue Cross Blue Shield for the two-year period? A note on there over the two-year period, the total cost between those two options is $326.04. But really the entire cost of the city would be more in that $88 line. The reason I say that is we get state reimbursement for the family that we cover under this plan. So we get that money back as part of the reimbursement process for the state agency I get that through. So really it would just be my insurance on this, which would be a cost difference of a little over $9 a month. So about $88 over a two year period.

That's if we went with Blue Cross Blue Shield.

So we've had Blue Cross Blue Shield, we're currently with health partners. keeping it Blue Cross Blue Shield for the two-year period would create consistency rather than having to do census, do everything over. But I want to make sure I bring that up to council because Medica is the lowest cost for the upcoming period, and then Blue Cross Blue Shield would be the lowest for the next.

Same similar coverages?

Yes. Yep, similar coverage packages.

I think Blue Cross Blue Shield is more widely accepted.

Yeah, for a two-year span, since we do have those rates, then, I mean... SWITCHING PLANS, BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO SWITCH PLANS NOW.

IS IT SIMILAR DEDUCTIBLE SITUATIONS?

YEP, SIMILAR DEDUCTIBLE, SIMILAR PLANS.

OKAY. I THINK BLUE CRASPER FIELD, WIDE CHANGE EVERY YEAR.

YEP. I THINK THAT SEEMS TO MAKE SENSE.

I mean, 18.9% is crazy.

You could argue we're not taking our lowest responsible bid, but I think we have plenty of rationale and reason why we would go with Blue Cross Blue Shield. The long-term seems better. Just to keep it consistent. We're going to have to switch again. We're going to spend more than that in paperwork and office time getting it organized. So I think this falls well in line with Rod C. No issues at all by going with Blue Cross Blue Shield for the next two years. Very good, so if you don't have any other questions for Nick, I'll look for a motion to approve Blue Cross Blue Shield for the next two cycles. For non union medical plan and provider motion. No motion second any further discussion. Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries 4-0. And thank you for pulling all that together, Nick. It's nice that we could get that year in advance, too, to just make one decision. Agreed. With that, we'll move to council reports. Council Member Hale, do you have anything to report on?

I have not had any meetings since the last council meeting. Council Member Fausch. I do not have anything. Council Member McNeely.

Nope, nothing.

And I have not had a meeting myself since the last city council. We do have contract for meeting with the collective bargaining unit on Thursday. So we'll have more updates at our next council meeting on how that went. Awesome, so that'll look for our motion to adjourn motion. Second, we have motion second. All in favor say aye. We are adjourned. Thank you. And with that we will jump right into the workshop and call to order.

For the Monday 20 August 24th workshop. Alright, real quick on budget update. I only have one change that the mayor you had inquired about that. The water fee where we had the change up top because we were charging more for that state connection fee. Make sure I went back and researched that and I did and made the necessary adjustments in there. So that went up a little bit. But overall, so we're still looking at about 90-91,000 revenues over expenditures on that. Otherwise, there weren't any changes to the budget. I'm hoping to get it for the next month here when we approach our final Levy setting in September, get some more information. I should have work comp stuff back next week. And then property casualty won't be until October, but I should have at least an indication on where some of that stuff's heading with the league and then other insurances. So that's it on the budget for now. And then going right into CIP. Capital improvements planned for 2027 in the CIP are pretty straightforward, starting with fire equipment. In 2027, we're looking at replacing turnout gear, 30 sets of those. I have applied for an assistance to firefighters grant, and that's a federal grant. And that one actually covers turnout gear, helmets, the 2000 engine extrication tools, and the SCBA equipment. I've applied, well, one was for the peripherals all column, one was for the engine itself. So I should hear back on that in September. at some point they're going to release awards on that so looking forward to that if we are successful in that grant i believe that grant paid for 95 of the costs involved so that would be excellent to get but applying for it now because when we're looking at making these purchases in 29 if we don't get it this year i can apply in 27 and 28 and keep refining it going after it hopefully being successful when we get to the point where we really need to fight the big costs on that one

So I have a question.

Yeah.

So let's say we get the grant this year. Now I know we have earmarked money for these things every year, knowing that we have them coming up. What happens with that earmarked money if it's replaced by grant money? Like where does, does it just go to the general fund for the fire department? Like, I'm just curious of like, we don't know we're getting these, but we have like the turnout gear. It's 10 years. We didn't realize this. So it was like a, a sudden thing that I remember 10 years ago, we had to fund and then we decided we didn't want to be surprised again. So we started saving knowing that we had to replace them every 10 years.

Yep.

So does that make sense? My question?

Yep. So let's say we get the grant money and it pays for 95% of that. What happens to the fund balance is essentially the question. Different options are available right now. We levy $150,000 a year. You could zip that down to a really, really small amount because your fund balance will then carry over. And a lot of this will get replaced by grant money. So the funds will be sitting there. You could reduce what you levy to a much lower number, which then causes your ending fund balance to still stay positive, but it supplements with that grant money. Aside from that, you can keep the levy the same, and then you could do a transfer out on that. To a different fund, or you could potentially put it towards the debt service on the fire station to see if you can't pay that off earlier. I can't remember when the call date on that is, but you could put it towards that as another potential option.

Because I know we like earmark specific of that 150 levy. Don't we like to break that down? deeper than that? Like saying like turnout gear is $10,000 every year.

Nope.

Not so much like it doesn't, we don't do it that way.

We don't do it that way. So I've on the bottom part of the spreadsheet, I have cost calculated for all of these that go with an inflationary factory to the future.

Okay.

And then the year we're looking to replace, I insert these figures in here and then we have our starting fund balance. So that's the amount that we plan to start the year with. We add the levy amount, fire contracts go in there, interest earnings based upon what we had the year prior go in there. So this makes up our income.

Okay.

Then we subtract off whatever we've got here, and that then becomes our end fund balance.

Okay. So if we get the grant money, then we will make decisions on what we do with the levy.

Right. Okay. Well, you would like to either A, fund balance or B, levy. And if I get notice of award on that, you know I'll be coming back with different scenarios.

So even like then, like if we get awarded it, we could look at reducing the levy for 2027?

Yes.

I'm not saying that's what I want to do.

Yep, you could. You could. I believe we have two years to spend the grant money. And I think it's a 14-month turnaround on fire engines, if I remember what Andy told me correctly. About right.

Okay. Yeah, I just want to understand. So I hope we get that grant. That would be amazing.

Yeah.

Like, really awesome.

And the 135.061 is our up-to-date number for the 30 set to turn out the year.

Correct.

Okay.

Okay.

And if we don't get the grant money this year, we still need to purchase those.

We still can?

Because we have...

Cause the funding is there.

Okay. So, and that's the plan, but if we can find grant money, we'll use that. And then it kind of can shift things in the future, depending on what future need is.

Yep. Grant money would be great, but we're set up so that you can see the fund balance down here always stays positive.

Yep. And that's what we want.

Yep.

Okay. Thank you.

When we looked at parks, at the last park board meeting, we went over CIP items. A couple of years ago, they had gone over their rankings, so they had a number of items that were sitting in the number four. It was a ranking of one to five, five being the highest priority. After a lengthy discussion, the park board would like to elect to go with reconstructing the trail at Discovery Park. Probably should have brought this up. My apologies.

Well, you're pretty quick at. No kidding.

Bring that up. You go away. Okay, so this is Discovery Park proper. So the plan would be to reconstruct everything within the yellow outline and up to the highway here, just to the intersection there. We do have some trail here. We have some trail here. And then there is trail that runs along the south side here. The thought process is the park is going to take care of park and then when we talk briefly about the 2030 street project. Fieldstone is due for a mill and overlay and that 2030 timeframe. So at the time we do a mill and overlay, then we'll hit these trail segments as well as part of that project. That's why paving crews in there already. But after lengthy discussion, they would like to focus on Discovery. It has the worst shape trails of our park system. So they felt that was the highest priority out of the numerous fours they had after discussion. This would entail, so the total cost you can see there is $407,000. DNR has the local trails grant program. that would pay for a good share of it, up to $250,000, which would leave a balance of 157 that the park board, the park CIP would need to come up with.

Did we get that grant?

We haven't applied for it yet. It opens up in the spring. So I'll apply for it early 2027. I'll have Phil work up some plans and specifications to go along with that. THAT'S WHAT THE PARK BOARD WOULD LIKE TO FOCUS ON FOR 2027. WHEN WE LOOK AT STREETS, THE ONLY THING WE HAVE SCHEDULED FOR 2027 IS COLD WATER CROSSING EIGHTH EDITION SEAL COATING. A LOT OF SOME OF THIS OTHER STUFF OR HOLDING OFF UNTIL THE 2030 PROJECT WHERE THAT WILL GET COMBINED INTO A PROJECT. THEY ALREADY HAVE PHIL WORKING ON THE SCOPE OF THAT AND UPDATED FIGURES FOR PLANNING PURPOSES. Then we look at the 435 fund. The only one we have in here is the park tool cat replacement. It's the only thing we've got coming up in 2027 out of that fund. So overall, fairly low key year as far as CIP investments go. The big one being the Discovery Park project that they're eyeing up. Any questions I can field on CIP?

Nope. I think it looks good.

All right. Well, that concludes what I have for budget tonight. Hopefully a few more tweaks next go around, and then we'll be looking at preliminary of the preliminary levy, the resolution. There we go. That's the word I'm looking for. Look at that and go from there. Perfect. Thank you.

Perfect. Thank you.

We will adjourn the workshop. Thank you.