City Council - Regular Meeting

I'm sorry. It is 6:30. We will call the Monday, December 8th, 2025 city council meeting to order. If you could please remove your hats and join me for the pledge of allegiance, plea, please. I pledge algiance 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. And with that, do we have any additions to the agenda tonight? I have no additions tonight, mayor. Hearing none, I'll look for a motion to approve the agenda as presented. Motion. Second. We have a motion, a second. All in favor say I. I.

Oppose. same sign. Motion carries 4. That will take us to public comments. If there is anyone who would like to discuss anything that is not on the agenda, please come forward. And seeing no one coming forward, we'll close public comments and move to the consent agenda. Is there anything on the consent agenda that needs to be pulled for further discussion? Nope. Hearing none, I'll look for a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Motion. Second. We have a motion to second. All in favor say I. I. Same sign. Motion carries. 4 Z.

That with that we will jump right into business items and we will open the public hearing for uh to conduct truth and taxation.

Thank you mayor. We go over a quick presentation here. quick loose terms uh highlighting some of the changes uh that we're looking at as part of our levy tax rate and those uh included in that. So we'll be focusing on areas related to property tax levies since this is truth and taxation. It's about taxes not necessarily about the utility funds. So we'll be focusing on that which is affected by the property taxes. We'll take a look at some historical information on levies rates and tax base. the proposed 26 levy revenues and expenses as well as the CIP and debt service and then uh public comment and questions. So if you've got a bunch there, you can certainly ask them down right now.

All right. Thank you.

So a quick snapshot of the overview of our uh tax change from 2025 to 2026. Overall, the total tax levy is not changing. it'll stay static at $1,319,879. Uh general fund is going down uh a bit on that. CIP is going up and debt surface is going down. So over the coverage of those three and we'll get into each of those three in detail here. Uh but that's our general overview and staying flat. So a little bit of historical information on this. Oh, that's much harder to see than I was thinking. Um we look at the general fund levy as it has uh changed from 2018 to 2026. It's stay in 2018 it was about 480,000 and in 2026 we're at 408. So over the years it has gone up down morphed a bit here. Uh and then over the years, one thing I always like to highlight every year is the CIP was really jammed up into the general fund historically and you can see there was no CIP year and then in the 2001 time period it start getting split out. So you had those dedicated CIP funds for projects. That's a good thing you like to do because if you keep a lot of the CIP into the general fund, your what you're spending and what you're taking in vasculates quite a bit depending on what you're spending money on. You know what you could go years without spending anything on city or on CIP. Then all of a sudden you're buying a million dollar fire engine and that makes your general fund just spike way up and then you got questions. So relegating out into CIP really helps just keep operational expenses up in here that are far more predictable and steady. And then your CIP can vacasillate down here and it tracks it a whole lot better too I think. And then as far as debt service goes uh we've that's been trending downward just as we've been defeasing debt over the years and we have three right now and we'll touch on those in a

little bit. This I always like the graphical representation of what the tax levy has been doing. So the green represents the total levy. uh the purple is CIP, blue general fund and red is debt service. So you can see again in that time frame when general fund was higher and then you started splitting it out between the two those have normalized out. So our our levy for this year is about where it was in that 22 time period. Next we take a peek at historical tax capacity values. Go right to the graph because that's hard to see. So tax capacity you can all you read as tax base or the value of the city and when you think of levy and tax base and tax rate they have uh they all play into each other. The the levy divided by the tax base is generally going to be your tax rate. They are functions of each other and they follow that accordingly. So if your levy stays the same but your tax capacity goes up naturally as a product of that or a dividend of that your tax rate is going to go down and how those plays play with each other directly and indirectly. So over the years taxa capacity has gone up and then when we look at tax rate because we've been keeping uh the levy fairly stable since 22 as tax capacity has gone up our tax rate has floated down. It was around that high 40s and now we're into the uh mid30s. Highlight that there a bit more. So yeah, we'd float around 50 49 up until about 2022. Then we started dropping off 23 was at 44 24 38 37 and now we're about 35 36 here proposed for 2026. Uh there are 11 cities in Carver County

and not that it's a competition because it's not because every city's situation is a bit different but just for comparison purposes uh put together uh comparisons from 2022 to uh through 2020 2025 finals and then 2026 preliminary. So that's just it in bul form and I like to break it out into here which this sorts each individual year according to from highest to lowest as far as tax rates goes. You can see over the years uh historically mayor float around that sixth place out of 11 and then in recent years we've been floating downward uh with these 2025 and 2026 looking like we'll be third lowest out of 11 instead of sixth lowest. Um, and that all cities are different depending on when they take on debt and they have projects happening that affect their levies on that. But maintaining good control over that a little bit of information on the general fund, the revenues and expenditures. We go into looking at this. the general fund levy has decreased uh on that uh the CIP was increased and the debt levy or the debt service levy decreased uh comparison to each other. So major notes on that the general fund levy generally stable across the board. The general levy itself as part of the general fund decreased and fire contracts decreased but we did have increases in building permits which slightly offset that. This was all planned for uh the CIP levy. We had increases to streets, parks, sidewalks, and general capital and no change to the others and debt service. We defeased the 2020A bond uh this year. Uh so we have three stable remaining bit of a graphical representation. So

debt service uh comprises 26% of the total levy. The general fund is 31% and the CIP is 43% for those projects. Uh when we look at uh the general fund specific in this uh you can see that taxes went down by or general property taxes that go towards the general fund went down by about 21,000. Licenses and permits were up by about 11,000. Local government aids up by 65. fire contract fire contracts down by 29 and other was up by 3300 for a net on that of a decrease of 29,000 and change. And again the big contributing factors on that were the building permit revenues increased by 10,000 and fire contract revenues decreased by 29 with the property taxes kind of making up that difference along with everything else. So looking at the revenue as a whole, uh, property taxes that go towards the general fund make up 36% of the general fund revenues. Local government aids make up 46%. Other revenue is at 97,000. So that's uh a conglomeration of our cell phone and tenerant. some refunds and reimbursements we get from uh the state for um some of the health insurance we have uh as part of the fire department that we're we're required to have as well as training and reimbursements on that front as well as interest income that we gain off of our investment. So those all lumped together are that other category, the bulk of that being the cell phone tower rent. Fire contracts make up 4% and then licenses and permit permits at 6%. When we look at the budget uh expenditures under general government that went up $15,400 roughly four three and a half% my apologies. public safety decreased by 24,943

and this was primarily due to the fire department uh PAR contribution required amount that went down substantially that we had talked about prior. So that's the bulk of where that 20 five comes from in public safety. Public works went down about 19,000 just with staff turnover and what have you. We saw decreases there plus work comp dropped quite a bit in there as well. That was a big contributing factor. Uh parks and recreation stayed relatively stable and that's where we have the uh decrease overall of $29,493. Again, generally stable across the board with some inflationary increases, work comp, insurance costs decreased significantly. And then we talked about the pair expense decreasing significantly on that. So, for the 2026 budget expenditures, uh, general government makes up 39%, parks and recreation at 12, public works at 19%, and public safety at 30%. Making up that pie chart. So, we take a look at CIP, uh, some updated, we go back to 2022, that's kind of when the CIP really started. 21 was the first year, but keeping historical information. And then taking a look ahead to projecting out a couple years, few years here, we can see uh we're entering into pretty stable periods with the CIP. Uh streets, parks, and general capital increased to align with the CIP needs. And sidewalk replacement was increased to balance out the levy overall for the flat uh 0% increase that uh we're seeing. When we look at the debt service schedule, uh you can see that this year was the last year of the 2020 A bond payments. So now we're just down to three uh bonds that we have on the books. The 2021A bond is for the new

fire station. 2021 21B bond is for the fifth and third street infrastructure project. And then the 2023A bond was for the mill and overlay project that occurred in Cold Water Hidden Creek and on Shimcore. So those are our three remaining debts. Uh I think they have about any 10 15 plus years left on those for sure. So those are going to remain pretty stable going into the future. This is a nice one I like to get. So we conglomerate everything together and split it out. Uh, for every dollar of tax money we have coming in, about 12 cents is spent on general government, nine cents on public safety, uh, six cents on public works, 4 cents on recreation, 43 cents on CIP, and 26 cents on debt service. That's the presentation I have. Any questions or comments, observations I can take? Any questions from the audience? No. Well, thank you. And again, thank you to everyone involved. Um, all the department heads and um obviously Nick and and staff and um all that council members. I appreciate this. So with that we will close the public hearing and we will then move to approve resolution 2025-22 which is approving the 2026 final budget and the 2026 final levy in the amount of 1 million319,000 $319879. $9.

Motion. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. We have a motion, a second. Any further discussion hearing? None. All in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion carries 40 and then we will move to the uh introduction of ordinance 251 amending the fee schedule.

Thank you, mayor. So about that time of year where we start talking about amendments to the fee schedule. This year uh we're proposing we want to have some discussion here on how our community center uh community center rental structure is set up. I apologize I didn't have the spreadsheet pulled up. Yank it right here. All right, my apologies. So Alicia was very good to pull together these figures and data for us to take a look at. So we've had our structure for about uh three years now and we wanted to get an idea of what is actually being used at the community center and what where the rentals are actually going. So put together usage stati stat statist statistics on here. So, we have small group residential uh rental, small group non-resident rental, large group resident rental, large group non-resident, a two-day rental fee uh for resident and non-resident, a three-day rental fee for resident non resident. Then we have nonprofit in here. Small group, residential, nonprofit, uh small group, non-residential nonprofit, then large group for those as well. So, I think what we want to take a peek at is really the totals down here and what we've been seeing it being used for the majority and what categories really haven't been used for. So, the ones that really jumped at out at us were the two-day and three-day rentals. Out of three years, we've had one two-day rental and uh two three-day rentals. Seeing as how those really haven't been used, uh we're proposing that we ax out, you can see those right here, axing out those two and three-day rentals just because they've never really been used. We can go to this small group, large group daily rate, and if they'd want

multiple days, they can just purchase multiple days of those. Um, and then we want to take a peek at the small group uh nonprofit. This one doesn't look updated. My apologies. Thought we had changed some of that. Let me double check. I may not have forgot to resave it. No, I think I forgot to update that part. But, uh, as part of the two and three-day web, we've never had any church or funeral rentals. So, we're looking to, uh, remove that. And for the damage deposit, rather than having two separate damage deposits, 99% of the time, we give the damage deposit back. I think we've only taken one uh since we've been here and that was when the floor accidentally got damaged by the pogo stick and gouged the wood. So, we had some taken out for the repair, but then that necess then that brought on the project of replacing the entire floor, which wasn't that person's fault, but that's the only time we've ever had a partial taken out as far as damage deposit. So, that being said, uh just looking to shore that up as one in there. looking to adjust the small group daily or the rental rates by $25. Uh the cleaning cost to have it cleaned after an event is uh $75 cost to us. And then we figured in with uh HVAC and electrical usage when you figureing we also have tables that get used and others um especially on the 100 bucks. We're not having a whole lot of margin on there to put money back in if we ever need to do something with it in the

future. So, looking at boosting these up and Alicia did do some research for of other community centers in the area and their costs were ranging for small group rentals. I know it was as low as like 225 all the way up to 600 for daily rentals. So, while we're bumping this up a little bit, they're still affordable. Uh, when you look at other places, we really wanted to keep the small and large group daily rental. We had talked about different ways of slicing that, but we have a lot of people use this for birthday parties, anniversaries, small group type of stuff, and we don't want to price them out because it's a nice place to come in and use. Um, some other areas we're looking at, uh, for the small group. All right, that's right. We got it right here. For the nonprofit rental rates, we want to get this cleaned up a little bit more. and how we categorized that um wasn't the cleanest uh as far as this went. So, we're looking up here to do it as uh more of a public entity, local civic group versus non-local, not non non-local, nonprofit event rental. We have a lot of local groups that over the years have been given free use of the facilities. Watertown Mayor gets to use it. Zion Lutheran Athletics gets to use it. Um, even in this, uh, spreadsheet, blow that up here. Uh, we have a local home school group, baseball club. They had their meetings here. Pickle ball uses it from Mayor Lutheran. Um, veterans, the fire department, fish fry, some of the Sunset Meadows Association meetings. we have a lot of different local or what we call local organizations that do use it. Uh but this is also

a kind of we want to figure out because we also have some of the larger events that even though they are local um we want to split that out. So that's where we talk a public entity, local civic group when there's an actual event like we're more seeing these types of events. We have the same cost as this the rental up here. And then if it's a non-local nonprofit true rental event, then it would be the uh non or the small group non-resident up here. Um, if they want to use a council chambers for if it's a public entity or a local civic group, if they want to use this for a meeting, for example, let them use that free of charge just because we don't have cleanup in here really after. And if it's a small meeting, they're going to pick up their after themselves. And we do have some of these groups that use it already that we allow. We're looking to codify it within the ordinance rather than us as staff going these use it for free, these don't to make sure we have it on the schedule. uh for the council chambers for all other organizations that aren't public entity or a local civic group uh we'll charge them $25 for use for meetings. Uh similar type of mentality. If we happen to have let's say park board is meeting here and we have another group I'll say baseball club I'll pick them out of thin air that would like to have meeting the exact same date. We could have them in the gym mezzanine area. they're not using the whole place, but then that would uh same logic would follow. Instead of the council's chambers, have them use the gym mezzanine uh for the same types of rates. Wanted to toss that out uh for discussionary purposes, uh thoughts of council. I know I sat down, we Alicia and I sat down with the mayor here last week to go over this because we know there's a lot of we'll call major changes to how this is structured. Some of this other stuff down here was rollovers from the former way uh from

2022 and earlier before we switched to the resident uh or the resident non-resident 50 or less large and small group. So tossing that out there. Uh this is um out there for thoughts discussionary purposes looking to get feedback. Any thoughts? Okay. So, the list of on the list of all the like nonprofits, did they all pay or were these like free? These ones got to use it for free. These ones paid.

Okay. Is that is that changing? Like, so we'd be charging everybody. That's where we're looking for more clarification so we're not having some uh more on the unwritten the verbal side of things of how they've been handled in the past. We tracked it back to 2023 and uh tried to go back further but there wasn't a lot of great documentation. We've been following things of how things have been historically done. So when we look at these groups we looked at this and what was paid and what was not and then we tried to adjust this to fit more in line with what we've been seeing here on that front.

So, can you go back to the list? So, like you would charge the fire department to host the fish fry here. This is where we have the discussion. Okay. to make sure we're aligning this to the needs. uh like I'm not really interested in charging for some of the groups that have, you know, utilized it because they're associated with like the city or the school, you know, I don't know.

Like the Lions, I have a hard time charging them for their spring and fall bingo because they are a they they give back to the community. Well, they have paid for their bingo time. I know, but I'm I'm just saying I'm I didn't know that. So, I'm So, like the fire department stuff I find kind of you're just taking from one pool of money and putting it into a different pool of money. Um, correct. And like I said, this is just to get discussion going. Okay. Do we have

you know this if you want to have public entity local civic group events if the will of the council is we don't want to be charging our local civic groups for events that's fine. So you could have those right there would get uh exempted out because they would need to be they have to be a local organization in order to qualify for that free event usage if that's something the council wishes to do.

Yeah. From everything else I can see, I'm I'm fine with not charging the whole left side, but those few on the right shouldn't be either, right?

Um I I Yeah. Yeah. Some of our discussion was, you know, like like an event like the bingo that I'll just use and we talked about, you know, we obviously the Lions donate money, but should we be separating because someone donates and they shouldn't get charged. We're still we still have the uh uh the cleaning, the bathroom supplies that gets used, the heating that, you know, the big events use of the tables and all that. and we felt with the amount we're charging is pretty reasonable. That's where the thought process was. Not say it has to be that way, but

So, can we separate it? Well, you kind of already have events versus meetings, right? Yep. Yep. Because we want Lions like a Lions meeting eight people. Sure. Come on in and use it. That that's not costing us anything, you know, for us to use. We we try to stay away from trying to play favorites, if you will, on hey, you donate money to us, okay, you don't have to pay. Well, it's not even to us, but they, you know, they put it back into the community. Well, right. Right. That was the thought. Not that it has to be that way. That's the way I was when we were meeting. That's kind of how I was looking at. Yeah. It's not a huge price.

I mean, I just I don't know. I I just struggle because I feel like there's a lot of things on that list that feel odd to to charge for that we've never charged for. I understand I understand the meaning, but I also think that mayor is a bedroom community and there's a lot of things that don't happen here. Like we have no public schools. Like everything that we do, if you go to whatever district school district you go to, you leave the town for it unless you're Zion or go to Mayor Lutheran. And a lot of those kids don't even live in town, you know? So, like I think it was great that that the football team hosted a dinner for their players here in Mayor so that people that lived in Mayor that were on the football team didn't have to always commute to Watertown. I find that as a benefit. I don't think they could afford because it's the the parents that plan it to charge for a fee, but I also understand that we pay for cleaning and that. So, it's just really hard for me to

the attent schools would be no charge. Correct. That's the proposal. uh for their smaller stuff. Uh if they're meetings, if it's meetings, like I think uh probably a football dinner is a meeting I would probably classify that as. But yeah, this is where it's spurring the discussion of how we want this to be sliced on it. So if you would want to make uh public entity local that free could certainly do so. that any non-local nonprofit would not be free. We would work on u delineating that a bit more. Yeah, under this it would be Zion these bigger events would pay that cost.

Yeah. I mean, I just I I I just am struggling just in general with I don't know. I think it's it's just a nice thing. It's a nice space. I think we would lose a lot of people actually enjoying the town of mayor. Uh, you know, that don't normally come here if we started charging. They may pick a different location. I don't know. I don't know. I just look at the lines. They use it twice a year. That 250 bucks isn't going to make make or break city hall. Wait.

And they do a lot for the community. I just I have I'm struggling with that one really bad. I I get that it's not a lot and it covers the cleaning. I just struggle with it.

Some of that I for me it was not having gray areas where what do we do? Make it black and white because everyone will then well I do a lot for the community. They do a lot you know. What if it went down? What if on the local and again cuz it's always been our intent or not always, but a lot of our intent with this is not necessarily big revenue generator. It was nice for the community. It's not we're not out looking to make $80,000 a year and we never would. But uh what if on those public entity local maybe what if it just went down to the 75 just to cover the cleaning?

I was want I I was that was running through my head honestly too. You know, I maybe kind of that happy medium there that we don't we we shouldn't be taking losses on some of this stuff if it if it literally costs us to do the Now, can we put a cost on electricity, heat? No. I mean, yeah, we could sit with the calculator and get down to the penny, but do we need to maybe we just cover the cleaning? The cleaning gets covered on on some of those. Do we Is it public entity, local civic? So, if we have those groups, the cleaning person comes in right after them or are they always just cleaning everything every week?

Uh, cleaning comes in on Wednesday evenings. Uh, it also depends on how the weekend is scheduled. So, if you have an event on Saturday and event on Sunday, it'll get cleaned on that Saturday. And depending on the event on Sunday, it will also get cleaned after that. They'll run the floor scrubber along the gym if they've got all the tables out to take care of it. And the restrooms are probably used. So then is that 150 bucks then? 75 per 75 per event. 75 per event cleaning. I

So then you'd have to determine if that event is if the event is a cleanable event, then it's you charge a 75. If it's they're if the cleaning people are not coming in to clean up after that event, it would be free. Could that be non-gay? If we want to slice that, I would I would lean towards what Chad was going for before. It's It's not a ton of events. All of them combined are half dozen or less, right? And how many of those on the list are using just the mezzanines because that's free.

Probably firearms, firearm safety, lion meeting, the football mayor baseball club, Sunset Meadow, Veterans, Sunset Meadows, the I think anything dinner I think they just use the upset, right? So really the only ones using the big the whole facility are like the bingos.

Yeah. The fall art fair thing

about that. Yeah. I don't feel like asking for a $75 fee is out of line because everyone else is just using the mezzanine then it's free right but for the fire department I mean you're going to charge what you just charging one department for another department like that's the fire department right would that just be considered like part of the city of mayor yeah it's a probably a city expense either way you look at just depends on which account it comes from. It's like what Nikki is saying, tit for tit.

The more we talk about it, the more I'm leaning towards let's just give a shot at make this free and I think you make this one all other nonprofit. I think you make this like 125 then. Yeah, I agree. I could be done with that. I would be I agree with that because it's Couldn't we have this like as a bigger conversation than just like today? Like I was prepared for this meeting but not prepared for this meeting conversation. But I I think that free I I just

well we won't be this is just introducing it. It'll be at the first meeting in January that it comes back again. We'll have more time for discussion there. January for so it would come back to January for final approval but okay so then normally session I would thought this was like a work session conversation we could extend that and have another work I mean if we want more discussion absolutely no and I'm fine I don't I my first thought is I want I don't want to charge all those I don't want to charge those groups same that's my first thought

I'd say um I'll go through the rest of it just with the changes that are proposed. Um, and then I'd say let's table this and then at the first meeting in January, we can look to in we'll talk about it. It'll be it won't be a workshop item. We'll bring it up since it'll be introduction and then you have adoption at the second meeting in January. Okay. We can incorporate changes at that first meeting. Adopt that second meeting. Okay. I'm align. I'm aligned with that.

Okay. Buzz through. Uh, under copier and documents, we had all these ones right here. And since I've been here, they've never been used. Uh, the 25 cent for black and white and the 50 cents for copper. That is, man, I remember seeing that like 20 years ago when I was in college, those kind of costs. So, for the city, our black and white, we under our copy lease, we get up to 80,000 pages of black and white for quote unquote free. We just buy paper. And our color is 3 1/2 cents per copy. We've I don't think we've ever sold a map or a plan or any of this we've ever charged. So I'm recommending we nyx all that out and just go printed materials per page. Black and white color 25 cents a page. So if you want the comp plan, we print it. It's 25 cents a page.

Nice and flat, nice and easy. uh with that adding in hot air balloon permit. Uh they are free but we want to make sure it's in our fe fee schedule. So we got that put in there. And then we go down to uh permits. This is a naming uh clarification. It's uh it says new home construction, but really it's for residential mechanical permits is what they get charged for. So cleaning up the naming there. Uh then we want to add a wetland delineation escrow uh with the Fieldstone East. this came up that our environmental firm didn't want to do the wetland delineation study unless we had escrow on hand in order to begin on it. Uh we didn't have a wetland delineation escrow. Central Homes was kind enough to put one in even though in our fee schedule we have nothing for that. So we want to make sure that gets in there to have that taken care of in the future. And then uh looking to split out this year. So these two costs cover all of these categories. Uh we found that we have different amounts of effort that go into residential uh types of escroed work versus commercial types of escrow work. Our commercial we tend to be billing out because the 1500 isn't enough uh and with some of the residential as well. So, we're looking at upping and clarifying residential types of escros related to these are 2500. And if it's commercial, then it would be 5,000 just to make sure we're covering our cost and we don't have to bill them afterwards and run into issues. Then, uh for the hydrant meter, uh this got overlooked a bit. So, 800 was the damage deposit and that doesn't uh pay for the meter if it gets lost. So, it's updated to,00 that will cover the cost of a lost meter. Uh we have a 70 we and then the hydrant meter. We aligned the the water

usage to what we have in the fee schedule for commercial and residential use because it was 0 uh to 10 was before and our fee schedule for everybody else in the city is 1 to six. So we're aligning that because whether you take it out of a hydrant or a faucet or you're at a business, the water is the exact same. So aligning those costs to match what we have up here. So they mirror these costs right here and the tiered brackets. So those align and then every year we update the water meter costs as we get those updated costs from core and main. So those are the updated costs for those. And then uh we didn't have it explicitly stated in the fee schedule but utility non-payment. So, if we if we shut off and then have to turn back on, uh it has been uh $50 that has been stated on utility bills that uh that gets referenced in the ordinance. Uh so, we're just making it sure it's here in the fee schedule. So, those were the other changes on that. So, with that,

perfect. Table it. Yep. We'll table it, talk about it at the first meeting January, and then look for approval on the second meeting.

Sounds good. Thank you. Uh then we will move to number 13. Consider adoption of resolution approving a minor subdivision for 404th Street Northeast. Thank you, mayor. Uh so a property exchange has been proposed from uh 4044 Street Northeast owned by Joanne Wheeland and uh 325 Ridge Road owned by Han Properties LLC. So what it is, it's a minor subdivision which just means they're exchanging pieces of property with each other is the shorthand of it. John put together a very nice memo, but I'll cut to the chase. Uh these are the two properties in question here uh that we have along Ridge Road. And then in the survey itself between the two properties there is the land to be exchanged 28 feet from one to the other. The planning commission met on this and they reviewed it and they were in unanimous approval of recommending recommending approval of this to the city council

and I assume the homeowners have any costs incurred they would take care of those. Yes. One other question I just uh I was a little confused on on why they were doing this and according to John it was so that no additional lots are created and both new lots can how would a lot how would a new lot be create I'm confused with that. Not that it changes anything. I'm just more clarification. So the concern is and why we approve these subdivisions with the conditions that were listed in the resolution is that with an exchange of land if you don't require a joining because you're you're essentially breaking this parcel off.

You're breaking it off and you could have a situation where if you don't require it be adjoined to the buyer's property, it sits as a 28 foot strip of land. Got it? It creates an unbuildable lot. So, as part of this resolution, one of the requirements is we're saying yes, we're okay with the minor subdivision. Yeah. However, as part of this, you are required to adjoin this to this property to that the south property. She's selling this 28 ft to this property. He is required as condition upon accepting it that he will adjoin it to this property to make it one. thought they were doing that to resolve not being a

Okay, I misread this then. Yep. It's very interesting how those two lots are I mean this makes sense. It does. Like if you look at the prop like if you're actually seeing the property like Yeah. It It's almost like it was the house was built weird on the property and it should have always been including that 28 ft. Yeah. So that'll slice it about there. I join this to this. So it'll be one lot. Well, that explains the mowing because if you don't require if you don't require joinment, this could sit as a 28 foot parcel of its own. Okay.

But even in general, like the other the property on Ridge Road, like that piece they're buying actually looks like it should be part of their property, right? Okay. No, thank you. that it didn't change anything. I was just confused by that. Yep. So, with that then I will look for a motion. Is this a resolution, Nick, or just uh what's the resolution number? Uh 2022- 2025. Thank you. 2025-22, I believe. 23. 23 it is.

Thank you. I'll look for a motion to approve resolution 2025-23 uh approving the minor subdivision subject to the conditions. Motion second. We have a motion to second. Any further discussion hearing? None. All in favor say I. I. I. Post same sign. Motion carries 4 and we can move on to the approval of the updated personnel policy.

Thank you, mayor. had our last uh workshop. We reviewed the updates to the personnel policy going from the 2020 2015 version to the 2025 version. Uh and after that, we were fine bringing that to city council as a formal item. So, here it is tonight. Any questions on that? We went over it at the last meeting. Then I'll look for a motion to approve the updated personnel policy. Motion. Second. We have a motion second. All in for any further discussion hearing. Not all in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion carries 40.

And we will move to consider approval to hire firefighters conditioned upon successful completion of physical background checks and submission of all paperwork. Thank you, mayor. We have three firefighters we are recommending up for hiring pending uh pending a condition upon successful completion as stated. Uh that'll be Steel Malik, Anthony Peterson, and Ryan Moberg. Thank you. I'll look for a motion to approve the hiring with the conditions. Motion second. We have a motion to second. Any further discussion?

Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion carries 4. And with that then we will uh be moving to a close section. So I'll look for a motion to go to close session for the city administrator annual performance evaluation authorized by Minnesota statute 13D.053. Motion second. We have a motion second. All in favor say I.

I post same sign. Motion carries 4. We will move to close session. Uh a quick note for the attending audience. We're going to be closing the stream because there isn't a reliable method to pause the stream. Uh once we are out of close session, I will be starting up the stream once again, but it will be a new stream since we don't have that great capability there. So, at that time, uh you'll see the stream pop back up. So, just hang out for the two or three people that are probably watching and we'll come back. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good night. Thank you.