City Council - Regular Meeting

Call to order for the City of Cannon Falls City Council meeting on Tuesday, May 19th, 2026. If I could get a roll call, please. Diane Johnson.

Here.

Zimmerman.

Here.

Chad Johnson.

Here.

Jepson. Absent. Nowak. Here. Cronenberger.

Here.

Montgomery. Here.

Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to.

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

Motion.

Motion from Lisa. Do I have a second?

Second.

Second from Chris. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That carries. Gets us to our public input. Public input is intended to afford the public an opportunity to address concerns to the city council. The public input will be no longer than 30 minutes in total length and each speaker will have no more than three minutes to speak. Speakers may address topics relevant to the governance of the city. Speakers must sign up in advance, must provide their name, address, and the topic they intend to address. Comments must be on topic, respectful, pertinent to city business, and adhere to the applicable data privacy rules. Any speaker that violates these rules will be asked to sit down. If the speaker refuses to comply, they may be removed from the meeting. Speakers shall not address topics that are the subject of a public hearing. All such comments shall be made at the public hearing. The city council will not generally act on issues raised by the public input, but may choose to schedule consideration of the item on a future agenda. Leading off tonight, we've got Jim Hoffman.

Diane told me I couldn't be long. Jim Hoffman, Park Street West, Cannon Falls. First thing I'd like to do is apologize that these comments aren't quite as timely as I wish they would have been. A few council meetings ago, it was brought up that maybe we didn't need to replace the signage that mentioned park. After all, the bolts were checked by a council member. Happily, it was still approved. My hat is off to whoever saw these sign replacements throughout the city as a good thing. Especially if the methodical approach that's being incorporated and replacing them. I feel these signs had a certain upscale look to Canada Falls And Canada Falls needs something like this at this point any advantage over surrounding communities is a good thing I believe it is vital that we continue this project until all necessary signs are replaced there's an except this is an exceptional investment in our city's image and I hope any attempts to derail the progress of this and of this is met with firm opposition. The quality of these signs is outstanding. Thank you.

Thank you. Up next, Kyle McMonigle. Did I pronounce that right, Kyle?

You got it.

All right.

So I'm Kyle McMonigle. I own the home at 114 Minnesota Street West. And so that property, abuts the alley between 1st and 2nd Street North that is on the consent agenda tonight to approve the paving of that alley and two others in the city this summer. In June 2024, my next door neighbor at 106 Minnesota Street West broached the subject of putting a fence on his property. And through the course of that conversation, we ended up agreeing to do two adjacent four corner surveys. And so we hired Johnson and Schofield out of Red Wing to do a couple of certified surveys of our property boundaries. And in the course of doing that, I discovered that the alley that's behind the house is encroached into the north boundary of my property around four and a half feet. And so while I'm very grateful that the alley is on the schedule to be paved, I'd like to have it straightened out. before it gets paved. The way that my garage is on the backside of the property, it faces east, and so it's turned 90 degrees relative to the alley itself. And so when you actually back out of my garage, having the alley drifted over into basically the encroachment that it is, it creates a blind spot for backing cars out of the garage because the traffic is tighter to the structure than it should be. And so on the safety part of it alone, I'd like to have it straightened out because moving the traffic further away from the edge of my driveway and my garage would decrease that blind spot and make it safer to come in and out of that garage. The second thing with that is, in addition to straightening it out, I was just going to offer up that there are two spots that every year as they come and regrade, They're prone to settling and so I'd assume that prior to paving and creating a long-term maintenance obligation if that pavement settles It's probably more expensive to fix than just digging it up now Recompacting it and taking care of that before the pavings put in so that would be my recommendation is to deny the motion tonight to approve that item on the consent agenda pending reconsideration of having the survey work done before getting the paving put in place Thank you. Thank you, Kyle.

That gets us to tonight's public hearing. So the public hearing is for the 2026 Street and Utility Improvement Project. Darren, do you have a presentation to go through before we open up the public hearing?

I do.

Perfect.

All right. I'm going to get this plugged in. It should be on the podium HDMI All right All right, Thank You mayor council as In your packet there should be a presentation from from us It also says the presenter is Bill Angerman. That is not me. I am Darren sick ink. Well, I work with Bill the assistant city and chair and Bill had a personal conflict. Zambrota Mazepa is in the softball playoffs, so he's very much behind his daughter's final season of softball. That being said, this is for tonight, you'll have this public hearing, which is for the 2026 street and utility project. We back in April, we received seven bids for the project. The low bidder was Fitzgerald excavating. They were the one who was on the previous project from a couple of years ago. But before the city can award that project, we're hosting a public hearing for the assessments on that project. So tonight the council will then listen to the residents speak on the assessment. This isn't a question and answer session. This is their chance to appeal or discuss their personal assessment on their property. Discuss and then look there's two resolutions one adopting the assessment and then the second would be to award the contract if the council so chooses so That being said I'll just kind of go through These are the items that we're looking to discuss tonight just kind of going through the improvements what the costs are and then kind of just the statute which is 429 for the assessment process Okay So on the project area, this map is color coded for a reason. We are currently, the project is 4th Street from Dakota up to Washington, which is also County Road 17. So that 4th Street is used heavily by industrial type traffic. There's the railroad tracks also on there. And then there's a small one block section of Ohio Street from 4th to 5th Street. This mainly serves, there's a few residential houses along that street in Ohio. Okay, so it's color coded for a reason. So the colors represent red is a street assessment, green being a sewer assessment, and blue being a water assessment. So not all properties are being served. So the ones that are just red only are not receiving any water or sewer services to their property. two of them being railroad property. Obviously, those do not need water or sewer. And then the ones along the 4th Street on the west side that are red, that's the parking lot for the old Cannon Equipment Building. Again, do not need sewer or water service at this time. Okay, so the improvements are we're putting in the city standard street, which is a 32-foot wide street from the back of curb to back of curb. All of the ones that are receiving sewer waters will get a new service there's going to be new sanitary main and then also New water mains in this area and also the each one of them is going to get a new service except the ones that are street only Also part of this if you remember back in the previous project we did extend some storm sewer from Cannon Street up the old right away of 4th Street and to collect essentially the low point on Ohio street. So Ohio street is the lowest point on this project. And so we're trying to collect that water runoff. There's known water issues in that on that street. So that was part of this as well. So we're, we're putting in storm sewer in that, in that area.

Okay.

As far as cost go, so the total project, accessible project cost is at $1.58 million. That does not include oversized piping. So what that means is that we're putting in some trunk sewer mains on this. This is kind of a main route that comes down 4th Street. So those bigger size pipes are not, we took out that oversized cost so the residents or property owners are not paying for that increased uh... pipe size they're basically the equivalent of an eight inch pipe which is the normal uh... pipe size for a residential neighborhood So breaking it down, the 20% accessible cost then is right around $300,000. You can see the assessment range varies very widely. So the $8,000 is more towards the single residential lot, and then the $63,000 is to the large industrial lot that's on the northeast side of the project. So there's a total of 13 lots. So this was done by the front foot method. So each item, so the street, sanitary, and water, each kind of received a dollar amount per foot. And so that's applied to the front footage of their property. And that's how the assessments are calculated. Okay, so the items that, or the other thing that they can do with an assessment, so if you're a senior citizen, permanently disabled, or active military, there are deferrals available. The city has afforded them in the past, so they just need to come into City Hall and look to apply for those. So if you do want to prepay your assessment, they need to do it before November 15th of this year. Otherwise, that assessment will roll onto your next year's taxes, and then there is an interest rate applied to that, and it's 3.5%, and that goes for 10 years. All right, as far as the schedule goes, we had a preliminary hearing back in November. We opened, like I said, bids in April, and so tonight we're hearing at this final assessment hearing, and then if you so choose, you can award the project, and then, If you do award the project the contractor is ready to start and so one of the things that as part of this project we had to deal with crossing the progressive railroad tracks so we have an agreement with progressive rail to do that in June so the contractor needs to kind of get going and get all of the pipes to the railroad track so then at a certain date I think it's the 13th through the 21st or something like that is The the contractor needs to go across the tracks and get across there So that's out of service only basically for about nine days So that's that's kind of the limiting factor as far as schedule goes Once we're past that and we can get it back open to train traffic Then we can go on and build the rest of the project So then final completion is followed this year. So we gave them till the first week of November and to complete the project, I think the contract will stay on the job and hopefully be done prior to that, but that is his completion date. So as far as the appeals process go, this is the resident or property owner's opportunity to object to their assessment. So they can provide either a written objection or come and verbally object. then they do have to then appeal or send their assessment to district court after they serve notice to either the mayor or the clerk. So, excuse me, if the clerk then files that, and then so all those necessary proceedings need to happen, so then this can be an official appeal to the district court. So what happens is if this does go to court, then the court will either say the assessment was valid or the assessment is not valid and is set aside and then orders a reassessment. So what that's saying is that there could be an assessment, but it needs to be of a lesser value. There's usually no value that's down to zero. Some what the city says is a number or some value that's slightly less of that However, if the person that's appealing the assessment does not win in court then the city has the right to then All the court costs could be also added to that person's assessment so Um, so all objections, um, if they don't happen tonight, so if the person isn't here tonight or has provided a written, uh, uh, or appeal, uh, so then that means that those are done. They don't have a right after tonight to appeal the assessment.

Okay.

Alright, so after I'm done talking, we'll open it up to public comments. One thing that I do want to note, our field staff did meet with the Hernke's who are here tonight, so they did have a request to look at us lowering that street, so we will look at lowering Ohio a little bit, just so they can have additional drainage from their yard or from their garage. So just wanted to point that out. Again, this is more for an assessment for appealing the dollar amounts. It's not necessarily a back and forth or question and answer session. Right? Thank you.

Thank you, Darren. So I will officially open the public hearing for the 2026 Street and Utility Improvement Project. The mic is open for anybody who would like to step up and speak. Second call, 2026 Street and Utility Improvement Project. Third and final call. You can go ahead, step right up to the mic.

I'm just curious. Um, I was informed that the, I was originally told, can you please provide name and address?

Name and address please.

And then I'm Jane roadie. I live at 11 to one fifth street north. Uh, my driveway is right off of Ohio. Um, I was informed that the street was being widened. Ohio was, um, but I thought they were only taking like five feet off my property. But where are you getting 32 feet to go? Because it's getting widened 32 feet or something?

Yep, yep. Darren, if you could speak into a mic, please.

Yeah, I can go into the microphone. Sorry. So the proposed width is 32 feet wide. So it's currently 26, 28 feet wide. So it'll widen basically from where the road is now to that. So the four to five feet additional on each side, that is what's being proposed.

It's just like the house across the street from me is already so close to the street. I'm just like, how are you going to make that work? Because that's going to make it like almost to their door.

Yeah, we're keeping it so it's still in the cities right away, but it is getting on both sides, getting closer to the houses because the road is so narrow.

I guess I'll see when you rip it all up.

Anybody else like to approach the mic for the public hearing?

Do you know when the trees are going to be cut down? Most of them are ours.

Tree removal, do we have a date?

No data as of right now, but it would be early in the project, so I would suspect here in June.

Okay, thank you. Are the pines going too?

They can go. Take those two. Not sure which pines, but we'll... They're going to be really close to the edge of the road anyway. Sure, we can look at that, but yeah, they probably are already looking at being removed, so okay.

folks if sorry just just interject if we do want to have comments and questions we can reserve time for you after the meeting darren can speak to you uh you know just to get through our process here of the public hearings and all just the business that we have to attend to let's try to let finish this up and we'll give time for you to you know meet after the meeting if you want so wish yep final call public hearing

All right, hearing none, we will close the portion of the public hearing for the 2026 Street and Utility Improvement Project. That leads us to item one, resolution 2874, adopting the assessment. Any questions or comments from the council? After the presentation from Darren?

I move to adopt resolution 2874.

All right, motion from Diane. Do I have a second? Second. I'll give the second to Chris. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That carries. Gets us to item two, resolution 2875, receiving the bids and awarding the contract.

If there's somebody, any questions, comments? No.

Then I would seek a motion to approve.

Motion.

Motion from Lisa.

Second.

Second from Chad. All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? That carries. It gets us to tonight's consent agenda. The consent agenda items may be adopted under one motion as presented or may be removed for discussion and resolution as council business. Item A, just and correct claims for the accounting period ending on May 13th, 2026. Item B, meeting minutes May 5th, 2026 City Council. Item C, second reading and adoption of ordinance 415, an ordinance approving the purchase agreement to convey city property to the Cannon Falls VFW. Item D, approve 2026 event street closures. Item E, approve sewer credit request for 410 2nd Street North. Item F, approve alley paving. Item G, approve hiring of the 2026 pool staff. And item H, approve new scoreboard at Independent School District 252. Before I say if there's anything that they'd want to pull down, obviously the concerns that were brought up by Kyle, that's item F, the approved alley paving. Would it be possible to address his concerns while still passing it so that we get the bid approved but all the work and his concerns can still be addressed? John, does it need to be re-looked at with the survey and the fencing and the property boundary?

Do we need to take his survey? Can he submit his survey to us as evidence?

Well, I'm just wondering, because if we pull it down and we take that into consideration, the rest of the approval for the bid and for the work, we'd basically be taking like one-third, and we'd have to do that at a separate time.

And we can approve the other two alleys and then address that.

Because they were addressed as three separate bids. If you did want to pull it, you could remove one piece of it, approve the other two. We can table that or bring that back at a later date.

I'm for pulling it down. Perfect. Then let's pull it.

I was going to say because we can pass it. Let's pull it. Just for clarity, I think it's going to add relative cost to it just to assess exactly where things are. I mean, not to say it's going to be a ton, but we might want to evaluate...

you know specifically where this is going to go and make sure that that's done correctly okay but he's okay well no let's just so chad we'll pull it down that will become council business item d all right is there anything else that the council would want to pull down hearing none i would seek a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda motion from diane second from chris all those in favor aye opposed carries, gets us to council business, the Cannon Valley Trail Bylaws and Joint Powers Agreement, and Scott Repke will take the mic.

Good evening. I'm Scott Repke. I am the trail manager of the Cannon Valley Trail, representing the Cannon Valley Trail Joint Powers Board. Today's presentation seeks formal approval of the revised Joint Powers Agreement. While the bylaws were previously approved by the three local units of government, the revised agreement establishes a new process. The Joint Powers Board will now, if approved, adopt bylaws independently. Provided that all three units of government are formally notified and given a comment period prior to final adoption Just to give you a little background First the trail is 40 years old this year however, the first joint powers agreement was back in 1984 and The last formally revised Joint Powers Agreement was in 2005, which is over 20 years ago. Recently, this past year, the Joint Powers Board formed a subcommittee to lead this update. The subcommittee met multiple times and collaborated with all three government administrators. So that would include Goodhue County, Red Wing, and Cannon Falls. Revised drafts were sent to the Goodhue County attorney and he made some revisions and we accepted those. The Cannon Valley Trail reviewed after the revisions and actually made a few revisions themselves. But then the agreement went back to the Goodhue County attorney and the three administrators. These bodies formally approved the final Joint Powers Agreement. And we're looking for Cannon Falls approval today. Just a note that Goodhue County Board of Commissioners approved the Joint Powers Agreement this morning. I just want to quickly, hopefully quickly here, just go over some minor changes that we've made. Under the purpose of the trail, two things we changed. We did accept e-bike use on the trail, which is considered kind of a motorized vehicle. Even though we say no motorized vehicles, we are making that exception. And then some land acquisition updates, which I'll eventually get to. The local unit of government responsibilities, this was formally, this agreement formally assigns the governments to a few responsibilities. Goodhue County actually owns the property. The city of Red Wing will be our fiscal agent and Cannon Falls is our human resource department. As far as the funding formula, uh, since 1984, uh, the percentages of funding has not changed. And at this point it will not change. However, um, there is a formula. Hopefully you were able to review that. Uh, it will be based on population. And another funding issue was we added capital improvement reimbursement. If a unit of government, such as Cannon Falls, if you would give the trail maybe some engineering or something like that, we would reimburse Uh, the city of cannon falls, therefore all three governments are participating in that cost. Uh, one new section that was added was indemnification. Um, basically it states that we are not going to hold the three units of government responsible for what we do. Uh, we will carry comprehensive insurance. Um, Yeah, and we will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless to all three governments. The bylaws, I'm gonna quickly just go over a few changes. The bylaws were updated to reflect the current trail reality today. 20 years makes a big difference. Again, the e-bikes were, um, mentioned in the bylaws. Uh, getting to the land acquisition, as I mentioned earlier, um, the process we would like to go through is, uh, the joint powers board would like to make the approval of acquisition, but Goodhue County needs to be involved since they are the land owners. Uh, one minor change in board membership. So there are nine elected officials or sorry, nine official board members, three from each unit of government. Uh, prior to this, it was one elected official, one citizen, and then the third could be either or. the board felt it was important to switch that to two elected officials and one citizen. For the bylaws, as I mentioned prior to this, they were approved by the units of government, but basically bylaws are how the Joint Powers Board will operate as itself. Um, what will take place now is a two thirds board vote, um, to change anything in the bylaws. At that point, a notice and comment period will go to all three units of government where you can contest what, you know, if you're disagreeing with something that how we feel that we should be running. I'm getting close to the end here. So, um, what is not changing? It's pretty simple. Uh, the trails core commission and route will remain the same. Uh, the nine member board is unchanged. So finally, what I'm asking is, um, that Cannon Falls consider adopting a resolution approving the 2026 revised joint powers agreement. And I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Questions for Scott.

So you say that certain things aren't changing, but as soon as you get the power to, then you can change it without having to go back to people.

So the agreement is basically the three units of government agreeing to have the Cannon Valley Trail. The bylaws are kind of, how do I describe this, John? You might be able to help me, but it's kind of how the Joint Powers Board itself will operate.

Yeah, so it's the operation... It's guiding how the board is going to oversee the operations of the trail. It's still an asset that is part of the joint powers for the city of Cannon Falls, Red Wing, and Goodview County are all part of. We have memberships that members of our elected body and our citizens that will be representative on the board. that used to be if they had a change in the bylaws, so if they wanted to add e-bikes, then that was an approval that all three entities had to have their city councils or county commissioner board change, correct? And then their board could adopt it. This is taking away part of that middleman. However, they're still providing us the notice, and we still have the comment period that if we object, then we can share that in our, hopefully, the representatives of that are coming from our jurisdiction are gonna advocate for that and making that change.

What's stopping you from going out and buying equipment that probably isn't needed or some people would think isn't needed? You know there is, but then now say we object, doesn't really mean anything if we can't do anything about it after you already bought it.

Right, so that's where the three representatives from each unit of government, we come together as a group to make those decisions. And I think in the 40 year history, um, the trail is proven that I know for certain during my era, the equipment that we're buying is actually funded by grants. So I mean it, I mean we, I think a lot of people know me, I make the best use of money, but uh, that it does come back down to the joint powers board and the representatives on the board.

Hope people show up.

Correct. Anything else?

Any other questions for Scott?

All right. Thank you Scott. Yep.

Uh, hearing none.

I move that we adopt the Cannon Valley Trail Bylaws and Joint Powers Agreement as presented.

All right. Motion from Diane. Second. Second from Chris. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Nay.

All right. Passes four to one. That gets us to item B, resolution 2876, approving variances for minimum lot depth and front yard setbacks for land to be platted as O'Gorman addition. Izzy.

Okay, so at the May 11th Planning Commission, we held a public hearing and considered an application from Mr. O'Gorman for variances from 152.611. So that's for lot depth and it's for front yard setback. So... looking for a decrease in the minimum lot depth so the requirement is 142 this is down to about it depends on the lot and blocks within the development but one is 133 and the other is about 87 and then the minimum front yard setback for two of the lots is down to 17 from 25 is the requirement. So the variances also coincide with Mr. O'Gorman's application for the O'Gorman addition final plat, which is also on the agenda tonight. It's the next item. So just kind of as an overview on that, at the planning commission meeting, that did not require a public hearing for final plat we just considered the application and planning commission approved the final plat just noting that prior to, I guess we were able to record the final plat, release the final plat, but we will still need to negotiate the development agreement. So we're still able to record and do all of that, but the development agreement will still be negotiated at this time. So at Planning Commission, both the variances and the final plat were approved unanimously at the meeting. So any questions on that, just let me know. But otherwise, just those two approvals tonight on the council business. All right.

Questions or discussion for the resolution, again, we'll treat these individually, but resolution 2876, approving the variances for minimum lot depth and front yard setbacks. Hearing no questions, I would seek a motion to approve.

So moved.

Motion from Diane. Second. Second from Chris. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? carries. Gets us to resolution 2876, approving the final plat for the O'Gorman addition. John, is there anything you'd like to add before discussion?

Yes, I would like to add. So we do have Mr. O'Gorman here to answer any questions or provide additional information about the plat. So in that conversation, you know, he presented that, you know, in trying to determine what the ultimate end design conditions. So the staff recommendation has been that the alley should be paved as it says, you know, that's basing that on our code decision, having multiple conversations with Mr. O'Gorman. He believes that there's, he has reasonings and why the alley shouldn't be paved. And he would like an opportunity to speak to that tonight. So he's here to be able to, you know, talk about that issue. And if there's any other questions we can, certainly be able to ask of them so Mr. Mayor if you would be okay let me provide him the opportunity to share his good evening Go ahead, babe. It's yours.

Just a couple little side notes. I'm sitting back here. We've got an alley that might be platted in the wrong place, and the street right away is right next to the door. On my property, and John and I went through this, and this has nothing to do with the developer agreement, but this setback business, John insisted that I depict an eight-foot right-of-way on my alleys. Those are the oldest alleys in town, and we can go all we want about it. They're platted in the right spot. I've got to depict it right away. I'm 26 feet from the front of the garage to the alley. You've got to be 25, but he takes eight feet from me for the right of way, so now I have to come back to get it. You see what I'm talking about? Just a few years ago when Neil Jensen was here, you went to Habitat for Humanity, that garage is 15 feet off the actual alley. That means it's only seven foot setback. There was never variance. You following what I'm saying? And what I'm saying, and Diane and I were discussing this at length today, there's all this hodgepodge goes on in these old neighborhoods in Cannon Falls. I don't know. We seem to still get along just fine. And one of them is this blacktop. Now that is my issue. There is not a residential blacktop alley that has been assessed even though it's in your code to assess them and you know that is because you've got one and they're doing them and there's nothing wrong with this and Jed will attest to the fact and I was here long before Jed knowing what they were doing and I've researched it and I know exactly why they're doing it. It makes it easier for those guys to snowplow. They're no longer getting stuck. They're no longer throwing sod up on everybody's yard and all this other crap that goes on because winters are different than when I was a kid around here. now you go out and plow you're plowing half dirt and half snow and I don't know for the life of me why I would be the only one in town to pay to have an alley paved so John comes at me with Well, it says right here This is what the code says and what this talks about is streets and what they're supposed to be specked at Well, it isn't a street. It's an alley And I told John, give me the alley specs. He comes back with what my engineer drafted. It's for a seven-ton road, OK? And it's excessive. I know what Billy Robinson and Jed are doing in these alleys. I've known Billy all of his life. I've talked to him several times in the last couple weeks. I know exactly what they're doing. It's nothing like they're requiring me to do. I call up my engineer. Keep in mind, I'm paying the survey to come and depict these right-of-ways that are depicted across town by ordinance. I'm paying him to write a spec on this alley when there are none? And you can ask John. I've asked him four times. He finally came back and said, I can't find any. And it's too bad Bill Angerman isn't here because he's the guy, along with John, that instructed my engineer to develop this. It's for a seven-ton road. That's more than most of your city streets are. You're following what I'm saying? Well, along with that comes money. And so why am I held to a completely different standard than what Jed's doing in other alleys? And why are you not assessing them, but you're assessing me? That's the bottom line here.

Would the city be required to remove snow from this? Alley or, I mean, we're calling it an alley, but is it classified as an alley or a road?

I think it's being classified as an alley, but yes, if it's public right-of-way and designated public right-of-way, the city would be removing snow and doing maintenance on it.

If I may, they have been plowing it. It is an alley. It is platted as an alley, the entire thing.

The variances that were approved in 2018 and then recorded as a legal document, they are not plotted as an alley currently and the legal standard. Now they exist as alleys physically, they are there, they have never not been there in the physical form that they exist. But in 2018, when the vacation was completed and then recorded, that as a legal document. And that's how we've come to the process in which today we're, you know, this, this issue right now is the final plot to replat those as public alleys so that they are based on the legal definition, an alley in the city.

Can I just put a quick pause on this? This discussion that we're having right now is basically a step before. What we have in front of us is approving the final plat. What we're talking about is more the developing agreement, which we can talk about at a later date too.

I don't expect any action. It's not on the agenda. That's why I asked if I could talk about it. The only reason is to inform you all and let you all do a little research on it.

Would the council be interested in continuing discussion or taking a motion to, because I have a feeling that we're in approval of the final plat. The development agreement, hashing things out, that's another conversation for a different day. But in the interest of time.

Does the development agreement come back to us or is that just done between those two?

No, that will ultimately have to be approved by the city council. Yep.

Okay.

So we can save that discussion for another day if we would like to seek a motion to approve resolution two.

It was vacated in 2018 Yes Yep, so and if I may because John and I went over this I was not I was not supposed to be allowed to vacate it according to your ordinance and I didn't know that.

And at that time, none of us in the seat were involved in that process. And I showed him the document and all that. Yeah. So, yeah. So the alleys, the vacation of the alleys, because the intent at that meeting was they would go in as private streets to serve the houses that were going to be built. That plan is not moving forward. So now they're going back to being public streets. streets, alleys, whatever you wanna call them, but they will be maintained and to the future by the city.

Which they have been all along.

All right, I know we're gonna have a lot of discussion and a lot of questions regarding how this is going to be developed, but for right now, I would seek a motion to approve resolution 2877, approving the final plat for the O'Gorman addition.

So moved.

Motion from Diane.

Second.

Second from Chris. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? It carries. All right. We pulled down what was item F, the approve the alley paving. Mr. McGonigal spoke during public input. I think those are some pretty valid concerns. I even looked it up on the old Google map here, and yeah, from looking at a satellite, that alley has a little bit of a twisting curve to it, and his garage is pretty much right up against it. I have no problem with passing the two out of the three, and then we... maybe have to separate the, that'd be alley one that runs between 2nd Street North and 1st Street North?

Yeah, I think it's alley one on the agenda here. So if we subtract the cost, the total cost for the other two alleys would be $16,427.75 for alley two and three.

Now, I just want to, by taking this out, looking at the survey, the fencing, the property boundary, and the safety issue that Mr. McVonigle brought up, will that, increase the cost than for the cost of alley one as a project as a standalone?

It shouldn't. Right in our quote from Bill's blacktop, it is to final grade and do the base work. So the depressions that you talked about would be addressed when he would, because he would address the prep before we put down asphalt anyway. So that would be removed and put back to Fort. He's going to do it. Yes, he would do subgrade prep before we put asphalt down. The other thing is, I mean, I guess if I may, I could pull, I have GIS here so you can kind of see where property lines are. We try to fit them in the right-of-way. It's only a 16-foot right-of-way. We would put that, we would straighten it out and put it in that right-of-way. Yep. But if we do need to survey it and identify property pins or whatnot, we can do that.

you know can we i mean put that on like a rush request so like at our next meeting it could be at least a topic or how long does this john what does it take to get a survey done i don't know oh i mean if he's got a legal survey available so if you already have a survey i mean we can just go off your property pins i was gonna say i have for mine and the lot adjacent i should have offered this out there in the public info but you guys can have this copy to at least it's

Because I can show you like our GIS. I have it pulled up on my laptop here if you want to see what it looks like based on there.

I just don't want to have to wait like another year, you know, how things go sometimes.

On the north side of the alley, there's a hedge. And I suspect over the years that hedge has grown. And just over time, they've just slowly, as they've come in and graded or whatever, just slowly kind of let it drift.

Yep. So you can see, I'm assuming this is your property here? Yep. Okay. Yeah, you can see how it's, wow, that's not, my mouse isn't working really well. But yeah, the hedge right here that he's talking about, it's drifted over, and here's what the county has as property lines. Yeah. So we would straighten that out the best we could.

So there's one hedge there, and then right at the intersection line of mine at the property next to it, there's another smaller hedge there.

You're talking right in here?

No, the other corner. Right here. Yeah, straight from that. Oh, right here. Yeah, okay. So that's where it kind of starts to trail.

Yeah, and we would straighten it out. Okay.

And that garage, that accessory structure on the lot across the street, that got torn down last summer.

So you're talking this one right here? That's right. So that's not there anymore.

So that's not in play either for having to have any. clearance to that, that's been torn out and just gray and restored.

I mean, we have a 16-foot right-of-way there. The road's going to go. You would try to put a foot or so on each side and put the alley right in the center of that. I don't see any problem with figuring out where property lines are and moving forward with it as it is. We have an idea where right-of-way is already, especially if you have a survey done. OK.

With Jed using the survey and that, would you be comfortable with us approving tonight, or do you want to have us wait two weeks?

I really don't care as long as you don't bathe into my... Are you going to have someone out there, Jed?

Yeah. Can you just get someone out there to talk with Kyle and just be like, hey, this is where it's going to go? The way that we do this is...

As we work with Billy, so Tony and my guys are the ones that are helping install the alley. So if I give them direction that this needs to fit in the right of way and we need to straighten it out, that's what will happen.

Your guys put the posts down and then they go, they do everything in between, right?

Yeah, so Billy comes in and preps everything. So we decide where the alley's going to go. And I mean, we're the ones in charge of putting it down. We work with Billy to do it. We're the ones that buy the asphalt and provide some of the trucking and whatnot as well. Billy is the one that will prep it to be paved.

You'll, like, stake it out so we have a – We will identify to the best of our abilities.

I mean, if we can't – if we go out there and decide we can't find right away, then we can – we could call in a survey.

I can relocate my pin if you want. I still have the stakes up two years later.

Okay.

I just never did anything about it. So they're still up so I can measure off that stake to where I know the corner to be and just mark that and then as long as you –

John, do you have concerns with this?

My recommendation would be to identify from where the property owner said that their stakes are and then have some engineer either stake the rest of the alley to determine where that fits within the right-of-way so that ensure that we're getting it right because if you know looking at what's going on and if the hedges impacted it and now the alleys kind of moved around the hedge but that's hedges in the right away then we're going back to you know earlier conversation about moving trees so that we get those out of the way when we're building streets like we may have to do additional grubbing work i think in terms of if we want to get it right and do it the the right way and it's now being paved and it's going to be there for a long period of time we want to make sure that those things are there and we're not just working around current conditions when over time things change and they're not where they say they're gonna be. So to me, I'm not saying like we're delaying the project. I don't think it's gonna take additional years or months. I mean, it's a matter of weeks and it's us contracting to do additional diligence to make sure that these alleys get put back in the right place.

So we could actually approve it tonight conditional upon staking the alley.

In terms of what you're approving is the quantities and quote from the work, I don't think that's changing from what we have from Bill's blacktop. what would be added to the project based on just the quote and what Judd has presented is going to be that additional work to either, you know, make sure that we're vetting the right lines and having that staked out appropriately. And then, you know, any other windfall of, you know, does that impact any of the vegetation that's grown up along the alley that's now inside the right-of-way that's going to be paved and having to remove that. And we, by right, have the ability to do that. take down things that are within the right of way. But it's going to have an additional. That's my my point of that it will cost additional. And if you're comfortable with approving it tonight and knowing that those costs are going to be added to the project later, I think you can move forward.

All right. I like that.

All right. I would then seek a motion to approve alley paving, including the additional work to alley one.

Motion to approve.

Motion from Lisa. Second from Chad. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? It carries. Gets us to our reports. um the eda met on may 7th if john if you would or diane if you would speak to that hand off to john yeah excuse me

Can we come back to that? Sure, of course. I'll poke the agenda so I make sure I'm speaking accurately because we had a community meeting before.

Yeah, there's a lot of stuff going through my head. Public Works and Park Board met on May 7th also, Jed, if you want to talk to that one.

Sure. The majority of that was on the consent agenda, but we did bring up Don Mensing Park. He threw out a couple options about adding some picnic tables, and the Public Works Park Board also brought up they would like... Okay. Bags. And so we are going back to the drawing board to maybe design with an idea of, I think it was four picnic tables and bags and then also a couple benches to go around the volleyball court over there.

I've seen some parks that have those permanent, they're almost like concrete. That's what we were talking about.

Just because they'd be put in a lower area, that potential flooding, that concrete would not get washed away. Other than that, it was that or just a cement pad so people bring their own boards, but I do like the idea of concrete.

I've seen that at parks. It's very interesting. Planning Commission met on May 11th.

We dealt with the 2-0 Gorman.

There we go. Wonderful.

Did you find the EDA, Jeremy?

Yep, I did. There we go.

I thought I've got it, too.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

All right, so EDA update. So the EDA did have the one note that everything is current on our current loans. I think that was a really good update. that the Hokanson lease agreement, so that's the farmland lease, was approved and that there will be the closings on the two lots that, yes, two lots in the new addition for Fieldstone. We talked about grant updates, so that is, I'll touch on it now. So we did submit the letter of interest to the Blandin Foundation. We received an invitation for a grant application, and Laura and I actually met Monday with the staff person from Blandin that will be overseeing that grant application. So it was submitted in time. Then we have the opportunity to make any revisions for what we have. I just wanted to share the updates. So there's 91 participants that were invited for the grant application. They have about $6 million in total grants. And of those applications, there's $11 million in requests. So part of the conversation was whether or not there was potential changes in the budgets for the grants. But I feel like the conversation was very positive. And as a reminder, this is for doing work to do an assessment and plan for all of our parks, recs, trails, kind of the public recreation facilities. Streets was included in the title of the grant, but I think part of that work is going to be shifted on to what staff are doing with doing the road assessments and the pacer ratings and things like that. So it was a really great conversation we had on Monday because she was also talking about, well, how does this fit into other things? And having the comprehensive plan meeting that we did earlier tonight and then the work that we did with the water-wastewater related to the data center was, I think, very positive in our work that we are touching a lot of things. We're coming up with a overarching comprehensive view for our community, and then finding different action steps that we can do to support the various assets and things that the city will do to support our growth and joy that can happen within our city. All right.

Thank you, John. Let's go around the horn. Jed, anything else?

Last week, we were able to finally install our demonstration project from the Oh, now I can't remember the name of the grant that we received from MnDOT. Active Transportation Grant. There you go. Thank you. The actual installation went in really smooth. We had no problems there. MnDOT came and did traffic control for us. Had kind of mixed reviews of people, whether they like it or not. The delineators going down the south side of the road, there was a couple of pedestrians that walked down that that were overjoyed and felt safer walking down the side of the road and not feeling like they were going to get run over. All right. Thank you. Darren. Darren.

Thank you, Mayor. So as I mentioned during my presentation, so you'll probably see construction starting on the 2026 project right away because they want to get going. Yeah, they want to get going. so they can meet that deadline for the railroad. Also ongoing is the Hardwood Estates Third, so that project is currently under construction. And then Jed and I and Tony went around and started doing the street rating project. So we've got through about half a town, and we'll finish the other half coming up here and report back what the streets are rated at. So it's ongoing.

Thank you. Izzy.

We had our community meeting tonight for the comprehensive plan. So that was kind of an open house style meeting. Our residents could come and learn and provide us feedback on the comprehensive plan. So we had different booths and activities and activities. opportunities for them to provide feedback so everything from our parks and natural resources to transportation and economic development we had pretty good turnout tonight which was good and everyone provided great feedback so it was a it was a great meeting tonight for the comprehensive plan so we'll keep moving forward with that awesome anything from our police department it is click it or take it month so just make sure you wear your seat belts awesome thank you sarah

The pool. I know it doesn't seem like pool weather yet, but there are lesson sign-ups tonight and Thursday night from 6 to 8 p.m. And then I think the tentative open date, they're kind of looking. It depends on training. It will be for sure, for sure June 15th, but they will hopefully get it open the week before.

All right.

Then more to come.

I had somebody ask me the other day if we filled it yet. And I said, I don't think so.

It's filling right now. Is it really?

It is. Wow. Yeah. Definitely not thinking about when it's 57 and gray out there. Do we need anything from legal counsel? Mr. Mayor, members of the council, Scott Lansman, city attorney. When I come to city council meetings, I review the entire. Agenda, I observe the council. And if you don't hear from me, that's a good thing. And you did not hear from me tonight. All right. Well, that was a good thing. Thank you, Scott.

John. I want to share. There's a housing study, actually region-wide, so it was multiple counties in Southeast Minnesota housing study that was supported, I think, originally by Olmstead, but included Goodhue. So they did touch on things that are happening within our county and the city of Cannon Falls related housing. Very common trend that we're hearing the housing stocks are low relative to the demand and then the cost of new construction is very high. So kind of the big takeaway that I heard from the presenter was anything that cities can be doing to support creative projects to develop housing that people can afford is a good thing. So example of our hardwood estates and the developments that we're doing is actually leading to people being able to construct and live in new homes. as well as they talked about multifamily units and a lot of that growth and development actually happening. A strong part of the growth and development happening in Goodyear County is a testament to the work that we're doing here in Cannon Falls. So I think that's something we can take pride in. Data center, they have been working on the preliminary plan and design for the infrastructure to serve the site. So they know they had a site meeting at our wells and looking at the water main for that. So I know that's ongoing process so that work is happening. And then just wanted to update you that on Thursday, there is a, I have a meeting with Tract about our original escrow agreement, the original and amended escrow agreement of the $100,000. So that's going to be closed out because that has, money has all been spent and actually a little bit more, which they'll be paying for. And then we'll try to convert that into the next escrow agreement, which will be related to this development for the, for the infrastructure. And then I did want to touch on, I just wanted to dispel some information out there. Izzy reported to me that you've had some residents talk about the Frontier fiber build project and the lawn restorations and that there's this magical Izzy list. There's no magical Izzy list that is Frontier's responsibility to be working on the turf restoration. That work is happening. They touched hundreds of properties in our community. There's a lot of stuff that they need to do. inevitably it could be that properties are missed however if you do have that we do have contact that we can put you in touch with them much rather direct you to to the people that are going to be ones responsible for doing that work versus you know us trying to be your middleman for you so we're happy to make sure you have direct contact so if that's what you need but don't expect that we're going to call us and someone in the city and it's magically going to that we're coming out there to do that. Now, when the project is done and they claim that they are restored and complete, that is work that we do. Jed and staff go out and assess and make sure everything meets the standards that we've set within our permit process, and we make sure that that's done correctly. And if it's not, then that's where we have the resources within the permit that we have to make sure that they get done correctly. So just know, there's a process. It's going to take some time, but they are actively working on that.

John, do you know how much, how far along they are with the project?

I don't. Well, they're way, I mean, in terms of the soup to nuts of the project is digging down, putting in the fiber and everything. They're very far along in that. And they're on to the, you know, mostly left is these turf restorations. Okay.

All right. Thank you, John. Laura. I'm good. Chris. I'm good. Dan. Good.

Lisa.

Lisa.

Happy Memorial Day weekend. Yeah, there you go.

Chad?

I want to thank Officer Burke. They did the triad. It's on the cable channel. And I think the school did the walk to school. Was that pretty recently? I saw a bunch of stuff down on the road there. So that's all I got. That was pretty awesome.

I want to say congratulations to all the seniors who are graduating. I believe commencement is next Friday night, the 29th, and then the last day of school is June 4th. We will have council on the second. So for everybody who's not a senior, they will still be in school, but all those seniors are wrapping up. So thank you everybody. Special thanks to everybody who was here present for the community meeting. We have roughly 10% of our citizens or 420 some have filled out the online survey. So our comprehensive plan is coming right along and there were 40 some people who came here tonight. We would love to see more people involved to come to those events there a lot of people are here a lot of uh good conversations a lot of good questions um but it also it lets us know what are people's concerns and to be able to be meeting face to face with members of the community so a great event and all the people from cita that were here also did a great job so uh with that i would seek a motion to adjourn motion motion from lisa second from chad all those in favor we are adjourned thank you everybody