City Council - Regular Meeting

There we are. All right, good evening. We'll call this meeting to order for the July 23rd, 2026 Apple Valley City Council meeting. Welcome, everyone. For anyone who has signed up to speak when your name is called, please approach the podium to arrest the council. The first item on our agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance, and I would ask everyone to stand and join us in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, Thank you, everyone. The next item on our agenda is to approve the agenda. And Tom, are there any changes or updates this evening?

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. No changes to tonight's agenda.

Wonderful. Thank you. Do we have a motion to approve the agenda?

So moved. Second.

Motion from Council Member Grendall, second from Council Member Bergman. All those in favor indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? All right, the agenda passes. The next item is our audience participation portion of the meeting. This is for items that are not on the agenda. I walked back and didn't see anyone on the sign-up sheet. Did we have anyone sign up?

I did not see any sign-ups, ma'am.

Thank you. We will still, of course, make the offer to those who are in the room and may have missed the sign-up sheet. Would anyone like to speak for items that are not on the agenda? All right, seeing none, we will move on to the consent agenda. These items are considered routine and will be enacted with a single motion unless a council member or a citizen requests to pull an item to be discussed separately. Council members, any items you'd like to pull? All right, citizens, any items to pull? Seeing none, do we have a motion for the consent agenda? So moved.

Second.

Motion from council member Melander, second from council member Bergman. All those in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Consent items all passed unanimously, and that brings us to item 5A on our regular agenda, which is to receive the Minnesota Recreation and Park Association Award of Excellence for the Hays Youth Athletic Complex. On our presenters, I'll come forward. We're ready when you are, so jump in.

All right. Excellent. Thank you. Mayor, members of the council, my name is Nick Thompson. Happy to announce that we won a MRPA, or Minnesota Recreation and Park Association 2025 Award of Excellence for the Hays Youth Park Athletic Complex. I'm going to do a quick overview of what the project is, just so people are refreshed with it. Total investment was $7.3 million. There's four youth baseball, softball fields in the southwest corner. Those are all lit, as well as a rectangle football, soccer, lacrosse field to the north of those. The whole site is irrigated. We added on-site parking and then updated the stormwater to today's standards as well. This is a unique project because it was actually a partnership with IST 196. The land essentially to the west of the senior center or the Apple Valley Community Center is IST 196 property. We worked out a joint powers agreement with them to be able to do the construction as well as the future maintenance and general upkeep. There's a view from above. There's a flexible green area to the north of where the ice arena is now. U-13 field was updated to just improve it a little bit. And then at the southeast corner, there's a flexible green space as well. We anticipate soccer, football, youth fields, and things like that going in there. Just a different angle here, a little better view of the wheel of ball fields. This is if you're looking from the southwest up towards the community center. Batting cages have been shifted around a little bit since this, but there's still forum in there. It's just to the east of where the ball fields are now, as well as the flexible field to the north with the lights again. Key staff involved, myself, like I said, Nick Thompson, Recreation Supervisor, Park Maintenance was heavily involved, clearly. Steve Roether, the Superintendent, Dane Brenno, The maintenance supervisor, Jason Reiner, maintenance foreman, Brian Christensen, the recreation facilities manager, my supervisor, Nate DeRosa, recreation superintendent, and then Kayla Hexel, our local office superstar, too. A couple other, there's many names that aren't on this list, too. All the park maintenance staff had some great input. Part-time staff, as well as EVAA, NBAA, making sure that we were building the complex. That's what the community was looking for. A little before picture to show just a slight improvement over what we what we had previously kind of the old concept of fields pushed out into the corners hitting towards each other, a lot of overlap. And then the during this is pretty close to where where it's at right now three quarters of the complex has been was seated in this picture that is all seated at this point and is growing in.

and then the anticipated after so with that i'll turn it over to mitch check from the shorewood parks and recreation and mrpa welcome mitch thank you nick good evening mayor members of the council it's my honor to be here this evening to present an award of excellence in the parks and facilities category from the minnesota recreation park association so i'm the parks and rec director for the city of shorewood i'm a member of the awards committee and I'm here this evening. I'll give you kind of a little background about MRPA and the awards committee so you kind of know what this award's about and how special it is. MRPA was formed in 1937 to foster growth and development within the field of Parks and Recreation. currently there are around 850 professional corporate board commission student and retiree members throughout the state so our members are from local cities counties districts even you know corporate entities involved in the field of recreation The MRPA Awards Committee was created in 1987, basically to try to recognize outstanding work. We have a variety of categories. Parks and facilities is one that's, you know, you can physically see, but there are also programming, volunteer, those kind of categories as well. And our intent is really just to try to recognize the efforts that are being done throughout the state. There's a lot of people doing extremely well, great work that we feel should be recognized and shared. And being a part of the committee, it's really great to see all those projects, even the ones that don't win the awards. There's a lot of great work being done by a lot of professionals around the state. So trying to bring attention to those and also, you know, the brainstorming and passing those along to other cities as well is important. So with these awards, MRPA members can nominate projects or programs or whatnot to receive an award, and then there's an application process, and then our awards committee goes through a selection process. So we go through all the applications, score those applications, and then select those that receive an award. Nick did a great job kind of highlighting the Hays Athletic Complex. We noticed that it really demonstrates a community-driven plan with a lot of engagement from different stakeholders, some of those partnerships like the JPA, kind of creative outlets to see a vision and really execute it and bring it to life. And it's a complex that'll It's an asset to the community that will serve for many generations to come. So with that, I'd like to present an award of excellence in the parks and facilities category to Nick and the Apple Valley team. Great.

Nick, do you mind if we grab you and the team members who are here and just jump out and grab a picture with you all? Mitch, stay up here with us as well. If that's okay, we'll get one. We don't often get awards of excellence. Let's recognize it.

Eric, you're... Eric, get up here. Get up here, Eric.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks Mayor.

Thanks City Council. Thanks for having me. Thank you.

As we get resettled, I'll just give a shout out to those who are here who worked on the project. But then those who aren't here as well, this didn't just pop out of the ground, right? There was an awful lot of work to get to the feedback to get this done. Lisa, you were part of that as Park and Rec Committee. And a lot of staff time, a lot of other things that happened to get here. So a good project. Council Member Bergman, do you have something to add?

Yes.

Excuse me.

You better hit the button so that you can hear me. A few of us are the staff at the Park and Rec Committee and staff that is in charge of Park and Rec gave us a tour of the parks that are all being redone. It was quite interesting and quite an experience to see what you looked at old property that hadn't been rebuilt to today and you see it today and you go, that really fits in this property. And then when you see it constructed in there, you go, wow, there was a lot of property there that could fill this space. We've seen there's going to be, when they open some of these up to big time, the city will really thrive on what the community saw from the levy referendum and for the staff that has done an outstanding job at making this a real satisfying experience.

Thanks, John.

Just also wanted to acknowledge and just again the hard work that went into it and the true collaboration and partnership that went into the success of this and all the other things that are happening, the great things that are happening in our park. I know that this was a lot of community meetings addressing a lot of concerns that the abutting neighbors had working with the school district. So it wasn't an easy project in that sense, but a lot of collaboration and a really wonderful example of how we all can work together and improve our community for everyone and generations to come. So again, congratulations.

Yeah, thank you all. All right, let's move on to 5B, which is a plan develop. Yeah, this is gonna sound really anticlimactic after this. Sorry, Sydney, you do great work, but it's really hard to follow an award, isn't it? This is plan development number 703, a ground sign text amendment. Welcome to city government. We have really, really exciting things, and then we have really meaningful things that just don't sound that exciting.

Thank you, Mayor, council members. So yes, while not as exciting, still important. Tonight I'll be presenting a text amendment within PD 703. Specifically, you're asked to consider a text amendment to plan development number 703 to allow additional ground signage in zone 6 of the PD. This application was requested by Presbyterian Homes and Services, which is the property owner of the subject property listed here, which is Orchard Path Senior Living Facility. It's located near the intersection of 157th Street West and Cobblestone Lake Parkway. This was a three-phase development that was originally approved in 2016, with a third and final phase approved in 2024 by the City Council. The third phase, the south wing shown here, was recently received the certificate of occupancy as well. The property is within PD 703, which is the planned development for the Cobblestone neighborhood. It's within Zone 6, which is a primarily commercial zone within the PD. The original two phases you can see here and then the final phase on the south side of the property is shown here. Like I said just before it is recently been completed. Near the main entrance you can see an existing monument sign. the applicant is requesting a second monument sign at the new entrance of the new facility the new facility is accessed off of cobblestone lake parkway and they also have a separate address which was required by the city when this originally came through for approvals the new facility is primarily accessed from this new entrance and there's limited connectivity from this existing facility This is the proposed sign plans for the new entrance. It's just the standard monument sign with the new address listed. So again, this has a separate address from the existing facility. This is the existing sign at the main entrance. So the new sign will look identical to the existing. For current requirements, ground signs in this PD and then for multifamily properties in general, there can only be one ground sign or one building sign, not both. And then the minimum and maximum area requirements are shown. So the applicant is requesting for a second ground sign because of that second entrance. They'd like to have clear way finding and identification of the new access and entrance. So for this request, staff has drafted an amendment that would allow two ground signs in zone six under certain conditions. Those conditions are that it needs to be an apartment or continuum of care community. It needs to be a corner lot. There could be no building signs on the building. The ground signs need to meet the minimum requirements in the signage chapter. And then lastly, the primary building on the property has to have two or more street addresses and those signs need to serve those addresses. This amendment would only apply to this PD. It would not apply to any other zoning district or plan development. The public hearing for this item was held on July 1st. There were no public comments at the public hearing. There was one written comment that was received ahead of time, which was in support. And then the Planning Commission had no outstanding questions related to the amendment for signage. So with that, oh, and they also, excuse me, they did recommend approval of the ordinance. So that for tonight, staff is recommending that the ordinance be passed to allow additional signage in PD 703 under Zone 6 and with the additional recommendation to waive the second reading of the ordinance. We do have the applicant here tonight, and I can also stand for any questions.

Thank you. And Council Member Grendel looks like has a question. Your microphone is, could you, thank you. Sorry. That was a horrible sentence on my part. Thank you for figuring out what I was trying to say.

I'll make a motion to pass this ordinance amendment and to waive the second reading.

We have a motion from Council Member Grendall. Do we have a second?

Second.

From Council Member Bergman. Any other comment or discussion? All those in favor, indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? That passes unanimously to Sydney and staff. I just want to say thank you for for taking this one up and getting it through in this fashion and fixing the ordinance rather than just pushing through a variance, which is maybe sometimes the tendency and the ask, but we fixed it the right way and it'll serve us well. And I have to think for our public safety folks to figure out which address we're going to is also a big win on this one and we'll make that easier if we need to serve the property. So thank you all. Pardon me. That brings us on to staff and council communications. Tom, I know we had an update from the police chief on Night to Unite. Do you want to have him come up and take that one first?

Sure, and then I will follow that with another event to promote. Perfect. Police Chief Nick Francis.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. It seems like every time I come up here, I talk about my favorite thing and everything is my favorite thing. I don't know what it was last time. I think it was casting with the cops. And so now we're on a night to unite. It is August 4th. It's always the first Tuesday of August. It's always a highlight of our year within the police department. And we look forward to celebrating with the community this year. Neighborhood parties. We are gonna have a 5 p.m. briefing at the police ops building. That's the same place we briefed at last year. It's a new building right across from Eastview High School. The gate will be open. The doors will be open to come in there. And then we will go from there and be assigned parties and go out and hit our parties. Right now we have about 60, over 60 registered. We tend to get them in kind of the last week or so, primarily when people look at the weather and say, is it gonna be really nice? Do we wanna have a big party? Do we wanna have a smaller party? So registration will remain open till July 31st. Anyone connected to the city communications probably got one or two emails today as a reminder, and we'll continue to do that to send those out and get people reminded. But we'll have city council, police, fire, and department heads out visiting parties as we always do. We're again partnering with 196 to assist with their school supply drive. So parties are going to be encouraged to collect some school supplies. Then we assist by picking those up when we come to the parties. We bring them all back here to the station and then we get them to 196 for them to distribute out. Last year there was over 3,000 items that were just by families in Apple Valley that we assisted picking up. All sorts of varieties, backpacks, glue bottles, crayons, markers, so much more. So anyone that has some of those supplies around the house or is interested in going out and buying some, maybe you don't have school-age kids anymore but you just can't help yourself from the school shopping days that you used to love, you're welcome to pick those up and bring them to help our students out. We're also doing our chalk art contest. Neighbors are encouraged to participate. These get really fun. We get a chance to go out and take some pictures with them when we're at the parties. Last year, Indy was our three to six year old winner. Max was seven to 10, 11 plus was Kim. And those are sent out, they send pictures in and then we send those to all police department employees and have a high stakes vote. And and we crown some winners and I believe they get some kind of gift cards or something that is donated. But the fun thing is just getting out there, using the supplies that we are giving them to bring their community together. And there's no shortage of cool ideas of the chalk art that's going on. So we look forward to having you in a short couple of weeks. We're hopeful for good weather and rain or shine, we go out and stop at the parties. So we're hoping the community will finish up those registrations, get us up to around 100. Usually we're kind of between 90 and 100 these days, parties, which is a lot to get to, but it's a great night and we enjoy it. So we're looking forward to spending the night with everybody.

I think your favorite thing is just being out with people, Nick. It seems like that's the theme I hear running through all of your favorite things.

It is, yes. That's top of the list, yeah.

Great. Thank you. Look forward to it. Thanks. Tom, you had another event to mention.

Yes, Mr. Mayor. We have our third annual Furniture and Small Appliance Swap coming up here starting tomorrow. So I wanted to give one last plug for that. Why would we do such a thing? This is a type of event that keeps items out of the landfill. and is really a good opportunity for our public to tomorrow, Friday, July 24th, to donate their items and then come back on Saturday, July 25th for the reuse day where you get to pick the items for free that you can put to good use. So this is held at the Apple Valley Sports Arena, the arena that's attached to Apple Valley High School. We have a lot of information on our website about what type of items are willing to be accepted at the event and details about how to pick those items up here on Saturday. So if anybody's interested, check out our website for the third annual Furniture and Small Appliance Swap.

Thanks, Tom. As a resident reminded me last week, this is a great opportunity for those who have kids going back to college in a few weeks to go fill out the stuff you need for the dorm room, right? At very limited cost while you're keeping some stuff out of the landfill. So any other items, council members, anything? Council Member Hebert, you were fastest on the button.

Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to take an opportunity to recognize our Apple Valley team. Last week, the Minnesota Association of Government Communicators had their annual awards. And Apple Valley, Eve, or the communications and Tim, Apple Valley took home a silver in the Apple Valley website redesign and a bronze with the Splash Valley water park. for the video shoot and social. So I just wanted to just acknowledge those awards. This is a really robust competition with, again, cities and municipalities across the state. They've now allowed other agency or consultants to also participate in this. So it's a very rigorous awards ceremony and criteria. So this is a real accomplishment and just wanted to say congratulations to the communications and the IT video team for their awards. Thanks for that. More awards.

Yeah, more awards. Love awards.

Councilmember Bergman.

Thank you Green means go I thought I could talk loud enough I had the opportunity this week to talk to an individual that was thanking city staff for doing What they've done on Pennock, the pump house, they would like to thank Tom Weiss, Matt Somm for cleaning that area up and making it look professional again. At the same time, I was advised that on Pennock, they have an individual that walks three miles a day, And what got me was he's 100 years old and he's been doing it for 20 years in Apple Valley. And I was told the name, I looked for the last three days to see if I could find this individual. I knew his first name and I go, no. So after I picked up the bride at the airport yesterday, i was advised that it was somebody that i knew from the start of my career here and that was through the old lions club and so today going back to i've gone last three days and i thought i saw him yesterday today i saw him and i pulled over and it was the person that it was his name is norm And he's 100 years old. He's walked three miles a day for basically 20 years. And I looked at him and I says, man, for 100 years, you're making me look bad. And he did lose his dog a couple of years ago and the community along that street was concerned. He did get another dog and I asked him about his dog that he had. It's black and white. So if you see the gentleman with a black and white dog between 9 and 11 o'clock every day, he'll be walking down the street. But I thought it was pretty cool. He says his eyes are bad and his hearing is going. And I said, yeah, but I heard something about your golf game. He says, what did you hear about? And I said, well, the person that told me this information, you can correct me. He did correct me because it was told that he plays golf, still plays golf. He's 100 years old. And they took him to Legion people, took him to the golf course. I was told it was Northfield. He said, no, it was Cannon Falls where he goes to play golf. So when they got him there to play golf, the two gentlemen from the Legion said to the golf course owner, this person is 100 years old. They gave him $100, the golf course did, to play golf the rest of this year. So I thought that was pretty cool. You see the gentleman. He's nice. He's talkative. He likes to talk to people. But I thought it was pretty cool. 100 years and he looks better than I do. So thanks to that. Thanks, John.

Yep. Anything else? All right, with that, it brings us to our calendar of events. And our next city council informal meeting is Thursday, August 13th at 5.30. And our next regular council meeting is Thursday, August 13th at 7. With that, I would look for a motion to approve the calendar of upcoming events. Second. Motion from Council Member Grendel.

Second from Council Member Hebert.

And all those in favor, indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

And opposed. The calendar is approved. And do we have a motion to adjourn?

Second.

Motion from Councillor Grendel, second from Council Member Bergman. All those in favour, indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? We are adjourned. Thank you, everyone. Have a great night.