City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, we'll call the meeting to order. Please stand if you're able for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Good evening and welcome everyone. Um, roll call, please. Brie. Mayor King, present. Council member at large Austin, present. Council member Waller, present. Council member Baskin present. Council member Posma present. Council member Hely present. Council member Obala. Council member Fischer. [snorts] Mayor King. We have a quorum.

Thank you. And I welcome Lindseay Compton back as our honorary council member. Down there kind of lonely down there tonight. [laughter] You'll get through it. Promise. Um we're here for you if you need us. Looking for item number one is a motion adopting the agenda as amended with the addition of the consent agenda. So moved. Second. [snorts] All in favor? I opposed. Motion carries. Item number two is a motion approving a minutes from January 20th, 2026. So moved. Second. All in favor? Opposed? That motion carries. Um recognitions and awards. We have nothing under recognition of awards. Number four is a motion for the consent agenda with the addition of the new arts and culture commission. Motion to approve. Second.

All in favor? I opposed. The motion carries. Moving on to petitions and requests. Item number five is approving a request from SPA for request for legislative legislation exempting the Austin Energy Station from personal tax property. [snorts] Welcome back to the chambers Tom Danker. Welcome. Dear, the pants the fans are going wild. I would just like to object to my property taxes over [laughter] the last last 29 years. Whoever was figuring that out or wrong. [laughter] Uh Emily, can you help Tom out and figuring that out, please? There's a good presentation online, I'm told. Yeah.

Um well, thanks, Mayor and Council, for having me. have been communicating with um Craig regarding uh Sampa and their plans to build what's called the Austin Energy Station um so they can generate 49 megawatts of electricity themselves. Sho 3 has to shut down by December 31st, 2030, which means that which is a coal plant which means they need to source out additional um energy for the SEA membership all 17 members will be 16 in 2031. With that being said, they're starting to invest in communities. They've started an energy station in Oatana, the steel energy station. And again, they're looking at investing in Austin with a cost of around $85 million to create our own energy station. That 49 megawws would produce enough energy in town if our lines were cut um to to provide enough energy for all of Austin most of the time. Summertime when it's hot, no, we'd still need to go on the open market. But the goal here is create this their own energy station here which would be part of their system throughout the SEA agencies to provide enough power for all their agencies through that process. And again last year they tried this through the legislative process but there was no tax bill was to get um some of the generation equipment exempt exempted from personal property taxes. um they're asking for us to go forward to that this year supporting Otana but also supporting Austin in this endeavor. It still means they pay property tax. They just don't pay personal property tax on the generation equipment. And as you saw, they couldn't provide us any real numbers at this point in time as to what the property taxes would be that they would still pay. But as you can see in their memo in Oatana, they're still paying about 65 grand to the city, 50 grand to Steel County, 40 grand to the school. So, it's still probably in the range of $1500 to $200,000 in total taxes amongst all the the entities that

they would still pay. It'll provide construction jobs here in town to create all this. It's not going to provide any new jobs at this point in time. It'll all be remote monitored or they will subcontract potentially with the Austin Utilities for some of the services that we can provide since we're right here. Um, but with that being said, um, this is what they're looking at. We added a resolution or had a resolution they drafted to see if the council would support us. Uh basically a resolution letter of recommendation go to the state to ask for this exemption on that equipment. Certainly answer any questions you may have. If we approve this when would when would it go forward and legislature and all that approval?

So we take it up this session. Um we're working on a land a potential land lease with SMA. What they need is control of the site in order to start the air quality permits, the sound permits, those sort of things. So, the goal is to get this up to the legislature this year. We meet with the county tomorrow at their work session. Then hopefully we'll get on to their board meeting with an approval there. Oaton and Steel County are working through the same process. The goal is this would be up and running by December 31st of 2030. Um, again, that's when Shero shuts down. So, this would be up [snorts] and running. Um it's going to take a good year for the design, the permits, etc. with construction probably 2820 2028 and 2029 um and part of 2030.

Awesome. Thank you, Craig. Um yeah, mayor members, the reality of coming from a community that lost power during an ice storm, severe weather event, um having auxiliary power is is really critical, I think, for a community. the recent events that we've seen in the south and southeast uh communities that have been without power to have another opportunity to power Austin that's not dependent on lines coming into the town is I think really important and supportive of this uh request from Austin utilities anything else council

Tom does this is this something that we anticipate is going to be running a lot or is this for peak energy use or just give us a sense of that and do we have any idea where it's going to So [snorts] um it will be running regularly because we get a lot of our power from SHO3 out coal plant. So that will be going away. So now having to address that throughout the different SEA communities around the open market will require this to be running on a regular basis I believe. Um, we do have a location. We whited it out on here, but they've indicated to me, if you got to tell them, you got to tell them. But it is at being proposed at the Northeast Power Plant where the coal plant was torn down. Okay.

Um, it's far enough from residences. They say you're not, even if it was closed, you wouldn't notice it with the new equipment they have these days. More than likely, a tip up concrete building. It'll be dual fuel, so both um gas and um diesel fuel if need be depending on last couple weeks where gas was a little expensive that we could run it or simply could run it on both. Um that is kind of the plan right now. Um and again, we're working on that land lease for, but I would anticipate it'll be running on a regular basis to provide into the grid. Excellent. Thank you. Anyone else? I was looking for a resolution. So moved. Second. Agree.

Council member Waller. Hi. Council member Baskin. I. Council member Posma. I. Council member Hely. I. Council member Obala. I. Council member at large Austin. I. Resolution passes 6. Thank you, Bri. Thank you, Thomas. Thanks. Appreciate it. Thanks, Mr. Danker. Thanks for visiting. Thank you, Mr. Der. Moving on. Item number six is a resolution approving the home serve warranty program agreement. them.

There are some key points of this agreement in your backup material. This agreement would be a three-year agreement to [clears throat] allow Homeerve to work in our community sending out letters and notifications to property owners to provide a service where um they would cover repairs to your sewer service line and all and also an option optional service for repairs to your interior plumbing. Uh there would be a licensing fee where the city of Austin would be reimbursed 10% of all memberships that Homeserve um completes throughout the the time period of the three-year agreement. Uh the license condition are that the city would allow the city of Austin's logo to be placed on the marketing brochures that are mailed out up to three times per year. And the plan fees for this upcoming year would be set at uh for the exterior sanitary sewer line. The fee would be $10 $10.99 per month and it would cover up to $12,000 of coverage. If a homeowner chose the interior plumbing and drainage plan, it again would be an additional $10.99 per month and would cover up to $3,000 of coverage. This was all reviewed with council at our last work session and was recommended to move forward to tonight's council meeting.

Open it up to any questions. Thank you, Stephen. Council, any questions?

Do we have So, in this scenario, we're using the city logo, city assets to essentially market for a company. Do we do that anywhere else or in any other circumstances? Um, I don't know if I'm the right one to answer that, but from a public works standpoint, I do not believe so. I don't know if it's utilized in any other departments. Do we know like how do we moving forward create a bright line that says, "Hey, it's okay here." Like what precludes us from a year from now a nail salon coming and saying we want to do something similar or a plumbing, you know, official plumber of the city of Austin. Like how do we tell them no once we've allowed another private business to use our logo and assets? I'm thinking this is an action that we took by enacting this ordinance maybe that creates a situation that calls for a service like this. Um so that would be an out. Um those other opportunities that you mentioned would could possibly be uh opportunities to increase income. naming rights for the Riverside Arena. So,

there we go. [laughter]

I I it's interesting to think about. I guess I think about it more almost like a quasi utility. So, um you know, but a privately owned one. So, to me like maybe a better comparison would be um you know, we had a charter or spectrum neg that was the only way you could get cable television and internet for a very long time. Then we had a second metronet came in and we were happy to have them. And so same thing like we've legitimized them, licensed them, all that sort of a thing. I think that might be a little more apples to apples. And you know, if we had a second home service warranty, if the demand was great and we wanted some competition, I think we could, you know, sort of authorize that at some point, too. I suppose [snorts]

if we have, let's say somebody shows up for this business, I'm not getting what I think I paid for. I've got a concern. Summit [clears throat] I guess how do we address the customer service I mean comes across as this is a city sponsored event is that city staff that is addressing customer service issues or are we sending it to somebody else uh will be the initial we there's every of course every all the mailers will have home serve branding it'll have phone numbers to call home serve but generally people are going to be more comfortable calling a local name a local face that they know so we're going to field questions no matter what. Um, but in most instances, if if it's a fairly easy question, we will try to help the customer, but in most cases, we will likely indicate that, okay, Home Serve is the proper entity to be answering your questions, and we'll get them directed that way. So, we may have to triage some phone calls. Um, but hopes is we would be transferring those to Homeserve. That'd be our intent.

And do we have bandwidth to do that? We don't know what the number of questions are going to be yet. Is it will will people read the literature and find that and get to the the actual source or will they just come to us locally? Um it's it's hard to quantify how many questions there will be at this time. Last question on my side is what kind of like protection do we have from like a liability standpoint? So let's say somebody working for home serve goes into a home does something illegal. Is the city have liability to that individual or we do we have a firewall there?

So these questions are all I think uh important and uh and valid questions. Um we are not a partner or you know working together with this company. Uh really what we are doing is allowing them to send out notices to our citizens and use our logo on the letter as this is the local insurance company that would provide coverage for for this cause. It does source back directly to concerns that the working group uh discussed on the ordinance for the point of sale where uh it was advanced that our citizens don't fully understand that they privately own these systems from the main to their house and that these systems are 75 or 80 years old or more in some places and that when they fail there's going to be a very significant cost associated with that. And so the the real estate market was very interested in the city being proactive in informing the public of the issue and the options the public might deploy to mitigate their own risks. So in in a way we're endorsing this company because we are only giving one company the right to send out notices that sort of suggest it is endorsed by the city. But beyond that, we're not making any representations and it's going to be incumbent on us to make clear all the time in all communications that if you choose to buy this insurance, you're buying insurance from this other company and whatever the policy says and whatever the coverage amounts are and whatever the determinations are, that is not within the city's control and we don't orchestrate that. What we say is if you're worried about u the cost of replacing your sewer man and that's keeping you up at night, this is really the only option you have other than

setting up your own like savings account or something for that purpose. Um so I I don't perceive that there's liability on us by allowing this to happen. I think that this is us communicating to the public there are options. this is one to the extent that we're saying this is one that sort of says we endorse this one. [clears throat]

I I don't think there's a lot of competitors in this market but there's probably a handful and we're picking one. The one that we've picked is in place in Albert Lee and so you know there is a track record there uh on whether this has worked out well for them. They have reported that they do field calls. they have reported that they do connect their citizens with the insurance company to have the insurance company process those calls. Uh so there is at least in the early stages a learning curve for people to understand who to call. Um so again all these are are valid concerns. I would point out that it's a three-year contract but after the first year we can give 60 days notice to say you know this isn't working. So if what our experience is is that our citizens are making more complaints than they are making positive comments about this arrangement, we can after one year pull this back and say it's not working for for us or or our constituents. On on the other hand, if it's a positive relationship, we can continue on for the three years. And after that, if it is positive still, we can continue on after that. So, we're really locking ourselves in for a 12-month period to say for this 12 months because you're helping us communicate with our citizens about this problem and one possible solution, you can put our logo at the top and see whether you can you can you know get citizens to buy your product. There were two options that were explored. There was this one which is called the optin where they advertise and they use our logo and they hope people will opt in. There's the opt out program where we would commit to every house in Austin having this coverage and being part of the billing process and [clears throat] sort of our share of the revenue would have been better under the optin. But we weren't comfortable with a lot of these questions on how much are we getting involved? How much do our staff then have to be intimately involved in the

billing and the accounting and all of that. So, we opted to recommend the optin program where it's purely voluntary for a citizen to participate and all we're saying is here's an option. Explore this. Is is this the greatest thing ever that's going to make everybody happy all the time? I would suggest you the answer is no. And there's not a product out there that would would solve that problem. Maybe spam. But but if if [laughter] if citizens are worried about the fact that they own private sewer lines from the main to their house and that those sewer lines may experience failures and those failures may incur, you know, tens of thousands of dollars to repair, this might be something that helps them sleep at night.

Yeah, sure. Thanks, Greg. I guess I'm satisfied that there's not much slope to this slippery slope. It's very It's the situation we created with our new ordinance. It it's also as um council member Posma said, it's related to utilities. It's a pretty unique situation where in some communities that would actually be city responsibility, it gives us a way to communicate with everyone in the community without putting our dollars into it. So, I guess although I recognize uh the concerns you're raising, Council Member Baskin, I'm comfortable um supporting this. So, I would move to approve.

Anybody else have anything, Craig? Uh the only thing I'd add to that um is yeah there's always some subjectivity to the assessment of failures and those sorts of things but the working group did wrestle with this and asked a lot of questions um of the company through our uh members on the working group and ultimately at the end of the day they endorsed moving forward with recommending that they have this offering. So to the extent that the working group's recommendation uh adds to your consideration they they did endorse that. Thanks. All right. So, Laura, a motion to approve. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Uh, Bri, Council Member Waller, I.

Council member Baskin, nay. Council member Posma, hi. Council member Hely, I. Council member Obala, I. Council member at large Austin, I. Resolution passes 51. Thank you. Moving on to item number seven's resolution approving a stip transportation grant. Stephen,

in our 5-year CIP out in 2030, we have identified a street project for street reconstruction on 8th Street Northeast located just on the east side of the Hormel plant. It is a larger uh concrete pavement and underground utility project. We feel that this project would be a good candidate for a local District 6 competitive STIP grant application. So, we're requesting uh council consideration to pass a resolution in support of this project and and in support of this grant application. Uh it does not mean that we will automatically get it. We will be competing with other communities such as in our southeast Minnesota area such as Albertly, Owatana, Farbo, um over to Winona and Redwing as well. So, um, we will look to, if approved tonight, we'll look to put together hopefully a competitive grant application and [clears throat] bring back an update for you later this month if we were successful, if council's on board with um, this submitt, any questions?

Stephen, I'm just kind of curious what sort of thing makes this jump out. Is it the amount of truck traffic and things that go on this specific road? Yep, that's correct. uh anytime we can look at pedestrian traffic or truck traffic or something that serves um the movement of goods around our community, we were successful with these types of grants for Oakland Avenue and First Avenue. It'd be the same types of grants that we were successful with there. Okay. Thank you. Very good. Thank you, Stephen. Um anything else? Otherwise, looking for a resolution for number seven. So move. Second read. [snorts] Council member Waller. Hi. Council member Baskin. Hi. Council member Posma. Hi. Council member Hely. I.

Council member Obala. Hi. Council member at large Austin. I. Resolution passes 6. Thank you. Brie. Uh item number eight's requesting feasibility report for the I90 noise wall project. Stephen.

Yes. This project with MDOT will be bid later this spring and we have uh decided or it has been discussed re previously that a portion of the city's local cost would be assessed back to the adjacent property owners. So in order to do assessments this is the first step which is requiring a feasibility report. We'll follow a very similar process as we do with our street reconstruction program. Um, and before you tonight is just requesting authorization from council to develop a feasibility report for the noise wall project that is planned along I90 uh from between approximately [clears throat] between Fourth Street and the Cedar River. So moved.

Second. Um, Bri, council member at large Waller I. Council member Baskin I. Council member Posma, I. Council member Hely, I. Council member Obala, I. Council member at large Austin. I call. Resolution passes 6. Thank item number nine's resolution approving the Cook Farm uh land agreement with Kevin Finley. Stephen,

yes. We have been working with uh Mr. Finley, Mr. Finley for since about 2012, so many years, regarding uh land rental for property out at uh Cook Farm or Creek Side Development Park. Uh the last couple years, this agreement has been upset a bit by our uh roadway development that we've been completing out there. Uh but right now we're looking at proposing uh 39 acres to the north of 27th Avenue that would be leased out for crop land at $200 per acre and then about 45 acres south of 27th Avenue that would be uh being developed as alalfa land and it will uh the reason for the difference between the two is the area to the south of 27th Avenue. We've really developed that as kind of shovel ready for um development, industrial development. And that's why we're having it look more with alalfa mode grass to be to look like more of a a shovel ready site as opposed to the area north of 27th Avenue, which is going to look more like a a farm field. So with that, we've developed uh different rates for each of those productive and non-productive areas for a total amount

[clears throat] um in 2026 to be 11,1 75 for the lease agreement and we would recommend council approval.

Very good. Thank you, Mr. Lang. Council, any questions on number nine? Stephen, question for you on the lease rates. Help me square. The lease rates are fluctuating based on commodity rates. The non-productive is going up, but the productive staying still. Are we seeing like the underlying commodity market is flat or what's driving that? It's almost more the the size of the fields. Our you know the 39 acres is actually broken up into two parcels. So there's a lot of end rows. Uh end rows are less productive than the mainline rows. So anytime there's more turning on [snorts] a field, it's bringing down the productivity of it. So that's really what has held the $200 per acre flat is because of just the the viability of the small size with large equipment. um it's just not very viable. And then this year uh with our project, we planted alalfa. So that is that is a more productive crop than just the grasslands that were out there previously. So that's why we were able to raise that rate from 50 up to 75. And that likely we anticipate [clears throat] if everything continues to establish well that could go up to 100 in 2027, $100 per acre as well. So you'll see those numbers moving a little bit as things get developed and and established on the site.

Okay. Thanks David. Makes sense. [sighs] Okay. If there's nothing else, looking for a resolution approving the Cook Farm rental agreement with Kevin Finley. So moved. Second. Bri. Council member Waller. I. Council member Baskin. I. Council member Posma. Hi. Council member Hely. I. Council member Obala. I council member at large Austin. I resolution passes 6.

Thank you, Bri. Item number 10 is a resolution accepting the 2026 flower donations. And we got plenty of them. I'm going to read these. These are good folks that have actually donated money to the program thus far. [clears throat] Larry Andre, Mike and Patty Ankeny, Jeff Austin, Jeff and Diane Baker, Greg and Amy Baskin, Jason and Katie Baskin, Peggy Bencoffer, Judy and Dick Bergen, Robera and Bruce Burnt, Fred and Carolyn Bogat, uh Caroline or I'm sorry, Cheryl Boutton, Richard and Laura Carlson, Ron Whistler from Center Court Apartments, Colette Chaffy, Cheryl Christofferson, Clifton Larson Allen, Katherine Coyle, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Davidson, Terry Dorsy, Thomas and Lisa Dunlop, Leanne and Jeff Edinger, Quinton and Marlene Fiala, Lel Foster, uh Jeffrey and Maria Frank, Phyllis Fry, Harold and Priscilla Gall, John Gray, Sue and Vern Grove, Gordon and Donna Handeland, Veronica Hansen, Joseph and Austia Hickeyi, Allison and Al Hol, Katie Clark with the Hormell Foods Corporation, Kathleen Kathleen Jensen, Tristan S. Johnson, Steven, Shelley King, Randy and Wendy Kramer, Thomas Lander, Sonia Larson, Ron and Mary Lutters, Maryannne Lutters, Miriam Lumen, Jay Lutz and Kelly Rush, Thomas and Donna Moss, Pat Pat Mlan, John Madson, Thomas and Sharon Marshall, Steve and Sherry Mason, Mark and Holly Mayor, Jerry and Suzanne McCarthy, Tagert Medgarten with Austin H, Daryl and Deb Mickelson, Phil and Gail Minrich, Robera Mista, Bonnie Mogan, Bill Mson, Steven Ma Monson, Steven Nwagger, uh Ralph and Helen Nelson, Colleen Horn with Mo County Historic or Horiculture

Society, Betty Olsen, Ralph and Judith Pesn, Leanne Pashusta in memory of her friend Dixie, Mike and Stephanie Postma, Patricia Pcell, Peggy Queensland, Gretchen and Mark Ramlo, Scott and Katherine Richardson, Bonnie and Tim Rez, Barbara Schaefer, Bolita Schindler, Jim and Jeannie Sheen, Ellen Stark, Marine Steinblock, David Silty, Peter and Bonnie Tangren, Bill Tooffic, Mary The Care of Chris Johnson, Daffhne Wagner, Holly Wallace, K Colleen Wemer, Wymer, Bruce Westerm, Dale Wix from Quality Pork Processors, Maryanne Jerry Wleski, uh Gary and Marjorie Zimmerman, the Golden Tress, Boach Mitchell Dental Clinic, B&D Sundall LLC, Ladies Floral Club, Floral Club of Austin, Minnesota, Care of the Austin Public Library, Austin Eagles Club, Charitable Gambling, and the Austin Morning Lions for a total of 29,485,000 thus far. Still taking donations. Uh, write your check, City of Austin, and Emily. Uh, we always look forward to uh to those flowers every spring, and I appreciate those folks that are uh willing to donate thus far. So, thank you to them. Looking for a motion accepting those donations.

So moved. Second. Bri, council member Waller. I. Council member Baskin. I. Council member Posma. Hi. Council member Hely. I. Council member Obala. I. Council member at large Austin. I. Resolution passes 6. Thank you. Item number 11 is a resolution approving our 2026 fee schedule with parking fines update. Need a resolution. So moved. Second. Bri. [cough and clears throat] Council member Waller. I. Council member Baskin. I. Council member Postma. I. Council member Hely. I. Council member Obala. I. Council member at large Austin.

I. Resolution passes 6. Thank you. Item number 12 is a motion granting the planning and zoning department the power to contract for the removal of junk and or legally stored vehicles at the following location. 12A. The address 909 Third A Northwest the green property. Looking for a motion. Some move. Second. All in favor? I opposed. Motion carries. Citizens addressing the council. Anyone in the chambers wishing to speak with council? Joe, Eric. Honorary council member comments. Lindsay. Uh, thanks again for allowing me to have this experience. I'm enjoying it. You got it. Awesome. Thank you. Uh, reports and recommendations. Craig.

Uh, yes. I see that the Austin Daily Herald received 16 awards at the Minnesota Newspaper Association. Our very own Eric Johnson took first place in a couple categories. Uh just wanted to commend the good work of our local paper and how fortunate we are to have such a strong paper. Uh and then Steven Lang has an item. Stephen,

regarding the point of sale ordinance that is set to go into effect on March 1st. So it will apply to any sales uh home sales that occur thereafter. Uh we anticipate that we will start uh reviewing uh sewer systems ahead of that as homes are scheduled to sell on March 1st, 2nd or 3rd. They'll want to get their uh inspection reports in. And in order to get out ahead of that a bit, we today sent out a mailing to uh all the real estate professionals uh giving them just another notice of the March 1st deadline is coming up and also uh indicating some of the key points of the ordinance just a just a one pager. We also plan to do a right here right now podcast in February to as another method to get the word out. We hope to reach out to Eric at the Austin Daily Herald to do an article if if that uh if he is interested to do an article on this topic. We are working on some Facebook posts that we will be posting periodically throughout the month of February. We'll also continue many of these posts into March as well. Again, just another way to get the information out. And then we have scheduled a meeting on February 19th with the plumbers to give them an update of things that we are looking for when it comes to the televising and what sort of quality and and different items we need to see on that televising inspection. So I know that we received some push back uh the first time we rolled this out. So, those are the methods that we are working on to try to get more information out there and we'd look forward if um council has any recommendations of anything that we're missing there in that list of things um for ways to reach out to the community.

Very good. Thank you, Stephen. Anybody else got anything? Okay, we'll start down uh for council comments. Becky, nothing your honor. Jason,

uh just a couple things. One is I would echo um the congratulations to the Austin Daily Herald. Eric, I thank you and Rocky and you know do just an incredible incredible amount of work and we're very fortunate to have a paper that publishes and covers what happens. Um I know that there's a lot of local communities that don't. Um and I think the sheer amount of work that essentially the two of you do to put you know a paper together is just unbelievable. So know that it goes appreciated and noticed and we very much appreciate it. So congratulations. It's well earned. Um, only other thing is good luck to all the local sports teams as they start their section play. Um, starting with the Austin Packer dance team on Saturday and Farbo. So, good luck everybody.

Very good. Thanks, Jason. Michael, uh, [clears throat and cough] Paint the Town Pink is in full swing. Um, kudos to all of those who jumped in a frozen lake literally last weekend. Uh, thanks to, uh, I know the parks team does a lot of work getting prepped for that. I know we [snorts] have uh some fire folks who hang out in the water all day because apparently just jumping in it isn't crazy enough. Um paint the rink pink is coming up this Saturday. There's lots of things going on still. So, uh get out there. The sun's out there. The weather's warmed up a little bit. It's a good time. Thanks, Michael. Jeff. Uh nothing, your honor. Laura.

Um, I want to encourage the public to shop local and support our local businesses, especially those owned by immigrants and refugees. It's always a good time uh to do that. Uh, I also want to mention that um the parks, recreation, and forestry department has really worked hard on outdoor ice um this year and the um outdoor ice bypacker arena has been well utilized. That was um one of the good things about that cold snap we had um was folks getting to to use outdoor ice um also by um Veterans uh Pavilion Park Skinner Hill. There we go.

My brain is not moving as fast as my mouth. Um I'm also excited for uh the parks department because they've um pivoted a bit um losing their Americanore staffing but are now welcoming staff from conservation corps and they will start February se 17th and that was a really key piece for that department to continue to handle all of the things that they're doing especially emerald ashbor and some of the sort of special projects that have popped up and then um the culture and arts commission is moving moving forward on our utility box wrap project. So, um uh keep your eyes peeled. Out in Austin, we can't actually install anything until it gets above 60°. Um but, uh that project is moving forward. And we're also working with the engineering department on a public art project in connection with the Oakland and Maine intersection um that uh finished up most of their street work um in 2025. So, um, we'll be working to bring some some public art to that intersection and really, um, give an indication as you're driving down that, hey, this is our downtown. This is our, um, uh, special district that you definitely want to visit. So, uh, that's to come.

Thanks. Thanks, Laura Kobala. Um, [clears throat] um, I want to echo what Councilwoman Laura said to support our local business. Um for the last um 1 month um those local business has been running low due to fear. Um people not going out. Please go shop local. Uh we have marketplace and other Sarah beauty and um all around. So those local restaurants uh you can order takeout and also go in there. Um and then finally I want to congratulate uh Eric for all you do. So we are proud of what you're doing here. You're putting Austin on the map. is not easy as the council member said to put an article together. Um, thank you for all you do.

Right on. Thanks, Paul. I think I just want to report that we uh had the opportunity to sit in at the annual fire or I'm sorry, police civil service annual meeting this afternoon and Eric, there's a news flash. We have a chief of police going to retire end of June, early July.

I'm sure you are. Um so part of that meeting was today to was to set forth um the timeline for hiring behind Chief McKeen. And so we will be Trish will be posting the applications uh internal and external in February I think first week. They'll be open for 30 days and interviews will be set for kind end of Marchish uh based on some internal candidates need for some vacation time that they might have scheduled. So we're hoping that we get some uh great applications. I know we will get some great internals. I had no doubt about that. But that uh that process is moving forward for Matik's eventual retirement end of June or early July of 2029. 29. Yeah. Yeah. Mr. Mayor just 29. [laughter]

Question for you. More point of clarification. Who sits in on those interviews? Is that the Civil Service Commission does it? Civil service commission. Yeah. They've done I tell you what, the the the amount of work that they've done this year with hiring five and doing a promotional opportunity. They're the busiest commission we have. They do an outstanding job. um all our commissions do we you know we got a culture and arts member [clears throat] these volunteers work real hard it's just critical to the city that they do what they do and they've had some very robust uh activity so they do the interview provide a recommendation then it comes to us eventually when they and if we say no mikin has to stay long term is that the big takeaway

yeah [laughter] they they they similar or the same as any police officer candidate they go to um they pick the top three and then those recommendations would come to me. Okay.

So, we're hopeful for some good great internals. I know we will and we're see what we get from the outside too, but just to open up the process a little bit. So, that is going to move forward. Thank you, Trish, for your work on that. Also, we have uh some uh anniversary dates like to report. Jim Lunt, police officer for 19 years. Travis Pudence of the wastewater treatment plant for nine years. Dan Peterson, wastewater treatment, eight years. John Beckman, Greg Byram, Marty Hely, Steve Hovie with city attorney for seven. I know you've all been attorneys longer than that, but city employees for seven. Sam Pashusta from street department, seven. Josh uh Fall Harbor, park and wreck, seven years. Rich Gansen, wastewater treatment, six years. Michael Gocha, information services guru, four years. Kelly Ball with nature center for three. and Matt Wise with fire for three. So we thank those folks for the uh work they do and their anniversaries are acknowledged for the February hires of this year 2026. So thank you for all the work they do. With that looking for a motion to adjourn for about to our next meeting on February 17th. We have a holiday on the Monday. So it'll be February 17th, not the 16th. And uh looking for a motion to adjurnn.

So moved. Second. All in favor? I opposed. When we're adjourned, we'll take a fivem minute break till the nature center show. Right.