City Council - Regular Meeting

I will call our City Council meeting to order. Tonight is Monday, October 12, 2026. Thank you all for joining us here in the Council Chambers, and thanks to everybody watching online. We will begin our meeting as we always do. If you are able, please stand, remove any head covering, and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Once again, welcome to everybody. Council, good to see you all. Thanks for being here tonight. First

Motion and a second by Council Member Robertson to accept tonight's agenda as stated. Any further council discussion on this? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying all.

Opposed? Motion carries 7-0 and we have an agenda. And the first item on that agenda is a proclamation and I'm going to be heading down to the podium. Our first proclamation, our only proclamation tonight is regarding National Chiropractic Health Month, which is October 2026. That's kind of near and dear to our hearts here in Bloomington because of Northwestern Health Sciences University, which is a leader in Minnesota regarding chiropractic health. I think we've got Dr. Bo Foshee and Elise Rice from, come on up, please, from Northwestern Health. What we generally do, we have you stand with me

That's how I thought it was. Okay, I wanted to make sure I got it correct. So, proclamation for National Chiropractic Health Month, October 2026. Whereas the musculoskeleton system is made up of more than 300 joints that enable our bodies to move and engage in physical activity, as well as activities of daily living. And whereas physical activity is considered one of the most powerful contributors to health and longevity, enhancing both cardiovascular and metabolic health. And whereas joint and musculoskeletal health are essential components of healthy aging, enabling people to move, work, and

Thank you both for being here and the best kicks in the house tonight. The best kicks, absolutely. So we will, why don't we get a picture here? Who's gonna...

Item 2.2 on our agenda is the introduction of new employees, and Janine Hill from our communications department has an introduction for us. Oh, thank you for turning the background. I apologize for that.

Well, nice to meet you, and thank you for being with us this evening, and congratulations. I'm glad to have you join the team here in Bloomington. I tell all of our new employees it's a big responsibility being a member of the Bloomington staff because in a lot of ways you are the face of the city of Bloomington. They don't care a lot about who sits up here. They care about the people they work with every day, and that's our staff. And so it's a big responsibility, but I've got no doubt that they'll take it on and do a great job with it, and looking forward to working with you in the future. W

And in communications, this is called a segue. We're going to move right on to item 2.3, city communications awards. And as I mentioned, our communications staff always seems to pull in a lot of awards at both state and national levels, and I know that's the case again. So, Janine, why don't you fill us in on the latest hardware that our communications staff has collected.

And in communications this is called filling time.

And thank you, Janine, for your leadership on what is a creative and wildly diverse staff in terms of what you do. It's not only the print publication, it's the videos, it's the online stuff, and I know it's a challenge, but you guys do it so very well. So thank you. If you could share our thanks and our congratulations to the rest of the staff, I would greatly appreciate it. And all I can say is keep up the good work because it really does make Bloomington stand out in so many different ways. So thank you very much for the work that you do.

Up next on our agenda council is item three, our consent business. Council Member Robertson with our consent agenda this evening. Council Member Robertson.

Motion by Council Member Robertson, second by Council Member Carter to accept tonight's consent business as stated. No further council discussion on this? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Item 3.4. It's mine, mayor.

Very good. Council member loman needing to abstain. So council member Robertson, if you could move item 3.4.

Motion by Council Member Roberts and second by Council Member Nelson to accept item 3.4 as stated in today's consent agenda. No further council discussion on this. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? And abstained? Item pass is 6-0 with Councilmember loma destaining. Item 3.12, Is Councilmember Carter holding that one?

Yes, thank you, mayor. Councilmember Carter. So, I just wanted to hold this because we've had a lot of questions from the community and as councilmembers we've had the opportunity to have small group conversations with staff and learn more about the expansion of this Axon contract or the potential expansion. We've had a contract with Axon. Yeah, the green light's on.

Yeah, so we've had a lot of questions about this item from community, and so I just wanted to see if Chief Hodges could come up and share some more information around what it is and what it isn't. As council members, we've had the opportunity to have small group conversations with staff and get our questions answered and know what it is and what it isn't, so I think it would be just good for the community to hear in full transparency. And we have had this contract for a very long time. It really is just an expansion of some of the services, and so, yeah.

Chief Hodges, if you could, please, maybe give us a rundown on the Axon agreement, and then perhaps just a quick overview or a recap of what's been an unfortunately eventful last week or so here in the city of Bloomington.

Thank you, Chief. Council, any questions on item 3.12? Council Member D'Alessandro.

Awesome. Thanks, Chief. Yeah, thank you very much for walking through that so clearly. I appreciate it. I think that a big part of what gets people concerned is when they don't know what's going to happen. And so having you here just to give people that comfort and that, you know, you and your people and, you know, Director Cheney and her people are making sure that that data stays safe and also that that data is used properly and that's in, you know, in the best interest of us as citizens and residents. I think that goes a long way. So, you know, without I don't have any particular question o

Thank you, chief. Thank you for your words. Thank you for your leadership. Thank you for the department that you put together and the work that they do here in the city. We greatly appreciate it. I Hope you pass that on to your officers every day, how much we do appreciate them and the work that they do. And I Hope you know and your command staff knows just how much you are appreciated throughout this community, certainly among the seven of us up here. And thank you. Thanks for the work that you do. Thanks. Yeah. Council member Carter?

I would move to approve an agreement between the City of Bloomington and Axon Enterprise Inc. to piggyback off Cooperative Procurement State of Minnesota NASPO contract number 247327. Second.

Motion by Councilmember Carter, second by Councilmember Robertson. I did that again. Robertson to accept item 3.12 On tonight's consent business. Councilmember d'alisandro.

Thanks, Mr. mayor. I just wanted to make sure because I think that the question was asked in the listening session if we could just be clear that this is a, this is going to have both a contractual obligation and then also a budget impact. Can we talk just briefly about what that looks like for everybody so it's clear for them?

Any other questions, council? Got a motion and a second to approve item 3.12, The agreement with Axon enterprise. No further council discussion on this? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Thank you again to the chief. Thank you, council, for your questions. Thank you, Councilmember Robertson, for bringing forward our consent business this evening. We're going to move on to item four, our hearings, resolutions, and ordinances. And our first hearing of the evening is item 4.1. It's a public hearing regarding the resolution approving the assessment

Thank you very much, gentlemen. Couldn't send any questions of Mr. Hanson, Mr. ryzak on our presentation? Tonight? Council member d'alisandro.

Thank you, Mr. mayor. It's kind of an adjacent question. Do we have the ability to provide residents with visibility into when they might be due for an assessment? I know this is a fairly circular kind of process. If I was a resident and I wanted to know is my street up for a PMP consideration in the next year or two. Could I get that information online?

and I see where you're going with that, Councilmember d'alisandro. Obviously, that's a very passive way of getting the information out. I wonder, it might be worth considering what more active ways of getting the information out a year or two in advance to some people just so they know what might be coming down the pike in a couple of years. And I think we might have an update here. Ms. long.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Council, any other questions? If not, thank you, gentlemen. Don't go too far. With that, council, I'm going to open the public hearing on item 4.1. This is our public hearing regarding a resolution approving an assessment role for 2026, the Pavement management program street reconstruction project. Is there anyone here in the council Chambers wishing to speak to item 4.1 This evening? Do we have anyone on the line?

Last call for anybody in the Chambers? Council, no one on the phone, no one coming forward. I would look for a motion to close the public hearing on item 4.1 this evening.

Motion by Councilmember Rivas, second by Councilmember Robertson to close the public hearing on item 4.1. No further council discussion on this. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Council, any thoughts or comments on this? I do appreciate that staff, we did see the questions about the square footage, the assigned square footage, and I think you answered those questions pretty well. And because it can get a bit confusing, and I appreciate that, that you went into that with the resident who did have those questions. Anything else, Council, that yo

Motion by Councilmember Robertson, second by Councilmember d'alisandro to adopt the resolution approving the assessments for the 2026 PMP reconstruction project.

All those in favor please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Thank you much, gentlemen. Appreciate it. Item 4.2 On our agenda is the James Avenue city homes rezoning. The fsbp and planning, 9025 and 9033 James Avenue south. This is a continuation of a public hearing that we had and closed a couple of meetings back, and we had additional questions that I think staff wanted to help clarify for council members to better understand this, and so this is back with us this evening. Again, the public hearing has already taken place, and we did close the public hearing, but lookin

Council, we had a number of questions on this the last time we did talk about this, and I just want to make sure everybody had an opportunity to either offline or individually with staff to get their questions answered. Are there any additional questions that are still hanging out there for folks that might need to be answered and that staff might be able to answer right now? Council Member Lohman.

Thank you, mayor, and I want to thank staff for their willingness to be able to meet with us and have those conversations. The only real question that I have, you had mentioned this earlier item here with the item 17 with ongoing building height is limited to 40 feet. Is that a pretty common practice that we do across the city?

I guess my real question, mayor, and maybe it's left for a policy discussion later on at a different point in time, if the rest of the block gets turned into R3, would they not have that restriction?

So that's pretty common, what you're saying?

Very good. Other questions, council? And I would ask, I know our developer is here, did you want to officially state on the record this limit of 40 feet or it's in the conditions certainly but wanted to make sure that you had the opportunity to state your intention here.

Council, additional questions that may or may not have been unanswered or you still are puzzling a little bit? Council Member Nelson.

Yeah, this one's super quick. There was a note from staff. It was a comment in the staff report with regards to, I think, 12 trees that were being added. It's not as a condition, but it was something that was just going to be worked out. But based on the comment, it sounded like you wanted our opinions on it. Trees are good. Just saying. Do you want us to actually opine on that and give you direction? Where are you at? It was a little vague in what I read in the materials.

Does the applicant object to the 12 trees? A head nod or shake is fine. That was a shake of the head? Not a nod.

Thank you. Additional questions, council? So, Council, I'll just add, I had the opportunity on, actually on Saturday, may have been out knocking on doors, and was in the Towndale Town Home Development, which is just south of American Boulevard and it abuts France Avenue. And it's a larger area, and it's actually a denser area. There are more homes in there. And it was laid out in such a way, and it was an understanding of... What that area should be, and frankly, it felt like it fit. Now, granted, literally right across the street there were single-family homes on both the south and the east s

you know, Mary, I think I'll pick up right after that. I THINK THAT IT'S DIFFICULT, YOU KNOW, YOU MENTIONED THE IDEA OF CHANGE, AND WHEN WE SEE CHANGE AND WE'RE NOT USED TO IT, I'M STILL, I SAY THIS OFTEN TIMES, I GET UPSET AND ANGRY ABOUT HOW 86th STREET WENT FROM FOUR LANES DOWN TO TWO. And it's really where it needs to, it's where it belongs. You know, and that's why we have a comprehensive plan. You know, we have made decisions to take portions and part of the city and to kind of say, hey, we want this area or this part to kind of move in this direction. And we've also created policies to

So thank you, mayor, for being very concisant. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Rivas.

I just have a quick comment. And I don't mean to be negative or against this project. However, the comparison that you made, Mr. Mayor, there's no comparison between the two locations, because the area that you refer to, I happened to be able to go, I went there to not condors also for the elections, right? And I had the opportunity to look and walk through the whole area, and it's a totally different look. It's not in between houses. It is completely an area that has been dedicated to the townhomes. And it doesn't appear, I mean, for me it was hard to believe that there were town homes in the

Thank you, Councilmember. Other thoughts, council? Councilmember Nelson.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. I'm actually really excited about this project. I think it may become hopefully a decent model for our community and for all our communities in terms of providing what are essentially, I mean, they're detached townhomes, but they're essentially single-family homes when you look at them. They're the same as single-family homes on small lots. And I think that's a direction that we've looked at going. And I think that is a positive opportunity. This is going to be essentially more single-family homes in a single-family neighborhood. And I think that's positive. And to both

That's the one thing that I do like and support about this project is the fact that there is home ownership involved. And I do remember three years ago, I made a big deal about something that came up and that we were building apartments and not offering affordable housing. So that said, it's very difficult to say no to this project because of the home ownership involved in the project. It's just one of the most important things in the city at this moment, at least in my opinion. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Robertson.

Thank you council member. Council member d'alisandro.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. I really do appreciate the residents of this area coming forward tonight, as well as throughout this. I've had the chance to go out and visit with them. First off, thank you for being good people who are civil about these kinds of dialogues. I can tell you, as somebody who's been sitting here for five years, you have shown exemplary respect capacity to work with us and to speak to what you need without, you know, calling us names or trashing us as humans and everything else. So I very much appreciate that you're model citizens in that way and I'm grateful for that and very p

Thank you, council member. Council member Carter.

Thank you, mayor. So, I also want to thank staff for the sit down and answering all the questions and having discussion.

Councilmember, you need to get a dinner.

Can I get a new microphone? Yeah, I would say I'm struggling with this, too. I agree with a lot of Councilmember d'alisandro's sentiments, and I guess I am wondering, is there anything that we can do to ensure that public benefit, ensure that homes are, in fact, going to be built in a timely manner, if we approve this change?

That's a good question, and as Councilmember d'alisandro was speaking, I was thinking that. And I'm not sure where we would go with that. So, if two are built and then it hangs up, then what? Do we build them ourselves then? Do we, you know, does the city finance them? Is it an all or nothing kind of thing? You can't start construction at all until construction agreements. So, honestly, I don't know. And I would look to staff and see, I mean, is there any way that we can require things to be done or is this a my sense is this is the situation where government does what we can to make the situa

Yeah, so I guess I'll just end with I am struggling with this and I think we talked about this in the last project that came before us over on the east side that was something kind of similar that we would like to revisit the comp plan map and revisit the middle, the R3 zoning districts. I'm having a hard time just kind of having this like random, this random two lot, not random because it is in our comp plan, but like two parcels in the middle of a street that are going to be rezoned while all the rest of them around them still are one. I mean, obviously I know there's industrial and there's

But this kind of, it just feels a little piecemeal. It doesn't feel very strategic. And so that's what I'm struggling with.

Council, I think everybody's had a bite at the apple. I wonder if it's time to make this decision. Council member loman?

Yep. If that's what you're bringing forward, I do think there's, you know, I appreciate everything everyone said, and I think there's something to be said about, you know, that future conversation about policy. And so I think you got to vote your conscience. With that, mayor, I'll move to adopt an ordinance rezoning 9025 and 9033 James Avenue in the city of Bloomington from R1 single family residential R1 middle housing residential and I don't know if I need to add this amendment here for the 17 or is it already added because we've added it to the with the height component. I believe that is p

I want to be sure we're set with that then.

Do we have a second? Second. Motion by council member loman, second by council member Nelson to adopt the ordinance rezoning 9025 and 9033 James Avenue in the city of Bloomington from R1 single family residential to R3 middle housing residential. Any further council discussion on this? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 5-2 with Councilmember D'Alessandro and Councilmember Carter in opposition. Councilmember Lohman.

Mayor, I'll move a resolution authorizing summary publication of the ordinance rezoning 9025-9033 James Avenue South in the city of Bloomington from R1 single-family residential to R3 middle housing residential.

Motion by council member loman, second by council member Nelson for summary publication of item 4.2 This evening. No further council discussion on this? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 7-0.

Council member loman. Mayor, I'll move to approve a final site and building plan for a nine-unit detached town home development located at 9025 and 9033 James Avenue south subject to the conditions and code requirements attached to the staff report.

Motion by Councilmember loman, second by Councilmember Nelson, to approve the final site and building plans for a nine-unit detached townhome development located at 9025 and 9033 James Avenue south, subject to conditions and code requirements. Any further council discussion on this? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 5-2 with Councilmember Carter and Councilmember delasandro in opposition. Councilmember loman.

Mayor, I'll move to approve a type 3 preliminary pl a resolution approving the final plat of James Avenue city homes to subdivide 9025 and 9033 James Avenue south into nine detached townhome lots and one out lot subject to the condition and code requirements attached to the staff report.

Motion by Councilmember loman, second by Councilmember d'alisandro. To approve the preliminary plat and resolution approving the final plat of James Avenue city town's homes to subdivide 9025 and 9033 James Avenue south into nine detached town home lots and one out lot subject to conditions and code requirements. No further council discussion on this? All those in favor please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed?

Motion carries 5-2 with Councilmember d'alisandro and Carter in opposition. Thanks for the conversation, council. I think this is interesting, and I don't disagree, Councilmember d'alisandro, this is a test case for us to see how this works, notwithstanding Mr. statement. I mean, we've got something similar but not quite the same, and so it's interesting here as we continue to explore new ways to provide additional housing in the city, in a city that is built up and landlocked. And so I can Hope that our developer, Mr. ferlong, can get this developed and ready to go, and I Hope that developers

Ordinance as written. So with that, staff is so with that, staff is so with that, staff is recommending approval of the recommending approval of the recommending approv

items that I had a question about was the measurements that you're going to classify the entire building based on its primary use and I believe we had a recent applicant and we went through parking for them. It was over in the south Loop and they have a retail space that was a small portion and then they had a more of a warehousing secure area that was not part of it, but if the entire thing had been classified as retail, I'm just worried that that parking would have been much more onerous for them to meet. I'll be honest, my own office that I own in Burnsville for my business has a retail use

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. If I could just... If I understood what you just said there is if it was of a significant amount that you may not consider that, you know, customary or whatever, and you might recalculate that differently, that's what you're looking at here? Because I totally agree with you. Like, don't... A closet and, you know, stuff like that. Come on. Let's get real, I mean, about that. But if it was like, hey, this is 25% retail, 75% warehouse, you would look at that as...

That takes care of my concern. Thank you for the clarification. Any other questions?

I have a follow-up question to the – so I asked – I wanted to go on record, just make sure people knew, Mr. Mayor, that I had asked a question because I promised constituents that I would ask this question. And so I did ask this question. It was answered. I just want to get it on the record. So I had asked the question about whether or not we could look at limiting the vehicle's – outside of a residence to four when it's on a cul-de-sac or a circle. And the reasons I stated for that were because of public safety concerns with public works concerns for snow removal and garbage and other things

And that and I know we've recently this is keeping up with all these changes is challenging so I just want to clarify this too we recently changed the definition of a commercial vehicle or the length of a commercial vehicle we did something recently that allowed more commercial vehicles to be parked in front of residences so can we articulate how that all goes together?

Right. Yes, that's perfect. And then the last question I have is how far away from their house does it count? So in other words, I live on, you know, my street's pretty long, right? So if I had two vehicles in my garage in my in my driveway and I had two vehicles in front of my house but then I parked three more vehicles halfway down the block does that count does it not count like how does that work and how what would be the enforcement action for environmental health around that like if they can't tell if those vehicles are mine or you know my residence vehicles or not

Thank you. Additional questions? Council member lowman.

So, I just had a question, too, in terms of the parking piece of it. So, you know, with how this changes things, it's possible that folks would be encouraged to utilize the street parking, right? So, then, you know, we have maybe, you know, maybe it's we're going to change it at some other point in time, but, you know, don't we have that 24-hour rule where you got to kind of move your car? And I'm curious, you know, if you'd opine just a moment on that, because that kind of almost in a sense sets you up for enforcement in some degree in some parts of the city, you know, I would just say, Mary,

I appreciate that. And I guess that's sort of where I'm kind of having a little bit of trouble with this. I know we got a chance to come back and look at this, you know, and see how it operates over time. But, you know, it's kind of almost like we're saying a contradictory thing. It's kind of like, hey, let's utilize these, you know, use the street parking. you know, any reasonable person, you know, might end up utilizing it longer than that period of time. You know, and you're gone for whatever reason. You take a trip, you know, you're gone for a couple days or you're mom nursing and you just

Councilmember Rivas, did you have a question?

I'm just wondering, I kind of agree with the reduction in apartment buildings, new development and stuff like that. My question is more commercial or wholesale places. Do we really need to reduce the amount of parking spaces? I mean, if... I kind of try to shop in Bloomington as much as possible. And my experience is in Target over by Penn and American, finding a parking space that is actually on Target instead of going to the other side is very difficult, especially at the times that I go. I think I should try to go different times. And then Caribou Coffee over at, is it France? France and Ol

That's exactly my point. You can't predict what the market is. I know a lot of people have been making assumptions about online shopping. It still hasn't happened the way that a lot of people do, yes, including myself. But there are things that people do on a daily basis that it won't change. I still have a hard time ordering food from the market to be delivered. I still go shop for it myself. And there are quite a lot. I mean, every time I go, the time I choose to go is packing there. I GO TO LONDON VIRALIST ON 50th. I MEAN, ON 50th. And Normandale, and it's hard to find a parking spot in the

I appreciate your concerns, Councilmember. I think the feedback from the study session that we had back in may when we talked about all of this and kind of at length was the notion of targeted adjustments, and I think that's what we heard, that it wasn't a one size fits all, this is targeted adjustments based on I'm assuming location, type of business, and so on. Understanding that, yeah, it's not going to hit 100% every time, but that's what I'm understanding from the feedback we've heard. Good answer. Good answer. Good answer. Good answer. Good answer.

Thank you. Council I'd like to move on to the public hearing on this if we could. Very good. I am going to open the public hearing on item 4.3 tonight. This is a public hearing regarding our off-street parking ordinance requirements. Is there anyone in the Council of Chambers wishing to speak to item 4.3 this evening? Ms. Rye, is there anyone on the phone? Last call for anybody in the Chambers? Council, nobody coming forward, no one online wishing to speak. I'd look for a motion to close the public hearing on item 4.3. Motion by council member d'alisandro, second by council member Robertson to close the public hearing on number 4.3. No further council discussion on this. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Opposed? Motion carries 7-0. So, council, good discussion so far, and I think the comments and the concerns, I think, are well taken. Additional thoughts or discussion on this, or do we want to take action on it? Consultant mayor velomen.

Mayor velomen. Mayor velomen. I'm mayor velomen. I'm certainly mayor velomen. I'm certainly willing mayor velomen. I'm certainly willing to mayor velomen. I'm certainly willing to take I'm certainly willing to take I'm certainly willing to take action. I'm certainly willing to take action. I'm certainly willing to take action. Other I'm certainly willing to take action. Other folks I'm certainly willing to take action. Other folks would I'm certainly willing to take action. Other folks would want I'm certainly will to derail this. I think this is where this is, you know, been headed and it'd b

And I would add, I had the concerns also about the six cars, not for residents, but Ms. Olson's comments about we allowed six non-related adults living in a house, so you've got to imagine it's possible that we could have six cars out front. So if we do one thing, hand meets glove, so we've got to make sure that we do this correctly. Council Member D'Alessandro?

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. My only comment on that is, I believe sometimes we tend to do things that kind of put ourselves at odds with our own policy. So on one hand, we're talking about alternative transportation and getting people to stop using their cars and all this other stuff. And another time we're saying, hey, a person per car, a car per person. And I struggle with those things all the time. And it's not a critique. It's mostly just an observation to say, like, you know, there's a time when we have to kind of show some consistency here. Throughout and I think what Ms. Moore was saying was a c

Council, I would look for action on this. Council Member Lohman.

I guess if nobody else would do it, I'll do the bidding here. Mayor, I'll move to amend an ordinance for off-street parking requirements, thereby amending chapters 12, 21 of the city code.

Motion by Council Member Lohman, second by Council Member Robertson regarding an ordinance in amending an off-street parking requirements, thereby amending chapters 12 and 21 of the city code. Any further council discussion on this? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Councilmember loman.

I'll move a resolution authorizing summary publication amending off street parking requirements, thereby amending chapters 12, 21 of the city code.

Motion by Councilmember loman, second by Councilmember dallasando for summary publication on item 4.3. No further council discussion on this. All those in favor, please.

I APOLOG All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Thank you much. Thanks for your work on this. I know this was a bit of a bit, so thank you for your work on this and pulling it all together and getting us to the finish line. Appreciate it. Council, we're moving on to item 5.1, Our budget discussion for our internal enterprise services team. It's already 8.30, Council. I'm going to preempt everybody, and I'm going to say I'm going to make a motion that we extend to no later than 9.30 Tonight and give ourselves a deadline to get this done. I don't thin

Elizabeth, did you want to show, if you look, you're on the, your notes view is up there.

Just clarifying questions, council. We can make overall questions a bit later, but let's just stick to clarifying questions now. I hear none. Thank you, Ms. Toldman. Ms. Hansen, good evening.

Thank you, Mr. mayor. Thanks for being here. I appreciate all you're doing around election time. Quickly on the election budget, knowing we're now proposing to be in the two-year cycle for budgeting, can you, are you able to predict for us kind of what that ebb and flow of elections costs will be like plus or minus 20% like in the off year it will be x in the y year it's a plus 20 percent something like that so we can get again an understanding of the rhythm associated with that?

I understand what you're saying. It's not quite as simple as that because of things like special elections and not, but maybe on the other side of all this, as we go into a 10 year cycle, we'll start to see a pattern. Okay. Thanks. Appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. No other questions. Very good. Thank you much. Ms. Hill back again. Good evening.

Any questions? I wanted to ask, it kind of caught my attention, the $156,000 in materials and services reduction. I know that in the budget, some of it was detailed in terms of you know, the specifics of it in terms of professional contract services, travel training and supplies and those reductions in there. I just wanted to just be sure that those didn't get moved somewhere else or just help me understand how, because that seems like a gigantic cut to communications.

Questions of Ms. very good. Thank you much. Good evening, Ms. Cheney.

Any questions for Ms. Cheney? Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, hi. Good to see you, director. So are you able to speak tonight about the kind of the shift in the investments that you're considering? So obviously I don't want to assume but with a big number of reductions 400,000 or so it feels like okay there's some software we're getting rid of. Or some technology we're not using anymore we're replacing that maybe with other technology what does the shape of that look like if you can explain are we is it moving more to the cloud is it moving to more AI enabled technologies what's kind of the shape of that looking like right now yeah mayor membe

That makes sense, and I think we saw that even in the contract that we did earlier today with the police department. Are people that you're contracting with, are they moving to a consumption model around data right now? Because the downside of this, at least in my experience, is sure, you pay less for the software, but then the storage of your data and the utilization of your data and all those things

Oh, that's it? Okay. Council, any overall questions or big picture observations here?

I just want to say thank you folks. To say that you went through your budgets with a fine tooth comb is not an exaggeration. I know on behalf of all of us I want to say thank you. Especially since this is really more about cost. Everybody looks at these things as the expenses. The things that just have to happen in order to make government work. Yet you proved that with prioritization we can find opportunities to hold steady. It's not a huge reduction. That's okay. But you're holding steady even though costs are and everything else is increasing because you're finding ways to be more effective

Thanks. Just very briefly. I'm not actually even looking for an answer tonight. Excellent presentation. It keeps on getting better each year. One of the questions I had in my mind was how much is our expenditure growth over the next two years being driven by compensation policy decisions that were made by the council. I know you had started at the outset talking about how we had changed our compensation structure and that's just one of those kind of questions I have and again I'm not looking for an answer right now but that's just a question that's in my head as we look forward to the next cou

I would say, well, I have one question. Is this the format we can expect as we move forward in our budget discussions? Is this kind of standard now?

I appreciate it. I like the format. I like the information provided and like the just how it all comes together.

Very good. That would be even better. Well, thank you all very much. I know this is information only. We're not voting on this tonight. This is information only. Thank you all for the information, the presentations, and for sticking with us late into the evening. Thank you. Greatly appreciate it. Thank you. Council, our last item tonight is council issues and updates, and I will start it with a recap of our council listening session tonight. We had, I believe, seven speakers tonight. Lee sheridan and su ling sheridan spoke on concerns about the tobacco industry's increased efforts to weaken lo

I'll go very quickly, Mr. Mayor. As we kind of alluded to, we had those two potential preemptive ordinances, one around a humane pet store ordinance and one around the wild animal free circus ordinance or something to that effect. I don't know to whom we should direct potentially looking into some of those, but it did sound like at least with the humane pet store ordinance, we had some places to go with New Hope and a number of other cities that might have already done something that might be easy for us to pick up and I would be supportive of that. I don't know what the heads here are conside

I agree, Councilmember. I think it would be worth looking into because I think most of it would be cut and paste from existing that we've seen in other communities as well. If that would be the case, I don't know that it's an enormous or top priority within the city but if we could cut and paste and put some of those protections in place I would be in favor of it.

Okay. So it's okay for us to ask staff to do that. I just don't know which department that is, if that's a compliance department or if that's one of the divisions.

We'll let our staff figure that one out.

All right. Very good. Thank you. I appreciate you looking into it on behalf of the folks that came forward and also I'm kind of an animal welfare person as you all know so thank you for that.

Yeah, I would like to request us to revisit the changing of parking signs in certain areas in the city, not specifically on any particular location, but in general. As I was looking at what we have done, I have gotten a lot of pressure from residents in my area, and I have been referring them to also contact Councilmember Cutter and Robertson because they cover the entire city. I don't know if I have, but I continue to get contacts from people that I haven't in the past. So what I'm requesting tonight is that we revisit that Science change. And I have submitted a document to city manager Mr. W

I think what might be best, Councilmember, and tell me this would be okay, I think a study session on this would be the first step. I think a conversation as to what your concerns might be, what you're hearing from residents in terms of what their concerns might be. I'll look back at the changes we made, when we made them, how they're impacting, maybe kind of a comprehensive look at it. And before we just immediately go toward let's change it or let's eliminate the changes that were made, I think I'd like to study it a little bit more.

Yeah, that would be great. I agree with that. And, again, it's my lack of experience that I don't know how to word it properly, but that's the goal, I mean, that we can study it and have better information to give the public as well. At this moment, it's just complaints, so I guess if we give them a clear explanation on what is the purpose behind this, they might have a better understanding of what the situation is.

But, yes, I agree with you. Counselor, you're good with looking at this a little bit more? Okay. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you, Councilmember.

Thank you, mayor. Just two real quick things here. I want to congratulate my niece who is now an officer in the navy. So I want to just congratulate her for that. Well done. Take a moment of personal privilege on that. And then we had brought up earlier, and again, you know, this idea around discussions, you know, around the comp plan, kind of having a look at that. I do agree that I think it does make some sense. I don't know where this fits in, but I think we've seen constantly as these items have come before the council as it relates to especially when the developments are right in the midd

Well, I think you're in luck, because if I remember, the comprehensive plan is under review right now, and we're working on an update, so I think it's a good conversation and a good time to have that conversation. And I'm sure staff has taken note of the conversation we had tonight around this, and I expect we'll continue that discussion as we work on that comp plan update. All good? Perfect. Council, is there anything else? If not, we're a couple minutes over, but I think we'll be okay. I would entertain a motion to adjourn tonight.

A well-stated motion by Councilmember Carter, a second by Councilmember Rivas to adjourn tonight. No further council discussion on this. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Thank you much for the conversation tonight. Good work tonight, Council. Thank you to the staff. Great job. Great job. And thanks to our members of our public who were here tonight at our listening session and at the meeting. Good night, everybody.