City Council - Regular Meeting

Christina, are we good to go?

All right, good evening everyone. I am Mayor Shelly Carlson. The Moorhead City Council welcomes public input on issues listed on the agenda or of general community interest, time and council permitting. Speakers will be limited to three minutes each. If you would like to address the council during the meeting, please fill out a form provided by the city clerk and we will call you up during the citizens to address council on the agenda. Please state your name and if you're a Moorhead resident. If comments were submitted to the clerk prior to the meeting via email or phone, those comments will be entered into the record. For more information on participation, please visit the council meetings page on the City of Moorhead website at moorheadmn.gov. We, the Moorhead City Council, collectively with gratitude, acknowledge the sacred land the City of Moorhead is built upon. We acknowledge the people who have resided here for generations and recognize that the spirit of the Dakota, Ojibwe, Metis, and all the indigenous communities permeate this land. With that, could I get a roll call for our JUNE 22, 2026 COUNCIL MEETING.

RYAN NELSON. NICOLE MADSON.

HERE.

HEATHER NIESMEYER. HERE. EMILY MOORE. HERE. DEB WHITE. HERE. LISA BORGAN. HERE. SEBASTIAN McDOOGLE.

HERE.

CHUCK HENDRIXON.

PRESENT.

MAYOR SHELLY CARLSON.

HERE. AND FOR THOSE WHO ARE ABLE, PLEASE RISE FOR THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE. We have veterans in the audience, and that was a wonderful, robust Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. Do we have any agenda amendments? We have no amendments to the agenda tonight, Mayor. Thank you. Moving on to the consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

So move, Neeson Meyer.

Second, Matson. Motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? That motion carries. So moving on to recognition since presentations, our first is our Morehart recognition, and I will turn this over to Lisa.

Test, test, test, test.

All right, our testing is good. Turn this over to Lisa Bodie.

Good evening, members of the city council. I'm asking that the mayor and council recognize the First Congregational United Church of Christ congregation this evening for their efforts to provide services and make connections with the homeless community in Moorhead. The nominator for this particular award was CAPLP, Lakes and Prairies Community Action Homeless Outreach, which I think is especially meaningful for some people that do that work professionally to recognize the volunteers and call out this congregation for doing what they do. They wrote in that nomination that this is a small but mighty crew showing everyone around them that we can all lend a hand to our neighbors in need. The UCC has continually made efforts to ensure the homeless community in Moorhead is served and has connections within the city. These efforts include donating food from their community garden, working with service providers in the community, and providing compassion through their fellowship. Through these efforts, the United, excuse me, United Church of Christ stands out as a beacon of hope throughout Moorhead. So with that, Mayor Carlson, if you would like to present the award for this wonderful group for their dedication and making sure all residents have caring support.

So thank you very much for this award. Like was said, we were just talking now and we figure maybe 45 people regularly come to church and our food cart is about six foot square, two or three feet deep. It gets filled every day and every day all the food is taken. We rely quite a bit on just folks from church using their own money to buy the groceries, as well as Giving Hearts Day. We've been really fortunate the last few days, so do remember us when it comes to Giving Hearts Day. We also partner with the Great Plains Food Bank and have a food distribution at our church once a month. We work closely with the shelter in bringing food there. Charlie, the fellow that had the great justice part of the pledge, wanted me to make sure that I mentioned about humanity. And one thing that all of us have noticed in doing this, our food cart's been going on now, it's eighth year, is today when I was there, the fellow that I helped, thank you, sir. God bless you, sir. I think all of us have experienced that a lot. And another thing many of us have experienced is so often we hear without the food card, I die. So we feel really good about the opportunity to help. And again, thank you so much for this award.

Thank you guys so much for being that beacon of hope and that humanity for people in our community. It means a lot obviously to a lot of people and we're very, very grateful to have you in our in our city. Thank you. The next is a presentation and I believe Sean Brandenburg is going to do this one.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. I would like to recognize and thank the VFW for their generous support of youth initiatives in Moorhead. Partnerships like this make a meaningful difference in what we're able to offer the community. Because of their commitment, Moorhead Parks can continue creating positive, healthy, and memorable experiences for all of our young people. The VFW's recent donation to Mattson Field helped fund important upgrades and made possible the naming of the home team's third base dugout, a lasting contribution that will be appreciated by players and families for years to come. Beyond baseball, the VFW consistently supports activities throughout the community, and we are grateful for their ongoing involvement and dedication. On behalf of the City of Moorhead, thank you to the VFW for investing in our youth, our parks, and the future of our community.

Thank you.

it's our privilege and we do this throughout the whole year we either sponsor youth activities or we do veterans things the members behind me we visit the hospital about once a month we visit with the patients we play blackjack with them and for some reason they always beat us or they always win so we always leave our money there but it's our privilege to do these things that's what we're That's our existence. So thank you for recognizing us.

One more, okay.

Again, thank you. As we continue to make improvements to Mattson Field, we have phase one done, and that's where the ribbon-cutting photos were, and I know that they're already starting to do some fundraising for phase two, and when you have contributions like that, it really makes a difference, and just appreciate people who've already given SO MUCH SERVING OUR COUNTRY AND NOW THEY ARE CONTINUING TO SERVE AS THEY ARE RETIRED. SO THANK YOU. NEXT WE WILL MOVE ON TO OUR 2025 ANNUAL COMPREHENSIVE FINANCIAL REPORT AND AUDIT AND I WILL TURN THIS OVER TO MEGAN.

uh good evening mayor and council members my name is megan zaradka and i am the assistant finance director here at the city of morehead i'm pleased to share that the finance department has completed our 2025 audit and prepared the 2025 annual comprehensive financial report which we call an act for because that's a long one this report provides a complete overview of the financial activity for all the city's funds and accounts This evening we are requesting that the Mayor and Council formally receive and file the 2025 ACFER. Once again, this year, we worked with I'd Bailey to complete the annual audit, I would like to extend my appreciation to both the I'd Bailey audit team and our city finance staff. Their dedication and collaboration are what make this project go get done. I'm incredibly proud of our team's work and bringing this project to completion. Joining us remotely tonight is Paul Kane, and he's a partner with I'd Bailey will be presenting an executive summary of the audit results. And with that, I'll turn it over to you, Paul.

Right and I think we got the testing done so it should work.

I did not know I was I was unmuted. I apologize for that. Can I get the ability to share my screen on the slides or?

Yes, we can make that happen.

Thank you so much.

A lot of good information in charts, and I'd like everyone to be able to see them. Here we go. I have it now. All right. Fantastic. I'm assuming y'all can see that. You can hear me. I tested that out apparently in the middle of the last presentation. It's an audit.

Yep, we can hear you and see the presentation.

Perfect, I was going to say an audit. It's not like a food cart. People aren't going to die without one. And where our names are not on and dug out, but. But it is on your audit report and I'm going to I'm here to talk about that today. Appreciate you having me. My name is Paul Kane. I'm an auditor. I'm an audit partner. I would like Bailey. I've been in our firm for 23 years. It's my first year working with the city. I am actually in our Denver office. So very, very happy to be here today. Made my first trip ever to Morehead back in April. Really enjoyed myself down there. I'm going to start with really a clear, high-level picture of the city's financial results and condition. This is designed to summarize the audited financial statements in a format that's easier to follow than this big act that Megan talked about. And it's mostly through charts and trends information. So it's not just like this year's numbers, but also how the city's been performing over time. So we have a lot of charts and graphs and some things to show you guys. It's going to help fill the gap that the audit report doesn't really address. It's a point-in-time document. It is 12-31-25. Here's where you stand. Here's where you are think some of these slides will really show you how well things have been going. That contact without, I guess we started just timing a little bit. So we started planning out in December. We came out to the field in April, worked through open items in May. We got this issued last week, last Tuesday, and we're here to present the final sign report to you all today. So that I'm going to begin with the audit results. First up in front is the audit opinion. The headline here is a positive one. The city received a clean audit, which is also called an unmodified opinion, on the financial statements. In plain English, this means that the financial statements are prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States and based on our audit work are fairly presented in all material respects. This is an opinion, a four-page document. It's about 20 pages into the report. We also gave a clean opinion on the single audit, which I'll touch on in a moment. One point I always like to reinforce is the distinction between management's role and the auditor's role, which is spelled out in more detail in the report. But management's really responsible for preparing the financial statements and for the underlying accounting records and making sure that these statements are in accordance with GAAP and free material misstatement. Our responsibility as auditors is to independently test and evaluate that information and express this opinion on the results of that work. It's also important to remember that the audit provides reasonable assurance it's not absolute assurance we don't test every transaction instead we use a risk-based approach we gain an understanding of controls we use that understanding to really design our procedures and we perform procedures on a test basis so when we say clean opinion the takeaway is really the audit results support the city's statements are materially accurate they are fairly presented and that's really the result that you want and so moving on to the federal awards Turning to this federal award slide, entities that now spend more than a million dollars in federal dollars are required to obtain an annual federal audit. and we also do that in conjunction with the financial state model so together that's known as a single audit testing the federal dollars with your financial statements in one single audit the purpose of the audit is really to not look only at the federal reporting but also compliance and rules and requirements that are attached to your major federal programs so you're getting all these federal grants and along with that money comes a lot of compliance requirements that you're really held to as you spend that money you need to make sure you're complying with all those rules the federal government tells you what those are and they tell us what we need to audit so we really go through this process of determining which programs are major through this risk-based process and this year you spent 10.3 million dollars in federal awards um we tested two programs we tested highway planning construction which was 4.3 million dollars we tested outdoor recreation acquisition development and planning um that was almost three million dollars so we tested seven over $7 million worth of dollars of your federal spending, way more than we required to test. I think the requirement is a low risk oddity is 25%. So we got to almost 70%. And we did give you an unmodified opinion on compliance as well for that major federal audit. So we give you an opinion on compliance and we give you an opinion on the material accuracy of your financial statements. So next findings I'm going to talk about This slide is very uneventful. This is a great result. There are no findings reported in either the five statements, the federal awards, or Minnesota legal compliance. So I sometimes point out here it's entirely possible to receive a clean audit opinion and still have internal control of compliance findings. They're not one and the same. That actually happens fairly often. So the fact that the city did receive a clean opinion and had no findings is worth noting. It's a super strong overall outcome for the audit. From there, going to shift to cash and investments. Maybe before I do, I'll take questions at the end. So starting with cash and investments, this chart really presents the city's cash and investment balances over the last 10 years. It excludes capital project funds because those can fluctuate with bond dollars and things like that. They really come in for specific projects. So this slide really shows demonstrates the stable and adequate level of liquid assets the city has had over the last 10 years so green is governmental blue is business type and you can see that you've been very very stable and you're sitting at over over 100 million dollars i think at the end of the day between these two fun types Let's see. That's all I wanted to say on that. Moving forward to the general fund. So I'm going to focus specifically on general fund. And that's really the fund that most people look at when evaluating the core operating health of a government. It's really the operating fund of any government is its general fund. this slide highlights a few of the more notable budget tax variances within the general fund so within your act for this is broken down into much more detailed line items this kind of summarizes it into one picture that we could present to you in one one slide so one of the bigger see overall revenues um sold 30 million budget 29.2 almost a million dollars favorable looking through i think the biggest component of that increase is interest um investment income higher interest rates during the year the city really seems to take a very conservative approach with budgeting investment income so this other income line 581 000 of that 460 000 is related to investment income Other notable variances, $161,000 related to refunds and reimbursements, which aren't typically budgeted. And in addition, charges for services were favorable by about $114,000 due to engineering services activity based on the percentage of cost assessed from completed infrastructure projects. So those are kind of the three biggest changes in the $800,000 expenses. About a million dollars under budget. So both go in the right direction. And the biggest component of that is police, $750,000 under budget. So I think looking back, it's consistent with historical information here. Pretty much seems to be numerous open full-time positions in the police department. There were some overtime charges and things like that. Still substantial net savings there from what was budgeted. Net revenues over expenditures were $2 million for the general fund. So this slide really gets to an important concept, just fund balance and why a strong fund balance really matters. So increasing your fund balance, increasing your net income grows your fund balance over time. And so a positive fund balance, I think this breaks it down super well. It contributes to a favorable bond rating, helps generate investment income, and really provides a source of working capital to meet cash flow needs during the year. So if you've been growing your fund balance, you can see your cash balances have been growing, your liquidity has been growing. Most importantly, it really gives you a cushion for unexpected things to happen. So a specific example would be unplanned facility repair, or storm damage, or Colorado wildfires, things like that. You never know what's going to happen. So it's great to build this fund balance of unassigned stuff for like a rainy day fund for the future, which we'll get to in a couple of minutes. But first, talking about what is fund balance. It's really in your financial statements broken down into fund level between five different categories. And those are these. So this slide really breaks down what those categories are. And this is just general governmental accounting. Moving from this within GASB definition of these things. So non-spendable is the least flexible. Unassigned is the most flexible. So on one end, non-spendable represents amounts that cannot be spent. They're not in spendable form. Inventory, prepaid expenses, things like that. They're on your balance sheet as an asset, but you can't spend them. Restricted is the next most inflexible type of fund balance, and that is an outside party or a legal requirement dictates how the money can be used. It's not your own restriction. It's restricted by a law or an outside party. Beyond that becomes committed, and this is stuff that's been set aside by formal action of the council. things like that and then followed by a sign which represents amounts intended for a specific purpose but there's really no formal restriction at all and then unassigned is the most flexible it's often what you think of like as a rainy day fund this is what we can use in the future we haven't assigned this we have no no specific plans for this yet that really explains how available general fund balance really is for future use Speaking on that, here's the general fund's fund balance. So leading in, this is over the last 10 years. And this shows general fund over the last 10 years, which is really a long-term indicator of the general fund's operating results because that income in the general fund grows fund balance, basically the equity of the general fund. So looking at this, you can see your honest sign 10 years ago was $13 million, and it's up to $23 million this year. Really nice, steady growth of not just things that are restricted, which you'll sometimes see massive spikes in fund balance of new bond proceeds. They really grow that, but it's all restricted for future capital growth or things like that. So this is a really great trend to see your unassigned fund balance growing along with everything else. So everything else is actually pretty stable, but you are growing that unassigned component of it. And what should these answers be? What should the fund balances be? Put a slide together really white recommendations from various sources of experts out there. So the state of Minnesota. Office of the state auditor. Maintains that general fund fund. The unrestricted fund balance should be in the range of 35 to 50% of operating expenditures. Roughly the less than like five months of operating expenses, depending on the fund type. The GFOA, the Government Finance Officers Association, has a broader recommendation of at least 5% to 15% of operating expenditures. And your own city's fund balance policy is definitely more conservative. The goal is to maintain a minimum unrestricted general fund balance of 60% of the general fund's next year's operating budget, excluding restricted accounts. And the policy also states that a minimum threshold at least 40% of unassigned is the 40%, 60% when you combine committed assigned and unassigned should be at least 60%. So when we dig into what that looks like for you, the unrestricted or unassigned fund balances as a percentage of future budget expenditures for the last 10 years, you've been right in that window, right between that 40 to 60%. And you stayed right there this year. I think, you know, that's great that you're staying within those policy levels. And I mean, this is probably better than almost every other client I have. So you stayed in another way. The city essentially could operate as is for six months with no additional revenue, which is a super strong liquidity and fund balance position for any local government. And from there, I want to briefly move into other funds. So for debt service funds to start with, A positive fund balance indicates that revenue from property tax levies are set aside to cover future debt service. So you can see like over time this was growing in 2021. There was a spike. Proceeds were used there to pay down a bunch of old debt. um and in the current year there's really no significant changes i think the overall position remains consistent with with history and what you'd expect to see in a stable debt service environment so you know plenty of assets plenty of fund balance there to cover future debt service um the next four slides i'm going to group together their utility fund slides um and the story is really very consistent across all four of them so um we're going to show a 10-year trend for electric water wastewater and storm water and these four funds are the utilities within the city um the main big ones and what you'll notice as i click through each of these is that operating revenues have been sufficient to cover operating expenses and that revenues are primarily charges for services um expenses include things like purchase power personnel depreciation repair maintenance insurance and other costs but for the far far away you'll see that revenues exceed expenses and operating income is positive every year for the last 10 years so this is electric here's your water fund um now pretty consistent here Your wastewater fund, and it's, it's pretty stable over all 10 years. Things are growing a little bit as rates go up and as expenses and costs go up. But your net income lines very consistent and last stormwater. By the closest to breaking even. But across all these major utility fund types, the overall message really is that they've been operating in a self-supporting manner. They exist. The government doesn't have to, you know, subsidize these programs within the city. They're able to keep themselves going on their own. And they even have some excess funds that pass back for other things, which is awesome. And one other reminder on this is that the electric and water funds are also included in the NPS audit, which is audited in a separate I-Bailey engagement. the Morehead Public Service audit, and they're still reported here as funds of the city as well. So just to point that out. You're in that position of enterprise funds. So this slide looks at you're in that position across the enterprise funds. We look at general fund, basically the main operating fund of the city. All the other special revenue funds and stuff, I didn't mention those too much, but they all exist for specific purposes. A government financial statement in itself is essentially a giant fund consolidation of a lot of different businesses. So I've always looked at it. So general funds, main operating, you set up all these different special revenue funds for specific purposes. And so they exist for a specific revenue stream or a specific expenditure type item. assigned to those funds for those specific purposes so hitting on those really is just digging into all those little components of the city beyond the general operating fund of the city which is why we focus on general fund we hit these businesses these business type funds and that's what i think the most important thing for you all to hear about today so this This slide looks at the net position across all the enterprise funds in general. Positive net position here indicates like revenues from the operations have exceeded the expenses and you're able to fund themselves like I just talked about. Major changes in net position as follows. So electric funding increased by $4.2 million this year. That's its net income. Water, $2.3 million. Wastewater, $1.7 million. And stormwater decreased by a little bit, $117,000. among the non-major utility funds so this last bucket sanitation pest control forestry street lights golf court and golf course and airport are all in there as well so all of those pretty consistent um from prior years and they have a positive positive net position as well um next slide is cash and cash equivalents in these enterprise funds so this looks at unrestricted cash and crash equivalents across all these funds same thing healthy cash balance important because it supports ongoing operations that doesn't have to borrow money from the government itself based on 25 all enterprise funds had enough cash and investments to cover their debt service and some future operating expenses so i mean points adequate very strong liquidity across these enterprise funds as well

and that covers what we wanted to highlight for you tonight happy to answer any questions that you have so he's got the first one awesome thank you so much paul this is um such excellent news and i think it really showcases our finance department and the rock stars that we have with jennica and megan and the rest of their team just so incredibly proud and appreciative of all of your guys's hard work do council members have any questions or comments Councilmember White.

Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to just go back to a point that was made under the budget to actuals and the expenditures for police. And, of course, that's one of those things that we, you know, will likely change because we hadn't been spending as much as we had budgeted because, as was pointed out, we hadn't been able to fill positions. now we finally are getting up to where we should be on our staffing levels um i don't see it as an area of concern because i'll chime in with the mayor that we our finance staff does a great job of being very conservative in terms of their estimations of our expenditures and revenue so you can see even though we can see that was the you know the the largest discrepancy between our budget and actuals but even without that we would still come out in really good shape so um again kudos to our staff and and i also you know made me think about right now the economy is not good uh and everybody's feeling that including cities and we can see other cities that are really struggling and have had to make drastic decisions to fix their budgets and have had their bond rating in jeopardy. And it's so great to be at a place where you know, again, because of the very sound fiscal fiscal stewardship that we are weathering that. So thanks.

Any other comments or questions from other council members?

Mayor, can I make one comment on that? Yes, go ahead. Related to the police department, yes, we have discussed that as a team, planned for that in our 26th budget, and how to communicate and prepare for that in the 27th budget as we kick off negotiations. And I'll just say, too, great work on behalf of the team. And then just want to also thank the council and the trusted influence that is there between the council members and our leadership team to get this work done.

And I would only say that I appreciated that you said that that was your first trip, meaning that there will be more trips to Morehead. And I'm sure that you are going to continue to find clean audits with our finance team at the helm of doing such great work. um why don't we if there's no more questions or comments why don't we skip to 18a um and i would entertain a motion to approve um or a resolution to approve and receive the 2024 um annual comprehensive finance report so move deb white 20 2025 annual 2025 thank you sorry second nisa meyer I think there are a couple of, sorry, you'll figure it out, Christina, thank you. So motion and a second. Any other comments or discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. So thank you, Paul. Look forward to having you again in Moorhead. And thank you to Jenica and Megan and the rest of your team. So incredibly grateful and appreciative of the hard work that you guys do. All right. All right. Moving on to the approval of the June 8, 2026 meeting minutes. Do I have a motion to approve?

So moved.

Second.

Motion and a second, any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? That motion carries. Do we have any citizens who wish to address the council at this time? Again, any citizens who wish to address the council? Seeing none, moving on to mayor and council reports. Council members, any reports from boards or commissions? Council member Niesmeyer.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Boy, I've got a great list, but I would like to start by thanking the members of VFW Post 1223 and the members of the UCC for bringing a great deal of joy and opportunity for us tonight. Seeing the continued dedication of many, many groups throughout the city is inspiring to those of us who may not know how best to impact our community, but tonight there were some really great ideas of how to participate. And so I wanted to appreciate them for coming tonight and the presentations we had. Pollinator Week is this week. Happy Pollinator Week, everybody. We've got some great co-sponsored programs, particularly Flutter Fest, which is this Tuesday, tomorrow, from 5 to 8 p.m. at MB Johnson Park. It is a co-sponsored event from the City of Moorhead, thank you to our staff who helped make that possible, the University of Minnesota Extension Master Gardeners Program, as well as several other local sponsors to make the evening full of activities, face painting, tours, and a great deal of fun, including Buckets of Doom, which will be shared with folks For free, first come, first serve, buckets of doom, for those who may not know, are natural ways to prohibit, inhibit, and restrict mosquitoes in your yard. And so if you would like a bucket of doom or to learn more about how you can impact pollinators, please join us for the second annual Flutterfest. tomorrow at MB Johnson Park. Also, as part of Pollinator Week, the University of Minnesota Master Gardeners from Clay County are welcoming Doug Ptolemy for a presentation, Nature's Best Hope, and it is at 7 p.m. at MSUM in Langseth Hall. They do ask that people register just so they know you're coming, but it is a completely free event, and so you are encouraged to bring yourself, your friends, and your neighbors to learn more about the homegrown national park and impacts that you can have as a resident of Moorhead. The University of Minnesota Extension Committee met on Wednesday, June 10th, and some updates for you. We have one vegetable, one community plant this year is pumpkin. So if you would like some free pumpkin seeds, there's also a giant pumpkin growing contest currently that's going on. You can find those seeds at our local Moorhead Public Library as well as at the Family Resource Center up north in Moorhead. Also from Clay County Extension Committee, we have the Clay County Fair coming July 9th through the 12th. If you are interested in fair food, rides, exhibits, and more, it is a wonderful family-friendly event. If you are interested in being a volunteer, they are still looking for volunteers for the 4-H Achievement Extravaganza. And so please feel free, there's a form that you can find online to volunteer with 4-H as a volunteer, but also I'm sure the Clay County Fair Committee would welcome an extra few hands, which the fair is happening in two weeks. I'm sure that all volunteers will be welcome. I also want to highlight the meeting that we have for the Clay County, nope, CAS, Food Commission, there we go, on September 9th we will be highlighting the City of Moorhead and so I appreciate residents continuing to raise up the wonderful things that we are doing for our food systems in the City of Moorhead. For those of you who have been able to participate in some of our local awesome things, MB Johnson, Romkey Park and a variety of others are wonderful aspects of our City of Moorhead that I am hoping to highlight. but look for more if you would like to participate that meeting is 10 30 to noon September 9th I know we're planning ahead but mark it in your calendars and join us we're at the metro cog conference room and I'd love to see more head residents there thank you other council members from boards and commissions council member white thank you mayor

On 6-15, I attended an ad hoc transportation task force meeting that was organized by Justice North and included representatives of the county, CAPLP, and other organizations looking at how we can better collaborate on public transit and working to address some of the ongoing transportation needs in our area. It was great to see how we might use things with MapBus, but also reach out to some of the more rural areas to get people here so they could connect with our public transit. On the 16th, I attended the Moorhead Global Market. It was great. It was a slower night than usual. We only had 97 people come through. It was coordinated with an exhibit opening here in the building. And for those who maybe haven't stopped by before or maybe walked through and haven't stopped and visited the booths, I encourage you to do it. It's a great way of supporting local entrepreneurs and supporting growth and business in downtown Moorhead. On the 17th, we had our MAP bus meeting, and I just wanted to give a brief update. We had KLG architects come in and talk to us about the GTC, the Ground Transit Center, which is our hub in downtown Fargo. And for those of you, if you don't know, that building has not been able to be used for a number of months because of issues that were uncovered with about the structural integrity and unfortunately it looks like the building will be a total loss and so we're starting the plans of talking about what where to go now with that if you know finding a different location building another building different building or buildings but those discussions will be forthcoming on the 18th i attended the churches united community picnic which is a great event at gooseberry park it was great to see the whole community come together to show support for churches united for the great work that they do and if you haven't seen it they are currently doing a community survey where they would like feedback from the community about ways that they can better support ways that they can better promote and support the efforts that they are conducting. On the 19th, I briefly got to catch part of Juneteenth, but the weather made that very limited. So I just wanted to take a minute to thank the folks. I know that we had folks, some of our city staff was there. And in particular, I wanted to just thank two of my friends and former students, Jared Pigeon and Troy Jackson for working on planning the event. Tomorrow, I wanted to mention that rural Minnesota SEP is having a work ready expo at the library from 3 to 6. So if you know folks that are looking for jobs, it's a great way to connect with employers. And that's all I have. Thank you.

»» Any other councilmembers with boards and commissions? Mattson. Two Ts.

I was thinking Moore and I'm like, that's not right. No, that's okay. I am honored to be mistaken for council member Moore at any time. Thank you. Just a quick, we were asked to bring back conversations with council members. And so July 9th, location TBD, we're planning 830, I'm sorry, 630 to eight, more information to follow, but we got a request and so we're gonna do it again.

Okay, any other council members? right uh for mayor updates um things that i attended on behalf of the city um obviously i think the majority of us were at the mattson field ribbon cutting um thank you to sean brandenburg for doing such a great job and getting folks out there and coordinating a really fun ribbon cutting that also was interrupted by a little bit of rain only when people were speaking So that was good that at least the game was able to go on. For those who have not been able to go out and see the new press box and the new grandstand for people to sit, I encourage you to do it. It is pretty impressive. And I know that that's just phase one, and they're already starting to do phase two. But it will enable us as a city to host more tournaments and that helps with our sports tourism in the city. And when you have people coming here for sporting events, that means that it helps our hotels, it helps our restaurants, it helps all of our retail businesses as well. So it's something that is synergistic. Speaking of sports, the FN's Visitors Bureau asked myself and Mayor Mahoney and Mayor Dardis to participate in a sports tourism documentary that will be coming out sometime this fall. It's All Access, hosted by Andy Garcia. and it really highlights the region and the sports tourism industry that we have here in the Fargo-Moorhead-West Fargo area. Council Member White already mentioned Juneteenth. Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate. It was beautiful for a few hours, and I know that they had to wrap it up soon because of a lot of storming, but when it wasn't storming, the event itself was very, very well attended, and it was a really wonderful, great, fun, and uplifting event. From that event, I went over to Concordia for the Empowered Entrepreneurship Retreat for high school girls, and got to meet some very incredible young women who are doing some really great dreaming and visioning, and some of them even already have businesses that they've started. One of those individuals is from the city of Moorhead, and I think she's gonna do some great things, so just a shout out to Olivia. And then also, ScanFest was held at the Omkamp Center, over this past weekend and I know that on Friday it was maybe not as busy as it normally was but Saturday it was packed in here and it was a beautiful day and there's so many things happening and again shout out to Sean and then Steve French for working a lot of evenings and weekends to put on these events. I think when we get to come and just enjoy them we don't understand all the really incredible hard work and the behind the scenes stuff that goes on into making this seem like it's just smooth and seamless and really easy. So thank you to your incredible team and specifically Steve, because I know he was here a lot of hours last week. With that, I will turn it over to City Manager Damoli.

Thank you, Mayor. Just a couple things. Speaking of smooth and seamless, Safe City Nights. Just a note for folks to mark their calendars for the series. There's the first one this Wednesday, June 24th at Queens Park from 530 to 730, and then on Wednesday, July 15th at Romke Park. And just to let everybody know what Safe City Nights is, they are made for fun and community. The events bring together the Moorhead Police Department, the Fire Department, the Police Activities and Athletics League, Parks and Recreation, local businesses, organizations, neighbors, all sorts of fun. Folks come together and pact with stuff for kids of all ages. And there's a lot of partners and sponsors and contributors. Folks can have, there's free pizza. drinks and ice cream things like that on this list let's see here what is it for just for wednesday and the other um bike rodeo bouncy houses public safety vehicle tours helicopters um landing tour not just one helicopter two it looks sanford's um airmed and the minnesota state patrol plan to visit this year coloring contests bike repair door prizes shields contributes a bike that's given away so hope folks come out for some of that fun and just wanted to say thanks to everyone that came out for the madsen field um hope home opener and ribbon cutting event on um on wednesday june 10th uh that was really something and i want to invite everybody to the ribbon cutting celebration that's coming up at romkey park on monday june 29th at noon thank you thank you

Council Member White. Thank you. I just wanted to check because you said the first one. So did Robert ask get canceled last week because of the weather? And if so, is it going to be rescheduled?

I will have to get back to you.

Okay. All right.

I'm hope we actually did.

Okay, so that all did happen. Okay.

Just got right.

I got whole I was hopeful maybe it got rescheduled was going to be rescheduled. But yeah, thanks.

All right, with that, I would entertain a motion to go into closed executive session pursuant to Minnesota Statute Section 13D.05, Subdivision 3, Paren C, Paren 3, for the purpose of developing or considering offers or counteroffers for the lease of real property described as lots 1 through 11, Block 1, Urban Renewal, First Edition, 202 First Avenue North.

SO SECOND, MADISON.

MOTION AND A SECOND. ANY QUESTIONS? SEEING NONE, ALL THOSE IN FAVOR SIGNIFY BY SAYING AYE. ANY OPPOSED? ALL RIGHT. WE ARE IN EXECUTIVE SESSION.

Let's see, we got one, two, three, four, five.

All right, we are back from executive session. Do I have a motion to close and exit the executive session?

So moved. Second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All right, any opposed? That motion passes. We do not have any new business, and it is 6.59, and we're adjourned. Thanks. Good night, Mark.