City Council - Regular Meeting

Everyone stand 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.

Okay, first thing on the agenda is to approve the regular agenda as presented. Does anyone have any questions or any additions or deletions of the regular agenda? So moved. So I got a motion by Rick to approve the regular agenda. I will second that. There's no other questions or comments. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposition? Okay, passes 5-0. Next, the consent agenda. Does anyone have any questions or issues with anything in the consent agenda items? If not, I guess I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda.

I'll second.

I'll get a second by Maggie Bass. If there's no other comments or questions, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposition? Okay, it passes 5-0. I don't see anyone here from any other government agencies. Next, the public forum. The only person I have on the list is Brian. If you want to come and present.

You know the drill. Name and address. Brian Paulson, 206 4th Street Southwest. Thank you, Mayor, members of the council. I'm here again once to raise concerns about the flock surveillance cameras and the contract in particular that the city is under. I brought these issues forward before, and I'm going to do so again tonight, so they're clearly on the record. If something goes wrong, no one should be able to say that the city was never made aware of the risks. The city signed a contract that incorporated FLOC's terms of service by a reference to a website URL. It's just a URL that FLOC can update. That's what you guys signed. Their version, in effect, when we signed it, explicitly stated that the terms are subject to change right at the very bottom. means that the city agreed to a flock's terms that they could update at any time for any reason. They've done so, I think, three times since you guys signed it. You might accept terms that are subject to change when you sign up for a service like Netflix, but this is different. We're talking about a system installed with a history of multi-million dollar payouts of in liability claims. Agreeing to the terms that a vendor can change after the fact is not appropriate for a contract of this nature. Uh, those terms also contain liability and indemnity provisions that heavily favor flock in practical terms. Flocks responsibility, um, back to the city is capped roughly by amount of fees that we pay in the previous 12 months. The city carries far more risk. Uh, one of the cameras is now located in Minnesota right away on a solid non breakable base. Minda guidance requires that they be mash 16 breakaway poles. So if you hit them, you go off the road. it will break at the bottom. I usually don't notice that, but I do highway cleanups all the time where you find that poles have been hit and they have the bolts right there. This they just took, moved it, threw it right into the ground. It's a solid pole. That particular intersection already houses challenges. The northbound turn lane is very narrow. It has that guardrail right there just north of the chart. And on the southbound there is no turn lane, just a bypass lane. So I feel that that is kind of a dangerous intersection just to begin with. And now we have this there. If a vehicle leaves a roadway and strikes a non-compliant pole and someone is seriously injured or killed, the city's exposure is real. Under the contract language the city accepted, FLOC can attempt to shift the responsibility of the city while its liability remains limited. I'm not raising these to assign blame. Other communities, including large cities such as Los Angeles, recently ended or stepped away from these systems after taking a closer look at the contracts and broader implications. I respectfully ask the council to direct staff to review full contract history, confirm the compliance status of every camera location, begin the process of ending the flock agreement and removing the cameras. I'm placing these concerns on the record tonight so the city cannot later say that it was not informed. My goal is simply reduce unnecessary risk for the taxpayers, the people who travel through the community. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh, I have no one else on the list, but if someone would like to speak to the council, let me know now. Yes. Can you state your name and your address, please?

Hi, yeah, Jason Shwalkoff, 201 11th Street, Circle Southeast. I hadn't actually intended to talk. I didn't realize there was a sign-up sheet.

Oh, that's fine.

Since there's interest in it, I've been watching several meetings just trying to get an interest in city government. I'm going to be retired at some point, so I figured I'd start paying attention to it. And some of Mr. Paulson's items were of interest to me as well. Full disclosure, I work in the technology field. I'm familiar with a lot of the systems and the application of video services. I also am a staunch supporter of law enforcement having the proper tools and policies and things in place to support those activities. But I am concerned about our choice of the flock brand, in particular, and some of the issues that it may open the city up to for liability. So quick here, notes. The first area was contractual, as Mr. Paulson noted. Since December of 2025, when the original contract was written, there have been 147 changes that have been made to the contract terms, specifically that would affect the city and potentially open us up to liability. There is an indemnity and what was the other? Liability and the non-appropriation clause. Arbitration being done in Georgia. If there are issues, we don't have any legal rights in Minnesota, from what I can tell. So I'm making sure that the city has a chance to review those with our lawyers. For example, in Section 8.3, the city is now According to the revised terms, the city is responsible for damage to the vendor platform, anywhere from $800 for a camera to $2,000 for a whole platform replacement. As we increase the number of cameras in town, that obviously would increase a risk factor. More impactful to that is that the data that is used by FLOC We have strict terms in our contract or in the contract that we signed that the data belongs to the city of New Prague so that it's contained within this. However, the data that is in that contract only applies to what is presented to us in the portal, not what is actually captured by the cameras. In the recent terms and conditions, Flock has perpetual license to that data. And they can use that data as part of their product set called Nova and other platforms that they can sell that data. So they're utilizing our citizens' information to fund their business. We're de facto supporting that. But the city already has a consumer protection policy in place today under the cable franchise agreements. So someone should probably look and see if there's any liability there because we have to sign off if we want the cable companies to be able to tell what we watch. I'm assuming there's something in particular that would apply here as well. The other items that I noted may have come up in Chief Applin's audit already, but they're operational items that occur. So the 58,000 license plates that were detected in the last 30 days. 692 of them were listed as what's called a hot list. Hot list being a license plate that is flagged for attention because it's involved in something some other department might not know about. Maybe our own department is interested in knowing about that. But our own, well, I should say the flock policies indicate that those hot lists have to be reviewed by a human being before any action is taken on them. So somebody from our department or the city is having to review those things over and over again to see if they're of any value to us. The other one is a budgetary impact. Our own policies dictate that when cameras are in use in New Prague that they're supposed to be signage. Incorporated with them so they're supposed to be in well-lit areas are supposed to be signs notifying the public I don't know if we have to do that in this case, but it's something that if we have to incur additional costs We don't do it with that one minute. The reason I have problems with the brand is that the brand itself As mr. Paulson also noted is under is under significant public discomfort around the nation so much so that people are actually actively destroying the devices. And if we're having to be paying for them, I'd rather we looked at a different brand or something of that nature to provide those tools without risking us getting in lawsuits. I'd rather have my taxpayer dollars spent fixing the Lightning McQueen repair job on First Street, on First Avenue Southeast, rather than fighting off lawsuits. So thank you and have a good day.

All right. Thank you. Anyone else want to come and speak? If not, we'll move on to the next item. Okay, public hearings. We have none scheduled. City engineering updates. Matt, you got anything? How's the street project going?

It's going really well.

They're actually ahead of schedule as of right now. That can change very quickly with weather. Third Street should be, first lift of blacktop should be put on next week. and then it'll get the second lift when it does all of 10th Avenue, um, more towards the end of August. Um, but it is going really well.

Okay. How about the, uh, so the 24 project, we get that finally resolved and 24 is, um, cause I know we had some problems getting them to respond.

Yep. They finished up the punch list, uh, this spring back in may. Okay. Um, so yeah, all the projects that are being buttoned up and moving along very nicely.

All right. Thank you. Anyone have any other questions? All right. Thank you. Next, we have the series 2026B bond sale results from this morning. We have Rebecca from... This is Becky.

Well, sometimes people give a little introduction. That's fine. As you guys know, Rebecca Kurtz from Ehlers. I'm here with the results from the bond sale that we had this morning in our office. I'm going to pause for a minute though before I get to the results for the sale because as we have done in the past with your issues, we did go through a rating process with Standard & Poor's. And a complete copy of the rating report is attached in the sale day packet that I believe is at each spot. But I just want to call out a couple of the comments that were made in the report for you. I'll start with saying congratulations. As I have said before, Standard & Poor's assigned its AA long-term rating to the new bonds and also affirmed that rating on your existing general obligation debt, and it has a stable rating. So again, congratulations with having that rating affirmed. It continues to be that testament to the work that you as council do and that your staff does to effectively and responsibly manage the city's finances. In the report, a few of the items that support Standard & Poor's AA rating with the stable outlook is the rating reflects New Prague's healthy, well-managed finances and the economic matrix that are consistent with those of similarly rated peers. They go on to talk about the funds that were used from reserves to purchase the building that will replace the city hall But with that say, despite these draws, we expect the reserves will remain in compliance with the city's 50% fund balance policy and stronger as a percent of the operating route revenues relative to those of typical, typically similarly rated communities. So again, um, a recognition of the responsible, use of public funds and continuing to remain within your fund balance requirements, even with expenditures that present themselves. The rating further reflects Standard & Poor's view of the following factors. The population and market value growth are healthy with ongoing residential and industrial development. They talk about the city benefiting from the sound management practices and predictable operating revenues. and then go on to expand on the management practices that really support the financial feasibility and stability of the community. And so again, congratulations on that. With that, I believe that that helped lead to the results of the sale that we did take bids in our office for this morning. We did receive six bids. The low bid was Brownstone Investment Group, which is based in New York, New York. And their low bid was 3.66% for a true interest cost. That compares with what we had brought forward about a month ago was an estimate of 4%. So about 35 basis points less than where we were estimating about a month ago. The other item that I do want to call out is we did receive a premium bid and in its simplest form. What that means is the underwriter or brownstone investment group, um, was, was willing to give us more funds than what was needed to fully fund the projects for the street and the utilities and the equipment purchases. And so with that we were able to reduce the bond size. So the projects are still fully funded. However, we were able to reduce the bond size from one point six three five million to one point five all five So with that I am happy to answer any questions that you may have but there is a resolution from your bond council in the packet and if you do choose to Award that we would have funds available at the city on August 6 and Ehlers is recommending awarding to Brownstone Investment Group with a true interest cost of 3.66. Okay.

Well, thank you for the good news. Anyone have any questions for Rebecca? Well, that's even better news, right? Making it easy. All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Have a good night. Thank you.

I guess now we have to approve resolution number 26-07-20-02, which regards the approval of the $1.505 million of general obligation bonds. So moved. I got a motion by Rick Seiler.

I'll second.

Second by Maggie Bass. If there's no other comments or statements... All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposition? Okay, pass this 5-0. Thank you. Ordinance for introductions, we have none. Number 10, this would be our second reading of ordinance number 365 regarding some of the changes to our new UDC.

Yep, just a couple of... basically clean up items, one regarding, um, putting assisted living facilities back to a conditional use and then making sure that all accessory buildings are subject to our six foot, 10 foot and 20 foot front access requirements. So just making it the way it was was inadvertent change on those fronts. So that's all I have for an update for you.

Okay. Anyone have any questions regarding, uh, those, those minor changes? If not, I guess I'll make a motion to approve the second reading of ordinance number 365. Second. We got a second by Rick Seiler. If there's no other comments, all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposition? Okay. Passes 5-0. We do not have any resolutions. Um, we do not have any other general business. So miscellaneous. Rick, do you have anything additional? No. John? No. Maggie? No, sir. Josh?

I did want to ask real quick if you guys would be available before the next meeting on the 3rd at like 5.30 for a quick union discussion to go over police union stuff.

Oh, okay. Yep.

And then I know as well, and maybe I'm going to steal Chuck's thunder here, he was going to pass out the... my review forms for X and so I'm looking to have that after next meeting on a three.

So, okay.

So this, uh, the next meeting that we, you, what, when was it? August 3rd on August 3rd, which is the normal meeting. We have a special at five 30 for the union discussion. Okay. And then my review after the meeting. So five 30 union.

John mentioned he won't be here, but we can still proceed. We should have a quorum. Okay. Yeah. Anything else?

That's all I got.

Okay. Ken, anything?

Nothing more.

Robin? Tim, do we move yet?

We are working on that this week.

Okay.

So it'll be kind of they're putting on some final doors that need to be on the interior to secure it, and then CTS is planning to be there Wednesday and Thursday to get, make sure all the IT and everything is working. So move that stuff over there and hopefully by the end of the week we'll be in a better spot. Then you're going to be looking at a grand opening when? We'll get in there and get things working and make, cause we're going to find some bugs we already have. So I want to make sure everything's working and we'll get settled and then we'll, we'll schedule that here this end of summer, early fall.

Thank you. Matt, do you have anything else? Mitch, you good? Patrick, you good, too? All right. I don't have anything, so I guess I'll make a motion to adjourn. Second. I got a second by Bruce Wolf. All in favor of adjournment, say aye. Aye. Any opposition?

All right. That could be a record. That is a record.

Wow. He beat me. Yeah. Someday, Rick, you'll grow up. I bet he had a budget meeting now. A couple minutes if everyone...