Council - Regular Meeting

No running in the chambers? We need a raised crosswalk. All right, so we're ready here. Good evening, everyone. I'm calling to order this July 28th, 2026 meeting of the Richfield City Council at 7 p.m. If you're able, please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. For the audience that's watching on TV. We also are doing early voting in this room. So we've folded down the Voting booths. So that's what the blue objects are in the middle of the room All right moving on we will go to the approval of the agenda I Moved to approve the agenda second. It's been moved and seconded to approve the agenda. Is there any discussion? All in favor, please say aye aye All opposed, and we have approved the agenda. Next, we'll move on to the minutes of the July 24th, 2026 Council Work Session and the July 14th, 2026 Council Work Session.

I move approval of both sets of minutes. Second.

All right, we've had approval of both sets of minutes, and there were a couple of just typographical errors to make sure we spelled people's names right, and that has been fixed.

Yes, Mayor.

All right. Any other discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed? And we have approved both sets of minutes. Next, we'll move on to the open forum. Participants may share their comments in person by voicemail or email or may also request to participate virtually. For more information on submitting comments, refer to the Council Agenda and Minutes page on richfieldmn.gov slash citycouncil. And so the way we'll do it is we'll call people up to the microphone. Please give your name and your city of residence. And then you have three minutes to address the council. And then I'll give you a visual warning with the yellow card when you have 30 seconds left. And when your time is up, we'll get the red card so that everybody's aware of what's going on. With that, we have three speakers for tonight. Did anybody send any information ahead of time?

No, we did not receive any emails today, Mayor, or phone calls.

Okay, thank you. So the first card I have is for Kathleen Balaban.

I don't have to sign in anything. Okay.

No, as long as you fill out a card, you're fine.

My name is Kathleen Balaban. I live on 65th and Stevens in Ridgefield. And I'm going to be discussing or have a comment about the tree contract that we are getting into. We had the ability, I saw it in the newspaper, where 545 trees are being planted in the boulevard areas in the southeastern section of our city. And tonight we're going to be on the consensus calendar agreeing to pay $294,000 no no no I'm sorry the wrong one $269,000 there you go for the planting and the taking care of for the first year according to the quick summary I read so for $269,000 they get to buy them for us and plant them and then maintain them for a year okay now that's wonderful Now what I'm asking you to do now is to look at how we take care of our current trees. And I had the privilege of being at the Veterans Park today with Birgit Johnson, a photographer, and we took pictures of the damage to the trees that exist today. And it has to do with what I would refer to as ignorance. And I do mean ignorance because we have, I've observed that we have three different entities taking care our green space. We have our own employees. We have MBO, a third party vendor for using zero rounds and various types of mowers on our properties. And then we have STS. Those are the sentence to serve people. Those are the rapscallions that have community service problems or commitments. So with that said, The pictures I plan to send, and I was sending them to you that Birgit and I took, and it has to do with long-term damage. It has to do with diseases. I had the opportunity to plant in our city trees for people in my family that have passed away. You were kind enough to give me that opportunity, and I planted them in our parks. And since that time, they've all died but one. They've been damaged. proper, improper, drought. A couple of them got pushed over by lawn mowers. My green bags were taken off. There's just some things that are in our city's control, but are also out of control. So I can't say who took the green bags, the water bags. But bottom line is, we need a policy that states how we're going to take care of our trees. with processes and procedures and that people know what they are. I bought the trees from our city, and it's great. And I'm not saying we don't do that anymore. But we don't hand the people anything on how to plant the tree. We just give them a tree and send them on their way. So thank you. And I hopefully will take care of the problem going forward.

Thank you. Next, we have Deb Nordmarken.

Getting old. Hi. Hello. Deb Nordmarken. Debbie Johnson Nordmarken. I'm sure I think I might be one of the most... Well, let's say a squelched person in the city of Richfield quieted. I'm not welcome on the recent community page. I don't get to talk about why I'm here. In the recent situation that we have, once again, I get to say, I told you so. I tried to prevent this. I tried to stop. And we have tax reassessments over and over of your friends, not mine. We can't forget to mention Martin Kirsch, Sue Sandahl, Susan Rosenberg. Russ Zusag and Crystal Stokes, the ones who allowed this to happen, the ones who denied our petitions to have a vote on the rezoning in this area. We could have prevented all this by just letting us have our constitutional right. But again, here I am to say I told you so, that it was going to be a white elephant. But one thing I've been looking into is how to get you to stop. like a cease and desist. I have been looking into it. And the legal things I've been looking at is if I can quote erroneous behavior. And in the last 30 years, I can quote several. And we'll start with trees. I don't know if you've lived here long enough to remember the trees in like 1999. All Veterans Park was like cleared. Oh, that was huge. We moved here in 1995. That's about what I remember. But then we move into how we were had, we forced out 168 homes and 68 tax paying businesses who use highly unethical tactics. Eminent domain, quick take, which is now against the law. Thank you very much, I helped pass that law. You're not allowed to come in and decide an area is blighted anymore and steal it. Paul Walser even had a development of his own to pay for his own land. And the city of Richfield still stole it from him. I've lived here. We try to prevent it. But I wasn't ever really allowed to talk about it that much when it started crumbling. I lived here in 2006 when our city taxes went up 53%, did you? But you might not have noticed, remember Palenque, he did that 75% cigarette tax and things, and things kind of seem, and I think a lot of people didn't notice. Okay, let's talk about the trees. Okay, and then the roundabouts, the businesses you've chased away. Come on. And then the three times you've passed the decision on tax reassessments to the school board. Tell me that is acceptable. I think it's time for you. And did you know a city manager makes $190,000 a year? Honestly, the city of Minneapolis makes $120,000. It's time to stop. You need to stop spending until it comes down, until we see what this Best Buy slash and a half is going to cost us. We are residents. We are seniors. You're taxing us out of our homes. We have rights. You need to stop spending. And when she retires, we hire a reasonable city manager at about $120,000 like Minneapolis pays. Why do we pay a city manager more? Thank you.

Your time has expired. Thank you.

Please stop.

Our next speaker is Birgit Johnson.

Rebecca Johnson, Richfield. I have a vintage hat collection. My kids will not want to inherit it, so I better make provisions to eliminate it from my house before I die. Guess what? Our structures in our parks, green spaces will be just like that. Stuff nobody wants. What will be in demand is nature. green space. Think of the former Southdale Library building, the old Wood Lake building, and Ridgefield City Hall. What these three buildings have in common is that all of them were once new and outstanding, but became dilapidated and in need of repair. The new Ridgefield City Hall, the building we are in, is an example of how we can build on brown space, meaning already developed space instead of green space. Our new city hall is the same place as where the old city hall was located. The new city hall is standing where the parking lot was, and the parking lot is where the city hall used to be. Citizens had to convince city leaders, as I remember. It works. This is exemplary and also this was done with the Wood Lake building mostly. It is costly to replace our green spaces with structures in so many ways. The green space is to be kept for the future and not chipped away by more structures or other people's spaces. Richfield is rich in nature now. One look on eBird will let you know. eBird is an international website for tracking birds. Taft Lake has 135 species of birds. Wetz Park has 214 and is marked as a birding hotspot. Ridgefield Lake has 156 species. Wood Lake, 239. Our parks are a treasure for their nature and wildlife, and we need to keep it that way. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak for Open Forum? Anyone else who wishes to speak? All right. Thank you to all of our speakers. And at this point, we'll close out the Open Forum. Next, we're going to move on to the presentations section of our meeting, and I'm going to turn it over to City Manager Rodriguez, and she's going to explain to us about the summer intern presentation.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. We have loved having Rochanta with us these past few weeks. I'm really excited for her presentation tonight, but I'm actually going to ask her supervisor, Senior Analyst Courtney DeCamp, to present. Thank you.

Council, I'd like to introduce our summer intern, Roshanta Pollard. It's been a pleasure having Roshanta with us, and we're excited for her to share her presentation with you all this evening. Roshanta, I'll turn it over to you.

Hi, I'm Roshanta. I'm a senior at St. Catherine University, also known as St. Kate's. I am also on the swim and dive team there. I specialize in IM and mid-distance. I'm also going to be a captain this coming year. I have four jobs, so I'm a swim coach as well for Star Swim Team. I'm an intern here, and I work at the Butler Center at St. Kate's as a lifeguard and front desk worker. And during the school year, I'm an RA. I'm from Minneapolis, but I really enjoy coming here. And I'm a first generation American and enjoy biking. How do I? Do I just click? Oops.

Where do I click?

Scroll.

Rashanta, do you want the clerk to do it for you? Yes, please. Okay. So I get to be here from the ACE program. The ACE program is through Hopkins, and it is an eight week internship program for people ages 16 to 24. The purpose of it is to let individuals 16 to 24 learn a little bit more about what it can be to work in local government. This six-week program, we meet three days a week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 9 to 4. On Tuesdays, all of the interns from other sites meet for half a day, and then we go to our sites. People's sites vary from Hopkins, Minnetonka, Richfield, and Nine Mile Creek. And my role here is at Richfield as executive communications, and I'm actually the only ACE intern here at Richfield. So why Richfield? Well, first off, it's the best city, of course. And I was... I was most interested in Richfield when going through the information, they had this title initially as administration, and it popped out to me because I thought that's something that was really interesting, what I wanted to learn more about. So in the process at ACE, you apply, then you do an interview with a bunch of different sites. And one of my last interviews actually was with Richfield, and it was my best interview. It was my favorite one. I had it with Brittany and it was just really exciting. It made me excited for Richfield just because of the energy she brought and it was just awesome. And so when we picked, I picked my top three choices and they picked theirs. And my first choice was Richfield and we matched and so I got to be an intern here. So I did a lot of things here. I got to plan a couple of events and I did some research and got to present my research to directors and other supervisors. I got recertified as election judge. Thank you, Michelle. I got to write newsletters and blurb for first time, like real ones, not just class ones. Attended and tabled at community events. So the pictures in the corner, one of them was at the band shell. And then earlier today, I was at the VIP at the community center where there was like a mini food pantry. So people just went around and grabbed whatever food they wanted. And I also got to do outreach for elections and the public health with Bloomington. A lot about what I learned went hand in hand with what I got to do. I learned how to edit a website. It seems really complicated. It's actually not that bad. I learned what it's like to work in local government and all of the troubles and funship of it. I got to learn how to create memo and formal documents. I learned how to formally understand the budget so it doesn't look like a lot of numbers anymore. It makes sense. I also learned more about what working in public health can be like and different careers in public health and local government. Looking ahead, I plan on graduating this spring from St. Kate's with my bachelor's in public health, health sciences, with a minor in data science and a certificate in community health work. I hope to attend graduate school, hopefully at the U, and continue working and hopefully work in public service someday. Thank you. Any questions?

First of all, thank you. It was a great presentation Would you recommend this internship program to other youth?

Absolutely, there's many different things even if it's not there may not be interested in communications or executive There's internship with the fire department police department You get to do like water research at 9 Mile Creek Hopkins Pavilion.

There's something for everyone Thank you any other questions All right. Thank you. That was very interesting.

Thank you.

All right. Next we'll move on to the consent calendar. So I'll turn it over to city manager Rodriguez.

Thank you, mayor. The consent calendar contains several separate items which are acted upon by the city council in one motion. Once the consent calendar has been approved, the individual items and recommended actions have also been approved. No further council action on these items is necessary. On tonight's consent calendar, Item A, approve disbursements, claims. Item B, approve the bid tabulation and authorize the mayor and city manager to execute a contract with Standard Sidewalk, Inc. for the 2026 concrete project in the amount of $395,806.75. and authorize the city manager to approve contract changes up to $175,000 without further city council consideration. Item C, consider approval of a license agreement, excuse me, with E-Clan Inc. doing business as B&J Trees to sell trees under the picnic pavilion at Veterans Park. Item C, consider, oh, I'm sorry, item D, consider approval of the 2027 Food, Pools, and Lodging Agreement with the City of Bloomington Item E. Consider the approval of a request for a temporary expansion of the licensed premises for Thompson's Fireside Pizza, Inc., doing business as Fireside Foundry, located at 6736 Penn Avenue South, to allow for outside service of beer and malt beverages in their parking lot on Sunday, September 20, 2026, in conjunction with Richfield's Open Streets at Penn Fest event. Item F. Approval of the bid tabulation and authorized the mayor and city manager to execute a contract with GL Tice Inc for the 73rd Street diagonal Boulevard 2026 sidewalk project in the amount of one million eighty thousand six hundred fifty one dollars and thirty three cents and authorized the city manager to approve contract changes up to 175,000 without further City Council consideration item G consider approval of agreements with J and Becker and Associates in the amount of $139,850 for electrical work and U.S. Mechanical in the amount of $294,210 for mechanical work at the Richfield Ice Arena Lobby. Item H, consider approval of a bid tabulation and award contract to North Metro Companies LLC for the USDA UCF Boulevard Tree Planting in the amount of $269,068 and authorize the City Manager to approve contract changes under $175,000 without further City Council consideration. Item I, consider adoption of a resolution authorizing the Mayor and City Manager to execute the Master Utility Agreement number 1062054 between the City of Richfield, the State of Minnesota Department of Transportation and MnDOT's selected design-build contractor, which will govern the replacement, repair, and or relocation of city-owned utilities as part of 494 Project 2. Item J, consider adoption of the Hennepin County Elections Emergency Continuity Plan. Item K, consider approval of a quote from Fluid Interiors in the amount of $429,659.54 for the purchase and installation of interior and exterior furniture in the new building at Woodlake Nature Center and authorization of the city manager to negotiate the terms of the quote and execute the agreement to proceed. And I submit these items for your consideration as part of tonight's consent calendar.

Is there a motion to approve the items on the consent calendar?

So moved.

Second. So moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? I just want to say thank you to everybody that was involved. There's a lot of projects that have taken a lot of work and I know the elections emergency and continuity plan was over 150 pages and it's not something that's public because of security reasons but I know a lot of thought went into it, and people have been asking me about it, and it was very good to see all the planning that was done. So thank you to everybody that worked on all of that. Any other questions? All in favor of approving the items on the consent calendar, please say aye. Aye. All opposed? And we have approved them. Next we'll move on to item 9A, Council Member Hayford-O'Leary.

Thank you, Mayor. I believe first we're going to have a presentation by City Engineer Joe Powers. But I will read the item. This is going to be a public hearing in consideration of the adoption of a resolution approving the five-year street reconstruction plan and authorize the issuance of the street reconstruction bonds for the 2026-2027 Nicollet Avenue project. But Mr. Powers, if you want to head us off.

Thank you, Mayor and City Council Members. Again, my name is Joe Powers. I'm the City Engineer in our Public Works Department. And City Clerk Friedrich, could I have my presentation on the screen? Oh, could you display it, please? Thank you. I just have this up there in case I need it for reference with any questions. Thank you. Good evening. Very quick presentation, overview of our current five-year street reconstruction plan. and a little bit of context about our proposed street reconstruction bond sale for the Nicollet Avenue project. And my keys aren't working either. That works. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. ON THE SCREEN HERE IS A SUMMARY OF ALL OF THE STREET RECONSTRUCTION OR STREET-RELATED PROJECTS THAT ARE CURRENTLY IN OUR FIVE-YEAR CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PLAN. WE HAVE QUITE A FEW, AS YOU CAN SEE. THERE'S A LOT OF WORK THAT NEEDS TO BE DONE IN THE CITY. HIGHLIGHTED IN BLUE ARE THE PROJECTS THAT WE HAVE PROGRAMMED STREET RECONSTRUCTION BOND SALES, LOCAL BOND SALES THAT WOULD BE USED TO PAY THE COSTS ON THESE PROJECTS. Each of these projects will have a separate public hearing to consider the sale of those bonds when those projects come forward. Tonight, the public hearing is specifically for the Nicollet Avenue reconstruction project. That project is started. It's being led by Hennepin County. It is under construction now, and we anticipate it being constructed in two phases. One this year, they will cease construction over the winter and then resume the project next year. Next slide, please. On this slide, I realize this is almost impossible to read. It is included in the full packet. There's a higher resolution version of this table. But this table summarizes the cost and funding sources for the projects, the street projects that are in our five-year reconstruction plan. Just a very quick overview of the street reconstruction bond process. The first step in this process, and this is outlined in state statute and why we're going through this process. First step is to adopt our five-year street reconstruction plan. That is what we're doing tonight with you and the council. We're holding a public hearing. That's also happening right at this moment. After the public hearing, there is an option for the public to, within the next 30 days, can submit a petition to do a reverse referendum. There's a certain number of people that would need to sign that petition in the community. It's based on the number of voters in the last election. And if that is submitted and meets that threshold within the next 30 days, the city would need to hold a reverse referendum, which is essentially a public vote as to whether these bond sales should be approved or not. So that clock starts today as of the public hearing timeframe and 30 days from now, if there's no petition submitted that meets those requirements, then the bond sale would be considered approved assuming the council approves it tonight. Sorry, could we go back one more step? If the bond sale is approved, we're programming sale of these bonds in spring of 2027. We do have some costs on the project that are due NOW WE HAVE OTHER FUNDING SOURCES THAT ARE COVERING THOSE UPFRONT PAYMENTS TO HENNEPIN COUNTY AND THEN WE'VE NEGOTIATED THE REMAINDER OF THE PAYMENT DUE TO THE COUNTY TO BE DUE AFTER WE SELL THESE BONDS AND HAVE THAT MONEY IN HAND. VERY QUICK OVERVIEW OF THE PROJECT. FULL RECONSTRUCTION OF NICHOLETTE AVENUE FROM 66 STREET TO 77 STREET. THIS IS A ROADWAY RECONSTRUCTION. WE'VE ALSO INCLUDED BICYCLE AND PEDESTRIAN IMPROVEMENTS. and a fair amount of public utility replacement and rehabilitation. The water main is being fully replaced. The sanitary sewer was lined ahead of this project and rehabilitated to be in like new condition and brand new storm sewer along the entirety of the project corridor. Project is led by Hennepin County. They did follow the city's public engagement process over the last approximately three, three and a half years. robust public engagement, lots of touch points with our community that really resulted in a community-led design on this corridor. As I said, construction this summer, we're anticipating to wrap up probably around Thanksgiving time and then restart first thing next spring once weather is good and hopefully be wrapped up in the fall of 2027. Construction this year is from 77th Street to approximately 70th Street, and construction next year will be from approximately 70th Street to 66th Street And overall project estimate is $19.6 million for this entire project. We're proposing to sell up to $5 million in street reconstruction bonds to cover the city's portion of the street and storm sewer costs on the project. We're proposing to possibly sell $150,000 in utility bonds. And then the remainder of the utility funding on this project is another $2 million in And city staff, after many, many hours and lobbying the legislature over the past few years, was successful in obtaining $2 million in state bond funding for this project, which we're going to be applying to our utility costs on this project. And then lastly, the county, as the main project partner and leader of the project, has about $12.5 million in costs on this project. And lastly, I just wanted to give a very quick overview We worked with our financial consultant, Ellers, to provide a tax impact for this bond sale. The table that you see on the screen is the tax impact for a $1 million bond with a 20-year repayment. On the left, you can see estimated market values, a different range for residential homes, and then the column circled in red is the annual tax impact for the sale of a $1 million bond So if you see for a $300,000 home, it's an annual tax impact of $4.53. If you multiply that by five for our proposed $5 million bond sale, that's $22.65 for a $300,000 home per year for 20 years. And we'll go to the next slide. And as I'll have, happy to stand for questions from council.

Are there any questions? We're going to have a public hearing shortly, so then we can ask questions then. At the moment, is there any questions from the council? All right. Thank you for that presentation. And I believe now I'll turn it back over to Council Member Hayford-Leary.

Thank you. City Engineer Powers gave a good overview of what this is about in general, but just to clarify what our decision point will be today, I'll just read the whole executive summary. A city is authorized under Minnesota statutes to prepare a plan for the street reconstruction in order to issue general obligation bonds to finance the cost of the identified projects. Staff have prepared a plan for the purposes of utilizing the general obligation bonds, known as street reconstruction bonds, finance the work in place of special assessments or other funding options the nicollet avenue reconstruction project mr powers mentioned is included in the proposed plan and resolution authorizing issuance of up to five million dollars in street reconstruction bonds for planning purposes the plan also identifies potential future projects for reconstruction within the next five years a project's inclusion in the plan does not require a guarantee that it will be reconstructed in the designated year Additional projects that identify street reconstruction bonds for funding include 69th Street, Penn Avenue, 76th at Knox, and 76th West of Penn. It is important to note that the bond authorization resolution up for consideration tonight only authorizes the sale of $5 million for Nicollet Avenue. The other projects in the plan that identify street reconstruction bonds would be required to go through the same public hearing process prior to bidding or construction. So right now we're going to have a public hearing, which again is about tonight's business of adopting this plan and the $5 million issuance for Nicollet Avenue. So any resident wishing to come and participate in public hearing, please proceed to the podium one at a time. Provide your name and city of residence prior to your comment. We will hear your comments. If you would like staff to follow up, please include your name and phone number on the sign-in document. If there is not a sign-in document, fill out a comment card. You'll be limited to three minutes in length, and the mayor will be our usual timekeeper. As a reminder, this is our opportunity to listen, but we will not respond. Questions are asked. They may be addressed as part of the council discussion, or staff will provide a follow-up later. So the public hearing is now open, and it looks like we have our first resident ready to speak. So please go ahead.

Hi, Heidi Guy Borer, Richfield resident, and I'm just asking for some clarification on the first slide, and as has been mentioned, there's going to be reconstruction of 69th Street, and we live just off 69th. Which area of the city is that going to be in, and what does this reconstruction entail, I guess is what I'm wondering. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Yep, please go ahead.

Hi, my name is Kathy, and I live in Ridgefield, and I live on Stevens Avenue. And my question to, I'm coming late to the game. You guys have been working on this for quite some time, and I recognize all the time and the effort that has gone into it. But the one thing that I don't understand is why we stop at 66th Street. Why can't it go all the way to the freeway? It is a main thorough way for our city. People coming from Minneapolis or working that live in Bloomington, I mean, you guys know this. We are a main thoroughfare. going from Minneapolis to Bloomington. Even though we're no longer connected to 494 on Nicollet, this is a main. So when they enter our city, what do they see? Cracked sidewalks? Bent things? I mean, if you look at that section of our city, it's an eyesore already in many ways. And it's coming into our retail area, our hub, all these areas that we need to develop. And we're bringing them in through a corridor that's not complete because we stopped at 66th Street. Now, Sean told me it was $10 million to go from 66th Street to the freeway. And yet this gentleman says it only costs us $5 million to go from 66th all the way to 77th. We've got money coming out of our ears going to the recreation department, but nothing going seriously into the marketing of our city. I would like you to really think about what we can do to gain that extra 10 grand that Sean said we need, or 10 million, excuse me, to finish the job, to finish the job. I'm asking you, why did we stop? That's why I came late in the game. I don't know all the whys and the wherefores. of why we didn't go all the way. In Hennepin County, they don't own us. We're still home ruled, I hope, somewhere along the line. Somebody said statute, but he didn't say that we're home ruled. So let's look at that going into 2027. It was nice to hear they started at that end of the street so that maybe we just might be able to come up with some money between now and then to finish it. I don't know, but I'm going to be an advocate to finish it, because to me, it's just ludicrous that we didn't. I mean, we spent millions, nine million, according to the Sun Country going in, Sun Country, Sun Current going into the Recreation Department. All right? How much money have we dropped? And we only have 3,000 kids, you know? So I thank you. That's not mine. And please, Let's make it a true street that we can be proud of, from the freeway to the beginning of our city to the end of our city on Nicollet. Thank you.

Yeah, we have another resident. Please go ahead, state your name and city of residence, and you can speak at the podium.

Hello, I'm Alex. I'm a resident of Richfield. I was just curious, I don't know if there's a map where it shows where they're going to do all the new development of the sidewalks for the claim of F, where the 73rd Street Diagonal Boulevard, where that's all going to extend to. Do we have a map of that anywhere so we can see which neighborhoods are going to be affected by the construction and everything like that?

We're taking notes of the requests, and we'll address them in discussion, but we can't do it right now.

Perfect. Well, that's all I have, then.

Just curious on that. Is there anybody else who would like to speak at the public hearing? Okay, seeing none, I move that we close the public hearing.

Second. It's been moved and seconded to close the public hearing. All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

All opposed? The public hearing is closed.

Go ahead. Yeah, I will go ahead and make the motion, and we can address the outstanding questions during our discussion. I move that we adopt the resolution approving the five-year street reconstruction plan and authorizing the issuance of street reconstruction bonds to finance the 2026-2027 Nicollet Avenue reconstruction project. Second.

Second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Now we're open for discussion. Engineer Powers, could you answer a few questions for us that came up during the public hearing? The first one had to do with the clarification of which part of 79th Street we're talking about.

Yeah, Mayor, happy to answer those questions. The 69th Street reconstruction is going to be a project from Penn Avenue to Xerxes Avenue. We will be sending out... They may be in the mail right now. Invitations to our first phase of public engagement is going to be occurring within the next three weeks or so. But that's a street reconstruction project and also utility work on that roadway as well that will be going through our full public engagement process, and we're just kicking that off.

Okay, so 69th Street is from Penn to Xerces.

Correct.

Thank you. The next question had to do with Nicollet Avenue. And the current project goes from 66th Street south down to 76th Street, I believe. Yes. And why it doesn't go north of 66th?

Yes. So it's certainly a nuanced discussion. The easiest answer is that, as you're aware, NICLAV is a Hennepin County roadway, and they are the lead on this project. And so they determined the extents of the reconstruction for this project. The city's position is that we agree there is a project needed north of 66th Street. Ultimately, because it's a county roadway, it's up to the county to program that. So we do lobby the county to include these projects in their capital improvement plan, but it's ultimately up to them to determine those extents and the timing for those projects.

Can you tell the public about the cost-sharing program? For the project, I mean like the cost sharing, like the 50-50, I guess how we're affording it. I think it's on your slide, but I just want to make sure people know that we're not just paying for this by ourselves.

Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, of course. There's a, Hennepin County has a cost share policy that's in place that governs what cities contribute when the county does a project on a roadway within our municipality. And so our costs follow that policy. It's very itemized and very detailed. It's also publicly available. If you'd like to look it up, the county has it on their website. I'd say in general, a lot of the costs come down to about two-thirds of the cost on a county project are typically paid by the county, and about one-third are paid by the local municipality. That's a very generalized... UNDERSTANDING OR EXPLANATION OF THAT POLICY. BUT AS YOU NOTICE, THE CITY DOES HAVE ABOUT $7 MILLION IN COST ON THIS PROJECT AND THE COUNTY HAS OVER $12 MILLION IN COST ON THE PROJECT. DID THAT ANSWER OR PROVIDE AN EXPLANATION? I JUST WANTED PEOPLE TO BE CLEAR ABOUT IT.

THANK YOU. MAYOR, IF I COULD JUST INCLUDE A CLARIFICATION. It's true that the overall project cost is majority paid by the county, but I do want to be clear that this item, we are approving $5 million of city bonding money that will come from city taxpayers. This is after that discount from the county, basically.

Thank you. The next question was about the sidewalk redevelopment on 73rd Street. Technically, that's not what the public hearing is about, but I would say without objection, I think we could answer it. So if we could pull up the packet slides for item 7F just so that you could explain, kind of walk through the project since the resident asked about it.

Absolutely, I'd be happy to. Maybe while we're pulling it up I can just explain it. This project is programmed from Portland to Cedar Avenue along 73rd and Diagonal. It will be a sidewalk project that's going to be constructed on the north side of that roadway for that stretch. Portions of it are going to move the curb and narrow the road to allow for the sidewalk. Other portions were able to build that sidewalk within the existing right-of-way between property lines and between the existing curb line. It also includes a rehabilitation of a portion of trail on the east end of that corridor. There's an existing shared-use trail that runs from Cedar to Bloomington, and so that trail is going to be rehabilitated, and so it will be like new condition. We did go through engagement with the community in that area over the last year. I think the last meeting we had on that was last fall, but we did go through that. that process and now we've bid this project and selected a contractor. We do not know currently if construction's going to start this year or happen completely in the spring. That's in negotiations with the contractor right now. So I'm happy to, if we don't find it, I'm happy to pull it up and meet with you after the meeting and I can show you specifically.

Thank you. Now we are in the discussion phase here of the current plan and my computer froze, so I'm gonna rely on my colleagues here. Are there any other discussions about the motion that Council Member Hafer-O'Leary made?

Did we answer the question about the 73rd and diagonal, I guess?

Okay, sorry. So I believe those were the three questions. So we have a motion before us. Is there any further discussion? All right. Then the motion before us is to adopt the resolution approving the five-year street reconstruction plan, authorizing the issuance of street reconstruction bonds to finance the 2026-2027 Nicollet Avenue reconstruction project. And I did want to explain, we were talking about issuing the bonds in 2027, and that was an effort in long-term financial planning to even out the debt load so that we wouldn't, like be adding debt till we took some debt off. And so I don't know if city manager Rodriguez, if you want to say more about that, you summarized it.

Well, if you have further questions, let me know.

So, and that's why we're looking at doing that in 2027. Any other discussion? All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

All opposed. And we have passed that. And thank you, engineer powers. Um, and, And thank you for also talking to people afterwards that want to talk about the sidewalk construction.

Thank you.

All right. So then we will move on to the city manager's report. Nothing to report tonight. Thank you. All right. Our next point then would be the council discussion, either hats off to hometown hits or council liaison reports. And so we'll start with council member Coleman Woods.

Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to give a huge hometown hats off to our Richfield Legion baseball team that has currently, they did win tonight, actually. So I'm getting the minute, most minutes of the minute updates. So they will advance on in the Legion State contest. So congratulations, boys.

Thank you. Council Member Christensen.

Yes, I'd like to remind people that August 1st, this Saturday, there's actually two events in the city going on well. Many events going on in the city, but two of them right over on Lindell Avenue. The first one is an all day event at the VFW Fred Babcock days. And that's going to have a lot of music and a lot of entertainment for kids, adults. It's an all day thing. And then also at the Richfield History Center, right down the block from there from one until four is their annual ice cream social. So with music and ice cream and the llamas. Bouncy houses. Things for a lot of people.

Thank you. Council Member Hayford-O'Leary.

I'll just say hats off to Hometown Hits. It was great to see the urban wildland races go on this weekend. And just a thank you to the staff and community members. Saw a lot of familiar faces. The rec staff. doing the main organizing, of course, in that event, but a lot of other city staff from other departments volunteering and helping out with that. So it's a great opportunity to show off Richfield. And it also, as I was showing the route to the 5K runners on bike ahead of them, so it reminded me of the importance of repaving the paths in Veterans Park, so I'm glad that that project is underway.

Thank you. Council Member Burke.

Nothing this week.

All right, thank you. I was going to mention about the urban wildland, but I think you were well spoken, so I will say thank you to all involved with that. It was a lot of fun. I also want to do a shout out and thank you to our fire department. They helped out at St. Louis Park. There was a large fire at a department complex and it involved many different communities coming together and the Richfield Fire Department was part of the group that went to do mutual aid for their other colleagues. And then also the shout out goes to the fire department and public safety Um, unfortunately, um, there was a gas leak on Portland Avenue and they had to go door to door to, um, evacuate people. And fortunately that, um, uh, it was able to be repaired and with no injury and no damage to anybody's homes. And so no pets or, or, um, no one was harmed. So it was really good. I know there was a lot of concern with the people in that area, but they were safely, um, evacuated. So thank you to everybody that helped with that. We also, I wanted to say thank you to the community development department. They've went through a long process with the small business resiliency program. And so we were able to get that funding out to small businesses in Richfield to help them. And my colleagues have just reminded me that on Sunday, August 9th, there's going to be a, A DISABILITY PRIDE CELEBRATION AND IT IS IN THE ARK VALUE VILLAGE PARKING LOT IN RICHFIELD AT 6528 PENN AVENUE FROM 10 TO 1. SO COME OUT AND CELEBRATE WITH EVERYBODY FOR DISABILITY PRIDE 2026 AND THAT'S SUNDAY, AUGUST 9TH. SO WITH THAT, IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE THAT NEEDS TO COME BEFORE US? THEN I WOULD ENTERTAIN A MOTION TO ADJOURN THE MEETING.

So moved.

Second. It's been moved and seconded to adjourn the meeting. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. And all opposed? And we stand adjourned. Thank you.