City Council - Regular Meeting

Video Usually it pops up Call a Shakopee City Council meeting for September 15th 2026 to order if you could please take the role Councilmember Delaney your councilmember waiting your councilmember Contreras here councilmember Laura your mayor layman here Please join us for the Pledge of Allegiance Item number four is a special presentation by the Shakopee school district superintendent. Mr. Redmond on a proposed, Minnesota constitutional amendment Welcome mr. Redmond Thanks for coming, and if you need anything, just holler.

Awesome. Thank you, Mayor Lehman and city council members, for having me here this evening. I appreciate the opportunity. As you mentioned, I'm here to just share information on a proposed constitutional amendment that impacts All public school districts, charter schools, and tribal schools in the state of Minnesota. So it's not just a Shakopee Public Schools specific thing. It's a statewide thing. And I'll try to be very concise and happy to answer questions at the end. This one intrigues the social studies teacher in me. We have three state agencies that collaborate to manage and distribute what is called the Minnesota Permanent School Fund, the DNR, the State Board of Investment, and the Department of Education. And this is something, this idea has been studied for a long time. And there was a bipartisan legislative effort to bring it forward as a constitutional amendment. I believe it was passed unanimously in the Minnesota, in the House, and by a pretty sizable margin in the Senate. But why is this constitutional amendment being proposed? And it's because this Minnesota Permanent School Fund, and this is the kind of social studies history school teacher in me, actually the work was begun before we even became a state. And then it was put into the state constitution in 1858 when we became a state. Guess what? If you put something kind of together in 1858, you do the best you can to kind of plan and move forward. And they did a fantastic job, because this Minnesota Permanent School Fund is still in place. But now the balance has increased over time. And it now has a sitting balance of $2.3 billion. And I think the danger is, the idea is you're supposed to be using the money to support schools across the state. And it's kind of in this place where you could end up with a lot of money sitting idle for a long period of time. And so they've grappled with how do we change or propose changing that distribution, but also knowing that this is in the Minnesota Constitution as a permanent school fund. And so the intent is to maintain that into perpetuity. And I'm not going to read these to you, but up on the slides, it gets into the current method, which is distributing those funds each year to the school districts and charter schools and tribal schools across the state. They want to update or modernize or have a a better thought out for the current situation plan for those payouts annually from this permanent school fund. Currently, well, if the amendment is approved, It will change currently at what they distribute as $68 per pupil in revenue. They would like to increase that to $95, an estimate, per pupil. And it would permit, and they've got a three-year average, so they're trying to do this. And a lot of folks a lot smarter than me with finance have worked on this. How do you do this in a way where you can increase the distributions but not jeopardize the core principle of the fund and not in any way even come close to jeopardizing the permanent status of this fund? And so for Shakopee, this increase is approximately $210,000 per year, which is a significant chunk of money that can help us to hire staff, support programs, and do those things without in any way changing the permanent nature of this fund. This is a really important slide, and it's I don't know, I don't think I've ever been in this position in my life where I come to people and go, This does not increase anyone's taxes anywhere in the state of Minnesota to do this. This is money that has been generated based on a land grant system that was put in place in 1858. And so the ask is to change the distribution method while retaining the Minnesota Permanent School Fund into perpetuity. And then the, well, two things on this final slide. I won't read the actual ballot language, but it's there. I know some people like to see that ahead of time. And there are a number of items on this November's ballot. And this one, like any constitutional amendment, if somebody, you know, let's say they, whatever, they vote for a few offices and then stop, And don't fill out the ballot on this Minnesota constitutional amendment. That counts as a no vote. So in order, obviously there's yes votes. The yes votes have to be greater than all the actual cast no votes and then folks who didn't vote on this particular initiative in total. So that is... I also sent a one-page document that I think you've got. I'm not going to read that to you, but I greatly appreciate the time to just come in and share the information. And I think this is one where just trying to inform folks in our community is really important, what it is and what it isn't. And yeah, there's some complexity, which I like as a history teacher, the startup. But in actuality, the change. Pretty straightforward. It's changing the distribution of a permanent school fund and doing it in such a way that I have no reason to doubt that this fund will be around for a long, long time and into perpetuity as intended back in 1858. So thank you.

Do we have questions, Mr. Whiting?

Thank you, Superintendent Redman. Thanks for coming tonight and having this opportunity to communicate this to the voters and things. I just want to make sure we're clear that the fund will stay in perpetuity and still have funding for other projects. And then the money you said is a per pupil basis and doesn't go towards capital, but goes towards teaching and salaries and things. Is that correct? Or could it go towards a capital expense?

It comes into our general fund. And so typically when we do that, yeah, we're going to spend it. 80% of our general fund is spent on people which run programs. And so, yeah, we have no intention to use it. I don't even know if it's possible to use it as capital. And the fund at the state level can only be used to fund public schools, charter schools, and tribal schools. So that is written into the state constitution. That does not change.

Thank you.

The one question I hear the most of, and you touched on it, was, OK, so you have basically this principal amount in this fund. And that principal just is unchanged with this constitutional amendment. The money being made off the investment of that fund over years is what we're talking about. And we're really only talking about a piece of that investment money off of the principal. So the principal is always going to stay there. Some of the investment dollars are going to be used for this. So there's still going to be some investment dollars growing this fund. Is that a, am I getting that fairly accurate?

Yeah, I should have maybe had you do the presentation for me. That's a very good explanation.

Well, a lot of people are asking that question, and I wasn't too sure, so I was kind of excited to see that you were coming here tonight to answer that key question, which is what a lot of people are asking. You know, they're asking what happens if they use some of this investment money that is growing from this principle, and let's say investments go down for some odd reason. So one, my understanding is there's enough in there, and even if investments came down, so far so good, it still wouldn't impact it. And this doesn't allow the principal to change, even if this was to pass. Because that would take a whole separate constitutional amendment, and that's not proposed.

Correct. Yeah. The idea is this is a, the word permanent means something when it's in the Minnesota Constitution. Yeah. And that's even that three-year rolling average for the distribution is to go, hey, if you have a down year, you're going to factor that in and try to do things prudently in terms of how you're doing the distribution. And that's why even... It's an estimated amount per pupil. And I mentioned earlier, this was done in a very bipartisan fashion. There was a group studying this. And of course, they brought all kinds of financial experts in and want to make sure that it's done well. I don't think at the state level you would ever want to be the person who somehow harmed a permanent fund like this and made it something other than permanent. So I have a high degree of trust and expectation that it's been done well and Exactly as you said I think it's a it's still a prudent way of doing the distributions, but we're also Serving our our students across the state with money that otherwise would just be sitting in that account and kind of accumulating and so they found a safe balance and a good way of putting more of that money and Into use beginning next school.

You know next fiscal year next school year, and then you know moving forward It's almost like they forgot about it Some some old person just said hey, you know we did this way back when and any other Thank you very much for coming here tonight really appreciate it Yeah, well, thank you, and I appreciate the time and and have a have a good rest of the Item number five, approval of the agenda. Any changes to the agenda? Nothing from staff, sir.

Council?

Councillor Contreras?

Make a motion to approve the agenda.

Seconded by Councillor Whiting. Discussion on the motion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Agenda is approved.

Item number six, consent agenda.

Any changes to consent? Nothing from staff, sir. Council?

I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Is there a second? Second.

Motion by Mr. Lara, seconded by Mr. Delaney. Mr. Reynolds, would you like to read the consent for us, please?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of council. These are the consent agenda items for Tuesday, September 15th of 2026. 6A approves the speed limit modifications along Marystown Road. 6B is surplus property. 6C is an agreement for use of the Shockby Ice Arena by the Independent School District. 6D declares amounts, orders the preparation of proposed assessments, sets a public hearing date for delinquent refuse bills. 6E approves on-sale and Sunday liquor licenses for Hy-Vee Incorporated doing business as Hy-Vee Market Grill. 6F approves a temporary liquor license for the Fall Food Truck Festival. 6G approves on-sale and Sunday liquor licenses for Shakopee Pub, LLC, doing business as Babe's Place. 6H approves Resolution R-2026, TAC-130, accepting the donation of $10,000 from the Roar Corporation. Thank you very much. 6I approves additional funding for the Fire Station 2 station alerting system. And 6J approves the September 1, 2026 City Council Minutes.

Thank you very much. We do have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Item number seven, public comment. If you're here for an item that is not on the agenda, now would be the time to come forward. If you could sign in on that sheet for us, please. Thank you. And there'll be a timer up here, three minute timer.

Hi, everyone. My name is Corey Meyer. I'm a 17-year resident of Shakopee. And the reason I'm here is of lesser importance than our previous speaker, so I won't take up too much of your time. But I've recently come to understand there's a city ordinance in place that restricts the proper licensing of larger side-by-side vehicles on city streets. And I'm just here requesting if you would take a look at possibly amending that to allow properly outfitted side-by-sides on city streets. Thank you.

Thank you. And does staff have contact information?

Yes, sir. I believe we do. OK.

Questions? Clarifications?

Yeah. What would be the difference? This is staff.

We have golf cart areas where golf carts that are properly lighted.

Turn signals and I think it had slow moving vehicles signage. And permit. And permit. What would be the difference between a golf cart and a side by side if they were using the same routes?

I think the key is if they're using the same routes. What we do with golf carts is that they have to be limited routes. There's no golf cart can just go anywhere. And we try to push them onto trails as much as possible and limit their ability to cross main streets But certainly if council wanted us to look at that we could do it. I think that you know Side-by-sides run through my neighborhood every day You know it's happening in the community as we speak and it certainly will open things up a bit. And from my perspective, any time you have non-vehicle, car vehicles on roadways that are designed for cars, there's an opportunity for accidents and people being injured. And so from a public safety standpoint, my opinion and simply my opinion is that I would not be in favor of it. But again, if the council wishes to take a look at that, we can certainly do it and move forward from there. But we would push them onto trails. Now, that being said, that would cause some concerns with other people that use the trails, I'm sure, which we are currently getting from e-bikes. But again, we can take a look at it.

Do we have limits on DNR trails for motorized use?

Except the e-bike.

That's a good question. I don't know. Chief, do you know the answer to that?

Right.

Snowmobile trail.

Well, it comes to my mind because down by the river, the DNR trailer signs that say no motorized vehicles except for snowmobiles during a certain time period. And it's a designated route. So even if we wanted to put them on trails, there are certain trails we can't put them on.

Correct, yes.

OK. Thank you for the information. Pardon me? Thanks for the information.

Yeah, okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you, guys.

Anybody else that would like to address an issue with council that is not on the agenda? Hello?

Hello?

And if you could sign in. Sure. Sure.

Well, good evening. My name is Matt Frost. There you go. I do have a one-pager, three copies of a one-pager that I'd like to leave behind if I can.

Sure, we'll make that part of the record.

Okay. Tonight, I wanted to come in and speak about the residential impacts of the Mystic Lake Amphitheater. I live 1.2 miles west of the amphitheater, so I'm up on top. I'm almost directly behind the stage, so the sound is going the other direction. We've been experiencing some severe and disruptive sound in the neighborhood. And it's transmission from those concert events. Rattling windows and walls, the resonance from the base. In particular, it's disturbing sleep of adults and young children in the house. All of the windows and doors are closed and the AC has been running. We've replaced siding and insulation and windows within the last three years. So it's all new stuff. I've been using a pro-grade decibel meter to take readings throughout the month. And on a normal night, with crickets and 169, the decibel reading is 51.9.

Excuse me, is that part of what you give to the clerk? It is, yep.

Okay. Yep, it is.

And what was the number that you just said?

So on an average night, just crickets, 169 highway noise, 51.9 decibels. During the concerts, I'm getting readings of 70 to 73 decibels. Now, for comparison, I took readings of my neighbor's gas-powered lawnmower during the day, and that was 68 decibels. So the concerts at night are exceeding the noise level of a gas-powered lawnmower during the day. I have called the Live Nation complaint line at 10.10 PM on September 4. I watched for an hour. I didn't see anybody come out. I didn't see one car, actually. I'm not against concerts, I love music. Just respectfully requesting that the city engage qualified independent acoustic pros to measure sound levels and publish those results. Work with the amphitheater to implement measures that will meaningfully reduce the sound in the neighborhoods and consider changing the curfew from 11 to 10. So thank you for your time.

Thanks for coming down and speaking to us. I know that we're taking some actions on it. There was some potential sound mitigation things that they could do, them sound blanket type things. And I know they changed out some mixer stuff. And I know that they offered that monitoring service. If they're not doing it, we'll have to touch base with them on that.

Yeah. It's a little bit like the fox guarding the hen house, I think.

Yeah.

Well, it's actually both the PD and Live Nation. And Live Nation takes a photo of, it's in Live Nation's best interest to be a good citizen. Otherwise, this body will change their attitude on the relationship. We have been working with Live Nation. It's like anything else. It was designed and now that it's actually working, we're dialing it in. My hope is by this time next year, we will certainly be at the point where we know that there are still sound mitigation efforts that have to occur. We're continuing to work on that with Live Nation. And they've been very receptive. They've already put in some sound dampening in the bowl itself. They have moved speakers. And now we're working on the overall volume itself. So we're continuing to work the issue. It is important. I live in Southbridge. And on one night, my windows were rattling. from a concert, and that was one that we all got a lot of complaints on because it was too much. It was over the top. But I hope that the community at large will have patience as we continue to dial this in. We know what's an issue, and we're continuing to work it. Fantastic.

I'm a couple of blocks this way from this location, so I'm directly behind the stage about three miles. And there's nights that I can hear it on the front step. Granted, it's pretty muted. As soon as the train goes by or a plane goes by, it cancels it out for me. But again, I'm three miles away.

We also understand, if I may, environmental conditions can make it sound louder and change the effect.

Yeah, that's one of the dynamics we've been struggling with. We had the heat dome. that kept essentially a sound down and then spread it. If you have high humidity, that will make sound go as well. But that's still not an excuse for making sure that we are doing what we need to do to make it a good neighbor. And we're, again, trying to dial those things in. I'm reasonably comfortable that we'll get there. But I just would ask for patience as we continue to move that process forward. We've already done some things. We'll do more in the future as we continue to dial it in.

And the last thing I would say is to not only yourself, but everybody that may be listening, call that number. It's critical that we get a map down of where the readings are taken at what time. And as the administrator said, they take a video of that on site. So there's no dispute that they were there, what time it was, what the readings are. And on a map, we can put that and see how some of these patterns, weather patterns, are affecting where it's going, how it's amplifying or dampening. And that's critical information to have.

I have a lot of data on that, if you'd like me to share it, including the weather stuff.

And the other piece is that if you don't get something from Live Nation, contact the non-emergency number at PD. We also have monitors, and we'll send some out. OK. And Chief, if you can get his information, and maybe we can be there at one of the few future remaining concerts and get some readings, that would be great.

Sounds good. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for listening.

Hello. Good evening. Please sign in for us, would you please? You betcha.

I'm here for the same reason he's here. I live, as a crow flies, southeast of the amphitheater. And it became known, talking to a realtor, to make sure that we have a disclosure. on our property if we decide to sell. And he wants to make sure that everyone is aware of this. Because I lived in Burnsville for 31 years. We moved over here 11 years ago. It's a very nice neighborhood we live in. It's a cul-de-sac. We love everything about this area. But Sunday night, there was an individual that stopped by that's running for office in the city of Shakopee. And he said, wow, this is coming from there. And I go, yeah. And I had the home completely closed, air conditioner on. Normally I run my TV about 21 to 23. I had to run it to 46 sound to drown out the music. I mean, you can actually hear the words. It goes from, we've had a Sunday where at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and it goes to 11 at night. My neighbor, he had to move his children from the southwest corner of their home to the east side of their home just because of the sound. I'm a capitalist. I hope it really works out well. I think there's options that they can use to drown that sound out a little bit. Maybe turn the knob down or put a back barrier up. I don't want to see it go away. I think it's good for the community. My wife and I like to dine in the area, downtown Shakopee and so forth. So we don't want to see it go away. We just want to see it maybe work out a little better. In fact, the individual that come to my home, he said he went to the first concert. He had to put earplugs in. So if he had to put them in, it had to have been pretty tough. I don't have the data, but you're more than welcome when the concert happens to come to my area. And it's a little loud.

Can't argue. Wife and I went to one of the concerts, and yeah, I'm getting older and deafer, but I heard it for sure. It wouldn't hurt anything to turn it down a little bit. And part of the experience, apparently, is feeling it going through you also. Thank you for your time, Mayor. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Anybody else that would like to address a council on a matter that is not on the agenda? Not on the agenda. All right. Item number 8, business removed from our consent agenda. There was none. Item number 9A, 2027 proposed property tax, levy and debt service, debt levy cancellations. Finance Director Mr. Reinhart, when you're ready.

Sure. Good evening mayor and council members as you mentioned tonight. We have our City Council meeting to adopt the 2027 preliminary levy and budget Slides have been updated to reflect changes from our August work session It's the same slide deck just with updated slides and a few additional slides We have reduced the preliminary levy request from that August work session from eight point six five to six point eight five So I won't go through the entire presentation, but did want to touch on some of those changes and a few other items If approved this would set the maximum levy that the city would be allowed to levy for 2027 So from this point forward the levy that cannot be increased it can only be decreased and then the number that would be Well the levy that would be adopted tonight would be reflected in the proposed property tax statements that would be mailed by the county in November Sorry to I have a little bit of a cold, but I'll try my best Here are the changes made since our last budget work session. I'll start with changes that lowered the levy being recommended. We have added additional Ace Arena revenue. We did receive our fiscal disparities distribution number from the county. That increased by 178,500 from last year, which doesn't necessarily make up the difference for what we contribute to the program, but nonetheless still on the positive side to see that number increase instead of decrease. I also didn't put this on the slide, but we did get an updated tax capacity number from the county, which was a significant increase. And that will come into play when we look at the tax rate. That will actually bring the tax rate down a little bit. And then health insurance renewal came in at 12.8%. Previously, the budget at 16.3%. And then we're recommending the use of fund balance for our debt payment on our 2022A bonds, which would eliminate the need for that levy of $344,360. We did have three items that increased the levy. When we entered in our insurance premium numbers, we did transpose the number in the original budget allocation. So we've had that corrected. We also had an increase in our dental insurance rates. Originally, we had the number flat from the previous year. And then lastly, we talked about adding a public works maintenance operator at the work session. We did decide to move forward with adding that position. This would be split with the general fund and the utilities. The portion being levy funded would be $45,600. So you put those changes together, it's a net decrease by about $507,600 from our previous work session. So as mentioned, I'm just going to skip over a couple of slides we covered, but wanted to make sure everything was still in the packet. Levy increase of 6.85%, again, down from 8.65% from a previous work session. In total, we're at a $1.93 million increase. No change in the capital improvement levy. The expectation is funding for the capital improvement program will be funded through a bond sale later this year. No change in the EDA levy, and then no change in the debt service levy with the proposed use of fund balance as part of the resolution tonight.

Mr.. Reinhart on this slide when you look at the total city levy six point eight five percent the EDA special levy is neutral no change zero, but when you combine the two it's it's down point one zero or Seven point seven two why is that?

It's the combination of both that city and the EDA levy so obviously a bigger bigger starting dollar amount percentages will change depending on, you know. So combining the two creates a larger number, and when you use that larger number. It's going to be a little bit smaller because of the larger dollar amount, larger starting point.

Mr. Whiting? Remind me what the 2022A bond was?

Yeah, so maybe I'll skip ahead to that slide quick and then I can hop back to this. No big deal, because this slide is kind of out of place now since I changed this anyways. So the two bonds that we have outstanding right now that require a debt service levy is the 2016 abatement bond levy, which is for the ice arena and the community center. And then the 2022A improvement bond we had issued for street projects back in 2022. Thank you. So part of the proposal tonight would be to utilize fund balance to basically negate having a levy for that for next year, which we've done in the previous two years. So you'll see that as part of the resolution, that would cancel the debt service on that and then bring a transfer from the general fund into that debt service fund to eliminate that levy requirement. And then so kind of just jumping back to the slide so as far as what's changing I split them into two items in the budget memo and then also in the presentation the only levy changes are within the general fund the first being this a significant driver of the cost and levy impact or the changes to the fire department and then basically implementing the two fully staffed fire stations with full year all day coverage and which I'll cover separately from the second item, which is really all other items in the general fund. If you look at the 6.85% increase, about 50% of that is going towards the fire service changes, and then 50% for everything else. So we've now reached our operational goal of transitioning from a hybrid volunteer response model to a 24-7 coverage at both of our fire stations, which has substantially increased response capacity and improved response times. We have established battalion chief and captain structures, which brings us brings with it dedicated supervisory oversight, structured incident command, and enhanced response to active emergency scenes. We've been able to leverage the Federal Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response Grant Award, otherwise known as the SAFER grant. We received $2.63 million in federal support, which helped subsidize the hiring of 12 new full-time firefighters that we hired in March of 2026. The Safer Grant Award is distributed across three years and runs March 26 to March 2029 and requires a local match, 25% in year one, 25% in year two, 65% in year three. City Council did approve a budget amendment to utilize available fund balance to cover the initial 2026 share, so this year's share. So the 2027 budget integrates the second year grant match and then the localized operational costs into the ongoing levy. In addition to the 12 grant related positions, City Council authorized three additional full-time firefighters to complete the necessary station shift schedules. A significant portion of these were offset by a reduction in part-time personnel. 27, fire department budget accounts for the cost of living adjustments, anticipated market rate adjustments for union contracts, related fringe and benefits, operating costs to the additional staffing and the additional building, and then proposed dedicated vehicle for the battalion chief. So that makes up that 3.4% of the levy increase. So I talked about this already. So here's kind of everything excluding fire this slide summarizes the changes impacting the 27th preliminary levy in comparison to the 2026 for the general fund excluding fire department all these change changes I've kind of got outlined in the memo and also on the next few slides The city is projecting overall net increase of five hundred thirty three thousand eight hundred and non-property tax revenues That number now includes the hundred and seventy eight thousand five hundred and fiscal disparities distribution We have budgeted net decrease in transfers of 150,000 which includes transfers the utility and EDA funds for admin costs and then 300,000 transfer from our self-insurance fund and Moving on to expenditure changes total changes to wages excluding fire is five hundred ninety eight thousand seven hundred We did add the health insurance number and then added the public works maintenance operator from the previous version of this slide Wages do wages and benefits account for about seventy percent of the city's general fund cost so a big chunk of our operating costs and Operational adjustments amount to about $450,000. No change from what we previously presented to city council. Happy to dive more into some of these things, but I didn't want to be too repetitive from the previous presentation. And then no changes to our rent allocation. I think I skipped a slide. Yeah, OK. So this one I actually inadvertently skipped on the previous work session presentation, so I did want to go through these items. So these are one-time items that you can think of as we purchase one year and the next year they won't be recurring in our budget. That would include a vehicle for the code enforcement that would be equipped with safety equipment to transport animals, particularly those that might be dangerous or potentially dangerous. A city previously contracted with a third party to provide animal control services. The city has been transitioning to an inspection fleet for inspection fleet of electric vehicles that the additional electrical vehicle being proposed as the final vehicle to complete that transition We had allocated a hundred thousand in last year's budget towards the comp plan this year we've included 150,000 so an increase of 50,000 and That would be required to complete the mandated comp plan, which includes all the core elements of land use, transportation, housing, parks, utility, and historic preservation. Last year, we did a one-time reduction in road material purchases. Since we had sufficient inventory, we've now added that back. And then that last item there is the purchase of replacement tables and chairs for the log cabin. One slide here on the EDA. We did present a full EDA budget to the EDA board on September 1st. The resolution of the City Council PAC is asking for final adoption of the EDA levy, which would be set at $550,000 or no change from last year. We will be recommending final approval of that levy tonight, and it's part of the resolutions included. The city's taxable market value is $8.98 billion, which is an increase of $333 million or 3.9% from last year. Residential saw the largest increase in market value at 5.7%. And then new construction of the total amount of taxable market value change is about 43%. So a little under half the increase in taxable market value is from new construction. I added this slide from last presentation, but this has been updated. I usually like to start with the background on this slide. The gross tax capacity is adjusted for fiscal disparities program, which is unique to the Twin Cities, seven county metro area. 40% of our commercial and industrial growth since 1971 gets contributed into a pool. And then in turn, we receive a distribution based on population and market value of property per person compared to the average market value per person in the metro area. We are the fourth highest net contributor of the 179 communities that are part of the program I Had a well if you're curious who the larger contributors are it's Bloomington Plymouth and Egan So we're fourth behind those three cities the church shows the fiscal disparities in that term in net terms of tax capacity basically with our growing commercial industrial base we've gone from 2.2 million to 10.9 million over the past 10 years and And if you put that into context of what that represents in total tax capacity of the city, it's about 9.2%. So it's a significant amount of that, of our tax base that has been contributed to the program.

MR. Mr. Reinhart, maybe you could tell us where that money goes.

Mr. Reynolds, go ahead. Go ahead. Here we go again.

So the fiscal disparities program, for those that don't know, is not based upon need. For example, the city of Prior Lake gets over $2 million in fiscal disparities when it all shakes out. And for those of you that live in Prior Lake, I'm sure you appreciate the gift that Shakopee gives you every year. For me, fiscal disparities is always the only place in the United States that does this, that takes money from those that are growing and literally gives it to others, irregardless of need. And we quite literally think of what we could do with almost $11 million more than what we have in gross tax capacity. It's Minnesota, and I guess that's what I have to end with. Minnesota sometimes does things differently.

I'll give it just a little bit different spin. First of all, it's a program that we've been trying to get modernized because it comes from way back, I want to say 70s. And basically what it does is it punishes cities and counties that do exactly what the various departments of state and federal government want cities to do. Example, create jobs, diversify your tax base with commercial and industrial, do all these things that they want us to do. And then after you do it, they turn around and look at the valuation and punish you based on it for doing exactly what you were told to do. And communities that decide not to have a commercial industrial base, they made that decision on their own. And they're getting rewarded for doing exactly the opposite of what the state and the Met Council tell everybody else they have to do.

I will add that there are communities out in greater Minnesota that are not capable of expanding their tax base. They won't be able to track the companies, the jobs. They won't be able to do what we can achieve here. So I think that's where the whole basis started, was to help so they can build their roads. Because you can't tax a community that can't do what we can do to build county roads and whatnot.

Unfortunately, but where you're going into is cities like Prior Lake that choose not to diversify Get that reward And we get punished for doing it and you're spot-on because you take a small city five seven hundred people up north their road from 35 to that city might be ten miles of two-lane country road or whatever and And there's no way that that community of 500 to 700 can pay for that 10-mile stretch of road to get rebuilt. So the intention originally was good, but boy, it sure got changed and messed up in the process over the years.

That's why it needs to have reform to take out the road.

It does. Somebody's going to pay. They don't listen to us. It will be us, the taxpayers.

And it's one thing to pay our share. But in this case, we're paying way beyond. We digress. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Move on.

Perfectly fine. So this chart shows a city's tax rate over the past 10 years, including the estimated 2027 tax rate. Again, that's being based on our proposed tax levy as well as market values that we've got from the county, preliminary market values. But based on that preliminary data and as the levy stands today, we'll see a very small increase in the city's tax rate from 28.94 to 29.16. Then just a few slides on residential. Residential property values, just to provide some overall context. As you can see from this chart, about 93% of residential homes saw very little increase, plus or minus 5% or within that range. But we do have 849 homes that saw their values rise by greater than 5%. But generally speaking, within that 5% to 10% range, plus or minus. The value of the median value home has increased from $361,300 to $375,300 over the past year. It's a $14,000, or a 3.9% increase in value. If you incorporate the market value change the estimated tax rate, that equates to about $52 or 5.2% in property taxes. If you take out the market value change and just say, absent of any value change, $361,300 home in 2026, $361,000 home in 2027, you would see about an $8 or 0.8% increase. So primarily being driven by the market value change in value. And then I did split this up by quartile based on a couple of questions that I got from our last council meeting. Just keep in mind residential valuation to change Changes they can change they can be quite different from house to house, but this provides a general picture Also, this takes in account the increase in value of homes for those particular quartiles that a homes valued around 250,000 would see about an $11 annual impact homes valued around 333,000 would see about a $26 impact $427,000 would see about a $38 impact, and then a $400,000 home would see about a $70 impact. I was going to skip these slides, but I think maybe I'll just touch on one of these. Same slides I had in the last meeting, but this has been updated for this year. This is the comparison of cost of services on a $350,000 home using 5,000 gallons of water. The city of Shakopee, we're responsible for obviously property taxes and government services, but also sewer and storm utilities. So comparison of those utilities across our peer comparison cities and surrounding cities. The annual cost in Shakopee is the lowest of that comparison at $1,296. The other cities range from $1,562 to $2,422. So there are three separate council actions for your consideration tonight. The first one is the maximum property tax levy. The second one would cancel the debt and then as well as approve that transfer for the general fund to fund that debt service. And then the third one would approve that final EDA levy for 2027. I can stand for any questions you might have as long as I can talk. Questions of staff.

Wishes of counsel?

Mr. Lara? I'll take the first one. We'll make a motion to adopt Resolution R2026, TAC 126, setting the maximum property tax levy collectible in 2027. Is there a second?

Second. Motion by Mr. Lara, seconded by Mr. Delaney. Discussion?

Discussion.

So this is setting the maximum 2026 property tax levy. It can be brought down, but it can't exceed, correct?

That is correct.

OK. Well, hopefully between now and when we finally adopt the final final, we keep on working as much as we can to have as least an impact on our residents as possible. That would be my comment. It's going to be a tough year for everybody. Not all of it's the local level's fault either. Gas prices are up. Food prices are up. That's a federal thing. State taxes are up. That's a state thing.

Any other discussion? Discussion?

All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion passes. Mr. Whitey?

I'll make a motion to adopt resolution R2026-127, canceling debt services levies for taxes payable 2027.

Is there a second to the motion?

Second. Seconded by Councillor Contreras. Discussion on the motion? And this is taking leftover funds from prior year and paying off the payment for next year in advance so we don't have to put it into the levy and raise taxes by that amount, 300 and some thousand.

That is correct.

OK.

What's left over from this year? Mr. Lara? What's left over from this year?

This year's not over with yet.

Are you talking about this will cover what's left over for this year, or are you talking from last year's?

We're doing the 27 budget, so what we're going to do is we're going to put money toward from the end of this year to 27's payment. Yes.

I can clarify that. So the transfer would occur this year. So the money would be transferred from the general fund this year to pay for next year's payment. Where we have available fund balances basically carry forward from end of last year. So carry forward from 12-31-2025. Right. Because that year has been closed out. Okay.

All right. Any other discussion? Good point, Mr. Lara.

Discussion all in favor say aye aye opposed motion passes Counselor Contreras, I'll make a resolution to approve resolution our 2026 dash 128 approving the levy of a special benefit levy pursuant to Minnesota statue section four six nine dot zero zero three subdivision six by the Economic Development Authority for the city of Shakopee, Minnesota

Second just a clarification for six nine zero zero three three zero three three sorry correction Certainly not the first time I haven't had to do let dyslexia going on Motion by a counselor Contreras discussion on this motion Discussion I was hoping that we could lower the EDA levy, but that's not councils wishes so I

If it were to happen for discussion, I would say it would come out of that TAP fund. So $20,000.

Getting kind of late in the process, too. All right. Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Item 9B, plan unit development amendment to Selfbridge Crossing East. And director of development, planning and development, Michael Kerski, will be presenting. The floor is yours when you're ready, sir.

Mayor and council, again, this is the planning and development PUD amendment for Southbridge Crossings East. This is the site in question. You've got the rest of the big boxes over here. This is next to the church. So it's 1300 Crossings Boulevard. Sompatek is the applicant. It's 14.26 acres. It's owned by Shakopee Crossings Limited Partnership. It's owned B1 Highway Business. And it's in the 2040 ComPlan mixed-use commercial center. They're proposing potentially a 7,300-square-foot car wash, three 5,000-square-foot retail buildings, two with drive-through windows, 23,000 square feet of a potential retail garden center with 8,000 square feet of greenhouse and 48,000 square feet of landscape yard area. and reconfiguring the ponding areas with two lots for regional stormwater ponding and ponds to be owned by the city. So this is the proposed site plan. These are the two new stormwater ponds. The potential garden center is over here. These are the buildings proposed with potential for a drive-through, and here's the car wash. Mr. Kerski? Yes.

Just to help out here, the entrances and exits, if you could point them out and tell us the width.

These, I believe, I'll get to it, I think it's 28 feet wide. So this is off Hanson Avenue, matches with the existing access point over here. And this is on Crossings Boulevard over here.

Is there one up on the...

There's only two. This goes through the site, comes out over here. Everything else is internal to the site.

How do you enter the landscape yard?

So they have a separate shared access that exists already with River Valley Church. This is where all their deliveries will occur back here. And this is their employee parking. But the public will enter from this section here.

OK.

So again, vehicle access is 20 feet wide. It's a private drive. Employee parking and loading dock here for the garden center are via a shared drive with River Valley Church. There's sidewalk access to all sites via walks along private drive and Crossings Boulevard. Parking needs are met for each site based on proposed building areas. The impervious surface of the retail garden center's sites slightly exceed 75%. However, the entire development is below 75% by county regional ponding. A draft condition allows this and use of pervious pavers on the garden center lot. They would also be making a contribution to the tree fund, as replacement trees do not fit on the site. If the design of the infiltration basin grating allows, a boulevard along the main private drive could be capable of supporting trees. Maintenance of trees planted is required. Landscaping on the outlots is the responsibility of any future landowner. A total of three monument signs are permitted. Signs must meet the city's code for setback on the sign area. Stacking for the drive-through windows also must meet the city code when measured to the ordering area. So this is the landscape plan. So they are doing landscaping in some of the areas that are not stormwater related, and then significant landscaping along the county right of way. So staff review of the grading permit for the applicant to prepare a site for marketing will be a future review along with planning commission and city council review of the preliminary and final plat and subsequent PUD amendments for site-specific plans and architectural plans for these individual users. Adopt ordinance O2026-015, the planning commission unanimously recommended approval on July 9th.

Very good. Thank you questions of staff.

Mr. Lara Mr. Kerski down on the bottom or on crossings Boulevard with the increased traffic with the larger store and the church Is there any concern for a need for a stoplight at that intersection? have they considered any increased traffic or backups at Hanson and crossings there or Going in and out of that development. I down in the middle here.

Mayor and council, I can help answer that question. Based on the proposed trip generation that's expected with the site, we wouldn't expect the traffic signal would be warranted. However, if development does proceed and these uses start to change and generate additional trips, we can certainly come back and review if additional traffic control is needed. Thank you.

Questions of staff? Wishes of council? Mr. Lara?

I'll make a motion to adopt Ordinance 02026 Tech 015, which approves the Planning Unit Development District 16.

Second. Second by Councillor Contreras. The motion by Councillor Lara.

Any discussion on the motion?

It's got to be a significant amount to the tree fund. Yes. It's a lot of trees. Trees, yeah.

I guess you just wait and see where the various business opportunities fall. I was going to ask if that size of a car wash is normal, because I don't know, but it doesn't really matter.

All right. Any other discussion?

All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. 9c, final plat of Greenview. Mr. Kerski, go ahead, sir.

Mayor and council, again, this is the final plat of Greenview. A US Home LLC, which is Lennar property owner, has submitted the final plat for Greenview. The first of two phases would create 85 single-family residential lots on property located west of Marystown Road and east of Zumbro Avenue, 13950 Marystown Road. Here is the final plat we'll be talking about tonight. Again, this will be two phases. They'll be back for this section here and this section down below. The developer is proposing 193 homes total for the subdivision compliant with the design and performance standards for the urban residential R1B zone, with the exception of reduced lot widths, which would be a mixture of 50-foot wide lots, which is 71 lots, 55 foot wide lots for 41 lots and 65 foot wide lots for 86 of the lots with all homes to provide LP siding on the front elevation. The applicant proposes two phases starting primarily with the easternly area to include a sampling of all three products proposed within the project. The subdivision includes over 11 acres of land compliant with the required 15% requirement for open space. There will be available as desirable open space, preserved natural resource areas and trails within the project. There will also be a small playground area included. So here is the final plat area with the home layout. They did preserve some of these areas. The larger area you can see up here that it will also be preserved as part of this project. And then this is the future playground area. We actually have already acquired this equipment. And once this gets developed, we'll be installing that playground. There are also trails from this project all the way up that go into Jackson Commons. So this will be a small neighborhood area, but the larger park to the north is accessible through trails through this project and through DR Horton's development.

Mr. Kerski, where is the existing Jackson Park?

Way north of here. So it connects through a trail system that DR Horton's already built down to this property.

OK. And Zumbro would be from this back? Zumbro's right out here.

And Marystown's back here.

And 78 is to the north?

78th is way to the north. So there is a road connecting Marystown to Zumbro here that was included as part of the comprehensive transportation plan. So they will be building that as part of this project.

And the county has signed off on that? Yep.

And the county has a design that they're working with the developer on for this intersection. So we ask you to approve resolution R2026-109, approving the final plan of Greenview.

Questions of staff? Wishes of council? Mr. Delaney?

I make a motion to approve resolution R2026-109, approving the final plan for Greenview.

Second. Seconded by Mr. Whiting. Is there a discussion on the motion? I didn't see anything about the trees in this one compared to the last one.

Maybe we can move them from the last one.

Are there same tree requirements on this lot?

Mayor, hang on one second. I will get to that for you. So there's a significant number of old growth trees up in this corner and a wetland. They did eliminate all of these lots in here as part of this project. They originally had home sites here, which would have taken out a lot of those trees. We worked with the developer to basically keep this as a completely natural area.

Is there any trees throughout these neighborhoods?

There'll be, Mayor and Council, there'll be new trees planted similar to what Deer Horton's done. And there'll be some in the park area.

Okay. All right. We do have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Liaison reports, Mr. Delaney.

Okay. We had a Sac Republic Utility meeting. Nothing exciting out of that meeting. And TAP 2026 this past weekend. That was a pretty good time. A lot of good turnout. Appreciate staff putting that together again this year.

Mr. Whitey?

Nothing to report. I did stop by TAP. It seemed it was during the middle of the day. People drinking at 11. Hey. Probably later than that. It does. We started at 1. Flashback.

Councilor Contreras? Thank you.

So on the 11th, I attended the scale meeting. And at the scale meeting, we did have a... meeting host update by city of Belle Plaine. And then we had the finance and budget with the school district. And then the most important one was someone beat me to it. So superintendent came and talked about them modernizing the permanent school fund. But I did bring you a little sheet in case you guys want to look at it. It's pretty cool. I mean, it has everything he talked about.

I don't know. It might be handy.

So that was scale. And then on the 11th, also in the afternoon, we did the TAP dinner. That was a great turnout with a great keynote speaker. And then on the 12th, I went to the second part of the TAP event. So that was that.

Very good. Ms. Clara?

Friday, I also attended the TAP Entrepreneur's Dinner. I got to introduce the keynote speaker, and when they said that it was going to be a presentation we had not seen, they were not joking. That was a pretty impressive production. But it's always great to get them all in the same room and just...

know learn about what they're what they have going on and the vision that they see and then beautiful day for the next day for tap downtown so really good weather very good for mine I I wasn't sure I was gonna be able to make the tap dinner at the boardwalk but I did actually make it there so that was good very well attended and what really caught my attention when I walked in was That room was loud, music and whatever going on in there. But when you walk into the structure outside where regular restaurant people, you can't hear it. So whoever designed and built that building did a really nice job from that aspect. I also had the opportunity, I was invited to meet with the owner of Chick-fil-A. So I spent two hours out there with the owner and the operations gal. They're a great addition to Shakopee. They want to be very active in our community, helping where they can. So I gave them some ideas, told them who to talk to. We certainly have a plenty of opportunity for business to be involved in our community in a lot of different ways so that was good and then downtown tap 2026 didn't get to that have something else going on but I Hope everybody had a good time Mr.. Reynolds you have anything dad nothing for me, sir, okay? item 10 B news and announcements Sorry city bill list any questions on the bill list no questions for me The days of approving it are gone otherwise we could save all that money That's right Mr. Delaney, you're first up.

First announcement, Fire Department open house. The Fire Department open house will be Monday, October 5th at the newly remodeled Fire Station 2, located on 1001 Verling Drive West. Stop by with the whole family anytime from 5 to 7 to check out the fire trucks, watch demonstrations, and enjoy some games and activities.

2026 Fall Cleanup Day. 2026 Fall Cleanup Day is Saturday, October 17th from 7.30 to 11.30 a.m. at the Shakopee Public Works Facility.

And as usual, Mr. Reynolds will say, line up early. We do. Election judges.

Perfect weather guaranteed.

Oh, here we go. Thanks a lot. where the election judges are needed. If you are interested in serving your community and learning more about elections, the city of Shakopee is recruiting for election judges for the November 3, 2026 general election. After completing an election judge training session, judges can sign up to work a full day or a half day on election day. Training sessions begin in late September. Learn more and apply on the city website.

The Shakopee Community Center is turning nine. We are celebrating with a $9 membership special. Join anytime during September and pay just $9 for your first month or 9% off an annual membership. See you there.

2026 fall yard waste drop-off event in partnership with the SMSC Dakota prairie composting They are offering a free yard free fall yard waste drop off for the month of October drop your yard waste off at 1 2 3 8 6 chestnut Boulevard Shakopee residents must show ID Very good And one last one

Constitution Week Proclamation, which I signed at the beginning of our meeting tonight. September 17, 2026 marks the 239th anniversary of the drafting of the Constitution of the United States by the Constitutional Convention. The Constitution stands as a testament to the tenacity of Americans throughout history to maintain their liberties, freedoms, and inalienable rights. Constitution Week is celebrated annually during the week of September 17th to the 23rd to commemorate the Constitution's history and importance and to encourage learning about the important document.

All right.

Do we have any other business item number 11? Item number 12 I make a motion to adjourn to October 6 20 to 7 p.m Second second by the counselor Contreras motion by mr. Delaney all in favor say aye aye opposed motion passes We're adjourned