City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Welcome to the City of Woodbury City Council meeting for today, July 22nd, 2026. We are meeting here in person in the Council Chambers. It is 7.30 p.m. This meeting is also being recorded by True Lens Community Media. It's broadcast and replayed on cable channel 799, and the mediums are also available on the City of Woodbury YouTube channel. As we always do, please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Angela, would you please do the roll call, please?

Council Member Morris.

The mic is on. Mics are on. I hope the speakers are on back there if they're working. Is this any better if I go close to the mic? Okay, that seems a little better. So I'll just kind of lean this way a little bit. Okay, Angela, would you please do the roll call?

Council Member Morris? Here. Council Member Santini? Here. Council Member Wilson? Here. Council Member Stafford? Here. Mayor Burt?

Here, we are all here tonight, so we're able to conduct tonight's business. We do not have any special order of business, so we'll move right into open forum. This is how the open forum works. This is a portion of the meeting where we allow up to three people to speak on subjects which are not part of the meeting agenda. So these screen sheets, some of you have filled these out. They're here before you. Two parts of the meeting. One is open forum. and that's identified here. We have other green sheets coming up later from when we have the public hearing regarding the roadway construction. So right now I have before me just three sheets for the open forum. You'll be invited up. Please state your name and your city of residence for the record. We do not need your full address any longer. Speakers are limited to three minutes each. The council does listen attentively, but in most cases we do not respond at the meeting. If there's something specific or hasn't been responded to before, replies to the concerns will be made via letter or phone call within a week. We also have, to help you keep track of the time for the three minutes, we have this timer system. So over here you'll see a three minute timer. We have a little light system at the podium, green, yellow, red, green go, yellow when there's one minute left and then it'll turn red, Now we also have an audio. There's a slight, you know, not too miserable listening to a little chirp to let you know that the three minutes is up. So we'll ask, just helps it all keep on track. I take these in order. They've been time stamped as to when people showed up. So again, I'll just go in order. So first I have up is Charles Dix.

My name is Charles Dix and I live in Woodbury for the past nine years. I'm here tonight to ask you to pass a proposed resolution on taking a stand against ICE activities in cooperation with ICE and allowing them to use facilities in the city. The reason for doing so now is more urgent as it was even from the beginning of the year since the surge, 23 people have been shot by ICE, six are dead, and three of those were American citizens. All of these shootings are under investigation and all the ICE violations shootings so far have been found by the court to be unjustified. And some of these officers have been charged with perjury. ICE operations continue in the Twin Cities and Woodbury. And it's clear that as we get closer to the midterm elections, Trump intends to use ICE and DOJ officials to flood into blue states, and in particular, California, Minnesota, to subvert our election process. After two years, when Trump says he is going to do something, regardless of how lawless it is, we need to take him at his word. It is now time for the council to take a stand before a Woodbury citizen is also shot. In the latest shooting in Houston, ICE agents were operating in unmarked cars wearing masks, but not wearing any body cameras. They performed a reckless traffic stop that put innocent bystanders at risk and killed a man. The only contraband substance they found was a bag of salt that had been used to help the workers during the heat wave. We have seen countless examples of ICE breaking into homes without legal warrants and arresting people who are legally the here or were US citizens. The crux of the issue here is that our government is not following the law and constitution, and they are ordering police, immigration officers, and border patrol agents to violate them as well. I served in the US Army 40 years ago. I was a military policeman. My company was sent to Honduras for six months for a special deployment. We were told nothing other than we were told to guard an Air Force base, in that country, but our actual mission was to escort and transport loaded weapons for Contras in Nicaragua. At the time I was there, I was unaware of the full scope of what was going on since it was not until 1986, after I had completed my service and left, that the entire illegal operation was understood. As a result of this, my deployment never officially happened, and was never recognized by Congress since it was part of an illegal operation conducted by the president. We came under fire on several occasions and several of my fellow MPs were injured. And to this day, none of us qualify for veteran support or assistance since that deployment never officially happened. Yet today we have ICE officers, no soldier, I'm sorry, no soldier or police officer should ever be put into a situation where their leaders force them to choose between the service and their fellow soldiers are officers or are owed to defend the Constitution. I believe I had been chosen. I would not have been deployed.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dix. Appreciate that. Next up, Jeff Regeth.

Well, thank you, Mayor. Good evening, Council, Mr. Dahl. My name is Jeffrey Regath. I'm joined by my wife, Julie, and by Amy Collister. Amy is also a Woodbury resident and on the Woodbury Chamber Foundation Board. The Angels of Hope Woodbury is soon coming up on its third anniversary. Hard to believe, three years. As I think you all know, the Angels of Hope is a memorial entirely created and dedicated to remember and honor children that have died too soon. The Angels of Hope is now home to the names and the memory of 108 children. Children that every single day are dearly missed and always in our hearts. As we reflect on this anniversary, I think it's important to once again communicate to all of you, on behalf of now the hundreds of people who are personally and deeply connected to the Angels of Hope, a big thank you. A big thank you for the cooperation, support, and love you have provided the Angels of Hope from the very beginning. We could not ask for more. The City of Woodbury and the Woodbury Community Foundation have been wonderful and much appreciated partners. This year, our annual ceremony will take place on August 20th, 6 p.m. at the Angel of Hope site, which is located, of course, right across from the Vets Memorial. If your schedule permit, and I know it has in the past, please do try to attend again. So with that, I'll turn things over to Amy Collister for a few additional comments.

Thank you. Good evening. This month marks 10 years of being a member of the Woodbury community. And I am, as Jeff mentioned, honored to serve on the Woodbury Community Foundation. But the most important reason I'm standing before you this evening is that I'm a parent whose child is amongst those 108 names on plaques at our Angel of Hope. In my journey through grief, it has meant more than I can even begin to express to have my daughter's name, Abby, memorialized at the Angel of Hope. It's such a beautiful place of hope, remembrance, and community. Through the angel, I have also met other parents walking the same path. And those connections had given me profound strength. I will be forever grateful to you, Mayor. to this entire council and to the entire city of Woodbury for making the Angel of Hope possible. Thank you for creating a place where families like mine can remember and find hope. Thank you.

Thank you for sharing. Thank you. Next up is Chris Holbrook.

Hi, excuse me. My name is Chris Holbrook. I'm a Woodbury resident. I have been for six years. And I'm coming here tonight to ask for a public hearing on the flock contract, the license plate readers. I can't get through everything tonight. If anyone wants copies of this, I can email it. I have 20 instances of offenses by flock. I've had some great conversations with Public Safety Commander Ehrenberg about the situation in Woodbury. And I'm not here to impugn the integrity of the Woodbury police or the council at all. Flock Corporation is a different story. There was a kind of a blockbuster article yesterday in the Star Tribune about the offenses that they have committed by accessing license plate data unauthorized in Minnesota cities, specifically during Metro surge. 30 agencies in the city, eight cities were scanned by federal agents. There are front door, side door, and back door. Without getting into all of that, which is in one of these articles by the University of Washington, this company is granting access unauthorized on multiple occasions. I have concerns about Fourth Amendment and First Amendment. Supreme Court has ruled that the police need a warrant to do a geofence search. This is very similar. I know you don't have privacy on public roads, but this, especially from the Star Tribune article, shows about the intimidation and deterrence of people protesting who can be tracked and were tracked. There have been, just in the last week, 10 officers nationwide fired or fined or under investigation for misusing their access to the flock license plate camera system. In California, Mountain View terminated their contract for this exact same reason. Illinois, Secretary of State said there were 4,000 lookups by CPP. Colorado, Denver had the exact same situation. There have been several mistakes. LAPD just canceled their contract because of false hits. There was a local story July 9th in Plymouth. The wrong target was surrounded by a bunch of police officers. They also lie, the CEO, Garrett Langley of Flock, has publicly said that some of their statements have provided inaccurate information, such as when they told Oshkosh, Wisconsin, that they do not track vehicles, they just take pictures. That was proven untrue, which caused Oshkosh to cancel their program. I asked about some discrepancies with Commander Ehrenberg. Woodbury Policy 425 states that this information can be used for Homeland Security. The Transparency Portal says it can't be. I'm still confused on that. Commander Anberger did say on the Transparency Portal, it was whittled down to zero today based on all of these offenses. After last week, there were 67 police departments accessing our data. So I want to review a public hearing and a vote on this matter, please.

You bring up something important that I don't think has been a lot of publicly addressed. Is our police chief here tonight? Would you like to, again, in disclosure and providing information to the public when an issue gets raised like this, is there anything you would like to add or say to that? Or if not, we'll move on. But please.

Thank you, Mayor Burt. Good evening, city council members. And I want to appreciate Chris for the ongoing dialogue with Commander Ehrenberg and just that communication. It is appreciated him reaching out and his engagement in this. I want to talk about the, ultimately this is a new technology. Since we've started using this technology, we have seen a significant reduction in stolen vehicles, police pursuits, and damage to city property. We've been very thoughtful in terms of our development of this program, the placement of the devices, specifically around commercial and retail locations. We're continuing to look at how we evaluate the system. Earlier this year, I would highlight a audit that we went through through the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, an outfit that they outsourced with called the Minnesota Security Consortium. They took a look at our department policy procedures, our records retention, data security and access control, our logs, our notifications to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehensions, and also our breach notification policy. So we passed with flying colors through that audit. No issues were identified. We're also continuing to look at and researching and evaluating, making sure that this product is being used for its intended purpose as well. So, we previously had a sharing radius of 100 miles around Woodbury in which we were sharing information with other law enforcement agencies. Out of an abundance of caution, we have restricted all access to Woodbury data from outside agencies, as Chris mentioned. So the new procedure is if anybody wants to look at our Woodbury data, they have to make a formal request including the case number and the reason for making that request. Woodbury supervisor reviews and approves that request, and it's documented if data was or was not shared. And there's also an auditing process. So kind of specific to the article that came out regarding Mille Lacs County, we conducted an internal audit of access to Woodbury data by outside agencies. It involves 67 agencies all within that 100 mile radius of Woodbury. We also contacted agencies who were within that circumference who have a 287 agreement with immigration enforcement. That's effectively a partnership which allows an agency to enforce, act as an enforcement agent of immigration. So of those, including Mille Lacs County, we verified that they did not receive any Woodbury automatic license plate reader data that was used for immigration enforcement. Again, out of an abundance of caution, we have limited our access to Woodbury data and have implemented a process in which there's much more, you know, kind of checks and balances in terms of process, in terms of those requests coming in. So we, that's, those are some of the moves that we have made in order to further secure the system and secure our Woodbury data.

Okay, thank you. Anything from council members? Right, I appreciate just having, yeah, a little more information on it as it does, sometimes it does raise some question of the public. I appreciate that extra. You did mention the 287G. Can you just clarify that and what that is? And I don't believe we have that. Is that correct? Can you just clarify?

Yeah, so we do not. I don't believe there's any agencies inside the immediate metro area that do. There are some counties that are outside the metro that do have signed on to those 287G agreements with immigration enforcement, but we have not.

Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Appreciate being here for that. All right, that's it for the open forum. We're now going to move on to the consent agenda. Just important to share, the consent agenda just contains routine items before the council. We enact this by one motion and then do a roll call on it. Important to know, though, that if anyone ever wanted or looked at the agenda and said, I've got an issue with that, the public is more than welcome to have an item pulled and have further discussion. But again, we treat these as very routine, not worth going through every single item and voting one by one. Again, it can be pulled at any time by anyone in the public or by council members. So I always just reach out to the public and ask if anybody wants anything pulled. If you've reviewed it and want to have it further discussed, we can. Seeing that we don't, I then turn to council members. Does anyone want to have anything pulled from consent?

I do.

Okay, Council Member Wilson.

6D as in dog, please.

Okay, so we'll remove 6D. Does anyone have anything else? D is in dog. Anything else? If not, of course, we have all had a chance to review all this. This information came to us in packets on Friday. It's also available to the public since Friday, but that said, again, we've reviewed it all. We know what's before us, so I'll ask the council to put forth a motion.

I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda item 6A through 6H with the exception of item 6D as presented.

I'll second.

Motion is second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, the roll call, please.

Councilmember Santini? Aye. Councilmember Wilson? Aye. Councilmember Stafford? Aye. Councilmember Morris? Aye. Mayor Burt?

Aye. That passes except for 6D. Let me ask Council Member Wilson, is this something quick, vote differently, or otherwise I will move it to discussion toward the end. Move it to discussion? Okay. Somebody help me remember because it's out of order on the agenda.

Is someone here going to leave? Okay. If you were just waiting for that, then I would just say go. We could discuss it and go. All right.

Okay, now we will then move on to the public hearing. This is what I think many of you, I'm just guessing, because there's a lot of you here, that you might be present for this. So let me share how this works, because it works a little bit differently than the open forum that we just listened to. So in order to allow a full airing of speaker comments, individual remarks may not exceed 10 minutes. So different than the first part. But we typically allow, well, if there's more than three green sheets, 10 minutes each means 30 minutes. So we do maximize the entire time to about 30 minutes. So thus far, let me just share it, one, two, three, four, five green sheets that we'd like to get through in 30 minutes time. So basically it means on average, everyone gets about five minutes, okay? If somebody needed to take 10, okay, that's maybe allowed early on, but just asking a lot of times we hear the same thing. So you may not need the full time, but again, we want to give everyone a chance to speak, but we do try to hold it within 30 minutes. So does that make sense? I think for the most part, people don't get up and ramble for 10. But you can if you want, as long as we try to hit it at 30. So same as what happened before, we'll ask you to come up, state your name and your city of residence for the record. Always when there's a group of people, we remark your points made by someone else SHOULD NOT BE REPEATED. YOU CAN JUST SAY YOU AGREE. SPEAKERS ARE ALSO ENCOURAGED TO COORDINATE PRESENTATIONS IF NECESSARY. YOU WANT TO DO THAT OR YOU'RE GOING TO SAY THE SAME THING. BUT WE ALWAYS ASK THAT WE ALWAYS IN ADDITION ASK THAT YOU REFRAIN FROM APPLAUSE OR OTHER EXPRESSIONS OF EMOTION, WHETHER IN FAVOR OF OR OPPOSITION TO ANY PARTICULAR APPLICATION OR ARGUMENT. WE DON'T ALLOW FOR INAPPROPRIATE LANGUAGE, OUTBURSTS OR CRITICISMS AIMED AT INDIVIDUALS OR GROUPS. So that's kind of the ground rules. But we thank you all for being here. With that, here's the topic for tonight in the public hearing. It is the Consider the Approval of Public Improvement Hearing, the 2027 Roadway Reconstruction Project. And there are items under it. Approve the preliminary report. Order the project. Authorize preparation of plans. Authorize preparation and acquisition, if necessary, of condemnation and easements. So with that, I'm announcing that the hearing is open. I will take these in order that we received them. Oh yeah, we have a presentation first, sorry. Sorry, sorry, Mike. It's open. Go ahead, Mike, share with us what we're here to hear.

Thank you, Mayor and members of council. So my name is Mike Kane. I'm the assistant city engineer here to present the 2027 roadway reconstruction project. This is the public improvement hearing tonight where we are going to be requesting council to approve the preliminary report, order the project, select the consultant, order plans and specifications, and authorize preparation, acquisition, and if necessary condemnation of easements. So project location, this is the Woodbury Heights neighborhood. So we've got a star here on the map of Woodbury. So this is the far Northwest corner of Woodbury. So it's all of these streets in red are included in this reconstruction project. We've had quite a bit of public process so far. We kicked off the neighborhood questionnaire in September of 2025 with some information about the project, proposed scope, and some estimated assessments, and then followed up with our first neighborhood meeting last November, and then a second neighborhood meeting here a couple of months ago, May 28th. We've also had a few check-ins with council. Back in January of 2025, staff presented at a council workshop PEDESTRIAN CONNECTIONS TO BE CONSIDERED AS PART OF THIS PROJECT, AND THERE WAS AN ACTION TO ORDER THE PRELIMINARY REPORT BACK IN SEPTEMBER OF 2025. SO GENERAL PROJECT SCOPE, THIS WILL BE A VERY LARGE PROJECT, SO WE ARE PROPOSING FULL WATER MAIN AND SERVICE REPLACEMENT, SANITARY SEWER REPLACEMENT OR LINING AND SERVICE REPLACEMENT THROUGHOUT THE PROJECT. With that, we would also have storm sewer replacement and some stormwater quality improvements, which would require a full street reconstruction. There's also some trail rehabilitation in some of the parks that are within this neighborhood area. We're proposing a pedestrian crossing enhancement at Meadow Lane and Upper Afton Road, and then two parking lots to be rehabilitated at Upper Afton Road Fire Station and then Shawnee Park. So the need for this project, there's really three things that are kind of triggering what's driving the scope of this project. So this is the average road condition of the neighborhood. THROUGHOUT THE NEIGHBORHOOD, THE AVERAGE PAVEMENT CONDITION INDEX PCI IS 26, AND THAT'S OUT OF 100. YOU CAN SEE UP HERE WE'VE GOT A LOT OF THE STREETS HERE ARE YELLOW AND RED, WHICH ARE BETWEEN 0 AND 39 PCI. SO THIS PICTURE HERE IS A PRETTY REPRESENTATION, I WOULD SAY. THERE ARE SOME STREETS BETTER, SOME WORSE, BUT SOME POTHOLES SHOWING UP, A LOT OF ALLEGATOR CRACKING. SO THE PAVEMENT IS IN NEED OF REPLACEMENT. This is also a neighborhood where we see quite a bit of water main breaks. So we've got two areas that are really highlighted here. You might remember this is Royal Oaks. So this was all addressed in 23 and 24. So the other neighborhood here, this is the Woodbury Heights neighborhood that's circled here. That's got quite a few water main breaks. These are some of the older neighborhoods in Woodbury that have cast iron pipe. That's really at the end of its useful life. Another issue we see in this neighborhood is sanitary sewer root intrusion. So you can see here, this is a picture of what root intrusion would look like. So this is an area where Public Works spends significant amount of time cleaning out these roots. The roots obviously are blocking flow, so creating a major maintenance issue there. And then further there, as they grow into these joints, they're expanding, which is triggering a lot of the sanitary is in need of not only lining, but a lot of it replacement because the joints are separated to a point where they can't be lined anymore. So some major sanitary issues in this neighborhood as well.

Mike, just for an example, what is the diameter of that pipe? I don't know, I mean, it looks like it could be six feet tall, but I don't know, what is it?

Good question. Most sanitary pipes in the neighborhoods all throughout Woodbury are eight inches, so this is eight inches.

Eight inches, oh, okay.

Yep.

Thank you.

So with that proposed scope, this would be a very impactful project where We would expect some significant roadway and boulevard impacts, like I had mentioned before, lining and replacement of sanitary sewer, and then replacing the services, which could extend up to 25 feet behind the curb. And then 190 trees roughly are estimated for removal. And again, that's all driven by the utility needs that are in this neighborhood. Any tree that's removed, we will replace wherever feasible. Sure. So...

I asked what that meant. Sorry.

So we have to be careful not to put them where they're going to be on top of a service or something or on top of water mains. So there are some trees that right now are planted too close to like a sanitary sewer. So we wouldn't necessarily put it back where it was because we don't want root intrusion back in the sanitary sewer. So we'll be reviewing to make sure that where we plant trees isn't going to create a hazard in the future.

And currently like the sanitary sewer is under the roadway currently?

Mostly, I'd say there's some that are in kind of backyards and side yards, and then some are closer to the curb line, but typically under the road.

So like that one example that we had, was that in the roadway, or was that in someone's backyard or side yard? I just want to make sure that we're going to get the trees replanted, the ones that we're taking down, and I know we left it open to when fees if it's feasible, so it's concerning.

Mayor and members of the council, I'll add to this. So that picture that's there is one of the sanitary mains. It's an eight inch main that goes through the neighborhood. A lot of times you also get root intrusions on the services that go from the main into the home. And typically those are four inch, sometimes older communities have it with a six inch pipe going to the mains. What Mike is referring to is sometimes we have to take the tree out because it's too close to the service as it is. As we put it back in, we want to make sure not to exacerbate that problem. The other thing you get in older neighborhoods is if you notice Royal Oaks, we took a lot of trees similar to this project. There's still a lot of trees remaining. But what that means is as those trees grew, they shaded out some of those areas. And so you also have to be cognizant of if you plant a tree, you want it to survive out in the location that's planted. There's a lot of thought going behind this. Our rule of thumb has always been plant as many trees as we possibly can fit back in there that makes sense so it doesn't cause undue burdens to either the city or the homeowners following construction.

Great, thank you. And I'll add in Royal Oaks, we planted more trees than we replaced. That would be our goal with this project. I just can't necessarily say we'll put them back exactly where we took them out.

Understood, thank you.

We're also looking at some stormwater improvements, some of our quality improvements. So in some of these older neighborhoods, they don't have ponds. And so to assist with stormwater treatment, this is something that we did with Royal Oaks where we asked residents if they would be interested in a rain garden in their front yard to kind of help with stormwater quality. And then we would also plant the garden for them. So it's a volunteer program if people are interested. So we'll also be doing that as a part of this project. And then that pedestrian crossing enhancement that I mentioned, this was something that came up at some of our neighborhood meetings. Some of the concerns we had was crossing. So this is along Upper Afton Road. So it's actually just a little bit outside of the project area, but Martha Lane is included in this project. And so as a part of this project, we are proposing to do a crossing enhancement on Upper Afton Road.

For clarification, I thought you said you were going to do at Meadow, LANE, BUT IS IT MARTHA OR MEADOW, OR BOTH?

MARTHA LANE, SORRY. MARTHA LANE IS CORRECT. SO WE HAVE SEVERAL DIFFERENT FUNDING SOURCES FOR THIS PROJECT, WITH THIS BEING A FULL STREET RECONSTRUCTION PROJECT. WE'RE GOING TO SEE QUITE A BIT, ABOUT 8.6 MILLION BEING FUNDED THROUGH THE STREET RECONSTRUCTION MAINTENANCE FUND. WE'LL ALSO HAVE ABOUT 2.8 MILLION FROM STORMWATER UTILITY FUND, AND THEN WITH THE WATER AND SANITARY SEWER, WE ARE LOOKING AT CLOSE TO $8 MILLION IN THOSE UTILITY COSTS. PARKS AND TRAILS REPLACEMENT FUND, THIS IS TO REPLACE ONE PARKING LOT, AND THEN LIKE I SAID, SOME NEIGHBORHOOD PARK TRAILS. AND THEN THE CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT FUND, THAT IS FOR THE UPPER AFTERNOON ROAD FIRE STATION, AND THEN ASSESSMENTS AT ROUGHLY $5 MILLION FOR THE PROJECT, WHICH IS ABOUT 20% OF THE TOTAL PROJECT COST.

Again, I just want to question that 20%. It's 20% of the total project cost, but there are things in there that we are putting in there that residents wouldn't be required to pay, like the trails that comes out of the parks and trails, the parking lots for the fire station and things like that. So of the total road assessment, they are being assessed 33% of the things that they should be paying for.

RIGHT, AND IT'S ACTUALLY RIGHT, AND IT'S ACTUALLY SLIGHTLY LESS THAN 33%, SLIGHTLY LESS THAN 33%, SO 33% IS WHAT THE POLICY SO 33% IS WHAT THE POLICY WOULD SAY, SO THAT'S WHAT WOULD SAY, SO THAT'S WHAT WAS CALCULATED. WAS CALCULATED. WE ALSO HAD A BENEFIT WE ALSO HAD A BENEFIT APPRAISAL DONE, WHICH ADJUSTED APPRAISAL DONE, WHICH ADJUSTED THAT LOWER. THAT LOWER. SO I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT SO I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT PERCENTAGE IS, BUT IT'S LOWER PERCENTAGE IS, BUT IT'S LOWER THAN THE 33% OF THE STREET AND THAN THE 33% OF THE STREET AND SERVICE COSTS.

SERVICE COSTS. FOR ALL PROPERTIES OR JUST FOR ALL

ALL OF THE PROPERTIES HAD THEIR CALCULATED ASSESSMENTS, ALL OF THE RESIDENTIAL PROPERTIES HAD THEIR ASSESSMENTS REDUCED BASED ON THE APPRAISAL VERSUS THE CALCULATED AMOUNT.

Council members, I have a special request. Maybe I shouldn't have, but I asked the question about the size of the sewer line because I thought it was pertinent at the time, but we do have the opportunity to speak after the hearing is closed. So if there's something pertaining, you got a quick thing, but otherwise I would just ask that we as council hold off until it's closed and we handle those as we normally do. Is that okay? All right, thanks. Carry on, please.

SO WE FOLLOWED THE ROADWAY SO WE FOLLOWED THE ROADWAY CONSTRUCTION REHIBITATION CONSTRUCTION REHIBITATION FINANCE POLICY WHICH IS A FINANCE POLICY WHICH IS A COUNCIL DIRECTIVE THAT DETERMINES COUNCIL DIRECTIVE THAT DETERMINES HOW THESE PROJECTS ARE ASSESSED. HOW THESE PROJECTS ARE ASSESSED. SO AS I MENTIONED WE LOOK AT A SO AS I MENTIONED WE LOOK AT A BENEFIT APPRAISAL AND THEN WE ALSO BENEFIT APPRAISAL AND THEN WE ALSO CALCULATE IT BASED ON THE POLICY CALCULATE IT BASED ON THE POLICY AND THAT COST IS DISTRIBUTED ON AND THAT COST IS DISTRIBUTED ON A PER UNIT BASIS SO EVERY HOUSE A So special assessments, they're charged that are imposed on properties for certain improvement and they benefit the owners of those improvements and they are a levy that the city uses to finance or partially finance public improvements. So this map here shows which properties are being assessed and what the assessment is gonna be. So there's a number of different colors here on this map because there's there's some different things that are happening so we try to apply the policy fairly throughout the neighborhood so so for example upper Afton Cove is not being assessed for services that neighborhood was built in the 90s and so the water and signature will not be replaced with this project because they're in much better shape than the rest of the neighborhood and are not expected to need maintenance for for many more years We also have one property here on Willow Lane that their sanitary comes off Upper Afton Road, but their water comes off of Willow Lane, so they are only receiving a water service. And then one property here on Martha Lane where they're getting services replaced, but their driveway is off of Upper Afton Road, so they were assessed with the Upper Afton Road project, consistent with the policy where the assessment is based on kind of where driveway access is. And this is the value of those assessments. So they range from about $12,350 to those properties that are in orange, that's the majority that are getting street storm and service replacement, down to about 2000 for that one property that's only getting the service replacement. And then commercial properties, again, vary quite a bit based on the size of those parcels from about 1000 to about $100,000. There will be an assessment hearing held prior to the project being awarded, which would likely be sometime in the spring of 2027. Following that, there would be a 30-day no-interest payment period. If residents choose not to pay it within that 30 days, then payments can be made over 15 years. And the first payment would be due with the first half of the property taxes in 2028. And the interest rate will be determined prior to the assessment hearing and is based on several factors, including the city bond rating. SO PROPOSED SCHEDULE WOULD BE TONIGHT FOR CITY COUNCIL TO APPROVE THE PRELIMINARY REPORT AND OR THE PROJECT AND THEN IF THAT HAPPENS THEN BIDS WOULD BE OPENED JANUARY OF 2027 WITH ANOTHER NEIGHBORHOOD MEETING FOLLOWING BIDS AND THEN THE ASSESSMENT HEARING IN MARCH OF LAST NEIGHBORHOOD MEETING HAPPENING BEFORE CONSTRUCTION IN APRIL, AND THEN CONSTRUCTION STARTING MAY OF 27, AND THEN LIKELY EXTENDING INTO 2028. IT'S SLIGHTLY SMALLER THAN ROYAL OAKS, SO WE WOULDN'T EXPECT A FULL TWO YEARS, BUT IT'S LIKELY, IT WOULD LIKELY EXTEND INTO A SECOND YEAR OF CONSTRUCTION. WE DO HAVE AN IN TOUCH WHERE PROPERTY OWNERS CAN SIGN UP TO RECEIVE UPDATES ON NEIGHBORHOOD MEETINGS AND UPDATES TO THE PROJECT. AND THEN WE ALSO HAVE MY CONTACT INFORMATION ON OUR PROJECT WEBSITE. SO THE RECOMMENDED ACTIONS, WE ARE ASKING COUNCIL TO ADOPT THE RESOLUTION TO ORDER THE PROJECT, WHICH REQUIRES A SUPER MAJORITY, APPROVE THE FEASIBILITY REPORT AND SELECT CONSULTANT FOR FINAL DESIGN AND AUTHORIZE PREPARATION OF PLANS AND SPECIFICATIONS AND AUTHORIZE PREPARATION AND ACQUISITION OF EASEMENTS. WITH THAT, WE'LL OPEN UP TO QUESTIONS.

Thank you, did anything else super come to mind right now that we need to ask or otherwise I'll hold off? Okay, then with the hearing being open, I will now invite the public up with their green sheets. I hope I can pronounce these names right. Sometimes it's hard to read the writing, but I think it's Jim Nelf. Yes, I've got you first on the list. And just as a note, Angela did start the 30 minute clock, which you can pause in between speakers, so carry on. Welcome.

Good evening, Jim Knauf. I've lived in Woodbury for quite a few years. I guess my first question is, is this project going to be handled privately or by the city of Woodbury? I guess I'm asking.

Normally we don't do a back and forth, but if this is pretty basic question to answer pretty easily.

It would be publicly bid, so it would be a contractor the city would hire to do the project.

Okay. And that is typical for these big runway projects. Correct. We don't have the staff to be able to actually do the entire project.

Yeah, and so any specifics about the construction as far as how it's going to affect everybody commuting in and out of their neighborhood probably can't be answered here tonight.

Right, can you just address how you've done public communication on this, what that process looks like?

Yeah, so there will be future meetings that will get closer to construction. Right now we're at, I wouldn't even say it's 30%, we're very early in the design process, so any specific questions about design impacts, we'll nail those down here over the next few months, and then we'll have future meetings with the neighborhood where we'll be able to go over specific impacts with construction.

Probably half the streets at a time. I mean, one half of the roadway at a time, I guess, so people can get in and out.

And you do things like move mailboxes or what have you. I mean, there's a whole thing that will get laid out and a communication plan and a phone number to call and all kinds.

Correct, yep. And the assessment, is that specific to the amount of curb you have in front of your home? You kind of explained that a little bit where... And it depends on the situation where your home is. That fee would vary, or is that going to be a specific amount for everybody?

Go ahead, Mike.

So every property that has the same scope of work, so if you have the street and services replaced in front of your house, they're all assessed the same regardless of what your frontage is.

Okay.

Yep.

So if you live on a corner lot and have a lot more

street around you you're not paying more you don't okay it's evenly split okay okay i guess i was answering my question uh okay questions for now thank you great thank you all right oh now now i have uh bill braun uh hello mayor burke and thank jeff and council and and thank you for your service my name is phil braun i live over in precinct one in the heights in woodbury and uh I'm old, so I went through this process back in 94, the last time you guys did this. And I really have appreciated the transparency and the meetings and the ability to ask questions. And so I'm really bringing up seven questions again that I've already brought up to the city that I don't think I've gotten adequate answers back for. And first was back in 94, we had the option for some optional add-ons when the city did the project, which was great. So we were able to use the scope and scale of the city's project to add things to... that actually improved our property and improved our neighborhood and was less expensive than buying those improvements piecemeal. We've in particular asked for the price of a sewer clean out, because we've all experienced the sewer clean out problems in these older 1957 houses. And that while these sewer lines are open, I know a number of our neighbors have put these sewer clean outs in, and it's a rather expensive thing. How much would it cost while they've got all the pipes and everything dug up if I wanted to clean out on my sewer line so they don't have to clean it out from inside our basement?

DO YOU MIND, I'M JUST GOING TO PAUSE HERE TO EXPLAIN, MIKE, PAUSE HERE TO EXPLAIN, MIKE, WOULD YOU JUST EXPLAIN WHAT WOULD YOU JUST EXPLAIN WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT IS THE YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT IS THE INDIVIDUAL PIECE THAT RUNS FROM INDIVIDUAL PIECE THAT RUNS FROM WHEREVER THE CONNECTION IS INTO WHEREVER THE CONNECTION IS INTO THE HOME, IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE THE HOME, IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE ASKING ABOUT?

ASKING ABOUT? YES, MAYOR. YES, MAYOR. CAN YOU JUST EXPLAIN THAT CAN YOU JUST EXPLAIN THAT FOR PEOPLE THAT NEED CLARITY? FOR PEOPLE THAT NEED CLARITY? WE HAVE A PICTURE. WE HAVE A PICTURE. LOOK AT THAT. LOOK AT THAT. THIS IS WATER, BUT IT SERVES Yeah.

OK. OK. Visual helps. OK, carry on.

Third, we raised a concern why the city is not using Washington County's government assessor as part of this process and instead going elsewhere for their assessment. Fourth, we've had an issue with three water main breaks in front of my house. So I think it's great that this has happened. But we've had damage to our priors. to the utilities the city expects us to maintain. My next door neighbor had to replace his water lateral because it pulled away from the valve fittings. As the street has continued to drop because there's scour that happens each time these water mains break and the city doesn't raise the mains back up and it pulls the water, the laterals out and damages those, we're a little concerned that all of the damage, as everything's opened up, doesn't get repaired. Fifth, we've had pickleball congestion particularly ever since the schools closed off their parking lots, that those can't be used for parking anymore. So now we have some fairly small residential streets. And pickleball is amazingly popular in Woodbury. Great exercise. But what that means is the trails are blocked, and you have people putting cones up to try and do this, and there's traffic. And while you're doing the fire station parking lot, whatever parking that you think we need for those pickleball courts, concerned that we haven't addressed that as part of this same project, at least for the economies of scope and scale that we're working on. Sixth. The city's been removing trees over the last five years and has not been replacing those trees in preparation of the street work. And it makes total sense, because if we put in a tree back in, then it gets damaged during the road work. But I have asked and I have concerns that now, finally, when the road work is done, if those trees, because there's been three trees at my neighbor's mine and next door that were removed, if those trees will be replaced after the street work is complete, And seventh, the crossing at Martha, I mean, the city put a crossing in, and then the city moved the crossing, and then the city took the crossing out, and then the city put the crossing back in, and now the city took the crossing out again. And I think it's great that we're talking about putting the crossing back in, but this constant back and forth on, and the first time they couldn't plow it right, which is why it had to be moved, and anyway. We would just like some assurances that when you put the crosswalks back in, because these are children that cross a relatively high-speed transit area, that when the crossings go back in, they will stay there. And maybe it's an island in the middle of the... a refuge island or something that you're doing. But we would like the crosswalks just to stay. Because they are part of the Woodbury trail system that connect the city and let us, I believe the police call our area Alcatraz, because we're separated over there in the moat. And the trail system let us leave our part of the city. And the more connectivity we have for that, the better. Finally, again, thank you for the openness in this whole process. The city people have been amazing. They've come out. They've answered questions to the ability that they can answer the questions. They take feedback. And I just want to say thank you for the transparency and the openness in this whole process. Thank you.

I think you were all taking copious notes. And rather than address them all now, I'd like to go through the rest in case there's more, and then we'll handle it all in one time. Okay, so thank you for the detailed questions. We will circle back on those. Leanne, Leanne, I'll let you say your last name when you come up. Fubabin?

Fugabin.

Fugabin. Oh, that's a G. Okay, got it. Looks a little bit like a Y. Okay, thanks.

I'm a Woodbury resident for over a quarter of a century. Getting back to the Martha crosswalk, we used to have one off of Upper Afton Cove prior to Upper Afton Road being built. And we actually have a trail that kids come through to cross to go to school, to in the summertime they're going places. And so I'm wondering, why are we doing one at Martha and not one at Upper Afton Cove? That can be answered later.

Yeah. Yep, just add that to the list, yep.

Yeah, and then there are several houses in our cove. We're in that small cove where you're not going to have to do the major sewer work. So the blue flags have already been placed in our yard. Will the streets still be, will all that be broken up to those blue flags because we have several houses that have built beautiful gardens for butterflies and other bees and and we take to have to move all that if it's not necessary and we have someone that also has raises butterflies in the neighborhood so it's real natural area and then There is the trail that goes between the cove and over to Garby that's by Garby Park. Is that considered a trail that's going to be broken up? Because again, we have lots of natural native plants that we've planted on the sides of those that we'd hate to see destroyed. Oh, and too, so you're gonna be removing trees. Will you be removing them along the trails too? Because we've had a situation where a tree fell down in a storm and the roots were underneath the side trail and it destroyed the whole area a little bit. And I guess that's it for me. Thank you.

Great, thank you. Okay, again, well, you got those all listed out. Thank you, Leigh Ann. Elizabeth Diaz.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, council members. I'm Elizabeth Diaz. I'm actually from Oak Park Heights, but I'm here on behalf of my 91-year-old mother, who has been a Woodbare resident since 1956. So there was an interesting point in the presentation where you talked about the special benefit analysis. And under Minnesota statute, you have to prove benefit in order to assess. So could you please explain to me how you calculated that special benefit analysis?

Yep. We're going to add that to the list. We'll do that all at the end. So we're going to answer all the questions. Yeah.

All right. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Okay, I'm trying this one. It starts with a J and ends with a K, and the last name with a K. Sorry. I'll let you pronounce it.

Yeah, that's no problem. Yeah, my name is Jabba. Jabba, okay. Jabba, like Flintstones.

Yep, and the last name?

Jaskard.

Okay, wonderful. Scandinavian of some sort. Danish. Danish, okay, my apologies.

Oh, no, Denmark is part of Scandinavia, so you got it right on. All right, Mayor, members of the Council, thank you for the opportunity to provide the following comments. As has already been stated, I very much appreciate this opportunity and the openness that the Council and staff has had along the way. Again, my name is Jarboe Kjersgaard. I'm a resident of the Woodbury Heights neighborhood in Woodbury. I have been for the last 14 years. I'm here to strongly object to the proposed specialist-based assessment that is suggested to be placed on residents within the Woodbury Heights area. The proposed special assessment and I hope everyone in the room caught that we talked about for most homes with the exceptions that were mentioned by the assistant city engineer is $12,350 per house that is being proposed that we all have to pay either upfront or we can pay it over a 15 year period. But with interest, the current bond rate plus up to 2% that the city may impose on top of that. This proposed special assessment places an undue financial burden on the residents. And it corresponds to nearly a doubling of the residents' city property taxes. Every year for the next 15 years. This is an unexpected increase that residents have had very little time to prepare for. On a personal note, I can also say that that will impact otherwise planned activities. Of course, we'll still keep the kids fed and clothes on their back, but things such as a planned graduation party and such is something that we need to reconsider if this moves forward. I will also note that the feasibility study that is provided by Bolton and Mink, I have a copy here, and I assume that is the one that is the engineering report. It is right off the project website. I find that report incomplete. Per state statute, this report must show that the project is both feasible, necessary, and cost effective. But this report provides only one proposed option for the project execution and costs. There are no alternative options presented or discussed. It is not possible, therefore, to assess the feasibility or the cost effectiveness of the proposed work. And I therefore urge the council to explore alternative options, including alternative cost estimates, before approving the report. Again, I want to thank you for the opportunity to provide these comments.

Great. Thank you, sir. And last, Tom Zarnke? OK.

Thank you, Mayor and City Council. My name is Tom Zarnke. I've lived in Woodbury for 26 years, and I'm here representing on behalf of my daughter, Alyssa, who lives within, her home is in the project area, specifically Woodbury Heights on Ridge Drive. I just, I don't really have any questions, but I have some comments that I think the Council would appreciate hearing some of our experience with the problems of the utilities. So, approximately two years ago, prior to that, for the last several years, she's been having trouble with her sewer line blocking up, and we've had to try to clean it out from the house and get it going again, and it's been slowing down. And two years ago, it plugged up solid. Nothing could go down anymore. And so we checked with the city and they said that it would be up to the homeowner's responsibility because the city line is flowing, therefore it must be in the residential service line. And so the whole burden was on her to take care of this. And I was able to assist and do it ourselves, dig through the yard to find where the break was. We found the plug-in occurred off of her property. It was in the city street. And so we talked to the city about it, and they said that technically it's the service line to the house, therefore the city's not responsible. So we had to dig the street up on our own, 10 foot by 10 foot by eight foot deep, To get down where the line came from the house, it turned a corner and went into the city sewer. That's where it was plugged up, right at the entrance. And in this process, what made it extra difficult was that the city was unable to locate where the sewer line was. The records weren't clear over the years. And so we had to dig up a lot of the yard just looking for where is the sewer line. We thought we knew we were coming out of the house, but it was way over the other way. And in the course of all this digging, we found the city water line coming to the house. And we didn't damage it all, but we discovered coincidentally, there's a lot of washout underneath there that the city, the water valve was bad and leaking. And when the city crews came over, they said that has to be replaced. Now again, the impact of this is that we've got a water leak before the residential meter. So there's no way the residents can detect it or is obligated for that water loss, but the city's paying for all that water loss underneath the ground. So just those two things there that you got a city water main leak and You've got a sewer blockage I just want to reinforce what Mike has been saying about the urgency and the severity of this problem at least in this neighborhood and While we are concerned about the cost to the homeowners for doing this project the The alternative is to do nothing and let these problems come up, pop, pop, pop, pop, and all the homeowners are going to have to bear that cost anyway. So a concern that we had was while we had very good cooperation from city staff, inspectors, the city crews, that when I called for help to do something and find the water valve and how to replace it, we had to do all the work ourself. The total project was what, around 10,000 bucks? So we had to replace the water valve and repair the sewer line at the city connection at her expense. and now we're gonna talk about coming through and doing it all again and charging her again for it. Now, Mike and I had a talk about this, I don't know if you remember, and we gave him all the documentation of the work that we have done and he said that there should be some consideration possibly in the assessment that she would get some consideration because she's already had to incur this expense and again, it's gonna be awkward, it's gonna be case by case, but another thing to be considered is that the city, these trees that are invading, this is nature, there's nothing wrong with it, nobody screwed up, but these are city-owned trees, and we were told that we can't touch them, we can't do anything with them, and yet when it came to do this, they told me just cut the roots and destroy the tree, whatever you have to do, but it was all at my expense, at our expense to do the work. She went to her insurance company. She's got homeowner's insurance to cover this. But then the insurance company said, well, they only cover up to the property line. So she got no help from her insurance. And the city said, we're not going to do anything for you because it's in your service lines. So too bad, too sad. So I just wanted to offer this information just so you can get a more detailed scope of what some of the homeowners are facing, but I do support the project. I think we support the project, and we just hope that it will be conducted in a very efficient and fair way as far as pricing goes and, you know, done efficiently and with high quality. But we would appreciate, again, any consideration that each homeowner may have with their circumstances. Thank you.

All right. I see, yeah, we've still got some time. Is that another green sheet? Yeah. Yeah. Did anyone else? Again, we got 10, 11 minutes left for people to speak. I'll take this one next. If you do, you're going to need to have a green sheet. Otherwise, pass this down.

Do we allow Brewers Hats in?

So I believe you are John Cooley, is that right? All right, it's your turn, come on up. And just again, state your name and city of residence for the record.

John Cooley, I live in Woodbury, or the area that we're talking about here off of Meadow Lane in Upper Afton. I don't have a ton of things to add, just I would piggyback on a couple of the items. With the crosswalk on Martha, and the screen, just for clarity, said Meadow.

I think that was noted.

I would like it to be a meadow, but Martha's fine. But one thing that is not said I would piggyback is that that traffic in there flows fast, too fast a lot. And I'm not asking it to be policed. That slows it down. Those crosswalks slow down that traffic for sure. And I've seen, I've lived there 15 years now, which is a while actually. And I've seen it firsthand, like the other gentleman said, they've taken it on, they've taken it off, and we're like, where's our crosswalk? So I would say my big takeaway is that it slows down that traffic and that traffic, I mean, I feel like the old man now, slow down that car. My kids are 10 and seven. To the point about other crosswalks, it's tough. They want to get to a friend's house. God forbid they live across Upper Afton. So piggybacking that. A couple of points that I just had with this project. I understand both sides of it. I think the work needs to be done. But I question, there's been, I would call it kind of a little bit of helter skelter numbers given to us. We first get this thing that says, you're gonna be somewhere between 10 to 15,000 early on. Okay, fine. And then we get the first kind of concrete bend at 16,400. And I'm like, well, I don't know. I mean, that's just strange to me. I don't know if I wouldn't present the first set of numbers or I'd make the range wider. It was a little jarring to me and many of my neighbors to get a number over that. We've obviously come back down now to the 12-3-5-0 that was given. Okay, I mean, I guess that at least feels good. But I just, I wonder, you know, how many beds has there been on this? We've been to both of the kind of, public hearing meetings at the middle school and it's, you know, it's fine, but it's just like, there's no real, I don't feel like any real hard hitting questions getting answered. And I'm not trying to beat anyone's door down. I'm just a little bit more clear. Like how many bids have we got on this thing? Like a gentleman I'm walking in here with says a similar project happened in Oakdale. It was $8,000. So, you know, the median income of this area is, I'm not sure what, but that is a huge chunk of money. And my wife and I were not rich. I mean, we live in the area for a reason to be completely pointed, you know, and it's a lot of money to us. It's a lot of money to just about every single person that I've spoken with. And, you know, so I guess just kind of saying it on the behalf of a bunch of people that I know and I'm friends with, and, you know, I just like kind of what that, the Danish gentleman, I'll say, cause I'm not going anywhere near the name, but To his point, it's a high number. It's a really high number. It's moved around a little bit. You could take a loan on it, but it's bond rate, which is around 4.5% plus 2%. That's a 6.5% interest rate that's getting for $12,000. You run the math on that, that's $7,000 to $8,000 if you take it for the full 15 years. Some people are going to have to do that. My wife and I are going to be we're already squirreling away money. We don't want anything on that. But at the end of the day, there's going to be a ton of people that are, and that's going to turn to about 25, well, maybe like 20, some, maybe close to $20,000 for them when all the dust settles. You know, so I just wonder about that. And then, you know, the Royal, I guess I didn't realize either that this was actually last done in 94 in our area, I think is what somebody else said. I was under the impression that this was original stuff in the neighborhood is what, that was my impression of it pretty clearly. So that there was maybe something done in 94 is possibly a little bit of news to me.

We'll get them to answer that. Okay. You're bringing up a lot of good points. Thank you.

I'm not questioning it. It changed my mindset dramatically. Yeah. Something from 58 or 1994 is kind of, you know, I guess obvious. But, you know, I guess that's, yeah, that's kind of my spiel. Great. Thank you for the time.

Thank you. All right. Last chance. Oh, there's a green sheet. If you could, okay, bring it forward. You can bring it direct to me if you want to save time from passing it all the way around. Yeah, hi there. Okay, your name is Genevieve Burdette?

Yes. Great, welcome Genevieve. Okay, we moved in the house when I was 20 years old and then now I'm 88. Same house.

You look great for, are you serious? You're really that age? I have 20 flower gardens.

And I don't want my yard wrecked. I weed by hand. I have Battle Creek in my backyard. I weed with a knife, and I get real mean when people wreck my stuff. And we have two driveways, and I'm concerned, and I'm going, how far up are they going to go in the yard, and are they going to fix it real nice when we get, you know what I mean?

Just for clarity, I'm out of line. You're one of them.

Anyway. Mike or Chris, would you need a specific address for that particular location since she's asking something specific?

Yeah, 416 Meadow Lane.

I guess I wouldn't be able to, I don't have the service location right in front of me, but I'm happy to meet you.

I just want to make sure, do you need the address? That's all I'm asking before we're finished.

At our age now, everybody dies usually.

If that's part of longevity, you can come to my house and wait.

Well, my dad had 50 hives of bees, 10 acres of strawberries and raspberries, and I was one of his little slaves. And I kind of hated it, but now I work hard because that's who I am. And I like to help people, too. Yeah, that's awesome. I read when they're not looking and stuff.

The neighbor goes, I could tell when the light's on.

Anyway, so I'm just concerned that, you know, we have two driveways, so I suppose it's going to be more expensive to... Okay. Maybe you could give me a deal if I come over and work in your yard.

Thank you. Yeah, nice to meet all you. Yes. Anybody else on green sheets? Oh, we do have... Okay, come on. We've still got four minutes, so... You can bring it straight here.

Okay.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, and you are Roger Dawson.

I've lived in Woodbury for 62 years, and we've talked. Originally, we were going to put a cul-de-sac in the end of Woodbine because of traffic that was on Century and Woodbine or coming in there. Now you're not going to do that, but it doesn't solve the problem of the traffic that's out there on Century and Brookview. There needs to be stop and go lights there. There's no other way around it. There needs to be something, and they're taking the cul-de-sac away, but it's not solving the problem. There needs to be a solution for that problem of that intersection. In the morning or in the afternoon, you cannot make a left-hand turn for about 15, 20 minutes. That's that much traffic that's growing on Century Avenue. The other situation is streetlights. We're paying for them, but we don't have no streetlights. Nobody tells me they're not going to do it or they're going to do it. So I think we need streetlights or nothing in the intersections of every corner of streetlight. and then we're paying for something. But if we're not paying for it or don't get streetlights, the city should then take the developments that have streetlights, you got maps, count those houses, divide that amongst the, why should we pay for streetlights out at Stone Mill or any of these other projects? And the last thing I have is I've lived here that long There used to be a welcome to Woodbury sign. It was a wooden one. They had a storm, blew over, never got put up. I've talked to different city people. They have a new one put up, a new sign. Nothing ever happens for the last 20 years. And this is the first phase of Woodbury. And you come off of 94, what do you see? Nothing. You don't even know where the heck you are. but everywhere else gets these fancy new welcome to Woodbury signs. So we don't have nothing. I'd like to see a sign go back up there so we know we're in Woodbury. That's great. Yeah.

We'd like to know when people are in Woodbury too. Thank you. Thank you. All right, I think I've got them all. Our time is about wrapping up. So just let me explain again how this goes. At this point, we will close the hearing. So we've given everyone in the public an opportunity to speak. We will then turn to our wonderful engineers here to answer all the questions. You've jotted them all down. Council can then also have questions and interactions. But at this point in time, unless somebody from engineering has a specific clarification for you all, we're just kind of done with the public part. That's just how this works. I didn't set the rules. This is like a state thing. I don't know. But that's how it works. So I will make a motion that we close the hearing. Motion to second, any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Okay, the hearing's now closed. Thank you very much for coming to this meeting, for sharing your thoughts and ideas and concerns. And now you two get to start answering a whole bunch of questions. And I don't know, yeah, I don't know where you want to start. I would, you know, the, let me see, which guy was it? JOHN COOLEY JUST BROUGHT UP SOME REALLY BASIC THINGS ABOUT THE CONTRACT AND THE PRICE AND WAS IT AT 16 AND NOW IT'S 12 AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN AND HAVE THERE BEEN BIDS. CAN YOU JUST EXPLAIN THAT EARLY ON BECAUSE I THINK THAT'S JUST SOMETHING THAT NEEDS TO BE CLARIFIED.

YEAH, SO CORRECT. WE HAD INITIALLY REACHED OUT TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD IN SEPTEMBER OF 2025 AND INDICATED WE EXPECTED HIGHER ASSESSMENTS, JUST BECAUSE WE WANTED, WE KNEW THAT THIS WAS GOING TO BE A BIG NUMBER, AND WE WANTED PEOPLE TO, YOU KNOW, HAVE SOME TIME TO PREPARE AND ASK QUESTIONS AND UNDERSTAND WHAT THE PROCESS WAS. SO SEPTEMBER WAS WHEN WE HAD ESTIMATED THE ASSESSMENT WAS GOING TO BE THAT $10,000 TO $15,000. We had a second neighborhood meeting, and that was when the draft feasibility report was close to being done. So we had the calculated assessment, and that was that $16,000 that we shared there. That was what was calculated. Since we had that neighborhood meeting, now we've gotten the benefit appraisals in.

Can you explain what that is?

Yep. So based on state statute, cities are allowed to assess properties, but the ASSESSMENT CANNOT EXCEED WHAT THE BENEFIT AMOUNT IS. THE BENEFIT AMOUNT IS. SO WE HIRE AN INDEPENDENT SO WE HIRE AN INDEPENDENT APPRAISER TO COME IN AND TELL US, APPRAISER TO COME IN AND TELL US, BASED ON THE SCOPE OF THIS PROJECT, BASED ON THE SCOPE OF THIS PROJECT, WHAT IS THE PROPERTY VALUE WHAT IS THE PROPERTY VALUE INCREASE. INCREASE. SO WE DID THAT FOR THIS PROJECT. SO WE DID THAT FOR THIS PROJECT. WE GOT THOSE NUMBERS EARLY JULY. WE GOT THOSE NUMBERS EARLY JULY. SO THAT'S WHAT WE'RE SHOWING SO THAT'S WHAT WE'RE SHOWING HERE WITH THIS PRESENTATION. HERE WITH THIS PRESENTATION. SO THAT'S THE 12,350 NUMBERS.

And just to clarify, another question that was brought up is, why do we use an independent assessor versus Washington County? Does Washington County even do that work? They assess other things, but not... Yeah, can you explain that?

Yeah, so this is... The person who does this benefit appraisal, they are specifically looking at properties before and after an improvement like this, and property values. So it's... they are looking at this as a project-specific scope. So that's where that number comes from. Chris, has something to add?

Yeah, I would just say, Mayor, members of the council, it's a special type of business. The Washington County Assessor's Office does not do this type of work. In fact, there's not that many appraisers in the state that do this type of work. And so when we reach out to them, they are really specialists in the industry, really focused on this specific type of process for the appraisals.

Thanks, I thought that would just be helpful early on to capture those kind of ideas. Now it's up to you guys to go through your list that you made and start answering questions.

Sure, yeah, I can just go through the list that I have here. So we'll start from the top here with Bill Braun.

Point of clarification. Do you want, if he's answering questions and I have a question, do you want me to wait until he's all done or interject? We can interject.

So we'll stay on the topic now that it's now a staff and council discussion.

I THINK THAT'S A GOOD POINT. I THINK THAT'S A GOOD POINT. I THINK THAT'S A GOOD POINT. CAN WE GO BACK FOR MR. COOLEY CAN WE GO BACK FOR MR. COOOLEY CAN WE GO BACK FOR MR. COOOLEY TO UNDERSTAND WHAT TODAY IS TO UNDERSTAND WHAT TODAY IS TO UNDERSTAND WHAT TODAY IS US BEING ABLE TO ORDER THE US BEING ABLE TO ORDER THE US BEING ABLE TO ORDER THE PROJECT. PROJECT. PROJECT. WE DON'T HAVE BIDS YET. WE DON'T HAVE BIDS YET. WE DON'T HAVE BIDS YET.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THAT WAS THE OTHER THING. THAT WAS THE OTHER THING.

YEAH, SO RIGHT NOW WE'VE, WHAT WE'RE ASKING COUNCILORS IS ORDER THE PROJECTS TO GO THROUGH THE FINAL DESIGN SO THAT WE CAN GO THROUGH THE BIDDING PROCESS. SO WE WOULD ANTICIPATE JANUARY TO OPEN BIDS SO THERE WOULD BE A COMPETITIVE BIDDING PROCESS WHERE THERE WOULD BE MULTIPLE CONTRACTORS WHO WOULD HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO BID ON THE PROJECT AND THEN WE WOULD GET COMPETITIVE PRICING THAT WAY.

WELL, AND CAN YOU JUST EXPLAIN THE TIMING OF THAT BID, CHRIS? I KNOW I'VE HEARD YOU EXPLAIN THIS BEFORE. WHY WE DO IT EARLY IN JANUARY AND THE COMPETITIVENESS AND BECAUSE IT'S A BIG PROJECT, WHAT ALL THAT MIGHT MEAN?

Yeah, so typically contractors get busier as you, from January on, and so what Mike and Tony and the team in engineering do is try to get the project ready for design as early as possible. We get the most competitive bids in the January and February, That's when contractors don't have a lot of work on their docket. They're hungry for work. They give us the best pricing. If we were to wait as far as into March or April, oftentimes those prices go up 10% because they've already got work staged. And in order to complete that work, they often have to have contractors work overtime in those type of scenarios. So we try to line up when we go out to market as best as possible, get the most competitive bid for the benefit of the city and its taxpayers.

So just to clarify then, too, because we've had this conversation of the assessment adjusting. So we came in with a window. We started that first conversation at 10 to 15. Then it was at 16 after we got the prelims. And now we're back to, now we're down to 12. And the bids come in. Then there's, now we have the bid. So now we have the actual hard numbers. Then there's an assessment curing that we then have, right, of where we then go, this is where I want you to come in. Yes.

Mayor, members of the council, that oftentimes occurs when, The price of the project is lower than our estimate and the special benefit appraisal isn't the lower of that benefit amount So in this scenario, I believe the special benefit appraisal will be the lower amount than the calculated assessments And so no matter what the bids come in at unless we really miss the estimate It's not going to influence the amount that is going to be assessed. I

So what you're saying is if the bid came in really low, you would then reassess. Is that what you're saying, but it's not likely?

If the bids came in that low, we would question what did we miss in the plan and probably rebid it.

Okay, because you've done this enough. You know how to estimate it. Okay.

Yep.

Good, good, good. But I'll also point out that this is also the highest number that we would assess. The assessment will not be higher than this. Okay. SO, RIGHT NOW, WE HAVE TWO SO, RIGHT NOW, WE HAVE TWO NUMBERS THAT WE USE TO FIGURE OUT.

NUMBERS THAT WE USE TO FIGURE OUT.

THE QUESTION WAS IF THE BIDS THE QUESTION WAS IF THE BIDS COME IN LOW, LOWER THAN THE COME IN LOW, LOWER THAN THE ESTIMATE, THE ASSESSMENTS ESTIMATE, THE ASSESSMENTS WON'T CHANGE. WON'T CHANGE. WHAT I CAN... So this is the roadway financing policy. So this note here, it's the lesser of the calculated assessment to the benefit of properties or special benefit analysis. So we have the feasibility report that's posted on the website right now so you can look and see how that calculated assessment came to. But right now, the calculated assessment is about $16,000. So that was the number that we showed at that second neighborhood meeting. The benefit appraisal was that 12,000 number. So the only way the assessment would come down is if the calculated amount was reduced by basically 33%. So it would mean the bids would have to be about 33% below what the engineer's estimate is.

Which, again, you've done this work enough that you don't think there's any chance in whatever that it's going to come down that low.

Well, I mean, there's lots of caveats, right? Some of it's economic forces. Staff certainly didn't anticipate further attacks on Iran and what's happening in the Strait of Hormuz. When you talk about pavement prices, a lot of that's oil dependent. And so... We don't know. We're trying to do the best we can to estimate in future casts, but we do have to wait till we get the bid. And then when we get the bid, we make an assessment. Was this a competitive bid? Did we set it up? Did we get other contractors? Are they close to that bid? We have to make a decision. This is probably the best we're going to get. You know, generally, construction inflation INCREASES FASTER THAN REGULAR INCREASES FASTER THAN REGULAR CONSUMER PRICE INFLATION. CONSUMER PRICE INFLATION. SO WAITING LONGER FOR THIS SO WAITING LONGER FOR THIS PROJECT ONLY RAISES THE COST OF PROJECT ONLY RAISES THE COST OF THE PROJECT ITSELF GENERALLY. THE PROJECT ITSELF GENERALLY. SO WE HAVE TO MAKE SOME REALLY SO WE HAVE TO MAKE SOME REALLY SMART DECISIONS WHEN WE GET SMART DECISIONS WHEN WE GET THE BID. THE BID. BUT WHAT WE HAVE NOW I THINK IS BUT WHAT WE HAVE NOW I THINK IS AS GOOD A FORECAST AS WE GET. AS GOOD A FORECAST AS WE GET. WE HAVE BEEN COMING IN AT MOST WE HAVE BEEN COMING IN AT MOST MAYBE YOU KNOW, MAYBE THEY JUST OPEN UP THE OIL PIPELINES AND THE WHOLE WORLD, EVERYTHING GETS SOLVED BY THE TIME WE BID THIS PROJECT. I HAVE NO IDEA.

THANK YOU.

SO MAYBE I COULD TRY TO RUN THROUGH ALL THESE AND THEN MAYBE CHRIS CAN JUMP IN IF HE THINKS I MISSED ANYTHING. BUT JUST GOING THROUGH MY LIST, about the issues from previous water main breaks. So we're replacing all of the water mains. So any water main breaks that happened in the past where there's still some continuing issues, those should all be addressed following this project. A question was also raised about pickleball parking. So this was something that came up at the neighborhood meeting. So I did want to highlight that Rath Drive here is the pickleball courts are actually right behind basically this map here. RATH DRIVE IS A STREET THAT WE'RE AWARE THAT PICKLEBALL PLAYERS PARK AT QUITE A BIT, SO RIGHT NOW THIS RED LINE SHOWS THE STREET ALIGNMENT, SO IT JUST KIND OF DEAD ENDS HERE. SO WITH THIS PROJECT, WE ARE PROPOSING TO PUT IN A CALDESAC HERE, KNOWING THAT THIS ROAD was going to extend at some point we don't have a timeline for that so in the meantime we we propose putting in a cul-de-sac here just for maintenance purposes so that when people or delivery trucks come in here they have a place to turn around safely and this will also provide additional spaces for the pickleball players to park but we have a number of parks throughout the city that don't have any parking lots at all. There is a parking lot on Shawnee Park on the north end. It is far away from the Pickleball Court, so it is available, but in looking at this with our recreation staff, we believe there's sufficient parking in the parking lots, and then again, street parking is considered a way that people can access public parks, so with this alignment, we would expect that the parking situation is going to be improved from the Pickleball. And then the ash trees that were removed previously, yes, again, we plan on replacing those again, not necessarily where they were removed, but we do have a list of all the properties that had ash trees removed. So during final design, we'll have the planting plan put together, and that will also be shared in a neighborhood meeting prior to the project happening. We had a question about I THINK WE HAVE A CROSSFAC ON MARTHA.

CROSSFAC ON MARTHA. DO YOU HAVE A DIAGRAM OF DO YOU HAVE A DIAGRAM OF THAT? THAT?

YES. YES. SO THIS CAME FROM FEEDBACK THAT SO THIS CAME FROM FEEDBACK THAT WE HEARD AT THE NEIGHBORHOOD WE HEARD AT THE NEIGHBORHOOD MEETING. So what we're proposing is a similar, this is a pedestrian refuge island that is on Lake Road right now. So during the engagement process, we heard a number of people that were concerned about crossing. So what we have proposed is putting a refuge island here at Martha. Really, it's the alignment with this turn lane. This left turn lane doesn't really serve a purpose where it is, which is why we chose that versus, you can kind of see this next one is Esther Lane where they've got driveways here that would make a refuge challenging. And other intersections are the four-way intersections where it's more challenging. So that was why we have the refuge at Martha Lane. And we have also noticed that, I think John had mentioned that, WE HAVE SEEN THESE ARE EFFECTIVE AT SLOWING DOWN TRAFFIC, AND SO WITH THE ISSUES THAT WE HEARD ON UPPER AFTON ROAD SPEEDS, WE WOULD EXPECT THIS TO ASSIST WITH THE SPEEDING.

MAYOR, MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL, IF I MIGHT ADD TO QUESTIONS THAT BILL ASKED, IN TERMS OF JUST OVERALL CROSSINGS, I CAN'T SPEAK TO WHAT HAPPENED IN THE PAST, WHY WE ADDED THEM, TOOK THEM AWAY, ALL THOSE. That was probably before either Mike or I's time.

Which has been how long?

It's been eight years. Okay. But I will say that the city, over the last five years, has gotten pretty sophisticated about looking at pedestrian crossings, really thinking about safety. We did the bike and ped plan, which Tony Kutzke, our city engineer, Lead we've got a number of comp planning things that we're evaluating Mike is deep into the the traffic world. I'm part of the Advisory Council for traffic safety We are thinking about a lot of these things and so Where people used to be might be different than where we are today I know that you know by putting this median island it it creates a public works issue They have to plow around it and so there's lots of motivations Why things go in and out? I THINK OUR PRIMARY MOTIVATION IS BALANCING ALL THOSE THINGS, BUT CERTAINLY PEDESTRIAN SAFETY IS A FOCUS OF OURS. I'LL ALSO, I THINK SOME OF THE FIRST QUESTIONS WERE ASKING ABOUT AD-ONS, YOU KNOW, 1994, ADMITTEDLY I WAS 14. BUT I WILL SAY THAT It's really dependent on the contractor. As the city, we don't allow, we don't say, hey, we're going to contract to do the whole driveway or we're going to improve private properties. We will suggest that those individuals talk to the contractor that's out there and if the contractor is willing to give them a separate proposal, but we don't usually and typically fold it in to part of our process because then we also inherit the warranty claims and everything that comes along with it. And it does make assessments and lots of things challenging. But we certainly offer that. I will say that most contractors that do the type of work that we do, they're really wanting to get in and get out. They don't make a lot of money on individual driveways or cleanouts. They sometimes will do those things, but oftentimes they say, no, you hire your own contractor. We don't want to tackle that aspect of the work.

Let me just interject something. I can only imagine if I were you in the audience, there might be more questions that come out of all of this, but because the hearing's closed, I would just suggest if you have further things that come to mind as we're having this discussion, just write them down and then you can follow up later through various methods. You can tell us the best way to do that to get more specific questions answered. as we go through the discussion.

And I'll also say that we're still early enough in the process. This is really moving forward for final design. There is an open house, several open houses before this is done. And so what Mike and his team meets with property owners as more things are known about particular impacts to properties, how they're going to manage and facilitate and phase construction, how to get people in and out of their driveways. If you've got special considerations, maybe a disability where it's difficult to get in and out, All of those things are talked about and there are separate set-aside meetings where you can talk one-on-one with individual staff and we can work through those issues and incorporate them into the plans or specifications of data.

Thank you.

I know we also had a comment about impacts on Upper Afton Cove, if there aren't any utilities being done there. So we plan on replacing the curb all the way around Upper Afton Cove, so we would impact about five feet behind the curb.

Mike, would you mind, as you talk about that, is there a diagram of that that we can see, or just the big picture? I don't know where that is. Thank you.

Yep, this cul-de-sac right here.

Oh, okay.

So since we're not doing utilities here, we are planning to replace the full curb, so we would be impacting about five feet roughly behind the curb, but the blue flags I would expect are 10 to 15 feet behind the curb, so we wouldn't anticipate going all the way to there. You're doing a mill overlay and curb replacement? Correct, yeah, pavement replacement and then curb.

So you shouldn't impact the butterfly garden, is that what you're saying?

Unless it's in the first five feet.

Oh, okay, okay.

Which, I mean, in general, I mean, that was going to be my comment, too, because that's always an impact on any roadway that we do, is that... Is it five or 15? Wherever that, I don't want to say setback, it's not, where that easement is, right? There's a lot of private work that's gone on and those things, and that's going to be impacted. That's part of the... UNDERSTANDING WHENEVER WE DO THESE PROJECTS, THAT'S ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS A CONCERN, AND IF YOU WANT TO ADDRESS THE BEST THAT WE POSSIBLY CAN.

YEAH, THE EASEMENT, HOW BIG IS THE EASEMENT? IS IT MOSTLY CONSISTENT AROUND THE CITY, OR IS IT DIFFERENT, OR?

YEAH, IT'S DIFFERENT IN THIS AREA. THAT'S A GOOD QUESTION.

YEAH, SO IT IS DIFFERENT IN THIS AREA. SO UP WRAPPED IN COVE, THERE'S SOME DRAINING UTILITY EASEMENTS. MOST OF THE REST OF THIS NEIGHBORHOOD DOES NOT HAVE DRAINING UTILITY EASEMENTS AROUND THE PROPERTY. SO WE HAVE THE RIGHT-OF-WAY WHICH IS ABOUT 15 FEET BEHIND THE CURB. YEAH. BUT THEN THAT'S THE PROPERTY LINE AND THEN WE DON'T HAVE ANY EASEMENT RIGHTS BEYOND THAT ESSENTIALLY. UPPER AFTON COURT.

NO, IT'S NOT NORMAL. I WAS GOING TO SAY 15 FEET IS NOT NORMAL FOR US. IT IS FOR THE RIGHT-OF-WAY BUT THE DRAINAGE UTILITY EASEMENT THAT GOES BEYOND THAT IS TYPICAL. AND WHAT MIKE IS SAYING IS THIS WAS PLATTED AT A TIME THAT THAT WASN'T REQUIRED BUT IT DOESN'T MEET THE STANDARD WE'D HAVE TODAY.

BUT THE RIGHT-OF-WAY IS ABOUT 60 FEET, AND THE ROAD'S 30 FEET, SO IT'S ABOUT 15 FEET ON BOTH SIDES FOR THAT 60-FEET RIGHT-OF-WAY. YEAH.

YEAH. OKAY.

AND THEN THERE WAS, I THINK, A COMMENT ABOUT TREES ALONG THE TRAIL, SO AGAIN, We're pretty early in the process. We haven't gotten into the detailed design to understand if there's gonna be tree impacts with the trail work. Typically there's not. The trail, it's gonna be pulling off the pavement and putting it back. So I wouldn't expect any trees, but without looking at the plans or without really a detailed plan, I can't say definitively yet. THE BENEFIT ANALYSIS, I THINK WE TOUCHED ON THIS ONE ALREADY, BUT JUST TO CLARIFY, SO WE DO HIRE AN INDEPENDENT APPRAISER, AND WE DO HAVE A REPORT THAT THE APPRAISER PUT TOGETHER THAT WOULD BE AVAILABLE AS WELL. SO WE HAVE A QUESTION, TOO, ABOUT, YOU KNOW, WERE ALTERNATIVES REVIEWED WITH THIS PROJECT? WITH THE WORK THAT WE HAVE TO DO HERE TO REPLACE SERVICES AT EVERY PROPERTY LINE, THERE'S REALLY NOT A LOT OF OPTIONS WHEN IT COMES TO HOW DO YOU DO A PROJECT LIKE THIS. SO UP AND CUT IS REALLY THE ONLY OPTION BECAUSE YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO EXCAVATE AT EVERY SERVICE REGARDLESS. AND THIS WAS SOMETHING THAT WE LOOKED AT WITH THE ROYAL OAKS PROJECT KIND OF IS THERE SOME YOU KNOW, DIRECTIONAL DRILL OPTIONS, BUT REALLY BASED ON THE SCOPE OF THE WORK AND THE ISSUES THAT WE'RE HAVING, OPEN CUT IS REALLY THE ONLY WAY THAT THIS PROJECT CAN HAPPEN. AND THE PIPE MATERIAL AND EVERYTHING AND SIZES FOLLOWS THE CITY'S STANDARD ROAD TO DESIGN PRINCIPLES. SO THAT'S REALLY WHERE THE DESIGN HAS COME FROM.

I'll also mention it's a standard within the industry. The things that we're proposing is what every city in the state of Minnesota would propose.

It just comes to mind remembering the question about what was this all done in 94 or how long ago was this? Can you what's the history?

It's a 1994 that there was the pavement and I believe curb was all replaced in 1994 so correct, but but the utilities were not replaced with that project, so that's why the that's really was Requiring the full reconstruction the utilities were not all replaced in 1994. I

OKAY. SO CAN I JUST, THAT WAS ONE OF MY QUESTIONS, ACTUALLY, THAT I HAD. SO IN 94 IT WAS A TOTAL RECONSTRUCTION. SO IT WAS 40-SOME YEARS OLD AND WE WERE DOING A RECONSTRUCTION.

IT WAS PAVEMENT AND CURB. WE DIDN'T,

Okay, again, the public comment period is over. I'm sorry, I have to follow the rules. Those are the rules. Please jot down your comments and feel free. We can have follow-up conversation. You all can do it after the meeting. Go ahead, Chris, for what you know.

I don't have the history of when this sewer and water utilities were constructed. You've been here eight years. I've been here eight years. And I didn't actually admittedly look up how old this infrastructure was before coming to this meeting. I know Mike and his team has, and they can follow up with you individually. I will say, you know, it's pretty clear from the pictures, the breaks that you've had, the sanitary sewer system itself, It's all failing. The materials at that time that they installed it were probably the best materials they had available. I will say that the industry has improved substantially. They no longer use clay pipe. They use PVC. PVC has really tight joints, which means that it prevents roots from intruding into the pipe and preventing future destruction of the pipe. So modern materials these days typically last anywhere between 75 to 100 years. This will be the last time, probably in most people's lifespan, that we'll be dealing with utilities under the road. The same thing with cast iron. You know, it was a great product at the time, but one thing is cast iron is brittle, and I bet you there's hot soils up here, which is why you're experiencing, and hot soils means it's clay, and it's acidic, and it's eating the pipe away. The things that Mike would be putting in would be ductile iron, totally different product, and they'd be taking essentially a blanket around that pipe to prevent that clay material from interacting. I CAN'T SPEAK TO WHAT THE MATERIALS WERE AND WHAT THEY DID, BUT CLEARLY THEY DIDN'T LAST, AND WE'RE AT THE POINT WHERE WE DO NEED TO REPLACE THEM, BECAUSE THERE'S NO DOUBT ABOUT IT THAT IT'S NOT WORKING. IT'S ONE OF THE TWO HOT SPOTS IN THE ENTIRE CITY THAT HAS THE MOST BREAKS.

MM-HMM. CAN I JUST ASK A QUICK QUESTION THEN, A LITTLE BIT ALONG THAT LINE, BECAUSE I THINK, MR. MERRON, THIS IS ONE OF THE OTHER QUESTIONS WAS, BUT SINCE IT IS GOING TO BE A FULL RECONSTRUCTION, YOU KNOW, THE ROADS ARE GOING TO BE OPEN, AND BECAUSE WE'RE REPLACING SURFACES, from that replacement, I'm assuming some of that will alleviate some of the issues that homeowners are having with the sewer as it is, but would there still be reason or still be benefit for them if they did want to explore their own personal sewer clean out? Or do you think most of that will get resolved because of the replacement of the services that we're doing anyway?

I'll say that the infrastructure under the street will be resolved. We aren't replacing all the way back to the house, so these services are 70-ish years old, so this might be an opportunity if they've had issues to look at replacing the house, but we would go to the property line, but no further than that.

Okay. Okay, so when you say you go to the property line, we had a gentleman come up and talk about how they had to go into the street. to make sure that their lines were hooked up to this city. So do you go to property line, or is it just a hookup in the street?

It's typically to the property line, but most cities, they technically own to the main. But as part of our construction project, we redo everything within the influence area of the road and just beyond the road to the property line. So if you were to replace your sewer line separately outside of a roadway project and you had a break in the street, and we get many of those all the time, and property owners have to call and get their own contractor to replace it, they typically replace the section all the way from the house to the main as their responsibility, and the same with the water service.

But in this situation, you're going to replace it from the main up to the property line. Correct. So up through the easement that you have. Correct.

Not amusement, but in the right of way?

In the right of way. From the, okay, through the right of way up to about 15 feet into their yard. They'll hook it up there, and then they're paying for 50% of it. But if it breaks on their own time, they have to pay for 100% of it.

That's typically the scenario.

And so then what you're saying is that they could theoretically, in the midst of this, POSSIBLY GETTING CLEANED OUT. POSSIBLY GETTING CLEANED OUT. SINCE EVERYTHING WOULD BE SINCE EVERYTHING WOULD BE OPENED UP.

OPENED UP. CORRECT. CORRECT.

DID YOU FEEL LIKE YOU DID YOU FEEL LIKE YOU CAPTURED ALL THE QUESTIONS? CAPTURED ALL THE QUESTIONS? OR COUNCIL MEMBERS, DID YOU SEE OR COUNCIL MEMBERS, DID YOU SEE ANYTHING? ANYTHING?

THERE WAS ONE THAT WAS THERE WAS ONE THAT WAS ON, I LOST MY MAP HERE. ON, I LOST MY MAP HERE. HANG ON A MINUTE. AFFTON COVE AND HOW THE TRAIL COMES THROUGH AT THE HEAD OF THE COLDSACK AND THEN DOWN AND ACROSS. ARE WE GOING TO CONSIDER PUTTING A PEDESTRIAN CROSSING THERE? I MEAN, THAT WOULD BE ONE OF THOSE PLACES WHERE IT DOES MAKE SENSE IF WE'RE STREAMING TRAFFIC THROUGH THE PARK, THROUGH THE COLDSACK. BECAUSE WE ONLY HAVE SIDEWALK ON THE TECHNICALLY THE SOUTH SIDE UPRAFTON ROAD. THERE IS NO TRAIL OR THERE IS NO TRAIL OR ANYTHING ON THE NORTH SIDE, ANYTHING ON THE NORTH SIDE, CORRECT? CORRECT.

CORRECT. I WOULD SAY THAT IS CERTAINLY I WOULD SAY THAT IS CERTAINLY SOMETHING WE COULD DO WITH THIS SOMETHING WE COULD DO WITH THIS PROJECT IS PUT IN AN ENHANCED PROJECT IS PUT IN AN ENHANCED CROSSING ALONG UPRAFTON COVE.

CROSSING ALONG UPRAFTON COVE. ABSOLUTELY. Rath, we have, is it Rath? Is that the name of one of the streets? The one that you're making into a cul-de-sac?

Yes.

That has been in the comprehensive plan as a through street, future road extension, I'm imagining. Was it to the Jordan, what are we, what was it gonna connect to?

Yeah, I believe that's correct. The Jordan property that's to the south here would connect.

OKAY, AND SO NOW WE'RE JUST GOING TO MAKE IT INTO A CUL-DE-SAC?

IT COULD STILL EXTEND INTO THE JORDAN PROPERTY. WE DON'T HAVE A TIMELINE FOR WHEN THAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN, AND SO FOR NOW, BASED ON THE ISSUES THAT WE'VE HEARD ON RATH DRIVE, WE THOUGHT THIS WOULD BE AN OPPORTUNITY TO PUT IN A CUL-DE-SAC HERE.

OKAY. AND UNDER THIS PROPOSED RECONSTRUCTION PROJECT, which I will say is concerning that it's only been 33 years or so, somewhere in there, 33, 35 years since the last project. And we're totally redoing the whole thing again. It's not, we're not narrowing roads. We're not installing sidewalks or trails. We're not doing any of that. It's just what, where the curbs are is where it's going back.

Correct. Yes. Mike, can you follow up with, we presented to council and some of the considerations in that memo to council that we had the discussion about sidewalks and trails and retrofitting in this neighborhood.

Yeah, because we, yeah, we discussed this a long time ago, but yeah.

It'd be good to highlight us, remind us. There was a workshop in January of 2025 where we looked at this project specifically Looking at the roadway core design principles, this entire neighborhood, these are considered the local roads. And so based on kind of how everything is connected here, it was determined or it was recommended by staff and agreed on by council that no additional sidewalks or road narrowing would be necessary here.

To piggyback on to Councilmember Wilson's question, I'm assuming that streetlights are not a part of this project?

Correct, no streetlights.

So I can be prepared to answer that question. I think there was two different things combined to that question. Just in general, over the last year, something that's recently changed is charging for streetlights. So prior, the city had not done really a rate increase on streetlights in general for almost 18 years. And they knew it was an unfunded liability. And so the engineering department and the finance department teamed up and we looked at, you know, what is the long-term sustainability? Because as these things continue to age, we got to figure out how to pay for them. Well, throughout that process, we discovered there's 10 different billing categories. but only, frankly, the newer residential homes with streetlights were being charged. There was no commercial properties and there was no non-lit neighborhoods. And so we had several meetings with the Audit and Investment Commission, with the council. And at that time it was decided that streetlights are a benefit to the whole community, but there's a recognized benefit to properties that don't have direct street lighting, but it's a reduced benefit. So the average residential household pays roughly $12 a quarter. What they said was, okay, If you're traveling to and from your neighborhood, you're enjoying being able to travel through the neighborhoods, go to businesses, go to other properties with street lighting in there and be able to go through those intersections safely. And so there was a contribution of roughly 33%. So in other words, $4 a quarter versus $12 a quarter. And that was a decision at the time that Audit Investment Commission and staff recommended moving forward with.

Yeah, and just like commercial properties, we're not paying for it, and there is a decision made that they benefit, yeah,

Well, but to be clear, there was a difference between stoplights on the roads and streetlights in the neighborhood. They were two separate funds.

There was two separate funds. There was a portion for streetlights, which is a very small proportional bill that comes out of it. And then there was streetlighting for the community that was largely capital replacements and electric usage costs.

And people were paying for that in their levy.

For their property tax.

Correct, in their levy. So they had already been paying for it.

For the small portion of it.

For the stoplights.

Yeah, for the stoplights. The larger portion, which is the streetlights. Again, you're right, commercial businesses were not paying at all for streetlights. They've now been brought into the fold. So if you're looking at Woodbury, no matter where you are in the city of Woodbury, if you have a home or business, you're paying some portion of streetlights, although for commercial businesses, which oftentimes have their own internal lighting, or residential homes that are unlit neighborhoods or in the rural estate properties, you're paying a reduced benefit of 33% of that overall streetlight cost that a normal residential home might pay. In terms of asking for streetlights in your neighborhood, that's a really controversial topic. And I would encourage people to talk with staff behind the scenes. Historically, what has happened is people will petition their neighborhood and say, we want streetlights. There is a cost to those streetlights, and usually those are borne by the property owners within that. So all of those neighborhoods that originally had streetlights, those were put in by the development, and those costs were assumed by the developer and passed through as part of their residential housing costs. We don't have a fund set up to just implement streetlights unless it's at an intersection for safety concerns.

Thank you. All right. We've been sharing a lot of details tonight, so there's a lot of information coming.

I think the only last thing that I had was maybe a follow-up, probably more of a follow-up because we were talking about it anyway, is the monument signs and why. Oh, yeah. Welcome to Woodbury.

I don't know whose thing that is. We don't have them everywhere, but just in some cases, there's just a simple... I can remember going down Bailey Road and there's a simple, you know, welcome to Woodbury sign. It's made of metal.

There's one off of Lake in 494.

There's a huge monument at Lake in 494. There's a huge monument at Tamarack in 494. But otherwise, there are simple signs that let you indicate you're in the city of Woodbury.

We'll follow up. It's definitely not our responsibility, but we know we'll find the people that are responsible for this and we'll have a conversation.

Mayor, Council, one of the issues there, it's kind of on the wrong, our city property's on the wrong side of the street there.

On Century.

So that's complicated. Gotcha.

Okay, yeah, that's a good point. All right, have we, anything else? Council, anything else to address? Any other questions?

Just give me one minute to look through the notes.

I would just like to, just to add in general, a lot of this work is done, like I think it's been said, I just want to get clear, that we've got this policy that we follow. So we don't willy-nilly, every project that comes through, address each one separately. We've been following this policy for how many years, Chris? Since? 14. Since 2014. So we're going on.

With modifications, 2017, I think in 2019, small things.

Yeah. So, but essentially, you know, every time something comes forward, We're dealing with the same issue every time, trying to deal with this equitably. All right, Council, anything else?

The size of this project, I know that, and maybe this will come as we're, I mean, we're ordering the project now, though. Is there a plan to phase this I mean, there was a conversation a little bit about just because of the scope of this, you're not going to tear everything all up at once, a little bit like Royal Oaks. So can you talk, is there a plan for phasing?

Yeah, so with Royal Oaks, I would assume we'll do something similar, but it was about two months per phase. So when they did utility work, they were in front of, it would end up being a block, we'll say about the length of this Esther Lane. So I don't know how long that is, but about that many homes. And it'd be about two months. Access would be, maintained for the most part, unless they're digging kind of right behind your driveway, but really as they're digging, you'd either have to go out one way or another. The cul-de-sacs obviously get a little bit tricky with that. So there's more specific planning with that, but generally access is maintained except for when construction is happening right behind your driveway. But if there are specific concerns that we meet before the project to go over that with the residents and are available anytime.

I HAVE TWO MORE QUESTIONS I HAVE TWO MORE QUESTIONS BASED ON WHAT MS. GENEVIEVE BARDET BASED ON WHAT MS. GENEVIEVE BARDET SAID. SAID. SHE HAS TWO DRIVEWAYS. SHE HAS TWO DRIVEWAYS. IT'S NOT MORE EXPENSIVE FOR HER IT'S NOT MORE EXPENSIVE FOR HER BECAUSE SHE HAS TWO DRIVEWAYS. BECAUSE SHE HAS TWO DRIVEWAYS. EACH RESIDENTIAL HOUSE GETS EACH RESIDENTIAL HOUSE GETS CHARGED THE SAME FOR THE SAME CHARGED THE SAME FOR THE SAME WORK THAT THEY'RE DOING.

WORK THAT THEY'RE DOING. CORRECT. CORRECT. WE DON'T HAVE DIFFERENT WE DON'T HAVE DIFFERENT ASSESSMENTS IF SOMEBODY'S ASSESSMENTS IF SOMEBODY'S DRIVEWAY IS WIDER

And Mr. Roger Dawson mentioned a stoplight at Woodbine and Brookview. How would we go about assessing whether one needs to go there since that would be a county road and is that a Ramsey County or is it a shared road or what are we looking at?

That's a tricky intersection. There's a lot of agencies there. So part of it is Washington County, part of it's Ramsey County, part of it's Maplewood and MnDOT. So I can tell you that IT IS ACTIVELY BEING STUDIED RIGHT NOW. RIGHT NOW. THIS ENTIRE CENTURY AVENUE THIS ENTIRE CENTURY AVENUE CORRIDOR, BASICALLY FROM THIS CORRIDOR, BASICALLY FROM THIS INTERSECTION NORTH UP TO, I INTERSECTION NORTH UP TO, I BELIEVE, HIGHWAY 36. BELIEVE, HIGHWAY 36. THERE ISN'T A TIMELINE FOR WHEN THERE ISN'T A TIMELINE FOR WHEN THAT CONSTRUCTION IS HAPPENING, THAT CONSTRUCTION IS HAPPENING, BUT I KNOW THAT THIS INTERSECTION BUT I KNOW THAT THIS INTERSECTION IS BEING REVIEWED AS A PART IS BEING REVIEWED AS A PART OF THAT PROJECT. OF THAT PROJECT. BUT ULTIMATELY IT WOULD BE, BUT ULTIMATELY IT WOULD BE,

AND JUST TO CLARIFY, JUST TO CLARIFY, I THOUGHT I HEARD I THOUGHT I HEARD I THOUGHT I HEARD WOODBINE AND BROOKVIEW, WOODBINE AND BROOKVIEW, WOODBINE AND BROOKVIEW, BUT YOU'RE MEANING BUT YOU'RE MEANING BUT YOU'RE MEANING WOODBINE AND CENTURY. WOODBINE AND CENTURY. WOODBINE AND CENTURY.

CHRIS, OR MIKE, YOU... CHRIS, OR MIKE, YOU... CHRIS, OR MIKE, YOU... WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. YEAH, NO. YEAH, NO. YEAH, NO.

IS THERE A... IS THERE A... IS THERE A... WOODBINE COMES OUT, WOODBINE COMES OUT, WOODBINE COMES OUT, BROOKVIEW GOES ACROSS, BROOKVIEW GOES ACROSS, BROOKVIEW GOES ACROSS, AND SO But it's across Century. It's the inner, yeah. So this is actually, again, the issue is Century Avenue.

Yeah, and to underline the, I was in high school when we were talking about Century Avenue, Division Street, Highway 120, whatever we're calling it, and Highway 36.

When was that?

It was more than a year ago. Yeah, so it's been a long time with that project. They still haven't figured out what they're doing.

I just want to thank everybody for coming in here. I know you're sitting through a long meeting, and I appreciate the feedback and the time to come in here tonight. We just order project. I think most people realize something needs to be done there. You do have an opportunity to come back then once the project is bid, and so we'll be back in February, March, April probably, March or April. to go through the assessments and we'll have the actual numbers at that time. And that's when you should come back also at that time. But if there isn't any other feedback regarding the actual project that's being ordered, and I didn't hear anything. No change to scope. Right, other than some additions of crosswalks and potential stoplights, which are outside of our agency, so.

All right, I'll make a motion to adopt resolution 26-87, a resolution approving the preliminary report order of the project and executing a letter of engagement with Bolton and Menk in the amount of $374,450 for final design, authorizing preparation of plans and specifications, and authorizing their preparation, acquisition, and if necessary, condemnation of easements for the 2027 roadway reconstruction project.

Second.

Motion is second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, the roll call, please.

Council Member Wilson.

Aye.

Council Member Stafford. Aye. Council Member Morris. Aye. Council Member Santini. Aye. Mayor Byrd.

Aye. That resolution passes. Thank you. Thank you again for listening to the discussion. I hope your questions were answered. Again, if you have more, you can direct them to those guys in that department and they will... VERY GOOD ABOUT FOLLOWING UP. VERY GOOD ABOUT FOLLOWING UP. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. IF YOU'RE INTERESTED, HANG ON. IF YOU'RE INTERESTED, HANG ON. YOU MIGHT WANT TO YOU MIGHT WANT TO YOU MIGHT WANT TO HEAR SOMETHING. HEAR SOMETHING. HEAR SOMETHING. CHRIS IS GOING TO DO CHRIS IS GOING TO DO CHRIS IS GOING TO DO THE TRANSPORTATION REPORT, THE TRANSPORTATION REPORT, THE TRANSPORTATION REPORT, WHICH IS AN UPDATE ON WHICH IS AN UPDATE ON WHICH IS AN UPDATE ON ALL THE MAJOR ROADWAY.

ALL THE MAJOR ROADWAY. ALL THE MAJOR ROADWAY.

IF YOU'RE CURIOUS ABOUT VALLEY IF YOU'RE CURIOUS ABOUT VALLEY IF YOU'RE CURIOUS ABOUT VALLEY CREEK ROAD OR WOODD I JUST GOT COMFORTABLE.

I JUST GOT COMFORTABLE.

I JUST GOT COMFORTABLE. YOU'RE GOING TO DO... YOU'RE GOING TO DO... YOU'RE GOING TO DO...

OKAY, WELL, BECAUSE OKAY, WELL, BECAUSE OKAY, WELL, BECAUSE EVERYONE'S LEAVING NOW.

EVERYONE'S LEAVING NOW. EVERYONE'S LEAVING NOW. THAT'S FINE. THAT'S FINE. THAT'S FINE. ALL RIGHT, KIM, DISCUSSION ITEM. ALL RIGHT, KIM, DISCUSSION ITEM.

ALL RIGHT, KIM, DISCUSSION ITEM. WE'RE DOING MINE?

WE'RE DOING MINE? WE'RE DOING MINE? OKAY. OKAY.

I WAS TRYING TO ENCOURAGE THEM TO STAY AND LISTEN TO YOU, CHRIS, BUT NOBODY WANTS TO, SO. I WOULDN'T WANT TO.

60.

THEY CAN GO BACK AND WATCH THE VIDEO. 60, ALL RIGHT. THE AGREEMENT RELATED TO THE GOLD LINE BRT AND, YOU KNOW, WE HAVE THIS STUFF GOING ON BACK AND FORTH. I HAVE CONCERNS ABOUT THE AGREEMENT, ESPECIALLY IF I'M CONFUSED ON WHETHER WE'RE TALKING ARE WE TAKING CARE OF MAINTENANCE ISSUES ON SOMETHING THAT THE B.R., THAT THE GOLD LINE OWNS?

OKAY, AND I THINK TONY, TONY, CAN YOU ADDRESS THAT? TONY'S GOT ANSWERS ON THAT. TONY'S ALSO IN THE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT, CITY ENGINEER.

Yeah, Mayor Burt, Members Council, Tony Kotski, City Engineer. As the Gold Line came in, they constructed a lot of infrastructure. Some of that is city owned, some of it is Met Council owned through the Bus Rapid Transit project. The ownership and maintenance agreement is between the City of Woodbury and the Metropolitan Council is to provide a clear understanding as to who owns what infrastructure. and who is responsible for the maintenance of it. It also identifies some cost sharing between Met Council and City of Woodbury for a number of items that, an example would be traffic signals. They're needed for the bus rapid transit, but also a lot of them existed and are needed for the roadway portion, so we have a cost share on those. The agreement does go through a number of pieces of infrastructure such as Retaining walls that were put in with the project fences storm sewer basins lighting at the stations and landscaping Signage and striping and snow and ice control for both the guideway and the roadways all of the guideway itself that is needed only for bus driver transit is all taken care of and owned and maintained by the Metropolitan Council Any of the infrastructure that is needed only for the city's roadways is city ownership. So we got a new roadway out of that, and now we will maintain it from here forward for only the city portions, not the BRT guideway. Again, traffic signals and things that are a little more complex because we both share them. We do have a cost share in that agreement. The agreement is needed to identify how the city of Woodbury would invoice and require the Met Council to pay the city for maintenance as the city overall will own and maintain those signals, but yet have a cost share with the Met Council.

What about retaining walls and that kind of stuff?

Yeah, so retaining walls that were in place ahead of the project, the city continues to own. We had a lot of but-for discussions during these projects, and anything that would not be needed by the city for our roadway project, but yet Met Council required them, even though they're not in the guideway, there are some retaining walls that were put in because we widened the roadway corridor and didn't want to impact properties. Those are maintained and owned by the METROPOLITAN COUNCIL FOR THOSE.

SO IS THERE ANYTHING THAT THEY OWN THAT WE'RE GOING TO BE MAINTAINING OTHER THAN A JOINT? THE STOPLIGHTS IS A JOINT AGREEMENT, BUT IS THERE ANYTHING THAT THEY OWN THAT WE ARE MAINTAINING?

No, no. Think of everything in the guideway, everything in the station areas, even the lighting that we put lighting all the way down the corridor, the lighting on the station areas is owned and maintained by Metro Wallachian Council. So no, I would say, in fact, stormwater basins that they constructed with the project they're paying for their share of the water they put into stormwater basins. So we've even gotten down to that much detail in this agreement to make sure Metropolitan Council pays for what they have for infrastructure in the project.

But we didn't, it was my understanding that previous to the Gold Line opening that we were going to negotiate the pads and the bus stops on the rest of the city, but that did not get handled in this agreement, correct?

No, the agreement that's before the council tonight is only addressing the Gold Line specific infrastructure that was constructed with the Gold Line project. That is a required process for Gold Line to get this, I'll call it project closed out and get an established agreement for who will own and maintain the components of that specific project. We do have ongoing conversations about the rest of the bus stops in the community that are not resolved yet.

That's it. Thank you. Thank you, Tony.

I'll make a motion to adopt Resolution 26-85, a resolution approving the ownership and maintenance agreement with the Metropolitan Council for the operation and maintenance of assets constructed with the Gold Line Bus Rapid Transit Project.

Second. A motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, roll call, please.

Council Member Stafford. Aye. Council Member Morris. Aye. Council Member Santini.

Aye.

Council Member Wilson. No. Mayor Burke.

Aye. That resolution passes. All right. Now, Chris, you're up to talk about the transportation update.

Well, it'll be a challenge to get through in four and a half minutes, as Councilmember Moore suggested, but I will do the best I can. I think it's interesting. I feel like this has slowly evolved from a transportation update to just a construction update, so I don't know if I've got to get back to my roots, but it sort of highlights a lot of the unique things that we are doing, and so I'm pretty proud of that.

You're not going to make it.

SO THINGS WE'RE TALKING ABOUT, ACTIVE CONSTRUCTION, PUBLIC SAFETY, BAILEY ROAD WATER TOWER, WATER TREATMENT PLANT PIPELINE PROJECT, VALLEY CREEK ROAD, BAILEY ROAD, 2026 ROAD REHAB, WOOD LANE DRIVE, BAILEY ROAD, BAILEY ROAD AND MANNING, INTREPID FIBER TO THE HOME, 2026 REJUVENATOR PROJECT.

THAT'S A LOT.

THAT IS A LOT. THESE ARE THE MAJOR THINGS. BUT I THINK YOU BECAME AWARE OF, COUNCIL, JUST WITHIN THE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT, WE'RE HANDLING WELL OVER 300 ACTIVE PROJECTS. THESE ARE THE ONES YOU'RE MEGALLY SEEING HIGHLIGHTED TONIGHT. This is a video of public safety. Krause-Anderson just recently shot it with the drone. I did the best I could. They were recording the video, so it's a little chunky. And this is even outdated, but they've made huge progress on removing the garage and really the southern side of the public safety campus that's existing. If you go out there today, the north side is completely removed, and they're now removing some of the material off the site. They're making major headway just in front of the property. Why is it dug up all in front of the window? That's really because that's where the old leaking geothermal system was located. So we're now removing that and capping that in place of a new geothermal system. As I mentioned on the call earlier today, the Bailey Road water tower. We just approved the logo last Monday and it was geothermal. completed by Friday, so it was amazing how quickly they put that up. Even though it looks somewhat finished on the outside, there's a lot of work to do on the inside, moving equipment, piping, floors, other types of things. So again, we're still looking for late this year finish and completion, but this should really help us be more resilient in our water treatment and storing water that's been treated.

FOR THE RECORD, YOU CAN SEE THAT ANYWHERE IN WOODBURY. YOU CAN. IT'S ENORMOUS.

875. 875 FEET.

FOR THOSE THAT ARE PLAYING THE HOME GAME, THERE WAS A TRIVIA QUESTION THAT I GOT WRONG. HOWEVER, THE ENTIRE COUNCIL AGREED WITH ME THAT WATER TOWERS ARE 800 FEET.

We were forced into it. Yeah, you're only off by 700 feet. That's fine.

Go Baker, go home. I mean, it's close, right?

I'm not in charge of the assessment policy.

Wait, so clarity, how tall is it?

I think it's, if I remember right, 175, 180 feet.

It was like we were trying to assess from like above sea level, and so that's why.

That's actually only to the fill level, so the water tower extends just beyond that a little bit. About 500 feet? Yeah, sure.

Okay, moving on.

Okay, Chris, when will that be put in service?

That'll be put in service end of this year, but certainly before the next irrigation summer cycle. Oh, okay, great.

All right, good. Good work.

We also wanted to mix in a couple of approved fixtures of the water treatment plant. Jim Westerman helped with some of the nomenclature on here, so lots of acronyms, but I'll just break it down to the non-engineers. This is really the operation facility for the concrete panel wall that's going to contain the vessel structures. So this is really on the east side of the site. On the right-hand side, you're seeing two of the 350,000... K, high service pumping chambers. This on the left side is a picture of one of the half of the two million gallon clear well, and it's the east wall. So you can see all of this is buried underground, so you can see how substantially buried that is. And the picture on the right is what it looks like from the surface. So there's a lot that has been going on underneath the ground an enormous amount of concrete emplacement and rebar so pretty impressive for what's going on and You can see that the tower crane. They're helping lift everything in place In terms of our water treatment plant projects on the north end of the map westbound Valley Creek Road east of Woodbury Drive remains reduced to one lane through September and Westbound Valley Creek Road is closed from Catalina Drive to Interlochen Parkway with phased reopening into the fall. So the westbound movement is closed. Eastbound Valley Creek Road is scheduled to reopen tomorrow from Interlochen to Colby Lake Drive. So that should provide some relief for those residents.

Oh, shucks. I was kind of liking that there was no traffic there.

I could get here a lot faster.

We'll keep it closed for you.

Thank you.

WESTBOUND VALLEY CREEK ROAD IS SCHEDULED TO REOPEN FROM INTERLOCK AND PARKWAY TO COLBY LAKE DRIVE TOWARDS THE END OF NEXT WEEK. SO THAT WHOLE SECTION, EAST AND WESTBOUND, WILL BE OPEN. SO THAT WILL BE RELIEF FOR A LOT OF THOSE NEIGHBORHOODS THAT ARE THERE NORTH AND SOUTH.

CAN I JUST MAKE ONE OBSERVATION? THERE IS NO CLEAR SIGNAGE GOING WESTBOUND ON VALLEY CREEK FROM WOODBURY DRIVE. SO AS PEOPLE ARE WANTING TO MAKE A TURN THERE TO GO WESTBOUND, It doesn't tell them that the road is closed until further up. So cars are going up and then they're having to make U-turns or I encountered someone just deciding to try to go the wrong way down Valley Creek to get to the next intersection. So we need to have better signage up there that it's closed to through traffic off of Woodbury Drive.

We'll take a look at that tomorrow and we'll address it with the contractor if that makes sense.

Chris, I have a question since we're talking about Valley Creek Road along that section. I know you're working on piping, let's see, east of Woodbury Drive. At some point in time, are you gonna have to cut across Woodbury Drive and close that intersection?

Yes.

When, do you have an idea of when that's gonna happen?

I DON'T RECALL THAT OFF-HAND, BUT I BET YOU TONY KUTZKE, OUR CITY ENGINEER, DOES.

I'M ASSUMING IT'S GOING TO BE SORT OF LIKE WHAT WE HAD TO DO AT RADIO.

AT RADIO, A COUPLE WEEKS OR SOMETHING, BUT TELL US.

CORRECT. FOR ABOUT A FOUR-WEEK PERIOD, WE WILL NEED TO CLOSE THE NORTH, I'LL CALL IT NORTH LEG OF WOODBURY DRIVE AT VALLEY CREEK ROAD. SO THE EAST, WEST, AND SOUTH WOULD ALL BE OPEN.

OH, OKAY.

YOU WOULD BE ABLE TO GO NORTH-SOUTH THROUGH THE INTERSECTION OR GO NORTH.

JUST LIKE WE DID AT RADIO, BUT FOR FOUR WEEKS AND APPROXIMATELY WHEN.

Yeah, we have about three more weeks worth of work to finish Valley Creek Road west of Woodbury Drive, and then we would be able to cut through there. So we're about three to four weeks out.

Are you then going to route through Eagle Valley and through the, is that work then going to be completed on, what's the, with the new stoplight on Valley Creek? Eagle Creek Lane.

Oh, Eagle Creek Lane.

Yes. Is that then going to be the cut through, the little mini detour?

No, how do you get to the northbound?

It would not need to be because it would, we would, our detour route then would detour traffic going northbound, westbound on Velcro Road, north on Radio, and back east on Tamarack Road.

but you can also go...

The official detour route is usually county road to county road. Where people go is a different matter. We won't send people, but traffic organically goes where it goes.

Eagle Creek Lane would not be used at that time because you'd be able to get to everywhere Eagle Creek Lane brings you. Okay.

Thank you. All right. Warning, people. That road's going to close for a while.

It is getting better, though.

Okay.

That's positive.

Yeah, okay.

We're kind of through some of the hump. Yeah. On the south end of the map, Hargis Parkway is, again, closed from Pioneer Drive to the roundabout that accesses the fields. The roadway is anticipated to be reopened before East Ridge High School fall semester, as we know is important. Valley Creek Road Trail Project, again, as water main testing is completed on Valley Creek Road, a new trail will be replaced on that north side. That's been in our CIP for almost 10 years, so that'll be good to get that done. And if everyone remembers, we ended up getting grant funding to support that project in coordination with this. So that was nice.

So, Chris, I know for a while the pipe was not holding watery water testing. Is that fixed by now?

not yet but they're working on it no no exact clarity on timing uh perfectly it's some of it's they're testing different segments and making sure it passes before they maybe this guy has more information yeah we have a few more details from a meeting we had earlier today um the contractor has finished all pipe work for uh substantially here west of woodbury drive it will jump back over east of Woodbury Drive here. Probably not till middle or late next week. They're working on testing the pipe west of Woodbury Drive. They have a couple weeks worth of work on that pipe. So they will be back over there working again, we think the end of next week right now.

How long it takes is a different scenario?

They have a couple weeks worth of work to pull out and replace that pipe.

Okay. Okay.

The 2026 Road Rehab, eastbound traffic along Acton Road from Tower Drive to Radio Drive is closed and anticipated to be reopened in late August. A detour route is established in coordination with this closure. Construction in Phase 3 began July 9th and is anticipated to be completed by mid-August. Phase 4, which is the color in green, is anticipated to start the week of August 3rd. So this is really just an image showing asphalt paving along Afton Road. That's gonna be much improved. That section was getting pretty rough.

Yeah, it was pretty rough.

Woodlane Drive, pavement rehab. Woodlane Drive from Wooddale Drive to Bailey Road is under construction and open to one-way traffic. A detour route has been established in coordination with each phase. Eastbound and westbound Wooddale Woodlane Drive intersection has finally been reopened just yesterday. Phases one and two are anticipated to be completed mid-August. Phase three is anticipated to be complete by late September. And all of that project phasing has been coordinated with the water treatment plant pipeline projects. This is an image of a skid steer removing curb and gutter on South Lake Road. It's really tiny, but you can just imagine it's over there popping up curb panels. And then this is an image of paving crews laying the base course of asphalt at the Wood Lane Drive-Courtly Road intersection. And when we say base course, it's just the first layer. Typically on city roads, there's two layers. On county roads, there could be multiple. Anything that's underneath that very top layer is the base. The Bailey Settlers Ridge Parkway intersection.

I've been dying to see this one.

Yep, major improvement. It's under construction beginning today. The east, south, and west legs of the Bailey Road, Settlers Ridge Parkway, Cottage Grove Drive intersection are scheduled to open up to traffic. The north leg of the intersection is scheduled to close. Traffic on Settlers Ridge Parkway will be detoured via Lake Road, Woodbury Drive, and Bailey Road. And of course, you can sign up for that project being led by Washington County at WashingtonCountyMN.gov forward slash county 18 and click notify me.

Okay, real quick, but when is that northbound from Bailey on Settlers Ridge, when is that going to be completed and then open up?

Well, I wish that was in the notes. Okay, because it's, again. Two weeks.

Two weeks, okay.

Three weeks.

Three weeks, the whole roundabout will be open.

Are you sure? Does anybody here remember the Tom Hanks movie, what the hell was that? Money Pit. Money Pit, where the contractor kept saying two weeks? Yes. Is that what we're talking about here? It's probably the poor hearing in my right ear.

As evidenced by this photo, that's amazing how much work they've got done. Explain that movie to Jeff.

And then, yeah, this one too.

MnDOT's constructing a new roundabout at the intersection of Bailey Road and Manning Avenue. North-south traffic is maintained on that temporary bypass road. You can sign up for updates on MnDOT's project webpage. This project is anticipated to be completed yet this fall. No specific timing beyond that. And then you've probably seen this if you're in the southern part of the city, Intrepid Fiber is continuing to come to home. They now have, I think, approximately six crews. They continue to ramp up crews. Again, a great service to the community. So far, they've been doing a pretty good job of coordinating with all of our staff and working through that. This just really shows the map. Everything in purple is scheduled in 2026 yet. Yellow is being scheduled soon. And then blue, there's some in Woodbury and some just on the southern borders in progress to be scheduled. And then lastly, our rejuvenator project. We've made really good progress. It started on July 7th. Everything in blue has already been completed. Everything in that orange is still planned for construction. Major roadways generally have short-term lane closures during the application process. And all those closures are coordinated throughout the city with everything else that's going on.

Is this essentially parts of Pioneer and then Lake?

Is that what the... Yes, I think so. It's portions that were just recently completed last year, so I think it's Pioneer Lake.

I think parts of it are Pioneer Lake. Okay.

Yeah. Hard to read from that map, but I think that's correct. And then lastly, throughout construction, we always remind people, we love this product that we're working on. It got started with the water treatment plant, but we've been coordinating all of our roadway projects on there, making sure everything is looked at from a detour staging perspective. We encourage residents to again, go to this webpage, sign up for updates. It gives you all the latest and greatest information, things that are happening. As we know, construction is variable. It depends on weather, depends on how fast the contractor moves. This keeps people up to date with the information on a weekly basis. And as always, stay connected. We have our InTouch website. Sign up, woodburymn.gov, forward slash InTouch. If you're like me, I sign up for every single one of those. You can choose which ones you like. With that, do you have any questions?

I do not have any. Thank you, Chris. All right, city administrator's report.

Thank you, Mayor. I'll try to be pretty brief here, but there are a few things going on in the community that... Deserves a little bit of time here. So first and foremost, Woodbury Lions will be hosting its 18th annual Dick Stafford Charity Golf Tournament at Eagle Valley on Monday, August 10th. There's still spots available, so for those that are wanting to get on the links and serve a good cause, please go to their website. All charities and proceeds go back to the community. AT THE WORKSHOP, WE TALKED AT LENGTH ABOUT THE PARKS AND FACILITIES LONG-RANGE PLAN. WE HAD A STATUS UPDATE. ONE OF THOSE UPDATES WAS JUST ABOUT ALL THE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT. THAT PROCESS IS STARTING NOW. SO JUST ENCOURAGE FOLKS OUT THERE, RESIDENTS, PEOPLE WHO USE OUR PARKS A LOT, OR IF YOU JUST DON'T AND YOU WANT TO SEE MORE AMENITIES, TO GO ONLINE. We have a questionnaire as well as a map that you can point out certain amenities or certain locations where what you would like to see. We're really looking forward and wanting to enhance arguably our greatest asset as a community, our park system. Looking down the road to make sure that we can meet the needs and the desires of our community members. So now's the time to provide your feedback. SO GO TO THE WEBSITE AND CHECK THAT OUT AND SIGN UP ON IN TOUCH. I KNOW CHRIS IS ALREADY ON THERE BECAUSE HE SAID HE SIGNS UP FOR EVERYTHING, BUT IF YOU HAVEN'T, IF YOU WANT TO GET FEEDBACK AND YOU CARE ABOUT OUR PARKS, SIGN UP NOW. ON AUGUST 4TH, SO JUST RIGHT AROUND THE QUARTER, WE'RE GOING TO BE CELEBRATING NIGHT TO UNITE. I BRING THIS UP BECAUSE THE DEADLINE FOR NEIGHBORHOODS THE DEADLINE FOR NEIGHBORHOODS TO SIGN UP FOR A NEIGHBORHOOD TO SIGN UP FOR A NEIGHBORHOOD PARTY WHERE POLICE FIRE. PARTY WHERE POLICE FIRE. OUR LOVELY MAYOR AND COUNCIL OUR LOVELY MAYOR AND COUNCIL WILL ATTEND. WILL ATTEND. SIGN UP BY THE 24th IN ORDER TO SIGN UP BY THE 24th IN ORDER TO MAKE SURE YOU'RE ON THE LIST. It's a wonderful night, hopefully we have good weather, but it's a great way for the neighborhoods to meet your neighbors if you haven't already, but also meet some of our finest folks that serve you, protect you, and we even have some fun games and fun toys for the kids as well. And Otis, obviously, will be making an appearance. IN ADDITION, FROM A PUBLIC SAFETY PERSPECTIVE, OUR POLICE DEPARTMENT HAS PARTNERED WITH WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT AGAIN. THEY ARE FACILITATING A BIKE THE VETERANS MEMORIAL WILL TAKE PLACE ON SATURDAY, JULY 25, TAKE PLACE ON SATURDAY, JULY 25, BEGINNING AT 9 A.M. BEGINNING AT 9 A.M. STARTING AT THE VETERANS STARTING AT THE VETERANS MEMORIAL HERE AT THE CITY MEMORIAL HERE AT THE CITY HALL CAMPUS AND GOING ALL THE HALL CAMPUS AND GOING ALL THE WAY AROUND TO THE COURTYARD WAY AROUND TO THE COURTYARD BY MARRIOTT RIGHT AT RADIO DRIVE BY MARRIOTT RIGHT AT RADIO DRIVE AND 94 ESSENTIALLY. AND 94 ESSENTIALLY. I THINK, MAYOR, ARE YOU GOING I THINK, MAYOR, ARE YOU GOING TO BE SAYING A FEW WORDS, TOO? TO BE SAYING A FEW WORDS, TOO? I AM AT THE 830 EVENT. I Support of the Wounded Warrior Project.

The map is online because folks line the streets and flags and waves. Anywhere along the route. Anywhere along that route.

Bring your flags. It'd be nice to see it lined this year. So I really do encourage everybody to get out there and line this route.

Thank you for that. Exactly. TWO MORE THINGS REAL QUICK. FILING PERIOD FOR OUR LOCAL ELECTIONS, MAYOR AND COUNCIL ARE OPEN. THEY'LL BE OPEN UNTIL, OR IT WILL BE OPEN UNTIL TUESDAY, JULY 28th AT 5 PM. THEN THERE'S A TWO-DAY RETRACTION PERIOD. SO IF PEOPLE FILED AND THEY HAVE A SECOND THOUGHTS, THEY HAVE UNTIL JULY 30TH, SO TWO DAYS AFTER AT 5 PM AS WELL. SO FAR, I MEAN, THIS IS GREAT. PEOPLE WANT TO GET INVOLVED. WE HAVE TWO RUNNING FOR MAYOR AND NINE RUNNING FOR THE TWO COUNCIL SEATS. 10 AS OF TODAY, I'M SORRY. 10 AS OF TODAY, I'M SORRY. 10 AS OF TODAY, I'M SORRY. SO A LOT OF INTEREST. SO A LOT OF INTEREST. SO A LOT OF INTEREST. THAT'S GREAT. THAT'S GREAT. THAT'S GREAT. LASTLY, ON MONDAY, LASTLY, ON MONDAY, LASTLY, ON MONDAY, CITY STAFF UNVEILED THE CITY STAFF UNVEILED THE CITY STAFF UNVEILED THE INCOME-BASED ASH TREE REMOVAL INCOME-BASED ASH TREE REMOVAL INCOME-BASED ASH TREE REMOVAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAM. ASSISTANCE PROGRAM. ASSISTANCE PROGRAM. I KNOW IT JUST DOESN'T SOUND LIKE I KNOW IT JUST DOESN'T SOUND LIKE YOU KNOW, ATTRACTIVE OR EYE CATCHING NAME, BUT IT IS REALLY COOL. OBVIOUSLY THE EMERALD ASHBORN EPIDEMIC OR HOWEVER YOU WANT TO CALL IT IS SPREAD THROUGHOUT THE COMMUNITY. A LOT OF DEAD TREES STILL. WE'VE MADE A LOT OF PROGRESS, BUT IT'S A SIGNIFICANT BURDEN TO HOMEOWNERS, REGARDLESS OF, YOU KNOW, YOUR DEMOGRAPHICS AND YOUR FINANCIAL STANDING. WE'VE PARTNERED, OUR STAFF HAS PARTNERED WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND RECEIVED GRANT FUNDS TO ASSIST INCOME QUALIFIED HOMEOWNERS TO HELP TAKE DOWN ASH TREES THAT YOU STILL HAVE IN YOUR YARD. SO FOR FOLKS THAT ARE INTERESTED, GO TO OUR WEBSITE. THE APPLICATION WINDOW IS STARTED ON MONDAY AND GOES ALL THE WAY UNTIL AUGUST 9th OR UNTIL MONEY RUNS OUT ESSENTIALLY. THERE'S ABOUT FIVE OR SO QUALIFICATIONS. YOU HAVE TO MEET THE INCOME REQUIREMENTS. YOU HAVE TO OWN THE PROPERTY. YOU HAVE TO SHOW KIND OF PROOF CHILDREN OR OTHER FOLKS IN THE HOUSEHOLD. BUT IT'S ALL STRAIGHTFORWARD. WE'VE ALREADY GOT A FAIR AMOUNT OF PEOPLE THAT HAVE APPLIED, SO PLEASE, FOR THOSE THAT ARE LISTENING, FOR THOSE THAT KNOW SOMEBODY THAT MIGHT BE INTERESTED, IT'S A REALLY UNIQUE PROGRAM THAT'S SPECIAL TO WOODBURY BECAUSE OF OUR GREAT STAFF THAT HAVE GOT SOME FUNDS FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FOR THIS PARTICULAR PURPOSE. SO GO ON OUR WEBSITE AND CHECK IT OUT. IT ENDS THE WINDOW ENDS AUGUST 9th.

AND FOR CLARIFICATION, THAT'S TO REPLANT. IS THAT WHAT YOU SAID, TO REPLANT?

REMOVE. REMOVAL ASSISTANCE.

OKAY, GOT IT.

YEAH, IT'S SEVERAL THOUSAND DOLLARS TO REMOVE A BIGGER TREE.

MINIMUM.

YEAH, YEP. AND JUST TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA OF THE INCOME REQUIREMENTS FOR A HOUSEHOLD OF ONE, THE LIMIT IS JUST UNDER 74,000. HOUSEHOLD OF FIVE IS JUST UNDER 114,000. HOUSEHOLD OF FIVE IS JUST UNDER 114,000. SO THAT'S KIND OF THE RANGE OF SO THAT'S KIND OF THE RANGE OF LIMITS THERE. LIMITS THERE. THAT'S ALL. THAT'S ALL. THANK YOU, MAYOR.

THANK YOU, MAYOR. GREAT, THANK YOU. GREAT, THANK YOU. THAT'S THE LAST MAJOR ITEM ON THAT'S THE LAST MAJOR ITEM ON OUR AGENDA, BUT WE DO HAVE AN OUR AGENDA, BUT WE DO HAVE AN ITEM NUMBER 10, WHICH IS THE ITEM NUMBER 10, WHICH IS THE FACT THAT WE NEED TO ADJOURN Statement I need to read. So pursuant to Minnesota Statute 13D.05, Subdivision 3B, and based upon the advice of the seated attorney, I recommend that the City Council enter into and hold a closed meeting for the purpose of engaging in confidential and privileged litigation status and strategy discussions with our Litigation Council the City Attorney of Eckberg-Lambers PC regarding the estate of Raymond Lee versus the City of Woodbury litigation matter, Washington County District Court File Number 82-CV-23-4267. The closed meeting will be held in the Cherry Conference Room. The Council will intend to adjourn the meeting at the end of the closed session without returning back to the open session. On the foregoing basis, I hereby make a motion to go into closed session on this matter. Second. Motion is second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. We will now adjourn. Thank you.