Good evening, everyone.

We're gonna call the city council meeting to order for February 2nd.

Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

Run nation, under

God, indivisible with

liberty

and justice for

all.

Thank you, everyone.

The clerk will take the role.

Council members Fleming here.

Ford.

Larson?

Here, Masolia.

Here.

Newland.

Robertson here.

Mayor Sanders.

Here.

All right, we're gonna start this evening with uh some presentations.

Uh

every single year.

Uh the city of Blaine uh gets to uh designate uh charities in which we pass along uh our charitable gambling proceeds from different establishments throughout the community.

Uh we get to turn those uh back around and hand them off to local charities that are doing great work in the community.

And for that presentation, I'll turn things over to Director Zimmerman.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor and Council.

Uh as you noted this evening, the council has an opportunity to recognize uh 15 separate nonprofits.

Um these nonprofits applied for and will receive funding through charitable gambling proceeds that were remitted back to the city in accordance with state law and city charter.

And in total, there's gonna be just over 193,000 that's handed out tonight.

So

any nonprofit that was interested in requesting funding was required to complete an online application this previous spring.

Um they're required to detail how their organization serves the citizens of Blaine and then how the proceeds would be utilized to fulfill their mission.

The council then met on October 6th to discuss the annual award process, and we're provided scoring sheets to determine how they would like to uh allocate the funding.

Staff then comply compiled the results and presented this information back to the council on October 20th with the intent of providing awards this evening.

So the sequence of events uh this evening, just to keep things orderly here.

Uh at the conclusion of the presentation, council will have an opportunity to provide comment on the process and the services the selected nonprofits provide to Blaine residents.

We'll then ask the representatives from benefiting organizations to come forward for photo opportunity with the council, and then uh staff will just distribute checks uh just outside the council chambers at the conclusion of the presentation and the photo opportunity.

So, with that, I'll turn it back over to the mayor and council

excellent, thank you very much.

Uh, which what direction do you want to go?

Do you want to just do one large conversation?

Yeah, mayor, pull them up individually.

Yeah, well, I think it'd be appropriate just to allow the the council if they have any specific comments about just the process and any of the nonprofits in particular that they'd like to recognize.

Um, and then at the conclusion of those meetings to to do the photo opportunity in front of the dais.

Excellent.

Thank you, Director Zimmerman.

With that being said, council, any thoughts or discussion on the awards and presentations this evening.

Councilmember Robertson.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, we do go through this process every year, and it's nice every once in a while to use dollars that's not collected from taxpayers.

Like uh director Zimmerman said, this is state statutory uh dollars that we have access to through the charitable gambling revenue that's collected throughout the city.

But I will say it because this is what six, seven years, eight years that I've been up here doing this.

I'm so overwhelmed by the incredible way that community acts as community.

I

mean, when you look at the difference between, I mean, 15 nonprofits, we have food shelves that are incredible and serve a huge void in need in our community, and it's not just one, we have multiple, and that's amazing.

We are literally called to love and serve people, and so I I love seeing that.

Um, we have the Yellow Ribbon Committee helping veterans, the Blaine Area Little League, Youth Sports are kind of the heartbeat of our community here, so it's incredibly able to help youth sports, the Blaine Police Federation, um, the Minnesota 100 Club, which is another organization that helps uh families uh and first responders, the Salvation Army, SBM, um, the emergency again, the emergency food shelters, um, an entity that works on the rusty bikes that sit under our deck that we're so sick and tired of that we don't want anymore.

They will literally take your donations and fix them up and give them to kids and families that um need a little recreation.

So, again, this is one of the really warm-hearted things that we get to do.