Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
The Edina City Council held the first part of its 2026 retreat on April 28, 2026, at the South Metro Public Safety Training Facility. The meeting focused on the 2027-2032 Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) and 2027 Budget, horizon projects for parks and recreation, and the transition to a new city manager. Staff presented challenging financial data on deferred maintenance and rising construction costs, prompting a detailed council discussion on sustainability, levy targets, and service levels.
Budget Work Plan Update: City Manager-in-Transition Ari proposed adding the city manager search to the budget work plan and renaming interrelated capital projects (Fire Station #3 land acquisition, police department expansion, City Hall renovations) as the "Municipal Campus Project" to reflect their interconnection.
2027-2032 CIP and 2027 Budget Presentation (Derek, Paul): Facilities Director Derek reported that deferred maintenance reached $72.9M in 2026. Removing the Art Center, old Fire Station #2, and partially the Graymar Arena complex reduces it to approximately $54M. The city requires an estimated $10 million annually for a decade just for like-for-like replacements. Construction costs have risen 30% since 2020, with an additional 12-14% increase between 2024 and 2025. Finance Director Paul presented the budget timeline. The operating budget projection was reduced from 9.82% to 8.83% after finding $630k in savings. Staff floated a potential early payoff of the 2016A and 2017C debt issues to reduce the 2027 levy burden. Councilmembers Risser and Evelyn expressed frustration over the timing of budget information, requesting earlier access to data and scenarios showing different levy increase targets to avoid rushed decisions in September. The discussion highlighted the tension between capital investment needs, operating costs, and taxpayer affordability.
Horizon Parks and Recreation Projects (Perry): The Minnesota Golf Association (MGA) submitted a letter of interest in a potential partnership for a new clubhouse at Braymar Golf Course. Staff plan to deliver a comprehensive study of Edinburgh Park in Q4 2026 to evaluate its four functions (aquatics, fitness, play park, common areas) given significant deferred maintenance and structural challenges. Maintenance agreements generating $330k in annual revenue for Centennial Lakes Park are set to expire at the end of 2028.
City Manager Transition Update (Dave, Ari): Consultant Dave reported that over 200 stakeholders provided input on the desired qualities for the next city manager, yielding 28 characteristics across seven themes. The selection committee recommended DDA and Associates (Liza Dallason) as the search firm. Council discussed the desirable balance between an "operational" leader focused on basics and a "visionary" strategist, with several members emphasizing a need for pragmatic fiscal discipline.
Good evening, everybody, and welcome to what we think is part one of the uh city council retreat for 2026. Uh we are operating this year of this retreat in two halves. We got tonight's half, and we're gonna ro operate this as as closely as we can toward a format of a city council work session. So we talked with the mayor about uh about operating, we've got staff presentations on budget uh on facilities, and then the last piece of the night is uh around the city manager search process. So with that, Ari, you want to take it away from here? Yeah, um we can do need to call the order. Yeah, I think we do need to call the order. Mr. Mayor. Jim, you wouldn't. Do what? We'll do call to order, just like we're good. All right. All right, we'll call the yeah, thank you for that. I'm busy studying the agenda. Uh we'll call the meeting order and we'll ask our uh we'll ask somebody to do the roll call. We're doing it. I can do it. Councilmember Agnew here, Councilmember Risser, here, Mayor Evelyn. Here, uh Councilmember Jackson here, Council Member Pierce. Here. All right. And uh third bag order to May for Neil. Okay. Um, how do you want to start? Do you want to start with you or with Pa? Um I'm gonna just go over a couple quick things while Paul's getting set up. Um, first thing we're all adults, there's bathrooms, restrooms over there. If you need to from a protocol perspective, go ahead and um quietly excuse yourself. But we will take a break before we transition topics. Um so that's good. Um we're gonna treat this like Scott said as like a super work session, so the mayor's gonna um kind of coordinate and facilitate from that perspective. But Scott and I will help out, and if we get stuck on something that really probably deserves a longer conversation than what we're able to give it today, I do have the handybandy parking lot set up over there so we can go ahead and put stuff so we honor it, but maybe we don't talk about it at this exact moment. Um and then I'm gonna go ahead and dive right into the the first item, which is the budget work plan update. Um we adopted the budget work plan as part of the budget process in um in December. Um there's two things from the budget work plan, um minor updates that we are recommending that we go ahead and add um or modify. The first one is with the city manager transitioning, uh, we would like to add that to the budget work plan. Um it's it we're already doing the work associated with it, but it's um a pretty big organizational item, and so we feel that that should be something we update the community on and that we um honor the amount of time that we're gonna spend on it. And then the second change that we're recommending, and this is mostly just a practical thing, is that we are working simultaneously on uh land acquisition for fire station number three, and also talking at the same time about um future expansion for the police department and some um renovations at City Hall. So those three projects um sort of actually a lot of the work that's being done associated with those projects is the same, and so we're recommending that rather than having um items that refer to other items on the budget work plan that we just start calling that a municipal campus project and that there might be multiple phases to that project, so we might end up building the fire station first, renovating um the other the existing building second, but that we really recognize it as one project that is interconnected, the site plan work, all of that and the layout, as assuming that we are able to acquire the five the land next to city hall for fire station number three, that these projects really run hand in hand. And so those are the two items that we're recommending from a budget work thin perspective for you guys to consider modifying. And with that, unless there's any discussion or questions on that, maybe we can turn it over to Pa. I am trying to figure out which cave will work better if I'm standing up here or if I'm sitting or standing here. Um I'm gonna continue because we're gonna have various people speaking to different topics. So I'm gonna come back to my share.