Speaker numbers apply only to this recording. Names come from transcript evidence. “Possibly” marks uncertain attribution.
The Edina City Council met on Tuesday, June 16, 2026, at 7:00 PM in City Hall Council Chambers. The meeting featured extensive public comment on the proposed Wooddale Avenue bike lane project, public hearings on a liquor license suspension and parking amendments, and approval of numerous consent agenda items including the annual financial report and bond sales.
So let's get to work. Well, good evening, everybody. It is uh Tuesday, June 16th, 2026. Don't forget about Juneteenth on the on Friday. We got a big celebration down at uh Centennial Lakes if you want to make it down there during the day. Uh so it is Tuesday, June 16, 2026. It is 7.01 p.m. This is the Dinah City Council. And as Director Benarott indicated, we've been doing these meetings on a hybrid sort of basis. So folks can watch from home. We've been doing it since uh the time of the pandemic and post-pandemic. People can call in if they want to call in at certain points in the meeting. We cut a couple opportunities tonight. We've got public hearings and then we've got public comment as well. Um one thing I wanted to cover in advance here is that I think Director Benarott might have indicated that um if it's if it's a matter scheduled for a future public hearing or it's something that's otherwise on the agenda tonight, it's off limits for public comment. Um and I I'm suspecting that many of you, because we saw some signs, I saw some signs along Wooddale Avenue about uh about Wooddale and uh the the um staff recommendation that's coming up, I think the end of July on Wooddale that's many of you are here on that issue. Is that is that true? If you want to raise your hand and tell me, okay, so um that's fine. Um I think it's it's what's coming on the agenda tonight is uh us is something uh written to us from the Adina Transportation Commission in the form of their recommendations. Uh but I don't want to get caught caught up on that technicality. So I'm gonna let folks uh we're gonna let folks talk. We've had a little conversation up here. Uh happy to have you here with us and express your concerns one way or the other about uh that proposed bike lane on Wooddale. And uh the only thing I would suggest is that as you listen to other people talking, we've we've had some great input on this already, I can tell you from a written standpoint. People on Wooddale, people from the bicycling community, a lot of different views, but very, very well expressed. So we're very well uh aware of the of the issues involved. So if you think that you might be uh saying the same thing as somebody else's saying that your testimony might be redundant, or your concerns that you're expressing might be redundant to somebody else's if you if you you don't have to get up and and tell us what your opinion is. You don't want to, but you're so sure welcome to, because I remember years ago um there was a guy in our lived in Dina named Peter Brocius, who ran the children's theater, and he told me once, Jimmy and he said, you know, uh democracy and uh theater both began in Greece. And uh the point of democracy was uh all voices matter and all voices should be given an opportunity to be heard. And so that's what we're gonna be doing here tonight. We're gonna give you a chance to express your opinion. You've got three minutes, and you're gonna get a yellow uh yellow light warning you when you got about 30 seconds left. So make sure that you stay on the clock. We treat everybody the same that way. Everybody's opinion is valued, but everybody gets the same amount of time to express that opinion. And so um providing that information, let's um let's call the meeting to order. And um, I'm gonna ask our clerk uh Sharon Allison to call the role. Councilmember Agnian? Here. Councilmember Jackson. Here. Councilmember Pierce. Here. Councilmember Risser. Here. Mayor Hudman.