The Rochester City Council convened at 6:00 p.m. on September 9, 2024, to address a full agenda including a public hearing, consent agenda, a hazardous mitigation plan, and the adoption of the 2025 preliminary tax levy. The meeting included an open comment period with seven speakers, and later recessed to an executive session and an Economic Development Authority meeting. The council adjourned at 11:08 p.m.
Recording in progress. Please rise as you're able for the Pledge of Allegiance. Welcome, hello everyone to our welcome to our city council meeting for September 9th, 2024. Great to have you all here with us this evening. Just a reminder that we do take breaks every 90 to 120 minutes between items. So we open every meeting with an open comment period, and this is an opportunity for anyone from the public who would like to speak on items that we will not be taking public testimony on later in a public hearing in the agenda. Each person has up to two minutes for a total of 20 minutes, and I will be keeping track of time through a variety of methods. There's a stoplight here, there's a timer on the clock or up on the wall, and I will be also reminding you when you're getting close to make sure that other people signed up have time to speak. But we ask that you do so respectfully and that you address your comments towards me as the presiding officer. I use the list that the city clerk has given me. If you have items you'd like to hand out during open comment, please do so to the clerk ahead of time, and she will also make sure that we receive those. All right, so I will go ahead and open public comment and invite Rob Howbett. Please correct your name if I misspeak. Rod How Beth? Wonderful. And please state your name and you have two minutes. My name is Rod Hayworth. Rod Hayworth, welcome. I'm the closest filled veterans. And I'm here basically cordially invite uh uh Madam Mayor, all board members, and uh anyone with an earshot on the 14th of September down to the Soldiersfield Veterans Memorial. We're gonna be talking about the past, the present, and the future. We're gonna be talking about the foundation of the wall, how uh Wayne Stillman uh helped develop that entire project. We unfortunately lost Mr. Stillman earlier this year. Uh we're gonna be talking about uh his his uh tremendous contributions and the dedication of Wayne Stillman Drive down there, and then I'm gonna come up and talk about the expansion of the wall if you want to look in your graphics that uh we provided. We're adding another ring to the memorial that's going to cover the GWAT era. So we just came out of the global war on terror, started of course before 9-11, and then uh led all the way through the 2000s up to 2021 with the withdrawal in Afghanistan. We've been talking about that and what we're gonna be putting on that wall, and then the last portion we're gonna be talking about uh a bench that we're donating to uh Wayne and Carol Stillman right at the entrance of the memorial. It's be a beautiful piece uh that will be there for uh for generations to come. That is my presentation. Thank you. And we have your materials. Thank you, Mr. Hayworth. Thank you. Wayne Wilson. Good evening. I'm Wayne Wilson. I live in Northwest Rochester. Uh I just want to say a few words about the proposed tax levy. Um I moved here in 2011 in Rochester to retire. And since then, my property taxes have gone up 65 percent. I'm just asking you, please to reduce the spending and uh stop the tax increase in taxes. Um all the costs keep going up for us to we don't be in retard, we don't get much of an increase on Social Security. Um I can't just give myself a big raise. And um the homeowner's insurance went up 50 percent just a few weeks ago. And uh all the uh medical and premiums are horrendous. We pay more in Southeast Minnesota just because Mail Clinic is your is the highest in the state. Probably one of the highest in the country for medical health insurance. But um I can't ask you questions, can I?