Please rise as you're able to for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the United States of America and to the Republic religious one nation under God with liberty and justice for all.

Welcome everybody to our December 1st uh city council meeting.

We begin each council meeting with our open comment period.

This is an opportunity for anyone from the public to speak on items that we we will not be taking a separate public hearing on later in the agenda.

Each person has up to two minutes to speak for a total of 20 minutes.

Participants are further encouraged to limit comments generally to topics that are within the scope and jurisdiction of the council's ability to affect policy.

Council members and staff do not respond to your comments during public comment, but will instead follow up on any specific requests separately.

If you have materials to share with the council, please give them to the city clerk who is to the right of me.

Uh and uh she will distribute it to uh council members.

And at this point, I will invite you up uh in the order in which you signed up.

First up is Casey McGregor.

Hello, company.

Oh, yep, there we go.

Hello, council, uh Casey McGregor.

I believe like our I believe licensed business owners are the backbone of our community.

I've heard politicians on both sides of the political spectrum discussing enforcements to move move a political agendas.

Removing the judicial branch from the procedure of licensure enforced is not trivial.

Most important is when a business itself is put at risk.

So I asked the council to consider amending the authorization for licensed enforcements via an administrative alternate to add the limitations that if a business is put at risk, the clerk's office must go through the courts and not use the expedited administration track, requiring the clerk to consider the implications of the enforcement before acting is part of the point.

By federal constitution guarantee, the people are not to be deprived by government action of our property without due process of the law, and licenses are recognized property interests in protected under the constitution.

See Wayne Lafayette.

It is furthermore proper for council to reconsider and amend the licensor changes as the passage was not executed properly, as the substance of the item was changed without necessary action.

The original proposed action considered of 17 business types, and the clerk removed gambling licenses from the administration enforcement, making it a list of 16.

Council rules match Roberts' rules, and thus the action was improperly executed in revising this matter to correct the council should adopt a limitation that the clerk's office should revert to the actual court procedures if a business is reasonably at risk of undergoing the enforcement measure.

A business owner could be shuttered with only limited appeal as means of any examination from a court.

It is a fair enough principle that you should be able to see an actual judge before losing your business.

Thank you.

This is uh our open comment period.

Anyone wishing to be uh heard, please step forward.

Anyone wishing to be heard, please step forward.

Seeing no one, we will close the public comment period.

And uh Clerk Caso, could you please call the roll?

Good evening.

Councilmember Keene.

Here, Councilmember Miller, here, Councilmember Wall.

Here.

Councilmember Fredericks.

Here.

Councilmember Palmer.

Here.

Councilmember Doring.

Here.

Council President Schubring.

Here.

Mayor Norton.

Present.

Thank you.

Next up we have the City Administrators Report.

Administrator Zelms.

Thank you, Council President.

I'm gonna hope to be able to see where I'm advancing.

Oh I'm gonna need help advancing the slides.

This is a clicking through.

Uh go to that.

I always start my administrator's report with thanking our teammates for acting with respect integrity, safety, and excellent.

Administrators, can I stop you?

On our screens, we have uh the uh attendees by the the virtual attendees.

Could we get the screens on our console?

There we uh it was there for a second.

Yes, every other has it.

Oh I got it.

And other ones are blank.

Okay.

I think every other is as good we can do as we can do tonight.

Got it.

Okay.

Continue administrator.

We'll do the best I can.

All right, so the next slide.

Um you may be surprised to learn, and many people may be grateful to learn.

Lime Lime uh services are paused for the winter.

So um during uh winter when we are likely to have inclement weather, um, the Lyme e-bikes and electric scooters are collected and stored.

Um so they will be back in spring of 2026, but right now they are not available based on the winter weather.

Um also probably opportune time to share that um you can uh find out our snow removal prioritization by going to Rochester Mn.gov forward slash winter.

We have a significant number of miles of roads that need to be um cleared every time we have a snow event.

Um we do prioritize certain emergency routes and our transit routes and then um go back and have a pickup process for cul-de-sacs, etc.

So if you're interested in how that works, um it is um it is available on our website.

Also, it shares information about which um sidewalks and bike paths are uh plowed and cleared by city employees.

Um did just want to give a shout out to everyone who was plowing this weekend, um whether that was a sidewalk, a trail, a parking lot, or um somewhere out on uh public roads.

Thank you for your service.

And last thing I have is um 2nd Street Southwest um is reopened for the winter.

Um so 2nd Street between 11th uh and 13th Avenue Southwest is now open.

Um that part of the Link Rapid Transit uh construction won't be impacting that roadway throughout the winter.

And for those of you who maybe take College View Drive, that is also open through the winter.

Thank you, Mrs.

Elms.

I was going to mention that if you didn't, because I do take that home.

Next up we have the mayor's report.

Mayor Norton.

Well, thank you very much.

And I was going to mention Fourth Street as well.

And the reason I was going to mention that is let's see if this is working.

It is on every other one.

It's not but it's not forwarding.

Let's try again.

There we go.

Um the uh better public meetings group.

The gentleman who's been doing the research up to this point is coming to town.

He will be doing a kind of a town hall, if you will, and we'll all be there.

Uh building a local democracy that works for everyone is at RCTC this week on Thursday, December 4th, from 5:30 to 7:30.

The community is welcome.

There is still a QR code there that you can scan to fill out if you have not already.

Um, and then attend the forum, whether you filled out the survey or not.

We're just looking for input and um to have some folks really sitting at a table putting some thought into running better meetings uh and using the public uh better in at in boards and commissions as well.

So again, RCTC on Thursday and Fourth Street is open.

Also wanted to mention um the three of us went to the National League of Cities Convention and we were awarded the Just Cities Global Award.

Um there were five cities in the country.

Well, one international and four in the United States that were recognized at the convention.

So I have the plaque, which needs to go somewhere.

And um, City Administrators Elms, if you have an idea about where we might put it, we have a plaque, or we can put it in the the foyer uh in the cases there at some point if you'd like.

So it was really nice to to be recognized in that way.

New Year's celebration, New Year's Eve.

We have been hosting for the last several years a family and it's really family focused New Year's Eve celebration at Mayo Civic Center.

It is open to the public.

I thought it was going to be eight, but the ball drop is at six.

So for the youngsters who want to come and have a ball drop, we're doing it at six, a few hours early.

We don't want them up till midnight.

They'll be cranky the next day.

So it's really fun.

There's roller skating, lots of fun activities for kids to do.

It's free for the family.

And it's really it's really great.

Video video games and a dance party, uh, rock climbing walls, all sorts of stuff for kids to do.

So you can purchase food and beverage while you're there if you like, or go home for lunch or dinner.

Or even better yet, go downtown and visit one of our local restaurants.

So we have been re uh upping our game when it came to uh sister cities.

Uh we have five of them.

We have visited three of them over the course of my tenure here.

I know Mayor Brady, Mayor Hazama, Mayor Canfield all made some of those visits as well.

This year it will be in Germany, June 12th to 22nd.

It's a 10-day trip.

Um, if you're interested, we have uh there's a QR code there where you can read more and sign up, but we also have some brochures up in my office.

So please contact me and consider coming.

We will go to Mooseburg, which was uh one of Chuck Hazama's um fund cities that he started that relationship many, many years ago.

It's like 46, 47, 48 years ago.

Uh and and uh then we will end um at um we'll go to several cities in between, but then end in uh Munster, which is our sister city for energy environment.

Lovely city, and we'll the mayor there and the city's already making some plans for our visit.

So feel free to join us for that.

And lastly, just an announcement.

The mayor's state of the city is January 8th, 2026.

It will be a 7:30 a.m.

breakfast.

You can choose to purchase a breakfast and stay and eat, or you can just come and listen.

It will be um I will do the state of the city, and we also invite local leaders from all the other governmental bodies um to speak as well.

So it's good to be able to hear from the school district, the county, and the city about what's to come in the coming year.

So that's all I have today.

And there is the mayor's office number if you care to call.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh-oh.

Something happened.

Okay.

There we go.

Well, as they are working on that, it sounds like maybe we're in a good place now.

Uh uh next up on our agenda is the order of the agenda.

Um, are there any changes to the agenda?

Seeing none, is there a motion to approve the agenda?

So move move by council member Wall.

Second.

Seconded by Councilmember Doring.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed say nay.

Motion passes.

Moving on to our consent agenda.

I have received one polled item, F eight uh from Councilmember Palmer.

Is there anything else?

Seeing none, uh, I'd invite a motion to approve and block items F1 through F7 and F9 and F10.

So moved.

Moved by Councilmember Miller.

Second, seconded by councilmember Keene.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed, say nay.

Motion passes.

We have one, I believe, uh public hearing on our agenda tonight before we begin the public hearing.

Uh uh, just a moment to clarify the process a little different from our uh open comment period.

Staff will first introduce the uh the item, and then if there is an applicant or applicant representative, they will have up to 10 minutes uh for to discuss the item.

Then we we will open the public hearing.

Members of the public have five minutes each uh and are also encouraged to keep comments brief and concise and build on uh previous comments.

Yeah, then I will close the public hearing.

And if there is an applicant, they will have five minutes to uh discuss any issues that came up during the public hearing, and then at that point, council members will ask questions of the of staff and the applicant and or the applicant, and then at that point uh uh we will invite a motion on the item and further discussion.

So with that, uh we have one public hearing, which is the adoption of the 2026 property tax levy and the 2026-2027 operating budget and the 2026 2031 capital improvement plan budget.

And administrator Zelms, this is your item.

Thank you, Council President, Council members, Mayor Norton.

This members of the public, this is the public hearing for the budget for the 2026-2027 budget.

What you are looking at tonight is primarily going to be adopting a property tax levy for 2026, although it also provides a bit of a glide path and runway for what you can expect for your supplemental budget in 2027.

And as noted, a significant amount of information about the capital improvement program, which we try to plan out as a six-year program of large projects that are forthcoming to the city.

So with that, I will seek to advance two sets of slides here and bear with me.

We've been on a journey of the budget since about April.

Our teammates, and thank you very much to Rachel Hodick, Brian Anderson, Aaron Parrish, Josh Doer, all of the department heads and the folks throughout their departments that work so hard to bring the budget together.

They start in February and actually started in November of last year this time to bring you this budget.

We come forward with the factors that are influencing the budget, some of which aren't in our control, and then bring forward the baseline budget adjustments.

So the things that are necessary in order to continue to provide the services that are expected, any adjustments for additional service or new services and new resources for the community.

For anybody that's interested, we do have links to all of those different presentations on the website.

If you go to departments finance and current year budget, you can see all of those things if it's something that interests you.

Oh my goodness, are here again to adopt the levy, receive feedback from the community during the public hearing.

And I do think it's also important to note and I'll have a few slides on this.

Um increases in taxes really are often impacted significantly by the property valuation, which comes to each property owner in the spring of each year, which doesn't have the new tax levies on it, that comes in November.

But those um assessed about the evaluation of each property is a large factor of how much your property tax might shift each year.

Um and that process of appeal of the assessment that that someone may have for their property is through the Olmstead County Assessor's Office.

Um you can do that at any time, but they they do those appeal hearings in June of each year.

Um so you they can be reached at 507-328-7635 or property web at CCO.mn.us.

So that's an important thing for you to be aware of.

Um, even if you miss this year, if you feel like your property valuation was inaccurate for 2020, the 2026 um payment, you can still do that with the county for um next year.

So just an important note that the city doesn't actually do those um assessments for um the property valuation.

Um there are also a number of programs through the state and Olmsted County, um, depending on qualifications that folks should be aware of.

Um, the special homestead classification for um blind or permanently and totally disabled um persons.

Um so again, you would need to qualify for something like that.

Um, it adjusts the uh valuation of property, the market value exclusion on homestead property of disabled veterans, senior citizen property tax deferral is an option, um and homestead exclusion programs for those who've seen a very significant increase in their total property tax are things that people should check into.

We are cruising through this.

Um, and then also it's important to note that the homestead credit refund program is available, the renters property tax refund for those that rent.

It is assumed that you're about 17% of your rent is coming to you to pay for property tax.

Um so that's something that you can write off your income taxes, and then the targeting property tax refund program.

So all of those, we've provided the links, but maybe easier for you to go to revenue.state.mn.us forward slash property dash tax dash refund.

Um, these are clickable links that are available on our website, or you can call them at 651-296-3781 or mail them for information.

So those are just things that people may um be interested in checking out if you have a neighbor or um someone else in your life that you think might qualify for those or would benefit from them.

We would recommend that um you check out the information on those pages in order to see if you qualify for something of that nature.

Um the operating budget, I'll just go through briefly.

Um, all funds combined, um, we have a budget before us of 693.4 million.

That is all of our capital projects, our utilities like stormwater, electric, water, um, our debt service, all of those things wrapped up.

So our entire budget and what it is we are anticipating it will cost this year in order to operate all of the services of the city, including Rochester Public Utilities is that 693.4 million.

And you can see, maybe you can't see, but if you check it out, you can see that of that operation, so day-to-day operations, making sure the services are being provided is about 421 million, debt service is about 26 million, and our capital improvement plan for this year is anticipated to be about 246 million dollars.

So being able to make sure that the infrastructure that's in place is well cared for is a really important part of our capital improvement program.

Um, all told, that's a $6.6 million increase in the total property tax that needs to be collected in order to provide services that are funded by the property tax.

And that 5.95% increase is not the tax rate increase.

So I think that's just a really important thing to note.

Everyone's tax bill will really adjust more so based on their assessed valuation and how much their classification of property change relative to the rest of the classes of property.

This recommended budget also includes a 4% increase in the general rate for the electric utility and 9% for a rate increase for the water utility.

And there was a slight change in how this was accounted for from the preliminary budget if you have those numbers in front of you.

And you can see on this slide, we have a number of different revenue sources that also are necessary in order to fund those expenses.

You can see here, well, again, it's very small, but if you're logged in, you can check this out online.

Um we're anticipating an increase in the tax levy necessary.

Um, that is about $6.6 million of all of the revenue, but you can all uh increase in all of the revenue, but you can also see that we've seen increases in other areas like the hotel motel tax, which is helpful to fund the civic center and some other entities that help us to improve the economy, uh, inspection permits, service fees, um the allocation that we have for the increased service level, so we can keep providing all the permitting while bold forward unbound is going on.

Um there are increases in the in lieu of tax and sewer utility as well as other charges that are available to fund our electric water and stormwater sewer utilities.

Um while the property tax is very important to people, there are a lot of other ways that that $694 million is funded because the property tax is about $118 million of that.

$694 million.

My apologies.

I'm clicking too fast or too slow.

Um, so this is another way of looking at that chart.

You can see that the charges for service are a significant portion of the budget, and that makes sense because we do have significant amount of utilities that are provided for the city, and you pay for those in the rates that you pay based on how much you're using in electric water sewer and what your impact is on the stormwater.

Miscellaneous revenue is also not a small portion of this.

So capital improvement program costs, um, private funds, other types of revenue that are necessary in order to complete our programming.

The tax levy is about 17% of the total revenue that comes in to provide to support the city services, and then we do get intergovernmental revenue, whether that's our agreements with the federal government, state government, or our local government aid.

So the tax levy and tax capacity, as I mentioned, the total budget that was presented, recommended to the city council was $693.4 million dollars.

The preliminary tax levy that was approved in September was approved at $118 million, $284,623 million.

It's about a $6.6 million increase over the prior year.

And our teammates here did a really great job of trying to get that as low as possible while still adding additional services and resources as a growing community.

So a big thank you to them.

You can see another way of looking at this.

Um, most of the blue area are things that are necessary to continue to provide the service levels that people have come become accustomed to.

We have some reductions there.

Um, thank you to our team for trying to make reductions where possible.

Um, we've continued to try to stabilize our equipment revolving fund as prices of vehicles have increased.

Um, we didn't see any increase in the tax levy portion for the capital improvement plan.

Um, we did see again that holistic budget stability fund being used as we those COVID funds um have been depleted, and the city council had directed those to reduce the levy increases necessary portion of that.

And then employee services typically will go up between four and five percent each year across the tax levy.

The decision packages are some of those new and optimized resources to be able to continue to provide service as we grow and evolve.

And this is an important slide because what it shows is the actual net tax capacity rate.

So the rate that's going across all of those properties and is influencing your tax bill is still hovering in that 49 to 51%.

So what we anticipate for 2026, if this is approved, is a 50.39% tax rate, which is slightly lower than the 2025 rate.

But again, it will really depend on how your property adjusted in its valuation relative to other properties in that class.

We were fortunate also to have some increases in the amount of new construction, which helps to defray some of that depending on where folks were what tax category folks are in.

This is an example of a median value home.

So you can see if there was no valuation change for someone's home and they happen to live in a home that's valued at 288,000, they would actually have seen a slight decrease in the taxes that they owed.

If they increase the average increase of a median value home to a valuation of 304,000, you start seeing changes to what the actual tax collected is.

A part of that is that you start to see your homestead credit fall off as you rise in value of the home.

And then, of course, also if your valuation goes up more, you would absorb more of the tax rate for the city, the school district, and the county.

But those valuations are coming out at the beginning of the year for any updated assessments.

And then, of course, we start our budget process.

Um, we get some of the updated valuation information from the Olmsted County Assessor's Office later in our budget year.

So we often don't get that until we're ready to adopt the preliminary budget.

Um, and then the tax notices that go out again in November actually include what those adopted high level levies can be for any of the taxing entry entities that impact your tax bill.

Oh goodness.

Thank you.

I don't know if someone's helping me or if it's just magically happening, but thank you.

Um so another way of looking at this is between 2025 and the 2026 tax year, residential property made up a slightly smaller portion of the total tax valuation.

Um, so a little and that had not been happening that way during the pandemic and the years following that.

Um, commercial and industrial actually increased a slight amount by 0.5% of the total taxable valuation, the tax capacity of property and apartments stayed relatively flat at 10.5 and then 10.4%.

Um so we did see an increase in the total taxable market value and the taxable tax capacity, which is part of how the taxes that are from those entities spread across the tax bill.

Uh, and that's helpful.

Some of that was new construction, um, and that is also helpful to individual tax bills because that always absorbs the tax levy first before any um any existing property.

Another way of thinking about the budget is if you are living in that $304,000 median value home, um, you would have a levy of approximately one uh million or one million, goodness, $1,436 for that home, and the cost across your tax bill is going first and foremost to public safety.

That is a very labor-intensive type of work, whether that's police, fire, or building safety.

Um, then public works makes up about 172 dollars of that bill, general government, those are things like council development services, some of our maintenance, IT, HR, those types of services.

Um, so you can see that if you break down what the actual proportion of the budget is for that is paid for with the tax levy, that is how the tax bill is is actually coming to an individual, what makes up that thousand uh 1,436.

And then again, just one other way of looking at this, the property tax distribution by fund.

So the general fund, which is where police fire public works, et cetera, are funded, um, where those expenses come from, about 60 about well, we'll call it 70% of the property taxes necessary in order to support those.

We don't charge when uh fire fire department shows up or police show up.

Um, and then um from there, parks and recreation, uh, the um capital improvement program that I mentioned, uh, the library, um, some uh debt and internal service funds, and then a very small percent, less than one percent helps to offset some of the costs at the airport for utilities.

Oh goodness.

And this is just another way of looking at that.

Um, I do think it's important to note that oh goodness.

Sorry, I'm trying to do this in two places.

I should just look at your screen.

Um Destination Medical Center capital projects are not funded with the tax levy.

Um, those are all coming from either general state aid or other funding sources that are not local tax levy.

Thank you.

Um, the internal service funds, again, um, the library is very reliant on property taxes.

We don't have very many fees at the library, uh, municipal recreation.

There did do have some charges for service that offset some of their costs.

Um, and then again, the general fund, about 60% of all of the costs in the general fund are are paid for with the tax levy.

Um a part of that about 4% increase in um costs for salaries.

You can see um with the labor contracts that have been negotiated, um, some changes in the uh number of personnel and decision packages, and some of these in some cases are also um breaking out 311 in communications from administration, etc.

Um, there are it's significant costs.

If you have about a 50 million dollar police department, it's not insignificant.

A lot of that is personnel, and so um the increases for personnel end up adding to a fair amount of cost in the budget each year, but it's necessary, it's a 24 hour service, and we need to make sure that they're available whenever you call.

Oh man.

Um, another um thing that we like to show is compare the communities that are similar ish to the city of Rochester.

Um, you can see the populations there.

Um, these are our first cities of the first class in the state of Minnesota.

Um, our local government aid received is really based on an aid formula that doesn't serve Rochester well.

We are very self-reliant on all of our local revenue sources.

Um, but I did want to note um that we did add the the anticipated preliminary um change in the tax levy this year.

Um you can see some very significant differences in um how much um each community anticipates uh needing to bring in in their local tax levy to make all of their services work, um, and statewide um for all cities.

The preliminary levy was anticipated at an increase of 8.6 percent.

Um, so I think we tried to do um to bring this in um at a reasonable amount, but we do understand that it it can be impactful depending on um your specific tax bill.

Again, one more way of looking at this.

Can you advance me?

Thank you.

I think you've advanced me, probably 80% of the time.

Um, is that public safety, general government, public works, and other um that's um an increase of about 11.2 million.

So we needed to make a lot of decreases in those property tax funded expenses in order to bring a property tax that was only 6.6 million dollars larger than the prior year.

The rest of those are offset by revenue adjustments that aren't property tax or changes in um in costs and lowering costs for the 2026 year.

Um we are still catching up a bit, and I just recognize I will recognize that not everyone loves this chart.

Um lots of changes has happened have happened since 1980.

The in the internet, um, email teams, a lot of different things have happened that help us to not increase the number of um full-time equivalent employees contracting for services.

We do that in certain areas.

Um, but we have really grown a lot of our resources and and tried to not grow at that same rate the number of employees that are necessary in order to support the community so that we can try to keep those costs under control.

I will also just mention that our capital improvement um plan includes 224 projects in 21 different categories of project and funding.

Um, so that's about 246 million dollars of total investment that includes the Rochester public utilities project costs.

Um of that is funded by private investment, depending on the type of project, not just rates.

Um, and again, um the total um CIP, which runs from 2026 through 2031, has 378 projects.

Many of these are multi-year projects, um 21 categories and about 1.1 billion dollars of total investment, much of which is not coming from the tax levy.

We have been very blessed to receive um assistance with grants and otherwise from other levels of government that help to defray the local costs for these projects.

And with that, I believe that we will move to the I went too fast.

Public hearing.

Thank you, administrator Zelms.

At this point, I will open the public hearing, and we have uh uh one person who is signed up on our sign-up sheet, uh James Acklin.

James Acklin, if you'll step forward, and you have five minutes.

Good evening, honorable mayor and counselors.

My name is James Anklin.

I own a rare and unique property in Rochester.

It is an affordable rental property.

It's a nice place in a quiet neighborhood.

I'm fighting a losing battle with local governments who wring their hands, bemoaning the lack of affordable housing than implement policies, regulations, taxes, and fees that aggravate the problem.

My top four expenses, three are related to our local officials.

Local taxes are my largest expense.

My mortgage interest is next.

That's a fixed rate, fortunately.

RPU is third.

In other communities where I've owned property, the rates have been considerably lower.

My fourth expense is trash and recycling, which is a private company.

But their itemized bill has a lengthy and expensive list of local fees that hitch a ride on the bumper of the waste hauler.

I expect you'll pass some blame on to state and federal agencies.

But if you are not part of the solution, then you're part of the problem.

U.S.

cities.

And have considerably more sway over the politics than I do.

When I worked for a large global corporation that ship millions of dollars worth of parts per day to major automotive manufacturers, at budget time, our customers would bring us their cost down expectations for the coming year.

You heard that right, cost down.

After a year of building their products, they're expecting us to find ways to do it better, more efficiently.

This is a thought process that public officials need to adopt better.

I'm obviously a senior citizen.

I'm planning an exit strategy for my real estate.

Nearly every month I get unsolicited calls from major investment firms looking to buy local properties.

But no, the callers identify themselves.

They've already done the homework, looking up the assessments, the value of the property, estimating equity, and have proposals ready.

The independent landlord is rapidly disappearing.

Perhaps this is a goal.

I don't know.

To have major firms, investment firms controlling your local rental market.

The evidence certainly points that way.

Thank you.

Thank you.

This is a public hearing.

Anyone wishing to be heard on this item, please step forward.

Uh uh state your name, and you have five minutes.

Well, thank you so much for your time.

I am Molly Dennis.

I was I came to speak at the um open comment, but was a couple minutes late due to roads and kids, and of course, the public comment has been moved up to six limiting uh resident voices.

So I was unable to speak at open comment, but I'm gonna speak here about property tax increases.

Um, as you know, we are here in this lighted forum with very few people in in the audience um to speak on raising their hard-earned tax dollars.

And I hear a lot of percentages.

I see the colorful um you know displays.

I have been on the dais with you, and I have researched intensely.

But the problem with percentages and propaganda and platitudes, and I hear a lot of platitudes, is that it's not the details.

We need audits, we need receipts, we need the exact numbers of where taxpayer dollars are going.

I have requested when I was a council member, the mayor's budget and and many other uh details that were denied.

Um actually, actually, I was silenced when I asked questions.

Uh the devil's is in the details.

You heard that that cliche.

Um, it's the wasteful spending.

It the money that no one on the dais knows about because you do not have the numbers.

I know I sat where you are at.

I know you don't have the numbers because I requested it and was denied.

The wasteful spending is where we can cut.

We we don't want to talk about library, we love the library, we love things.

Don't don't throw things out that that uh we know how it's gonna hurt people.

We want to look at where money is being spent, the cronyism, the conflict of interest, the lack of competitive bidding, all of the things that are going to save millions of dollars.

I did not come to speak on this issue, but I was compelled to, as I heard very few people are.

This is people are struggling here in our city to stay in their homes working paycheck to paycheck.

All of you in your cushy jobs, which you will not share your uh amount of hours.

So I imagine uh the the wage per hour for each of you is extraordinary when most people are working minimum.

The last four years on the diet, I voted against the property tax increase every year because of the lack of transparency.

I do not think it's ethical for any of you to vote to raise property taxes when you do not know where the current dollars are being spent.

Working families, people are struggling to stay in their homes.

I have talked to so many people.

And and this increase will hurt senior citizens or hurt people who are trying to make it here.

Won't work the won't hurt the uh people making six digits, but will hurt people who are working paycheck to paycheck, caring for the most vulnerable in our community.

And I ask you to please before voting to raise any taxes to change any percentage in the property levy to know exactly where every dollar is going and to disclose where your incomes, where the travels are where you know who's bringing money into our city, disclose that transparency is trust, and I compel you to please know where every cent is before you vote to raise property taxes.

It is already hurting so many people, and every dollar hurts more.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Dennis.

This is a public hearing.

Anyone wishing to be heard on this item, please step forward.

Anyone wishing to be heard on this item, please step forward.

Seeing no one, I will close the public hearing and invite my colleagues to questions and discussion.

Or a motion.

Councilmember Keene.

Um, yeah, I two couple questions uh for uh city administrators elms just on the tax capacity.

Um, I realize the numbers lower year over year, but I'm I'm also trying to watch this over a longer time.

And it appears we had a good reduction in the early, like almost the beginning of COVID, it dropped, and we've like seem to be tending higher lately.

Is that an accurate reading of it, or is it really other things that's out of our control?

Uh council president, council member Keene, um, there are a couple of different things happening there.

There was a zero percent levy adjustment during COVID.

And so when that occurred, we didn't actually reduce expenses to that amount when things turned back on.

We still needed to have all of those services at the levels that people expected.

So we weren't, you know, we all those salaries came back online, but we needed to catch up to a degree on the cost that's necessary in order to provide those services.

So we were uh, I think it was 11 positions that were frozen, and those gradually had come back online over the course of three or four years.

Um and now some of those changes are being impacted by continuing to recover from COVID, and we have different expectations for technology, um, hours worked, how people are um getting their work done, as well as continued growth within the community.

Um, but I would say this is a fairly, if you look back far before COVID, we've tended to be in about that 48 to 51% of the net tax capacity levy.

And a part of that is because we have even in slower times benefited from growth of new construction, it helps to mute um the impact over all of the properties when the new construction absorbs some of the increase.

But it also means sometimes we have to adjust our service levels in order to accommodate that new growth.

So it's okay.

That's helpful.

Just uh and also on the tax capacity.

I I want to oversimplify and just see if I'm gonna run something by and just see if this is an accurate representation.

If I take our 50.39% capacity and said if I had a hundred thousand dollar house, does that mean it's 503 and 90 cents?

Because I'm taking the capacity per 100,000.

Is that is that a oversimplified, or is it what what the way I should be thinking about this?

So because there's an adjustment overall, right?

So the way I think about it is the the slides that have the the property tax pie, the assessed valuation.

The first thing that happens is if any of those pieces of pie grow because there's new construction, that's absorbing part of that increase.

So that's not spreading across every other property.

So that's already reduced the total amount of impact across the properties.

Then you have to see how has each piece of the pie, so tax classification adjusted.

If apartment goes up or commercial goes up, it's absorbing what used to be absorbed by residential property.

So there's a a lot of proportionality that occurs before it's more complex math, is the simple answer.

I I guess, but I I thought that's why I liked this this metric because I thought it played that math through and came back to the residential as uh as as a not a be all end all, but an indicator that we're you know, if we're under 50 percent, we're we're where we want to be.

You could use that as an approximation in the sense of if you looked at the median value home being 240,000 and that being or the $300,000 home that was on the slide that showed the breakdown of where their taxes go was about just shy of $1,500, $1,463.

So I think you could say yes, that plays out that way, but again, it will depend on how much of their value.

The fact that it depends on how much their valuation changes will really impact that individual tax bill.

Okay, and another logistics question for our meeting here.

We have a five-part motion that includes budgets and it includes rates and tariffs.

But the new thing that I noticed in there, it also seems to include payment in lieu of, and I do not remember having motions on those in the past.

Is that something we are planning to do tonight, or it's uh like up for discussion?

Mr.

Parrish.

Uh, your honor, I I'm not sure about the past, but I think it is a good practice just to reflect, you know, that there is you know some council uh authorization within that charge.

I mean, they are inherent in the budget that you've been provided.

It sort of you know requires that to make the budget work.

Um, but I think I just want to be transparent about you know what payment in lieu of taxes um is being charged is for your awareness.

So I I'm not sure it's necessarily obligated because your budget approval you know contemplates that, but I do think it you know is helpful for people to understand what the different funds are contributing.

Thank you.

That's helpful.

Just uh, but more like logistically for tonight, are we making five different motions or is there one motion that's five parts and includes all those details?

Uh your honor, I think that's and I'll defer to the parliamentarians here, but um I I think it's your uh prerogative.

I think you could accept one motion approving all items.

Okay, thank you.

Could I just add that the reason that we've listed it this time is because there was a prior action during those pandemic years that muted any changes to those payments in lieu of taxes for the those referenced on the the um council requested action, those the parking fund, the stormwater utility, the sewer fund, and transit.

And stormwater stormwater one, too.

Yes, so those because there was a prior action, I think finance felt more comfortable.

They wanted to make sure that it was called out.

You don't have to specify it specifically, the fact that it's listed here would, but we want to make sure you understand and the departments that you're making a new action.

Okay, I and I and that's helpful for me to understand the the wording in front of me because what I wasn't seeing is all of the uh pilot payments listed, only uh some of them, and that had me thrown off, but now I think I understand.

Councilmember Palmer.

Thank you.

Um I'm just gonna quick say something about the speaker that was talking about numbers and and the numbers are available in every month um we do on our account our um agenda uh approved um payments that we've made.

So um I don't want people to think that we have no idea how we're spending money.

We very well know where we're spending money.

I'm very comfortable with that.

Um I am glad that we've been able to reduce the tax levy increase from the highest for higher percentages of 24 and 25, but we can do better.

We have people who are struggling with the cost of living in Rochester, cumulative increases over previous years have made property taxes a burden for the average family.

We have increased the levy 45 percent to 2021.

We shouldn't rest simply because we avoided a 10% increase.

To lower the 5.8 levy increase to reduce it by 1%, we need to um reduce it by 1.1 million dollars.

I propose reductions in August.

We'll make a series of motions to get a 4.8% tax levy increase.

I will move to take $500,000 out of a contingency fund from the 2025 and apply it to the budget.

We have a 46% reserve fund when only 42% is required or recommended.

I I will move that we do not fund the ADA management coordinator at 153,000.

This position position can wait for better times.

I will move that we do not fund the Earth maintenance position until next year when the building is open and running, and we would save 134,000.

I will move to delay the new position of Arbis, saving 124,000.

I will move to reduce the budget of the library by 245,000.

We currently have the most expensive library in the region in the state, in some cases paying almost twice as much per resident as comparable sized cities.

There are just some of my suggestions to help people in Rochester who are struggling to pay their property taxes.

I'm sure we could come up with some more ideas.

We have some unknowns coming next year.

We have family leave coming with no real knowledge of the cost of supplementing the people on leave.

We have electric rates going up and water rates going up.

And so when after the motion is made, I'll make some amendments.

Go ahead, Councilmember Keene.

I'd like to uh move a five-part motion to approve number one, a 2026-27 operating budget.

Number two, a 2026 to 2031 capital budget.

Number three, a 2026 general tax levy of 118 million two hundred and eighty-four thousand six hundred and twenty-three dollars.

Number four, a 2026, 2027 electric and water utility budget.

Um, and number five, a 2026-27 electric water utility rate fee and tariff adjustments.

Um, and I would also add to this approving the payment in lieu of taxes for the RPU utilities and for public works enterprises.

Motion made by council member Keene.

Is there a second I'll second?

Seconded by Councilmember Miller.

Councilmember Keene, you have the floor.

Um, yeah, we started this budget work in about May.

Um, and there is new spending going on in this budget.

We approved about 1.5% a budget increase based on uh um what do you call them decision packets?

These are things that have become but before us before and didn't didn't make it.

Some of them were justified through more efficient operation, but make no mistake, they include spending.

Um, and that's something that we did do this year.

And we also had some benefits this year that we were projecting earlier on, more of a seven and a half to eight and a half percent increase, and uh we're able to bring it down.

Um, as far as uh 5.8 percent uh year over year levy increase, um, realize we're dealing with about two percent growth that was just real new growth, new taxpayers in there, and another two point five percent or so uh like higher valuations.

Uh the 2.5 percent higher valuations are harder to deal with, but the fact is with a growing city to say we need to keep our levy flat just doesn't make sense in the inflationary years we've lived through the last couple of years.

So um I think I've had my questions and things that we've challenged budget things coming to this point.

Um, and I'm prepared tonight to uh support what we've worked on staff with staff on for the last eight months.

Anything to add, council member Miller.

I'll just add uh based on some of the comments as well about the efficiency of our budget.

I I think that we'll have a good opportunity in the new year to talk about the efficiency of how we're growing, how we're providing services across the city of our size, how we're providing the the level of service that people have come to expect.

And I am not in favor of changing this tonight, as we've had months of discussion, but I do look forward to having a broader conversation of how we manage this trend in the long term and how we understand um the things that contribute to our city's uh financial wealth and prosperity in that of our residents and those that challenge um our our city budgets by providing a service over an expanding outward city and um just make sure that we're in alignment with our our our citizens as we plan for services and provide services.

I would just talk about how we've chosen not to fund our public transit system with tax levy.

We've made some service cuts and and we see those in other areas, so these are the trade-offs, right?

And so we talk about the services, and I I'm again not in favor of changing uh the level of service that we're providing um based on any emotions tonight.

Councilmember Palmer.

Yeah, I have a question for RPU.

I didn't know we're gonna do five-part um uh motion.

I'm trying to understand and grab my head around this that we had a four percent, we had a six percent and four percent increases, and then we lowered it to four percent.

Um you and I have talked about Austin going one point nine percent decrease.

And part of our increases is what percentage, I guess my question is is how much of this is for net for the upcoming years to plan um to for the 2030.

How much of this is the um neutral carbon um uh uh plan that we have?

How does this six percent or four percent increase uh fall into the area?

Councilmember Palmer, Council President, Mayor, uh uh other council members.

My name is Tim McCullough, General Manager for RPU.

Uh to answer your question in a couple parts, Councilmember Palmer.

Uh it is true utility, uh, the Austin Utilities in Austin, Minnesota has announced a 1.9% rate decrease on their electric utility.

The foundation of that was wholesale expense reductions that we also experienced as a member of SIMPA to the tune of about 10% wholesale reductions.

Austin and Austin utilities are in a different environment than the city of Rochester.

It's uh they don't experience the same amount of community growth.

They are also a sustained member of the SIMPA agency, so they're not also doing a power supply resource plan and investing in new forms of generating capacity and energy and just overall different economic conditions in the community.

Our rates and our recommendations are based upon meeting the community's growth and other goals, uh, the action plan adopted by council.

Um so to get to the specifics of your question, kind of what what is embedded within the four and six percent electric and then I I'll infer the water rates as well there.

But um, there are really three major categories that we're meeting uh with this budget.

One is new capital investment.

Uh our advanced metering project is a significant capital outlay of about 33 million dollars over a three-year period.

16 million of that goes into the electric budget.

Um we're making many new excuse me uh investments in power supply capacity.

Our Mount Simon station is an expected 175 million dollar investment that will require bonding uh in 2027.

Most all of the wholesale decreases that we will experience next year will be rededicated towards that future debt service, which in the end is replacing Sherco Unit Three, the retiring coal plant.

We are also making investments in renewable energy, as you mentioned, um, and that is built into our budget assumptions.

I would split it roughly into equal thirds.

Uh the one-third of our capital investment is towards reliability and maintaining our assets.

One third is uh related to new capital spending, um, the advanced metering project being one of the largest uh portions of that capital spend, and the other third is to meet the community growth trajectory uh as our community grows and adds new housing that comes with utility costs to build out infrastructure for those three.

Hopefully, I answered your question, Councilmember Palmer.

You you did in um the advanced metering, there's gonna be a three-year project, and we're excited to see they come on board.

Will there be a cost savings then to the ratepayer uh as as this gets implemented?

Uh not in the way that many would assume.

So this is almost a cost neutral investment.

Uh, although we will see less labor in driving the city and collecting meter reads, there's a higher level of infrastructure to support that.

And so from an operating expense standpoint, um, we don't see a significant reduction in operating expense with this capital investment.

We do have uh end of life on our uh water meters, they're battery powered, and so much of this investment is to refresh the infrastructure and move forward.

It doesn't come with a significant amount of operating expense reduction.

There's some labor offsets, but it's also some new spend and software and technology.

And we've talked about number one goal is dependability in the new meters, we'll make it more dependable for you to be able to service our customers.

Is that not correct?

Exactly right.

Better response times, more insight to what's happening at the edge of the grid and more data available both to the customer and the utility for planning and other purposes moving forward.

And will this lead to peak um billing?

Uh peak hour billing.

Uh if if at six o'clock on July 5th, I want to buy electricity, it's going to be more expensive, or do you are you not going to be able to meter it that closely?

We have not made any uh recommendations or the RPU board has not considered any structural changes to date on what is possible after the implementation of advanced metering, but I would say the foundation of advanced metering enables future rate changes that are not possible today, especially time-based rates or demand-based rates.

But no decisions have been made there.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

And so I'm I um go to Mr.

Miller's kind of comment and in August I brought up these issues, and um this is the day that we get to make these decisions what we want to do.

So I am going to um make a motion to amend um the motion.

And I my first one will be to take $500,000 of the contingency fund from 2025 and apply it to the budget.

Is there a second?

I'll second that.

I just think that we have this extra money that's sitting there that's going to be turned over to next year.

I like to see it be used to uh reduce the budget for this year.

We have, I think it's a 46% reserve fund.

We really only need 42%.

Further discussion.

Yep.

Uh councilmember Fredericks.

Administrator Zelms, uh, can you explain to us exactly what does happen with that contingency fund money at the end of the year when we don't use it?

Uh certainly, council member Fredericks, uh, Council President, uh, mayor, other members of the council.

The challenge with allocating one-time dollars to an ongoing budgeted expenses, if without making further reductions in the 2027 budget, then you will need to cover those costs with 2027 property tax levy.

So what happens to the 500,000 or whatever remains in contingency is it remains in the fund balance of the general fund.

That's where it's budgeted.

Um, and it is available in order to if the if you have costs that are uh are a surprise.

I believe we talked about the potential that depending on how we end the year for the 2025, that we would be hoping that for the implementation of the enterprise resource planning software that it came in at a much higher amount, um, that that might be able to offset the cost of that implementation.

Um typically we wouldn't do that, but we have a known cost coming up.

Um, so you it also if you did drop below the 42%, um, you would potentially um have problems maintaining your triple A credit rating, which affects how um how the markets look at you when you go uh for uh for bonding for a large capital project and and get having a very positive uh bond rating actually reduces the cost of financing over time, reducing the overall cost of expenses.

Um, so a couple of different factors, it goes to the fund where it has been accrued to.

So if we spend less than what we anticipated during the budget, um, it's available for a ready day, and it's also available in case there's something that happens that was unanticipated that isn't necessarily something like the pandemic or the great recession, something of that nature, it helps to smooth out some of those peaks and valleys.

I think the other thing which you didn't ask, but I think it's important, is that if you utilize contingency, you use it once, but then to continue to fund those expenses, you would need to increase the tax levy in the future.

Councilmember Frederick, do you have more questions?

Or I I yeah, I just uh I do believe in showing good faith to our community that we're doing everything we can to keep our tax dollars down, and that just looked like an obvious way to me to show them that we're doing what we can to do that for them.

Councilmember Wall.

I would ask uh administrator Zelms uh the contingency fund, uh how much does that represent in terms of the percentage of unused monies that are applied to the reserve in a typical year?

I would say we typically don't budget the contingency to help our reserve.

We ask all of our teammates to budget for what they think is reasonable and not overspend their budget.

And if they don't need to make expenditures or they're able to purchase things for less, make a different decision.

Most of the savings is coming from things like positions are vacant for a period of time, and we are budgeting for their salary, but we will have to replace their salary at some point.

So the contingency is really a very small part.

I would have to phone a friend to know exactly what that percentage is.

Um, but to be 42% of the general fund budget is not a small number that is necessary.

We also utilize the reserve every year because we receive our the vast majority of our revenues twice a year, and we are expending we we have bills that you see every um council meeting that are come forward every two weeks, sometimes every day.

So the operation side does not the expenses of the operation don't come twice a year, they come all year long, and the revenue comes in and the peak of revenue then gets spent down, and then the peak of revenue comes back again and gets spent down for two things ongoing employee costs, but then we also have two peaks that happen every year as well, which are debt payments.

Those don't happen monthly, those happen twice a year.

Mr.

Parish had had something to add.

Yeah, your honor, just what it gets added to the reserves, there's no static formula to it.

I mean, there could be a year where we have great building permit revenue, or we there could be a year where we have you know less utilized contingency.

Um I would also just say I think the important thing is there's a math kind of thing to think about with our with our reserve amount.

So 42% is the guideline.

Um, but when your budget grows from 111 million to 116 million, it takes more to get to 42 percent.

So you have to sort of inherently have some way to grow that reserve every year to keep, you know.

So if we didn't do anything, if we put you know, had nothing go this year, 46% will become something less than that.

Um, so we do try to think about it that way as well, where we're trying to add uh to keep ahead of the budget growth, if that makes sense.

I think I need to ask the question in a little different way.

One an absurd example and then a more logical example.

Uh if uh the clerk's office didn't expend their entire budget for rubber bands for a year.

Uh I would presume that that kind of money then gets turned uh to the reserve on a more logical level.

Uh, if uh uh a larger department uh was an FTE down for the average of a whole year, that uh 100,000 dollars uh with benefits would then as well be moved to the reserve.

And I would think that in many years with as large a budget as we have, that those kinds of additions to the reserve would outpace uh whatever we have left in contingency that would go to uh the reserve.

That'd be my guess.

I think that generally would be accurate.

And the challenge with that is we've had a number of years, we've had a lot of turnover in departments, for example, like the police department, where that can add up to potentially a million dollars, but we've had less turnover more recently, and so we can't always count on that to happen because some of those are cyclical things that are out of our control, and we build those in to the ongoing baseline budget, whereas we don't, if we utilize one time dollars for ongoing expense, the only way to build that in again is to cut that expense again or some other expense or to add revenue, which in the general fund is typically going to be tax levy.

Councilmember Palmer.

Yeah, I just want to make it clear that that I don't want this to go below 42 percent.

I don't want to affect our triple-A bond rating, but I do know that it's a higher than 42 percent.

And I understand Mr.

Parrish's I um comment that that we have to budget more.

But I think this year we have I know this year that we have more than we need, and I think once you have more than you need, this is the time to help out taxpayers and and this is our opportunity to do it.

Councilmember Keene.

Yeah, I we're talking about the contingency from 2025 being applied to 2026.

I want to make sure there's no like generally accepted accounting principles that say you shouldn't get to do that uh as a matter of policy.

Um council.

Council President, Councilmember, I think that's what I'm trying to say.

You typically should not apply one-time dollars to ongoing expenses.

A less conflicting thing to do would be reduced to reduce your 2026 contingency to $500,000.

The problem is if you ever want to increase that to a million dollars, you're adding $500,000 to the budget.

Okay.

All right.

I again, so it's it's not a generally accepted accounting practice, it's just a gotcha warning because if you do it, you're just pushing the wave out another year.

An absurd example would be if you set up a prescript uh subscription for thousands of dollars of rubber bands a month, but you don't have additional revenue coming in, you can't afford the rubber bands.

Yeah.

Okay.

There's an amendment on the floor.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed, say no.

Nay.

Motion uh fails.

I'd like to make another motion um that we do not fund the ADA management coordinator at 153,000 this year.

Is there a second?

I second it.

Councilmember Palmer.

This is an item that was added um because we had a consultant come in and in I don't see the necessity of it.

I didn't in August, and I don't today.

Anything to add, council member.

Yeah, I do believe there's people within the city currently that can handle any uh anything that arises in this area.

And I I once again, if we can save some money in an area, I'd like to do that.

Mayor.

Yeah, I would just say this is this particular um suggestion is concerning to me.

We've worked really hard for a couple years to try to get our head around all the the places in our city budget and our city policies and services where we're not meeting uh the needs of people with disabilities in this community.

And the work of the community committees and individuals in the city are now needing action.

And action needs a person in order to follow up and be an expert.

And this was an issue I asked about when I first became mayor and was told, well, there's people in other departments that know a little bit here and a little bit there, but we didn't have a single identified person as required by law to say this is who you go to when you have an issue.

We sort of skirted that a little bit by having people spread out all over, and there wasn't that single resource for people to go to that most cities have.

And it was something we were missing.

And I was pleased when we used our free intern that we got from the Bloomberg-Harvard program for two years to get us to the point we're at today.

But we need that position to continue the work and make sure that we're doing all we can in a community for health that has people with health issues and disabilities to keep us compliant and to take care of the people who live here.

So I would urge us not to uh make that cut.

There's an amendment on the floor.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed say nay.

Nay.

Motion fails.

My uh next motion is that we do not fund the North maintenance position until next year when the building is open and running.

Um the building doesn't even have a roof at this time.

Is there a second?

I second it.

Any further comments?

No, it's it's it we had this discussion in August in that the building is not up and running yet.

Um we do have a maintenance person at the existing building.

Um I'm sure um with a brand new building, you should be able to use that person to take care of what we have coming up.

Councilmember Keene.

I I maybe it's point of order, but I'll just ask the whether it's staff or one of my peers.

The motion is got to do with eliminating a position.

We're in a budget thing.

I I'd like someone to put into budget language that this reduces the 2026 uh levy by you know 120 some thousand dollars.

Is that is that the though that that's why I'd like to think of it if we're having a budget meeting?

I I believe I said 134,000.

If I did not, I apologize.

And and so I wanted the I apologize just for me to think about this in my ways would be the motion is to reduce this by some of this by reducing the position, and then I'd like to be able to turn to staff and say, is that percentage?

Thanks.

Thank you for the clarification, Councilmember Keene.

Is uh a question?

Uh uh Mr.

Parrish, are you going to take it?

Uh your honor.

I I think the the math is correct, or that was the amount of the decision package, so that is it.

And you know, just for further clarification, I think the you know the motion also sort of reflected that it would be a need in the 27 budget.

Uh the reason why it's within this particular budget is because the goal would be to hire someone on as the building's commission, so they have the ability to be onboarded into the new mechanical and electrical systems as the buildings commissioned and turned over to the city.

Um, I I do believe you know, we wouldn't necessarily be hiring for this, you know, right in January.

I think we would try to make a judgment call about the timing of when the construction had, but we wanted the flexibility in order to make sure someone was onboarded into the building as it was being turned over from the contractor.

Uh councilmember Doring.

What percentage would that lower if we uh voted for this amendment?

What percentage of the levy would that reduce?

Uh we'll we'll go ahead.

I believe that that would be something like point one.

I mean, it's 134,000.

Bring it out at 5.3, 5.83.

5.83 percent versus 5.95%.

I see no further discussion.

All in favor of the amendment say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say nay.

Nay.

Uh uh Clerk Case, could you take the roll?

Councilmember Keene.

Nay.

Councilmember Miller.

Nay.

Councilmember Wall.

Aye.

Councilmember Fredericks.

Aye.

Councilmember Palmer.

Aye.

Councilmember Doring.

Nay.

Council President Schubring.

Nay.

Motion fails.

The next one I have is for 124,000 is to um delay the deposition of arborist um with the um park and rec department.

Is there a second?

I'll second it.

Uh Mr.

Parrish or Administrator Selms, is that accurate?

Council President, I'm unclear when the word delay is used.

Do you mean delay it until the middle of the year, delay it until 2027?

I guess I'd just need that clarity.

230, 2040.

So don't fund the 124,380 for an artist arborist in 2026 or 2027.

Correct.

Any further uh go ahead, Councilmember Fredericks.

Yeah, I just want to be clear.

We're just trying to save the community some money here.

That's why we're bringing these things forward.

And you know, if it's a definite safety thing or a definite need, it's one thing, but when it's things to maybe make things a little more comfortable and such, you know, sometimes when things are tough, we need to we need to scrimp a little bit.

Councilmember Wall.

Yeah, I I uh uh agree with Mr.

Fredericks.

Um this might be one that we could uh work on ourselves a little bit.

I am a certified something because I took the course and the test and I have my little certificate at home.

Um I would hope that perhaps uh we could get by and save uh a little money uh for the city.

Councilmember Keene.

Yeah, yeah, this is what's one it's hard on me too, because there is this idea of like we have an arborist and we have some different people working, but we had a proposal come forward that was backed by many that we needed about nine additional arborists, and this was like three or four years ago, and it just seemed unstuck from the reality of our budgeting process.

At the same time, as you go forward and you're growing into new neighborhoods and doing these other things, it does seem like logical to me that we will need to grow some of these staffs over a longer period of time.

Um, and I think this is one that that's why it in this year in the budget in the decision packets it came forward.

Um, a lot of these things don't come to us because they get stopped at the administration level.

Uh and the fact that this got through the administration this time makes me feel it's more of a need in certain areas than what it was certainly four years ago, and trying to be staffed at a much higher level than we're talking about now.

Councilmember Doring.

I agree with the points that uh Councilmember Keene just made and uh question for staff.

What is the typical uh response time or a call time for an arborist?

If someone files a service call, how long does it take for an arborist to show up councilmember Doring, uh President and Council members?

Uh that really isn't the issue.

If it uh we are able to respond within a reasonable amount of time if if staff are available.

The uh the the arborist uh as uh the need for the arborist as outlined in the 2023 Urban Forest Master Plan was to keep up with the maintenance of the trees.

Uh pruning, uh, if you recall at our last council meeting, there was a uh complaint about uh vegetation that uh homeowner was cited for.

One of the complaints he had is as he was taking pictures, he was seeing branches hanging pretty low on the boulevard trees.

Uh we currently are at about a 20-year cycle to prune our public trees, and we've we have reduced that somewhat with uh grant funding we received, but uh uh even at this uh rate of having an additional arborist, it's going to be an all of the above approach with contracted services with all of our team members.

I will point out also it's not just arborists that are maintaining trees, it's our landscape techs and everybody we have on board.

And follow-up question if a if a boulevard tree or a uh a tree on public property that is maintained by uh our arborists is not trimmed properly.

Is that a public safety issue?

It is, it is.

And if it's not pruned at all, it's a safety issue because uh during storm events they are more likely to uh fall.

Thank you.

Mayor Norton.

Paul.

Paul.

Uh the question I I have related to this is do you have any idea about uh you talked about needing to hire uh contract workers to do this?

Are we um are we saving money by having our own arborist on staff?

I know sometimes when we contract it's more expensive, not less.

Have you priced that out?

And do we know I don't have those numbers uh with me this evening, but uh we do uh part of our budget, uh a great deal of our budget in the forestry division is uh contracted services and uh our arborists oversee that as well, and uh they oversee the work of others who are not certified arborists doing doing the work.

Uh Councilmember Fredericks.

With that said, I like the idea of contracted services because you don't have to carry your own employees with the full benefits and everything else.

You can hire a reputable company to help you out when needed, get caught up and away you go.

I agree it it is efficient.

Um thank you.

You bet there's an amendment on the floor, council uh clerk caso, please call the roll.

Councilmember Keene.

Nay.

Councilmember Miller.

Nay.

Councilmember member Wall.

Aye.

Councilmember Fredericks.

Aye, Councilmember Palmer.

Aye.

Councilmember Doring.

Nay.

Council President Schubring.

Nay.

Motion fails.

Councilmember Palmer.

Yeah, my last one.

Um, and I appreciate your patience for this.

Um to save 245,000.

I move that we reduce the budget of the library by that amount.

Is there a second?

I'll second that.

Any further dis uh further comments, Councilmember Palmer.

Yes, and doing a lot of research and and and looking at things.

We are currently have the most expensive library in the region in the state, in some cases spending almost twice as much per resident as comparable sized cities.

That just happens to be a fact.

And you know, we're open on Sundays all day.

We're the only one that I can find that we are in the area.

Um, and I don't think reducing the budget by 245,000 um is a large they have 11 million dollar budget, so I don't see that as a huge hit for them.

Um, you know, if you add all these numbers up that we've just voted on, we would have saved 1.1 million dollars, which is one percent of the levy.

Um I'm just trying to to help out and and and move things ahead for people who just really are tight right now and trying to struggle or struggling to get through.

Councilmember Fredericks.

He said it.

Further discussion.

Seeing none, uh Clerk Casew, please call the roll.

Councilmember Keene.

Nay.

Councilmember Miller.

Nay.

Councilmember Wall.

Nay.

Councilmember Fredericks.

Aye.

Councilmember Palmer.

Aye.

Councilmember Doring.

Nay.

Council President Schuberg.

Nay.

Motion fails.

Five to two.

We are back to the original motion.

Any further discussion on the original motion made by Councilmember Keene and seconded by Councilmember Miller.

Seeing none, all in favor of the five-part motion.

Say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, say nay.

Nay.

Motion passes six to one with council member Palmer uh voting nay.

Moving on to our reports and recommendations.

We have item H1, which is site development agreement with Mayo Clinic for conditional site plan approval for the construction of the North Arrival Center and the South Parking Ramp.

Ms.

Steinhausen.

Good evening.

Thank you, Council President Schubering, Mayor Norton, members of the City Council.

Cindy Steinhauser, Deputy City Administrator.

I'm here to present on this item.

Also joining me our community development director Irene Woodward and online our outside legal counsel Rachel Tierney, both who have been instrumental in this work.

Do you have maybe Al can I think it's this one?

Pew Yep, it is.

Pregnant pause.

Remember that with each slide.

Okay, great.

So what's before you is a request for approval of a conditional site plan approval for two buildings that are part of the bold forward unbound in Rochester effort that is the North Arrival Center and the parking ramp.

These are okay.

So these buildings are part, as I said, part of bold forward unbound.

It includes bold forward unbound is the construction of about 2.4 million square feet of space across multiple buildings.

These buildings include parking, clinical buildings, ancillary buildings.

And so after internal discussions, our team looked at what would be the best approach to review the collective whole as well as the individuals within the collective whole.

Think about it in context of the project schedule, their individual schedules, and the scroll of being completed by 2030.

And ultimately, we recommended this approach, which is a campus approach to the site development plan approval process.

We also in reviewing it thought the best approach was to apply the iconic building alternative language with which exists within the unified development code.

So here is uh a snapshot of the language that currently exists.

Uh it's a criteria that's in the unified development code or UDC for short.

Um, this language was included in the original adoption of the UDC when it was adopted in 2021, implemented in 2022.

Uh this language was a recommendation from our consultant to ensure that the code could accommodate projects that don't neatly fit within existing zoning types, um, allow for intentional design flexibility, allow for innovation, or allow space for unique buildings to be designed, but still maintaining alignment with our UDC design standards.

So tonight we're requesting approval of two site plan developments.

We'll be coming forward to you in the future for two more, but that will be after the first of the year.

The two site development plan agreements that we're asking for are related to what we call the North Arrival Project.

It is the top red circle building that you see on the graphic.

Um there's some description of what is included in the North Arrival Center.

It's exactly what it says.

It's where patients will drop off and be picked up.

There's also parking component.

Um the South Parking ramp, which is the circle is the building that is circled in the bottom half of that graphic, the red circle, um, is just what it says.

It is a parking ramp for about 500 vehicles to be located as part of this campus.

And that is the two agreements that were asking for your approval this evening.

So what do these agreements do?

So it's been a lot of really great work.

And the highlights are, as I've indicated, provide an initial design framework for all of the work that's happening as part of bold forward unbound, including these two buildings.

And in doing so, it accounts for private site and iconic building design items like facade treatments, landscaping on private property.

But it also includes site plan development plans, usually have a public realm component.

And so this also accounts for public site design items, such as landscaping on the public right-of-way.

There is it allows creates a mechanism for some conditional approval so that construction can proceed while we continue to evolve and finalize and approve the final design and vision that you would normally see a site development plan come to you as a complete site development plan.

However, if we were to wait for uh the full site development plan to be completed, it would not come to you, would not be approved until the end of next year.

So that would dramatically impact the schedule and the timing and sequencing of all of the pieces of the bold forward unbound project.

Um so this allows for construction to proceed while we're still working on elements such as landscaping that we have not yet completed.

Um it does require that these design items be completed by a specific date and a mechanism if they're not completed for how we mitigate that.

Um it does provide for them to be complete for us to complete them if Mayo for whatever reason would not complete them, um and we would complete the design of them, and it would be at Mayo's cost.

There would not be a cost to the city.

It also provides a funding source for the public site design items.

Um has an obligation to build public site design items as what's would be proposed in their site development plan.

If for whatever reason they design them but don't build them, and we are forced to build them, we would build them at their expense.

There's a funding uh the financial uh resource uh called out in the agreement that allows for us to do that should that happen.

We're not expecting that, but this is the belts and suspenders that we want to provide in this process.

Um that is kind of the highlights of the agreement.

What so what this agreement does, in short, and in layperson's terms, it acknowledges previously approved design elements that we have that Irene and her team have reviewed and allows permits to be issued so that the work can continue, but it and it provides for conditional approval of an incomplete site development plan.

So again, things that have been reviewed and approved allows that work to continue and acknowledges that there's still more work to be done.

It allows building permits to be issued, the next round of building permits to be issued so that construction can move forward, so we're not um creating risk with the construction schedule.

Um it as I said, it improves that ensures that those public site design elements are built at Mayo's cost and provides a funding source should Mayo not complete them, and we have to complete them.

Um the other just kind of as a wrap-up, we want to make sure that all elements that are approved and completed.

It establishes a clear, clear process and timeline for that.

Um it establishes the conditions for the issuance of a temporary certificate of occupy occupancy, is not unusual that as a development comes forward, they the building is ready and complete and can be occupied, but there's still things in the site development plan that are not yet complete.

So we have we it's not unusual for us to issue a temporary certificate of occupancy while the remaining items be um complete.

So this has a uh conditions for the issuance of that.

Um these agreements remain in effect until everything is completed.

They do not terminate until all the items are completed.

And we really believe that it supports both the timely delivery of the bold forward unbound projects while preserving the city's regulatory authority around the the uh approval process for these buildings.

And so with that, I will pause and happy to answer questions or phone a friend with uh Miss Woodward and Miss Tierney Online.

I have a question to start us off.

I I do like the iconic campus plan idea, but I'm trying to get my head around it as far as how it works in practice.

So for example, it it says the alternative design will create equal or better visual interests.

So I I'm that sounds very subjective to me.

And so can you kind of talk about that in in real terms and in particular how the iconic campus will still look at the streetscape, the pedestrian uh level, and another piece of knowing knowing the project airspace.

How does airspace um factor into iconic buildings?

So there's a couple pages ahead of iconic building that refer to some of the building design elements.

Um and so those are all of the items that have to be equal to or better.

So it's really looking at transparency, how is there articulation on those buildings, how are all these, so there are no blank walls.

These are just a few of the different items.

So it's really identifying the iconic as it relates to building design.

And so with this, um, given the structure that is bold forward and bound, it really was best fitting under the iconic building.

And then we really started to look at it as a campus-wide approach because of all the buildings kind of really need to go together.

Um, and so that's kind of how we led to some of that campus-wide approach of how they're all kind of interrelated and being able to look at it that way.

But the iconic part, it really relates to a lot of the building design piece.

Um part of our requirements for site development plan also include landscaping.

Um, and so that's where some of those elements come into place of what is being proposed in that public realm area.

So a follow-up on so what I'm seeing is we'll waive or adjust building design standards.

So when it comes to like streetscape, you're you waiving the need for breakup of pedestrian.

So with anything within iconic, it needs to be either meet those standards or be adjusted in some way.

So there might be some modifications to some things, but in general, it needs to meet or exceed what those standards are.

And that's what really what we're looking for in terms of the overall approach to iconic building.

Great.

If I may just add to that, our foundation to those standards are the design guidelines that already exist within the Unified Development Code, as well as the city's design standards for the DMC district.

That becomes the basis of uh the beginning point of the review process, correct?

Yeah, the the city design guidelines for the DMC were kind of incorporated into the UDC requirements as we updated.

So those are all kind of taken into when we're evaluating any of those requirements.

Sounds good.

Councilmember Palmer.

Well, I'm confused.

Um statement you made, this is an unusual that it happens all the time.

And so, you know, I I'm looking at um, I mean, landscaping in in the Mayo Clinic campuses.

I don't think you've ever seen, I've never seen a more beautiful campus in in all my travels.

So I don't know why I'd be worried about whether or not they're putting plants or trees or whatever they're putting in.

But you talked about phase permits and phase permits for for building code for a large five billion dollars worth of projects, that happens all the time.

I mean, we can do uh a CEO for this building, this room and that room and this room.

So this is nothing new.

Why why do we need to do this just for this project?

Sure, thank you.

And I think what I was referring to when I said this is an unusual, it's not unusual of us for us to issue temporary certificate of occupancies.

It's not unusual for us to issue, for example, footing and foundations permits.

So to issue permits as reviews are complete.

Um it's also quite honestly not unusual as a project nears completion of development that maybe not everything that was reflected on the site plan gets gets implemented for a variety of reasons.

And so for us, again, taking looking at this as Ms.

Woodward indicated, uh, we have to look at these buildings individually, but then they have to relate to each other.

So thinking about it as a campus in its entirety, we wanted to give you the policy decision makers, as I said, that extra security of knowing that what actually eventually gets approved because you're approving a conditional site plan without it being complete.

That's that's unusual.

That is not normal to approve a site plan in in part and not in whole.

And so we felt like the added insurance, if you will, of making sure that there is a financial security in the event that something doesn't get built, that we can step in and build it as represented and approved at a staff level.

So it's this is where I'm confused.

Is I mean, we're talking about a projects that are gonna last four to five more years before they're completed.

I know for a fact that that if you build a rinky dink gas station, that somebody from community development goes out there and looks at the plan and says these trees are here or not.

I mean, we're talking about the mail clinic and landscaping.

If you think that they're not going to do above what whatever they think they're going to do, then I mean, this this almost blows my mind that we'd even be considering talking about this tonight.

Miss Woodward.

So I I don't think we're trying to say that the Mayo Clinic won't complete that work.

I think what we're trying to do is make sure that we're following the same process for the Mayo Clinic's development that we do for everyone else.

And for this instance, with some of the landscaping and some of the design, it's not finalized.

They need additional time to complete that, which are requirements of the site development plan.

And so, in order to move it forward to be able to issue building permits and be able to move that along the schedule, we've we've worked with the Mayo Clinic realizing they need additional time to complete that.

And we felt that it was most appropriate to memorialize that so that we have these are the items that still need to be complete so that what they are able to move forward on their schedule.

And we also recognize that it gives them the ability to have that time to complete that design, knowing, and we generally know that that is going to be complete, but we felt with this level of project and with so many different people.

And to your point, this may take four years that maybe some of us won't be in those same positions.

So to be able to document these are the what we've agreed to was very important.

Well, you you you're you're you're confused on two issues.

One of them is landscape and you're doing building permit.

And in I would defy you that that would the name three three buildings built in in Rochester that is as big as the what we're building.

There are.

And so we have parcel permits all the time.

We'll do it by floor and by room, and and and they don't know what they're putting in those rooms.

They don't know what equipment they're going to put in those rooms.

And then you turn around and you look at the landscaping.

So this is staff driven.

This is a somebody from the city council didn't say we want this, it was staff.

I would also note that a requirement to be able to get to that building permit is that planning size signs off, and part of that process is the site development plan.

So in order to get that building permit signed off, that we needed to find a way to be able to do that and document that.

And if I might also add, yes, it is staff driven.

We um and it's driven based on our review of projects in the very recent past that operated under a temporary CO for almost a year because the um elements were not completed.

And so again, we are in a bit of uncharted territory here and looking at a a collective campus plan.

We're asking to um issue and allow construction to proceed without a completed site development plan, but recognizing if we wait for a completed site development plan to move to the next step in the normal process, it's at the end of next year, and suddenly we're not at 2030 with completion.

We're not at five years of construction disruption.

We're at six or seven, because it will the impact will be longer on the tail end.

And we wanted to avoid that.

But if you if you look at what we have for commercial development, I would swear that 20% of these don't have final COs on their buildings.

That we don't have that.

And residential is probably about 30% decks and basement finishes.

We don't go back and get these people.

They put a hot water heater in and they want to get a permit or a sell their house.

We had to show up five years later to say we're doing a cleaning inspection.

So this is not this is just not apples to apples.

You're talking about a company, downtown Rochester, who's who's a leader in in the world, and you're telling worried about tulips and plants.

I think it's a good thing.

No, I think I wouldn't minimize it in landscaping.

Actually, I think you can fold upon a friend here.

I think Mr.

Yetzer wants to.

If I could just weigh in on this, I I think what the confusion is like let's take this project out of the discussion for a moment.

You asked about other large commercial projects.

If you look at, say, the Berkman, uh, that project that came forward.

When that came forward, it came forward through the conditional use process.

So they had a fully developed landscape plan, fully developed um uh building renderings, et cetera, when they came to city council for a conditional use permit.

The difference in this one is that it's a staff level approval that they don't have those fully developed landscape plans, et cetera.

So on the Berkman, they came and got a approved site plan from City Council before they were issued building permits.

Well, what the team is asking to do this time is allow the building permit, the footing and foundation to happen before a site plan is approved.

That's what's different.

It's nothing to do with I I think everybody agrees the COs will issue temporary CEOs all the time.

Uh every big project does that floor by floor, et cetera.

That's not really what's weird with this one.

What's weird with this one is the sequencing of the site plan not being fully approved before we issue a footing and foundation, and it's caused by the enormous footing and foundation that this particular project is seeking.

That's why this is different.

And how many years does it take to build the Berkman?

Less than a year.

But regardless, they had to be.

Council member, if you have a question, staff will answer the question and then we'll move on.

I apologize.

If if I may, the only the only point I'm trying to make is regardless of how long it takes to build the building, our ordinances are set up in a way that you have to have an approved site plan before you get a footing and foundation permit.

So the Berkman received an approved site plan before a footing and foundation.

That's what's different here.

Council President Should we if I may also add, like we recognize this, this seems um perhaps a bit unorthodox, but I wouldn't equate um the construction of a 2.4 million square feet campus as the same as a temporary CO for a deck or a water heater.

We were we're trying to be responsive to knowing that you, as policy decision makers, have to be accountable to accountable to constituents with the largest project in Minnesota's history.

Councilmember Miller.

Sure.

Uh different question, just a small question on the um the slide showing an overview with the two red circles.

Can you talk about the unique polygon shape of the North Arrival Center and what phasing beyond phase one would be to that?

Um so I think there might be a second phase where it goes up in the number of levels in terms of adding additional spaces to that parking ramp.

And and should that happen, uh that would be a staff approval, uh council update, where where would that come?

That would be a staff approval.

And why is that northeast corner cut out?

It seems like a very strange shape.

There is uh it's not all owned by Mayo Clinton.

Okay, it's a separate property owner.

And so when we talk about um standards, public realm, et cetera, how might that parcel not being developed impact the public realm experience?

Sure, sure.

Um so I think there's a couple different things.

One, you know, they're gonna be some landscaping and public realm around the building.

I think there's also be gonna be some proposed additional um public realm improvements and whether that is tied to this specific, which isn't fully designed, so that's a little bit difficult to answer, or whether it's part of uh the overall other uh streetscape improvements that are also going to be done.

Okay.

Councilmember Keene.

Uh yes, hi, thank you.

Um I I just maybe have some confusion, probably we'll just to see.

I mean, when we talk about a site development plan, you're talking about for the whole um unbounded.

Are you talking about it for the north parking lot?

Is there a site development plan per site, or is it for the campus?

So we have individual site development plans for each building so that we can ultimately look, but we're also looking at it collectively.

But for this specific site development plans, we are actually doing individual buildings.

Okay.

So it's not that we don't have the whole uh bold forward laid out, it's that this individual parking garage, we don't have a uh uh a general uh and a site development plan completed yet.

That's correct.

There's a conditioned approval on it with items that are still outstanding that need to be completed.

Okay, and what's in front of us tonight is in order to keep things moving, we need to approve the this agreement that the city gets in.

Uh again, and that's by those the two different projects.

I want to differentiate that we're not talking about waiting for the whole big project to come together as one big site development plan.

That is correct.

We're gonna do individual buildings as site development plans.

Okay.

Um, and the I really did like the section you had on uh chart seven when you talked about what does this agreement do and what it doesn't do.

One of the things you said in there was the public sign design.

And I'm kind of interested in if that's something that Mayo is doing, and then the city does something different because we might use the term campus, but we, in my view, we really don't have a campus here.

We have an integrated city with buildings that are are the mayo clinic, but it is part of the city.

Or is it the Mayo campus that they're gonna decide how to how to do signage?

So signage, I'm sorry I thought you said site design.

So there will so in terms of their buildings and properties will probably have a signage that they will complete that is not necessarily complete of how they're going to sign their buildings and what's on their private property.

And then there's probably going to be an overall wayfinding in terms of citywide, which would be a separate thing.

But there'll be throughout this process, there is ways that there's still approval of what is being proposed.

So as Mayo moves forward with some of their work, there's still going to be the the can the back and forth that we have in the ultimate approval from the city as well.

Do you do you think I have it loaded up correctly?

Do you think I have it loaded up correctly that what we're really doing here is allowing things to move ahead without all the steps being being covered?

That is correct.

Okay.

And I again I'll just state it for the record.

We should need to get a motion on the table here.

But I think this is how we have to work with Mayo, just like we'd work with any other large.

This isn't a special, a separate process.

I know that we're not going to get another project like this in the next 20 years, but that doesn't mean we have to waive all of our processes that we put in place in order to, you know, help them move along.

We talk about just landscaping in bushes, but I think there's a lot more underneath here than how many trees they plant along the either the public realm or their own property.

Yes.

Councilmember Frederick.

Yeah, I'd like to make a motion to approve site development agreement with Mayo Clinic for conditional site plan approval for the construction of the North Arrival Center and the South Parking Ramp, authorizing a site development agreement with Mayo Clinic, a Minnesota nonprofit organization for conditional site plan approval for the construction of the North Arrival Center and the South South Parking Ramp as part of bold forward unbound in Rochester.

I'll second motion made by Councilmember Fredericks and seconded by Councilmember Keene.

Any more to add, Councilmember Fredericks.

Not to make light of discussion tonight, but this is a great plan going forward with Mayo Mayo Clinic and their initiatives in the city.

And uh I do kind of find it laughable.

We're talking about shrubs and trees.

I've seen Mayo do everything above and beyond in this community.

I don't imagine that's going to change.

Councilmember Dorin.

Yes, that is correct.

Okay.

Any further discussion seeing none?

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed say nay.

Motion passes.

We will take a six or seven minute break.

Seven minutes.

What?

Thank you.

I'll make a motion to approve.

A motion has been made.

Seconded by Councilmember Miller.

Yeah, I have a qua couple questions.

And one of them, I'm I'm trying to figure this $20,000 out for um second avenue.

If if we don't own it and the clinic isn't going to give it up, why do we want to spend $20,000 looking at this?

Mr.

Sampson Brown?

I know the city council instructed that, but $20,000 is a lot of money.

I don't think that was mentioned before.

Uh Councilmember Palmer, thank you for the question.

At the time of the last study session, uh we did not have the final fee so uh from the consultant.

So uh we do have a fee now, uh, and we believed at our last study session there was a consensus directive to city staff to go ahead and study the second avenue corridor as part of one of the several routes being looked at.

And then on Sixth Avenue, we're giving them more money to go deeper into the project.

Why are the the um private owners not paying for this?

And why is the city paying for this?

Uh thank you, council member Palmer.

Uh generally there's two things happening on Sixth Avenue, a city uh led project called Reimagined Sixth Avenue that is being funded through the DMC uh recent funding of work in the downtown, and also the Mayo Clinic has its own bull forward unbound infrastructure projects that have been under review by the engineering department and some have been under construction for over a year.

So we're essentially paying advancing the design of the city project in order to play catch-up to understand uh in more detail what the city's reimagined project would look like, so then we can partner with the mail clinic to ensure uh do our best to coordinate the work.

So for instance, if the city wanted to install a light pole as part of its design, we don't want to have the bull forward unbound project install a water main directly below where that white light pole base may go.

Okay, and um another question is you have a cyclo track, is that gonna run from civic center drive to second street?

Is that where that's gonna end?

No, right now, uh through the tool design uh quarter concept it would go, it would start at 2nd Street Southwest and proceed north.

Uh two-sided on the east side of the road all the way to civic center drive.

Continuous.

Oh, sorry, I thought you said center.

You want the other apologies.

Okay, no problem.

So I'm gonna uh amend the motion to remove the second avenue portion and save ourselves twenty thousand dollars.

Is there a second?

I'll second that.

Seconded by council member Fredericks, Councilmember Palmer, any more to add, council member Fredericks, anything.

I I know that there's a lot of people who were in favor of this, but I think that if you take the realization that really isn't going to uh amount to anything because we can't get through Anaberg Plaza, you can't get through the Methodist Hospital.

Why why spend $20,000?

Let's let's put that to Sixth Avenue and make sure Sixth Avenue is is uh um a phenomenally great street.

Council member Miller.

What does it say?

I think we had this discussion the last point, so I'd I'd suggest we just call the question.

Uh question has been called all in favor of the amendment say aye.

Aye, opposed, say nay.

Motion fails.

We're back to the original amendment.

Um original motion, council member wall.

The 20,000 thank you.

The 20,000 was not a surprise to me.

The 56 was unless uh I read uh in the proposal that we always expected to spend that money, we're just spending it earlier.

Yes, Mr.

Sampson Brown.

Uh council member, while that is correct, we would always expect to spend that money.

It's just we're spending it earlier.

Thank you.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, all in favor of uh the item say aye.

Aye.

Say nay, motion passes.

Moving on to council initiated actions.

We have a uh a uh action but uh allocating funds for salvation army security needs and rental assistant program.

Councilmember Palmer.

Yes, I'm gonna make a motion to instruct the staff to enter into a micro contract with the Salvation Army to provide services for their dental and health clinic and rental assistance for $20,000 out of our 2025 contingency fund.

Second.

Motion made by Councilmember uh Palmer and seconded by Councilmember Doring.

Councilmember Palmer, uh more to add.

Yeah, um I think that it's important to realize that the city of Rochester doesn't fund everything like this, but it when they have dental and health clinic and they're having some security problems.

Um their new majors came to town and weren't able to get the funding, and and we were asked to do this in our packet.

Um they have um a description of what they would use the money for for the dental and health clinic and also for the um rental assistance.

So I don't know if Dan.

Councilmember Doring.

Yeah, I I agree with uh council member Palmer on this, and I would I would uh recommend approval of of this action uh simply because it's benefiting uh some of those most at need populations of our our community and uh we need volunteers to uh service those members and uh we want to ensure the safety of those volunteers so those services continue.

So uh that's why I signed on as the second for um for this particular CIA.

Councilmember Fredericks.

I'm glad somebody else seconded John's uh motion here tonight.

But uh I I'm in support of this as well.

Um the people that that do uh great service over at Salvation Army uh deserve to be safe as they provide a a large need for this uh community seeing no further uh uh a couple hands went up.

Mayor Norton Thank you.

I just had a question about whether anyone had had a chat with uh Rochester Police Department about the safety and security issues and what their response was.

I hadn't heard of any discussion.

Has there been any discussion?

Anyone want to take this in my discussion with um one of their board members was the fact that they're having troubles at night with with their staff uh volunteers coming in and out of the building in um the police department doesn't do that type of of um security that will go once in a while, but they're having um troubles with that.

Thank you.

Councilmember Keene.

Yeah, I'm I'm uh a fan of the work that Salvation Army does here in town.

My wife and I go to their events and donate money.

Well, what I'm trying to get my head around here is what is the is this is this I in my mind the city of Rochester does not donate money to different things.

We support programs or we would like like do stopgap if we have to, but this thing is reading more like it's a very specific to direct staff to fund as opposed to direct staff to see how we can uh come to bear or what the like the ongoing problem is here.

The 20K will certainly run out in a short amount of time, and where are we then?

So I I'm trying to get like uh uh a better reading of uh is this a donation to something?

Is this a stop gap?

Um, I I dislike the the the kind of policy where we start funding things that when we you get to your favorite city council member, you can get help for in the next couple months.

So I'm I'm trying to see my way through that.

Councilmember Palmer.

Yeah, well, I'm not their favorite city council member, but um what they do you know the understanding is is that that the city of Rochester does not do um a medical or dental clinic and the Salvation Army does do that.

So that's something that as a city we feel is important.

We should we should be able to help them out with that.

And then with the rental assistance, they do that every month.

They do a rental assistance, and to me, keeping um people in their apartment or in their home uh because they hit a bump in the road is more important than anything else than to say okay now they're homeless now.

What do we do with them?

So this is a preventive program.

Um and we do this with other other programs, and so um this is not a um one you know, this is a one-time ask for this year, and I don't anticipate it being next year.

Uh Mayor Norton one more question.

Um we have a uh not even sure what the name of it is, but it's a grants fund through the city.

We may be out of money this year that nonprofits can approach Chow has left already, but her department runs that.

Was there any money left for this year that could be allocated?

Administrator Zelms.

Um Council President Mayor Norton, uh, members of the council.

Uh the funding for 2025 has been um depleted.

Funding for 2026 will become available I believe in a few weeks.

Like soon, because the budget was approved.

Um, typically, though, that has not been for um entities that receive other city funding, and so I think that would be the challenge is that because they receive other city funding um in different ways, they probably would not be eligible for this.

But I would need to clarify, and I don't believe it's up, I don't believe it's $20,000.

Okay, yeah, that would and Mr.

Chair, if I could just call up the other one with CDBG funds and salvation army get some of those already, or they do not.

Not this year.

And so it seems to me this is a particularly good project moving forward for CDBG because it has to do with rental assistance and housing, and that's one of the focuses.

So perhaps we can put that on our next year's CDBG consideration.

Councilmember Wall.

Thank you, Mayor.

I think that's precisely part of the issue for this year.

Uh I read this that the majors came to town a little bit too late and didn't understand the process, didn't get in the CDBG, and so I can support this as a one-year fix for a need.

Councilmember Palmer.

Yeah, I'll call the question.

All in favor, say aye.

Point order.

I don't think council member miller had spoken yet.

I'm sorry, I didn't see your hand up, Councilmember Miller.

Councilmember Miller.

Thank you.

Just for clarification to staff, if the CIA is approved, what would we expect as far as a timeline to report back and understand exactly what this would fund and for how long?

I see two areas of funding, but I don't see any sort of budget of like to an earlier question.

Is a $20,000 contribution funding a year of a program.

I mean, I see something in here about um a cost per month for rental assistance, and it doesn't seem like this can cover both items.

So I'm just curious about how long this would support a program to the question also of CDBG funding.

Um what what are administrators elms?

I can't give you a specific answer because I have the same information that you have.

How I would view it is it's supplementing their costs for providing these programs for the period of time that it lasts.

So they're gonna need to look at their entire budget to make sure this is going to be meaningful.

What the uh motion and second were was for a microcontract, so expenditures under $50,000, so long as they're budgeted, which you would be doing by approving contingency if it's approved.

You would be funding it tonight, and we would have to figure out a service agreement, a basic service agreement about what is the the public use of funds, what is the value of the funds, how are they going to make sure that it's being it's benefiting the two things that are listed here the rental assistance and the security um coordination?

So it wouldn't come back to council right.

Okay.

Uh now I I'm going to remind the council the question has been called.

Yep.

All right.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed say nay.

Motion passes.

Uh Mr.

Spindler Craig, could you uh read the for ordinance first readings?

Thank you, Mr.

President.

The first reading, item J1, an ordinance amending various areas of the unified development code as identified under text amendment C D 2025-001 TA.

Moving on to the second readings, item K1, an ordinance amending section 2-1-2 of chapter 2-1 of Title 2 of the Rochester Code of Ordinances and charges for licenses, permits, services, and other charges provided by the City of Rochester.

Is there a motion on this?

Move approval.

Second.

Uh, I didn't hear it.

Was that keen?

Councilmember Keene.

Uh moved by Councilmember Keene, seconded by Councilmember Miller.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Oppose say nay.

Item K2, an ordinance repealing in whole and replacing with a new chapter 8-11 of Title 8 of the Rochester Code of Ordinances relating to special events.

Move approval.

Second.

Motion made by Councilmember Miller, seconded by Councilmember Doring.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed a nay.

Motion passes.

We have no tabled items.

I have not received any other business.

Is there a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

Move by moved and seconded.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Oppose say nay.

Good night.

We are adjourned.

Good night, Gracie.

Where does that come from?