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HomeMy WebLinkAbout01.02.24 Work Session Minutes City of Farmington City Council Work Session Minutes Tuesday, January 2, 2024 The City Council met in a Work Session on Tuesday, January 2, 2024, at Farmington City Hall, 430 3rd Street, Farmington, Minnesota. 1. CALL TO ORDER Mayor Hoyt called the Work Session to order at 5 p.m. Members Present: Mayor Joshua Hoyt Councilmembers Holly Bernatz, Nick Lien, and Steve Wilson Members Absent: Councilmember Katie Porter (excused absence) Staff Present: Lynn Gorski, City Administrator Julie Flaten, Asst City Administrator/HR Director Deanna Kuennen, Community & Economic Development Director Kim Sommerland, Finance Director Justin Elvestad, Fire Chief Kellee Omlid, Parks & Recreation Director Tony Wippler, Planning Manager Gary Rutherford, Police Chief John Powell, Public Works Director Ed Rutledge, Natural Resources Specialist Shirley Buecksler, City Clerk Also Present: Vishal Dutt, Development Partner, Yellow Tree Michelle Blue, Dakota County Elections Director 2. APPROVE AGENDA Motion was made by Councilmember Bernatz and seconded by Councilmember Wilson to approve the agenda, as presented. Motion carried: 4 ayes / 0 nays. 3. DISCUSSION ITEMS 3.1 Proposed Multi-Family Housing Development Discussion Director Kuennen presented. At the December 4, 2023 City Council Work Session, the Yellow Tree real estate development team presented both their desire to invest $28 million to construct a market-rate apartment on 3-acres of land in Farmington, and their need for financial incentives to make the project feasible. The development team was seeking general support for the project and a willingness for the City Council to consider an incentive package that would Work Session Minutes of January 2,2024 Page 1 of 14 include partial waiving of an existing Special Assessment and some yet-to-be determined level of tax incentives. At this meeting, City Council expressed concerns about the transportation patterns adjacent to the proposed site (square- about)and asked Staff to provide additional information on how the development fits within the existing and future roadway system, as well as more information related to the estimated financial incentives available to support the development. Revised Site Design/Layout Vishal Dutt and Yellow Tree have proposed to invest approximately $28 million to construct an apartment development on 3-acres of land, on the 15-acre parcel owned by Hy-Vee (PID 148260000031). The project would consist of approximately 115+ apartment units, covered and surface parking, and outdoor amenities. Originally, the proposed site plan followed the existing parcel lines, preserving the square-about off of Spruce Street. At the December Work Session, City Council expressed their concerns about this layout, voicing their desire to remove the square-about and preserve a transportation corridor for the extension of Spruce Street connecting to the future Pilot Knob Road extension. Since the December Work Session, Staff coordinated with the developer to re-envision this site-removing the square-about, identifying a potential new alignment for Spruce Street and Pilot Knob Road, and updating the conceptual layout for the apartment to reflect the new road alignment. The new road alignment corrects potential traffic concerns and allows for a future east-west connection. The revised apartment layout accommodates potentially more units and additional outdoor amenities. Exhibit A shows the proposed project/site location and Exhibit B visually depicts a revised road connection with the modified apartment concept. Proposed Financial Incentives Overview The other concern voiced by Council involved gaining a better understanding of the level of tax incentives that are available and what would be needed to support the project. As previously discussed, the large 15-acre parcel has a special assessment that was previously deferred but is now being paid. The special assessment was originally for 15 years, in which calendar year 2023 was year 2 of payments. The approximate payoff for the full assessment covering all 15- acres is $1,722,595, which equates to a per acre rate of $116,549. Based on these estimated numbers, the special assessment adds an additional $350,000 to the total development costs for the project. The developer is seeking consideration for waiving the special assessment on the 3-acres only. (The special assessment would stay in place on the remaining 12-acres, with payments continuing to be made by the property owner.) Staff proposes, and the developer has agreed, that waiving of the special assessment would be tied to a Work Session Minutes of January 2,2024 Page 2 of 14 development agreement that would outline conditions that would be required to be met prior to fees being waived with timelines. In addition, it was also identified that some level of tax incentives would be necessary to make the project financially feasible. Tax incentives are a common tool used to support the construction of multi-family housing projects. In this particular case, the developer is seeking tax abatement for the following reasons: • The project is not subsidized housing that will include low-and moderate- income restrictions. Projects that include such income limit restrictions are eligible to apply for low-income housing tax credits to offset development costs. Without the income restrictions, this project also does not qualify for a housing tax increment finance district. • Unlike the Emery Apartment project that involved redevelopment and cleanup, the proposed site for this development in on a greenfield site and therefore does not meet the qualifications for a redevelopment tax increment finance district. Staff worked with Ehlers to prepare a high-level estimate to understand the amount of taxes that could be potentially realized with this proposed development. Ehlers made a number of assumptions to estimate the city taxes. Based on the high-level information, it is estimated that if the City abated only the new taxes generated by the project, on the 3-acres for a total of 10 years, the present value of the available tax abatement to support the project would be approximately $822,875. Discussion: Mr. Dutt: We are negotiating with the landowner for possible development of additional land in the future. Director Powell: We want to keep our options open on the square-about or roundabout until we have a final design for that intersection. Spruce Street—note that this is consistent with past planning for the area. A three-legged roundabout would work well there. We would want a detailed concept of that intersection. Mayor Hoyt: The increase in units could affect the equation either positively or negatively. After ten years, there is 30% more revenue made over time. Councilmember Bernatz: If we forgive the $350K, do they continue to pay and end early, or does it adjust years four through 15? Based on what we're looking at, we know a certain portion of this has been paid already. If you want to cut it acre by acre, you could say a certain number of acres have been paid for out of this whole project. As we look at the rate of development, and the opportunity for future development, while we're looking at an amount to forgive, we can't forget that payments continue to be made. My question is, how does it affect that number? Now in year three, instead of$230K, we get $208K, for instance. Work Session Minutes of January 2,2024 Page 3 of 14 Director Kuennen: We will work with the Finance Director to understand what that means from a payment perspective. But what I did was I just looked at the payoff number and took that divided by 15 to get the per acre and pulled out three of those acres. When the developer sells that property, we would be looking at that assessment going away on just those three acres. It would remain on the rest, and they would continue to pay as they are today. It would be a different formula to work through what that means so likely the numbers would be reduced slightly to account for that payment. Councilmember Wilson: This is part of a massive area, which I do look at the whole Peterson western side of it. And I have envisioned that this would be a mixed use area. In my ideal world, we would have had a discussion about this similar to Vita Attiva and flushed it out. Because this is not only a financial question, but a huge policy question, as well. It's up to whatever we do for the remainder of our terms, but I worry about the implications of— does this set the stage for tax incentives in the whole area, and what if the whole area is high density housing? Yes, it is a mixed use area, but we leave very little room for commercial. Do we have a sense of the Planning Commission? Mayor Hoyt: The Planning Commission has already weighed in. Not going back too far to Vita Attiva, other than the Planning Commission kicked that development in its entirety and it ultimately came to us on appeal. What came out of that was there was a forced rezoning of the area, so we didn't have those conversations going forward. When the rezoning was done, the Spruce Street mixed use was implemented. All of the parcels that Hy-Vee has are currently under Spruce Street mixed use. The multi-family housing is already conditional use. The Planning Commission has already said they are okay with high density housing. The entire 15 acres is mixed use and all under Spruce Street mixed use. Director Kuennen: A lender is only going to lend money if the market supports development. The study that was done in December 2022 identified the need of about 400 multi market rate units in this area. We have 74 being developed now, so that leaves over 300. This is a snapshot in time, but there is still that demand. We also know the vacancy rate in this area is only about 3%. Five percent is considered healthy and allows for movement within the rental community. We do know that there is a demand now. One year ago, there was a demand for at least 400 additional units needed, and this particular project starts checking all those boxes. Councilmember Wilson: The development itself is extremely attractive. From my standpoint, this is a really good example of why I like more strategy planning meetings. This is a new concept in an area where this is permitted, and I'm glad we are showing the full tax component over 15 years because I do think we will be asked for incentives on the remainder of the Hy-Vee property. The improvements that were made to the road are huge and I like the clean lines of this. I am cautious, but I can wrap my head around it because we are not completely getting rid of all of the taxes. If we travel down the road, if the financial Work Session Minutes of January 2,2024 Page 4 of 14 piece doesn't look favorable and you're going to need the existing taxes waived, think it would be a logical concern of the Council. Sixty percent of my concern was the road alignment. I hope that future Councils will recognize the wisdom of having a mixed use area, as opposed to all high density housing. We only have one opportunity to develop this community, the way we see it being the right way to develop it at the time. I do like this housing, I am okay with the tax piece, but also recognize that we are going to have to make some kind of incentive, and I am comfortable at this point proceeding to what the next steps might look like. Mayor Hoyt: In 2019, that entire property had a $350K assessment on it. With interest, it was $600K. I was the lone descending vote. My argument was there was no development agreement on it, it was an arbitrary, it's an obstacle of sale, we can't sell it, forget that the property owner had realized an increase in value, and we waived it. Taxpayer's $600K out the door and we still don't have a development on it. This is a similar situation with Hy-Vee. The taxpayers of this community paid to it. That has been satisfied, and we're not collecting interest. The fact that Hy-Vee has already started to pay it, we're up over half a million already. If, at the end of the day, we don't make the $2M to make the taxpayers whole, are we presenting any benefit and value back to them. Councilmember Wilson: But after ten years, the answer is yes. Mayor Hoyt: It would be more than $2M at that point. We will probably get to that point by year 11 at the current amounts. But you can't save yourself any profitability. When DEED came in and talked about jobs, and everything we've heard is housing and rooftop, had we done something five years ago, we would have been halfway into that 10 year payment. Councilmember Wilson: Did we look at the housing along Denmark to be single family? Mayor Hoyt: The CDA property, the Vermillion Crossing, the Emery, and now this, are all filling a segment of our housing that has gapped for 15 years. As long as we continue to put effort into things that are going to drive workforce that will drive employers to start looking here as a place to go and do business. Making investments in the community that create the opportunity for jobs that in turn make it more attractive for employers is the net goal. Councilmember Lien: My concern is what's going to happen on the north end of the property. That's a future discussion and can we rezone, replat or subdivide. am 100% on board with this project. If you do a phase two of the projects, I have no reservations about the south side. Councilmember Wilson: If you parcel that out, it may have issues for future development. Mayor Hoyt: This may give Hy-Vee incentive to subdivide and parcel things out. Work Session Minutes of January 2,2024 Page 5 of 14 3.2 Discussion of Joint Powers Agreement with Dakota County for Absentee Mail Voting Clerk Buecksler introduced Michelle Blue, Dakota County Elections Director. At the August 21, 2023 Work Session, Staff presented for Council the JPA for Absentee Mail Voting Services as proposed by Dakota County Elections. At that time, Council chose to wait until after the November 2023 Special Elections to make a decision on the JPA and requested Staff bring back any feedback from the November elections. Responses from cities that held elections in November, including Apple Valley, Rosemount, and South St. Paul, said they appreciated how seamless and smooth the process was, that communication with the County was excellent and, overall, everything went well. The City of Empire also waited for feedback from the November elections and signed on to the JPA in December 2023. Clerk Buecksler said consistency is important for our residents because it provides the same experience for all voters within the county. Consistency is also important for Clerks and County Staff to work seamlessly together. For many years now, the County has stressed that all Clerks follow the same procedures and guidelines, and it has worked well. Being consistent in this way is not only more understandable for our voters, but also less confusing for County and City Staff, leaving no City as an outlier. Discussion: Councilmember Wilson: Why have we been the significant outlier with reporting in the last couple of years? 2020 was super backlogged with people waiting. Clerk Buecksler: Absentee results and election day results have to come together as one number; they cannot be reported separately to the State. In some past elections, there have been issues uploading and transferring results from some City offices to the County on election night due to the large files being transferred and other technical issues. Having all absentee ballots together at the County office should take away this problem. Councilmember Lien: I think having it all done in one common place, versus the concerns you have about outliers, more people auditing the same process and speaking the same language, the more trust there is in it. Clerk Buecksler: I was definitely the outlier in West St. Paul, where I was the only city in the county that didn't issue absentee ballots. Voters had to go to the County for an absentee ballot, but all of those ballots came to the City for processing. This was not only confusing for voters, but it was also confusing Work Session Minutes of January 2,2024 Page 6 of 14 during our Clerk meetings with County Staff. I really appreciate that the County wants all cities to be consistent. Director Flaten: Having done elections for a lot of years and the County's past administration, prior to Michelle Blue's tenure, had been pushing Clerks to be consistent. The County would put out a manual, but some Clerks would randomly change it. We have heard for years that we have to start being all on the same page or it's not going to work well. This is another step to move us towards that. this n are able o means that Clerks in i s county Clerk Buecksler: Being consistent a s ty to provide support to one another, can step in to do the work for another, should the need arise, because we are all doing the same thing. We can also stand together in any audit of our election procedures. I think the spotlight would be on us if we are the outlier. Councilmember Bernatz: I think that makes the best point that I was considering as we were re-evaluating this. I think it was wise to wait to see how an election cycle went before we jumped on board. But seeing now as we would be one of one, it can serve in one of two roles. if something goes awry at the county level, well we didn't participate, but if something goes awry at the city level, there is a whole other spotlight or light cast that, you had the opportunity to participate in something that had been vetted. There's a process to it, and everyone's participating. I respect the Mayor's position that he shared back in August. I certainly feel more comfortable with this today than I did pre-November. Director Flaten: The other thing to remember is the past eight years how contentious elections have become. The Absentee Ballot Board is a big part of that. People coming into Cities and demanding to be on ballot boards and demanding to stand and watch over your work. For us to push that to one central location where they're better at dealing with it than all of us individual small cities, makes Shirley's job and mine and everyone here a lot easier. Mayor Hoyt: I won't move off my point. Voting is the most fundamental thing there is. It is what gives an individual the ability to let their voice matter. Hypothetically, why not take all the precincts and move them to one centralized location and change the entire process?Why does the handling of a vote matter, whether you do it absentee or in person? You're supposed to cast your ballots locally, they're supposed to be administered locally, it's fundamental and foundational, and I won't come off of that. It is something I believe very passionately in. I don't care if it costs the city $60K and we can save $40K by having someone else do the absentee ballots, to me it doesn't matter. It is a foundational principal of the importance of your vote, and it shall be cast locally, Work Session Minutes of January 2,2024 Page 7 of 14 and it shall be counted and administered locally. That's what I believe in. Not to put more work on anyone and say it can't be handled better somewhere else but once it's gone, you aren't getting it back. Once you give up that authority, you are not going to get it back. Councilmember Wilson: That is the most compelling argument you can make because you really lose control of the ballot once it leaves City Hall. Clerk Buecksler: in past elections, if you went to City Hall and voted, your ballot stayed there. If you went to the County office, voters expected that it stayed there but it didn't, it went to the cities. Basically, it's just turning and going the other way back to the County. Mayor Hoyt: And it came back to the cities because the cities were ultimately responsible for going through them, processing, and counting. Over time, we are slowly losing control on everything. Cities have less and less control each year. You don't give up something so foundational as your vote. Again, it has nothing to do with the County's ability to do it. It belongs at the local level and in the community in which you reside. Clerk Buecksler: Professionally, I feel like we all work together, whether we are local government, county, or state. Mayor Hoyt: I think what struck me the most and why I am so passionate about this is, three years ago, we were at the City of Burnsville and Secretary of State Steve Simon was there talking about rank choice voting. I asked how you would handle write-ins on rank choice. He said he never thought about it. As the Secretary of State, the ultimate responsibility for elections, you hadn't considered write-ins when you're out there promoting rank choice. The fundamental part of this, I'm okay being the outlier. I don't think it should be done outside of the district or precinct in which you cast your vote. I know it's a lot of work, but I think that's why this country is as great as it is because we have that work to do. Councilmember Bernatz: if we were to move in a direction that led to an approval, is this ongoing or does it come up with each election cycle? Clerk Buecksler: This IPA is for 2024 and 2025. Michelle Blue: The way the agreement is structured is that we would evaluate the service every year on an annual basis and look for ways to improve efficiency. It is intended to go on perpetuity, but there are definitely ways to exit the Work Session Minutes of January 2,2024 Page 8 of 14 agreement. There are also ways to ensure we are meeting your needs. After every election, and we just did three of them under the current IPA model, we continue to seek feedback to be sure we meet your needs. You are able to terminate at any time. Councilmember Wilson: How does the County ensure that the absentee ballots are from a real person? Michelle Blue: Minnesota has really good laws. One of the great things is having a single Absentee Ballot Board reviewing all of these ballots. As a reminder, we have statutory authority for every Safe at Some voter and every overseas military voter, so those all come to our ballot board anyway, plus any voter who casts their ballot during direct balloting. Those cannot come back to the City because those were automatically cast and accepted by the election judges. Having a central place that observers can go to is really good for transparency, so they don't have to go to numerous ballot boards to watch that. We provide extensive training for our party balance judges and our ballot board members and give them access to the election laws, training that is available, and they go through and absolutely check every single ballot. They are working in our Statewide Voter Registration System, and they do that as a party balance team. it is a very rigorous process to go through every single ballot and detail. They bring every single ballot up, review it, again there are observers around, and they have the whole list of the law which tells them how to determine whether or not you can accept it, how you review it, and they follow that very, very thoroughly to make sure every ballot that should be counted, is counted. Councilmember Lien: With due respect to the Mayor's opinion and philosophy, to me it doesn't seem like we took a vote away from a person in no stretch there. Thinking in terms of Councilmember Wilson's question, if you have someone going from city to city and saying he's from Rosemount, saying he's from Apple Valley, etc., the County is going to catch that long before Farmington will be able to at the municipality level. We don't really have conflict intention the way they would on a larger scale. As soon as you saw one person doing that, you could toss it out easier than we could at our level. The security gain, the auditing improvements, the efficiency of it all - to me, the fundamental thing is that municipal elections were held because it was more efficient to do it that way. You would deploy your army of election judges down this local level because it was hard for people to travel and get their vote up to a centralized location. We are in the age of technology where that's not quite the constraint anymore. We're still not taking away someone's vote. If anything, we are increasing transparency of it all. So, I don't feel like I'm surrendering quite the same rights in that regard. Work Session Minutes of January 2,2024 Page 9 of 14 Mayor Hoyt: I use my example as a write-in. An election judge has to be able to reasonably discern the intention of the person who cast the ballot and who they're voting for. The way the statute is written, it doesn't have to say Joshua J. Hoyt. It doesn't have to say Joshua Hoyt. It can say I. Hoyt, it can say Hoyt, it can say anything that the election judge can reasonably discern. I campaigned for 78 days, beat 6 other ballot candidates, and only missed the first by about 140 votes on a write-in. Take that scenario and let's say 30% of them were absentee. I may not even be sitting here. An election judge may not be able to reasonably discern. But everybody in the area knew what was going on and they were able to figure it out. Because it was cast locally and they were counted locally, it absolutely mattered. Fundamentally, your right to vote is one thing, and it should be cast locally. My personal application to that is a whole other layer. Again, it comes down to the fundamentals. It is the one thing that is the most sacred, your ability to pick and choose your leaders based on elections and we as a City have a responsibility to our residents to ensure that we administer those elections with integrity and compliance, follow all the laws and good ethics, and do all the things. What was our percentage in the last two elections for absentee? It's a massive number and it's growing. It's going to get to a point where more than 50% of your votes are eventually going to be cast absentee. Clerk Buecksler: in 2020, absentee votes were very high, about 60%. Because of the pandemic, we pushed people to vote absentee to avoid the crowds and all that. But I believe Michelle and I talked before, and she said the election that followed was closer to 30%. Michelle Blue: It definitely varies by the election but 30% is about average. Nationally, we have increased voting by mail, again during the pandemic. Minnesota is an anomaly and those voters have mostly returned to the in-person voting. The majority here vote in person, and I don't expect that to change. There are laws in place and, last year, legislature changed permanent absentee. You do have 99 voters in Farmington that are on the permanent absentee voter list. After this election, they will automatically get a ballot. The law makes it easier to sign up for permanent absentee than it was in the past. I think with that, it will cause an increase in the numbers, as well, but people here like to vote in person. Councilmember Wilson: I agree with the Mayor's point. I would side with being okay with the IPA, in part, because I think there is a substantial difference between the work that Shirley has to do and the team. I don't disagree about the cost between Dakota County administering through the IPA and the work we would have to do. To your point, I think people at the state capitol and nationally have created an environment which I believe substantially eliminates all of the Work Session Minutes of January 2,2024 Page 10 of 14 freedom and the integrity of the election. I wish every ballot could come here to be counted, validated, and sent off. But the reality is we're moving in a direction that we have no control over where that percentage is going to cross over 50 and younger voters that have to be convinced to vote. I've never not voted and never not voted in person. But I just think you have drop-in mail voting boxes, absentee ballots that we don't even see to begin with, and there is a lot removed from our control. The IPA is a two year deal, and we can pull back. Yes, it is two full elections, but we could pull back and decide not to do it. For a variety of reasons, including the fact that you served our country, I can fully respect your opinion. Mayor Hoyt: You either have to believe in the fundamental and foundational stuff or have a compelling reason to believe that there is a better way to do it. Councilmember Wilson: Shirley, if you needed to collect all of the ballots from our precincts, would you be able to? If we had to conduct a recount for any reason, would we be able to do that? Clerk Buecksler: Yes, I have been part of a recount before, both at the city level and at the county level. Michelle Blue: It's in the contract that specifically ensures the transfer of any ballots directly to your possession for a recount. Administrator Gorski: We will put this on the next agenda for approval. Michelle Blue: I respect that you are taking some time to make a decision. On Shirley's behalf, time is of the essence. Those 99 voters on your permanent absentee list, by law, must be mailed their absentee ballot applications this week. We have already done that for all of those on the IPA and we need to move on that rather quickly. A dozen of your voters have already requested ballots for the upcoming Presidential Nomination Primary. Absentee voting begins on January 19th, so from our perspective, we would love to accommodate that. It certainly makes it easier to administer on our side if you're' included in that. The Presidential Nomination Primary is March 5th and, starting January 19th, you can walk in here or any service center and request an absentee ballot and vote. Administrator Gorski: I believe you're saying you want a confident direction of what Council feels they would do so that you feel comfortable in moving forward. Michelle Blue: That would be helpful for our planning to have some kind of indication and direction. It's helpful for us, as we are preparing tabulators. Today Work Session Minutes of January 2,2024 Page 11 of 14 is the deadline for parties to let us know their candidates, so we will be preparing the ballots tomorrow and getting ready to deploy all of our audio/visual devices. If you know for sure that this is going to be an absentee ballot location, voters can come in here on January 19th and request an absentee ballot and cast it here. The question is really, does it stay here for review, or does it go to Dakota County for the board review. Councilmember Bernatz: What is the transportation process for ballots? How do they get to where they are supposed to be — USPS, courier? Michelle Blue: if someone requests a ballot in person here, they can fill out all the paperwork and hand it to Shirley. We have a secure process for storage. Shirley can also hand them the ballot and a signature envelope, and they can go home and fill it out. They can put it in the mail, and it would be returned to the County by U.S. Mail. If they give it to Shirley, we will have a secure receptacle that she can store those in. We do have a county vehicle and a team of party balanced couriers who come by and have a chain of command log that they fill out. They secure each ballot bag with a serialized tag number, which Shirley would have to sign off on that she saw that tag number, and it comes back to Dakota County, where we review that it's the same tag she signed off on. We sign the chain of custody log and unclip it in public view to be counted. There is also counting of how many ballots were inside the secured receptacle. Administrator Gorski: Staff is looking for direction from Council. Without clear direction, the City may not be able to participate because the County needs to make decisions starting tomorrow. Michelle Blue: I certainly wouldn't close the door on anything. But it's very helpful for us for planning purposes if there is some indication on which way you're leaning. Our commitment is with the voters of Dakota County. So, if the decision is not made until January 16th, we can work with that. I just want to acknowledge that we will have a little bit of time where Shirley and I will need to consider ways of working things out in the meantime. Director Flaten: Shirley and I will start doing a lot more work if we don't have consensus tonight, including putting a ballot board in place and the training we need to have done. It would be very helpful from our end if you're confident. Councilmembers Lien, Wilson, and Bernatz agreed to moving the joint powers agreement forward to the next Council meeting for approval. Mayor Hoyt was not in agreement. Work Session Minutes of January 2,2024 Page 12 of 14 3.3 2024 Council Committee Appointments Council discussed appointments to public agencies for 2024. Appointments to be brought forward to tonight's Regular City Council meeting include: PUBLIC AGENCY MEMBERS APPOINTED Airlake Airport Advisory Commission Holly Bernatz—Primary Katie Porter—Alternate ALF Ambulance Steve Wilson—Primary (Apple Valley/Lakeville/Farmington) Nick Lien—Alternate Dakota 911 Board of Directors Nick Lien—Primary Steve Wilson—Alternate EFPAC Katie Porter—Primary (Empire/Farmington Planning Advisory Joshua Hoyt—Alternate Committee Eureka/Farmington Planning Advisory Holly Bernatz Committee Joshua Hoyt—Alternate Farmington/Castle Rock Discussion Group Joshua Hoyt—Primary Steve Wilson—Alternate Fire Relief Board Steve Wilson Nick Lien Liquor Operations Committee Katie Porter Holly Bernatz MUSA Review Committee Holly Bernatz (Municipal Urban Service Area) Nick Lien 4. COUNCIL COMMITTEE UPDATE Councilmember Wilson: Recommended that the City join the Association of Metropolitan Municipalities. City Administrator Gorski will look into it. There have been good discussions with the Fire Relief Board this year. Also, Jeff Allbee has stepped down. 5. CITY ADMINISTRATOR UPDATE Martin Luther King Jr. Day is January 15, so the next City Council meeting will be held on Tuesday, January 16. Department Heads will provide accomplishments and goals for Council. Staff will send possible dates to Council for scheduling the Strategic Planning Meeting. Work Session Minutes of January 2,2024 Page 13 of 14 6. ADJOURNMENT Motion was made by Councilmember Bernatz and seconded by Councilmember Wilson to adjourn the meeting at 6:44 p.m. Motion carried: 4 ayes / 0 nays. Respectfully submitted, I Yecksler City Clerk Work Session Minutes of January 2,2024 Page 14 of 14