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HomeMy WebLinkAbout12.01.25 Council Minutes City of Farmington Regular Council Meeting Minutes December 1 Monday, D ece , 2025 The City Council met in regular session on Monday, December 1, 2025, at Farmington City Hall, 430 Third Street, Farmington, Minnesota. 1. CALL TO ORDER Mayor Hoyt called the meeting to order at 7 pm. 2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Mayor Hoyt led everyone in the Pledge of Allegiance. 3. ROLL CALL Members Present: Mayor Joshua Hoyt Councilmembers Holly Bernatz, Jake Cordes, Nick Lien, and Steve Wilson Members Absent: None Staff Present: Lynn Gorski, City Administrator David Chanski, Asst. City Administrator/HR Director Amy Schmidt, City Attorney Deanna Kuennen, Economic & Community Dev. Director Kim Sommerland, Finance Director Matt Price, Fire Chief Kellee Omlid, Parks & Recreation Director Andrew Van Dorn, Police Captain John Powell, Public Works Director Shirley Buecksler, City Clerk Also Present: Gary Rutherford, Police Chief-Retired 4. APPROVE AGENDA Motion was made by Councilmember Bernatz and seconded by Councilmember Wilson to approve the agenda, as presented. Motion carried: 5 ayes / 0 nays 5. ANNOUNCEMENTS / COMMENDATIONS 6. CITIZENS COMMENTS / RESPONSES TO COMMENTS • Nancy Aarestad, 22165 Beaumont Ave, Castle Rock Township Regular City Council Meeting Minutes of December 1,2025 Page 1 of 12 • Jeff Schottler, 22420 Calico Ct, Farmington • Nate Ryan, 22390 Cambrian Way, Farmington 7. CONSENT AGENDA 7.1 Application for Gambling Exempt Permit for Ducks Unlimited Northfield Golf Chapter MN-01 13 7.2 Donation from the Farmington Firefighters Relief Association to the City of Farmington 7.3 Minutes of the November 17, 2025 Regular City Council Meeting 7.4 Payment of Claims 7.5 2026-2027 Labor Agreement with LELS Local 187: Patrol Officers 7.6 Paid-on-Call and Seasonal 2026 Wages 7.7 Staff Approvals and Recommendations: • Caleb Bolton as Deputy Fire Chief • Evan Garofalo as Seasonal Warming House Attendant • Jacob Kipke as Seasonal Warming House Attendant • Bret Leitgeb as Seasonal Warming House Attendant • Ryan Tennessen as Seasonal Warming House Attendant 7.8 AIA Owner/ Architect Agreement with JLG Architects for City Hall Project 7.9 Donation from Dakota Electric to the Halloween Walk 7.10 2026 Joint Powers Agreement with Dakota County for Emergency Management Services 7.11 Plans and Specifications and Authorize the Advertisement for Bids for the Industrial Park Drainage Ditch Project Motion was made by Councilmember Lien and seconded by Councilmember Cordes to approve the Consent Agenda, as presented. Motion carried: 5 ayes / 0 nays 8. PUBLIC HEARINGS 8.1 Final 2026 General Fund Budget and Tax Levy Mayor Hoyt opened the public hearing at 7:29 pm. Finance Director Sommerland presented the Final 2026 General Fund Budget and Tax Levy. Proposed Final 2026 Budget and Levy Summary The proposed 2026 General Fund budget totals $18,838,494, a 4.9% decrease from the 2025 adopted budget. The total proposed property tax levy for taxes payable in 2026 is $19,488,577, an increase of 12.98% over the prior year. Since the preliminary budget was adopted in September, Regular City Council Meeting Minutes of December 1,2025 Page 2 of 12 both the revenues and expenditure budgets have been amended, but the levy amount remains unchanged. The proposed levy supports general operations, capital needs, debt service, and long-term maintenance. It is allocated as follows: • General Operations: $14,868,024 • Capital Equipment: $1,178,000 • Capital Projects: $610,000 • Economic Development: $250,000 • Building Maintenance: $123,000 • Trail Maintenance: $300,000 • Pavement Maintenance: $200,000 • Debt Service: $1,959,553 Farmington's share of the fiscal disparities distribution is $2,648,711, resulting in a net tax levy of $16,839,866, a 13.5% increase from 2025. The estimated tax rate is 51 .519%, based on a net tax capacity of $32,686,643. Proposed 2026 Budget Hi ahliahts Staffing additions • (6) Fire • (1) Human Resources • (1) Finance • (1) Public Works Transportation Studies • Speed Limit Study • Flagstaff Avenue Corridor Fleet and Equipment • Police Fleet: $277,000 • John Deere Tractor: $278,000; replacement of a 2005 tractor • Skid Steer: $93,000 • Dump Truck: $325,000; replacement of a 2001 dump truck • Compact Wheel Loader: $75,000 Park and Trail Improvements • $1 .675 million, including skatepark Facilities • $1 .1 million facility planning and deferred maintenance including: o Police Building - scope and design work related to potential expansion o Central Maintenance Facility - $311,000 HVAC updates Regular City Council Meeting Minutes of December 1,2025 Page 3 of 12 o City Hall - $250,000 structural modifications and mechanical upgrades Infrastructure • $11 million, including street improvements, extension of water and sewer trunk lines, and water storage Emerald Ash Borer Mitigation • $600,000 Tax Levy Overview Proposed Levy: $19,488,577 Levy Allocation Increase over 2025: $2,239,647 1%- 2% 1% or 12.98% 1% 10% ■General Operation 396 ` •Capdai Equipment •Capital Projects ■Economic Development 1 Building Maintenance ■Trail Maintenance ■Pavement Maintenance Debt Service 2026 Impact on Homeowners City Property Tax Average residential property valued at $2,500 $353,175 $2,000 Estimated $1,820 $1,500 property tax $1,000 Increase of$179/year $500 $200,000 $300,000 S353,175 $400,000 $500,000 Res<*nta*7axaDmE Market Value for Taxes Payable ■2025 n 2026 Regular City Council Meeting Minutes of December 1,2025 Page 4 of 12 2026 Budget and Levy Summary Adapted Proposed Increase 2025 Budget 2026 Budget Decrease General Fund Expenditures $ 19,805,780 $ 18,838,494 -4,88% Genefat Fund Revenues $ 4,484,569 $ 3,970,470 -11.46% Gener a(Operating Levy $ 15,321.211 $ 14,868,024 -2.96% EDA levy $ 250,000 $ 250.000 0.00% Debt levy $ 1,677,690 $ 1,959,553 16,80% Miscellaneous levies $ - $ 2,411,000 100.00% Gross lax levy $ 17,248,901 $ 19.488,577 12.98% Fiscal Disparities $ 2A15.550 $ 2-648.711 9,65% Net tax levy $ 14,833,351 $ 16,839,866 13.53% Net Tax Capacaty $ 30,962,345 $ 32,686.643 Tax Rate 47.908% 51.519% The following citizens addressed the City Council: • Jeff Schottler • Nate Ryan • Sarah Fry Seeing no one else wishing to speak, Mayor Hoyt closed the public hearing at 8:10 pm. Motion was made by Councilmember Lien and seconded by Councilmember Wilson to adopt Resolution 2025-085 Adopting the 2026 Budget and Setting the Final Tax Levy Collectible in 2026. Motion carried: 5 ayes / 0 nays 8.2 Implementation of First Due's Fire Inspection, Testing, and Maintenance (ITM) Solution and Ordinance 2025-008 Mayor Hoyt opened the public hearing at 8:17 pm. Fire Chief Price presented an ordinance amending the City Code as it relates to third-party protection and control, inspection, testing, and maintenance reporting. Regular City Council Meeting Minutes of December 1,2025 Page 5 of 12 Seeing no one wishing to speak, Mayor Hoyt closed the public hearing at 8:24 pm. Motion was made by Councilmember Wilson and seconded by Councilmember Cordes to pass Ordinance 2025-008 Amending Title 5, Chapter 2, of the Farmington City Code as it Relates to Third-Party Protection and Control, Inspection, Testing, and Maintenance Reporting. Motion carried: 5 ayes / 0 nays 8.3 License Renewals for 2026 Including On-Sale and Sunday Intoxicating, Club On-Sale and Sunday, On-Sale Wine, 3.2 Beer and Intoxicating Malt Liquor License Renewals for 2026 Mayor Hoyt opened the public hearing at 8:25 pm. Assistant City Administrator Chanski presented the Liquor License renewals for 2026. The following citizens addressed the City Council: • Nate Ryan Seeing no one else wishing to speak, Mayor Hoyt closed the public hearing at 8:28 pm. Motion was made by Councilmember Bernatz and seconded by Councilmember Cordes to approve the 2026 Liquor License renewals for: On-Sale Intoxicating and Sunday Liquor Licenses • A This Little Piggy Catering, 22280 Chippendale Ave W • Bourbon Butcher/ Farm Town Brew Hall, 20700 Chippendale Ave W • Celts Pub & Grill, 200 Third St • El Charro Mexican Restaurant, 120 Elm St • Farmington Lanes, 27 Fifth St • Farmington Tap House / Longbranch Saloon & Eatery, 309 Third St • Las Enchiladas, 18500 Pilot Knob Rd, Suite A • Pizza Man, 409 Third St • The Mug, 18450 Pilot Knob Rd Club On-Sale and Sunday Liquor License • VFW 7662 / Sypal Lundgren Post, 421 Third St Regular City Council Meeting Minutes of December 1,2025 Page 6 of 12 Wine On-Sale and Strong Beer License Lighthouse Kitchen + Caf6, 953 Eighth St Motion carried: 5 ayes / 0 nays 9. AWARD OF CONTRACT 10.PETITIONS, REQUESTS AND COMMUNICATIONS 11.UNFINISHED BUSINESS 12.NEW BUSINESS 13.CITY COUNCIL ROUNDTABLE Councilmember Lien is very appreciative of the excellent surgeons he had at Mayo Clinic and is happy to be back. It's Christmastime, and he hopes everyone enjoys the season, the lights, and all the activities coming up in the next few weeks. Councilmember Bernatz thanked the Public Works Team for their hard work handling two snow events over the holiday weekend. These are things we just take for granted, that within a reasonable amount of time, our roads are going to be cleared again and we're going to get in and out of our driveways and, within a certain amount of time, travel is going to be safe. But that means there are people that took time away from their families on a holiday weekend to be able to provide those services. A job well done, and I am personally grateful for the kind of group of individuals that we have working here. Thank you for that. Councilmember Cordes mentioned that there are several Christmas and holiday events this weekend, including the Lighted Holiday Parade at 7 pm Saturday, December 6th, followed by the Rotary Holiday Tree lighting ceremony at the lot next to Homestead Community Church. Thank you to the Rotary, the City of Farmington, and Homestead Community Church for the work they put into the events this weekend. City Administrator Gorski made a request to all the parents out there, please make sure your children stay behind the barricades during the parade because it can be a very dangerous situation at night when people are driving vehicles. Also, thank you to Council for all your kind words provided during the budget presentation. Kim, you did a phenomenal job explaining in detail what we did this year-thank you. Also, thanks to the whole Team. It's not easy to go through all the needs of the City and we know we can't do it all in one day. Regular City Council Meeting Minutes of December 1,2025 Page 7 of 12 We take that responsibility very seriously, so thank you for your hard work, everyone. City Clerk Buecksler said I appreciate all our liquor establishments getting their paperwork and payments in on time, our Police Staff taking care of the background checks, and David for presenting it for me. Thank you. Assistant City Administrator Chanski thanked the Council for their support and adopting this budget. For the public's insight, one of my roles when it comes to budget is, obviously, the personnel-related pieces which is one of the biggest parts of the budget, especially when you saw nine positions being added for 2026. Those are a lot of positions, and it's been a while since the City had that many additions in a year. When we look at personnel, we do take that very seriously. Some considerations we take in effect when we're looking at when adding personnel is 1) are we being as efficient as possible with the resources that we have, and 2) also looking at whether there are services not being provided, are there projects not getting done that may have a negative effect on the community if they continue to go undone, what kind of unfunded mandates or mandates are being put on the City. In HR, we had two mandates in the last year with paid family leave, as well as no tax on overtime. We also look at whether there are areas of savings by adding Staff. For example, maybe reducing professional services or other things by adding a position. We also look at other ways to fund positions outside of the tax levy. For this year, one of those was through the SAFER (Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response) grant to try to help fund the six full-time Firefighters. I want to commend Chief Price and our grant writer, Kari Kubicek, on putting that SAFER grant together. This was a huge undertaking, and they spent weeks putting that together. Unfortunately, decision makers in Washington decided that other communities that already had full-time Firefighters were a little more deserving. Again, we still appreciate your support in moving forward with that needed addition, anyway. And I want to thank Kim for her hundreds of hours of work over the last eight plus months on this budget and her dedication to making the City's finances more transparent and understandable. She did this also while leading 9 the City's most significant software conversion in almost the last 25 years, and that actually goes live tomorrow. Thank you, Kim. Public Works Director Powell said both he and all of Public Works appreciate the Council's support from a budgeting standpoint. And from wanting to provide the best services possible for our residents, having the best facilities, and doing things when they need to be done, that all goes into the budget. We appreciate your moral support with the snow event. Despite the holiday weekend, we had a very good response. We only had maybe a handful of Farmington Fixes, such as yard damage and mailboxes, so it went very well for really the first big event of the season. Now that we have the salt shed, we will Regular City Council Meeting Minutes of December 1,2025 Page 8 of 12 be staging some salt in there, so you'll see some trucks hauling from the Dakota County garage up to the salt shed so trucks can be ready to go. When we have an event coming, the trucks are pre-loaded. When the crew shows up, they hit the roads. Having it in the salt shed saves them from having to go down to Dakota County to load up. It may not be obvious, but if you're driving a 5-ton truck that's empty in a snowstorm on icy roads, that can get a little dicey and, as much as we can limit empty trucks going around and we can fill them at the salt shed instead of having to drive to fill up, that's a big help. Thank you. Mayor Hoyt asked if we currently do not brine. Director Powell responded that, in the Capital Improvement Plan, we have ordered and just received about a month ago brine making equipment. Brine is one of the snow and ice methods that we really haven't used in the past. It's just salt water to a prescribed percentage concentration. We use that for two reasons -we can prewet the salt, so when it's dropped on the roadway, it reduces the bounce and scatter. It stays on the pavement and doesn't go off into the shoulder and into the ditches, from a water quality standpoint. And second, we can use it to anti-ice. We can have a truck with a tank and, essentially, spray the roads with the brine before an event starts. We can't do it if it's raining and changing because it just washes off, but if we anti-ice, it weakens the bond between the ice and the pavement. And when we plow and remove the snow and ice, it's easier to scrape up. There are a multitude of uses for it, but those are the two primary uses we would have for brine. We will start producing, and our new trucks will have all the brine equipment. We're looking forward to that. Parks and Recreation Director Omlid said tonight was the first day of the Holiday Lights Tour-it's posted on the City's website, as well as social media. If you were here before the meeting, Councilmember Bernatz said she had a hard time getting out of her driveway- she has a Toys for Town basket in her cul-de-sac, and they already emptied it twice. Saturday morning, we also have the Secret Holiday Shop from 9 am to Noon at the Rambling River Center. Stay downtown all day on Saturday- Homestead Church is having their Christmas carnival, the library is having an event in the afternoon, and then we will cap it off with the parade. As a reminder, December 8th from 6 to 8 pm at the Rambling River Center is the Skate Park Design Workshop. Spohn Ranch will be in town that day, and you can add your input on the skate park. In talking with them last week, they already had 44 people fill out the design survey and 11 were in progress, so we have already had really good engagement. The survey will be up for three more weeks, but please come to the design workshop next Monday. Finance Director Sommerland extended her appreciation to the Council for their leadership throughout the budget process and also to the collaboration of the entire management Team. Without that collaboration, we wouldn't be Regular City Council Meeting Minutes of December 1,2025 Page 9 of 12 in the spot where we are - everybody came together and I appreciate that. As David alluded to, we are working through a new software conversion. Their team will be onsite tomorrow for three weeks. We will have a team of about six to nine people this week and then three to five for the following two weeks to get the system up and running and make sure everyone is trained in, so we're looking forward to that. As part of that process, there are some interruptions with the online payment system. We have tried as much as possible to make sure residents are aware of those interruptions. We have information posted on our website and on the online payment portal. We will get that up and running as soon as we can, but I can't give a date at this point. Fire Chief Price thanked the Council for all their support. It's been about seven and a half months of making the full-time Staff happen. At the December 15th Council meeting, I will have the six individuals sitting here to show this historic event - 152 years and the first time having full-time staffing running 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Thank you for listening to all the data that I gave, talking about everything, and for your support throughout this whole entire thing. Thank you. Police Captain Van Dorn said Toys for Town is up and running but it will be coming to a close here pretty soon. We're going to start picking up from the collection sites next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. So, if you're looking to donate, get that done within the next week. I believe we are at record levels, as Chief Siem said today, we have over 160 families that are signed up, representing somewhere north of 425 children. So, thank you to everyone who has contributed to that. The wrapping event is on December 13th at Farmington High School at 9 am. As many people that can come out, the more the merrier because there's going to be a lot of work to do. Thank you. In regard to Toys for Town, Mayor Hoyt said, if you have not in years past ever been a part of it, it is one of the single greatest things that this community does. Even if you just show up and help pick gifts, you can help with that, you can help wrap, and you can help deliver, if you'd like. There are a lot of people who choose not to deliver to their fellow community members. As recipients, it creates a dynamic. There are always volunteers willing to deliver, but that is an area that we always seem to fall a little bit short on each year. Just the willingness of people wanting to deliver the gifts. If you have not been a part of it, please take an hour or two out of your day on Saturday. We usually start at 9 am and we're pretty much wrapped up by Noon. Please take just a little bit of time -it is an absolutely life-changing event to be a part of. Regular City Council Meeting Minutes of December 1,2025 Page 10 of 12 Mayor Hoyt mentioned the following activities taking place this Saturday, December 6tn: 9 am - 6 pm [Window Decorating Contest Open Almost every downtown business will be participating, along with holiday specials and deals. Some of the participating businesses include: * Main Street Salon and Apparel Company * Market on Oak * Gerster Jewelers * Homestead Community Church * Homestead Community Corner * BowWow Boutique * Lovly Paws * Beans and Boots Coffee * Janie's Home Team * Sierra Juhl's State Farm * The Farmer's Daughter * Premier Bank * Rambling River Center 9 am - Noon [Secret Santa Shopping for Kids at Rambling River Center 10 am - 1 pmI Homestead Community Church Christmas Carnival 2 pm - 4 pm [Far;ington Library Dragon Egg Art Surprise 6 pm - 9 pm Hoppers Mini Donut, Brick Oven Bus, and Chick-Fil-A Food Trucks Free Apple Cider and Cookies at the Rambling River 6 pm -8 pm Center, free hot chocolate at Homestead Church, and special holiday drinks at Beans and Boots Coffee 7 pm FLighted Holiday Parade ry Tree Lighting at Homestead Lot 8 pm FRo t a Holiday Carols with Farmington High School New Dimension, 8:15 pm - free kids craft and letters to Santa at Homestead 9:30 pm Community Corner, and live jazz trio in Homestead Community Church There's going to be a lot going on in a very short window, so come downtown on Saturday at 9 am and stay till 9 pm. There is going to be a plethora of things Regular City Council Meeting Minutes of December 1,2025 Page 11 of 12 to do. As always, be safe, drive slow, and look out for the kiddos walking to school in the mornings and afternoons. 14.ADJOURNMENT Motion was made by Councilmember Bernatz and seconded by Councilmember Lien to adjourn the meeting at 8:44 pm. Motion carried: 5 ayes / 0 nays Res ectfully submitted, Shi, R B sler City Clerk Regular City Council Meeting Minutes of December 1,2025 Page 12 of 12