City Council Agenda & Minutes

North Oaks City Council Special City Council Meeting Minutes North Oaks City Council Chambers January 30, 2025 1. CALL TO ORDER Councilor Wolter called the meeting to order at 5:00 p.m. 2. ROLL CALL Present: Mayor Krista Wolter, Councilors Sara Shah, Andrew Gaspard, Grover Sayre, Mark Azman Staff Present: Administrator Kevin Kress, Public Works Director Corey Triemert and City Planner Kendra Lindall Others Present: NineNorth Videographer Kenny Ronnan A quorum was declared present. 3. DISCUSSION ITEMS 3a. City Council Strategy session regarding pending and future city matters; including budget and funding sources, utility related matters such as future utility connections and extension, roads and safety, environmental matters including; water, sewer, security/policing, technology and communication, internet, cable, electrical, solar. City Council priority setting, discussion of related City matters. • Mayor noted the goal for the special meeting is for each Councilor to bring to the table any discussions on priorities for the upcoming year. Council will also be taking a moment of silence at 5:30 p.m. in support of the community vigil taking place at the West Recreation center in honor of North Oaks Family Brian Solsrud and Toni Rahn who sadly lost their 8th grade daughter this week. • Damien Lepoutre, 17 North Deep Lake Road, was interested in coming to speak to City and NOHOA coming to discuss priorities. He would like to ensure NOHOA and City are aligned and have a common vision. Natural resources is a priority for both and would like to ensure we have adequate resources and expertise to ensure vision going forward. • Dave Cremons, Chair of Planning Commission, reported that he is participating in meetings to collaborate with NOHOA on roads project, and Commission will be working with NOHOA on clarifying setbacks and communications, updating City ordinances to make more user friendly and searchable. They also will be looking at infrastructure of water, wells, White Bear water challenges, ensure no contamination of wells and understand options going forward to ensure prepared for whatever happens going forward. Concerned about septic situation and whether our 1,292 septic systems will sustain us going forward with improved septic technology, is it possible to connect to a City system if necessary, and ensure we have data on all septic systems. Would like to bury utilities as road are getting redone. Wants to make sure the City is helping NOHOA with resources and synergies where applicable. He clarified that some of the NOHOA Minutes of the City Council Meeting January 9, 2025 suggestions originated from desire to ensure improve processes between the entities, with land use areas to be addresses by the Planning Commission. • Brad Brekke, shared his safety initiatives & discussions with Ramsey County Sherriff’s office, communication, processes, the roles between City, Ramsey County and NOHOA. They are willing to formalize some of the communication and process. RCSO would like to see what the priorities of the City are such as speed enforcement, alarm systems, education, LPR roll out, elderly, emergency response. • Llya Berchenko, spoke to ensuring both City and North Oaks Vision is aligned. Sees four key topics: premier communication aligned with property values, ensure infrastructure supports, foundation for thriving areas within our communities, ensure sustained focus on nature to maximize expertise and funding, continued focus on privacy and trespassing. • Administrator Kress introduced Corey Triemert as City Public Works Director. He comes from White Bear Township 6 ½ years, and most recently City of Hugo for past 2 ½ years. He will have responsibility for all water and sewer issues and maintenance of associated equipment. White Bear Township has ended their joint power agreement effective end of February; therefore he will be taking on infrastructure maintenance. We will be required to put in our own scata system to monitor all the lift stations through White Bear, as they will not allow us to currently access their system. They are working through equipment and computer needs now, as well as work with other local Cities to see if there are any shared resources available. With only 1,200 systems on Septic, all other homes in our communities and commercial sites are on public water/sewer system which have lift stations and maintenance required. They are also working on a hydrant map. Kress and Triemert will continue to meet with community partners to see where synergies exist. • Discussion between Councilors of matters of Community interest and priorities to address for the upcoming 2025 year. Highlights include: o Councilor Sayre mentioned interest in: water/sewer, utilities, cost analysis on City and NOHOA office locations, perhaps working with NOHOA to explore additional indoor community space such as exercise space, walking, courts. o Councilor Shah mentioned interest in: public works, safety & speeding enforcement, operation clear view initiative, upcoming fire station build, streamline processes City/NOHOA resources, forestry long term planning and broad vision, 2015 Comp Plan, develop junior City Council. o Councilor Gaspard mentioned interest in City process structure and possibility of developing more committees when needed to dive more fully into projects. Crime, traffic, safety, speeding, emergency response, fact finding and data. Financial committee could go in depth on budget, project, long term planning, best place to find money/grants. Making sure being efficient in meetings and providing support to staff. o Administrator Kress attended the bid opening for the fire station. Bids ranged between 13 – 17 million, which is well under the estimated 25 million. The 3 joint cities purchased the new fire station property from Bethel University 3 years Page |2 Minutes of the City Council Meeting January 9, 2025 ago, on County Road E. Will now look into best method to bond to finance. The Fire Board will soon review and accept a contractor bid. They will receive approximate 9 million of state money, and still pursuing possibility of federal funds. The Shoreview fire station located on Victoria Street will be decommissioned once the new station is fully operational. o Councilor Azman mentioned interest in: master infrastructure plan as mentioned above, focus on ordinance rewrite and organization, and put zoning map online. o City Planner Lindall will update the City “smart sheet” with goals to ensure focus going forward. This is reviewed every Wednesday with Administrator, Attorney, Engineer and Planner. o Mayor Wolter mentioned her interest in: ensuring cohesion working with NOHOA to ensure same constituents are well served. She thanked Dave for his work on the ordinances to minimize overlap and ensuring fairness to residents. She feels infrastructure will become even more important as there as some lots that are out of room on their septic locations. Council will need to be creative and think outside the box, revisit our engineering partners to make sure we have resources needed, have GIS online resources needed for both NOHOA/City, and perhaps investigate if prudent to have single garbage hauler. Ultimate goal is to ensure a legacy community in place for all to age. o Cremons mentioned they would like to see a City well water sampling event to validate what is coming from our well water at check points throughout the community. Kress agreed this is a good idea. o Planner Lindall noted State Statute requires all Cities do a Comprehensive Plan update every 10 years. Met Council is responsible for managing sewer reference in these plans. The North Oaks Comprehensive plan updates are anticipated to be primarily standard updates which would start taking place in late 2026-2027. o Discussions on priorities to continue during joint City/NOHOA goal setting session on Thursday, February 20th, 2025. 3b. Closed Session pursuant to Minnesota Statutes Section 13D.05, subd. 3(b) and attorney-client privilege to discuss the following pending litigation matter: Damien Lepoutre and The Lepoutre Family Revocable Trust v. City of North Oaks, Ramsey County District Court File No. 62-CV- 22-5473 MOTION by Wolter, seconded by Azman, to move to closed session pursuant to Minnesota Statutes Section 13D.05, subd. 3(b) and attorney-client privilege to discuss the following pending litigation matter: Damien Lepoutre and The Lepoutre Family Revocable Trust v. City of North Oaks, Ramsey County District Court File No. 62-CV-22-5473. Motion carried unanimously. Moved to closed session at 6:23 p.m. A motion was made by Councilmember Sayre, seconded by Shah, to reconvene in open session. The Council voted 5-0 to reconvene in open session. Page |3 Minutes of the City Council Meeting January 9, 2025 15. ADJOURN The next regular meeting of the City Council is Thursday, February 13th, 2025, with a special joint/NOHOA meeting on February 20th, 2025. MOTION by Councilmember Gaspard, seconded by Councilmember Shah, to adjourn the meeting. That motion passed 5-0. The meeting was adjourned at 6:58 p.m. ____________________________ _____________________________ Kevin Kress, City Administrator Krista Wolter, Mayor Date approved___________ Page |4