06.
38-50, 2-15, 2020.
5-60 , PM, do I have any additions to the agenda this evening ?
I have a motion to adopt this agenda.
A second.
Next is adopted.
First up this evening we have an adoption.
We have a, authoration, sigh, permission,
of page beckers and naming the city, page beckers,
page beckers, Minnesota for the day, May 16th,
2025, I think Layla is presenting this evening.
Thank you, Mayor, members of the council.
My name is Layla Mehe.
I'm the city's city's city.
I'm the city's special projects in Indonesia's
manager.
And one of my staff recently referred to something I
after to do as a side quest.
And I would call it this Fraclamation a little bit of a side
question, but one we're very excited to have tonight, which is a
Fraclamation honoring the accomplishment of page
backers. And for one day naming the city page
backers Minnesota on May 16th, page as many of you know, and I got
some great photos from council members who have met her and
spent time with her, has made her name for herself as
Hopkins High School basketball player, one of the best to ever do it
high school level in Minnesota and moved on to the University of Connecticut after her high school career.
She played for the Huskies and despite many injuries and setbacks,
Speckers has gained a lot of accolades and awards winning both the Nae Smith award and the wooden award
and ending her career by leading the school to its 12 national title. The Monday after the title
Mike and I both had the same separate idea. He said, I think we should do a proclamation. I said,
even I are actually already working on it because as a huge festival for myself it's been very
excited to see our hometown hero lead her have an amazing career in in college and then become the
number one overall draft draft pick last night at the 2025 W MBA draft where she was drafted by the
Dallas wings. She will play her first game of the season against the Minnesota links on May 16th
And we are so excited to honor her accomplishments and wish for the best of luck at the professional level by proclaiming May 16th that day of her first game, which is also the WMBA season opener as page backers day here in Hopkins.
We also are planning to rename the city for the day as page backers Minnesota.
And we really invite everyone in the community to celebrate that they join us in watching
WMBA game.
Here in Hopkins, think Hopkins are marketing arm is planning to engage our local business
community.
So, and it already have that underway to have a big WMBA watch game day here.
So, for TVs that far as that have TVs, having them stream some of the games, having
some themed drinks or specials that day, something even throughout the days like our
coffee shops, maybe having some beverages, so we're really excited to see what our business community
comes up with to honor her accomplishments. Tonight though, I'm lucky to turn this over to
someone who knows page better than any of us, which is her high school coach Brian Coscrip. So
invite him to say a few words. Well, thank you for having me. This is quite an honor for me, because
you know, I love toppings, toppings is I feel like it's part of where I grew up. I have so many of
children and former students here. And just the fact that page played at Hopkins, it was such a great
representative, but the biggest thing about page that a lot of people don't know is that she's a
wonderful human being and for this good as she was on the basketball court, she was that type of person as
well. And I feel like as a
So, a lot of times we could stay in the heck out of our way. We said, you know, when she's playing for us, there was a plan A going into a game. And if that didn't work, it was called plan P. That's good to ball the page and get out of the way, right? And so it was very cool to see her go to Yukon and meet Coach Arianna, who's like modern day, John Wooden. Wonderful man. And the relationship that they had when they, uh, I
when they won the National Championship and they embraced after it, and then the game brought
chills to me and tears to my eyes because they have such a wonderful relationship. And then
finally seeing her go on to become a number one draft, number one overall draft pick.
Something she had predicted her senior year actually. Yeah, I mean it's on camera that she did predict that.
So, you know, I feel like this is kind of the icing on the cake, you know,
be page-bakers when it's been a soda and I don't know what that I feel as my home. I'm very moved
and honored to be here with. Thank you.
All right. Thank you. Yeah. I saw that video clip and that was
amazing of her example of positive thinking and manifesting your own future that was amazing to
to watch. So thank you for joining us today and with that would you like me to read the
proclamation? Okay. This is a little unique proclamation. A lot of times we have
but naming the entire city after page vectors is pretty unique.
So this is very honored to do this.
A proclamation honoring the accomplishments of page vectors
became known as one of the best Minnesota high school basketball players
ever while attending Hopkins high school.
And whereas vectors went on to an illustrious career
playing college basketball for the University of Connecticut
becoming a three-time All-American being named
to the NCAA Tournament four times.
winning both the naysmith and wooden awards and leading the Huskies to their 12th National
Championship this year on April 6th which was great to watch. Beckers was a top pick in the
2025 WMBA draft with the first game of the season scheduled for May 16th the rest of Minnesota
may be torn but we aren't here in Hopkins. Whereas residents of Hopkins and the entire
state of Minnesota are excited to watch the professional career of one of our very own.
The City of Hopkins wishes to congratulate Page Beckers on her success so far and wish
her the best of luck as a future WNVA star and we hope that everyone watches women's
sports and watches that game on May 16th.
Now, therefore, I, Patrick Hamlin, mayor of the City of Hopkins in the state of Minnesota
along with my fellow council members proclaim May 16th the city of Hopkins to be renamed
Paige Becker's Minnesota and that'd be known as Paige Becker's day here in Hopkins.
Do I have a motion?
I'll make a motion.
Do I have a second?
Second.
I'll in favor say aye.
Aye.
And that passes unanimously.
We have any comments from council.
Yeah, I have a comment.
I guess one of the cool things coach, um, 2020 sold everybody short, right?
Right?
We're talking about a little bit before the meeting and it sold everybody short with the state championship
a chance for a state championship. One of the stories, and I know there's probably a lot
other people that saw this in page. After that game, everybody went to the locker room.
There was NBA players there at the game. It was a big deal. After the game, everybody rushed
and lying to get a picture with you and page. You guys stuck around, page stuck around.
I remember seeing the athletes leaving the locker room. Some of the other ones saying,
hey, we're going to DiBani's to celebrate our victory tonight. And page said, I'll catch up with you.
I don't know exactly how many kids stayed for autographs and pictures with her, but I know that one of my daughters
of I've twins. My daughter was one of the first and my son was one of the last because at the moment he was too cool to do it, right?
And then he realized that this is a big deal, so they stayed and I told her at the end,
it stands for her character that you mentioned.
I think that she was over 200 kids standing in that line and she could have left well before that, right?
the team and went to Devonix. I just think that's a speaks to work character. And I think I kind
of a fun, fun gift that I bought my daughter at Chris for Christmas last year was a paid back
or jersey. And I see if the city of hopped or the hopped and school district could maybe
retired ages, jersey is just an idea. I sure hope so. And I remember that game like it was
probably one of my all-time favorite games that I've coached. And that year, we had a team that went
62 and all and the night before they shut us down and
One of the most I was really difficult. Let's just say that but I will tell you this
We weren't gonna lose that game
I'm not arrogant about anything. I'm as paranoid as any coach could be but we weren't losing that game. Let me tell you
So thank you for
I just wanted to make a brief comment. I as well extend my congratulations to page, but also to you, Brian.
It's been just an
when a huge congratulations to you as well.
You're going to make me bel up here.
Thank you for having me.
It's a really appreciate it.
Any other comments?
All right.
Well, I think it's.
Were you going to say something?
Back when you.
Yeah, see.
I was just going to say I think it's very fitting that we're
naming the entire city after after page.
I think of running a city or being a city.
It's a team sport.
And I think one of the things that drew her to Yukon from what I heard is that it was a team environment there and you could see that
Well, I think one of the things that makes her a champion in watching those games is not only that she scores a lot of points, but the next game she'll be
Prash in the boards for rebalance and then the next game she'll be leading in assists.
It's just really amazing to watch her and I mentioned a lot of that came from good coaching as well.
She was that way in high school.
She was absolutely that way.
You didn't have to tell her what to do.
I mean, she wanted to play as long as she could.
But when the kids from mirror games pretty handily,
she loved it when the kids got in.
She's totally about a team.
And who we're just in a foundation event,
and she had donated some items to that foundation event.
So just a good person on and off the court.
I think of tonight, which she was,
I think a board lady, Diana grew up in St. Louis Park.
of course our Hopkins high school is in Minitanka, so we are representing the Greater Hopkins
with just a few up closer to Hopkins high school and she did say it was part of high school.
I mean honestly she did and um this is a place she always wanted to go.
And then I think as well of not only the adversities that you mentioned about losing
losing here in Hopkins and then coming back, losing it, you can't coming back, but also the physical
injuries that she overcame and the emotional challenge I think it speaks a lot about her as a person.
So we're just so proud of the city to have this day and thanks to staff for putting this together.
Thank you for coming this evening and congratulations to Paige Vector.
Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you.
Come around for a photo.
All right.
You can hold that.
If this is what you wanted to talk, and I'll maybe, but it's not like a Hawkins rivalry.
You retired.
No, I don't.
We're still there.
We'll take you to the mayor when David's dead.
We
need better transitions going into consent.
It was like that.
Maybe some months after commercial break.
You want your mic back.
We're going to take a WCCO break here.
Thanks.
All
right, next up this evening we have the consent agenda, you're no changes to the consent agenda.
I read through approval of the minutes of the April 1st, 2025, regular meeting proceedings.
Item number two is approval of minutes of April 8th, 2025, special meeting proceedings.
Item number three is approval of the temporary and liquor license for LTD brewing.
Doing business as LTD brewing.
Item number four is approval of temporary and liquor license for Minnesota food truck association.
That's an exciting one.
that the cameras you hear for that food truck festival come back to Hopkins.
Item number five is approval of the temporary liquor license for Oak Ridge Country Club.
Item number six is approval of the Metropolitan Livable Communities Act Agreement permitting
redeployment of repayment proceeds for grant funds as loan proceeds.
Item number seven is approval of the Environmental Consulting Services proposal for
broad intertech.
Item number eight is a resolution of many the legislative policy manual.
Item number nine is appointments to the Hopkins Public Art Advisory Committee.
Item number...
Number 10 is authorized staff to enter into an agreement with the civic, ridgers to host a miracle
VISTA member. Item number 11 is the second reading ordinance of rezoning the property
at 100 Jackson Avenue North. Item number 12 is the second reading of the ordinance,
amending part two chapter eight of the Hopkins City Code relating to establish a
Hopkins Sustainable Building Policy. Do I have a motion to move? Do I have a second?
So I can only favor say aye.
Hi.
The consent agenda is passed unanimously.
First up, we have public hearings.
First, first public hearing this evening is a resolution adopting assessment role.
Central avenues improvements, street and utility improvements.
It's for city projects, 24-10.
Good evening,
Mayor and council.
My name is Eric Klingbow, city engineer.
with me tonight is Nicama Tuchio from Bolton and Mank. Tonight we have a couple items in front of you.
The first is adopting the assessment role, which does require a assessment hearing.
In the interest of time management, we're going to do one presentation that's going to cover
all of our items tonight. So I'll turn over to Nick for a quick presentation before the
ESSESTER hearing. All right. Thank you, Eric. Good evening, Mayor and Council.
As Eric mentioned, tonight we'll just be going over a quick presentation, updating on the
business we received going over special assessments before leading up into the public hearing.
So just as a reminder, the product area includes, basically all the avenues that haven't been touched at
as part of reconstruction and rehabilitation in the past several years.
From 9th Avenue over to 12th Avenue or excuse me 13th Avenue, along with a few blocks of
street resurfacing, including a millenol really on second and a reclaimed and resurfacing
on third street.
So we received seven bids from contractors back on March 7th, they six of the seven bids
came in below our engineers estimate, and the lowest bidder are elircing next bidding
came in under by $2.7 million under our engineers estimate, the next highest bidder
second bidder north west was just $400,000 over, which sounds like a lot, but that's less than
5% compared to the total construction cost. So obviously good news there, quite a bit of savings.
So the project will be funded through five main sources, special assessments being one of them,
counting for about 13% of the project. About a third of the project will be funded through
general taxes and bonds and about half of the project will be funded by city utility funds.
For the special assessments, 280 properties are proposed to be assessed. Almost all those are single
family residential homes, except for two commercial properties. So the total assessment amount comes up
to 1.95 million and the special assessments for all properties were lowered due to those favorable
bid prices that I mentioned.
Now we'll go through all the policies and detail we've gotten through
that before both with Council on the public.
But essentially the assessment for each property is made up of a couple of parts that want
to be in the street assessment, which for residential properties is applied for a cap and
$109.32 per front foot of their property.
Caps don't apply to commercial properties, but we do take a special benefit of Prasals down
on those to make sure they're getting the actual value of their assessment.
And then for the utility assessment or their water and sewer service assessment, this is where the actual bid costs come into play.
And this is where people want up saving money on their assessment.
Utility assessments for residential properties were lowered by approximately $940.
Due to those good prices we received.
And then we will also take off utility service assessments for people who have replaced
the services in the last 10 years, we will still take in those requests even after tonight.
Total assessment is that utility plus free assessment for your typical 50-foot lot in the
neighborhood that amount comes out to just over $7,100 for the street sewer and water
assessments. We did also take into account the 2011 and 2012 project assessments when
considering the calculations, so essentially those properties that received an assessment
back in 2011 or 2012 for a side street will receive lower assessment.
Then, then, then other properties. So, a special assessment property map just shows all the properties in the area that are getting assessed that are highlighted.
It shows the ones that have been assessed previously, they're hatched in red, kind of in the northern part of the neighborhood from work in 2011 and 2012. I'm four street north of the Manitaka Mills and third a little bit on third street north.
There's a couple of special benefit of praisels for those two commercial properties, and then those
Properties hatched in blue along the regional trail corridor. Those are some irregular shape parcels, which we
Did an area adjustment for their front footage, which I'll get into in a couple of slides
Again, I won't go through all the details of these calculations, but
This is a sample calculation for your typical lot in the name of that 50 foot lot
You essentially just take the 50 feet of front footage for the parcel and multiply it by that cap amount of $109 and 32 cents per foot.
And then that gives you the street assessment of 5,400 or 666 dollars.
Add that to the water service replacement amount and sewer service replacement amount.
And that gives you your $7,200 out of special assessment.
The second example is for a property that was already assessed in 2011 or 2012 for one of those side streets.
that I mentioned. Again, I won't go through all these calculations, but we first take the
cap multiplied by the front footage in this case 80 feet, but then we take a look and see what
percentage they paid in 2011 or 2012 against the cap and take the remaining percentage and
apply that towards that full assessment amount. So in this case, instead of paying an 8,745 dollar
They're paying up $4,738, because they previously paid an assessment about 15 years ago.
Then add in their water and sewer service and that gets their total assessment of just over $60,400.
The third example is for that area adjustment I mentioned along the regional trail corridor.
You can see it's an irregular shape.
It's not a rectangular, like most of the properties of the neighborhood.
So for uniformity, we took an area adjustment
basically to make its act like it was a rectangular property.
So for this property, for example,
that front edge is rather large,
but it gets narrow towards the back,
so that the adjusted front edge is less and closer
to that normal 50 foot front edge
in this case, 67 feet.
And then apply everything the same way towards the cap,
just like the other properties.
So there's four payment options for residents for special assessments.
The first is the pre-pay in full or part directly to the city by July 31st of this year.
The second is to pre-pay in full or part until November 1st of this year.
If it's after that July 31st date, though, interest does begin to accrue.
And I will note that November 1st, this is a change from the November 15th.
that we shared with residents last week,
but it was two weeks earlier.
The third option, the most popular option,
is to do nothing, let it roll onto your taxes,
or your county taxes after November 1st,
that should say, apologize for that error.
And then that'll be paid annually over 15-year period,
and that the interest rate was recently determined
of late last week through our pre-sale bond report at 8.3%.
The fourth and final option is to defer assessments, which would be paying at a later date.
This is the least popular because it just delays that payment.
It doesn't cancel it.
And you have to qualify for it by applying with the city every year.
You wanted to further that assessment.
And to qualify, you have to be a homestead property.
And to have an income limit of approximately $50,000.
that will be confirmed with the finance department and then also one of the following owner has
to be 65 years or older active military or on full-time disability.
Once we know the income
limits for that deferred assessment amount and finalize the interest rate will be sending out
final notices to residents with their final amount and recapping these options for payment with
And since we're here, can you talk about who sets that 8.3?
Who sets that 8.3?
So the interest rate is determined by the sale of the bonds,
which is was 6.3% and then it's 2% above that
for the interest rate on assessments.
Is that a city administrative or a county?
So it's the bonds that the city sells itself
and then our policy.
There's always been to charge 2% over the true interest cost of that.
Okay, that's a Hopkins policy.
And that's an estimate because we haven't gone to the bond market.
Correct.
Correct. That is.
Right.
That can ask us a really quick question for option 4 for the deferred assessments.
How late could a resident theoretically defer their payments to those areas set in the week amount?
So council member goodland a set amount of time they have to apply each year so you would defer it for full year and then they'd have to apply again if they want to keep deferring yet for another year.
But I mean is there like a finite amount of years that they can defer it or if all.
No I don't believe there's a finite amount they can keep qualifying but interest does a crew while you're deferring it so it's not ideal to continue defer it.
doing Mayor and Council Finance Director, Dan Kvish up.
We have a few people with these deferred assessments, and you're allowed to defer
them with interest until you lose your home state.
So that is either you move out or you pass away.
You cannot transfer it to a child that might be a family member that might take
over your house. So you still have to pay that, you know, if you're going to assess
eight point three percent interest, I used to have to pay that for however many
years. So it could be for your like.
Thanks. Thanks, Rick. I'm imagining don't get too
comfortable in that year.
Thank you.
Move on to Project Schedule. So last week we had our final neighborhood meeting for
residents who in over the final assessment amounts discuss a construction process and answer
questions from residents, a lot of project property specific questions at this point. Tonight
we're here to conduct the public hearing assessments, consider adopting the final assessment
role and award the contract to our all-erson. In late April, early May and we have been talking
with the contractor. It's kind of like they are wanting to start in the next couple of weeks here.
The start construction on phase one streets, we would complete phase one streets, substantially
complete them later this fall and then start back up construction in the spring of next
year on phase two streets and then substantially complete those streets next fall with some final
punch list and clean up work going into spring of 2027.
So here the construction phase we're essentially
starting at 9th Avenue and moving our way west and north.
Phase one streets are outlined in red, so from 9th Avenue over to 11th Avenue and phase
two are outlined in blue, so 12th Avenue and 13th Avenue.
The northern three blocks of 11th Avenue are actually flex phases, which could be constructed
either later this year or early next year.
Over the contractor has indicated that they do plan on constructing all of 11th Avenue this
year. So as there's got to right now, that could change. We would update residents with newsletters
as that information comes out. And they also are planning to start with multiple crews.
So it's very possible they start at 9th and 10th Avenue at the same time.
The project communication
we have several resources for the project for residents. We have our website at Hopkins Avenue's
project.com where residents can sign up for weekly updates via text and email. We will mail
newsletters generally on a monthly basis with the first one I come out here this week or early next week
and then door to door notices as needed for things like water shutdowns, driveway access restrictions, things that are property specific.
We'll have a construction manager, Josh Robby, who's been working on Hopkins projects for the past
seven and eight years and then our construction inspector John Brennan will be on site daily whenever the
for questions and immediate needs in the field.
And that's all for our presentation.
We'd be happy to answer any further questions.
Do we have any comments from Council?
Public hearing.
We'll go into public hearing and then we'll come back and have discussion on the items.
Hearing none.
We think of the little awkward silence.
Excuse me, I'm speaking to you, sir.
Okay.
All right, I'm going to open the public hearing.
The public hearing on the proposed special assessments
for central avenues.
Improvements, street, and you.
Retility Improvement City Project 2024-10 is now open. The purpose of this hearing is for the City Council
is to hear testimony and to take action relating to the proposed special assessments. Anyone
present will be given the opportunity to be heard and official record is being made of what
is said at this hearing. Therefore, persons addressing council are requested to begin by stating
their name and address. Only one person may speak at a time. This is a time for public testimony,
no debate is allowed. Your comments should be directed to City Council and out of respect for everyone,
please keep your comments on topic. And I always like to add that this isn't social media,
this is our community. And so as best you can be respectful to the other folks in this room,
we may have differing opinions and some of the staff that are working on this,
I think we're all trying to get to construct your outcomes. And before hearing from the audience,
I asked staff at 30 written materials that have been submitted.
There's two letters that are probably supposed to be.
Okay.
And so we'll submit those as part of the public record of the two letters that we have.
Yeah, I was just going to clarify with what mayor or how city manager Morrison said.
That I ever received no other written materials other than what you have in 20.
Okay. Do you want to summarize the two written materials?
The two written materials actually were not ever sent to me.
They were directed to council and the city manager.
So, I think the first one that was typed out was mainly a kind of statement on taxes.
Taxes are going up and it's not supported.
So, don't really believe it.
I think there's a second one more on the fairness.
People are getting assessed for improvement when the improvements are going by.
They're property although we've been doing that for the last 30 years.
and you could see some people are getting the decrease
assessment might better actually get the improvement
because they pay for other improvements.
I just want to summary once.
That's it. That's it. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.
All right. And now I'll call in anyone that was just to speak on this
on this item.
Oh, I thought we had a room for people.
Different topic.
But just a little while. Okay. So is anyone thinking about coming up?
All right. With that, there have a motion to close the public hearing on this item.
I don't move.
I have a second.
Oh, my favorite say aye.
Aye.
OK, and the public hearing is close.
I was wondering where there's so many people here
for this item.
I'm like, what are we doing without reach?
Let's different on this.
OK, comments on this.
I don't have any comments.
I just have one question.
I believe, and it's only stemmed from the fact
that I had a resident knock on my door about this.
At the fourth, I think, in final meeting,
there was a public meeting.
I think it was last Wednesday.
Can you maybe summarize where there are a bunch of people there
and what kind of where is the overall vibe or cognitive vibe?
Yeah, yeah, thank you, Councilman. We're good then.
We had a fairly good turnout. I would say there was what?
Four people online and maybe 25 people in council chamber.
So pretty good turnout. The meeting really focused on the assessments,
the assessment calculations, assessment payments.
And I'd say the majority of the questions were revolving around the actual construction process,
timelines, impacts, things like that.
Yeah, it was, it was focused almost completely on assessments and construction, so it was a, I say it was a fairly productive meeting with a lot of questions from the, from the residents.
All right.
Any more comments?
I just want to thank you especially to adjust the assessments for the people who were involved in the 2011, 2012.
I think it's really important to kind of make it fair to them because they've been paying
in the last 15 years for this, the assessment back then, and then I just want to encourage
people who are part of this construction to sign up for the newsletter, which is really informative
and knowing that Josh is always there if you need to get a hold of him, he's very helpful.
Also, with my role being done last year, this is where I get all the experience.
Thank you.
I also, I think it's a great testament to have a public hearing.
For a neighborhood this large and not have anybody come here.
We did receive the two comments here that will look through.
But I think that's a testament to Eric engineering,
Engineering, Bolt and the Minks team, Josh, we had some great bids in this job, right?
There was an emphasis of fairness to have that large neighborhood like that and all I'm preaching
to the choir with a lot of that, but like having a project that large and coming in that low, that's
I think that's a testament to the hard work you guys put in there. I know that there's a lot of people that were out in the cornfields of
Chaska and Lakeville and you name it Bill right? Reconz. That's where when the economy slows down out in the buildings and the new houses they turn inside and start looking at city projects and I think you guys have excelled in that. I know construction is scary. Nobody knows what to expect until you've gone through it. I know that people have seen that coming. I think you guys do a great job of putting those, you know, the handholding everybody needs.
I do have one question that I don't know all the sewer services and I'm sure you went through this, somebody has the orange bird.
Does that get added on to their assessment if there's an additional fee to that?
Thank you, Councilmember Koosnia.
So the assessments as presented cover replacement of the sanitary sewer service from the main to the public right of way.
If a material like orange bird is discovered beyond the public right away, the homeowner is responsible for replacing that.
It's not allowed by the plumbing code, so they do have one here, but they do have to place that and that is the cost of the homeowners beyond the public right away.
Okay, I just didn't know that would say I don't thank you.
All right.
Any other comments?
Yeah, I'll just finish this up and say thank you very much for all the engagement that you do.
Community engagement and sort of my jam and my day job and I just always really appreciate seeing you guys out in the community making sure residents are very well aware of what's going on.
So thank you very much for that.
Thank you.
Yeah, I just want to say thank you for the written pieces here talking about taxes, you know,
I think that's an issue that a lot of us, everyone up here is concerned about and trying
to think about and I think you gave it a lot of thought in this project and how it was rolled
out and I'll probably repeat some of these comments as we come back for different stages of this.
But you've recommended changes to us that can help save people in the city money when you have a
that has its own fire department, its own police department, its own public works, that's four
square miles.
You have inherent challenges.
In fact, I read a letter recently, back in 2012, to the editor talking about the
high taxes and in Hopkins and a lot of that comes from our inherent structure and so these
and with a small population that we have, these kinds of changes that you guys may can help
reduce some of those costs and you know, I got to be honest when we came into this year,
I was really thinking I would be pushing for a pause in this, because we need some breaks in the tax level and our debt.
And then throughout the year, we had a backup on, we had a breakdown on 12th on my own street, all the shutoff valves, not all of them, but a lot of them of our neighbors, the shutoff valves don't work, and so people have backups.
is going to cause serious, serious damage. I know our public works department is there to respond
just quick as I can, but it's not as easy as just shutting it off in houses and so on 11th,
we're having issues with the collapse of the infrastructure on 11th. And that's enormous what we
saw happen in St. Louis Park with millions and millions of dollars in risk. And not risk. The legal
They were sued and the settlements that came out of that for millions of millions of dollars that that Hopkins can't afford
And so I just want to thank you for being so diligent in the costs and making recommendations to Council and to keep costs down and to keep these really needed
Improvements moving forward and then with the assessments as well if there's anything that can be done
I think I brought this up before, but you know
But lengthen the time limit, you know,
from a 15 year to 20 year,
something that could be longer,
if we could do anything on that percentage,
8.3 is a high percentage,
but I know we're in a high percentage markets right now,
but if there's anything that can be done to keep that percentage,
that makes a huge impact on what people pay monthly,
because I imagine most folks are gonna let this go
into a payment process.
So thank you for that, and thanks for bringing this presentation forward.
Thank you.
Do we have a motion on this one?
I move to a top resolution 2025-026 resolution adopting assessment roll central avenues improvement street and utility improvements city project 2024-10.
Go second.
On the floor to say aye.
What was the unanimous passing of them?
So thank you and we'll move on to the next.
Thank you, Mayor.
Also.
Thank you.
All right, next up we have the first reading of the ordinance establishing summit on seven housing improvement area.
Thank you mayor members of the council.
Hello, my name is Rubenny Dunn, Community Development Manager of Board City. I am here tonight for the public hearing and first read of the ordinance to establish the summit on seven housing improvement area.
This is a refresher for anyone new housing improvement areas, also shortened to HIA's are specific areas within cities where improvements are made to common areas paid in whole or art on fees imposed on the properties within.
similar to a special assessment like we just heard.
Steak statute grants cities the authority to create housing improvement areas
at the request of an association requiring that at least 50% of owners
submit a petition to the city so this is initiated by the Association not by the city.
HAs are used for town homes and condo associations as a financing method of last resort
for the Association has no other option, and the past there have been for housing improvement areas created in Hopkins.
Today, town homes and condos are a small percentage of our current housing stock, less than 10% of our housing units.
And of those, some would be ineligible for HIs due to the market values and others have already completed HIs, so in reality the percentage of units that HIs impact is quite small.
Well, associations may reach out to the city in the future about H.I.s, this would be limited given the percentage that we have and up to the discretion of Council to review at that time.
As some background, some at on seven homeowners notice issues with the building in the past, including water damage and crumbling facade.
So in 2023, they hired encompass engineering to do testing and evaluation of the building which identified several water barrier issues and recommended improvements.
I just included some of the images from the report.
I had like over 100 different photos.
The association began exploring options for financing and after receiving projections from several banks,
approach the city to inquire about housing improvement area and they ultimately hired
Doug Strannis as a consultant. This is a timeline, last September City Council updated HIA policy
and how the work session in January discussing HIAs and heard the initial introduction to the
summit request. Summit on seven submitted their initial application materials and staff began
reviewing those over the past few months
along with the city's legal and financial teams.
And then 75% of seven on seven homeowners submitted
petitions to the city requesting that the city
hold the public caring tonight to establish the housing
improvement area and in March, Council accepted the petitions
and set the public hearing date.
Summit on seven is comprised of 62 units of one, two,
and three bedroom condos.
Those units have a median value of 223,000, and all units would be still be affordable to households making 80% of area of median income, even with the proposed HIV's.
This building was converted to condos in 2006 and was previously a hotel.
The proposed scope is to replace the roof, replace the siding and facade, and renovate the balconies and replace all the windows and doors, so in extensive projects, there is a contingency included, and if that's not used on the project, they'll be addition additional common area improvements identified in the preserve plan, the association and to space being able to finish the improvements this year.
The financing request is $4.26 million to cover the construction costs over a 20-year term.
With City administrative fees, this would total $4.64 million.
The estimates per unit range from roughly $5,000 to $9,500 per year.
These fees would be set at the May 6 Council meeting following another public hearing, so not tonight.
We had some updates since the last presentation in March.
We have worked with allors to restructure the financing to issue the bonds up front and avoid a temporary construction loan.
So this would reduce the cost burden for homeowners by approximately $500 per year over the 20-year term.
The city's financial advisor has reviewed the request and provided assurances on how the city is protected from risk.
I won't read the complete analysis that was included in the staff report, but I just wanted to reiterate how this project meets the policy goals that the Council set and why the city has an interest.
Justice in supporting Summit on 7 with the Housing and Improvement Area equation. As stated in our policy, the goals and purpose of HIAs are to protect the existing housing stock, maintain federal mortgage eligibility, prevent the loss of tax base, and preserve the value and maintenance of naturally occurring affordable housing.
For next steps, at the May 6th Council meeting, there would be a public hearing to set the
fees and the second reading of the ordinance, and then there would be a 45 day objection
period outlined in state statute, where the HAA would not proceed if 45 percent are more
of the owner's file and objection. The city will accept agreements upfront if they wish
to pay upfront, and then some of it would begin construction, and then we've returned to council
to finalize the details in a development agreement and issue the bonds.
The public hearing
notice was published in the sunsaler and mailed to the home owners. Today, I have not received
any public comments. I'm happy to answer any questions. Otherwise, I'll turn it over to you for
the public hearing. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to do any comments from council.
I think
we've gone through this item quite a few times since I think the council is familiar with this, so I think it would be good to hear from the folks of the audience if there's any comments on this.
And then we'll return no written material, so I'm going to open the public hearing on some of it on seven housing improvement area is now open the purpose of this hearing is for city council to hear testimony and take action relating to some of it on seven HIA anyone present will be given the opportunity to be heard.
And official record is being made of what is being said at the hearing, therefore, persons addressing council are requested to begin by stating their name and address.
Only one person may speak at a time. This is a time for public testimony. No debate is allowed.
Your comments should be directed to city council and out of respect for everyone. Please keep the comments on topic.
I'm very repeat. This is in social media. This is our community. And so the as respectful as you can to folks in the room moving forward with the constructive outcome.
All right. And without anyone willing to speak tonight, we're welcome to step forward.
And I should mention it's a three minute time limit. And so you'll get a.
You'll see cards at 30 seconds and then a card it when.
Oh, one minute on this.
Oh, you give that a one minute.
I'm like.
That's it.
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
We have anyone wishing to come up and speak on this.
Good evening, Mayor and Council members.
Thank you again, my name is Rohit.
Supermanium.
I'm the treasurer of the Board of the Home and Association
of Summit on 7.
You heard from me last month.
And I think heard more detail regarding the urgency
of the project from a structural and construction standpoint.
And then obviously speaking to the financing
of last resort option as well.
So I won't go into all those details again
and repeat given the time constraints,
but just wanted to reiterate on behalf of our community, our appreciation and gratitude for the council
considering this we really are truly in a position of last resort here with the HIV financing
and very much looking forward to working together with all of you to make sure that we make the necessary
improvements to our building and do so in a way that's affordable to the community members that live in the building.
The large crowd that was alluded to earlier is primarily the summit on seven residents.
There's I think about a dozen in attendance along with me.
And as I noted last time, we had very quickly were able to obtain signatures from well over 75% of the unit owners in the building and support of the HIA.
So there's broad support in the building for the project and it's been a process.
That's where we're looking forward to getting it done and putting it behind us.
Thank you so much for those comments.
Anyone else who is pushing to speak
with a little awkward silence?
Okay.
We have a motion to close the public here.
Follow.
We have a second.
Thank you.
On paper say aye.
Councilmember Goodland.
Did you once did you say aye?
Well, I did.
I did you.
All right.
Close the public hearing.
Because unanimous.
Any comments or council.
I just want to thank the staff for putting together.
Part of the HIA approval criteria. I think that was very descriptive and the challenge is that they are facing and it was a good document too.
Yeah, I think it's challenging too, right? When you find yourself in the situation like that, it's to be between the rock and a hard place. That's not a fun place to be for anybody and realize that it's one of the last chances.
and I think it's a shout out that we can still preserve affordable housing for everybody too,
you know, it's just affordable at 80% of my and all the numbers but it's still preserving
your homes, right? Like we said this last meeting, I said it like you drive by on Highway 7,
Hopkins crossroad, looks good from there, you get up closer and you start sealing, seeing the challenges
you're all talking about. Yeah, I thank you for the process and showing up, that's one of the
things, a lot of people don't show up, but if you're asking for these things, but I understand
the circumstance doesn't, you know, happy to help.
Yeah, the comments.
Thank you, Councilmember.
All right.
Well, I just, this is impressive the organization with our staff.
I echo those comments as well, pulling this together, but also all of you folks in organizing
this.
There was some concerns expressed, you know, what if we put this to a lot there?
And it's a really, it's a creative tool that you all have come up with to help solve a really
unique problem that you're facing.
And there are some concerns about it, you know, what if everyone does this to the city?
And I think you can all speak to the fact that there's not a fun process to go through.
So I don't have a whole lot of concerns about that in terms of how the debt is being used
for this.
It's an assessment back onto the property.
And so there's not a whole lot of risk for the city in this.
And I just want to state that out loud.
It's debt that's looked at very differently than, say, bonding debt of the street project that we just looked at.
And so you all are taking on this debt and you're all together in that.
I was surprised if I were going to hear an exchange.
So it's just impressive.
Everything that you've brought together.
This is going to raise the value of a really great property in Hopkins to it, a really great location.
you guys have a great location there and access to a lot of amenities and so I'm glad we could come up
with a constructive solution and ever could work together on this so thank you so much. And with that
do I have a motion? I'll make a motion to approve for first reading ordinance 2025-1226 establishing
summit on 7 housing improvement area. Second. All in favour say aye. Aye. Aye. I'll oppose
here you know and that passes unanimously as well we're getting a lot of us tonight.
Thank you.
Thank you everyone.
Next up we have a resolution we should have like segway music.
segway music.
A resolution giving host approval to issuance by the city of St.
on a feces Minnesota of its health care revenue bonds series twenty twenty five under Minnesota
statues section four sixty nine dot one fifty two three four sixty nine dot one sixty five.
Thank you. Here in council. My name is Nick Bishop. I'm the city's finance director.
I was hoping everyone would clear out after the first hearing. So I didn't have to get the one to clear the
But that's how it happens.
I'm here tonight to host the public hearing and also ask for approval for the city of St.
Bonnificious to issue revenue obligations for August and a travel view homes.
back in the fall of 2023 Augustana Chapel view had their development of a 88-bed skilled nursing facility approved by City Council.
It will be located at 412-5th Avenue North.
They have been working on getting financing for that project,
And they have been working with the city of St. Boniface to issue these revenue obligations.
And this does require host approval by the city of Hopkins.
You know, after tonight, there's very little involvement with the city of Hopkins.
These are not our bonds. There's no tax obligation to the city.
There's really nothing, you know, that could come financially bad to the city for improving this resolution.
This is...
It is a government under Minnesota statutes for 69. They require that we have a public hearing and that the city of Hopkins City Council give host approval. So I'll open it up. Any questions that the council may have? I should also say we have the CFO of Cassia Kathy Youngquest and Dan Anderson from Tathlaw.
I think maybe some of the few only people left here.
If you have any questions for them.
Thank you for coming this evening.
Did you just want to explain why this too?
How this tool is used?
It might be confusing for folks.
Sure, cities.
Oh, come in.
This is maybe.
How common is this?
This is something that I think the city has done.
Maybe once every two years.
Non-profits under the State Statue
under federal tax law can issue taxes on behalf of nonprofit organizations.
We have done this for the Blake school in the past, and we have also done it for, we
would it for the Burns Building.
But it's just basically a mechanism where they can issue tax exempt bonds at a lower rate
because of their status and the project that we're doing.
And there's this kind of this nexus provision, I think they call it where a different city can and work the issue of those thoughts.
Thank you.
We have no written documents.
I'm sure.
There are no written documents.
I imagine.
All right.
Can I get a, can I get a present pronunciation on one of faces? I've heard it three times now.
To the point, I'm a person.
He's a person.
I was, I honestly seen Bonnie.
Yeah.
I see Bonnie.
But I see Bonnie.
All right.
The public hearing regarding health care
facility and a consenting to, and consenting to the
issuance of revenue obligations by the city of
St. Bonnie for the benefit of August Anna
Chapel of U homes is now open.
The purpose of this hearing is for the city council
to hear testimony and take action relating to the issuance of
obligations by the City of Monophages for the benefit of Augustana Chapel of Yuhomes.
And official record is being made of what has been set at this hearing.
Therefore, persons addressing the council are requested to begin by stating their name and address
only one person may speak at a time.
I don't think we're going to have a problem with that.
This is a time for public testimony.
No debate is allowed.
Your comments should be directed to City Council.
Out of respect for everyone, please keep your comments on topic.
And I'll also save the social media piece on this one.
And with that, the public hearing is open.
Does anyone wish to come up and speak?
All right.
Yeah.
Go ahead.
Do we have a motion to close the public hearing?
I'm moved.
Second.
On paper, say aye.
Aye.
In the public hearing is closed any comments from council.
I think for I will go to the next.
I just want to say thank you for coming up with this tool.
I know we've played this role for other developments in the past.
Like you mentioned with Blake.
And it's great that there's tools like this out there.
so we can be part of making these projects happen.
So hopefully this is a useful tool for you
and moving forward.
That's a kind of read the vote,
but do we have a motion on this?
I will make a resolution giving host
approval to the issuance by the city
of St. Bonaface,
this Minnesota of the Healthcare Revenue Bonds,
Augustine on Chapel View,
Homes Inc Project Series 2025,
under Minnesota statute sections four six four six nine dot one five two
through 4, 6, 9, that one, 6, 5.
Do I have a second?
Back up.
Hold on, say we're say aye.
Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
Opposed.
There are none that passes unanimously.
Thank you so much for coming this evening.
You're recording this together.
Thank you.
All right.
Next up on new business.
If I can find agenda again.
Resolution to accepting is an award
contracts for Central Avenue Street and Utility Improvement City Project.
2024-10. Welcome back. Good evening, man. Council. Let's go to be back. We're up here now,
just to ask you to adopt a resolution 2527 and 2528, which is accepting the business and the
contract or the construction project we had the assessment for previously.
All the information was in the previous presentation, but we're up here for any questions, the council may have.
Any comments on this?
I just want to say that this is a third project we've done since I've been here where we did it to your project.
We did interlocking in the presidential.
Now, I have a news in each time we've saved significant money, so
Gooters to the whole team, which includes this council and pass council's first.
I had been doing it to your project, so it's a significant savings.
I think we forget sometimes, you know, the same as we've already accumulated in previous projects all right.
Thank you.
All right. With that, do we have a motion on this one?
I moved to a dopper resolution 2025-027 resolution accepting bids central avenue street and utility improvements.
City Project 2024-10 and adopt a resolution 2025-028 resolution for award-of-contract Central Avenue Street in Utility Improvement City Project 2024-10.
That was second. Second.
Fabers the aye.
Aye.
Opposed.
Hearing none.
That motion carries.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mayor Council.
Thank you.
All right.
Resolution provided for the sale of this $7,645,000 general obligation bond series 2025A.
Excuse you.
Mayor Council.
Again, make push-up.
Finance Director for the city.
Tonight, I'm here to ask you to authorize the sale of about $7.6 million bonds,
primarily to fund the Street Reconstruction Project that we've already discussed tonight,
and also a small portion to fund a water and sewer state of fiber project.
You know, I've gotten a lot of questions about debt. I have some slides prepared to kind of talk
about debt in general and debt related to this project, and also related to the summit on
seven HA bonds. I'm going to go through before I, I'm hoping to be you to all your questions
and answer everything that you're thinking about that before you can ask me the questions.
So, that's your challenge. Okay, first of all, just a broad kind of overview of what we use
that for at the city. Street reconstruction projects, which includes water, sewer, and storm, sewer
systems in addition to the actual road. We use it to pay for facilities, the renovation of city hall,
renovation of the Hopkins Pavilion. I'm also for the parking ramp. We've used it to pay for parks,
Cottageville Park, Burns Park, Oax Park, the most recent parks with that outstanding. We have
issued equipment certificates. That's for like large-scale equipment with a life of 10 years or more.
I mean, most notably, be fire trucks, dump trucks in as the emboony.
We've also issued tax increment debt.
These were issued for the super-value project, way back in the 2000s, like the late 2000s.
They were used for infrastructure improvements related to that project.
They're fully paid for by tax increments.
But that is one of the reasons we have that outstanding.
housing improvement areas have given this similar presentation the past couple of years
as part of our community engagement event. This is new, new to the presentation not necessarily
new to the city. The mayor alluded to this but these are paid entirely by property owners.
Very similar to a special assessment called the housing improvement area fee but that's security
against their property and they are essentially supposed to be and have paid the full cost of that debt.
We use debt because it's hard. It's unnecessary for the city's taxpayers' right now.
The projects that they may want, they may need. There's a 15-year payback period on most of our debt.
And we wouldn't be able to do the projects we've done if we hadn't issued debt so far.
We pay for debt with a tax level.
We pay for debt with special assessments.
You just have a special assessment hearing tonight.
Charges for water, sewer, and storm sewer,
paying for their portion of the debt.
We have tax increments.
They go towards some of our debt in housing improvement areas.
If we are on track, issue those other debt.
We are in the middle of a plan to complete all the city
reached by 2030. We also issued debt for eighth avenue artery and bleak road, which are kind
of impreporation for the light rail and those connections that we've made.
Just looking at our debt,
we have about 80.
Before a million dollars of debt outstanding, this is the figure that will be in our audit at the end of December 2024, about 62% of that is supported by taxes, about 29% of that is supported by utilities and 9% is supported by tax increments.
If we kind of focus in on what we pay for with tax lobby 75% of that is for those street projects,
4% for equipment, 10% for parts, and 11% for facilities like City Hall and the Pavilion.
I know looking at this vet profile, this is a lot to look at, but pretty much what you need to know
orange is the debt that we have outstanding. If we issued no more debt, we'd pay that off by
2040. Blue is what we plan to issue. That's new debt. The kind of the blue chunk in 2025 includes
both what I'm asking you to approve tonight and also the related debt from someone on seven HIA.
So our debt would increase, these are projections based on our CIP, but our debt would continue to go up through 2027 to about 94 million, which point it would start going down until it's all paid off in like 2045.
these are one range projections, but kind of based on what we have.
I'm focusing more in on what our debt might look like in 2025.
I tried to put these into what I felt were relevant categories.
Tax, let me support a debt that's paid for by utilities,
tax increments, and then housing improvement areas.
You know, we have that same number,
$84 million of standing, you know, our debt that I'm asking you to approve right now for central avenues will be partially about 45% will be tax-loving supported. That's going to be paid for by both special assessments and also tax-loving.
about 55% of it is related to URE utilities, so what you pay for your water, your sewer, your
storm, sewer will go in and pay for that debt. Our tax increment debt, what we've not
planned issuing anything for that, so that will decrease in this year, based on what we've
paid, and then that line for housing improvement areas that will go down. So whereas our total debt
is projected to go up from about 84 to almost 89 million if you kind of look at that first column
our tax service supported debt would actually go down. So it's kind of an issue to me of what's
important to you and what you're focused on and I'm always focused on the tax lobby and so seeing
the fact that we have the tax that we supported debt going down is a good thing.
This is my last slide, so you are, do you?
So, kind of focusing back in on the 2025 ADAT, Nick Amitouchio talked about it a little bit.
The packet tonight has a pre-sale report.
I think Elers put this together last week on like April 9th.
It has a bond sale with projected rates.
plus an additional 50 basis points, which just means an additional half a percent.
It has a true interest cost of 6.3 percent, and we have a special assessment policy that says
we'll assess at 2% above that, so that is where that 8.3 percent projected interest rate came in.
In regards to the special assessments, full cell the bonds on May 20th, and then we would have interest
period for people to pay off their special assessments from essentially made 21st when they
re-let or when they know the amount of the interest rate I should say they could pay it off this month
but they would not have that information on what the interest rate is but they can pay that off
through July 31st with no interest and then on August 1st we started our interest period related to that.
I would also say that I looked into some of the timing of the payment options related
to the debt, our special assessments that we collect related to these bonds are actually part
of the pre-sale report and part of how we put our bond finding things together. So we're not
really able to offer a longer time period. There could be scenarios where we off.
For, you know, a payment period that shorter than our debt, we also have a special assessment program, so we
had to retrieve removal, private water and sewer repair that we would have that flexibility to kind of change
or mix and match, let the resident or whoever is being assessed side, but the special assessments
related to these bonds. I feel really need to be tied to the length of bonds that we issued.
With that, I think I've covered everything.
We had a great resident academy where I had some really good questions, so you guys
got to live up to that.
I would say I think it's really important that we talk about tax-loving supported debt and
make that differentiation when we're talking and we just had a conversation right before
this and how tax or sorry, how our debt can be used and it's when it's assessed on the property.
It's not our debt to pay.
It's the properties debt to pay and the taxpayers aren't paying that and there's folks want to
make sure that folks don't use that misinformation or put that out as misinformation to the public.
And so I think it's very important that we talk about tax-ledvy supported what are the taxpayers paying
in terms of debt and being having that conversation.
I also, you know, I mentioned earlier,
talking about the street projects,
I do think it's important we have a conversation
about where we can pause in issuing more debt,
realizing, as I'm saying,
that just how the conversation about the infrastructure
that's eroding underneath our feet
in a lot of the streets is Hopkins was an old town.
It was built in a similar time period
of Minneapolis and so a lot of the infrastructure
through the years, it's old infrastructure
that we're replacing.
So there's realities of that as well,
but to least have those conversations
and looking at public work sitting in the back row there.
But dead is a significant part of our tax,
the tax expert, people pay your in-hotings
and whatever we can do to reduce the dead
and I'm all in favor of using dead as a tool.
what I mean, in the case of the condo building that we just talked about, that's actually going
to reduce the tax levy, or sorry, reduce the tax pressure on residents, because it's going
to increase the value of the property, the taxable value of the property, and so that's a reduction
in burden. So to be able to use the tool that way, and we'll probably both the projects that
we just talked about tonight, you know, that's a way that we can use utilized debt, and that
it's same bodies, but to be able to utilize debt in ways that are helpful in the 325
Blake Conversation, we're also talking about using tax assessment as a tool there, and that would
be added debt, but that is, again, access to the property, and that would be adding value to the
city and reducing tax pressure on folks. So I think it's really important when we're messaging,
and we're bringing this forward that people in the community understand the difference, sorry,
the difference between those.
Any other comments from Council?
Oh, I do have one more side.
I thought you said you had one more.
And I did.
Did I say that?
OK.
So tonight, I'm asking you for authorization to begin working
with Ellers, our municipal advisor.
For the sale of general obligation
on series 2025A for about 7.645 million.
This is essentially half of the street reconstruction project.
I know there's some work with the contractor in some flex areas,
but the city engineer and I have talked and this will be enough for our cash flow.
Based on the payments that we'll need to make the contractor,
we will issue bonds again in 2026 for the second half of that project.
Next steps would be on May 20th.
We'll issue the 2025 A bonds at some later time.
We'll issue 2025 B bonds for someone on seven.
And if you go back to 2023, we issued general obligation
temporary bonds to fund the 2023 suite project.
And we have always had the intention and always had the plan
to refinance them, this would not have any sort of change on our total outstanding debt.
But those bonds essentially have a balloon payment that occurs on February 1st, 2026,
and we will, I will be coming back to you to refinance them with font from font.
All right. That is, that's basically what I have at the end. Any comments from Council?
We've talked about the connections to this bond all night here.
I think it's also important to echo the double A plus bond rating the city has that's extremely high
That's doing a good job right like doing doing a good job with that and being a steward of that
I know we're we have a lot of dead infrastructure like you spoke to
Once we get through this we're kind of done in the core of downtown
Maybe it is it time to take a time off for a year or two and do some ketchup
There's always going to be projects. There's always going to be things, right?
but these are some really large ones that are needed.
So, yeah.
Any other comments?
Thank you.
Hearing none, seeing shaking of heads,
do I have a motion on this one?
I'll make a motion to adopt a resolution 2025-29,
providing for the sale of 7,645,000 general obligation bonds,
series 2025-8.
Do I have a second?
on Fibrecyi, I, I, I, I, I, all opposed hearing none that motion carries.
Thank you, Director.
There's nothing like presenting a park project after hearing one-up pause issuing that.
I encourage you to listen to my presentation today.
Breathe.
Members of the council, I'm Laila and me, here I'm our special projects in an initiative
in here, Mike Wontman from Fulton and the make is with me tonight and I'm going to give
a brief update on Central Park. There are going to be a few items that come in May and I won't
be here. I'm going to be on leave and so giving a little bit of a prep to that, also giving an
update on this project. Our new Polk recruiter, Dustin Pavak, is going to present those items in May.
I'm going to talk about them in this presentation and he is well-versed and is going to be supported
by our consultants and staff but want to give you an update on this project before those items
come before you. So just a background on this in 2022 and 2023 the city embarked on its first
ever master parks system plan. This is a really necessary process because we've had sort of a
scattered approach to the way that we've invested into our parks. Sometimes it's just been like,
we have a really good idea or we have a really big community need but we've never really
holistically looked at needs across the community and really thinking long-term about what
that might look like for us to plan over a 20-year span and think about our Park System and
investment. One of the things that we heard a lot during the Park System Master Plan was this idea
of investing in our Park's infrastructure the same way that we do our road infrastructure, right?
that it's a necessary service.
And people have the expectation of nice parks here.
I think we have a lot of parks for a forest
for a mile community.
We have, you know, 14 or 15 parks and natural spaces,
kind of depending on how you count them.
And they're all really lovely, but they're all starting
to age a little bit.
And so that was really our work to kind of get ahead of.
Thinking about how over a long period of time,
much like some of the work that we've done with row
construction work and community needs how we would plan for those investments.
The first project for the undertook from that is a redesign of central parks.
We've brought this item before you a couple of times as we engaged with Bolton and
make far engineering and JLGR architecture in 2024 to come on board and oversee that project.
We also joined, nine-mile creek watershed district, joined us in this project.
If you remember us talking about this, it last fall.
The head waters of the nine-mile creek are just south of this across Excel Sear Boulevard.
So everything that kind of flows down that direction and comes through the park, flows into the nine-mile creek,
affecting water quality across the nine-mile creek watershed district.
And that presents a really unique challenge because the soils and the type of conditions
that we see in Central Park are incredibly contaminated.
And so I think 9 Mile Creek Watershed District saw a real opportunity for this.
They've also have a really big equity focus on their work.
And they're thinking about places in the watershed district.
They really haven't historically invested in and have target populations.
They really want to invest.
So, we're so grateful and lucky to have them as a partner in this work. But it has transformed kind of with the way that we've looked at this park project from what we saw in the park system master plan to what I'm going to show you tonight.
So I think that's really important context that our initial kind of way that we were talking about.
This park was really that hub for maybe a more of an adult focused park.
And we saw an engagement, and I'll kind of talk through that as well, what we saw in the master park system plan when residents were offered, what about naturalizing and what are some of these creek investments people really prioritizing that.
So we did a ton of engagement, we had an online survey which many of you may have taken and we did a ton of community events pop up events if you look in your packet you'll see a really amazing graphic that will mimic all of the engagement and hundreds of people who participated in that engagement.
And I want to give just a quick summary of that before we dive into the plan.
So, of the five reasons that people decide to visit Central Park, the biggest number one reason,
it's to attend an event, whether that's at the Pavilion, Raspberry Festival, or another event,
people think of Central Park as an event space.
At the very back of this, number five is to use the playground.
If you've been to Central Park,
It is my joke that my main nemesis in this town is the playground at Central Park.
It's in really poor condition, and so I think a lot of times I think use the playground
actually refers to the playground at Catherine Kern.
There's a larger playground that's at Catherine Kern that people often think of as a central park playground.
But even that is starting to show its age, we actually do the maintenance on that for the school district,
but it is really also starting to see the end of its useful life.
And so, you know, this was something a theme that we heard across all of our parks that are playgrounds are really starting to see that we're in tier and age across the community.
The things that people were most excited about are most satisfied.
Our pavilion, the past pickleball, if you've ever watched fast here at any point in the summer, you know that it is just driving with pickleball players outdoor hockey and then tennis courts.
tennis court saw highlight that as well that was a change from the master
park system plan that I'm going to talk about as well so thinking about
my needy's to approve my name is this the playground
um restrooms and picnic shelters were also really big one of the things that we've
talked about as we've engaged staff is the need for additional restrooms space here
we bring in port of pi d's but there's it's like it's that will can be a really
long walk across this park to get to the pavilion where we have those covered
structured restrooms. Improving that multi-use path, the path is a little bit odd and
you can't really cut through it. It is not a total straight shot. You know, we think about
people who may get off at the shady Oak Light Rail Station and cut through downtown that way
and it's pretty circuitous as it stands. And then improving the pavilion, which we are in the
It's kind of separately of a study for a feasibility and improving that structure.
You'll hear about that in the coming months, but people, people of the favelian.
And then thinking about what people want to see added into this.
Number one is that enhanced plantings and landscaping, especially when we talk in person and
we presented this partnership with the Watershed District, people got really excited.
I think sustainability over the past few years has really come as a core value for people
live in Hopkins and seeing the opportunity to have another space that's really naturalized
and is focused on the environment really comes through. You also see at number three shade
being another item that people really want to see. And I think in all forms, we saw from Pickleball
players, they're looking for shade structures so that they can grasp in between sets. But also
trees and other structures for if you're sitting out watching a kid at a playground right now,
in the complete sun. But then also other smaller amenities like lighting and
vet bike racks and then again, those more permanent restroom facilities.
So just
to recap of the engagement that we did. So we did quite a few community events.
We popped up that bear cave. We popped up at the winners farmers market a handful of
times. We hosted a movie night, console members on King Grito and I watched the
charity of my deducts, what a treat.
And so we did some movie nights.
We had one-on-one stakeholder meetings
with a ton of stakeholders, Raspberry-Fest, Access Hopkins,
our pickleball group, our softball users,
one initial idea for this park was to move volleyball here,
and we tried so hard to engage volleyball, which is fine.
of crazy, because it is like one of the most growing minitanka adults sports. And they were like,
no, thank you. And I think it's probably because they're very happy of Alipark, and we're likely
to leave them there. And we have really great amenities there that will improve Alipark. But we did
try very hard to come to a focus group. Talk to United, which is a club soccer team, aka sports,
which runs a very packed sports camp out of the pavilion and then uses central park as part
of that.
And then Minneapolis soccer club, which is a club soccer team that's a feeder sort of
to the minor, the major league soccer here in town.
And they have worked with our recreation partner to do some camps and training.
They're really focused on bringing their players out into community and working with it.
We also did several classroom visits at Alice Smith, so this is a drawing, a beautiful
drawing from a fourth grader who this is their vision for what the playground will look like.
I have never heard more times in my life than need for a zip line. I literally was like
at that point I was just promising kids like there's going to be a zip line guys don't worry.
And because I swear to you we probably have 200 of these and they all have a zip line
And then I can't leave out our youth advisory board.
They hosted a youth focus event where they did ice skating at the Pavilion and shared some
of their ideas.
They had just gotten a really lovely presentation from 9 Mile Creek at their Youth Advisory
Board meeting.
And so they were like 100% natural areas, but then also this idea of, you know, upgraded
an accessible play equipment and then maintaining those open spaces.
So I think they so cute.
We did a great job.
They put this all on themselves.
I literally just bought pretzels.
And if you need to cater pretzels,
Auntie and she does that apparently.
So this central park for all of the desires and wants for this park,
which I think there are many.
It's our second largest park.
It's right in the heart of our community.
there's a lot of challenges with this part. So one, and I outlined this in more detail in my staff report,
but one of the first issue is soil quality, so this was used as an unregulated landfill for a number of years,
and to do anything, right, to do to pick up the one shovel of dirt. We have to remediate some amount of soil here.
In the 2015 Pavilion construction process, soils were remediated, we were checking out soils and replacing them.
And so what that look like is can look like as a spectrum of how much soil remediation needs to be done,
but some degree of soil remediation will be needed to be done.
Flooding is also a huge issue.
It's an issue for this site, but also for the neighboring sites.
I've talked to people at the church to the north who say they rent a pump all the time.
talk to some of the apartment buildings who say they experience significant flooding.
And so improvements here, both in soil quality and flooding impacts would improve both our
field quality here, as well as make this park a little bit better and either to some of the
adjacent property owners. And then again, that contaminated soil, really in fact affects
storm water quality. This is just north like I said of the NIMO Creek water shed had waters. And so if we're able to do some cleaning of that and flood storage that will improve downstream effects for the entire creek. So it's a big part in addition to the idea that we may be able to do some education really create a formal had waters for this sort of a regional park amenity here as part of the redesign.
And then again, I think that there wasn't a really big ass in the engagement for a new
amenities when it comes to design. It's a really tight park. We're trying to fit a lot of
pieces in here. I remember looking at the first versions of this and that's your personal plan
of being like, oh, so many things you're trying to do in a very small space. But I think that
what was really helpful in this second round of engagement and really having a focus approach
on the park. Was that people like the amenities that they have here? It's all about making them better.
So we don't need more pickleball courts. It was more about how could we provide adjacent amenities
that would make playing pickleball at this park better. Or we don't need more of any one thing,
but we really want a better playground. We want better paths. And that was really a nice thing to
hear from the community and then along with that sort of desire for restoration and naturalizing
landscape.
So what does this look like in a revised?
This version, I can kind of walk through this numerically here, just to make this easier. But this is our most recent plan that we utilize in some of the grant processes. I'm going to talk about in the future.
But this is taking kind of that refining down that concept from the Master Park System plan.
So, in number one, is a sunk in soccer slash flex field.
So, this is actually sort of a basin-style soccer field,
that would allow capturing stormwater during very significant flooding events,
before the most part would stay dry.
This also kind of creates an amphitheater field,
so you would actually be able to walk around this
and come down into it.
So, for things like Raspberry Fest,
it might actually make Raspberry Jam a more of an amphitheater-style experience,
You'll actually be lower below the fireworks, so some really cool ways that that will change the feel of this park by lowering that field while also addressing some of the flooding and what and so I'll call it the issues here.
up in the right upper right corner is number two.
Some of the engagement that I didn't talk about was doing a ton of engagement with Umba,
the medical academy, and then the Catholic school that is right across the park,
and teachers there were all really excited about the idea of having more of like a science
yard or outdoor learning. And so we've incorporated that up in the upper field. So we'll have
some stormwater pre-treatment there, but it'll also be a space that teachers can have kind of an
or a classroom.
Number three and ten is the play area with then a skating ribbon around it. So this
does remove the like outdoor free-style rink and transforms that into an area that would be
an unrefrigerated skating ribbon. So sort of like what happens at Burns Park where we
lay that ice kind of around the trees and then we have a more robust play area that would have
more accessible features.
We don't really have a playground turn hopkins
that has any accessible amenities.
So this would be designed with in mind,
with children who have accessibility needs.
And then, oh, I said 10.
Oh, there's kind of a dry creek bed
that's kind of adjacent to that.
So that's part of some of the stormwater node
that goes diagonally through the site
for is the scape blue by the apologize.
We retain both softball fields.
This has always been the plan, so keeping those two softball fields really hoping that a lot of these improvements throughout the park are going to improve the field quality here by draining water off of those fields keeping them from being wet.
And then adding some additional shelters and other, you know, another bathroom in here throughout the park so that you're not going quite as far in between spaces for shelters and bathrooms.
You'll also see some expanded parking potentially that would be in the event of an expansion of the pavilion in a number of years.
If we were to expand the pavilion, we would likely expand the pavilion to the east coming out in front of the building.
We're still kind of working through some of those programming decisions, but we know that that likely comes with some degree of parking.
One item that's not captured on this design, but that we've talked with our landscape architects about is figuring out a closure of that cut through road. Right now we have it doing a kind of like a circle loop right in front of the pavilion. I think we're likely going to have that come higher up closer to the parking that's adjacent to the tennis courts.
In previous iterations of this design, we showed the Hopkins Pavilion expansion happening to the north, which eliminated the tennis, as well as the outdoor hockey arena.
But we heard a lot that people like having tennis here.
And the master park system plan also showed basketball here, which you do not see, because it does not fit.
And public works had a really creative idea, which these, you know, no matter when we do this,
the existing tennis courts are really falling apart, and they needed to be resurfaced
to accommodate minute-tocker recreation, pop-ins minute-tocker recreation programming.
And so what we ultimately are choosing to do in that resurface is to remove one tennis court,
and then add a basketball court within that, so it'll be fence separately,
and we'll be able to add that amenity without taking away tennis.
So I think that was just a really smart compromise to figure out how to add basketball here.
We have two high schools adjacent to this.
I think that's a really good amount of need to have in this park, but it doesn't fit all
swear and so being able to use that existing space.
I think we're extremely well. So with that, I want to just pause on programmatic questions before I kind of
talk about some of the next steps. And I can answer any questions that we have on kind of this design as well.
But I want to take a minute if we have questions on how we came to this design.
I would say it's impressive fitting a lot in here, a lot of different concepts. I know there's a lot of push from the community for different
different use types and trying to make all of that work.
I love the fact that this soccer field is on there, whether or not it's the minor league soccer team that's engaged just that utilizes that field or not.
It's the demographics of Hopkins are changing and soccer is a big part of the new demographics that are coming to the city.
And as long as, as well as a basketball court,
we have a championship, we just had a presentation this evening.
We, we kill it in, in basketball both our, our boys and women
in, in high school in the feeder systems that go all the way up there.
So having a place where more kids can get out there and
can practice, I think, is really important.
One thing I think about, and I know if you, if you've had
conversations with the schools, but, you know, off to the west that with Catherine Kerr
and being there, that there's a, a sizable playground that we, we go there quite often
and we're with my three-year-old daughter and we're quite often the only people there.
And then there's, you know, huge swing set of field.
There's probably enough space for a basketball court with a parking lot that also doesn't
get used to a whole lot, although I don't see it a whole lot in the weekday, so I don't know.
So yeah, just curious if we've engaged the school at all in having some to be able to have some sort of partnership in that space and to have amenities that benefit both.
Yeah, it's a timely question.
We met with the school district today.
So some history is in 2008.
We signed a 30 year agreement that covers the half of the hockey field, all of the tennis courts.
and all of the play ground to the west.
That we maintain it so that we can retain access
and we can kind of consider it part of Central Park.
And so if something breaks on that play ground,
it is public works.
That's ordering new parts and fixing it.
The tennis courts that is actually school district land.
We are paying $200,000.
$160,000 to a resurface sales tennis court that, again, is on school district land.
And so we actually, we can't do this plan without engagement with the school district because
we would be building on the school district land.
And so we had a conversation literally today about what is this look like when we build like
a brand new play ground next to a pretty ageing playground, and would they consider, could
We consider that the new playground for that school, and then, you know, look to remove that playground eventually and stop maintaining it because we'd like to stop maintaining it if possible if we're going to build a brand new playground.
The challenge with that is that the school district who owns that building currently has attended in it that tenant is a high school, so they're not using a playground.
But I think they're still in the middle of some conversations about what the future of that property looks like.
You know, they've talked, they think in the past of would we consider selling it to someone at that point.
The city would have first rate of refusal so we could acquire the pieces that we consider part of Central Park as part of that agreement.
But they're, you know, they're definitely considering options of like, is there ever a need for that as an elementary school again in the future?
And what that would look like and the changes that would result as a part of that.
So they told us that we should kind of put together some actions of what it would look like for us to move forward with that.
And that in the next six to eight weeks they likely know the a little bit clearer sense of the future on that.
You know, I think that while there is that existing playground again to that and you use it all the time.
So, you know, it doesn't, it itself is not accessible.
It's not updated.
And so, I think we would not let that hinder us
from proposing another playground there,
even though they'd be next to each other.
Because we, we likely wouldn't replace
or participate in their replacement of the playground
at Catherine Kern.
You know, one of the things that, you know,
there could be a completely future use of this word
that tight gets sold and is evolved
in the housing, right? And so I think we want to be future thinking now.
We don't control that site and we don't have a sense of how the school district might move ahead with that.
So, but we are in conversation, they seem to pretty open to that as a way to move forward would be to kind of, just kind of,
just kind of eat their idea of what the school is in the same way that we consider the park that west they might consider the school a little more east.
And they were really excited about basketball there as well.
So, great. Thank you.
Yeah.
Any more comments?
You know, with that play area, I was thinking you can kind of accommodate
and have them work together, because you know, in the new one, you're going to have a
Zipline.
I'm going to have a Zipline.
I'll go and record for all the fourth graders I talk to.
But I do like how you reuse some of these existing amenities, like the tennis, pickleball,
the hockey wiffleball port. I think that there's a lot of people that use that today, so I think
it's great to incorporate that. And then I just, you know, this gets in the details, but
it does say that one of the top amenities is lighting. So obviously lighting along the paths and
everything is that new lighting also for the softball fields in the soccer field. Because I think
currently, they only have one softball field that's lit and it's all lighting.
Yeah, Colton, remember Hunky, I think that we're still at a higher level of design than that,
but we have heard that of what, you know, could be like the soccer field that's going to
allow us to rent it out for longer and there is a need to replace and update the lighting for
the softball field. So, I think we would be silly to not make some of those choices. We have,
we're not showing it at this level of plan detail, but I do know that that's been brought up
because, you know, the longer that we can light it, especially in those shoulder season,
to have people out and being able to use it, we really want to be able to do that and leverage
that rentable space. And then I heard too and you've already talked about this, but trying to find
what ways to put in permanent restrooms that are too. I was talking to somebody the other night
and that was kind of one big. Yeah, right now we're showing probably an expanded permanent
rest room up in the upper right hand corner, that I think is, you know, that's one option
or closer to the play area. I think we're just trying to figure that out as we continue to
refine the design, but we've heard that a lot. So thank you. Yeah, I like the, uh, the sunken
soccer field, the concept. I think it's great too. Um, thank you for saving the wifful ball field. Uh,
I know how big whiffle ball was in the city of Hopkins until my kids started going and I don't
know Brian if you're kids to go.
They have a national tournament and there's hundreds, you know, an eating in different places,
like, it's the vibes, the aces, the chowawas, it's a really big deal and they play here and
he, and he, and he, and he, and he, and then I know the kids love that.
I didn't, I didn't know, and I wouldn't have known that had they, not had the kids in the
in the age of going and flock to it.
It's a HRL.
That's what it's called.
If you Google that, you'll see all the teams that are involved with it.
That's used a lot. I didn't know that until then I've reminded me here.
I like the Lake amenities on there. It's not Lake the Big Ponds, right?
Lake Leila.
I think...
I will accept that as the name of it.
I can't accept it.
We can't accept it.
Bringing the kids back to nature or the people back to nature and see those things and, you know,
of things of like this is what this is and this is what it does, educational components, I think are awesome.
Yeah, thanks.
I was going to see something similar about like the stormwater aspects of this, because I'm a big fan of that.
I like seeing that that's implemented as part of this.
And I like the idea of putting like educational signage out there so that kids can kind of learn what it is and what it does.
So this is overall just very cool. I really like it.
Yeah, and I can't express enough how much NIMEIL Creek, they literally paid an architect or a landscape architect to do a preliminary version of this with, like, without even talking to us.
But we're like, let's just figure out what it would look like, and if the city would want to do this.
I'm brought a preliminary version of this, and we have not traded that far away from that first drying by bar.
And I didn't even really call it out, but a six and five and six in the lower right hand corner would be some of that educational signage in a real sight for that had waters.
So.
You'd be a lot of softballs in that water.
Often over the last.
I have a few questions.
The first question I had, I realized we're not obviously voting on this tonight, but like, do you have like kind of just from what you've heard from Park Borden all that kind of like a proposed timeline for this?
Also, like potentially like what the costs mean.
May or may not entail. And then I was also really curious, one of the earlier slides that you presented, where I think it was based on a survey for the public. It had talked about like the number of things like that people were kind of looking for for this. And I guess I was really kind of surprised to see that people were looking at potentially improvements or redesigns for the pavilion, given that that had just been improved in 2018. Can you maybe share a little bit about what people were maybe suggesting or hoping to see with, you know,
with improvements in the final thing that I had
is did a dog park ever come up at all in this
in this redeveloped.
Because that's, you've got so much here.
I love most of what's here,
but would love to also see a dog park.
Great.
I will start with dog park.
So no, I don't think this is appropriate site
for a dog park just given that we're planning to do a lot
of stormwater and water quality improvements.
And Pat Waste is one of the biggest contributors
to force your water quality, but there's just also a real lack of space to do an improvement like
that, so we do here every day, all day, anytime I talk to Parks, that have conceived the
dog park. And we do have some preliminary sites for that in the master park system plan,
so we do show a small potential dog park at Valley Park, and then a larger dog park at Hilltop Park.
those are spaces that have some pretty wide underutilized field spaces that we would love to
move forward with the dog park in those areas and they're a little bit better suited for that.
There's just not a place in this park to do a dog park dog park need to be really one to two
acres is the best size for them. So it's just really not the right size and scale for something like that.
The pavilion question about pavilion updates, remember goodland.
We are in the process of doing a pavilion feasibility study that was approved in conjunction
with this contract, but will not make for the rest of the central park project.
That was also a part of the master park system plan is that we continuously hear the need
for more community space, but specifically more ice time.
Each YHA is constantly asking to have more ice.
We only have one sheet of ice, and it's only half time.
It's a very short season from September to February,
and that is booked almost every hour of the day.
So there is a real demand for more ice,
and so that's sort of the driving factor behind this
is can we get to full-time ice year round?
Well, also retaining some of the most,
I think, profitable portions of the pavilion,
which is field space into a field space like turf pots, soccer, birthday parties, some of those
things that happen, the sports camps that happen in the February 2 September is just as profitable
as the ice and so how do we do both? And so that is what we have JLG architecture and their
partners, Balard King, working on a market analysis to understand, you know, some time whether
some five years or 15 years, what does it look like to add that amenity as well as other
amenities like a walking track or fitness equipment in this space. So we definitely hear that
desire that the billion, when we did that renovation in 2015, there were conversations about making
it big enough bigger than it currently is and the console of that time shows not to do that just
given the costs for that, but we're feeling that the crunch of not making it bigger already
as we think about that rebellion space as it currently stands.
I'll pause because we didn't really talk much about that pavilion feasibility study. Do consumers
have any other questions about the pavilion?
No, I would just back that up that we have received a considerable amount of feedback from the
folks that use that facility, that it's not only not only just the size, but also like the PA system and other aspects of it compared to other hockey rings.
Yeah, and I will say HWAJ isn't coming to us with nothing. They have money that they really want to be a financial partner in that investment.
Could we choose to make that happen? So we have a really active and engaged participant in the idea of of expand.
So, the final question is on cost, and if it's all right, and we don't have any more questions from the other council members, I can move into my additional slides on funding and timeline.
So, this is what you're looking at is not the cleanest we can make the spark.
I think we tried as strict a balance in terms of remediating soil and doing flooding storage
to a point that seemed cost-peasy.
So I feel like a correct assessment. Yeah, thank you, Leila. So again, Mike Waltman, the Bolton Make, of course. I mean, the regulated soils on this site, when it's used as a landfill, go down 30 feet. And so what we're talking about in terms of cost is trying to get at or make sure we account for removal of any of those soils that we do happen to encounter. So in the case of, say, the sunken soccer field, we're down about 10 feet across the, obviously, the area of a soccer field. And we're looking at funding pursuits to
to go after stormwater storage that we can benefit the surrounding area with with that, but then
also getting rid of those soils at the same time. So we're not going to go down 30 feet to get
rid of everything, but we're going to make sure we do everything right. We need to and cap everything
appropriately for use by the public when we're done. Yeah. And so kind of knowing counsel that we
have to do so over mediation as well as some flooding storage, we're looking at I think a pretty
significant price tag. And so the design in front of you was designed to be responsive to a
footprint processes that I'm going to talk about. And I guess I'll move into that first.
So we are waiting here back on two grant processes. So one was an NPCA resilience grant of up to
five million dollars. That will cover some of these flooding and soil quality improvements. Additionally,
staff and the nine-mile Creek Watershed District
have applied to the Minnesota Clean Water Fund for funding
that would either come through a grant, a low interest
loan, and or a forgivable loan.
The challenge with that clean water grant fund is that the amount
is sort of unknown.
You apply and they sort of tell you based on what other
available funding and what other projects are ready.
And so the project kind of ready list is what we are working to apply to.
There are some items to get on that list.
We initially applied to be accepted onto the list of projects that are sort of shovel ready for funding.
We made it through that first round and they said they really like our project.
They're really excited to add our project.
The Clean Water Fund component would only cover the flooding aspects of the project.
They wouldn't cover any of the amenities or any of the soil remediation, whereas the resilience grant would cover flooding and soil remediation, leaving the rest of the amenity work for the city to cover.
9-mile creek is also put money in their CIP to invest into this project.
But at this point, we're waiting on both of those funding opportunities to have a firmer sense of what this park will look like.
because should we not receive funding in either of those? This design will change the
sunken soccer field will probably be one of the items that is removed to be able to reduce the cost
on this. We are initial estimate for this is $11 million. So it is substantial and a lot of
that comes from soil remediation because to be able to do anything here, we need to clean up
the situation that has come before us. We know that had it been county also has some funding that
maybe able to go after to do some of the cleanup here. The watershed district at this time has
committed a million dollars into the project. But it's a big undertaking and if we were to get
the five million dollars from the MPCA, that's a much less scary number. And if we aren't able
to secure that funding, we're going to have to scale back this design to be responsive to only
being on the PPL list. The nice thing about the PPL list is that the low interest funding that we
can get the low funding from them is 20% forgivable and then it's a lower interest rate than we
would be able to bond for. So we could take out the infrastructure components for flooding through
that. But it's a little bit of a mystery of how much money we would receive from that. So we're
in a little bit of a folding pattern at this point until we hear back on both of those processes,
how much money would be available to this city. And then from there, I think we'll kind of
refine and go into what was already planned as our second round of engagement over the summer.
We do have some items that are going to come forward as part of that clean water fund
PPL list. So on May 6th, we have to have a public hearing for the storm water plan. So the storm
water elements that are shown here,
bar is working to put that into a plan.
Another shout out to NIMA,
Creek Watershed District Air Pain,
for bar to do this over and above engineering
to pursue funding for this.
So I just cannot stress in us how wonderful of a partner
they have been to us in this process.
And then we will be on that list.
And as funding comes up,
I think we're going to be pretty high on the list
because we're pretty ready.
And they don't see a lot of projects like this.
.
We're excited about it. But it's sort of an ambiguous process. I'm not sure if you want to share anything more on kind of the uniqueness of it.
I think you've done a great job covering it. Yeah, there's layers to this and what you do and what you don't want to.
I think that's what makes it unique. It's not quite as linear. Obviously, a little sense to a street project.
But there's different pieces you could take out or add that have different benefit to different parts of the public and the downstream infrastructure and things.
So yeah, I think you covered it well and we're going to see what happens as we go through
the process.
Right here back on the summer and fall on some of these programs and we're going to
think said, which are some degree dependent on how much legislature funds and others
part of already attributed funding to those programs.
And I think our process has been to move slowly and move responsibly to grant funding.
That's out there so that we wouldn't bear the full cost of this as the city.
You know, we did not make the conditions of this park.
But we do want to improve them, and so we had planned to be a little bit ahead of where we are right now
But we've slowed down and adjusted kind of our expectations so that we could kind of one time moonshot apply for the MPCA funds
We might not get 5 million. We might get nothing. We might get a portion of that. I think we should know some time and may
So this will this is the first of probably a few more times that you'll see this come forward as we
know more about the funding situation as an NSV
continued to refine it, you know, in addition to kind of the
stacking of grant funds, nine mile fee funds, loan funds.
This is something that we can bond for.
Sorry to bring that up right after, right after Nick.
But we can pay for the bonds using
part dedication funds. And so we do have a number of funds that are
have not yet been collected because they have not needed to split
there are lots like trilogy or, you know,
should something continue to move at 325's Blake
that's like leading you to be split
and pay park dedication fees.
So we project that there are gonna be some fees
that come into the city over the next five years.
And so even if we bonded for some of these improvements,
we could pay ourselves back through park dedication fees.
And so I think that we are just continuing to be creative
about how we do this so that we can afford to do
but I think we'll be a really amazing project
that's once it's complete that accomplishes a lot of our goals.
So that's all I have.
Do we have any more questions about this?
I'll bring this.
Let's say a big thank you to all of you for putting this together,
but also not my Creek Watershed district
for being such a great partner.
I mean, they're great partners on small projects across there,
water shed in our city in terms of getting people grants grant programs and to be able to step up.
It's not a huge watershed so we'll be able to step up into this program is great to have that kind of partnership.
And then I'm glad that you're talking about leveraging relationships.
We just have to do that here in order to save costs.
And then utilizing park dedication fees, I mean, I think this is a keystone of our parks system of this new park plan.
And so to get this one right, I think is really important.
In fact, I think you've had to, I don't know, I think of parks like the downtown park.
That's as high on my priority list of addressing issues at that park is in from a lot of folks that I'm hearing from is making sure that we get something like this.
done, done right and so if it takes consolidating efforts to be able to bring this forward,
I'd be all in favor of it.
Any comments from council?
All right, there's no motion on this, so thank you for bringing this report forward.
Thank you. Thanks.
All right. Where are we?
public comments. I don't think we haven't.
Good evening, Mayor and council members, Charles
Hendrix, 3, 2, 3, 11th Avenue North. Two quick points. One, I want to thank you because
I don't think we do that often enough for your service and for the work of our city employees
to help make this a good place to live. This meeting tonight is
a joy to watch as people with good hearts.
Sweat out the details of governance and democracy. So I appreciate that. My second point is, I think we live in perilous times when we have a person in the White House who does not share the same enjoyment of rules and rule of law due process or even faith in the U.S. Constitution.
And my fear is that eventually this person will even come after small towns like Hopkins or whatever federal funding we may have or whatever programs we may have.
And I urge you when that comes to to stand up to that and to stand up for the principles of this city and be true to that you will have my support.
And again I thank you for your leadership in helping make this a good place to live.
So that's it. Thank you so much.
Thank you for this comments
and I do easy get into commenting back and forth with people
coming to comment but I just want to thank you for your patience. Holy cow, that was a long
meeting to go through. So thank you.
All right, do we have any announcements this evening?
Yes, sorry. Okay, so I just wanted to address my fellow council members and let everyone up here know that at the end of last last week's special council meeting that I did in fact hand our city clerk a check for a partial reimbursement for the DC conference fees.
Um, and um, I think I've pretty clearly outlined in previous meetings, um, as to, you know, why my travel, I couldn't have changed and whatnot.
Um, and I just want to also, you know, put this out there, too, that, you know, nobody is forcing me or making me do this, you know, at all.
This is something that I came to on my own, uh, but, um, you know, and we don't have formal policies on this either, but you know, I just feel like this was the morally correct.
We'll get that I attended, you know, less than the fall conference so I want you to know that and they emailed me earlier today, just saying that the city had accepted it, so that is it. So I hope to move forward beyond that.
Thank you.
I just think about the fact that we had our we had a net zero, one of the few net zero developments came forward in the state of Minnesota last week that's that we're considering here really proud of that.
we're a tree city, USA, green steps, five city, we're late all the new each street and the
Twin Cities business journal. We've had the lowest tax on the levy increases in Hennep
and County in the last four years. We have developers wanting to come here, left and right
to find spots to develop. It's a place that people want to move. They want to do business.
I've been here my whole life. I've never seen this city this busy. It's just incredible
to see the people that are bustling on a Thursday night, this place is just bustling with people
and I've never seen that growing up. It's just a great time to be here in Hopkins.
We've historic part plan that we just talked about tonight. Having walkable, first-class
parks close to everyone. We have the lowest crime in the history of Hopkins since we've started
recording back in 1990, I think. We have paid backers day. Food truck festival is coming
Raspberry Festival is around the corner and Raspberry Festival is getting bigger and bigger every year.
It looks like the state fair when you look down Main Street and the end, it just packed and then the concert afterwards.
It's just we are in a growing thriving city with three LRT stops that are coming here.
That's going to bring change as well.
And I think this council, this staff, our community is part of holding the reins of that change as it comes to Hopkins
and making sure that this is still remains an awesome place to live, an awesome place to work.
And I just want to say, I want to focus on that, I want this council to be focused on
that.
We have incredible challenges, you know, changes in government.
We have incredible challenges coming to the city and we need to focus on the problems in front
of us.
I really love for us to be focused on that fully, fully next meeting.
And with that, our next city council regular meeting is Tuesday, May 6th and May 20th at 6 30 p.m.
Do we have anything else before we adjourn?
I have a motion to adjourn.
I'll move.
Have a second.
Second.
I'm going to say aye.
Aye.