[0:01] It is uh 7 o'clock. I will call the uh special work session of the city council

[0:06] meeting of March 2nd, 2026 to order. Uh we do have a quorum uh public forum.

[0:12] Individuals may address the city council about items on the agenda or not

[0:16] included on the agenda. Speakers are required to state their name and address

[0:20] for the council record and limit their remarks to three minutes or fewer.

[0:24] Speakers are requested to frame their comments around items that fall within

[0:27] the authority of the city council. Generally, the city council will not

[0:31] take official action on the items discussed at this time, but may place

[0:35] the item on file, take the matter under advisement, refer the matter to staff or

[0:40] a committee for a future report, or direct the matter to be placed on an

[0:45] upcoming agenda. Does anyone wish to speak?

[0:52] Does anyone wish to speak? Does anyone wish to speak?

[0:58] Hearing none, we'll move on to bill discussion. Any discussion on the bills?

[1:04] Hearing none, we'll move on to the consent agenda items. Any discussion on

[1:09] the consent agenda? [snorts]

[1:13] Hearing none, we'll move on to council information only items. Um, first up we

[1:18] have the Morrison County Historical Society Riverbank Reconstruction Project

[1:23] Update. Mike Worch Worchester

[1:29] and Camila Warzeka. Welcome. >> Good. Good evening. Thank you for having

[1:34] us. And we're here to update. It's been a long session. I had to go back through

[1:39] my my notes to kind of refresh my memory about when we started and it was in

[1:44] 2023. And so it's been a while and thanks to the city council as well as

[1:51] the county commissioners uh we were able to get an LCCMR grant with help of

[1:58] Shannon Wetstein at soil and water uh without a plan which you helped provide

[2:04] us to get an engineer to give to build uh build a plan so that we could go and

[2:10] get the grant. We also at that same time, Representative Krisha uh was able

[2:16] to uh get an appropriation for 700,000 at that at that that same year in 2023.

[2:24] And uh Mike is going to talk a little bit about what's been happening and uh

[2:29] we've also had a little bit of a few delays, but

[2:35] thank you. >> Hello. Uh I'm Mike Worcester. It's like

[2:40] the city in Morster. I was I was debating which way should I go with that

[2:44] one. >> Your first instinct was correct. So

[2:47] you're fine. You're fine. I trust me I'm used to that. Um I will not go into too

[2:52] much of the arcane detail of what we dealt with but as Camille said we have

[2:56] been working on this process. I've been at the museum, it'll be four years in

[3:00] May and go back close to another seven or eight years beyond that that this has

[3:05] been an issue out there at our building and it's been a lot of people involved,

[3:11] a lot of planning, a lot of plans, a lot of meetings, a lot of back and forth.

[3:16] And uh she talked about delays. Yes, we had experienced um unfortunate delays

[3:23] throughout this process that put us off almost two years past where we had

[3:27] originally hoped to do this work after we started receiving the funding. Um and

[3:32] I'm I'm not trying to be too terribly critical because there's a good side to

[3:36] this too and that some of the delays came at the behest of the Army Corps of

[3:40] Engineers. They wanted us to continue to do archaeological surveying on our

[3:46] property. Now, we always knew our property had some pretty some

[3:50] significance archaeologically, but in working with them and the Max Band of of

[3:56] Ojiway Tribal Historic Preservation Office, we found out just how much

[4:00] significance we had. And I will tell you one moment this summer, it was pretty

[4:05] cool to hold in my hand what was estimated to be a 2,000-year-old fully

[4:09] formed Arrow Point. >> Wow.

[4:11] » Yeah, I said that, too. And then some. It was pretty amazing. So working with

[4:16] them was fantastic. And so there was one good point out of some of these delays

[4:21] is that we really got a good sense of what what was under our ground and

[4:26] during the entire process too. And you'll when we go through some of the

[4:29] photos, we had representatives from the tribe there the whole time um working

[4:33] with us as we dug because as one of them put that he said our history is under

[4:38] that ground and it's just as important as what you have above the ground and we

[4:42] didn't argue that. [snorts] So, at one point, even in July of this past summer,

[4:49] we really didn't have a clue when we were going to start. And we knew we had

[4:52] a limited window. We knew we we knew the vendor, the u the excavators needed a

[4:59] certain amount of time to get this work done based on weather, based on

[5:02] conditions, based on all of it. We were sitting in September still not 100%

[5:08] certain when we were going to start. And we were starting to get nervous, very,

[5:11] trust me on that. And then all of a sudden within days it fell together and

[5:16] we were told October 15th that's the day. That was a Wednesday which was

[5:20] strange but that's what they did. And then on top of that we had the other

[5:26] part of this which was the building work which was part of the legislative

[5:29] appropriation and the biggest item that was going to be done was the roof and

[5:32] our roofer said hey we're ready to start. I said good when? October 15th.

[5:36] [laughter] You noticed in the photos that you kind

[5:40] of scrolled through how that played out. So, it just literally came together in a

[5:44] hurry and so we had to scramble to get everything going and we did and they

[5:49] moved and they moved hard and I will also tell you if you've been out on our

[5:53] property and you know how the beautiful trees that we had out there. It was

[5:57] really hard to see them go. It was very very difficult to see like our big white

[6:02] pine go and all of that. But we knew it had to be done. Um we kind of like our

[6:06] view now to be honest. We really do. But we miss the trees. We we truly do. But

[6:11] it, like I said, it had to be done. And going through and watching them excavate

[6:14] was pretty amazing. Um, these guys have done this before. The it's an um company

[6:20] called Sunramm Excavating out of Excelsier. And they do a lot of work

[6:24] with other soil and water conserv conservation districts. And so they came

[6:28] highly recommended. So they they absolutely knew what they were doing and

[6:32] they went at it and they dug and they scraped and they dug and they found out

[6:37] just how hard that ground was underneath us. They had to bring in special

[6:40] equipment just to dig to get at some of the hillside. And there was a few of the

[6:45] photos that um I I won't tell you how many photos I took um with my camera and

[6:50] with my phone and um some of the drone photos that Soil and Water was kind

[6:54] enough to give to us. Um it was pretty amazing to watch. And at one point and

[6:58] in one of the photos um I did say I was standing below the water level. I'm not

[7:03] kidding. I was standing below the water level because we were down 30 feet from

[7:07] ground level where the museum was all the way down and then they started

[7:11] building back up and then six inches at a time they built back up and that's

[7:17] what they had to do and they just kept layering it and layering it all the

[7:20] while mind you we had representatives from the tribe and hired archaeologists

[7:25] sift checking everything and making sure we weren't missing anything. Um and I

[7:31] mean I'm a highway engineers kid. I've been on my share of road construction

[7:35] projects and culvert replacement projects and um all sorts of of building

[7:40] projects, but this was pretty amazing and it was a lot of fun to watch. And

[7:44] well, it wasn't fun when the vibrating excavator would kick in, but that's

[7:47] that's another matter. So, we'll just deal with that. And then again, all the

[7:51] time they were working on the roof, too. And within 10 days, they had that brand

[7:55] new roof done. And then that aspect is done. and and Camille noted we had kind

[8:02] of separate pots of of money working on this which meant we're we were we were

[8:06] juggling a lot of different work. We were juggling the hillside work and

[8:10] we're juggling the building work at the same time. And um I've probably got

[8:15] about four spreadsheets on my laptop at work that tries to keep track of all

[8:19] this because the funding comes from different sources and has to go out to

[8:22] different go out different ways. And so that's been an interesting exercise too.

[8:28] All told, here's where we're at. We're probably at about 80 to 85% done,

[8:34] which isn't bad when you think about it. Now, if you go out there right now, what

[8:38] you're going to see is a a series of giant tarp pieces covering the hillside.

[8:43] And those were intended to keep erosion down come spring. And Sunramm wants to

[8:50] start April 2nd. I think they're being a little ambitious on that, but we'll

[8:56] see. And and if we are able to do that in one in one month's time, we'll have

[8:59] it done. And by done, what we mean is all the rest of the excavating because

[9:05] there's still more excavating and rebuilding to do. And then the

[9:08] installation of the vegetation, which has to be done on top of that, the

[9:12] fencing, and then the reinstallation of the burm, and then last but not least,

[9:16] we'll get a new parking lot out of all of this. So when that's done, so again,

[9:22] fingers crossed, 30, 45 days, we'll have it all done.

[9:27] you know, but like we found out last fall,

[9:30] we weren't always quite sure when we were even going to start. So, we'll

[9:33] we'll, you know, and I mean, obviously that depends on road restrictions and

[9:37] that depends on um I think all of us know what it can be like at the end of

[9:41] April sometimes when you get suddenly 8 10 inches of snow and I guess we're

[9:46] going to wait and that's okay, too. But our goal again is to have that work done

[9:53] um end of May, early June, and then after that, we'll commence again with

[9:58] getting the rest of the building work done. But in terms of Yeah, if you're

[10:02] scrolling through and you're looking at those photos, um you can definitely see

[10:06] they were right down at the waterline and uh it was it was really interesting

[10:11] again just to watch that. We'd have people come out and just kind of stand

[10:13] there and look. We'd let them do it and that was fine. and uh our they as long

[10:18] as they didn't get in the way of the excavators, we were good. But yeah, in

[10:20] that particular bottom photo there, what you see is again how they basically had

[10:25] to layer it all the way up. And we're act we're going to get more um hillside

[10:30] than we originally had, which is interesting, too. And it's going to be a

[10:34] bit of a better slope and all of that. Um it's been a fascinating process to

[10:39] walk watch just in my you know four to five years that I've been around plus

[10:43] Camille going back what a decade now at least a decade more than a decade um of

[10:49] trying of start to finish on this but um I don't want to say the finish line is

[10:53] in sight but I'm beginning to wonder if it will come into focus here at some

[10:57] point especially once we can actually start getting mobilized again to get

[11:02] started on the rest of the work. So, that's kind of where we're at. Um, I

[11:08] didn't want to belabor it too long, but any questions from anybody on any of the

[11:12] work? >> No. Those excavation pictures are

[11:15] unbelievable when you look at what they're doing there. It's like,

[11:18] » yeah, there was a couple of them that I took after they left and I just kind of

[11:22] walked the path down to below the water level and then I turned and looked back

[11:25] up and I went, "Yeah, I'm I'm down here quite a ways." And it it was a bit

[11:31] walking back up too, you know, and and what you really don't get a sense of is

[11:35] how almost how steep that drop is until you're standing down at the bottom of

[11:39] there at water level looking back up and realizing how really far down you are.

[11:45] Um, and one of the issues they ran into, again, I mentioned the the the toughness

[11:49] of that work, they had to bring in, it looked like a giant basically picker

[11:53] because that ground was so hard. I mean, we knew that when we did the soil

[11:57] samples, but we really didn't realize how hard it was until their bucket just

[12:00] couldn't even move half move that and they had to bring that piece had special

[12:04] bring that piece in special to get at that and just work on that.

[12:08] » Do you find any more artifacts? >> Yes. Yes, we did. Um, a lot of it the

[12:14] same stuff. A lot of they call them points and shards is what they call

[12:17] them. And eventually those will all work their way back to us. But right now

[12:20] they're in possession of the max band because then they evaluate I think was

[12:25] what they have to do is evaluate if there's any any potentially sacred

[12:29] orerary objects because then they are allowed to keep those and then we get

[12:33] back what they don't keep. But we'll work that process through and that's

[12:37] going to take a little while also because we've been working with them for

[12:40] close to three years now too on the surveying and then they want to come

[12:43] back and do more because of how much they are finding on our property and how

[12:47] much they believe is there and it ties also up to the Lindberg property too

[12:52] because they've done a lot of work up there and what I finally asked them was

[12:55] well what's the difference and they said how they worked it laid it out to me was

[13:02] whoever would there and This isn't just something that happened

[13:06] for a few years. They talk multigenerational is what we're so we're

[13:10] talking hundreds of years, not just a couple of decades that people were on

[13:13] this site. They lived basically when they were there on the by

[13:18] the limber property but did their work down by us. So that they find on the

[13:22] limber property they find pieces that indicate living elements but with us

[13:28] they find working elements >> which is really interesting too.

[13:36] You are welcome to check out our website and social media. We have some really

[13:40] cool time lapse videos of the work they did too. That was a lot of fun to watch.

[13:44] Otherwise, you're welcome to come out anytime. Give us a call. You're welcome

[13:48] to come and see it. We are we are more than happy to show people around and

[13:51] show them what we've been doing cuz it's been we want it to be as open as

[13:55] possible for people because it's been we've had so much support from the

[13:59] community on this, from the city, from the county, from the state of Minnesota,

[14:02] from private individuals. We've had townships give us money. We've had

[14:06] family members of the wirehousers give us money. It's been it's been a really

[14:10] great effort. Um stressful at times, yes, but it's been a fantastic effort.

[14:15] So, we're very happy for that. Thank you for all your work.

[14:20] » Thank you. >> I just wanted to mention uh while it it

[14:26] it's more expensive what we did it it's going to last longer. We didn't want a

[14:30] retaining wall. We didn't want it which will decline over the years. This will

[14:37] the way the the mic was describing the building up every six inches there was

[14:43] MSE fabric that's laid between. So, it's building up that whole area stronger.

[14:49] And with the vegetation, it'll just get stronger. It won't deteriorate like

[14:54] anything that we commercially might put in there as far as building a wall. So,

[14:59] we're pretty excited. It's a little costly, but it in the long run, it's not

[15:04] going to require maintenance that we might have had that we can't afford.

[15:09] [laughter] Thank you.

[15:10] » Thank you. >> Thank you.

[15:15] Okay. Um, moving on under other, I'm going to stick something in there from

[15:20] me. Um, the, uh, meet and greet that we had, uh, last week here, uh, the first

[15:27] time we tried that. Um, and in my opinion, it was, uh, a great success.

[15:33] Um, I didn't anticipate as many people

[15:36] showing up as did. I was very pleased that we uh, we had that many people

[15:41] there. Um, and I'm sure that we're going to be uh doing that again. Um, but what

[15:45] I would I would like to ask each of the council members, if you would please.

[15:49] Um, since not everybody talked with everybody, um,

[15:54] if you could make a list of the items that you discussed with the people from

[16:00] the community um, that were brought up to your attention, if you could make up

[16:03] a list and then send that to uh, Alex um, she will compile that list so that

[16:10] when we get to our strategic meeting uh, in the end of March here that we can go

[16:15] through that list um, and look at those things that um, the community had

[16:20] concerns about and so then we can possibly use that list to address some

[16:25] of those concerns. So if you can do that within well the next week

[16:31] » week to two weeks um send that into her um that would be great. Just pinpoint

[16:37] you know fire hydrants you know or manhole covers you know um those kinds

[16:41] of things. Okay, those are two that I have.

[16:45] » Um, can I bring up some of the stuff under constituent messages or do you not

[16:50] want to do that? >> Well, as soon as I get there. Yeah.

[16:52] » Oh, no. I did. Well, you were saying you want that list. I didn't know if you

[16:54] wanted me to bring up anything or not. >> No, just that just if you just want to

[16:58] send that I I don't think we want to discuss those items that were discussed

[17:02] here during that night. Um, but I think if we just take those and compile them

[17:07] in a complete list and then we can look at that and sta save some of our time in

[17:11] our strategic planning to go through and discuss some of those when when

[17:15] everybody's there. Um, because yeah, we could go on for an hour just talking

[17:19] about everything that we heard. So, I think just doing it that way would be

[17:22] the the best way to do. >> Um, and then I think Alex, you had

[17:26] something that you wanted to bring up also. While we're talking about

[17:29] strategic planning, um I just wanted to since I have most of you gathered here

[17:33] right now, uh if you remember our structure that we used last year for the

[17:37] strategic planning, little bit of homework on uh priorities for that each

[17:42] individual council member has for the next year, three years, five years, 10

[17:46] years, talked through all of that. Um is that a format he would like to use again

[17:51] this year? If so, I can assign you homework again.

[17:56] Frank is nodding. He likes homework. >> No.

[18:00] » Former teacher is way back. >> Yeah. [clears throat] Homework. No.

[18:03] » I like the way it was run the last time. >> All right. I'm just honing in the

[18:08] details on it. I want to make sure that I'm I'm covering grounds. Do we want to

[18:12] again approach that in our our multi-year or do we want to have a

[18:15] little bit more of the directional theoretical discussions?

[18:20] » A little bit of both. >> Both. I can balance both.

[18:23] » Yeah. >> It's a little bit of both. combination

[18:25] of both of them I think would be beneficial.

[18:27] » Perfect. >> Yeah, I'd definitely like to sorry

[18:30] definitely like to have directional theoretical discussions as far as what

[18:34] our >> That's good. All-encompassing view of

[18:37] Little Paul should be >> all right. I can do all of those things.

[18:41] » Cool. >> That's all. Thank you.

[18:44] » Great. So, we'll move on to constituent messages other than those discussed at

[18:49] our meet and greet. Uh, well, I do have a couple that were also discussed at the

[18:54] meet and greet, but I got phone calls on. And one of them was, and I talked to

[19:00] a police chief about this, was the cameras

[19:05] that they're setting up. Uh, they were worried we're playing 1984.

[19:12] [clears throat] And I said, "No." And I told him what Kyle told me that uh, Mr.

[19:17] Ruby is going through that. and collecting the information and you know

[19:22] we're not going to use it for this other than things like um what missing kids

[19:31] and stuff like that and uh the other thing is I heard from one person who was

[19:37] very technical about it and he cited to me what California is using flock also

[19:43] and he said they were pretty loose with their information just so that's what he

[19:48] told me because they're trying to get out of their lease and they can't in

[19:52] California. And um but that's I told him I talked to well I talked to Kyle about

[19:58] it and I discussed that with them. Um and the other thing that I got a phone

[20:05] call on was again the ATV just so you know that was brought up again. I got a

[20:12] couple phone calls on the side by sides and that thing and I talked to Alex

[20:16] about that today a little bit. So, but that's what I got.

[20:20] » Okay. I think just to remind the community with the flock thing that that

[20:23] is just a uh a trial program, right, >> that they're going to initiate in April

[20:28] and just to um set it up and take a look at it. Uh the city has not decided to go

[20:33] for it or or invest in it or whatever. It's just a trial period to see what

[20:39] kind of information we get, how it is valuable to the police department. So,

[20:43] just >> we haven't put it into place yet. It's

[20:46] just a trial. >> Any other constituent messages?

[20:49] » I'm sorry. I got one more. >> No. So, I know it's been I had a busy

[20:54] week on the phone. >> Go ahead.

[20:56] » Uh, a gentleman who lives across the street from this hockey rinkham forestry

[21:02] up here. He told me, he says, "Dave, you are wasting your money. Nobody goes

[21:07] there." Just so you know. And I talked to Greg about that also.

[21:11] » Yeah, we've been we've been discussing that quite a bit. Any others?

[21:17] If not, I will adjourn the meeting at 7:21 to our regular meeting at 7:30.

[21:29] » How you doing, David?

[21:33] Antibiotics.

City Council Special Work Session Meeting - March 2, 2026

Transcript