White Bear Lake Council Meeting - 09/22/2026

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[0:00] Okay, I'm going to call the meeting to order for September 22nd, 2026, please do a roll call.
[0:10] On some number Welsh.
[0:12] Council Member Gerola.
[0:14] Council Member West.
[0:16] Council Member Edward.
[0:16] Here.
[0:17] Council Member Engstrom.
[0:19] Here.
[0:20] Please join me for the pledge of allegiance.
[0:24] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.
[0:36] All
[0:39] right, welcome everybody here. And on TV land, welcome to our city council meeting. I'm going to start right away with item 2A approval of the minutes. However, there's been a request by staff.
[0:56] Oh, sorry. Sorry. Approval of the minutes. I'm trust everybody. I had a chance to look over the minutes.
[1:03] Do I have a motion to approve the minutes?
[1:06] So moved.
[1:07] Is there a second?
[1:09] Any discussion?
[1:11] All in favor?
[1:12] Aye.
[1:13] Any opposed?
[1:15] All right.
[1:16] The minutes for September 8th have been approved.
[1:19] Item 2b minutes of the city council housing and redevelopment authority joint work session on September 15th,
[1:26] Do I have a motion to approve?
[1:30] So second.
[1:32] All in favor?
[1:33] Aye.
[1:34] Any?
[1:35] All right.
[1:37] It passes.
[1:40] Item three, adopt the agenda.
[1:42] Now there has been a request by staff to add a closed session towards the end of the meeting
[1:47] to discuss active litigation with the council related to a fire service contract
[1:52] dispute with white bear township.
[1:54] I'd ask for a motion to approve the agenda as amended.
[1:59] So moved.
[1:59] Second.
[2:00] Any discussion?
[2:01] Exactly.
[2:02] Where do you want to put that topic on the agenda?
[2:06] I am going to move it after item 10.
[2:09] Communications from the City Manager.
[2:11] Thank you.
[2:13] Second.
[2:15] All in favor?
[2:16] Aye.
[2:17] Any opposed?
[2:19] All right.
[2:19] The agenda is adopted.
[2:21] The consent agenda, I hope everybody had a chance to look that over and I accept a motion to approve the consent agenda.
[2:32] It's a move.
[2:34] Any discussion?
[2:36] All in favor?
[2:38] Any opposed?
[2:40] Okay.
[2:40] This consent agenda passes.
[2:43] All right.
[2:44] Item five.
[2:45] Aye.
[2:45] Visitors in presentation.
[2:46] It is firefighter appreciation month and I have a proclamation and we're also going to be hearing from the fire department with their biennial report.
[2:57] Do you want me to read the proclamation? I will read the proclamation first.
[3:04] Whereas fire prevention month is recognized each year in October to raise fire safety awareness to educate families, students, and communities across the United States.
[3:15] And, whereas firefighters follow a long line of tradition and honor that inspires them
[3:22] to help colleagues, neighbors, and strangers alike.
[3:27] And, whereas at a moment's notice, firefighters are quick to respond
[3:32] to uncertain situations to mitigate danger in order to protect individuals, families,
[3:38] and the economic being of our community.
[3:41] And whereas the demands of firefighting are accompanied by both personal and physical tools that all firefighters knowingly accept while risking their lives to protect the lives of others.
[3:54] Whereas the White Barrel League Fire Department is committed to saving lives and property within the communities that we serve through prevention, preparedness, emergency response and investigation.
[4:06] Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Mary Niklaski, mayer of City of White Bear Lake, Minnesota,
[4:13] do hereby proclaim October of 2026 as Firefighter Appreciation Month.
[4:27] All right.
[4:28] And Chief Peterson is here to give his biennial report on behalf of the Fire Department.
[4:33] Thank you, Mayor.
[4:34] Thank you, Mayor.
[4:36] And the Klauski and members, Council members, sorry, just go by out of town.
[4:40] So, I'm trying to warm up to this.
[4:41] We've had another busy year.
[4:43] I'm going to have a brief presentation for all of you
[4:46] and be available for any questions after that.
[4:50] So just so the public is aware, I do this every time.
[4:54] So we cover the city white bear lake, township,
[4:56] Delwood, Berchwood, John Lake, it's about 35 square miles.
[4:59] It's a large area and about 40,000ish people,
[5:03] including residents and visitors.
[5:05] So it's a lot of responsibility on our part.
[5:08] From last year, our call volume continues to increase.
[5:11] not as dramatic as last year was, but it does continue to increase the difference.
[5:17] This year is, we haven't had any major storms that I really added a whole lot of calls.
[5:21] So this is more of a base call volume of day to day medical calls, fire calls, and it continues
[5:27] to go up.
[5:28] So it will be close to another record setting year.
[5:31] We'll see what happens last year where just shy of that, so we'll see.
[5:35] Our staffing consists of three chief officers, all of us are full time on the chief.
[5:40] of two assistant chiefs, one administrative assistant, who is going to be new to our department,
[5:46] Connie served for almost 42 years, and she retired about a month ago now, it's going by fast.
[5:53] And so we're in the process of hiring a new fire administrative assistant at this time.
[5:58] We have three full-time captains that are both sort of that role as firefighters and then
[6:03] and then 15 full-time firefighter paramedics and three full-time firefighter EMTs.
[6:10] There's seven full-time firefighters on shift, and so we have a crew of 21 overall, and then they work 24 hours shifts.
[6:19] Aveship, B-shift, and C-shift, and that's on a rotational basis, so when they're here, they work some pretty long hours.
[6:26] Our part-time staffing is a pretty consistent now, so we have one part-time captain, the EMT,
[6:33] one part-time captain, Lieutenant, EMT, and then five part-time firefighter, EMTs.
[6:39] So that is a difference of one since last year.
[6:42] I know that there's a lot of conversation.
[6:45] There's a lot of people that want to know what happened on that fatal fire earlier this year.
[6:49] Obviously there's a very tragic fire that took place on March 21st,
[6:53] And I wanted everybody to know that we planned the State Fire Marshall's lead investigative agency on this.
[7:00] We've been involved with them throughout the process.
[7:03] From the day it happened up until now.
[7:06] And there's a lot of other agencies that have been involved in this.
[7:10] But we are going to have a press conference scheduled for 11 a.m.
[7:15] On Thursday, in the morning, to address the public and in state what the cause of the fire was.
[7:22] So it'll be good to have that done.
[7:25] This has been for our little city.
[7:28] There are people from...
[7:30] Los Angeles that approached us, wondering because they were aware of it and they said, this is a big deal, now a one this happened.
[7:38] And so it gives you some idea of the media reach there is today where everybody across this country knows what's going on in their paying attention.
[7:48] So it'll be good to have this to get past that stage and recognize everybody that what happened that day it'll be good to be done with that.
[7:59] So it's very sad, it's a very tragic event.
[8:04] So worst event in the history of our 38 years of existence.
[8:08] And so it was a bad day.
[8:13] And so we're glad that we're going to be able to add
[8:16] a little bit of closure to that.
[8:19] All right, moving on to more uplifting things.
[8:22] So we've had a busy year of training.
[8:25] Earlier this year, we hosted all has an incident management
[8:28] training. I serve as the emergency manager for the city. And so I am part of this, what's
[8:33] called all hazard. Min one team, which is a bunch of professionals that collaborate together
[8:42] to work on emergencies and when something happens, we get called up and then we'll, as we're
[8:47] available, deploy to an emergency and kind of work together. We practice on a regular basis for
[8:53] large-scale emergencies and all the paperwork and the logistics and operations and all the
[8:59] different things so that we continue to have some decent skills so that when the real thing
[9:03] happens, we're able to deploy. And so we hosted that earlier this year, it's a Donut Station 2.
[9:11] We also had a very large-scale water rescue drill. Early this spring was early May. It was still cold
[9:17] and rainy that day. And so the rescue swimmers were hoping the water would be a little bit warmer
[9:22] but it really wasn't.
[9:24] So it was a pretty, pretty chilly day
[9:26] and followed a lot of agencies,
[9:29] a lot of planning went into this.
[9:31] It was basically an all day event.
[9:34] And so that learned a lot of things,
[9:37] here are the different agencies I'm not going to read them to you,
[9:39] but you can see there are all the different entities
[9:42] that work together,
[9:43] figured out some things that, you know,
[9:46] from after-action reports of incidents we've had previously,
[9:49] and we're able to dress that within this training,
[9:51] So moving forward, we're going to have better operations as we can collectively get together.
[9:58] You can imagine with all these different agencies, all different radio channels and the different ways of doing things and so on.
[10:06] So this is a really great opportunity that we let the charge on to coordinate it better.
[10:11] So we're much better prepared than we were before.
[10:15] They also had active shooter training this summer, working with our police partners.
[10:19] This was an even larger drill.
[10:23] And if I counted right, it's about 21 agencies that were involved in this.
[10:28] And so it was a very hot day when they took the thermal imagery, they pointed out the pavement
[10:34] and right in front of where everybody's standing there and it was 120 degrees on the pavement.
[10:40] And so the school tried to get their conditioning working and got it all the way down to 85.
[10:45] at one point. So it was, it was very sweaty. Lots of volunteers, lots and lots of agencies that
[10:52] were involved in this, both other fire departments, private EMS, and other police departments
[10:59] all work together. One of the unique things that they did is they had the Anoka SWAT team come in
[11:05] as the bad guys. And so that was a really interesting dynamic because they knew what the police
[11:12] officers we're going to do and how they were going to approach it, and they weren't very
[11:15] nice, but it made it very challenging for everybody, and there were a lot of let-lips, and
[11:21] there were a lot of lessons learned from that. So, quite a list of players there. So, again,
[11:28] foreign bathroom action report, overall things went well, and it really helped us all come together
[11:35] and work better together. So, it did ever happen, hopefully not, but it did ever does,
[11:41] So we're going to be better prepared for it.
[11:44] All right, so there's a lot of people going to listen.
[11:48] All right, we also held our second Citizens
[11:51] Fire Academy.
[11:52] We held the first one in many years ago,
[11:55] they used to hold them and then they stopped for a while,
[11:57] and then we got back to it again last year.
[11:59] They were only four students last year.
[12:01] This year we had 22.
[12:03] And so it took us a little off-car, like, holy cow.
[12:05] Like we did four.
[12:07] We were hoping from 12, we had 22.
[12:10] And so it was really good.
[12:12] They are very supportive of that.
[12:13] Spend about eight weeks with them.
[12:16] Many of them weren't up to our interested in a lot
[12:20] of the physical activities.
[12:21] So we did a lot of talking, a lot of demoing.
[12:24] But for the few that did, they really enjoyed car extrication,
[12:28] which is why I put that picture up there.
[12:30] It's always a hit with everybody.
[12:32] And so they get to learn a lot about what we do.
[12:35] And they very much appreciate it.
[12:37] This year, at the state fair, the first Friday, the state fair is all we governers fire
[12:44] prevention day and they have an annual explore competition and many, for many, the post
[12:51] has been around for over 20 years now and for a while they didn't want to compete by
[12:56] kept encouraging them to compete and so they did again this year, which I was pretty happy
[13:01] out.
[13:02] So the four students in the middle there, David Peterson, Captain Peterson, a left and an
[13:06] a divine cheese on the right, they're kind of their two lead explorers, advisors, and they did
[13:13] a phenomenal job.
[13:14] There was just a four of them.
[13:16] They had a whole bunch of different scenarios they had to do, and would just four of them.
[13:20] They never got a break.
[13:21] So other posts had two to three times in a month of people, and out of 12 posts, they finished
[13:29] fifth, which was remarkable, considering this is the first time competing, and the fact
[13:33] only had four of them.
[13:34] So they did a great job, they had a lot of fun.
[13:37] I think they're pretty excited to do it again next year.
[13:40] That was it did some live fire training recently.
[13:42] So some of the people in the picture, you might recognize,
[13:45] they might not.
[13:46] They're not really used to seeing them in all this curve.
[13:49] But two Saturdays ago now, we did this live fire training
[13:52] in a house in Delwood.
[13:54] It was a old vacant farm house as you can see in the background there.
[13:58] And at the beginning of it and some of you have done this already,
[14:01] is we did the live fire demo so we brought everybody in so they could see what that experience was like and
[14:07] kind of see feel and hear what it's like while keeping them safe and then get everybody back out.
[14:15] So that was all the participants and here is a list of everybody.
[14:19] So our two council members here, council member Wes, council member Garola,
[14:23] we're from the city of Waiber Lake.
[14:25] The mayor of Berchwood was there.
[14:27] Mayor of Jambalake was there, councilmember was there, and then councilmember from tellwood was also there, and then
[14:36] One of the doctors from Regency and my supervisor medical direction for us was also there, so it was a it was a great time
[14:42] By everybody, we had a lot of fun with it and hopefully they enjoyed it. I know some of them were a little bit scared, but that's okay. It is kind of scary, especially in the first time, but
[14:53] They also felt safe that we were there with them, which is a good thing.
[14:58] If I mentioned week, it's coming up here and I-
[15:00] October. The first week, October. This year's theme is to charge into fire safety, and what this
[15:05] really has to do with. And last year was a similar theme about electric appliances and
[15:12] electric vehicles. It continues as all these products continue to grow and grow and grow. It's part
[15:19] of our world. And for the most part, they work fantastic all the time. But when they go wrong, things
[15:24] go wrong in a hurry and oftentimes it's things that the public should be aware of that they
[15:30] can do properly to avoid any issues with them. And so I just listed them here real quickly.
[15:37] So to charge any tools, are there any basically any bigger batteries? Make sure that you charge
[15:43] them outside, or I would in the garage, you're minimally if it's too cold. In the reason for that
[15:49] is because there's so much energy stored inside of them that if they were to do what's called thermal runaway
[15:56] where they start to heat themselves up and then they just go and go and go and it gets worse and worse and worse.
[16:02] Then that at least it's outside of your home, so that's what we're encouraging everybody to do.
[16:07] Don't use cheap chargers, so you can easily go online, get a cheap core, get a cheap charger,
[16:14] don't do that. Make sure you buy the one that was designed for the product that it came with
[16:18] And because that is oftentimes where where things go wrong,
[16:22] if it gets too hot, stop using it, stop charging it,
[16:26] put it somewhere else.
[16:27] Once it's fully charged, unplug it.
[16:30] And most devices kind of self-regulate themselves.
[16:32] You know, we all have laptops that are plugged in all the time.
[16:35] But a lot of the mobility devices,
[16:38] they don't necessarily have the same quality standards.
[16:41] So once it's charged, unplug it,
[16:43] and then don't charge things on soft surfaces.
[16:46] You know what do you mean by that? Well, don't charge your any device like on bedding or pillows or anything like that.
[16:54] The reason is is that just acts like an insulation brain kit and it just gets the device hotter and hotter and hotter
[17:01] and versus if you put it on a hard surface like this table, it'll dissipate and kind of be absorbed without radiating the heat back into the battery.
[17:09] So, there's some things to be aware of there.
[17:12] Our open house is coming up on October 6th down at the South Station.
[17:18] I mean, so we invite everybody to come to that starting at 6 o'clock.
[17:21] It should be a lot of fun.
[17:22] It is every year.
[17:24] And then the last thing I went into mentioned so earlier this year,
[17:27] the council approved the acceptance of a donation.
[17:31] And so, Katie was one of the major manufacturers of
[17:35] smoke alarms and CO alarms, they gave us 1,500 smoke alarms and CO alarms for free, which is
[17:41] phenomenal. And we are going to give them out to the public starting at the open house.
[17:49] And so, anybody that shows up will have them available. It's a huge pallet for them. And we'll
[17:55] make sure they're available and get them out to the public where they're going to be used and hopefully
[17:59] save a life. And they have a battery operated, so there's no wiring involved, and they have
[18:04] your bad real life, so it works out pretty good. So that's what I have for you tonight.
[18:11] I'll stand for any questions. Excellent. Thank you. I'm wondering if people can't make it
[18:17] to the open house, how could they get the smoke detector if they need one? Can they just come to the
[18:22] see hall or the police and fire entrance and ask for one? We can get one from. Excellent.
[18:31] excellent. Does anybody else have any questions or comments?
[18:39] Mayor, I remember the counselors have a quick comment. In addition to all of this stuff,
[18:43] and leading the department, Chief is also the president of the Minnesota Chief's Association,
[18:51] I almost said police, that would be terrible.
[18:56] So I just wanted to point that out that he's also
[18:59] doing all of this, but he's also been kind of the leader in the state last year and that
[19:03] So good job all that and you're doing a good job juggling it all. Thank you.
[19:08] Excellent. I also have another question about the Citizens Fire Academy for the public. I'm wondering if anyone can do this and how they find out about it.
[19:17] So yes, anybody can do it and we'll post it again in early spring.
[19:23] And we typically start at the beginning of April is when we start it. So we'll get it out a few weeks ahead of time and then they can sign up.
[19:30] have a form that they can fill out and sign up and we'll get them into class.
[19:34] And that's posted on social media and maybe website or website.
[19:41] And thank you for all you do and Council Member West.
[19:47] Yep.
[19:47] Thank you, Mayor.
[19:50] Chief, I just, I wanted to express my appreciation for all the work that you and all of the
[19:59] people at the fire department do, I mean, I have always appreciated your work, but doing
[20:08] the live fire training gives a whole another perspective on what it's like in just a very
[20:18] itty, bitty, little period of time, what it's like to wear all the things that you have
[20:26] to wear. I mean, 50 to 60 pounds minimum and this is better than it was years ago as you
[20:35] were explaining along with all of the things that you have to put to keep all parts of your body
[20:44] safe. The boots are incredibly heavy.
[20:53] And being in there when the fire is going up the wall
[20:58] and onto the ceiling is something way to extraordinary and yeah, a little scary. I did feel
[21:05] safe but also was scared. And not being able to see also is like like I didn't quite get,
[21:13] I mean I should have because you know smoke. But I have a different sense of urgency for
[21:22] what a plan for the safety for my family and getting out of the house and how quick I have to do that
[21:28] is after that experience. So I just I appreciate everything that you do and you know you're always
[21:36] just really willing to get out in the community and talk to people and do what needs to be done.
[21:44] Thank you very much. Thank you.
[21:48] Consmember Ed Burke. Thank you, Mayor. Chief, touching based on a couple of data points.
[21:56] You said we've got a 2% increase in total calls, is that shifting the share, the relative
[22:03] proportion between fire calls and EMT, medical moves, that type of thing, what's happening
[22:11] with the dynamics of what kinds of calls we're getting.
[22:14] And is there any impact on our response time, which is already really good, but what's that
[22:24] So, no, the change is still about 28 percent, 70 percent.
[22:30] 2% in that range, split between fire and EMS. That remains almost exactly the same from your year to year. It might
[22:38] shift a little bit here and there, but for the most part, it's remains the same. In terms of
[22:43] response, just as the call volume continues to go up, availability of the crews is what
[22:51] becomes the issue, which then affects the response time.
[22:57] There are periods of time where there
[22:59] not much going on but then unfortunately things change and there's lot going on and so we have
[23:06] no way we can see overall trends of when that is which is usually about eight nine o'clock
[23:13] in the morning to about 10 o'clock at night it's fairly busy and then it you know bleeds off a little
[23:20] bit and then it gets a little busy after bars closed and then it slows down a little bit and then
[23:25] start that cycle over again.
[23:27] And so generically, that is pretty much the same.
[23:30] But those stretches in between those times
[23:33] are becoming one more dense in terms of call volume.
[23:37] There's more and more of it.
[23:40] Thank you.
[23:42] So growing up in this community,
[23:46] we had the old fashion model of mostly a pedo
[23:49] and called volunteer force with a smaller number,
[23:53] smaller number of full-time or, you know, totally available staff. And like many others,
[24:02] we found that that model started breaking down 10, 15, 20 years ago and we've been shifting
[24:08] intentionally over the last 10 years to more of a staffed, fully staffed call, less reliance
[24:16] on paid on call.
[24:19] We have, so you mentioned we have seven employees per shift,
[24:24] manning, I'm assuming, two stations at our last
[24:28] council meeting for the coming year, and this builds on
[24:31] other conversations we've had over the last couple of years.
[24:34] We've been saying, we think that there is a reason for us
[24:39] to continuing making this transition until we get to, in the
[24:46] staff to staff our two stations for the full full 24 hour period. So that would be
[24:55] eight and we're at seven now. Can you just talk a little bit about what's the driving force?
[25:04] What makes eight per shift the right number or a reasonable or a better number?
[25:11] And can you talk about what the, what the, what the residents would see if we continue in this path?
[25:18] I mean theoretically we're on a path to do this over several years, one or two additional staff members for a year for the next couple of three years,
[25:26] etc.
[25:26] Until we get to our 24, but what's the dynamic of that look like, because as some of us said,
[25:35] we're considering and thinking about how do we space out this decision? How do we
[25:40] bring staffing on in a reasonable way,
[25:46] educate or remind what's going on in that
[25:49] whole conversation? Sure. So I'll start with the question you asked, so what the customer
[25:55] was, we'll see, and so which is what we're here for, you know, we're here to serve the people.
[26:01] And the main thing that they'll see is our ability to handle multiple calls on a regular basis.
[26:10] There are still times that we are out of staff in the area.
[26:15] Doesn't happen a whole lot, but once in a while, there's nobody left in our department.
[26:21] They're all out on calls.
[26:22] And so we kind of cross our fingers right now when that happens.
[26:27] Hoping that not another significant call come in.
[26:30] We can call for help, we can call their agencies, we can do those things.
[26:34] But the busier we get, the more often that happens.
[26:38] And so that is part of it.
[26:41] Another piece of it is safety for the crews themselves.
[26:45] Being there right now, it is not uncommon for both the ambulance us to be out and then there
[26:51] be one person on the fire engine and it's a one person trying to do everything, trying to
[26:57] drive, communicate, watch the CAD, do all these things by themselves, and that isn't an ideal
[27:03] situation.
[27:05] And so that isn't entirely an uncommon thing.
[27:09] And so that that bench strength, if you will, is very, very important, both to the people
[27:14] that we serve and to the firefighters and their safety to both of those.
[27:21] And so the ability to, when we get there, is we'll also then be able to better staff the
[27:26] station, because while the indoor station is busy here, right now we only have two people
[27:32] out the south station. So as soon as one call comes out in that response area, there are
[27:36] out of, there's nobody down in that part of the town. And that is just simply a numbers
[27:41] game where at seven, so we can't split that up evenly. And so that is also part of it.
[27:48] And so, you know, with all of those factors, overall it will help to address all of those
[27:55] concerns and ultimately make things better.
[27:58] When we get a fire, having people there, a number of people there, the two of you were there,
[28:04] the other day, you saw how many people were involved in that.
[28:07] And that was kind of a bare minimum to do what we were doing.
[28:11] And it was a small fire there that were involved in.
[28:13] You can imagine what it's like when you have a bigger fire.
[28:18] And so our ability to do all of those things and do them safely is affected by our staff
[28:23] and all.
[28:25] So, when we get to 24 at some point, time unknown, what comes after that, does that, is that a stable staffing number for a reasonably foreseeable future or is it immediately obsolete as soon as we get there?
[28:45] what's the thinking around adequacy? We started this process, I don't know, 10 years ago,
[28:53] eight years ago, something like that. And I don't have any regrets for any of it, but I'm also
[29:01] trying to imagine, okay, this is a big shift. Public safety is a big expense for the city.
[29:07] How do we think about that from a budget standpoint?
[29:11] You know, I acknowledge that it's a lot for the budget.
[29:16] You know, it's a big ask I understand that and you know, moving forward with it.
[29:25] If we get there, if we get to 20, we're just going to be a lot better off for all the things
[29:28] I explained.
[29:29] Another dynamic that I didn't bring up yet is we have one firefighter on a medical
[29:34] Now, we have one that's out for paternal leave now, and they can take up to 12 weeks off, and I think a lot of them will be.
[29:43] Two?
[29:43] Two are out.
[29:45] What?
[29:46] Soon to be.
[29:49] And so, yes, there's, and I was going to say that next.
[29:52] So we believe there's going to be another one very soon.
[29:55] The due day was today.
[29:58] Just haven't heard from them yet.
[30:00] So, you know, now we have 21, we're down to 18, and so that you can see how quickly we're affected by that, and if we get an injury, now we're down again.
[30:13] And so it's, you know, I don't know that forever, you know, it won't need to be addressed, but the, as long as we see slight increases, I think we're going to be okay for a while.
[30:24] If we have for, and it's not really foreseen, I don't know what would change that, but if
[30:31] suddenly, you know, things get really crazy on the call volume side, then we're going to
[30:35] have issues.
[30:36] But I don't anticipate that, you know, it's an educated guess.
[30:40] I think we'll be good.
[30:42] Thank you.
[30:44] Mm-hmm.
[30:45] It comes in a big roll.
[30:47] Yeah.
[30:48] Thank you.
[30:49] I just had a comment and then question.
[30:53] I think comment.
[30:53] I appreciate you addressing kind of the call volume and data, and I agree.
[30:58] I think it can be kind of tricky because you can't schedule an emergency.
[31:02] I got to participate in fire ops 101 that is hosted by the Union and multiple representatives
[31:12] from cities across the area, can attend and, you know, we put on all the gear and they
[31:17] have you go up and kind of do these different scenarios and after you've climbed all these
[31:21] with all this heavy gear that comes from number west and I put on the other day which is heavy
[31:26] just to stand in and they're like okay now go put out this car fire okay now go to this
[31:30] and they're like sometimes that's how it happens back to back to back and I was like oh my gosh
[31:36] I'm not even hurrying and going and doing you know these things so when you see oh okay it was
[31:41] a shift and we only had this many calls but if those calls are back to back like I was there
[31:48] It's hard, and I understand, like the physical, it's so physical, the impact it can have, and when you're having to do those things in that mode, I appreciate it, even though I was very tired and why you're making us do this, I did appreciate it because I said sometimes this is how it is you're going from thing to thing.
[32:08] My kind of main question, I've always been really impressed with all my interactions with the quality of our firefighters, both our full time and part time.
[32:16] Um, you have lots of experience in the field.
[32:20] I know it changes over time, but I was kind of wondering in your opinion what it's like recruiting
[32:26] right now compared to your prior.
[32:29] So recruiting was, it's still difficult, but the reason it's difficult is because of competition.
[32:37] Um, and so for a while there were less and less people interested in the field,
[32:41] I actually see an uptick and interested in the field now, which is great.
[32:44] There's a lot more students coming through both firefighters and paramedics, and so that is improving,
[32:53] but we're forever going to be competing, just like the police department, is forever going to be competing with other departments.
[33:01] And so we have a good reputation and people are interested, but that will always be something that will have to keep an eye on.
[33:12] Thank you. And thank you for your commitment to training other firefighters. I know many firefighters who you have trained or have taken your classes, including my own style.
[33:22] I think you've done for him. So thank you for all of your dedication as well to not just our department, but the field in general.
[33:29] That's my pleasure.
[33:33] Any other questions?
[33:35] comments. Okay, thank you so much, Chase, for all you do and for all your firefighters and we're just so appreciative. Thank you.
[33:50] All right, moving on, item six, public hearings, nothing is scheduled. Unfinished business, nothing is scheduled.
[33:59] New business, nothing is scheduled, discussion, item nine, nothing scheduled.
[34:05] Item 10, communications from the City Manager, Miss Crawford.
[34:08] Thank you, Mayor, members of the council.
[34:11] I don't have a copy with me and I didn't have time to make slides, but the latest edition
[34:16] of the newsletter is complete and out in the mail and here copies are here at City Hall.
[34:22] For anyone who's interested, it's full of, again, really good information.
[34:27] We kind of publicly launched our mission and vision statement that we, the council and leadership
[34:32] team came up with, there's the introduction to the new police chief in there and just tons
[34:37] of good information.
[34:40] This Saturday is trashed to treasure day, which I think is a white bear holiday with the
[34:46] township, as well new this year, Badness Heights, joined to be the same day, so that's really
[34:53] exciting.
[34:54] And then I just wanted to say there's a lot of work going on on Highway 61 right now, a couple
[35:01] of different projects that are both mid-DOT and also Ramsey County led, but nonetheless they're
[35:10] in Weiper Lake.
[35:11] So we are getting a lot of calls and comments and frustration on them.
[35:15] I just wanted to thank everybody for their patience.
[35:18] Hoffman Road at Highway 61 in Weiper Avenue will be closed.
[35:24] As you're heading southbound, you will not be able to turn West on to Hoffman or
[35:30] I already can't for the next six weeks, but I just want to say that Kevin 61 is open.
[35:38] So people should go visit.
[35:40] Kevin 61, they are open and we're working with Ramsey County to get some signs, just
[35:45] to acknowledge that that business is still open, but that closure is due to the brusmental
[35:49] trail construction and we're all feeling that including police and fire, also trying to
[35:54] get places in a timely manner and we're all backed up.
[35:57] I understand the frustration but bear with us and I think that's what I have for tonight
[36:04] Mayor. Thank you. Thank you. Does anybody else have any updates or I had a productive coffee and
[36:13] conversation on Saturday? It was cold and chilly and rainy but we still had some people
[36:19] up and had some great discussions.
[36:23] So our next one coming up in October at Podvin.
[36:30] So all right, anybody else?
[36:35] OK, council member West.
[36:38] I attended a Valamo Badness Lake Area Water Management
[36:44] tour project tour this week.
[36:48] And we went to two different places in Waipur Lake.
[36:54] One was a curb cut rain garden,
[36:56] and one was an individual house that had a,
[37:04] they were able to get some funding through Filamo,
[37:10] and they have changed their yard into like Fescu,
[37:15] and creeping time instead of, instead of grass and just lots and lots of flowers and
[37:22] vegetables and it was it was really wonderful to see in person some of the activities
[37:28] that get completed.
[37:32] So thank you. Thank you for all in did that. Yeah, it's super interesting. All right. All right. So now we need to go into a closed session.