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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024.05.06 FCM JOINTMINUTES OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE CITY COUNCIL/FINANCIAL COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF BROOKLYN CENTER IN THE COUNTY OF HENNEPIN AND STATE OF MINNESOTA JOINT WORK SESSION MAY 6, 2024 1. CALL TO ORDER The Brooklyn Center City Council/Financial Commission Joint Work Session was called to order by Mayor Graves at 7:11 p.m. 2. ROLL CALL/INTRODUCTIONS Mayor April Graves and Councilmembers Marquita Butler, Dan Jerzak, Teneshia Kragness and Kris Lawrence-Anderson. Financial Commission members present were Chair Joylenna Garcia and members Gretchen Enger and Jeff Lewis. Staff member Dr. Edwards, City Manager, Barb Suciu, Assistant City Manager/City Clerk, Angela Holm, Finance Director, and Liz Heyman, Public Works Director. Dr. Edwards stated we are entering another budget season and the city council has determined that it will be a shorter season, not meaning that it’ll be less robust and less thought. In the beginning of the season, there are two things we want to over in this conversation. One relates to the Capital Improvement Plan and the importance of planning for capital improvements. These are typically the largest ticket items. Dr. Edwards stated we will also have some conversation as it relates to the direction and thoughts from the council because ultimately in the end, for staff, for us to prepare a budget that the city council will pass. It is alignment with the city council so we need the perspective of what the City Council and Finance Commissioners are thinking. This is will be communicated to the directors as starting points as the directors prepare their budgets. Dr. Edwards introduced Finance Director Angela Holm to lead through the balance of the meeting. Finance Director Angela Holm thanks Dr. Edwards and stated today is the first meeting on the 2025 Budget process. We're kicking off the budget process maybe a little bit earlier than we normally does, but that is to definitely be able to give us the time to be thoughtful and considerate of all of the things that we need to consider on our budget this year. Last year was a fairly bumpy ride. She stated hopefully there will be very robust discussions in these meetings as well throughout the next several months as we move towards September when we set the preliminary levy, and further on in October and November when we’re working to finalize the budgets, set utility rates, review enterprise operations and finalize the levy in December. Finance Director Holm stated items drives our thought process when we're talking about debt that we may incur and other big projects that people like and things that are really visible in the community. These are I guess, maybe fun things to, like, they have real, real visibility to everybody. And so we'll do that. We will look briefly at some cash flows in our larger capital fund programs. And then we will hopefully have a really good discussion about sort of comfort level and what some things are that council members want to see in the 2025 budget. She introduced Public Works Director Liz Heyman. Liz Heyman, Director Public Works Director, introduced City Engineer Ahmed Omar and stated they are going to provide a brief overview of what the Capital Improvement Plan looks like. She stated everyone should have received the detail in their packets but she wanted to give a brief overview of where the City is headed and some interesting things that we’re doing within the CIP program and we are trying to set up as we move into the future. This is the 2025 to 2034 Capital Improvement Plan. Director Heyman stated the CIP Plan is the City’s major capital investments over the next 10 years. Previously the plan was for 15 years but now it is 10 years. With the 10 year plan we have less back end detail that doesn’t really get a close look until you get closer to those years of the CIP. The CIP is developed by prioritizing a list of projects based on the anticipated year and anticipated funding opportunities. Fluidity is expected in this fund as we find new opportunities or if we find some sort of issue that we need to take care of. This is important to remember because fluidity is expected, staff really focuses in on the first three to four years, to have a good understanding of what kind of design and planning we need to do ahead of those projects. As a reminder, the 2025 projects will be appropriated within the 2025 budget. The whole plan becomes adopted with just that first year the CIP gets appropriated. Also remember, there is a maintenance component for anything you put into the system that's new or anything that's out there today. A lot of these things come with a needed increase in operating dollars. Director Heyman explained a table with street improvements which have public utilities, our water, sewer projects as well as park and trail improvements, and them facilities improvements. She stated there are a set of city buildings that so it's city hall, the fire stations, police station, all of our park buildings that fall within this program and are funded out of various sources. We're looking paying for these improvements with utilities fees, special assessments in the case of street projects franchise fees, municipal state well, street construction or it's known as state aid and then a portion of our local government aid. Director Heyman asked what are we trying to accomplish with all these projects. The first big one is that we're tackling our much-needed building maintenance needs from last year's appropriated budget. We worked on a capital maintenance building plan. Staff took a really deep dive at looking at what our buildings need. We're using the outcomes of that study to plan out over the next 10 years. In this CIP you'll see that we've actually collapsed that really detailed list of projects. That allows us to have more flexibility to go after things that have changed or maybe that have started to risen to the top. A lot of our buildings are old and we have a lot of needs across the system. A good example of that is that one of our boilers, we did some new upgrades that, didn't show up and bubble to the top. We weren't expecting. We ended up doing a CIP revision at last meeting, to get around that and to give us more flexibility in going after grants, we've collapsed them all into one-line item, but we're happy to answer details. Director Heyman stated when you get to full narrative in the CIP, it'll have that full list of projects of what's included in that line item that we're planning for. Also looking at setting up a plan for our future park improvements. The large majority of park improvements that you'll see in here are placeholders from the past. The City currently doesn’t have a park plan but we have just kicked off a really robust planning effort to set that up so we can have an idea of what community wants what we need from a technical perspective and to have a prioritized list of improvements going forward. Again, that doesn't exist right now makes it really hard to make decisions. No we won't do that without having that shared understanding amongst staff, community and the council. Also looking at critical investments in our water and sewage system. I can touch on a few of those big ticket items setting us up for future grants opportunity to talk a little bit about that and then continuing our ongoing investments in streets and utility infrastructure. So Brooklyn Center in the past has done a really great job. Of keeping those assets up to snuff and getting them upgraded in a timely manner. So now we're going to transitioning into what we call right fix at the right time, which means hitting the right type of large capital improvement to extend the life of our streets. And I'm going to talk a little bit more about what that means in the CIP as well. Next slide, please. So then, and I said this in our capital projects. too much detail in this preview, but the grant strategy that we use to set up our program is we want to make sure we can leverage as much as our city dollars with matching grant dollars. And a lot of times what that means is putting in placeholder projects in the out years when you show something as something you want to do as a city. If you find a grant opportunity that If you don't have it as a placeholder, you make it really difficult to show that you're serious and to show that you have matching dollars. So some of the time in here, you'll see if we have a big chunk in outside funds it's something, a project that we know we've heard interesting or something that we know we need to do, but we also know that we're not going to be able to totally fund it with our own local dollars. And so that's what some of those if you have questions that some of those are in there. We've already had over the last two years, multiple successes with a strategy and listed those out loud in the capital projects fund. And we think we're going to have have more as we kind of get into. More larger dollar items that are coming out of the federal and the Met Council level opportunities for grants coming for that. So it's just a really important strategy to make sure that we can leverage our limited funding and match it up when we see opportunities. Next slide, please. Street project prioritization going off of that theme of the right fix at the right time. The goal is to have the right investment in our public infrastructure at the right time. When it comes to streets, we base that prioritization on a pavement rating system. So every other year, city staff conduct a pavement rating analysis of the entire city, all the roads in the city. And we use that to organize which segments are going to get rehabbed at what time. That's based on this ultimately allows us to maximize the lifespan of that initial investment. When this was first reconstructed, come back around 20, 25 years later to provide a lesser form of maintenance to extend the next slide. Quick question, do you guys work with the county on how they prioritize roles as well? Yeah. Okay. We've got a slide to cover along. All right. Thanks. I don't know. All right. So a reminder of a couple of our larger street projects in FCIP. This year, we awarded a contract for the construction of Orchard Lane East, which is the green segments on the east there. This is an example of a roadway that needed rehab from a pay per view standpoint, but then also, after a review, as you saw in the feasibility report, the underlying utilities also need to be addressed, so we see a significant investment, not just in the roadway, but also in the feasibility. This year's project, that segment in green, is slated for two construction seasons, so we're looking at 2024 and 2025, and then it's followed by the northern and southern segments of Orchard on the west side there, the green and the red in 2026 and 2027 respectively. Next slide. Speaking about utilities, another thing you'll notice is a freeway crossing replacement placeholder in 2029. This is an item that will be used for evaluation and replacement of crossings under the freeways. We have a total of 24 water main crossings under the freeways and 14 sanitary crossings. These replacements. These freeway crossings haven't historically been included in any past neighborhood project, haven't really fit very well in the footprint of any particular project, but it is something that needs to be addressed. I think it goes without saying, but there is a high consequence associated with the failure of these utilities. Since there's a freeway, an example of that is in 2021, the 694. Crossing by Colfax, their experience to break was just further north of the freeway, but we still had to detour off ramp from 94 and 100 to make the repair there. So with that being said that line item staff will be coming up with a method to evaluate the health of the rest of the crossings throughout the city. And ideally, we're looking at non destructive evaluation methods, methods that don't require shutting down services. We know we can't replace all of them at once, so ultimately what we want from this effort is a replacement schedule that prioritizes the highest risk crossings for replacement. So, you know, start seeing that get populated. Yeah. Coming back to that 694 crossing by the way. That is a project this year. We're addressing that crossing that was penciled in our 2024 CIP. And so we'll be adding a structural liner crossing to address that crossing this summer. Next slide. All right, so Hennepin County. So in 2026, a no origin project dimension here, we have a partnership project with Hennepin County for the reconstruction of Humboldt Ave from 57th to 53rd. This segment of Humboldt was last reconstructed in the 1930s. And is one of the few remaining rural county roadways in the metro. This project you probably have noticed, has been in our CIP since at least 2013. The county cost share as of last year being around 700, 000, roughly is what they were coming to the table with for a 5 million project. The county has historically viewed this project as a utility driven project, right, which is reflected in the cost share that they, That they've proposed for the past few years. We've since negotiated with the county and kind of asserted that really should be viewed as a roadway like project and they need to apply their standard cost share into this project. And so their cost share now is closer to. Excellent. I can. If I can do a shout out. That would not have happened if it had not been for our. Lustrous director, Miss Liz, who twisted some arms and did some work and made it happen. So I just want to recognize that. Thank you. So it switches back to me. So a couple of things to mention. We did speak about this in detail in that capital projects fund overview, but two big placeholders you'll see in that fund are for the community center and for the public works garage. There's a placeholder for the community center in 2028. Just to know we do have 4 million in deferred maintenance within that building. We're working towards that local option sales tax referendum in 2024 where the residents will, you know, decide if the up or down vote for that. Also in mention of that preview, the public works garage is a placeholder in 2029. We have 3. 5 million in deferred maintenance within that building and staff are currently working on exploring outside funding options to cover that project. Next slide please couple notes on some of the larger utility projects coming with the next 2 years. So, as I mentioned, or I'm going to East 2 year construction project between 2024 25, I'm meeting about 4. 5Million dollars total in utility upgrades. Also upgrading our lift station nine. So it helps move sewage through our sewer, sewer system throughout the entire city and upgrade for a specific list station. That's been kind of hanging out, waiting for that and much needed investment in 25, roughly 1. 7 million. Well, number 11. If you were following along last year I'll get to that one a slide. The next slide with some pictures of that, but that's a new well and pump house looking to be constructed in 20 across two years in 2025 and 2026. That was a big ticket. I've been so I'll explain a little about that one. I'm sitting at 2. 7 million. And then finally, our water treatment plant redundant water main connection. Right now, we only have one large pipe coming out of the water treatment plant and looking to add some redundancy to our system in 2026. Approximately 1. 4 million. You go to the next slide, please. That gives us a well 11 pictures. Yes. So in early 2023, very early 23 when we were doing routine maintenance checks on well seven, which is one of our our wells that produces the largest amount of water that we draw from from our aquifer we found these holes in the casing and they're going to throughout the entire casing, the casings failing at, at a rate at this point where we made the decision that we needed to, to construct that new well. Okay. And so that is what that well 11 cost. So unfortunately it was an unplanned cost, but a very needed one given that well, seven is one of our highest producing wells. Next slide, please. A note about traffic calming. So this is a smaller a smaller program that's new that we're introducing into the CIP much smaller than some of the typical street reconstruction projects that you see. But what we're working towards with this program is that it allows us to make these smaller improvements faster. One of the biggest complaints that Public Works receives is around speeding and issues at crossings. And by putting these placeholders and where we started it in 2025 and we have it every other year, just because we have it other every other year doesn't mean that we're necessarily going to use it, but it does give us something to work against if something comes up and we could, again, write a grant for to try and augment if we need to do, you know, a full intersection replacement. If we need to make some sort of safer crossing to help with areas where we have known issues like that having that set aside allows us to be more responsive when we receive complaints but as well as data driven to make sure we're developing parameters. To where to figure out how and where we invest. But right now, we're just starting with that placeholder. In terms of 2025, the first traffic calming pilot program we're working on currently is out near East Palmer. We received some many complaints there's over the years. And once we laid down some traffic tubes, we just got some speeding data that was. Some of the craziest that I've ever seen is in a residential area. So already we're working towards, we'll have that pilot out this summer to test and see what may work to help mitigate some of those speeding issues. And then in 2025, we now have a line item that lined up so we could make those those pilot test designs a reality. So we're excited about that. Next slide, please. I wanted to touch on the dog park as that was something I know that council had a lot of interest in. We still have the sitting at a rough estimate of 260, 000 in 2026. We had a good meeting where at Northport where we received some community feedback. We also were partnering with recreation on a survey. We're working on summarizing that community feedback while coming back to present findings at a city council meeting to talk about how we got that decision. We had a very robust screening process to come up with that proposed recommendation at Northport. We'll be sharing all that with residents and with council at an upcoming meeting. I did want to of course make the note that estimated maintenance considerations along with a dog park our best guess at this point is that I'd be roughly 10, 000 a year, plus an additional 400 hours a year of staff time and just noting that since the 1980s, public works, park maintenance staff has been decreasing over time. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to bump that up one by one more position during the first year that I was here, I believe that was 2022 that position was appropriated. But we are, we are tight. I'll just say we're very tight on what we're able to do. And so looking to add this we'll need to look for some sort of resources to make sure that if we keep it up to the level of service that I'm assuming residents are going to want to see this type of amenity app. Next slide please. So I'll hand this to Dr. Edwards to talk about city public art. I'll quickly share this one. The council recently approved the Cultural arts commission. This is back in 2019. The council had approved of the beautification public art comprehensive, a master plan. So this begins to align some resources in order to be able to bring that into fruition. Some of the things that we could be able to do and that we anticipate such as a city walk, you may have been in cities where they have various art sculptures throughout the city, which gives a theme or gives a perspective of what is important to that city or a flavor, a vibe about that city, having a sense of identity. This also begins with stewardship. So it's not simply about public art and imagery, but the beautification of public art. Point master plan started with litter, taking care of what we currently have and being good stewards. So, there are many cities that have done artistic things around garbage dispensers or trash cans and things of that nature. So, there's public art that could be designed around how do we maintain the, maintain what we currently have as far as the city is concerned, as well as a, a sense of identity since for the past, over the past decade, the city has identified as a priority within its strategic plan as community image enhancing its community image. And it continues to this day as we have, one of our priorities is enhancing public spaces. Mm-Hmm. . So the ability to I identify and have something that simply says. This is Brooklyn center is these are the values of Brooklyn center things of that nature. It begins to identify again an image where we project what we want to be able to project about Brooklyn center as opposed to someone on the outside do that. So, you can be doing that can be done through public art as you can recall the thing about the cheering spawn in Minneapolis is 1 way, which, you know, that that's iconic. And that's what me that's been able to see, you know, where that is. What is it that we say about Brooklyn Center? How do we speak about Brooklyn Center in a way that illuminates, illuminates the very best of Brooklyn Center? You take our, our banners, for example, where we try to reflect where we try to project the image of Brooklyn Center. One of the greatest assets of Brooklyn Center are its people, and we talked about young people being the future of Brooklyn Center. We talked about adults. Being the heart of Brooklyn Center and we talked about our elderly being the wisdom of Brooklyn Center. So collectively with the sense of hope, the sense of heart, the sense of wisdom that collective collectively forms a very strong community. So those are some things we try to do with just a simple street banner. We tried to project again about the image and who Brooklyn Center are and accentuate the assets and the greatness of Brooklyn Center. So there's a contrast plan, we mentioned that. So over the next couple of years, they'll be able to. Begin to plan and think about what is a citywide public art project that can be done. A CFP project has to be over three 50, 000. So it can't be small projects that are 5, 000, 5, 000 a year in there. We do not have budget dollars. So it may take capacity to take some time in order to build a fund where the commission can actually commission some type of public art for the city. This is slotted for a 2027. So it takes some time to build that up. And then it would be every three years. So 50, 000 every three years. So the notion is that by 2027, the commission will have developed a project for the city. We can install and work on that for three years. And then another three years, they can go into a second project. So it's beginning to provide some resources for the for the city to actually implement the master plan. That's near you. This is you. Okay. So we talked about the projects and, and and the fun stuff, but I'm going to talk about the really fun stuff now. So this is the money. This is how we talk about capital improvements, funding, and how we work on this stuff. So capital improvements funding, there is a policy We generally try and fund these things. In in other ways. There is no levy. There's no tax levy on some of this capital improvement or the capital improvements fund work. So we look at trying to find other ways to get money, general fund transfer of audited year and unassigned fund balance about 52 percent of next year's general fund operating budget. And so what does that mean? It means that we need to try and have a robust unassigned fund balance or reserve at the end of every year so we could transfer some money into the capital improvements fund. That's how some of these extra projects start to happen. Liquor operations transfer there's a audited year end cash balance that exceeds two months of next year's operating budget. This is Probably going to be a little tough for the next couple of years. As you know, we've talked about the liquor operations, and this is all based on the numbers that we report to the office of the state auditor as an as an entity. Liquor operations are solid. They're, they're increasing in sales every year. They are a going concern. They are not in trouble, but we do not. When we start to add in the things that the office of the state auditor looks at then, which includes depreciation, then we start to see those numbers be a little bit lower than what we would want them to be. And so so I don't want to To alarm anyone and say that liquor operations transfers are probably a little bit farther out in the future. We are going concern and it's not something that we need to worry about at this point. We just need to be aware of it. Local government question. Yep. Just wanted to be clear about exceeds 2 months of next year's operating budget and 1 year budget and capital improvement needs. Is that specific to that the liquor store? Okay. Yep. The liquor store operation. Just wanted to make sure I was understanding correctly. Yeah, no, that would be definitely right. If we made that across the board. Right. No, that because the liquor store is an enterprise fund, and they are self contained and so we look at those numbers as a self contained entity, local government aid. That it received in the amount of 650, 000 or half of the amount received by the city, whichever is greater, we've been well over that 650, 000 for a number of years. I did recently read that there was some legislation I don't know what kind of traction it's getting legislation where this local government aid would actually have a cola. Or an inflation factor applied to it every year, which would be fantastic. Like, it makes sense. We did get a nice bump this previous year, but we certainly would like to see that continue as costs as costs go up that that aid would also take that into consideration and then other outside sources of revenue, a grant funds as director Haman mentioned, we want to go after grants whenever we can. We want to. I affectionately say that we like to do this work with other people's money. And so the next few slides there, if we project this out a little bit farther, but really to jam it all onto one screen it, it's very difficult to read. So we just look at, you know, six or seven years is really like, even much past five gets a little bit difficult to project, but this, this one, because we have the community center and. Things like that, and then we want to take a look at this. So this is the Capital Improvements Fund, which is a specific fund. It's not tied. It's, I guess, Director Heyman calls it the Everything Else Fund. It's not tied to municipal state aid. It's not tied to utilities. It's not tied to, to those types of funding sources. It's kind of the Everything Else Fund. And in here you can see where the, the LGA that they call it intergovernmental aid investment earnings. We do show those as zero going farther out just because that is a little unpredictable and as market values of our investments impact that so showing it as zero really is a fiscally conservative way and then being pleasantly surprised when you make a little bit more money. Is is a nice thing. And then we have any, any of our external funding sources. So if we get a grant from somebody, that's what that's where this sits is in this line, which external funding sources. It's got a couple of blue numbers. So it's gonna be the 6th line down from the top. In the revenues section. Okay. Right now we've got in 22 and 23 we had some, some dollars that we had received. We really don't budget those as if, and when we would receive grants, we would start to then put those into that field. If we look at 2028, that 5 million is the money that we received from the state. For the community center. And so we're showing it there. And then the next line down, which is the, it's the big topic always is bond proceeds. So that would be the amount that we would in 2028 if the lost if the local option sales tax doesn't pass. This is maybe potentially what we would look at doing. So again, once we get past the two or three years, we really, it starts to get to be, this is what we'd like to do, or this is what we think we could do if these other things don't happen. So none of this is set in stone. And really when, when we're talking about this, we're going to be looking at one year and that's 2025. That's what we're going to be asking for appropriations for. And then if we go down into the expenditures, expenditures. This this fund doesn't have a lot of other expenditures other than that capital outlay. So we're looking at really being focused on what are we spending those capital dollars on in 2025, we based on the, the worksheets prepared by our engineers and public works. We are looking at 1. 3 million in capital outlay expenditures. And what that does is if we look at the very bottom line, we wanted always keep that bottom line cash balance ending as a positive number. It's going to fluctuate as bigger projects come along. And as we you know, that is the point of doing a long term cash and flow analysis is to see what do we have coming down the pipe? What's coming out four years from now that we really need to be thinking about now, like, what do we want to be able to do in four years and how should we approach that in this year? This is a visual of the same thing that cash balance ending the red. It's it's definitely nice. If the red is above the is above the purple. So, we want, we'd like that cash balance to always be positive and certainly above that very bottom line. And this is the MSA fund. This is a, and then I may talk to Director Heyman and and our city engineer to help explain this one a little bit more. This is a fund that we get state dollars from the state for specific road construction, MSA identified roads. So there is limits on what these dollars can be used for. It's sort or where they come from, like, they are specific to work that we would have done on on a municipal municipal state aid row. And there's a maintenance and there's a construction amount that we get every year. And then we, we use the maintenance, we do the maintenance. You can sort of see that if you look at supplies and other services and charges under expenditures, that's really where that's going and then the capital outlay. This is that type of fund where, when I was talking about where we wanna see what's going on a few years down the road and be ready for it because we're gonna be, it's also a reimbursement fund or this is gonna get a little bit in the weeds. So I will talk about this and we can, you know, try and explain it a little bit more. We have to spend the money up front and then the state reimburses us. 5 million at a certain rate every year. And so if we spend 5 million, it's going to take a few years for us to get that money all from the state. And so conceivably that, you know, we may, we are always kind of behind when we're talking about this, but we also, you know, want to ensure that we have enough money in this fund to do the projects when they need to be done, knowing that we will get that money as it, you know, over the course of time. And so that cash balance at the bottom ending cash balance looks like it gets pretty big and like 2026, you know, 7. 3Million. But we also have if we look at 27, 28, 29, and it just goes farther out and it's in your worksheets that you've got in your budget, we've got 1. 6Million. We've got 2. 8Million. We've got 1. 2Million. Those are outlays that we are projecting what happens within the system. on these roles. And so the cash balance goes down over time. If, if the amount that we're spending is more than the amount that we're getting that particular year from the state. And again, it's a reimbursement fund. So it's intended for us to spend money. Upfront and then be reimbursed over time. So the difference between 22 and 23. I mean, I know it's pretty minimal, but is that just because you're waiting to get back the full amount or. Yeah, so the difference there at 23, the Orchard Lane project is not a state aid project. Ah. So we got our annual disbursement from the state, but that project is locally funded. I see. About right on that one? Yeah. I can answer if people have questions on it. Yeah. This is one of the hard ones to sort of get your head around because the amounts get really big really fast. But they can disappear really quickly as well, right? I mean, I, I understand it. I think it's important to keep a, you know, to be thinking ahead for sure. Okay, I was just mainly asking because it looks like it's pretty consistent what the amounts are year over year that you take, yeah, the maintenance and the construction revenue from the state. So that's why I was asking about the difference and. You know, because it went down a little bit in 23 or you assume it will. Yeah, so we owe what the revenue was there. You see what I'm saying? Yes, at 1. 14. So yeah, it's our projected revenue. And it's a, it's, it's called on a needs based across the entire state. So there's a negotiated formula all kinds of committees around it. And then based on what your system looks like, what your average daily traffic is on those municipal aid designated streets. So we have a whole. A whole specific network with of streets and there's rules and regs and how you set up your network and what they are. So based on your needs, the state give you an allotment for every city that meets a certain threshold. So that's how we can project out what our allotment will be year to year. Gotcha. I'm kind of going back, not necessarily this will flow analysis but for the neighborhood reconstruction projects, how is it possible to let. I think it's really important that neighborhoods know further in advance, like if we had, let's say, a 10 year plan, and we know we don't know what that amount is going to be, but we know, like, just so heads up, like in 2027, your block is going to be impacted by this, and these are some of the, what it kind of costs in the past, in the past, so people can start thinking about it, like how, I guess, instead of waiting till we, like, know all the details, just to let Okay. Neighborhoods know like giving some air comes over. Yes, we can give them a proposed year for what we have planned out. I would say it's pretty intensive in terms of getting those mailer and then addresses and the cost associated the time and cost associated get a mailer out. And often I find that people, people, the things that they, the outreach strategy people, they miss the most is mail. And so I haven't found that to be the best way to communicate about an upcoming project. What about, sorry, our newsletter? We could definitely put something in the newsletter with a map. Absolutely. I think that would make more sense. I, I think sometimes it's more difficult to read, but we can get because of the format with the map. But we could link people back. We could say, you know, council has appropriated the the 10 year plan, and if you want to check it out, absolutely. Yeah, we could add that as a, as like a yearly thing. And so this one, the MSA fund again, the blue line is cash balance ending because it kind of talked a little bit about in 2034 is when we, we see that starting to go down. And so we just you know, the, the cash balance actually, you know an initial projections go negative. We did do some additional planning at in 2034 again 10 years from now, right? We don't know what's going to happen 10 years from now if we were to cut that in half and make that a two year project, then that cash balance goes back to a positive. So not not alarming, just something sort of to illustrate, like, how this how this fun can work when we have larger projects, you know, we kind of had not a lot going on up to 2026. and then we've got quite a bit the red bars. There's quite a bit going on. For the next 6 years, 7 years and street reconstruction funds. So this is you know, part of our street reconstruction. It, and when we do a street reconstruction project, we have the utilities that are paid on utility funds. We have street reconstruction, which is primarily the franchise fees. And then we would also have bonding that would happen there. And then we also have an assessment fund. And so, there's four or five different sources that we look at, and with any street reconstruction project, this is the, this is one that is specific to streets. Like, we wouldn't pay for utility work out of this fund. This is also the 1 where we needed to bond that lobbies would be would come into play for that debt service. And so, you know, looking at this just a little bit up from the bottom, our cash balance ending stays. Stays fairly positive. It's some good amounts it. We do like to keep a little bit in there in the case of we have a sinkhole or, you know, we need to do some unforeseen street reconstruction that that that we really want to do. The other thing we could do. And as we move forward. With these projects is evaluate, do we want to spend some of this cash rather than bond for it? So that's a, that's a discussion that we can have in the next few years as we look at street projects and as we play them out, we look at the, the very lowest part there is kind of just giving you like, this is what the level would look like what we have and then if, you know if we have a, a bond and have a levy, then, you know, our levy is going to increase. We need to make that payment. Our levy is going to increase. So it all, all sort of plays together. Street reconstruction fund again, 2034, we're way that's way out there, but this also is indicative that these are some very large projects. We have a number of large projects on the capital improvement plan that are coming up. And then our special assessments fund. This is sort of the other side of that, that street where this is where the funding that When we do an assessment on someone's property, this flows in there. We want to be tracking those very specifically. And again, people pay assessments over 10 years. And so we're not getting if we assess a million dollars on this project, we're getting a million dollars that year. We're getting 100, 000 dollars for 10 years. And so we always want to make sure that we are. Cognizant of what's going on with this fund just so we can keep it positive. As you know, there are some red red cells that bottom again. It's all based on projections of how much will we collect? How much will people pay in advance? Will there be any delinquent taxes? So these numbers fluctuate a little bit. This is again, this fund is reliant on how do people pay their property taxes. And this is our 20, we're not going to talk about utilities really in this presentation, we will have a much more robust presentation in October when we talk about utility rates but this is just sort of a preview of what utility projects are coming down pipeline for 2025 that we will need to address as we look at rates and how they may be impacted. So we've got as Director Haven said, we've got a well and pump house, we've got a water main redundancy, we've got lift station nine rehab and then there's also parts of some of these other projects that have utility portions to them. So we just always want to be aware that a street project also can have utility components to it. Again, not dwelling on that because we will talk about that in a much more robust way in October. And so we anticipated debt service that is generally debt service. It's paid for either with fees or with the levy. So we always want to be aware of, of how we're going to pay for our debt as we incur it. We have anticipated anticipated bond issues based on our capital investment needs, our street reconstruction, water, sanitary sewer, and storm sewer. Those are the four categories that we usually, we're going to do a bond. Those are the categories that we're going to be looking at. You can see water, sanitary sewer and storm sewer, our user fee. That was how we would pay that debt service. Street reconstruction is paid with a levy increase or an assessment. And we will talk in greater detail about sort of anticipated debt. And how that how that plays out. We always you see levy increase. Well, there may or may not actually be because we have debt that falls off every single year as well as that. So, we always need to be looking at that debt ladder and see where things are coming on and coming off and what we're projecting in 2024. You will see at the next, the last board or the last council meeting you approve the sale of 12 million in bonds for the orchard lane street reconstruction project. You will see the sale of that on May 13th. So that will be on the next council meetings. We will sell those bonds. And be bringing that to you for authorization on that in 2026, we are also anticipating a bond issue for the 2nd phase of orchard lane and also for larger water projects. Wells lift stations will certainly be evaluated upon. And that's that's all I have on the cash flows and some of the financial pieces of this. Again, it's a 10 year plan. We know pretty much what's going to happen next year. After that. We're not sure. So you know, we try, we try and plan the best we can, but certainly happy to field any questions that anyone might have. Go ahead. Thank you for the presentation. If I may request is we're entering into the budget. We're trying to condense our meetings. Can we get the power points in advance for all of the various meetings coming up so that we can be prepared? Granted, we received this, but. There was a lot of information here. And then secondly, I'm wondering if it wouldn't be inconvenient to maybe put the spreadsheets. Elongated so that it isn't, so, I mean, yeah, it's, it's very tiny. I can barely read, I couldn't read it. Yeah. So yeah, for sure. Just a couple recommendations as we're going into the budget and we're trying to come to the meeting as best prepared as we can. Right. Yeah, having these larger and having them in advance and online, that way the residents can also see this information. And that's really all I have. Thank you. Go ahead councilor. J. Just a quick question. Thank you for the presentation, but do you anticipate further injection of revenues? And when we may have that, so we can offset. But we expect to come in versus what you're asking to be made up. So we're going to talk about the levy tonight a little bit. That's really one of the, one of the big pieces of that, but we will also look at doing general fund revenues or the revenues that we bring in hopefully be able to engage with council within the next few weeks on, on where we, where we are with that. If we can. Council if correct me if I'm wrong, Angie. So part of that is again tonight's revenue. There's low as relates to general fund revenue that we're tying into C. I. P. So most of the C. I. P. Relates to bonding. So that's why we're not necessarily talking about revenue general revenue funds at this particular time. But we will be doing that as we talk about expenditures within general fund. Yeah, I'm curious about sort of this. Well, okay. I'll just ask questions. How many would you say of our streets or projects are not MSA funded street projects? Mayor, you can, of course he knows a large percentage. Okay. Yeah, I was gonna say I was stop sharing. I was mainly just thinking about that, about I mean, I don't know. I mean, I know that there're specific what's the word I'm. A specific way of deciding how much assessments are on a particular property, right? And I know we've had some conversations around. Assessments and other ways that we can potentially fund projects, but I was basically just thinking about if there was any way. Any system that we could identify internally as a city in ways when it would make sense. From an equity perspective, or something, or something along those lines. To consider using cash rather than bonding. So you talked about the street reconstruction fund and considering using some of the cash, right? Rather than bonding. So, I was just trying to think, and I don't even know because I'm, you guys are the experts, but I was just trying to think of like a, what's the word I'm looking for a formula where we could identify when that would make sense. In particular construction project. So that was, so you get why I was asking first about the MSA fund and then wrap that up. So that was, that was just a thought and Mary councils and again there's and you can also speak to this issue. I know that over time for other cities, other jurisdictions. Have tried to look at other means of funding large projects, and it reminds me of about about 15 years ago, it was a big deal as relates to jurisdictions trying to build their reserves so that they can spend. So I remember a couple of counties were trying to do jails and correctional facilities because they're such big ticket items, and they built up the reserves in order to pay, which saved money, and it was much more cost efficient. But the but the state said, No, you can't do that. And it regulates that you cannot. You cannot. The intent is not to build up reserves for a expense later down the line. If you tax somebody, then you'll have to spend it, is the idea. But there has been conversation and thought about are there better ways, more cost efficient ways to do projects, but unfortunately, at least from reserves, we don't have much of an ability to save and hold on to those until we can pay for that project. Any other questions folks go ahead on the forecast interest rate that we're using like 2%. It's more, it's closer to around 3 and a half. We try and I mean, it kind of depends where we are. We want to be as close also in proximity to where we might be what we might be paying on bond or debt and what we might be earning. On our investments. So I know we talked about it before about how are we trying to monitor that? Because sometimes we can extend project out so far, but actually it'll cost more if we wait. So, then we're trying to track those so that we can kind of escalate those and kind of move them back. It was cheaper to do them now than wait more years. I think we're talking about that with some of the overlays with some of the streets. So, if we prolong it out too far, it'll actually be more expensive. Mayor, Council Member, so I can speak to that. So that's, that's more along the lines of pavement management. So that's what, yeah, so you, exactly, you don't want to let your project, your street go so far and deteriorate so far that you can't do a mill and overlay or a renovation. So that is where, instead of more around like the interest rates, it's more about the condition of the pavement and what you can physically do to it to fix it. So when you come in, so. If you say typically a street reconstruction is going to last 10 after, sorry, say one more time. It's only for the fall, but when you come in for the when you come in for mill and overlay, right? So, at like year 15, if you don't do that mill and overlay project on a street and you let it continue to deteriorate. You're going to have to fully reconstruct and it's not you're not going to get the full life out of it. So it's more along that than trying to move things up. It's more about the payment management, like cycle. Go ahead. I'll bet if I miss this, how are we accounting for the potential to 52 and what we are, you may or may never give us a figure. Yes. So we have a placeholder in, so that's how we're, we're looking at it. And there are, there have been looking at trying to build up that MSA funds. So two 52 would be an eligible street to spend MSA funds on. We are just entering that draft environmental impact statement phase. And so they don't have a tight cost estimate. Nor do they have a good understanding of what the local share would be yet, unfortunately so, you know, we're, we're working with them as a project partner for trying to figure out what that would be. I'd say. And the D. I. S. So they have that tough to know the negotiate like through the D. I. S. phase. The whole thing ends up being in a negotiation. So we're just starting and 1 of our specific asks are about that cost share formula being more equitable to Brooklyn Center and what we might actually benefit from it versus what they're taking from us. One last question. Has there been any conversation around 69 because that's a county road to right? Yeah, yeah, it should be in 29. Okay. I heard people complain about and I noticed it. Well, I think it was last year there was that big bump hump that came up right by health partners in the post office, and that luckily was fixed pretty quick. Because I mean, I was worried that somebody was going to get messed up driving over that because I bring my daughter to school every day. So I'm driving down that a lot. And then after the plows went by the last time, they like completely destroyed any remnants of a curb along there. I was like, what is that? Is that dirt? I'm like, it literally, Looks like clumps of dirt, but it's apparently old curb, so it obviously needs some, some love. So I was curious if that's on the, yeah, the radar. Yes. So that one was sitting as 2029 as a a county partnership project with okay. Any other questions. Go ahead. When you were talking about the streets, or I don't know if it was like the MSA reimbursement, but there's like a formula that they're using. Are they taking into consideration anything like public transportation and how frequent that is on those roads? We are kind of sure. I don't believe that specifically public transportation is, but they take into account the average daily vehicle count. Okay. So I don't believe that they split it. They split it down to the heavy vehicle traffic. All it is for me. It's just annual daily traffic. So it's the roads that see the most traffic. And generally those are picking up traffic outside of the city. So, so with the heavier vehicles running on those roads, I'm thinking like noble is a perfect example. If you look at noble going north off of that's up on Brooklyn Boulevard, you know how that road, it's a lot of traffic, heavy traffic, like heavy buses, you know, heavy vehicles that's leading to the deterioration of the road, right? Yeah, it is. You have heavy vehicles on it. Absolutely. But they don't take that into account at the state in terms of their needs, just the average daily traffic. They should. Yeah, you can pass that coming along. All right, Eddie. I'll go ahead. Council Member Lord Sanderson. Thank you. Can you let me know why we can't plan for a dog park for next year? Why are we looking at 2026? Mayor Council member. So we have it in there because we weren't sure what the scope and where what other needs we had along with that project. We did have we have a placeholder for 200, 000 in in 2025. If we can take 60, 000. And again, this is these are early estimates, but we don't have the numbers yet. A full detailed plan for what that would be. But that would be at council discretion. Once we had that estimate about what we would have to take out of our investments into our facility capital improvement program. Or if we would take it out of the hazardous tree maintenance management and reforestation to make up that difference, if that was. And then I think it was the actual difference when we came up with the final plan for what level of service folks are looking for in a dog park. How weird it started to come up with the 260. I'm just not quite sure I understand why it would cost that much. Yeah, I don't have the full details in front of me but a lot of it ends up being making sure that you have concrete underneath the fences so there's a tendency for dogs to dig. So it was one of the big cost drivers. I think that actually is the main cost driver. If I remember correctly from the breakdown of that estimate, but again, we'll be we'll be back when we to figure out, you know, looking at the feedback we received for what folks want to see trying to make sure we kept the cost down as much as possible by proposing a location where it already had shades, we wouldn't have to add like a shade structure, making sure that there was amenities like water so we could tie into those things. To keep the cost down as much as possible. So now that we have a proposed location we can, you know, take the feedback that we've received, add in whatever amenities folks are looking for and come back to present this. And if I may, why what made Northport stand out? Sure. Mayor council members. So a couple of things off the bat, so big long, long, we've addressed some screening processes, but one of those was. Existing parking existing water fountains and access to water having that shaded area. Like I said, so we wouldn't just be in the baking sun and like a year around. So we have a year round dog park that we didn't have to have a shade structure. Another one that had had space enough. So, and I'm going to get the acreage wrong because our consultant isn't here to help me out. I want to say that the acreage we were looking at was around two and a half acres. If you have them smaller than that, they get really overrun and end up needing tons more maintenance on like a daily, weekly basis in terms of like making sure the surface stays up so it's not super muddy making sure it's not, you know, like overrun with the amount of dogs in there so those were a couple of the things off the cuff, the, from our screening process over the past year. Okay, thank you. I saw an article recently. I think it was crystal that was converting their hockey rinks to dog parks during the summer months. So, yeah, okay. Yeah, we spoke with them about that. I'm not aware and. There they seem to be having success with it. I'd say one of the downsides that obviously is that seasonal. So you only have it for a certain part of the year. The other downside to that is that one of the big things that we've heard is the need for this like double gated system to try and cut down on the amount of interaction between dogs that's often when dogs coming in and out of the entryway. Have altercations with each other. And so based on those two back cars in terms of like a level of service that staff was recommending, we're looking at something in a different location for more year round use and then being able to add in that safety feature as well. I just wanted to make sure you guys were aware of it and had thought about exploring it. Sounds like a good idea. Because Kylon would also be. An option and again that that white fence to your point and the park is really underutilized. Mayor, Council Member, yes, absolutely. Kylan was, I think, our second option and without everything in front of me, without the detail, I can't share for how that one got screened out in terms of a proposed recommendation. But when we're back at Council we'll be here with all the full details behind the screening process. Thank you. Go ahead Council Member Biden. I would just be curious as like with that dollar amount, just to see how that breakdown is just Mm-Hmm, I support the dog part on, I'm not necessarily looking for like a dog park, Bob So $60,000. Sounds like a mere council member. It's not a spot. It's the bare bones in terms of making sure that we can have the least amount of maintenance costs because the easiest thing to find is capital dollars. And like, obviously, capital dollars aren't, aren't easy to find, but it's always easy to spend one time money. It's the ongoing maintenance needs around that. And so making sure that, yeah. Spending more capital dollars up front on a project to decline those maintenances over over time is what we were trying to achieve. If you skimp on some of those things like concrete under the fence on the size of it, you're going to end up paying those year after year after year, and you're going to get up to 260 really quick. So I promise it's not stock. Concrete's expensive. I appreciate the fact that they're planning, you know, going on behind the scenes that That you're aware of that. We just don't know. So I would just be curious to how that number is broken down. Absolutely. Because even the way that you're explaining it makes sense, but when you just throw a number out there, it's like, okay, what does that mean? Yeah, absolutely. Then there was something meeting when it was presented. There was also something about preventing the runoff. There's, I don't know what that body of water is considered. That's kind of behind where the area would be. And so preventing. The dog feces from getting in there. And then also something about the proximity to the houses and having to do something about that. So that was also the cost of course, the fencing. And then also to Constable Lawrence Anderson's question around what were some of the things that were decided also proximity to other dog parks? I think it was like to my trying to keep it under or not more than two miles or something. Absolutely. Things that I got from you. Thanks. I'm really glad to have you here. I'm curious the North Port or Dog area. What are the dimensions beyond that? Mayor Commissioner, I unfortunately don't have that in front of me today. But again, it was looking at that acreage to try and have the other thing we've heard through our research and from from what folks are interested in is separate areas for small and large jobs, which is I'm just high on the amenities list, so I want to say it was about two and a half, but don't call me. I could, I could pull it up, but I don't have it for me. I apologize because I'm hearing the new hope to the hockey rink. Well, to me, a hockey rink for a dog park, it's nowhere near the size that it would need to be depending on the amount of money. Dogs are in there, but so it really ends up being a level of service question what the council and the community is interested in in terms of level of service. New Hope is having from what we've heard so far, success from that. There are a couple of things that we heard and from the interest of what that amenity would be that would mean that potentially that's not what council and community wants to see here for that type of project. But really a council decision in terms of what level of service and amenities folks are looking for in that type of project. But I would note that that that size. You can end up really struggling if you do get a lot of users. To keep that surface. I think the video that I saw that that surface looks pretty muddy. That was out there. But again, it's what type of level of service are people interested in? Well, I think when you, when you bring it back, you should bring us some comparisons. Like, obviously have your sort of your proposed what based on your research, but I think Everybody's got an opinion. You know what I mean? So, oh, you're going to see them all. They sure do. We've got that summary. So I think, I think, you know, it'd be good for us to kind of see some side by side or some scenarios on like, you know, well, you could do this and, you know, it might, you know, you know, if you use two or three different hockey rinks, it would cost this much and you'd only be able to, this would serve kind of this neighbor, this neighborhood. But if 20 people showed up, then it wouldn't work or whatever, you know, just to have some considerations and well, our decision making. Any other questions, comments? All right. Well, thank you Director Heyman. Thank you. Angela home director home. I was like, I had to say your name to remember your lesson for the presentation and I guess now we'll move it back over to Dr Edwards. So you have your comment. Also, Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. So, Madam Mayor one, we're going to shift into some conversation around budget direction. I don't know if you want to take two to give break. I just want to just take a five minute break and then come back ready to talk about the next item. Okay. Yes, ma'am. All right, we're going to get started again. Now we're going to be talking about the budget and direction. For the budget stickers. So, we're going to do a couple of things. Council members and commissioners, there's a couple of things we wanted to do. Primarily want to talk about kind of what's important. And what we think is important within the budget. We're going to talk a little bit of context, kind of the current condition as staff as we foresee it from a levy perspective, and then we're going to ask about levy comfort. And we've done a couple of, we've done this in a couple of different ways in the past. And each year is typically a different ask, like, well, we need more information. And like, we had too much information, we should have talked about it earlier. So we continue to try to. Meet you where you are and based upon your need for information. So with that said, mayor, council members, and. With the familiar image that you've seen, and it simply conveys in the end that in the end, if we're not all on the same page, then it's tough for staff to put together a budget to have us be able to deliver on what we have identified within our strategic plan. So, we'll talk a lot about strategic plan. But it is foundational. It is the the guidance for our budget because the budget is simply a a tool of express their values as far as where we're trying to go and what we're trying to do. And there's an expression of that. If you will, so next. I take that one out. I want to say a whole lot again back to the strategic plan because I know that we said we wanted to sort of get to it, but I would say this and that mission as we just recently adopted the notion of the Senate actively provides a safe, welcoming and inclusive community. So ask us to keep that in mind as we think about what it is we want to see in the budget and what will be a successful budget as relates being able to help us deliver on this particular mission. That we have established for the city, and we established some strong some priorities strong financial position, enhancing public places, community employment, employee safety, fair and equitable services, community employee engagement and decision making effective partner, diverse business and housing and employee experiences. This is a mission statement. Bottom line in the end, the notion at least to the best viability with limited resources when we spend the dollar when we tax a dollar. The question is for what purpose do we do that? And it's and it should drive back to this mission statement and these particular priorities again. There's a lot that we do and we won't be able to do it all. But we try our best to be able to deliver all this particular mission statement in which you've adopted as an organization. So it guides. My thinking, guys, the conversation I have with directors, it will guide us in our budget development and try to hit that again with your guidance. So there's 3 core questions that want to ask and we got to give us get up and move around a little bit. We've done this in the past, but there's 3 core questions that we want to ask. And I'll just go to the board. Okay, so the 1st is a question about guidelines and guiding principles as we think about the budget. We're not in alignment. We think about what are two guiding principles of priorities that will help us develop the budget. What we don't want to happen is we've had happened in the past. What we're trying to eliminate is that we're in the final hour of budget. And then we're also in a point where we're not in alignment, not in agreement about what, what the council or what we're looking for in the budget. So, to make sure that we try to establish those things up front. And so for guidance, you have a pink paper posted in front of you. Yeah, you have 2 of these and you also have a market. And what I'm asking you to put on each 1 of those 1 idea is if you think about. When we develop the 2025 year budget, what is it that we ought to pay attention to? What guiding priorities should we consider and we think about? And what from your perspective? So 1 per 1 per post it, right? So that's the question right now. And then when you're finished, we're going to ask questions. And then we're going to go up and then post those, and then we're going to see what we're talking about and see what the collective wisdom in this room is. And then we're going to go back and kind of build consensus or at least try to try to address those. So that's what we're going to do for right now. So the question on the floor is what are two guiding principles or two priorities that are most important to you in guiding the development of the 2025 year city budget? Everybody get it. So we're just answering the first question first question. So you have to pay for the postage. And that's what I'm asking one per postage. So, for those of you who can think about your own budget at home. When you think about sitting down and doing a budget, what are some things you say, well, these we got, we got to consider any guidance. Well, we got plans for this or we got. Hold line on this or you want to push out. So, so again, these are priorities. I'm going to ask for items in a minute. So we're going to stay a little higher on priorities. And again, you also have a list when we did strategic planning, we talked about strong financial position. We talked about enhancing public spaces. We talked about community employee safety. Fair and equitable services. We talked about community and employee engagement and decision, making effective partnering. The diverse business and housing development employee experience. Now we, we're going to be accountable for doing some work in all of those areas throughout the year. So the question here is kind of thinking about strategically as we go into the year and think about budget. Being a little bit for us to build a bit strategic in and a little focus in our thoughts around developing the budget because there's some real constraints of the budget that's going to dictate that we can only maybe do one or two things. So we want to know, well, if we can only do one of the two things, what is that that you think is important? Just to clarify, are you asking us to make up our own answers, or are we supposed to be using the ones that we already shared? Or a combination? Combination. Okay. What's important to me. Got it, thank you. See, heads up, I'll assume that we're done and we can talk about it, we can share insights and then we'll actually, we'll just pass them around and then they'll end up at Mayor Gray's and then we'll post them over there. Okay. We got two. She only have two. Could you find some bigger post-it? What's that? Did you find some PostIt? Yeah. Well it's might or something. Yeah. I don't know if they're priorities. They're priorities. It is a priority. Yeah, they say I'm going to occasions so you can do a little mind mapping. I think that's maybe not sure if you could answer or not. All of our goals. I think they're supposed to be triplexes that work. I don't know what's like, I'm assuming they didn't get funding or something financing. So do we get that plan back? Oh, and we can help provide more information, but we're constantly in communication and the developer is. Expression that they're in process and they have finances in this coming. Oh, so, so if we can go around and share, it sounds like we have a little bit. So let's go around and share. We'll go this way and then next time we'll come this way. It just kind of talk about what, what we're thinking is next to priorities. So customer buck, you want to share some of your thoughts. Well, I first wanted to keep people underlying a slash community at the center of our vote. Like, so what are the needs of our community? Like, let's keep that center as we and then the other thing I was going to write, which I didn't yet was infrastructure. I think it's like, as we were told today, there's a lot of needs. And so just being able to. Not being Cindy when it comes to keeping our infrastructure strong, very good. So that one we just share. There's no judgment. We're just saying what's on your mind and what are you thinking about? So that's fine. I said financial sustainability. That's very important to me just to make sure that we're able to sustain the goals and prior that we have, but then also also maintaining the, the needs that, that are there. Okay. Long term. And then I have community and business safety. Cool. Thank you. Mentioning, well, how she copied up me and that's a good thing. I mean, you may find that there's some synergy. I, I started running first. You probably did. I said something similar. So sustainability, when it comes to a financial position, and I put diverse business in housing because I know that there's. Stuff that play outside what we can do, but I think it's been just a topic of conversation for so long that it's like, this is what's gonna drive people to our community or keep people in our community. Commissioner. Well, I have the board with you guys financial responsibility. And safety. Okay. Feeling safe in our community that's gonna drive businesses. Okay. Fantastic. If I can get you to write safety on that post-it. This one? Yeah. So one idea I need for, yep. Cool. Fantastic. Okay, Commissioner. Sure. I think you're on the line. I say also strong financial position, basically breaking down like what can we afford or have a debt revenue ratio to do that anyway. But it's just really good to know what we really have to actually use for projects and stuff and then with that community projects and revenues. Like what's pretty much time into the city. When I'm bringing this stuff in, you mentioned earlier about creative and there's limitations to that. So then what else does that look like? You bring the reference to do the same things. You need to do this necessary. So, again, a couple of, as we think about it on the flip side is as I hear and I interpret a, about like investments, that when you use a dollar, what's the best way to use a dollar and get a dollar 50 back? So then when we shake the budget, then we'll say that's kinda what we're trying to do, so that there's some alignment and then context and agreement about what we're trying to do in, in, in shaping the budget. So, good, good customer. Financial responsibility and sustainability. Priorities for me would be fully funded the 24 hour fire review includes to take that pressure off of the volunteer, because that is a community service. My theme is going to be back to the basics. And this is a two part crime reduction through leverage use, so possible business improvement district, whatever different ways, continuing to fully fund the police department, but that may include other things like you know, obviously there's a public safety component to that. There's different ways. I mean, whether it be what we just voted for with reach out with social workers or it can't be one, just one. way. So, but I need a fully funded in my mind. And part of the reasoning for that is you also you have to backfill those positions. So maybe you could get up to skew teens and things like that. So, so Councilman, so I heard crime reduction. Is that? Yeah, primarily for the businesses. Okay. Business. Okay. What we hear from the businesses about shrinkage losses. There's really need to stay in business. It's based on cost. And one, my one idea was possibly explore a bit of business improvement. Okay, gotcha. Council Member. Reoccurring theme financial fiscal responsible budgeting within our means and stability. And I didn't copy, Dan but I said, for community safety, the 24 hour fire department duty crew. We really need to have someone there. At all times, so that's it commission. I said, enhance public spaces. So having more of a healthy community would be something I'd be interested in and diverse business and housing and I'm looking at that through the lens of maybe more homeownership or, you know, pride in their community, taking ownership of the space and. Drawing people here versus driving past to spend and shop. I kept mine's much more high level because I wanted to save some of my other specific, and I want to use each one for a new idea. So I'm like, so my high level priorities are equity and balance. You know, which sometimes people don't understand what I mean by balance, but I think that that speaks to some people's comments around sustainability and responsibility. That's what I mean by balance but also with a lens toward equity, because to me I think those things go hand in hand. And then I also have an enhanced collective well being which there's lots of things that can fall under that which is why I picked it. Yeah, that's it. So if I can ask us to pass it all this way, if I can, if you can pass it all this way, and I don't know if I can ask you if you were both of them, if you could, and you can group it, because we're a lot, so there's financial stability, there's one group, then there's business and housing diversification, there is safety and then there's the notion about space. So all right. Well, we'll go to the second question, which is this is kind of some meat and potatoes and why this is important is because we find ourselves sometimes when we get into budget process, in particular on the staff side, we we get into a space where we try to close out a budget, but there may be one or two issues that is really at the heart and we're unable to close it out. So we want to try to get that out up front. And if there's anything that That must happen. Then let us know now and we'll figure it out. Now, as we have this conversation. Please know that staff myself, all staff will try to deliver you to you a budget based upon those things. But there's no guarantee it's gonna be exactly what is said because it may not be possible. But we'll but we'll be able to articulate. Here's what we heard. Here's what we tried to do in this budget and where it falls short. Then you say, Well, that works. Don't change this. Change that. But so we want to talk a little bit about that. So If there are two things that you thought when it's all said and done, these have to happen in this budget. What are they? And I know that there's a hundred things. But in your mind, if there's two things that have to be in the budget, what would they be? And that would be on one. Yeah, 2 things you have to. So, no, no, no. You're talking about the budget. It's grants is also a part of this. Yes. And council members and commissioners, you come from a wider range of experiences and expertise and knowledge. And so But what's on your mind? We're trying to figure that out. There's no right or wrong answer. So again, asking what has to happen. So come December, well, when we do truth and taxation, which happened before that, and then come December, when we have the final budget of the council in front of you, council members, if there's something you say, well, what happened in this or this has to be here. That's what we're looking for to make sure. That sacred cows are always not always sacred, but sometimes we have things that we think just happened. The more we know about that up front, the more the better. I think you got screen stuff as we, as you write, continue to write. And as we talk about what we wrote down, this would be the time also to say to one another, what do you mean by that? What's the thought behind that? So we're going to seek to understand when we're writing. Now, so today is part of that conversation. We, we, we won't, we'll try not to be here late, but it is time for you to actually have some conversation about things in which you may agree or disagree about. We have a couple here at center office. So when I said New York's coming up, I was so loving of you. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. Well, maybe take some thought to narrow down the two. Some thought about, does that mean like something new or keeping something that's old? And it doesn't matter because it could be either of those. You not trying to get at what's important to you. I didn't know how to study. Batch can so do it now for then staff to try to do it a couple months from now and it is tough. So 30 seconds, so right. This is what must. As in we, and some of the priorities, some of the needs in your mind, there may be actually similar or the same thing and it's okay to repeat. There may be a consistent thing which brings home that this is pretty darn important. It's all said and done, yeah, we have these discussions. We have given these issues and that allows director myself to go back and talk to directors when we typically next process will communicate with staff directors around guidance around the budget. So this will help us in providing that guidance as relates to what we the direction. So it keeps folks from going far too left or far to the right or high or low. It helps us tighten up our process and tighten up our budget. So okay, we started on this side last time. Let's go on this side. Mayor Graves, you want to start us off kind of, again, it's a declarative when it's all said and done 2025 budget is. Council is voting yes to this budget. This needs to be in there. Let's say even I think we desperately need a data outcomes analyst to really focus on both internal and external evaluation and continuous improvement. I also think that there needs to be an expanded focus. On innovative community development opportunities because I know so much of what is in the city either supports or doesn't support the economic trajectory of those that live here. Can you say that one more time? What do you want to be second, the full thing? Yes, an expanded focus on innovative community development opportunities. Okay? Yeah. Or creation of jobs. Access to important resources. As well as just bringing a better tax base. Okay. So somehow somewhere in the budget, it supports. Doing something innovative that delivers more. In the current. Correct. And so there's some. I've taken all these questions. As to mean, from my perspective. We're not going to stop doing the things that have been in the budget, but instead, maybe it's something we talked about that didn't get into the last budget or whatever. But yeah, yeah. Commission. I said, alternative response that particular program funded. And with that, I really like the data part of it. But looking at that data so we can constantly refine or improve that. That group, and then initiatives to educate or communicate with community, kind of bringing them to the table, getting them more involved in the things that the city is doing. We have a priority that revolves around community and employees engaged in key decision making. Does that align with what you're saying? So engaging residents and folks so that they're part of decision making? Yeah, I would say yes. But also I think there's a gap in understanding of what, what the city needs. Does maybe how things work, how systems work. We used to have a Citizens Academy. Yeah. We used to have a Citizens Academy. Yes. Yes. Council on. Thank you. Yeah, mayor, I was just thinking about that the other day. Mm-Hmm. How long? It was like a eight week program or something, something like that. Went through all the departments educated the public as far as what each department does. Mm-Hmm. . So yeah, maybe only that. Again, the Brooklyn Center Fire Department 24 hour duty crew. I would hope that I mean, we budgeted in 24 for that already, didn't we? Okay, for the first, right, for the first two. And then due to the financial capacity of our residents keep the levy at bare bones, we need to establish our needs versus our wants. Thank you. And just focus for this budget year on basic municipal functions and just we just have to watch the bottom line for our residents. Gotcha. Council member Daniel. I'd like to see a balanced budget without using one time funds gap funds that end up being carried over to the next year. We might have to think about no new positions or kind of a hiring freeze for something that isn't already in the budget. It's one possibility., I wrote down fund only bear needs versus, you know, once basic city functions, and I'm looking for no levy increase this year. It's just becoming more and more difficult for sustainability for those unfixed incomes in our senior citizens, because it's not just what we do with the city is accounting state. It's all the other demands increasing utility fund all that. When added up, it can become pretty significant. Excuse me, could you restart the screen share? It's fro it's like black and white. It's it's like black. Thank you. No, go Oh! You didn't have a purpose. You don't have to say it out loud, you fool. Sorry, sorry.