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10-15-24 CC WS MinutesCITY OF SHOREWOOD 5755 COUNTRY CLUB ROAD CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION MEETING COUNCIL CHAMBERS MONDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2024 6:00 P.M. MINUTES 1. CONVENE CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION MEETING Mayor Labadie called the meeting to order at 6:00 P.M. A. Roll Call Present. Mayor Labadie; Councilmembers Labadie, Callies, Maddy, Sanschagrin, and Zerby; City Attorney Shepherd; City Administrator Nevinski; Parks and Recreation Manager Czech; City Clerk/HR Director Thone; Planning Director Darling; and, City Engineer Budde Absent: None B. Review Agenda Sanschagrin moved, Zerby seconded, approving the agenda as presented. Motion passed 5/0. 2. PUBLIC SAFETY CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECT & FINANCING City Administrator Nevinski explained that the existing Public Safety building was over twenty years old and the expectation was that it will soon require significant capital investments particularly for its mechanical systems. He noted that one of the current issues was with the chiller that controls cooling for the entire building and gave an overview of the recommendation to replace the chiller system. He reviewed the three options available to address the failed compressor and the potential costs of each option. He noted that this issue has really highlighted the need for the development of a capital improvement plan for Public Safety. He explained that for this particular need the idea was to split the total costs in half between fire and police and then follow the funding formulas for each department. He noted that based on the 2025 budget, he has come up with a bit over one -hundred twenty-nine thousand dollars for the budget impact on Shorewood. Councilmember Zerby asked if `chiller' just meant air conditioning. Councilmember Maddy gave an overview of how a chiller system worked for a commercial building. Councilmember Zerby stated that he was encouraged to conduct annual furnace inspections every year and asked if they were conducting those on these units and if any maintenance had been done to them since they were installed twenty years ago. City Administrator Nevinski stated that he did not know that information and would need to ask the chiefs. He noted that he believed that Shorewood had been involved in some of the CITY OF SHOREWOOD WORK SESSION COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES OCTOBER 15, 2024 Page 2 of 5 maintenance activities, but was not sure if there were records or if there was a regular schedule for that. Councilmember Zerby stated that there has been a tendency to just wait until there is a problem and felt that they needed to encourage more proactive or regular maintenance so it was not such a surprise when it needed to be replaced. He stated that this was not the first time that they had building expenses to pay and referenced the work done on the concrete. He noted that he was curious about the original construction cost -sharing formula on how the costs should be shared rather than just using the operational expenses cost -share structure. He explained that he would definitely encourage them to be more forward -thinking on some of these things, like the elevator and generators. He stated that he would like to see some type of building maintenance program for those types of things. City Administrator Nevinski stated that he knows the formula has changed over the years, but he believes in the last few years part of the allocation formula has been a portion assigned to the building. He stated that he felt the current funding formula was what had been used to allocate the various bond payments on the building but would look into it to make sure. Councilmember Maddy stated that they are talking about creating a CIP, but he felt what they were really talking about was having a pot of money set aside for use when things break. Councilmember Sanschagrin stated that he felt it may make sense to take a look at the proposed fifty-fifty split between fire and police to ensure it was equitable. Councilmember Callies stated that the police and fire departments seem to be comfortable with the fifty-fifty split and asked what Councilmember Sanschagrin's point was and asked why they may want to potentially create a problem. Councilmember Sanschagrin stated that he felt there could be a disproportionate amount of costs incurred in Shorewood, if the EFD was using significantly more space. He stated that Deephaven was part of the EFD, but not the police, and explained that he felt it would be more fair to Shorewood residents if it made more sense to allocate more costs to the EFD, if they used more space. He noted that the funding formula was different for fire and police and reiterated that if it made more sense to allocate more costs to the EFD than the police, that would reduce Shorewood's costs. Councilmember Maddy stated that he felt that Deephaven may take issue with that approach if they put it too far in that direction. Councilmember Sanschagrin clarified that he was not talking about playing games, but just wanted to make sure that it made sense for everybody. Councilmember Maddy stated that the other complication is that a lot of the fire space is the garage space, so it was not cooled and was a cheaper space to maintain. He stated that he felt it would be pretty complicated if they tried to parse it out. Mayor Labadie stated that at the October 10, 2024 SLMPD Coordinator Committee meeting, they were comfortable with the fifty-fifty split and she felt that if the City goes the route suggested by Councilmember Sanschagrin, it may cause some heartburn among the other cities. CITY OF SHOREWOOD WORK SESSION COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES OCTOBER 15, 2024 Page 3 of 5 Councilmember Sanschagrin asked if they had always split building costs fifty-fifty. City Administrator Nevinski stated that he can look into this and ask some questions. Councilmember Maddy noted that he would be curious about how the two departments divvied up the power bill for the building. Councilmember Zerby explained that he still harbors a bit of ill will and related to the community center project that was constructed with member cities participating, but when it came to the operating costs, it went sideways and there was a lack of participation from many of the cities. He stated that he was hopeful that they would be able to put more structure to this so they do not travel down that same rabbit hole. Councilmember Maddy noted that the lead time for this equipment was around six months, so they may need to move on this relatively quickly once they get the numbers. City Administrator Nevinski stated that he believed Fire Chief Mackey was working on getting more detail and would anticipate that he would come back to the Council before the end of the year with a formal request for funding. Councilmember Zerby noted that he felt it would be nice to get some sort of professional inspection service to go through the building and look for potential wear on other aspects of the building so they can have a bit more of a `heads up' on other potential issues. Councilmember Maddy stated that could be paired with the CIP so they can get it done in one shot. Mayor Labadie stated that she felt that was a good idea. City Administrator Nevinski noted that staff has talked about the need for some sort of analysis and develop the CIP, but it was not really something that had made it to the boards but was hopeful that by the next budget cycle, they would be talking about a building CIP. Councilmember Sanschagrin stated that option one was referred to as the `most economical solution' but he felt that it really was not because it may be the least costly for the short-term, but may not work for the long-term. City Administrator Nevinski stated that it would essentially be a roll of the dice and believed that most everyone has come to the conclusion that it was probably time to `bite the bullet' and do the larger replacement. 3. REVIEW DRAFT COUNCIL BYLAWS City Administrator Nevinski explained that many cities have some sort of bylaws or rules of procedure that they follow. He stated that staff has been thinking about this type of thing for Shorewood and felt it would make sense. He noted that the staff was looking for feedback from the Council on whether this may be something that they want to put into place and, if so, what they would like to see included. He explained that within his staff report, he had outlined what he saw as a potential structure in creating by-laws for the City and briefly reviewed the information. CITY OF SHOREWOOD WORK SESSION COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES OCTOBER 15, 2024 Page 4 of 5 Mayor Labadie stated that she thought this was a great idea and noted that when she took over as mayor, she had tried to implement some rules in an attempt to give a bit more order or structure to help her run the meeting as more of a business meeting. She explained that those rules and the attempts to adhere to the rules ended up getting her called a lot of names. She stated that some of the rules that she had suggested were a result of her having conversations with other mayors on a mayor chat board. She noted that the three -minute rule was a result of forty-two different cities giving her input on how they handled that portion of their meetings. She stated that she did not feel that they were arbitrary, but they were not discussed by the whole Council. She noted that she felt doing this as a full Council on an annual basis would take the pressure off the mayor in trying to have an orderly business meeting and they could just rely on their by- laws. She stated that they could also involve the City Attorney in this so they can combat some of the catchphrases that have been floating around, such as `lack of transparency'. She reiterated that she was in favor of creating by-laws for the Council, as suggested, and noted that she also felt something that they should consider adding to the by-laws would be related to Mayor and Councilmember salaries. Councilmember Callies stated that she agreed that the Council could have some more structure, but was concerned about being overly structured in written form. She stated that she did not agree with Robert's Rules of Order and felt that would be a real burden to use because they can be very confusing. Councilmember Maddy noted that the proposal says that they would not be using Robert's Rules. City Attorney Shepherd stated that the City does not have anything within City code that says that they use Robert's Rules, but they have sort of fallen back on them in the absence of anything else. He stated that Robert's Rules, as a whole, were built for giant parliamentary bodies, but noted that there are revised Robert's Rules that have an application for small bodies. He noted that the revised Robert's Rules comports with the way most city councils run things, such as engaging in discussion prior to making a motion. He stated that the idea would be that if the City adopted something, that they choose something that would be easy to use. Councilmember Callies clarified that she just would not want these to be used against the Council but did feel it would be useful as guidance. She noted that she would like to see what they would be before she would say `yay' or `nay' on them. She reiterated that she was a bit concerned about getting overly formal. Councilmember Zerby stated that he would ask the question about why they should reinvent the wheel and noted that there are probably a lot of cities that already had by-laws that would be similar in size or scope and suggested that they City grab one of those to use as a template. He stated that he also felt that the League of Minnesota Cities may also have some guidance and explained that he did not think the City needed to write them from the ground up. Mayor Labadie stated that she felt this may be an appropriate topic for the annual retreat or at an individual work session meeting. Councilmember Callies stated that she would prefer to see it at a work session rather than just being one more thing added to the retreat. City Administrator Nevinski explained that he would imagine it will go through a few iterations that the Council would give feedback on them and would not be a one -and -done kind of situation. CITY OF SHOREWOOD WORK SESSION COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES OCTOBER 15, 2024 Page 5 of 5 Councilmember Maddy stated that it would be nice to have the roles and responsibilities of the Council clarified because some people think that they should be managing staff and he felt that there were more of a policy body and would only get involved in staffing if there was a problem. He stated that he also gets a lot of people coming to him with problems that should go to SeeClickFix and noted that he just wanted to make sure that the Council was all on the same page about what they should be doing. Councilmember Callies noted that they had a discussion about the role of administration in terms of hiring people versus the Council, so that would also be helpful to have. Councilmember Sanschagrin stated that something else that may be helpful would be to have an elaboration of how Council interacts with the Commissions and how they provide each other with feedback. Mayor Labadie stated that if they came up with a set of procedural guidelines, she felt that a similar, watered-down version could assist the Commissions, as well, in running their meetings. Councilmember Sanschagrin stated that he thought that the Planning Commission had actually adopted Robert's Rules of Order. City Attorney Shepherd stated that he believed in maybe both the Planning Commission and the Parks Commission. City Administrator Nevinski asked the Council to give feedback to staff if there were other specific examples of what they would like to see included in this document. He stated that they will plan to bring back something as just a first draft for the Council to discuss at a future meeting. Councilmember Sanschagrin suggested that they may also add some clarity around quorums and voting requirements. 4. ADJOURN Zerby moved, Sanschagrin seconded, Adjourning the City Council Work Session Meeting of October 15, 2024, at 6:42 P.M. Motion passed 5/0.