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I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. Yeah. Good evening everyone. We'll go ahead and get started. It is 515. Tonight we start out with a committee of the whole talking about our tourism marketing. So I'd like to invite up three individuals. First Tom Warner, we know him as the executive director of the Duluth Airport and also the chair of this selection committee. He'll be walking us through the RFP selection process and then also followed by Madden's CEO, Dan James, and Nick Qsick, the destination strategist for Madden, they'll also join to talk more about their organization. So we'll start by welcoming Tom Warner, good evening. Good evening, thank you. I'll just start with a quick summary of the RFP process. As you know, this was a request for proposal process. We selected a team, actually, city administration selected a team from not only city staff, but also volunteers throughout the community. So we had a evaluation team of six. Basically, our mandate was to have a fair and impartial process. And I'm happy to report that that's exactly what we did. The evaluation process, again, an overview consisted of a written proposal interview where we received submitted proposals. They were evaluated and that was also followed by presentation and interview process as a second round of scoring for the top scores. The written proposals were evaluated based on a scoring criteria and a numeric scoring system that was weighted. And then those scores were then tallied and decision made about how many firms to actually interview. The natural cutoff and in terms of the scores, certain firms in terms of those scores differentiated themselves and we ended up interviewing and receiving presentations from five firms for the second round. That round was also scored numerically on a weighted basis as well, both for the written or sorry the presentation portion where they were given each the same topic to present on, as well as the interview portion where there were seven preddetermined questions that we had for the five firms, they received those questions ahead of time. So they had plenty of time to prepare those responses. And that was then evaluated at that time. And again, those numeric scores were then tabulated and resulted in the committee's recommendation. So I'm happy to talk in greater detail about some of this, but that's the overview of the process. Thank you, Mr. Werner. We'll go ahead and open it up to council questions. Who has the first question on the RFP process? Seeing no questions at this point, we'll go ahead and welcome up Dan James and Nick Qsick from Madden. Thank you, Mr. Burner. Good evening, Council Chair. Nice to be able to spend some time with you all and get to introduce you a little bit to Madden. First, I want to say a big thank you to the City staff, the selection accounts, committee, and the folks that are out there, the professionalism that they've had and the process that they've had has been fantastic and very much appreciated what has happened and has gone through throughout this process here. For those of you that haven't had chance to, I don't know how much the proposals got shared or anything, but a little bit about us from Madden is that we have about 200 folks in the agency. And we do just destination marketing. And when we think about destination marketing, we think about what that means for travel and tourism and workforce attraction and economic development as being the core things that we focus on. And it's a very unique part of how we think about advertising, how we think about marketing to those audiences and gives help to build a differentiator of what we provide to our clients as an agency and that space. As we think about this, it has to go that we do this because it comes down to how we think about our foundational philosophy of what destination marketing is. And that's really about how do you build collective impact for communities. When we think about building collective impact for communities, it's two different parts. And if you can think of an infinity diagram, if you will, there's one part of it that is the consumer focus. And that's saying, if you have a good place to visit, then you probably have a good place to live. And if you have a good place to live, then you probably have a great place to work. Now that part of it really addresses us how we communicate to those residents and the stakeholders for traveling tourism. But the other side of it is how do we communicate to business stakeholders and other partners. And that's about having a good place to have a business, having strong innovation, having a strong education background, and then having the ability to attract new businesses to a community. And what we've seen is because of destination marketing helps to build new businesses and growth in a community, because the number one priority that most new businesses have is can I get the workforce for my business to move there. And as we think about that, we think about tourism and destination marketing as lead generation for the future of communities and what that means for travel and what for the future residents as well as the future businesses that sit there. And across our agency about 15% of our staff have come from a destination marketing organization. People like Nick who just came from Cook County and has been with St. Paul as well when he's brought up his background of that's where he comes from but we have the rest of the staff that has come from that background as well. And that's really important, especially as we think about where you're at as an organization for visit Duluth, where you're at as a city, about how you think about the future. And we see that experience being incredibly important because we have that background to draw on because you don't have a current DMO that has the consumer marketing side of it that's absent from sales. So as we think about that, that's a big part of why we see it an opportunity to continue to bring that knowledge and something that you get on day one as well as having massive amounts of data and research. So we have our fingertips through the partnerships that we have with the number of media vendors to understand the best places to target things. Now as we talk about stories, and I know there's been a little bit in the media talking about storytelling. One of the things that I'm really proud of is our organization is how much we've been able to unlock stories across the country. When we think about some work that we've done in Atlanta, unlocking black writers, black history through black travel writers that were previously overlooked and unseen, because even though they were part of the community and part of that, we're able to bring part of that view of the website as well as to bring part of that, that, to the view of the website as well as to really acknowledge what that is or unlocking Native American voices as we look across the West and work that we've done in Idaho or Arizona and those areas. Those are things that take close personal relationships and trust with those people to be able to tell their story and something I'm proud of our team to be able to, that they've been able to do. One of the other things that I'm proud of our team to be able to, that they've been able to do. One of the other things I know will likely be a question and piece because of this has been about conflict of interest. If we thought there was a conflict of interest in this space, we wouldn't pursue the work, right? And we don't need to be everywhere and ever to everyone. And the question is like, well, why isn't this a conflict of interest? Well, it really comes down to how destination marketing occurs. And when you think about the volume of media that somebody consumes, as well as the volume of travel and how consumers travel. First of all, consumers don't travel or make a single decision, like they're going to buy a TV. Oh, I bought a TV. I'm not buying something else for another TV for 10 years, right? 75% of people travel. And then a six out of 10 people travel more than once a year. And you have another half of that that travels over four times a year. So the number of times that you get to have an engagement with that audience is incredibly significant at the number of times that they're going to choose it. So when I think about travel, it's very abundant. It is not as scarce resources we think about it and how we market and engage them. Lastly, the other part of this is, just in terms of conflict of interest, is if you were to say, how do you hit that, of the argument, they're going to see thousands of ads or engagements across all different industries. When we think about the total amount of industry that the total travel environment has and what it affects a consumer and their share of voice, it's 3%. Now that includes Marriott and Bombboy or H or Hilton, airlines, all of those areas, all in that. So, three out of 100 ads that you see, if you think about it that way, is what we're talking about. And when we're talking about the audiences that we're looking at for you all, it's 10 million people just in general, you know, DMAs that are out there with a $1.8 million budget. That's not something that you can get that type of overwhelming piece where you're actively competing against your own industry. The markets don't work that way. It's an automated auction space and that spot. So some really important things to look at there. And I just want to close as we think about this, I'm happy to travel more, talk more about the travelers journey. But the relationship that we build with your travelers is a relationship that lasts 71 days. It's a relationship when we think about the first time that they start dreaming to start planning, start thinking about those things. Those things happen for the first month. And then you start thinking about, how do I get them into the middle of the funnel? That's the next month that they basically start planning and start thinking about, all right, I was thinking about all these other places. I had everywhere in the world that I could have been thinking, I just know I want to travel. And as we get lower in funnel, they're like, I'm choosing where I'm going. How I'm thinking about. Our goal is to remove that friction to line your dollars to be spat efficiently and effectively to at that space, especially, to get that traveler and that dessert to you. And as we think about how do we measure that, we're very transparent in all of our media reporting, how we are performing not just as an agency on an account level, but how the industry is reporting across all of our accounts. So you all can see that and always have access to that information and data to make sure that one client is not getting out performed or your dollars are performing at a way that is less than somebody else. So with that, I would gladly open it up for any questions from the council. Thank you, Mr. James, for that presentation. We will open it up for questions from the council. First in the queue is Councillor Mayo. Thank you, President Randolph. Thank you for the presentation. I have some questions for Madden and a few for Mr. Werner as well. I'll start with Madden since you're up here. As we're looking at local representation and having folks on the ground who are aware of what's going on in Duluth. Are you planning to have any local staffing that's actually based out of Duluth for a majority or all of the year? I think that's a great question. What we've seen and I'm going to address this in two different parts. We traditionally as part of our normal business practices look for the people that actively are in the community, whether it's thinking about content creators, whether it's thinking about photographers, videographers. Those, that is something that we are naturally look for. Because they have a better understanding from everything of somebody's background of story, all the way to the way light happens to bounce at a certain spot that they've seen and they've shot multiple times, right? All of those become things that we naturally want to look for somebody that has that expertise that's in the space. From a staffing as we think about full time equivalents, we don't know that we're going to have somebody here full time, right? We'll determine based on the strategy and how the engagement goes of what that looks like and how we get there, but I do know that we are going to be local and engaged locally in that space and working with local content producers for sure, and that's across the different spectrums of content. The second part I'll say is that everywhere that we started going, as an agency, when we started doing work, that's when we start getting new applicants. It's when we start seeing new people coming to join the team. And when I look across this last year, we hired people from new states that we haven't had before, and we have 200 and some folks that are across the US. And while we started in Arizona, and when I started 90% of them were in Tucson, we have more people that are east of the Mississippi today than we do that are west, right? So as we think about how we engage, being able to engage with your community oftentimes turns into new business and new opportunities as we continue growing engage. Thank you. So no guarantee that there will be local staffing that's kind of not as a full time staff, but definitely in terms of local creators and content producers most likely use this in kind of contractors as a full-time staff but definitely in terms of local creators and content producers most likely use this in kind of contractors. Sure. Thank you Councillor Mayo. Next the queue is Councillor Forzman. Thank you President Randolph. Thank you Mr. Jane for being here and for your interest in our community. I just had a couple questions. One is a follow-up so I'll start there to Councillor Mayors, and I think it's more for Mr. Montgomery. I'm curious because this was a topic a couple of years ago when we had a similar process play out. There was also a conversation about using local talent. Is there anything required in the contract in front of us that would? I saw some best faith efforts in the application materials from the agency, but are we requiring anything in a contract around that? President Randolph, the concert forceman, right now, the draft of the contract talks about best efforts, but we're in the process of modifying that contract to put, you know, will require use of local photojour photo journalism, et cetera. So we'll put a requirement in the contract. And we have discussed that with Madden as well. So that will be firmed up. It's just one sentence, basically, in the contract that will be in there. OK. And I was curious, Mr. Jane, too, as we've gone through a process with another agency in the new recent past. And I know there was some fairly significant onboarding expenses to just get up and running in a new community. Can you walk us through what that looks like for you? And if you would anticipate some of that budget being used for similar things in year one? I mean, the only thing that would be used there is if we do a new photography video art, the assets for campaign development, those would be normal. We're not expecting to do onboarding costs, right, in expenses. And those are things that we put into our rates. It is a flat rate fixed in a consistent manner. It's predictable. It's transparent. We don't try to do hourly, nickel, and diming. We don't do percentage based on total media that is out there, or we avoid it whenever we can. But the goal of that is to make sure that we have consistent transparent pricing, that nobody's surprised across budgets, and we're able to do the work, how we balance that is our responsibility, not where yours, where you have to vary budgets, or have cost other firms, and nobody wants to see. OK, and then my last question for now, I'm sure you're aware and we'll get into this later with the folks from Visit Duluth that there's a vision that this is not gonna be coming in front of the council anymore that the DMO is really gonna be leading this process again in the future and recognizing, you know, I'll just call the elephant in the room out. There's a lot of angst about a company from Arizona taking this contract. My question is if this ends up being a two-year deal, is this worth it to a company like you to come in recognizing the decision-making may look very different in a few years from now? It absolutely is. And our job in the next two years as a partner is to build that trust, to potentially have an opportunity to do something in the future. If you build it from the ground up and source it, that's a decision to make and a decision that we hopefully can show the value of why you want to work with an agency alongside that. I do believe you need to have, you should have a destination marketing organization that encompasses a total destination marketing strategy that looks across everything, breaking it up between leisure and sales and those is a challenging environment and one that isn't the best practice that we see across the industry. When we look across the industry, we work with some destination marketing organizations that are based inside of the city, some that are city employees, some that are nonprofits, and 501C6s and C3s, and some that have fully integrated economic development with the chamber and tourism to have all of them work together. So we have seen a number of them. The more integrated the strategy is of how you're talking to your consumers as well as the businesses. Helps to make your entire strategy more effective for what the community is doing. And one of our examples I'll talk about is both Lubbock or Visitampabay where we've been able to work across the branding, where that branding and messaging is consistent. And Lubbock is one where they've brought all them under the same umbrella. And it's helped improve sales. It's helped to bring back students to be residents. And it's helped to take past visitors and turn them into residents because of how we can work with marketing and how we can turn some of that digital exhaust from where people are and where people have visited and to messaging to come back and live here as well. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Forzman. Next is the queue, is Councillor Derr-Wockter. Thank you, President Randolph. I, some names came at us kind of quickly when I heard Dan and Nick mentioned. And then later you mentioned Nick is from Cook County. Is that the same Nick? Nick is from St. Paul. It used to be in Cook County as a, in the destination marketing organization. And was there for a couple of years. It's been in St. Paul for a couple of, for years and it's been had about 10 years. In destination marketing experience. And he would be the primary point of contact for the account and for the community here. If I may follow up. Yes, I'm how long did he live in Cook County? Two years, right? Two and a half. And where does he live currently? St. Paul. St. Paul, OK. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Derracher. Next, the QS Councillor Mail. Thank you, President Randolph. Just a couple of follow-ups. First, I noticed a lot of the websites for the different organizations you work with look similar in kind of template maybe or similar in style just from having prused them a little bit. I'm wondering if you can talk about how you'll make Duluth and visit Duluth unique amongst your portfolio. And then if you or Nick wants to talk about maybe the top three things you see in Duluth as far as what you want to market. Awesome. I might bring Nick up here to bring his experience and stuff to talk a little bit about the unique things to talk about here. But as we think about the destination marketing websites, there is a consistency about how people search and how people engage in the website. So to that piece of what you're going to see in headers is going to be generally consistent because people want to know initially things to do. They want to know where I can stay. They want to start getting into potential at 10 or 8s and those sort of things. So that top level header is the thing that they want to be able to see. And then as we see consumers make changes, we're able to make those changes at scale. So we're responsive to the consumer and how they're engaging and can make those changes across the board. They're not templated. Everything is in its own container. Everything's done independently and how they're done. So it's not like this global change process. But what it is is that we know that consumers want to see that header video and that header video will draw them into the next, where a slider that's working there. Heter videos today are much more effective than the sliders that were more effective five years ago. I mean, that's mostly a function of connectivity and bandwidth. But we also know that most of it's about 65-70% of your traffic is going to be on mobile, especially when they're in that inspiration and that dreaming phase that's coming into this space. Now as we think about differentiation, differentiation isn't the technology, differentiations, the story, right? Differentiation is why I want to be there because the reality is everybody has a brewery, everybody has a set of attractions, everybody has a museum, but not everybody has that paddle, not everybody has the story that is Link and Park, right? Those become things that you want to tell a story about why that's there, because now I see how there, why I'm gonna be there, and that there's more than one thing to do. And one of our core goals after we get to the curiosity stage or that consideration stage is when we're doing our remarketing efforts and the advertising efforts that are there. We're going to ping them and see that in multiple times. But if you're seeing the same thing, like that yellow sweater, maybe you picked out, looked at, or reciprocated Monday, that keeps following you across the internet everywhere that looks the same. Our goal is that you see something that is similar, that is dilute the icon, the brand, and then something new, right? And whether that is being part of seeing the aerial lift bridge, whether it's seeing the breweries, whether it's seeing the zoo, the aquarium, any of those things, those become things that are like, oh, there's more than one thing to do here. Then the one thing I started off when I looked at it. So that's largely how I do it. I don't want to steal your thunder if you want to add anything. Specifically. Not too much. Thank you, great job. Just to add to that, I think, obviously, we talked about in our pitch about the meeting side of this and you're kind of already talking about the holistic approach to this and just want to make sure that we know what an asset the deck is and just making sure that that doesn't get lost in the process working collaboratively to market this as not just a meeting's destination but the ultimate bleezure destination so that you come here for a meeting, hopefully maybe four after you stay and take advantage of everything. And then something else we talked about is just wanting to remind people that this is still the ultimate outdoor adventure hub. And it's been a little over a decade now since outside magazine named Duluth, the greatest city in America. And we just want to remind them that that's still true and the investments in that specific space have only grown since then. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor Mail. Next in the queue is Councillor importance of marketing for the deck. Do you have many similar venues in other cities that you are marketing for and can you give us some examples of success stories in drawing more traffic since you came on board? Yeah, we have a number of different meetings and conventions work that we do. This is a good example that we've done a tremendous amount of work for them to get major conventions and events at that space. We've done a number of things, even from website optimization to increase RFP submissions for different events that are out there. So as we're marketing into that audience, getting them to a response and a person to return their call in that first initial piece is something that we do a lot of as we see that just from an increasing volume of that. Now those are not always great marketing sales leads. We know this. The sales team is so incredibly important. And that's why one of the things that we look at when we think about trade shows and the big events like Connect or the association conferences is how do we put the best foot forward for those events to differentiate across everybody else in there. And that's by that's bringing your story to life. And it's about having something as custom and looks different than everything else that's by that's bringing your story to life and it's about having something as custom and looks different than everything else that's out there that they're going to see on the trade floor, how we do activations, some of that turns into budget discussions on that side, but that's an area that we think should be part of the entire tourism strategy and not just as part of a leisure strategy that that's in that space. Thank you, Councillor Dervocchio. I have a question Thank you, Councillor Duroctor. I have a question for you, Mr. Janes. You talked a little bit about lead generation for the future of community. And one way is that we know that you bring the leads into town and certainly it's up to Duluth and our businesses to turn that into sales. And one way we measure that is through the collection of the tourism tax, which is something that we keep a close eye on. At the end of this two-year contract with you, what are some things, what are some ways in which we know it was successful? How will we measure success at the end of this? And generally, I'd like to look at how you measure success against how the national average is doing. So the national average is seeing across the travel industry a 2% increase. We want to exceed whatever that increase is, right? If it's 5%, we want to exceed the 5% number. So we want to look at what the national standard is and then let's look at the regional standard of what it is or what your comp set is. Those are things that we would have a discussion of how we think about those and what the prioritization is. We have some clients that aren't focused on increasing the tourism tax that aren't focused on increasing the tourism tax and they're focused on sustainability and resident sentiment to distribute people in a more meaningful way and focus on that side. We have others that want to say, here's the increasing tourism taxes. So it's not always tourism taxes, and it's not always sales taxes. It's the goal of whatever the community is to use their destination marketing to achieve their objectives, not for it to exist purely as a revenue driver. Thank you. Next to the Q is Councillor Meil. Thank you, President Randolph. My question's actually for Mr. Warner if I might. I just had a question about some of the scoring and as you went through the process kind of if you could either share it on a level with the council or maybe somewhat publicly of how Matt and scored in different categories from my recollection back the last time we did this with Belmont partners, I think there was some sort of a presentation of how it kind of all came out as a result from that committee of how they ranked or how they scored the different organizations. So just kind of wondering so that we can have more information going into Monday's vote. Thank you, Councilor Mail. I'm pleased to talk about scoring in a generic sense. In other words, what we scored on the different categories, it won't be able to get into specifics, however. In the written portion, as I mentioned earlier, we had a numeric scoring system. And the areas that we scored on a 1 to 10 scale and then they were weighted by percentage. Agency location was the first category, made up 10% of the total in this round, background, the background of the agency, next category, qualifications, next category, relevant tourism, marketing experience, followed by proposed plan and budget allocations. And this really got into the heart of, and this was also the largest category by percentage in terms of scoring the nine scope areas that were in the request for proposals that were targeted for their responses, agency service costs, creative asset development, paid media reporting and website management, and followed by the last category in this round which was client onboarding which on boarding which also made up 10% of the total. So each evaluator on their own in a blind setting scored those numerically, those percentages were applied and that's how a total was derived. On the interview and presentation portion, similar methodology where the written proposal still made up 50% of the total. So this last round was 50%. And then this new round with interviews that was weighted at 25% of the total again done numerically one through 10 and presentation was also another 25% as well. And then the interview portion, as I said earlier, we had seven predetermined questions. They were shared with each firm that was selected for that round so that they had time to prepare and the presentation was on a single topic for them all to present and that was also weighted. Thank you. And just to clarify, the in-person portion of it was not blind. Is that correct? And the written portion, the first portion was blind? Is that correct? And the first portion was blind. So in the second portion we were all sitting as a panel however every evaluator did their own scoring engine then just submitted it for italic to staff. Okay thank you for the clarification. Thank you councilor Mayo. Yes go ahead Mr. Montgomery. Just to follow up on that we will be distributing out the scoring tomorrow morning We'll send it to council. I've been asking the team to pull that information together We didn't have time to get that done yet today, but we'll be submitting it to council and every it'll be public Distribution server and we'll see that scoring sometime tomorrow morning Thank you mr. Montgomery for that It is now 545 we do have 15 more minutes left. Do we have any further questions for Mr. Werner, Mr. Cusick or Mr. Jains? In the queue I have Councillor Forzmann. Thank you President Randolph. A couple of things. We've had some suggestions to counselors about where to go from here. And we got some information from the attorney's office today without asking you to repeat the entire email, which I won't do attorney layer. I would appreciate if you could give us some highlights of what you shared with us from a decision standpoint. Because as I understand it, the decisions are pretty limited. Present Randolph Councilor Forzman, I can give you a couple of principles that exist under the law. One is that the city's purchasing code found in chapter 41 of the Lutti code requires the city to use a competitive procurement process on the purchase of goods and services. And for contracts, the only exception would be professional services that are not capable of a competitive process. And here there was a competitive process used and there were multiple responses so that would. That would show that it is a competitive process, that would work in this situation. Under the case law in Minnesota, once an entity chooses a competitive process, they are required to complete that competitive process to its conclusion and to award the contract to the entity that meets the specifications under that contract. So in other words, just to follow up, the council's decision is really to vote yes on the successful applicant or no. And as I understand it, if the no was the successful vote, we would be open to liability because there was a competitive process from start to finish on the RFP. Without getting too deep in the analysis, I can tell you that under the case line, Minnesota, if the council does not follow the process that has been selected by the city, then that does open the city, the public body to potential litigation. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Forzman. Next to the queue is Councillor Derr-Wockter. Thank you, President Randolph. In learning that information, it's caused me to wonder why we're voting. And I know we have had over this course of the year several decisions that we basically vote on selecting certain proposals for the city. If I can just clarify, it's basically to select based, we're basically just voting on asking the question, was there an RFP? And if so, were just determining that the process was legal, that's all about really councilor? Councillor. Councillor. President Randolph, Councillor Derwockter. I cannot tell you how to vote on the contract. What I can tell you is that under the principles I've just explained to the council, if you find that the process had integrity and that the city followed the process that it shows, then you would follow that to its logical conclusion. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Derrouc, next on the Q's, Councillor Neff you. Thank you, President Randolph. I do have a question for a training leader. We received some communication from constituents that they felt as though the RFP process was flawed. And obviously, there's the decision tonight at council on how we feel about it. But if they are still feeling that there is a flaw that maybe we didn't see, is there a way for them to dispute? President Randolph, Councillor Neufu. I am not really able to answer that question because I can't advise the public about whether or not they would have a potential claim against the city, which would be my client. Yeah, I cannot speculate as to what a remedies a person may have under those circumstances I can tell you that a constituents opposition to the council's vote on this contract is not one of the criteria that the council is to consider in this case because the criteria for the council to consider are the process would be the process selected by the entity and then to follow that process through to its conclusion. Thank you. Thank you Councillor Neffi. Next on the Q is Councillor Mayo. Thank you, President Randolph, to follow up on that line of questioning. Does it change, I guess, where the city could be liable in any instance if the council itself as a voting body didn't have involvement with the selection process? Because being that we didn't get to, you know, see and screen the applicants or help select the process, would that change it at all? Since we are voting on something that we didn't get directly to initiate I guess. President Randolph, Councillor Mayo, under the case law, the awarding of the contract actually is part of the process and that actually completes the process. Thank you, Councillor Mayo. Next is Councillor Derr-Walker. Thank you, President Randolph. If I can kind of follow up on Councillor Neufue's question and maybe clarify Mayo's question a little bit, is the city, if this council votes yes, claiming that the process was legal but one of the applicants claims that the process was flawed. It's very difficult for us to determine whether the process was flawed or not, because we're not allowed to see the questions legally until after we vote. Does it put the city at risk for a lawsuit if they determine that if they really believe the process was flawed. President Randolph, Councillor Doerwachter, I believe City Administrator Montgomery is going to provide the council with some additional data tomorrow about the evaluation process. And I would in response to the rest of your question I would have to repeat my answer which is that You were compelled to follow the process that was chosen by the city so that's the process that was chosen and If a constituent believes that there is an error somewhere that but they have nothing that they brought forward to the council that is not the criteria that you can consider and Decide in whether or not to approve the contract. Thank you Councillor Dermott. We have time for one last question and that'll be with Councillor Forzmann. Thank you, President Randolph. I think I'm asking the same question but essentially there I understand there's no legal distinction between the city administration and the city council as far as who started this process because it is the city. Is that accurate, Miss Ler? President Render of Councilor Forza, that's correct. The public body is the city of Duluth, a municipal body which includes its employees, its departments, its officers, directors and its city council. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Forza. With that that we'll end this committee the whole with a thank you to Tom Warner leading the selection process. Dan Jain CEO of Madden and Nick Q. Sack destination strategist. We'll entertain more questions. This is item three tonight on our agenda. With that we will transfer now over to Finance Committee meeting at 6 o'clock. Councillor Forza when we'll leave that for us we'll take a short break I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next slide. Yeah. Yes. I'm going to have to go to the next one. I'm going to hold out a microphone. I'm going to hold out a microphone. I'm going to hold out a microphone. I'm going to hold out a microphone. I'm going to hold out a microphone. I'm going to hold out a microphone. I'm going to hold out a microphone. I'm going to hold out a microphone. I'm going to give it a three and a half. It'll be right here. Oh, I guess I got it. Now, where is it? Over. Seriously. I'm going to give it a three and a half. It's a three and a half. Yeah, right. So, the other side. Oh, that's a three and a half. I'm going to give it a three and a half. I'm sorry. and and and and We've got one minute and we'll get started. All right, Mr. Daniela Vía, we are so happy to see you, my friend. Welcome, visit Duluth and please take see you, my friend. Welcome, visit Duluth, and please take it away, my friend. Thank you very much. So nice to be here, chatting with you and be here in my annual presentation for our results. And what we're going to be doing next. So my presentation, our presentation tonight is going to be divided in two parts. One, I'm going to present to you what we have done and the success of the results that we had over this year, 2024, after that, the board member, Lynn Williams, will take over and she will be presenting the second part of the presentation, which is moving forward for us and for our organization. So, few numbers from our organization, what we have done this year. Just a friendly reminder, we are a team of three full-time staff and two part-time staff plus five part-time employees for the visitor center. Now we're talking about sales that we have done, where I will sell stuff. So we were able to be involved and manage and bring to the loot this year in 2024 108 event. That's 18 more than last year. So last year when night, this year, we're 108 event. Those one under the eight events account for more than 27,500 room nights in the city of the loot. Data and economical impact if you consider only the average daily price of the rooms of more than four and a half million dollars. Now we have done a study with UND and the lab of its school of business on the more holistic economical impact. We are not ready yet to present those numbers, but if I see the algorithm and what we come up with them, there will be more than four times. So the whole economical impact of those events will be more than 20 million dollars for the community. Another interesting KPI that we track is the number of leads that we send. What are the leads for us? The leads for us are the proposal, requests for proposal that event organizer meeting planners and sport organizer Give us and we are in contact with them. So we send them to our partners the hotels the venue the deck and we try to get them Then to book here in Duluth. So we were able to send 160 of those leads, which is pretty much the same number that we had last year. In 2022, we had 122. And considering 2019, the organization sent 138 of those leads. So we were able to like send almost like 50% more leads than 2019. Another important aspect of what we do, and I like calling it we plant as seeds, is always like looking forward what's coming next for the loot, because what we looked is what happened in 2024. This is what we already booked for the years to come. So we have 108 events that are already booked for the years to come. So we have 108 events that are already booked and confirmed and contracted that are coming in Duluth. 46% of those events are new for the city of Duluth, which is normal because we have lots of events state-wise or counterwise that rotates, that change locations. So we are always looking forward to a attract new business to come here in the city and in the community. 405 of those events are for next year, 2025, and four are already for 2026. We are already booking for 2028, 29 and 31. Those one at the events, they would be bringing in down more than 28,000 rooms again with economical impact based on room nights only of five million but that could be also if you use the study would be more than 20 million. How do we do that? How do we try to attract events meetings and sports tournament in Duluth? We attend the training show, we attended this DCNine train show, conferences, associations, state-wise, national-wise. We had more than 451 meetings with meeting planners, events planner, and sports tournament organizer. Visitor Center. What we also manage, we do manage the visitor center. This year we are already over 19,000 track visitors. We are on track to be breaking record number of 20,000 for the entire year of 2024, compared to only 18,000 in 2023. Well, also because we are on a constraint budget, so we reduced the hours of operation for summertime, so we only had six, no eight, and we employ five part-time employees. We do also sell merchandise and attraction tickets, so we were able to generate a little bit of revenue that doesn't doesn't hurt We also sold like 110 attraction ticket, which is zoo aquarium and Glanching And with that I'll be happy to turn it overLean Williams that will take it from here. Right by. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. Lynn Williams. I have been on the visit Duluth Board for five years, and I have spent 20 years working in marketing communications in a professional role. This is a time of transition for visit to Duluth, and we are poised and ready to do so. I am joined here by fellow board members Dan Hartman and our current board Chair Tammy Krohn in the audience today. I'm going to overview the transition plans and how visit Duluth is prepared to transition back to a DMO model. First and foremost, we are only a very short few weeks away from the end of our current marketing contract. Our priority right now is stability. It is incredibly important that we have a successful and a smooth transition in this time period. We need to maintain momentum and not lose energy on the current efforts that are out there. And very, very important, confidence in the marketplace. We need event planners to know and feel confident in booking their events here in Duluth. And quite frankly, a lot of chaos around this does not help. So we are very focused on stable, successful transition. And with that we would ask that you all look at that long-term vision. This brings the DMO back to having local oversight and back to visit to Luth. We're excited about that. And that does mean that we have a chance to look at how we evolve as an organization. So the number one thing that we're doing in hopes that we have a marketing contract here soon to move forward is we are conducting an executive search for this new DMO organization. We think it's important to cast a really wide net and have a national search so that we're bringing top talent to run our new DMO. That also includes a change to our governance structure. We think it's really important for the board to shift and reflect this larger oversight of the full DMO responsibilities. So that means the board needs to think holistically. We need to prioritize the overall good of the city as a whole. We need to be composed of a broad spectrum of professionals who are decision makers in their own work and who are strategic thinkers, who are open to new ideas. And we want to move forward with a board that avoids perocule influences in industry attachment. We know that we need to maintain connection to the industry, but we want to make sure that we have a very inclusive model and that we are supporting the industry while representing the community as a whole. We're also looking at, with Karen P. Young's leadership, who's not able to join us here tonight, she is looking at exploring the option of introducing some new industry associations. So think of a local chapter of hospitality, Minnesota, working on that locally. And what that would do is it provides a voice for the industry while allowing them to not use visit Duluth to always be that channel for their advocacy. Having a lodging association, something like hospitality, Minnesota means that visit Duluth can focus on our scope and our core mission and that the industry has a voice through these other associations. We would then be looking at new board member recruitment. Our plan would be to expand our board. We would suggest that we maintain our two ex officio seats with the city to maintain that connection to the city and then also expand our boards that we've got 11 overall members were currently nine and we would change the structure of that board and our suggestion is that we would have four of those seats be industry related and then seven of those seats being at large seats. We really really want to make sure that we represent the city as a whole in the wide spectrum of interest from across our community. We do need to have a conversation about budget and we'll follow up after this meeting with some additional more detailed information about the budget. I'll take one moment to talk about our current budget. The current contract is the Visitor's Center in this sales center. That budget has been $650,000 for the last three years and has not moved. We can't maintain that forever. So the board has passed a budget at that $650,000 level, and we've also passed a maybe more realistic budget at the $950,000 level. We will pass that on to you after the meeting. It's also important for us to consider the fact that taking over the responsibilities of the DMO comes with additional needs. And so we've been in conversation with city administration to talk about the fact that we would request an additional $200,000 to support the search and this new executive leadership position. So current budget for visit Duluth in the current contract is 650,000 and we are asking for at least another 200,000 to support the new executive position to oversee the DML. And then we need to go through the paperwork and the contracts and all of that stuff that has to happen before the end of the year. And then as we work to transition with our new leadership after the search is done, we get to take that exciting next step. We're going to go back to the working group recommendations and explore an option like a destination development plan. And that would then drive a lot of our future actions such as a new strategic plan, a new mission, and what our return on what our metrics are for return on investment. And with that we are available for any questions. All right and we just got one. First Councillor up is Councillor Derr-Walker. Good Chair, forceman. Is the goal is to find create this DMO in two years? Is it possible? That to me being new to this that seems like a long period of time is there a chance it could be done earlier than two years and if that were to occur would you be legally bound to this two years? Yeah Councillor Forzman and Councillor Joakter, we're not gonna take two years to rebuild the DML. We're actually in the process of reviewing proposals from search firms, because we want to start that search with the goal of getting that position description posted as soon as possible. We would really like that new leader to be with us in the next few months. And that's when we'll explore some of those other things like the destination development plan. But we as a board are looking to here in the next month change our structure, do new board member recruitment and be ready early on in 2025. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Gerrard-Walker. We get Councillor Meil. I'm next. Thank you, Chair Forstman. Thank you for the presentation. Mr. May I will move back to the demo model. I think that's really important to have that local focus. One of the things of the past visit to Luthmodel before we had a contract with Belmont and Lawrence and Schiller was that many folks in the community saw that that board was dysfunctional and didn't have a lot of representation maybe from across industries and I appreciate you talking about kind of how you want to structure it with other people outside the industry. Can you talk about how you intend to make sure that it won't go back to what it was before and that it won't be controlled maybe by one group of people or one set of interests maybe? Councillor Forrestment and Councillor Maynard, thanks for the question. Absolutely. We have no interest in going back to a pay for play model. I've been on the board before the transition, through that transition, and still on the board. So I've seen that time period. We've changed the bylaws of the board to reflect a more inclusive model. We've changed our membership model to make sure that it's more inclusive and the idea with having the board be 11 members with seven of which are at large is in order to represent the city of the whole. And that's also why we're exploring those industry associations. So we still make sure the industry has voice but that they're not having visit Duluth be the platform for that. Does that answer your question? Yeah, fantastic. So taking some of it and branching it outside of visit to lose so that it can grow in different ways. Exactly. Great. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor Mell. Next up is President Randolph. Thank you so much, Chair Forzman. Thank you so much for the presentation. What I'm asking is probably a question more for Mr. Montgomery. I have our tourism budget in front of me and I'm looking at we've got budgeted 1.8 million for the tourism marketing firm and then we have the tourism advance support general fund of 1.4 million. Mr Montgomery can you tell us how these numbers tie into our discussion right now as far as how we're going to pay for not only our new marketing agency but our new DMO model. President Randolph if you look to the bottom, you see there is the 650,000 for visit to the booth towards the bottom of the listing. The 1.8 is the amount set aside for the marketing contract. What was the other number you were referring to? Yes, and then the one right above the tourism marketing firm, the tourism events support general fund of 1.4828. Yes, let me, I can answer that, but I'd like Jen Carlson to address that as to the purpose of that 1.482 number. Thank you. Chair Foresman, President Randolph, the $1.42 million transfer to the general fund is reimbursing the city general fund for services provided to tourism related areas. So if you read the tourism resolution, it does a pretty good job of listing all of the services that are provided. I can tell you that our police department alone spend, you know, that's about half of what they spend in services that they provide for tourism. So we do not take an allocation for everything that we provide. That is a small portion that does go to the general fund that is built into the general fund budgets that you all saw in September. Thank you, and just as a follow up. So there is no money budgeted for the DMO plan that's just being presented to us by Ms. Williams. Chair Farsman, Councillor or President Randolph, that is correct. There's $650,000 built into that budget to be allocated to visit to Lotha. Thank you. As a follow-up, Mr. Montgomery, I'm gonna jump out of the quick question here. Is that the plan or I know the City Administration's on board with the DMO model? I get the sense administration is on board with the DMO model I get the sense of Council is on board with the DMO model But to successfully transition back to that are do we need to re look at that or what's your thoughts on it? Chair for us, man This has been an extremely tight and difficult piece of the puzzle, the whole tourism piece. We haven't found the additional dollars. We still need to be in conversations about how this is going to play out with visit to loooth. We haven't, we've had some of those conversations we haven't had the rest. We haven't found a bucket yet. We're still looking. But we haven't found an answer to this point. We fully support this approach. We fully support the DMO professionalizing the way I think about it is professionalizing its board and then expanding its capabilities. We're fully on board with that. We just haven't sorted out the dollars yet. Okay. Thank you. Councillor Dierwactor. So for some reason I was under the impression that the goal was to approve the Arizona marketing firm for two years and then after that move to the DMO and I'm pleased to see that the goal is to move to the DMO sooner. So knowing that the contract with the Arizona farm would be two years, can you talk about and I apologize if you already talked about it and I'm somehow missed it but can you talk about how the two will work together and make each other stronger? Absolutely. Councillor Derebrock and I can ask Daniela to come up if he has any other comments on this. The previous relationship with Belmont has been productive and we've been able to have a relationship with them and to have regular communication in contacts and reporting out with them. There's these regular industry lunchens where we participate with them as long with the deck. So I think that they've formed a pretty strong relationship there. I also want to note that I don't want to get ahead of the search and the fact that we would be bringing a new leader who would definitely take a lead role in overseeing that relationship as well as whatever that direction is after this two-year contract in determining how we move forward. Do you want to speak it out to the partnership? Sure. It needs to be noted that the contract that was signed with Bell Mountain Lawson's shield was made actually was only focusing on the laser side, so no business convention support. So when we were talking with them, you know, they had a small allocation for us, but was always like, asking, can you please do this one for us? Can you work more allocation for us, but was always like asking can you please do this one for us and you work on this for us It was not really I'm gonna say No more genius and like we were not moving forward together and what I heard from then earlier From from add-ons media It's like they would like to have this approach where actually we go hand in hand So business sports convention and laser will be driven by this new market in approach. That's what we need now. And on top of that, if you consider the development of the organization into the destination management, that will involve so much more, not just tourism and business, but also developing the destination at all. You know, so the old community attracting people, you know, resident pretty much everything that says. So it goes above and beyond what we are currently. Good. Councilor Mell. Thank you, Chair Forceman. Not to worst case scenario this, but knowing that the money is still trying to be allocated here if the 200,000 for the search and everything visit Duluth needs to do doesn't show up. Are you still able to move forward with your process as planned? Well, I will express concern that you're asking this organization to take over the DMO model with no additional funding and resources. I just want to be clear about that. I think that is not reasonable to expect an organization to transition back to a DMO model oversee a $1.8 million marketing contract and not be given any additional resources. So I implore the city and the city council to please support some additional funding to make the DMO model successful. Having said that, our goal is to make the DMO models successful. Having said that, our goal is to make this work and visit to go with very, very much wants to make sure that this does work. So we'll do our best to work within the resources that we're provided. Thank you. I appreciate that. And as a follow-up, if I may, just for Mr. Mount Gumrie, are we planning as a city eventually then to fold the dollar amount of that marketing contract into a visit to Luth like one allocation so that the board would then decide if they want to contract out for services for marketing. They have that lump sum to determine what they want to do with. Chair Forrestman, Councillor Mayo, yeah, that's the approach and that's the discussions we've been in is that we would once fully established we would Mayo, yeah, that's the approach and that's the discussions we've been in is that we would once fully established we would say, okay, here's the transition, here's the dollars. You guys figure out if it's marketing, if it's operations, if it's direct local things, UDMO, you make that call and not to see. Here's the allocation. 1.8, 650, whatever those numbers are, 2.4, 2.5 million dollars, you figure it out. Okay, so eventually this will be a little bit clearer in the future, but I totally understand the concern at present. So thank you. Thank you, Councilor Mail, President Randolph. Thank you so much, Chair Forzman. Just in case I missed it. In addition to the 650,000, what are you looking for to fill the gap to manage this DMO correctly, including the search? Around $200,000 additional dollars for the DMO model. 200,000 thank you. And as I follow up to Mr. Montgomery, in good faith are we saying yes? We're going to find that It's not in tourism. It's somewhere, but are we saying yes? We are saying we will work to find it where we can I mean I can't if it doesn't exist it doesn't exist but We will work to try to find that and figure out the best way to fund that and the best way to get it done But we have further conversations we have to have around that before I just say yes, I can provide that $200,000. Thank you. Thank you, President Randolph. We are open right now. There are other questions. Councillor Derr-Walker. Thank you, Chair enforcement. I believe this would be pass. I'm not sure who would answer this question. I'm wondering if we could get a little history on the previous DMO model and how much money visit Duluth used to have because my understanding if you could clarify, visit Duluth used to have because my understanding if you could clarify Visit Duluth used to have a budget and then there was no extra 1.8 million or certain entity that went to another marketing firm Correct so all of that money used to be within visit Duluth's budget is that correct? I don't know what the I don't know what the exact budget amount was to visit to the list but we did get the full allocation and we had a lot of internal staff to do that creative and we built up more of an internal model and that's not to say that we wouldn't do that again or continue with an agency model or it could be a hybrid. I guess my question is was that amount pretty similar to this 650,000 plus 200,000. Well, the 200,000 would be a one-time thing, but 650,000 plus 1.8 is that maybe give or take some inflation, is that? Chair Forrestman, Councillor Dillarctor, I mean, I can't speak to anything in the last five and a half, five, six years. I don't know if Director Carlson has better clarification on that. I'm getting pretty long of two years back. Chair Farsman, Councillor Derr-Lockter, visit Duluth used to get two million dollars and that was one contract for the DMO marketing, everything. So in years 2018 to 2020, they received $2 million, 2021, they received one and a half million. And then in 2022 is when we move to a marketing firm. That's amazing that you pulled that up so fast. Thank you. A question that I think helps tie these things together and we were chatting earlier, a couple of counselors. So contrasting the RFP and the requirements around the legal aspect of that with just being able to contract with visit Duluth every year without competition seemingly, how do those two things square? And if that can't be answered today, that's okay, but I think that would be helpful for us to understand. Chair Forceman, I'll have attorney there. Look into that and we can get something to you tomorrow before Monday. Okay, that's great. That wasn't my question. That was Councillor Dirac, just question earlier, but I think it's relevant. Last call, Councillors. I think we technically have to sit here until 6.45, because that was the post at agenda time. So if you got a question, ask it. Or we can let people go too. No. Okay. We did get a takeer. All right, Councillor Deere, Director. I have a question, but maybe is it possible to ask a question to Mr. Jane who's still in the room? I mean, in this amount of time, or is that, has that gone? I would defer to our council president's on. Thank you, Chair. Of course, we'll have time during its item three on our agenda, so we'll go ahead and thank you. Thank you. Any closing comments from the folks that visit the lift? I guess like we just want to thank you for your time and attention tonight. We will follow up with some of those more concrete budget numbers so you can see the breakdown. And I would just reinforce again that time is of the essence and it's really important that this be a smooth transition because that benefits to the. And we did get a Councillor who would pit his button after the Councillor male. Thank you, Chair. I actually think about the structure. I know you talked about the board structure, but can you talk a little bit more organizationally so there will be a new director position and Daniela's position will still exist in some capacity? Is that my understanding is that correct? Our hope will be to conduct a national search and open that up to anybody who is interested in applying. And then I will say that I don't want to get ahead of that new leader being able to make some decisions on the structure and the staffing model as well as the budget allocation to visit to lose. I don't know how that will go and I don't want to get ahead of that leader in their vision, so I don't have a concrete answer for you, but it is not our intent right now to make any changes to the staffing model. Okay. And that leader will ultimately be selected by the new board, correct? We have a search committee right now that includes three of our current board members and two community members. Great. So we are wanting to get running on this. Awesome. Thank you. All right. Oh, last question, Councillor Dorewactor. We Councillor Director. We do. I just want to clarify that this new person will be required to move to Duluth and become a Duluthian. Is that correct? That is 100% the expectation. Yes. Thank you. All right. We will call the finance committee meeting to a close. Thank you for All right. We will call the Finance Committee meeting to a close. Thank you for being here. And I think we're convening at 6.45. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. 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I'm going to go back to the chair. I'm going to go back to the chair. I'm going to go back to the chair. I'm going to go back to the chair. I'm going to go back to the chair. I'm going to go back to the chair. Cheers. I'm sorry. We'll be less than. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I have a couple announcements just some housekeeping items to lead us off with. First of all tonight, this one's related to item 16 and 17 on our agenda. On Monday, we will hear a planning commission appeal for a special use permit at 809 West Forest Street. Because all the questions must be public, we're going to hold questions on item 16 and 17 until Monday at 615 when planning commission chair nephew presides over that appeal process. Okay? And then the second announcement is as we move to our final meeting of the year, we will be calling for nominations for Council President and Council Vice President. Now we're governed by this process is governed under two areas. One is the City Charter Section 6 of our and our Council Standing Rules. And Section 6 of our and our Council standing rules. And Section 6 of our City Charter defines legislative powers and election of officers and we must vote for an officer on the first official meeting of the year. And in this case, it's Monday, January 13th and we will begin that council meeting at 5 o'clock because immediately after that, it sounds like the mayor will be having a state of the city address. Is that correct, Mr. Montgomery? We've got that on January 13th immediately after our council meeting at five. President Randolph, that is correct. Thank you so much. So because of that, and also with Standing Rule Three, that governs on when we take nominations, that reads, we take nominations no later than the last meeting of the year which is December 16th. Now given those rules we can open up and close nominations and we're going to do that this Monday December 9th and the reason we're doing it before the last meeting which is the 16th is if we have more than one position for any of our openings, we have to create a resolution about that voting process. In order to do that, we need time to turn that for the 16th. So to be clear, we will be opening and closing nominations for both President and Vice Presidents of the Council this Monday, December 9th at the end of the council meeting. Do we have any questions on that process? Councilor Forzman. No, I'm just in the queue. All right sounds good. Councillor Derroctor. Thank you, President Render. I'm just curious can somebody who has previously served as president or vice president be nominated for those same roles? Yes, there's no limitations on who can be nominated. Okay, thank you. Any other questions on that process? All right, sounds good. We'll dig right into the agenda tonight. We're starting off with finance, committee, Councillor Forzmann. All right, thank you, President Randolph. Resolution 918, distributing the estimated 2025 hotel motel and food and beverage tourism taxes. Resolution 925, author the estimated 2025 hotel motel and food and food tourism taxes. Resolution 925 authorizing a two-year agreement 2025 to 2026 professional services agreement with madden media for tourism marketing services. Resolution 946, approving capital improvement plan and stating intent to issue general obligation capital improvement bonds under Minnesota statute section 475.521 resolution 947 Resolution of the city of Duluth Minnesota stating the intent to issue general obligation capital equipment notes series 2025 in the approximate amount of 3,900,000 dollars and approving the capital equipment list associated with the notes. Resolution 953, approving the fiscal year January 1st, 2025 to December 31st, 2025, Operation Budget of the Duluth Transit Authority. Resolution 954 approving the fiscal year January 1st, 2025 to December 31st, 2025, budgets of the Duluth Economic Development Authority. Resolution 955, approving the fiscal year, January 1st, 2025 to December 31st, 2025, Operation Budget of the Duluth Airport Authority. Resolution 956, establishing annual bonding plan for 2025, President Randolph, just onequest just based on the amount of public comment. I would assume we are gonna get on Monday. I will poll 925 from the consent agenda. Thank you. Thank you. Clerk Denham will go ahead and pull item three, resolution 925 off of consent. Thank you for that. Any questions now? Opening it up for questions on items two through 12. Councillor Mayo. Thank you, that any questions now opening up for questions on items two through 12 Councilor Mayo Thank you President Randolph due to my Employment with Glenn she and I'm going to be abstaining from item two resolution 918 for the tourism taxes So if we can pull that one as well so that I can abstain and believe that's past practice Excellent. Thank you so much, Councillor Mayo clerk denim will go ahead and pull item two resolution 918 from consent We'll pause there any final questions on items two through 12 tonight. Councillor Derroctor. Thank you, President Randolph. I have a question on item two. I am curious about the definition of operational contingency. The very last one. Thank you, President Randor, Councillor Jervoctor. Operational contingency is something that we include in the tourism tax budget because often we have not negotiated contracts. And so there are a few contracts that we have not negotiated. And if they come in over, we won't have any money to pay the contract and we're going to have to, we would have to like start looking in the general fund or other places. And so we try to build in not very much, but just a little bit in case things come up throughout the year. We would like to build in more, but we try to make that as low as we can. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Dermakter. Next, thank you, Councillor Owl. Thank you, Councillor. I have a question regarding the Bayfront operations. I know that we had approved of a contract in the beginning of the year with North Winterfell regarding the contract. I was wondering if we were going to get an update on that contract. Is that contract going to be put up for an RFP? My understanding was before in the beginning of the year there was no RFP for that selection process because of the timing and then we were told that it would potentially come up for an RFP. So I'm just curious where it was and was wondering if we're going to get because previously it was under with the deck and now since it's another entity doing the operations, are we going to receive some report? President Randolph, control wall. We did do an RFP. We are in the process of evaluating that RFP. And once we get through that process, that will come before council. That sounds great. And just to follow up, the RFP will be for the same amount, the operations of 85,000 as well President Randolph council wall we have It will likely be in that range, but we left it open as part of the RFP process to see what people thought about it And what happens if that RFP is over the 85,000. We have included in the moment. It will be near that $85,000. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you, Councillor Elne. Next in the queue is Councillor Kennedy. Thank you, President Randolph. I have a question regarding resolution 954. We'll leave it to the data budget that we're going to be voting on. So the question would be, Mr. McIntyre, the question is on, there's a line item, $46.40, that talks about $300,000 for the potential sale of Leicester Park. Could I get just a little more background on that? I know that we're gonna have a deed of meeting on Monday that I won't be able to attend. Councilor Randolph, President Randolph-Councirc Kennedy, yes. So the Leicester Park item remains in alignment with the option agreement that we do have an effect until end of 2025. So the reason that you see that amount slated for 2025 is an in anticipation of that option agreement moving forward. So no new movements since our last data meeting where you all approved the data budget. So that just continues to be a placeholder with that option agreement still in place. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Kennedy. Next, thank you, Councillor Derr-Wocker. Thank you, President Randolph. I have another question about item 2. I think this is a question for Jen Carlson. Would it be possible to get information on the budget for this topic from last year to compare this year's numbers to last year's? And also would you be willing to comment on highlights of major changes that we can expect. President Randolph-Counciler, Dr. Octor, if you look at it, Zibadeh, it has the 2024, so this year's allocations. And then requested 2025 and proposed 2025. So you can see the only major changes are the aerial lift bridge harbor plaza and And then there were some Decreases Throughout Okay, thank you. Thanks for putting it. I didn't catch that incident. Yeah, you're welcome Thank you council director next to the Q's councilor owl you president render I'm just to follow back up on my Winterfell questions, just if possible, I would just like to see, I know in the past in the beginning when we approved of that contract, I had mentioned I would like to just see an update if they could give an update on what the progress was this past year. I'm just curious to see how things have moved since we moved from having it be managed by more of a public entity at the deck and now more of a private entity with Winterfell. I'm just wanting to see what that comparison looks like and if that is a good investment for our city moving forward. So if there could be an update that would be great. Thank you so much. Thank you, Councillor Owne. Next to the Q is Councillor Forzman. Thank you, President Randolph. Maybe just a brief reminder for us. I think this came up in some public conversation we've had. But my understanding is we're spending quite a bit of our tourism tax reserves in this plan and that, unless we get a solution for the lift bridge this is going to look different next year as in we're not going to have as much unrestricted funds available so maybe director Carlson you could or Mr. Montgomery whoever wants to comment could could do so. President Randolph Councillor Forzman yes we are using 1.136 million dollars of general fund reserves or I mean, tourism tax fund balance in this proposed allocations. 800,000 of that is for a capital proportion of the aerial bridge, which then decreases the amount that we will need for debt service for the next many years to fund that project. The city currently has a $10 million unfunded portion of that project. And so under this proposal, we would fund about half of that through tourism and the other half we're working on other funds. Also it is correct that allocation or the tourism tax budget will look different in future years especially with discretionary funding because of increased debt service for Harbor Plaza, the aerial lift bridge and spirit mountains project will come on as well. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Forzman. Next in the queue is Councillor Swanson. Thank you, President Randorf. My question is also on the tourism tax. If we could just get a refresher, I think it was shared, but how the proposed allocation was put forward for the amounts to the different entities. President Randolph, Councillor Swenson. So this year we focused on city commitments that we already under contract for city infrastructure needs such as the area lift bridge, entities that were requesting capital investments. We took a look at those events that were being proposed to bring more visitors to Duluth. And so those were the main categories that we looked at when evaluating the proposals? President Randolph, I can just add to that briefly. And as Director Carlson mentioned, entities using looking at capital investments because of what the future is looking like with the fund, with commitments to capital and a much less potential amount available for discretionary spending. We didn't want to look at things where they were proposing to increase staff or increase operating costs. That would then be a year over year over year continuing issue, where we just didn't know if we were going to have sufficient ongoing discretionary funds to pay for that sort of thing. But one time, capital shots in a year when we can do it, we felt we were able to handle. Thank you. Thank you, Councilist Wands. The next is a councilor, Dr. Walker. You, President Randolph. And thank you, Councilor Forzman, earlier if you're bringing up this question, but maybe if I could just ask it a little more specifically about item number three and RFP process for the marketing firm when we chose, when the council in City chose the current marketing firm was there was an RFP done is my understanding and the council when they voted they basically had the same criteria as far as just determining whether or not the legal process was followed through in their vote. And then before that, when it was visit Duluth only, each year, what was the process in selecting their budget? Was there, was my assumption, was there an R.P. for anything involved with visit Duluth as just the D.M.O.? President Randolph, Councillor Dervocchio, I'm going to have to go look back into the history on how that process worked and what the rationale was for funding in DMO, which is more akin to an authority. It's not exactly an authority, but there's a closer relationship is between the city and the organization. And we will get an answer to that question to you into the council. Thank you. And if I could follow up, I'm just curious in the history of things knowing, curious if there was an entity that then established that statute that requires the RFP in that process. And the legal implications of how the city council votes only on not the outcome of the selection, but the when was the statute created? I mean, because when it was just the DMO, just based at Duluth, they didn't really need the statute, I guess. President Randolph, concerted director again, I'll have to get that clarification because the DMO is a very different animal than a media marketing firm that you're going through an RFP process for. So I'll have to get to that clarification as to how it worked previously and what the rationale is for funding a DMO from city operations or tourism tax. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Duhuctor. Next question comes from Councillor Mail. You present, Randolph, just a quick follow-up on the board structure. As visit Duluth moves forward, I'm wondering if we can have some sort of follow-up email maybe about what the statute says as far as city representation on the visit Duluth board. If that exists in statute, I know they talked about two ex officio members on the board, but just kind of curious what that looks like moving forward with the city, providing funding, but also our involvement in kind of the direction of that from a board perspective. So I don't know, Mr. Montgomery, if that's something you'd be able to look into, some simultaneous. Yeah, President Randolph, Councilor Mayo, I will do that. I know that is a separate 501 type organization, so it's likely going to be just their by-laws. Sure. But I will get you any clarification as it relates to any overriding statutory requirement. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Mayo. Any final questions on items two through 12 before we move on? 2-12. Questions 2-12. Oh, I'm sorry, 2-9. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, 3-9. Thank you. Okay. Seeing none, we'll move on. We are now on purchasing and licensing. Councillor Derracher. Thank you, President Randolph. Item number 10, resolution 934, approving the issuance of an on sale intoxicating liquor license to Graceland Ballroom by Blackwoods LLC. Item number 11, resolution 935, approving the issuance of a micro distillery cocktail room license and micro distillery off sale license to Duluth whiskey project LLC Thank you Councillor Derr-Walker We'll pause there for any questions on items 10 through 12. There's there's one more. Oh good Item number 12 Resolution 936 approving the issuance of an on sale intoxicating liquor license to Duluth, ES Hotel Associates LLC. Thank you, Councillor Derwachter. Now we're ready. Questions on items 10 through 12. Sorry to rush you. Seeing none, we are now on personnel. This is Vice President Tumonic. On behalf of Vice President Tumonic, I'll read those in. Resolution 945 is a resolution of proving proposed amendments to the specifications for the existing civil service classification of fire inspector. And item 14, resolution 975 is a resolution electing member to the Board of Managers of the Duluth North Shore Sanitary District, pursuant to Minnesota Statute Section 442A, 14 sub division seven. I'll pause there, questions on 13 and 14. Councillor Swanson. Thank you, President Randolph. On number 14, just curious what the city's rule is in the board for the North Shore sanitary district. President Randolph, Councillor Swanson. This organization was established years and years and years ago for the far north-eastern end of the sanitary system. So think up towards McQuade Road and up that way and then further beyond extending beyond the city boundary. And this was essentially a rate setting board for customers on that tail end of the WLSSD system. We were required, the board was set up where the city was to identify a citizen that was a Duluth resident to serve on the board for four-year terms. The city itself has no involvement in that board or its operations and it also in that same legislation indicated that the council had to approve such participation. So it is essentially a rate setting body for that end of the Duluth sanitary system on that far eastern northeastern corner and we have no public works has no active involvement in that the city has no active involvement in that other than putting someone on the floor. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Swanson. Any final questions on items 13 and 14 before we move on? Seeing none, we are now on planning and economic development, Councillor Neff you. President Randolph, item 15, resolution 969, authorizing the proper city officials to enter into a joint powers agreement with and accept a total amount not to exceed $33,571.20 since from the state of Minnesota, acting through its Department of Employment and Economic Development to provide weekly required reception and career lab duties for vocational rehabilitation for the period of January 1, 2025 through September 30th, 2025. Number 16, resolution 973, reversing the planning commission's decision to deny an interim use permit for a vacation dwelling unit at 809 West Forestry, item 17, resolution 974, resolution affirming the planning commission's decision to deny an interim use permit for a vacation dwelling unit at 809 West Forestry. Thank you, Councillor Neff you. And on this one, we're only entertaining questions on item 15. We'll pause for those. Councillor Forzman. Just a point of order, President Randolph, make sure we'll poll 16 and 17 since we can't approve both too. Thank you. Clerk, that I will keep pulling those two. Any final questions? Seeing none, we'll move on. We're on intergovernmental relations this is Councillor Kennedy. Thank you President Randolph on item 18 resolution 880 authorizing a member and of a understanding with St. Louis County for the design and construction of improvements to the Duluth Civic Center Plaza. Thank you Councillor Kennedy. Any questions on that item? Seeing none we'll move on. Public works and utilities, Councillor Meil. Thank you, President Randolph. Item 19, Resolution 872 is approving a state project within the municipal corporate limits to replace the Blotnik Bridge. Item 20, Resolution 942, is authorizing annual renewals to an agreement with Integraf Corporation Hexagons Assessment Lifecycle Intelligence Division, Hexagon for software maintenance support services for an annual estimated amount of $90,000. And if I may, present a random, I'm just wondering if we can pull 19 to vote on separately just because it's a really big project we'll be giving municipal consent to at the Blotting Bridge. Thank you. Click there. We'll go ahead and pull that from consent. Any questions on items 19 or 20? Present on round. Yes. We do have here and chambers somebody from Mindot. If there are any questions generally, is available in here to answer any questions, Councillors may have. We'll certainly invite them up. Yes. Councillor Mayoung, did you have a question? Sure. I can just to give you maybe something to summarize what the city will be taking over or some of the easements that will be happening with this project. Can you kind of summarize what we'll be trading with MinDOT as far as city ownership and maybe MinDOT ownership as well as what kind of general improvements we can see on the bridge once it's rebuilt. I know the alignment's going to be the same and maybe a bike and pedestrian path. And we'll go ahead and have you start with your name and your position. I'm in that. John Kershak. I work with Min. District one out of Duluth on the major projects team as the project manager. Thank you. Some of the improvements will include a shared use path on the east or bridge and it'll end at Goodwill, Nelson I believe, Street that is and then there will be a spur trail right by the port building down towards the boat landing. As far as the right of way there's some street easements I believe out on the east side towards the port that will become right away permanent right away for the project. Great and just to summarize by giving municipal consent the cities basically okay with moving forward is the plan that's been signed and minor changes can still happen but for the most part that's going to move forward as kind of presented. Is that correct? That is correct, yes. This project is using design build as delivery method, so the DOT would take it to about a 30 percent design. Then we'd select a design team along with the contractor To complete the project, but we'd give them the goal posts or the box to stay within so fantastic Thank you. Yeah, any further questions on item 19 President Randolph. Yes, go ahead if I ask questions. Yes, please So when you come down when you're coming up north and you're coming down 35, you hit the hill and that whole beautiful Duluth Vista opens up. It's not the lift bridge that you see when you first come down the hill. It's the black neck. And so that is really the optical welcome to everybody coming down the hill. It has been not thinking about that in terms of aesthetic or lighting or things of that sort in their design? Is that a key part of the design process? There's two main span right now, bridge types that are moving forward. Similar to one of them is similar to the bond bridge, you know, the tight arch like it is today. And then the other one is the cable, this would be a cable stay. It looks kind of like the towers with the sailboat looking. But as far as the aesthetics, the design, I mean, no matter what bridge type type it's going to be aesthetically pleasing. Yeah. The aesthetic lighting is, I know all discussions are happening. I don't know where that's at. Thank you. Next question comes from Councillor Kennedy. Thank you, President Randolph. Could you just tell me more about the maintenance on the shared use path on the bridge and how much use do you think that's really going to get? The use is hard to predict. We've looked all around the upper Midwest and the country had a head and bike company do a study on it. It's hard to predict since it's not there now. But it's the closest connection point, you know, the bonds way out west, and it's a six foot shared sidewalk, basically not even a shared use path. The maintenance is not worked out yet in the working with Jim and his and Jim to fill the Williams on that I'm thinking the DOT is gonna end up maintaining it trail Thank you with the city be responsible for maintaining any of that bridge and I'm guessing if we're going entering into an agreement that That's gonna be shared between Wisconsin and Duluth. We'll have some responsibility. Have we done any sort of calculations on what that might cost and how we would pay for it? And I don't know if that's a question for you, sir. Might be a question for this city staff. Well, there were some rough calculations for the city if it was snow removal and routine maintenance, like 12, 13,000 a year. But I know the DOT is trying to take that over and do it. I don't know where that's going to end up yet. President Randolph? Yes, go ahead. President Randolph? Yes, go ahead. President Randolph, Councilor Kennedy, that shared use path was the only piece that would have had either superior Duluth maintenance on it. I mean, this is an interstate bridge. This is Min dot and Wist dots, although Wist dot might be doing the other bridge. But it's within either Wistout or Mindout's responsibility to do all the maintenance, all that sort of stuff. It was just to be the shared use path. And I think we're, while it's not been finalized, I think we are leaning towards and Mindout is leaning towards. They will take on that responsibility as well. Thank you, Councillor Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Montgomery. Next question comes from Councillor Durer. Thank you, Mr. Montgomery for asking the question about the aesthetics of the bridge. That is very true. It's very visible when you come down the hill. And my question is, I've recently learned that the Public's Arts Commission often is summoned to get involved in other cities, right at the beginning of proposals of new public works in cities, and knowing that this bridge is funded by an interstate entity. Is that something Min Dot has ever partnered with a public arts commission or maybe a state public arts entity? We have a representation. We have a visual quality committee. With representatives from both Duluth and Superior. We have a meeting next Friday, it's like meeting seven. Trying to wrap up, there will be a visual quality manual, and that'll be handed off to the design builder team that they'll have to follow. And I know someone in the public art, I believe, is asking, I mean, we can't fund anything, but we can leave the space available, you know. Okay, and there is somebody asking from a public arts? Yes. Yes, they're on the visual quality committee. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Councillor Derr-Walker. Next is Councillor Forzman. Thank you, President Andrew, simple question, but I'm curious. Is the name staying? Or has the decision not been made the Blatnik name that is up to Congress and that's to go get approved by Congress okay no idea okay that's okay I'm assuming it'll change but I yeah oh typically I mean I worked on the Virginia Bridge and I was the Ruckabena Bridge. So I, there's a good story about that name that I can't tell on these chambers, but I can tell you after. I think this is, this is federal. So I thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Councillor Forrest. When next is Councillor Mail? Thank you, President Randolph. was a couple of weeks ago that the city of Duluth and the city of Superior were going to split the snow maintenance and just general maintenance costs of that shared path. Has that changed recently then? President Randolph, come to me. This has been an ongoing item of discussion for long more than the last couple of weeks. And so it's evolving and it hasn't been finalized. But I think it's all I can say is it's moving in the direction of, but no decision, so I don't wanna put Mindada on the spot. No decision has actually finally been made, and once it is, we can report back once that determination's been made. Great, and for context too, incorrectly if I'm wrong, but as far as I'm aware from the mix perspective and the presentations, we've got the shared use path was kind of part of the project due to the funding we received from the federal government is that right that it was kind of a component to have this multimodal accessibility is that right? Yes, the impragmant did have that requirement. Okay, fantastic. And then just really quick because I know not everyone's maybe following every detail of the project Can you just outline when construction is slated to start on the bridge and then how the traffic management plans with the bond are proceeding right now? So the project is Rappen up preliminary design now. We're in the permitting dream ends right away process We are going to release a request for qualifications in June of 25, along with the draft RFP. And we'll narrow that down in October and release the final RFP to the qualified teams in December of 25 with the letting in June of 26 award or authorization shortly after they'll probably start doing some traffic mitigation work that'll be a lot of it since period that'll be required before the bridge can get closed and major construction early June, you know spring June of 27 and lasting to substantial completion about 20 31 and final 2032 Great and there are significant plans going into the bond and how traffic will move back and forth from my understanding. Great. Thank you, Councillor Mayo. Next, thank you, is Councillor Kennedy. Thank you, President Randolph. Just one sort of design question. Is it proposed to be that high with a shared use path? The Coast Guard requirement, their first comment to us was we in any bridges and impediment. So we have to get approval in a cost guard permit and yes, it will be that high. So it will be a requirement for shipping. It's windy up there. Yes, it is. So will the pat shared use be covered or protected in any way? Not covered, no. Protected, I don't know. They're looking at options to try have a shared use be covered or protected in any way? Not covered, no. Protected, I don't know. They're looking at options to try to see what they can do. Well, that's more design money, so I have concerns for you. All but good luck up there. Thank you so much. Any final questions on item 19? Seeing them, we want to thank you for coming tonight. You brought us some very valuable information on this very important project. Thank you so much. Okay, Councillors, we're now moving on. We're in public safety. Councillor Swenson. Thank you, President Randolph. Number 21, resolution 937. Authorizing the Duluth Fire Department to purchase class A uniforms. Number 22, 976 resolution authorizing the purchase of a consolidated video solution for police body cameras, vehicle cameras and interview cameras, including equipment, software storage, maintenance, and support from Axon Enterprise for a seven year period, beginning in 2025 for an amount not to exceed 4,5,622 dollars. Thank you so much Councillor Swenson. Any questions? Yes, go ahead. Okay. I guess for number 22, Chief Sonoa, can you just talk through this project? So based on a conversation we just had this evening, I was under the understanding that this was a new software. So it had lots of questions on that, but if you could enlighten us please. President Randolph, Councillor Swanson, this is not a new project, this is actually our contract from 2021. So we are, in essence, canceling that contract and renewing early in 2025 based on 2024's pricing and holding that through 2031. By doing this, we've saved a substantial amount of costs on this consolidated video project to the tune of $1.2 million versus what it would be to do it in 2027. This allowed us to add some enhancements to our bodyborne cameras, our fleet, our interview rooms, our drones, as well as how we received video from the community. Wonderful. Thank you so much for the question. Councillor Swanson, next is Councillor L. Thank you. Chief Sonoa for being here and giving that the clarification. I just had a process question since this is sounds like an early termination of a previous contract. Is there any violations that we are like opening, should there be an ending of a contract resolution? Or is there any consequences for ending that contract early? And then restarting it for the seven years, understanding the assuming finance was involved in doing those projections to really be like, this is the year that we have to redo that contract but just wondering if I can get some more background on that. President Randolph, councilor, I will try to answer it. I may need C. Attorney Lear to do who the rest of it but basically we don't need to terminate this. The axon is part of a consortium that goes to the state contract bidding process. It's then vetted through that. So this went through purchasing. Purchasing is the one who went with the language of canceling and then renewing. So we look back at the 2021 contract, the language stayed the same, and then we extended out to 2031 if that makes sense. Okay, that does. Thank you for that clarification. And just one more understanding the purpose of this, can you give a little bit more detail as to what video solution, like what happens just for the public's clarity? So there's body camera, it's police body cameras, vehicle cameras. What happens to, like, that video footage or software? Like, is it stored in our cloud and our IT? Is it with this, the axon? Like, what does the program look like? Yeah, it's all so this is stored in axons cloud. Under statute, we are required to have that video deleted after 60 days, I think I'm confusing. There's two different ones that have to put I'll leave it 60 days on Axon body camera video Unless it's being used in the case Okay, so after 60 days, it just automatically deletes off. And then for fleet and interview rooms, there isn't necessarily a statutory requirement, but when cases are ended, we delete those videos off as well. And when you say cases are ended, that's just the... They're adjudicated through the court process. So somebody has been either acquitted or found guilty and then once their appeals have run out that video then can be destroyed per re-country policy. Thank you for the clarification on that. Thank you Councillor Elton. Councillor Derr-Walker. Thank you. Is that Randolph? Just out of curiosity on that 60 days, after 60 days, the footage gets deleted if a case were to come up. Is there any way of recovering that footage? President Randolph, Councillor Diracott, there is not at that time. That's why that window exists so that there is time to go back and look at it. Which usually even within our IA process falls well within that window of review when we have people come forward with an issue concerned or if we're able to tie other cases together to go back and gather that data. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Councillor Derracter. Any final questions on item 21 and 22? Councillor Aula. Thank you, Councillor Dereuctor. Any final questions on item 21 and 22? Councillor Alaw. Thank you, President Randolph. I also see, thank you so much, Chief Sonoma. I also see Chief Crochet in the audience today. I was just wondering, I know you've waited this long. If you had anything to add to item 21, my question would be around, I'm seeing that this is a class A uniform that's being purchased. We had previous conversations on some of the material being dangerous. Two firefighters, our firefighters with PFAS. Other chemicals in it. I'm wondering is these items being purchased? These uniforms different? Are they safer? Just curious. Yeah, absolutely. President Randolph, console, these are actually, so a class of uniforms actually essentially a suit, a dress suit that we would wear for, you see me wearing for console presentations, things to the state. They are PFAS free, we're looking at some sort of like a polyester wool blend, these are not uniforms that we would wear to a fire where we have to worry as much about fire resistance materials. So they should be PFAS-free and that's a concern that we have moving forward with all of our protection gear and just our normal daily wear uniforms. No, that's kind of been brought up. I'm just curious. So our current uniform still propose a health risk to our firefighters. Are there plans to see if we can get renewed items or what? Yeah, President Randolph, Councilor, so we're kind of talking about two different things. Yeah. But our daily wear uniforms, we actually provide a choice. Currently we provide a choice for our firefighters So we have one brand that's called work right that's a fire retardant material that does contain PFAS Chemicals essentially making the material fire retardant. We also offer at the employees choice PFAS for uniforms off their cheaper so they actually get more things in the package. So by contract they get two pairs of pants, two shirts, four t-shirts. But if they choose the cheaper PFAS-free stuff then they get the hat, jacket, some other things. So we try to keep the dollar amount approximately equal but we currently give the choice to the employee as to if they want to wear fire retardant station uniforms or PFAS free and Almost everybody is moving to the PFAS free choice at this time. Okay. Thank you for that clarification I might follow up with you at a later time. Absolutely. Thank you Councillor Elton any final questions for items 21 and 22. Councillor El you are still in the queue. Was that just a, oh you are just waiting. Okay got it. Now we are moving on. Libraries, recreation and authorities. Councillor El. Thank you, President Randor. Item 23, resolution 922, resolution authorizing application to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, ATV dedicated account for up to 200,000 to support a study of potential ATV routes in far Western Duluth. Item 24, Resolution 944, Resolution Authorizing and Amendment to an Agreement with the Prairie Restorations Incorporated for an additional buckthorn removal and support of the restoration in Hartley nature area in the amount of 6,375 dollars for a new total contract amount not to exceed 76,095 Item 25 resolution 9 49 resolution authorizing a second amendment to the agreement, C24636 with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Lake Superior Coastal Program Grant for the Acquisition, Acquisition of Real Property from the Park Kale Cemetery Association for Recreation and Preservation. for recreation and preservation. Item 26, Resolution 950, Resolution authorizing the first amendment to agreement C24635 with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources for the Lake Superior Coastal Program Grant Supporting Replacement of a beach, Dune Crossing Boardwalk on Minnesota Point. Item 27, Resolution 959, reporting replacement of a beach dune crossing boardwalk on Minnesota point. Item 27, Resolution 959, Resolution Authorizing Application to the Minnesota Department of Education, Multi-Purpose Community Facility, Projects Grant Program for 500,000 to support installation of energy efficient equipment at Morgan Park Community Center. Item 28 Resolution 960 Resolution Authorizing Acceptance of a Snowbebile Trails grants in aid assistant program grant for fiscal year 2025 with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in the amount not to exceed $17,245 and $0.10. Thank you so much, Councillor Al. We'll pause there for questions on items 23 through 28. First in the queue, we've got Councillor Derroctor. Thank you, President Randolph. I have a question on item 23, resolution 922. Will any of the, can you just confirm that all of the funding will be coming from the state DNR and none will be coming from the city or the county President Randolph concerted our walk to your correct. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Derbocker. Next is Councillor Swanson. Thank you, President Randolph. On 22, resolution 922 at the, I guess, depending on the results of this study, will there be additional cost potentially that the city will have to take on? President Randolph comes for a swim. It potentially could be in terms of some of the work that may be necessary to strengthen or firm up some of the routes that that might be proposed. All of the routes we pretty much already laid out the options. This isn't a wide open. Let's just put trails wherever we feel like. There's a handful of routes that parks already identified as these could be routes. They all follow the prior view of looking for routes to get out of town, to connect to the broader ATV county-wide system and not routes to run around inside Duluth. There are meant to be routes out. And they are generally will be following existing roadways, right-of-ways, existing trails when they're done but yes there could be costs to actually do some of the strengthening if necessary once the routes are selected. Thank you Councillor Swanson. Next question comes from Councillor Mayo. Thank you President Randolph on on item 26, Resolution 950, regarding the beach dune crossing on Park Point. Is that project going to make that landing accessible, ADA accessible standards? I saw that they're replacing or kind of redoing that boardwalk section to get to the beach. President Randolph, Councilor Meal, I'll have to have someone from parks get back to on that normally. When we do these new projects, that's true, but I want to confirm that with parts. Fantastic. Thanks. All right. Any final questions? My name is 23-28. Councilor Walker. Thank you, President Randolph. I have a last question on item 23. In the very, this is a little bit along the way of what you just answered, but from Councillor Swanson, but in the very final statement, it says, with review and guidance from the park and rec, and subject to final approval by the mayor and city council. Can you just confirm what would be is Would we the final approval would be on if a budget were proposed for something going forward is that correct? Concerter walk to which resolution you are again 922. Oh the ATV? Yes. Yes, I mean before this is just to bring a group in to evaluate someone that knows trails in what it needs to be looking at the routes and what are possible routes. That's step one. If we identify routes and if the parks look at it and says yep we think we should do it XYZ. That process would be ultimately brought to council for any final determinations either just on the selection and or you know any construction that might be necessary. Okay thank you. Thank you, Councilor Director. Last call on questions for 23 through 28. Seeing none, we'll move on. We are now on, we're back to finance with Councilor Forzman. All right, ordinance 62, determining the sum to be raised by taxation for general purposes for the year 2025. Or an in 65, determining the sum to be raised by taxation for general purposes for the year 2025 Or in its 65 determining the sum to be raised by taxation for the special parks fund levy for the year 2025 Ordinance 69 determining the sum to be raised by taxation for the special taxing district eluth transit authority for the year 2025 And ordinance 71 setting the budget for the fiscal year 2025, appropriating monies for the support of the city government, public utilities and public enterprise funds, and for other purposes. Thank you, Councillor Forzman. We'll pause there on questions on 29 through 32. Councillor Forzman, do you have a question? No. I do not. I have a question on the budget. Mr. Montgomery, I noticed on our tourism allocations we did not have our Duluth outreach worker listed. Rather that money is coming from the general fund. Will you for the Councillor clarify where in the budget that $65,000 line on them for the Duluth outreach worker will come out of? President Randolph, in our discussion, I wasn't clear which where it would be coming from I caught up with Director Carlson. It will be coming out of tourism tax on the greater downtown council, DBA Duluth, downtown Duluth line, where it's 301. That's where that number is right now. It's buried within that period of time. Okay. Because it's buried with the special service district money. And the special service district. And it was an additive. We added two to it to bring it up to that number. Got it and the total is 65. What was the special service amount again? Original, two. President Randolph, 236,000. So when you add the 65,000 we get a total of 300 and one. Excellent. Thank you so much for the clarification on that Okay Next in the queue for question is Councillor maillom. Thank you President Randolph on item 32 ordnance 71 dealing with the budget I'm wondering if there have been any Substitutes changes for the budget allocations From where we were at when we had our budget presentations a couple months ago Or if it's the same. President Randolph, Councillor Maye, the only difference is we settled the CDSA, the supervisory contract and so we put in actual payroll costs for those supervisors other than that the allocations have remained the same. Okay fantastic and actually one follow-up as well has the fund the parking fund issue been figured out while we're on budget issues in terms of where we're going to find that revenue or allocate things for next year. Yeah President Randolph Councillor Mayo after speaking with the county County went out and reassessed East Central and so they have a mechanism in place to begin Recollecting the proper tip amount Beginning in 2025 and moving forward and we are still trying to come up with the plan for 2024 that was not paid Okay, fantastic. Thanks. Thank you council maio any final questions on items 29 through 32. I see councilor Kennedy Could I ask The budget that you had proposed for the supervisory Employee staff If the budget that you had proposed for the supervisory employee staff payment or wages came in under, did your budget write? Was it over? President Randolph, Councillor Kennedy, it actually came in under. So our transfer for our work comp claims was really low and so we were able to move money from salaries over to our work comp transfer to bring it back in line so that we have the funds to pick claims and settlements for our work comp. And I know you do a really good job at forecasting. Where do you see that going forward? President Randolph, Councilor Kennedy. I see, I don't see it decreasing. We currently are working with the state on getting some reimbursements for our public safety folks. Work comp claims, however we haven't seen payment yet, but our trend line is up and not down. Thank you. Thank you for all your good work. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Kennedy. Next question comes from Councillor Mayo. President Randolph, and thank you for staying up here. I had a question as we relate to the union contracts I don't ask me is going through their process and without getting into negotiation details just wondering if contingencies of where that ends up and lands have been planned for just knowing that that kind of covers next year and potentially however many years I don't know the contract details, but just knowing that their vote is upcoming I think within the month if I'm correct, if there are contingency plans for that. President Randolph, Councillor Mayo, we think we will be covered with our contingent approach for 2025. Obviously we haven't budgeted for 2026 and the contract isn't finalized yet and I can't really give any further information on where we may or may not land on that contract. And that's a two-year contract three years? Three years. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor Mayo. Any final questions on 29-332? Seeing none, we'll move on. We're on item 33. Clicked at them if you could make a couple corrections. Remove Vice President Randolph and insert Councillor Forzman into that spot. And we'll go ahead and let him read that in. That's or men's 60. Authorizing the issue and sale and delivery of a 8 million one and 16,000 three and fifty nine dollar general obligation water utility revenue note of the city of Duluth for the improvement of the municipal water utility. On terms and conditions to be provided by resolution the city council and pledging revenues for the payment thereof Thank you Councillor Forzman any questions on item 33 Seeing none will move on our last item is public works and utilities Councillor Mayo Thank you President Randolph item 34 ordinance 55 is amending section 48-28 and adding new section 48-28.1 to Duluth City Code replacement. And I'll just note as well we do have Mr. uh, or Director Benning and uh, the audience if there are any questions on either of these two. I'm sure he could help answer that. Councillor Forrest, ma'am. Uh, thank you. President Randrest. Thank you. We have at least one packer fan in the room. I'll frame my question as a short response with an opportunity for a written response. But ordinance 55 is a pretty significant thing. I brought this up at the last meeting. For those of us who don't sit on the PUC, I don't think we've been briefed at all on this. So I would appreciate some background before we get to Monday, either tonight or, you know, briefly tonight or before then. President Randolph, Councillor Forzman, I'll give a brief summary of the ordinance. The ordinance itself does two things. It authorizes the Duluth Public Utilities Commission to create water infrastructure search arch and it also creates a fund, the water infrastructure search arch fund in the finance department. And the purpose of this fund and the search charge is to pay for the improvements that we're going to be required to do under the EPA's administrative order and consent for things we need to do to the water system. I believe that you should see that order from the EPA on your 16th, the 16th of December meeting if they follow true with what they said they were going to, when they were provided that order. The order essentially says we've got to make some improvements. Those improvements we were aware of, the efficiencies in our water system, and we had this much time to do it in our plan. And the EPA said no, we want you to do it in this much time. And that's going to take money to do that that we don't currently have on hand. So the ordinance itself just authorizes the PUC to move forward. And we've had discussions, the members that are present here tonight, we've been talking about this for probably about four months now and we're taking your own options on the best way to to fund this. So just as a quick follow up, would it make sense to table this on Monday and then have both of those two things together? I don't see any reason why we couldn't do that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. Do we know Mr. Benning how much per customer this circuit charge could need? What's the impact? President Randolph, it depends on, I talked about options at the PUC's kicking around. It depends on what option they choose. It can be anyway from everybody pays the same amount, regardless of the size of the customer or your consumption, or base it more on consumption. We're a small user, a single family, and Lincoln Park pays a small amount, and then you've got, I'll use an example of UMD, uses a lot of water, they're gonna pay more. So those, that's where the PUC is at with that right now. They're gonna make their, they don't make a decision, they're gonna make a recommendation, and at that point, staff and possibly a few commissioners go out and we do our public education piece. See how people like or dislike one option compared to the other and I anticipate a vote probably in February with an implementation date around the first of March. Give or take a month. Can you give us any even indication of a ballpark number? I mean are we talking about $5 or $20 or $100? I mean, do we have any idea? If we went with everybody pays the same amount, I believe it's about $1.99 a month range. But here's the good part. That's not necessarily good, but it helps. We plan on sunsetting the Clean Water Search Arch at the same time, and that's currently $4.90. As a refresher that was implemented 16, 17 years ago to pay for improvements for the consent decree from the EPA to eliminate sanitary sewer overflows into Lake Superior. We've satisfied that. The debts are going to be paid off in 2025. We don't need money coming into that fund anymore So we're going to sunset that and the other one's going to go live at the same time. So there's going to be a give and take if we go with the other option on based on consumption it's somewhere in that 80 or 90 cent range and an average household uses maybe five or six units of water. So five or six units of water times 90 cents. It's pretty close to a wash with the clean water search charge coming off. So customers, if we go with that option, residential customers which make up 92% of our customer base. Wouldn't see much of a change in their water bill at all. Wonderful. Next question comes from Councillor Kennedy. Thank you, President Randolph. I'm looking at the legislative details with texts for ordinance 55 and on page, on the bottom of page one under section 4821.1 where it says water infrastructure. That first line A, it says in order to continue to provide safe, what's potable water? Potable. So water can be water is H2O water and it can be mixed with stuff. So technically like sewage could be water. Potable means that it's drinkable That's that the webster's definition of Potable is that it's safe for human consumption I thought maybe it was a spelling error, but thank you. Thank you, Councillor Kennedy next and Q is Councillor male Randolph and I just want to add something to from the PUC's perspective and not speaking for the PUC But based on conversations we've had is there are two options for this fee that we're kind of leaning more so towards than say like a flat fee for every user. And one of them is that consumption based where if you use more, you pay a little bit more based on that per unit rate. And the other is by tier of which category of consumer you are in. So we have our commercial consumers, and we have our residential consumers, and there are different stratifications within those as well. So, but at the end of the day, it does come out as Director Benning pointed out the water infrastructure surcharges coming online at the same time that the storm water, clean water surcharges going away. So it does really help balance that out a little bit, but also we have to pay for that maintenance at the same time that's essentially necessary for everyone to get clean-triking water. So, just a little context. Any final questions on item 34? Seeing none, thank you, Mr. Benning, for the additional detail on that. That's the end of our agenda tonight. Looking forward to Monday. You guys, we started 515. Again, we have that Planning Commission appeal. Can we have a few more questions? And thank you, Mr. Benning, for the additional detail on that. That's the end of our agenda tonight. Looking forward to Monday. You guys, we started 515. Again, we have that Planning Commission appeal. Councillor Neffi will lead us in that. Clerk Denham, can you make sure we have sandwiches for everyone or some kind of a dinner? I don't think I've spent the entire 20 seconds. I'll sit in the budget yet.