Form physical sizing at minus half inch plus 3-8 inch. A unique oscillating conveyor spreads the green balls to furnace width of 4 meters and the heat hardening process begins. Hibbing tack and eye pellets are hardened and traveling great furnaces fired with natural gas. Heat hardening permits transporting the pellets by rail and boat to our steel making partners and customers at a uniform size to enhance blast furnace performance. The hardening or inter-rating process takes about 30 minutes during which the green balls and to the furnace at ambient temperatures and are gradually heated to 2350 degrees Fahrenheit. The pellets are then cooled to 200 degrees and discharged from the furnace. Fired pellets are conveyed to load-off bins with 24,000 ton capacity, from which they are batch loaded into hopper-bottom rail cars for their 104 mile trip to Lake Superior, Wisconsin. Three burling to northern unit trains of 180 cars per train visit the property every two days to transport the pellets to superior. Following unit train unloading, the pellets are conveyed to waterfront loadout silos during the Great Lakes shipping season. When the ore carriers are laid up for the winter, the pellets are stockpiled in the Burlington Northern yard for reclaiming in the spring. During the course of a shipping season, an average of just over 200 boat cargoes of Hibbingtack and I pellets, accounting for about 8 million tons are loaded for the trip down the lakes. Quality Supervisory computer control is utilized in crushing, concentrating, and pelletizing to optimize pellet quality and production in order to meet the customer's needs. The final product, a pellet averaging 66% iron, 4.5% silica, consistently sized and durable makes the Hibbing Tac and I pellet well-suited for the steel maker's blast furnaces. In the blast furnace, the iron ore pellets are mixed with limestone and coke to make iron, which is then transformed into steel. Because the iron ore pellet makes up the largest percentage of the blast furnace charge, pellet quality has a considerable impact on furnace efficiency and the quality of the finished product. At Hibbing Tachonite, great care is taken to produce the highest quality pellets for our blast furnace partners and customers. Environment. We've traced the Tachonite ore from the mine to the crusher and onto the concentrator, from the concentrator to the pellet plant, to the trains, and into the orboats and finally to the steel maker's blast furnaces. Through this flow sheet trip we have not covered a most important part of the iron ore mining and processing, environmental stewardship. Hibbing TACA Knight is dedicated to conducting all mining and processing operation in a The construction, operation, and modification of facilities and processes. Special care is taken in the selection of equipment and supplies to ensure the most environmentally friendly operation property-wide. For over 30 years, Hibbing Tackinite employees have fed iron ore pallets to the blast furnaces of steel-making partners and customers located throughout our nation. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be to the next slide. to the the I'm going to go to the next slide. We will begin in one minute. Thank you. Good evening everyone. We will begin. We are looking forward to the City of Duluth 2025 budget presentation So we will welcome up mayor Roger Reiner Well, thank you, Madam President. I'm going to invite director Carlson to come up with me. We'll sort of take team I'll lead the first part of the presentation Director Carlson will jump in for the second part and will probably go back and forth a little bit, ensuring we don't miss information as we share this with you. So, you know, for public context, what we're presenting today is a budget tied to the Max Leiby that we're proposing. Consolvers, of course, you know, you'll have an opportunity to read that in for the first time tonight to act upon it at the end of September. Again, for public context, that really just starts the conversation. We'll have time between September and December when the final budget is set. And you'll see, I flag some things that we have factored in, but information that could change between now and then, which means certainly the budget could change between now and then. But given the information we have, we feel that this is our best budget proposal for the council. So Madam President, we'll plan to just walk through that presentation. So, perfect. So just starting, I didn't do a letter as NL has been done in the past, instead opted to build into the presentation just some of the basic guiding principles. And those really were focusing on core city services, streets, utilities, public safety, parks and Library. And then the five big issues that I spent a lot of time talking about last year and I've talked about this year highlighted in my State of the City. And then also Framework on something that I also pledged to the community in the State of the City and that was keeping our levee flat except for new growth in this year that was 1.85%. And when we get there, general talk director Carlson will talk a little bit about new growth versus just general levy increase. So again for folks that might be listening at home, some of our friends in the media, we can distinguish that a little bit. I do want to just call out something that proposed budget is flat, but it's not status quo. We do have an opportunity to make a few key investments in specific areas that we think respond to some of the things that we hear most from our residents. So again, the strategic priorities that we've worked hard on in this first year and that we tried to use limited resources in this budget to align to our these five. Downtown Duluth, our streets and utilities, housing across all income levels, growing our commercial tax base because that's where we find financial stability and independence and then being mindful of affordable property taxes. An issue we heard a lot about last year. So, but also we keep in mind that and want to highlight for you that we also have some structural budget challenges that we have to continue to be mindful about. The area lift bridge repairs significant outlying item water plant upgrades as we continue to work with the administrative order around the water plant. Two ongoing contract conversations. Some folks that are here tonight might be interested in particular in that one as well as the Duluth fire. We do try to address what has been an ongoing structural budget issue and that's plus or minus a million dollars a year in fire over time for at least five years on a rolling average and with Chief Courgette and some other fire department and Director Carlson's leadership. We have a pilot program that we think will help address that over time as well as what I think all of us are hearing from our firefighters in terms of burnout with mandatory overtime and then just always being mindful about aging infrastructure. We had something just last week, Councillor Kennedy and your district that really highlighted when an 1890 pipe the original one broke. And our streets and our comfort systems folks within 24 hours got that put back together. Wow, Kudos for sure. It was impressive, impressive work. So we'll talk a little bit about the levy, the budget details, and then I'll turn it over to Jen to talk a little bit about how that breaks down as well as give you some supporting information. We'll finish to talk a little bit about how that breaks down as well as give you some supporting information. We'll finish by talking a little bit just about ARPA, that language continues to sort of bounce around within City Hall, but you'll see that all of the ARPA money has now been allocated. So some of those funds that the city has had available to it in the past couple of years are not there anymore. So where do we make some strategic investments? First of all, in legal with a full-time criminal prosecutor and then also a full-time real-state transactional attorney and you'll see that that cost is bought down by a contract that legal has been using for the past few years. We add a second safety specialist at the library to meet a need that would continue to hear from our library workers as well as the public that uses the downtown library. You'll see that the biggest single investment we make is in maintenance. Routine things. I met with some of our facilities maintenance staff. I had a janitor who's been with us for 30 years Say I haven't seen my line item increase in four years for my cleaning supplies So we said yes to all of those line items in terms of basic maintenance within facilities and within parks We move VDU vacation dwelling unit from planning and economic development to life safety. You'll recall that in this year we have moved all of our life safety sorts of things including our unhoused and encampment outreach work into life safety from parks. So we add to that team by adding an additional staff member there and we don't take that FTE from planning and economic development. So we create additional capacity there as well. Talked a little bit about the overtime with fire. And while you see that the way we do that pilot program is using some anticipated salary dollars from police, those FTEs stay with police. using some anticipated salary dollars from police, those FTEs stay with police, there isn't a transfer of those FTEs. So, Councillors, just to talk a little bit about the levy and the highlight for the public, a couple things I don't wanna draw your attention to. So, the $4.5 million number that you see flow down under our capital projects would be the funding for the combined maintenance facility that we've talked about back at the state of the city with the good news that retiree or retiree health care liability has now been funded. We'll talk a little bit about that towards the end of the presentation, but a project that helps address four really critically on the verge of failing public facilities. That also our core to our core city services, streets, utilities maintenance. So you'll see the 1.85% that captures our new growth. And again, for the public, we want to be really transparent. If we didn't capture that, property taxes would go down for everybody. You would have additional contributions to a pool that would remain the same. But as I said in April, we intend to capture that new growth. Yet because of that, if there is no change in valuations, and that's a huge asterisk, folks would not see any increase on their city of Duluth portion of property taxes. And we'll probably say it eight times tonight, but not every property tax dollar goes to the city of Duluth. You'll see that it's about 27% and then there's the school district down the county. Though I know that many folks think all their property taxes go to the city. So what does that mean in terms of some different price points on home valuations? Again, if home values don't change, folks can see what they could expect in a reduction for just the city of Duluth portion of L'Ovee. Now I think we all know that asterisk is huge. It is probably unrealistic to expect that most of us are not going to see valuation increases given what we've seen our local real estate market. How do we compare to other cities? I think this is helpful as we look at Minneapolis and Paul and other regional centers. So the only other city that is doing new growth is St. Cloud. So that's that 2.31% figure for their proposed levy. And then you can see St. Paul, Minneapolis, Rochester, and even Bloomington. Fair to note that Bloomington went from a volunteer fire department to a fully professional one during COVID using ARPA dollars and now those dollars need to be replaced and they're doing so on their local levy. So again you can see where do your property tax dollars go? 27% to the city, 29% if you include the 2% that's dedicated to the parks levy, 26% to the school gestric and 41% to the county. And I think for all of us, it's one of the conversations we have with taxpayers over and over again that the city of Duluth is not all of their property tax. So even counselors, if you join me in staying at the 1.85% in your growth and is 0% net increase, I think the public needs to know that we don't control what the school board would decide to do or what the county board would decide to do. And they may, we tried to get that information for you tonight. They did not share it yet, but they'll be having their similar conversations this week. I believe also in both cases. So, and where does, where do those dollars go? I think Director Carlson will note that one of the really important things about this slide is that the general fund is just one piece of city of Duluth operations. So, you know, our general fund at approximately 109 million is not even the biggest slice of what we do. The total operations are almost half a billion dollars, 438 million comprised of our capital projects, our debt service, our enterprise funds, which of course are a big portion of our utilities and then internal service funds for those looking for a little bit of clarification there, the costs that we build back within the City of Duluth organization. So budget details, I'll talk about a few things here and then turn it over to Director Carlson. This is lifted directly from the letter that I shared with our directors when we began the budget process this year knowing that I was asking something hard of them, knowing that we were looking at less than 2% additional dollars to work with. So ask them, take a look at operations, how do they align with our effective and efficient core city services with those five big issues that we've talked about Ask them how are you inviting our residents in to be part of the work that we do and then ask them What is it that you would stop doing if you could what are things that you don't feel are as Directly aligned with our core city services and those are conversations. I think from a management perspective We have to constantly be acting asking so that we're really aligning the resources that we've been given stewardship of with those core city service priorities. I like to say the things that only we do that nobody else does and when we don't no one's going to do them for us and to me that's a pretty clear delineation between local county state and federal services. So what was the result? We saw 106 budget requests from the various directorates. They totaled nearly $5 million. With 1.85 we had about 1.1 million to work with. So you saw with those strategic investments we're already, but I'll show you to you in another visual representation so that you can see where some of the additions were bought back by some existing expenses, where it actually brought work in-house to city employees rather than contracting it out. So the first one again is in legal. We had a contract for a transactional attorney. Someone to help with contract development, our tax base growth work, support really up planning and economic development. So the recommendation here is to have a full time attorney who works in that space instead of contracting out for part of one. You'll see again, we have the addition of the second library safety specialists at the director's recommendation that is offset by an open existing library position. Again I think we know what some of the issues are with the downtown library and trying to create that safe and welcoming environment, not only for our residents, especially young families, but perhaps most importantly for our library staff who work in that environment on a daily basis. And then the one true addition is that life safety addition. Again, someone who can help with rental inspections, V.D.U. inspections as well as some of our encampment and on-house work and removing that work over from another department, planning and economic development but not asking for them to send the FTE over with it. So also trying to create additional capacity there around housing and tax-based growth. So, and I know chief is here as well, but again, as I alluded to at the top, one of the issues we try to address in this budget is a pilot program to get at this ongoing over time in the fire department. It's year over year been around a million dollars. But perhaps most importantly, when we go talk to our firefighters, the first thing that they will say is, we would like to not have mandatory overtime anymore. So this allows us to add three additional firefighters to help get all of our stations staffed at the appropriate national staffing levels without having to force have mandatory overtime to keep us at those levels. It to be transparent, it is paid for with, it is paid for with what we anticipate to be salary dollars that we're not going to spend in police because we're not going to be able to hire up to the 154 authorized. But I want to be really clear and I've had this conversation with both chiefs as well as the budget folks. If successful and if we believe that this is the way to go and budget years moving forward, we will have to build those FTEs into the budget. I'm committed to keeping us at 154 with the police department. Alright and with that I will turn it over to director Carlson to take us to I think the kind of the next level with the budget. Thank you Mayor Reiner. Alright so this picture depicts what the average home owner, home value of $240,100 pays a month in property taxes. So $71 a month of which the largest portion is public safety as well as capital debt service. So capital debt service, of course, is our rolling stock, our equipment, our facilities, also the consolidated maintenance facility. And then you can see internal services are next. And those are all of our internal working divisions that support all the external, so that's your finance department, HRIT, all of our internal working divisions. Here's a breakdown of what is currently in the budget. So I'm going to touch on some of the large variances and I'm going to remind you a couple of things. One is that we of course already spoke about the consolidated maintenance facility and how we are going to reduce the general operations portion of the levy due to retiree health care. Also we use 9.2 million dollars in reserves in the 2024 budget are one time proceeds from the sale of the incubator building to serious. That's a resolution that the council brought forward and that we followed suit and put into the 2024 budget. So a lot of the large variances are going to stem from those one time things coming out. If we start at the top city sales tax that continues to increase, however, we feel like we've probably hit a plateau. The economy is leveling off a little more and so there's a little bit of growth in that. The property tax, Levy, Mayor Reiner, already spoke about that will be reduced in the general fund portion and of course increased in the capital projects fund portion. Other financing sources is where you're gonna find those one time sources from the proceeds of the incubator building for CERIS. And then gas in lieu of taxes. And that is, those are revenues we receive based on the previous years gas revenues. And so we're projecting 2024 revenues and applying a payment in lieu of taxes of 7% to those. And then of course at the end of the revenues you see the reserves coming out, the 9.2 million. If we hop to the expenditures, you can see the bulk of, of course, what we spend is on salaries and benefits. We are 83% people, and so that is what those are. You can also see the retiree medical going down because we, as Mayor Reiner spoke about, fully funded that OPEB trust. And then other services and charges are where a lot of those serious proceeds were spent out of. So the chloride reduction, the street maintenance study and the non-renewal of a contract. And then professional services and contracts, that's the one time stepping on up. So that's why that went down significantly. That was the one time 500,000 out of the proceeds. And then of course reserves are at the end of that as well. So those are the significant changes in the general fund budget. If we go to the pie chart, you can see how the revenues are split out. We talk about this frequently every year. 72% of our revenues are from three sources, right? LGA, which is based on that formula set by the state and property taxes and then our city sales tax. And, Councillors, I'll just again point to what our number one is and that's LGA by over a third and property tax next. So one of the things you see us trying to do is invest in our ability to grow our property tax base because LGA can be very, can swing widely based on political line ups in St. Paul. When I sat in your seats, we had already set the budget and at the end of December LGA was on allotted. And then we were left with the only thing that we could do because we had to have a balanced budget that was cut staff. So to the degree that we can continue to grow our property tax base, especially our commercial property tax base, we of course will continue to fight for LGA. It's a reasonable way to offset the overburden that we have from being a regional center, but it just makes us less dependent on that. So how do we spend the revenues that come in? The largest portion is on public safety, 48%. And you can see 21% is fire, 27% police, and then it's property parks and libraries, 15% and then are our general fund portion of public work. So that's really street maintenance and engineering and bridges, non-utilities. Here's how the expenditures within those budgets department budgets break down. And I think they said 83 82% are salaries and benefits so that's what most of our revenues go to pay for and you can see it on the line graph there. Now as Mayor Reiner mentioned we're going to take a second and talk about the Consolidative Maintenance Facility because that's really exciting news in this budget. Long overdue, we plan to replace four of our most failing facilities with one state of the art facility that we hope to be in one central location. It is in the process of being designed, but we hope to have indoor storage for all of our vehicles. That will help us to maintain longer lives for our vehicles. We hope to have washbays so that after our snow plows and vehicles are out in the elements, especially in the winter as they're driving through sand and salt and all of the things that they can then pull in and be washed off before they're stored indoors. We hope to see operationally efficiencies because we will have fleet where our operators are working and where they're storing all the vehicles. And then also the consolidation of equipment. Right now we have redundant equipment because we have all sorts of facilities, right? East and West and four right there and we have a fifth one that'll also go in this facility that we don't own. But is owned by MINDOT. Our lease will be expiring MINDOT as plans to leave that facility and we will need to do something with all of our equipment and street maintenance operations out of there. So that's the fifth one that'll actually go into this consolidated maintenance facility. And if you would like to see visually, there's the four city-owned facilities. You can see the lack of indoor storage. You can see the age of the facilities and how this would be really beneficial. The previous graph showed the line of doom and these once the line hits 0.6, it's about five times the cost to start maintaining these, so that would be significant levy increases, or if we were to replace all four, obviously increases there as well. If we take a look at ARPA, I'll just point out that the $58 million has been allocated, mostly spent. The two that are circled were transfers to DEDA, as well as a couple of the contracts above that. But other than that, we all know that we have a deadline of 1231-24. I think the city did a great job of getting moving on it right away. And we are happy to say that by 1231-24, we will have done what we said we are going to do in the resolution and have spent these funds in totality. And the last couple of slides, I think we all know that our work in affordable housing and with our unhoused residents has been a topic of conversation over the last few months. So I thought it was helpful as we talk about the budget to look at where we've been and where we've been pre-COVID and where we've been and where we've been pre COVID and where we've been most recently. So to give you a little bit of a baseline of what was sort of more typical city of Duluth work in this area pass through funding especially from HUD. HUD and community development block grant dollars. Somewhere in the neighborhood of around just under $3 million a year. Post COVID, you can't quite see it on the bottom for those that are trying to see it on the screen, but that number is closer to $23 million. And then of course includes arpa dollars and CARES Act dollars. It includes the opioid settlement dollars. It includes the sale of the serious incubator. It includes housing trust fund, livy dollars, and it includes general fund dollars. So just to give you sort of perspective of where we've been traditionally, historically, and where we've been most recently, especially as we try to think about all of the pieces of the work that we do and including coming back to kind of where we started this conversation. Some of the big things that we still have out there like the water plant and the lift bridge and our employee negotiation conversations and just aging infrastructure in general. And with that will wrap up, we really tried with limited dollars with the new growth levy to look at our city operations as a system. Where is it that we could apply those dollars to try and move us forward in core city services as well as on those five big issues. I will note, despite some conversation I've heard in the community, there are no proposed reductions within our city of employees staff. I think the folks that are here tonight, we don't have a city without city employees. In fact, this budget adds to three different bargaining units in terms of new members. So we do the work we do when we do it in partnership. But we really try to also think about how these things work as systems. So that we're not just being reactive to a particular thing, but trying to set up the systems that allow us, the city, our employees, all of you, our residents to be successful, but yet allow us, the city, our employees, all of you are residents to be successful, but yet do it at a way, especially as easy to do here at City Hall when we look up at the central hillside, those homeowners can afford. So it's trying to be mindful of that tax burden as well. So with that, we thank you for the opportunity to make this presentation tonight. Again, knowing that it's the start of a conversation and not the end of one. The beginning of your deliberations on what that Max Levy should look like. But one that we believe is consistent with a message I've given the community as well as one we think allows us to do our city work as well as make a few key investments. Thank you. Thank you Madam President. Wonderful. Thank you so much Mayor Reiner. Thank you Finance Director Carlson. We know the amount of work that all the department heads do to put this together and work on the budget. So thank you for that. Now I do have a few councillors in the queue. Were you open for some questions this evening? Certainly. Wonderful. All right. First in the queue were you open for some questions this evening? Certainly. Wonderful. All right. First in the queue is Councillor Mayo. Thank you. Thank you. Is it on? There we go. Thank you, President Randolph. Thank you, Mayor Reiner. It's in Miss Casper for the presentation. Tonight, I just had a couple quick questions, the first of which. Just kind of wondering for our finance team, where are general fund reserves are sitting at as we start our deliberations this year and kind of think about the potential use of what that might look like and where you feel comfortable with the general fund and then my second small question is just more for the mayor on consultation with local 101 about the new fire department staffing plan. Whoever wants to take it first. President Randolph, Councillor Mail. Thanks for the question. Our general fund reserves are about 25 million available. Now, a couple things to remember with general fund reserves is that is what backs up our debt rating. We have large projects coming on. Mayor Reiner talked about some of our financing challenges such as the area lift bridge, the water plant infrastructure, we're currently in the middle of replacing lead service lines. There are a lot of large projects that we are going to have to issue debt for. And so we're being very mindful of ensuring we have enough of a balance in that general fund to back up our bond rating without implications because if our bond rating drops, our interest rate will go up and now we have less project funds because we're paying more on interest. Good. Councillor, I'm going to invite Chief Khrushche up to talk about the staffing model. I think it's helpful if he give a little bit of background and a change that he has already made within the current budget year and how we're proposing helps support that change. Thank you. Thank you President Randolph. Councilor Mayor did you have a specific question you want to start with? Yeah I was just kind of curious staff buy-in and kind of where you saw this as a solution and if you anticipate I guess any challenges moving forward with this new proposal of staffing. President Randolph, Councilor Mayo, yet there's definitely gonna be some challenges as we know. As we've gone through the past few years, we've seen a larger increase in our over time budget in general because of several reasons. Some of us are just changes in the benefits that they get, How firefighters acquire vacation and personal leave time has changed from two PL days to three personal leave days. There's been changes in state law, FMLA, things more flexibility with paternal leave. We'll have people taking 12 weeks off to be apparent when I have a new child. We didn't use to see that from our predominantly male organization in the past. So these are benefits that have changed. Earns the second safe time is given some more flexibility to our people. And we've changed some things through our contract over the past few years. How we actually staff and how we, the lack of movement, when we place our firefighters into what we call our pool, which is to make up for vacations, sick leaves, other leaves, things like that. People who are not at a bid spot permanently assigned to a position, we've taken away some of the departments' flexibility of moving them around from shift to shift, from month to month. So that's changed just how we do things. So now we've gotten to a point where we've had mandatory over time. We can require people to stay. They are not allowed to go home at 7 a.m. when they get off shift to cover a staffing shortage. That's really caused a large stress on our organization and on our people. Approximately a month ago, I didn't come prepared to have the exact data for today because we have a presentation coming up on Friday. But so approximately a month ago, we were sitting at about 133 or 134 mandatory overtime shifts, which was over 1600 hours. We're in agreement that something needs to change. So to get to your question on, you know, local 101 input, I, our buy-in, I should say, that input, I think we're all in agreement that something needs to change. We cannot continue to put our firefighters in this much of a stressful time where they get no time off. They're missing vacation, they're missing time with their families. The way our schedule is built with one day on, one day off, one day on, one day off. They're not getting that day off anymore. They're not getting four days off to recover after working 24 hour shifts. After seeing our run volumes going from approximately 10 years ago at 8,000 runs a year to 16,000 runs a year. So something has to change. This proposal will add firefighters to the stations, so we'll take them kind of out of that pool, put them into permanent spots. And then when we have, so we still have the same amount of firefighters going to a call to an actual structure fire. We staff for fires That's another thing a lot of our runs have gone up for medicals and for other reasons, but we staff for fires We we need to have around 20 firefighters at a structure fire This will allow us To then drop some of that mandatory overtime because we'll have more firefighters in the stations on the rigs, station six and stations 10, for example, we'll go from three firefighters to four firefighters on duty every day. Station 11 in Woodland will go from two firefighters to three firefighters. We'll still have a pool to take care of vacation, when people are on vacation and things like that. But this will give us the ability then if someone does call in sick, or we do have some other long-term disabilities or other long-term leaves, we can drop staffing for the day. So from four to three, we'll never go below three, but it'll give us a little bit more flexibility to still have the same amount of firefighters going to a structure fire going to a call without having people to be mandated to stay. I can get more in depth in it, but for the sake of time, I don't want to go too far with this right now. Thank you, Chief Krujee. Thank you so much. The next question is coming from Vice President Tomonic. And Madam President, if I could just to put a fine point on that. We can't not do anything. We're seeing too much physical and mental stress on our firefighters from the mandatory overtime. So, is that the solution unsure, but it is definitely we believe a step in the right direction and applaud chief Khrushche for coming forward with something that we think thoughtfully addresses both an employee issue as well as a financial one. Thank you, President Render, Mayor Reiner and Director Carlson. I appreciate the presentation. I have a question. I'm wondering if you could explain for the general population what is meant by new growth? Are you talking about business growth? Are you talking about business growth? Are you talking about new home growth? Tell me more about that please. President Randolph, Vice President Tamanik, thank you for that question. New growth is new parcels that come online to be taxed that previously in order. So there's a difference between revaluation growth and new growth. So revaluation growth, those people, St. Louis County does assessment. So we got to remember the city doesn't assess St. Louis County does valuations and assessments. So St. Louis County are applying evaluation to all properties in the city of Duluth. And those may go up and historically in the past few years, all of them for the most part have gone up. That's revaluation growth. We're talking about new growth, which means new commercial, it could be residential properties are coming on and they are now going to be taxed, which then alleviates tax burden from current property parcels, tax parcels because these are being taxed. They're picking up a portion that wasn't being picked up before. So they're having their piece of the pie. May I follow up? Yes. And so the new, especially the new housing that's coming under the market with new apartments, new condos, those are all adding to our tax base. President Randolph, Councillor Tumonic. Yes, correct. Thank you. Thank you so much. The next question is coming from Councillor Forzman. Thank you, President Randolph. Thank you, Mayor Reiner. Director Carlson and Miss Casper for your presentation tonight. I know that a lot of work goes into this and the budget is usually about 400 in some pages long. So I look forward to diving in a little bit, especially on Friday. My question relates back to the reserves question from earlier. Do you have a line on what are current fund balances for the community investment trust? And if not, you can certainly follow up by email. Just kidding. President Randolph, Councilor Forzman, about $31 million. So what we do for our reserves policy is we add those two together and make sure we have a certain percentage of those two combined of our general fund operations. We also run it through our municipal advisers to make sure that our bond rating, like I mentioned, isn't going to be taxed by decreasing any of those reserve or CIT amounts. So it's 40% of those two numbers come by incorrect Correct, that's the minimum. Thank you very good Then I'll just say usually I don't like to see this much green in a room during football season But I will make an exception for our friends that ask me tonight. So appreciate you all being here Thank you so much council for as one. I I have a quick question for you as well. When we just look at broadly the budget and we look at our ability to keep the tax levy down, we're saving $3.7 million in our general operations. I know we talked a little bit about using reserves. We talked about the serious, the sale of serious. We talked about our retiree medical, but just give us kind of a real simplified version of how we're able to save 3.7 million in our general operations, how that looks and kind of how everything all settles in. President Randolph, a big chunk, 4.5 million of that is from retiree health. So we were able to reduce the general fund portion of retiree health premiums from $7.6 million down to 3.1. So it freed up four and a half million dollars of general fund expenditures that then we chose to move over to a capital projects fund in the levy so that we can proceed with the consolidated maintenance facility. Got it. Thank you. Any other questions from the counselors? All right. Seeing none again, we'd like to thank you both. Thank you, Mayor Reiner. Thank you, we'd like to thank you both. Thank you Mayor Reiner. Thank you, Finance Director Carlson for this presentation. We look forward to the deeper dive on Friday and our ability to ask even deeper questions and this journey all the way from when we set the max levied all the way to when we set the final budget into summer. So thank you again. Thank you, Councillors. Thank you Madam President. We'll be back in the next one. We'll be back in the next one. We'll be back in the next one. We'll be back in the next one. We'll be back in the next one. We'll be back in the next one. We'll be back in the next one. We'll be back in the next one. We'll be back in the next one. We'll be back in the next one. We'll be back for the test tomorrow. I'm just a new guy. My legs are sore. Oh. So Eric, is the saviour from the consolidated facilities? Is that where that is coming from? Is the money we're saving from all the maintenance and all those multiple facilities? Is that where that savings is? Yep. Okay, so by investing in there, we're able to save. Wow. Correct. Yeah, so we can pay for the borrowing from the Ontario Health Bureau. Okay, nice. And then, so, I'm not paying the maintenance of the existing facilities. Yes. And hopefully sell some of them on the make-up process. Okay. Nice. Good. Yeah, like this. Yeah. It is, it's smart. Yeah. Otherwise, it's a junk ball worth that money for us. No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, we're beginning in two minutes. I'm not going to let you know. I'm going to show you how many of you have been working on this program. I guess you're going to show me how many of you have been working on this program. I'm going to show you how many of you have been working on this program. I'm going to show you how many of you have been working on this program. I'm going to show you how many of you have been working on this program. I'm going to show you how many of you have been working on this program. All right, we will begin in one minute. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, thank you so much. I'm sorry. Good evening everyone. The meeting of the Duluth City Council will now come to order court Johnston We please call the roll Councillor Walps Council Director Council enforcement here councilor candidate Varice President Monick here councilor male Council nephew Councilor Spenson present random here. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance I Thank you. Councillor Swenson. Here. President Randolph. Here. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, and for the ground, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Welcome, everyone. The agenda for tonight's meeting is available on the table in the rear of the chambers for those listening on public access TV radio online. The agenda is available on the city of Duluth website at Duluthmin.gov. Positions are currently open on our city boards and commissions. If you are interested, please pick up an application on the back table. And out of courtesy to all, please take this time to silence your phones. Citizens in the audience who wish to address the council on any matter are welcome to do so tonight by completing the sign-up sheet available next to the clerk's desk. You will have three minutes to speak to the council on any matter you wish. Please begin with your name and your address. I will give you a 30 second heads up when your time is about to expire. And we do adhere to the adopted rules of civility in this chambers and those rules can be reviewed at the top of your printed agenda. Okay. We are going to start with a public hearing tonight and this is on Sofadel Resolution 718 and Resolution Adopting. A modification to the Development Project Municipal Development District Program Plan and establishing tax increment financing district number 38 therein and adopting a tax increment financing plan therefor. I'll go ahead and open up this public hearing. Do I have anyone that would like to speak on this issue? First call. Yes, please step up to the lecture and have you signed in with the clerk? Excellent. Welcome. Mark Baker, 1721 East Third Street Duluth. President Randolph Counselors, tonight the council consider adoption of a TIF district and financing plan for $24 million in property tax subsidies. As part of a $200 million expansion for Sofidel America in Duluth. This project is positive news for the city. As apparently 160 new jobs will be created. But under the proposed plan, the TIF increment or the property taxes that they would normally pay will go back to the developer and not go to the taxing entities in the city, such as the city, St. Louis County and the school board. This is estimated to be of $1,691,000 for St. Louis County, $1,147,000 for the city of Duluth, $749,311 for the school district, and $75,000 for others each year, $3,753 per year. But Tiff is just not the cost of doing business that local taxpayers have to bear. For every project proposed in Duluth, it's not a bribe to be paid for development to occur. It is not guaranteed to a developer or business just because they choose to invest in the loo. And it cannot simply be granted because a developer says they won't undertake a project without it. It can only be granted when certain parameters of criteria are met. To be clear, Soviet-Elemeric is not a small company. It's not a startup. It's a multinational corporation who sales over 3 billion euros. It has experienced strong growth in the US market. And it's EBI-TDA margin, which is a financial margin of profitability, is 21.1 percent, credibly profitable company. Ellers, the city's financial advisor, and its own documents says that best practices require a developer to submit project sources and uses and ongoing cash flow projections, both with and without TIFF, and to also seek independent review of developer's project, financials, and an opinion as a necessity for any amount of tith. Clearly this has not been done. The need for this tith has not been shown. Thirty seconds. I urge you to table this resolution until it can be shown to the council. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, is there anyone else who would like to address the council during this public hearing? I'll make a second call for public hearing. Anyone that would like to speak to Sofidel, Resolution 718. I'll make a third and final call for anyone that would like to speak on Sofidel Resolution 718. Seeing none, I will go ahead and close this public hearing. Okay, we'll move on to approval of the minutes. Do I have an approve? No motion to approve. I have the motion by mail and a second by vice-president Tumanik all those in favor. I, Annie Oppos, same sign, motion carries. We're full house. That's nine to zero. Okay we'll go on to reports from administration director Carlson Thank you, President Randolph. I have nothing to report. Okay. Thank you And reports from officers council committees and open issues Council enforcement Thank you, President Randolph as a reminder for the public and for council colleagues We have our all day budget presentation meeting on Friday the 13th from 830 to 430. I'll be working with our finance team, our crack finance team on probably pulling together an agenda that we can circulate as far as what times we can expect things and we'll touch based on some other organizational things here this week. But looking forward to it and what this will do is save us all those Thursday and Monday night meetings that those of us who have been here for more than this year. Remember well and also saves our staff from having to stay late on those nights. So I look forward to it as a reminder the Grand Avenue Shalai is the Shalai on Grand Avenue. It is very descriptive of the location. Do not go to the top of the hill, Grand Avenue is at the bottom of the hill. Thank you. Excellent reminders. Thank you, Finance Chair Forzman. Next up is Councillor Mayo. Thank you, President Randolph. As the Public Works and Utilities Committee Councillor, I just wanted to provide an update. I know the mayor did an update on the Tissure Creek situation over the weekend, but had some good conversation with our department head in public works and continuing to address that from an internal standpoint, is kind of where we're at right now and complying with the investigation. And it sounds like the city is doing everything in our authority and power to comply and be good partners in that. And I look forward to kind of the ongoing continuing conversation, especially after that case kind of resolves itself whenever that may happen. But as of right now, it's a very unfortunate circumstance. And I think the city has issued a few statements now that kind of talk about what happened and how unfortunate it was truly but there's not a whole lot that can be said right now outside of what has already been said in the media. So I just wanted to provide a quick update on it. Excellent. Thank you, Councillor Forzman. Okay. Seeing no other Councillors in the queue, we will move on. Now is the time for opportunity for citizens to be cured. Clerk Johnson, is there anyone signed up to be heard? Our first and currently only speaker will be Lorne Martell. Good evening. Good evening, Council of Lormartel 623 E7th. City staff in the planning department has been very helpful in trying to answer my questions in regard to incline village. At one point they directed me to the engineering department and the engineer I dealt with there was also very accommodating and professional. You put a map of the former central property site in surrounding area on a computer screen and listen attentively as I laid out my concerns about the impact on the bordering neighborhoods from the traffic projected from the inclined village. At one juncture I pointed to the map and said, and as you can see, there is another option I think should have at least been considered. They could make another connection to Central Entrance. The elevation on that spot is very low and they could and the moment is opportune because they're re-drawing Central Entrance right now and they could pencil in an intersection. There would then be two connections to central entrance within two tents of a mile apart and they could create a circular flow of traffic through incline village and keep most of the pressure off those bordering neighborhoods. You looked at me and said you're making a lot of very valid points but we're technicians. We can't initiate anything. We can only get involved with someone like the owner of the property comes to us. So I'm asking the people who can initiate something to at least look at it. MINDOT might already be considering an intersection there to give businesses located along the north side of Central Entrance the ability to gain access to the Eastbound lane without happening to drive all the way down the Peacock Avenue, which they currently have to do. The reason I want this to happen is because I think a future council may need another option to deal with the traffic load generated from the incline village. On page 74 of the AUAR study at states, quote, at the time that future phases of development are proposed, it is recommended that additional traffic analyses are completed to determine if mitigation measures are needed. Please make certain a future council has the ability to mitigate another option to turn to if needed. Thank you for your time. Thank you. There are no more speakers on over this time. Okay, final call. Anyone who would like to speak to the council. Okay, seeing none, we will move on. We're moving on to the consent agenda, looking for a motion to approve. I have one by Councillor O'Lough. I have Councillor O'Lough. I have a second from Councillor Kennedy. All those in favour? Any opposed same side? Motion carries 9-0 on consent agenda. We are now on item 17. We are now moving into some of our budget items. Finance with the finest year enforcement. All right. Resolution 703 proposing the sum to be raised by taxation for general purposes for the year 2025. I'll leave room here if anybody wants to make any comments. Obviously we've got the budget presentation on Friday where we're going to do a deeper dive on all of this. And then when there are no folks in the queue, I will make a motion to table at that time so that we can take this up at our second meeting in September. Thank you. So you want to move that onto the table? And we'll discuss this one. Yes, I will move the resolution 703 for approval. And then we'll be moving another motion. I assure you. Thank you. Sounds good. We'll take this one one at a time. We're on number 17. We're open to discussion on this one. Anything from any councilor so far. Seeing none, we'll move on. Now we're on item 18. Oh, we're going to, now we're going to motion. Okay. President Randolph, I'd make a motion to table resolution 703. I have a motion by foursman to table. Do I have a second? I have a second by mail. Okay, all those in favor of tableing, item 17. Aye. Any opposed, same sign? That tabling carries 9-0. Item 17 is tabled. Item 18. Resolution 704 proposing the sum to be raised by taxation for the special taxing district, housing and redevelopment authority for the year 2025. Same drill for this one. I won't make a motion to table these next two as well after there's any discussion. Excellent. Thank you, Councillor Forzman. I do have a couple of Councillors in for discussion. First one, Councillor L. Thank you, President Randolph. I had asked after the last presentation by executive director, Kepers of the HRA hearing some counselors talk about potentially the max levy raising the HRA levy to the max. I had reached out to director Kepers and the HRA legal to ask what do those numbers look like? What is the reflection of those numbers on the budget? We had seen some of that in the budget presentation. So there was a motion to amend document that's not in our agenda. I am not proposing to bring it to the today since given where we will be tabling all these, but just for your consideration, I did wanted to bring it forward and have a discussion. If we were to raise the levy to the max that was one of the proposals given by HRA director Kepers the numbers would look just slightly different and so as you can see right now at the current levy, it's 1.811 million and raising it to the max would be 1.982 mil. So just raising it by around $171,496. That would be roughly a $3.31. It would be roughly a $3.31 on the households as we've seen from the agenda, the presentation. So I did ask for what those numbers would be and what is some language that the HRA would be comfortable with seeing a resolution come forward to approve of the max levy? I understand Commissioner Councillor Neff you and who also serves on the HRA as Commissioner Neff you is working to bring some policy forward and we'll have some language to vote on in the upcoming HRA board meetings. This language that you see right here, is also given to you by HRA staff and in conjunction, I think the attorneys who took that language and were put this together. So just wanted to put this out there, not bringing this forward today, but to reflect on what those numbers mean and potentially looking at where that could be allocated. HRA would be comfortable. Of course, we need to have further communications and conversations, but with that line item, that additional dollars going towards what they have under activities in the second page, community development and homelessness programming. Thank you, Councillor. I will. Councillor Neff you. Thank you, President Randorf. So I was the one that did ask director Kepers to bring in what it would look like with Max Levy to our agenda session and some of that came out of the housing meetings that President Randorf and Councillor Tumonick and Councillor Mayo have been part of that just of curiosity. I don't think that after further reflection I don't think that it's appropriate that we as a council tell a separate authority what to do. I think it's the job of their commission to come forward and bring this to us as far as a matter of process to make sure that they have the ability to take on another project and maybe whether or not that commission or the staff there would even want to. And then also with further discussions with the housing groups is also what would it go for? Like what's a plan for that dollars if they did do that and have an exact plan not just throw some more money into a kiddie with no plan for where it's going to go. So I did have conversations with Director Kepers and I said along with the Max Levy, does H or even want to do that and then be what would it go for and what would be the plan and it's my understanding that those will be on our agenda when we meet on the 18th is it and I remember incorrectly What's the 19th I'm a day ahead Thank you so on the 19th and if if the HRA Commission does plan to do that Counselor owl and I will bring that back to counsel at that time so it'll be a quick turnaround because we have agenda that day as well so I would vote to table and I think that although I appreciate you doing all the work on this resolution I don't think it's proper for us as Councillors and this place to do that I think it needs to come directly from the HRA. Thank you Councillor Neff you. Next I have Councillor Mayo. Thank you President Randolph. Just more of a process question. Director Carlson, I don't know if you can answer this, but I know we had mentioned some timelines of setting the max levy for, is it October 1? Okay, so we have time before that to vote since the amendment will be a first read then on the 19th. President Randolph, Councillor Meal, we have to certify the levy by September 30th and it's a resolution so you only need one read. You pass it on that night. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Meal. Councillor Elre. Thank you. I wanted to give my thanks to Councillor Neff you on her work on that too. My intention was not to, I consider bringing this forward as an amendment, but I did want to check in with you and the HRA staff as well. This is more to give us actual numbers and what that resolution would potentially look like if we were to move not with regarding the specific resolution that we would be voting on. But yes, our HRA commission meeting will be meeting on the 19th and then again on the 24th. So if we vote as a commission on the 19th, we could bring, there could be something present on the 23rd and then HRA would be meeting again on the 24th. Thank you, Councillor Al. Councillor Kennedy. Thank you, President Randolph. Could you, when is the last council meeting of this month? I want to get those legislative. September 23. Because once we vote on the HRA, we do not come back to it after that. We don't get to come back in December and make another decision. So we'll get all this information before the meeting when you have to vote and not the day of, but hopefully in a timely matter we can look at all of the discussion that we're having with both the HRA, Councilor Owl and then as well as Council Nefee. The question I have actually been mistaken on my dates. We're meeting on the 19th. I also have a standing meeting for the 24th. So I'm meeting with the deputy to the conflict with the other members. Sorry, are you able to adapt to your last conflict with the 30th? Sorry, that's why I was in the queue to correct that. So, the HRM meets on the 19th. We have agenda on the 19th and then the following Monday is our council meeting. If that answers your questions. So, you'll be bringing something from the HRA commission to us and what, okay, thank you. It'll be a late agenda add it'll be an add on Friday That's fine as long as I don't get something on Monday morning. Okay, thank you for that excellent Next the Q's councilor nephew Thank you president Randolph so just to clarify further with consular Kennedy is that My intention and I believe Consular walls to is to bring it directly from our 330HRA meeting to agenda 515 and we will share what it is and do the add if possible at that time to make sure it's on the council if that's the plan for matriety to bring it on to the council meeting that following Monday. We'll let Clair Johnson know we'll be having a late addition not a usual procedure but we'll let that one go by this time. Perfect. Councillor Aul. If we were to bring something directly from HRA, what happens to the current resolution that we have on today's agenda? It's an amendment. Okay. So we'll bring it forward as an amendment. Thank you. Yeah. There we go. Any final questions on or any final discussion on item 18? Okay. Councillor Forzman. Thank you, President Randolph. I move to table resolution 704. Thank you. I've got a table from Forzman. I have a second from Councillor Owl. All those in favor. Aye. Any opposed? Tabling passes 9-0. All right. Item 19. Work's after 5 resolution 7 0 5 proposing the sum to be raised by taxation for the special parks fun levy for the year 2025. Move approval. Thank you opening up for discussion. President Randolph and moved to table resolution 7 0 5. Thank you. I have a table. Do I have a second? I have a second by mail. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion is tabled. Item 19, 9 to 0. Okay. We are on item 20. And this is comes from planning and economic development. Councillor Neff, you can read that one in for us. Thank you, President Randolph. Item number 20, resolution 718. Resolution adopting a modification to the development project municipal development district program plan and establishing tax increment financing district number 38. Therein and adopting a tax increment financing plan therefore. Move that one in. Excellent. Thank you. It's moved in. Any discussion on item 20? Councillor, a dear walker. Thank you, President Randolph. I'm the one that pulled this from the consent agenda. My concern is that we have not been given the proper analysis that shows the blood foretest. When I've asked some questions about receiving more numbers, the numbers that we received are not in apples to oranges. It's in apples to oranges comparison. It's a hypothetical comparison for AELIS. This business does not have a lease in our community. They own it. They own eight properties in the U.S. And I would like to see an analysis that includes revenues and expenses to show their financial need. I think Mr. Baker spoke very well about this and hit the nail on the head. They haven't shown the need. They're showing a want at a time where we're considering the idea of raising property taxes. I think it's only appropriate that we seek out proper really detailed numbers to consider whether or not we should be allowing a $-billion dollar business to Have a tax incentive. I also heard that When I've asked questions to the administration I've received info that the tip would be better for the city than the Abatement but I've seen no real analysis Demonstrating that and so I've seen no real analysis demonstrating that. And so I will not be able to vote yes at this time. I would support tabling it to receive further analysis and would possibly consider it in the future. Thank you, Councillor Derr-Warctor. Any other Councillor Comments? Councillor Mayo. Thank you, Councillor Derrhocker. Any other Councillor comments? Councillor Mayo. Thank you, President Randolph. Miss Hobbs, I don't know if you're able to answer questions. I had a question just about the TIF increments and how it's used if you could maybe help just clarify something. So I'm wondering with the TIF increment what the eligible options are if the developer uses that for anything. Does it go straight back to the developer for whatever they choose or can they only use it for certain parts of their expansion in Duluth? President Randolph-Councer-Mail, great question. Thank you. So there are specific costs that are eligible under tax increment financing. We will work with the developer to lay those out in the agreement. So as our reminder, today's agenda item is solely to establish the district. The plan is to utilizing the funds will be laid out in the development agreement, which again, you'll receive in due time to be able to review that. But there are specific requirements and things that they can and cannot use it for. So as an example, STPAPer had previously used tax payment because they were focused on expanding by buying things like machinery, whereas this is an expansion which includes construction work, which is an eligible expense under tax increment financing. Okay, fantastic, thank you. I just, I think it's, it's, it's, tip is such a weird concept and it was helpful to have the LRS presentation, but specifically with this one construction, I think seems like a large cost that could be eligible. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Mayo. Councilor Forzman. Thank you, President Randor. If you're excused, Ms. Hoves, I don't have a question for you, but thank you for being here. I know tonight we are just establishing the district so I comes forward to data and to the council. But I just want to say unequivocally for the record, this is a fantastic investment in our community. This paper mill was close to being shuttered a few years ago. And as a result, temporarily, a lot of our utilities as residents went up because they pay a good chunk of the system costs for all of us. And so to not only see it not idled in sitting vacant, but to see a business that came in and is going to spend $250 million to create 160 jobs permanent and then also all of the union construction jobs that come from that as somebody who supports labor. I think this is an easy vote yes and I couldn't be more pleased to see this come forward from our staff. Thank you. Thank you Councillor Forzaun. Councillor Aderwaakder. Thank you, President Randolph. Thank you, Eric, for our Councillor Forzman for mentioning how great this project is. I agree that this is a great project for Duluth. We, they're a great company. The union jobs, of of course are very important and 160 Jobs to the community is a great value. However, I do want to just point out that That doesn't mean that we need to give them a tax incentive if they don't need it This is millions of dollars that will be taken out of our tax base and provided for services such as providing treatment for homeless people that is such a hot topic and we all know how many people feel very passionately about that that it's a strong need for our community This company is is very healthy. Our city is extremely desirable to a company like that, because we have so many things to provide for them. In international port, we have reliable energy sources that are relatively affordable, considering the rest of the countries, energy prices. They have a, we have a reliable workforce. We have many resources, a lot of pulp available for them to create this plant. And they are profitable around the country. And so while I recognize that it is not advantageous to have the plant be closed, they are here. And there's a reason they are here. It is a desirable place for them to operate this plant. And I don't believe that they will leave and take their business away from us if we don't provide this tith. So I recommend not voting for it. Thank you, Councillor Derrhoctor. Any final comments? Councillor Kennedy. Thank you, President Randolph. This is out in my district, and I remember when there were houses there. And I used to hang out down there. There actually used to be back in the day. Some ships that were actually dry docked back there. So this has come a long ways, and here's what I don't want to happen. Because I don't want the perfect to get in the way of the good. We need to move forward in that community we need more housing we need more funding for all of our services we need to hire more fire fire and police officers and safety all of those things that we've been that we've been passing as far as health and human services. The city is not in the health and human services game, but we put in a lot of money for all of that. So we need this economic development. I don't think this is the time to stand back and say we need to make sure it's perfect. And so I will be supporting this. This has gone through the planning department. This has gone through data. We had a great presentation that showed us that it's actually going to be an economic development driver and that the TIFF is going to come back sooner than what we've ever seen before if I'm correct from what I've heard. Maybe if you want to share that information a little bit more with us. And then I'll wrap up after that. Is it Randolph, Councilor Kennedy, this is a nine-year tiff agreement. So the current abatement will come back online. So we will continue to collect, well, we're not collecting right now to be clear taxes are abated. We will now begin to collect that abatement and then any increment will not be collected. The increment will instead go towards the construction of the project. After nine years, the increment will then come on and right now numbers are showing that the increment is about equivalent to the entire $789,000 that you just saw in New Road from all the parcels this year. So that will be one project alone. And if I may, I'll finish up. Tips are really hard. They're really hard to do. They're really hard to understand. This one is a really unique one to me, even though I'm not in planning an economic development. It sounds like we're going to get our money back sooner than any tip that I've ever heard about. And so again, I just want to say that this is a great project. This is a great project in Western Duluth. I'm going to support this. And again, don't get in the way of perfect when we got good. Thank you so much, Councilor Kennedy. Councilor Nethiou. Thank you, President Randolph. I am just going to piggyback on what Councillor Kennedy and Councillor Forrestman were touching on this is 160 good high-paying jobs not to mention all the jobs that will go into building, expanding the facility from our labor folks and all the construction that's coming into it. And then also from the tax part, since we are ending the abatement, I mean, the rate that their pain in taxes currently is going to go up drastically and be locked in for nine years and then it's going to go up even significantly more. So we will be increasing our revenues that are coming into the city, which is a good thing across the board from everything with this. So yes, don't let the perfect get in the way of the good. This is a lot of jobs and a lot of investment in our economic capacity. So thank you. Thank you, Councillor Neff you. Councillor Swenson. Thank you, President Randolph. Just confirmation from our Thursday meeting. It's really extending the tip four years, right? Because the abatement was still five years left in the total of nine. Is that accurate? President Randolph, Councillor Swenson, the abatement was for 10 years. And so it will expire in a seven eightish. So the nine years is a little more than the seven to eight years when the abatement would be reached the $600,000 mark for the city portion. So it's an additional three-ish that this would extend at then. And a different capacity. Probably more like two. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Swanson. Councillor Neff, you, I mean, Councillor Forzman. Thank you, President Randolph. I appreciate all the comments from Council colleagues tonight. Just to the point about the financial package, I understand there's some different analysis about whether the business subsidy is justified or not. I think it's important, though, as counselors, that we as a city hire elders to validate what our staff's analysis tells us. And I think we need to be particularly careful about language that states other than what our city consultants who have been hired in our on the record for things like the business subsidy reports say. So it is very clear to me that based on that analysis there is a justification for the tax increment financing plan here. Of course it would be ideal not to have to do TIFF. I agree with that 100%. But for anybody who spent any amount of time and business in the state of Minnesota I will also tell you there are significant challenges to recruiting industrial customers of this nature to our community, where we not only have the higher paying jobs because it's industry and not only have the volume of jobs that this supports, but when we rank in the bottom 10 for taxes, when we struggle to have sites that are available and when the state doesn't have a robust incentive package some of those other locations that Soffidel has expanded to their states are very aggressive on giving incentives so that Local municipalities like ours don't have to I would love to have an environment where the state of Minnesota is paying a higher percentage of the tab Then we have to here just like I'd love to see more LGA. And there's risk there. I know there's different philosophies on that, but if they're gonna give it out, I want it for our community. And so we are in a situation where to be competitive for these types of opportunities, we need to step up when we have the opportunity to do so, and that's this right here. And so I would urge support tonight. Thank you. Thank you so much Councillor Forza. Councillor Durr-Wocker. Thank you, President Randolph. I do just want to point out that of the eight other plants that Sofie del operates, there have been no tips given except for in one community. So I don't I'm a little confused at your your comment about the competitiveness of other communities. I guess I'll talk to you about that so I tend to get more information you don't have to do it now but I just wanted to point that out. Any final comments from the Councillors on item 20? Seeing none, I'll make a final comment. I'm in support of this TIF, developing this TIF district. One of the ways that we help bring in housing of all types, affordable housing. One of the ways in which we help live people out of poverty is by providing jobs. This project potentially will bring 160 new jobs. It's a $250 million project for our community. When we talk about we need to grow our economy, that's another way in which we help everyone rise. This certainly does that. This is a warehouse expansion. It's a 586,000 square feet warehouse expansion. Blessed by the state of Minnesota with a Minnesota investment fund in the amount of 3.1 million. And so I've been watching this project. I'm excited that they chose us. I do believe there are other places and other communities that woo them with different tools like TIFF. Glad they chose us. So please join me in approving resolution 718. Looking for a motion. I have a motion by Vice President Tomonic. I have a second by Councillor Kennedy. All those in favor. Aye. All those opposed. I've got eight Yeses and one nay Motion passes on that if agreement district. Okay next we're on our item 21 Organs to be read for the first time clerk Johnson will you read that one in for us? Item 21 ordinance 41 is an ordinance dedicating real property as park property Thank you for that. We'll see that one 21 ordinance 41 is an ordinance dedicating real property as park property. Thank you for that. We'll see that one coming back around. And now we're on item 22. This one's to be read for the second time. This is public works and utilities, counselor mail. Thank you, President Randolph. Or an ordinance 40 is an ordinance dedicating a perpetual easement for street purposes over city owned property. So moved. Thank you for moving that. Any comments on this one? Seeing none, looking for a motion. I have a motion by mail. I have a second by Forzman. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes 9-0. Okay, that's the end of our agenda tonight. Open up for Councillor Comments and questions and review of upcoming business. Councillor Kennedy. Thank you, President Randolph. I wanted to thank the folks that fixed the pipe out in western Duluth. I want to see if we can claim the oldest pipe in the city. So let me know if that was it. But thank you, thank you, thank you. It was huge and you did a great job. So thank you. Thank you, Councillor Kennedy. Councillor Mayo. Thank you, Mr. Randolph. Just as we're headed into our Friday discussion, one to remind, obviously, we've talked about it several times already, but the 2025 budget presentation starting at 8.30 AM to 4.30. And then are we going to maybe chair for some of my know are we going to add a schedule on here so folks wanted to come for a specific presentation or maybe Miss Carlson director Carlson would know. President Randolph councilor mail we have it available and can go ahead and post it to the Council calendar if you find that easiest. That might be the best spot on the meeting schedule and then hopefully it's not. Maybe it's really extensive but it might be helpful for members of the public if they want to see something specific. Thanks. Thank you, Councilor Mayo. Any final comments from anyone? Seeing none, I'll take a motion to adjourn. So moved. Do I have a second? Second by Swenson. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We're adjourned. Thank you.