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ARDEN HILLS SPECIAL CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — OCTOBER 14, 2024 15 Interim City Administrator Jagoe has looked at where R&D or warehousing would be consistent with other businesses. She thinks the gateway district or I flex. Councilmember Holden thinks just gateway. Mayor Grant said it's a nice area for that. Councilmember Rousseau said either gateway or I flex. Councilmember Holden thinks gateway because I flex currently has nice little businesses in there and they pay good taxes. She would hate to see warehouses. Mayor Grant said gateway business is the preference of the majority of the Council. It can always be expanded. He asked what else Staff needs. Interim City Administrator Jagoe summarized the distance from schools was discussed earlier. That will be applied. Staff will look at measures for odor control. Staff will work with the City Attorney on guidelines for limiting hours of operation. She will verify if caps are allowed for the registration of warehouse and R&D businesses. She thinks Staff has enough information to prepare something for the Planning Commission in November. Mayor Grant noted there are time constraints on some of the other items on the work session agenda so it would be appropriate to recess and resume the work session after the City Council meeting. Council recessed the work session at 6:50 p.m. Council reconvened the work session at 7:30 p.m. C. Personnel Discussion Interim City Administrator Jagoe said we have received the initial estimate from NFP for health insurance. The increase for non -union employees is about 15-18%. The 2025 preliminary budget had a place holder for a 10% increase. NFP is looking at alternate plans with HealthPartners, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Medica and United Health Care. Staff has a meeting scheduled with NFP near the end of October. That is when they will provide all the plan options. Staff wanted to update Council on the information, knowing it's preliminary. In the past the health insurance discussion and some decisions on plan options have been communicated thorough the Personnel Committee. Staff is seeking Council direction if Staff can work through the final numbers and decisions with the Personnel Committee. Councilmember Holden said in the past we switched to Health Partners because they were significantly lower than the other providers. Then 3 years later they were 25% higher than everyone else. She thinks it all evens out in the end. She doesn't like the idea of people having to switch plans and possibly lose their doctor.