Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-24-26-WSApproved: September 14, 2026 CITY OF ARDEN HILLS, MINNESOTA CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION AUGUST 24, 2026 5:00 P.M. - ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL Pursuant to due call and notice thereof, Mayor Grant called to order the City Council Work Session at 5:00 p.m. Present: Mayor David Grant; Councilmembers Brenda Holden, Tena Monson, Emily Rousseau and Kurt Weber Absent: None Also present: City Administrator Jessica Jagoe, Public Works Director/City Engineer David Swearingen and Assistant to the City Administrator/City Clerk Julie Hanson The consultant scheduled for Agenda Item 3A Staffing Study Discussion was joining via Zoom but was not connected yet. Council agreed to bump that item until the Consultant could be brought online. Councilmember Monson requested that Council leave enough time to talk about agenda planning, moving forward. There are some items that aren't officially on the list. 1. PUBLIC INQUIRIES/INFORMATIONAL None. 2. RESPONSE TO PUBLIC INQUIRIES None. 3. AGENDA ITEMS A. 75'h Anniversary Event Recap (Agenda Item 3B on published agenda) ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — AUGUST 24, 2026 2 Assistant to the City Administrator/City Clerk Hanson said Council requested a discussion regarding takeaways and lessons learned from the 75t' Anniversary event. She will also provide a recap of the accounting and funds spent. She said Attachment A outlines the total cost of the event was $71,821.98. Councilmember Rousseau asked if there is an estimate on how much Staff time was spent on planning the event. Assistant to the City Administrator/City Clerk Hanson said it's hard to determine that. There were a handful of Staff members who spent months working on it and others were brought in toward the end who put in significant hours on last minute tasks that needed to be done. It was so intertwined with other daily work, it is difficult to put a number on it. There were thousands of emails sent and returned. Councilmember Rousseau asked if having the same event next year would be easier, based on what Staff learned this time around. Assistant to the City Administrator/City Clerk Hanson said the former Parks and Recreation Manager secured the band, the stage and other rentals. We have a good idea of what would go into it, as far as components. Councilmember Rousseau asked if there was any indication from the volunteers if they would want to do this again in the future. She said Mounds View has a committee that focuses on their event and works to secure the donations vs. using Staff resources. Assistant to the City Administrator/City Clerk Hanson agreed the surrounding communities have a dedicated community group that does most of the heavy lifting with limited City Staff involvement. We didn't have a large number of volunteers. Councilmember Monson asked if efficiencies would have been improved if we had the Parks and Recreation Manager for the duration of the planning and execution of the event. How much had she been doing that had to be spread out to other Staff after she left? Assistant to the City Administrator/City Clerk Hanson said she was handling the volunteers, sponsorships and the entertainment. Those were the big items. Clerk Hanson did food trucks and drone show. Councilmember Monson said $71,000 is a lot. She doesn't know what that would look like to do it again and again. She is interested in learning how the structure could work with a committee that runs it. Assistant to the City Administrator/City Clerk Hanson will do some research on surrounding communities that have those groups. Mayor Grant said well done. He said we have an extra $500 after everything is paid. He asked what we plan to do with that $500. Assistant to the City Administrator/City Clerk Hanson said that would be up to Council. That is the remaining balance from the Twin City Gateway grant dollars. The allocated Twin City ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — AUGUST 24, 2026 3 Gateway funds were $26,521.98 and of that we spent $26,016.75, leaving a difference of $505.23. That amount cannot be carried over to next year and must be used for marketing an event intended to bring people into the city. Council can decide how to allocate that money. Mayor Grant said he thinks the remaining funds should be allocated to Ribfest. He thinks the most important takeaway is we pulled off a successful event. Residents appreciated it. The drone show was awesome and may be preferable over fireworks. Council can discuss if we want to do another similar event in the future. The Twin City Gateway funds will be approximately the same, maybe more for 2027. He supports continuing to hold a city festival. Each component could be reviewed to determine what worked and what should be done differently. Councilmember Holden said this event was a lot of work. The Gateway funds would not pay for a 3-D drone show again. We would have to get sponsorships. We raised $20,000 for the 3-D. A 2- D show would not be as impactful as what we had. The committee thought this was a one time event. We advertised all winter and all spring for that committee. We had a just handful of residents apply and they all did a phenomenal job. However, people had ample opportunity to be on the committee and nobody chose to be. She asked what was left in swag. Assistant to the City Administrator/City Clerk Hanson said we have some cups. A box was inadvertently left at City Hall, otherwise it would probably have gone. Councilmember Holden wondered if we can use it for the 75th or the pumpkin hunt. Assistant to the City Administrator/City Clerk Hanson said it needs to be marketing so we can't do anything toward the 751h because that event has come and gone. Councilmember Holden said we can use it advertise other City events. City Administrator Jagoe said it has to be an event that is advertised and intended to bring people into the community. Councilmember Holden said a lot of people like our Halloween event. We had over 300 last year. She doesn't see anything like this happening again. Maybe a drone show. But you still need all of the Public Works guys to work it. You still need to bring in tables. Maybe some of the things can be cut out. Even if we just did a drone show, we need a lot of money. She got 90% of the sponsorships. They were willing to give large sums of money for a 751h celebration but they aren't going to be giving to the community every other year. She didn't think very many of the sponsorships were from Arden Hills businesses. Assistant to the City Administrator/City Clerk Hanson said there were 40 total sponsors and 14 of them were Arden Hills businesses. Councilmember Holden said we didn't get a real good buy -in from the businesses. There wasn't a lot of community sponsors for this community event. It was a lot of work for everyone. Without a committee, she doesn't think Staff can add this to their permanent job descriptions. Councilmember Rousseau is interested in what other communities do. We would have to scope this and downsize. The Lions Club has been decommissioned. The community picnic they were ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — AUGUST 24, 2026 4 hosting isn't going to be happening anymore. She would like to find something that can take the place of that. Councilmember Holden said the Lions event didn't even get 100 attendees and a lot of those who did go weren't from Arden Hills. We'd have to get creative on how to get word to the residents. Assistant to the City Administrator/City Clerk Hanson said it has been discussed before that Ribfest is interested in partnering with us and possibly expanding. Their event only lasts until 6:00 pm. There could be a possibility to piggyback off of that. People would attend Ribfest event and come to the Arden Hills event in the evening. Mayor Grant said the Gateway Visitor Bureau money is anticipated to continue. We don't have to worry about having funds to market an event we have to be concerned about how to pay for the components of an event. He asked what was spent on beer. Assistant to the City Administrator/City Clerk Hanson said the total sponsorship dollars spent to cover the event was $45,294. The portion paid for the beer, which was covered by the New Brighton Lions sponsorship dollars. The agreement for that was that patrons paid $5 for a beer and the sponsorship dollars paid for the difference. The food trucks all met their minimums. Councilmember Holden said the sheriffs department gave us a break on the Public Safety and didn't charge for the third deputy. Mayor Grant said there are ways we could still structure an event. It wouldn't be the full $71,000. Discussion ensued that the Car Show had a minimal cost. It was just purchasing the trophies and magnets. Public Safety and the planning hours add to the amount. Councilmember Monson said she would like to see Staff present options for an adjusted scope and assumptions around those potential costs. Mayor Grant said there is a general agreement that we want to look into a city festival for next year. We learned some lessons. He agrees that Staff can bring it back to Council with options. Councilmember Holden disagrees. She doesn't think Staff is able to do this year after year, even in a smaller capacity. It needs to be committee driven. She asked if Staff even wants to do this. City Administrator Jagoe said if the ask is for Staff to put some of this information together we would look at comparables for festivals in cities with a similar bandwidth as us. It wouldn't be Staff trying to find sponsorship dollars. The question for Council is, are there Councilmembers who are willing to be appointed to a committee and be responsible for making sure sponsorship dollars come in year after year. How do we make sure we can sustain an active volunteer group that helps with the planning vs. a volunteer group who may have ideas but no plan to implement those ideas. The volunteers would need to support Staff efforts. What if we don't get volunteers? What would Council's expectation of Staff be if we have committed to an annual event? It would be a difficult task for Staff to do all of the heavy lifting, with our bandwidth. We would need a strong volunteer working group. ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — AUGUST 24, 2026 5 Councilmember Monson said we know what it took to host the 75`h. The next phase is identifying how or if we can do it again. It will be good to know how surrounding cities do it. How big is their group? How long did it take for them to build that group up? She isn't sure if an annual event is a good idea or not until she sees what Staff brings back. Mayor Grant said this event created momentum. If we don't have another event next year, we may lose some of that momentum. He understands it's a lot of work. However, residents agreed it was a resounding success. He said Staff will come back at what may be possible. Councilmember Holden would like to see a 5-year plan, as well as an annual plan. Maybe we can do a nice event every 5-years vs. a little event every year. It won't be successful if it's not well done. Councilmember Weber recognizes all the work that everyone put in and he is very appreciative. He agrees that we have the momentum. Using that momentum to form a committee now, may be more impactful than before. This event created a buzz, more than any other community event in recent years. There may be more interest in volunteering now that residents have seen what is possible. He does not want Staff to take this on. It should be a committee. He attended a lot of parades this summer. He'd like to see us get there, too. He thinks recruiting for volunteers now would be worth it. Councilmember Holden said there are so many activities in surrounding communities. We struggled to find a date that would not compete with those other cities' events. Mayor Grant said we should use the momentum and see what is possible. B. Personnel Committee Policy Discussion (Agenda Item 3C on published agenda) City Administrator Jagoe said our existing hiring and termination policy was adopted in 2018. That policy lays out the framework for the hiring and termination process. She outlined the current process for non -director level positions vs. director level. There is a Council interview at the director level. The process varied with a recent position with Council review prior to hiring the Parks and Recreation Manager. She said discussion should be if the current policy is the preferred option and/or is there some language that should be inserted to make sure we are consistent. There is another discussion item related to reviewing employment applications. In looking into this item she doesn't see a formal Personnel Committee policy to outlines the roles and appointment process. She is seeking direction on if Council wants to have a formal policy. Mayor Grant said we don't want to create an open meeting with each Personnel Committee meeting so limiting it to two members of the Council makes sense. Should one of those two positions be the mayor? Councilmember Rousseau said she'd like to scope this first. She doesn't think Council should be making decisions and micro -manage staff regarding positions lower on the organizational chart. The Council should be involved at the director level and if there are disciplinary discussions. She also worries about the amount of information that may be shared when health issues occur. Council doesn't need those details. She likes the idea of two councilmembers being on the Personnel Committee. ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — AUGUST 24, 2026 6 Councilmember Weber agrees with Councilmember Rousseau's comments. He agrees there should be two members but he doesn't see a reason to automatically state one of the two members needs to be the mayor. He thinks the City Administrator should be involved as a committee member because ultimately it's the City Administrator's staff. Councilmember Holden said we do need two members. Council is the employer. The City Administrator isn't the employer. If we have to let someone go because of a medical issue, she wants everyone to know, to be prepared. Council doesn't need the intimate details of a medical condition but it's important the committee knows what's going on because Council is the employer. She said 16 people have left in the past three years. She thinks the Personnel Committee could hear about someone doing a good job and offer a bonus or an additional step. She thinks people could take a class on reading resumes. We haven't done a stellar job at getting people. It's nice to have two members to go through it at the top level so it gives security to the directors and City Administrator. Councilmember Monson supports two councilmembers being on the Personnel Committee. She thinks it's good to leave it open in the event that a future councilmember has a background that would be advantageous in that role. She agrees that Council needs to know what's happening with Staff but there is a line. If Staff deems it necessary, Council could be brought in for a manager or lower position. As a standard, she would prefer to see the Council participate in interviews at the director level, only. She said the Personnel Committee should be getting reports on who is doing well and where there are challenges. She said it should be outlined what the process is if there were an,issue at the Administrator level. Mayor Grant said he understands if someone joins the Council and they have an HR background that person should be on the Personnel Committee. The mayor works with the City Administrator on a daily basis. It makes sense that the mayor, who is the voice of the city, should be on that committee. Council should interview director level positions. Once we're at the manager level, Council should have the option, if they want to take part. Below the manager level, it's a Staff function. City Administrator Jagoe said what is being described is what is laid out in the memo. The Personnel Committee recommended a second round of interviews for the Park and Recreation Manager position. The question became should the Personnel Committee be making that recommendation and are the members of that committee the interviewers, or is it the whole Council? She said the recruitment memo usually describes who will be make the recommendation. If it is different than that, it will need to be made clear what Council expectations are. If a recommendation comes forward, is the rest of the Council going to see those applications. The policy and the way the recruitment memo is written determine who has the authority to see the applications. Mayor Grant summarized that if the position is director or administrator level, Council should interview. Council should have the option to interview at a manager level and should have the right to see those applications and decide if they want to be a part of the process. Councilmember Rousseau said the applications are public. Council can see the applications but not interview at a Manager level. ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — AUGUST 24, 2026 7 City Administrator Jagoe said the City Attorney has said that how the policy is written and how we advertise for recruitment determines which members see the application. If it is the desire of Council to see all of the applications before giving direction on next steps, she will work with the City Attorney on that policy language. Councilmember Rousseau said when we get 40 applications for a Park and Recreation Manager position, she is fine with the supervisor and Staff looking at those. She asked if 16 full time employees have left over the last three years. Discussion ensued that there have been 15 staff turnovers. Council would like to see the count total. They would like a 10-year look back, laid out by year and broken down by department. Councilmember Monson thinks seeing applications and then deciding the process opens us up to discrimination. She doesn't think applications should be shared with Council outside of the person interviewing. She is fine if Personnel Committee wants to do the second round of interviews for a director level but she doesn't think the committee should be involved in manager positions. Mayor Grant clarified that he didn't say Council should see all of the resumes. He sees Staff s job as identifying the best candidates from the pool of applicants. Once Staff has determined who will be interviewed, Council would see those resumes. Assistant to the City Administrator/City Clerk Hanson said we are required to have a written rubric with scores that are used to determine which applicants stand out. We have to be able to prove how we determined the top candidates. Councilmember Weber thinks the Park and Recreation Manager position is unique because we don't have a Park and Recreation Director and this falls under the Public Works Director. It is his opinion that Council should not interview manager levels or below. Any information Council sees needs to be redacted appropriately and if the applicant is not being interviewed, Council has no reason to see those applications. We have to put some faith in the process and in Staff doing the interviewing. Councilmember Holden agrees Council should have no access to applications for applicants who aren't getting interviewed. She pointed out that even if she wanted to request all 40 resumes, she couldn't get that. City Administrator Jagoe confirmed and said the City Attorney said private data is available to those individuals within the entity whose work assignment reasonably requires access. Councilmember Holden said then Council would only see the applications of those individuals who will be interviewed. City Administrator Jagoe said if the authority for recruitment and a recommendation to be brought forward is to come from Staff, the City Attorney is saying that the applications are private data and Council should not be seeing them. The Personnel Hiring and Termination policy is written that only Council has that authority. The disconnect comes from the way the policy is written and the way the recruitment memos are written. The policy should align with the memos. ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — AUGUST 24, 2026 8 Councilmember Holden said the only reason we are seeing this is because of the Parks and Recreation Manager position. Things were going well and all of the sudden there was a split on if the manager position needed to be interviewed by Council. City Administrator Jagoe said a recommendation was brought forward by Staff for the Park and Recreation Manager position to defer the Personnel Committee to see what the full Council wanted to do. She said a few of the most recent positions she has had requests come in to see applications. Councilmember Holden asked if there has been indecisiveness. If there were no problems and no objections at the Staff level, it would just be brought forward as a Staff recommendation. City Administrator Jagoe said in this case there were two candidates with different backgrounds and there was discussion on which candidate should move forward. She, as the City Administrator, did not interview the candidates. If there are two candidates with different skill sets a second round of interviews was appropriate. The question is who should be involved in that second round. Councilmember Holden said we want to hire good people and we want them to stay for a while. She doesn't have a problem with Council doing an additional interview. Mayor Grant said Council knows the recommendation for the Park and Recreation Manager position. He thinks ultimately Council's involvement ended with the best solution in that particular case, than if we hadn't been part of the process. It was a unanimous decision. Councilmember Rousseau said it's not reasonable to disclose the private data of anyone not being considered. She said it is reasonable to share the information of the candidate who is being recommended by Staff. She wants to know the background. Councilmember Monson said if there is an extenuating circumstance where another round of interviews is desired, if the City Administrator wasn't a part of the first round, she should be a part of the second round. The City Administrator would then go to Personnel with a recommendation. If more is needed, only Personnel should interview them. If there are additional extenuating circumstances beyond that, it should be full Council. That is a lot of interviews for a single position. A Councilmember should not be allowed to participate just because they want to. The policy should clearly lay out when and how Council will be involved. City Administrator Jagoe said she has heard answers to her questions. She can come back with a draft policy that is consistent with the feedback she heard. Councilmember Rousseau said if an interview is conducted by the City Administrator and the two councilmembers on the Personnel Committee and there is a split, what's the next step? Councilmember Holden thinks the policy should state that the City Administrator should take part in Manager interviews. If it's 3-2, then what? Mayor Grant said it is appropriate to use outside resources to vet candidates at the director level. Councilmember Monson thinks a 3-2 split is fine. If all three recommend going to Council she's fine with that, too. We need a policy but need to address extenuating circumstances. We should use an outside resource for directors. ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — AUGUST 24, 2026 9 Councilmember Rousseau is okay with that when vetting external candidates. If there is an internal candidate we probably have a good assessment. Councilmember Weber agrees the City Administrator should have a say in a final round. He can imagine a scenario where we need a lot of interviews. It is his opinion that the full council shouldn't be automatically included except at the director level. He's okay with an outside agency being involved at director level. Mayor Grant said the City Administrator has the information she needs to move forward. C. Staffing Study Discussion (Agenda Item 3A on published agenda) City Administrator Jagoe said this staff assessment was one of the Strategic Plan topics. Three proposals were presented to the Personnel Committee. The recommendation was to bring the proposal from Baker Tilly forward for discussion. Caitlin Humrickhouse from Baker Tilly joined the meeting electronically. The purpose of this project is to create a forward looking staffing plan. As population and priorities change for the City we want to be looking at how we are staffed and what we should be looking at in the future. We need to balance staffing expectations with a sustainable budget impact. The project would include four phases. First they would kick off the planning phase so her agency understands the City's priorities and the City understands the time for review and make decisions. Second would be the current state assessment and benchmarking. They want to understand the opportunities for process improvement, priorities and the challenges in the City. They will get feedback from leadership and Staff. This will give them some initial observations and will inform their recommendations. That will be brought back for discussion so Council can course correct if, needed. The third phase is shaping recommendations. Those recommendations may be staggered in implementation. They may comment on technology or process changes that can improve efficiencies. The last step is finalizing the roadmap. This includes a draft and final reporting phases and finally an implementation plan. This plan will be a guide on how to implement the recommendations, how to prioritize the recommendations, suggested time -frame and who is responsible for implementing the recommendations. Ms. Humrickhouse said they will not get prescriptive with their benchmarks. Information from surrounding communities are one data point. After talking to the Staff her team will create an initial list. That broad list will include more information than they need to help compare demographics, service levels and budget information. They will create a list called comparable organizations with some alternates. Comparables aren't always the community next door. She said the process takes about 12-14 weeks. Councilmember Holden asked if they recommend changes to org charts. Ms. Humrickhouse said they may. That would be driven by good rationale. Councilmember Holden asked how they balance need vs. want. Staff may say they need 25 additional employees in their department. Ms. Humrickhouse said they will take all opinions into consideration before making staffing level recommendations. They will compare to peer benchmarks, as well as industry standards. ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — AUGUST 24, 2026 10 Recommendations will be made based on what is sustainable. They won't make recommendations that will place the City in a challenging budgeting situation in a few years. Councilmember Holden said what happens if they identify we should have more but our budget still limits that. Will there be like a menu of options and let Council decide? Ms. Humrickhouse said there is prioritization is part of the process and the final decisions are up to Council. They will walk through the rationale for all priorities. Mayor Grant said no two cities are the same. Some cities are fully built out, others still have growth potential. We have a sizable opportunity for growth. He asked how they account for future growth. Ms. Humrickhouse said they work with cities all over the country. They will look at demographic projections, in terms of population increases. They can identify what areas will be impacted first and will suggest what the City should do to meet those impacts. Mayor Grant said this is a staffing study. He asked if they take into account the buildings people work in. What if they recommend a larger number of Staff but we have no office space for them? Ms. Humrickhouse said the comments would identify the need for additional employees and would note the City would need to address that either through expansion of existing facilities or new construction. Councilmember Rousseau asked if there has been discussion with Council to determine what positions we want to have assessed. She also wanted to know who would be interviewed in the Public Works Department. City Administrator Jagoe said up to 15 has been identified. Those positions were reviewed with the Personnel Committee in advance of this proposal. This is director level positions and positions that have supervisory roles. Within Public Works it would be the Public Works Director, the Assistant Public Works Director, Public Works Superintendent and the Administrative position. The thought was we don't need to interview every employee. Between job descriptions and interview questions they can forecast needs, expectations and bandwidth. Councilmember Holden said we may hire additional inspectors for TCAAP. She assumes the inspector position will be interviewed as part of this process. City Administrator Jagoe said the Community Development Director will be interviewed in relation to the Community Development Department, to include needs for the Building Inspector and Code Enforcement position. Mayor Grant said we don't have a rental license program. In what way can Baker Tilly help us understand staffing for a new program like that? Ms. Humrickhouse said that is not within the scope of this project. However, they can look at the existing organizational structure and current programs. They can look at what a new division would look like. They can benchmark what other communities have and their organizational structure. They would look at compliance, reporting and funding considerations. ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — AUGUST 24, 2026 11 D. Immigration Enforcement Discussion Not Discussed. E. Rice Creek Commons/TCAAP Discussion Not Discussed. F. Agenda Planning Not Discussed. 4. COUNCIL/STAFF COMMENTS Councilmember Monson had some items that she would like to see discussed at a future work session. She would like to see a strategic plan progress update. She would like to discuss when and how we are going to start to use the Parks Master Plan. She would like to see an update on the Mounds View High School parking situation. Staff will provide that information to Council via email. Councilmember Holden said the Lake Johanna Cold Plunge can be removed from the list. She would like county road parking added to the list. She wants to know what the rules are. City Administrator Jagoe said the Ramsey County Sheriffs Office (RCSO) said the restrictions in the ordinance that the Council adopted in May apply on county roads. Staff is seeking direction if Council wants to bring the discussion on ordering additional signage to post the no overnight parking restrictions from November to April. The information is on the website and was featured in the newsletter when the ordinance was amended. We will put another notice in the fall newsletter as the parking restrictions get closer. Councilmember Rousseau would like a better understanding of RCSO's procedure and audit processes in relation to the FLOCK cameras. ADJOURN Mayor Grant adjourned the City Council Work Session at 6:52 p.m. 5drown mr- 01-4, , W"', ` �. Deputy,