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Regular City Council Meeting Monday, September 23, 2019 Page 15 actually come back and revisit this issue. As a result of Staff reaching out to the EDA Attorney that is in essence off the table. He appreciated the efforts staff went through last Friday to help get some understanding of where the city stood. After personally having conversations with the Carpenters Union, with respect to the knowledge of this developer, when he saw the story, he was taken aback that it had to be known that this was going on. That had to be known on the day the EDA was making its decision and had the EDA had that verifiable information at the time the EDA was making that decision, the decision would likely have been different. Mayor Roe explained the thing that challenges him about these situations is deal- ing with allegations without conclusions and with video and photos being taken by news outlets does not necessarily show wrongdoing. He wanted to make sure as a city when working with people, that the city is giving people the appropriate ability to respond to things and not making the decisions on the basis of not a full picture and understanding of things. He thought the city had done a pretty good job of that. Mayor Roe offered an opportunity for public comment. Public Comment Mr. Burt Johnson, Carpenters Union Attorney,205 Twin Lake Trail, Little Canada Mr. Johnson explained it needs to be pointed out that the language in the EDA agreement, if it was in effect today for the project, based on his conversation with the City Attorney prior to any of this coming up, the City of Roseville would not be able to terminate its EDA agreement with Reuter Walton any way. His con- versations with the City Attorney were around the idea of if the city wanted to prevent trafficking and wage theft from taking root in the industry, and communi- ty, and throughout the construction industry, do not provide a public subsidy to a developer who has profited from that in the past. It was that simple and is a black and white issue. Workers came forward to tell their stories at great peril, going through things that we will never know in our lives living in Roseville and the northern suburbs. Those workers risked everything and the idea that the Carpen- ters Union had an obligation to inform the City of Roseville about what it knew prior to that report would have put lives in danger. These folks are coming for- ward with civil complaints, with criminal complaints, so that is not a reasonable request. There were people who risked their lives and the lives of their families to publicly tell their stories and those individuals needed to be listened to, needed to be believed, and the EDA had the opportunity to do that last week. A tip from the Carpenters Union would not have changed that. Mr. Johnson noted the EDA agreement itself, if the workers were not believed the first time or there was not enough evidence in support of what those workers were