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<br />Page 1 of 4 <br /> <br />Orono City Council <br />Work Session <br />Monday, April 13, 2020 <br />Council Chambers (Held by Electronic Means) <br />5:00 p.m. <br /> <br />AGENDA <br />PRESENT: Mayor Dennis Walsh, Council Members Richard F. Crosby II, Victoria Seals, <br />Aaron Printup and Matt Johnson. Staff members present were City Administrator Dustin <br />Rief, Director of Public Works/City Engineer, and City Clerk Anna Carlson. <br /> <br />1. COVID-19 Update <br />City Administrator Dustin Rief began by discussing the latest update from Hennepin <br />County EOC on the latest COVID-19 information. Rief asked the Council for <br />feedback and input about requests he had received about rolling back the utility rate <br />increase or possibly doing some sort of forgiveness for any late fees incurred during <br />this pandemic. <br /> <br />Mayor Dennis Walsh mentioned City had went through a rather exhaustive <br />understanding and process to figure out why the increase of rates was needed. He <br />added the City should not change things because it will be happen eventually and we <br />made the responsible decision to begin now to fund infrastructure needs through the <br />utilities rather than through assessments and borrowing. Walsh mentioned he would <br />be open to looking into it case by case if needed but that it is probably best to keep <br />things the same at this time. Walsh asked the rest of the Council for their thoughts. <br /> <br />Council Member Aaron Printup asked how many call has the City had about late fee <br />forgiveness. He agrees that the City had went through an exhaustive process coming <br />up with the decision to increase rates, however was concerned about where the <br />communication piece about this was in the past six months. He mentioned if there <br />had been more communication that had went out about the rate increases then it could <br />have made it easier for everyone to understand the rationale behind it. He added that <br />he wasn’t sure if allowing the late fee forgiveness was the way to fix some of the <br />miscommunication but that we may owe it to the Citizens. Printup asked why the <br />communication was not sent out. <br /> <br />Rief mentioned that he and the Finance Director Ron Olson are looking into why the <br />communication did not go out. <br /> <br />Printup would like more communications to go out now as well. <br /> <br />Council Member Victoria Seals agrees that the roll outs should not be held back. She <br />mentioned that the decision to increase rates was wise and the whole Council made <br />the decision and knew why it was needed, however we have not communicated well <br />enough to the Citizens. Seals added that the City also owes the public an explanation <br />and that the rate increases should be over communicated the why now and just made