03-13-2023 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING February 27, 2023 6:00 o’clock p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 19 of 22 we hadn't publicly acknowledged the offer from Long Lake. I felt like we did. If we didn't, we did get their offer. And we're going to do our assessment that James (Van Eyll) is completing and give very public and extensive, thorough information to the public. He commented on the City Administrator’s annual report. I'm really proud of this staff and their commitment to making Orono better. And they are doing it for all the right reasons, so it's nice to bring attention to that. Adam (Edwards) also has his review this evening. He's been a very important component in making the City better. Seals also congratulated the high school girls hockey team. Big kudos to make it to the finals the first time ever. Several of the girls I've known since they were four and five and played soccer. So it's pretty unique to see the young ladies they become and see how impressive they are on the ice. Good luck to the guys when they come up. We do have a Parks Commission meeting next week, a work session, March 6 at 6 pm. They are going to be talking about pickleball, where do we go next? If that's a topic you're interested in, definitely join them. And then, as I mentioned earlier, May 22, is going to be the presentation of the fire department draft proposal. Please do reach out if there's things that you really want to make sure that we address. It’s really helpful to know from your perspective, what's missing. I think Kim, you mentioned we may need to go back further in the history and update people. So those nods are good for me, because sometimes when you're in it, you assume everybody else knows all the things. So please do email me and let me know your thoughts. She offered to meet with anyone interested. It is not us talking about it. We don't have the information. We're waiting for staff to put through a very thorough response. Long Lake’s offer will be feathered in there and very much looked at. My hope is that gives not only the rest of the Council and the mayor, but also the community, some good optics on what all the options are. Walsh said he wanted to talk a little bit about the Northwest Hennepin League of Municipalities that Councilmember Benson had been attending. There was probably just more of a shock to know that she was going and never told anybody, so I appreciate her letting us know what was going on there. I do have a mayor friend that was there in the January meeting. In my opinion, there was some inappropriate stuff going on in that meeting from Councilmember Benson in terms of how she talked about me in the meeting, how she talked about the Council. This is a meeting of mayors having dinner. They also had a guest from Hennepin County Commissioners and I guess from the Metropolitan Council come and speak. And my friend who was a mayor who was there said he found it very inappropriate to talk negatively about people on your Council while there's guests and other mayors, and to also not only do that but also suggest to the Hennepin County Commissioner not to approve a grant that she doesn't like that was applied for, so basically undermining our staff for the work that they do, applying for grants with elected officials that we have to work with all the time. I found it inappropriate and so did the mayor that was there who was telling me about it. So that's all I have to say about that. We'll have more discussion at the meeting when I'm there next week to find out why these meetings are being run like that, because it's very inappropriate as well. I also want to say congratulations to the girls hockey, that was the first time ever. Also in the last couple of weeks, we've had the girls jazz dance team take first place. They're State championships. For jazz, it's the first time they've ever won that. The girls kick team, which my daughter is on the varsity team, also took third place. It's the first kick dance team for Orono that has ever medaled. I will also say congratulations to Mound Westonka, who actually were the State championships on the kick side. So between Orono and Mound, we have won all the dance competitions in the State of Minnesota for Double A. I want to say a shout out to Richie for the Crystal Bay meeting that he put