07-24-2023 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING July 10, 2023 6:00 o’clock p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 6 of 8 City Attorney that doing so was not violation of anything. She said she was in favor of the wording and thinks it was good to have a discussion around it. Veach said her name was on a comment card and she was disappointed to find that her name had been used and assigned to a support category based on what Benson thought she was saying. She said she thought her comments were matter-of-fact, and they were the same questions she had asked Long Lake previously as a citizen. She said she put those comments together not knowing that they would ever be used in that way or that she would be assigned to a category without her actual comments being used. She wondered why she wasn’t included in the third column which was headed just asking questions. Walsh moved, Johnson seconded, to approve the label in paragraph three to be used by Councilmembers when providing documents to the public at City Council meetings. VOTE: Ayes 5, Nays 0. PUBLIC COMMENTS Kendall Nygard, 1386 Rest Point Road, and 5658 Judith Road, Bokeelia, Florida, welcomed Councilmember Crosby back saying she had probably made more meetings than he has though she lives in Florida. She said Crosby was characterizing the Fire Department issue as a business decision, so she was going to cover the City’s legal affairs. She said she and her husband, Jay Nygard, have lawsuits with the City that tax dollars through the League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust are covering in the amounts of $32,000 and $199,000. Other open suits, she said, include $50,000 from the League Trust for Mayor Walsh’s private legal fees. In regard to Bederwood Park she said her data request found nothing, but she alleged the attorneys are being paid for that case out of the City budget. Her malicious prosecution suit, she said, is costing the League Insurance Trust $85,000 for maximizing hard cover on their property with a one and five-eighths inch driveway lip, noting the Council had just spent 30 minutes with an applicant attempting to go up two stories on their house. Another suit involving residents seeking some sort of lane access is costing taxpayers $110,000, she said, and the City does not yet know the cost of the Long Lake suit. James Elder, 195 South Brown Road, said he would like to comment on the 2024 preliminary Orono budget. He said it was his understanding that one of the major arguments being made by Orono to start its own Fire Department was that it was paying too much for fire services under the Long Lake Fire Department arrangement. In the 2024 budget, he said, expenses related to fire will account for 24 percent of the City’s total budget. The current cost to Orono to lease fire coverage from Long Lake is $544,000 a year, he said, but Orono is preparing to spend $2,251,000 in 2024, which seems to be over four times what the City is currently spending. He said that was startling and a lot of tax dollars for a City likely facing legal action from the City of Long Lake regarding Orono’s plans to start a new Fire Department. He asked the City Council to go to mediation before making irreversible financial decisions. David Pierson, 2160 Webber Hills Road, said Councilmember Benson had asked about the lack of a date on the fire resolution and it was interesting that the attorney had replied that the date was still July 1, 2024 but if no agreement had been reached the City would have to go to Plan B. Plan B, he said, is very dangerous because it will then be an issue of public safety including where the equipment is coming from,