i'll try to keep it brief i've been city attorney now for about six years and i don't live in the city although it was a nice city i was legally trained at the university of north dakota which is in grand forks and i live in south  he's not just the city attorney per se he's also the city prosecutor and besides that he's not really a city employee in a contract and you do office  city hall but normally you have the city attorney's that are part of the staff in the house and then you have consultants or house attorneys pardon the pun but you're neither and i think what's kind of interesting also is that it's very seldom they had the city attorney also being the city prosecutor and so you're sort of a one stop shop for maplewood and give us a little bit of  was thankfully some space available and so i started sort of not in house but certainly with an office space that was in house and what ended up happening was it really increase the efficiency of getting things done because employees of course in the police were able to come over to interact directly with me and so that worked out so well that i ended up office in there and you know just for the for the record i do pay rent that's right we do charge you a fair market rent for that absolute space probably more than that but that's ok well we think it's fair anyway so between myself and my my paralegal christy who's you know sort of my left hand and coordinates a lot of the paperwork that goes along with certainly the criminal prosecution side shop this is out of the city hall as well so we pay for her place too  that's not an uncommon relationship in city government so a lot of city governments take advantage of what the market basically says legal services are worth so they throw out the job as the city attorney and in a lot of cases the city prosecutor out for basically bids to see who will do the work for the for the for the least i did go through that process when i got pulled in and i believe i certainly provide a pretty good value given that i was the cheapest   i was the lowest bidder should we say ok so ever since then that's where i've been and at the time i essentially got quote unquote the contract to do both the criminal prosecution work which may be which would mean me and my wearing this the prosecutor hat as well as the civil attorney job which is more of an in house assist the staff in all things legal while a lot of the viewer and they were watching this probably have seen me in of course at city council because i sit in on those meetings and other in the metro outside of st paul so as far as the suburbs go we generate the most traffic through the criminal court system thousands of cases and i think that's probably a function as much of being next to st paul's that is having so many did what we are  licensed attorney obviously and enjoys the municipal practice so he handles some of the preliminary calendars things of that nature and so it would be next to impossible would be impossible to do work all by myself just because there is that duplication  of schedules so we literally have things going in two different you know rings of the circus at the same time and let's be clear about this is that perry mason type cases for the most part it's it's  is correct so it's really the vast majority of the cases that go through any state system are those are the lesser crimes the non capital crimes the non felonies so that's what generates  i think that people have gotten a pretty good deal and i hear very few complaints so kudos to you and your staff thank you for that so wonderful job so it's been really good experience let's talk about the civil side a little bit civil side what the city attorney do well for me that's probably the more interesting side only because i've been prosecuting for years and like i tell people the crimes don't change the people in some circumstances do so once you've got a dui you've probably had most of them next to maybe a few odd fact patterns but the city attorney works much more interesting because you know as i tell people it's a different job every day so i spend a lot of time actually talking on the phone with citizens as much as they do the staff so you know i'm not going to say the craziest questions come up but certainly questions come up that citizens think well i'll call the city attorney you know he or she is there to answer questions too and typically i'm more of a resource for the for the staff but since they have an office in city hall people don't have a problem calling asking me questions so many questions about everything from state law to whether or not i need a dog license in maplewood but they gotta be pretty clear that they're the city attorney not the citizens attorney because also you know as the old saying goes where you get two attorneys together you've got four opinions i think we have to be careful in that regard but most of the time i spend my days reviewing you know it's the exciting work is an area of labor relations because that that's just that would be just too much i think for for one person or even one small firm to handle all the aspects of that with the negotiations and stuff so for those that are installed within very short time i believe march is is getting to be the deadline but try to give us a fifty cent tour of these type of contracts and federal tax credits xcel rebate programs and hosey the bank there was one other program and it was just absolutely amazing trying to put something together with that and  first team decided that it wasn't worth it the city actually the city the state actually changed up the way that process was going to work and the numbers didn't work for the previous company so they got out and the company that we're dealing with now became the successor and so that's what we've been working with for the better part of a year now but yeah combining those doughs different programs into a way that would allow us to have that solar project and not have to incur any expense to the citizens of maple it was kind of a challenge but there are a series of  rebates for what's called minnesota made technology and in this case the company that's doing our program is using minnesota made solar panels and three and reflective material and i believe that part of that is part of those panels is the three m product that i believe increases the the reflectivity more than anything else and bounces light into the panels in a slightly different manner but i'm not an expert on that and there's also federal stimulus dollars that are ministered to the state so that's a grant that the city got  y year ago for hundred thousand dollars and that was for precisely this project and then there a couple of other tax incentive programs that are administered through the federal government that allow investors essentially to stick the money forward or i should say present the money to the company that's building this project and in return they get tax credits essentially that are more than the value of what they're investing to build these for cities and neighborhoods taking advantage of that well and i think a lot of the other government are going to be thankful for that because you know i think you are and the groundbreaking aspect of that and and i know your first thought was to protect the taxpayers of maplewood and and i believe we've done that so  i just found that that whole area where we had to kind of change horses in midstream and which most people don't realize is that the first party went basically were bridesmaids waiting for it to happen they backed off and i know we can't get into but they did help pay for our legal expenses and the time that we spent on that portion of the contract and so we did settle with them and then introduce some of that material into the into the new relationship and it's worked out pretty well it's for the viewers at home it's it's like almost like a frankenstein type project because you know the city is not just buying something and plugging it in and leaving the cities essentially contracting with an entity to build these arrays like you said there's two of them and as soon as they're done building one portion of the negotiation one portion of the deal is done which is the purchase agreement to buy the thing and then upon completion the city then turns around and essentially leases the entire array if you will raise back to the company that built it so they can then operate it for us for five years and they pay us a lease but we pay them for the electricity that's produced on our system and then to five years when those tax credits have essential paid back to investors they turn the keys over to the city and it becomes ours and all that power that's generated then obviously we don't pay for it consequently we're also not getting any lease payments from them and it's really kind of a win win situation and for my part i'm really interested in showing having maplewood be a demonstration project for the for the rest of the state where where people can see it systems ground or a systems we're also talking with another firm about perhaps for vita solar basically at no cost  city but also to show that this is a viable means to provide alternative sources of power so that we're not always consuming  or prosecutor i realize probably be a prosecutor is not the most enjoyable well sometimes that can be rewarding too depending on the the type of case sometimes you can work with people that haven't been worked with at all in the past so they just keep problems and there have been some pretty creative ways put forth one of them's called the driving diversion program which takes people who are chronic offenders who essentially haven't had a license for years and essentially gives them the carrot up front by allowing them through and this is something that the program had to get authorization from the state for because it really requires the department of public safety to give these people their license back first and then they kind of dig themselves out of the problems that they've created by getting criminally cited in multiple jurisdictions so they resolve all their cases in one fell swoop and instead of having to pay all their fines and do everything in advance and then get their license they get their license and then take care of all their other requirements so that's a reward type program was really more offender specific you know driving when you're not supposed to is really not a victim based crime so it's restorative in the sense that it actually puts people back on the road in the society we live in it's pretty hard to get around without being able to get around so you know to make your job and people like that you know there's no one would make the choice of staying home and not working just because they couldn't you know they didn't have a piece of paper that said they could drive so now they're driving and sort of working off their their their debt so that's been a very good thing from a board and frankly it's been a good thing for the courts because it rope's together all of the offenders citations and takes care of them once instead of having to go from one city to another city to another city so that's something that is fairly warding to be able to help people out within the criminal setting on the civil side it's the day to day things you know every really when i send you reports from our from our insurance trust that says that maple woods you know flying straight and flying right that what's what your biggest frustration and then the job oh there's a profound lack of i think taking responsibility for one's actions in many cases that's what makes the criminal courts challenging there's also frankly a lot of frivolous claims that get made against cities and so it's very frustrating to deal with something that you know you don't have a choice but to defend yourself but at the end of the day you go home and go what on earth is this person talking about and what on earth does this person think they're going to get by essentially gumming up the workings of a city for no apparent gain other than the joy of watching you know the city have to struggle with things  that's pretty frustrating the nefariousness that's out there so you know this is a community and there is such everyone should be you know sort of rowing in the same direction and that's not to say that bad things don't happen and things need to be compensated for but you know for the most part it it shouldn't be attacked just because you know there are so many flanks to attack it that makes sense so it's frustrating and rationally and personally ok now there's a i right realize we're getting winding down our interview time so there's a we get some very upset people come in and they don't want to pay for their roads or their streets and etc etc etc and you know nobody likes to pay bills but you know what's you  don't have much choice is same is whether you want to have a good road or a bad road in and from your house but i think people don't see the value of this as a mechanism for doing public improvement so give us a little capsule of the special session on the things that we have to go through sure well like any form of funding special assessments are a way to help essentially pay for  most typically as part of large road projects where i believe the city for the better part of fifteen years or some like that or close to it has had a street reconstruction program for example you can use under state law you can use special assessments against any property within your jurisdiction where a project has actually benefited the property specific to that property so the theory behind special assessments as it relates to neighborhood road projects is that since you get a new street new sidewalk new curb new gutter your storm sewer whatever the case may be appraisers come in before the before the project goes through and look at the project and professionally assess whether or not there's a benefit that can be attributed to that property and of course in this society we measure benefit in dollars and cents and based on that then the city can can budget that amount towards what we consider to be special assessments and that's a method of paying for the project and in the city of maple woods case it's a very small portion so it's not under state law you can make a benefit of property you know pay one hundred percent of the project cost if you can attribute all of the benefit to that property so in this case we don't do that with street projects it's a very small portion of the overall cost of the entire project but that's how it's done so in the assessment is based on a professional opinion that says here's how much that is that it's not it's not the value of your house per se it's the whole property and whether values increase your house or decrease that benefit your property is there still a benefit whether the value of your actual house decreases because of these economic times well it's a it's popular to be upset about having to pay a special assessment because no one sees their tech statement go up but unfortunately or what i should maybe say is the way i'd like to explain it to people is your road and all of those improvements are going to affect your property whether or not there's a house on it or not so if your house burns down you still have a new street you still have a new sidewalk where you'll have new curb and gutter and the thing that you have to look at is you know is that property the property worth more or less after the after the project is done and obviously in the case of assessments the opinion and well road projects everywhere in the state are done that way  and nobody likes that one other item i know we're really getting short on time but one thing we haven't talked about in maple wood since it will be three years in march and not even the wagon have talked about eminent domain and so where is the concept that eminent domain now has as opposed to just several years ago and what does the future look like for eminent domain sure well and then domain  notes version or definition of that is simply that the government can take your property and they can take your property what used to be for essentially civic purposes so if you need to put in a road a hospital you know something of that nature specifically highways the government comes in and value it's the property and takes it and obviously has to pay for it so the most recent example of some of those takings that we've gone through would be the county rodion white bear project we widen some of those so needless to say some property got shaved off and usually creates litigation simply because there's a lot of other associated damages beyond just the physical taking of the of the property so if you've got a restaurant for example and we take half your parking lot you know the experts come in and say well you know not only can cars not park there anymore on the news business and they can't sell the property and a number of damages are speculated upon and things usually settle but that's what people sue about so it's more than just that that's typically w the city like maplewood it's fully developed and can't really see the city having to punch through neighborhoods and put roads in but one of the things there's a case that was handed down not too long ago that actually found  economic development is actually a good and justifiable excuse for the city or the county or the state to exercise its eminent domain so if yunus palleted wanted to see a strip mall where there's a neighborhood they could technically condemn all of that and put in essentially economic development opportunity i think the last big example of that would probably be in richfield when a couple a neighbor we're actually taking out one hundred eighty four warehouses were removed and a large car dealership in favor of the best buy corporate headquarters if you know where that is and then another section called richfield cedar commandeering it's called there used to be an entire neighborhood there along cedar avenue slash highway seventy seven and now it's target home depot things of that nature but that people are fairly compensated right and they had lengthy process that goes to the court process an eminent domain so that you know started that way for sure and well you almost need something like that otherwise public projects could be held hostage by somebody just trying to cut a fat hog so to speak well typically what the city or the county or the state would do is do it's called a quick take and that's where they essentially get title to it in their project goes to run away and they agree to disagree and argue later about what the value is and that will keep projects not held up but it will certainly keep the courts busy for quite a while because that's what's so then litigated so the you end up paying what you consider to be the fair market value and then you argue about what it really should be after the fact well speaking of after the fact where time is just about and it's any close it vice for the citizens of maple  for the citizens i'd say just remember that you live in a community you know the best thing you can do and some of the pushes that have been done is things like national i know people get along best when they're talking so that's what i encourage people to do you know it's a big community it's an interesting community and the more people more diverse community more people talk and get to know each other you tend to look out for each other and that's what keeps crime down and and people happy well our time is up so i really want to thank allen cantered the city tourney for appeari