Nowthen City Council Community Feedback Public Forum meeting, May 8, 2025

City Council

Thursday, May 8, 2025 · 6:00 PM

This meeting on the city's website ↗

Agenda

Open PDF ↗

What was on the agenda.

Packet

Not on file

The supporting materials the board reviewed.

Minutes

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The official record of what happened.

One-line summary

The Nowthen City Council held a May 8, 2025 Community Feedback Public Forum where residents raised concerns about budget transparency, a special election, public safety, roads, fire infrastructure, contractors, zoning, and escrow; no motions or council decisions were recorded.

What was on the agenda

3 items as recorded in the agenda and minutes, each with a short summary of what was at issue.

1Call to Order
Procedural opening of the Community Feedback Public Forum.
Mayor Hybben called the session to order; no council action was recorded.
- meeting opening
No action
p. 1p. 1
2Roll Call
Roll call for the public forum.
Roll call was taken and all listed council members were present.
- attendance
No action
p. 1p. 1
3Public Forum
Community feedback forum for residents to give input, ask questions, support city officials or staff, and share ideas on budget restraints, road repair constraints, and other city improvements.
The council held the advertised Community Feedback Public Forum as a listening session rather than a decision-making meeting. Mayor Hybben opened by reading the agenda and offering ideas for public comments. Jeffrey Pilon thanked the council for holding the forum and asked for transparency and supporting documentation during budget discussions. John Caldwell asked whether the League of Minnesota Cities was involved in addressing city turmoil, asked that a public forum continue at each council meeting, and questioned why this forum took so long to schedule.
Sue Schmit used the public forum to raise concerns about the special election, stating that residents should be allowed to vote. She also directed concerns to Council Member Swenson about Facebook posts.
Jerry Streich thanked the council for attending and urged the council to focus on roads, public safety, emergency management, wells for the Fire Department, and fire hydrants rather than city conflicts.
Jethro Carpenter said he wanted Nowthen to continue having big lots and felt subcontractors or consultants were not aligned with the city’s goals. Jason Dryden raised concerns about current and previous subcontractors and the current escrow process. James Hazeman raised concerns about the previous zoning contractor and the current zoning application and escrow process.
Residents gave comments and questions; the agenda stated that council members would listen but that no dialogue or decisions would take place.
- public forum
- budget transparency
- special election
- public safety
- roads
- fire infrastructure
- zoning contractors
- escrow process
- large lots
Discussion only
p. 1p. 1p. 1p. 1p. 1p. 1p. 1p. 1p. 1p. 2

Sources

Documents and recordings archived for this meeting, when available.

Show a sample of the transcript (206 segments, 31:27 total)

0:14 Very nice. Anticipating. It should be five.
0:28 Live here in like 30 seconds. Let's see. Okay. Three, four, five.
1:16 I didn't know they were here. We're going to go ahead and get started, guys. All right. We'll call the meeting to order, please. So, today is May 8th.
1:24 It's a uh the public forum. Um there'll be five minutes to speak. So, we'd like to start with roll call, please. Dia. Mayor Hibben here. Council member Brian
1:36 here. Council member Glazer here. Council member Rainville present. Council member Swinson here. And administrative assistant Stokal is here
1:44 and roll call is complete. All right. Thank you. For our public forum tonight, uh the intent is to get community feedback uh for the residents to provide
1:52 input on uh how to make our city better. I would ask that everyone be respectful. Um if you're going to provide feedback, I would also request you provide uh a
2:01 solution to go along with it. Um they have four things listed out. give productive feedback to the council. Uh you can ask questions but the answers
2:11 will be given at a later date. Um but you can voice support for the city council, city staff or the city in general. Uh you can share thoughts or
2:19 creative solutions on the budget. Uh I'll say constraints, road repair constraints or any other thoughts that would help now then improve. Uh the time
2:29 limit will be five minutes. Um the council members will be listening uh to the comments but they won't be providing
2:36 dialogue and decisions will be taking place at a later time. The city council will take notes on your comments and if a council member would like to address
Showing first 12 segments. Open the YouTube video for the full transcript.

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