Minutes - Council Work Session - 09/13/2022

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Councilmember Musgrove said yes and that she would also like to hear some of the options of different things, such as, Ramsey paying for a booth and Game Fair paying for the services, or half of the services, and what portion would come from the EDA and what portion would be paid out from Game Fair. Acting Mayor Riley stated this is a perfectly good discussion for the future; however, there is still the present discussion of half of the invoiced amount from this year. He added that it seems like the consensus of the Council is to go with the 50% and that money come out of the EDA fund rather than the police fund. Councilmember Heineman stated that it seems like the City is subsidizing the invoice quite a bit, because if it is only $800 for a booth and the City is paying for parking for the Staff, it sounds like if the City bills Game Fair for the money going forward and then the City just paid their own way it would save money. He asked if Ramsey could just pay the 50% that Game Fair is asking this year and in the future make it a practice for Ramsey to pay their own way for a booth and charge Game Fair the full amount. Councilmember Woestehoff stated he agreed with Councilmember Heineman and echoed Councilmember Specht’s point that Ramsey gets a lot of publicity from the Game Fair. He added that he pulled up the information and a 20’X20’ booth at Game Fair is $1,700. He added he is unsure if every exhibitor gets their logo on all of the marketing materials. He agreed that his consensus for now would be to pay the other half that Game Fair is asking Ramsey to pay and move forward with other discussions for coming years. Councilmember Heineman stated that if the total value of the free booth and the advertising equals the difference in the invoice, then he thinks it is okay to continue to move forward with that, but if the total value is less than the half of the invoice then a different discussion needs to be had about what is more beneficial to Ramsey. He emphasized the need to determine if Ramsey is losing money on the agreement or saving money. Acting Mayor Riley stated it seems the Council is in agreement with this year’s total of paying the 50% coming out of the EDA fund. He added he imagines that Coca-Cola and the other high level sponsors pay much more than $5,000 for their sponsorship; however, this discussion can be had later to quantify the value. The consensus of the Council was to pay the other 50% of the invoice out of the EDA fund as well as making it a point to revisit this before the next Game Fair event. 2.02: Final 2023 Budget/Levy Review Before Preliminary Adoption on 9-27-2022 Finance Director Lund discussed the Staff report and gave a summary of what was discussed at the last work session on August 23. She stated the net result of removing the police squad video cameras and the unmanned aerial vehicle was $186,000 reduced from the tax levy. She explained the preliminary amount that would be presented at the September 27 meeting would be $18,292,245, representing an increase of almost $2,979,000 or 19.64% over last year. She added that this number does include the additional road debt so there would be a 15 year levy in the City Council Work Session / September 13, 2022 Page 4 of 16