We have buildings and facilities and vehicles and equipment and over the last couple of years, we’ve been making a deliberate effort at maintaining these and wanting to continue that effort. In the past we’ve had an unofficial practice of drive the vehicles into the ground.”

City Administrator Dan Wietecha

Hastings will be the first municipality in Dakota County to allow special vehicles on city streets with the closest geographic comparison that allows them on city streets being Red Wing.

The Sept. 3 Hastings City Council meeting saw the approval of the preliminary 2025 budget of $42.2 million with a preliminary property tax levy of $20,049,930. With this acceptance of the preliminary budget, the truth in taxation hearing will take place at the Dec. 2 city council meeting.
The property tax levy represents a 7.5% increase from the previous year and a median annual increase of $106 per household, or $8.83 per month, according to the median value of homes in Hastings at $313,300.
The 2025 budget reflects the initial stages of the city raising money for the first of three water treatment plants. Due to lack of outside funding, the majority of that burden has fallen to residents via a 37.3% increase in water rates. Sewer and stormwater will rise by 4.5% and 4% respectively.
Beyond construction of the first water treatment plant, other infrastructure expenses include a $550,000 traffic signal replacement on Highway 55 in coordination with MNDOT and a $1.6 million water tower reconditioning.
Other items of note within the preliminary budget include the hiring of the last two firefighter/EMT positions from a three-year phased in effort to add six firefighters, a second school resource officer, and a project manager of public works which is a contract position.
The 2025 budget highlights belt-tightening as funds are shifted towards PFAS treatment. Several delays appear in the 2025 budget including to the Downtown Master Plan and to Vets Park Planning. Another shift has been in city asset management.
“We have buildings and facilities and vehicles and equipment and over the last couple of years, we’ve been making a deliberate effort at maintaining these and wanting to continue that effort. In the past we’ve had an unofficial practice of drive the vehicles into the ground,” said City Administrator Dan Wietecha.
The move towards maintaining vehicles is expected to save the city money in the long-run. According to the city’s press release on the preliminary budget, the several operating expenses were reduced totaling $320,000 in order to “help contain cost increases.”

ATVs
Also approved at the city council meeting was a revision to a local ordinance that would allow residents to apply for a license to drive special vehicles including ATVs, side-by-sides, golf carts, and utility vehicles on city roads. This motion is a change to Hastings Ordinance 70.02 which previously allowed only disabled residents to apply for a city permit to drive these types of vehicles on city roads if they were able to provide proof of insurance, a physician’s note, and a slow-moving emblem and rear-view mirror on the vehicle itself. Currently one resident in Hastings holds this permit.
According to the discussion at the meeting, this change reflects not the creation of new driving habits among residents but a legal avenue for residents to use for existing driving habits: “These are on our streets. I see them in Ward 2 often,” said City Councilor of Ward 2 Jen Fox.
While before this change, it was not legal to drive any of these vehicles on any city road, the practice was not unheard of, if not outright common. In allowing these vehicles on city roadways, “Council would be allowing essentially an unlicensed motor vehicle on the roadway,” said Hastings Police Chief Dave Wilske who presented to the council about this topic.
The issue of special vehicles on city roads in not a new one to Hastings City Council. It had come before the city council several times previously including in 1991, 2015 and 2020 where it was rejected each time in part due to the high levels of fatal accidents that took place on paved road with these special vehicles. According to data from Fatality Analysis Reporting System, the majority of ATV fatal crashes in 2014, 74%, took place on paved roadways.
According to Wilske, ATVs are widely considered unsafe to drive on roadways by consumer warnings from manufacturers, federal agencies, and consumer and safety advocates. Minnesota State laws are deferential to local ordinances that prohibit them outright, but currently allow Class 1 ATVs, ATVs with a width of 50 inches or less, to drive “In the ditch, outside bank or slope of truck, county state-aid, or county highway,” or on the “far right side of township roads,” according to Wilske’s presentation. For Class 2 ATVS, ATVS measuring 50-65 inches in width, are able to drive on the “right should or extreme right-hand side of a county state-aid or county highway,” and “on the bank, slope or ditch of a public road right of way, not if on private property,” according to Wilske’s presentation. Neither of these classifications are allowed on roads otherwise.
Hastings will be the first municipality in Dakota County to allow special vehicles on city streets with the closest geographic comparison that allows them on city streets being Red Wing. Wilske does not like that comparison, however: “I don’t consider that apples to apples.”
Peak traffic data along the busiest thoroughfare for Hastings and Red Wing is not equal. Both cities’ highest traffic is along Highway 61 with Red Wing’s peak in 2019 at 23,000 vehicles per day, with Hastings’ 2023 peak along Highway 61 at 35,400. While these data points come from different years, Wilske said that they are indicative of the fact that Hastings simply has more traffic due to its larger population and closer proximity to the Twin Cities.
The Red Wing Police Chief Nick Sather told Chief Wilske that special vehicles were not an issue on Red Wing roads. This was a sentiment echoed by City Councilor Lisa Leifeld, “This is a bit like chickens where people expect complaints but there won’t be any.”
The finalized language of the ordinance along with the permitting process is forthcoming.
To watch full videos of Hastings City Council meetings, visit Hasting Community TV’s YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/@HastingsCommunityTV