Aberdeen City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, it's 5.30, so let's call to order this meeting. Jordan, would you start us off with a roll call?

Please respond by stating present. Council Member Ronan. Present. Foburg. Present. Liebelt.

Present.

Ward. Present. Johnson. Present. E. Conger. Present. Nielsen. Present. Norbstrup. Present. Meir Shoneman.

Present. Please stand with me for the pledge.

Pledge of Allegiance.

The first order of business will be to approve this week's agenda. I take a motion.

So moved.

Second. Motion, Nelson. Second, Econger. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Motion carries. The next order will be to approve the minutes that took place last week's meeting, July 20th. In my absence, Councilman Johnson, wonderful job as always. Glad I'm being gone once in a while. I'll let you have the reins of this thing. I take a motion to approve those minutes.

Move to approve. Second.

Motion to leave bill. Second award. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed nay. Motion carries. We've got one speaker for our open forum. I'm just kind of shuffling her up in the order. It is our economic development manager, Amber, and she's here to talk, give us a little bit of an update on what she has been up to in the economic development office of the city. Ms. Schwab, great to see you as always. What have you got for us this evening?

Hello everyone, Mr. Mayor and members of city council. So I'm just gonna give you a brief update on items that we've been working on in economic development and public information. As requested, I'll be doing this one time a month for all of you and the residents of Aberdeen. So we continue to focus on long-term revitalization efforts and preparing Aberdeen for future growth. So over the past month, we've been evaluating city-owned facilities and redevelopment opportunities, so we're positioned to move forward when community priorities and funding align. Recently, we hosted the owner of the Aberdeen Mall for a community tour that showcased key city facilities and development opportunities. We invited stakeholders from several organizations to participate, creating valuable conversations about future redevelopment and investment opportunities here in Aberdeen. We also had one tour after that with other community stakeholders around Aberdeen, again, which went by northern other key areas we went through storybook land we drove all around town we went by the public works facility area we went by the updated business park and industrial park areas that are being redeveloped it's just good to do that every once in a while with community members as well as Council members we invite different people to come so we'll be holding those even more frequently as we continue to Decide what we're going to do with facilities and areas of town that need to be redeveloped We're also working with South Dakota Department of Agricultural and Natural Resources I talked to you guys a little bit about this I asked for approval So we are actually moving forward with the assessment of the Washington building. We are very far along in the process right now They should actually be here in the next, I'd say, 30 to 45 days to do the assessment on the Washington Building, the Civic Arena, and the Civic Theater. That really does position us in the future when we want to redevelop and or talk about our current facilities within the city, how they're being utilized, or if we want to move forward with future development. We are also pursuing one other location in town, and we actually just recently got approved to have state funding through Department of Ag and Natural Resources as well. It's going to take maybe a little bit longer, but the nice thing is it'll be paid with state funds. So I'll keep you updated on that as we continue to develop forward. Um, housing and lodging continue to be major priorities. So, as regional economic activity continues to grow in and around Aberdeen, we've identified a significant demand for additional hotel rooms and affordable workforce housing. So, community development, economic development, finance, our city manager have all been having conversations, Travis as well. on what does that look like for our future and how can we continue to have conversations around that. I know there'll probably be more conversation about that tonight, so I don't have to dive in deep, but I know we will be having a meeting soon with Aberdeen Housing Authority, HAPI, local builders, and other community partners to discuss the future of housing strategies in Aberdeen. So I continue to remain in those conversations. Collaboration also remains one of the strongest tools in economic development. I continue to meet monthly with the Aberdeen Development Corporation, Aberdeen Downtown Association, Chamber of Commerce, the CVB, Dakota Prairie Museum, and many other community organizations to help coordinate projects, share information, and support their initiatives. I'm kind of like the Open door for the city a lot of times they come to me to say here's something we're working on Here's what we need from the city Good example in the past we worked on some downtown revitalization with the parking lots and that's actively happening here in summer 2026 we've done a much better job with weed control we updated signage we now have 24-hour parking and then there's other initiatives that we're working on right now and That, again, we'll see active in the community. Another thing that I worked on with, say, the chamber, we actually became a Purple Heart community, and we got updated signage there. So we have veterans parking and just other signage around town. So just really kind of that open door. They come to me, how can we make this happen? and I make sure I direct them to the right department, whether it's a small project or a larger project, like we talked about last week, and you'll be hearing more about from Dakota Prairie Museum. It's another committee that I was a part of, and again, how do we work with the city to make these projects move forward? which I thoroughly enjoy. Also acting on some of these committees too. So for example, recently too, I was co-chair and I'm still working with Patricia on America 250th Committee. We just had that very successful 4th of July parade. We actually had overwhelming response to do it year over year. So don't be surprised if that's something that happens every 4th of July. There were over 5,000 citizens in the community that participated, and we had 30-plus floats. We also had the pancake feed that happened at the new site for the veterans, and it was very successful. So it's always good to have city representation. It helps with permitting. How are we going to make it happen? How can we close off the streets? All of that. I'm also actively participating on the SDML Conference this October 6th through the 9th. Aberdeen is actually hosting the South Dakota Municipal League Conference here in Aberdeen. So there's, I think, six members within the city, and then we're working with the Municipal League to make sure that that conference is a success. And also reaching out to those partners that I meet with every week to make sure that we're getting the tourism bags for when they show up, getting sponsorships, and just really making sure that when they come to Aberdeen, they have the best time possible and that everybody enjoys our city to the fullest. So we're coordinating tours and just we're going to have a great time. Also, I am on the EDPA, so that's Economic Development Professionals Association. So I attend, we can have weekly calls, we have trainings that help economic development professionals better understand our industry, what impacts are happening within the state, any House bills or Senate bills that we might need to pay attention to from an economic development standpoint, I can then give that information to the city and we can decide how we want to move forward with that, talk to the council members about that. And then I'm also on their committee for their annual conference. So I'm helping plan the annual conference for the EDPA, which also helps me get acclimated with other economic development professionals across the state. So two things from the public information side and then I'll be done. So we continue improving the city's website and communication tools. Two new initiatives that we're currently working on is an Aberdeen powered by progress driven by people page. This is actually kind of spawned from our next big thing group, which is now kind of just grown into a large all aboard group. We have some exciting information that'll be coming out to the community soon, but we are going to house it on a page on the website. But not only will it have that information, it'll house community initiatives, our capital improvement projects, economic development, community development efforts, and just ways for residents to stay informed on projects that are happening around the community. That'll be hosted under our community tab and under our economic development tab, so that way there's several ways to get a hold of it, and we can, again, put those initiatives out there. And then we're also going to work on a construction update page. And I might have inundated LEAF with this today, but welcome to Amber Schwab world, LEAF. It's fast and furious. Construction updates, just a centralized project page being developed with engineering and public works and transportation to provide citizens on the current projects that we have. And then also, you know, maps, traffic impacts and maybe any upcoming information for our 2027 or future future projects down the road. So that way everyone can just see that list and be better informed. So these efforts that I do are designed to improve transparency, strengthen our community partnerships and ensure Aberdeen is well positioned to continue growth and investment and understand economic development and public information from the city. Any questions?

You were so thorough. You got no questions in response. I was just going to thank you, though, for being such a good representative for the city government and for being such a good conduit for positive momentum around here. It's been very refreshing to have someone with so much energy pushing on things.

Thanks. On a separate note, if I may, I just wanted to say I want to give a shout out to Park Rec and Forestry and the city. You all allowed me to be in Leadership Aberdeen. And I'm just going to make a little announcement here. But we just got an announcement from Park Rec and Forestry that the Rails to Trails program, that the grant was filled out for the bike park at Fifth Avenue Nature. we received the $68,000 grant to move that program forward. So now that is well over $100,000 between the leadership of Aberdeen and then Matt Braun and his help with Park Rec and Forestry and the Cycling Association. So just a little side shout out. That's really exciting and big things coming there.

Thanks for that update. Appreciate everything, Amber. All right. So we'll move along to our consent calendar. We've got seven items of city business, including a new daycare licensee, which is kind of a positive step that we've been working towards. So good momentum and movement in that front as well. I take a motion to approve our consent calendar.

So moved.

Motion E, Congress. Second, Knopfstrup. Anyone have anything to discuss on any of these items? Go ahead, Rich. Just abstain from item B for boy.

Bravo. B for Bravo.

All right. Whatever acronym you choose, Rich will not be voting on B, but for the rest of the consent calendar then. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Motion carries. We've got new business items here to discuss tonight, the very first of which is our Convention and Visitors Bureau travel information or vacation travel information update. Always good to see Casey Wisemantle. Casey, grab yourself a seat. Make sure the little green light is on, and we see what you see on the screen in front of us. So the floor is yours.

All right. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. City Manager McNeil, thank you for allowing us to come and present some updates on our vacation marketing, our numbers that go along with that.

Let's see here. What do I do?

Do I just push the button?

Okay. There we go.

So yeah, the Aberdeen Convention and Visitors Bureau. Obviously our goal is to increase visitor activity Aberdeen with an emphasis on overnight stays. We market Aberdeen as a destination for statewide, regional, and national events. Our mission, vision, and goals is to enhance the well-being of the Aberdeen region. Our vision is to create a welcoming and engaging community that delivers memorable visitor experiences while supporting regional economic growth. Goals with this we'd like to expand our visitor marketing through social media travel and influencer partnerships and increase digital advertising These efforts require additional investment to increase the visibility attract visitors and grow tourism website statistics You can see this is again January through June, comparing 2026 to 2025. Our website saw 71,000 users, up 49%. New users, 67,000, up 45%. Page views, 224 page views. Sessions. Pages per session 3.18. So as people are getting on the website, they're searching around looking for additional information How did they find us organic search direct paid search digital paid social media marketing? And then website planning, you know, you can see some of our top visited pages as the home page Aberdeen area events play stay request a vacation guide along with that request a vacation guide are posted just through the roof. So people are looking for things to do, looking for events and requesting that digital guide and or print guide and we mail that out. And we serve as a vital role, inspiring travelers to come to our area and spend that overnight vacation. Huntfish side of things is a little light on the January through June is that we primarily focus on our vacation travel. We had 14,000 users up 19%. New users, 14,000 up 18%. Page views was down 22,000 page views. Sessions were up 18% and then pages per session. So people were actually either hitting the mark on that hunt fish side of things, our hunting marketing, or just we are a little light on our hunting marketing that time of year as our focus is vacation. vacation travel and the top pages there again the home page people looking for hunting information requesting visitor or hunting guides looking for outfitters restaurants and hitting local events so the website analytics I'm sorry I forgot to change that page The website analytics, you can prove that people are again reaching out and searching for that information. We're trying to provide that information the best of our ability and or mail out that information at times. Visitor tracking, we work with Placer AI, a partnership with the city and Amber. Again, thank you for getting that implemented. Aberdeen welcomed 81,000 almost 82,000 visitors from a hundred plus mile range and those estimated visitors visited at least three times estimated average of three visits per person so as people were visiting Aberdeen they came back for return trips which is good to see I think the total was roughly about 54,000 and change Occupancy fee, again, this is a $2 fee that is added to hotels. This is our best way to really track visitors. Could all of us here rent a hotel and pay that $2 fee? Absolutely. But for the majority of that is visitors that are staying in our hotels and eating out and buying gas and so forth. The occupancy saw a 17.1% increase, and that was January through May, as June has not been reported yet. But January through May of 2026 saw the highest visitation we've seen in the last 10 years. So we're really seeing that visitor traffic as it comes to Aberdeen. Another tool we use is the SIC codes, the Standard Industrial Classification System. This is a four-digit code that classifies really anything you can possibly think of. We track lodging, eating, and drinking, which is your BBB or the Aberdeen Promotional Fund. Eating was up 9.53%, drinking was up 1.96%, and lodging was up 40.78%. Again, that is January through May as June numbers were not available when I gave this report. June numbers are out now. Year-to-date average, all SIC codes combined, we're up 14.09%. Again, SIC codes, I refer to that as money that is circulating in Aberdeen. Those are taxable receipts that the city of Aberdeen reports to the state. So again, these are not our numbers. We're just tracking them. Again, lodging, eating, and drinking, your promotional fund or BBB. Social media, you can see our followers and page views for Visit Aberdeen SD and Hunt Fish SD. We track those. Facebook and Instagram seem to be the two primary sources of social media where people find our information. And then we also have a few other pages. We resurrected the Aberdeen Out and About. I don't know if anybody's in here old enough. I know I am. Remember the out and about in the newspaper? We created an out and about Facebook page that is for the public use to promote events. And then the Aberdeen area events Facebook page as well. And then we also have a CVB event notice page. This is a private group where whether it's a business owner or restauranteur or hotelier can join that group. And when big events are happening, we can send out a special notice. Like, hey, there's a big swim meet in town. You might want to staff a little heavier, stay open a little later. Or you might see somebody looking for late night food accommodations, just a way to give notice. Meetings and conventions. Again, the CVV has a database of over 700 leads. We call them leads. These could be anywhere from an event to a convention to a sporting event, whatever it might be. We call them leads on our end. And the services we provide. All of our services are free of charge. We provide visitor bags for your municipal league. We will provide tourism bags. We work with hotel rates. We print out name tags, set up group tours, assist in planning and website and social media promotions. The one I forgot to put on here is really the hotel room rates. We're really working hard now or having additional work with room blocks. And that's just the traffic that's happening in Aberdeen. In order to host events, we have found that it requires a lot of extra work on our end to secure room accommodations to block those rooms. to make sure that that event can be held in Aberdeen and that we can accommodate that guest that's coming to visit. again, those services are free of charge. The other thing we have, we are the home of the community calendar of events, AberdeenAreaEvents.com. And really, my slogan there is free to submit, free to promote. We're looking for all events, summertime, fall, spring, winter, whatever it might be. Anything where a visitor and or Aberdeen resident can benefit from going to that, looking for something to do. Because the worst thing I hate in the world is there's nothing to do in Aberdeen. And I can guarantee you I have the proof that there's quite a few things to do the plus side about that is there's community partners that pick up that information and promote it on their end whether it's hub city radio dakota broadcasting the chamber the downtown association the aberdeen insider the aberdeen magazine and even our tourism partners our regional partners like glacial lakes and prairie tourism and south dakota tourism they will pull from this calendar of events at times and help us push those push those events and those marketing dollars even farther Our focus and target, an investment in the Aberdeen Area Convention and Visitors Bureau is an investment in Aberdeen economic future. Additional funding will allow us to expand our target marketing, again, strengthen our digital reach, partner with our influencers, travel promoters, attract more visitors for meetings, conventions, and sporting events. These efforts are designed to increase the overnight stays. That is our big focus. Get people here. Have them stay for an overnight stay and leave as much money as they possibly can. This will increase visitor spending and tourism-generated revenue, enhancing Aberdeen's visibility as a premier destination. We plan to look forward to increased marketing, focusing Aberdeen as a destination for vacation travel on a state, regional, and national level. Continue that. We will achieve this by increasing digital, display, print, radio, organic, search marketing, and for vacation travel. And with your help, we can do more. This next chart, I like to always keep that in there because every dollar that comes into the community, every outside dollar that comes into the community can rotate three to seven times before it's finally used up. We see this in the restaurants and the hoteliers and the attractions and the employees that they benefit, and those employees go buy groceries, and those groceries are stocked by it. You can see the trickle-down effect on how that comes into play, but every outside dollar that comes into the community can rotate three to seven times before it's fully absorbed. We have the ability to track this economic impact on events, attractions, and conferences with the use of our placer AI and then our other tools like the occupancy tax and SIC code classifications. So again, we are looking to demonstrate that visitors are coming to the area, they're spending money, and we hope for that repeat business. In conclusion, moving forward, the Aberdeen CVB has proven track record of generating the economic impact by attracting visitors that stay in hotels, dine in our restaurants, shop at local businesses, and support attractions throughout the community. To build on this success, we are seeking the City Council's continued partnership to make strategic investment and expanding our marketing efforts. With additional funding, the CVB can increase target digital advertising, strengthen our social media presence, collaborate with national recognized travel influence, and promote Aberdeen more aggressively to leisure travelers, meetings, conventions, sporting events, and group tours. These initiatives are designed to increase the overnight stay's visitor spending, tourism-related tax revenue, while strengthening Aberdeen's position as a premier destination in South Dakota. An investment in the Aberdeen CVB is an investment in the Aberdeen economy. Every additional visitor supports local jobs, generates revenue for businesses, and contributes to long-term vitality of our community. By investing in the destination marketing today, the City Council can prove and ensure that Aberdeen remains a competitive, attract new visitors, and creates a lasting economic benefit for the residents and businesses alike. And again, we just want to thank you guys all for your continued partnership. We strive hard in the office, especially with the challenges that we have at times when we're trying to host events and bring visitors to town and look for that overnight stay. The overnight stay is key. So again, thank you. If anybody has any questions, I would love to try to answer them for you.

Yes, sir. Go ahead. Thank you. Casey, great report. Metrics look phenomenal in almost every case. I know that the vacation guide is available digitally. Do you track how many physical copies you send for you?

We do, and I could give you our postage receipt for it every month, but we do. We have a database. Amy in our office, our administrative assistant, is excellent. She is spot on. Came to us from the Brown County Jail, so she has military precision when it comes to tracking that stuff. But yeah, we mail out or hand out at travel shows or in visitor bags close to 33,000 visitor guides a year. we print up 40,000. And that's just the visitor guides. We print up an additional 15,000 hunting guides as well.

All right. Appreciate that answer. And then I was going to inquire, you know, the numbers on page three, visit AberdeenSD.com, look outstanding. And on page four, some of the numbers are also impressive. You have users, new users, and sessions up 19 or just about 20%. But the page views and the pages per session, are down over 60%. Not something I'm proud of. Any other interpretations you can offer there for that info?

We did have some social media problems on the hunting side of things for about a month. That's not going to eat up 61%. I will be the first to admit that. But the marketing agency that we were working with, with South Dakota Tourism, Love Communications, had somebody hack their account. Which in turn was putting out social media information on if you wanted to buy a nice custom mat for your 83 Buick, they were selling dash mats for their cars. I know that sounds completely off the wall, but it took us like three days to remedy that situation. I didn't order one myself, but it was a nightmare. They actually had somebody hack on their end. So we actually shut it off for almost a month. We just went minimalistic on the social media side of things. And again, I will say that that's not going to eat up 61%. But on our end, we are sending out a lot of newsletters or blogs every month, which are free. We use constant contact on our end. The hunting side of things, I think we have a database of like 25,000 emails that we'll send out at the click of a button. But again, I wish that number wasn't there, Alan. I don't know why. I know that social media going dark there for three weeks is not going to eat up that 61%. The only thing I can say is we are trying to be a little light on the front half of the year with our heavy focus on the second half of the year.

Yeah. I love that the users' numbers are up. Yeah. Look forward to higher numbers on the page because you want people to click. Absolutely.

And we really are impressed. We like the new users as well because that's new marketing for us on the vacation and the hunting side bowl.

Thanks for your insight there.

Mr. Ray?

Go ahead.

Thanks for the presentation. Where are you... with AI in terms of changing up the way that you're advertising or making sure that content and pages are showing up if people are searching through AI instead of through Google?

Yep, we utilize our marketing agencies, Hub City Radio and CF44i in Aberdeen, Dakota Broadcasting, Hub City Marketing. We utilize them for our digital presence and search implementations. But we do use some AI on our end as well. They're creative. We have a lot of photos on our end that are at our disposal, whether it's vacation or hunting. We have some videos that we're putting out as well. We just partnered with a company in town for some vacation videos as well. But, yeah, we utilize AI on our end as well. Yes.

Any other questions anyone's got? All right. Well, Casey, appreciate you being here tonight. Thanks for the presentation. As always, great to see you. next we've got possible consideration of a funding request for our friends over at the dakota prairie museum foundation and we've got patricia patricia is the director of the museum over there and she has some information welcome

Thank you. First of all, though, a shout out to Amber, my co-chair for America 250, and the city street department and the law enforcement. We had a fantastic parade. It exceeded our expectations. We had a great time. So thank you for that. So thank you, mayor and council members, for having me this evening. Thank you for having me back, actually. If you recall, I was here in January, I believe, and gave you an update on the museum and all the things that we're doing. A lot has happened since then, and I just want to let you know, too, is that our attendance has increased 36% over average this year. So we are far and above our expectations there. A little bit about the museum then, to refresh your memory. So for nearly 57 years, the Dakota Prairie Museum has been a cultural and physical cornerstone of downtown Aberdeen. During that time, it has grown into one of the region's most important cultural, educational, and tourism resource. Today the museum cares for more than 40,000 artifacts, welcomes over 20,000 visitors, and provides educational programming that reaches schools in Brown County and beyond with more than 8,000 student interactions annually. And that includes our homeschool groups too that come. We just hosted one last week. We also serve dozens of schools and community groups from across the region. Every year, tens of thousands of residents and visitors alike come downtown because of the museum supporting our local restaurants, our retail shops, and businesses while enjoying one of Aberdeen's few free year-round family-friendly attractions. The museum's success has also created a challenge. We've simply outgrown our building. We are at capacity for programming and storage. Our building expansion project, which I bring forth, will allow us to better serve the community with larger exhibit galleries and expanded children's discovery zone. improved collection storage to preserve Aberdeen and Brown County's history, a larger retail gift shop, and flexible space for traveling exhibits, educational programs, and community events that can host up to 150 people. This project is about much more than adding square footage. It is an investment in Aberdeen's future. It strengthens our quality of life by preserving our history, expanding educational opportunities, removing financial barriers for participation, and creating a destination that residents are proud of and visitors seek out. It also strengthens our economy and provides an economic driver. Construction... We'll support local businesses, and once completed, the expanded museum will attract more visitors, school and community groups, and events that generate additional spending throughout downtown and across Aberdeen, adding to our sales tax base and spurring retail activity. This is also a regional effort. The museum is working with Brown County, we are a department of Brown County government, neighboring communities, businesses, foundations, and private donors to make this project possible. We've already invested in architectural programming, site investigations, and geotechnical studies because this project is well planned and moving forward. This project will enhance what makes Aberdeen already a great place to live, work, and go to school far into the future. After working with our fundraising consultant, we've set a realistic fundraising goal of $7.5 million. Our architect, which is co-op architecture and design company, have completed a programming study and estimate our project's best version to fall somewhere between $10 and $15 million. Rather than building everything on our wish list, we're refining the project to focus on the spaces we need most and what we can responsibly afford. If we're fortunate enough to exceed that goal, we will be able to incorporate more of that original vision. I also want to emphasize that this request is only for the expansion project, not for operational expenses. Museum operations are already funded through the county, the museum's foundation endowments as well as grants annual fundraising and our generous patrons in the museum's long history we have not asked the city of Aberdeen for project or operational funding only promotional and advertising funds tonight we're asking you to partner with us with a $250,000 pledge your investment does more than provide funding it serves as a catalyst for along with funds from other supporters. The city's commitment will unlock a $1 million challenge grant from the Buntrock Foundation, turning $1 million in local support into $2 million for this project. Combined with a previous $1 million gift, this already brings us to $3 million at a very early stage of the project and will serve as a firm foundation to begin our next phases. Your partnership sends a powerful message that Aberdeen believes in preserving its history, invests in education, supports downtown, and creates a community that is welcoming to residents and visitors alike. We respectfully ask for your support in making this vision a reality, and I thank you for your time and consideration, and I welcome any questions that you might have, and also thanks a lot for that promotional support that you've provided in the past. It's been well spent.

Thank you, Patricia. Just to clarify, the $250,000 that the city would be contributing would unlock a match, but in total that would get you to the $3 million in total? Correct. For this project? Yes. So it would reduce your $7.5 million campaign to about $4.5 million yet to fund?

Yes.

Great. Thank you for that clarification. I just wanted to be sure. I knew that he had thrown some money into it for the animal exhibit as well, so...

Yes. Dean Buntrock, who has graciously funded our vision and is really a big part of that 36% attendance upgrade, he did invest about a little over a million in the Buntrock Gallery.

Thank you for that clarification. Any questions from the council?

Patricia? Can you talk a little bit about why the Dakota Prairie Museum is free to enter and why that's important to your mission?

Being accessible to our public is the hill that we will die on, to be sure. We're county supported. No one will pay admission to come into our building. Now, we might have programming or other things that we might charge a registration fee. But we're here for the people of Brown County. Our purpose and mission is to preserve and share the stories of the Dakota prairie and its inhabitants. And it really guides a lot of our programming that we do and the collections that we take in. We don't want to keep anyone from that. We don't want to block accessibility or be a barrier. And a lot of our families, you might know in Brown County, 11.7% of our population is below the poverty line. We don't want to be a barrier for them to come and learn and experience and be part of our community.

So I'll go ahead councilman.

Can I just ask one more question, please? Um, are you able to tell us a little bit about what the what the programming might look like in there or what the spaces might look like in the future what you're envisioning and What the opportunity is Yes

Right. And we want a Main Street entrance. We want you to come in and we want you to sense that full of life exhibit. Children's Discovery Zone, Happy Sounds, expanded retail for the gift shop, which the gift shop is extremely popular. And we've moved it now to a location where it's less accessible. But we still have people who want to come and have part of that. We want to host more traveling exhibits. Right now, when we get a traveling exhibit, we have to break it up into three different locations in our building. It would be nice if we could host a traveling exhibit and it was all one, all together. but we really do want to be that community gathering space as well downtown. You've got 20 minutes to spare in between meetings or you have a dentist appointment or something that you can pop in and experience a little bit of culture or art or watch the kids play or go to the gift shop and just be another resource downtown that's adding to our already thriving community as it's getting developed downtown.

I've got a question for our city manager Dave I know that the council action request specifies that you would be responsible to identify the funding source if approved could you give us a bit of an idea of what you've got in mind yeah so I would recommend our allocation being part of the 2026 promotional fund balance and then part from 2027 promotional fund balance and I think that would adequately fund this request

Jordan, feel good about that? Yes. All right. Chad, did you get a question?

Yes.

Thanks for all the information. One question.

This money would be going for an addition onto the museum. Have you done an assessment of that facility? Is it a good candidate for this addition?

So our building is on the register of historic places. So whatever we do must complement but not replicate. And with the help of our architect, and Spencer is here right now, Spencer Summers, he can explain to you a little bit, too, perhaps how we would make it adjoined. Sure.

Is that what you're asking? Is it like, is the... Heating good? Is it structurally good? Are we spending all this money to add on to a building and then this building has got 10 years? That's being facetious.

Our building is well to care for. We consider our building right now our largest artifact. And conservation and taking care of it is a priority for us. So you can rest assured that we're not letting this building go. If we have a new addition, it will be just as important and be taken care of. But a new building will be more efficient for facilities, air conditioning, heating, all of that. But it wouldn't necessarily be attached to our building. It would be attached, but not the way perhaps you're thinking.

Sure. I guess just kind of the bare bones, is your current facility in good shape? Is it good? For 140 years old. You're letting it fall down, but it is 140 years old. It's in great shape. And things go bad after, I mean, is the building in good shape for all of this going forward?

Yes, yes. And I'll give credit to the county is that they do maintain our building. Nothing gets put aside just because we're the museum or just because our building is older within the county structures. They take good care of us and we take care of it. So you can be rest assured that we will continue to do so.

Did you walk in there and notice there's some squeaky steps here and there?

Well, there's some in my house, too.

But I can tell you, if there's a tornado downtown, you want to be in my building. Because I have 22-inch thick walls, exterior walls, and in the basement they go from 22 inches to 30 inches at the base. Nothing's happening to that building. No.

Okay.

Well, if there's no further discussion I would take a motion from someone the council to to make that approve it I move that we fund the request for the Dakota Prairie Museum.

I'll second that.

All right I've got a motion from councilman Fulberg and a second councilman Leibelt Any further thoughts or final thoughts before we take a roll call vote on that? Jordan, would you give us a roll call vote?

Councilmember Ronan. Aye. Fulberg.

Aye.

Leibelt.

Aye.

Ward. Aye. Johnson. Aye. E. Conger. Aye. Nielsen. Aye. Nordstrom. Aye. Mearshawn.

Aye. That motion carries. Thanks for joining us, Patricia. Always good to hear what's going on down there at the museum. Looking forward to seeing this thing come to life. Next, we've got a discussion and possible approval of a working timeline for a possible adoption of a data center ordinance. Data centers have been front and center here in Aberdeen for some time with Ellendale project and now as we're Potentially anticipating them knocking a little closer to home. We're looking to be proactive with this Ron Can you walk us through what we're looking at for our data center ordinance timeline?

I will, Mr. Mayor, and thank you. And this gets a little complicated because part of the data center process involves amending our zoning ordinance, which requires that we go in front of the planning commission as well for public hearings. And that process does require public hearings, both in front of the planning commission and then later on in front of the council. This timeline that we're putting together here is a way for us to work in a way In a community involving way, so we'll have I've identified 3 different types of groups that we would be wanting to get input from and giving them an opportunity to both express ask for information, ask questions, oppose support. But we've identified those groups as the data center industry folks, which would be not only the developers themselves, but academicians, scholars, consultants, experts, people who have some expertise or particular in both the design and construction operation of data centers. Another group that we would be looking at would be our businesses in town, the ability to weigh in on the economic development side that would come out of this, the ability or not to support an influx of workers for the construction processes. And then the last group would be our citizen group, which is an opportunity for these three groups to come in in their own allotted time to make known their position to the council. So the timeline that I'm proposing is as follows. On August 17th, which is a regular meeting of the council, that would be the first public input opportunity for data center representatives. And again, I don't know how long that would be, but I think our presiding officer is going to have a lot of work to do on all of these various meetings to identify the number of people that are present who actually want to speak and to set up some guidelines for those opportunities. And then the council's job at that point is to, once the presiding officer has identified the framework for that particular session, If there's a disagreement, then you can appeal it. Let's hope that that doesn't happen and that we're all working forward on Getting that information out. So the first meeting Would include the data center industry representatives and folks anybody can show up But it would be people from the data center industry who would have an opportunity to visit with the council Talk about their business and their industry and for the council to ask questions potentially Then I propose that two weeks later there would be a special meeting of the city council. And that would be the opportunity for the public to come. Again, what we hear throughout South Dakota and frankly throughout the nation is that there's a great public interest in these. And so we would expect that there would be a large turnout for that. Not that that means that everybody who turns out is going to want to speak. So again, we'll have rules set up for an orderly process to hear their comments and for the council, again, to ask and answer questions. And then on September 14, 2026, I'm proposing that there be another special meeting of the city council, and that would be the opportunity to get input from our business interests in the Aberdeen area. So again, we'd be working potentially with the Chamber of Commerce to identify impacted businesses, our partners at Aberdeen Development Corporation. Those are the types of people who could either weigh in or invite businesses to show up and visit with the council. This is all public input at this point. This is very controlled and an opportunity for this council to get as much information as possible around a very sensitive subject. Then starting September 21st.

Before you move on, I'd like to just pitch one idea out that everyone can maybe chew on. I almost wonder if we don't. Try to receive the input of the citizens first because I think that if it would behoove us to try to get answers out of the data center industry people that would maybe speak to the concerns that those people would have.

So here's what I would tell this council. We had the same debate internally as we were setting up this timeline. Which group should go first? I don't know that there's any, there's obviously no wrong group. You folks decide how you want to tweak those and which group you want to have first. I would suggest that the citizens be at a time that there's not a lot of other business going on or even their own meeting. And I don't know how busy August 17th might be. It might be a light meeting.

We have a work session.

Work session beforehand. Okay. But I guess I just wanted to keep that in mind. But you folks can certainly tweak those and move those around. But I do have those three... early public input opportunities for these three groups. And then we start going into the process where we are actually working through the ordinance itself. So the staff would report on September 21st the impact of data centers on a community and comprehensive plan. And we would ask at that time for direction from the council for variations or a framework for a data center ordinance. That would give us then a week to put together either an ordinance or drafts of an ordinance that we would present on September 28, 2026. Again, give the council some time to chew on that and to think about it. And so on October 5, 2026, we'd ask that the city council at that point, frankly, we have to propose an ordinance for the planning commission. So, it doesn't need to be the final ordinance, but it does need to be an ordinance. That's that's going to the planning commission for its recommendation. It has to review and recommend action at that point. We then have to publish newspaper notices for both the planning commission and the city council public hearings. Now, we've all been part of the public hearings, and a public hearing is another opportunity for any one of the people in these groups to come in front of the council and again state their position, opposition support, to raise questions for the council. But we know how those public hearings go. It's an opportunity to listen. for you folks up here to weigh what you're being told in your decisions on an ordinance. And then on October 20th, 2026, the Planning Commission would have its regular October meeting, and that's when it would conduct the public hearing at that time to review and recommend whatever ordinance the council forwarded to them. The Monday following that meeting it would be the public hearing and first reading of the data center in front of the City Council And again we have had three three public input opportunities We've had a public hearing in front of the Planning Commission. We now we have a public hearing in front of the City Council as part of the first reading of the ordinance and And the first reading is an opportunity to make changes to, again, that ordinance that was referred to the Planning Commission. From what you hear from additional study that you do, you might decide to make changes. And again, as a majority, you're trying to look to see if you can't get something actually approved at first reading. Second reading would occur on November 2, 2026. And again, procedurally, there is an issue with second readings and lots of changes at second readings. And you could put yourself in a position where we have to have another reading. We don't call it a third reading. It's called another reading. But that would push your timeline back again. And again, remember, we're all trying to get this done around the time that the moratorium sunsets. And that was November 18, 2026. So the timeline is set up to have the ordinance second read and final adoption prior to November 18, 2026 published, and then the effective date is 20 days after that. So even with that very aggressive and very ambitious timeline, we still are not quite in line with the moratorium sunset, and that would not become effective until November 25th. But again, we can work with that after that once we see that things are on track. And again, this is a working timeline. So if something comes up and we need to adjust that timeline, we can do that. But I've wanted this to be something that the council works on, comes together, and then the plan is once you have that working timeline in place, let's let the public know about it. Let's put it out for the people so they can see it and know when they want to be here, when they want to hear a group, when they want to participate in a group. If there's any sense at all that we're not being open and transparent, I want to disabuse that right now. This is going to be a lot of work, but it's going to be a lot of work in the open for people to see. So that's my proposed timeline, and I would ask that the council make whatever changes they think are necessary or somebody put forth a different one. But in any event, to put something in place that we can put out in front of the public and we can all work at.

Hey, Councilman Nelson, did you have a question? Yeah.

Or an idea?

Question, Ron, for these public inputs, and I don't know if it violates any open meeting or whatever. For people in each sector, can we do any kind of like a pre-qualification so we know that we're getting data center people and not somebody coming, you know what I mean, so we can keep people... in kind of those arenas? Is there anything like that that's been?

Well, I think the answer to that is yes, because that's the part about these regular meetings. At the end of the day, This meeting and all of your meetings are for you to conduct the city's business. Sure, there are limited opportunities for First Amendment speech. People can get up there and say stuff. But you, at the end of the day, do get to control who is going to be in front of you and what is the qualification for that person to be in front of you. So I think I could work through between now and whenever that group would be showing up, for example.

I'm not saying it's necessary. I'm just asking, was that discussed at all?

Well, we'd probably provide or at least get an idea of who would be speaking. And if somebody shows up and they represent that they're part of the data center and they want to speak, I'm not sure how we'll handle it at that point. but we could do some screening. That's not necessarily the case at a public hearing, you understand?

Go ahead, Councilman Johnson. I appreciate your comment earlier about the timing. Ron, I really like the schedule of the 14 dates. It seems very sensible. It's tidy. It's a good process. Mayor, I feel a little differently. I'm concerned that I would actually propose that the citizen input be the third special meeting. What I worry about is that Citizens might come forward before they hear the consultants and the professionals, before they hear the data, the details, the PowerPoints, the persuasive points. And so they would have, I think, some uninformed comments, maybe some misinformed opinions. I think after having two weeks, two meetings, where all that info can be shared and hearing that and weighing it, that we would get better questions. I think it would be a positive there to propose that to go last.

Sure. Yeah, I guess my thinking was just, are we going to leave ourselves in a blind spot that we don't have the information for because people have pitched us questions, technical questions that no one in here is prepared to, I guess, answer properly, but...

And to that point, it's a good point. I think when this schedule is published, I would love to have citizens send questions or feel free to attend those meetings and let us pose those questions or feel free to do that themselves. I think just knowing who's going to be coming on what day will be a driver for I think quite a bit of interest and good attendance here.

Sure. So your proposal, Councilman Johnson, is to make the citizens input meeting the 914th. On the 14th. Just switch it with the business interests.

Mr. Mayor.

Go ahead, Councilman.

So When my brain goes into thinking about something big at sort of a 30,000 foot view, plus also the details that go into something like this at the same time, I always start with like, what does good look like? Is there an organization, like when we created the Northern Innovation and Startup Center, the Center on Rural Innovation Quarry was really helpful to us. There's, you know, 30 partner towns about the same size as us, and we can talk to them about how do you create a startup center and what does that look like and So I'm just curious where we might start to think about what towns have approached this thoughtfully aligned with their mission and have come out one way or another feeling confident about the ordinance that they passed and the consequences of it, right, wrong, or otherwise. So that's where I feel like we're missing that kind of research here. Like we have a lot of opinions, opinions, opinions, but we don't necessarily have the thought process of other like-sized communities who have gone through a similar process.

Question or maybe ones who haven't got an ordinance and it got burned on one issue or exactly and they wish that they would have considered those factors that would be really helpful to me just Research wise. I don't know where we would ever you didn't sound like you had a lot going on. Did you?

But I mean and the other thing is, you know when when I approach something like this It's really good to know like what is your mission? I mean for the Dakota Prairie Museum to say oh our mission is to be accessible, that changes their whole disposition of their fundraising, because they have to fundraise everything to make sure it stays accessible. I don't know if we have a clear mission that would help us with this, except for to do right by our citizens and to grow. uh, in a healthy way. But I also don't know that we have an active strategic plan that's up to date that would help guide us here either. And, you know, I love strategic plans. You're not so much, but, um, so I just feel a little untethered in terms of how might I approach this in a thoughtful way, uh, to make sure I'm, I'm doing right by the citizens and, and thinking not just about the opinions, but about what has actually happened in other communities. that are like ours. Are there certain model ordinances from other communities who have approached this in a thoughtful way that we should be looking at? Are there people we should be talking to from other towns?

Mayor? Go ahead, Councilman Johnson. If I can tag team on your interest in having Amber involved in that. that something that could be researched and summarized outside of these meetings and research other communities the pros and cons their experiences their wisdom and just share that with us in between some of these meetings that would be useful I think if she's willing yeah and maybe not necessarily even cities our size you know I mean everybody has the impact of these things you know I think that when you go to a place like

Cedar Rapids, Iowa, they've got a Cedar Rapids, Iowa-sized data center. And a town like ours would have an Aberdeen-sized data center. But they're all going to have similar fallout, I think, from the different impacts that the construction and operations will yield. Yeah, yeah, so additional modeling from others that have created an ordinance and then maybe also the pratfalls that these communities have suffered just going in blindly without any guidance or any guardrails I think would be super useful information.

It would.

all right how does does anyone else feel this timeline is worth something to push forward to to make steps clear on the process leading to the moratorium with that maybe additional offline research being done I feel like it's very precise and I think we need to have something just like this okay and so Alan would you make a motion then with your amendment then I'll move to approve

the working timeline with one adjustment switching the August 31 and September 14 input meetings to have the citizens provide that input on the 14th.

Second.

Okay, got a motion from Councilman Johnson and I've got a second from Councilman Knopser. Any other thoughts or comments? All right. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed nay. That motion carries. Thank you all on that one. That was complicated, as Ron said, but I think it'll be worth the squeeze. Next, we've got a possible approval of a resolution. This is for a developer which is seeking financial assistance from our state, the South Dakota Housing Development Authority. Dave, are you going to get this one off?

Yeah, so as we talked about affordable housing tonight, we have a developer that's seeking financial assistance from the South Dakota Housing Development Authority. In essence, the Aster LLC is constructing a phased affordable housing development near 25th Avenue, northeast of North Harrison Street intended to provide additional multifamily and residential housing in Aberdeen. This is a phased project and ultimately it's anticipated that this project would end up with 278 living units. And again, these are defined as affordable housing that have to follow the applicable South Dakota Housing Development Authority affordability guidelines. So basically the developer intends to submit an application to the South Dakota Housing Development Authority for financial assistance. To complete the application it must obtain a resolution from the City of Aberdeen supporting both the project and the developer submission of an application for financial assistance from the SDHDA. We've reviewed this as city staff and we propose that this is a project that fits within our housing study and would be good for our community and we would recommend approval for this.

Move to approve.

Second. Motion to rename. Second. Ward, anyone have any comments?

Mayor, a question? Go ahead. Where is Aster LLC based?

So it's my understanding this is a Salt Lake City, Utah based company.

Okay.

Is it you, Alan? Alan's got ties to Salt Lake City. I would abstain if it were.

From the Secretary of State site, this is Nate Stensel in Sioux Falls.

Maybe there's another Aster LLC in another state. So it would probably make more sense because they have the adjoining properties to the west.

It maps the name on the application.

That would seem like it would make sense to me.

And I can tell you, as we get into the fine-tuning of these types of things you ask, who is the actual LLC? It was the ASTRA LLC, but we have been working with the Stencil Group up to that time.

Okay. Well, thank you for that clarity. I appreciate your due diligence on that, Councilman Ronan and Councilwoman Fulberg.

This is basically attached to the HAPI development that just went on there, like abutting it.

yes it would be about it this would be a continuation of the units to the west the apartment unit yeah so it's south of the happy right southeast yeah be southeast but it's continuing east it's south southwest of the happy but it's continuing east from the recent apartments that exist correct is stencil who built the ones that exist yes yes

Couldn't happen soon enough, in my opinion. There's been a lot of discussion on affordable housing, and we are in desperate need of it here as a community. So I'm really looking forward to these guys getting this project underway. Jordan, would you give us a roll call vote then on this resolution?

Excuse me. Council Member Ronan. Aye. Fulberg.

Aye.

Leibold. Aye. Ward. Aye. Johnson. Aye. E. Conger. Aye. Nielsen. Aye. Norbstrop. Aye. Mearshawn. Aye.

That motion carries next we've got a possible approval. That's the first reading of an ordinance It's titled 2601 excuse me Oh 701 is a petition to rezone from our to see to property at 210 and 316 Roosevelt Street North it is our own Aberdeen Development Corporation the first parcel of their industrial partner process section of parcels in their Industrial Park can you could you walk us through that reason?

Thank you, Mayor. The owner is petitioning to rezone in order to allow for commercial development in the newly configured frontage lots of a larger industrial park. The property was plotted in this way to create four lots for highway-related commercial development, buffering the Roosevelt Street corridor from the more intensive uses of an industrial park development. On July 21, 2026, the Aberdeen Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend approval of this request. Staff recommends approval. Move to approve.

Second.

got a motion from Councilman Nielsen second Councilman Econger Tim I see you out in the crowd are those you still feeling good about those four potential businesses that you've been recruiting for that area great great looking forward to seeing some movement out there good work keep that momentum going all right anyone have any questions All right. Jordan, would you give us a roll call that is an ordinance to be the first reading?

Council Member Nordstrom. Aye. Nielsen. Aye. E. Conger. Aye. Johnson. Aye. Ward. Abstain. Council Member Liebel. Aye. Fulberg. Aye. Ronan. Aye. Mayor Shoneman.

Aye. That motion carries. Next is a similar item on our agenda. It is a first reading of Ordinance 260702. That is the adjacent property to the east. It's 20... 816 Industrial Avenue Northeast. It would go from R2 to I2 Industrial. Also, this is the Aberdeen Development Corporation, the remainder of that TIFT industrial park development that we have been working on. Ken, could you walk us through what's going on over there?

Thank You Mary again, this is the easternmost portion of this industrial park. This would be your traditional industrial uses And again the request you just acted on provides that resident or retail commercial type buffer between the Roosevelt Street corridor Planning Commission reviewed and recommends approval of this request as does staff Second

Motion. Second, Nielsen. Any questions? All right. Jordan, roll call.

Council Member Ronan. Aye. Foburg. Aye. Leibold. Aye. Ward. Abstain. Council Member Johnson. Aye. E. Conger. Aye. Nielsen. Aye. Nordstrom. Aye. Meir Shoneman.

Aye. And that motion carries. Next, we've got a possible approval. It's the first reading of an ordinance, also a rezone from M to R3. This is city property. It's located at Keller Addition of the City. It's at 824 3rd Avenue Southwest. Ken, walk us through that rezone, please.

Thank you, Mayor. The City of Aberdeen is requesting this petition to rezone in preparation for possible surplusing of the property. The rezone will bring the zoning of the property back in line with the surrounding high-density residential zoning district and allow for uses compatible with that designation. On July 21st, the Aberdeen City Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend approval of this request.

I'll move to approve. Second. Got a motion from Councilman Johnson and a second from Councilman Ward. I know we've got a representative from Midwest Street Medicine here to talk about it a little bit. Maybe not about the surplusing in general, but Lucas, if you could give us just a really short synopsis of what Midwest Street Medicine is about, this would be a great opportunity for people to learn the good work that you guys have been up to.

Good evening. Thank you for this opportunity. Mr. Mayor and council members, my name is Lucas Cahey. I am the medical director of Midwest Street Medicine Aberdeen here in Aberdeen, South Dakota. We are a volunteer organization that seeks to provide low barrier, no cost medical care to members of our community that are unhoused, housing insecure, or members of chronically underserved populations. We have been operating in this town on a regular basis since June of 2025, so we've been just over a year now. We're made up of 30 volunteers. We're a multidisciplinary team made up of medical providers as well as nurses and support individuals including social work peer support specialists and cultural care liaisons. We've been approached by the city to consider taking over this property to expand our current offerings, and we would use this as a launching point to extend the social work type offerings as well as medical, mental health, addiction care services, and cultural care that we have already been providing to the residents of this city for the last year.

Lucas, that was the most concise organizational description I have ever heard in my entire life. Nice work. I don't think we could possibly have any questions based on that, but appreciate the work that you guys do. And all volunteer-based, as he had mentioned. So great to see you guys out there making a difference in the community on your own dime.

Move to approve. Second.

Got a motion. Councilman Ronay. Councilman Fulberg has the second motion. Jordan, would you give us a roll call vote being that it is an ordinance?

Councilmember North strip Nielsen. I eat conger. Hi Johnson. Hi Ward. Hi Weebelt. Hi Fulberg Ronin. Hi mayor Shoneman.

Hi that motion carries next is a possible approval of our 20 26 20 27 winter time roadway de-icing salt bid Jeremy looks like we got a few bids and they were all pretty close

Yeah, our base came in pretty competitive. They were very close to last year's prices. We're happy to see that. I'll move it for approval.

Second. All right, sounds good. We've got a motion from Councilman Ward. Second. Councilman Johnson, any questions? Jordan, would you give us a roll call vote on approving that bid?

Councilmember Ronan. Aye. Fulberg. Aye. Liebel. Aye. Ward. Aye. Johnson. Aye. E. Conger. Aye. Nelson. Aye. Nordstrom. Aye. Mearshawn.

Aye. Motion carries. Thanks for joining us tonight. Join me. Next, we've got our possible approval for our proposal of service for our 2nd Street Bridge Preservation Project. Leaf is our brand new city engineer. I guess you were in the meeting last week that I missed. Okay, so second meeting in well-versed ongoings of these meetings. Why don't you walk us through what this proposal for services would entail?

Yeah, this is for Second Street Bridge, which goes over two streets and the BNSF railroad tracks. First Avenue, BNSF's railroad, and Railroad Avenue.

And the way my understanding of The way the funding is set up, it's three separate funding packages for that one, essentially the overpass there. It's commonly referred to as.

This was presented to Stu back when he was in office, and it never got full approval yet, and so it landed on my desk for this week. Any questions I guess anyone would have?

Move to approve.

Second. We've got a motion, Councilman Ronan. Second. Councilman Nielsen, any questions? All right. Jordan, would you give us a roll call vote then, please?

Council Member Nordstrom? Aye. Nelson? Aye. E. Conger? Aye. Johnson? Aye. Ward? Aye. Liebel? Aye. Fogberg? Aye. Ronin? Aye. Mayor Shoneman? Aye.

I have that motion carries. Next, we've got a possible approval pay request for our North Dakota Street, or excuse me, North Dakota Street Roadway improvements. It's $2,144,589.08, along with a change order of $109,548. Those payments will be made to... Reedy Construction Leaf. You were intimately involved in that process for a chunk of the time, or at least a portion of the time. Tell us, glad to see it done early. How'd the project go? What is our change order for?

Yeah, so the pay estimate, Destin has put together an overview for it. I was involved in the very tail end, the celebration that it was open. The change order seems pretty routine items. Probably some of the bigger ones was the water main lowering. There's some conflicts with the storm sewer over the water main in those locations. Some temporary road maintenance. Just addressing those scopes of work. And some bedding issues with some unstable soils. So additional different type of bedding materials involved with that change order. And the pay request is... For gravel, base course, geotextile, fabric, storm sewer, rec trail, and most of the surfacing. So a big pay request. A lot of work got done in the past month or so.

Could you remind us the total bill for replacing this stretch of roadway or approximately?

The contract amount is $2.6 million approximately. And with adjusted contract amount of $2.76 million.

Thank you for that clarification. Appreciate that. I take a motion to make those two payments to Reedy Construction. Second. Got a motion from Councilman Nielsen. Second, Councilman Ward. Any other questions? All right. Go ahead, Jordan.

Councilmember Ronan. Aye. Fulberg. Aye. Leibelt. Aye. Ward. Aye. Johnson. Aye. E. Conger. Aye. Nelson. Aye. Nordstrom. Aye. Mayor Shoneman.

Aye. That motion carries. Next, we've got a possible approval of a pay request for our water tower transmission line. The first is to Domi Construction. It's $574,513.09. And then Landmark Structures, the guys building the... Tower itself, $223,772.50. Leaf, how's that thing coming along? It needs a lid, but otherwise it looks like it's pretty well constructed, huh?

It needs a lid.

Yeah, so the Pessimant 9B, which is for landmark structures with the water tower, that's been Schedule B of the project. It's moving along well, like you may have mentioned, the lid probably needs to be finished up. I know they have most of it installed, I believe, and welded in place, and There's interior coatings and additional items that need to move forward. This pay request reflects the coatings that was done at the ground phase when the bowl was at the floor and then the prep for the raising of it. This placement does include the actual raising of it. This one was a cutoff date of, I think, of 6-22, so there's been a little bit of gap here in the pay request. This is mostly for work that was done in the end of May, June. And then for Dami's portion of the work, that's Schedule A. That's always the tough one, of course, with the road closure and traffic control and all those items. This is for work they've done over the past month or so in regarding to water main installation, asphalt surfacing, gravel, all that work related to that scope.

So, Leap, we had an August 1st opening date set for that intersection. How are we feeling about that?

Not so great, but not so bad either. So we had a construction meeting this morning in regards to that portion of the project specifically and some of the things that came out of it. We're talking with the contractor and the engineer. And... We would have been open is the understanding and I can support that declaration from the contractor by mid July if we weren't doing any railroad improvement grade crossing and which the railroad then jumped on piggybacked with the road closures to do a grade raise to their railroad and Their railroad, they've currently completed their work of raising the rails and adding ballast. What they haven't completed is the crossing pieces that we drive on, you know, adjacent to the rails. So right now, if you were to drive... try to drive across it you'd have to you know four-wheel drive over some rails so that portion is waiting that kind of controls our work because we need them to establish that grade so our asphalt tie-in is ready and waiting for them we have our first lift down on on the east side and we have the tie-in work to do with the asphalt there and then as far as so that is all dependent on the railroad What we're told is this week they will be there to do that, and DOMI has indicated that them and their subs will be right behind them to do the patching. And as soon as the railroad gets their scope of work done, we will get the asphalt patched in and open up eastbound traffic as soon as possible. That may be before August 1st, but we can't make it. They can't make any promises. The dummy can't. And in turn, I can't give any to the council because we're dependent on the railroad and they're getting their work done.

And did they address both intersections?

Yeah, they addressed both. Once they have their work done, the final process, To set that grade, then we can continue. The concrete will take longer. It'll take a couple weeks because it'll take a little bit to get that installed. And then we'll have to wait for cure and strength. So our goal has always been to get everything opened before August 1st. And as of right now, the contractor can't do any work to meet that date until BNSF gets that done. And so we're... I don't want to say hoping, but really we're hoping to see them working tomorrow. That was the day they told us last week is they would have a crew here on Tuesday to finish that work. And then we'd be right behind them. That's our schedule, but they've told us dates that they haven't been able to accommodate previously. So I want to caution any celebrations on that yet.

Well, we did get Dakota Street open early. So one for two is better than zero for two. David, have you got something?

I understand what you're saying. And is there any leverage that we have on Burlington Northern? Because they kind of messed up our timeline.

Yeah, they did significantly. We have, and Ron can maybe stick to that, we do have leverage in those two corridors because of their designation as a section line. However, the grade crossing one reduced our leverage because it was short notice notification to them. It was an afterthought add to the project. And that add gave them the opportunity to have a little more leverage against us, unfortunately. And now we're beholden to their schedule currently.

I just don't want tomorrow to come and go and then we're four weeks later and nothing's happened.

So if I can clarify, we have concurrent authority in the section line, but we don't have leverage.

Yeah, so that's exactly what Ron said.

But Mr. Mayor, the good news is we now have a city engineer and he's going to be five steps ahead in the thought process of all projects.

there we go there we go you probably would have developed some leverage on bnsf had you only been here a little sooner and we could have relied upon that relationship well a little bit disappointing or hopefully we can still make this happen before school gets going because there is a heck of a lot of daily traffic on that section of road and i'm sure a couple of you people can probably attest to uh to the inconvenience it is to drive around on a daily basis well back to the payment request before i took us off uh... track a little bit there would someone care to make a motion to actually pay the two bills All right, so we've got a motion from Councilman Nielsen, and a second from Councilman Knobstrup and Jordan. Would you give us a roll call vote then on those payments, please?

Councilmember Knobstrup? Aye. Nielsen? Aye. E. Conger? Aye. Johnson? Aye. Ward? Aye. Leibelt? Aye. Fulberg? Aye. Ronin? Aye. Meir Shoneman? Aye.

that motion carries next we've got bills and payroll payroll period is July 12th through the 25th move to pay the bills second motion councilman Lee bill second councilman Econiger there's no discussion to be had Jordan would you give us our final roll call then of the evening councilmember Ronan aye Fulberg aye

Lee Belt Aye Ward Aye Johnson Aye Wee Conger Aye Nielsen Aye Norman Stroop Aye Meir Shoneman Aye Motion carries.

We have our City Manager's Report next. Dave, I pushed Amber to the beginning because I figured she'd want to get out of here a little bit before the end of the meeting.

Mr. Mayor, sorry, can I abstain from the Dakota Bank payment? Thanks.

Good job. We'll watch you. All $150.

All right, Dave, city manager's report. Have you got something?

Yeah, so thanks again for entertaining and allowing us to have Amber give an update and a report. We'll look to do that once a month to kind of give the council an overview of the things that we're working on, and we'll do that in the city manager's report. I know that she had to go tonight. Thanks for allowing us to do that So we talked about a lot of road construction tonight and the one thing that we didn't talk about is chip ceiling That's happening right now. You may experience that on the south part of the town For all practical purposes things are going really well there So Jeremy and his crew have been working really hard, you know, of course They worked on the manholes and sealed up some of those things and made it a smoother rollable surface there and they're working on that Jeremy Where would you say we're at right now? What percentage left of chip ceiling do we have in that quadrant or district?

So we're looking at about three weeks and we're just about a week into it.

Okay.

We're one week in of a three-week total schedule.

So yeah, thanks to city staff for doing that. It's been hot, too, as they've been doing that, obviously. So appreciate their efforts. Just want to remind the city council and our community that the promotional fund closes August 3rd. We're still accepting applications, but that's rapidly coming to an end. So if anybody has any questions about that or how that can be used for an organization, please reach out and contact us. But again, August 3rd is the closing date for the promotional fund. Just want to let the council know that next week. We're very excited to have our first budget opportunity Jordan and I and city staff will be talking in my city managers report and presenting the 2027 budget there's been a lot of work on that as you can imagine and We're excited about that and the opportunity to kind of talk about what next year will present us So we look forward to doing that And as Ron was going through his data center ordinance timeline, just want to remind staff that on August 17th, which was kind of a thought process and a consideration on the progression of this, is that we've committed and we're proposing a work session to give Chief John Dahl and the police department an opportunity to talk about license plate readers and that technology. Chief John Dahl brought somebody here from Axon, who is a partner in our body-worn camera system. Contractually, they're proposing giving us a device at no expense, but it's still part of the conversation that we have open with the state. And their proposal was adding a license plate reader on the infrastructure through town and affording them the electricity hookup for that. So, work session starting at 4... o'clock on the 17th to talk about your thoughts your concerns and kind of address the program so and basically that's what i have mayor thank you

Appreciate that. And just for clarity, everybody's talking about Flock cameras. Is Flock a brand name or that's just a classification of the cameras that are recording these license plates?

Yeah, so Flock is one of the vendors. It's a pretty common one throughout the country. And actually... That's not one that we're even considering. The state is using Vigilant, which is the one that about 10, 12 years ago, the police department had a LPR system, and we were with Vigilant Solutions. And then Axon is just getting into this world of LPRs. And since we've had such a good working relationship with them since 2009, with our body-worn cameras, that's why we're more interested in at least exploring that, since that's an opportunity.

Thank you for that clarity. I appreciate that. If there's nothing else, Jordan, or I guess I'd take a motion to adjourn the meeting itself. Move to adjourn. Motion Johnson, second Econter. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. We are adjourned.