City Council - Regular Meeting

[Music] just [Music] looks [Music] [Music] well it's 7:00 so I'll go ahead and call me to order the cler please call the RO councilman Li here Council terman here councilman Weber here Vice May Mas here and mayor MC here the indication pledge will be led by councilman terman uh if you would throw me along in prayer oh God our creator and Lord of our city as well as of our individual lives we humbly acknowledge our interest and your presence at this council meeting tonight before we begin business we deliberately open our minds and our spirits to your holy will help us to be worthy of the trust the citizens of the alliance have have placed in US guide us in each decision we make that it might be as fair and just as it is

economically sound to the end that our community may achieve its highest potential and become all you want it to be amen please Jo me Inge to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation indivisible andice Republic's ref a copy open meetings law has been posted on theeast corner of this room in the audience area this poed complies with requirements of Nebraska legisl first item on the agenda is calendar calendar which consists of approval of minutes payroll claims and Council proceedings resolution number 2530 ndot License Plate Reader application resolution number 25-31 disadvantage business Enterprise program and resolution number 25-32 the bbdc economic development repayment extension Mr Mayor I make a motion to approve the consent calendar second there Motion in a second for the cons calendar is there any discussion I have a couple of questions on the caim sure okay um on it's under the water treatment so the water meter or the fire hydrant that was hit in the vehicle accident the repairs were $1,915 so that individual that H that will their insurance reimburse the city we're working on the process of that

um it's in a police matter right now and then so we have to wait for that to go through the court system also and then we'll file the charges with their insurance company and we'll see if it'll and if for some reason let's just say this individual had no property damage insurance does the city's policy cover this um it can yes okay what is the usual time frame on reimbursement for something like this it just depends on if it just depends on one the repairs and if insurance is going the back and forth on it with insurance and who's going to claim it and pay it so there really isn't I can't give you a specific time limit on it okay it's a settlement of it um and our deductible on it where it's night our deductibles we're not even going to hit our deductible for it so we're paying out of pocket anyway okay um do we know so the reason it isn't finished is because either we don't know who hit it or whoever hit it won't own up to it is that the delay pretty much okay or we can't P it to the person I guess so it's still under investigation then Chief we've recommended Chargers okay cut okay and then I had one more just something I need a clarification on um it was like a $30,000 look like it was under the electric where we were paying for wind I just needed clarification on that we're paying for what well it says wind it's just part of the monthly bill we get part of the electricity we buy is from wind generation so the wind farm

that's west of [Music] town solar that's solar so we don't have any wind we don't have wind on our system no but we buy it through me so much of our percentage we buy from them is from wind okay and that's a monthly charge yeah just like all the rest of the bill bill in there yeah okay those were the only two on that thank you I do have a if we're going to approve the whole thing I don't know if I should separate it out but I have questions on resolution 230 the ND License Plate Reader applications uh you want just ask ask questions now and or do you want to separate it's up to you it's up to you Mr what do you prefer I don't have a problem I was I had was just going to have Chief clarify what that was anyway okay that's just so the public knows exactly what it is I anticipated this uh so basically to to make a really long story short when the previous Chief purchased and had the lprs installed there was not a permanent process in place the state in their Infinite Wisdom decided that they would begin to require permits for any lprs that were on a state highway so even though they're on our poles they're using our electricity um and there's no fee for the permit it's basically just a a paperwork issue to quote the the person from the state they're having us pull permits for each LPR of the S state highway so what you have in front of you is the resolution the agreement between the city and the state for those various lprs that we will permit them and the way they do it is you do a separate agreement for each Highway that they hit so we have I believe one on two of the highways and then we had have several of course along 385 and you'll see all

those listed in the various documents and the information is not shared with ndut is that correct the information collected from the reading of yes absolutely the only information shared is where they are because they're on their highways and then the information that is collected from these plate readers is in belongs to the Alliance Police Department and the City of Alliance we only share with other law enforcement agencies okay so is it an investigative tool are we ticketing Speeders using these cameras or no ma' absolutely not okay it's purely for investigative tool so if we have a vehicle that we know it's been involved in a crime the lprs will tell us if they come into our city if they leave our city and what times Etc okay and I just have one more quick question so on H page five I guess I was looking at the very first agreement after page four um on the very first one there's a 6.4 ahead of termination there's a lot of uh information in red regarding the electricity do you have that in front of you actually I'll try to see if I can get it here figure out uh says there's no cost to the city readily available for existing electrical so that applies if we're using one of the state's polls they agree to provide the electricity at no charge if we're on their poll okay but all of our LPR on our own hles using our electricity so there's no cost absolutely not okay those were the only two I had yes ma'am El no I just wanted you to kind of explain what what was going on so that there was question the public it's basically just a formality really all it is there's no cost to us for this permitting process am I correct that those cameras were helpful at one time when we were having all the break-ins in buildings and storage units were they helpful in

they're they're helpful on a regular basis okay this those will be similar to like what we do [Music] for any other questions on the consent calendar hearing none please councilman tman yes councilman Weber yes Vice mayor Mashburn yes councilman lipac yes and mayor MC yes Item B resolution number 2533 the airport electric project resolution number 2533 will accept and allow the city of all to proceed with the final step of the airport electrical project Mr May to make a motion to approve item number item resolution 2533 second you have a motion and a second is there any discussion then you want to come up and just give a brief recap of what's going on so this will be a pretty large project um the electrical project will concentrate on replacing the runway lights on our main Runway longest runway of 1230 and then Runway 826 um anything that deals with those runways electrically will be changed also so that will include wind cones um guidance signs 826 have previously been narrowed from 150 ft to 75 ft and the shoulders that have remained and that's where the lights are um are in really bad shape because they're not maintained

by the fa like the actual Runway surface so they're going to take those shoulders out and that's where the new lights will be put in um also there's some grading to do on 12:30 so we use some of that dirt to move it to 826 um there'll be a new backup Air Field generator put in and then there's two nav AIDS um so navigational aids for Pilots that will be added to Runway 826 so that is the your project um so right now they're moving forward with a grant because we're going to get most of the discretional money for airports for Nebraska this for this project so they want to have it bid so they know what money they can give to other airports um but the both of the construction or pretty much all of the construction will happen next summer so they won't start anything on our runways unless all the equipment is actually on site and ready to go can't something and then we're out of a Runway so this um this has been before Council before because we've had our consultant agreement we've applied um for the state Grant through the Aeronautics division which is um up to 2% or $100,000 and I think we're at the top of their list to receive that and that portion actually comes out of the part that we owe so that that's why that's beneficial and my understanding is instead of a 910 split this this project will be a 955 so it's it's a large amount of money but there's um we're getting more funding than we usually get on projects in the past so huge huge deal for the airport Lyn how long did the last SL didn't they just change it I know it's

been 25 years 30 years ago yeah is that what kind of is that new time span would be too is it going to last that long I mean I think they put less of a life frame on it just because of um but it'll last that's we won't do it every 10 years I think that's what they say the lifespan is on almost every project but that's probably what they said on the last one and I think the last part was what 91 or 97 I think when they did that so in all of this will be LEDs which should help with electrical bills for us questions I have one yeah okay okay so on the narrative that is on the narrative says that basically the city's portion of 5, 332,000 would be 5% and that's $266,200 th000 off that brings our portion down to 1666 26 according to the narrative if you go to the sf424 document it says the total cost of the project is5 mil 900,000 so what they do is this is an this is an Engineers estimate so we won't know the actual cost until it's bid and we can't bid until we do this step so what they do is they take the engineer's estimate and they add money to it on the grant because if they don't do that and it comes in over the the amount that they put on that grant paperwork we have to start over they come back and do a grant so they always take the engineers estimate and they add a certain percentage to it so it doesn't it does matter what we put on there but we don't know the actual cost until the project is Bid okay so we padded the

grant about 583 th000 just in case it's cost overrun yeah that's the that's the FAA and the Department of Aeronautics for the state that's their process so they always tell us to warn Council that that doesn't mean that's what the cost is going to be we work off of the estimate and then this is supposed to be bid either the last week in April or the first week in May that's when we'd actually do bid openings okay so then we wait and see okay and go from there any projective disturbance in yeah service yeah that so we this will be we've been really working on phasing so right now it's difficult because we're going to base it off of what our schedule is now with Airline but all of that still up in the air too so right now they will they're going to start with um the main Runway so 12:30 because of the grading that needs to be done so they can that dirt on the next phase for 826 but the two runways intersect and so when they have to work on that intersection basically our entire Airfield is closed down because of where 1735 goes at the end of 1230 I know this confusing so I mean it basically shuts down our Airfield so they I think in the documents we always say that work is done I think Tuesday flight will leave and then they have all of that time so Tuesday night won't come in and Wednesday morning won't go out but is

Contour we haven't had no we don't have any discussion with them until it's been and we know and we have to have the discussion because they're not here yet so yeah I mean there Airline construction happens and and we try to have it um be as we actually most of the time try not to have a disruption in service but with this one there's there's no way around because they're not allowed to use Runway 1735 because it's not recognized by the FAA and there's not lights on it so there'll be some there is going to be some do you have any idea how long it'll take to complete the project or will that depend kid no I I don't know that I do know it I have the permision I don't have it in front of me and that's all based on the different phasing and they'll have a number of work days that they're supposed to have it done in and I honestly I don't remember what that is anything else thanks thanks excuse if there are no other questions call vice mayor Mashburn yes councilman lipac yes councilman terman yes councilman Weber yes and mayor mie yes item number c on tonight's agenda is ordinance number 2997 on the second reading Municipal Code Amendment section two title donations ordinance number 2997 is before Council on a second reading which will accept and amend the City of Alliance Municipal Code section two titled donations Mr Mary I make a motion that we approve ordinance number 2997 on the second reading second okay there's a motion and second is there any

discussion I looked at the change that you made and that that seems to fix the problem that I saw anything else call councilman Li yes councilman terman yes councilman Weiser yes vice mayor Mashburn yes and mayor McGee yes the next item on tonight's agenda is ordinance 2998 first reading Municipal Code Amendment sections 24-21 through 24-30 regarding sidewalks ordinance number 2998 is before Council on the first reading which will accept and amend the City of Alliance Municipal Code sections 24-21 through 24-30 regarding sidewalks Mr Mayor I make a motion that we accept ordinance 2998 I'll second a motion for discussion what questions he has about this ordinance I think that if we're going to do stuff like this this feels like we just dropped our laps we should have had this discuss question to go over it so we can verify I mean this you know instead of Us coming to a meeting and trying to expect to pass it on first reading without having more substantial learning on it instead of I read it read it read it and I read what was in the on the computer and I read this and it just doesn't make sense what are we going to do next after we drop this stuff after we drop this on these people we're going to drop on transal court we

drop on the everybody I mean I read the paragraph here where it's talking about about people that own land that never had sidewalks have being implemented to have sidewalks now is that come next I mean what are we going to keep just keep dropping this crap on people first I would like to say we to to watch our language and I said wasow second of all I reached out to Seth and Brent prior to the meeting because we can't discuss this except for here so this does have to be dropped here for the discussion to take place so meeting next I went and had questions and clarification prior to tonight to help me discern what would be best going forward there are parts of it that I agree with and there's parts that I don't so I think this is a good first step and we can look at it and do some revisions but yes I mean State Statute does mandate that cities are allowed to enforce sidewalks and that needs to be done in some instances or they would never get there and we've had you know situations where developers have left and I think Brent did a really great job on The Narrative of how we kind of got in this Bo we're asking people that have owned their homes for 50 years all of a sudden they tell to maybe put sidewalk I want to clarify that J because I I just want people understand that the adoption of this ordinance would not

require anybody to do anything correct the the ordinance lays out how when cwalk should be constructed and if they have not been constructed in the past how city council can mandate it but the actual adoption of the ordinance would not change anything it would take further Council action to actually impose that burden on somebody so just keep that in mind that just passing this ordinance even if we pass it just as a what as it stands right now wouldn't impose a burden on anybody that would take other action on on behalf of the council having said that I agree with Tia I think it's a good first step there's things that I understand why they're in there there's things that I don't understand why they're in there so um I'd like more time to study it to to see if there's some changes that we can make to it to to improve it maybe make it more I guess from my point of view I just I speak for myself prove it from my point of view well who drafted this ordinance I would imagine that would be possible you drafted it alone I was reviewed by okay was requested of me to make our or Mir that other cities in our area used as [Music] a well I I think that we this would have been a perfect thing I think to kick around at a workshop in my opinion uh rather than have it dropped here um also I guess I'm a little confused why the department that's got to enforce this wasn't involved in the process of writing this ordinance he did the research on the narrative which is amazing so I'd like to hear more from Brent

since since this is going to be his headache to enforce actually it's his headache now but it would be council's headache if this is adopted right so so you did a really great job on the narrative what can you tell us about this I I think this was brought up because of a complaint by J&J Pit Stop am I wrong on that among others among others so can you clarify for me I never heard the vocal complaint from J&J Pit Stop can somebody let everybody in town know what happened that got us to this point so when you construct something of over $2,500 value on a lot that doesn't have a sidewalk and there's curve and gutter adjacent to that lot you have to install the sidewalk as part of that construction process and that is in current that is yes that's current in it's been that way since 1986 just add to that because it's not as simple as just the gasoline station property that storage area that he has fenced in to the north side is part of the same lot and so um doing the Improvement on that small section next to the gas station would have triggered a sidewalk along the whole front of that storage area as well and that was the big issue with J&J is the cost of that but that's just the that that is one contigous lot and you can't separate it and the north big issue and the north side of that lot they want to go down the street too off of C they want to go north or go west I guess it would be Anthony Street which isn't connected to anything it connects the sidewalk on the other side there's a there's a sidewalk on the north side of West Fourth Street

where intersects with Anthony that currently goes nowhere the sidewalk that you are talking about would in effect give it something to connect to theyd have to cross the street to do so and the cost of this sidewalk even though that property is z commercial I'm guessing it's commercial something is that cost of the sidewalks and their total expense the sidewalk and the gutters yeah the the curb and gutter is already there the sidewalk is there yes okay all right so the big issue is the fact that when they put in that fence several years ago they were not required to put in the appropriate sidewalk at that time why not there was no Cur gut I don't know I can't I I don't know either I wasn't here I mean if the ordinance was there then they they actually did their their storage unit and nobody enforced the current city ordinance at that point in time yes and this isn't the only location that that's the case either correct well but wasn't it because Brent because there was no cban gutter at that time when they built that storage I think that cban gutter has been there since the early 1980s because West Fourth Street in Anthony Avenue would have been paved as part of the street improvement district for that subdivision and that subdivision was built out in the late 70s early 80s so somebody Dr the ball correct or gave them an exemption yes do we give exemptions there was no record of that though was there m just saying that's the other possibility of so exemptions are given for financial hardship is that correct but they're not given for anything else no they're not given for financial hardship they're given if there's no curb and gutter there okay or if there's

some sort of Oddball grade difference between the prop line and the back of the curb gutter uh they would make a sidewalk installation just infeasible perfect example of that would be along rling Road storage units there where the property line is feet higher than the curbing gutter that's correct not oopsy the city's part yes full disclosure I was the one that brought this to Seth to address some of the concerns that the public has brought up with some of what I will call Selective enforcement that has gone through the years putting it back in the hands of the city council I feel will take some of the burden it gives us the opportunity to address that enforcement I don't I can't fully blame our current building and zoning department because this has been an ongoing situation for years I think it needs to be addressed I need we need as a council need to have a way to enforce our city CES including on our city Lots like we discussed John and I have discussed you know if it comes to a point where we have a city lot that doesn't have sidewalk we should follow the rules that we enforce on the residents I think it needs to happen where we start to have some enforcement that is fair and just across the board all right so I just for my own CL a because I'm a little bit like Jay I'm not a lawyer so uh this was an awful lot to digest so why why are we recommending when everything costs more to go down to $500 instead of leave it at the current 2500 the thinking behind that is that other cities don't have over Traders

this and they touch their they touch their property with any kind of improvement is automatic and so the request to make us mirror what other cities around us are doing that was brought down okay closely other cities let's say that I live in a culdesac and I want to build a $4,000 fence now I have to put in a sidewalk okay well no wonder they're all upset you have to pull a permit exactly right so if I want to build a fence now I'm on the hook for a sidewalk or if I want to put in a new window in my house for whatever I'm on the hook for a sidewalk even though my Improvement to the property has nothing to do with my actual property will you please CL clarify clarify the what tray is this because if my kid busts out my window I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to have to put in a sidewalk that's correct so that would be something that would be like a maintenance item on your house you roof off your house to replace it that's a maintenance item uh redoing your sighting that's a maintenance item things like that will trigger uh sidewalk installation regardless of how much it costs if you build a structure or build a building on your property for example a fence a fence is considered a structure by our code definition um a building is considered you know a structure by our by our code definition if the value of those is $2,500 or more you would have to install sign currently currently um if you put an addition on your house costing $2,500 more again that F the sidewalk installation requirement so that's that's not necessarily new like I said this has been this has been the code since 1986

it's the enforcement that hasn't always been very consistent I'm sorry go ahead thank you so people that have empty lots that they bought to keep from having neighbors that don't have sidewalks if they do offense in their yard they're going to have to upgrade their sidewalk so they're going to have to do they're going to have to do two things they're going to have to do an administrative subdivision and possibly combine the two lots because you can't build a fence on a make lot and then yes you're going to have to put acide what on that l another question came up is the fact that currently there's an exemption for culde saacs that have not required sidewalks in the past and that's been removed is there a reason why that was removed uh again just to bring it in to what other cities are doing they don't have exemptions for any type of specific yeah I I don't see any reason to remove something that's been there I that grandfather in there now if we were to put something in there that said if a majority of the property owners in that called s petition the council to put it to toart sidewalks I'd probably be okay with that but just to remove something that's been put into the ordinance specifically for Alliance we're allowed to have things specific to our community abely I don't I don't have a problem with that so how many cold disects are there I tried to wreck my brain and drive a few do we have five or six in town two that don't have sidewalks the rest of them have sidewalks but there's at least half dozen side so about six okay so currently we have two that were I guess grandfathered in we remove that okay so

I seen more than two because there's the one on boing that's where Rees lives you go down Bing past 11th between 11th and 14th there's a there's a cold sack on the east side of they don't have the Colac on poofing off of Black Hills doesn't have the Colac at it's not Sher oh the the KAC or whatever it is inside of where garwood's built Lake field Plaza or whatever that's called they feel the state in they they don't have sidewalks but they have their streets is what they use for their sidewalks but they also don't have curbs and guns so they wouldn't be required sidewalk it doesn't have correct Brent so that's all private property anyway they don't have public streets the part of property that's adjacent to bigor Avenue which is a public Street has a sidewalk on which one North Park of States what I think is I'd like to make a motion to just table this I agree a second okay we have a motion a second we have a motion in a second to table um ordinance 2998 um is there any other discussion on there okay pleas call councilman terman no councilman Weber yes vice mayor Mashburn yes councilman liac yes and mayor McGee he yes so we'll T ordinance number 2998

maybe get some input um from Council on things they'd like to see differently and we'll going to go that the last item on the agenda is a boarded appointment an application was submitted by Matthew Mas to serve on the community re Development Authority with his term ending January 31st 2028 I would make a motion to approve the application of Matthew murn to the community agre hold Authority I second quick M do you see any conflict evolved with the fact that um we have council member and remember the Development Authority being no okay I just want to clarify that any other discussion the police call Ro councilman chman yes councilman Weber yes vice mayor mash up councilman lipac yes and mayor McGee yes uh that completes the agenda for this evening so we arger