City Council - Regular Meeting

If it says chicken, I better not take the sign.

Oh, you just had a bunch in that room?

Exactly, that was what I, it's Saturday night, I think.

Oh, I didn't know.

You have them zip-tied to, like, sign signs. Oh, do they? Oh. Maybe that's, maybe they know what the rules are.

Yeah, we're past. Zip it.

Wait, it did that again.

It's all grounded in here today. Way to settle down, you guys. Yeah, that was solid. A hammer. A hammer. A lot of power here. You don't have to use it yet.

We're good.

Over by where we are.

All set, Cindy? Thank you. All right, go ahead and call to order the regular council meeting for Thursday, September 10th. Call to order with the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Amen.

Roll call for councilpersons. Roll call for department heads.

In the absence of Mayor Brendan Pratt, we have Chairperson Matthew Barron.

Here.

Councilperson Dale Stuber.

Here.

Councilperson Timothy Lima.

Here.

Councilperson Bruce Thielen.

Yes.

Councilperson Susie Zilmer. Here. Councilperson Susan Rowe.

Here.

We also have present Attorney Sam Barkhansen, Assistant City Administrator Roy Atkinson, Police Chief Kelly Bakken, Finance Director Tina Nelson, Planning Director Taylor Greenwell, Grant and Housing Program Manager Julian Emerson, Parks and Rec Director Chad Dirkup, and Cindy Bauer, City Clerk. We have a quorum.

Thank you. Citizens' participation period, no more than 20 minutes unless extended by two-thirds. Vote for Section 2.04.051B. This is for anyone in the audience that wants to speak on something that's not on the agenda.

Buehler. Seeing there are none, Lima moves to close citizens' participation period.

Roll a second.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Discuss and consider approval of the minutes from the August 27th regular council meeting.

Roll move approval.

Stuber seconds. We have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Report city officers, department heads, and city committees.

Council President Buren and members of council. I have a few items to report. On September 15th, there will be a an open house or ribbon cutting at our disc golf course, our new disc golf course at Fairway Park. We're really excited to kick that off. It's been a process, but we've got it ready to open. The course is really cool. If you haven't had a chance, you'll get to see it. It winds through down the old fairway. It's a really beautiful, beautiful course. We kicked off the destination master plan process. And this is an endeavor through Visit Eau Claire. I'm sure Kenzie will talk about it a little bit. We had a kickoff meeting the other day at the Pablo Center. It was really, really, really, really good. A lot of synergy between our partners in the region, both municipality driven, hoteliers, and just all around. It was really, really good to see There will be a listening session in Altoona on October 15th here at City Hall. I'll send out details about that as As we get closer probably sooner rather than later And we'll let you know your opportunity to give feedback about how how we will grow here in our tourism here in this this area and innovation grants will be opening next month we've had preliminary conversations again with the city of Eau Claire also with Eau Claire County with related to IT you know we're we're definitely open ideas there's you know we came really close last time with the Chippewa Fire District and we'll have more to report on that as we close but yeah the There was a second round. There's $100-plus million in that pool. It encouraged partnerships and collaboration. So that's pretty, pretty exciting stuff. Yesterday, Mike and I met with Luke Hansen, the executive director of the Eau Claire area EDC. We talked quite a bit about our 80-acre parcel in the East neighborhood area and different options there coming out of our recent meeting talking about the 80 acres. So we were having conversations. I was a little bit late today for our finance committee meeting. because I met with our new regional WEDC representative and the statewide talent attraction and big industrial attraction rep. And so she was in the area doing a regional site tour. Just got to meet her. So I know there's a lot going on, a lot of interest in this region. So as we hear, you'll hear. So... Presented at eggs and issues on August 28th. We're talking about our economic development and in this area was on a panel with Luke Hansen it was supposed to be John Johnson, but he couldn't make make it a family emergency and Aaron white from the city of Eau Claire It was a really great opportunity very thankful that Mike you know allowed me to get up there and do it It was a lot of fun and Yeah, so I just want to report out on that. We have a site, a field trip that we're planning. We talked about coming out of budget committee for the ag building and also our fire facility and then the concession space that we're looking at in the budget at 10th Street. That'll be on October 1st. We will get details out about that ASAP. We're going to decide on a time, either 4 or 4.30. So... More to come on that. That's all I've got. Sorry for the lengthy report.

I thought you did a great job at eggs and issues. We were real proud of the representation of the message that you brought for Altoona. Even though there was some heckling from the cheap seats, I think you did outstanding. Anyone else? What's up next?

Yeah, so last month we kicked off the planning process for the five-year parks plan update. And we just posted the survey for that online. So if you go to the city website on the front page and go to the bottom, you can see where the citizen survey is. Please fill that out and pass it along to your friends and neighbors. That's on there. It's on our social media. It'll be in our newsletter every single week that we have that going on. And it will be open until November 31st. So about three months. And, yeah, it's the best chance to kind of provide comprehensive feedback on all of the things we care about with parks. So, yeah.

When do the utility bills go out next?

They go out the first of October. October.

Any chance of putting something in there to highlight that?

Yes, we'll do that as well. The plan is to also include a utility bill to try and get people who don't necessarily use online sources as much. And I'll also have some copies in the library that can be filled out. It's not as optimized for paper as it is for online, but it'll still allow people to provide comments and feedback there as well. So we'll try and get, we want to push it as hard as we can, do as much feedback as possible. We'll be doing open houses later on in the process, but this really is a chance to really inform us going into the Needs analysis piece of the process so definitely give us feedback as possible and Yeah, looking forward to see what we hear from everybody at the end of ember I Don't know if we have it on our news blast either, but I'll make it will be Every week, okay I guess the other thing I'm thinking of since it's the parks that I don't know is there some way to engage the

as they sign up for all the fall programming with the Parks and Rec Department too?

Another good one that I'll do is I'll talk to the school district. They do frequent mailers. That'd be a really good one. They've got a good list.

In one of our meetings The school board representative or school representative did say.

Yeah, Brian. He passed it. Brian. Our school representative on the steering committee, he'll be pushing that to parents as well and to the students to let their parents know that that's happening. So they're pushing already. But I think, yeah, that's a good idea. And that to the programs.

I mean, these are people already using our facility, you know, using. Yeah.

the program so they're kind of a interested audience in the first place yeah that's a good yeah you said on the web page is the survey yes help me out i'm there scroll the very bottom of the home page bottom left

City website, you're saying, right?

Yep. Under recent news. There we go. Yep. Right there, recent news.

Yep. City of Altoona Park semester plan. Ah, okay.

So not way at the bottom. Read more. Yeah, that'll be one way to look at it. It's also, I think you pinned it on our social media, so on our Facebook account. And it's also on my planning page for the understudy departments. So we're trying to push as much as possible in as many places as possible. So, yeah, I'll get stuff in the library as well for hard copies. But, yeah, I think adding it to the programs page is a good idea. Some people are already on there. I link our programs page to the survey as well. So people who are taking that can actually be linked to that and see what we offer as a city as well.

Just a real quick update. You guys are going to be seeing more about Safe Steps later in your agenda. But Safe Steps program continues to roll out. There's a lot of interest. And we are working with the preferred contractors. We're working people through it. We're starting to get people applying for the loans now. So I wish the process was easy. this way so we protect our investments so we're making sure we're doing due diligence and protecting against potential foreclosures anyway it's it's rolling forward we have nine people now I think who are we're rolling it out. I found one more funding source, somebody who wants to partner with us, and there are two others who are potentials who I made presentations to this week. So I'm continuing to try and bring as much. I joke that I want to make it a resume maker, but I'm trying to bring as much so-called free money and other resources to it as I can so we can help more people and stretch our dollars further. You guys will hear more about that as those agreements get in place and get

And you're finding a fairly good process. You said it's a little tricky, but the kind of back and forth of the cart and horse of applying, getting contractors.

It's mostly working smooth. A lot of it is working with people themselves to help them understand the plan. For various reasons, not everybody is great about any help with actually filling out the applications. So some people you've got to help walk them through, and you've got to be willing to work with them. So I'm doing a lot of that. And it feels good. We're helping people. But it's a bit of work to do that, but it's worth it when you see how grateful they are for realizing that there's potential help here for them and that they're going to save significant money.

And this is exactly who and what it was designed for, too.

Exactly. So it's continuing to roll forward. We're working out some of the bumps to try and make the process easier and smoother all the time. Thanks.

We're also notable in this last week, we came across a federal grant opportunity that we've mobilized pretty quickly. There's about 46 expected awards nationally, and ranging anywhere from $300,000 to $15 million. But what we want to do is make a bid to get our lighting, our field lighting, and the concessions building accounted for with that. So I'm not getting hopes up. I mean, I think I've been on the other side of not getting grants enough now, where I'm kind of like, ah, you're not seeing the enthusiastic right. But we're going to make a bid for it. We might have a chance. If they award a couple in our state, we might have the point where we could get it. So that'd free up some dollars.

And then also I think if we don't get it, we'll have a better chance in 2027 to get it for that project because we'll have a, I talked to Roy, and part of the CIP budget for the concession building is going to be also we're going to take a little bit of money maybe and do a master plan of that park. So it'll get us a little more organized, and then we'll even be in a better position to buy those applications.

So I just wanted to mention that. It was a pretty quick turnaround, but it's due at the end of the month.

And you did get the other small grant.

Yes. Oh, yeah. That's the other thing. We got a $5,000 grant from Union Pacific for their community ties program for downtown Altoona. So we'll look at – we haven't decided yet. I put the scope pretty broad, but it will be for placemaking, signage, something like that here in the downtown area. And it kind of plays off the Design Wisconsin project. So TBD, we just found out we got it. Thanks to the Altoona Area Foundation for being our proxy on that and working with us. And we're excited about that, yeah. It was in my spam folder this weekend. I was going through it, just kind of doing inventory. And it's like, congratulations. And I'm like, oh, hey, I must be good. 5,000 is good. I put in for 30, but hey, beggars can't be teachers.

Shoot for the stars and land on the moon. Yes.

Five's still five.

Yes.

More to come on that.

I'd like just to report that Highland Park is, we're putting the final touches on that. I mean, I pretty much can report that it's done for all intents and purposes. We just finished the fence, got installed yesterday on The tennis courts, or the pickleball courts and basketball courts separate the two. Restoration has been done for all the tear up from the road construction and irrigation has been fixed. So we're just gonna wait for some grass to grow and make it look a little nicer and then I'm expecting that we'll come up with a date in early October, hopefully for a grand opening for $150,000 that we can put into that park.

Which one is that again? Highland. Where?

UPS.

Okay.

And Channel 13.

Got it. Anything else? Map of all of our parks. I'm serious. It sounds crazy, but they used to do that where they made the cartoony type maps and stuff. We need a big one of those in Beltuna where all of our stuff is. Trails connecting them.

We can work with Visit Eau Claire on that.

No, I'm serious. I just think that would be a good thing as far as... for our community to have.

Yeah, in our brochures, our summer and our fall winter, we do have links to the locations of all those parks.

Where are the brochures?

They're on our park and reparation page.

Oh, online, okay.

Online.

Not an actual... Yeah, we don't have...

Did we used to have like a matrix or something like that that had the different parks and the amenities?

That's one project, too, we've been talking about internally is we have ArcGIS, which is a powerful GIS tool we can actually go in. And I know that Christian, he's been doing that a lot on the public works side, actually he's been working with Chad to get an inventory of parks.

Right, we're starting with our irrigation systems, and then we're going to hopefully go into, use it for trails, and then other assets, and then get it to a public view. There's a whole, there's a million things we can do with that to really help exactly what you're saying, but it's just baby steps.

Yep, and we can make that public-facing, and I know a few counties regionally have done that. Definitely a really good tool for us. We need an Altoona app.

Oh, for God's sakes. I'm just saying. That includes our reporter. I'm just kidding.

Lunch. Yeah. Okay. Anything else, Chad?

Just the last thing. We started our fall concert series on Wednesdays at Four Seasons Stage at River Prairie Park. And I did just a great job. venue, a very intimate 150 to 200 people we get every night. And, you know, the music is solo acts or duos. And we have five this year. Because it's every Wednesday in September, there's five Wednesdays in September. Nice. Last night we had Dave Engadall, who was our main guy who books all of our talent for the concert series. So he performed last night. And we had about 175 people there. That's great.

I did see saw your face in the news on the flock removal has there been much for follow up or anything with that or um Any folks kind of reaching out to you guys to ask about, you know?

Yeah. So we had some questions prior to the media release that was out there. Most of them, we asked them to look at the council meeting and review that first. And then if they had questions following that, we encouraged them to call us back. And we didn't get any phone calls called back. So I think they were pretty satisfied with the information that we provided out there We did receive some emails from people thanking us for To a different vendor in that sort of thing great The messaging was it's good 99% of them just read the headline and went yeah, I

I had no clue what was even happening, but that's okay.

Thanks.

If Flock was smart, they would just change the name of the company.

Now without changing a lot of their policies. Tina, did you have anything besides? Nope. No, that's all right. All right. So the next item is the consent agenda. This is a proclamation recognizing the ski sprites as Division II National Show Ski Tournament champions. Did you have any comments there, Roy?

Yeah, it's really, really exciting. I think it's a big accomplishment. It's a national win. And it's interesting, stuff I really didn't know about the program. hearing that there are a couple members of the team that are going to Olympic trials. And that is pretty cool. So it's a big honor for them. I know they're out there all the time. They're practicing. Definitely proud of them. And that's something that we want to relay with this. And it's just huge. And congratulations.

I'm just going to add real quickly, having had a daughter who was in them for about four to five years. I mean, it's an all-volunteer organization, and it really requires donations, but it's a ton of volunteer time. It's parents. I mean, there are now people who were skiing when my daughter was skiing who are now the boat drivers, and their kids are the skiers and stuff like that. It's a huge family kind of an organization. But I mean, they start practicing as soon as fishing opener occurs. And it's Sunday through Wednesday, four nights a week, all the way through until Labor Day weekend, basically. And then they wrap it up. But I mean, it's, you know, and then when they start doing shows, it's shows two nights a week, and they're still practicing two nights a week. But it's a huge amount of time. and energy that people put into it.

Huge win to get them in Altoona.

Oh, honestly.

There's some way we could adopt them somehow. Do something special. I think that's, we could really do some, you put them under the Parks and Rec umbrella.

I'd like to go ahead and read the proclamation. The mayoral proclamation, so on behalf of the mayor, recognizing the Altoona Ski Sprites as the 2026 Division II National Show Ski Tournament champions, whereas the Altoona Ski Sprites were formed in Eau Claire in 1960 and since moving to their current home on Lake Altoona in 2007, have become a valued part of the Altoona community and a source of entertainment, recreation, and community pride. And whereas the Altoona Ski Sprites have grown to include more than 70 members, including skiers and volunteer staff, who demonstrate an extraordinary commitment to the sport through indoor practices beginning each January and on-water practices two to three days per week throughout the summer. Whereas on August 2nd, 2026, the Altoona Ski Sprites competed at the 25th Division to show ski national championships in Loves Park, Illinois, where their talent, preparation, teamwork, and dedication earned them first place in the overall team competition and the title of Division II National Show Ski Tournament Champions. And whereas the ski sprites further distinguished themselves at the national championships by earning first place in showmanship, production, docks and equipment personnel, and pickup boat crew, the highest scoring barefoot act, the comedy award, and second place honors in towboat driving, ballet, and jump, And whereas the success of the Altoona Ski Sprites is made possible not only by the talent and dedication of its skiers, but also by an exceptional network of volunteers, with approximately 20 volunteers needed to put on each home show and many others contributing countless hours toward boat and equipment maintenance, ground maintenance, costume making, fundraising, accounting, concessions, and community outreach. And whereas, Ski Sprite members Dane Engstrom and Ben Walker have further represented the excellence of the organization by earning invitations to Team USA Water Ski Training Camp, where they will compete for selection to the United States National Show Ski Team, an opportunity to represent our country at the 2027 World Show Ski Tournament. And whereas the accomplishments of the Altoona Ski Sprites reflects decades of commitment from generations of skiers, coaches, volunteers, families, and supporters, and bring tremendous pride and national recognition to the city of Altoona. Now, therefore, I, Matt Buren, on behalf of Mayor Brendan Peratt, do hereby recognize and congratulate the Altoona Ski Sprites. as the 2026 Division II National Show Ski Tournament champions, and on behalf of the Altoona Common Council and the entire Altoona community, extend our sincere congratulations to the athletes, coaches, volunteers, families, and supporters of the Altoona Ski Sprites for this outstanding achievement, and thank them for their continued dedication to the sport of show skiing and for representing the city of Altoona with distinction.

Here, here.

Lime will move to approve the consent agenda item.

DLM will second.

Thank you.

The first item on new business is a quarterly tourism report from Visit Eau Claire.

Did we have to vote on it?

Oh, I'm sorry, on the consent agenda. Sorry, all in favor?

Aye.

All opposed? Motion carries.

Quarterly tourism report. As you may be aware, Visit Eau Claire is Altoona's contracted tourism promotion agency to detail these efforts Kenzie have a check from visit Eau Claire is here tonight to present on our efforts, so you know again. I I always start these off You know we're very very thankful for our work with them. They're they're really they are top of their field and in my view and I've worked with several DMOs in my career, three, and they're the best. So we're very thankful for our partnership, and they do a great job. And yeah, with that, take it away.

Thank you, Roy. We feel the same way. We love the partnership and happy to be back to report that summer was an incredible record-breaking for us. We're seeing room tax up, and in addition to that, our ADR, our average daily rate of hotels, is up as well. We had some newer events in the summer. Eau Claire's Festival really helped move that needle in July, and we're continuing to see numbers look really good. In your packet, you will have the typical report that we provide every day, and I'll go through some highlights on that. And then as I wrap that up, I'll talk about what's to come over the next few months. There's some really exciting things happening. So in the report, you'll see that Altoona pages on visitoclair.com drew over 78,000 website sessions, and that's people actively browsing on Altoona content and planning around it. In addition, we saw over 9,800 partner referrals to Altoona businesses. That's a 62% increase over the same period last year. A lot of this is being led by attention to the yard. So people looking at the yard businesses and becoming familiar with them. Visit Eau Claire has created over 38 pieces of content and 30 social media videos highlighting Altoona locations and businesses throughout the year. And you can see some of that report if you're curious. Fall content updates are including fall color guides, scary prairie, and Halloween content. Of course, the ginormous pumpkin festival. And we are also doing this sculptures to our new cultural connections trail, which includes two sculptures in River Prairie. So we're super excited about that and promoting that. For the summer campaign recap, we did a co-op through Travel Wisconsin for our digital ad campaign that ran April through early July. And that campaign reached travelers that are searching for flights, hotels, and road trips in the region. And that generated over 4,700 confirmed arrivals, so the people actually seeing the ads and then coming and staying in our region, and generated an estimated $1.5 million in economic impact for the summer campaign. Our summer ads reached nearly 2.6 million people, people seeing those impressions, and drove 90,000 clicks to visit EauClaire.com. Year to date, we've welcomed over 1.4 million users to our website. For comparison, that's up about 2% year over year. And although that growth might seem small, it actually is really large considering a lot of people are getting their travel information through AI now. So a lot of other industries, or I shouldn't say industries, other destinations across the nation are seeing a dip in traffic and worse continuing to grow. So we're happy to see that. Looking ahead, we're launching our fall campaign that actually just launched on September 1st. It's called Right Pace, Right Time. And this captures scenic drives, orchard outings, and fall weekends across the region, including, of course, Altoona's Scary Prairie, Ginormous Pumpkin Festival, and other fall offerings. As I mentioned, looking forward into the rest of the year, we want to keep the momentum going. We are getting ready to host next week the Midwest Travel Journalist Association. So about 30 travel journalists throughout the Midwest will be visiting our area, checking it out, and then hopefully writing about it. And they write for some really great publications. We have some food and wine magazine publications.

And we're hosting, they're coming to the yard for lunch next Friday.

Yep. So we'll probably see a lot of coverage through that, which is very exciting. We also are getting ready to host at the end of September the... Economic Development Summit. So that is a huge win for us. That brings in about 400 people to the area. And then in November, we will be hosting the Wisconsin Fall Tourism Conference. And the last time that it was held in our area was 2016. Ten years later, we'll be able to show off the region, and we're very excited about that. And then the last thing I wanted to mention, Roy already spoke about it, but we recently launched our Destination Master Plan, and we had our kickoff yesterday. And it was, I think, very motivating and encouraging. There were a lot of stakeholders around the table and some really good discussions. But I want to share with all of you today, it's just the start, and we want every single one of you in this room to be a part of that. we want to cast a wide net of people. So October 15th from 4.30 to 6, I believe it is, we will be hosting a community engagement session here. We will also have community engagement sessions in four other communities that we represent, Town of Union, Town of Wheaton, Osceola, Eau Claire, and of course here. There will also be a lot of stakeholder resident surveys, stakeholder surveys. A lot of people will be part of this process. The plan is to have this hopefully be done with a lot of updates along the way, but would be next summer. We would try to wrap up the plan and present it. That is my update. Any questions?

My only question you answered was about engagement or other ways for that Destination Master Plan. We'll be seeing ways to have a voice or be a part of that.

And if you want more information, if you're just like, I want to dig into this and find out more, we do have a website that we just launched. So if you were to Google Visit Eau Claire Destination Master Plan, you could find it. We also will be sending it to all of you. All of you should be on our stakeholder newsletter, and that should be coming out

Probably early next week where you'll have the link to that Thank You Kenzie, thank you Thanks Next item is to discuss consider approval of a resolution 9a 26 resolution authorizing the closing of books of account for the year ended December 31st 2025 and to accept the comprehensive annual financial report for 25 this was discussed earlier today at the December 10th Finance Committee meeting I

So, yes, the auditor went over a summary, and you received the summary in your packet as well as the full financial statement. If anybody has any questions on anything, the committee, I think, felt very comfortable just bringing this forward, their recommendation to approve. But if there's anything that anybody else wants to discuss further that they saw that if you weren't able to make the finance, I think most everyone was actually, other than Dale, was that it?

In the room. Dale showed up a little bit later, but, yeah.

I think it was a good year. It was a busy year, closing out TID number three, finalizing that. TID two is closed now. We had a lot happening with affordable housing opening up, a lot of projects. So we're in good situation.

Anybody got any questions? Lime will move to approve Resolution 98-26, a resolution authorizing the closing of the books of account for the year ending December 31, 2025, and to accept the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for 2025.

Scubar Secrets.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Next item is to discuss consider approval regarding a proposed 30-lot preliminary plat at 1710 White Tail Way. This is parcel 1820122708193402003. This is known as the Villas, and this was submitted by Jeff Stockburger.

Thank you, Your Honor. Yeah, so this is a subsequent subdivision within the Whitetail Woods development. It's unique in that the site plans have already been approved for this. The buildings are actually already out there, two of the five buildings. there are zero lot line buildings. Since it's all one lot right now, the developer is going back basically to add zero lot lines to the different buildings in the subdivision to make them eligible for sale. The approval for this would not be approving anything new. It's just going back to enable what can only be rent right now for sale. So just preempting that here. So it's a 30-lot preliminary plat they're petitioning for approval. It's currently zoned R3. This is the subject lot of the plat. It's currently multifamily. Like I said, there's been, there's other buildings already out there that were permitted and approved via site plan back in 2025. The repose uses townhomes. It's not really a change of use, but under our ordinance, townhomes have to be eligible for sale. So this will change that use category over because of that. It's a 3.4 acre site. After this process, then goes the final platen development agreement. And the city council is the approving authority on preliminary plots. Our comprehensive plan calls this area to be planned neighborhood type A, which allows all types of housing, including R3, townhome, and such. So it is compliant with our comprehensive plan. It's compliant with zoning. It's R3, which allows townhomes. This was the entire subdivision of Whitetail Woods as a whole. Again, this is actually where this plat is located. Nothing's changing as a result of this. It's all staying the same. It's already an approved project. Here is the preliminary plat. So these are all individual buildings. So one, two, three, four, five. It just adds the lot lines to these individual units to make them available for sale. But nothing's changing as a result of this. Here is the approved site plan that got approved last year and was the basis for the approval of these different building permits. So the access for the entire, it's off the primary access to the development, which is Nine Mile Creek Road. So that's how you get into Whitetail Woods. Then you have South Briarcliff Drive, and then they will access the internal part of this development via White Tollway, which is just a private drive that we don't maintain. It meets all of our rideway standards. It's compliant. It's been approved already. These are elevations of the buildings. You can actually go out there, though, and check them yourself. They look really good. A nice traditional aesthetic for all of them. There's no additional environmental review. They went through this process with White Toe Woods during the initial subdivision. So no additional stuff is required. They mitigate everything that was needed when they did the original approval. Same with the park syndication. So we had the parks process gone. We approved the park design. They're actually working on the trail around this wetland area right now. Pickleball courts, basketball court, and then this will be off the gravel space. But they're actually working on doing the construction of that park this moment because they're eager to have those amenities out there. Staff recommends approval of the preliminary plat as conditioned within the staff report. Planning Commission heard it on Tuesday, and they also recommend approval of the preliminary plat as conditioned in the staff report. Any questions?

Which are the ones that are already built? Is it the back eight and then the four in front of it?

Mark.

Is that?

Yes, please.

Good evening, folks. Mark Erickson, Everyday Survey Engineering, representing Jason Grippentrag and Grippentrag Development. So the top northern building is built, and then the four unit below. And I believe the flat work and the concrete work has either started or going to start real soon on the far east.

Would you move the microphone up closer to your face? So sorry.

I have a voice for radio. And a face for radio, too, for that matter. So, yes, the northern ones and those right there. Thank you for the introduction, Taylor. You said it really well. You know, us geeky engineers like to plan stuff out, so we did have this in the works. That's why there's no adjustments needed here or anything like that because the original was to test the market for the rentals and the interest level of either tenants that would like to buy them and or people that are looking and interested are Is much higher than anticipated so that's why he's setting it up a little call a little earlier than than later But it was it was tentatively planned out. We just were trying to feel the waters are they he was trying to fill the waters out on the topic and

And then is there like an HOA then?

I believe there will be an underlying document on the plot.

With the final plot, they have to have an HOA.

Because that had to do with like a lot of the twin home developments, maintenance on the outside.

Yeah, I'll probably maintain roof and common area, right, like common wall, Documentation everything like that. It's all covered. We don't maintain anything within this So this the street that goes in Plowed Driveways parking spare behind parking behind is plowed. Okay privately owned and maintained We maintain Briarcliff Drive as a public street. I can actually go back and show the full network of streets. So this is public. This is public. Basically, it's this network around here. Those are the public streets. But everything else is all internal. The approval of the subject as a whole specified that all infrastructure that's not in the public right-of-way has to be maintained by the developer outside of the parks and everything like that. And we have solid commitment specified in perpetuity that it has to be maintained privately. Is there been any more talk about connecting those roads Yes. So it's been plotted out to the edge right there as far as there being connections anytime soon. We don't have a timeline for connections yet. It was planned with the intent to do that from the beginning. Nothing's been. Yeah, but no progress in terms of getting those connected at this time for those. With the next phase of the development, which you guys will be seeing soon, they're going to build out the second connection to Nine Mile Creek right here. So we'll have the full circulation required. They pick up their garbage.

Yep. But so I had playing Commission yet as to had mentioned or it was it was mentioned before that playing Commission I'm unanimous that we we understood the rationale for it and it seemed like a very reasonable and straightforward way to You know help assist.

You know as this development was forward I will move to approve the proposed 30 lab preliminary Pratt plat at 1710 Whitetail Way as conditioned deal in a second

And second all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries.

One parting comment just for the sake of Chad and Taylor know what I'm bringing up is the development group has taken it upon themselves to increase the amount of improvements in the park on asphalt a path around park benches seating areas stuff like that to connect to the amenities that were previously obligated by the developer to take on the pickleball courts and the half basketball courts, so Fully invested growing this community especially out there and near the school district and all that so I think that's pretty awesome for what they're looking to do and yeah, thanks for mentioning that yeah, it is it is really significant mm-hmm Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks mark Item for move on to discuss consider approval of the a YSB building agreement Council president Buren members of council

As you may be aware, Altoona used softball and baseball. AYSB has proposed constructing a storage building in Sitter City Park. It's located behind the left field fence of the Met Field. It will be located there, if passed, to support its youth and baseball and softball operations. The attached license agreement establishes terms under which AYSB may construct, use, and maintain the facility on city-owned property. I want to take a quick second to kind of talk about our process with this. Over the last couple of budget processes, we've heard loud and clear, you know, and have been evaluating a use of our parks. And it's something that is important to do. And it really, you know, the question of parity between user groups, something we are approaching. And really, we've had meetings with, we've been talking to all the user groups and proceeding in good faith and keeping our relationship strong with them. And they're open to these conversations. We met with the school district. We've met with youth hockey several times. We've met with AYSB. This proposed license agreement protects city interests. That's one thing I'll say. I want to hand it over to Chad here to kind of go through it. But we've been really looking at the groups that use our parks, signage, all intensive. What we're working towards is having master user agreements for the groups that utilize our park spaces. And we've been working towards that. This is kind of a first step in that. And we intend to work with each party that's operating.

Explain to me the difference between a license agreement and a lease agreement.

You know, that's a great question. So this license agreement. I've never heard of this. We, it was. Yeah, actually, this is a rare opportunity for a city attorney. What is going on? Tell us more, Sam.

Hang on, let me quick Google it. No.

I don't think I've ever heard him speak before. This is great, guys.

No, I mean, it basically comes down to, with a lease, even though you're not conveying ownership in the property, you're still conveying an interest in the property. And so it makes it more difficult to terminate if there's some default or a breach. So you would have to go through an eviction process, whereas a license It's generally, a revocable license is generally drafted to be more flexible and allows simply terminating their right to use the property. It's not granting them any real interest in the property. It's just granting them a certain ability to use the property. You can just cancel that without having to go through an eviction process.

If things go south. We don't need to go through a long, protracted procedure. We can just terminate the agreement.

With the 18 months notice. I mean, if there's, I mean, yeah. Obviously, if something happens, like people at parties are going to argue what they want to argue, and they might try to say, oh, no, you need to follow this process. But that's essentially the purpose of a license. We'll make it not as much of a. If you're happy, we're happy. Good.

sorry and i just want to say that um just yeah like i echo what roy said but you know this is the first step in getting a master plans with all our master agreements with with all of our user groups and it really set some some equal standards about how we deal with all of our user groups and in fairness because there has been some um discrepancies on why we do one thing with one group or what we do one with another so um So this is a good first step, and we worked hard with AYSB to come up with this. Again, I want to say AYSB has been a great partner. They put hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of labor know capital improvements into cinder city park to help serve the the youth of our community in baseball and softball recreational activities so um and i'm looking forward to continue to work with them and and um this building um it'll be 20 foot by 40 foot um and it will it'll be a storage they got a lot of a lot of equipment that they're they gotta bring in and um THAT IS NOT EASILY STORABLE ON SITE, AND THIS BUILDING WILL ACCOMPLISH THAT. AND THERE MIGHT BE SOME, I DON'T KNOW SURE OF THE DETAILS, BUT THERE MIGHT BE SOME HIGH SCHOOL EQUIPMENT THAT MIGHT BE STORED IN THERE TOO VIA PERMISSION FROM AYSB THROUGH THEIR PARTNERSHIP, BUT IT WILL DEFINITELY HELP MAKE THE PROGRAMS THAT THEY RUN THERE MUCH BETTER.

So why specifically this spot?

So we really took into consideration, so there's not a lot of area. Really, it's there, or really it's Rays Park. And Rays Park, behind Bevanfield, we call it Rays Park.

It's not officially Rays Park, though. It's just the back end.

No, that's just what we call it amongst ourselves, unofficially, slang, I guess. But... In that space, we talked about that is a space that can be utilized for possible expansion. I know at one time it was taught that the Hockey Association might get to build an arena there someday. And so putting it out there, I think, would... We're getting into the fact that, OK, you can't use that building anymore because we have bigger and better things that can go up there. So we want to get into that. This spot just makes more sense. It's out of the way of our park maintenance building operations. It's not going to get in the way of that, Ben assured me. And I just don't foresee that spot being valuable for any operation that we might have in the near future.

Yeah, we held a really good meeting with them. And we really reinforced that we don't anticipate it happening. But at some point down the road, if there's a redesign of the park, or we do something different there, a future council, that's why we put in that noticing requirement of 18 months. And we've made sure to also say that they're handling maintenance, and they're going to be handling the move if we do have to move it. So we don't pull the rug out underneath them. No, that's a good. That's a good question. I mean, what's the value of the building?

They're putting up the 70 And are they going to be signing it with something like CCF facility or anything We discussed about signage and that any signage that is brought up into the park, we need to be notified and we need to have an agreement on why that might be there. So we didn't say in the agreement that signage couldn't be put up on there, but it's got to come to us and then it's got to go through the proper channels.

And what about access? So now we, and that was always been kind of a bone of contention that the gate that closes off from 10th street, Are they just going to have carte blanche access there? So they'll be able to all be able to park there?

I mean, no. Well, I mean, in certain situations. But when we deem it necessary that they don't park there for whatever baseball tournaments, Whenever we close off that parking lot, they will not be able to park there. You know, in a 7 o'clock on a Tuesday, sure, people can park there. That's fine. They can pull up. But there's no assumption of them having special parking privileges during times that we don't want to park there.

You don't foresee it turning into like a clubhouse?

No. I do not. But we will be...

I don't mean to sound skeptical, but I'm very skeptical.

And then we also put it in the language in the contract, too, in case, you know, the electricity demands are going to be very small in that building. We're going to take care of that until all of a sudden there's a higher usage of electricity, and we notice that, then we are going to revisit it.

There's 14 deep freezes in there. Exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

Full of ice cream. Yeah, exactly, ice cream.

Or they do turn into a clubhouse and put a bar in the corner, I don't know.

So those batting cages are AYS&B batting cages or are they Altoona batting cages?

I wish we had. We're planning to. We're going to.

Yeah.

In that master agreement that I'm talking about, we're going to put in writing that that's our property. Yes. I mean. And we use it. They use it. They put the effort into that. But any property like that, any permanent structure, like a batting cage, that becomes a property.

That's one thing we want to reinforce, that anything that's going to be in our parks, you know, we have control of and we have a controlling interest of. And that's one thing that we've been really talking about a lot. But that's not to say we won't work collaboratively. We're not going to work in the best interest of the community. But, no, we definitely want to enumerate that stuff and get that in a master agreement.

I always look at, like, Cinder City Park as being a – Destination and totally being redone and so that buildings gonna end up getting moved Does that mean the city well the city of Altoona will have to pay for the

Man upkeep of it if it breaks down or whatever?

No. We made that very clear with them. We said that, you know, roof goes, you're going to be accountable for it. That was a cornerstone of that conversation.

I would assume they're going to have to have insurance on it.

Did you read the agreement? Yes. Yes, there will be insurance on it.

There is insurance. They'll have insurance on the contents in the building and in the building itself. We deem that it will be much cheaper for them to go through our insurance. it'll come up to be like $60 a year, which the team's office will bill them for.

Yep. Can I? I'll just add, too, because I don't think I explained it well either, that as far as use and the difference on the lease versus license, with an actual lease, it's generally you're getting exclusive use of whatever you're renting, whereas with the license, it's more of a, implied use you can use it you have the right to use it but the owner can still use it like they can authorize other people to use it as long as the agreement is otherwise and and as long as that use is not in obviously direct conflict with what the license and we of course told them that we don't plan on doing that right but you know this is for your use and we don't have any

you know, inclination, but we have that right to do.

It's just like Hobbs. Hobbs, we know there's going to be hockey in there, but if we want to have a flea market in there in the summer, it's our building. We can do what we want.

I do appreciate your trying to untangle all the different agreements that you have and put it into a standard. And having been in this position before in my past lives, I totally get it. It's terrible. I'm going to make a motion to approve the license agreement between the City of Altoona and the Altoona Youth Softball Baseball for the Cinder City Park Storage Building.

Roll second.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Next item is to discuss, consider, and amendment to Maymark. Discuss considering an amendment to the Safe Steps program by adding an allowable loan option to remove dead trees on homeowners' property.

I'll bail in as soon as I'm ready to talk. You'll be talking for the next hour.

Five minutes. Five. The timer up. Give him the hook. You're on your third strike, bud. Yeah.

I'm here tonight seeking your approval of an amendment to the Safe Steps program that would add an allowable loan option to dead or hazardous trees on a homeowner's property. And this really started with the very first Safe Steps property that we went to. And myself and the contractor afterward were outside and watched, looking at this property. very, very dead tree that's in close proximity to the home and thinking, whoa, what's she going to do about that? How is this homeowner going to pay for that? It's definitely in her yard. So I came back and mentioned it to Roy and Mike. And they were like, hmm, yeah, maybe we could maybe make that part of this program. I then called Scott Quick. We talked about what would this look like? What conditions would we make to make this possible? How could we design it? How many trees might there be like this in the city? And he didn't have a real accurate count, but there are definitely several dozen. He estimated. And obviously not all of them would be on Safe Steps applicants.

Are they mostly ash trees?

A lot are, yeah. They seem to be anyway. So then I also made some calls to some of the local tree removal companies to get a sense of what would this generally cost. Anywhere generally 1,500 to 3,000. Totally depends on the tree, though. It can be a little less, but sometimes could even be more than 3,000 for a particularly big, dangerous tree. But that was the general range we have. So we discussed it and thought about it some more. to come to you guys and say, we propose making this an allowable loan option for Safe Steps, people who qualify for Safe Steps, as long as they meet all the conditions of Safe Steps originally, and also that the city forester then would determine, go look at it, determine that it's a dead... Who's the city forester? Scott Quick. So Scott or a designee. But Scott will go look at these. And he would then determine, yes, this is on private property. Yes, this is a dead tree. And it poses a significant risk to a home, a garage, or some structure, right? And we're not adding any more cost by doing this. I'm not changing, I'm not boosting the loan limits to do this. This is just one more option that people could choose from If if they and still stay under the loan maximum some people might only do this option, right? But this is just one more thing that people can pick It's pretty cut and dry I think it's a great idea and it's just one more way to try and help people But the city is not going to be removing the tree Correct. All right. We're gonna reimburse We only would remove them like normal on public property. Yep, but but the yards know the homeowner within find a tree removal and accredited tree removal.

How many takers do you think you have at this point?

Well, really, so far I've only seen the one of the properties I've been to. I bet it's going to be two or three a year kind of thing. I don't think it's going to be a ton.

Because there's a whole bunch of dead ash trees in town.

Yeah, and so anyone who qualifies for safe steps who has one of these in their yard, they would potentially qualify for it, right? So I don't know how many, you know, several dozen total in the city, maybe 15 of those folks qualify or 20 might qualify for the program.

So quick question. When you were reaching out to all the different tree removal companies, would any of them want a partner to be the preferred provider?

Maybe. And maybe we could get a price break on that. That's a good idea.

I mean, I just, you know, because having had dead trees taken out of my yard, you know, because as I was told by... My insurance company, if it's a live tree and it falls, as long as it doesn't hit anything, it's still your problem. But if it's a dead tree and you knew it was a dead tree, it's still your problem, too. So, I mean...

But if it's a live tree and it hits your garage, then you're covered.

Yeah. But if it goes right next to your garage and misses it completely... You're not covered. Yeah, it's on you. You may not be able to get out of the garage until you take care of it, but it's still your problem.

I think whatever we can do to make it easier... Yeah.

I think it's a good idea, but I was wondering if they could partner...

I'm all for asking... for people to give to this cause. So if there's somebody who wants to be a preferred provider who's going to give us, give homeowners a better deal, and then I publicize that, I'm all for that. Have you done that yet? I wanted to see what you guys thought of this first, but that's an interesting idea.

No, I think it's a great idea, and I think that's very well and much needed. I hope we can get it out there.

As we started cleaning up those ash trees on the public property, then we started to see all the ash trees that are just on the private side of it all over town, and it's become really more noticeable as they've continued.

Well, it's not just ash. There's a lot of oak wilt in certain areas, too.

Standing dead pines. Limo moved to approve amending the Safe Steps Home Improvement Program to include dead or hazardous tree removal in the allowable option as part of that program. Phelan will make a slow second.

Motion and a slow second. All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

And anyone opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you.

You can leave now, too.

We wanted to have a more conversation. It was mine. Just because you're a tree guy. It was a quick one. No, thanks, Julia.

Yeah. You only had five minutes, and you took ten.

Six. You did six. I see six.

Speaking of six, item six, we have discussed, consider reclassification of the following position. This was discussed at the September 8th Personnel Committee. And this is for city clerk position to exempt grade L from exempt grade J.

Council President Barron, members of council, as you are aware or may be aware, City Clerk Bauer will be retiring on November 30th of 2026 after over 30 years of service to the city. In preparation for the upcoming recruitment and to ensure the city remains competitive in attracting qualified candidates, Staff engaged Cottingham Butler to conduct a market analysis of the city clerk position Cottingham Butler is the firm that has done our salary compensation studies the last several times we also as you have seen on the strategic plan matrix we're looking at going in and reviewing probably in the next year. All positions. It's just good standard practice. I think we're five years out from the last one in 2023 or 2022, something like that. And And so anyways, the analysis reviewed compensation and position classifications across more than 20 comparable jurisdictions. And the considerations given to organizational size, position, responsibilities, and comparable municipal functions. So they were benchmarked against all those jurisdictions. And really the same pool that we pulled from with the last compensation studies as well. Based on the market analysis and review of the scope and responsibilities of the position, staff is recommending that the clerk position be reclassified from exempt grade J, which ranges from about $67,000 to just above $86,000 to exempt grade L of $78,499 to $100,921. on the city compensation schedule. It's a really serious position. We regard it really as our quarterback position for the city, handling elections, our records requirements, and review of our assessment roles, and also liaison for all of you. It's going to be a big hire. I'm intending to get this out on the street and for consideration in the next several days, hopefully tomorrow, I can get it posted. And we're... We're definitely going to miss Cindy. She's been with the city for over 30 years. I'm sure she's going to miss us, too. Oh, yeah, I'm sure. She's going to be in Reno, Nevada. A lot more. Laughlin. Laughlin, yeah.

Shooting darts and playing pool.

Yep.

Bowling.

Her bandana on and her do drag.

Roy, so we had talked about this going into effect for the next position. Is there a reason why or why not we wouldn't just be able to say, we're passing it now, we can just change the grade on this position now? Maybe we are. But to go into effect, is there any difference or benefit of just changing it to take place effective the starting date? versus the starting of the next city clerk employee?

You know, we could do that. I just wanted to make it effective with the new hire. Okay. And that's, yeah, I know. It was kind of more of a cleanup.

Okay. Yep. It just seemed like a clean effect of kind of between the role.

Yes. Yep. It won't make any difference on Cindy's retirement check.

That was honestly one of the things that I wondered, is if the grade classification had any implications. Maybe two, three bucks a month for the retirement. Why am I already checking everything so much?

Limo will move to approve reclassification of the city court position from Exempt grade J to exempt grade L on the city's compensation schedule effective the starting date for the next city clerk employee We're all second motion in a second all in favor say aye aye aye you opposed Jim carries Cindy do you remember how much you made the first year you worked here I

Any other miscellaneous business or communications I have two questions

Roy and this mostly for you probably I've noticed that all of our streetlights along River Prairie and the fences the black part on them is They're looking absolutely horrible It's actually coincidental.

I actually brought this up. So I brought it up in the last week or two.

Great minds, great minds.

Yeah, and notice that, too, on the basis of the lighting. It must be from salt or something, I imagine.

Yep, and I'll relay that on to them.

This should be warrantied, I would think so.

Well, that's what I was going to ask. Is there some type of a warranty? I honestly think that we should jump on that sooner rather than later, and if we need to do something about it.

It's the look.

When you drive into the city and you see these fences are just, the blanket's falling off.

I'll talk to Mike and we'll get it swirling. I did, we did talk about it the last couple weeks. Yeah, I'll talk to him. I agree with you.

We can do internally, but it looks like those are like a galvanized thing and I'm sure it was not, it was picked out of a catalog and not It's a weird metal are you talking about the ones that are like an oak leaf way yeah, yeah, they're bad you ride your bike by The one all right off Lake Road is the first one you look at and that's almost all completely ball. Yeah, yeah, yeah

No, definitely heard. I've seen it. I've been on an uptick of riding my bike with my daughter. And so I'm getting out, and I saw that. I've seen a bunch of stuff I've reported. I'm probably a public enemy number one in our work right now.

My other question was, was there any, I know we had some rumblings about a fire engine and buying one off the...

the lot and possibly a slightly used one was did anything happen yet yes I know that well nothing like you know in terms of yeah nothing to purchase quite yet but I know Chief Renderman went went down I think looked at at one it was a one that was on a lot and it was to be comparable in price but it's available But but then there's the other thing it gets better the quint I know there's the there was one that was like 800,000 I think that they were going to look at that or something like that I can't really so the one he went looked at on the lot was 1.8 million No, I think it was 1.2. Yeah, I think was a smaller one and then yeah, oh I know So that's the update on that. I think they I think they were able to they might be able to get one a lot quicker and Perfect. I'm done.

I'll make a motion to adjourn at motion 713 Do we have a second roll a second in a second all in favor say aye All right, we are adjourned. Thank you everybody