Board of Aldermen - Regular Meeting

Please rise, ladies and gentlemen.

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.

Do a roll call. Homer Dean.

Present. I'm Turner. Here. I'm Bill. Here. And I'm Lewis. Here. Can I get a motion for approval of May 20th, 2026, meeting as approved? So moved. Can I have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Can we get a motion for tonight's approval of the agenda? So moved.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. I see a second.

Thank you.

No problem. Moving on to special items, we have none. Employment to the Board's Commission, we have none at this moment. Schedule public comments, none. Just a reminder that all public comments may be in to the city clerk for Wednesday of the meeting. Public hearing, we have none. Moving on to introductions and first readings. Council Bill number 2026-25. An ordinance approving the proposal of entering into a contract with Visi Sewer LLC for the CIPP National Linear Installation Sewer Cleaning and CCTV INSPECTION SERVICES FOR ASHLAND, MISSOURI. STAFF, THE BOARD PLEASE.

THANK YOU, MAYOR AND THE BOARD. SUMMER YEARS, I'M SEEKING THE IMPROVAL OF AN ORDINANCE TO ACCEPT ALSO TO ENTER INTO A CONTRACT WITH BUSINESS STORE LLC FOR, AGAIN, THE INSTALLATION OF STRUCTURAL EIGHT-INCH PREVITY SUPER MAIN LINER. Due to the inability to obtain proper easement access rights for the Caspian stormwater improvement project, another targeted pre-engineered project was found to fund with county distributed ARPA funds. This project, a continuance of the 2022 I&I study, involves lining, again, eight-inch gravity sewer mains with structural pipeliner to mitigate groundwater root intrusion from entering into the sewer collection system. This proposal is identical, if you remember, to the lining that was already accomplished earlier this spring, but a larger project at 4,095 feet versus the 1824 feet that was done earlier this year during the previous project that was also board approved. The specific targeted area for this project is primarily in the park lift station service area, which is known for extreme levels of groundwater intrusion following rain events, which we definitely had recently. This area includes sections of City Park, Bass Street, Redbud Lane, Meadowmere View, College Street, and Meadowmere Drive. So essentially, it's primarily servicing or the lift station again that sits at City Park. It's way over capacity and it's not because of users, it's because of I-line. It's because groundwater infiltrating into that line, making it over capacity. So again, this is due to the fact that we couldn't get the easements from the Caspian stormwater project, we needed to have another engineered Off the shelf shovel ready as they say project this one fit the bill. And they were kind of making lemonade on lemons here, so the short term impact. it's a not to exceed $170,000 again, this is county distributed funds 100%. A long-term impact is essentially the city's gonna save money by not having to treat groundwater at the wastewater treatment plant, which we don't wanna do. So I recommend approval of this beneficial project that bolsters the resiliency and integrity of the city's collection system. Any questions?

Was there any issue with getting that ARPA money transferred to this project?

There was some wrangling. ARPA contracts are a ball of yarn, and I think we've got it done. We got approval from the county. The county did approve this, and it really is one of the few projects we had pre-engineered. It was kind of an ongoing 10-year project, which is the I&I study, and luckily it fit the bill for us, so we didn't leave money on the table.

Yeah, that was my only concern, was that

So I guess my one question is in the contract, there's like a disclaimer that like with certain mains, they can't guarantee that they'll be able to reconnect them like robotically. So they may have to go in and like what kind of cost would we be looking at if they aren't able to connect them in the way they think they can?

Yeah, that's a boilerplate disclaimer. I've used this service in other cities and they're just kind of protecting their own tail. I've never seen that happen. What happens is once they align it right, so here's the main, you've got laterals going into the individual houses, a robotic device basically, or it is a robot, goes in there with a camera and cuts out with, you know, basically it's an oversized Dremel tool. And for whatever reason, if they can't do that, and I don't know why they couldn't, we've used that tool for repair here in town last time they were here. I don't know why that would happen, but it's kind of a disclaimer. I couldn't tell you in what condition or what situation that it would not be able to cut. It is 8-inch, which is the sweet spot. It's not very big. I would assume that's more for 20-inch mains, but just a guess.

Any other questions for a staff? All right. Can I get a motion to approve the council bill number 2026-25 in the order that's approving the proposal and entering into a contract with Busy Sewer LLC for the CIPP National Line installation. So moved. Can I have a second? I'll second. On the dean? Aye. On the freeze? Aye. On the bill? Aye. On the roof? Aye. On the trunk? Aye. Council bill number 2026-26. an ordinance authorizing the mayor to enter into an animal control enforcement co-op agreement.

Staff report, please. Okay, and I'm going to ask Shelly to talk about this one because this is one of those we do every year and so she has a little more history.

So we renew county and the city animal control services every year. The contract is not to exceed $6,000. They did up their hourly rate, but that is due to the county upping hourly salary rates as well. It's not really that much of a hit for us, because again, the limit is $6,000. I know that the cover sheet says an estimated of 85 hours, but quite frankly, that varies depending on the number of calls in the summertime. we usually our bills are a little bit higher because the calls are higher as of today I got an invoice from them there were 13 calls that they responded to in the city of Ashland to bite complaints to vicious dogs a couple wildlife some dead animals things of that nature and it was nine close to $900. So we usually see quite them here quite frequently during the spring and summer months and don't see them very frequently during the fall and winter months. Obviously spring and summer is more active for animals, but this is our only animal control. So they are providing the service for us. And again, the cap is $6,000 for a one year contract.

Have we ever exceeded $6,000?

No. Ever? No.

Okay. Any other questions? More of a comment than a question. $63 an hour for an animal control specialist seems rather high, but...

It's actually $62.98, which is an increase of 68 cents. Yeah. And that covers the employee, the vehicle, their liability coverage, all of that package together. Okay.

Okay. Yeah, we've been involved with that for 63 bucks, man. That sounds a lot of bad.

It'd be interesting to hear some of those stories, honestly. All right, can I get a motion to approve council bill number 2026-26, an ordinance authorizing the mayor to enter into an animal control enforcement co-op agreement. So moved. Can I have a second? I'll second. Okay. Alderman Lewis? Aye. Alderman Turner? Aye. Alderman Dean? Aye. On the freeze. Right. And on the bill. Right. Council Bill number 2026-27, an ordinance authorizing the Mayor enter into a Youth Development, Healthy Living, and Recreational Civic Center contract with the Jefferson City YMCA.

Yeah, and I understand we do this each year, and this is $15,000, and so we're just repeating this from this year, and we're renewing it, and we recommend approval with that. Any questions for staff on that?

Is there any change in cost from previous year?

No, the contract is always $15,000. It started out as $10,000, and then as obviously costs increased, things that they wanted to do increased, then our donation to them increased. Thank you.

Any other questions? All right. Council Bill number 2026-27, an ordinance authorizing the mayor to enter enter into a Youth Development Healthy Living direct civic service contract with Jefferson YMCA. So moved. Second. Second. Alderman Freese. Aye. Alderman Bill. Aye. Alderman Dean. Aye. Alderman Lewis. Aye. Alderman Turner. Aye. Council Bill number 2026-28, an ordinance authorizing the Mayor to enter into a Boone County Joint Communication Interruption How do you want to say that word?

Interoperable.

Radio system. How about that? And this one's a little more complicated, and it involves a lot of money, but fortunately the county is doing a lot of that, and our account is a small increase. Sergeant Smith is here. The chief is out of town, so he's going to present this to you.

Mr. Mayor, members of the board, I'm Sergeant Smith, National Police Department, speaking for Chief Young tonight. So Boone County, all agencies in Boone County, first partner agencies, they all operate on a VHF system, relatively old system. Most counties in America are moving away from that to a more digital, digitized 800 megahertz situation or a dual band 800 megahertz VHF system. The coming year, Boone County will transition from or to a dual band system, and that just serves our current capabilities and future state radio interoperability capabilities. So for the next few years, we can expect that our current radio situation, those radios will just not be operable anymore. They won't operate on the upgraded system that they're moving to. Historically, we've had to purchase our own. All agencies have to purchase their own radios, whether it's outright or through grants like we did earlier this past year. But this time, Boone County Commission and Boone County Joint Communications are actually providing the funds for that. They're making all the purchases. for new radios for all the agencies. They'll provide the funding, they'll upgrade any current systems that are capable of being upgraded. We do have current systems that are capable for upgrading. And this includes portables and mobile radios, so the vehicle radios and regular portable radios. This will increase the functionality of radios, different terrains, and especially inside large buildings like schools. Even in this building, we have issues with getting radio transmissions out. And of course, increase our ability to communicate with other agencies that are also on that frequency. So while they'll be covering the initial purchasing cost, the city would have to assume the cost for ownership, maintenance, any programming down the road, anything like that. The value for the radios funded by this agreement would be $177,163.65. The value of the radios would cost the city would be between $1,000 and $1,200 a year for insurance. So in short, we can either be awarded new radios now at minimal cost to us, $1,000 a year, or we can purchase them outright at well over $177,000 three to five years from now. So we recommend approval of this agreement, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you have.

Sergeant, will the radios be capable of sending encrypted messages? Yes. That was a joke about your email. My email? Yeah, the one a couple weeks back where you sent out, please don't open the encrypted messages. Oh, that one.

Just had to bring that up, huh? Send an email, all right?

Sounds like a no-brainer.

Any other questions? All right. I need a motion to approve Council Bill number 2026-28 in ordinance authorizing the Mayor to enter into a Boone County Joint Communication Radio System Co-op Agreement. So moved. And second. Alderman Friese? Aye. Alderman Beall? Aye. Alderman Dean? Aye. Alderman Turner? Aye. Alderman Lewis? Aye. Number 1559 is with us to rezone 514 Redbud Lane. Staff, please.

All right. This is the second read of the rezoning request by Simon and Strumpf Engineering on behalf of the property owners for both 514 and 600 Redbud Lane to rezone from R2 to CG. Kenan Simon with Simon and Strumpf Engineering is here tonight if you have any questions. The subject parcels, again, just to recap, are approximately 0.5 acres combined. These parcels are on the southeast end of Redbud Lane. And pretty much staff recommends approval of this result. This is all for the NWU? This is all for NWU, yes.

Any questions for staff? I was thinking about how one of them long-jaw cylinders attached to it. I'll tell you, people that eat homegrown silvers, you got to wash them. Fish is not fresh. Hey, careful, careful. I don't know about that. Listen, once every three, five years, it's fine.

Any other questions? All right, can I get a motion to approve ordinance number 1559 and ordinance rezoning 514, Redwood Lane? So moved. Can I have a second? You have any public comment here at all?

We have a lot of people here, so I don't know about you. No, that's the owner over there. Okay, just checking.

Okay, back where I was at. Can I get a motion to approve ordinance number 1559, ordinance for rezoning 514 in Redbud? I think I moved already. Can I have a second? All right. Alderman Dean? Aye. Alderman Turner? Aye. Alderman Lewis? Aye. Alderman Freese? Aye. Alderman Bill? Aye. Ordinance number 1560, an ordinance to rezone 600 red by lanes, staff . Same thing.

Same thing. Yeah. Got it.

Any other questions for this one? Can I get a motion approving ordinance number 1560, an ordinance to rezone 600 red by lanes. So moved. Can I have a second? Second. Alderman Freese?

Aye.

Alderman Turner? Aye. Alderman Dean? Aye. Alderman Bill? Aye. Alderman Lewis? Aye. Ordinance number 1561, ordinance to rezone 613 North Henry Plain and Boulevard.

All right, this is a request by the applicant, Simon's Trump Engineering, again, on behalf of the property owner, Centretti Investments Group LLC, for the rezoning of approximately 7.8 acres at the north end of Henry Clay Boulevard. Two subject parcels total approximately 7.86 acres in size and are situated at the north end of Henry Clay. The current zoning is CG, requested zoning is IL and the only concerns that came up with this one is from a neighboring property owner about stormwater coming off of it and since the last meeting They have installed the grate that has not only changed the shape of the opening, but they also were able to shrink it down more than what city code requires. So they got a little more out of it. And the engineers here, Keenan, Simon, again, if you have any questions. But that is support of this rezoning and recommends approval. Now, did they agree to clean up Yes, I've spoken with the owner and he's going to work with Clegg.

Any questions for on 613 North Henry Clegg? Do they think that the smaller diameter is going to help with some of the storm water drainage or, yes, no, maybe so?

I mean, it can't hurt, but it's such a compounded problem that their site isn't really the heart of the problem. They did what they could.

I mean, this last weekend, we probably would have told you the story.

Yes. And I drove down the drive on Monday morning, and there wasn't any gravel displaced for the vet clinic. So it didn't flow over. It must have all gone in the ditch still and underneath the culvert.

So there's a lot of rain. All right.

Any other questions for staff? I get a motion approving ordinance number 1561 and ordinance to rezone 613 North Henry Clay Boulevard. I'll move. I'll second. I'll second. Alderman Friess? Aye. Alderman Turner? Aye. Alderman Dean? Aye. Alderman Boone? Aye. Alderman Mills? Aye. All right. Ordinance number 1562, an ordinance approving the proposal on entering into a contract with Rizzi Sewer LLC for CIPP National Liner Installation, second reading?

Yes, and what I wanted to say is on this one and the remaining, the other three we have here, we're doing a second reading on those at the same time because we have a deadline on each one of these. Okay.

So we're going to get a motion to approve 4.1562, an ordinance authorizing approval. approving the red proposal to enter into a contract with Busy Sewer LLC. So moved. Second? I'll second. Alderman Lewis? Aye. Alderman Beall? Aye. Alderman Fries? Aye. Alderman Dean? Aye. Alderman Turner? Aye. Ordinance number 1563, an ordinance authorizing the mayor to enter into an animal control enforcement co-op. Second read. Second read. Can I get a motion to approve Ordinance number 1563? So moved. Second? Second. Alderman Turner? Aye. Alderman Friese? Aye. Alderman Lewis? Aye. Alderman Dean? Aye. Alderman Bill? Aye. Orders number 1564, in order to authorize the Mayor into a youth development, healthy living, recreational contract with YMCA. Secondly, can I get a motion to approve? So moved. Can I have a second? Second. Alderman Friess? Aye. Alderman Turner? Aye. Alderman Dean? Aye. Alderman Bill? Aye. Alderman Lewis? Aye. Orders number 1565, in order to authorize the Mayor into a Boone Community Communication Co-op. And the motion to approve 1565. So, can I have a second? Second. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Mr. Mayor, members of the board. Remember, McClure Engineering has completed the preparation of the water system hydraulic master plan. Action is needed to adopt the plan. Over the last year, city staff has worked with McClure Engineering closely to update the water department master plan and create a long-range project plans, basically on the capital approval project. The final plan includes long-range planning goals, also objectives for the city, as well as prioritized budgeting plans for both large capital projects and annual maintenance projects. The final plan will help city staff better plan future capital projects and annual maintenance expenses for the water department, also lending towards future support for any grant-type funding that may be available. The long-term fiscal impact, obviously that varies dependent upon prioritization of the projects that they give us. Staff suggests or recommends adopting the plan as presented to further our future infrastructure and growth. And before we go into any questions, Ellen with McClure here. She has a small PowerPoint that she would like to go through.

Hello. So as Jeff said, my name's Ellen Wolchin and I'm a project engineer with McClure Engineering Company in our Columbia, Missouri office. And I've been working with Jeff and Kevin and previously Kyle to prepare this master plan report for the city's water distribution system. And I'm also joined with Eric Seaman. He's another engineer at McClure that was also involved in this project. So there's a lot of information to cover in the report, so there are quite a few slides here. So if you need to ask any questions or want me to speed it up, Let me know as we're going along. So on slide two here, just starting with some of the background information and the plan, the report is intended to cover a 20-year planning period, which is pretty typical for engineering planning documents of this type. We primarily focused on the city's existing water service territory, which is established in an agreement with Consolidated Public Water Supply District of number one. between consolidated water and the city. So the exhibits are a little hard to see here. The shape of Ashland doesn't really lend itself for these horizontal power points, but the area within the blue boundary is the existing water service territory based in that agreement with consolidated water. And then the water source for the city is groundwater from the Cambrian . So going on to slide three, again, just kind of highlighting some of the background work that went into the report. One of the first things we did was look at population growth throughout Ashland. So we knew kind of what population to be planning for as we're looking at creating improvements for the distribution system. So for our report, we selected kind of a linear growth projection using your historical 2000 to 2020 population growth trend line. So that's the light blue line in the graph here and that correlates to a 2045 population projection around 8,500 residents in 20 years. And then taking that out even further to 2065, around 11,300 residents. And this population projection pretty closely follows the methodology that Bartlett and Quest used for their wastewater facility plan so that we could be aligned in the population that the wastewater system is planning for in their current improvements as we look at improvements for the water distribution system. So then going ahead to slide four, we also looked at Kind of the generally undeveloped acres of land within the water service territory to ensure that you know these population we're planning for there is land available to support that. And that we aren't being again short sighted with any of the improvements that we're recommending so. kind of looking at some of the generally undeveloped acres around the existing city limits but within the water service territory and planning those out for residential development at kind of a general population density of three people per acre results in an estimated population increase of around 5,500 people or a total future estimated population of 11,153 people. So that's more of a full build-out scenario, not necessarily a 20-year population projection. It would align more with kind of that overall 40-year population growth. But it's important to look at those longer-term growth patterns when you're planning something like major waterway improvements because If you're putting a new water main in the ground, you want it to last 50 plus years, not just you get service for that 20 year growth. So then on to slide five, the report moves into an analysis of the historical water demand and water consumption in the city of Ashland. So we looked at existing finished water pump to the system from 2019 through May of 2025. And you can see in this table, the city currently has an average daily water demand of around 332,000 gallons per day. So kind of if you take an average of all of your annual water consumption data, you're providing around 332,000 gallons per day. But if you look kind of down the annual daily average column, you can see that it's increasing generally year over year as your population increases. And then we looked at your annual peak day demand as well, which also kind of follows a generally increasing pattern over the data that we looked at with your largest peak day demand. shown in 2024 at 620,000 gallons per day. And then we're kind of able to break that data down into a consumption per capita by dividing that by your population at the time. So Ashland has an average consumption per capita on a typical day, around 72.6 gallons per capita per day, which is pretty average, a little bit on the lower side than kind of what we usually plan for. And then the average peak gallons per capita consumption per day was 122. So then if we go ahead to slide six, Looking at that historical data allows us to be more confident when we are projecting your water demands out for the future. So then kind of combining the population projection analysis that we did with the review of your historical water demand trends, we're able to predict what your average day water demand might look like in 20 years as the city continues to develop. So taking the 2045 population prediction of 8,500 times an 80 gallons per capita per day estimated consumption would result in an average day water demand of 678,000 gallons per capita per day. So generally doubling where you are today. And then the same methodology applies for the peak day demand projections. We did use 160 gallons per capita per day when looking at peak day demand, which is a bit higher than your current average of that 1.2. But it does apply kind of a safety factor. Again, when you're planning for these larger infrastructure improvements, you don't want to risk those being undersized and unable to support peak day conditions that could occur. Okay, so now on slide seven. Next, the report kind of goes into looking at your existing water system infrastructure. So your existing water supply is from two wells. Well number five is on the north side of town off Henry Clay Boulevard. That is an older well drilled in 1948. With a capacity of approximately 410 gallons per minute and well number six is newer drilled in 2009 located near the elementary school And that is adjacent to your south tower, which has a storage capacity of 500,000 gallons So a couple of things to point out related to I guess your existing water supply and storage infrastructure Currently the DNR requirement generally when you're evaluating your water supply is that you are able to provide enough water to service your peak day demand with your largest well or supply water out of service. So they want the system to have full redundancy so you're still able to provide water for your customers if there is an emergency outage of any of the infrastructure. So currently, if your largest well were out of service, well number five is kind of just barely able to keep up with that current peak day demand. But then as your population and water demand continues to rise over the years as development occurs, it will start to become insufficient. essentially having that firm capacity that is required. And along the same lines for your existing storage system, the DNR requirement is to have enough storage to be able to provide your average day water demand plus two hours of fire flow reserves. So currently, this is detailed more in the report, you are meeting that threshold at your current average day demands. But as those continue to increase, again, storage will become more limited for the system. One thing to point out, the city does have an emergency interconnection with consolidated water. So if a well were to go down and the system was under stress, you would be able to purchase water from consolidated water supply district, which is pretty valuable because of that limited firm capacity, what helped the city get by under those emergency situations. So then our next slide eight here kind of summarizes some data on the existing water mains and the distribution system. And we have a map here that shows kind of the sizes of those existing mains. So the majority of your system is PVC, which is beneficial. There's not a lot of older or kind of unrecommended pipe materials left in the system that we see with a lot of other older cities that are needing to be replaced. But there are quite a few The mains in red here that are four inches in diameter that are fairly restrictive in terms of being able to provide fire flow throughout the city. Some of these four inch mains do have fire hydrant connections, which again do not meet current DNR standards, which require hydrants to be connected to six inch or larger mains. And then I guess another kind of deficiency in the existing distribution system to highlight is that you currently have two crossings under Highway 63 serving the east side of town, a 4-inch main and a 12-inch main. So if there were to be a water main breakage in that 12-inch main and you only had a 4-inch main serving the eastern side of the city, that would put a lot of stress, again, on those water mains and the distribution system. And it would be challenging to provide water to residents across 63. I do want to mention here that a large part of the report was also preparing a model of the water system. So we use the software called Water Gems. where we are able to import that map of the existing distribution system and all of the characteristics of your existing system to model various operating characteristics, looking at how the distribution system would function under various scenarios. This slide here kind of highlights one of the analysis that we were able to run in the model looking at fire flows throughout the distribution system. So the required fire flow is generally standardized by the Insurance Services Office. The majority of Ashland is residential and falls within a requirement of 750 to 1000 gallons per minute for fire flow which the majority of the system is meeting that except for you can see kind of the red dots would be fire hydrants that are currently projected to only provide I guess less than 500 gallons per minute which does not meet that threshold. The majority of those hydrants are connected to those four inch diameter mains, which is why there's kind of that hydraulic restriction highlighted in those areas. Okay. I will pick up the pace and we'll skip ahead. I'm sorry. I wasn't sure how much information you all were looking for, but essentially kind of with all this background information, We can get into kind of slide 12, where we started looking at our proposed improvements. So the first major category of improvements proposed would be upsizing all of those 4-inch mains to 6-inch or larger, where there is a hydrant connection, so you're able to adequately provide fire flow in those locations. And that's something that we would expect the city to tackle over kind of a 20-year time frame, not necessarily something that would be completed all as one project, because that would be very expensive and challenging to complete.

This open side doesn't catch on fire.

Yes. The next, I guess, category of improvements are more related to system reliability. If you look at slide 13, So these are some larger improvements, primarily looking at upsizing a lot of the existing water mains that were installed kind of before a lot of the development occurred in the city to now plan for that 40-year population growth that we're looking at. A few of these to highlight would be ultimately looking at upsizing the existing six and eight inch water mains along Henry Clay Boulevard to a 16 inch transmission main. That would provide a lot of benefit in supporting the future development throughout the city and being able to provide the water demand that's needed as the city continues to grow. we're also recommending adding additional crossings under highway 63 to better loop in the east side of your system and provide increased redundancy to the services on the east side of the city as well as some other general upsizing improvements and looping to again kind of target some of those deficiencies that were identified and improve redundancy across the distribution system. And then the next category is kind of targeted more at the future. So the need for these is likely not as immediate as the improvements that were on the previous slide. But again, as population continues to increase and new development occurs throughout Ashland, these would be improvements to consider as well. I think the main improvement to highlight on this slide would be the recommendation for a third elevated storage tank and well to increase again that firm capacity and fire flow storage available in the water system. We're currently showing that near the existing city park on some available city owned property. But we also talked about a few other locations where we could look at planning for that improvement as well. So then I'll just skip ahead to slide 16, where you can see ultimately all of those improvements included on the previous slide were then scheduled into this 20-year capital improvements plan, where we have targeted improvements for four categories. in five year increments for planning purposes. And then the cost estimate for each improvement was prepared in 20, $26 as a total project cost planning estimate. And then as part of the CIP, we inflated the cost to the end year of the planning phase that each improvement is currently categorized in using a 3.2% annual rate of inflation. because we know some of these projects might not be needed for 15 years, but 15 years from now, the project will be more expensive than it is today. So by adding in that inflationary factor, you're able to consider that when you're looking at kind of long-term financial strategy for potentially funding these improvements. And I guess lastly, the CIP is not necessarily intended to be directive Ultimately, the timing and location of new development throughout Ashland will drive the priority level of these projects, and we would recommend kind of looking at this every year as you're going through potential improvements that you want to make to the water system and seeing if things need to be shifted or new projects need to be added based on actual development that is starting to play out across the city. So with that, That is my attempt at summarizing our very long report in a short amount of time. So if there are any questions, I know that was a lot of information. But you could also connect with Jeff with questions and you can get back to me later too.

I know we're short on time, but was there,

Anything that addressed water quality, if our wells should- Yeah, so currently the quality of the water in the wells is meeting all of the DNR required standards. So we didn't, I guess, look at any, I guess, potential future standards that are kind of unknown things like, PFAS and all these forever chemicals that DNR doesn't have standards for yet. But currently, with all the existing DNR regulations, the city is in compliance with all of the water safety requirements.

So we're good without some type of a treatment plan, too. Jeff, you better start fundraising.

Yeah, I got some finance questions, not necessarily for you. What is our current annual CIP spend the last five years, what we've averaged for water? It's about 400-ish thousand, give or take.

You'd have to put that in writing and email me so I can research it. I have my computer in front of me.

Okay, and have we plugged any of these CIP into a forecast to see what rate increases might need to be to do some of these?

That is for PPM to do. As soon as you approve the water hydraulic model and master plan, this will go to PPM. And they will review it. And they're our financial advisors. And they're doing a water rate study this year. So we're doing a water rate study, and then we're also making sure that the rate study that was adopted last year for sewer is still in line with the projected expenses for not just this fiscal year, but the coming fiscal years.

And the last question is, I saw some bonding terms in the presentation, so assuming bonding is going to be a major source of funding for the CIP.

That's going to depend on what the board decides to do. what projects within the master plan the board decides to do the CIP is not completely built because again this hasn't been approved yet we did put in some some of it for this budget year expectations that we might might meet but until we get a rate study back from PPM and until Kevin and Jeff sit down to go over the study and are able to pinpoint certain areas that they want to do That would be a board discussion sometime in the future this year.

Okay, thank you. All right, any other questions? All right, can I get a motion to approve resolution number 2026-25, a resolution of the Board of Aldermen, Sears National Missouri to adopt the Water System Hydraulic Module Master Plan. So moved. I have a second.

Second. All in favor? Aye.

Resolution number 2026-26, a resolution authorizing the emergency expansion for rental of the wastewater treatment plant pump. Staff report, please.

Okay, I'll start out with that as I was involved in it to begin with. First of all, what happened was our spiral pumps went down last weekend on about Thursday night, and the staff worked heroically to get a replacement for it. What they started out with was some very small Honda pumps that they got in there to start working while we ordered some larger pumps that would handle it from St. Louis. I think they came from Illinois. We got those in on Friday and got them operated. I sent you all an email on that. But the small ones managed by heroic effort on the part of the staff to keep working until we got the bigger ones operating. The bigger ones are operating now, and they will operate for essentially as long as we need to, but the bigger ones are about $10,000 a month. So it may be a month or two before we can actually get the new pumps in that we need to get. Artland West has now done a study for us that we have, but we haven't had a chance to analyze it about the repair for the spiral pumps or to put submersible pumps in there and the advantages and the disadvantages and the cost of those. But we'd be looking for somewhere in about maybe two months or so, having to purchase those, and it will be several hundred thousand dollars. That'll be a large expenditure, but Shelly and I have looked at the budget, and we have that in our water treatment reserve, so it's not like we'll have to go out and bond for them or something. It'll be a large expense, and we'll bring that back to you when we know the differences between the repair for the spiral pumps and the submersible pumps. And we have that study now. We have just barely been able to go over it. I'd like to show you a couple of pictures here. Could you show me that first picture? Here is the pump that we were using. What that is, is that's a little tiny Honda pump that you get like at Walmart and put in the back of your truck. They had two of those that were pumping all of the effluent out for overnight. And I'll tell you that the street department helped down there Billy Jean, the acting director, was down there, and they were working constantly to keep those two things working and pumping the effluent out. Everybody in town didn't know this was going on. Your toilet flush is normal, but they were working on that very hard. Can you show me the second slide there? And here's the spiral pumps. You can see those in the background. They're not working, and the red pipes are coming out that are now going to the new pumps that we've got in. And can you show me the next slide there? And there's the bigger pump. So now you can see the difference between that little Honda pump that they were desperately keeping things operating. And now they've got those big ones in. And they were doing this, and this was on Friday and Saturday, and it was in the rain. You had more water coming in that still had to be pumped out to keep it pumping. And this is different from the expansion of the new treatment plant. This is the water going into the treatment plant. It goes into the existing one and into the new one. And the next picture there. And here's some of the guys out there in the rain connecting all of those pipes to get the fluid pumped out of the holding tank and up into where it could go into the treatment plant. And I give the staff high marks for that. I'd like to mention them all individually, but I don't want to do that for fear that I'll leave somebody out. But I would recommend them all for an Ashland commendation medal, because they got the whole thing working. They kept it working, and nobody knew any difference. until we got the new pumps in and they're operating. But now we have the next problem, and that is we'll bring that back to the Margaret and West study and how we actually replace those pumps. And it may be the spiral pumps, it may be submersible pumps. We'll do a cost-benefit analysis of that and bring that back to you, and then we'll have to sit that out for a bit. But they got it going, and it's working now, and I give them all high marks for doing that. Thank you, everybody who was involved in the Public Works Department for that. Thank you very much, and are there any questions on that? The Mayor and I had to authorize the expenditure of the $10,000 because we needed those pumps on Friday, and we didn't have time to bring them back to you, but that's why we're asking for you to approve this retroactively. Any questions on that? Okay, thank you.

And get a motion to approve resolution number 2026-26, a resolution authorizing the emergency expenditure for rental wastewater treatment plant pumps. So moved. I have a second. Second. All in favor? Aye. All right. Moving on to a discussion item, a discussion to amend chapter two meeting and procedures times of the regular meeting.

Staff report please. YES, AND WHAT HAPPENED WAS THE MAYOR HAD SUGGESTED MAYBE THAT WE MOVE THE MEETINGS, THE COUNCIL MEETINGS, TO 6 O'CLOCK INSTEAD OF 7 O'CLOCK. LIKE TONIGHT WE'VE GOT A SPECIAL CLOSED SESSION MEETING HERE AT 8, AND SO, YOU KNOW, THAT GOES ON UNTIL 9, SO WE END UP HAVING LATE HOURS FOR YOU, AND THEN STAFF HAS TO REMAIN FOR THOSE EXTRA HOURS BETWEEN 5 AND 7. I SAID, THAT'S A GREAT IDEA, MAYOR, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. AND THEN I WENT BACK AND TALKED TO ARLA ABOUT IT, AND THE PROBLEM IS THE CODE SAYS IT STARTS AT So if we do that, and I know there's pluses and minuses to it, but we'd have to do a change to the code, and that would just take a sentence or two, and we could do it next time. But I'd ask that, I talked to several council members about that, and I'd ask the mayor then that we have a discussion about it, because before we put it on the agenda for a change, we'd like to know what the council would like to do on that.

it to Thursday, I can make a lot more since January through May.

Any weekday would be harder for me to make since I work in Columbia and getting back and, you know, just a lot to accomplish here by six, so seven works well. I got to wonder if those going forward, you have kids and they get home at five from work and they're trying to get their kids fed and homework done, that might be, but my kids are older now so I don't have to worry about that, but Yeah, I'm not a big fan of moving to 6. 7 o'clock works really well.

It doesn't matter either way. I'm going to work. Whatever.

I have no other life, so 6 or 7 works for me.

My daughter's dance class also doesn't get out until 5.45 on Tuesdays in Columbia. Unless I get a police escort down here. You might be able to arrange that. matter. I mean, I'm a public servant. You tell me what time to be here, I'll be here. Unless I'm in Mexico or Hawaii. I'm out. What does a guy got to do to get the air conditioning turned on in here, though? I am sweating. 76 degrees. No, it's called being fat. I'm just sitting here sweating.

So 630, they might be opposed to 630. Sure.

That's fine. Can we make it 630 on Thursdays? All right, then we'll put it on the agenda for our next meeting.

On Thursday. No, no, we can say on Thursday.

That makes a half an hour difference. All right, so we've got to move on to the mayor's report. We've only got a few things. Paco on Talladega, 16040. Would you please check that out? All right, I see club car washers make the progress. Chief Young and I are looking at addressing the parking situation on South Main, and we'll be making a recommendation to the board this week, or we'll make a recommendation, and you guys will be seeing an email, and then it'll be on the next board meeting. Ward 1 Alderman, we had one interview this week. We have another one tomorrow night, and then I will send you an email and an update on the candidates and let you know what's happening with that. That is my report, city administrator report.

Quick note on two things for you. One is that we had the issue that the board wanted to have about the punch list for Mr. Myers, and we're working on that. And because we haven't brought it to you or talked about it now, it doesn't mean we're not working on moving forward on that. And then I also wanted to let you know that there are several issues that we're working on in terms of having developers pay for the cost of staff doing the work for getting building improvements. And we'll bring that back to you as well. But those things are working, and because we don't have a report for you now, it doesn't mean the staff isn't working hard on it. I just want to let you know we're working on those things. Thank you. Is there any time to report?

Nothing but bless you all from Turner. I was dying over here. It's hot as hell in here. Part of my fridge. All right.

Moving on to public works directors.

I apologize, this isn't in your packets due to the continuation of meetings prior to. Streets or other parks maintenance, they're clearing out algae, the city park. Pond for the upcoming fishing derby, that has to be done by hand, something that's thought about. The CC, again, the CCTV cameras for the bathrooms have been ordered. We have them in hand. Due to the weather, we haven't been able to get out there. The things that the city administrator talked about the sewer plant. We hope to have them installed by Friday and the signage posted for those, both bathrooms. Speed Hump, where the intersections of Oak and Johnson and also Kingfisher and Eagle Pass are in order. Probably see those early next week to be delivered. Streets has been clearing out to fall on trees. You may have seen some of them. Due to the rain that we've been having, there's a weak tree. Root system isn't good enough. They just fall. You don't even need rain. So we've been able to clear those out for the morning commutes so far. On the stormwater, several stormwater water conveyances were cleaned out recently due to, to include the north stitch line in South Main, end of Justin Lane, and between Quail Ridge Road and the Boone County. the fire training center. As the city administrator said, we had an issue with the screw pump going down, the second screw pump going down with the water treatment plant. We have two sewer one positions open this time, and the sewer plant supervisor has tenured his resignation. And we have an interim utilities sewer supervisor already on hand, already on staff, which has been named as interim.

You said those speed bumps coming in early next week? Yes. Do you have them installed by the end of next week, or what's the time? Weather permitting.

The way it's been going, yeah. Don't quote me. If we get a normal week with at least four days, I would say by the end of next week.

What about there at Main Street with the parking? I talked to Chief Young about it at the last meeting. People parking in the street.

Yeah, we're going to address that, and it's going to be a package deal. I think I'm going to come to the board with a recommendation for more than just Main Street. That's happening on a couple streets that have been troublesome, and we're putting together a list. I'd like to bundle those things together. There's more than one area that's troublesome. That is one point, for sure.

I have a question. Questions? Our underappreciated newest park with a lake over a pair there, I thought I'd email you about this. I had someone ask if they're allowed to fish there. Are we, don't ask, don't tell, discouraging any citizens from using that park land for any reason?

Not discouraged as far as any ordinance that I'm aware of. If there's anything in there, they can grab it.

And the sitting person thought for some reason that the Cartwright Lake was going to be City of Ashland-like, but as I noticed, So I didn't think that was kind of good. On the potholes, the one in Talladega, you mentioned I spoke to that owner. Do we have any sort of a policy or system how we grade the worst potholes and those get fixed first?

Usually it goes by complaints, and Talladega's certainly on the list. We've done probably eight, nine panels like that one last year. We'd like to try and group them together. That's certainly one. But yeah, we're going to circle back to that and staffing. They've been at the park recently doing trimming. That is an all hands on deck effort for sure when we pour concrete. That day is coming up. I don't want to act like I'm being evasive, but that day is coming.

Right. And I know this one right down, I know the Eagle Lake and the Talladega was repaired previously. Yes. I'm assuming it was just horribly designed back decades ago. That's starting to, like, batter. I know we just fixed that, you know, tore out a big section of concrete before you came aboard.

We've got sections that have been fixed three times. Yeah.

And then Sweetland Parks, just throwing it out there, since you... Playground drainage, playground equipment, I don't know if that's something where the front four might want to focus. I don't know what you all think.

It's certainly on the radar, you know.

So, okay. And Epic, I guess that's for a water person. Okay, that's good.

All right, water supervisors?

I'll speed it up a little bit for you. My report is in the packet. Do you have any questions?

Yeah, I've had persons show me their water bills and crazy we're talking high in the winter months of all of all times and like one third of that the rest of the year what's the process for a resident to say hey my water bill's screwing what what should they do to try to figure out what the issue technically what happened so if you have a citizen that is concerned about their billing and uh

how their bills fluctuate, they are more than welcome to bring those up here, scan them, email them. And the utility clerks will look at their account. If there are any issues that we think that are happening, then we talk to Jeff. He does a data log on their meter. And we can show them when they're using water. There is no rhyme or reason when people use water and how much water they use. We see a lot of people in the winter months that use a lot of water because they have company.

We're talking like three times the bill, December versus the fall budget.

Yes, but they could have had a leaky toilet.

Yeah, that's what I mentioned as well.

Yeah, there was a lot of things that they could have done. But those are things that staff can address if the citizen will come up and present those to us.

We've talked to a number of them about how the math works because they don't quite understand that. We've gone through it and they're able to understand that now and the staff can explain that to them. But one of the things is the question is why when you use more water the tier makes it more expensive instead of why don't you get a volume discount because you use more and then you pay less. If you use more, you pay more.

That is just something brought to me. Where Peterson meets 63, there's always a wet down. Is that more of a storm water?

There is a runoff from that hill. I think at the first of the summer, or I guess really probably within the last month, I have talked to Consolidated, because Consolidated has a line that runs all the way down Peterson. Their hydrant is actually the one on the south side of Peterson. Okay. And that is the one that I've called them, had them check out, because to me that looks like the one that if there was a leak, it would be from that one because it comes down that hill. They checked it out. They said they have no issues, no leaks. So that's kind of what I went back with it. It's got to just kind of be run off, and there is a ditch that comes down in there too. Okay.

Any other questions for Nick? Mr. Mayor, can we suspend our alderman reports until after the closed session? Aren't we on the time frame? Could we do that? He's up and ready.

He's up and ready? All right. So at this time, we'll come back to general comments from the public also. At this time, can I get a motion to go into closed session? So pursuant chapter 610-021, legal actions. Second. Second. All in favor? Aye. All in favor? Aye. All in favor? Aye. All in favor? Aye. All in favor? Aye. All in favor? Aye. All right. At this time, we're back in the open session. We have nothing to report. We'll go into comments from the public. Board of Aldermen reports. Alderman Dean.

Nothing major to report. Like you said, the car wash is coming along.

A club car wash is coming along in our area. A couple houses being built that are progressing. Lots of rain last week. Otherwise, public seems to be breaking out.

Thank you, sir. Alderman Freese. City admin updates. I noticed that Clinton, which is one of your clients, correct? They're about two months since they, and I noticed they don't have a listing yet for their city administrator. So where are we on ours? Are we anywhere close to getting the job posted so people can start showing interest? Or are we, last I heard, there was supposed to be some interaction with staff and the board about what we, I haven't seen any questionnaires about that. When can we expect that? And is Clinton just dragging along based on what their council slash board is kind of going slow? Or is this the process we should expect for us as well?

I think that Jeff is at Clinton tonight. I could give it just for information, find out where they're working on that. But what Jeff will be doing now is getting with our staff and be part of the advertisement. He's writing that, and that will go to his person who presents that, and it goes back to the agent, and I think Iowa, who does that. But I will get an update on that and find out when he can have that brochure ready, because he'll bring that back to you to approve so you can all read it and see if that's what you want it to say. And we'll get that to you as soon as possible.

So are we still a month or two away from having the job posted?

a couple of weeks away from having the brochure done. We'll bring the brochure back to you. When you approve the brochure, then we'll post the job. Okay, so. Mike, is it? Okay, right. And he, Jeff is working hard to get this completed performance timeframe. Okay, that's all I have. I'll get the details from you on that. Collin Turner?

I just got through everything. I needed to earlier. All right. Collin Vail? I saw some new reprimand go in around one of the roundabouts over by Taco Bell. That looks really nice. It may not be super new, but I thought that was really nice filling in there. It does a lot to make that look better. Hopefully sold.

I was contacted by one constituent about the recycling bins. He was upset that it was mandatory to be paid, and so I explained about our contracting that the contracting wasn't all or nothing, and kind of broke it down to where it actually only cost $1.76 additional. he responded to me just before the meeting and his response was that while we may be billed and all or nothing there is nothing stopping us from billing the citizens on a voluntary basis so we're basically paying the lump sum and he doesn't want to pay his share so I haven't had any more contact with him about that, but just passing that along. I had one other email about an issue with a sewer connection at the end of Christy Lane with the lots that we just recently annexed. Apparently, some of the dirt got over onto his property, which was beyond the easement. But his biggest complaint was that they were using his water to water the sod. I asked him if he'd gotten permission to do that, and he didn't say no, he didn't say yes. He was under the impression that it was the city doing all this work. And I explained, no, that would be the private developer that's doing that. He actually wanted them to put some kind of a faucet on the nearby fire hydrant and use that water. And I said, well, that couldn't be done. did call me back. I gave him a few suggestions and he called me back a little later after that. I had suggested that he contact the developer and see if he was willing to pay his water bill for the time period, or at least do a three month average of his past water bills and pay the excess. So when he called me back, he said, everything's worked out. That's what they agreed to do. So I think Darren had been contacted, and I didn't get a chance to tell Darren that the guy told me it's all worked out. he's got it that on his to-do list tomorrow he can probably wouldn't hurt to contact him but hopefully that's all that's it thanks all right I have a motion to adjourn so moved second are you all there