City Council - Regular Meeting

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Welcome to the May 18th, 2026 regular city council meeting [clears throat] is now called to order. I aliance 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. Thank you. John Fer. Yep. Mark. Yep. Ros. Yes. Here.

All right. That takes us to our first public participation. Anybody uh would like to come and talk to us about city business, what's going on, please come to the the podium, sign your name and your address, and you have five minutes. Anybody want to talk to us? All right, that'll take us to the consent agenda. Are there any requests removing the items off the consent agenda to regular agenda business discussion? No. All right. So then let's go to the consent agenda.

Item A, motion to approve the minutes of the May 4th, 2026 regular session. Item B, motion to approve the annual liquor license renewal for Cameron Veterans Memorial Golf Club. I will entertain a motion to pass the consent agenda. Second. All in favor say I. I.

All oppose. It passes. Five in favor. Zero opposed. That takes us next to our appointments with the review of parkboard appointments. They're only here for uh just to look at. It looks like we have three openings. Shelley. We still have three openings. The two parkboard appointments that you're reviewing are for Cass Atkins and Christy Perhurst. They were appointed last year to existing firms that expire this year and they they both reapply and at the last park board meeting they voted to unanimous unanimously to reappoint. Good deal. But we do still have three openings in

Well, we we only have two that are going back in, but that still leaves opening. Yeah, we still we still have three openings. That's right. Yeah. So, if there are no objections, this will be on the next agenda for Okay. Well, that takes us to our city manager report.

Thank you, ma'am. Um, in the report, I talked about tonight's work session, but we already went through that, so I'm not going to go over that. Um, the EV sewer extension project is proceeding nicely. Um they are done on the south side um and they have the board done and they are fixed with the abatement around that sewer repair that our staff did a couple years ago. So it's proceeding nicely and um so far all the change orders have reduced the budget. Um so we're just keeping a praise of that. We've been coordinating with them. Um the staff has been doing several um demonstrations on the financial softwares and a lot of that's taken up quite a bit of time to get all of [snorts] the staff looking at the different uh uses and demos. But we will get to where we bring that for recommendation and and tie that into our budget discussion later uh in the summer. And then the pool facility will be opening [snorts] this Saturday. Is that correct? The 23rd. So, I just wanted to make everybody aware that uh the Memorial Day events will be closed um next Monday for the holiday. And um the code officer inspections wanted me to mention that uh DNR contacted us today. Um we do have all of the permits and proceedings on this building across the street. They were going to mobilize up here tonight and apparently the weather's going to be bad. So, they are planning to bring their containers and mobilization equipment and start next Monday, which I thought was weird because that's a holiday, but that's the schedule that we were told today. Um, and then they did get their ticketing books for code violations. I do want to remind you that we do a notification, a contact about issues. Um, we try and then after the 10 days or 15 days, we come back, we do a formal violation

notice. Um, and then if it's not demanded or dealt with. After that, then as a final resolution, we do things like a bait to mow grass and the ticketing to the courts would be a final kind of selectively used to not just be out there funeralizing everybody. So, it is a tool just like all of the other methods, but I did want you to know those actions today. So, we'll be informing you and keeping you up to date with stats and things as that proceeds to some. So, that's all right. How long will it take for them to get that taken care of?

He thought it would be two weeks or so. Um, I'm not sure, you know, it depends on what they some of the the only issue they had was with the EPM and the material under the rubber roof had less than 1% material for asbestous. So they if they find that and mitigate it, they have to dispose of that a little differently. So that could be challenging because it seems to me like most of the is gone and melted and I wouldn't know how to recognize it, but I don't do that. Um, so once it gets started next Monday or Tuesday, I would guess it's Tuesday. It it should go away pretty quickly. The sewer, water, and gas lines have all been cut off at the at the main, so that stuff's already been taken care of. They did come and push up the sidewalk at some of the frontage to kind of keep it all contained better. Um, we talked to them about doing that when they they got notified they could begin. Um, so I'm hoping that by, you know, first week of June, it's long gone.

That would be nice.

Any questions for the manager? All right. We don't have any help with people dropping into the pit, do we? over there. No. Yeah, that was reported. By the editor.

Okay. So, that takes us to our unfinished business and there is none. So, that moves us into new business. First reading of bill 2026-13. Shelly. Bill 2026-13, an ordinance for the city of Cameron, Missouri, authorizing a conditional use permit for Matthew and Ryetta, sir Muser to operate a short-term rental business in an R2 two family residential district at 1013 South Chestnut Street. I will entertain a motion to pass bill 2026-13 on first reading. So moved. Second discussion.

They're great neighbors and No problem. I don't see that there's any You guys don't party too much or anything like that. I'm sure the people that would be staying there would be great people and parking is not an issue and all that. Great.

We had this meeting uh last week, last Monday. And so, as you've seen in your packet, we've got the suggestion by the planning and zoning to approve that. At the public hearing, there was nobody that showed up and so there was nobody to contest it. They did agree. They did agree. We're trying, as the PNZ are going together, we're trying to make everybody that does have a short-term rental follow the same rules. And so, it's just not a scattered set of rules that's organized. I'm going to have to come up at some point in time when I've got a minute to write up all the ones basically in a list. For instance, and I'll the musters are here as you can tell and they'll answer any questions that you guys have that I don't cover. But the occupancy will be limited to a reasonable number of guests consistent with the size and layout of the home. Property will not be marketed or used for weddings, parties, receptions, or large group events. Guests will be informed of and required to follow all house rules prior to the booking and during the stay. The property will be actively managed by the owner. House rules will address noise expectations. Quiet quiet hours will be at starting at 10:00 p.m. Occupancy of no more than six. Parking requirements, no parking on the street. I will say that three more times in this list because it's very it's very important, not just parking on street. So, we put it in there multiple times,

especially with neighbors. Yes, we had that with our other one on [clears throat] Thursday. You had lots of trouble with that. It's a school zone, too.

Yeah. And so, uh that's another one. General guest conduct. Um guests who do not comply with these rules will be permitted or will be permitted to not permitted to uh stay any longer. All guest parking will be continued or contained on site using the existing driveway and designated parking areas. There will be no parking on the street. That's the second time I've said that. Quiet hours will be clearly communicated to all guests. Once again, that'll be at 10:00. As you can tell, that's a very important one as well. Uh the short-term rental use is designed to operate quietly and responsibly with minimal impact on surrounding properties. No more than 14 days. Uh no amplification equipment, outdoor parties, or disruptive activities will be permitted. No structural changes or exterior modifications are proposed. the exterior appearance of the property will remain unchanged. So those are the items that are listed in that list of items for this conditional use. And once again, a conditional use is only good for the person that gets it. It does not go with property. So if they were ever to sell it, then that does not go the short-term rental ability does not go to the new owner.

So apologize for jumping ahead of the Oh, you're fine. I got a couple particular questions. One is um why is this different than just a regular rent? Is it because it's a daily type situation? Well, shortterm that's the whole definition. So that's the only difference. How how is I mean do do we even have anything on rentals in general as shortterm long-term? No, no, no. Just regular rentals. Yeah. Okay.

So, so with that, cuz I wouldn't look I couldn't find it in the thing, but that's probably me more than it is anything else. But I'm just sitting there thinking rules-wise, maybe we could shore both together somehow so that we have the same. No. Mhm. You do not want to do that because it Well, because if you're a regular long-term rental [clears throat] and do you want to have a party? This would say no. Right. But isn't the idea to avoid noise issues? That's why they're not allowed to have parties there.

This is for the owners not to get in trouble with their neighbors by having somebody that doesn't live there come in and disrupt everything. Your long-term gets taken care of a different way. And by law, it's a whole different subject. No, I know they're different. I know they're different legally. So, but in the end, we're going to change the comprehensive plan. We're going to change some zoning after we have it all looked at. We're gonna with Moan and there's some funding available for us to go through the entire planning and zoning book

and the codes and get up to date and that is one of the major things. Actually, Patrick's already got short term a short-term rental chapter written, but we're not going to do that until we get everything else fixed. There's no reason to chase our tails on changing here and changing there. Just change it once. Yeah. and have fun with that. I just I'm just curious um because I don't want noisy neighbors whether they're long-term or short-term. I don't care, right? Um well, you can't have them out there anyway. So, um but the other thing is uh so what are the consequences for them? Do we have I mean is this we have the right to take away the conditional use permit.

Okay. And then if that happens then they can't rent it anymore. And if they do then we can find them and take it. I mean like what is our structure on do we send one notice? Hey, it'll be the same way as our ordinance. Okay. I mean you you get a warning right off the bat. Well, I kind of figured that but after that I mean we could hammer away. We can even take everyone. Okay. All right. Thank you. Is there any condition for the owners to be there in the house at the same time? So far, both of them that we've ran through in the last two months, both owners are living in that house. So with the people that are So there not a requirement.

So the owners could just move out and stay with family and rent it out. So it could go either way. Well, I I know of one place that that is happening. Is it? Yeah, because my in-laws stayed at a place here in town out out in um on Timberline or something like that. And that was a situation where it's a duplex and they stayed in one of the one of the sides when they were out. Yeah, that's not a requirement. Yeah. So,

thank you. Any questions for the Muslers? I like to say Muslers are great neighbors. We've known them for years and great kids. Good garden. You're bucking for 10. All right. All those in favor of passing bill 2026-13 on first reading say I. I. I.

All oppose. Passes. Five in favor. Zero opposed. All right. That takes us to bill 2026-14. Shelly. Bill 2026-14. An ordinance for the city of Cameron, Missouri. Authorizing an amendment to the Cameron zoning ordinance by creating article 17A a C1A downtown commercial district. I will entertain a motion to pass bill 2026-14 on our first reading. So move second discussion.

Thank you mayor and council. This is the infamous C1A that everybody's been talking about. So, this was put together originally by the planning and zoning group um to try to encourage more pedestrian traffic downtown. After the public hearing, it became quite uh apparent that the owners of the businesses downtown did not want it. So, well, did not want a portion of it. So what we did is we took out the old cargo entertainment disc district at the end of it and so it's completely not in there. So um in fact I put in there that there cannot be any cargo containers in that area period even for storage. And so that got removed. We also put in um we also took out a lot of the previous uses in C1A or C1. Some of them were like uh you could have a slaughter shop downtown. Uh you could have a telegraph downtown, a telegraph business. There's not a real big need for telegraph. So, uh this was more of a cleanup after we knocked out the cargo entertainment. The rest of it was just cleaning it up, but we still want to encourage uh pedestrian traffic downtown to go to the businesses. So question as far as the downtown goes. One huge objection I have with it as it is is the is the appearance of it. Code enforcement. All of the you know I've got a laundry list of things. The rotted out window frames, the plywood over windows, wood shingles

that are missing and just hanging there off of awnings. U broken windows. Um, so I that has nothing to do with absolutely nothing to do with code enforcement, but I wondered that I was thinking of some things that would be nice to add to this is um with a new building code that would have verbiage that would help new construction blend into the old construction, you know, but that would require some definitions and descriptions. You're talking months of of creating.

Yeah. But that could be done after the fact. But another thing is is adding things like alfresco dining because there's places you can have really nice outdoor dining. We already got it. It's already Yeah. approved. It got It got approved the month that I started. Oh, I see. Okay. Y the cafe dining is actually how it's written in the code. Okay. Does it go out into the road? No, you've got to stay on the sidewalk. Yes. And you got to have enough room for ADA. Well, then how do you how do you allow people to go around it on the sidewalk? Very careful. It's elongated.

Yeah, they have to make they've got to maintain that 5 ft. Does that allow for outdoor music? Like if they wanted to play outdoor music. So, no, this this is just for the setting up tables and other stuff. That would be nice to have though. A lot of living areas. You have soft outdoor music that sets its tone for what you're doing out there. So, that's those What's funny is that got all put in before I started or the month that I started and not one single business has used it.

No, I know it. But but look what we've got. You know, I'm talking about somebody that wants to come in and put a a new barbecue restaurant or, you know, some new businesses that they really want to attract people because we that's what we struggle against in this town is just the status quo and that's our biggest issue. So, [clears throat] that's all I have. Any other questions? Is there a committee for that? Is there do you have a development committee or it's all part of the planning and zoning board. Okay.

They bring it, I research it, we put it together, we hammer on it for months to figure out where it's going to fit best and how it's going to fit best and we do a public hearing and we bring it to you guys. I know we've got the downtown Main Street Main Street Cameron Main Street wants to be involved once we do that. But the one issue I have with that is that they're kind of like this. They have an agenda. you have to fit into that and it and it's not very inclusive of other ideas. They are all suggestions that the P&Z will take in. Okay. Thank you.

Now, that doesn't mean that they're going to approve all the suggestions, but it's the suggestions of the public that we go through. That's why we go with the public on the public hearing side of it. Thanks, M. Any other questions? All right. All those in just one real quick question. I didn't see food trucks listed. You're right. You did. Is that so that is not allowed? That's correct. Okay. Because you've already got a food truck code enforcement. Oh, you do. There's a whole section in business licenses just for food trucks.

Certain places in the downtown area that they can be so that they're not competing with the storefront restaurant. Well, sure. Sure. No, that's And they've got to be on private property and they've got to be fully they've got to be fully contained with their own stuff. Uh we're not part, you know, providing them with utilities. Be on private property. Well, I mean, they got they can't be on they can use the corporate park. Yeah. But they can't be on the south side of park. They got to be facing the road and facing the sidewalk. Well, it's facing sidewalk, which is facing the road. So, yeah. So yeah, that's why it's not in there. Well, no, that would make sense, but that would also make sense why I couldn't find.

It's not always place. All right, are we ready? Yeah. Good. All those in favor passing bill 2026-14 say I. I. All opposed? [snorts] Passes. Five. That takes us to resolution 2026-23. Resolution 2026-23, a resolution approving a contract for the sale of real estate to Barnett Metal Works LLC. I will entertain a motion to pass resolution 2026-23. So, second discussion.

Thank you again, mayor and councel. So, [snorts] this is the uh Barnett property out at the business park. whenever he started renting, it was in the contract that he could rent to own and he now wants to own. And so this is the resolution to uh make that purchase possible. So So we're taking everything that he's given to us and apply that towards the purchase. Correct. That was the way it was written in the contract. Do you know how much that is? No, I know how much the end price is. Well, I I see that in there, too. Um, and this doesn't include the the pond, does Okay, good.

We still get the fish out there. No, it's going to die. Nobody does. Somebody needs to take care of that. What pond? It's dying. Can we That's a different story. I'll talk later about that. Everybody know somebody needs to take I will I will add that there's an accessment on there for future access to the city's property. That easement will come before council after the closing. [snorts]

So this price is the total including weddings. No, that that is the price there is what he's already paid towards it. He's already paid that. No, no, no. He paid minus it. It's a full price. Yeah, we don't Oh, no. I did bring it. You want to know how much he spent on it? Find the right spot. I thought it broke. I probably didn't. I have too much stuff. That's okay.

Um, it was over 500 is where it started off at. Any other questions? All those in favor of passing resolution 2026-23 say I. I.

Post. It passes. Five in favor. Zero. That takes us on to resolution 2026-24. Resolution 2026-24, a resolution for the city of Camden, Missouri to accept a proposal for a supervisory control and data acquisition SCADA system. I will entertain a motion to pass resolution 2026-24. So move. Second discussion. [clears throat]

Thank you, mayor and council. Uh, this resolution is for a skate system for the electric side of things. Uh, they currently have a skate system. I don't know exactly when it was put in, but it's been nonfunctional probably for at least the last decade. So, this basically allows us to be able to to create reports and and see our usages on each substation and each search in each substation. Uh, and be able to kind of tell where our loads are at, forecast what we need to upgrade or, you know, where these residential areas are, starting to planned out, being able to balance our load between phases. Right now, it's just have to go out there and look at the screen and you know it only holds a few days worth of information on it on the local memory. So this allows us to be able to actually see trending data usage where our loads are at what's going on. We're having nuisance trips and issues things like that.

I never even knew what a SCA was until Great Northwest. That's when I first started hearing about that. And so we haven't had one. I say we had one, but it hasn't been functional for many years.

Uh it was installed in 99 and I think it's been out of service since it was kind of a mom and pop shop type deal. Was a two-man operation that that came up that ran it. They actually did a lot of towns around within MPA back in the day. They're no longer in business. [snorts] So, it's it's time we have to switch out things. Didn't bring anything up to date. Was this on your five-year plan for your department? Yes. And this was included in our our capital improvement budget for this fiscal year. Say that at the top. It's at the bottom.

Oh, yeah. There it is. Capital. Okay. Good. Two other towns similar to us have the same.

So yes. Yeah. And probably far more complicated than what we kind of tractory and we can build on it in the future. Basically, this is a a non we don't have any annual contracts, no annual fees with it. [snorts] We're buying the equipment. We can purchase so many hours of engineering every year. for support for changes to anything we want to do. We don't have to don't have any major fees or anything like that. So this says that we had two bids come in and one was withdrawn.

Yeah. So the E bid which is actually the manufacturer of the recloses we have withdrew their bid because we don't have our own uh fiber infrastructure for the back call information. Another bid includes a cellular backall to be able to get all the information back to the to the servers on it. So we haven't had one since 2010 potentially. Our electric is still working 16 years later. I'm just trying to figure out why exactly we would need it if we haven't [snorts] had any problems with it before.

Uh we have had problems. It's probably just you might remember here just back I don't it was last summer or summer before when NW put their new substation in and we were losing an entire substation because the fusing wasn't right on it. [clears throat]

That was right before we started this electric system study that we're still going on that we're paid upwards of $50,000 for. That's going to give us a lot of the same information that we can get from the SCADA system and our residential areas Lane Timberline all those out there are growing pretty fast. Build quite a few houses out there. So this allows you to have a lot better data to keep up with all. So we are paying for the information just in a different format and wait a little bit year and a half on the selectric system stud.

And this will also allow us to be able to trip or close those reclosers back in remotely or put hotline tags on if we got out there working on it. They will have to drive clear to the substation to go flip the switch to keep a reclosure from closing back in if something happens. You know, from safety aspect, it is and it's not something that everybody will have access to. It's obviously a very secure system. It's airgapped. Doesn't allow anybody in without Okay. is not like say that anything's possible.

If we've spent 50 grand for a study that's taken a year and a half, we don't have the results yet. Are we going to have this system up and going and have the results we need before that's

uh it the system study is more than just information on the system. It also is coordination for these reclosers. So there's a lot of complicated mathematics in there. how fast that close back in what period is between you know it's it's way more complicated what you're escaping it but this would have provided a lot of the information that they asked for in this report we just simply waiting on a It is. We push hard on to get it.

Well, why don't we just cancel it? I mean, yeah, if we're going to get a system that's going to give us the information that would be possible out and then we still wouldn't have the information that we need. [clears throat] Tell them get a calculator if it'll help speed up the process. You can figure out the third ICS electric system.

You take Yeah, that would go. We'll come to you then. [clears throat] All right. Any other questions? All those in favor of passing resolution 2026-24, say I. All oppose? Passes. Five in favor, zero. That takes us to resolution 2025-25. Resolution 2026-25, a resolution accepting bids for the Godfrey Street Improvement Project and awarding the bid to CP Excavating LLC. I would entertain a motion to pass bill 2026-25. So move second.

Discussion.

Thank you, mayor, council. Um this notice of award to CPS LLC for the Grey Street improvement project. Um Bartland West Engineering they recommend the city of Cameron to provide notice of award on the Grey Street improvement projects to CP excavating for the amount of 3,112,1455. We did have two bids. They were both very close. They did come in 144,154 under the engineer estimated [cough] everything come in right where they thought it would question for me.

Okay. So every year the city out of our let's just talk a little bit about where this money's coming from, why it's there, and why we [cough] sales tax sales tax. We we're in our we only passed it once, right? Correct. Right. No. No. Didn't we renew it just a couple years ago? Yes. So this is the second reiteration of that. There was something Yeah. From the Yeah. Yeah, we did. We did. And it's it's for 20 years if I remember correctly.

I think so. And I think with the new sales tax, we started doing um financing, right? We started bonding our our which is really was smart because before we were waiting three years to get a make up enough money from that and then we it would get applied to one street and it just didn't seem to work as well. So now we're we're doing our bonding. That's where the money is coming from because we're using more money than what we would have in the account if we were just collecting it in the account. [clears throat] We're paying interest. Yes. But we're also being Now this is a complete build, correct? Correct.

Would you explain what that is? curbs, gutters, storm, sewer, sidewalk, 6 in asphalt pavement. And this will go from on Godfrey Street from 4th to 8th and from on 8th from Godfrey to Enzy Trace. Oh, okay. So, it's like we have to we have to tie in the uh reason why this project is a little bigger [snorts] than others is we have to tie in the storm sur We're getting to the point where we just can't dig like that much water out in an open ditch. We're going to have to start tying everything.

Okay. So, we also have a storm sewer tax. Correct. Correct. And don't we sometimes use some not that you're using it for this, but don't we use sometimes that for our complete builds? Is that happening in this one? We will use some of it on this when we have another projects and then if we have like a a major breakdown or something like that or storm pipes collapse industry or something we use that money also. Okay. So this year the two big builds that we're having is Harris and Godfrey.

Correct. Okay. Well, we all know what Harris is. It's it's coming along. [clears throat] This actually had been on the list for quite a few years and never got to it. You're right. It's nothing but almost gravel. [snorts]

I know I was talking with Scott earlier week, but do we have a list of projects like this? [cough and clears throat] One year, five year, 10 year pass the passing sales tax streets. The next one on my list is whenever we are going to have to let some funds build back up, but we're my next project is Chestnut Street from Prospect.

Oh yeah, that's really bad. I keep I keep getting phone calls on that one. [cough] [clears throat] It takes a [cough and clears throat] lot of money to do a complete build. Any questions? All right. All those in favor of passing resolution 2026-25 say I. All oppose. Passes. Five in favor. Zero opposed.

That takes us to resolution 2026-26. Shelly. Resolution 2026-26 a resolution for the city of Camron, Missouri to amend the police department salary matrix and authorizing sign on hiring sign on incentives. I don't know why I can't read. I would entertain a motion to pass resolution 2026-26. So move discussion

mayor council. Thank you. Um, first off, we had a public safety committee meeting last Wednesday. Uh, Penny and Ross were there. John wasn't able to attend. Thank you guys. Um, I've asked my command staff. They're kind of spread out here. I've asked my command staff for the police department to be here tonight. Um, first of all, our police department is way below critical staffing levels. At this time, I am currently working full-time in dispatch, 12-hour shifts. Uh my dispatch director is also working in dispatch. Uh she can't do her other jobs of quality control on 911 calls, following up on quality control on phone calls, how we're dispatching things out. Um I recently I have temporarily closed my detectives division. [snorts] Um one of the detectives is currently in dispatch. My other detective is currently out on the road patrol. Uh this is due to vacation sick time, which I'll get into that here in a minute. Um by August 1st, my department will be short 10 dispatchers and I'm allotted 14. Um we do have a couple of people right now in the process, but it's going to take three or four months for them to even be in there on their own. So, myself, I will most likely be full-time at dispatch until July, maybe August. Um, so I know the qu question may come up, but since February 16th, I've lost I've lost eight folks. Um, and then, uh, then they're going to, you know, where did they go? One had issues with a babysitter. I get it. Uh, one left this this city to go to another city. Uh, one went to Northwest Electric. Uh, one went

to the private sector. Uh, one went to the juvenile office. The next went to work for hospice. Uh, the 21st I'm losing a police officer to go uh, work heavy equipment. And, uh, I will be the 26th, I believe, I'm losing another dispatcher to go to the highway patrol. Most of these folks that left went, these are more higher paying jobs. all these people that left. So, um I want to talk a little bit about the vacation time. My officers are losing vacation time u because they're maxed out. We have nobody to help cover. That's why I closed my detectives division to put both my tech out so the folks that are maxed out on vacation can take some time off. Um, I think I counted up I have nine or 11 uh staff members that are are either losing or close to losing um time. Actually, I have 12 employees. I got it right here. TW I have 12 employees that's either losing vacation time or close to it. Um, so on the vacation sick time, currently we are uh we're on a 160 hour 28 day pay cycle. Um, if an officer gets overtime, um, they cannot use sick time or vacation time in that 28 days. If they do, their overtime is taken away and the sick and vacation is put back onto their books. Um, I do have uh some information that I've got uh three folks that are possibly going to retire in less than a year from our department. Um, so I've been talking with Scott. I know that we've met with the public safety committee a few times about this in the past couple years. Um, we did

come up with a market adjustment plan. Uh, that's that's all in your packets there. Um, we're not asking for additional funds. We have the money in our budget right now to take care of we're just asking to re reallocate those funds to take care of our issue at the police department. Um, we we have come up with a three-phase plan, but this is the most urgent that we need to take care of. So, um, what we've come up with is, uh, um, every every employee in the police department, their current grades, we have grades 1 through 12. Um, that's exhibit A. Uh, we've come up with exhibit B, which is going to move every every position down a step on the matrix. So, I'm at I'm at grade. Well, the grade goes down.

It's a step up, right? So, so the grade down. So, I'm at a 12. I'm going to go to a 13. My sergeants are at 8. They'll go down to nine. And then we're going to adjust it that way. That's all I have. We're We're struggling. So, that's why we're here tonight. The incentive.

Oh, yeah. Um, so right now, um, we offer a $6,000 sign on bonus for postcertified police officers. If we pay for their academy, they don't get the bonus. But if they're postcertified and they come to us, right now [clears throat] it's a $6,000 over three years or no, $6,000 over every six months, three years. So we would like to increase that to 10,000 for u the police officers and we would like to start an incentive for dispatchers at 6,000. The 10,000 will come out of our tax. The 6,000 for dispatch will come out of their budget paid over four years for the 10. Anybody have any questions for me? [clears throat] Have you thought about hiring a header to look for people to get people to apply?

We have not. That's like most businesses would do that. You would you would hire somebody just to do that service. Trying to save the funds on that part, but we we we do use Indeed. Shell's got us hooked up on Indeed. U we use our Facebook page. Uh we've sent we've sent our information out to all themmies. Uh we do job fairs. So you've covered a lot of grounds just by yourself. And you had a couple officers lined up, right? But the salary

Mhm. We did have uh we did have a couple of people that uh um so our starting salary is 47288. We had a couple of postcertified ready to go, ready to roll. When they heard our starting sal, they're like, "Oh, nope. We're out." So that took them out of the rules. So well, you've talked about this for a long time. So time to get rolling. And now we're to the point where, you know,

we we we've lost a lot of people in two years and now we're struggling and it all comes up to these faces. So And you're affecting public. I'm still uh wondering I know there's a lot of cops that'll they just kind of rotate around the [snorts] different that they'll jump based on salary. So what what if and I don't remember the term now but what if what if we said okay you've got five years at Liberty we will pay you starting at our five-year plan. I know it's it could irritate other police officers, whatever, but why couldn't we do something like that and try to bring in some more talent with experience? I spoke with the city manager and and Amy and we discussed. So I do we do have two police officers on the hook to come in and so we are going to start them at their instead of at one we are going to start them at their experience.

Okay. So, okay, something that was discussed at the committee is he has wiggle room and then out of his wiggle room it goes to the city manager and then if that's still not enough then they can come to us right did I understand that correct and that's based on just the max that happened to somebody that was working for the electric department who was already a journeyman and he came in and we gave him a higher higher So, we're asking to pass a resolution tonight

and it would be effective if it's passed on June 1. So, that gives Amy time to make adjustments. I think it was anticipated at the additional grade in two steps, but there's leniency in there with that those can be still be adjusted by and then and then in October will most likely be another adjustment for the police department for both PD and dispatch. I'm assuming you think that's going to make a big difference. I sure hope. Yeah, I don't. It's It's the last I I don't I think that they're the private sector can outspend us and what did you say that the truck driver was going to make like 60 70

something like that an hour. I mean we get that we but you know everybody is struggling for police officers. Absolutely. But I don't see a department where the police chief is sitting in dispatch full-time dispatch. I agree. ignore my uh dispatch director sitting in there dispatching can't follow up on quality control which is our citizens who we serve. Yeah, I think we've got to make every effort at it. I'm just going to

we we command staff have come up with a lot of things, a lot of incentives. We've got the Y membership. We we've done everything that we can do. This has been the stickler since I took over as chief police or chief of police two years ago, two and a half years ago. And this is the only thing that we were getting push back on. And now we're to the point where we've got to do something because uh uh we're struggling. I don't know how many times, you know, I've said we're struggling, but we're struggling. We probably won't see the the 15 to 20 year people anymore. That's kind of gone, right?

But there are still people out there that want to be a cop or want to get into dispatch from an early age as a kid. That's what they want to do. Now, if they do it for 5 to 10 years, they probably going to say, "I'm done with this. I'll just go make some money." But, but we got 5 to 10 years out. Yes. But we got 5 to 10 years. And that's what we're going to that's where we have to attract them. So, that's where it'll make the difference. They may not stay 20 years like like we've had the past, but we can get them for that 5 to 10 hopefully. Or we do have 20 plus employees now. There's three of us in the room right now. So, and again, it's not going to cost anymore. It's just rearranging.

We're re ating the funds out. So, so when we when we brought on dispatch, uh the captain, half of the captain, half of my salary should be coming out of the dispatch site because we now have two budgets and we're over both both departments. So, that frees up my half of mine and his salary on the PD side to do what we need to do.

Oh, I was just making sure I think we should try this, but then keep in mind we might have to do more. We do have a couple more phases that we want to bring up, but uh this is the most urgent right now that we need to take care of. Um so I will note that you do have the public safety committee notes in with your packet and it does kind of have some of the details of those other two pieces that we're working towards. Right. All right. All those in favor of passing resolution 2026-26 say I all oppose passes. Five in favor. Thank you council. Thank you chief. Thank you.

All right that takes us to our second public participation. Anybody wants to come up to speak? Good job on passing that by the way because you guys are in desperate ways. Maybe not saying that but you're in desperate ways. [clears throat] Yeah. Um, I just want to talk about West Street between third and fourth. I've talked to the mayor and a couple council members about it, a couple city employees. I met a bus there the other day that had to go off into that yard because it's not wide enough there for two vehicles. Marty, I'm sorry. Did you say between third and fourth?

Yes. On West Street. [clears throat] I know you guys are aware of it, but you guys, you're going to start doing something with the streets. She drove her papa the other day, lost the shred in her brand new car. So, we paid for that. We got to do something. This is the worst I've ever seen our streets in 10 years. We all got new trucks. We got new water line coming in this town, new city hall coming up. We got to do something with our streets. They're getting dangerous. And we talk about it, talk about it, but we're not doing the thing. That's all I got. Thank you. Anyone [laughter] else? from the staff.

I just want to thank the different groups, finance, TV, and staff to work on these things and come up with solutions. And for the council for being supportive, um I know streets is always an issue in every city. We do have to dedicate tax, but a lot more roads that we have to to fix. It's a priority to all of you as it is to us. Um, but I I just feel like I I've got some good cooperation with our team and I think if we work hard together, I I appreciate Lance and all he's doing. I There's been some frustrating couple weeks here with trying to get things done and and our our staff is, you know, even the building over here. They work really hard and there's there's things that have to get done by other people and you can't always force their arm real hard. Um, so it comes back on them and I I apologize. part of being a public servant.

But I I just want everybody to know I appreciate their hard work and the dedication and I enjoy working with all of you and I just feel, you know, things like tonight really do make a difference. So, thank thank you all and thank the community for being supportive of that and we're moving ahead and trying to make it better and so we'll continue to do that. Kind of my soap box, but thank thank you and Yeah. So, um I did go ahead and commit to the changes to our United Fiber Agreement, but they said that they would reduce our prices. We will see what that looks like on the next month's bill because we know sometimes the numbers don't always match, but that's been committed to them. Um we have also are going back through some of our lingering breed agreements. There's still some charges that are coming through on that stuff that we need to get cleaned up. So, I'm going to work with work here this week, but the police department's contracts as well as ours to get those things cleaned up and out of the way as well. That way, we don't feel like we lose something because we thought there might have been a risk of something on 911 services within the bright agreement. So, we want to we need to follow up with those carefully as not to cut any of that kind of stuff like that. Um, I have been continuing to help coordinate some of the financial systems reviews of the different systems. I think that we have demos scheduled clear out through the first week of June. Um, and hopefully we can kind of come up with a direction on what we want to do. We've got some pricing conversations that are also following the demos as well to kind of prepare [snorts] that information for you all to be able to help make that decision on what we're going to be trying to do as we go forward. So, um I've also kind of worked my way into the uh the mapping tool products that we have in place currently. I've gotten some notes from Shelly about what things need to be updated that haven't been updated yet. [snorts] So, I can try to get that one worked through and and pushed through the rest of the way as well. Um, that one's been a neat, but we're getting there. We're finding some progress on that one. But the team is willing to

work with me on that process at the company we've got. I also took a gander technical term of course at the chime system, the bells and town the other day. Um, so I've got some plans I'm trying to work through with them to see if we can get those refunctional or if there's going to be a cost to repair what has been busted on those. In essence, how long has it been since that works? Year. Yeah, we got them at Christmas more or less whenever I not this year before. I contacted the It was the year before. I contacted the group that that owns the products and they said that they will repair if they could and I said, "Well, we'll look at some options." So, we got several options that were kind of playing.

Is this the digital challenge? Because we we Yeah, it's just speakers. Yeah, more or less there just a little black box there. It's kind of kind of weird. Well, we did I when I was on council that that I proposed that we do that and somebody donated the money to to pay for it and the idea was we could also use it for a public address system if we had emergencies and you could play seasonal music and you could do lots of things.

So the the system is there um as as Mark pointed out through the one day it was making a gear clicking noise which is unfortunate because there's no gears in it. Yeah, there's I'm looking at a potential other option as well that we might be able to use as well as what the function would look like working with the vendor to fix the system too. So, um and then also just been kind of going through the the server room just kind of getting stuff lined out there, removing some of the stuff that's adding to the place and creating the network documentation that would have been nice to have had whenever I came along to know how these systems of the city were functional. Uh so, I've been kind of going down that avenue as well. So, That's kind of broad brush what I've been looking at in the last couple of weeks. So,

uh we're in construction season right now. Been replacing quite a few poles, straightening poles various places all over town. uh after our osmos I think we had maybe 55 poles out of the 1300 poles they inspected that were needing to be replaced. work through that as weather allows

streets. They've been doing a lot of ditching, patching, upsizing the storm drain tubes. They've been doing that for several weeks now. I will probably have them split up. I'll probably have half of them going out to the cemetery. Cemeteries, getting them ready for for Memorial Day weekend to help get him put that out [clears throat] weekend. So then I've been working on said I'm I'm shifting gears. I'm going to not do a mill and overlay this year. I'm going to do a cape do some cape seal. It's going to stretch our money out a lot further and get it

explain that. The cape seal is first you put down a um chip and seal and then they'll come in and then I'll put a slurry mix over the top which will level it out and make it look like what rows are you going to be doing this for? I haven't I haven't got all that side. These are going to be the ones that have already had rebuilt. So you're going to keep preserved. These are No, these are the ones that have a good sub base to them that we're going to try to try to

maintain. Yeah. Longer just keeps Okay. The last one we've done was over here on East Third Street. It's been about 10 years we done that one. So, we can do twice as many streets as we can with this the Cape Seal as we can with overlay. There's some places we have to do overlay, but I'm going to try to get more more streets done this year. Mr. Lance, [clears throat]

um been working with MODATA still um trying to get some paperwork done for them so we can keep that project moving forward. We've got some variances that we're working on as well. Uh the big thing that's going on right now this week is the state streets for all grant which is for the BB bridge replacement which is estimated at 15 million with the federal U highway commission were successful they would be providing 12 million and then it would be at basically either MODOT or MODOT and the TDD u combining together to pay for the other three. That's the plan. Uh it's due next Tuesday at 5. And so I've been helping Moan's actually writing it and then I'm finding who's got the supporting deck documents. Um I will say all of our politicians were really nice and got us our letters of support real fast. Mo not so good. But you know that we're not going to get one from them because we have to put in the new application uh two weeks prior to turning it in which is unheard of in grant in the grant world and so we're not going to get one from them but we've got an approval of the proposed plan for BB. Um been dealing with Jen Wick the Great Northwest Wholesale Water Commission financing been working a lot with that. I'm now the chairman of the distracted driving of the road roadway safety committee that happened last Thursday.

Were you not there? I was distracted. I'm not sure. [laughter]

I knew you giggle. Um doing a lot of work with Kenet and Cameron. Um on that I will go into their kids are going to be running around tomorrow and uh the school is sending out three different bunches of children and so they're going to be on Third Street pulling weeds and cleaning up. They're going to be out at the skate [snorts] park pulling weeds and cleaning up. They're going to be at the cemetery pulling weeds and cleaning up. And so they volunteered and so that's everybody needs to be safe. We put a notification out on our Facebook page today. So, everybody needs to look out for them and tell them. Thank you. Uh we also have a uh Dr. Ali's going to have the ribbon cutting with the chamber on the 30th, May 30th at her new vet clinic. So, it's going to be open then. And then the regular comingings and goings of the city of Cameron. So,

what time was that? I'd have to look it up. It's a 30. I know it's a Saturday.

All right. I'm doing the Lance meeting. Um, so the blue shell grant, I know I've talked about this a couple times. We spent all $50,000 of that. Uh, the only thing that we're waiting on is a little over $1,100 with the state. We got it. We got it. Yeah.

So, the state has paid us back all $50,000. We're not sure how much uh this year. We're waiting to see how much we get this year. Um Michael will probably talk about this, but uh several accidents in the construction zone. Uh we had a semi- tip over at 52 that blocked both southbound lanes on Friday. Friday. So, lots of accidents down here. That's really all I have. Tornado [clears throat] watch tonight. So, y'all just kind of keep an eye on watch party. Come on over. I'm usually standing out looking for need permit.

See, that's reported to anybody, so I don't Oh, yeah. I didn't even bring up the permit, though. All right. chief.

Uh like Dan says, we fire's been really busy with really busy with everything. Uh we have we've had tons and tons of calls, a lot more than ever. Uh this is the highest I've ever seen. Uh several major calls. Uh we're working a lot of traffic. We're getting really good at traffic uh off I35. U mentioned in that we don't want to forget that uh 36 and Bob F. Griffin will be uh starting construction next Tuesday. So that is going to go through October. Um and the first phase of that will be the crossover is going to come out. So there'll be no crossover traffic. Um the eastbound 36 will do a J turn to the east of the intersection and be able to come around and get on the north side. westbound 36 will have to come clear up 69 and make a U-turn and get back to get on the south side. Uh if you want to make that crossover, uh the Carson Construction is a construction company. Uh they are running in high gear uh once they get there. Uh they've changed several things uh from MDOT Barkland West to be able to do that in a whole lot less days. Um hopefully uh we can get some maybe a little bit of uh safety issues taken care of along I35 with the construction and some detours. I know uh Cory uh is working with the with Mo on that so we can get some signage out there that will help and hopefully we can get back up and through the summer because that is a real mess and we have to move to our traffic. Uh I put on uh two new firemen. Uh they uh they will be starting this week. Um it's about my usual uh two per year and I I advertise that every year.

Uh [clears throat] I really don't ever have any good luck doing that. Um most all of my firefighters come from word of mouth and um I'm able to uh capture them uh when I can. Um, my history is that if I get anybody that that I've actually advertised for, they probably won't show up. Um, so that's just kind of history. I do have a good crew. Uh, they're working hard. Uh, my attendance rate is, [snorts]

uh, 14 to 15 per call. Uh, so, uh, they're working really hard. They do a good job. Our training is going well. uh looking at new equipment moving forward um expanding what we need to expand keeping all our stuff up and and that type of thing. So it's just busy busy busy all the time.

Sure. Um yeah, as far as uh Grand Wholesale Water Commission goes, um things are going pretty good. Both Cameron and Basil continue to buy water, so that's uh that's good. things need to operate pretty smoothly. Uh we found a few things as the as we start up that things we need to buy different procedures and things like that, but everything seems to be going going pretty good. So, anything else to When did Mazville go on? Uh back in April. They they pumped a couple days there in April. Couple days.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They were just a day or two before the leak and then like coming up little delay there, but now they're about taking all their water. So again, things seem to be going going pretty smooth. So um on the Cameron side, uh as the city manager mentioned earlier, the uh the sewer line extension project is going really well. [clears throat] That contractor's doing a great job um ahead of schedule. Hopefully that continues. Um, again, like I said, Scott did mention, we had a couple couple deducts on the project. So, that's always that's always good. Uh, we got a couple things on the water side that we're working on. Uh, a couple distribution issues that we're looking at and we'll be visiting with the city manager on those and how to address those. And then Joe's got a little something. You may or may not saw seen the notification that came out last Monday that Shelley put on the city website. Uh Moam, since we're buying water now from Moam, they're doing their annual burnout, which means they're changing their chlorination process back to free chlorine. What it does is it's a it's a cleaning of the interior of the lines. So they during their normal process and our normal process, we feed ammonia with our chlorine to make monocchloromines, which at that point the free chlorine is gone. The free chlorine is the part that really is the fighting part of the chlorine. But monocchloromines last longer in your lines. So every year with the ammonia that you add allows bofilm and stuff to grow inside your pipes. So they're going to they're doing their annual burnout. So in turn we're buying water from them. So we're doing we're in the process of starting our annual burnout. So we're changing back over to the free chlorine. So you'll see the distribution guys and myself. We'll be out in the public. We're starting at the plant working our way all the way south to the southeast corner of town. We're going to flush

every hydro hydro in town. So you're going to see us wasting water. But if we don't waste water, then you're going to be complaining about something else. You're going to have you're going to see dirty water. And I can guarantee you're going to since we're not used to it, you're going to start smelling that free chlorine smell again. So, that's going to go from last Monday till the end of June. So, just be aware that if if you're starting to see dirty water, please let us know. We'll come flush out your uh part of town. We'll get rid of that water, get that bofilm and everything, get it out of there, and then we'll switch back to monochlorine around July 1st. And uh hopefully by then we'll have all the pipes cleaned up.

How often do you do that? Huh? How often do you feed? Once a year. Once a year. [snorts] We've never done it because we feed another product in our plant that they don't use. We feed uh chlorine dioxide which uh a byproduct of that is the chloride ion which sequesters that some of that growth. So I'm hoping I'm hoping that we don't have as much growth as what what we're anticipating, but I can't can't say for sure. But since they're doing it, we got to do it. And you want to mention it is safe. It is in standard drinking. Correct. Just just

it might you might see a little dingy water. You're going to smell you're going to smell the chlorine. But like I said, if you start seeing dingy water, just let us know and we'll come flush your area back town. We got something going in the paper stuff like that. I would assume I did see it on the website. Okay. shared.

Yeah. No, I know there was a lot of sharing going on. I'm just thinking the elderly folks that don't use the internet. I'm just thinking that they get their information from the paper. So that's why I was asking if that's something I missed you. Anybody else?

There isn't a holiday Monday. On to the

only thing I have and I've already talked about the other things I wanted to bring up, but this one thing has bugged me for years and that's cleaning up some of these auto repair stations. So, we've got two of them in particular. the one's on Walnut Street and one's behind McDonald Motors over on that street and they are terrible as far as code violations, old junk cars, weeds, all this growing up around them and and forever since I was on council for the very first time is we tippytoe around them and don't do anything about them. And we need to just knuckle down and do it. And I know it might be uncomfortable, but those are the biggest eyes in central part of the town. And it's it's time that we do it. We're we're running around terrorizing people about 4 in numbers and we drive right by all of these horrible places. So that's all I've got. I hope that gets to the right people and that gets resolved. [clears throat] It's time time to clean up the town.

Council,

uh, like to thank the staff for fixing the leaning pole that has been a problem on West Street. I saw that that got taken care of. Department, thank you. Um, also saw that some of the street cuts up uh on third street got taken care of. So hopefully instead of 52 now we have 50. Um, so I'm not sure who's who to thank for that. Alliance street crews or whatever but um that that

uh third right up here at third chair they got they got taken care of. So that is it for me. All right, roads. I agree. That's one of the things that I've been trying to get as well. I know that uh I know that TAD's been working on that. Uh one of the things that I requested like right off the bat, Lance jumped on it immediately was taking the money from the sale of the business park and just putting it into roads [snorts] hopefully. Um, so I I appreciate the fact you're getting out doing your patch work, stuff like that. Um, I do have a question. I know we talked many of times about uh the rubberized uh asphalt that you can put down. I just didn't know if you'd had any chance to look that up.

I've done some research on that. It's the the humidity, you know, it's mainly for Arizona and places like that, right? The freezing and the thorn around here that even does it right. Well, I didn't know um because yeah, Arizona was where I witnessed it and and it is incredible. And then I heard that they were putting it up in Colorado, testing it in Wyoming. And to me, those are definitely going to be colder than us. Um, so because that was maybe we'll get some companies starting.

So there just no companies around that do it, right? Okay. Well, we'll keep our eyes open. Uh oh. Um, this is something that came up last year. What's the temperature in city hall? Are we keeping that reasonable this year? I know last year that was a big deal. Well, last year they I'm going to speak on that. Last year they were doing the cleaning so they couldn't have anything on at all. U cleaning the vents and all that stuff. So they had it like on like it was running constantly.

Well now now yeah because of the servers and stuff that are in there uh need to stay cool. But last last year they didn't have anything running because they were cleaning the uh ducks uh cleaning all the mold out of it. So uh we were having to keep a fan in those rooms off right to dry it out. No to keep the servers cooled off. As soon as they were done in August, we were able to turn the air conditioner on. There's no again there's no insulation, no anything in there. So No, that's why I'm asking.

Yeah, that's why I'm asking because um I know Zach had informed me uh that we still the old city manager at that time still had control of our uh temperatures and that's why we had it the way it was. But I just wanted to check and make sure that that we were being smart with it up there this year. I think that control has been corrected. Yeah. No, I I heard it was corrected. I'm just saying, is the temperature right? It should be. That's all I'm asking. Yeah, should be should be for heat and cool. It's going to be a little tougher without insulation, but

Well, sure. It's It's working pretty good. It did all right over the winter, so

Okay, fair enough. Um, and then one final thing for you, Chief. Um, I did forget to mention this and bring this up when you were asking about the uh about the new salary matrix. Um, one other thing that I think might be helpful and it's not just pay, but it's the insurance for spouses for the people that have spouses. maybe trying to figure out a way to broker a deal somehow to get a little cheaper rate for the spouse. Um because I know that that for families [snorts] is costing a lot. Um and I I've seen that with uh somebody. We'll we'll have we'll have some more in the next two phases. We'll have some more. Uh again, we do all of our homework before we even bring it to you guys, right?

So, we will have more um information and we'll have a game plan. We'll get the city manager, Carmen, Amy, Jelly, whoever, but we'll have a game plan for you guys and have it all spelled out before you can bring it back. So, okay. And then I bounced and I'm sorry. One final thing. Do you know if we still have the technology so that people can report uh road issues? I think on the website they can go out there and they can report it in it. I I'm not sure. I don't remember them being able to do that. I was wondering if that's something we could do because it'd be nice they're out there and you know someone hits a pothole or something. You can pin it immediately.

I know that whenever they go out to public website they can report stuff in and it goes straight out to the streets and review. I do not know whether or not it allows for them to pin or anything along those lines. I don't think description. Okay. It was prospect tree if anybody wants to know. Between West and Harris.

Well, and that's what that and I think it'd be so much easier, you know, just being able to hit that. Um, and I know that was something I had requested way back when we started doing this 200 17 18 something like that. So maybe the technology wasn't I don't know. Anyway, that's it for me. Did Alan ever get a hold of you?

Do it. [clears throat] Uh Memorial Day we always the city, not the city, the Legion always has a really nice memorial service. It's the band, the musical bands there at the the veterans [snorts] memorial and uh Scott is the guest keeps speaker this year. So he will be there giving us a a talk or something talking to the guys because the veter the guys from the veterans homes always come out and and like I said the bands there and it's really nice. I really enjoyed it. This is my fourth year fourth that I'll be there and it's always nice and very moving. So keep that in mind. And the next thing is that we have the hot air fair which is coming soon.

Next weekend, not this coming. Two weeks. Yes. Yeah. Two weeks. So for those who haven't donated, please feel free to do that. I know Sue was calling calling a lot of people last week. Give until it hurts. It It's a great thing for Cameron. It really is. Keep that in mind. And with that, have a great Memorial Day and we will see you next time. Thanks for coming, guys.

Tell me the language. I told Mary Beth