City Council - Regular Meeting

Adjustments, and we do have another person who's moving out of town, planning something. So library board also told me later they have an opening for something that's just been moved out of town. So I did post that in the newspaper this week. So if anyone wants to volunteer, the applications are online or you can stop by through the call.

TO OUR CITY MANAGERS. THANK YOU, SHELLEY.

SO JUST A QUICK GENWIC UPDATE. CHARLIE CONTINUES TO HELP US EVERY TUESDAY. WE CONTINUE TO HAVE OUR TEAMS LEADING WITH USDA. WE'RE STILL WORKING ON EASEMENTS. THAT'S KIND OF WHITTLED DOWN TO THE LAST FEW THAT ARE NOT REPORTED. THE FINANCING MECHANISMS, WE'RE DOING THE CHECKLIST FOR THE GENWIC PROJECT. But I, again, like to thank Lance Raines. There's been some issues with getting the SCADA card. I know he's frustrated. I don't know why it's hard to get a piece of plastic shipped here to Cameron. It runs our whole system, but that has not been very fruitful and we continue to struggle with that. The utility extension over on Beebe Highway, the engineer and the consultant and the project contractor and I walked it last Thursday. The project is completely done. It's way ahead of schedule. It's $54,800 under budget. It's ready to take service as soon as they... The only thing they didn't do is the last hole, the last sewer inlet where the actual first customer is connecting. They didn't concrete that in because until you lay the pipe and actually put it in there, it doesn't make sense to pour the pipe. because that might not tear it out. So that's ready to go. I did enjoy working with Scott Fleming. Very tidy, is very organized. The payoffs, we did have some cost overages, but we still came in and went in the budget. So I appreciate that. The City Hall building this afternoon, we did get the bid on items which can't be finalized, but they have a notice to proceed. and the insurance so tonight you have on your agenda the contract award so that would be a notice of award so if we move forward with that we're ready to bring in contract and get started on that as soon as the next meeting the city pool is closed obviously on august 9th is our last day parks director iris here in barcelona he'll give you an update for the season Last Thursday, we also closed on the community center. So we've got all of our materials out of there. That's been transferred to ownership. So we still need to take the utilities off. I don't know if they informed the new owner of that. So that's all closed out. And those are the only updates that I have on my report.

Does anybody have any questions?

No questions. Two comments. One, I just wanted to thank Ira for another Great. Home foot uneventful here with the pool. Didn't hear anything. I love it. That's what we want to hear up here is nothing. So great job on that. Lance, thank you for getting that cell pushed through. I know that was a big thing that I was asking for as soon as I got here. Thank you. I appreciate you. Thank you. That's it for me.

Any other statements, comments?

I did have a question on that sewer. Was it under budget because they didn't do the concrete at the end, or are they coming back once that's done?

No, so we've actually paid them the final payment. The final retainage will go out here because it's all signed off. So the final retainage is about $31,000. Their actual bid was like $680,000-something, and it was $640,000. So we saved like $58,000 from the contract request, but our project went back to... No, the contractor will do that. As soon as they get done with the motor TA station, they'll put in the sewer line. And when they go into the can, they have to lay the concrete to accept sort of dumps in there. And you really can't do that until their line is actually employed in the pipe. It's pretty small. It's maybe a couple yards of concrete at that. It's pretty minor expense. But they didn't want to do anything with that until they won't come back and do that. That will be on the private developer who's doing the project.

This is our unfinished business. We have one bill, second and final reading, Bill 2026-17, Shelley.

Bill 2026-17, an ordinance for the City of Cameron, Missouri to establish a procedure to disclose potential conflicts of interest and substantial interest for certain municipal officials.

I will entertain a motion to pass the bill on a second and final reading, Bill 2026-17 on roll call, vote. Next we go to new business. We have a public hearing on tax levy 2026.

Or do I just go ahead and fill in?

I will entertain a motion to enter a public hearing concerning our letter 2026. So moved.

Second.

A roll call by the court. Mark Carr. Yes. Brockworth. Yes. Penny Gantz.

Yes. Becky Hurst. Yes. John Byker. Yes. I'll just give you an overview. The counties prepare tax valuations and send them to the cities. This year's valuation between the three counties, because we used it in three counties, was up by 2.5 million. So that is basically new construction. It is new personal property and reassessment for property being reassessed. What I had noticed in the paper, I did not have the actual levy back from the state auditor's office yet, so what was noticed in the paper were the maximum amounts. The actual tax levy is much lower than what was published. It's actually the exact same levy as last year. There's no increase this year in the levy. I've seen it twice. It doesn't happen very often. Actually, last year the levy went down. Last year it went down. It was the lowest it had been since 2017. So it remains at that level.

Does anybody want to?

I just think that In general, this is one of the things that we can look at also in the future for affordability for our homeowners is looking at getting rid of the real estate and or personal property tax. We're going to help out A lot of younger folks that are just trying to get started. We need to get younger folks moving here, living here, and also older folks that are on social security, etc. So just something that we need to look at going forward.

Any comments? I will entertain a motion to public hearing regarding our 2026 tax levy.

So moved. Second.

Roll call. Rossworth.

Yes.

Penny Gantz. Yes. Becky Hernandez. Yes. John Fires. Yes. Mark Fires.

Yes.

All right, new business. Full reading on Bill 2026-18E.

Bill 2026-18, an ordinance levying tax upon all properties taxable in the City of Cameron, Missouri for the year 2026 and fixing the rate thereof.

I will entertain a motion to pass Bill 2026-18 on first reading. Second. Discussion?

I will say that we do a full review because it has to be certified to the accounts before the end of the month, and we just got the performance from the state auditor's office last Thursday. So it's always a rush every year. You have to have it in the paper seven days before your public hearing, and then you have to turn around and have it certified almost immediately after. So I'm just very happy that every year we've got it in the state auditor's office before the public hearing.

Yeah, rush, rush, rush. ALL THOSE IN FAVOR OF PASSING BILL 2026-18, SAY AYE. AYE. ALL OPPOSED? IT PASSES ON A FIRST READING. I WILL GO AHEAD AND ENTERTAIN A MOTION TO SUSPEND THE RULES AND PASS BILL 2026-18 ON A SECOND AND FINAL READING BY ROLL CALL.

SECOND.

SECOND.

DISCUSSION? Penny Gantz. Yes. Becky Curtis. Yes. John Figer. Yes.

Mark Carr. Yes. Ross Burns. Yes.

All right.

That takes us to... A first reading of Bill 2026-19, Shirley.

Bill 2026-19, an ordinance for the City of Cameron, Missouri, repealing the current electric rates and establishing new electric rates for consumers of the Cameron Municipal Utility.

I will entertain a motion to pass Bill 2026-19 on first reading.

So moved.

Second. Discussion?

So this is tied to our annual budget proposed increase to cover those revenues that we were anticipating. This rate increase would be for one cent per kilowatt hour. for residential customers in an additional one, and $2 for cost of service. The same would apply for the small commercial, large commercial, the kilowatt hour charge would be a little bit less in the amount they use and the charge demand as well on there. So that's an additional portion there. These rates were recommended by HCR in our cost of service study. We had them at 1.5. That's the response from the prescribed rate increase. Questions?

Prescribed. Can you elaborate on that?

So the rates, the put out for us were based on our future capital plans for the next 10 years. We gave them a list of projects that need to be done, infrastructure upgrades, building plans, as well as increases in our cost of purchase power.

When was the last time we had a rate increase?

We had one in October of last year. And what was the percentage of that? It was actually higher, I believe. I thought it was 8.5. 8.5 this year would be the last of the increases in the 8% range, and then they would fall to just inflationary rate increases in the 3% range.

So why is the timing of, I mean, I know they've probably talked to us about it, but it's been a while. The 2.8% almost back-to-back, what was the purpose of that?

That was basically catch up to get us back up to speed on our revenues operating several years. Can you tell us by our audit last year we were We were at $220,000 loss in the electric department.

Could you repeat that again?

$220,000 loss. A year? Last year.

Last year? Was that what you liked at some place?

A lot of that was due to the fact that we had previously ordered a bucket truck back in 2021, and the lead times were very long on them. And then we had ordered the next bucket truck on a capital special plan. anticipating it to be delivered this year, actually, but they both came the same year.

So that's why we had to keep that. That happens when you have supply and demand. Right.

You know, we've had a lot of bigger costs. The infrastructure build-out for that on the leisure side is pretty significant.

So today we got our monthly billing. It's the second largest bill the utility has ever received. Last July it was higher because of marijuana growth. It was $605,000 and in 2029-30 it's projected to be around $900,000 for the same bill. So for the city to bank and get the rates to where they should be with the residents, you know, the ability to pay and all that isn't factored in until the consumption happens. It goes off of the city currently has a $600,000 a month bill. And in 2029, with the projected increases to the rates, that's assuming they don't do more. We're looking at having to pay $900,000 or more. And so the rates just have to be adjusted. And I live here too. No one likes to hear a rate increase, but for the city to operate, it's good. These are the minimum recommended rates. They recommended... I was here, but they did this study in January 2025. They presented that. They recommended an 8.5 both years and a 3% for the next three years to just do the minimum what we do today. This isn't to do big projects. This isn't to pay people more. This is just to sustain our operational ability. I want to thank Shelly. Zach and Mark both helped me to go through the study, type up their ordinances, put all the data together, we triple checked it, we verified it. Shelly put together in the back of your packet on each of the utility items is actually the old rate and the difference. So it shows you the projected new rate, what the old rate was, and how much it's going up. That's what Mark talked about, the $2 increase for residential and a 0.01 cent per kilowatt hour. And these are proposed to keep us in line with the inflationary costs and what it's going to cost the city to pay this. So whatever our consumption is, the city still gets billed. We have to collect that. Our collections need to exceed what we pay the utility. If you choose not to do that, you know, we could do some transfers from other funds, which isn't recommended getting outside your enterprise fund. You can take additional debt. But when the bill, when it comes in and you get the bill, you know, it's not fun that the rates are going up for any of us, but that's what it costs. So this is You know, it's kind of late in the process. I usually like to, the reason this is all coming tonight is you decide to do your budget tonight. We have to do our middle levy first and set our revenue. We have to do our revenue projections on utilities because if you don't adjust the rates, we shouldn't be doing the budget. The revenue has to be done or you look at expenditure and they have to match. So it's just a process thing. It's, you know, I feel like I heard this and started bringing this up in March when we talked about bringing the consultant out and talking about the study. Two of the council, maybe three, weren't here for this great study. It's complicated. It's long. It gets into multiple things about different user types, applying the needs for each of ours. But it is industry standard. It is a comprehensive study. It did cost $82,000 for that study to analyze that. That's recommended every five years with the utilities across the country. Not every community can afford to do that to keep up. But one thing is for sure, if you don't keep up and you fall behind, it's gonna get caught up later. So deferring rates and not collecting enough, it might feel good this year, it's gonna feel worse down the road. So we tried to put all this information together for you to present. It's not an easy decision. I don't know of any community changing race that it's ever popular. No one likes to do this. It's a tough thing to do. It's not easy. But it is definitely justified and explained. It's late now, but I think down the road, if we want to have a consultant from HDR, we can probably get them by Zoom. There's a lot of factors that go into these and how they determine commercial versus out-of-district. Out-of-district rates are pretty extreme. It encourages people to annex or to not be outside the city limits. I don't know if that helps answer some of the questions you have, but we're here to try to respond to the audience.

Regardless of yes or no, regardless of how this goes, I'd like to see something done with these statements. In looking at other statements like Aspireville, something like that, they'll give you the actual usage times the amount that they're paying, that the person's paying. Then at the end, we get the taxes, we get the breakdowns of city tax, franchise tax, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. With the electric bill, you get electric. you use consumption 1721 amount 224 so then it then it goes to sewer and or no excuse me recycle feed then sewer it goes right down the list gives you amounts doesn't give you a breakdown for water rates for instance or electric rates and then at the end it just throws in sales tax sales tax on everything or is it just all partial so

regardless of yes or no on this vote i think that we need to get this cleaned up a little bit so that folks can actually see the difference instead of having to calculate it out themselves i'm hoping that with our new uh software system we can rectify some of those issues but one thing you gotta remember is we're dealing with multiple agencies here you know Yeah. Space is limited on there as to the amount of detail we can put on. Well, if you look, Spire's got the same page. That's your bill. Spire, that's gas company. We're doing water, sewer, electric.

Right. Recycle. No, I understand. But again, well, I'm assuming recycle, you wouldn't have to put recycle one times three. I think people get that. Trash pickup, they probably get that. I'm just saying... My main thing is water and electric and sewer. And you can surely get that on there when you consider, you look at these two. Now granted, the bottom piece has been torn off on me.

anyway i i don't think that's a good excuse and then our bills will look different once we get it yes so one of the features with all of the softwares we're looking at is we can actually go online and if we have them download our data we can actually look at your actual to date consumption to determine hey i've used this much water my bill is really high or it's low and those are features with the new softwares that are in addition to the statements will be different as long as they're easy to use for votes

We've got a lot of folks that are elderly in towns. It's just like the idea of going out there and pinning a pothole. You've got to actually sign in on an account to be able to say, hey, there's a pothole over here at this address instead of just clicking the button. So we've got to make this stuff easy so that our citizens will want to use it, and that also reduces costs.

Yeah, we're looking at most of the vendors. We do e-billing that eliminates our printing bills, mailing bills. Collection rates, they said, are average 70%. We could outsource the stuff we do in-house now. That's a pretty tremendous amount of printing and mailing. We don't get a discount rate for our current payment. So those are all things we're talking to those vendors about and want to have better solutions with the technology.

As a part of that race study, we did work to change our race structure to make it easier to calculate. Right. You know, instead of having so much as one rate and the next tier another rate, you know, that gets pretty complicated.

Well, I think that's where a lot of the confusion came in was because the first 8.5% that happened, then all the fixed charges got added on. Fixed charge for electric, fixed charge for water, fixed charge for sewer. So, in fact, your bill didn't go up 8.5%. It went up 8.5% plus another $85.00.

So, yeah, we're not talking just electric. We're talking water rates, sewer rates. All of our utilities are aging. They're not in premier condition. There are vast amounts of repairs, water lines, and DNR requirements, like the UV center, that requires a lot of capital expenditure and debt. But yeah, it's hard. We can't just say we're increasing just one electric utility. They're all enterprise funds, and they all work independently. You can't co-mingle and cross funds and mix all the money. And all of them are severely in need of additional repairs and increases. I don't know a good analogy. You could have a car that's got 150,000 miles, and all your tires are old, your brakes are bad. That's where our systems are at. Because of previous operating management and maintenance, our sewer system, this year we have four lift stations we've worked on. Most of them need work. It's not cheap. It's $8,000 a piece. But when you don't budget for those, and we haven't done this historically, the one we did with 12 was not touched since the 90s. And people don't like it when their sewer system is not working. A lot of our previous ways we did things was very reactionary and emergency. Hey, it's out. It's not working. Let's fix it. It will cost a lot more to do those things when it doesn't work than to proactively say, hey, three months from now, we're going to buy it. It's usually expensive. And so again, with electric, water, sewer, we really need to proactively kind of have a game plan. And in the long run, that saves citizens money.

Well, yeah. So for me, the hard point that I have is that it seems like everybody, like Sue mentioned, everybody has gotten used to the fresh rate increase a year ago. Still getting adjusted to that. We're going to up it another 8 and 1 half percent. The interesting thing on the rate study, to me, Again, I wasn't here for that, but looking down through it, the residential and the small commercial were actually making money. We were not losing money on those. It was 7% profit. We were losing money on large commercial and industrial to the tune of 21% on one, 35% on another. So the average is 8.5%. That's where the 8.5% came from. So we passed the burden on from the loss on the large commercial and the industrial onto the citizens. And I don't like that. But the other thing is just the timing. I don't like the $1 million transfer out of the one fund to cover $992,000 of capital improvements. And at the same time, we're asking for another 8.5% to boost the fund up to keep the fund level. So I just don't like it. I think spending less. You know, I want to give the guys what you guys need, but we've got a lot of irons in the fire right now, and it's just not a good look to me to move money around and then have to ask for another increase to keep the funds up. Let's just keep the funds there, spend less, and let it ride.

Those are the things staff's asking for. Their asks are very small for our needs. You know, some of that capital, it's not like the reserves of savings account like your personal finance. It's our operating account. That's what we pay our personnel. That's what we do our day-to-day. It's a fund. And the recommendation from FDUA is to have 180 days on reserves. And that's where the $3.2, $3.5 million comes from for reserves. And instead of taking debt, to pay for things we have to do, you use the cash on hand and you diminish that account down and you build it back up. We really should have more than that on hand, but when you have the cash in reserve, the million dollar transfer is paying for the meters and the equipment and a lot of the safety equipment and things that we should have already done. It's not a shell game, but it's, you know, when you have immense amount of infrastructure problems and equipment that we have to replace, Right now, we go to October 1st, we're out of funds for water repairs, we're out of street repairs, we're out of budget. That doesn't mean we're not gonna have water leaks and we're not gonna have street problems. We don't have any money to pay those, so we go in the red. And it's a budget, and we try to adhere to our budget, and we try to do those things encompassed in the budget. But those big things, all of the lift stations this year, it's hard to project that and understand that and when they start failing you can't say we're going to not pay for this and do it down the road but that's where we sit with utilities because they haven't been strongly managed and paid for and kept and the only way to get that is revenue and the revenue needs to come from somewhere so council or the citizens have a recommendation generally we try not to have more debt So the only other way really in those enterprise funds is to get it from the fees. This is recommended, this is not our recommendations, this is coming from a study we paid a lot of money for, the evaluator thing.

And then I once said revenue is not the problem, spending is the problem. And that's why got to find other ways of generating revenue or else you're going to lose the very people. We've got kids that cannot, and I say kids, out of college, whatever, can't afford to live here. We're losing the base that's going to be able to pay this stuff going forward or else we're going to be nailing every single one of these folks out here every year with another 8% because we can't afford because nobody can live here and afford it except for the older folks. And now you're getting to the point of the folks that are on Social Security, they can't afford it either. And so I'm sorry, but I'm just to the point to where we've got to do something else. Government is not supposed to be out there just doing nothing but taxing folks. And that's what we always end up doing. Oh, we can't do this. We can't do that. We've got to tax it. We've got to... We've got to find other ways. Cut costs, find other revenue sources, something.

Coming in as a newbie on this, I appreciate being able to go home and turn on a light switch and I have electricity when I walk in the door. It sucks that I'm coming in at a time where the city did not increase rates and now we're playing catch up. At some point, we have to catch up. Expenses aren't going to go down. I did not realize that the city has to purchase the power to sell to the patrons. That has increased over the years, and we didn't increase it to the patrons. At some point, we were playing catch up. So either we follow recommendations that we spent over $80,000 to get, or we fall behind even further, and five years down the road, we're going to have a 10% to 15% increase. I don't want that. I can swallow a $20 hike in my utility bill. 20 bucks. That's coffee. That is a pack of cigarettes. That's a case of beer. Your people even, my mother lives on Social Security. I get that. Can she cut something for $20? Yes. She has to have lights. She has to. She has to have utilities for her oxygen machine. That stuff has to happen. Do I like rate increases? No, I do not like rate increases. I don't want them any more than anybody else. But we have to keep up with paying the increases that the city's incurring. I mean, you say find other ways. Okay, give us an option. You say find other ways. I don't know where to find that. My job is to listen to you. There are heads right here. Okay, so we have a major disaster happen. Where are you going to get that million dollars?

Where are you going to get the new... Well, there's 3.4 right now. No, 3.9. 3.9? 3.9 in reserves that we're going to bump it up.

Right. We have those reserves now because we've started the 8.5% increase that was pulled back.

Plus the 20 to 25. But it's just 20 on electric, and then there's water, and then there's sewer.

It's not. It's not. It's hard when I hear it. quit spending when our system needs a lot of investment and it's spending money to upgrade it.

It's not... Do you want our utilities to start working like City Hall? Seriously.

No. Well said. I think we beat this to death for months and I think we need to go ahead and get a vote and then after that in the future we need to talk about how to be more thrifty. So let's Proceed with the vote and get on with our meeting.

I know this sounds ridiculous.

Okay, they suggest 8%. That is a suggestion that we should do. Yes. Is there some way we can not have it at 8% and be somewhat a little lower?

They recommend 8, 8, and 3 years of 3 as a minimum. You could do 10. You could have done 20 last year. You could do 5 every year after this year. We're not going to, if we're sure, we're going to be required to come back and raise the rates again. This is just kind of a safety net to cover what we know is existing. And those are now questions for me and the staff. I don't know. I'm not the rate study expert. I have the information here that you paid to have done. It meets all the national standards. It's holistic. It's a minimum recommended. I've been in communities where we have water recommendations, and the first year the council did it, and then they didn't do it anymore. And then we started having water problems and major repair costs. and just ratchet the bills up because you don't have a choice. You want to be proactive and try to do some of these things as best you can before they get here. I don't have a crystal ball and I wish I could tell you that it's going to be hard or it's going to be easy. It's not. With our system, it's never going to be simple and easy because we have a lot of things that have to be updated and fixed.

But I think to get the train back on the tracks that's taken this long to get this far off, to get it back on the tracks in two years, that's where I'm at. It's too much to quit.

But it's not two years. It's two years of age and then 333. Considering that the consumer price index is at 4.2%, we're not gaining anything at 333. We're losing ground again at that rate. So we have to be proactive. Well, that includes oil. We have to be proactive and do what we paid for with the rate studies. We paid a huge amount and it took a long time to get that done. And these are professional people that know a lot more than anybody sitting here on this council. And I tend to trust them in what they recommend and our city staff in what they recommend yeah it sucks when you have to bite the bullet but we're doing that because people didn't do a great job in the past and you can look around this town and see exactly what i'm talking about so i want to do things right be proactive and get our city back to where it should be okay when i first got on

Actually, it's really up to a council. We even said that a council can determine the direction that a city goes. That's where we're at. This is where we're at right now. And I know for a fact, when I first got on, I was told by staff that the city should have at least increased every single year 2%, every single year. And I'm sitting there going, that's 2%. This was back in 2018. I'm like, really? So we did it. So we ended up having to do 5%. I don't know if you know, but all I know is it takes balls to do this. And we can, it's a 3-2, whichever direction, we can decide, okay, let's not, let's do what the people want. We can do that. Is that what's best? Now, grant you, most of the people in this community tend to let things go bad before they do any progress. They don't. I've got an air conditioner in my office right now. Oh, yeah.

I'm sitting right here.

Go ahead, Becky. It's her fault. I'm not saying the concrete's getting paid.

That's fine. I don't mind.

I have to wear stuff like this anyway. But anyway, I can't get an upgraded one because it has to fail. It's just weak. So I understand that. I get it. You can't get one because it's not broke.

That's right. It's not broke. It's not broke. And she shouldn't have brought that up with you.

She should have talked behind your back. But anyway, so that's where we're at. So just in a simple form, that's where we're at.

So that's what we're fighting on. Let's vote. All right.

All those in favor of passing Bill 2026-19, say aye. Aye. All those opposed?

Nay.

All right, that takes us to Bill 2026-1.

So, Bill 2026-20, an ordinance for the city of Cameron, Missouri, repealing the current water rates and establishing new water rates for consumers of the Cameron U.S. Equal Utilities.

I will entertain a motion to pass Bill 2026-20. So moved. Second.

Discussion? So we have Zach and Dan here who both are tied to Genwick and This is more set by the USDA and our requirement to pay back and have the reserve in the water account. So they require a 1.2 or 120% rate of your operating. So they basically calculate this out where our closing costs and all of the loan and all of the project costs for us to make our payments to Genwick. Genwick pays that, they give us a bill. The city kind of floats the difference. Our gen with contract took effect this next month. The bill will hit this next month. Last month it was $92,000, I think. Next month it's $325,000. $320,000-ish. So that's to start to begin the payment. We did raise rates to kind of pool some funds to cover that gap, and it's helping us with the project. So if you turn to the page with the red highlights, again here, The residential small commercial is going from $36 to $37, and it's going up large commercial $1.50 from $48 to $49.50. The use is going up $0.39 per thousand, so it's going from $12.90 to $13.29. If you want to look through all those, the industrial rates, The industrial and out-of-district rates are higher, as the consultant recommended. And again, this is following the recommendations in the study. But it's also tied, the study was done knowing that the Genwick project was going to have those projections. And they're fairly accurate to where the projections were. I don't believe we're going to be too high or too low. If it is lower, we will come back and bring that to the council. Zach, I don't, ma'am, did you want any further explanation? Do you serve on the committee, on the council for Genwick? So she gets to hear all that. And if you want to... This one's a little less... It's kind of like the USDA requires us to do this. It's not as much of a... We're not making payments until the grant and the project is closed out.

And I'll kind of touch on that. In order to finalize this project, USDA requires us to set that rate in place. So we've made some assumptions as to what this final cost is going to be, and we've shot high. Now, the other thing is, and so there's the potential that once the project closes and we don't use all that final money, that final debt service rate will be lower than what the rate we have projected for general. Not the rate you're considering, but for general, which again, in turn saves the city money. The other advantage that, you're right, we don't have that loan to pay back now, but we're going to collect that money that can be used for the debt service requirement for the project. And so the project's going to require, as Scott mentioned, the project's going to require us to have basically one year's payment in a savings account for the life of the project. Once we get that funded, then we no longer have to charge that money to the customers. And so we can potentially bring that rate down even a little bit lower.

Yeah, and so what Zach is specifically talking about is actually one of the only ways that that rate can kind of go down, and we actually did that with another wholesale water commission that both Zach and I work with, where after eight years, they had fully funded their debt service reserve fund. They were able to put collecting debt service reserve amount, and it did decrease the overall cost of purchase water for the members. So building that fund quickly is the one route to Honestly, because everything, cost of everything increases, this specifically Genwick and this Genwick water rate is subject to Missouri American water rate, so buying from Missouri American. So getting that one thing that you can control, which is the debt service fund, fully funded, is the way to increase your water rate.

When is that projected to be fully funded? We'll talk about that later. The nice thing about it is we're going to collect this money that we're not having to make a payment for, so we're able to bank all that money into this reserve account. And they won't tell us what the reserve account number is yet?

No, we won't let them tell us until the final cost. And then it's usually one... year with a little bit of change of uh debt service payments right so for the other commission that we're talking about of this just to show that over a thousand dollars needed to sit in that account and once that account was funded the two dollars per thousand i want to think like our our deficit requirements can be similar to two million dollars because you got a more expensive project but Once that's funded, that is the one thing that the commission actually controls in terms of . I know decreasing rates is something that is not said a lot, so I wanted to make sure that we brought up an example of that actually happening in Northwest Missouri with the same capacity.

Any other questions or comments? All right. All those in favor pass the bill 2026-20. Say aye. Aye. All those opposed.

Nay.

Three in favor.

Two opposed.

That takes us to bill 2026-21.

Bill 2026-21, an ordinance for the city of Cameron, Missouri, repealing the current sewer use rates and establishing new sewer use rates for consumers of the Cameron Municipal Utility.

I will entertain a motion to pass Bill 2026-21. So moved.

Second.

Discussion?

So again, similar to the water rate, the sewer is calculated based on consumption. Their current rate is $36 for small commercial and residential homes. It would go up $1 to $37. Large commercial would go from $48 to $49.50. And the usage fees would go up from $12.90 to $13.29, so $0.39 per 1,000 gallons. The industrial rate is quite a bit higher. It would go up $2 from 72 to 74. And then for the Clinton County Public Water Supply District, District Number 3 and District Number 3 Resale to District Number 2, they have a fixed rate because they do not have the meter. Their rates go on from $920 a month to $976 per month. and a usage fee of $0.28 per thousand, so it's going from $9.48 to $9.76 per thousand. Sorry about that, I got it on the wrong end. Cost of sewer charge is $2.30, so it's going from $20 to $22.30, $40 to $44.60, so you're looking at roughly 3-ish percent. Keith's not here, but do you have anything, Zach? It's hard because all these utilities are individual enterprise funds, so you've got to think they're columns. We have extra money in the same money this year on sewer, we did it on water. You can't just co-manual the funds and transfer between them. They all act independently. And for all honesty, we're like a non-profit. We don't We don't do work for profit, we do work for service, and we try to cover our costs, but the problem is is all the delayed deferred maintenance, and DNR comes to us, and sewer's particularly bad because DNR has mandates coming. What do you think, 10 years, Zach, is what they're saying on the?

Yeah, there's potential like that that we've talked about, and again, I bring up every chance I get that a new sewer plant is in Cameron's future. Probably sooner rather than later. Yeah, we're hoping 10 years, but that one is coming. We'll no longer be able to meet the existing requirements.

Which I don't know if people understand what that really means.

That means a big increase in sewer.

Either that or we don't have sewer.

I don't know if that is an option.

Oh, I know. Well, there's always an option.

DNR will take it over and then DNR will make sure that you pay for those items. and so what could have been this much will be this much.

It's hard because we look at rates in other small communities around us. We're a larger entity, so when our population and our size gets to certain criteria, we have different mandates and requirements because of our volumes.

All right, any other comments? All those in favor pass the bill 2026-21. Say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed.

Say aye.

Three in favor, zero opposed. Two opposed. All right. That takes us to Bill 2026-22. Shelley.

Bill 2026-22, an ordinance approving the City of Cameron, Missouri, budget of the ensuing fiscal year, October 1, 2026 to September 30, 2027. I will entertain a motion to pass Bill 2026-22 on a first reading. So moved. Second. Discussion.

The more I look at this budget, along with the utility rates and everything that was going on, and the fact that we're getting ready to talk about City Hall, without getting the cart ahead of the horse, I don't know how we're going to fund City Hall and that project, along with all of the other capital improvements and everything else that has to get done. It is a very expensive project. City Hall, the way it sits, is a very expensive line item in our budget per month. And I don't like that we're going to be potentially building two more buildings, building projects, while we can't finish one. So, you know, I don't know. I just, I don't like it.

One of the buildings, I did find out that the GT building, we talked, whatever it's called now, Bright Spot or whatever, but GT's old building, I know that they are looking to sell it. That was something I just found out after last time.

I think it's a new thing that they came up with. We passed our information on to them that they are interested in

And that would be a good area. And it would be a lot cheaper than, I would assume, it would be a lot cheaper than building. So, just something to think about before we go to spending. And we do have so many different things that we're working on right now. I can get this in golf bags. Sooner we get anything, we also have monthly fees that we're paying Bank Midwest we can get rid of.

So I agree with that completely. And I'd like to get all this cleaned up. I'd like to get the 3rd Street downtown all cleaned up. I'd like new businesses to buy into that, new construction. And we're doing housekeeping for neglect of the past. And I think this is just what you have to do when you step into this position. And I look forward to getting everything back in order and functioning the way it's supposed to, just like the police department. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and do the right thing and get things put in order. And this is the way to do it.

So are we going to try to remove it?

We're not. Capital expenditures he's talking about.

Let's first see if we can pass the budget.

So much as it is, and then if it doesn't pass, then you can pick up what's not.

Where is it in the budget? City Hall.

We have a proposed debt service amount in the budget to pay for an annual financing cost if we were to borrow funds to complete the City Hall project.

So we're going more in debt. And we can stop that, or at least a portion of that.

And so I believe the monthly report said that we had roughly $1.82 million in reserves in general fund. So that would be something that we will be deciding when we get some of these amounts. How much of that would we want to spend down? What level would we be comfortable for? How much more will we need? to finish the building and we have in this budget a proposed amount of $100,000 which would be an annual payment amount on a undisclosed possible debt service funding to finish the building in the time of action. And that is funds we have in-house today. So built in this budget is the first years of a debt service payment if we were to need to borrow money in the next fiscal year.

I don't like borrowing money towards a project when we have the money to do it if we don't spend it first on other things. And that is where...

But if you wipe out your reserves and a disaster happens, you're screwed.

That's not what you're talking about. I didn't say reserves.

I also said that once we get these numbers, we need to determine what that level is that we want to spend down so we would not spend everything we have on the building and be in a position to where disaster does finally hit us and we don't have any way to pay for it no we don't want to i do not think we want to be in that position so but we do have a little bit of leeway where we could fund this first stage of the project.

But to me, City Hall is a capital improvement project. So it's going to happen. I really, I'm not the type of person that says no to something if something is desperately needed. But where I'm at right now is unless everybody has some skin in the game, more debt more paying down general funding and everything else i just i don't see it um and i'm really to the point that if if we cut down all the capital improvements clear across the board all the way down to the bare minimums city hall is funded and we don't have to take down the general fund the general fund to nothing we can leave it alone and pass everything off to them yeah it's going to sell these utility capital projects or

general fund capital.

None of those departments are in the general fund.

Enterprise funds that you can't co-mingle between general funds.

We always borrowed from them because we did that before to buy the property. Had no problems there. Which you didn't want to do, right? Well, but we're not borrowing from a bank and having a bank interest. Bank interest.

We will have to pay a small amount in the front interdepartmental. We will have to pay a small amount.

How much? We're paying a fair market rate. We're paying a fair market rate now for the plan, but we haven't been referred to it. Well, I understand that.

You'll get your same amount, and you'll like it.

I mean, rebuilding city halls like us personally buying a house. I don't have the capacity to use my savings to buy a home. I have to get a mortgage. This is how divisible capital projects work.

This is how come we're raising taxes on everybody. It's because we have $80 million in debt. That's why we've got to have a tax that people have to pay approximately by the time you end up throwing in Genwac. Genwac isn't our product. It is. It's I'll continue to argue that point, but we're going to have people coming up here and voting to pay the debt. So, anyway, whatever.

Just, we can, whatever you want to do at this point. Most of the capital requests are essential operating things to fix and replace meters and vehicles that are dilapidated and it's not like we're just spending money to spend money. These are essential requests. We had the public hearing. We went through several budget meetings. It's up to you. You each have an individual vote. Staff has, you know, we did not get direction to change things throughout this process much. In my opinion, we followed what you directed to be done with the budget. So we brought that to you and we're happy to revisit it. Let's vote on it.

All right. All those in favor of passing Bill 2026-22 on first reading, say aye. Aye. All those opposed?

Nay.

Three in favor. Two. Two. All right. I guess I'm sitting here. All right. All right. That's it.

This is the Bill 2026-23. Shelley. Bill 2026-23, an ordinance authorizing an amendment to the agreement by and between the City of Cameron, Missouri and Alliance Water Resources, Inc. for management and operations services of the Cameron Water and Wastewater Preservation.

I will entertain a motion to pass Bill 2026-23 on a first reading. So moved. Second. Discussion?

Thank you, Ms. Mayer. As you guys know, every year we came back and offered an amendment to the conduct of line of support resources to reflect the cost of the upcoming year. This year is a little bit different because we did expand the scope halfway through the year. So again, now we're doing, we've also taken on the water distribution, sewer collection and water treatment plant. So for the remainder part of this year and kind of looking at next year, we kind of kept those contracts kind of separate because we wanted to be able to carry over the proposal that we gave you for the first year of operating those additional services. We wanted to carry that over into next year. So we kind of looked at it a little bit differently. And so if you would assume keeping that amount the same. And then just looking at the individual sewer piece, we had a little bit of increase on some of the sewer side. So bottom line, it looked at about 0.8% increase from what would have been the previous year. That falls pretty closely in line with what we've had in the past. Again, like I said, it's about $17,000 increase. We've had increases between 42, 29, 6, 12. So again, it kind of falls in line with what increases you've had in the past. And that was, again, something we wanted to work on. We were able to keep some of the costs down with kind of on the salary and wages and benefits side. We've got some things that we were able to reduce costs a little bit there. But repair costs have increased. Things are getting older. We've had a few more expenses this year that we have to take care of. But again, like I said, we were trying to keep it as close to zero as we could. Currently, you're sitting at about $70,000 refund, but we still have the large repair that we did in front of the bank, and that hasn't been. So that's probably going to take most of your refund. We will work really hard to make sure that I don't come back here in December and say, give us a little bit of money. I think we're going to be closed, but we'll work on that. So again, still doing good there. And again, just to remind you that this is a full refund contract, so whatever money you don't spend in this contract, it all comes right back to you. So, there you have it. Any questions?

That was good. That was that one.

Any questions for Zach? Any comments? Discussions? All those in favor pass the bill 2026-23. Say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Passes by the favor. That takes us to bill 2026-24. Shelley.

BILL 2026-24, AN ORDINANCE FOR THE CITY OF CAMBRIDGE RESERVE PRESENTING IN ITS ENTIRETY ARTICLE 8 CAMBRIDGE COMMUNITY CENTER BOARD OF CHAPTER 2 ADMINISTRATIONS OF THE CITY OF CAMBRIDGE CODE.

I WILL ENTERTAIN A MOTION TO PASS BILL 2026-24 ON THE FIRST READING. SO MOVED. SECOND. DISCUSSION.

I guess I'll take this one. Oh, I'm sorry.

I actually wrote it up. We did spell the community fair building last Thursday. This is the section of the code that sets up and requires that community center board. It's no longer required. So this just takes it out. Yep.

Sounds good.

Thanks, Mike.

Good job. Got rid of that part of the budget, too. Yeah. All right.

All those in favor of passing Bill 2026-24 in the first reading, say aye. Aye. All opposed? Four in favor, zero opposed.

Okay, so for Resolution 2026-33, Shelley, Resolution 2026-33, a resolution accepting the bids for the City of Camden for the Fall Exterior Improvement Project and awarding the bid to J.R. & Co. Inc. I will entertain a motion to pass Resolution 2026-33.

Second. Second.

yeah this is for our exterior renovations for city hall jr and company this is going to take care of the doors the waterproofing of the brick so that doesn't need to be removed then they'll put the new siding on the new windows this is all including in that and then their bid come in we only have the one bid and come in at one million five hundred five hundred thirty thousand six hundred and ninety eight dollars any questions about that and when that's done that's it for the outside right yes okay or is that going to be

We'll have to put the concrete back.

That's what I was going to ask next, was concrete work and stuff. We'll do ourselves? Possibly. Possibly.

Probably not with this plaza, I know. Okay. We'll have those kind of forms to do that. Okay. Any idea of the cost on that?

Just, you might know.

Okay. As soon as, I talked to Carl of JR Company, and as soon as he tells me a timeline, That's what I want to hear. We're ready. Yeah, let's get this thing going.

I was just going to say, we will be coming back with a contract. This is just to award the bid. Sure. And give them an opportunity to get all their required documents that they need before we do a contract.

Okay. Completion thing.

That's in the contract. That's in the contract.

This is just to award the bid. They've got to get us all the funding and insurance and that stuff. Okay. He thought that they could get the windows, you know, if they ordered them as soon as everything got in place, the resolutions, all that, they thought that they could get the windows ordered and they could be here within a month.

Cool.

Any other questions, comments? All those in favor of passing resolution 2026-33 say aye. Aye. All opposed? Passes 4-0.

That takes us to Resolution 2026-34. Shirley? Resolution 2026-34, a resolution authorizing the City Manager of the City of Cameron, Missouri to enter into a contract agreement with Vance Brothers LLC for the 2026 Cape Seal Street Improvement Project. I will undertake a motion to pass Resolution 2026-34.

So moved. Second. Discussion?

Thank you, Mayor and Council. This is our 26th CAPE-CEO project for certain streets throughout the city. Vance Brothers, they were the only bid that we got. There's many that even knew this type of work around. Their bid come in at $183,176.32. This will be taken out. This was budgeted for with our half-cent sales tax on it. We always should wish I think it was right around three little over three lane miles is what this will cover so. They will get on it pretty quick. They said they would be here around the middle of September.

Any other questions? All those in favor of passing resolution 2026-34 say aye. Aye.

All right, that takes us to our second public participation.

Hey, folks. Sean Shaughnessy, 712 South Sloan Street, Hazel Reserve.

No, I am not a citizen of Camden. However, as you all know, you're the 800-pound gorilla in the region and everything that all the development, everything that happens in our community, in Maysville, in Hamilton, north, south, east, and west, that basically means that... You guys have a very, very serious part in that, and that's why I love coming to the meetings. Prior to a couple of months ago, I was the editor of the papers, and it wasn't appropriate for me to make a comment, but today it is. First of all, thank you. You folks up here, you have a thankless job in many ways, so I do certainly appreciate the opportunity to visit with your report, what you're going to come back with, and hopefully things are going well for you. The problem that it seems we have here as far as taxes are concerned is that we have, as my mom used to say, champagne tastes on a beer pocket. But I'm not so certain that we even have champagne tastes. I think we have tastes that just simply mean that we need to keep on keeping on, if you will. And the simple fact of the matter is that the infrastructure in this town is crumbling. We have delayed costs. We have delayed and deferred costs. We do not have any plans. We do not have a comprehensive plan. You guys have, over there in Mr. Mazaros, you guys have a fantastic public administrator. And he comes and he gives you recommendations every single two weeks. And when we had an opportunity to put a plan together, some of our members of this council, this year's council, said, well, why would we waste time with that? And gang, we look like a frigging pinball machine with the ball going ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. We don't have our focus anywhere. absolutely nowhere. We are focusing on what problem is giving us an ouch right now. And unfortunately, when you're running a community that has a tax structure and a source of revenue the size of Cameron, that is just not a really good way to run things. So I urge you guys, please listen to professionals that you have hired to help guide you. The other thing that I want to really emphasize here is the fact that with that aging infrastructure, we have to repair things, but we don't have any new forms of tax revenue. We keep on coming back and saying, how can we cut things? How can we cut things in the face of 4.7 CPI? How do you do that? I understand no one wants to pay more in taxes. Absolutely not. I don't want to pay any more taxes than you do. But the fact of the matter is that Mr. Raines over there should be the most important person in the room. When Mr. Raines says, absolutely, EDOC, economic development, economic development, and it should be a regional project. Smart minds from Maysville, smart minds from Hamilton, smart minds from Gallatin, smart minds from Plattsburgh. We need to sit down and develop a way that we can all work together And get these minds together and start generating tax revenue. New opportunities for manufacturing and distribution jobs. And take advantage of the crossroads of the nation. As opposed to simply looking at simple things. Oh, well, we want to redevelop Third Street. Great. Get that crap out of there. Dan, come on. The simple fact of the matter is that every time that Lance says that I need a break, you should be asking him, how can I help you? How can I help you? Every time you walk in a room, you should say, well, how's the weather out there? No, by the way, how is Lance doing with developing new forms of revenue? That new revenue solves problems. Businesses go out of business because revenue dries up. Cities get into financial problems when revenue dries up. There's only so much you can cut in the face of CPI that continues to increase and increase in a devalued dollar. It's time to step up and start looking and start shopping and start, frankly, selling the wonderful things about this town. Look at what we have. My goodness gracious. I-35 and 36, there is no reason why we should have truck after truck after truck moving through here, and not just truck stops. Not just truck stops. We should have XPO logistics. Why is that in DeKalb County and not here? I'm happy for that. You guys should be really mad. Again, you have a thankless job. I appreciate the opportunity to speak, and I hope you will take Scott's recommendation and build a comprehensive plan with action steps. Thank you for your time.

I just got a couple questions because it comes back to a couple months ago when the presiding commissioner came in here and told you guys, he was a little upset with you. He told you to quit giving the farm away to all these companies, i.e. the truck stop. And you, the city manager, mentioned that we had a couple businesses that cost the city of Cameron, i.e. marijuana, grow, and a truck stop. Why are we not going after these companies instead of the people, the little people? I don't understand that. So put the cost back on the companies that want to come in here instead of giving them everything away like we did. Love didn't pay any of that. Give it back to them. Make them pay for it. Quit making the citizens pay for these guys. They're going to make millions of dollars and not give anything back to us. That makes no sense. It's no wonder we're losing. And for years, we kept telling everybody we were 10,000 people. We're 50, 800. We kept calling these prisons our population. They did nothing for us either. Nothing. You guys as the city council have got to get this figured out. You keep blaming the ones in the past. It's still you guys. You're the council. You work for the people of this town. Start going back up to the people that are costly here, not the tax payers. Pretty simple. Thank you.

the city limits, but I've got one of the oldest businesses in town, a barbershop on 308 East 3rd Street. Been there 63 years. My customers, and I'm glad I'm a small commercial, because my water bill has only tripled in the last six months, so I'm glad I'm a small commercial. But my customers, 75 to 80 percent of them are like family to them. I know something personal about them. They tell me more things than I really need to know. And I want to go back to what Mickey was talking about. Give you one example of a lady, and I could give you 25, 30, 40, 50 more of them just like her. She's 67 years old. She's lived in the same house I know for 60 years. I've known her for 55 years. She's a widow lady now. Her income last year, Social Security, a little less than $1,400 a year. A month. Only income yet. I hear counsel and a lot of people in Cameron say, oh, we want to do things so that people can have a quality of life in Cameron. I want to tell you about this lady. She's got a car she don't drive. Can't afford the insurance and the upkeep on gas. Her son and grandson. She's fortunate she's got a son and grandson that drive. You talk about your air conditioner. 87 years old, this lady is. She don't use her air conditioner. Why? Her utilities are too high. Her utilities are too high. On her house, which is probably 70, 75 years old, she's still got insurance. She's still got upkeep on her house. She still has to pay the high price of groceries and all that stuff. All on a $1,400 a month Social Security check. I want you to think about what you've done tonight and what you're going to do tonight. Tell me the quality of life that lady has living in good old Cameron, Missouri, where her water bill's going up, her sewer bill's going up, her light bill's going up, everything else is going up. She's fortunate that she's got somebody to drive her. That's all I've got to say. I say, I live outside of state limits, but I've been in Cameron 63 years around that barber chair up there. I know something about most of my customers. I know something personal about most of you. And it's not bad, I'll be telling you. But anyway, just think about the hundreds of people that we've got like that lady that she talked about, and I know. Thank you.

All right, that takes us to miscellaneous comments from staff.

Thank you all for serving on the council and the time and consideration that you have put into this discussion tonight. It's to be reckoned with, thank you.

As Scott brought up, community center sold last Thursday. We got that one and we got Barnett's. We're going to have to sign a easement on that, on both those properties just for getting in and out. And so everybody's been informed and we're moving ahead. And just wanted you guys to know that. And I've also been working on the FMY invoices. for their 353 that they did a few years ago. I finally totaled the three different sets of invoices and got them all together. And so I've moved them up the ladder and delivered the old invoices back to them today. So they're no longer in our hands and they have them back. And I've also sent them all of the invoices and PDFed them throughout. I'd like to get that one done as well. So, other than that, we're going to generally get the rest of it done.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Just give you a quick end of the season pool report. We were open a total of 79 days of operation this year. Just like last year, we ran 79 as well. Out of those 79, we had 64 days that we were totally open. those 14 we closed partially due to weather and one of those days we didn't open at all because of the weather and we had roughly 14 pool parties throughout the year that we served uh pretty good season on all in all like scott said we just closed this last weekend and maryville closed brookfield closed and chillicothe chili bay all closed on the same week all lost our kids going back to school and sports and everything else. So it was a good season, another good season. We are waiting for the water to reach pH levels and stuff and probably this week we'll start draining it and we'll start tire washing it once we get it drained again and whatnot. So Other than that, fall soccer and fall baseball is getting ready to kick up, so we'll be attending the baseball fields and the soccer fields, getting them painted, and getting ready for the kids to play in the fall. Unless you guys got questions for me, we're still mowing with all the rain. I did lose two of my summer outs, so we're down to just a few guys. If it gets a little tall, we'll get to it.

National Night Out was a success. Thank you, Parks, for allowing us to use Summerville. Also, the ADA for the doors here, for the training room and the front doors, will soon be fixed. So we should be good from there. That's all I have.

No matter. If you guys have a report in your pocket, if there's any questions, let me know. And again, just a quick note on that. If there's something that's not in there that you want to see, let us know. If there's something in there that you go, I don't care to see this, let us know. We can cut some of this if you want. But again, all in all, like I said, things have been going pretty good. We've been able to make a good headway on the main side of the thing. But again, if you have any questions, let me know.

Thanks, Matt. This is a little late, but I want to thank Ira. He got to sign up for Dairy Queen. Tony, the ballparks are out there. Now you know where you're going, don't you?

That's a barbershop. That only took me two months and four different people to talk to the Dairy Queen, and I didn't speak one language. Anyway, we got it back. Street Boys helped me put it up. They did good.

I just want to remind everybody it is a five Monday month. So our next meeting will not be until the Tuesday after Labor Day. So September 8th. September 8th. Also, I believe Carmen is working on her individual budget adjustment. Sometime in the next week or two, we'll be scheduling a finance committee work session. So we'll be reaching out to you.

I don't have anything for myself but I do want to thank many hands for her commitment to the council to the city she just found out that she had a major loss of a family member well we're sitting here right here in this meeting but then She decided just to stick this out so that we can all do the business of the city. And I just admire her so much for that. And you saw her how touched she was by it. But I'm really proud of her. She did a great job. That's all I have.

I got something that's kind of... Council, I asked you about uh investing last time i have not had time to track that down i'm sorry about what i need to invest in i'm sorry what the risk what what risk level right another way to generate that helps all know carmen and carmen is here she's uh she's invited so i'm just uh no i understand that i i and i know she has worked with folks on that on the bond expo. I'm just wondering legally how much further we can go or not. Anyway, the other thing I just want to encourage any chance we get to be using the web helping folks make it easier to utilize the web and the internet I know that's also another way to lower the costs for the city for anything with the more we use the web it's it's less need and less stress on our reps that we have so those are things that anyway okay okay well he's somewhere else but maybe that anyway so that's something that he'll have to work on once we get everything taken care of up there at City Hall let's get that fixed first and one of the things One of the other things that I've been looking at, and I don't know exactly where to start with this because I'll be honest with you, I'm not perfect. I know that may be hard to believe. But I'm looking at affordability for Cameron. We need to find a way to make it more affordable for younger folks and older folks. Again, I go back to you've got to have the younger folks if we're going to continue to build And we can't displace our older folks that have made Cameron great for the last 30, 40, 50 years. So I don't know all the answers with this, but I think we've got to figure out somehow to work with whether it's banks and insurance companies and real estate. I don't know exactly. I'm still digging. If anybody's got any ideas. I'm open to hear it. I've been working with one person so far. She's kind of given me some ideas and suggestions that, like she said, it's not like she's not a professional at all the other things. So if there's anything anybody can think about from an affordability standpoint where we can actually work together and maybe coexist government the private sector to do some of these things that would be great and I'll just end it by saying the other thing is we can only tax so much before people are just going to either have to leave or leave whether they want to or not so that's it for me I've been doing this for a long time and it seems like I'm always hitting the no button on a lot of these taxes but the fact of the matter is I think there's better ways to do it so it's all yours well I just want to thank you all for coming I don't really have anything I appreciate the good dialogue the debate and I appreciate your concern about our community and that's all to you

I will now entertain a motion to close our current meeting to go into executive order.

Thank you for everybody coming out.

Sure, sure. Sure.

I think there is a way.