City Commission - Regular Meeting

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Yeah, that's probably You should check all Get over there. There's the problem. Why are you calling? Why would you tell me later?

You know, like why would I do that? Next thing Yeah.

Sometimes they won't crack. Then they start cracking to them. Yes. So I kept it. I mean, I listen. My phone told me to keep it away. 68 hours later. When did you notice that it was frozen? Probably back when they were 65. No, that's what I was. Yeah. Like, oh, sure. We get one week of course. It takes you. I wasn't cuz you don't better start using it now. Okay. 7 o'c. Okay. We're here meeting to order.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Are there any additions or corrections to the consent calendar tonight? So a second. Second. Call roll. Commissioners Garvis. Hi. York. Hi. Carlson. Hi. May Lstrom. Hi.

Are there any visitors to be heard tonight about anything that is not on the agenda? Hi. I'm gonna be um speaking for myself and my husband. Um it is tilted. Is it on? You want to pull it down a little bit for you? There you go. Maybe that'll work better.

Sherry and Doug McKenna from Canton. Um, mayor, members of the city commission and staff, we are here to present concerns of many of my neighbors, both families and businesses, regarding the proposed plan to annex our area into the city limits. While we understand that annexation is a tool for city growth and service expansions, we feel this process needs to be transparent. We don't want residents and businesses operating on rumors or incomplete information. We have serious questions about this in how this will impact property taxes, utility service, and our general neighborhoods. We need to have a direct forum to ask these questions and the decisions to you to the decision makers. Therefore, we are formally requesting the city commission hold a dedicated in-person public meeting specifically for the residents and businesses of the affected areas for collaboration and a transparent dialogue. A public meeting is crucial to address among other things number one fiscal impact, a clear breakdown of the new taxes versus the service benefits. Number two, infrastructure. how the city plans to manage roads, water, and sewage. Three, governance. A clear explanation of what city regulations will apply to our properties and how these will affect affect our properties. We need to understand how this annexation will serve both the city and us the current residents. We deserve to know what a move into the city limits means for our homes, family, and businesses. We ask that you as our representatives ensure

that this is a process that this process is done with us and not to us. So we will be waiting for your response regarding uh to having this scheduled public meeting and the sooner this is um done in the beginning of the process than later in the process because transparency is key. Thank you. There you go. Is there anything you want to talk about that? We not even ready for that. Okay. Any anybody else have anything to say that isn't on the agenda? Okay. We'll move forward. We have presentation tonight. Um final action report for bicycle and pedestrian and safety. Is that you, Lisa?

Yeah. And this is for relating to a R a AARP grant. Yes. Okay.

Last summer, um the chamber received a $2,500 grant to do a bicycle and pedestrian safety audit and the trails committee did receive 2500 also for their project. Um there was a packet turned into city hall. Um there were five of us that partake part par parttook in the audit. Um we focused due to the fact that we know some infrastructure needs to be done in our community before we can actually put in some real bike paths to get around the city and that. So we focused on safety areas which was our downtown area here between Cedar and all the way to Dakota. Um there's a lot of concern from parents that I received um their kids trying to get across that street and what has been approved um by the state is a vertical type yield sign to pedestrians and we would like to see if first we got to go through state approval. Um, but DOT has been aware of this project because I reached out to them to find out what we would be able to use on that road. Um, for safety purposes.

Are you talking about 18?

Yes. Um, we focused on, like I said, on the downtown area. Um, each of the intersections had faults. One, our crosswalks are not there anymore. They're extremely faded and after doing this audit, I did find out that those will be painted this spring. So that does help some safety concerns. And something else we realize too is a lot of people like to cross right in the middle of the street instead of going to the crosswalks, which is rather dangerous. Um because you see how some of these semis come through our town. Um the only safe intersection we had was where the stoplight is. Um all the other intersections you have to pull out quite a ways to see due to the way the parking is. So if it's a busy day downtown, it's very difficult to get out from some of those intersections along with having our children having to creep out into the road as far as they do to see if it's safe to cross. Um, with this we will be going city approval. Um, I would like to move forward and go to the state for approval for signage. Um, with this grant, we will be able to fund those signs. We're not asking for any money. That's what that $2,500 is to be used for. Um, in long term, we would like to see some bike trails in town.

Lisa, I got a question on those signs. Is that something that's going to go up and down or is it going to get really kind of lost in the landscape if it stays there all the time? That I need to get further information from DOT about these signs, but these were the signs that they like these is what they had approved. But I'm just wondering, are they going to be up and down and just all the time up or what?

Well, especially through the summer months, I'd like to see them up all the time. Winter, I don't think we can keep them up with trying to snowplow and stuff, but through the summer months, I would really like to see them up so that the kids can get back and forth across town easily. We used them in Harrisburg on Willow Street with the county road there. You know, much narrower, but it helped out there. I've seen them used in school zones on state highways before. Fort Pier Pier used them around the Capitol complex on the crosswalk. Put those in the middle of the road.

Yeah, right in the middle of the crosswalk. It draws the most attention to it. So yeah, I see that we're going to need DOT sign off on it, but I don't I I think we'll get it. I'd like to use them, too, on Dakota Street where our crosswalks are on what Elder and Oh, yeah. Oh, by the school. Yes. Third land. Yeah. Dakota Street would be another good spot for it. How much are they per sign?

Well, depending on which company you look for for pricing. Um, one company came back at 337 bucks a piece. Um, Uniline was, depending on how many we buy, um, $43 a piece. So, that's probably too cheap, right? Yeah. Blow away the first big window. Yeah. Either way, your 2500 will cover a Yes. cover all the signs that we need. Okay. But part of the grant was I'm supposed to come to the city and present our our findings and let you know what we're working on. So So you don't need anything from us. You'll order the signs and work with DOT to get permission.

Yep. Okay. I just needed to let you know what we had done and what we found and that there's some concerns. Can't hurt. No, it can't. Thank you.

Thanks, Lisa. Okay, now I'll move on to old business and that's the scoreboards at the West Ball Diamonds. Um, this has been tabled a couple times. Deon, your chicken. Oh. Uh, my name is Darren Hill, 1100 Eastland Avenue. Um, I come Devin and I came to represent the Camp Baseball Association. I know this has been tabled a couple times. Uh I was unable to make it because of basketball games and conflict and uh uh they didn't work out. Uh when Devin presented the first time I know they asked us to go out and ask for matching funds. I uh reached out to Coca-Cola and asked them what they had to offer. And my Coca-Cola rep said that they no longer do scoreboards. Uh, he said, "I wouldn't say never, but it's got to be a lot bigger venue than what we have on there." Um, he said they had a hard time policing the contracts that they signed with the schools and so on so forth. Um, we do have a series of fundraisers planned for the Canton Baseball Association. Um, we're going to do the salt drive again this year and so on so forth. Um, but all that money has been earmarked towards our we're going to enclose the batting cages. So, we're basically tapped out for funds. Um, the scoreboard that Devin had uh gotten bids for is basically just replacing the one that we have. Um, and uh it's nothing fancy. We want to know scores, innings, balls, strikes, and outs. Um, I think I've talked to a lot of people in town and uh nobody can give me an exact date on the current board, but they said it was pre80s. So, I feel that that we've got our use out of that board.

Um, like I said, uh, that is kind of our deal. I I under other other circumstances when we didn't have the projects going that we have now to upgrade the facility, we might have had some other funds for it, but currently right now, we're kind of tapped out on our fund and our fundraising. So, I just wanted to bring this up and ask the cities if we could have some funding to replace this uh, scoreboard. Currently, the scoreboard um, you can't tell what ending it is. um uh you it's hard depending on what score it is but certain scores you can't tell what score it is and so on so forth so it's it's done its job it's the slide any questions I seen on there my computer froze up so I don't have it but if we would take the old down how much do you think we could save

that would be a Devon question I I guess I do not have the numbers on that so talking with the gentleman that was going to do it. Um the parts in there, he's like nothing. They're theoretically they could replace just the digits. Installation. Oh, in as far as like cost if we take it down, how much he's going to charge us to remove it? Yeah. If we swap the sign out for basically a mirrored sign up, I want to take the old down. Yep. And that's including taking the old one down. The price cost. He's asking how much could you save if we took if we did this if we Oh, if we did it ourselves. Yeah,

I can find out. But probably not too much. It's a labor thing more than anything. It's an hour or two's worth of work for him. He basically alls it is there's some clamps on the back of the eye on the back of the board that hook up the I beams. Basically, he supports it with his crane, loosens them, and off it goes. Because he's going to reuse our pre-existing wiring for as far as power, so we don't have to worry about that. Um, so yeah, he's unhooking the scoreboard controller and loosening the clamps on the back and this it off. So that's 18,000 was 18,000 something. Yeah, it was 780. Yeah. 18780.

So it's what you two feel like we need for the next 10 years, 15, 20 years. Well, you know, I I'm assuming with technology they don't build them like they used to. I don't think we're going to get 50 years out of it like we did, but I would say uh I'd be I would say easy 10, 15, 20 years. Yeah. And this would be something that you could probably upgrade. Um the current one we have as far as to replace it um are expensive and there's no warranty on it. I mean, it also allows us to get the scores out of the scoring sheds right now, which the floor is semi non-existent, so it's a little sketchy up there. Yes. Um,

because they'll be able to operate this with their phone. Yep. It'll be through an app. I think when you were there, you were talking about hosting tournaments or something. This would get you. So, you can do that. Absolutely. Um I we have our name in for the state 14U baseball tournament. Um and I don't know when they award that exactly but uh one of the factors to be able to host that is you have to have working scoreboard which is understandable. Is this something ty we're going to subsidize or is it we would have to run a supplement because I don't think we have money in the budget for this particular piece. haven't been budgeted.

We have some park improvements in there, so we might be able to jostle a few things. But in that 18 and some change, that would be for the board that had the sponsorship on the bottom that we could supplement money from sponsors on there for field improvements going down the road. We could trim that off and it goes down to 15. And yeah, what is your you have a baseball board, I imagine. Yes.

I don't mean like a physical board, like a group of guys. Um, how do they feel about sponsorships? They feel like people are interested that you should keep that $3,000 addition. Uh, I don't think we'd have a problem filling it up if that's your question. That's what my question is. Yeah. And would that be like a ongoing yearly? That would be just like we put signs on the outfield and then it's an annual annual fee to have your sign on the outfield fence. My suggestion to you then is to not do away with that use as

I mean yeah we would love to keep it but if it that came down to a finance thing that it just wasn't going to happen because of that that we trim it. It will also raise it raise it two foot up which if you have been to our field you know that they actually cut out the the fencing so people could see the scoreboard better. Then if we raised it up there it'd be higher than the fence.

And this is from customized. Yeah. customiz the motion to do the $18,000 option one. Okay. Second. We have a second. Okay. Go roll. Commissioners York. Hi. Carlson. Hi. Garbers. Hi. Mayor Lstrom. Hi. Thank you guys. We truly do appreciate it. Thank you, gentlemen.

Thanks, guys. Okay, now we'll move on to new business. Um, we have a joint election agreement with the county for uh for combining the county and the city election when they happen in November and Larry Nelson has reviewed the agreement and has approved it. So, a motion is and second as needed to approve this agreement. Motion. I'll second it. Okay. You want to call roll? Commissioners Carlson. Hi. Garbers. Hi. York. Hi. Mayor L. Hi. Just to reiterate November elections for us as a city.

So that is petitions by women. That's a good question. Uh I'd have to go back and look at the schedule. I'm so used to the old one. Um I'm going to tell you probably September, maybe a little before. There's a law there's a bill being circulated right now on pier to clarify that stuff to clarify and I'll make a bunch of alignments. So I would say may want to wait till see what those bills do.

Yeah, I was thinking it's about two months because we have a April election I think end of January, beginning of February can take I think bill is still progressing. I know that I'm tracking but it's not all the way through yet. Anything else on that? No. Okay. So, now we'll go for commissioner dialogue because that is the end of the agenda. Chris, you got anything? Uh, shout out to officer Ray. Yes.

Read that he went above and beyond. So, appreciate that. Obviously, is that something that we need to formally They they do they do get an acknowledgement for life saving award and uh we will want to do it somewhere public. So either at one of our meetings or something else. Yeah. Okay. Just want to make sure we did the last one at the city um party in January. Okay. Sarah

um this Saturday is the u first annual powerlifting invitational at the high school. Um it's for free will donation. Um it's sponsored by Anytime Fitness, but it's for the new powerlifting group that we have through the school as of this year. So um that'll be kind of a fun event. Um and it'll be also a fundraiser for the powerlifting team. So is that an actual varsity sport then? Yes, it is. Yes. And if you've not been to a powerlifting meet, you should go. It's really interesting. We spent um from 8:30 till 3:30 at the Baltic Gym. a couple weeks ago and the time went so fast I couldn't believe that we were there that long and it's really interesting and it's fun to watch. So

this one starts at 8:30 at the high school. Yep. And it'll be um it won't be as many teams as it had in Baltic. It'll be three teams like the Freeman, Canton, and I can't remember the other one is these kids are trying to qualify for the state meet which is in March. The ones the ones that have already qualified will not participate. So, it's not full teams, but it's it's to help the kids that didn't get to qualify yet. They'll try to match be able to go to state. So, thanks for that, Sarah. Paul, wrestling being a wrestling fan. Got regions this weekend, states two weekends. Get out and chair them on the first regions are now point right. Yep.

Yep. States and Sou Falls. That's it. That's it. Okay. I don't have anything because Sarah brought up the powerlifting and brought wrestling. You got anything? Good. Kyle. Nope. Okay. Then I will um take a motion for exact motion. Okay. That's that's motion to um Oh, for 9-34-19. Uh no, it's not all. it. So, you made a motion. Do we have a second, Chris? Okay. You want to call roll? Commissioners Garver York Carlson. Hi.

People aren't here today. Thank God. That's good because I haven't had a chance. I haven't had a chance to look at any of it. That's how I and it's been