City Council - Regular Meeting

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. As required by section 84-1412, subsection eight of the Nebraska statutes, notice is hereby given that a copy of the Opens Meeting Act is posted for your examination on the wall inside the door to the city council chambers. Before we have roll call, I'd like to welcome the gifts that we have this evening. Could we have roll call, please?

George Klein?

Here.

Shane Shepherd?

Here.

Mark Graves? Here. Kevin Alexie?

Here.

Clay Anderson?

Here. We have a motion to approve the agenda.

I move to approve the consent agenda.

I'll second. Motion by Mark, second by Clay to approve the agenda. Could we have a roll call, please?

Graves? Yes. Alexi?

Yes.

Anderson?

Yes.

Klein?

Yes.

Shepherd?

Yes. We have a motion to approve the consent agenda. I'll make that motion to approve the consent agenda. I'll second. Motion by Shane, second by Kevin to approve the consent agenda, which includes minutes for the city council meeting held May 18th, 2026. Special designated licenses that were administratively approved. Beanbroker Coffee House and Pub Wedding Reception on July 25th at the Chatham Arts Center. And I did have a piece of correspondence here this evening, which was a letter from the pastor of the Chatham Bible Church. Any questions about any of that? Consent agenda? If not, could we have roll call, please?

Graves? Yes. Alexi?

Yes.

Anderson?

Yes. Klein? Yes. Sheppard? Yes. Okay, first item, business report on Dawes County Volunteers Program update.

Hello, I'm Martha Quay, and I'm the new coordinator for the Dawes County Volunteers. As of right now, we have about 130 volunteers and 17 sites in Crawford Shattered. And we're doing really good. Any questions you guys have for me?

What are some of your projects that you're working on?

Well, we've got Keep Shattern Beautiful as one of our sites. So we're going to have people help them. And we use the Shattern Museum outside of Shattern. They are using our volunteers to man that. Yeah, help with the food for seniors. We're going to be helping with that. Pretty much what RSVP did, but we're going to be broader eventually. We want to include kids, high school students and even younger, if the parents are there with them.

So is a lot of the same... things that RSVP did you're doing now? Is there a lot of things that were cut that you're not?

Not really. The one thing good about being funded between Shatter and Crawford and Dawes County is we don't have the restrictions. So we can do what they did, we can just do more.

George, could you ask her if there's something that we can do as a city for her?

Is there anything that the city could add to help you out?

Oh, you can always give me more money.

More money? Other than more money?

Oh, yeah. As of right now, no, because we're still trying to get started, because we just, we started meeting in January, and we had our open houses in March, so we're just starting to get the volunteers out there and getting their times back, so.

Very good. Who's on your executive team that you're using for your group that you're doing, Martha, if you can remember them?

I have Rachel Johnson, Becky Bolas, Frannie Dolezal, I think is how you pronounce her last name, Bob Arnold, Becky Bump, yeah. And the rest are out. Those are the ones I know personally, and I'm still trying to learn everybody's name. But it's really, really good council or board members.

And so if somebody needs help from you guys, who would they contact? Or do you have a phone number that you would like to give out to the public for they know?

Yes, our phone number is 432-0119. I will answer the phone Dawes County veterans because I'm doing that job too. So, um, but it is volunteers. I suppose I should change the wording on that, but, or they can shoot me an email and, or they can go online to Dawes County and sign up through there for a site or if they need help.

Well, I'm really glad that it got off the ground and you're doing those things.

Yeah, the sites are very happy we're back. Anybody else have a question for me?

And glad to hear there's not any deficient area, like you're expecting to do more.

Yeah, we want to do way more, but the kid one we've never really done, and so we need to... find out other cities that have done it and see how they're doing it. Because we don't know if we should have kids under 18 that needs a parent there or under 16. We don't know all that yet. But we do want to have it so when they have to go to college, they have it on their transcripts.

That's great.

Is that it?

Very good. Thank you so much. Thank you for coming.

Thank you.

Would someone care to move on to item C? Anyone care to introduce resolution?

I'll introduce resolution 2026-40 and move for its approval.

I'll second. Motion by Shane, second by Clay for resolution 2026-40, which is to approve firework restrictions for the July 4th holiday. And we have the fire chief here to give us the background and

the logic behind this resolution evening council kind of interesting for us to talk about it with the rain right now but um i would like to still continue with what we have adopted i know we did get some good rain that came down the other day but as fast as that did come down how much of that did absorb into the ground prior to this storm the timber out in the timber area the standing Seven to 12% is where those moistures are at. Less than 20 is going to be good firewood. I know it's going to take some time for that ground to absorb. I do think that we are making gains and looking at the weather this week, there is some more chances of good rain. I would like to continue with the third and fourth to have that to allow the fireworks be back on the agenda on the 15th. And then we can let that for two weeks, see how things green up or not. And then we can make an adjustment as far as open that back up. But you know, The country, some west and east of us, they're all taking lightning most of this week and currently right now. So there's a lot of strikes happening. We went out on fire in the middle of all that rain, too. So there's a lot of things that get put into consideration, too. So I would like to continue with what we're planning to adopt.

I know this was the first thing that my daughter asked after we found out that there was two inches of rain. The absorption. Long conversation with her to get her to see that it's probably not going to happen.

If we would have got it over the course of a couple days, it would have been different. 16 inches down for the drought right now. I just have a hard time saying that we're going to green up all the way on that. And I know that there's vendors and stuff here that are supportive. And we're trying to work with everybody and still have the fun and be safe on all aspects too. So this allows the community and the town to have some fun, partake, and then at the same time, we have come back on the 15th for agenda. Gives us two weeks to see how the ground, did it absorb or not, and then we can make an adjustment as far as if we need to open it back up.

I saw that in the Star Herald, gearing is kind of doing the same thing, doing some restrictions.

with the drought? It sounds like it's not just us. There's a lot of communities. And if you look at that rain map, and I know we're talking here in the city council, it does show that it was centralized to almost just shattering. So I know the fellers are out Harrison country, Crawford. There's been a lot of smokes, and they're trying to fly the cap plane for spotter plane just about every day this week looking for other smokes that have been reported and then now they can't find. So by the end of this week, it could change completely different aspects too.

So I have a question for Adam, and I'm glad you're here. So as the resolution's prepared, would we need another resolution, or could we insert language in this to avoid that?

You could do one of two things, because it's not coming into play until the end of the month anyway, even with the current ordinance. So you could actually just table this and not do anything with it because two weeks.

But we need to let the vendors. I think we have some obligation to the vendors. Absolutely. You're not going to be selling this stuff.

Well, and they can sell. They can sell, but no one can use it.

It's the use.

It's the use. Okay, good point. Point well taken. If there's no change, if there's a change, we'll just amend the resolution.

Okay.

If we don't need to do anything, we won't do anything. But if you want to amend it back to, we'll either rescind the resolution or amend it to whatever we need to do.

Because I know selling, talking to some of the fireworks dealers, that sell in here. They sell a lot to out-of-state areas.

And there's some that go to good cause, too. And I know they all go to good cause. But I mean, at the same time, there's some of the kids' foundations, things like that. So this is hard. And this is a hard decision for us. And I know we're getting a little bit of rain here. And we did get a very good rain the other day. But how much of that did absorb? That's where we're at. And the fellers have been very busy. So I guess that would still be my recommendation for where we're at right now. And this doesn't restrict sales at all.

Nope. This is just when they can be lit. Yep. Just to shooting them off.

And I'm sure there's some reasoning behind seven to midnight.

That's a higher humidity. Yeah. So let the, let the wind start to come down from the day and then let the humidity start rising back up. So less chance of, um, something that Roman candle kids chasing each other around the yard kind of thing. That was my thought. So.

This is a good idea right now, with what we know. I say that more as a fireman than I do say it as an attorney.

If we would have had the two inches over several days, I would feel totally different right now. But where we had it in 20 minutes, and we had culverts and issues like that. I mean, everybody had, I mean, how much of that debt did get absorbed? And prior to that, the heavy timber is firewood right now, that's not gonna absorb overnight like that.

Yeah, just put it back on, George. If you pass this tonight, we can rescind it or we can amend it depending on what's going on, if we need to.

Thank you.

Well, we excused him. Any other questions? Sure.

Just speaking with the fireworks, I guess they had requested that come for fur trade days, too. We are in support of not doing fireworks, looking at possibly doing a drone show instead, which they just had an alliance a couple weeks ago, too. So we just wanted to show our support for the fire department too, that we wouldn't be doing fireworks for fur trade days either. We're looking into the drone show, not sure if that's gonna happen yet, but hoping that it will.

Okay. Okay, thank you. Okay, everyone's spoke?

Do you have any comments? I agree.

Mike, could you go to the microphone please? Thank you. I agree with Brandon. Other than we've seen a lot drier years, you know, we've went through them and been fine, but I do understand, you know. The only thing I got to point out is this is a 250th year anniversary for the United States, so it is a big one. People are going to be amped up, want to shoot them off, so I would like to do four days But I know Brandon wants to do two, so I'm not going to argue with him.

Maybe in a couple weeks we can maybe readjust or something, depending on the weather.

Yeah, yeah. Like I said, sometimes you set these things and it's hard to take them back and change it once it's set in motion. That's what I worry about.

And I think Gearing, they only have a 10-day period as far as in this article anyway. 10 days that they can shoot them off? Yeah, from the June 25th to...

There's another article in the Star Herald today, too, on the things that the Valley is doing.

Well, I had to go set a tent up down in Colorado, so from Alliance to Scotts Bluff and in that area, that looks horrible. They're horrible. We're like a garden Eden compared to them, really and truly. But, you know, it's whatever you guys decide. Thank you.

I think it helps, too, that it's a Friday-Saturday, the 3rd and 4th.

Oh, sorry.

I think it helps too that it's a Friday, Saturday. So everybody kind of has that weekend off. So having the fireworks not going off during the weekday too, I think you'll have those that are okay with that and just save everything for the weekend.

Very good. Okay. Are there any other questions or comments? Could we have a roll call please?

Graves? Yes. Alexi?

Yes.

Anderson?

Yes.

Klein? Yes. Shepard?

Yes. Okay, item number, item D. Someone care to introduce that?

I'll introduce resolution 2026-41 and move for its approval.

I'll second that.

Motion by Kevin, seconded by Mark. Resolution 2026-41, which was to allow for temporary use of Highway US 20 at the intersection of Highway US 20 and Main Street for the Lions Club Parade during fur trade days on Saturday, July the 11th. I don't have any questions about that. I've done this for a good, good number of years. No? OK. 50 years. Roll call, please. This is the 50th year?

Grace? Yes. Oleksii?

Yes.

Anderson?

Yes.

Klein? Yes. Shepherd?

Yes. OK.

Item number E. I can introduce Resolution 2026-42, move for its approval.

I'll second.

Motion by Shane, seconded by Clay for Resolution 2026-42, which is to approve the Injury Prevention Manual for the City of Chadron Safety Committee. Anyone want to present that? Me and my warped sense of humor started reading it, and I was wondering about paper cuts, if we had to report those.

Yes, we do. Is your plan on getting them infected?

Good evening, city council. So we have decided to bring the injury prevention manual to the city council for approval. It's from LARM, so we took LARM's copy, which is our insurance, and kind of made it our own. We didn't really change much of it. Everything that LARM has in here, we agreed with. It's very straightforward. It fits every department's needs. Are there any questions about it? It's very short and simple.

I thought it was pretty straightforward. Nothing surprising in there.

Very straightforward.

Pretty generic from every other safety policy that I've seen. I think it looks good.

We just like this because it really fit each department, just a very broad department safety manual, basically. And LARM provided it for us, so it's what LARM suggests is to use.

Well, are there any other questions? May I have a roll call, please?

Graves? Yes. Alexi?

Yes.

Anderson?

Yes.

Klein?

Yes. Shepard? Yes. OK, who wants to be the good guy?

I'll make a motion to approve free swim day on June 21 at the Shatterin Aquatic Center.

I'll second. Motion by Clay, seconded by Kevin to approve free swim day on June 21st at the Shattering Area Aquatics and Wellness Center. Anyone have any questions about why we're doing this? Did we get the start up today?

Not all of it.

Not all of it? What inspired us to pick June 21st?

It's the first day of summer.

You did.

I was going to say, that's what you guys asked for last year. Three years ago, you suggested that. Oh, I didn't? Okay. Short memory. I don't remember. But as far as the pool goes, I think Janet can talk a little more about it, but the therapy pool is operational. The other pool should be fully operational.

If they wanted to get in it, the large pool they could have today. Chemicals are okay, just a little cold. We did have, I think Miles said 15 to 20 kids, but they chose to go into the therapy pool instead. So they had a good time in the therapy pool. But it will be a lot closer to temperature tomorrow. Okay. We're up and running. We actually opened the therapy pool of last week on Friday to the water aerobics ladies. And they were very appreciative of that.

So there was a little more maintenance than normal this year?

Oh, we had a, a heck of a time with getting the filter media out of the three filters. Um, it took a little more engineering than what I anticipated. Um, and also sandblasting down the large pool. Um, the, the media for that took a while to get here. It didn't get ordered. and then it took longer to get here than what we anticipated also. We won't do those two things again at the same time. So it was, there was a lot of work that happened this year that we don't normally do. So, but we've got it figured out now.

Good deal. Any other comments? If not, can I have a roll call, please?

Graves? Yes. Oleksii? Yes. Anderson?

Yes.

Klein?

Yes.

Shepard?

Yes. Moving on to Item G, would someone care to introduce that resolution?

I'll introduce Resolution 2026-43 and move for its approval.

I'll second.

Motion by Kevin, seconded by Clay for resolution 2026-43, which is to approve change order number one to Bittner Construction for the water main replacement project. And of course, if you read ahead, this will tie into the following resolution also.

Tori Zuvers, New Jersey Superintendent, 1590 South Maple. If you guys looked at that previous to this, there was some change orders between both. projects one had tie-in on one and I got switched to the 4th Street and then also some Concrete work done for 4th Street projects to the hand Street project with that tie-in and removal of a Valve that's not working. It hasn't worked in years, but we're having them replace that out just eliminate completely so not replace eliminate it so That's kind of where that's going with that part of it. So the change order on the Ann Street project actually changed, decreased by 15,000 and got added into the Ann Street, or the 4th Street project with the concrete and the valve replaced, or eliminating the valve. So we just kind of switched

Essentially, the difference in pricing, we took off the and and added to the, there's about a $640 difference there. Yep. And then the additional cost to address the broken valve, what kind of valve was that, $12,000?

some of that's the labor cost on that too the manual labor stuff but a valve right now for four inch you're probably looking i'd say you're over a thousand bucks for a valve about a thousand bucks so um i know i ordered a six inch valve here a while back and it was like 1200 bucks so cost has gone up quite a bit on those

So is there going to be more concrete actually poured in the end? Reading this, I got the idea that maybe there was.

Not more, just it changed roles. Bettner was going to do that on Ann Street project, but now it's shifted over to tie in for 4th Street on the 4th Street project.

Have they started working on this yet?

I haven't seen anybody over there, no. Okay.

We were supposed to in Cabot.

Anyone have any other questions for Tori? If not, could we have a roll call, please?

Graves? Yes. Alexi?

Yes.

Anderson? Yes. Klein? Yes. Shepherd?

Yes.

Okay. Item number H. I'll introduce Resolution 2026-44 and move forward to approval.

I'll second that.

Motion by Clay, second by Mark, for resolution number 2026-44, which is to approve change order number 1 to K.O. Wood and Company for the 4th Street Water Main Replacement Project, which is, as we noted before, is an increase of $28,399.20. They will be paid for their work. I think we pretty well explained what's going on. Unless someone has a question. Roll call, please.

Grace? Yes. Alexi?

Yes.

Anderson?

Yes. Klein? Yes.

Shepard?

Yes. Item I related to the sidewalk improvement plan for the current fiscal year 2025-26. City received two applications for the plan which we had hoped for more. The two individuals, Steven Gravey, whose cost reimbursement would be $840, and Travis Fuster, whose reimbursement would be $3,000, the maximum. Do you have a motion to approve those?

Yeah, I'll move to approve the...

I'll second. Motion by Shane, second by Clay to approve those amounts as we just mentioned. Any other questions?

So that kind of gives you, frees up, what, 27, or 26? $26,000, yep. We put $30,000 into the budget for it. Are we thinking about doing something like we did last year?

Yes, we are going to be prioritizing some of the spots between Dustin, Janet, and myself. We'll start coming up with some areas that can be utilized for some of those things as we get through some of our construction season going.

hey i just want to say i like the design of this program because citizens have a chance to apply to get specific assistance for their sidewalk project but if if the applications aren't there we fall back and the city is able to use that for the benefit of everybody i like the way that's set up do you guys have anything that you know that you would like to have i thought

I think I talked to, I'm not sure if it was you, but is like most of the stuff in downtown ADA?

Most of the intersections all around.

Yeah, okay. That's all I would say is if they're not.

I did mention to Tom some areas around the city parking lot, but I think maybe there's some other areas that might need more attention than that, but those are something that I noticed the sidewalk around there has kind of fallen apart.

Some of that is BID is going to be fixing some, I don't know if they're the same areas that you're talking about, Mark, but they've authorized some funding to be spent.

And there's also some sidewalk work that we have to do up there for the pickleball courts, too, as well. And we'll see what we got for the monies left over on some of that stuff, too, so...

Well, sidewalks, there's never an end to fixing them.

No, there isn't. But if this program is something you guys would like us to continue, we do need to know that as we get moving into our budget process. And if you guys wanted to change anything, we need to know that too as well.

I'm like Kevin. I kind of like how it's set up.

Yeah. Okay, well we need roll call on the motion.

Graves? Yes. Alexi?

Yes.

Anderson? Yes. Klein? Yes.

Shepard? Yes. Okay. Big item of the evening, discussion regarding Jake Briggs. I was reading this stuff, this information this morning, Wednesday stuff, the information that was given. And then I saw the part about you couldn't do it unless your grade's less than five degrees. on the national system of interstate and defense highways. And I thought, I wondered what that meant. I kind of looked that up and it's just the interstate system, but to me that kind of says, if they don't want to put it on the, where you got more than five degrees on the interstate, should we be doing it in, the intersection of highway 20 and 385 because obviously they come from the south and more than five degrees i'm not sure about the one coming from the west so okay i know that interstate 70 through the pass they are it's seven percent because they talk about that all the time interstate 70.

And that's why they have those lanes where the trucks.

So they allow them to use the jake bricks.

Well, that's why they have those runoff lanes where the trucks can hit those barrels and the sand and everything. So if you think about going through the mountains, there are a couple places on Interstate 70 that are 77%.

And I did a little research this afternoon and found out they have those rules because of the higher speeds.

Sure.

So at lower speeds, you don't have to use them.

If you're going down the interstate at 70 and 80 miles an hour, there's a big difference than going 45 or 30. Right. Yeah. And if you would like me to contact the state of Nebraska, we can find out what the grade is, even coming down 385. We can find that out.

I watched a guy running Jake Brake from basically Pizza Hut going west down to Chimas. Or actually it would have been just past Pizza Hut. So I was like, really?

This is the third most common complaint or concern I get from citizens. First we have streets and snow removal, then Jake break is what most people come up or people come up and ask me about or have concerns about. So I think it's something that's a valid concern for our community. You'll hear them at 9.30, 10 o'clock at night. I don't think that's conducive to people sleeping. So I think it's a valid concern.

But, I mean, if you want me to reach out to the state of Nebraska, I sure can and get some more information for you.

I know a lot of other communities, Crawford, and then as you go south, a lot of those communities have Jake Brake rules and regs.

I think it would be good to have, if you would.

sure can't that information I mean they should have it I mean yeah they're the ones that are in control of that so okay I'll do that chief would fines under this type of ordinance be subject to points on the driver's license

Good evening, Mayor, City Council.

Rick Eckstein, Chief of Police, 125 Main Street. I don't believe so. It's going to be a city ordinance violation. I don't think there will be any points on a driver's license for this. The only question I have on this discussion, if you guys want an ordinance, are you going to have it hours, specific hours, or do you want to go 24-7? Because there's communities across the state of Nebraska that do either or. It's not just everybody does 24 hours. Something to think about while you guys discuss and decide what you all want for the community if you're going to go this route. But as far as the point system on your driver's license, I don't think it's going to count towards points against somebody. I'll check. Yeah.

And it's not like you'd catch everyone.

No, I mean, we all can hear them, especially when the guys and gals work night shift. I mean, we can be up at Shutter State College. You'll hear them come through town. Now, which one it was, because sometimes there's two or three semis coming in at what time. It's going to be, if we're there in the moment and they do it, obviously we can pull them over. We can start warning them, making people notified, and then we can issue citations from there.

And maybe it might even, I mean... it might stop half of them from just respect to the new laws and everything, you know, it will, it will have a deterrent effect.

It's no different than talking to the city manager. Like he said, placing a cop car on the east or west side of town, even if there was, there's nobody in it, it will get people to slow down. So absolutely. There's a deterrence to it.

Yeah. Got a lot of time for discussion.

Things to discuss about it. I think it's worth examining further and knowing what the grade is. Janet's gonna get that information.

So for future reference, are we looking at this being an action item next time or you guys still want to do more discussion or how would you guys like to proceed with this?

I think it could be an action item with further discussion.

Just asking the question, how quickly you guys want to move on this or anything else?

Well, if you guys wanted an action item, I'll need to know what specifics you're looking at.

What, Chief, what in your opinion determines if a community does 24-7 or specific hours? Just personal preference?

I think it's preference and with the input that you all are getting from the community members. I mean, is this a nighttime issue or is this a 24-7 issue? Do we as a community want to tolerate Jake breaks at noon or do we just want to ban them altogether? I mean... Like Vice Mayor said, he saw somebody go from Pizza Hut all the way down the, going west on Highway 20 to Chimas. Midday. Yeah, midday. Do we really want to tolerate that as a community? That's something I think our citizens, I would invite them all to come into the council, call you guys, call me if they want, and give us some input into that. I don't know what the community wants. I don't hear a lot about Jake Brakes in town, a few people here and there, but I don't hear a lot of complaints about it. But...

I think I've only heard from all the years I've been on the council of one person, and that was concerning somebody out by the cemetery, Greenwood Cemetery, during probably a funeral.

I've heard from quite a few. Maybe I'm just more approachable.

I've had people come to me about it too the safety aspect of this is I think every ordinance you'll find across Nebraska they're reading just a few of them will have some safety piece to it that would be there would be exceptions for it in the use of emergency so there are some safety valves for the truck drivers as well so I did a chat GPT search about who has them in Nebraska and it's a lot of towns have them

in nebraska the ordinance or they covered as it but i've never seen a ticket yeah ever and they said that they started out at a hundred dollars up to 500. it was what the fines were it was like court's gonna set the fines oh your judge is gonna set the fine i saw the the ordinance he asked here judge is gonna set the right we have a maximum fine but if it goes to the waiver schedule it might be 50 bucks might be 100 bucks Let's do this. We'll draft one. We won't put any time limits on it for now. You guys can look at it. And if you want to change that, we can change it. Just to keep the ball rolling.

Yeah. Sounds good.

That concludes our discussion. Discussion and determine the date for the budget workshop. They mentioned here July 7th, 8th, 14th, 15th, 16th, starting at 3 p.m.

No. I won't be around the 14th, 15th, or 16th, but I'm just one out of the five of us. Of? Of July.

Any of those dates should work for me. I should be around.

If I could clarify, the reason why we're looking at having the workshop at those dates that we're talking in July is because we'd like to present our first draft of the budget, the first meeting in August. We have to have something done by the end of September, and so that basically gives us four meetings to get this done. And I know it takes us three meetings to do it officially, but that gives us one extra meeting just for a... in case there's some other discussions that we didn't think of as we were doing or something happens so that's kind of why we were hoping to do the the workshop and obviously if we can do the workshop earlier in the month that helps us out even more to get it done properly and verify the numbers as well so just wanted to throw that in

So if it eliminates three of those dates for clay, does anyone have any problem with any other dates? Which just leaves us seventh and eighth, which is better, Tuesday or Wednesday?

Those two days would probably be good for me, because I already have them off for setting up things for fur trade days. So I could do either of those.

really easily. I should be around too.

I don't think I have a conflict.

Schedule it to 7. If something drastic happens, we can move it to the 8th. That's fine by me. Very good. I'd like to make a motion to approve the claims. Second that. Motion by me, seconded by Shane. The claims are listed. Anyone have any questions? I did notice a couple things in looking at the bills. There's a bill there to Shadron Plumbing. It just says water repairs. It's for... curb stop and a resident who have those amounts, that amount added to their utility bill to pay us back. And DW inspections was to inspect the poles that the electric lines come on. We technically, or we do own the system.

No, George, I'd like to clarify this. These are the wood poles that the city owns for any of the rec fields, the tennis courts, those are the poles that we inspected after talking with Janet and Katie, we'd realized that we had not done any inspections on these poles and this is something that other communities have done on a regular basis and we haven't done it. And so we took the advantage of this gentleman being able to do this for us and he brought us back a report on what we need to do to help us not only for budgeting purposes but also help with these organizations that are wanting to do some improvements to some of those things. And so we have that report from them and we'll discuss more at budget time what we're looking at having to do because of that budget TJ and Jen from over at MPPD put us with this gentleman that helped us to do these pole inspections. So these are not the streetlight poles, these are for the athletic poles and the tennis courts. I think we had a total of 30 poles that we did. Softball fields, baseball fields, the ones that are owned by the city.

And so if we're lacking in some of those, that occupation tax is something that's...

Potentially could be used for doing some of those things. Now, we didn't put it in this year's budget, but because of his ability or ability to be here this year, we're going to try to find it someplace else in the budget. But yes, that's what part of that... Lodging occupation lodging tax could be utilized for that, but we are going to have to do Tentatively right now. We're going to be looking at replacing some poles or removing of poles I'm not sure if we're going to replace them yet a very expensive process that we've started

Anyone have any other questions about any of the claims?

Well, George, if I could also point out the one thing on the pro copy. We had a problem with our communications with our printers and copiers down here at City Hall. They were not communicating properly with Xerox, and that's why you see this bill is quite a bit higher than normal. It was a catch-up. Time it wasn't actually reporting the number of true copies that were being used And so that's why you're seeing a huge dollar amount that should be coming back down to the normalcy of around $300 The other comments No, I'm

If not, can I have a roll call, please?

Graves? Yes. Alexi? Yes. Anderson?

Yes.

Klein? Yes. Shepard?

Yes. At this time, anyone wishing to address the council? I skipped over, we don't need a resolution to excuse the absence of council members since we're all here. So anyone wishing to address the council on a matter not on this agenda may now do so. Individuals are allowed a total of three minutes to speak.

going going going gone city manager report thank you mayor i just got a couple items here i just wanted to bring up to everybody you know the weeds and grasses trees all in full bloom, fall, vegetation. Just please be wary of how we can see obstructions going around corners, looking at emergency vehicles that have to get down some of the alleys, even up to your own houses and stuff like that. Please take a look. Just reminding everybody the vegetation, anything over 12 inches needs to be put down to its proper height. The noxious weeds type things, that is something that the city does not enforce, but the Dawes County can. So if there's any of those noxious weeds, that's something there. But as far as the trees, the height is eight foot on sidewalks and 10 on the streets or any of those that help prevent some of those things also with the some of the other things that people are going to be asking about already and with especially with the rain that we've had ticks mosquitoes things like that that are going around Scott is taking the mosquito sprayer down there to be calibrated here toward this next end of this week. Is that correct, Janet? The June 5th, I believe, is when it's going to be going down there. And after that time, he'll start putting up, if he hasn't gotten some of the traps put up already, and start determining that. But if people notice that there's some areas that seems to be a little heavier infested, please let the city hall know at the 432-0505. Also, with that, if the public can also help us out, I know there's a lot of people that are doing their own watering and or with some of Mother Nature's help with watering, help eliminate some of the pools of waters that are floating around. That'll also help us out with that. Also, with dealing with the vegetation, if they keep the vegetation down, that'll also help with the ticks and mosquitoes as well. for those people that are discussing those things. Janet talked already about the swimming pool. I want to commend her staff and all the people that helped getting that done. We had multiple departments working up there in that area. The streets, the utility guys were all up there helping out. The parks guys were all up there helping out with all the things that they did. It was truly a team event on those things. The pickleball courts will have some announcements to be made for some of those things here. I know that a lot of people are anxious to be using them and doing that. We're real close to opening them up, but just give us just a little more time here. to make sure everything is going the way we need to. We'll have more information that come out and we'll get that put out to KCSR and try to put it out on our websites so that everybody hears about it at the same time. And then the last thing I wanted to also bring up to the public is the rain events that we just had like this last Saturday. I want to stress to the public, if you don't need to be out and about in those kind of storms and if you can't see the bottom of the water, We don't need you driving through some of those things. We had some stranded vehicles. We had some manholes that got popped or moved or adjusted. I just don't want anybody getting hurt for something as simple as if they could just wait even an hour or two. Most of the water had receded by then. But that was a tremendous amount of water to come down in less than 30 to 40 minutes for our area up in this area. You know, the guys have been out this whole today. We had the crews out on Saturday and some on Sunday, cleaning drains off, cleaning off all of the things that they're doing. Even the jet was out working on some culverts again today, doing some all these little things. The sweeper is out working on some of their stuff. The guys that were out there actually had the payloaders out along with the skidsters out trying to pick up any loose material, gravel, things like that. It's just going to take time to get everything cleaned up and back to the normalcy. But if citizens are seeing something that we haven't done here, say by Thursday, maybe even late as Wednesday, please give us a call. Because we may skip something, we may forget something. We'd be more than happy to make sure that we follow back up on those things. And I just appreciate everybody allowing our emergency services to be able to take care of things that they need to do. And if you don't need to be out in them, please please don't it just adds to our workload acts adds to the police workload i know we had some stranded vehicles and we had some people trying to get to these stranded vehicles and we just didn't need to be doing it i mean those are the things that they got to realize they're not only endangering themselves but they're endangering our our staff too as well so thank you mayor appreciate it okay thanks tom thanks tom

Council closing comments. Start with Mark.

Well, it seems like it's going to be a busy year with all the things that are going on with fires and fur trade days and a new stage. And so I just hope everyone can be safe and have some enjoyable times outside and in our community. That's all I have.

I wanted to mention the stage as well that got delivered I think two weekends ago. And then a group this past Wednesday was down for, or no, I'm sorry, that was Thursday, was down for training down here on First Street with a representative of the Apex Stage Company. And everything I thought it was going to be, it is that and more. This thing is awesome. Just from being an audience member, seeing what it's gonna be like is great. We've already talked to some of the potential entertainment for this year, and they're excited about the options for sound and lighting that can be done with this stage. But mainly, I just wanted to say thank you to the community members. We had, I think, about 25 people between folks from the college, several members of the fur trade days board, the chamber and bands on Bordeaux. And then some private citizens came down that just wanted to volunteer to learn how to operate this stage. It is operated by hydraulics and the, The difference in safety between our prior stage is night and day. But again, just thank you to those groups that came down. And our old stage has done a great job, and I believe it was built by, Shane Shepard. Limited budget. Limited budget, limited resources. It's done a great job. The rep from the stage company looked at it and said, that thing is a pile of sticks. And I don't think he meant that to be offensive. It really is a different order of magnitude, what we're working with. And that will be debuted at the first Bands on Bordeaux in July. So looking forward to it.

I don't have much tonight. I did find out before coming to the meeting that June is National Candy Month. So I guess go out and get yourself a sweet treat this month.

Well, like Tom mentioned, I want to thank all the city employees that were involved in cleaning up from our rain and hail storm. I appreciate them doing that. I wanted to mention yesterday I went out to the Dodge County Museum. Mary Gould Trappigan has a really nice presentation on the Holocaust. It's really well done. And there was a large crowd. If you've been out to the museum, there's the entryway. They cleared everything out of there and had that for seating, and it was an overflow of crowds. So, nice crowd. And Mary Gould Travagan really does an excellent job of presenting it. If she does it next time she does it, and I'm sure she'll do it again, take advantage of doing that. It was quite interesting of how a lot of this happened some of them before the actual World War II came about. Setting the framework for that and some of the killing of the Jewish people that started way before World War II.

I'd just like to say there's going to be a lot more people in town this next month with all the camps going on at Chatham State College, so maybe give your breaks a little tap. Also, I feel bad for the flowers that were just planted in the pots. I had about two hours of daylight before And hopefully some of them come out of it. I know mine got demolished, but I think they'll come out of it, maybe. But anyway, it sure does make the downtown look nice with those planters full of flowers and colors. So that's all I had.

Move to adjourn. I'll second. Motion by Shane, second by Clay to adjourn. May I have a roll call, please?

Graves? Yes. Alexi? Yes. Anderson? Yes. Klein? Yes. Shepard? Yes.