Common Council - Regular Meeting

Rising for the pledge of 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. Let the record show this meeting is being livereamed by under production multimedia. Tonight's invitation will be offered by associate pastor Justin May with Bethany Christian Church. Pastor, the floor is yours.

Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father God, we come before you now. We thank you for a beautiful day. Father, right now we thank you for a city council that meets on behalf of the people. And uh Father, because of that, we lift them up to you. Father, we pray that you would grant them wisdom in all their decision- making. And Father, whatever decisions they come to today, Father, we pray that you will be glorified in the end. Father, we love you. We thank you for Christ and all that he's done for us. And it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. We'll have our roll call. Bill Bertram here. Ronnie Blevens here.

Shannon Elders on her way. We'll reflect when she arrives. Brian Hester here. Chuck Dean here. Let the record show that Mayor Hodgees is present as well as clerk treasurer Donna Kumer. And we have our council attorney Michael Wilder as well.

Got an agenda that has been provided. I need to note two changes to the agenda for consideration. The first is just a clarification. Under the public hearings, there are four items listed. However, each of these items is relevant to one topic. So, the public hearing as advertised is just for the build operate transfer agreement for the wastewater utility with river development authority. So, all four of those items mentioned are one topic. So, there's only one public hearing tonight. The second item is that I would like to pull ordinance five from the agenda for the evening. That's the parks ordinance. There are some minor changes that need to be made to that ordinance before it's considered by the council. I would rather bring that back next month instead. There's no rush on it. I'd rather bring it back when it's a little bit more complete. So, with those amendments, I'd obtain a motion to approve that agenda.

I'll make a motion. Motion by Chuck Deon. Second. Second by Ronnie Blevens. Any questions or other edits? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Matching hands. You have your standing business in front of you which includes the approval of the meeting minutes from March 2nd, our current claims and our payroll allowance docket for February 23rd to March 29th. Entertain a motion to approve. Make a motion. Motion made by Ronnie Blevens. Second. Second by Brian Tester. Any questions on those items? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I.

Any opposed? Meters. At this time, I would open the floor for general public comments. Yes. Just give your name and address for the record, please. Debbie Smith, 8824 Saddle Ridge Trail. So, I have four different items. The first three are all High Street. The sidewalks on High Street, they're terrible. They're not completely accessible. why they started working on the other side when they don't have the other the opposite side done. I walked it this morning several times. I had to be out in the road. The bus is coming, cars are coming. The kids that walk are in danger. So, I was just wondering does anybody have any suggestions because it's a mess and the three-way stop where they cross at a crosswalk. Forget that. Um I have mentioned it to our chief of police you know to manage um unfortunately it's part of the construction process and the the company overseeing that recently went through a change in the leadership from that team that was necessitated um through their own internal mechanisms and so with the new leader u we expect to have a little bit more efficient work being done out there. So, we just learned of that change at the end of last week and so we're hoping to see an improvement and uh Tubby Purcell, our code enforcer, he's been out there checking it and going over it with the work manager to try with them into shape. So, well, they've improved on working harder. I I'll tell you that.

Yeah. But they tore up the whole one side that was only accessible way for the kids to really now it's hit and miss on the other side. Right. Oh, anyways, I'm just more concerned about the kids and myself when you walk, especially if it's dark. Sure. See, I teach at the middle school and I run down the high street every day and there's kids that walk out in the road, go around the bar. So, I understand, right? And that's dangerous. I get

I think the the the goal what they were supposed to do was complete one side. That's what I thought. Yeah. So, that then the kids could cross over to that side, go all the way down and cross back and then complete the other side. But there are some deficiencies on that sign that is supposed to have been completed that we have notified them of as of Friday. So, it's going to take a minute for them to to come back around and fix that. Okay. Back to the road construction. Is there any way to get them to have a flagger out there, especially between 7 and 9 in the morning and 2 to 4 in the afternoon? Because that's when the traffic's the most because the school buses and people coming down, they park the bulldozers or whatever you want to call them, right in the road. Trucks are right in the road. Um meanwhile I have a way trying to go down and I take the street by the police department because you don't know what's coming up over some of those rural meals. I guess

I can email them tonight and ask them to supply a flagger for those those heavy fines especially when they're actively out there working on they have it restricted to one lane. Well, and now they've got it roped off. And this morning I saw two people go right through the four-way south because the way they had it roped off with the yellow tape. I think people didn't even notice they should notice if they go there very much that that's a four-way stop. They went right on through. Yeah. That's bad. The other thing on High Street, is there a way to fix the pothole when you turn off the highway three onto High? If there's anybody coming out, you can't swing wide enough. Is it on High Street or on Highway three? It's just as you turn. Oh,

if it's in in if it's in DOT's right away, they would have to fix it, but they're going to repave High Street all the way through. So, that's part of this this project. I'll check. Yeah. The other one is the pothole at the intersection of 403 and Highway 3 when you turn to go to JC's. Yeah, we've notified the county about that. That's that's highway 3 wasn't yours. Highway 3 is the state and 403 is county. So, we've notified both entities of all the potholes that are on both of those roads. Yeah, it's pretty bad. Yeah, that's all that I got. Okay. Thank you, Debbie. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Debbie, I'll contact you about that flagger and let you know. Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Were there any other general public comments?

Uh, legislative advisor is not able to be with us tonight. I have no special comments because we have a packed agenda. Are there any council comments? Um, I know this is a little bit selfish because I'm I'm baseball coach. Coach didn't help me. Uh the 14th we are having um military first responder night. We might we'd like to come out and celebrate all those guys for all they do for us. Um the 20th we have cancer night. There's a lot of people that are affected by cancer. We trying to get people to come out and support that night too. So that any money that we raise on the 20th goes to the American Cancer Society. So shirts, proceeds from the shirts, we have donation baskets, any of that stuff if you want to come out. So

what day would that be? Uh April 20th is on April 14th as a first responder military night. The cell team from the uh from the high school is the one putting all that stuff together for the 20th. So, a lot of the kids and Mr. Stewart and everybody's doing a lot of work to make that go real well. Miss Miss Stewart is a surviving breast cancer survivor and she's going out throughout the first pitch that night. Oh, wonderful.

Um but if if you want to buy a shirt, you can go to WPMQ on Facebook or you go to the shirt lady website. she's got on her website. Um the cell teams came up with a really cool logo with the ribbon with multicolored ribbon so that it doesn't go for just one cancer. It goes for multiple cancers. Then on the 14th we hope to have uh JPD honor guard down. Okay. Sounds good. Any other council comments? All right. Hear none. We'll move through the agenda. I heard the door open. Let the record show that Councilwoman Shannon Elder has joined the meeting. You're welcome.

I think she needs to publicly apologize for being late. Oh my goodness. She does not. She needed to catch her breath for I won't tell you the text she sent. You can blame it on them because they changed the meeting for their schedule. Yeah.

Um All right. So, catch your breath because now I'm going to officially open the public hearing on the build operate transfer agreement um for the sewer extension which is connected to the river development authority. This was properly advertised and this is officially the opening of the public hearing. So if you have comment or announcements to make about the build operate transfer agreement proposal with the sewer infrastructure through the river commerce center now would be the time to come forward and do that second final call. I know making comment I will officially close the public hearing portion of tonight's meeting for the build up transfer agreement. We have no old business and we have a whole bunch of new business to do. So we'll dive right into that. The first item, the first four items on your agenda of the new business deal with that will operate transfer agreement. In summary, before we get into each of these items, the city along uh was the entity that advertised for this boat operating transfer proposal. We're the ones who put out the request for qualifications. However, this is a joint project with the Riveridge Commerce Center because as we explore the option of a regional pump station, a significant portion of the force lane and line must go through the River Ridge development commerce center to serve the business of the commerce center. At this time, the city is not able and ready to move forward with our portion, however, River is. So, that is the summary of what we're accomplishing tonight. The first item A is the approval of the guaranteed maximum price for that regional low station with a roof bridge portion. That amount was given by Municipal Development Solutions at 7,182,19040. This is a simple vote. It's not an ordinance. It's not a resolution. It's just your approval of that guaranteed

maximum price. You have the detailed listing of that in the document that is listed 9A on your documents GMP regional lift station and you can see the breakdown and itemization of each of those. So I need a motion um to approve the guaranteed maximum price for this project. What you say the maximum price was 7,182,19040. Keep in mind, this is not the city paying for this. This is 100% paid for by the River Ridge Commerce Center. We're paying 100%

100% of it. I have discussion about that. I don't know. I just need a motion to have to approve it. It was presented at the sewer board. Um sewer board has made the recommendation to move forward. Yeah, I'll make a motion for them to pay for it. We have a motion by Chuck De. Is there a second? Second squared by that. Second by Shannon Elder. Are there any questions? Shoot. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed?

All right. So that's approving. The second item listed as item 9B on your tablet is resolution 2026 R3. This resolution formally awards the the build operate transfer agreement to Municipal Development Solutions LLC um who has performed the scoping period on this project. It is one of your resolutions. So as a resolution only requires one reading. I just need a motion to move it forward. I make a motion. Motion by Ronnie Blevens. Second.

Second by Shannon Elder. Any questions on that document hearing? None. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? That unanimous. You have an exhibit A hand out here. Is that part of that? Um that one. No, that's a different one. Okay. As for the um police service agreement, there's an exhibit A. I don't see um Hold on. What is it for number three? Well, when I look at number three when you're It's after the signature page.

It's on 9B. Yeah, it's after the signature page. Scroll all the way down and you'll see the the full request the their response to the request for qualifications that went out. Okay. Yeah. Uh there it is. There was a couple blank pages thrown in there for some reason. Okay, good. Page 11. Yeah, there's 70 pages total in that document.

All right. All right. So, I just need I had a motion by Ronnie Blevens. I had the second by Shannon Elder. No discussion. Um, you'll notice there is one discrepancy in discussion I want to point out. In this resolution, it shows the award amount as $7 million, $7,200,000. They always round up just a bit from that guaranteed maximum price. Um, so again, the guaranteed maximum price was 7182,000 and that 1940. So they round up to 7,200,000 for the for the resolution. So we'll call for the vote if there are no other questions. All in favor say I.

Any opposed? That's unanimous. The third item related to that is the regional listation project agreement. Because this is item 9 C. Because we are doing this in partnership with the Riveridge Commerce Center and they are paying 100% of a cost, we have to enter an agreement with them on that. This document does several things. It explains the scope of that agreement. um the fact that they are paying for it and it authorizes us to establish a fund in our sewer department so that when they submit payment to us for this we can pay the contractor out of that fund so that the funds do not co-mingle with our existing sewer department funds. So with that said I would need a motion to approve that project agreement.

Make a motion. Motion by Shannon Elder. Is there a second? Second. Second by Chuck Deon. Any questions? I would simply ask that with this motion um you authorize the president of the council to sign this agreement rather than me as mayor. And the reason I asked that is because I have already signed this agreement as president of the sewer board because this agreement was also approved by the sewer board. So if you can amend your motion to pass this and authorize the president of the council to sign it, I would appreciate that. Yes. Make the amendment. Okay. So, we have an amendment. Council president will sign. All right. Second. Second.

All right. So, we have a motion to make the amendment by Brian Hester. A second by Leven. Any other questions? All in favor say I. Any opposed? That uns. One more item on that topic. We now need to create the actual fund and that is done through ordinance which requires two readings. So this ordinance number eight simply creates the fund that is item 9D on your tablet that authorizes or creates the fund so the court treasurers have the ability to receive the money for Riveridge and pay those debts and not coingle them with our existing sewer department funds. I need a motion to approve.

I'll make a motion to approve. Chuck Deon makes the motion. Second. Second by Ronnie Blevens. Any questions on that? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? That's unanimous. Since it was unanimous, I would entertain a motion to suspend the rules in anticipation to pass this on second reading tonight. I'll make a motion. Chuck makes the motion. Second. Second by Shannon Elder. Any questions on the suspension of the rules? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? That's unanimous. So I will call for the second final reading of 20268 establishing the build operate transfer fund with the river development authority. Any motion? I'll make a motion. A motion. Is there a second?

Second. Second by Shannon Elder. Any questions? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed?

Thank you. That's unanimous. That concludes the B items. Next up is item E, which is your this is a resolution 2026R4. This is an agreement with the Riveridge Development Authority for Police and Utility Services. Resolution 4 um is under this 9E listed on your tablet. So if you recall previously we passed a pilot agreement, a payment in lie of taxes agreement with River Ridge where we basically would be capturing a portion of tax revenue that we would otherwise receive into the general fund to use for police services. That money would decline over the years as they sell off property because it only applies to property owned by the River Commerce Center. In lie of that, I have negotiated a service agreement that fixes the amount at $250,000 for basic police service. Um, it also mentions utility and this amount will not be reduced, but does have the option to go up over time as the need increases and buildings continue to come in. So, for now, it's 250, which is what the pilot payment, it's a little more than the pilot payment would have been. I think we've budgeted 200,000 this year for the pilot payment. Um, and that number will remain static until such time that we need more protection as it develops, but it will not go down like the pilot would. So, what they've asked is that we adopt this service agreement and then later in the agenda repeal the pilot agreement. Can't we can't have both. So, that's what this is.

Um, River has already approved it on Marion. So, this once it's adopted tonight and if we adopt it tonight, get it back over, they can get us this payment this year right away. So, with that said, I need a motion to approve 2026 R4, the River Ridge public service agreement. I'll make a motion to put it on the table. Okay, Chuck makes the motion. Second. Second by questions or discussion? Where does it say the amount? I'm not questioning you. This is what you have the print out of. It's difficult to read. So, I had her print it hoping that it would be Well, this is the one we This is more clear

the full agreement that they're talking about. Yes. If you look at item five, compensation consideration for the provision of city services during the term of this agreement, the city's compliance, RDA shall pay the city amount of $250,000 within 60 days following the final execution of the agreement. Okay. And so instead of going down when they need more services because they sold off a lot of buildings, now it's going to go up when they need more services. Correct. Due to an agreement, this is kind of the similar to what they have with Jeff. Yes. Yes. They have adopted these very impressive because you are there any other question?

I just didn't see that. So it's a little funny to read a bad copy. All right. Any other questions? I will call for the vote. All in favor say I. Any opposed? That's unanimous. Thank you.

Okay, these next two I have um some information on these. So, you know that we have already appropriated $50,000 into the EPIC fund this year, which is part of the policy that you had adopted previously, whereby if we saved at least 7% on the city budget, that money would go into the EPIC fund. The Department of Local Government Finance changed the rules for how we um advertise our appropriations and then we found out about it after we had already done that. So, we have to redo this. I'm introducing it to you tonight as a redo, but I only need the first reading tonight because of the way that the advertisement has to happen. You cannot take final action on the these next two until your next meeting. So, the next two ordinances I'm asking just on first reading. Um, so that first one is ordinance 2026 R3, which is the additional appropriation of the $50,000 into the EPIC fund. I'm asking only for one reading. This will be back on your agenda as advertised for next meeting. And I would need a motion to do that.

Motion by Shannon Elder. Second. Second by Ron Leven. Any questions for me on that? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? That's first reading. That will be back on the agenda at your next meeting. Second one is 2026 O4. This is another additional appropriation. This is from the CCD fund which you have restricted to public safety and the justification for this is for new tasers for the department. So it's about $16,000 to purchase new tasers for the department. Same thing I only needed on the first reading. It was advertised for the meeting in the next month. So I get a motion for that. Make a motion.

Motion by Chad Eaton. Second by Shannon Elder. Any questions from you on that hearing? None. All in favor say I.

I. Any opposed? That's unanimous. We struck item H off of there. So O5 will be back at your next meeting because it's just not quite ready yet. The next item, item I is a amending the salary ordinance. So when we did the salary ordinance last year, I meant to bring all the supervisor levels into the same pay range on the ordinance and one got left off in the building commissioner department. The salary was still at the lower lead level, not at the supervisor level. So this amended the only change on this salary ordinance was to amend the supervisor to come back that supervisor level to come to the other supervisor levels. There were no it wasn't an overall increase in the supervisor levels. It's just shorting those up. So with that said motion to approve motion.

Shannon Elder makes the motion. Is there a second? Second. Second by Ronnie Blevens. Any questions? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? That's unanimous. Since it was unanimous, I would ask for a motion to suspend the rules and pass it on second reading tonight. Make a motion. Ronnie makes the motion. Second. Second by Brian Hester. Any questions on the suspension of the rules? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? That's unanimous. So then I'll call for the second and final reading of ordinance 2026 R6, amending the salary ordinance. Do I have a motion?

Make a motion. Motion by Martin Levens, second. Second by Shannon Elder. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. That is unanimous. Thank you for that. Um, your final ordinance for the night but not final item is to repeal that pilot agreement. So, this is an ordinance. Of course, it does require two readings. Um, and all it does is repeal that previously established pilot agreement. Now that you've adopted the service agreement, it takes its place. So I need a motion to approve. Make a motion. Motion by Chuck Deon. Second by Shannon Elder. Any discussion? Hearing? None. All in favor say I.

I. Any opposed? That's unanimous. I'd like to call for a motion to suspend the rules and do this on the second reading so we can get that payment process service agreement. Motion by Shannon Elder, second by Chuck Eaton. Any questions on the suspension of the rules? Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Unanimous. Second and final reading of 2026 R7 repealing the pilot agreement for the River Ridge development authority. Do I have a motion? Make a motion. Motion by Ronnie Levens. Second. Second by Shannon Elder. Last chance for discussion. Hearing none. All in favor say I. I.

Any oppose? That's unanimous. Thank you. And your last item on the agenda is the voice cloud proposal. you want to say anything about that? I know they got an email, but

yes, um you all did receive a email from my office and we're looking into upgrading the current um Keystone software to a new product offered by the same company that we have now, Keystone. We're finding that Keystone is um moving into the future and they've stopped offering enhancements to the old program that we have now. And we feel like we're that eventually they're going to force us into doing it because they're going to see support on the current program that we have now. So, um the cost on it is it's a lot higher than what we're paying now, but um there's a lot of savings that we'll have also. Um we're paying currently around 22,000 right now. That's not um including um 3CE or a company that's managing our software and our servers and so we think um this will be the best um company to go with to stay with the current company and migrate with them. It'll be easier and save us a lot of money. So approximately 95,925 is what the proposal is and um it'll cost us about $73,925 more a year and we will split that. We'll take it from the sanitation, the edit, and the CCI, which is the QCAP improvement, and possibly the RDC, the redevelopment commission. Um, and you did receive some information on that from us. First payment will be due um at the time of execution, $1,000, and then the second payment will be 61,000, and then we'll have to pay. And we probably will not be able to get the software until November, but If we do it

now, they'll wave the migration fee, which is around $60,000. So, we'd like to go ahead and get an approval of that. You all have any questions on it? By looking at it, it looks like it's a great thing for you all. Oh, yeah. It is. It really benefit from that. Really, it helps you all, helps everybody in the city. Yeah. So, it looks like it looked like a really good thing. I looked over it and I talked to talked to Heather a lot about talked to you about it. a lot of research. So, I mean, she really support and help. She really does feed in on it. So, she did. And, you know, I'll say this, the court treasure staff, they don't ask for much, right?

They're the least needy department we have when it comes to spending money. And um the fact that we can do this without having to make an additional appropriation because they've been able to split the funds across this way, it makes sense. So, I fully support them. It's like it streamline everything, doesn't it? Yes. More efficient for residents and it does office. It does. And it's a little more secure because it comes with that encrypted storage. Um, so that's always good, too. What do we need? We need to act on that tonight. Uh, yeah, just a motion and just a vote to approve them to move forward. I'd like to get it done so they can get take advantage of the savings. I'm making a motion to approve and move forward with that. Second. Okay. A motion by Chucky and second by Ron Levens. Any other questions or discussion? Anything else you want to say, Donna?

No. Thank you. All right. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? All right, that's unanimous. And if there's nothing from our attorneys that they're worried about, we just need a motion to adjurnn. I make it. All right, check makes the motion. Second. Second by Shann Elder. All favor say I. Any opposed? Thank you. Commission. Look at that. Yeah.