City Council - Regular Meeting

Didn't get out much.

Yeah.

It was so hot.

It was.

Mayor Crane? Here. Councilmember Kochenhaber? Here. Bolzer? Here. Easter? Here. Smith? Here.

Ann Randles? Here.

Are there any additions or corrections to the minutes? Sandy?

Yeah. Are we first?

Yeah. You're the only ones that called in, so you're good.

Well, we were here about the implement taking out the sidewalk along Liberty Street, that equipment there.

Did they take it out, or did they just cover it up with metal?

No, I see them with the backhoe digging it out. And then they took what the city right away is and covered it with walls and put equipment on it.

Now, we used that sidewalk.

It wasn't in the best shape, but we used it. It's easier to cross 3rd Street on that side than it is on the other side and stuff. And Baker said they use it with the kids. I don't know why he had a right to take the right of way of the sidewalk in this street. That's a false right of way of the city. The city has the right of way of that. He doesn't pay tax on it. He doesn't own it. He just took it. It's on Liberty and 2nd. Where have I been for a minute?

At 2nd.

Huh?

At 2nd.

No, it's on Liberty.

Okay, but it'll move it by 2nd.

Yeah.

Okay. I'm going to say it because I walked right down 3rd to Liberty today and I didn't see it.

Well, if you go on past 3rd and go down Liberty, you'll come to it. Okay. Because equipment's all across there. And we'd like to sidewalk that. I don't know if he got permission to do it. I don't know who would have given him permission to do it or if he just did it on his own.

After I talked to Joe at the car show or whatever that was, I went to Brandon and asked him how he got to just cover it up. He said he tore out the sidewalk because he had permission to do that.

From somebody. But he didn't say who?

Yeah. That's what he told me. And I says, well, you can't just tear out a sidewalk and then not put it back. Yeah, that's what he was told.

I mean, everybody has sidewalks. We tore ours out.

But where are the boundaries from the center of the street to the edge of that sidewalk? To the inside edge. To the street side.

No, inside. Inside.

It could go inside.

It's on the inside of the street. If you want to see the map, I've got it.

Oh, I believe you. I believe you.

It's on the inside of the property.

Sandy is at a 66-foot street.

60-foot. 60-foot street. And his mom is... is 72 foot by 88.

We had just talked about sidewalks and the property owner doing just the concrete part of it, but I didn't know we were allowed to just tear it out and cover it up. But it's not the entire from 2nd Street to 3rd Street. It's how many feet?

It'd be half of that.

But it goes to the edges.

132 feet.

But that's what he told me. He said Brad gave me permission to tear it out and cover that up. So I know, I know, but I'm just telling you what he told me.

Well, he's done the same on the second suit too, but it's cement. It's not that old rough gravel, but yeah, he's made a driveway, but that's for his equipment. And it's concrete. Well, put her up to where the end of the building was, and then he just kind of used the old driveway for the car wash. Where the car wash was. Yeah, and that was all cement. We didn't use that. Judy Funk did that lives on that side of the street. She walked that cement and stuff.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I saw it.

It looks terrible.

But he said he had permission to do it, so we know. I'll talk to him about putting it back in.

We'd like to know when. We'd like to know if you're going to give him a deadline to do it because otherwise it's just going to say.

I mean, what are we talking about? How many feet? He can pull his equipment back a little bit, you know, to get this. I mean, I think to get the sidewalk back in and, you know, I think do the right thing. But I did go talk to him. Yeah.

Will you let us know?

Yeah.

Okay. Because we'd like to know when it's going to be put back. He's got equipment on there now that he's in business and stuff, but that still doesn't give him the right to destroy city-owned property.

I'll let you know.

Okay. That's all we have.

Okay.

Are you ready?

at the end of the week um keaton plies is moving on we have aaron victory on staff in the probationary period i would ask him to hire him full time and also move him up to the class b pay rate he's already been on call started in may he runs the equipment

yes thanks casey greg um yeah it's kind of like four years

$2,250 for all three wells.

I have, and I make a motion to go ahead and approve it and have it done.

Okay, do I have a second?

I'll second it.

Okay. Randy? Yes. Yes. Kathy? Yes. Yes.

Okay, Greg, go ahead. What was the name of that company again? The new company?

Okay.

and they were here last week. I talked to them. They are getting a quote together on that.

They feel that our water tower is ready. It's at a point now where it needs repainted, but it's not bad enough that it has to be sandblasted or anything yet. So if we're going to do anything to it, I would say encode it long before it gets to the sandblasting part where they have to take it down to their metal. That's a big expense.

A lot more.

So he's getting back with me with a price shortly, except within a couple of weeks. And we've got one from Pittsburgh Tank, so we're going to continue. Plus they're local. That's kind of nice, too. Have you heard anything on when we're getting our lab?

It was supposed to be in, I think, July 20th.

And then lastly, tomorrow, I just got a call for quitting time today that our item inspector will be in for our annual wastewater plant inspection tomorrow morning.

And she is bringing the case officer from our construction permit and the agreed order. Thank you.

Okay. You had another quote on a tank?

We do have, well, we had originally the one we looked at was that 2026 that you and your dad reached out and found out.

And the one we were looking at was on a 3,000-gallon tanker on Kenworth.

He had mentioned earlier today when I talked to him that we're probably looking at about another $60,000 or $65,000 on top of the price that we had got for the original one.

And we'll have to order it, and it'll probably take 10 months to a year to get it.

We also looked at a rescue squad.

We need to replace our rescue squad. one that we got through CSEP. It's starting nickel and diamonds right now.

And we need to replace it. The brand new one is about $310,000. And it's going to take about a year to get there. Is that through foul? It's through foul. Okay.

We're actually applying to 2017.

Bert, do you have anything tonight?

You folks, I'm sorry. I'm typically one of your dozens of YouTube viewers. Pardon?

I'm typically one of your dozens of YouTube viewers.

I'm not on YouTube, Emily.

Oh, yeah, this is. And I don't know if you've ever watched those back. So I was curious to know if there's something that could be done about that.

New system.

And the other question I had was, is there an official, like, communication channel for, like, things like power outages or boilers, things along those lines?

Usually our website.

Okay.

Our website, I try and post it on social media. Anybody else have anything?

I got a couple of things. Yeah, at least for Greg. From time to time, early in the morning, I have a tremendous amount of air in my body. Is there air in your water? Yeah, but you're here. You're pumping up the air.

Anybody else?

Anybody heard of any air and water?

Nobody else does?

Casey?

I just know they've been using fill stations to do all the horizontal drilling machines.

It's not been just in the last few months.

It's been longer than that?

No, no, I know it's only been two weeks oh it's been a month

Hey, hey, Sandy, we'll get him where it's just been busy.

concerned, are we okay? Because we only have two athletes.

I'm going to pass.

I had someone approached me about a house on 8th and Washington and on 4th Street by Park Street.

A lot of trash in the yard. I didn't get a number on 4th Street, but it's like the second house south of Park on the east side. off the alley, so that's really bad.

I forget which one is. Faith in Washington is that the northwest corner? I think so. Okay.

And 8th and Jefferson also. If you go to the city website, you can download the complaint form and fill it out and bring it to us. That way I can mail it to them. It seems to work better than If I don't have an address, I don't know who to go to. So the people will fill out the complaint form that's on there or come into the office and get them.

Is that all you had, Chad? Yes.

I was just going to talk about the sidewalks again to see if we can come up with something just like that situation. But instead of them tearing it out, the city's responsible for tearing it out, and then we split the cost. and putting it back. And fees paid up front before we start construction. And so I didn't know if we needed to update that policy.

Sandy? It's gone. Yeah. Well, on that situation, if you go a little farther east, the sidewalk goes from the building to the street, to the curb.

that would be a better situation if we went from the curb in five or six feet. On the application that I provided, it allots for the lineal feet of the sidewalk and how much the cost would be and everything so that we would have a total before we ever started. So I didn't know if we needed to pass something updating our policy, or if this is just the policy.

Has it not been updated?

This is what she proposed at the last meeting.

you would you want to go ahead and read that to us again i know we read it last meeting application for sidewalk replacement program the city of covington offers a sidewalk replacement to all home property owners on first come first serve basis until the allocated money is consumed the property owners pay half the cost of the installation and the concrete the city of covington will remove the old sidewalk and pay for half of the The owner must complete this form, return it to the city clerk's office. The public works department will measure the area and generate cost public cost estimate. Project cost estimate once property owner has paid their share of cost. The project will be placed on the schedule. do with that is probably take bids from contractors so much per foot. Because we don't have the time or the manpower to replace them. homeowners that's why we have to set up so it has to be set up as that as a concrete replacement well we have correct we can take it out community improvement anybody having questions i actually had something else

I wasn't too concerned about it until I started getting my tax bills. My taxes went up to $1,600 in one year after we became .

That sounds excessive.

Well, and next year it's going to go up even higher. They built my place valued at almost $600,000. You have appealed it you've been Okay We like a lot of things out there to be taxed fully by the city we don't have all the utilities

We're not charging, you know, we're charging for utilities. Our, you know, the county charges that.

Well, and I'll also say that the state legislator updated the tax property tax code a couple of years ago, and it has wreaked havoc with a lot of people's property taxes. Some people had actually lowered their property taxes. Some people not so much. And I know that the legislator is proposing, state rep J.D. Prescott is proposing to replace and repeal property taxes, repeal and replace property taxes altogether with a service tax on service fees. And he's traveling around the state and holding town halls for people to poke holes in his theory to see if there's, you know, if it's going to have the unintended consequences of So I would encourage everybody to find one of those town hall meetings. If we can get one over in this area, we will. But I would encourage you to attend those and give your two cents and ask the questions.

The effects of SB1 that was passed last year on property taxes just took effect on the 1st.

Was the annexation ever approved by city council sitting here?

Yes.

Can you provide because no one seems to find it. the city, I'll be honest.

Taylor, can you notice, I don't think anybody noticed in the newspaper, just public notice.

What newspaper?

However, we normally public notice these sorts of meetings, any other, I mean, that's all I'm gonna say. I mean, it's recorded over there. The county actually doesn't use beacon anymore. Apparently beacon doesn't stay updated on all the, what the county does. They use elevate. I think they said they've been doing since so forth. So you're not going to see it on beacon is the reason is what I was told.

But you can't tell us where it was before.

neighbors the only thing we have to publish it it's the only paper there yes can you tell me what date why can't i'll top my head i will do that tomorrow yeah i will try to pull the files tomorrow and then one day you guys approved it here sure

One that lives out there, she was here at the meeting when it was passed.

But she stood up the last time and said she was here and heard that it had been passed. So one that was here at the meeting when it was passed.

It's been two years, hasn't it? I mean, it's been a while. It's two years ago.

So we're being told that it was not done legally.

Who told you that?

There's been lots of rumors going around.

You told me, Andy.

See that was my question the last time this was brought up was Who voted?

Who counted the votes? Where are the votes at? How did you vote? There's a lot of questions in there.

Nobody returns my door after I said no. So I have no idea.

Mike Garns. He carried the paper around. So we'll have a vote on it.

I mean, it's a little late for a vote. You already have access.

No, no. I mean, we'll be able to tell who voted.

That's what you want to know, right?

You want to know how many voted? Make sure everyone passed it. You would like to see how it actually all. Sure. I mean, just once we're told that, I mean, we have no choice. There was no reason to come to the meeting. There's nothing. If it's majority.

It was a, it was a. Was it a super majority, Taylor?

It was over 60%.

They're super voluntary, which it was not.

And then they had over 60. It's all in the petition. Everybody's names, every affected property owner is in the petition. Some of them just aren't signed. So, for example, the ones that didn't agree with it didn't sign on that line. The ones that did signed on the line for the petition. And they were still in the petition. Yeah. So, yeah, the city would have a petition that has the signature page. have the ordinance that tells you the date and the date of approval.

So that should be somewhere, right? We can find that.

Yep. Yeah. Yes. If you want to come in and talk to Linda and then she can either do that or direct you to a public record request or cover. She wants to handle it from there, but yeah.

But you have appealed what if what did they say?

I mean, based off of river road and ours, it's the land value they tack on to ours because we're in the city. River road is land value is much less because I can compare my dad's versus mine and it is substantially less. Everything on river road is.

The first seven lots were annexed in in 94. They weren't supposed to be, but they were annexed in. Because when I ran 99, I got a list of people and they were in the city limits.