City Council - Regular Meeting

All

righty, folks. Here we go. Good evening, everyone. I'd like to call to order the April 22nd, 2026 meeting in the FondeLac City Council. Our first item of business is roll call and that's done electronically with all of us present. I will declare a quorum present. Next item on our agenda is the pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of silent reflection. At this time I ask you to please rise.

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. Thank you. Up next on our agenda, we have some proclamations. We'll begin with the Arbor Day proclamation. So, if they can meet me down in front for that, I'd appreciate it. You want me? Okay, there we go. Perfect. Otherwise, Kevin will yell at me and that's never good. Okay. Arbor Day proclamation. Whereas Arbor Day has been observed in Wisconsin since 1889. And whereas the city of FondeLac has been a Tree City USA. And whereas historically Arbor Day is associated with the Arbor Day programs that enhance and renew our environment. And whereas the Redeemer Lutheran 3rd and fourth grade students will participate in the observance by holding an Arbor Day program Friday, April 24th, 2026 at Lakeside Park at the pavilion at 1:00, followed by the Tree City USA Awards Ceremony at 1:15. Now therefore, I Keith Heistler, present to the Fondelac City Council, by my signature affixed to hereby proclaim April 24th as Arbor Day in the city of Fondelac.

With that, John, there you go. Thank you very much. You're welcome. That's yours.

Well, thank you. And first off, I want to start by uh thanking council uh for supporting the uh forestry department. Uh without you uh we wouldn't have our 38th Tree City USA. Um also I want to thank our park crew, park and forestry crew. We're very fortunate to have three certified arborists that uh that work with the city. And also I want to thank uh our construction and maintenance crew. Um they get a little bit overlooked. Uh they do help quite a bit in the winter for tree removals for the ash and some of the Norways and Norway maples. and then also um any storm damage. So, so they're often uh one of the first um on site. Um wanted to remind everybody that this Friday we do have Arbor Day celebration. Um it is at 1:00 and it has been moved to the Kowana shelter this year. Um so that is just 200 ft west of the pavilion. So thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Much appreciated. You're going to stay right there for the uh for the tree city or for the kids to park state proclamation. All right. Hold on one sec. I used to do a roadie thing, so I'm pretty good at that microphone deal. Hold on. I was hoping the folks from the United Way would come join us. Hi, guys.

All right. Perfect. All right. Whereas May 16th, 2026 is the 16th Kids to Parks Day organized and launched by the National Park Trust and held annually on the third Saturday of May. And whereas the Fondelac Area United Way in collaboration with the Fondac Public Library will be hosting a park scavenger hunt featuring games and a giveaway with the Born to with the Born Learning Trail from 10:00 a.m. till 12:00 p.m. at Lakeside Park. And whereas kids to parks day empowers kids and encourages families to get outdoors and visit America's parks. And whereas we should encourage children to lead a more active lifestyle to to combat the issues of childhood obesity, diabetes, and hypertension. And whereas kids to parks day is open to all children and adults across the country to encourage a large and diverse group of participants. And whereas kids to parks day will broaden children's appreciation for nature and outdoors. Now therefore, I, Keith Heisler, president of the Fondelac City Council, do hereby proclaim May 16th, 2026 as kids to parks day in the city of Fondelac and urge our entire community to participate in the events to take their children and their lives to a neighborhood stake or national park.

Thank you. Which one of you is talking?

I have a staff person now for this, but you know, as a good leader, I'll say a couple words and I'll delegate after that. But no, I just want to start by thanking the council as well. We appreciate the um the continued support for kids to park day and Mr. Redmond here who uh allowed us to do the first born learning trail in the city of Fondelac. So big shout out to the city. And then Ripen actually will be our fourth trail, the Ripen um I can't remember if it's Barlo Park. It's one of their new ones. Um it's it's the barrier free playground. So anyway, that one is coming soon. um but well four uh born learning trails but this year we decided to really pivot and do um kids to parks day meet um veggies and produce in the park. So this is uh Tiana Williams uh she is our staff person and she runs our farm to early child care initiative program which main goal is to get produce into our child care centers in a way to support our childare centers throughout FondeLac County. We have five partners. Okay. So, I'll have her tell you a little bit about what what we're going to be doing that Saturday for those couple hours, but definitely get out onto our social media pages. We'll be sharing information about that and we'll take the city in that.

Thank you, Amber. Thank you, city council as well for supporting this is um I am excited to say that this is the only registered event so far for Wisconsin for the National Kids to Park Day. So, go FondeLac. And I'm excited to have our our little ambassador over here, my daughter Lana. She's 6 years old and she is a big part of helping the um farm to ECE initiative and everything that we do including chasing chickens around some of the farms that we get to visit. Um but we bring fresh fruits and vegetables and just locally produced meats and eggs and uh working on bread as well to bring into our daycare centers to give the the littles an experience and really start building those healthy habits early on. And I'm excited to work closely with the farmers in our communities and all of everything that we pay them is fair prices and fair rates while relieving some of the stress from our child care centers. And um so at Kids to Park Day this year, what we're going to be doing is um we're going to have some veggie sampling, some fresh unique vegetables from our local farmers out at Olden Organics in Ripen. And um again, like this says, we're going to be doing some scavenger hunts. We'll have some games out there to play, some different prize packages to win as well um for the kids and the adults too. So, we would love to see everybody come on out and there will be an event on our Facebook page in just a little bit here. So, thank you very much.

Thank you.

One of the chiefs always does a really good job with the photos. This what that's what they're here for. with husband. Now this key is is rarely given especially to somebody who is serving in in another organization. But I wanted to take just a couple of minutes and tell some stories because on this plaque it tells us that Amy served as the director of the Downtown Funlock Partnership from 2007, which remember that that was a year before the mortgage crisis until next week. And one thing I've learned in life is if you wait too long to give people the compliments they've earned, it's called a eulogy. And we didn't want to do that. We wanted to make sure that we we told you how much we appreciate you. And and the story I wanted to tell is if you think back all those years, you think about what the Rhett Law Theater used to be, the Retlaw Hotel used to be, how many buildings you've touched, the creation

of the facade grant, all the events that you dreamt up out of maybe thin air and gave birth to so many different different fun things downtown. And I could go on and on, but I will say this. Uh, many years ago, I think you'd agree, we didn't know which way the downtown was going to go, right? We got lucky that the Boys and Girls Club and the Y decided to stay downtown. Got really lucky that Gary Sad off decided to bankroll the after that we had a lot of momentum and you were a big big part of that, Amy. And so with that as background and I know that you've got a tough job because most people tell you what they wish you would have done but I'm here to tell you you did a great job. So with that I want to present this to you

and uh congratulations but more than that thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you Joe. It's been a joy, absolute joy to work with you all these years. And um I'm delighted to see Keith back, president. I didn't know he was president again. So, um I want to remind you though, too, the along with the the great mortgage crisis of 2008, we had that was the year downtown flooded as well. So, that was a really great year. Um so, but uh yeah, I've enjoyed all these 18 years working with all of you. It's it's it's actually unusual. I talked to my counterparts around the state. Not every organization gets as long along with their city as well as we all get along. And it's u it's made my job easier. And I know Diane's not here anymore. She was a huge part in in uh all the grant programs and and a lot of the redevelopment projects we did. And and then I think of like Paul, I feel like I'm always calling public works asking for favors all the time. Can you can you help me out with this and help me out with that? So, uh, I've really appreciated the support and, um, I also I do work with a board of directors. If any of you know JJ Rafleck, please extend him a thank you. He's been handling, you know, all of this, uh, very, very well. And as well as my staff, they're um, ramping up. We're have our farmers market coming up in three, four weeks. So, that'll be a big one. So, but I uh, thank you all. Thank you all for this recognition. I've loved this job and I'll be around. Uh yeah, Keith and I got a we got walleye weekend coming up pretty quick. We're very busy with that. We also have a parade coming up for uh the America's 250 that I'm helping with. So, I'll be around. Thank you, sir.

Thank you all for joining us for the proclamations. At this point, we're going to move on to public hearings, which we do have one tonight for the justice assistant grant for the fiscal year 2025. So, what we'll do is we'll do three times if there's anyone here who who wishes to speak on the justice assistant grant. Once again, is there anyone wishing to speak on the justice assistance grant? And for a third and final time, is there anyone here wishing to speak on the Justice Assistance Grant? Having read that three times, I'll declare the public hearing now closed. Next, we'll move on to our consent agenda, which finalizes the proposed actions for the meeting. It's a April 8th, 2026 minutes, and the B list of claims April 13, 2026 minutes. Is there any discussion? If not, I'll entertain a motion. See a a motion by Miss Balt, a second by Mr. Zimmerman. Any further discussion? Seeing none, please proceed to vote. We got We got We got six. Yep. Now that passes unanimously. We're good. Thank you, Maggie. Couple pieces of of council housekeeping items. It's our first meeting with the new counselors. I just wanted to remind everybody that on your iPads, you'll see a uh a request to speak item that does not uh does not notify me that you want to speak. So, if you would like to speak, please hit your button. And then also remember whenever possible to vote with the Granicus app on your iPad. Thank you. With that, we'll move on to audience

comments. And uh and for that, the presiding officer shall limit items noticed on the agenda to five minutes and non-aggenda items will be limited to two minutes. With that, Miss Hefer, I believe we have a couple wishing to speak. Correct. All right. I'm going to start with Miss Gallier at 28914th Street. she wishes to speak on the bird city celebration as well as Earth Day.

Thank you, President Eisler. Yes, Bird City is uh going to celebrate next week. We start with the 28th um six o'clock in the evening at the Bondlike Public Library with Bob Hazy's photo show of migrating birds and waterfall. And so hope many people will come out and join us for that. Then we're going to do bird walks on May 1st and 2nd. And a bird walk is basically just an excuse to wander in nature for a while. Even if you are not interested in birds specifically, you will find something that sparks you. So please come out and join us for the bird walks May 1st. We're going to start at six o'clock in the evening at Lakeside West. Come out to the dog park area and look for the bird city flag. And then on May 2nd, Saturday, we start at 700 a.m. because birds get up early. And we're going to take a walk at Camelot Pond. And then we're going to go at 10:00 to the Greenway Arboretum. We're going to take a walk through the arboretum and then we're going to do a sit at the northern end and see what kind of birds we can see while sitting at the northern end just by us sitting and not walking around and see what comes through um for a couple of hours and by one o'clock we're going to be finished with our c our spring vibr migration celebration for bird city. This is also Earth Day today and I'd like to take just a moment to remind us that this is Earth Day started in 1970 by our senator Gaylord Nelson. Um, we may not have a specific Earth Day celebration here, but we are celebrating Earth Day from now through May, you know, the kids at park day and that kind of thing. There are many celebrations over the next several weeks, all of them which are connected to the earth. So, let's remember our Earth Day over several days and thank you for the opportunity. See you all out on Bird City next week.

Thank you, Mr. Galia. And now I'll turn it over to our next speaker, which is John Wakowski, and he wishes to speak on the agenda item for the library. Um, I've gone to library a lot for last year. Um, I'm impressed by all the things that the city is library has been has been and is doing in the progress and helping the progress of the community by sponsoring events. I do think it's really great that they are trying to do as best they can. I wish that there was some way of getting some um better way of getting agenda or getting attendance up because I went to a few of them. There's only a few people that show as you shown a few of them and I wish that there was get some better way of getting the word out because they are doing an excellent job at trying to care about what is going on in the community and the nation and fostering a better uh group of kids especially to want to do things to improve the quality of the community and country entirely. Thank you. Thank you very much. With that, that ends our

Did you want to speak on the non-aggenda item? You had something else listed on the sheet. Okay. My apologies. I didn't see that at first. Thank you. Thank you.

Um around the beginning of this year, um I was had a situation at the library which I was going to. I was going to grab my teeth from guy that donates lunch to the people community and um this one guy who had been uh calling me names for like two weeks prior to uh came up to me and with in a wheelchair and he was saying uh he's more or less ordering me to um press the button for um the the order to be open. Um, and given the fact that I was being assaulted by him constantly, I refused to do so. And then he rammed me with his wheelchair after he got up out of his wheelchair and threatened to assault me. Um, and I've been I have arthritis and it's been kind of making me more difficult for me to walk. I did approach it to a repo um law enforcement officer and I felt that it could have been handled a little better. Um and it just couldn't handle a little better. I felt that I was giving being threatened by a law officer to police officer to um more or less accept his behavior. And

Mr. That's your time. Thank you for sharing that with us and I'm sorry that happened. With that, I believe that ends our audience comments for this evening. We'll conclude our audience comments and move on to our action items. We'll go on to action item A, which is the uh permit to to uh sell fermented malt beverages on park property. Entity is Fondelac Festivals, Inc. The event is Walleye Weekend. This location is Lakeside Park. Dates are the 12th through the 14th of June, 2026. And Miss Hefer has our introduction.

Thank you, President Heisler. Fondelac Festivals is requesting to sell fermented milk beverages on park property for the annual Walleye Weekend on June 12th through the 14th. A special event application has been submitted and approved by city departments. No carry-ins or glass containers are permitted within the festival grounds and city staff recommends approval. Thank you very much, Miss Heftter. Anyone have any questions for Miss Heftter? Without any questions, I'll entertain a motion at this time. I see a motion from Miss Mayweather and I see a second from Mr. Mullen. And with that, if there's nothing else, please proceed to vote. Everybody's in. Yeah, that passes unanimously on our side. All right, with that we'll move on to action item B, which is the resolution reviewing and approving the grant application for the JAG program grant. And, uh, Chief Goldstein has that introduction for us.

Thanks, uh, President Heisler. Uh, so we were made aware that we're eligible for $14,866 in grant funding for use in late uh, 2026. For those new uh members, this is a formula grant. So that means that they look at our population served size and also our part one violent crime statistics. Uh under those are homicide, aggravated assault, sexual assault, and robberies. Uh what's great about this grant is there is no match funding requirement for the city of Fondelac. So we would like to apply for this grant to use the funding to purchase what are called suppressors for our department SWAT rifles. Uh last year we had allocated operational budget funds to replace 15 uh end of life rifles. They're about two to three decades old. So somewhere 30 years old and and not usable. Um there was a piece that we were unable to uh fund at that time and that is this suppressor. Uh these suppressors are proven safety measures during high-risisk operations. As you can imagine, in confined environments, rifle fire produces extreme noise levels that can cause immediate hearing damage, disrupt communication, and impair officers ability to make critical decisions. Suppressors reduce these harmful effects and allow our officers to communicate clearly, maintain situational awareness, and operate with greater precision. So, President Heisler and city council, I'm looking for uh approval to hit send and submit. Uh there were two last steps, the public hearing and this resolution. Thank you. Thank you, Chief. Anyone have any questions for Chief Goldstein? Seeing no questions, I'll entertain a motion. And I believe we have one on the floor from Mr. Bber. Miss Bal has seconded the motion. So, if there isn't any further discussion, please proceed to vote.

And that passes unanimously. Thanks everyone. Thank you, Chief Goldstein. We're going to move on to action item C, which is the uh resolution making appointments to the Redevelopment Authority and Historic Preservation Board. That's resolution number 9235. City Manager, Mr. Moore, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Mr. Heisler. Good evening, everyone. These two appointments are essentially new appointments, especially Mr. Harbridge. He's he's a new volunteer for the city. This will be his first opportunity to serve the city at on the RDA and it's a great fit because he's a young banker. I think it'll be great. Mr. Tletki, you've approved his service on other committees previously, so I recommend his his uh approval as well for the HPC. If you don't have any questions, I I recommend approval for both of them. Excellent.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Any questions for Mr. Moore? Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion at this time. Mr. Mullen motioned and Mr. Bber seconded. Thank you. And with that, we'll proceed to vote. And that passes unanimously. Thank you, sir. Oh, the button over there. Oh, yeah. Nope. That I don't see that. I don't see that. You got to Yep. There you go. Next time. Hit the microphone.

Personally, he's very I know Ethan personally uh this past year, a very upright young man trying to do the good things. And good words are said there, Mr. Warren. Thank you. With that, we'll move on to resolution number 9236, and that's the resolution making appointments to the advisory park board and advisory parking and traffic. Once again, Mr. Moore, the floor is yours. Thank you.

Thanks. Both of these individuals have been serving. So, this is a reup for Mr. Whis on the park board and Miss Wagner on the advisory parking and traffic board. this would be their second term each. So, I recommend approval for both of them.

Thank you, Mr. Moore. And as a council, we just like to thank all of the folks who have continued to serve on these boards and commissions because without them, we wouldn't be able to get the great work done that they're able to do. With that, I will I'll entertain a motion unless there's any other questions. Seeing no other questions, I'll take a motion at this time. Miss Mayweather, thank you for the motion. Mr. Mr. Zimmerman, thank you for the second. With that, let's proceed to vote. And that passes unanimously. Now, we're going to move on to uh to I believe that's we're we're on to E, I believe, which is the resolution granting the is that the Alliant Energy at Lakeside Park. Is that where we're at?

Yes. the wastewater treatment program. Sorry about that. It's not that's why it's not correct in our granicus app. So, um that's why I was a little thrown off. So, let's give our give that a second to make a correction and then after that we'll get the introduction from Mr. Johnson. While we're waiting for that, just a heads up from council. Uh the plan commission did recommend approval for this. Once once we're ready for that, then we'll have the introduction. Okay. Floor is yours, sir. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Um, this, uh, easement has been requested by Allian Energy. They are requesting a 12- foot wide permanent natural gas and communications easement along with a 10- foot wide temporary construction easement on lands owned by the city within Lakeside Park. This particular easement is on the east side of Dodie Street across the street from the wastewater plant down to West Harbor View Drive. Uh these facilities are required as part of the city's uh renewable natural gas program over at the wastewater treatment plant. Uh the granting of easements require city council approval and city staff suggest that the plan commission uh sorry city staff can plan commission recommend that council approve these questions I answer.

Thank you Mr. Johnson. Appreciate it. Uh I do have Mr. Mullen in the speaker queue. Go ahead. uh at plan commission uh I asked if there was going to be anything permanent above ground uh after the installation of this and they didn't know at the time. So do you know? Yeah. Uh from my understanding there's nothing permanent above ground on these particular ements. This is all underground facilities. Okay. Thank you.

M Luring you're up next. My question was similar and um thank you for the answer, but I also am wondering if um do they plan to I mean they could put something there in the future and they could be digging there, right? I mean it is possible that they could put something there in the future, but the current plan is just a gas pipeline and a fiber communication line. Is there anything that would ever have to go in there with it? I don't know. Like I'm just curious about the future because it takes up green space at the park.

Um I can I'm reading the easement request right now and it simply says that the grtor agreed who uh agrees that in the easement area not to construct or place building structures or other improvements or place without the express written consent of the city. Okay. Thank you. That answers your question.

Any questions? Thank you both. And uh seeing no further questions in the queue at this time, I'll entertain a motion. Mr. Mullen, thank you for the motion. Mr. Bald, thank you for the second. At this point, if there's nothing further, please proceed to vote. And that passes unanimously. Thanks everyone. And with that, that ends our input. That ends our action items this evening. I'm sorry. We're going to move on to our presentation of input items which is the library demonstration on the website for resources for local history. Mr. Serrano, the floor is yours.

All right. Um, thank you for having us this evening. We're going to just kind of go over some of the new local history items that the library has been working over the past year to get online for our community members to use. Um, this has been something that is a longstanding and ongoing project that the library has done because as some of you might know, the library used to have a local museum back when it was a Carnegie building. Um, so a lot of what I'm going to show you tonight is only possible with the work of decades worth of librarians coming through uh, FondeLac. Um, to access these materials, I've got us on the library homepage here under local history and genealogy. you can find the Fondelac collection which is a brand new page that we've put together. Um, and I'll just kind of work down the page and highlight some of the the details for y'all. Um, so at the top here we just have an overview of what folks can expect to find on the page, including local history books, maps, atlases, photos and postcards, city and county directories, yearbooks, and then charts and forms. This is sat across from a window onto the library's YouTube channel, which is connected to our history at home playlist. Um, that's a over 10-year-old program that the library has consistently hosted focusing on topics related to local, state, and regional history. This past month, in our own way to celebrate Earth Day, we hosted a Badger Talk on how the glacier shaped Wisconsin with Professor Lucas Zot from WMadison. And right below that, you'll find a link to uh our calendar events related to local history and genealogy. Moving down the page, we will find a selection of local history books that we've made available as PDFs. Uh patrons can click on any one of these uh to pull up a PDF of the book that is searchable.

Um, and for especially for our outofstate users, um, this is important, um, because a lot of times they're looking to get context on the history of FondeLac. They're not always as familiar with it as we might be. Um, this part of the collection we are expecting to expand soon with Michael Menser's FondeLac County, the Gift of the Glacier. We've been working with the County Historical Society to get permission uh to host that title as a part of our collection. Um, coming to the the meat of what we've been doing, the digital scans. Um, we'll go into a couple of these in a moment, but I'll just provide an overview briefly. Uh, we've got a what we've been calling a starter set of materials that have been aimed at suiting the needs of researchers in the community, which for us predominantly are gene genealogy researchers. And we also see a lot of folks interested in the histories of their homes or their buildings. Um, so these materials we hope will help to get them started on those tasks. Um, so there's maps and uh atlases, city and county directories. The Wnebago Lutheran yearbooks were a little bit of a surprise because we I was communicating with staff members over there and found out that for their centennial celebration, they worked with a third party to get all of their yearbooks scanned. They were gracious enough to give us permission to host a direct link to that collection. So, it's now findable on our website as well as their alumni page. The reporter index is a partial index of articles featured in the local newspaper. Um, right now, like I said, it's selective. Uh, but the project of indexing local newspapers in Fondelac is something that goes back. Some of the records that I have indicate that we may have been participating in the WPA newspaper indexing project during the Great Depression period. So, possibly that far back. Um, we know that

one of the librarians, at least through the 1950s, was reading every weekly, daily newspaper inbound newspaper copies and writing down pertinent information onto note cards that are now housed um in a card catalog index that's on our second floor in our Seafeld research room. Uh, it's a really incredible endeavor to have undertaken. Um, and so we're hoping to add more of that to this reporter index. It also kind of builds on another project that we have which is the vital records index. Um both of these indices as well as the example directory that I will be showing you in a moment and the postcards are hosted through our partners in the Winnifox library network which is a regional uh greater greater Fox Valley regional library system. So all of these materials when we go and look at them will be findable next to materials from Ripen, from Brandon, from Oshkosh and other uh area communities. So when folks are doing their research, they can easily jump back and forth between these and get a better sense for the history of the region. Um so with that, I'm going to open up here uh some of the directories and just kind of outline for you some of what the software can do for these. Um you'll notice that we've kind of jumped around a bit with the selection of uh directories that we've picked for this starter set. Uh this was partially to get some of the oldest materials in our collection. Um we will be moving on to capture every fifth year. So the 1915, 1925, 26, 36, 46, and 55 city directories because genealogologists often work with federal census records and the federal census is only done every 10 years. So we figured if we can cut that gap in half to every fifth year, it will help them track their ancestors backwards a little bit more easily. So we're doing that with

some intentionality. The 1903 1905 split is to account for the street renaming that occurred in FondeLac between 1904 and 1905. Uh and if we open one of these up, what we will get here, and I'll adjust it here, one of the tools we have is we can fit to height. So we can see the full scan, get a better sense for what we're looking at. Um, we have a search bar here, so I can search, for example, the name Smith. Um, it will pull up every hit. And OCR is not a perfect technology. So I still always recommend people look through once they're in a general area and make sure that they're not missing anything. But this drop down here will show you a list of all the pages in the scans where there is a hit for the name Smith or the keyword Smith. Um, and you can jump around as you as you see fit, as you need. Um, as I said, these are alongside other area materials. So, if we go back to all the different collections here, the local history books are also featured uh on the Winfox digital collections as well. And just today, I was informed because I was transferring more files for city directories over to our partner Kra uh Schultz. She let me know that the last of the postcards I shared with her a few months ago were finally ready to go. So, the ones that I'm going to highlight for you here are new as of today, as of earlier today. So, these ones of the county courthouse in 1908 are new as of today. Um, it should load in just a second for you. Here you go. Um, so these these are new newer. Um, what's nice about some of the postcards is that there are samples of uh, writing on the back. So, if you're so inclined to practice reading cursive in other people's handwriting, you can do that. Um, it's also something that will be beneficial for our staff at the library and hopefully other city staff as we're planning programs to help enrich the

community more that we can do activities related to cursive or creating postcards and letterw writing and show them how people uh recorded their experiences of the past. Going back a little bit um and just kind of finishing off here, the charts and forms. We get a lot of requests for folks who are interested in organizing their research and that's kind of the last step in that process of organizing and presenting your research. So, we've provided free of charge um people can access and download print copies of pedigree charts, research logs, family group sheets, and tips and tricks for getting started with oral histories, as well as um pointing them in the direction for checking out recording devices from the library collection so that they can interview uh relatives, other members of the community that might be interested in learning more about um in the future. We do hope to grow a lot of these collections. Uh so the yearbooks in particular are one where we have to work with a number of community partners including St. Mary's Springs and the public school district. We already have a working agreement with St. Mary Springs to get their yearbook scanned. They were actually in the process of assessing that project when I approached them about that. So that might be more of a collaborative effort if they have students who are interested in participating with that process. Um, we also have a working and growing relationship with the County Historical Society to hopefully get more of their materials hosted on our website as well. Um, it's one of the great things about working on something like this is being able to build those those uh intercity connections that we don't otherwise have necessarily. So, if you guys have any questions about it, I'm happy to answer those. Um, otherwise, I hope you all enjoy.

Awesome. Thank you for the presentation. appreciate that very much. And at this point, we'll open it up to uh to those who want to speak. So, we'll I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Bber first. I didn't catch your your name again if you don't mind. Uh my name is John Serrano. I am local history and genealogy librarian for the library. It's very impressive. I I love history and very impressive work that you did here. And were you going to have any displays in the library?

So, we to you or to him or Um, thank you. Um, so we do have rotating displays throughout the library on all of the floors. Um, in particular, the library's, uh, 150th anniversary will be celebrated in 2027. And so, um, we anticipate that some of those displays will focus on local history, especially at that time.

It's good for the kids and and for adults. Um, I do happen to have uh three yearbooks from Fondelac High from 29, 30, and 31. Even though I'm from Orlando, Florida, I got found them somewhere and in great shape. So, if you if you don't have those years, I'd be w glad to let you have it. And one point I used as a as a kind of a motto for my campaign is from 17 year olds from 1931. And yours was find a way or make one. And that's seems like something you did here to find a way to get this information out. Thank you. Thank you, Sproul. Floor is yours.

Thank you. So, John presented this information to us last month at the library board and I we were all just so impressed. I'm like, "Okay, we need to share this with everybody." So, thank you, John, for being here with us tonight. And also, I'm sorry because it's my fault you had to do this, but we were all just so excited about these resources that are available through the library's website. Anybody can access them from anywhere. It's just incredible and there's just so much there and we know there's there's more that you're going to keep adding. Um, and you know, people are really proud of the history of this area and want to know more or want to share it with others. And so now it's just such an a great way to do that. Um, and every time I look at it, there there's more stuff that I didn't even think about looking for. Um, and and just one thing, since you mentioned how the library has resources to even do recording of oral history, I just want to give a shout out to the idea studio that's also got a recording studio in the basement of the library where you can learn how to record your own oral histories. And of course, you could do anything else, podcasts. I've heard people down there recording music. Um, but you could go to the library and make a recording of your family's history or or anything else about the city, which I think is just so cool. Um, so I don't really have any questions for you, but if there's anything else you wanted to share.

Well, to your point about folks being able to access it from anywhere, we do have a service called Book a Local History Librarian, and that just affords folks a one-on-one session with me to bounce ideas off of or get advice on or learn more about library resources. And the first one I got this year was a Fondelac native who had moved to Hamburg, Germany. And we were able to direct him to some of these resources to try and help him continue his research that he was he was reaching back out to us after about 20 years, I think he said, um cuz he had been working with some of my predecessors. And then we've also got a regular who has been back and forth with me for my entire tenure of a year with the library from Atlanta. So, we do have folks out of state and at this point out of country who are using some of these resources. So, to your point on being able to access it from anywhere, they they already are.

Yeah, that's so cool. So, thank you for sharing that. Thank you, Miss Pearl. I'm going to go to Miss Luring next. I just want to say this is really cool and thank you for doing it. I will definitely be using it. So, thank you for your work. Mr. Bolan, is that you over there? Sorry, go ahead. Just add one more comment. My wife is gonna probably Thank you because it's one less book that I'm buying for for myself. So, it's very very impressive. Again, thank you.

Thank you very much for a great presentation and we can't wait to dive further into this sort into this sort of thing. Also, as long as we're on the topic, he's not here with us, but I want to give a quick shout out to Tom Shusler who helped to get the Life by the Lake thing rolling with some AARPA funding. That was that was a really great thing that he was able to move forward. So, thank you very much, Tom. And with that, we'll close out our input items, which means all we have left to do is adjourn. So, I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn at this time. Motion by Mr. Zimmerman. Well, don't nobody jump in at once. Who's going to second this? There you go. Tiffany seconded. Thank you very much. And

yeah, and with that, let's proceed to vote on that, please. That was a quick vote. We're adjourned. Thank you all.

You know, you could have seconded.