City Council - Regular Meeting

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Hey. Hey. Hey. Good evening, Garden City. I'd like to call to order our regular council meeting for Monday, January 12th, 2026 at 7 p.m. Our first order of business is our opening ceremony, which consists of the national anthem, followed by the pledge of allegiance, followed by a moment of silence for those service members who have given their lives for our country. If you'd please rise.

Everything. Algiance to the flag of the United States of America to the stand indivisible and justice for you.

Mr. Smith, if you take role, please. Mayor Jacobs here. Mayor Prom Dole here. Council member Hughes here. Council member Whit here. Council member King here. Council member Dol here. Council member Kapotus here. You have a quorum of seven. Thank you. Uh item four is the approval of the agenda. Mayor, council member Wit like to make a motion to approve the Monday, January 12th, 2026 council meeting agenda as presented. Support for Mayor Prom Dol. Discussion from the table and the public. All in favor? Opposed?

Motion passes 70. Okay. Item five is recognition. We do have some recognition. Okay. As everyone knows, uh, every year we do, uh, our Christmas decorations, house decorations, and we award, uh, for the best decorated. And this year I'm pleased to announce that uh the Dunn family and if you'd like to come up they were our grand champions. We had a lot of uh contestants again this year uh did an outstanding job and obviously the family Dunn family did an outstanding job and they are grand champions. We have Eric, Stephanie, Kayn and Marissa. So, congratulations. I have a plaque for you. Come on up here, and I'll read it real quick. 2025 grand champions of the Garden City Holiday Lighting Competition. Congratulations to Dun family of 33215 John Hawk Street on being named the grand champion of Garden City's 2025 holiday lighting competition. The Garden City Council wants to acknowledge your hard work and enthusiasm in decorating your home to the joy of the entire Garden City community. Your display not only brought holiday cheer to your neighbors in Garden City, but also the many well-wishers who stopped by to view your home. for your dedication to the holidays and for bringing delight to people of all ages. You are hereby recognized as a

2025 grand champions. Congratulations. Thank you so much.

And with that you have a certificate to buy more. So that I think they want to take picture. Thank you.

Thank you. And if you didn't see the house, uh I think you can go online, see it, and uh they did an outstanding job. Okay, item six, we have no state or county officials here. And item seven, uh is a plant Miranda or audit 2425 audit report. So I will call up from plant manor man uh Ramsey and Phil.

Good evening. Uh thank you so much for the opportunity to be here before you tonight. Um my name is Ramsey Abdullah. I'm a partner with Plantaran and with me tonight is Phil Femininho, audit manager with Plantaran. You're probably used to seeing Dave Hellac give this presentation. Uh Dave retired effective July 1st. Um and I uh was promoted to partner last year. So this uh makes a perfect transition for me to be able to take over your partner or take over as partner of your audit. Um uh Plantaran has completed the June 30, 2025 financial statement audit for the city of Garden City. Um included in your packet tonight are the audit deliverables that we're going to cover at a very high level. We've also prepared a graph presentation that highlights some of the numbers and the financial statements that we're going to cover as well. Um, if at any point you have questions, please feel free to stop me. We will also have time for questions at the end. Uh, before we get into the results of the audit, we do have to um thank your team um, city treasurer and finance director, Miss Shannon Shepard, and Mr. Tim Gibbons, city manager, and really all of their teams um, and and the city staff for their cooperation during the audit. The audit is a month-slong process. There are lots of questions. There are lots of requests that we are required to ask and audit tests that we're required to do. They cooperated with all of our requests and we understand that responding to auditors is on top of their day-to-day work and um they did so diligently and we appreciate their commitment um and their transparency in the audit process. So the first deliverable that we want to highlight is going to be in the it's the opinion on the financial statements which uh in the 68 page uh financial statement that you have pages 1 through three. Um this is our opinion and this year plantar man has issued an unmodified opinion on your financial statements. An unmodified opinion is the highest level of assurance that we can give on a set of financial statements. And it means that in our opinion, the

numbers in these financial statements are accurate and complete and in compliance with all of the rules and standards. So essentially the numbers can be relied upon. Um an audit opinion does not however assess an opinion on the financial condition of a city or a fund. Really that is up to the reader of the financial statements to make that determination. But what it does mean is that the numbers in our opinion are materially stated. The next deliverable that we want to highlight is the four-page letter on the report on internal control which is it states independent auditors report at the top. So as part of the audit process um we plan and perform the audit under US uh audit generally accepted US auditing standards which requires God bless you um which requires us to identify risks then design procedures to address those risks. As part of doing that, we review the city's internal controls. We do not give a direct opinion on the city's internal controls, but if we come across any deficiencies and internal control that we determined to be significant or material, we're required to communicate that to you. So, um you may recall um in in the last year audit there was there was I believe four or five um internal control matters. So, this year we have two internal control matters to report. So we did note that some of the uh control matters that were reported last year have been fully resolved. Um but the two that remain are the first one is during our audit we identified several journal entries that were required to be uh required to be posted to close the books. Um these entries were not anything related to the day-to-day operation such as cash. They were really just year-on closing entries. Um management reviewed these entries, agreed with them and posted them and they are reflected in the financial statements. Now, because these were journal entries were material to the financial statements, we're required to report this as an a material weakness in internal control. Um, and that is disclosed in this letter. Um, and again,

this is not anything new to the city. This this this has been um essentially for at least a couple of years a finding that we have reported as assistance provided during the audit process. The second item um that we have reported is a significant deficiency in internal control. And why while it may sound either could sound more severe than a material weakness, it is actually less um it it is less uh severe than a material weakness, but it is still important. Um and this one relates to the segregation of duties related to entering payroll information into the system. So during our audit, we noted that certain payroll information goes through the proper approval process. U pay paid changes um for example or personnel data that goes through the proper approval process and it gets entered into the uh into the system properly. However, we recommend that a second review is done by somebody outside of the payroll process that comes back and ensures that the data that was entered into the payroll system was accurately updated. Um, we did not know any issues. There was no payroll concerns or anything that was improperly paid or anything like that. This is really uh more so a suggestion to implement a secondary control to ensure that the information is reviewed after it has been put into the system. The next letter that we would like to cover is the eight-page letter that address that is addressed to management and members of the city council. This letter has two sections. Um the first section includes required communications that are uh that speak of the audit process. You would recall that earlier in the audit process, you would have received a planned letter, a planned scope and timing of the audit letter. Now, this letter is essentially closing the loop on that original letter that that describes the audit process. Most of this letter is boilerplate wording that describes the audit process. If we did have any significant issues that

were noted during the audit, if we had any difficulties encountered, if we had disagreements with management, if there were significant audit findings, they would be disclosed in section one of the eight-page letter. If you read through that, I'm happy to report that we do not have any such matters to report. The audit process went very smoothly and um you can tell by the fact that we're presenting this uh now. Last year, the audit was presented in April. Um but this year, it was filed on time. uh it was filed before the December 31st deadline and um you're in compliance with that report 1231 reporting um reporting deadline. So really as far as the audit process goes, no issues to report there and all um good news. The second section of this letter includes umformational and legislative updates that are not really unique to the city but more so statewide information that you might find helpful. There is also some information on um legacy costs related to pension and oped that you might find helpful to read through and we'd be happy to cover that if there are any items in section two of that letter that you would like us to cover. Um so with that I'm going to hand it over to Phil who's going to walk us through the financial statement highlights that are in the financial statement that are in the graph presentation.

Thank you Ramsey. So uh I passed out earlier just a copy of our graph package. So as Ramsey mentioned, this graph package is really meant to kind of summarize the 70page document here and just a couple of the important areas that we wanted to look at. So if we go to our first slide, this slide we always like to start out by looking at your general fund revenue. So this is for the past four years and this is separated by revenue category and with the green bar re representing property taxes which is your largest and and commonly the largest that we'll see at our clients. Overall your revenue decreased about 50,000. Um a major reason for this was in the prior year you had about a $1.1 million protecting Michigan pension grant. So that was a one-time grant onetime revenue. So we would expect to see a decrease from that just because that was the one time that the state gave that grant out to kind of help with some of those pension costs. So that $1.1 million decrease was offset by increase in property tax revenue from increase in property tax values as well as you'll see in your fines, fees, and licenses. Included with this is the commercial garbage rubbish pickup. So you may recall before 2024 this would have been its own fund but during 2024 it was moved into the general fund. So with that, there was an increase in that revenue this year leading to, you know, an increase here to kind of offset some of that decrease from that onetime revenue source. And then the other item you'll see is that the special assessments, there was no street lighting, so therefore that revenue pretty much was only $1,000. The next slide is now looking at the general fund expenditures and transfers out. So this again is for your past four years. that significant jump up as we talked about in the would have talked about in prior years from 2023 to 2024 is just recognizing those rubbish expenses. There was a corresponding um revenue with that as well as uh that protecting Michigan pension grant. That $1.1 million revenue went right into the pension plans was also an expense. And

then the change from uh the largest source you'll see is public safety which is what we would expect to see and that's about 51% of that general fund expenditures. Um overall though from 24 to 25 your expenses decreased. Uh main portion of that was because in the prior year there was about a $2.2 million transfer to capital projects funds for those capital projects. There was no such transfer during this year. Uh kind of leading to that decrease of about in total there was a decrease of about 97,000. uh that was offset by some increasing cost in your public service line which includes that rubbish. So increase in the rubbish pickup costs as well as there was some increase in public safety costs from health insurance and other items. The next slide if we can go to that looks at we compare those same revenue and expenditures we talked about but then there's a line that goes across the graph which is your unassigned fund balance. So this is for the past four years. And so unassigned fund balance has no restrictions, no assignments, no commitments or any anything like that. It's free to use as needed. So in the current year, the unassigned fund balance did go up and that was really primarily due to reductions in some of your assigned fund balance. So in the prior year, you would have had an assigned fund balance of about 2.6 million for future year's budget. This year in 2026, the projected budgeted use of fund balance was only 370. So you would have decreased that down as well as you did have assignments for capital projects but with those costs being incurred that assignment was removed. So another way to look at this if we go to the next slide this is kind of showing your general fund fund balance and as you'll see the only items left in your assigned fund balance for this year is about 370,000 which is for subsequent year budget. So if you're projecting to use fund balance, a good budgeting technique is to make mark that as assigned for the following year. The restricted fund balance relates to

amounts collected for rubbish fund that need to be used on those. So any items like that that's restricted for future rubbish expenses. And then in total your fund balance decreased about 982,000 from expenses just being greater than revenue. And at year end, if we were to look at it, you have about four million of unassigned fund balance, which is about 14% of your 2026 budgeted expenditures. What you'll see in this graph is that your non-spendable portion did go up. And this is primarily due to an advance made to the water and sewer fund, which we'll talk about in a couple slides. But with that advance made to the water sewer fund, that is required to be recorded as non-spendable. And if you were to include that, then you would have about 23% of your 2026 budget expenditures. So with that, we just have a couple slides on the water and sewer fund. Important to note that these are as of 63025. So any changes made after that won't be included in these numbers, but we'll be going forward. So your operating revenue of the water and sewer fund um was up about 600,000. and it's from increased charges or service related from just increase in units being build and it's comparing that revenue to your operating expenses without depreciation. So we kind of exclude depreciation as that's a non-cash expense. So overall your expenditures did decrease. The main reason for that is your OPED cost savings. So your OPED plan as it's not funded fluctuates based on the assumptions that the actuary uses. Any positive assumptions will result in cost savings. But if people live longer then that can result in additional costs. So this year with the discount rate increasing a little bit you did have some cost savings of about $1.1 million as compared to 200,000. So that's why you'll kind of see that significant that decrease in expenses there as well as there was a decrease in pension expense as in the prior year you

did with that pension grant. Part of that was contributing here showing in the water and sewer for those employees. The final graph we have here is showing that is meant to depict the liquidity of the water and sewer fund and it's looking at your current assets which would be assets that are expected to be or can be easily converted into cash within a year and comparing that to any amounts that are owed or expected to be paid within a year and it excludes any customer receivables. So this amount really tends to fluctuate with cash and investment at year end. The water and sewer fund reported a deficit in cash that was subsidized from an inter fund loan as we talked about earlier from the general fund which will be repaid. So a reason main reason for this is there was the drinking water state revolving fund. So those projects that you've received funding for you have to fund those costs up front and then you get the reimbursement or the loan as you have those eligible expenses. Due to the timing a lot of those reimbursements came in after 6:30. So, in the initial phase, the general fund was having to help subsidize some of those costs leading to, as we showed, that non-spendable portion. And with that, we're more than happy to answer any questions.

Council, any questions?

Council, turn your mic on, please. Council member Hughes. Thank you. Um, if we can go to page four of the presentation. I apologize, but I'm I'm a little unclear. Yep. On the comparison 24 25. Mhm.

Oh, the so 24 to 25 um if you were to look at that graph, a large portion in the red is the assigned fund balance in the prior year. So that would have been um for future capital projects, I believe that was about 2.8. 8 and then there was about 2.6 or more for future year's budget. So if you project to use uh fund balance typically you'll assign it. So that's what happened in the prior year. In the current year a lot of that went away. So that's why your unassigned went up. Now in total it went down just because in total your expenses for the year were greater than your revenue. Therefore you had to use a little bit of that fund balance. And then the composition changed because of the general fund having to with the having the loan with the water and sewer fund. You have some what's now called the non-spendable category because you kind of have you have to wait for the water and sewer fund to be able to pay that back to the general fund. So they require that to be in the non-spendable category.

Yeah. And if you're looking at total fund balance again the use of fund balance, the general fund used $993,000 of fund balance that was planned and budgeted. So actually the budget the um the amended budget called for a use of fund balance of 1.8 million. So the fact that you came in at 993,000 use of fund balance was actually under budget but it was still that's that explains why the fund balance in total actually decreased by a million dollars there. Thank you. Further questions.

No further questions. Thank you very much. Appreciate all your work. Uh, Miss Shepard, our treasure, thank you for all your hard work doing this also. Okay. Uh, item eight is community events. I would like to call Sergeant Craig Lewis from the our police department to talk about the RAD, which stands for rape aggression defense. Sergeant,

evening, mayor, council. Uh tonight I just wanted to highlight uh excuse me the woman's self-defense rad as you said class being offered by the guard state police department which is upcoming has upcoming dates here in March. Uh so it's coming up quick. RAD program is a nationally recognized self-defense course that focuses on awareness prevention and practical hands-on defense skills in a small supportive class setting. Um, since January is National Self-Defense Awareness Month, this is a great opportunity to remind our community about the resources like this that we offer and the importance of personal safety. Um, more information and registration is available online at the police department website through the city of Garden City website page. Um, and it went live today. We actually already have four people registered to take the class in March. So, it's an awesome class. I know um a lot of people have taken it, had good things to say about it. It's just it's an awesome thing that we offer. So, I encourage everyone to go to the website, sign up. Uh if we fill up, but we have a a waiting list that we'll be setting up. So, if we don't get you this time, we'll be doing another one and get you that time. So,

thank you very much. I heard nothing but good. Take them. Good. I I have a question. Council member Kerapotus, I know it's for 14 through 18 year olds with a parent because there's some explicit things in there. Any uh thought of doing it for younger girls like 12 and 13 year olds with less explicit things. So, we've talked about that. Um it's it's a little harder because of stuff that we do talk about in the class. Um but if there's something that we need to address, if we have enough interest in it, that's something we can look at and look at going. How many people are typically in a class? anywhere from 10 to 12, sometimes 14, but we get a little we want we like the one at once. We try to keep it a small class kind of like our citizens academy.

If we got like 15 or 20 13 year old cheerleaders, we could do a class. We can work something together. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Any other questions? Any other questions? Awesome. Okay, thank you for Thank you. Okay, we have no petitions, communications, no public hearings. Item 11 is our consent agenda. Mayor, council member Wit like to make a motion to approve consent agenda items A1 through three as presented. Support or from council member Hughes? Comments from table from public all in favor? I

opposed. Motion passes 70. Okay, on to our action items. Uh we have first one is our HVAC preventive maintenance services and I'll call our DPW director Mr. Brad Omen.

Good evening Mayor and Council. Uh this is for the HVAC preventative maintenance services for all city buildings. Uh this service consists of two semianual visits. uh spring and fall kind of pre-season tuneups. We did receive seven bids for this service. Quality air of Whitmore Lake was the lowest bidder. Uh Quality Air has been doing the HVAC renovations at Radcliffe and I feel that they will provide us a good good service with this as well. Thank you. Okay. Motion is in order. Mayor, Council Member King,

I move to award a three-year contract for HVAC preventive maintenance services for all city buildings with quality AR systems of Whitmore Lake, Michigan, an amount not to exceed 63,000. Support for Mayor Prom Dold. Discussion from the table. Member Kapotus. This is not the same company that's been doing it. This is the new company that's been doing everything at Ragliff, right? Yes. So, they didn't have this contract last year, right? Yep. Okay, thanks. Okay, further comments from the table, from the public. Okay, all in favor? I I opposed. Motion passes 70. Thank you.

Okay, next for fire station bids and we will start with the drywall, fire station drywall. I'll call up Chief Randy Keane.

Good evening, mayor and council. Uh, as we know, the fire station project is progressing. Uh a couple months ago we brought to you bidpack one which is the exterior of the building in terms of trying to get uh action done and moving before the winter. Uh we've had some some construction going on. This moves more to the inside of the station. So this was um something Kuwait and uh the bids went out in mid December. They closed January 5th with one exception that is not on this. It'll be at the next meeting is for the HVA system. So what you have before you tonight is for the drywall. Uh we received two bids for drywall. Um we recommend that Multi, who is actually they're the um contractor right now for carpentry on the bid. They're doing good work uh is for multiconstruction services in the drywall. What you will see in each one of these though as well is we built in a 15% contingency. So if there's any unforeseen circumstances when they start moving things or tearing things down that we do have a little bit of ability to to cover those expenses.

Okay. Motion is in order. Mayor. Council member Hughes. I'd like to make a motion to award the contract in in accordance with bid submitted on January 5th, 2026 for fire station renovation drywall to multiconstruction services of Wald Lake in the amount of 11,2 $290 with an additional $1,500 approved as contingency funds. Support or from council member Kerotus. Discussion from table from the public. All in favor? I

opposed. Motion passes 70. Next one is buyer station painting. For the painting, uh we received three bids. Um the lowest responsible bidder was Paul's prime time painting. Um as you can see here, it's same uh with the bid amount. And then we also allotted for a $1,500 contingency which is about 15% as as well. Uh this will cover some of the the the painting that's needed throughout the whole project from the previous contractor. There is still still some painting and some things that needed to be finished along with what's being done right now. So okay, motion is in order. Mayor, Council Member Wit

like to make a motion to award the contract in accordance with bids submitted on January 5th, 2026 for fire station renovation paint to Paul's Prime Painting Inc. of Udica in the amount of $11,350 with an additional $1,500 approved as contingency funds. Spart from council member King. Discussion from table from the public. All in favor? I opposed. Motion passes 70. Next one is electrical.

All right. So for the electrical bid, we had three bids as well. This one's a little bit different. Uh it's bit as time of materials. Uh the previous contractor had demoed some demoed and terminated some electrical services. So um there's it's unsure kind of what they're getting into. That's why it's bit time of materials. part of the building uh when it was vacated by them or when it was uh their services were terminated, like we didn't have the back doors uh weren't operable. Uh some of the outlets along the the side of the wall that we used to charge our vehicles weren't operable, so we had extension cords and and things like that run. So, um the reason I'm telling you that is because obviously the the project is a little bit different because they have to trace some of these runs back. Unsure what they're really getting into at this point. therefore the the need for time of materials. Uh with that being said, we did receive three bids um recommendation from the project management company after reviewing it along with um the quality of the previous services provided which is the recommended company. They were the ones who came in and um were able to get some of those things running for us again. Uh they provided that to us as well as they were involved in the assessment of the structure itself to figure out what was needed. So that's why with them and the competitive price it was uh suggested that we we we use Michigan quality electric.

Motion is in order. Mayor, Council Member King, I move to award the contract for fire station renovation for electrical time and material to Michigan Quality Electric of Commerce Township Town Township and amounts on attached bid sheet in accordance with bid submitted on January 5th, 2026 and not to exceed 75,000. I think that was support from council member Hughes. Okay, comments from table. Mayor, Council Member Do is um there's no contingency on this one.

No. U there was actually the uh the original amount was $70,000 by our project management company is our expectation. So we added $5,000 as a contingency to that. But considering it's time and materials, correct? Mayor, thank you. Council member Kerapotus. This is just a general comment just so the public actually knows what we're talking about. So all this stuff is kind of like a redo from the original company that we got rid of. Correct.

Um yes. So the most of it. Yes. But the electrical uh was demoed for the areas that we are not occupying at this time. So it's unsure what's run, what needs to be redone, what's configured at this point. So they had to go in and assess that. That's Michigan quality of that. and they did they the tracing of everything, make sure things that were were installed were installed correctly and then what needed to be re redone or corrected, I guess. Okay. And all this money that we're spending, most of this is covered under the two grants that we got for the fire department. We have the two grants uh totaled $1.2 million. So, um where we're at now, we're close to that.

We're close before this. Okay. All right. Thank you. Now, part of that bid, I'm sorry, part of the grant though, what I will say is after looking through some of the stuff after it was discovered is there was a portion that we were supposed to contribute to that um which equated to about $300,000 was the expectation by the state when we got the grant. So, thanks R. Thank you. Further comments from the table, from the public? All in favor? I I

opposed. Motion passes 70. And the last one for you tonight, uh, fire station plumbing. This one's a little easier. We received one bid. Some reason we plumbing, we received one bid twice. I don't know what's going on there. Um, but this is the company that actually did the first part as bid pack one. Uh, done great work so far. So, it's Haligan Plumbing. So we're wishing to see them approved as the the bid for this one. Mayor, council member Kerotus, we're not required to get more than one bid.

Not with the seal bid process. We put it out amongst all the normal places and um the opportunity to and they chose not to. Okay. The bids the bids are open for three weeks. So Okay. Motion is in order. Mayor, Council Member Do to award the contract in accordance with bids submitted on January 5th, 2026 for Fire Station Renovation Plumbing to Haligan Plumbing and Mechanical of Newport in the amount of $45,500 with an additional $7,000 approved as contingency funds. Support or from council member Kafas. Uh comments from table,

mayor. Council member King. This question is kind of overall question. Um I know this is part of the big pack bid pack two. Does this complete the uh bid pack two or what was the other? There will be one more item. Uh the last remaining item is mechanical or the HVAC that didn't close until the 7th. So which was Wednesday which put us on a very tight timeline. Uh it's being reviewed and vetted by our project management company along with ourselves. So that we didn't want to rush it. We want to make sure we had all the the proper information and and vetted out what we need to before we brought that to you. That will be coming to the next council meeting. Just that one remaining item.

All right. Thanks. And I guess follow-up question unfor, you know, not coming unforeseen situations to come up. Do we have a anticipated completion date? We do. Um he doesn't want to share. It would be bad luck. Yeah. Well, that and I think uh it's a few months away. I'll say that. How about that? Uh the problem the issue I get is uh not so much here but over my guys over there they've been promised so many dates and I hate to give them an exact date and and not live up to that and then they're going to they're going to look at that and go oh here we are again. So we say sometime this year uh by June. How about that?

Hopefully. Good. Uh further comments from the table from the public? All in favor? Opposed? Motion passes 70. Thank you, Chief. Uh item six is uh our police department radio purchase and I will call Chief Arnoski up. Good evening. Excuse me. Uh, I'm here tonight to ask for your authorization to purchase five prep radios for the police department to replace some current prep radios we have that are going out to the end of their quality of life where they're no longer going to be serviced by Motorola. So, okay. Uh,

mayor, council member do like to authorize the chief of police to purchase five Motorola N70 radios from Motorola Solutions for an amount not to exceed $41,3020. Support or for Mayor Promold. Uh, I I have a question for you. Are these are these radios part of the new package of the scram the new scrambled ones that we're being forced to purchase? Yes, the ones in the future we're going to be forced the N70s that we're purchasing will meet all the requirements that the federal government is making us meet which is going to be quite expensive and hopefully uh we get some grants coming in for that money.

We look every week. Thank you. Uh further comments from table mayor council member Kerapotus. Where do we use these five? Like are they going in this where are we using these five? Are they going on the guys? They're going in the cars. Where do they go? uh with the change over these five actually have a different battery than the majority that we have. So I'm exploring either putting it into the CRO office where there's five officers so that they can be basically they don't get confused with the other preps and the batteries and stuff like that. So that's probably where these five are going to go and then as we build we'll start moving them into the different officers, the shifts and everything. How many more do we need? doing some fuzzy math. Sure, I'll take this.

We're going to need about 27 prep radios and 13 car radios. Okay. And then the we're trying I was going to say that doesn't include the fire department federal government mandate that are forcing us I think it's what by end of 28 or 29 that we have to have this something like that. Sure. It's October 26th. Is it is it this soon? And if not, we have to have a written out plan to get into compliance to keep our accreditations October 26th of this year. Yeah.

And I know some of the conferences I've been to, uh, you know, they're 8 $10,000 of radio and some of the bigger departments are spending or trying to figure out how they're going to come up with the money. Uh we're looking at possibly 50 between the departments and that's federal government that is making us do that. Correct. Without any financial assistance. Correct. So So thank you. We're hoping that if we just can peacemeal and chip away at it that eventually a grant will show up in the next few months or maybe by next year that we can jump into and offset the cost of these things. So,

I know a lot of communities are trying to get together and try and do something, try and force somebody to give us some money, but we know how that goes. Uh, further comments from the table. I have one more. So, everybody has to buy these, right? Yes. And who who do you buy them from? We are purchasing the Motorola NX70s. So, we're purchasing from Right. from Motorola. So, if we got together with Westland, Inc. Deorn Heights and said we're going to buy 250 of these, we couldn't get a discount.

You asked good questions, but it's Westland's already gone out and purchased theirs and so have other departments around here. Um, yes, the larger quantities, the bigger the discount. I don't know how large it goes. We've been able to get up to 40% with our numbers, but I don't know if you get any more savings the larger you go than that. Okay. Further comments from the public. All in favor? I opposed. Motion passes 70. Thank you, Chief.

Okay, now we got good news. Uh the two chiefs here and this is about a uh donation.

Yes. Good evening again. Um so just before the end of last year I fielded a call from a resident. Um she stated her her late father one of his wishes uh upon his passing was to make a donation to both the police and the fire department. Um his name was Doug McKenzie. Um she does not wish to be uh hers herself to be made public but she is a lifelong resident here as well. Um but he she said that he would wish that we would receive this money and to use it to purchase um something that would benefit the department. She didn't want there was no specivity to how it had to be spent as far as individual items. She said you know your department best. You figure out what would best benefit it uh in the honor of her father.

So did we do we know what we're spending on? Uh not yet. We're looking at that something good. Yes. Okay. Um we want to make sure it's something that will be utilized obviously and that potentially something could be, you know, we could show some respect or um towards her father. So we talked it's very similar, right? Yeah. You know, I mean I I think we'll find a good use for it. Correct. Okay. Well, thank you. We got good news. Perfect. Absolutely. Thank you very much, Mayor. Council member Dole like

to approve acceptance of a $20,000 donation made in memory of Doug McKenzie, 10,000 each for the fire and police departments. Support from council member Kotus. Further comments from the table from the public. All in favor? I

opposed. Motion passes 70. Thank you, Chiefs. And thank you to the McKenzie family. Okay. Uh we have no other business. Uh item 13, public comment on non-aggenda items only. Anybody wishing to speak? Anybody wishing Okay. Uh city manager report. Mr. Given. I'll be brief, but uh mayor and council um just wanted to thank Rumsy Phil from Plant Moran for their efforts on the audit and and our treasurer Shannon um fantastic job of uh getting us on time. Um and all the corrections adjustments we needed from the previous years and just to all the employees, the department heads who had to work last year to um reduce the large budget deficit we were facing. you don't cut that much money and make that many changes without having people to do more with less, which is kind of what we do around here in Garden City sometimes. And and I just couldn't be prouder of the efforts they made. Um, and that uh that this audit confirms that we're we're headed in the right direction on this and council's diligence and diff and going through some of the difficulties particularly with the water fund and uh you know getting some of these projects in line and the and expenses that go with them. It's not easy to do. Um, and every once in a while, once a year, you get an audit that tells you if financially you're doing the right things. And, um, you know, I think we turn the corner on some of that. So, thank you, uh, everyone involved. And, uh, thank you, council.

Thank you, Mr. Smith. Uh, nothing this evening. Thank you. Uh, Mayor Promold, I have nothing tonight. Thank you, Council Member Hughes. Um, I just want to say h tell everybody happy new year. I know it's a little later, but it's the first time we've been back since before, you know, before the holiday. So, happy new year everybody. You council member what? Nothing tonight. You, Council Member King.

Um, I would like just to build upon a little bit what the city manager was saying regarding the budget last year. Um, it was projected initially to spend three million from the general fund. Um then the uh council working with the city manager was able to amend the budget to only spend about 1.8 million out of the general fund and we finally end up only spending actual amount was about a little less than a million 992,000. Again that was from a lot of cuts and um a lot of work on behalf of the city administration and council to get that numbers looking a little better than 3 million. Um, other thing I want to mention real quick is, you know, January, you know, spring's almost here, believe it or not. Um, it's not too far away. Um, so youth sports, um, looking to get your kids into a youth sport. Uh, I know GCYA and the Garn Side Club are both looking for registrations for the spring season. That's all I have.

Thank you, Council Member Do. I just wanted to mention if if you do have a chance, go ahead and get signed up for RAD because it's it's a fantastic program. I was able to participate in it and uh it was kind of fun because, you know, we got to kind of hit a a few police officers. Well, one in particular, but uh it is really it's it's a great program. So, definitely sign up for it. That's it. That's it.

Thank you, Council Member Kapotus. I just have a few a few questions about the budget and I was hoping that uh Brett Omen could answer them for me. It was just about um they went through the budget showed that there was um less spent for the operating funds for DPS and I'm just wondering if that's because we had less water manes break and we used less salt and you know that kind of stuff. I'm assuming that's what that is but I just wanted to double check we did a good job of really coming down on those costs. In the audit, it talked about how we had less operating funds spent from the DPS. And is that because we had less water main breaks last year and and less, you know, money spent on salt and plowing because we didn't have that much snow, that kind of thing. Is that why it came down so good? So, well,

we had one less u employee getting paid out of the water fund also. Okay. Okay. Yep. I just wonder I was hoping you were going to say we had way less water main bras. Um And then when do our budget talks start? Um I the clerk we passed the budget schedule I believe.

Yeah. So the first one is the budget goal setting which is the first Monday in February. So, that's our first one. And then we have the department budget presentations in March. And then if we do need um a fourth one, we do have one tenatively scheduled for April. And there's nothing pressing that we have to decide that week about um something about the budget or some big contract or something. Right. There's plenty of time for us to get all this done without everything in the the budget calendar. We've if if my memory serves me correctly, we've moved it up at least by two weeks on everything that we did from last year. So, um we should have time to have our departmental presentations, present the budget, and have discussion on it and get it passed prior to when this deal.

Exactly. Thank you. Yep.

Okay. Thank you. Uh the only thing I have is it's that time of the year again for uh Jod's to present their uh I think this is their 21st or 22nd year uh Skip Cowan annual charity broomstick pool tournament and it's uh Sunday February 1st and if you've never seen it uh it's basically just what it says. you play pool with a broomstick and uh it's it's entertaining. But they do have a lot of baskets, a lot of raffles. They have 50/50 uh and all the proceeds they donate to the food pantry. And I I forget, but I know they set the record last year and they're looking to do better this year. Um and again, it's great time. It's Sunday, February 1st. Registration for the pool starts at 11 with the tournament starting at noon. Um, but if you're not doing that, again, you they have baskets, they have food, they have all kinds of, uh, different things for everybody to do. Uh, it's a good time. It is a lot of fun. So, um, if you can make it, come out, help the home pantry, and help a good cause. And with that, no further business. This meeting is adjourned. Heat. Heat.