City Council - Regular Meeting

uh got a job in Fort Madison, Iowa. my first uh job out of graduate school. was there three years and then I became an ad city administrator in the little town of West Point and then did that a couple years and then came to Makoka where I was city manager for 14 years and did that for like I said 14 years and then I went into consulting did that for about 15 14 15 years and then because of my being based upon my wages at a certain level and length of time made the decision to go back to be a city administrator to build up my base for my pension. So that's when Adamosa called me and said would you u be our city administrator and I said boy so you're telling me I'm going to start my career in a prison town and now I'm going to end my career in a prison town which is exactly what happened now I still live in Anamosa but on the far end of Anamosa that's about as far away from you can get from the prison so I understand his optometrist was at the prison

you said he was under a lot of stress

under a lot of stress Yes, I've had two tours of tours of the inside. It is something I think every high school senior class should do. Have a tour of one of the penitentiaries. I think it would really help a lot, but unfortunately it's not possible because they no longer do tours of the public. But I do share one quick story with you about the penitentiary. After my tour, I said, " Mr. Warden, who's your most famous prisoner?" He said, "Oh, that's easy." He said, "We had a g guy here years and years ago who was beloved by all the other prisoners and all the guards. They absolutely loved him. He was a model prisoner. In fact, he was so good that the guards at that time were allowed to take a prisoner out if they take responsibility for him and then bring him back later in the day." This gentleman had a clown outfit and he loved to go to kids' birthday parties and entertain children at the birthday parties of the guards. Kids, okay? And he was so good they released him. He would move to Chicago. Anybody want to guess what his name was?

Gayy. John Wayne Gayy. Model prisoner. Entertained all the children of the guards in Anamosa.

Animosa. So, but anyway, um retired from being city administrator, went right back into consulting because of all the things I've ever done, it's what I've loved the most. And so, I do I did I did a lot of searches for city administrators, which I've kind of turned that over to a gentleman named Brent Henson now, and he does those. And uh but I still do this and like I said, the presentations, but uh I'm at the point in my life, I don't have to do these things, but I just enjoy doing them. So, I I will probably I'm not sure how much longer, but you never know. Okay. So, with that, I'd like to know a little bit about you folks. Okay. And as you know, I I kind of challenged you and I said I was going to ask you two questions when you introduced yourself to me. And that was I want to know, okay, why did you run for office? Because it's a lot easier to sit at home and watch TV on Thursday nights than be here. Okay. And so what motivated you to run? And then once everybody answers that question, I'm going around a second time and I'm going to ask you now that you're here, what do you want your legacy to be? Because we will all have a legacy. And when you get to my age, you start thinking about it. How will I be remembered? Because I'm not going to live not a whole lot longer, but a little bit, I hope. And I will have two personal legacies. I mean, a personal legacy and a business professional legacy. And so as you get older in life, you start thinking about how will people remember me? And so I'm going to ask you that question and then we're going to take off and do this meeting. So first what question I want is maybe how long you've been on the council. Uh maybe what's your day job or what was your day job? And then what motivated you to run? So I'm going to start with Barry and we'll just go around the table.

I uh I think I've been on 11 or 14 years off and on. Okay. And uh the reason I original reason I got on was because they were going to move trash cans from the alleys to the streets and I thought they had to stay in the alley where where they wouldn't blow around. Yeah. Uh I got my career started late in life when I was 30. I went to Sheldon for power line school. Oh. And then uh I ended my career here as an electric crew leader for Mid American Energy.

Oh, okay. My son-in-law is a works for the RAC over there. So, yeah. And he was a crew leader as well. Oh, good. Okay. Jim. Well, I have to look on the bottom of my black, but I was first on council 1992 to 1999. Okay. And then I went to work for the city. I was the uh rec director and pool manager. Okay. And and then I was back on council uh 2010 to 2015. Then I was off for a while and then is this my second full term? I don't know again. So I mean I sort of lost track. So but been on a long time. I think one of the and I'm retired now. Okay.

I still manage like the winter theater. That's one of my big passions is Oh, good for you. that started. But, uh, I think my folks were always really involved with things and I think I was just brought up, you know, like service and that's I think one of the reasons I just got involved with the city is just what can I do to help contribute and make Hampton a better place to live. Okay, good, Steve. Well, I was born and raised here in Hampton. um lived here till about 1991 and then followed a job out of out of state through Oklahoma and North Carolina and Arizona and Colorado and back to Hampton.

But when I got came back to Hampton after 26 years, you know, I'd sit around looked around the house to the town. I said in the same town that I grew up in and there's some things that need to be happening. Mhm. So I thought, well, why not get on the city council and and see if we can't make a difference, help out. So I did that, eventually ended up into being appointed mayor. Um just won my second election into that seat. And um it's said it's the same thing. We just want to make a difference um and do what we can before we're gone.

Yep. That's good. Okay, Jean. Um, I am originally from Cedar Rapids. Oh, okay. Y with my parents living in there. We drove up 151. Yep. Mhm. Every weekend. You know exactly where I'm at then. Um and I know where Cascade is. Yes. And um so I've only been in Hampton um it'll be four years next month and only on the council for the last two and a half months. Mhm.

So, um I was looking for a way to contribute to the community and um something that would fit my passions and interests and um abilities and um started coming to the council meetings and after almost a year of attending the meetings um I decided this might be a good fit and so I decided to run. Oh, good. Okay, Kristen. Um, I grew up here. Okay, Steve. Um, I moved away for a little bit. 2010, moved back in 2017. Um, I'm a dispatcher for the sheriff's office here.

Um, well, you hear a lot then, don't you? Yes. Wow. Um, and I guess I moved back with my kids. So, I guess some of my reasoning for joining the council was to make sure Hampton was a really nice place. It still is, but I enjoyed growing up here and I was hoping to provide the same for my kids, I guess. Oh, good. So, okay. That's a stressful job you've got, too. It can be, you know, boring as heck one minute and then all hell breaks loose the neck, doesn't it? Yes. Okay. Jerry,

I'm Jerry Griefy. Um, moved here in 1990. I actually was born in Cedar Rapids, but then did most of my growing up in Ankenany. I'm still growing. Um, I have the shop over here on the corner, First and Second Vintage. I'm a retired nurse. Um, I was not involved in the community until I was able to retire because I worked in De Moine. I oh traveled

back and forth. Um so when I did retire from nursing, I wanted to invest back in my community and I started coming to council meetings because I was bitching about some of the nuisance properties and things were happening and changing and I found that real inspiring. So I decided to give it a shot. Okay, good. I don't know how long I've been on the council. Too long. I I don't know. Time flies when you're having fun. It is fun.

Yeah. Okay. Now, I said I was going to ask the second question and that is at some point you will no longer be on the council. You will be gone. Someone else will take your place and people will remember you your your role here as a council member and it will remember what remember what this council did. Actually, this was what this process is all about. You're basically going to create a little bit of your legacy here tonight because you're going to lay out some form a format of projects that you would like to see accomplished and uh and so people then will remember you. The other thing is is that part of your legacy is the outside world watching you because people watch you at these meetings and how you interact and you are basically as a as a council you're the image of the community to the rest of the world. Okay. So if I am out there in Anamosa, Iowa, and I'm bored sometime and I want to tune in and see what you're doing. You are the face of the community that night, you are what I think is I'm going to see in Hampton, Iowa. So you're the image. So you're already kind of creating that legacy already. Okay? And so with each meeting and each project, you are creating that legacy that you will people will remember you for. So with that, I'm going to give you a chance to say, what do you want your legacy to be as a council member? How do you want to be remembered? So this time I'm going to reverse. I'm going to start with Jerry.

We're going to do You were ready, weren't you? My legacy is I want to be remembered as the spark plug, the energetic person that's willing to jump in and help and get things done. Okay. The Energizer Bunny. Yep. Yep. Jump right in. Yep. Good for you. Okay, Kristen. I would say I would want my legacy to be helping the community, but helping the city employees. Okay. Better the community, I guess. Okay, good. Okay, Jean. Um, mine would be I want to be known as a person who cares,

who listens to people and responds to the concerns. Okay. All right. Now, this side of the table's already got some legacy going here, even you guys have been here a while. So, okay, Steve. Uh, mine's fairly simple as it's it's I just want to be resentment as a guy that was fair. He's approachable and he he cares about the community. Um, and that I did the best I could and try to help Hampton all along while I was here. And uh like I said at some time going to hand it off. So hopefully hopefully I'll get something done.

I always tell people council members you want your goal should be to hand off this community in better shape than what you found it both infrastructure-wise policywise you know up right from top to bottom. Hand it off a little bit better to the next generation. Yeah that's good comment. Okay Jim. Oh boy. Um I think just as you're gonna have three legacies by the way, you know, the three times you've been on.

Yeah. Um I think just being involved in the community and maybe having been or you know like a go-to person on a lot of things. People come to me and ask a lot of questions and things like that. And I don't know um my kids and their friends they would call me Father Hampton because I was so involved in things and rather but But I say even personally though, I think my biggest legacy would my involvement like with the Windsor Theater, more personal, but Okay. All right, Barry, what do you want your legacy to be?

It's like really putting us on the spot here. Uh, I guess I just want to be remembered as a hard worker. I've I feel like I've worked hard all my life. Uh, I was scout leader for a few years and I've got two boys that are Eagle Scouts and I've worked uh for about 10 years I worked construction. So, I did a lot of sewer, water, paving streets, uh, infrastructure things. And I kind of that's kind of what I like to push around town. Yeah.

You know, because that's the number one thing we need is, you know, we got to flush the toilet.

Okay. Good. All right. All right. Let's do this. Um, you should have a blue sheet in front of you here. Okay. The blue sheet is kind of my ground rules for the meeting. Okay. What I'm looking for, excuse me, is good overall participation. Okay? I usually don't allow any one council member to dominate the whole meeting. Okay? Occasionally I hear but councils there's one person that just does all the talking and I'll I'll occasionally then reach out to those of you that maybe are more quiet, which is fine, and just to say, hey, what what do you think about this? So, I do keep it positive and constructive. Okay. Um, we're not going to vote tonight on anything. You're not going to be making motions. There's no seconds. So, it's a more light-hearted meeting. And we won't get any long debates either, okay? Because that's going to take up too much time. So, if I sense that you're getting sidetracked and talking too much on one subject, I'm probably going to kind of rein you back in because we got a lot of things to talk about tonight and a limited amount of time to do it. So hopefully I don't lose my voice. Okay, we want to keep it respectful and patient and it is a brainstorming session. Uh if you've had a thought or two that you said, I wonder what the rest of the council would think about this. You know, since we're not going to make any decisions tonight, you can kind of throw it out there and say, "I'd like to have this considered." Okay? Doesn't mean that, you know, we're going to get into any debate on the pros and cons. We can't do that. But we can just throw it out there and like we if you see something that we missed on these list, we'll add it to the list and you can put a dot on it. If you think it's a dumbest idea you ever heard, don't put a dot on it. Okay? It's plain and simple. Okay? If you think that's not a good idea, then I'm going to give you these dots and don't put one on it. So, the other

thing is what I call silence is affirmation. Okay? If I sense you're kind of all agreeing on something like you're going to see a number of these items where it says continue or maintain. Well, that tells me you're already doing that and I'm going to question why do we need to vote on it then? You're already agreed to it. So, I'm going to add it to my list of givens that you're already committed to it. Now, if you don't agree with that and you're quiet, I'm going to assume I've nailed it and I'm going to go on the next subject. So, silence means you're okay with it. Uh, and this is a smaller room in a group. I don't have to worry about this sidebar conversations, but sometimes I get a big group out there and I got the sidebar conversations. I can't have that. Okay. But we do keep it light. If you need to take a break, uh, feel free to do so. You will have a chance to take a break when we're putting the dots up because once you got your dots up on your favorite projects, take a break, restroom break, whatever. So, you can do that at that time. So, I will take all of the information that I hear tonight, all the voting with the dots that you do tonight and put it into a report for you. I will send it off to Ron and say, "Ron, did I miss anything? Is there anything in here that I overlooked that I need to needs to be in there?" He'll click and look at it. I'll make any final corrections to that to what he's got. And then it'll come back to you as a draft. Okay? And at that time, you can tweak it, change it any way you want. if I miss something and then I would urge you to approve it by resolution. Okay? And uh and add some formality to it because what it is, it's a statement to the outside world, your to your employees and to the public and to each other that this is what we hope to work on. These are the things that we hope to accomplish here our next, you know, two, three, four, five years. And so that's why we're doing this tonight. Which by

the way, um, that pretty much covers I got in the blue. Any questions on my ground rules? Okay. The other thing I want to point to you is the yellow sheet. And there's a extra one back there if you'd like to see it. And that is this is why you do this. Okay? This is your blueprint going forward. I'm not going to read this to you. you can take this home and kind of review it because someone may be watching tonight and say, "Why did you waste your time doing that?" Okay? And you'll say, "No, I don't think it was a waste of time. Here's why we do this. We don't do it at every meeting. We do it at what do you do every two years or every four years or what have you?" Well, yeah, last time was in 22. So,

22. So, you're doing it every four years. Some cities do it every two. I've actually had a few cities that do it every year, but as a bare minimum, they do it every four years because this council will be in place, this group at least two years, maybe even four if you know you all run for election and you're re-elected. It might be a full four years that you're all together. So, but it's the it's a great assistance to your department heads, your management team, and your employees because you're now sending them a message. If you're debating on how to spend your time or Ron, how to spend your time, go back to this list of things we told you to work on. Okay? And so, one of the things I've talked to Ron about that I'll talk to you about is the importance of it maybe every three months where you you take a look at the your goals that you set and ask yourself, how are we doing? do an update because if you take my report and what we do here tonight and never look at it again, you've wasted your time and you wasted the city's money. The only way not to waste your time and your city's money is every so often put it on the council agenda and say, "Hey folks, here's a report card on how we're doing. Here's what we got done." And uh if we're getting bogged down in an area, here's what's holding this one back. So at least you're made aware that if progress isn't going as fast as you think, what the reasons are behind it. So it's a it's a way to kind of keep everybody on task. The other thing I tell people is, and there was a term I saw in the in the responses, too many cities grease the wheel that squeaks the loudest. I see this all the time. Someone comes in says, "We got to do this." Well, yes, we got to do that. Okay. Well, folks, you set your goals and objectives. Now, a new idea comes in and you want to drop everything and do that. You got to tell Ron then which one of your goals you want to get off the table and take away. Okay? So, then he

now has the money or the time to work on this new idea that came forth. So, a better way to approach those things unless it's an emergency. you know, it's an emergency, that's one thing. But if it's not an emergency, the best response is, "That's a great idea." And the next time we do goal setting, we're going to make sure that's on the list for our consideration to rank with all the other things we're talking about doing. Okay? So that you have a way then to say, "We're not going to forget about it." And I I'll tell Ron, keep a file of ideas that come in so that when you repeat this, you throw those new ideas on the list once again, consider them, and vote on them. So, those are the key things I'll talk about. But this yellow sheet, I think on the back of it as uh something that was in a publication that goes out to city managers and it talks a little bit about the importance of being as specific as you can on some goals, you know, like one of your goals I noticed is to uh you know, take care of streets. Well, yeah, most cities would say, "Yeah, we got to take care of our streets." I might push you to be a little more specific. Is there a particular street or two that isn't in the capital improvements plan that needs to go in the capital improvements plan? Which, by the way, Ron tells me you've got a capital improvements plan. That is great because not every city takes the time to do that. I that's a crucial thing that every city needs to do is lay out all your capital projects. So, and the reason I have it on your list of of things to talk about tonight is maybe there's new projects that you want to add to your CP if you can afford it, or maybe there's something that needs to be moved up or moved down in your CIP, and that will help Ron as he works on the next update of your CIP to to do that sort of thing. So, anyway, I'm not going to read this to you. You can take this home, read it later, and then just make it available to anybody that asks about it. Okay, let's run through the agenda and what we're going to do in the order and we're going to do it.

You filled out responses to five questions that I had for you, which by the way, thank you. You are one of the few councils where I got 100% response. That doesn't happen very often. So, thank you for that because it makes these sessions go so much faster. It also indicates to me you are committed to this job because that took a little time on your part to sit down and give that some thought and to and to put your answers down. So, thank you for doing that. Saves us so much time tonight. Um, and the first question I ask you is what are the major accomplishments? Now, I'm not going to read those to you. You've read them. Some of them are yours. I will ask you a couple of different things. So, I'll ask you um did we forget anything? I might ask you, is there anything on the list? Particularly, you know, those of you who are kind of new to this job. What is that? You might need an explanation of why that's even on the list, which is great. We'll do that. And then I'm going to do the same thing with exhibit B. I won't read those to you. I'll just say to them to you, is there anything on the list that you'd like an explanation? Why is this a problem? Why is this a concern to us? Why did that show up on the list? Now, you're going to recognize your your comments. Most of the time, the ones towards the top of the categories were your comments, okay? And I I put the comments down with yours at the top of the that I broke it into categories. Yours are near the top. The management teams and and the city uh staff are kind of after your comments. Okay? So, you kind of know if somebody says to me, "Where did that one come from?" I can at least tell you it came from council or came from staff. Okay? Because I've got the ones from uh from uh the council circled on my list. So, uh and then of course when we get to exhibit E, then I did break it down, you know, between those that came from council and those that came from staff. So, and then with

the capital projects, we're going to go through the same thing. We're going to review them and then you're I'm going to use the dot process to help you're going to help me rank them and uh and then we'll take a just a few minutes after you do your dots to just kind of kind of show you where the where the uh dots fell. Obviously, this is what I'm going to use. This is in the exact same order that's on your exhibit C and D. Okay? Exact same order. And I'm gonna say to you, okay, if you think that's a high priority, you're gonna put a dot in that box. Okay? Okay. I'm going to give you probably 10 dots might be what I give you. You're going to put your initials on them so you can remember where you put them. And uh because I had a gentleman do this one time, a little quite elderly, and he had 10 dots, and he put five of them up, but he was thinking where he was going to put his last five. And he went back and he couldn't remember where he put his dots. And I thought, "Never again. From now on, everybody puts their initials on their dots. Okay? That way you don't have to remember where you put them. So, we may see things that will combine like you. If you tell me number six is the same thing as number 10, I'm going to take number 10 and peel it off and put it over here by six. Okay? So, you're all going to vote. Yeah. All your votes for that idea is going to go right there. All right? And then I'll go down through them one by one and uh that are high priority. I'm not going to talk. I'm not going to mention the ones that are not. Now, when I'm all done, any of you have an interest, you're welcome to take a picture of them. Okay? A lot of council members do that. The other thing is we are missing a council member tonight. And I want that council member to have an opportunity to be a part of this dot process. So, I'm leaving these sheets here. Okay. Once that council member comes in, it's uh

Bill.

Bill. Once Bill comes in and puts his dots up, then Ron is going to write the number down and send it to me. And then I'll use that then to to put together a report. Now, what you're going to see in exhibit C and D is I'm going to put them in the exact order that you rank them. If something I think the most number of dots something can get would be seven. The ones with seven dots are at the top and the ones that get no dots are at the bottom. So, they'll be ranked from top to bottom. And then I'm going to recommend to you where I would draw the line in terms of uh usually what I'm looking for is at least four and preferably five, six, seven dots before something goes on top. In your case, since you have a six member council, I'm probably going to look for something that's got six or seven dots because I do let the mayor put the dots up, too, because he is officially elected by the public. Obviously, he doesn't vote at council meetings, but he was officially elected by the public. And so, I do let the mayor be a part of this process. So, one of the few times mayor,

you get you get to be part of it. Okay? And so, then you will get that and then I will identify in your report what I think your top goals and priorities are. It's usually pretty pretty straightforward, pretty simple. Um, if when you get the report, it's a draft. And so, for example, if something slotted in at number seven on the list and I have it I didn't have it in the top, you can modify it and move it up to the top if you think that's important when you get your draft of the report. So, there's a little bit of flexibility. I always tell people too, this ranking system is not cast in stone. There are emergencies that happen. uh a town that experiences a lot of flooding one year when I did this, you know, and all of a sudden storm sewers and flood protection was a top priority. Well, it wasn't even on it when I did goal setting. So, some goals got moved down and flood protection went to the top. Things happen. So, but it is your blueprint barring any emergencies or unforeseen circumstances of what you're going to work on going forward. So uh and then item uh exhibit E which is the u the teamwork and the u you know how we work with each other, how we work with the staff, how we work with the public, I'll go down through those items as well. You won't be voting on those. But what I'll ask you to do there is if you see something on there that that's not re really we're all about. You know that doesn't match what I want the public to think in terms of what we're trying to do as terms of our teamwork. I can take it off. You know you can tell me hey I I don't think that one matches up. Now that your staff came up with ideas too but the most important thing is what you guys came up with too. What they did is they provided some background from their perspective. And as you look through that, you can see a slightly different perspective on a few things. So, and we'll talk a little bit about that as well. So, that's the

agenda. Any questions on the agenda? You're everybody good with that? Okay, good. All right. Um, let's see. Let's go to the uh first exhibit A. Exhibit A is the list of your accomplishments. I'm going to give you a minute or two before I can catch my breath here. Give you a minute or two to go down through those kind of quickly, refresh your memory, what's there, and I'm going to ask you to to identify any one that you want an explanation on, any questions, and then the other thing I want to know is did we miss anything? Okay, now I did break them into categories and so you can see that. And if you think there's a category that got it in the wrong place, maybe just let Ron know, you know, later and I can move it to whatever category you think is appropriate. So, yeah, the the headings don't mean all that much. I just kind of did it so we we blump them together. So, I'm going to give you just a minute or two to go down through those very quickly. Uh, and then if nobody has any questions, I'm going right to exhibit B. So, focus on exhibit A.

I have a question. Sure. Yeah. The last one actually. Very last one. Sure. Okay. Number 64. Funeral home construction and William relocation. Did we we relocated one of them? Uh planning. We're in the process of relocating one of them. Oh, okay. Sarah Shinny. We have identified her plot. She's going to go to her daughter's grave site and she'll be moved this summer. Okay. Yep. But I I guess my brain was thinking it hasn't been accomplished yet. Premiatorium. No. Um

and Calarium maybe you thinking of that or No, but anyway. No. Yeah. No, just planning is the key word there. Yeah. Mhm. Okay. Anyone else have a question on any of the items here that you wasn't sure what that was all about? You folks are pretty well informed then. I have nothing. Question on number eight side project along 65. What is that? We do that. Uh yeah, we added sidewalk to Dollar to Dollar South. All right. Thank you. From Casey's North right. Steve, did you have a question? I had more more of an observation. Yeah.

Somebody on here put on here the the success at college accomplishing the 2022 goals. What number? You know, and it was 43. And you know that that entered me when I was putting this all stuff together. Um you know we we did pretty we did a pretty good job on our goals. So so when we do these we do them for a reason. Yeah. And we use them and and and the progress that we've made shows. That's Oh good.

By the way, this is a pretty impressive list. Okay. Now what I've seen done in some other cities um namely Typton Iowa took a list like this and made themselves a nice little brochure and they picked out you know the kind of kind of top items made themselves a little brochure and made it available to public for reading just to show them how their tax dollars were spent and what was accomplished. And people are pleasantly surprised when they see the list of things that have been done over the years because you know we do these things one at a time and you know you c discuss a few items at each meeting but you never stop back and reflect on the sum total that you get done and it's when you do that uh it's pretty impressive list that you have. Okay. Any other questions on exhibit A before I go to B?

I don't have a question. I have a comment. Jim, that would be a good newspaper article. Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

Okay. All right. Let's go to exhibit B. Okay. Now, now I'm switching gears a little bit. Okay. Yeah. This is a list of things where, you know, their concerns or issues that maybe you're dealing with. Now, some of these things you have little or no control over, like the state legislature, what they do with property taxes. You can call your state legislator and tell them what you think, but that's about as far as it's going to go because, you know, it's pretty much an assured something's going to happen. We don't know quite yet what's going to happen and it will have quite an impact on this list and what you do going forward. So, so once again, I'm going to just give you a few minutes to run down through the list, see if there's anything on there that you have a question about as to why it was on there. I do have a couple. I'm going I'm going to raise I'm going to talk to you about number 14 quickly and uh and but you can kind of go down through them and see if there's any items on there that you uh you have a question on and then if there's something that might have been missed as well. So, but I'll I'll wait for you to get go through it. I'll get your qu you get your questions answered and then I'll make a couple observations on some things that I saw.

Okay. What's the Armory Lane opportunity? Is that going to ask that too? Armory Lane is a condominium. Yeah. And it's just sat idle since 2008 when they hit a recession. It's been for sale for years. It's shovel ready to be built on. So for someone to carry on and start construction. It's got water, street, sewer, storm sewer. Yeah. Just west of the double ball diamond at the high school. Are are we going to talk about each one? No, we're just you you if there's one you want to signal out and talk about, now's the time to do it. I'm not going through this list one by one. Number one,

number one. Yeah. We we util When my kids were young little, we utilized the park at Southside School and then Park School had a playground, too. Well, now that the county owns that and they build a Dollar General there, uh there's no park on the like the southwest part of town. So, I don't know why we can't keep utilizing the Southside school, you know, and it's hard to get across Highway 3 unless you use that school crossing there on 4th Avenue. That's all I got to say about that. Okay. All right. And uh fluoride, aren't we talking about getting rid of fluoride? Uh that's listed as an issue.

It's an issue. Yeah. And a concern. It's a concern. talked about it. Yeah, it could come up later where you'd make it a goal. Take fluoride out of the water. How long? I think it gets talked about again later. Was on council then that we had that rear its head 20 years ago. Yeah. But then Jerry, you brought it up just a year ago or so. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's so it's it's something that's we're recycling that one. Yep. Yeah. Okay. And we when we did bring it up, I even was interviewed on the radio about it and I never got any feedback from it. So my impression was nobody cares one way or the other. Way the other. Dentists care. Yeah, the dentist. Yeah, dentists really care. Well, I know they do.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. You I will guarantee you if you put on the agenda to vote that out, they will be here. Oh, I know. Um I had number nine. Now you there are things you can do to take it out of the water by I have reverse osmosis. I I'm assuming that takes fluoride out. Yep. Yeah. If you if you feel that strongly about it, there are things you can do. But most most people in the dental field will say don't do that. Other questions? Yes.

Uh the police resources being tied up doing nuisance abatement. Um, I feel like sometimes it can them doing that or like if they have to go to court for anything nuisance related, it takes away from stuff that they do in the city. Like if we have a call for them and they it either takes longer or they can't get to it right away because they're doing nuisance things. Yeah. Okay. In other words, what your observation is, yeah, do it when you can, but it should not be of high priority for the police if they got other things pending. How about number like number 11? Sorry,

but recognizing the need for due process, is that implying or saying that we don't as in like the police don't uh I don't know what that means. Yeah, not really sure what what's that supposed to mean. Well, in in the past, we've had comments uh of frustrations that things aren't getting done fast enough with nuisance and we got to remind the elected officials that the people are entitled to due process and and it takes time. So, like educating the public that how about there's a process. Educating. Tell us about that due process. You were just just there today. That's why he's all dressed up.

Sure. that more and yeah I can see where you said with the nuisance issues. Yeah. Yeah. There's very strict state law in this. You know there's a lot of things that you do is subject to state law. You know it is what it is. You may not like it but it's there and you got to do it or you'll be found in violation of state law. That brings us to number 15. Licensing. Licensing dogs does not impact whether they will bite. And yeah that's a given. I understand that, but it is a state law that dogs are registered. So, it is something we have to do. It's also a step that okay, we're encouraging that these dogs are vaccinated as well.

Yes, that's the other part of the process because if I get bit, I sure hope that dog is vaccinated. It's one thing to get bit, but then get bit by a dog that's not vaccinated. Yeah. Okay. I don't know if anybody has any something to clarify on that. I I didn't quite understand what I think the statement speaks for itself. Yeah. Yeah. Other questions? As I went through your list, one of the things that jumped out at me was number 14. Uh are some of you kind of concerned about your security and your safety at these meetings? Yeah. I mean, we have the chief of police are here. The chief of police,

have you ever heard the Mount Pleasant story? Uh yeah. Okay. I'm old enough to remember the Mount Pleasant situation. There was a shooting. Shooting. Hell yeah. Someone was very disgruntled with uh backup in their sewer. Came to a council meeting, loaded gun, started shooting council members, shot the mayor. So mad at the mayor, he went behind the table and shot the mayor in the head and killed him. Oh, for God's sake. And he died. The other the other two council members survived. Police chief was in the audience. Didn't have his gun. ran out to the car to get his gun, came back. By then, the shooting was over.

So, I'm glad to hear you're here. I'm glad to hear you have your firearm. So, if somebody comes in, usually I'm in the back of the room. Yeah, that's a good place. Glad to hear that. So, you do have armed security here and so that's a plus. I don't know what else you could do other than metal detectors, which I don't know of any smaller city out there doing that. But but I I I understand where you're coming from in this day and age. How long ago was Heidi, you know, and there were some threat there were some threats made? Yeah. And that he was going to Yeah. And I think that I did not put that down, but

hurt to have an active shooter program for you guys to where we could all just train as one group just in case we had something like that happen. I think we could implement maybe a quick have one of the guys do. This is what's going to happen if we have an active shooter here. Yeah. And I think that would probably be good today. I don't think it would be a bad Yeah, we only we got I mean two exits entrances that's all locked up. I get it. But I think everybody needs to know what they should probably do with that case. Okay. Hi.

Tom Vilsac was on that council.

Tom actually Tom Vilsac was not on the council but he took the mayor's place. I actually knew the guy. His name was Ed King. I served with him on the planning and not the planning zone but regional planning commission. Used to sit right next to me when we had our meetings. I knew him quite well. Wonderful guy. If there was ever a person that never deserved what he got, it was Ed King and he died that night and just a wonderful individual. And Tom Bilzac stepped up to the plate and said, "I will be your mayor." And as they say, the rest is history. Okay. But yeah, you're right. You got a good memory. Good memory. Okay. Any other questions? Okay. As I look through it, uh there's a couple of them that jumped out at me. I don't see these all the time. Once in a while I do. As uh 16 and 23 about a concern, uh what took what takes place occasionally at council meetings about comments about individual uh staff members or or employees. And that usually kind of gets my attention. And I'll talk more a little bit about it under exhibit E. Uh but I always tell people okay let's assume for example you get a new job and your employer uh during the interview process says oh by the way your performance evaluation will be on Facebook and by the way your performance evaluation will be discussed for all the world to know if they want to pay attention. Okay. Would you take that job? So when if if that happens at council meetings, what it does is it actually ruins the morale of your employees who are like, I'm afraid to make a move, you know, because I don't want to be the subject of the discussion at a public meeting. The second thing it does that's even more important is it sends a message to potential employees. Do I want to work there or not? So, we'll talk a little bit more about this exhibit E, but when I see that, it jumps

out at me like, "OMG, because if if that's a pattern you see, for example, someday Ron is going to retire." Okay, when he does retire, you got to recruit a new city administrator. Okay? What do you think those new city administrators are going to do before they even come to an interview? They're going to watch these council meetings that are taped. They're going to watch them and say, "Oh, yeah, that's a great committee. I'll apply for that job." or are they going to say, "Holy crap, no way I'm going there." Okay, so always keep in mind when you're at these meetings, this is the image to the outside world that you're portraying to the public. What do you want that image to be? Because it will impact your ability to attract and retain employees. I can guarantee you. So, okay. And we'll we'll discuss this more detail when we get into exhibit E, but um any questions on exhibit B? Okay. Go ahead. Sorry.

Yeah. Number 27. Establish water bill payments electronically. So I'm not all people are on computers. So is that Ron? What are your thoughts? Uh this did not come from me. I don't uh we have the ability currently to pay water bills electronically. Um this is this is uh this would be even pay plan. Yeah. Like a similar to an even budget pay and then with with one month settle up annually I uh so I I take it that's something you don't have now.

Like if I come in and said I want my the ability we have we have we've invested tens of thousands of dollars in radio read meters that we have the ability to drive up and down the street and get the exact usage and then bill based on exact usage to go and then estimate what what was the intent of investing in the meters you do that right okay now if you see something on this list and you think okay that's a great idea for example this would be an even payment plan for utility that could show up on our next list that you would vote on if you think it's really important. Okay, these are pointing out the fact that you don't have it. This is just an issue. Okay.

Whether or not it becomes something that you work on needs to be on the next list. Okay. All right. Any other questions on B before I move into the main part of the meeting? Number 46.6 words. Immigration reform. Yeah. I wasn't sure I wasn't sure why that was on there either. Yeah, there's I don't know something we can do immigration.

I've never seen I've never seen that on a list. I don't know now. That did not come from you. That came from staff. Okay. At least I don't think because one one council member checked management team. So I don't I have a few of the items like that uh that came from came from council but actually was attributed to the management staff. So, I don't know why that's on there. Mary, do you have a question? Well, I have just some comments on number 20 photos of the city employees. I wanted I one time I suggested having a brochure of the city employees because I don't know any of them other than

Yeah. whoever's in this room. And you know, we've changed staff so much because the older guys left. I mean, I see them in trucks and they wave at me, I wave at them. I don't know who they are, but I think that that would be something if you think it's important when I get to the next list. Well, say add photo of employees to council chambers and we'll put it on the list for vote. I'm not sure. Yeah. If it would kind of be up to the employees, too, and I don't I don't know the legal side of that, Ron. I've never been asked that. I've never seen that on a list before. So, I've actually had employees say they don't want their photo on the website.

They don't want it anywhere because when they go to the grocery store, they don't want to be recognized and uh Yeah. questioned or, you know, criticized or whatever, right? Yeah. They haven't run for city council. Yeah. Yeah. One more. Sure. Number 26. I think that's a good idea. But one of these other comments was why why can't we get people to shop here? Well, we're located Ames Water War Mason City and usually their gas prices are 40 cents cheaper than here.

That's one of the reasons people leave town. Uh they might not save it with all the driving, but in their mind they're saving it. Yeah. Well, and there's a big difference from once again, this could this could be turned into an action item by saying we will do this. Yeah. One that's open 24 hours a day. Oh, yeah. That's a good rule for us because Yeah. You're plowing snow and you're getting low on gas. Yeah,

that's a good point, too. Okay, ready to move into the main event, exhibit C. All right, let's go to exhibit C. I kind of prepped you a little bit on um what we were going to do here at the end of the review. I'm going to go down through these one by one. If you need an explanation of what they are, stop me and we'll ask, you know, Doug, Mark, Ron, wherever, and um make sure that you know what you're going to be putting your dots on. Okay. Number one, downtown snow removal improvement plan. And I rewarded that a little bit to say, you know, put together how it would work. Okay, so that's what this would be all about. Okay, once again, if you don't stop me, I'm going to go right next to the next one. Number two, city takes responsibility for the repair and placement of sidewalks.

Replacement. What's that? Replacement. Replacement. Okay. Yeah, replacement. which I would add the caveat if you do that and then how do you pay for it okay among the if you're going to do it then you need to add how to pay for it so because it's going to come out of your general fund or your road use tax money so uh number three installation of parks on the south side of town kind of what Barry was talking about well it keeps reoccurring but yeah it's like you just said with sidewalks how you going to pay for. All you can pay for. Mhm.

Number four, initiate a master plan for updating parks, recreation areas, equipment, uh improve um recreational facilities, soccer, baseball, tennis, pickle ball. Okay. Number five, sidewalk and bike route programs are structured initiatives aimed at developing infrastructure policies and education campaigns to make walking and cycling safer, more convenient, and more accessible. Okay. Number six, initiate and implement a leaf pickup program. By the way, if that shows up, Manchester has done some work along that lines. So, quite a while ago. Number seven, study feasibility of increasing hours at compost site and a recycling option. Okay. Number eight, work with the county on a potential recycling program, year-round appliance drop off, add bins and structures at new compost site. I almost combined seven and eight,

but I didn't simply because that first part didn't the longer hours at compost seemed like it would might have been a separate item, but so that's kind of why I left them separate, but you can combine the two if you want. They are on the subject, same subject. So, all right, unless you tell me different, I'm going to leave them separate. Number nine, storm sewer televising initiative, which most of the time when you're televising, it's sanitary sewers, not storm sewers. And I'm sure you all know the difference between the two. But is it I want to just clarify. We are talking the storm sewer system that would televise here, right? Not the sanitary sewer,

right? We got a good handle on the sanitary storm. We don't have Don't have a good handle on. Okay. All right. Thank what do you what do you mean by televising?

You want to explain that? So basically it's the same thing we do where we take a a camera or machine camera run it through the pipe to identify any separation of the pipe any collapsing of the pipe location of the pipe where does it go there's a lot that that identifies that give us some priorities on okay well should probably fix this we have a number of them that number of our outlets along the creeks are starting to struggle eroding over time. Only 30% of Hampton has storms as we come out of this drought. It was projected long time ago that we're going to go into some really wet years again like 2008, 2010, 2012. Just we need to know where we need to maybe make some of those repairs and put that some CP what it's in. Helps us helps us look at the guts of it. present dovetails right in the next one. Create a storm water utility, which would be just like a water and sewer utility, but strictly for fixing those pipes and intakes. And um if you do that, one of the better ordinances I've seen is West Branch, Iowa. In fact, I think if you Google West Branch, you might even see that that ordinance in their book. One of the best ones I've seen. Also, the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities can provide some insight in in that sort of thing, too. And I'm going imagine you're a member of the AMU.

That would just be another tax, wouldn't it?

It would go on. Yes. Everybody's going to pay it. And it goes towards paying, you know, paying for the storm sewer repairs and upkeep. And if you're living in a high up on a hill, it doesn't do you a bit of good personally. But if you live in a lower part of town, it's like, yes, please. So, it depends on where you live as to whether or not that's a great idea. Okay? If you've ever been flooded, if your basement's ever been flooded, it's a great idea because it it it helps solve those drainage problems at a faster pace than if you have to wait for a bond issue or road use tax money. It gets them done quicker. Now, I will tell you, it's not going to generate a huge sum of money. And usually when it's implemented, it's it's not an outrageous fee. We're not talking $50 a household. We're talking what? Maybe

couple bucks a month. Yeah. Yeah. But it starts building up a fund to take care of those cracks and repairs. Yeah. So, okay. Number 11. Study the pros and cons of eliminating fluoride in the drinking water. Okay. There it is. Okay. Talked about it earlier. Okay. It elicits strong feelings both ways. Number 12. provide openhouse opportunity or tour to view city facilities, uh, water plant, wastewater plant. Later, I'm going to give you a little handout that says what other cities have done to let people know what you're doing. And that's actually one of the ones I had on my list. So,

I just right now with the climate and everything with terrorism and everything else, I you know, one of the things that DNR and talk about is keeping that facility secure from the public council to see it. That's one thing. That's one thing. Yeah. But to have the public out there, please. Absolutely not. Yeah. I'll share with you one quick story. My public works director said to my police chief one day, he says, "I'm in charge of your water system." He said, "You make a mistake, maybe one person's dead. I make a mistake, everybody's dead." So, it does put that in perspective. Okay. Yes. Thank you.

And the police chief didn't even dispute it with There'll be disputing.

Okay. Number 13. Now, these are ones I told you earlier about. They might go on the list of givens. Okay. And that's when I see the word continue and maintain. So, there's about six of them in row. Continue the national night out program. Are you on board with keeping doing that? Okay, that'll be a given. Number 14. continue with community- based partnerships with police citizens academy or similar program. Are you okay? Continue to do that. Okay, that's a given. Okay, number 15. Continue to integrate technology into policing. Okay with that. All right. By the way, you will not be voting on these now because you're saying to me, put it in a report. We're still committed to it. Okay. Number 16, to continue to enhance and offer police officer training. Okay, that'll be a given. Maintain updating policies. Okay, that's a given. Continue to build strong working relationship with the law enforcement, our law enforcement partners. Okay, good. We'll continue to do that. And number 19, continue to update vehicles and equipment on schedule or as needed, which you probably have that in your CIP, right, Ron? So that's a given. Okay, everybody agree with all those? Okay, they will not be voted on. They will show up in your report as continuing to work on these things. Okay, 20. Now, this is may be a new one. reduce posted speed limit along highway 64 and three to conform with the recommend recommend Department of Transportation guidelines to improve crossing safety. Now, I'm assuming you're going to have to go to the DOT to get the okay to do that. So, this would be to start that process because that doesn't happen

overnight. Okay? There's a process they will come in and do a traffic count and a speed. I think they set up something to do the speed of their vehicles. I have the information has and I will leave you guys all copies so you can process what it involves. Yeah. What it has been and what it will be and the fact that we haven't had any accidents. Yeah. Yeah. That probably enters into the picture. Yeah. Seems like the traffic is going faster than what it actually is. Yeah. I don't know why. Yeah. That's cuz you and I are getting older. I can't even see either. Yeah, that's true, too. Yeah. Yeah.

Mobile um speed limit thing helps with that. And we've done speed studies on several locations and every time it shows the truck is actually going slower than what you think. Yeah. Sometimes there is the occasion. Yeah. Yep. Now, one of the things I like when I see a community, I didn't see it when I came into town. I came in from the east is some of the smaller towns especially put these things up telling you what my speed limit is and boy that's eye opening to me once in a while cuz I was oh my goodness I I didn't realize I was over by that much there is one out by the hospital is there one out by hospital one coming each time each oh is okay so they're out there already okay so they have no excuse then right

okay all right good point thank you okay uh 21 search for a way for the police fire departments to store access codes offered by residents to permit access to homes for wellness checks without doors having to be broke down. Broken down. A lot of times when we have welfare checks called in, dispatch will ask. Oh, yeah. You would know this, would you? Ask if there's a code or if there's a key. We do ask permission from if the homeowner has called and fallen down and can't get up to open the door. We ask them permission if we can break the door. Okay? Otherwise, we do ask the caller sometimes, is it okay if we break the door? Yeah.

Oh, good. Okay. Okay. And we're able to store the the access codes and stuff and where the keys are in our CAD system. Okay. So, this might be something more get the word out on how that all happens and you're in a good position to know that. Yeah. Okay. Uh, number 22, stop licensing dogs. Waste of staff time does nothing to prevent dog attacks. We've already discussed that. It's a state law. Might as well just erase that whole thing.

Well, obviously don't put a vote dot on it. So, yeah, it might be against I wasn't sure uh when Jerry had mentioned that that there's something in state law that says you have to license dog. I had always done it. I never asked I've never had to research the question whether or not it's required that you do I think it's a state law you have to vaccinate your dog right it's also written that you have to register them okay I don't know that I've never seen that but I've never looked for it either I've never Yeah I don't know about that if you if you ever run across it uh write down the code section because that would be good for me to know too I would like to know

I did find it when I was researching that and it is a state law. When you bring an animal into the state, it must be registered. Okay. And I think one of the thing that came up with this part is the the the cost. You know, do we need do we need to c charge for it or should this be free? Something that we offer free, but yet we still like people to. Okay. But once again, if it's something that is a high priority, then that would be something you would put a dot on. Okay. Well, and this is something we already do. we already licensed

this. This would be to stop it. Yeah. To look into ways of how you stop it. Okay. If you if you're fine with licensing and don't put a dot on this, just ignore it. Okay. So, we'll see how it shakes out. You know, if it's something that we need to pursue, we can. But, uh uh unless you put dots on it, you're going to keep the licensing in place. Okay. Uh 23 kind of dovetales into that, but it's different. And that is you have an ordinance on vicious animals and the question would be do you make it tougher and stricter. Okay. Have you had a lot of instances where dog bites out there? Have you had some? A number. Yeah. Yeah, we've had some. I think I've been here anyway.

I think we just went through this exercise not too long ago talking about if we needed to Yeah. you know, enhance our vicious dog and and I think we didn't we made a couple small rain changes, but we kind of pretty much kept all that we have. I am a daily walker in my neighborhood. I walk two and a half miles every morning. There's about six dogs along the way. When I first started doing this, half of them didn't like me.

They would raise their hair at me. Now, they all love me because I bring doggy treats. And as I come closer, I drop one out. Now, instead of getting growling, I get the tail of going like crazy, and they can't wait to see me. So, for those of you watching YouTube, take some doggy treats with you. They'll all love you. Okay. Okay. Number 24, decision on what to do about leaves and burning banan. So, right now, you cannot burn leaves in town, right? Well, we we can for a 30-day period in the in the fall. It's usually November. Oh, that's reasonable. Yeah. Yeah, that's reasonable.

Number 25. Increased oversight of treeboard planting plans. Plans need approval prior to planning, not after completion. Okay. By the way, if anybody have any questions of what this is, any of these items, flag me down. Number 26, mobile app for residents to submit ideas. suggestion box and report nuisances. And we talked about that at our last school planning thing and found out that it was wasn't it wasn't it expensive or something? I can't remember what the deal was. Yeah. Okay.

And then we also have uh our software company accounting software has has a uh a module. Yeah. Right. um for this type of thing that we anticipate we'll probably be upgrade and that will include that. I don't know how soon that is though. So we don't know the next year but yeah we don't know. Okay. Yeah. All right. Okay. 27. Um check into grant opportunities for city improvements. I'm assuming you're a member of a regional planning commission. Mhm.

One of the things I recommend the cities do is following the completion of this report, get a copy to your regional planning commission and tell your folks at the regional planning, these are the things we're going to be working on over the next few years. If you spot a grant that might be appropriate for one of these ideas, please let us know. So, get the word out. I always tell people, share it with your county folks, too. Share it with your school board. Let them know what you're doing. One of the things you'll see on my list of things you can do in the future is once a year, twice a year, schedule a joint meeting with your school board and your county board of supervisors and your economic development chamber group. Take turns telling each other what you're doing in your community. Go around the table. You could make a copy of your report at least or a summary of it and hand it out to so you're communicating with each other so everybody knows what you're doing and why you're doing it. And then you can hear the same from them. So, and then maybe they have a grant opportunity that might fit something city even though they're with the county. Doesn't fit them, but it might fit you folks. So, number 28, review city water and sewer rates. I see that on every list and it's something you got to stay on top of because you have, as Barry told you, you got some important infrastructure you got to maintain for that, not only now, but for future generations. And if you let that water and sewer go downhill, boy, are you going to make things life difficult for the next generation?

What uh kind of a time table do they have for that? I recommend you do an annual review of your water and sewer rates. And we we do. Do you? Yeah. Yeah. We and we work with PFM, public financial management. Oh, perfect. So, they're monitoring our sewer rates. um because it it's uh it works in correlation with the debt that we have and so we have to have certain amount of revenues to cover the debt and they monitor that annually and and then they also we have an SRF loan that we're just now starting with the water side and so they're monitoring that as well. So and our water has an annual uh accelerator in at two or 3%. Good. That helps. Wastewater does not. So we we got to keep a closer eye on that. Mhm.

Yeah. Yeah. What Ron's talking about is what's called a debt coverage ratio. Okay. Meaning you got enough revenue to cover all your operational expenses and pay the debt and a little cushion above it. And if you don't, the people that you've issued that bought your bonds, they get a little nervous because they want to make sure they get their money back. Okay. So, I'm glad you've got PFM doing that. That's great. I wish more cities would be more conscientious about that. So, they're good people, by the way. He'll do a good job for you. Yes. You know what? Sitting here and we're going through these things, I think that the Ron and Doug and and the police chief have done a phenomenal job. They have.

I mean, we're going through this and we're just like the last item, we're doing it. Yeah. And you that's a good point because sometimes I do this and I have a fairly young new city administrator. It's like oh I didn't know you could do that but you have a seasoned veteran who's been around for a long time so he knows what you can do. It's good that if we could get the word out and people let people know. Yeah. We're not just meeting to look at each other.

Yeah. Yeah. Good point. Okay. All right. Let's see. I left off with number 29. The next page, policy to include limitation of repercussion for refund in the case of clerical or computer error and collection of fees or payments to citizens. That one actually came from the council. A lot of times I see that or of course maybe it didn't. I don't know. But um sometimes they put a limit on how far back they'll go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We do not currently have a policy and it's something we should consider. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Number 30, update utility of account counting software. Okay, number 31. I had a chuckle when I saw it. Stop talking about chickens and dogs. Chickens and all other SL livestock don't belong in town. And and and once again, they're talking about the dogs that are are licensed will still bite you. So, okay. It seemed like every town has talked about the chickens at one point or another. There's all kinds of ordinances out there that will give you any different variety of ways to approach that thing if you want to do it.

I do think that statement is kind of rude though. You have to Yeah. Maybe once again that would be something you wouldn't put a dot on. Yeah. Yep. Yep. It's kind of you're past it, I guess, is what you'd say. I think this is more of a commentary than than necessarily an action item. Okay. Okay. Number 33. Continue to work with public works staff to obtain necessary certifications, water, waste, water, so as to utilize our employees in uh in several duties. Okay. Yeah. Go back to 32. Yeah, we can go back to 30. Well, 32 is a separate. It should have been in bold. That's a category. Oh, okay.

That's just a category. It's I typo on my part. And the same thing down there on economic development. I meant to have that in bold as well. So, yeah. Okay. And usually my wife helps me do this and I highlight in yellow what goes into bold. I obviously missed that one. Okay. Okay. And so when it did, then it numbered it. Okay. That's why I didn't understand it.

Yep. Exactly. Number And by the way, in the final report, I'll take care of something like that. Okay. Number 33. Yeah, I just want to comment on not only your public works staff need that continuing education, the certifications, your city hall staff, too, because critical you keep those folks up to date on what's going on. And there's various programs for your city hall staff through Iowa State Extension and Iowa Municipal Finance officers to get them the training that they need to continue to do their jobs. I know quite a bit about it because I'm one of the instructors on on some of these programs. So they're they're as valuable to you, I think, as the water and wastewater. So, okay. Number 34, update the public works employees to a merit-based wage structure. Okay. Number 35, update employee job descriptions, which by the way, if that's a high priority, I have a handout that I did years ago and some examples of job descriptions. Um, that's kind of a how-to manual on how to write a job description. So, if that's a high priority, I can share that with Ron. If he, you know, sends me an email, I'll forward it on to him. Number 36, development of a city slogan or focus on which to build future plans for marketing and business development perhaps via a community contest which I would add that would be something you want to do in conjunction with your chamber of commerce your economic development group as well be nice to make it all uniform. So okay we are looking at number 37. Provide sufficient housing and community infrastructure. Consider uh little housing tiny home development providing affordable sustainable and and communal

living options. Once again I would look upon this as a study or review or assessment um because if you're going to actually start building houses that goes on the next list. Okay. By the way, if this is a high priority, check with the city of Makoka. They have done something similar to this and it was overseen by the regional planning commission in their area which is based out of Debuke. One of the best regional planning commissions I've ever worked with. It's called ECIA and I think it might even be on their website uh what they did in Makoka. So if you Google it and go to East Central Intergovernmental Association, you will see that. So, yes, if we did something like that, I think our our ordinances would have to be changed for

probably. Yeah, we need some size your zoning ordinance. Good point. Yeah, you're if you get down this road, don't get too far down without looking at your zoning. Get your planning and zoning involved. But, uh, yeah, it's it's part of an effort to, you know, try and get some more affordable housing in your community because, you know, let's face it, most families can't afford that 2,000 foot house that's selling for 400, 500, $600,000. We have trouble with getting someone to work with Habitat. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Any questions on that one? Number 38, promotion of volunteerism and charitable giving. Do you have a community foundation in your town?

Yes. Yes.

Okay. So, there's a focus for your charitable giving. Yeah. Um, we have one in Animosa. I, by the way, those of you who are listening who are over the age of 73, the best way to contribute it to is is through your required minimum distributions. They're called QCDs, qualified charitable distributions. And that way you get the benefit of a tax advantage of doing that. So but that's uh I participate in that and and our community foundation I I give to them that way. Volunteerism is another a lot of a lot of towns struggle with that one because there's so much things vying for our time. You know the kids are in so many more sports than when I was a kid you know and there's so much more to see on TV. You know I grew up I had three numbers ABC CBS NBC. That was it. So, it's a whole new world. But yeah, the volunteerism is important for a community to to live and thrive. Um Jerry talked a little bit about that that the importance of it. So, yeah, I get it. And oh, by the going back to 33, that starts out with continue. Is that a given, by the way? Are you folks on board with continuing to do that? Do you need to vote on that? Is that a given?

I think I think it is. Everybody agree with that, Doug?

Okay, you're not going to vote on that. You're just you're going to keep doing it because you have to. You don't really have a choice in the matter. Okay. Same thing here on the next one. Number 39. Continuation. Anytime I see that word continue continuation nuisance abatement image of pride community cleanup program a chamber consider community uh clean city a community cleanup fix up program providing grants loans volunteer assistance to help homeowners rehabilitate their properties. That's almost two things isn't it? The first one is continuation of nuisance abatement. Is that a given? You're going to keep doing that. So that's a given. Now the question is, is this next item a community cleanup fixup program? Is that something new? You're not doing anything like that now, are you? So that would be something new. And there are a few communities out there that have organized that sort of thing.

We do community cleanup. Yeah. But I mean a kind of a communitywide where I put I put this down. I think we need a specific program like if there's a individual resident, an older person that needs help fixing up their house that we have volunteers or however are there and can work with that person. Yep. Like if there's an elderly person that lives alone and they're not capable of of going into their yard and gathering up all the stuff that should be set out to the curb, volunteers would come in and help that individual. I've seen that sort of thing in other communities. Not necessarily does the city p spearhead it, but sometimes you probably could. Yeah. Like working with a chamber or service or service.

Typically, it's done through other or with with cooperation on it. Yeah. Yeah. So, I'm going to modify that. Basically, you're going to you're it's a given on the nuisance abatement. You're going to keep doing that and then this would be a new goal. Then consider a community fix up uh cleanup fixup program that's kind of separate from nuisance abatement. Okay, number 40. 40 starts out continue rehab of the pharmacy building to a point of a featuring a flexible design for sale allowing movein ready access with minimal customization. Are you folks committed to doing that? You're going to keep working on that? That was probably a previous goal or something.

Well, okay. And I put that down because I think we have to decide how far do we want to go with it. Okay. And then of course that means money. Yeah. So probably going what's a way to phrase that? Would that be called like phase two? You phase one you've acquired it. Okay. You've got you own it, right? Mhm. Phase two then would be uh getting it ready for sale. Well, that's still that's phase one is is structurally securing it. um and uh getting it into the hands of the private sector. But I think what Jim's saying is, you know, what's that gonna look like?

Okay. You know, we you know, do we want to do additional things before we put it up for sale? I don't mean to speak for you, but just like, you know, like a spec building out. Yeah. Like what how do we define that as the spec building and how far do we go with that? Okay. to enable maybe a prospective buyer to finish it off. Okay. All right. I'm going to leave this one on here. You will vote on this one. Okay. Good point. Number 41. Create C create a housing development plan. And I almost combined that with another one. I I can't remember what number it was. Was there there's another one that talked about housing? The tiny home one.

Which one? the tiny home one. Yeah, that might be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was mine, too. Okay. Um, do you want to keep it separate or do you want to tie it in with the other one? I would think almost like the tiny house again maybe is more of a very specific as opposed to in general. Okay. But I mean, you could combine them. Yeah, I'll do it either way. Jim, you're since it came from you, it's your call. Do you want to combine it or keep it separate? I'd say combine them because that to me if it's a tiny house it'd be like a subset of an overall housing development plan. Yeah. So I would put them together. Refresh my memory. What number was that?

37. 37. Okay. So for voting purposes 37 and 41 will be combined. Okay. And I will take number 41 and move it over to 37. Okay. All right. Any other questions? 42. New city ordinance. No building to be constructed that is taller than a courthouse. This would be a zoning ordinance modification. Provide greater opportunities to utilize water tower structure for our electronic wave capture needs. Okay. Yes. I just want to make a comment. I'm pretty confident.

Okay. already.

Okay. Okay. All right. I'm going to leave this on going on. Okay. I'm going to leave this on here for you to vote on. So, if it gets a lot of dots, then you're going to dig a little deeper into this. Okay. All right. Unless you tell me to take it off. So, Okay, number 43 once again starts with the word continue. Continue citywide cleanup event. So that's telling me you're already doing one. Doesn't that have already part of 39? Yeah. Yeah. That we separated the first part. Yeah. So part of 39A. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So I'm going to once again you won't vote on on 43. That's kind of like a given and it's going to be lumped together with 39. Gotcha. Okay, Barry. Uh, I'd like to say something about 42. 42. Yeah. Mhm. My opinion is if you had an ordinance like that, you'd be shooting yourself in the foot because if somebody comes into town and wants to put up a four-story building, you want that tax base. you want employees, you want more uh business, you know, I I see no need for that.

Okay. Once again, do not put a doubt on that then because if you do not put a dot on it, that's where it will die. Okay. Yeah. Good point, though. I see where you're coming from. And you can't take anyone else's off, right? Okay. Touch your own dots. Okay. Number 44. Uh, adopt a vacant building ordinance. Didn't we just go over that? Yeah, we've talked about that. Yes. We don't have one in place. We talked about it, but we never we never approved one. No, never. Okay. Interesting. Okay.

There's probably models out there for you to look at. Oh, yeah.

I think the Main Street program has some examples of that. By the way, if you've never been to the Iowa League of Cities website, take your time to look at that website. There is a lot of information on there. Go under what is called the resource uh page. Okay? Lots of publications. Uh and uh there's one that's near and dear to my heart. Go under publications, police or fire protection services. Uh George Oster and I teamed up years ago and wrote that and then Mickey Shields updated it and put it on the website. So there's about three or four things over the years that I've written that's that's on there. So anytime you have any of these topics, first place you want to go to check the league website and see what's already been written out there. And then Ron has access to something called the grapevine. That's like Facebook for city managers and city administrators. Ron can put out there, uh, by the way, anybody have a vacant building ordinance and he can get any number of them probably fairly quickly. uh don't do it this week because most of them are down in Iowa City at a training education. So, but anyway, uh there's a lot of resources out there that even you all of you can access on the league website. So, okay, that's the list that you present presented to me. Did we miss anything that you now want to add to the list before you start voting? Okay. All right. Not hearing any. At this point, I give the opportunity to council members first and then once you kind of have the opportunity, then I'm going to go to your staff and give them the opportunity. Is there an item to on here that you would briefly like to do a sales pitch on where you say, "Hey folks, make sure you put a dot on that one. This is why it's important." So, is there any item on there that council

mayor that you would like to do a sales pitch to your peers before you start selecting most likely be your top 10? Okay. I do. Go right ahead. That's why I put this on there. Um, mine would be uh number three, the installation of parks on the south side of town. I know we've got the southside elementary Yeah. playground. But um what kid wants to go play on the same playground that they play at every day at school? Okay.

Um also having come from Colorado and Cedar Rapids. Um, so bigger towns, and I've mentioned this in a meeting before, um, the first time a kid gets seriously injured on that playground or there's a bunch of vandalism or damage done to the playground, the school district can shut that down and not allow they'll throw up a fence and not allow anybody in there to play when it's outside of school hours.

That's their domain. Um, plus it's on the souththeast side of town. So, kids that live, say, over um in the trailer park that really need a safe place to play have to go all the way to the opposite end of town to get to a safe place to play. either to wait to the southeast side where the school is or cross Highway three to get to one of the parks on the north side of town. Sure.

Um if we're going to keep kids engaged, have um nice neighborhoods where people want to live, where people are going to take care of their properties, all that kind of stuff that um young families are going to be attracted to. Um which I think we need to have in order to keep Hampton a thriving town. Um, we've got to have safe place spaces and not just on one side of town. Um,

good. Thank you. Other people, any other topics that you want to put a sales pitch on? Okay, Ron, Doug, Mark, any any item you want to put a sales pitch on here quick?

I don't necessarily have some any specific item. um is a few of the ones we're already continuing to do, but um in the current state of the police department, we are down two officers. So, recruiting and training is going to be a huge thing for me and staying competitive in our wages and marketing, which I think we're working on and then um just staying with our training opportunities and stuff like that that keeps the business together and the morale of the my concerns. last year.

Yeah. Yeah. Um just a quick comment on that. This is really important. If you're living in Manchester, Iowa right now, Google Manchester and the lawsuit that was just brought before the courts, the court issued in favor of the plaintiff and huge sum of money that is now the responsibility of the city of Manchester. Google that. That will reinforce what he's talking about. Why that is so important to have good officers and good training because one not so good officer can get you into a lot of trouble. Good point. Yes.

All I'm asking for is we have a lot of uh this was our first year calling for some of our new staff members that were reports here and there different things. said that part of that was the guys part of that was people not maintaining as good as they should next to the curb. However, I guess what I'm asking for is just patience and then please have reasonable expectations about how quickly we're getting maybe some things done or have some very reasonable expectations on some things. Um we're limited on staff. We don't have enough people to do everything all at once. Um they're they're doing a good job. I think we need to prioritize. We need try to do that to the best of our ability. I don't think anyone's sitting around doing nothing or or things of that nature. Um just please understand I know our there citizens in our community well well city they're not doing anything that runs them wrong. But honestly, they they just need your support and we're bringing them along. Good. Um, so that's all just I'm just asking for reasonable expectations.

Okay. All right. Other observations, comments that Sean, Jerry, just the the very last one, number 44, adopt a vacant building ordinance. I truly think we need that so we don't run into problems like Rick's pharmacy again. Okay. I think I think that's really important and that would probably help with our nuisance two nuisance ordinances. Um and then let me get my thoughts together here. Decision on what to do about leaves and burn ban. I think we do need to make that decision before we initiate and implement a leaf pickup program. What are we going to do about it? Okay. Okay.

Right. Good. Anyone else? Yeah. I I would just mention on like the 39 whatever the community fix up program. I'm looking at that as a proactive way to try to again um deal with the nuisances before they become nuisances. Oh yeah. Okay. All right.

I would just uh kind of echo what Mark and Doug talked about. I think uh I always come back to that we need to uh not lose sight of the fundamentals of the services that we provide uh public safety and public works and water and sewer and the infrastructure and the streets and and the staff that we have uh to do the work that that needs to be done. Um uh support the staff. Um show that you know during council meetings your actions are seen to the world on YouTube including our employees. Um and remember that anything that can be said can either erode current employee morale or affect have an impact on potential employees. And we got a couple openings. So, uh, we just need to be cognizant of that.

Boy, if you got openings, that's even more critical. Yeah.

Yeah. And if you if any of you have an issue with, you know, what you see or with staff, the first person you need to go to is Ron. And then Ron can go to whatever department and then look into it and and then can come back to you. And the the way to do that is with a private conversation with Ron, not not in an open meeting. So, uh, like I said earlier, would if you were working for someone, would you want your evaluation on Facebook? No, I don't think so. In fact, I wouldn't work for somebody that did that. I would say adios. And by the way, there are cities out there that really desperately need employees. And so, I would venture to say, you know, uh, Mark, Doug could go anywhere they want as long as they're willing to move. There's people out there that would grab them. There's people that would grab Ron in a heartbeat, let me tell you that because he's well known and well-liked around the state. So, he'd have no trouble finding a job. So, that's what you're up against is is people can't find employees anymore. It's it's just so difficult. I hear it everywhere I go. It's hard to keep and retain and fire new employees. So, and especially finding ones that are willing to work. Some people are happy to be on payroll, but they might show up three days a week instead of five. So, it's a whole new world. When I was younger, you know, I had no trouble finding public works employees. I had no trouble finding police officers. We'd put out an ad for police officers. We get 40 applications and some darn good ones. You're not seeing that anymore, are you? No. And you're not seeing that. It's a whole new world we're dealing with. So,

all right. Any other topics real quick? Yeah. um kind of the with the the uh staff the uh stuff like that per personnel issues I would I would topic that under there

um some of the comments that we make as a council or you know in a meeting in a open meeting um they're farreading farreaching you know people watch our our uh our meetings they hear this stuff it's not just like us we're talking about this with uh Mark and Doug or or somebody else. So, we got to think about that every time we make some make a statement in there. And then in my little brain, and it's small. Um I always look at that the council actually has three employees. We got Ron, we got Doug, and we got Mark.

So, any p personnel issues to me goes under them. So, if we got something like that, you just said it. Yeah. go talk to talk to talk to Mark and let's get it taken care of rather than

getting something started up. something this might be a good time too to interject something similar to that and that is how you interact with each other and that's usually I cover this in exhibit E but this might be a good time and that is not only how you interact with each other at this meeting but when you leave the meeting okay the scenario I will give you you have a council meeting there a split vote totally different way on how to approach it and you are in the minority you lost by four to two vote or whatever it Next day you go to the grocery store, someone in that grocery store says, "I see the council did this last night." Well, that's the dumbest thing they ever did. Right? And you're in the minority. You say, "Yeah, damn right. That was the dumbest thing they ever did. I can't believe those people. What's wrong with them?" Okay. The image that you have now created by that statement for the whole group of which you're a part of is that city council doesn't know what the heck they're doing. So, you've now created a negative image, not only for your other council members, but for yourself, too, because you're a member of this city council because they don't a lot of times distinguish who voted for what. Okay? They may remember for a while that you voted no, but it ain't going to last. Okay? The council did this and you're on the city council. So, in a way, you just badmouththed yourself. Now, the other way to answer that question in the grocery store is this. Yes, we did have a vote on that last night. We had a good thorough discussion. I had the opportunity to give my opinion as well as them. And in the in United States and everywhere, majority rules and we took it to a vote. Majority was 4 to2. That's what we're going to do. Next time I might be on the winning side. And when I'm on the winning side, I sure hope the rest of the council supports what we just did. And I support this council because we are a team. Now, what image does that give to the public when you say that in

a in the grocery store when you meet these people? It's a different You had a good thorough discussion. It wasn't cut and dried. It was a 4 to2 vote. Now you're behind that 4 to2 vote. We're going to make it work. All together different image all from one conversation that you have in the grocery store talking about your fellow council members. So, it's important to keep that in mind when you leave here. Keep it positive. Be supportive of each other because I tell people, you got to have each other's backs because you're all in this together. And if you don't have each other's backs, then it starts the relationship starts to fall apart. Then you literally hate coming to council meetings and you dislike the other persons. No matter what they bring up, you're against it because you dislike them. This is what we're seeing at the federal government level right now. and we're watching this play out and it's like, oh man, who would ever want to be a part of that, you know, same thing that's going to happen here if you don't, you know, be mindful of that. Nobody's going to want these jobs if you if that happens. So, but anyway, just a side comment. Um, any other items that we want to talk about before we start voting? I got to kind of get to this point. Okay, all good comments. Thank you. Okay, you have about 32 31 items. I'm going to give you 10 dots. The way it's going to work is you're going to get your 10 dots. You're going to put it up on the top 10 items of these 30 or so items. Okay? Put your initials on those dots. You can't sell your dots to your neighbor. Okay? You got 10 dots. You keep them to yourself. You can't be putting two dots on one item. One dot per item. Okay? You may have a pet project and you want to put half your dots on there. You can't do that. One dot per item. And the way I police that is you got to put your initials on there. So if I see one thing with two of your dots on it, I'm going to peel one of them off. Okay. Ron,

I have a question. Sure. So this round they will simply be voting with their dots on exhibit C list. Exhibit C. Nothing to do with 10. What? You're going to give them So then when we get to D and they have dots, they're going to get another 10. um give or take how many's on the list. I usually shoot for about a third. Okay. Just Thank you. I usually shoot for about a third. Okay. Yeah. Uh sometimes I'll have a council like in Dyerville, they wanted less. I guess I could do that, but I would really recommend you kind of stay with it that 10. Now, if you can't come up with 10 items, you don't have to put a dot on 10 items. If there's only five or six that are important to you, just put on five or six and give me back the other dots. Yeah, that's not a problem. But most

don't put more than one dot on one item. No. No more than one dot. Don't go back and say, "Well, I got two left. I really like that. I'm going to put a second one there." No. One dot per item. Okay. Just to clarify, so we have 10 dots for all nine, not 10 for each exhibit, right? Okay. Yeah. You're going to get a whole new set of dots for the next run. Oh, we are. Whole new set of dots. From what you were saying, I almost thought that we only had the 10 and we had to go this one. All All 10 of your dots are going to go on these sheets. Next time around, next item, I'm going to give you 10 more. Okay. Yeah. Or whatever number. I may cut it back depending. It all depends on how many end up on the total. But we don't have to put them all out though either. No, you don't have to put them all out.

And then I was just going to mention maybe because Bill's not here, you may want to read what he wrote on exhibit C. Yeah. Because he would have maybe wanted to get to that. Yeah. When we all had a chance. Yeah. And once you get your dots up, um, you can take a short recess, use a restroom, get something to drink or whatever. Uh, just don't go to the local bar and bring a back of beer. Okay? Just keep keep focused on what we're doing. And we'll get to exhibit D here next. And that's a little shorter list, so might go through that even faster than this one. You usually This one takes a little longer because it requires a little more discussion.

Okay. I'm going to give you your dots. Uh, you start circling the ones you want. I'll get the other sheets up here. This is what they look like. And I got a couple little com combining to do and I'll get that done. So maybe Ron, I'll let you pass out the dots. Yep. These are in packets. There's five to one. So they each get two strips. Okay. Okay. I got it. And have them put their initials on. Yep. That's the first thing you do is put your initials on. Yep. First thing you do. Don't you think? What's that? Um, yeah, I'd say

initiate a master plan, but then that's the parts we already have. updating parts. So that could mean that squares. I don't know. We're just equivalent over words, but I think they could be together. Yes, I did. I I thought I had Thank you, Robert and uploaded it. There's a letter. These are not dots.

That's what I do. They're different different. Look inside. Look, think outside the dock dot. Think outside the dot. We don't have to connect the dots. God, I was never good at that. See, we're combining 22 and 23.

I believe so. Never mind. I'm sorry. Hey, no problem. Glad you called to check.

Okay. Thank you. Right. Well, I already doing my taxes and called. He had a question. Oh, said I have uploaded that. Oh, I found it. can go. I think so. I circled mine as I went so I know what

first column or second column like we put them here. Do we put them underneath? Yep. Put them in the last column. The last like if you think this is a top priority, go right in that box right there. Okay. Yep. Thank you. If you see an X in the box, that's a given. We're not that's already agreed to. We're going to continue doing that. So, don't put any X's. Don't put down any of these X's. Okay. Okay. Yep. And you go on the last.

Ouch. Three. I'm done. I for one warm up. Four. Five. We got five so far. Got to wait for the

It's near the end. I got a piece of tape here.

Yeah. Okay. If anybody spots something that I missed, uh, let me know. I tried to catch or change. If

there's any that you said were given that aren't crossed off, let them know. I think we didn't make a lot of changes. Sometimes I have department heads do it, but we didn't. We didn't. Our management team, but a department head. No. No. That'll work. In your case, we're just ignoring it. Yeah. Stay stay in our lane. What do we do with number 39? Do you want my last three? Well, it's a given.

One was a given and they they broken out broken out the one for the fix. It's up to you. Okay. So, this is what we're voting on. daughter started track. Yeah.

Right there. If you put a sticker on my back or go through a second.

Let's see. Okay. Okay, when you get your dots up, feel free to take a little break if you need one. Don't stray too far away.

Did we Are we not putting up 39B? Um, let's see. Oh, I missed the other page over here. Never mind. I wanted to spread it out a little bit so you're not on top of each other. Kelsey was in there. Does anybody have said I can't come up with 10 items and didn't use them all? That's usually the case. Three left. Yeah.

I think some of those we're already doing. I never put a mark on them. Yeah. like I tried to identify the ones that you like the water rate study we're doing that I've tried to identify those with what I call my gibbons. So if I miss them then don't put a dot on it. I'll talk to Ron about that to see if there's an item that you're already doing this. But that was the purpose of my list of givens. Identify those for me. Do you want these back? Nope. Well, hang on from the next time next go around. Yeah. Stop talking about chicken and dogs.

I miss anything? Thinking when we were putting the stop licensing dogs. Yeah, with the dogs that still bite. Okay. Well, no, there's no dots on there. So, I can Is that what we we agreed to move that over? A couple of mention it, but yeah, this was kind of a commentary more than anything. Really didn't look that. I would if you're if you feel strongly about this, it should go here because keep in mind what it's saying. Stop it. You don't put any dots on it. You're going to keep doing it.

Now, can we talk about this combined? You're right. According to my notes, I was supposed to combine the two.

Where' Ron go? Ron, refresh my memory. Was we combining Yeah. Yeah. There's no dots on them. So, yeah, they are Yeah. Yeah, they are separate. Okay.

Nobody put a dot on either one. All right. They know how to apparently Okay. Oops. Too good to get out of my own driveway.

hopefully. So, I'm going to probably be looking for items that got, you know, four or more. So, number four, that master plan on the parks, uh, working with the county on recycling. Looks like it's got quite a few. the storm water utilities, you know, might get four if uh he puts one up. And uh over here you've got uh number 39 about the communitywide fix. That's got solid support. I hear everybody got one on that one, the vacant building orders. So you've got uh those. Now what we'll do then is once he's got his dots up, you'll get a complete listing of how many dots were on every single item. And then I will pick the top ones and that'll go into your board as your top priorities. That

all right. There'll be about typically I'll put in, you know, five items that are your top priorities. Um sometimes if there others there's a really close I might show them as like a second tier. So we'll just see how the numbers shake out. So uh but yeah, you know, a lot of you you can see over here, you know, quite a bit of support. Once again, you know, Bill may put it up and put that one at four. Any questions? Okay, let's go to exhibit D. Everybody had a short little break there. Okay, we're all good. All right, exhibit D are your capital projects. These are your what I call the bricks and mortar things. These are things that are if you do them, they're going to cost you a lot of money. Okay, some of them anyway, not all of them, but some of them. And once again, I'm going to be looking for things that are continuation to what you're doing and whether or not it should go on the list of givens. And uh I'll give you a chance at the end to add anything. Um stop me if you got any questions. Got to make sure you know what you're putting your dots up to. Okay. All right. First one we got is continue your street rehabilitation program. Since I see the word continue, is that a given? Are you all supportive of doing going forward with continuing street rehabilitation?

Okay, I'm going to say that's a given. You're going to keep doing that program. Obviously, if you don't, you're going to fall behind. Okay, so you won't vote on number one. Uh number two, storm drainage improvements, talking along the lines of, you know, doing the televising so you know where to do it. And then once you've got that, you can move into the next phase of identifying um storm drainage. Typically when they do this they they go for the lowhanging fruit right away. Okay. Obviously a big crack. Hey, let's get that one done for right away. Okay. So it'll they'll work their way down the list is what they'll do once they have that information. So number three is a uh the televising which is kind of tied hand inand with what number one is. I almost combine two and three because you can't do three without two without doing three first. So if you want I can combine the two.

Does that make sense? Okay. I think two and three have to coincide with number one because we have several parts of town where the shot. Yes. Get water to the storm sewer if if the curb is shot. Well, that's a good point. Yeah. Because you don't want to be fixing your streets up and then a year later come back and tear it up to put in a new storm sewer. Right.

Yeah. Good point. Yeah. So kind of keep that in mind when you vote. Yeah, that's done. Two and three's got to get done first. Okay. Uh but but Ronald address that in his capital improvements plan. You know, that's the purpose of a capital improvements plan is to identify what comes first. Okay. Four, improve and establish controllable crosswalk signs at corner of Federal and Highway 3 to improve pedestrian safety crossing. also improve visibility of crosswalks along Highway 64 at trail crossing but provided lighted crossing warning signs. Once again would be done in conjunction with the DOT. Okay. Number five, downtown alley paving projects. Okay. I don't know if we necessarily have any.

We've got two we're looking at right now, but that doesn't mean you know, the big picture. Yeah. This would probably say, well, you get those two done, then you look for two more type. Yeah. Residential alleys, too. So, how it didn't Well, it did distinguish downtown, didn't it? Yeah. Um I don't know who who gave us that one, but yeah, we have a significant which also goes with some of the drainage behind that. There's quite a few of these that are same way over here by Russ.

Okay. So, there's quite a few. Okay.

I was following him and they were just Hey, you're good at that. Yeah. Okay. All right. Moving right along. Number six, public works vehicles, pickups, dump trucks, and heavy equipment. Probably once again, it isn't addressed in your capital improvements plan if you got big ticket items. So, number seven, once again, starts with the word continue. Continue budgeting for for and purchasing police vehicles so as to keep the fleet up to date. Is that in the budget you guys just did? uh vehicles for the police updated. Yeah. Yeah. Continuing. So, is that a given? You're going to try and do that every budget year. Are we using local option sales tax for that?

Yeah, we we don't purchase police vehicles every year. We use local options. You got a rotation. Yeah. So, are you all committed to continuing that rotation?

Okay. So, I I don't think we'd vote on that, right? It's a given. You're going to keep doing it. Okay. Number eight, purchase a leaf vacuum for the street department. Okay. Number nine, work towards budgeting for and purchasing a large larger and new or good used street sweeper. Okay. Number 10. Once again, I see that word maintain. Maintain police equipment on schedule. computers, cameras, software. Once again, you if you have a rotation, are you committed to continuing that? Is everybody on board with having that in your budget? Obviously, you do it in phases. So,

I don't I don't see a need then to vote on that one then. Okay, that's a given. Number 11, possible bodywn cameras in the future. I take it that we don't have them now. Okay. A lot of police departments are doing that. It's becoming quite a quite a deal. Okay. Number 12, update the rifles. Been a while since we've done that, I would see. Okay. All right. Uh, number 13, update the tasers. Been a while since we done that, too. Okay. Okay. Uh, number 14, Batwing Moore. I'm assuming this is the parks department.

Uh, this would be street, but All right. Streets and parks. Okay. Can you give me an explanation of what that is exactly? So

what we have in comparison? So what we the one that we have now is version that's what street those areas that um they do have finished that if we do increase like we've talked about increasing the size of this part they do make those great tighter.

Okay. All right.

All right. Thank you. Number 15, black dirt storage hoop building. That was a new one on me. I hadn't seen that terminology. Okay. All right. Uh, by the way, I don't have to know what these things are. It's important for you know to what these things are. Okay. Uh, number 16. Well, I know what a cold storage building is. I know what that is for for equipment. Okay. Okay. Number 17. There's a big ticket item. Recreation complex. Uh, soccer, baseball, softball, football. Okay. They're very popular, you know. Number 18, updating the softball field. City league softball. Number 19, sidewalk/bike route initiative. Uh, number 22, soccer field upgrades at East Park. Boy, soccer's really getting a popular, isn't it? Among the youth. Yeah. Number 21, repairs at the baseball diamond. Once again, I'm assuming you folks all know what the repairs are, so what's needed. Okay. Number 22, cemetery entrance road replacement. So, we have a city-owned cemetery then, I think. Okay.

I assume we're talking about the main entrance off of the south entrance. South entrance. Okay. So, the one closest to the Churchville living room, correct? Yep.

Okay. Number 23, Progress Parking lot overlay project. Okay. Uh number 24, housing project kind of a little bit of discussion we had earlier on the previous list, but that was more of a kind of a study. This would be like moving forward and doing something, I guess. Okay. Number 25, industrial park expansion planning with FEDA funding. Number 26, complete the work on Rick's pharmacy building. We talked about that earlier.

Okay. Number 27. Is that a given? That's I don't know. Are you folks we all in agreement that that's probably a given? You're you've started it. So obviously you probably want to finish it. How could that work? We talked a little bit about whether or not this was a phase two or something. We're committed. Um council, keep it on there. Mark it as a given. What do you want me to do? I'd say given. Given. Everybody on board with that. Keep moving on.

All right. That's a given. You won't be voting on that. Okay. Okay. 27. Improve downtown parking with additional parking lots or imaginative reconstruction of street paths. Okay. 28. we kind of talked about a little bit before uh community cleanup fixup program or project. How did that do over here? It's over here. It's over there. It's got five.

Five. Oh, it's got strong support there. I I'm not so sure. Are we talking the exact same thing or is that just get getting public support and this is actually doing it? Maybe. I don't know. I can certainly leave it as on on here. My impression on this one was actually doing it, not just community support. Okay. So, to me, it's a duplication. It's a duplication. Okay. So, you don't need to vote on that. All right. That's going to come off. You don't put your dot on there. Okay.

Okay. Number 29, redesign and replace gateway signage on the four entrances to the city. Number 30, Creek Bank stabilization projects. Number 31, facilitate the building or renovation of a structure to provide for a community storm shelter. Do you do you have mobile home parks in town? Yes, we do. Do they have storm shelters? No, I don't believe so. They don't? Oh, that's scary. Okay. I think there used to been one years ago like Kuning Hotel like during World War II.

Okay. But I mean I mean Yeah. Okay. That's no more. Okay. Uh let's see. Obvious. It's one of those things you don't need it till you need it and then you need it bad. Yeah. Okay. Let's see. Number 32, the last one on the list. improve the outdoor um severe weather siren system so it's designated to be heard indoors. That's a tough one. And then that in Bill's email to you, he was expanding a little bit on that so you can Yeah. Kristen, do you have some thoughts on it? I was just saying like what his email said, that's not really the point of the outdoor No, it's not. Sirens. They're meant for the people who are outside. Yeah.

Um and most people I know that there are people that don't have smartphones or anything. Yeah. it. Yeah, that's true. Pretty much everybody does now and it comes across. Yeah, and it does come across. Have them call their parents and say just just don't turn your phone off at night. There are programs for weather alert. Yeah. Or the storm radios. Yeah. Well, I just want to say when I have my hearing aids out, I can still hear the siren in my Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I as well. Yeah. Yeah. I know what you're talking about. Yeah. And they're fairly new. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. We can't really hear them in the hospital, but it's not intended to be heard.

And one thing, too, if you make it so they're louder, the people who live right by the sirens. Oh, blows them away, doesn't it? Especially when they test them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. Okay. I have one maybe to add. You want to add one? Sure. Well, on the parks and wreck projects, you know, we had talked about the possibility of relocating the tennis courts and maybe building outdoor pickle ball courts. Okay. Because of the condition that the tennis in I know it says wreck complex, but it and I'm thinking that would be a separate location from Okay. what we might consider for tennis and pickle ball. Okay. So, I will be

working with the school number 33 pickle ball courts. Okay. Yeah, the uh the recreation complex that's going to take some while to do that and it's going to be very costly. Pickle ball courts could be something that wouldn't take quite as long or be quite as costly. You got one comment on 15 and 16. Yeah. Isn't that what we're going to use the old sewer plant? Yeah, that's what I was wondering for. Yeah. Oh, cold storage. Yeah. Why Why is that on there? Yeah. Why is that on there? probably wouldn't need to,

right? It's gonna help out a lot. We're busting the same heated storage, but it's expensive. Yeah. Okay. But the black dirt storage building, the purpose piece behind that is for not just It's hard to find black dirt, but the way we store it now was just in a big pile and of coursees with every rain and snow and whatever, but when we need it sometimes for gra in the off season when there's a little frost in the ground or something of that nature, it be nice to be able to get to some dirt.

Yeah, we did already. That works great. Now we just add a couple more things in there to put maybe gold rock on one side and black on the other side room in the same location for I would put it at the same location and then Okay. All right. Good point. Okay. All right. Anything add item that we might have missed that you think should be on the list? Uh Jim has already added the pickle ball court. So that's number 33 on your list and tennis. And tennis

because his current tennis courts are in horrible shape. You want that as number 34? You want them together? Well, we're if we're going to do it, I think we would do it together and and Okay. I if I could recommend uh we've been communicating with HD School and Franklin General Hospital on a partnership and a different location that's not on city property. So maybe you could put tennis/pickleball court partnership with other entities. Okay. Yeah. Is that right? Okay.

Good. Okay. Okay. Now word it that way. Anyone else got anything? Okay. Well, let's see. We crossed off one, two, three combined one. That's four. Uh, five across six. Six. We are down to um we're down to about probably about 27 of them. Obviously, I'm like 10 dots would be too many. I'm going to scale that back a little bit. Um I would probably go with seven.

Okay, seven. Does that sound reasonable, everybody? Okay. All right. I'm going to go with seven. Some of you have some dots left over uh from the last round. We'll go with seven dots. Um once again, I'm going to afford the opportunity. Anybody got a sales pitch on any one of these items? Yes. Jerry, go ahead. Downtown parking. Okay. It's awful. Yeah, it's awful. Uh, parking for employees and business owners. They're parking in the street, taking up customer parking. We have these big long trucks now and it really narrows Main Street down. It's It's scary actually to meet a vehicle. Yeah.

You're going down the street and you have to navigate around one of those big long trucks, too. So, we I think we need to do some thinking about that. Downtown's the heart of the city or Yeah. back out of the diagonal parking when you're parked next to one of those big vehicles. Yeah. Um Ron, pull out 10 dots for Bill and now seven more. Okay. So, he should have a total of 17. You think of it, put his initials on them, too. What we're thinking. Sometimes I go out the door and don't leave these behind. So, not that it's an impossible to work around, but it just it'll be uniform then. Okay. Anybody else got a sales pitch? Okay, Kristen, you got one?

Um, making sure stuff is updated like they have updated equipment like the public works or the police department that can make or break someone's decision on whether or not they want to work here, too. That's interesting observation. Yeah. In this day and age. Yeah. Anyone else? Okay. Management team, any item you want to put a sales pitch on before we start putting the dots up? Kristen took care of that for you. All right. So, you start picking out your seven top items. Uh Ron's going to give you seven dots. I'll get a scissors so you can cut them off. Uh some of you already have three.

That's how I roll. I'm going to use them all whether I need to or not. Give me a minute to get the sheets up. Um

Before I get in the next thing, we're going to go to exhibit E. Uh, two things on exhibit E. Um this is something I always promote at all my counselors when I do this and that is I tell them to consider uh uh if things are going well for you this is an ideal time to do this when it's not going well this is a little trouble the city of Asbury a number of years ago adopted a code of conduct for the council members and I said why did you do that I said you're you're not having any problems and the mayor said to me that's exactly why We did it.

We're not having any future, but we wanted to put together a code of conduct for two reasons. He said he said number one, when a new council member comes on board, like Chris, you're your fair. We would hand this to new council members and say, "This is how we kind of conduct ourselves. This is what we want the public to have an image of our community and our council. So, this is what our goal is to follow this kind of this outline. at the council meetings and remember I gave you the grocery store incident that sort of thing. Now uh the other reason that he wanted to do it he said was I want future generations to have something to look at when they come on the council said you know doesn't mean they can't change it they can change it anytime they want they can totally obliterate it and get rid of it they want because we adopted it by simple resolution that we wanted future generations to say learn from what we did okay learn what we thought worked well hopefully you will do something similar Now, I wrote an article on this very topic for the League of Cities magazine. It was in Cityscape probably eight or 10 years ago. You can probably find it on the archives so I can send it to you. But I gave a copy of this to to Ron and Steve to look at if they think it's of some value. They can, you know, maybe bring it up to you again and see what you think. Um, but I always get the old question is what if somebody says I'm following that? That'll help do as I damn well please. Okay. their choice. They can certainly do it. But what you then as a counsel will have a tough decision to make because I would recommend that you then take that person to the side and say, "Remember when you said you wanted to hear this code of conduct and see what that says there. I don't think that behavior

is what we're expecting. Please reconsider." Okay. Now, if they still say, "The hell would you all do what I want? Then you as a council which is tough to do I read would be you for you to publicly censor that council member which doesn't mean you throw them off that's fine that public sensors then says to the public this is what we're dealing with folks this is not a fun job because of what's happening here with this council. So you you say to the public, "Hey folks, you know, two years from now there's another election. Hopefully you make a change. If you don't, I probably won't see you keep doing this job." When the job gets to the point where you hate going to the meeting and you ah no way not another go, then something's going on. You should look forward to going. It shouldn't be something you dread. Okay? So something you dread. Something's happening here. probably not for the good of the of the cause. Okay, the second topic, by the way, any questions on that? You'll have I have other models I can send you, but I always everyone time I do this, I say now is the time to think about it because now things are going reasonably well, then it's a good time to put it on the table for discussion. And but if you do it when there's three council members that are just going crazy,

but guess what's going to happen? They're going to vote no. Now, the second thing I'll put on the council agenda that I spotted right away when I saw when I went on the website. By the way, everybody's got some nice pictures on there. Kristen, you got to get a beautiful picture for me. So, but uh it's always fun to kind of kind of know who I'm dealing with. But I noticed when I was looking, it was uh you some of you were at wards. Okay. I came to Anabosa and they we had four wards and two of wards. Pretty much what you've got here. And the the first election I had was we had nobody running in one of the wars. Not a single soul ran a council member uh uh well guy didn't even come forward. His wife and his neighbor thought he'd do good. So they wrote his name in. He got elected to city council with two votes and he didn't even vote for himself. Now ironically he turned out to be one of the best council members I ever had because he had no agenda when he came on board. And it was another case where I had to twist the arm of a guy to take the job, you know, because he got real wrote in too. So my point is now might be a good time to consider whether or not it makes sense to have everybody elected at large because the problem is you're having trouble probably like a lot of cities filling these jobs because nobody wants them and so you probably are really difficult to get these candidates from boards. The other thing I would say to you is this has to be done by both the people. You cannot do this. Let the people decide what's wrong with putting it on the ballot, explaining the pros and cons, and you can do a good job explaining. Let them decide how they want the system to work. It's their government. It's not ours. It's theirs. Let them decide whether or not they want to go all at large. If they don't, they'll vote no and keep the

system down. The other thing that uh that you need to keep in mind is is that people will say to you, "Oh, way I like that ward system because I represent that area. That's why the ward is there. I'm representing that area." Why do we have words? When were the wards put in? Think back in the 1800s. What was going on in the 1800s when the water system developed? No internet. No emails, no texts, probably no cars, no telephones. So, how did you communicate with your council member? You got the you went outside and walked down the street a little ways and you told that council member what you wanted. This is a different world. There are so many ways to communicate with council members. Now, you don't need to worry about having a short distance between where you live and the council member lives. Now the other thing to keep in mind I tell people is you may have two exceptionally good people in the same ward. One's going to get elected, one's not. You have now missed the opportunity of what that exceptional candidate can do and contribute to this council. Now you'll say, "Oh, we don't want three council members on the same block." Your public's going to decide that. let them decide who's on council, which they do. So, if you got three people in their one block and they're all really good, public can elect both of them they want, or they can say, "No, we don't want three people from the same block." Well, I'm going to pick out just one or two. They're proud. Once they go in that voting group, they can vote any way they want, but at least give them the choice. give them the option of picking the five best people in in Hampton regardless of where they live. Makes no difference

where they live. Public gets to pick the five best people. So you all run at large and then let the public let the chips fall within that. So that's just my personal opinion. I have no no dog in this hunt. Whatever you want to do, that's fine. I but I just will share with you the history of animals. We went to all at large and really I've never heard a single person complain. I've not I've never had one person say, "Well, that's the dumbest thing we ever did. I I don't have quote my council member." No, you're all my council members. You know, you're all on equal footing. You represent everybody now. Well, you basically you still do, but you just that that the allegiance that you have to that one ward that was in the past, you know, times have changed. So anyway,

could I could I add to that? When I first started on council, I represent southeast part of town and I guess I always felt I was representing everyone anyway. And there was never a time like, well, we need to get our streets paved here and I don't care about the southwest part of town. And then when I moved, it just so happened there was an opening for at large. Oh. And so when I moved then I ran for that extra large position. Then ended up having to appoint someone because I switched they had to appoint someone to finish out I think my term when I was down in the one one of the quadrants. So okay. All right. Thanks. Just FYI.

Okay. Okay. Any questions on that? I I apologize if I sound like I was on my soap box, but you know, I've been in this business for a long time. um observed a lot of cities and and kind of what has worked and what doesn't work. So, I just thought I'd share that with you. So, okay, with that, let's go to exhibit E, our last thing for the night. And uh what I'm going to do there is just kind of go through these quickly. Once again, stop me if you say, "Wait a minute, I don't want that on the list. That's not res representative who we are. I or you want to modify it." So, um, goal setting will be especially helpful for the newer council members. That's true and probably will be. So, by the way, I have a workshop I do, uh, for IMFOA on city council orientation sessions. And so, I have a handout on that. So, if ever you'd want to see that that handout on putting together a good orientation session for new council, I certainly would share that with you. I always tell people you start a new job, they don't just put you in a corner and turn you loose and say, "Here, do the work. You'll figure it out." Usually a good orientation session is really helpful for new people. Okay. Number two, not monopolizing time during meetings. Boy, I sure didn't do that to hear that tonight. You all had pretty good comments and good input, so that was great. Number three, be civil always. Do not attack each other in or out of the meetings. Act like a team. That was kind of my grocery store comment, too. And I do have a handout on civility, too, if you want to see that. Okay. Number four, do our homework in advance and avoid the aha gotcha moments for other council members and the mayor staff. This is why you have a city administrator. If you see something that's on the agenda or not on the agenda, call Ron and say, "Ron, could

you check on this for me and get back to me uh rather than kind of catching him off guard because usually you can be have a more productive meeting if he has a little advanced notice of what your concerns are." And sometimes he can probably answer the question right there on the phone or if he can't now he has a little time to do a little research before the council meeting to check on that so that if it comes up he can say, "Yep, I checked on that. Here's what I found out." So just as a courtesy to him so he can do even a better job for you. It's for Doug and Mark, too. Yeah. Same thing. I call them all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, could you check on this? No. I ask him a question. I don't have to spend time in the council meeting about Yeah.

Ask them, they answer my questions, and if there's a problem, they take care of it.

Yeah. Exactly. So, that way it it kind of makes their job a little easier, too. Okay. Uh, number five, speak up at the council meetings. Always good. You know, I know some people are quieter than others, but I, you know, don't be afraid to speak up. And Kristen, you're new, so I imagine you're probably the quietest one, so you'll catch on. you'll get a little more vocal as time goes on. So, I notice you were kind of quiet tonight, but you had some good observations, particularly with your background. That's a real plus with that background because there's probably a lot of stuff you could share with your council members on that. Plus, I like to see your generation represented at the table, too, cuz I don't I go to the council meetings and everybody's sitting there with gray hair, you know, old guys like me. So, so kudos to you for for stepping up to the plate here. So, I do have gray hair.

Oh, no you don't. I don't see any.

So, okay. Number six, uh talk to your fellow counselors. We are a team, not individuals. Okay. Uh number seven, stay in our lanes as the governing body for the city of Hampton is ste steer clear of the daily duties of the staff. Now, the term we use in city government among city managers is micromanaging. So, uh, obviously be be mindful of that because keep in mind, you may go see an employee and give them one set of directions and another council member may come on an hour later and give them a different set of directions. So, they have to focus on what Doug is saying, what Ron's saying, so that they get the direction from one. Now, if you want that direction to change as a council member, that's what these meetings are all about. We need to rechange our focus on what we're doing. and then all of you as a group decide if you're going to refocus on something. So, yeah, that's that's a good and this, by the way, this this all came from you folks. Okay. All right. Uh, number eight, establish a city council mentor program for new council members. Comes back to my orientation session, but I like this one. I had not seen this before. I I think that's that's a great idea to do a little mentoring program because, you know, this is if you've never done city government work before, this is quite an undertaking that you've agreed to do and there's a lot to learn. So, never hurts to have a good mentor to anytime you have a new job. Number nine, appreciate the ability to attend the League of Cities annual conference. Uh, all of our counselors and key members would attend. Yeah, that's how I met Jim at at a league conference one time. Met him there. So, a lot of information. Uh this year it's in Davenport. I think it's middle of September. So, if that's something you can do, even if you could just get away for one day, Thursday is the the big day. See if you can get there for Thursday. And uh that way if those of you are working wouldn't have to take

more than just the one day. I think it's great for team building. Yeah. Together. Yep. So, okay. Flag me down if you have anything you want me. You're okay. Number 10. Appreciate the management's team's open door policy, but can be intimidating. Boy, you don't look intimidating to me. Of course, a guy wearing a gun would be a little intimidating. So, I I get that part. So, if if that's something you feel, just let the person know. They'll just say, "Hey, I would have come in and send you, but I wasn't sure if I could or should." So, well, I I I put that I that Okay.

It is intimidating to come through that door and talk to the girls through the glass plate. You know, the door's locked. You got to wait for them to unlock the door and let you in. And Yeah, it's it's it's security. Intimidating. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know. It's okay. Okay. Okay. Where are we at? Let's see. Um, let's see. Number 11. Yeah, keep communications respectful. Continue to do this. I'm glad to see that you're already doing that sort of thing. So, that's great. Okay. Can we make that a given?

You can almost call that a given. Yes. Now, usually I don't worry about voting on any of these things. What I'm looking for here is you tell me get that the hell off the list. That doesn't belong there. Okay. That's what I'm looking for. Okay. Number 12. work together on the priorities for the city. Um, number 13, continue to make sure city council has the information ahead of time. So, all good. That's where Ron comes in and your management team to get you the information. If at any time you think, I I really need a little bit more. Pick up the phone and call him. Send him a text. Send him an email. Say, can you give me a little more information on this?

I think they're really good at getting the information.

Yeah, that's great. Okay. Okay. Uh, number 12. Do away with council comments at the council meetings. It's a waste of time. Okay. I know some council members can get a little, you know, winded at some of these meetings. U, once again, I suppose you could do a time limit. Um, I suppose you could take it totally off the agenda if you wanted to, but I guess if I were you, I'd initially start out and say, you know, let's kind of watch this for a little bit. Let's not get let's keep to the task at hand. It should be city stuff. You know, that's what it should be city related to. It shouldn't be, oh, I'm going uh I'm going on a trip next week. You know, that shouldn't that's where you call Ron and say, Ron, I'm going to miss that council meeting because I'm going to be out of town. So, then he shares that with the mayor. That probably wouldn't be besides that. I wouldn't want to put that out. I'm gonna be gone next week

for the robbers out there to know. Oh, that'll be a good place to go. I do think the the council comments are important. Like June, he he reports on the historical science society and and what's going on there and whatever else you're involved in, which is everything. And I'm the city council person on the board for the chamber. So, I think it's important that I share with everybody what Yeah. Okay. spending your money.

I'm going to strike that. Now, if the person that I don't know where it came, who brought it up, but if that's an important thing for you to do at your next council meeting, ask for that to be put on the agenda and vote on it. I want the agenda modified to do away with that part. Put that on the agenda. But it wouldn't be wouldn't be a bad idea to just have a brief discussion about it at the council meeting. Say, is this value? Is it not value? And then maybe just kind of lay out some informal parameters. there's where the mayor, you know, can help out, you know, and kind of advise anybody before you get into it. Say, keep it to city business. Uh, you know, keep it short. Now, we all want to get home. So, so I'm going to take that off and then let you handle that, you know, at a future council meeting. Okay. Um, now I'm going to go to number 15. And, uh, as you saw, there's a new copy on that. Um, so these are 15, 16, 17, and 18 did come from you folks. Okay, they did not come from staff. Okay, I one one form came in and they checked the wrong box. So, at first I thought I was sleeping and missed it, but it did the wrong box. Okay, number 15. At each council meeting, have a different council member who will lead the pledge of allegiance. Not a bad idea. Not a bad idea. That's great that you do that. So, but once again, you can kind of talk about this at future council meetings and decide if that's what you want to do. So, who leads it now? Mayor. Okay. Okay. Well, you're getting paid the big bucks to do that.

Great. Got to do something. Got Yep. Okay. Number 16. Have a hot dog and beans night at the council chambers. Before the meeting, council members to serve hot dogs with beans and fixings to the council members attendees prior to meeting. and then mingle with the attendees and each other. So, I had never seen that one before. So, once again, that would not be anything you would start doing without having a good discussion of it at a council meeting because there going to be a little charge here and yeah, I think that might have a conflict with open meetings law. That's true. Yeah, you got to be careful on that stuff that's even on the agenda. Yeah, maybe I should just

forum, you know. Yeah, maybe I should strike it for now and then if that's something you want to do, bring it up, put it on the agenda, have a good discussion of it. So, I'm going to take it off the list for now. You know, it's out there. It's been proposed. So, everybody okay with that? Okay. I'm going to I'm going to take that off. Number 17. Have one workshop each quarter early in the morning. Um, egg McMuffins and coffee all the way around. I like that idea. I I like Egg McMuffins. I don't know. I wouldn't like the early in morning thing. I'm not a morning person. For those of us that work that Yeah, that would work.

Once again, maybe I should take that one off, too. You know, I I don't want the public thinking they're going to come here and get free Egg McMuffins. So, and once again, if whoever brought put that on there, they can bring it up at at another meeting. Okay. But I I'm not sensing that you're all on board. Hey, that's a great idea. Let's do it. Okay. And actually, two of these things probably should have been over in the list of programs and initiatives. It's it's kind of a new thing. So, fifth 18. Adopt a portion of the walkway system at Oh, adopt a portion of the walking trail system running through town for beautifification. Once again, that should have been on the other list. That really doesn't pertain to what I'm talking about here, the team building. So, I'll take that one off, too. And then maybe when you look at the draft report, you can see if that's in there anywhere. So, okay, now we're getting into 19 and 20. This is where the your management team members uh had suggestions. Um 19, work towards goals, not pushing through individual wants. Um, that's what this purpose of this whole session is, is to come up with agreement on what your goals are going to be. And like I told you before, if you want to add something, that's fine. But then ask Ron, we had to talk about which one we're going to move down the list if you're going to add that one to it. So, and that kind of gets that'll I don't think that'll be a problem for anybody in the future. So, um, number 20, listen to staff, trust the staff, use their knowledge and years of experience. You do have a lot of years of experience here. You're quite fortunate to have that. So, that's 21. Do not micromanage the city staff. I already kind of talked about that a little bit. Okay. Always keep in mind, you have no power individually.

Absolutely none. The only time you have power is when you all come together in a duly uh publicized meeting and it's on the agenda. That is the only if you do anything other than that that action will not be legal and could be uh thrown out. So always keep in mind only time you got power is when you all sit down together and work it out. And let's see. Um, number 22, recognize due process. Talked about that earlier.

I almost wonder on that one if it is more appropriate to say emphasize due process as far as what we do.

Yeah. Yeah. I suppose it could change that. Yeah. Okay, I'll make that one little change unless someone disagrees. Emphasize the due process. 23. Make decisions for the benefit of the community as a whole and not not the squeaky wheel. I had to smile when I I use that term quite often. We tend to do that in city government a lot. So, 24. Take personal feelings out of professional decisions. Okay. 25. Communicate with respect. Uh 25, foster realistic expectations. 27, address questions, concerns with city staff prior to the meeting. One of the things I had talked about with you. Uh 28, trust the process and city staff results take time. Often there's already work being done behind the scenes. Uh Doug kind of touched on that a little bit earlier. Uh 29. Ask for staff recommendations and ex expect respect their input when faced decisions. That's a key one there too because just simply because Ron gives you his recommendation or whatever doesn't necessarily mean the council has to do that. Okay, you have the final word on everything that policies, programs, projects, but at least hear them out. Usually they have some pretty good logic behind it. So hear them out. If you want to do something different, you certainly can do that. You are duly elected by the people. Every time I run into council, city administrators, they are so frustrated with their council or city their city council. I say, "Never forget this term, duly elected by the people." Okay? They weren't here because they just somebody anointed them. They put their name on the ballot. They went through an election and they were duly

elected by the people. As a city manager, I always respected that and I never took offense if they didn't take every single recommendation I gave them. But I would give them the pros and cons and then trust their judgment. And so that's what you got to do. You got to trust the collective wisdom of everybody together. And that collective wisdom usually will benefit the community. But hear them out. Hear the pros and cons. Ask them questions because they they've got some experience that they can share with you. But uh okay, number 29. Ask for staff recommendations and respect the input decision. We already covered that. 30. Have an open mind. Listen to other council members. I can tell you many times council members said to me, they came to the meeting thinking this is what they're going to do. But then when they heard their fellow council members kind of point a few things out, it gave them a new perspective. And what's interesting about this process is you all come from different perspectives. like Kristen brings a new perspective to council, younger generation, uh, a job in public safety, she's going to bring to the table a different perspective sometimes. So, don't be afraid once in a while to say, "Kristen, what do you think?" Because you have a you can probably have some valuable input on these decisions. So, uh, and so it's always good to be open to what the other person is saying. So, uh, 31, address personal issues with each other outside of the open meetings. Yeah, if you don't like somebody at this table. Uh, you don't have to like them, okay? But you need to respect them and and you need to respect the office because they were duly elected just like you. So, and you don't have to agree with them, but at least give them the duce respect that that they deserve. And if you've got an issue, you know, do it outside the council chambers with them. say, "I don't like how you I don't like your tone of voice on that." Okay? Or whatever it might be. Okay? And just

say, "Where were you coming from? Why did why did you take that approach? I I'm listening. What did tell me about it? Why did you do that?" And that rather than doing it in a public meeting just, you know, and this is where the the mayor has a key mayor has a key role in all this, you know, it's not written in his job description. But one of the things he can do is when he sees something like that taking place rather than, you know, ridicule him at the meeting may say, "Hey, Kristen, I want to talk to you after the council meeting. Why did you do that? Explain to me where you're coming from." And maybe there's a logical reason for it, but rather than getting into a big confrontation at the meeting, the mayor can play a key ro key role here and kind of keeping this team functioning well together and moving forward and trying to keep these meetings something that you enjoy doing and coming to. So, okay, any questions so far? Okay, let's see. I am at uh I'm going to the last page. Okay. Number 32. Remain positive and respectful. Communicate effectively. Yes. 33. Utilize common sense and supporting data for decision-m. Yeah. Obviously, you want to do both of those things when making decisions. 34. Once again, the same comment. Trust your staff for honest input. If at any time you question the staff, you know, pick up the phone, send them an email, say, "Okay, I see what you got here. Tell me again where you're coming from on this. Okay. Maybe you should strike that. It's kind of repetitive.

Yeah, it's what I'm going to do too on especially under staff. I'm going to combine some of these things. Yeah. I But I just wanted to give them to you just the way they came. Yep. But in the end, if you're okay with it, I'm going to tweak it, combine kind of what I call cleaning it up a little bit,

but I thought it was important for you to see kind of what was coming in. So, uh, number 35, don't assume that you have all the information without doing your due diligence. That's go go goes without saying. Uh 36. Ask questions, bring solutions with problems. Um be reasonable and with expectations. Kind of covered that early. Once again, I'm going to combine some of these. Knowing the funding sources, that's that's critical because it's one thing to say we're going to do something. That's another thing. How do you pay for it? Okay. Uh so that's that's that's a good thing to know. And city government accounting and funding is a difficult animal to get your arms around. It's unlike anything you've probably seen before. So don't be afraid to ask questions like, "How come I can't pay for that out of road use tax fund? We need some new tasers and new rifles and there's a big balance in the road use tax fund." No. The way to look at it is there's about six or eight checkbooks and you don't write a check out of the road use tax fund for a taser for the police department and that's his money to work with. So keep in mind that concept there's like even though there's one Jagy out there's technically like six checkbooks or seven checkbooks whatever the funds are that you're working with. So, uh, let's see. Uh, where what number were I is?

39. 39. Council staff, be mindful of the roles and maintain this little handbook. If you don't have this, I urge you to get it. And this is the 2022 version. This is the Iowa League of Cities Handbook for Mayors and Councils. If you have never read this, I cannot stress to you enough the importance of getting a copy, having it handy, and at some point at least look through it and see what's there because most every question, if you're going to see an agenda, is going to be talked about in here. One of the things that's in here is your role as a council member. So, I don't know. Do they have copies of I use them in orientation.

Oh, great. Perfect. And I have copies in my office.

There you go. The whole thing about rolls is covered in here. Now, this little publication is near and dear to my heart because the very first edition, Tim Shields and I and one other intern wrote it. Okay. Now, they haven't really changed the format that much. Every two years they update it. But if you look in their list of contributors, you're going to see my name. That goes all the way back to 1993 94 when we did the first edition. So, but there's a lot of good stuff in there. Um, it's kind of boring reading at times, but at least you want to know what's in there. So, at any given time, you can go back and read that reread that chapter. But in my personal opinion, I think it's it's still very well done. Um, let's see. Number 40, derogatory comments and meetings can create a hostile work invite, erode staff morale, expose city to lawsuits. You I kind of talked about that earlier. We didn't talk about the thing about lawsuits, but yeah, in this day and age, you got to be mindful of that, too. There's city of Cedar Rapids has gone through some of this stuff where derogatory comments were made at council meetings and then, you know, lawsuits were filed and, you know, it doesn't take much anymore for people to start suing. So, always be mindful that every comment you make here is a public comment. And if some reason you do something that you overstepped your bounds or broke the law, you know, some of these things, you know, for example, if you violate the open meetings law, you're personally on the hook for those things. Okay? You know, the council, the city as a whole is not going to pay your fine if you violate the open meetings law. You're going to have to pay that fine. And they just stiffen those comments. So be always be mindful of that. Read that section before you even have your I always tell people read that section before you even have your first meeting on what's in

that open meetings law. So number 41, evaluate how social media is used to perceive by the public and other elected officials and city staff. There are days when I shake my head and think social media is the dumbest thing that was ever invented, but there is some value to it. Uh my wife is on there every day. I don't I'm not on there. But every once in a while she'll say, "Honey, get over here and look at this. You got to see this." Okay. But the problem is that sometimes incorrect information comes out and now you as a city, what do you do? Do you correct it? What do you do? Years ago, when I was a young city manager, I took the position just ignore it. It'll go away. As I've gotten older and watched this stuff evolved, I look back in my career and there's few cases, quite a few that where I wished I would have said, "Wait a minute, that is totally off base. This is how it is and this is why city took this action or whatever." And so, but everybody has their own approach to social media. If I had it to do over again, my approach would have been I see something wrong, I'm going to call it out. Because the problem is when something is wrong and it's not called out, then there's a certain element of the public says, "Oh, there must be something to that. Nobody nobody challenged it. Nobody objected." And of course, you don't want to get into one of these match as you're back and forth. But at least the initial comment say this is what the facts are, folks. You know, the main thing is to get the facts out. What are the facts? And you as a council member when you see inaccuracies, you can do a lot to correct that. And and if you don't have all the information right away, there's the gentleman you call and say, "Ron, I just saw this on social media. Is there any truth to it? Can you help me explain that if I get if I get blindsided at the grocery store someday about, well, I saw that on social media, it must be right." And then Ron can give you the information that you can you can

counteract that that mis inaccurate information that you sometimes see. It can also be a real plus for you too. You know, people can say, "Boy, I really appreciate the the communitywide cleanup program, you know, and I really appreciate, you know, the fact we got good water." And, you know, so it can go both ways, but keep an keep an eye on it, I guess. Once again, this is my personal opinion. Uh 42, elected officials should refer citizens complaints to the appropriate city staff. Kind of talked about that earlier. It's good to, you know, get Ron or your management team on board of what what what you're hearing because that's important for them to hear, you know, and even if it's not always accurate, it's good to correct any misperceptions out there. You know, the it gives them the opportunity to say, "Well, no, that's not the way it is." But if that's the perception, maybe we got a little work to do to clean that perception up and and maybe we put something else out there to kind of correct that so the public does know what's going on. So, uh, let's see. Let's Where am I at? Oh, okay. Number 43. Uh, we kind of talked about eliminate negative comments towards city staff that are perceived as hospital. Uh, and like I talked about earlier, that that has quite an impa impact on recruiting new employees because if that's all potential recruits see, I wouldn't work at a place like that. So, yeah. Now, I will kind of clean this all up, combine it a little bit, and then you'll see it as a draft, you know, and uh you can clean it up as well. So, any questions on what we just covered on exhibit E? You were pretty quiet as I went through. Nobody flagged me down too much. I I always tell people, you know, when you're when you're this old and and you've been in the city city government 52 years, it's hard not to sound like you're preaching. I get that. So, this

is your town. It's not my town. You You can take some of the comments I had with a grain of salt, but all I can tell you is this is what I've seen work and this is where I've seen issues. And then so kind of keep that in mind. Now, last thing I have Oh, I'm getting over here. But I do one last thing. I'm going to put out some handouts over there that you're welcome to take if you want. Um, this is from Cedar Falls. It's in a snapshot. It tells you about their city government and what what rules they got to follow. Okay. This one is how to do a good effective meeting and the backside is how to get along with your boards and commissions to make them productive. Ron, by the way, has all these things. This one is once you identify your top goals, take the time to have your staff put together an action plan on how to get that goal accomplished. That's what this is. I suggested every three months you do an update on how you're doing. This is an update on how you're doing on your goals. An example, it's what I used to do in in Animosa. How to communicate with your citizens once you got your goals adopted. This is what I've seen other cities do. For example, the city, somebody had this open houses, city tour. I talk about that there, but don't show them the water utility. Okay. 10 habits of highly effective councils. About 10 years ago, league challenged me and said, "You've been in this business a long time. You worked with a lot of councils. What have you observed on those councils that are doing really getting a lot done for the community?" And I thought, you know what? And I ran across an article, just nailed it. I put my thoughts together and I did this short little handout, top 10 habits of highly effective councils. I I actually did a workshop on that for the league. Capital improvements plan. You have a capital improvements plan. That's great. This is talks a little bit about why you need to have one and why you need to keep it updated. So that is over there as well. And the last one I

have is civility and city government. About six years ago, the league said, "We're seeing a lot of a lot of problems with civility in city government." And I said, "I can do a workshop on that." And this talks about the civility of in city government and why it's so important because like I said earlier, this is the window of your community to the outside world. And so be careful what image you project to the outside world. You're on YouTube, I understand, and something else. Zoom.

Zoom. It's out there, folks. And once you say it, you can't pull it back. It's gone. So, okay, that is everything I have. Is there anything I didn't cover tonight that you would like me to cover? Okay, mayor, I'm done. You want to join the meeting? Thank you. I can't think of anything and we really appreciate you being here. Like I said, I've I've listened to you before at the R League. Yeah. And you always have good information and uh always listen. All right, good. Thank you for being here. You bet. Obviously, you can take any of my thoughts and use them or you can ignore them all. It's entirely up to you. Thanks, Pat. All right. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. I'll stick these handbooks over here quick for anybody would like some. And uh if not, we won't Okay.