City Council - Regular Meeting

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Theresa, please take the roll.

Mayor Jones.

Here.

Hill.

Here.

Carlson. Here. Holmes. Here. He looks like he's here. Horacek.

Here.

Mattson. Here. And Schilling. Here.

Did you call for me? Yeah.

My name tag must have made the announcement. Made the announcement for you. All right, do we have any action on the agenda for tonight's meeting?

Make a motion to approve the agenda as presented. Second.

Any discussion? Hearing none, we'll vote. Carlson?

Yes.

Madsen? Yes. Bowen? Yes. Keel? Yes. Horace? Yes. Schilling?

Yes.

How about the minutes from the July 21st meeting?

Motion to approve the meeting minutes from July 21st. Second. Any discussion?

Hearing none, we'll vote. Schilling.

Yes.

Baracek. Yes. Keel. Yes. Bowen. Yes. Mattson. Yes. Carlson. Yes. All right. Bills? No bills. No bills. Like that. Public comments, anybody's here for any public comment not on the agenda? I think most of you, oh, oh, no, oh, oh. Tell us who you are.

My name is Sophia, and I'm going to the . Yes. I have been going to the and I think we should add bike racks to the city park.

Bike racks to the city park, okay. Like by the playgrounds or? Like a city park or at the pool? There is at the pool. There's bike racks at the pool.

Not at the park though.

We don't have any or do we?

Nothing in the park. It would be nice right where the playground is and then the sheds kind of because that's where a lot of kids roll their bikes up they park them there. Do you think they need to be by the playground?

The bike racks?

Yeah I think they should be by the baton thing.

I really don't want your dad to talk to you.

Excellent. Or wherever we can put concrete, so maybe they don't have to weed it so much. Maybe make it easier on the lawns, maybe like that, right?

Sounds good.

Oh, that's a great idea.

Sounds like the park and rec park.

I said, bring it up to the park and rec park. I think we know somebody who has money that they'll probably want to spend on that. Well, thank you for bringing that to our attention. That's a great idea.

Yes. Thank you, Sophia. My name is Tim Weber. If you don't know me, I come here tonight, probably more than the more new hot button topics is the clock. So maybe about a year ago there was a, There was some sort of a discussion or a motion. I know Minnehaha County has spot cameras. We allowed two of them to come into the city of Hartford. And it might not seem like a big deal. It might not feel like, well, what do I have to hide? Until the data is in the wrong hands. So in my opinion, data is the currency of the future. And it's a currency of today that's being used. And if we're not protecting our data, it's like opening your bank account to the rest of the world. Flock cameras, they do more than just look at your license plate. They are tracking who is coming into and who is coming out of our town. They are tracking you as you come into town, as you go to work. If you want to think of this as an extreme example, depending on where flock cameras are set up, Say it's primary day, and their spot camera's set up, and they're identifying every car that came on primary day, and they're also following your car into what coffee shops you go to, where you work, what time you leave from work, and that data's collected. Now they're advertising specifically to a group of people who they have now associated with a political party. I think there's Supreme Court rulings out there right now on smartphones, and we can be tracked on smartphones, Now we know that you have to have a search warrant to be tracked by your smartphone. And that's through our government. Plot cameras are not a government-owned thing and not a government-run thing. They're a private company that is collecting our data and tracking us everywhere. So I don't know the best steps forward. I know it might feel like we don't have any power over the situation because it does come to have actionable steps we can take within our city, within our right of ways. And it might feel like we're kind of handcuffed or not, but I want to assure you guys we have more power than what it might feel like as you see more stories coming out on the spot cameras. One of them is jurisdiction annexation and the lake on the east side of town. It is on County land and it's facing the highway, which is County land, but it is surrounded by So we do have jurisdiction over that right away. You can eliminate corporate censoring, or corporate oversight, or corporate watching.

I got a question on that too. Sorry, because I was So, you know, you see a lot of these probably on these Facebook videos, these First Amendment auditors, right? Whether you like them or not, what they do is legal most of the time, right? Even with a nefarious agenda. So, you know, it's legal for me as a private citizen, you know, to quite literally go stand on Highway 38 and record wherever I want to because it's in public. And so how would that work in the context of a flock camera or any camera, but flock is, you know, so I would be curious on the actual first amendment, because I'm in agreement with you on the things that are coming out now on flock. But I would be curious on how that would apply to the situation with recording things that are done in private, even because they're recording from a public, kind of like a public piece of land, right? But like, if you're standing in public, you can record wherever you want.

Agreed. But you can't follow somebody all day long recording that person. That would be stalking. And that's more of a fourth amendment, right, where we're looking at illegal search and seizure. So now we're monitoring somebody looking for wrongdoing. We're following them all day long, and that's more of a, do you have the right to do that? That's what I would say. i think this is a this is an issue that's only going to get bigger i think it is a big liability for the city itself i know that there's going into other cities and they're making road maps for tort claims against cities and that's the last thing i want to see happen our cities have waves and waves of people coming in all night and and then just getting wrapped up in more and more litigation whether uh whether they go through or not but there's roadmaps and and precedent is being set against a lot of cameras right now so I think it's a big deal. I think it's something that we at least need to be looking into and getting ahead of. I have the forefront of our discussions here when it comes to the security of our community. I know these are pitched as, hey, we're only reading license plates. We're going to be able to find a car associated with crime. But the facts are is these cameras, even if you don't have a license plate, they can track your car, the exact car, a rust bubble on it by a cracked windshield, by the damage that's on it by a bumper sticker. All of these features of the car are trackable, and they are being tracked with those. And they are. Not only that, this is a network that is being shared through the entire United States. And the security of this network has already had exposed vulnerabilities. We have out-of-country hackers that have accessed this information. There has been nefarious use of this information already. So it's the classic trade-off of security versus privacy, but in this sense, the privacy is not just on our government, it's on the various players that we're gonna open ourselves up to with really no oversight over the way this data is being handled.

Well, we're probably not going to solve this tonight. Yeah. Appreciate you bringing it forward. We probably need to have a little more discussion about this deal at some point.

Absolutely. That's my goal is to just bring it up and let people know that this is an issue.

Since I'm the timekeeper, I'm supposed to be the one keeping it. All right. Very good. Thank you, Tim. Thank you for your time. All right. Anybody else? Thank you. We'll move down to visitors. Leah Johnson is here from the Jamboree Day Committee to give us an update and a review. It's also in your packets. Leah.

Hi there. How are you guys?

Good. Amazing.

Amazing. It's almost Friday, right?

Is it?

I say start Friday or Monday afternoon. Okay, so for this year's Jamboree Days, Little Miss Hartford obviously is what kicked it off. We had 10 girls participate this year. We had Regan, who won it. She has sent out a lot of thank yous. She said she had a blast this year. She was super excited to meet the gal from Illinois. I don't know if you guys kind of heard that whole thing, but we had one of our judges and her mom was here from Illinois, from Chicago. So they did the trip and Regan had a blast. She was so proud to represent Harvard and she's looking forward to homecoming and Christmas and anywhere that she can pretend to be a princess for the day. So she is doing a wonderful job. For the movie night, we did Toy Story 2, because we were on the day before the release of Toy Story 5. So that had probably just over 100 people. And a lot of times in the years, we've seen them come, we've seen them start, and we've seen them leave before the movie's over. This year, it was fun to see that we had people bring those blow-up things that you just blow up, you lay on them, and you deflate them. And they stayed for the whole night. We had a lot of cotton candy, a lot of popcorn, and the audience or the attendance just continues to grow with that event. So that's kind of fun to watch. Car show was amazing weather. You couldn't have probably asked for a better night, even if I would have put up a request up above. So we had 123 registered and judged vehicles. We had 15 that registered but chose not to be judged. And then we had several others that just asked if they could just show up and do a show and shine. They didn't want to register, they didn't want to be judged, they just wanted their card to be there to represent. We didn't have an actual count on them since obviously they didn't register, but I would guesstimate we had roughly just over 150 cards in the crowd this year. Our burnout, we had a record number 28 registered burnout participants. The crowd is growing every year with that. It seems to be a hit, and as the word gets out, more and more people want to do it. So the only thing I can say is it was loud, it was fun, and it was a lot of smoke. So then Friday night, we had a local gentleman, King Izzy. He's out of the Tri-Valley area going to school for Lindsey. I don't know if you guys have ever heard him, but he does an amazing job as well. So he brought in JUST HIS OWN FAMILY, A LOT OF THEM. SO HE HAD A TIP JAR UP THERE AS WELL, AND HE DID REMARKABLY WELL, WHICH I THINK GOES FOR SOME OF HIS COLLEGE EXPENSES. For vendors, we had 65 vendors this year, so our numbers were up more than double, or just, yeah, more than double. There was 32 vendors last year. Some of it is because if you didn't do electricity and you registered before June 1st, we said it's free. It was our way of trying to get vendors that have never been to our group to come and see our town, see what we have to offer. Tons of people have come up and complimented that never been in Hartford. We had a lot of people just come up to us and go, you guys have an amazing park, you have an amazing community. So we had a lot of positive comments come out of our vendors for that. The 5K, I know that Mark reported that they had 24 participants this year. That pretty much stays pretty flat for his participants, but we even see them on Saturday morning running past the park, so I think their route comes actually past the park, because you look up and everyone's going to see what's going by. So I'm not a runner, so if I'm running, you all might just want to run. For the parade, we had 56 entries this year, 46 from last year, so we're up a little bit on there. That stays also kind of flat, depends on weather and also, so we had a nice crowd turnout actually throughout the entire route, starting at Main Street and going all the way to the park, so we had a lot of people that were scattered throughout the entire route. Carol Spielman was our grand marshal. She sent many thank yous to the committee, And she also wanted me to express to you guys just how honored she was to represent such a fantastic community. So she had a lot of fun as well. Our entertainment was our American flag disposal, what we've done on a yearly basis. We worked with American Legion on that. Our West Central Jazz Band was back in town last year. You guys remember they were overseas, so they didn't get to participate. But Danny and I was glad to have them back again this year to be part of the event. And then our West Central Choir, they kind of started the last, I think this is our third or fourth year back, so she does like a choir camp prior to that, and then they get to display what they've learned. Phil Baker was back again this year. He wasn't able to be here last year, so he was glad to be back as well. He says we have as well a really good community. He loves the kids, and obviously he gets to do what he does best, and that's just entertain. We also had a DJ from last year that came. She did kids with everybody. A lot of kids come up and sing, a lot of adults sing. Mr. Twister and Color Bee Face Caning, they're busy all day. They have a line literally from 12 till 4 or 1. So they are constantly busy. The inflatables were busy, especially the water ones. Those always tend to bring in the kids. They like to do that. It's always amazing how many kids leave with just one shoe, because we end up with an additional shoe with them once they're found. And then the baby prom, they've done that for several years as well. I'm not sure what's funnier is the kids or the adults, but that was a huge success again this year as well. Our Dakota Kids Pedal Fold, we had kids registered at every class except with one age group this year, which is tremendous because most years there's four or five of them. First annual golf cart showdown, I know Sean participated in that, had a lot of fun. Especially for those of us- I took last. We're hoping to be able to grow that now that people kind of know what it is.

Grow it so I don't take last.

We'll try, we'll try. And then the pool, I know that was open during the day. I'm not sure though what the attendance was. I don't know if you guys get a record of attendance on the day, but I know that the pool had the open pass as well. Saturday night concert, we had Hicktown Mafia. They brought in a really good crowd. We had a lot of fun. We actually had our very first wedding proposal during the event. And Hicktown Mafia said all the years they've been doing this, only the second time they've been asked to stop to play to have a wedding proposal. The lady didn't have a clue it was happening. So that even makes it more fun. So the beer sales were up on Friday night for a total. There was a little confusion on that, so some of the tips might have got put in with the actual sales, but that was a whoops on whoever was moving it, but it happens. So overall though, our total beer profit, we were up to 7,700 from 65 last year. So we did very well on beer sales this year. Community service, unfortunately, it did rain Sunday morning. So they did move it to the Methodist Church. So unfortunately, this is the second year that they had to move it. Christ Luther.

No, it was at Christ Luther.

Oh, it was at Christ Luther. Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks for the update. Because I was told it went to Methodist.

No, no. It was at our church, yeah.

But I still heard it was a good church.

Good job, yeah.

Yep. Good deal. So hopefully next year the weather will cooperate. It won't be too hot like it was last year. And it won't rain like it did this year. So sponsorships, we have some amazing businesses that have stepped up the last couple years. We were up, we had an even for platinum for this year, for last year. Gold was down a little bit. We were down at 10, but we had 13 last year, but our silvers were up quite a bit, up to 24. Our bronzes stayed flat, and then our community as well stayed flat. So as far as sponsorships, we have a really good group of businesses, and actually some of these are just people that have just stepped up to want to sponsor to continue to have the event on a yearly basis. And then our wrap-up meeting, we did do chair elections. Unfortunately for you guys, I am still the president. Time to keep me there. So you'll get to see me again. Vice president remain as Rob Dobbs. Treasurer will remain as Rachel Claussen. And our secretary has been changed to Anna Underwood. Questions, comments?

Any questions? Phenomenally bad. Thank you. Yes. Any thoughts on moving the Saturday night deal downtown?

Give us more people and you set up the barriers and the security and everything else and we'll talk.

Okay.

But my people are fried by Saturday night and we don't have the manpower to move. I get it. But I know I have you wrote down for you guys mentioned 1270 band.

Yes. That would be amazing.

I have that wrote down to reach out to them to see if I can contact them on Saturday.

Yeah, we understand there's some logistics with that, but I just, I think it would be a really, I think we could make that into a great end of Jamboree Day event.

The only comment that I have for my employees, though, or from our committee would be is the fact that we are a non-profit, we are doing this for our community, and if we turn around and go back to street pants, you go back to, it's just... a street dance without having family, where we try to keep the kids and everybody involved. Plus you have the amphitheater there, so if it does rain, which it did sprinkle a little bit that night, they're protected and we don't have to shut down the street dance.

I get it. It's on my wish list.

keep bringing it up it's a lot easier to dance on grass than it is on concrete now it is you're not a dancer are you not being what you're used to okay that's all i'm gonna say i think i'd surprise you yeah i bet all right anybody else got any comments or questions for leah

If not, thank you very much.

Thanks for all your work.

All right, let's move down to our applications, agreements, hearings, resolutions, ordinances. First up, 705 hearing, first reading of amendment to the 2026 revised Hartford zoning rate. First one is ordinance 773, which is to amend section 12.03, accessory building regulations. Teresa.

Yeah, so this would be an amendment towards zoning regulations for our accessory buildings. It's gone through discussion with planning and zoning. They are recommending to pass it. I kind of started with, we had a couple of conditional uses come through. We were seeing people move in kind of smaller pre-built sheds that are coming in with metal roofs. And we're seeing that more and more because I think they're putting metal roofs on sheds just for durability and the maintenance and whatnot. And so a lot of them are getting these pre-built sheds that are coming with metal roofs. We do have a regulation in our ordinance that says basically if your building size is 150 square feet or larger, You need to have like materials to the principal structure, to the house. So if you have hard board siding, you need hard board siding in your shed. Asphalt shingles, you should use asphalt on your shed and whatnot. And like I said, some of these smaller sheds, these 120 to 180 pre-built ones, they're coming with metal sheds. Obviously moving to lots that have asphalt shingles, so they've had to get, you know, a conditional use from the P&Z board. We've talked it over a little bit. Kyle and Paula pointed out that the actual IVC codes don't even really regulate sheds that are under 200 square feet. So that 150 square feet, that number we have in our regulations, I mean, It's a random number that, you know, Seacog originally did our zoning regulations. It's pretty standard throughout the other cities. It's a number that can be changed. And then we thought, well, doesn't it make more sense to follow the IVC codes and put that number at 200 square feet versus the 150? So that is where they're recommending upping that 150 of like-kind materials for sheds to 200 square feet. And like I said, that was kind of a number just put in our zoning regulations by Seacock, and we just think it makes more sense to follow the IBC codes. Obviously, it was that like material discussion is, you know, for aesthetic reasons or whatnot. The larger the shed, you do want them to kind of look like the principal building, but I think a metal roof on a smaller structure, plenty of zoning board didn't see any issues with that, especially at 200 square feet. That is the first change in accessory buildings. With that thought in mind of that regulating that 200 square feet, we have another bullet point or regulation there that says that For accessor buildings, you can only have two on your property, and of the two, one can't be larger than 150 square feet. So it's got to be 150 square feet or smaller. Well, just to stay consistent, we talked about moving that 150 square feet to the 200, since that's what's regulated by IBC code. So now it'll be, you can have up to two buildings, but, you know, one of them. you know, has to be 200 square feet or smaller, instead of the 150. So those are the two recommended changes for county and zoning is that changing that 150 square feet and those two bullet points.

All right. Action on Ordinance 773.

I've got a couple clarifying questions. So with this, so there's two points here. And the first point, so theoretically somebody could have an accessory building that's 200 square feet with a metal roof, or this would, I'm just trying to follow here. So theoretically they can still bring in those small garden sheds.

Basically this is going to allow you to have a 200 square foot building or less, a metal roof, regardless of whether you have a metal roof on your house or not.

Okay.

And then the second part of this is they can have two sheds on their property. One of them, can be up to 200 square feet.

Before we only allowed one of them only being 150 square feet. This will allow it up to 200 square feet.

I'll make a motion to approve the first reading of ordinance 773. Oh, we got two seconds. Oh, man.

Two seconds.

Oh, man.

Everybody wants a second. You can still vote yes, though.

All right. Any discussion? Hearing none, we'll vote. Carlson. Yes. Natson. Yes. Bowen. Yes. Keown. Yes. Horacek. Yes. Schilling. Yes. All right, the next one is 774. This is first reading also of the amendment of the 2026 revised hard-fitting zoning regulations to amend section 12.03, Manufacturing Housing Residential District. Teresa.

So this is an amendment to our zoning regulations again. It's in our manufactured housing zoning. Basically this kind of came, discussion of this came about, we were talking in the planning zoning board about campgrounds is kind of how it come about. We kind of looked over our regulations. Right now we do not allow campgrounds in any zoning district. The board talked a little about, well, should we, should we not? We did way back then when we had general business district, but we have since changed all that. But as of right now, it is not a permitted use or a conditional use in any zoning district. So the board took a couple meetings, talked about it. We even looked at a proposed ordinance. At this point, the Planning and Zoning Board, which it can always be changed at this point, they want to keep our regulations as is. They didn't really see a zoning district where it would be a proper fit right now, like I said. They're proposing to keep our regulations the same and not allow campgrounds. Like I said, which, as you know, just like now, we can always change the zoning regulations to allow a campground if somebody comes with a good plan in a good area. But we did notice when we were looking through them, I noticed that the only mention of a campground at all in our zoning regulations is in our manufactured housing districts. There's a definition for a campground, a travel trailer campground. And then there's also just a small verbiage in a sentence saying campgrounds have to be licensed. Well, if we don't allow a campground, that verbiage is kind of new point. There's no reason to have a definition for a campground. There's no reason to have verbiage in there to say that it has to be licensed. So just to clean up that manufactured home district, this ordinance would remove those two things, that definition and the never reach about licensing. So basically just be strictly manufactured homes, things that are permanent, not temporary. So that's what this ordinance does is just clean up that for a reach.

All right. I'd be curious on, you made an interesting comment that the PNZ doesn't think that there's anywhere in the city where campgrounds, we don't have to talk about doing an ordinance, Also, what would it hurt by establishing an ordinance? You know, I'm just, I don't know. I'm thinking I actually know a guy who owns campgrounds in the Sioux Falls area. I don't think it would be it would hurt anything by establishing something. So that way, if a project does come, whether it's the HADF or to the city, we've got an ordinance, we've got at least something we can work with. So I would just My opinion, I know this is, I mean, I want to stay on topic here, but my opinion is, well, just because you don't see something right now doesn't mean that we shouldn't have an ordinance. I would rather have the groundwork for that ordinance laid out just in case if there was something. Now, we at least have a framework to work with. I don't know if you can take that back.

I presented an ordinance to them. What's that? I presented an ordinance to them to review. I encourage you to talk to the planning and zoning members.

I will talk to the board on that. I just think, why not have a framework built up so if something does come along.

We discussed it in a couple areas where we could have, you know, by conditional use.

Or a campground developer could, you know, it'd be kind of small thinking on their end, but they're like, oh, they don't even allow for this, so we're not even going to make a call.

We're not even going to, you know, who knows how these developers think. It might get bypassed, yeah, or whatnot.

I'll make a call.

Okay, you can encourage them.

All right, anything else?

Wasn't there camping spots in the city park years ago?

We don't know camping spots. We've allowed people to park there for a couple days. I mean, we don't provide any facilities or electricity. They don't have electricity or nothing? No. We don't keep the bathrooms open for them. It's just we're letting you park in the park.

25 years ago, we looked into it and it got ran out of town. At least I'm good at it.

between that and sidewalks.

That might be our chance. All right, action on this one.

Make a motion to approve the first reading of ordinance 774.

I'll second. All right.

You just wait. Everybody waits for heat. Any discussion? Hearing none, we'll vote. Schilling? Yes. Horace? Yes. Keel? Yes. Mullin? No. Mattson? Yes. Carlson? Yes. All right. All right, that takes care of those two. Let's move on to the next one. Special event application, Eastern Avenue Block Party, which is coming up this Saturday. Everything is in order. Yep. It's one block over from my street. Oh, yeah, that's right.

I think they've done this a couple of times. Yeah, I think so. I think this is that. Was it entertainment? I don't know. It's not me.

Not this year. Not this year.

I'd make a motion to approve the special event application for the Eastern Avenue block party on August 8th, 2026.

Second. Any discussion? Hearing none, we'll vote. Carlson? Yes. Mattson? Yes. Bowen? Yes. Keel? Yes. Barachuk? Yes. Schilling?

Yes.

All right, next up we have special event application for South Bar's 10th 10-year celebration.

I feel like I was just here a year ago, which I was.

Last year was Big J's birthday.

Big J's birthday. This year it's the 10th year. And I 100% agree with you about the speaker. It's coming right down top. Anyway, on to us. We want to have a street dance. Actually, we want to start the day off.

You guys can start a street dance.

Well, we don't want to step on toes.

Oh, yeah, we don't want to do that.

We'd like to start the day off with a big old bean bag tournament. So kind of asking if we can get the street closed by 10 a.m.?

What day is this on?

September 26th. That's a Saturday. Yep. And then we'll have live entertainment starting, I think Shelby K. starts at 7. And then we'll have Ned Ledoux. He'll be playing for an hour to two hours, I believe. And then we'll end the night with Brandon Jones taking the stage. We have security set up. We'll have our beer tent outside, but onto our property, onto the back there. What else? That's it. We just would like to know, I know the noise ordinance goes till 11. Can we extend that an hour or two? I know last year, I think we went to midnight and I don't know, Justin might've said Brandon felt one, but I don't know if that's- I'd be okay with 12.

One's getting a little, in my opinion, I love this idea, the one's just a little early. Is it early or is it late? How do you know?

I always told my mom I was coming home early. Yeah, that's a good one. Early in the morning.

Mark goes to the loo, so that's early for us. Did we have any complaints?

I think there was just the one complaint on Hartford Happenings from a guy wanting to mail the noise ordinance. So no complaints. Right. when everybody enjoyed last year, had a ball, you won't be dancing on grass, you'll be on asphalt. Yeah, there you go. That's my own asphalt. Or, you know, I've been waiting to throw that one out there.

You know, we lived, I lived Right. And we don't ever hear. I mean, it's not like it's outrageous.

We had a band two weeks ago, three weeks ago, the 24th, out back in 2011.

You can barely hear it. And if I can't hear it, then I just sit on my back patio and... This time you'll have to come down.

I think so. Justin is also bringing food, which of course we'll charge for. But Jake will be there with food and whatnot.

It's a real treat to get him in Hartford.

That's great. Yeah. All right. Midnight, will that... I'm good at midnight. Will that suffice?

If someone wants to make an argument for 1 a.m., throw it out there.

I'm good with 1 a.m. 10 years doesn't come around very often. This is a 10-year celebration. Once every 10 years. I mean, it's not like they're asking for it all the time. It's not a weekly occurrence.

I'm fine with 1 a.m. Well, I like your way of thinking. All right. I mean, we want to make it a day.

Yeah. And it's an hour before 2 p.m. bar closes. So, I mean... I support the 1 a.m.

I'm not going to fight against it. Our deputy will be there.

I was just going to say, we'll have.

You can do whatever you guys want.

We'll just park the one that sits down by Steve's looter's place. Oh, yeah. That everybody always thinks that somebody parked there. Oh, yeah. We're like, yep, he's parked down there.

He's watching. Yep, at the body shop.

Yep. So I'll make a motion to approve the special event application for South Bar's 10-year celebration for September 26th as presented.

I'll second.

Is the 1 a.m. on the? It is on their application.

Okay, just making sure.

It is on their application, yep. Let's see, the only thing really not clearly spelled out here would be some collaboration with city staff for barricades and whatnot, but I assume that that's valid. Unwritten rule. It's kind of given me more.

I think last year what we did, a lot of us just, when the van was done, they were done cleaning up, we went out and pulled things off to the side. Pulled them off to the side for the city. We'll do the same thing this year.

Okay. Any other discussion? Hearing none, we'll vote. Schilling. Yes. Project. Yes. Deal. Yes. Bowen? Yes. Madsen? Yes. Carlson? Yes. All right.

Thank you. Thank you. We will see you September 26th.

Thank you. All right, next up we have a special event application for the Trojan Kickoff on August 22nd. This is the second year they've done this and really their ask for us is they want to use the streets for their run. The rest of the activities are all on school property. They just want approval that they can do their run on the route provided.

and they mark up the route too yeah i think don't they go out and paint the route yeah yeah i mean they don't close down any of the streets just to be aware that they'll be having runners and sidewalks to the street city property they did this last year too didn't they yes they did there weren't any print issues with it nope

Make a motion to approve the special event application for the Trojan kickoff on August 22nd, 2026. Second.

Any discussion? Hearing none, we'll vote. Carlson? Yes. Mattson? Yes. Bowen? Yes. Keel? Yes. Horacek? Yes. Schilling?

Yes.

All right, next up we have resolution 2026-11 or 11, however you want to put it. Adoption of a safe streets for all comprehensive safety action plan. The gentleman was here a month or so ago and gave us the preliminary and this is the final basic resolution so we can use this as we're applying for grants, putting together plans for the future for Safe Streets and all that great stuff.

So we just need a motion approving this resolution.

Resolution, yep, and that way we pass it.

I'll make a motion approving resolution 2026-11. Second.

Any discussion? Hearing none, we'll vote. Carlson? Yes. Mattson? Yes. Bowen? Yes. Keel? Yes. Racha? Yes. Schilling?

Yes.

All right. Next up, first reading of ordinance 776. This is our regulation for motorized foot scooters and personal assistance devices.

Oh, that's a very politically correct term. I got someone to laugh over there, so I'm glad.

Let's just cover the next type of thing.

Right, pretty much.

Well, we've been talking about scooters for about a year, probably. As most of you know, we had an incident in town and that probably spurred us to action as much as anything possibly could. We had looked at an ordinance that was put together by the city of Brandon. once looked at it again we charged the city staff and city attorney with putting together a ordinance for us which is attached so basically it was random was kind of the basis of the ordinance we followed we did tweak it a little bit uh

customized a little bit for Hartford kind of clarified some more verbiage that you know if you're under 14 basically you have to be on the sidewalks and if you can't there isn't a sidewalk there like we know as many parts of towns don't have it you got you can be in the street you know got to be on the correct side of the street you got to be as close to the curb as possible and then getting down the sidewalk again You have to have a helmet, only one person on the scooter, cannot go over 50 miles an hour, and then you have to yield to pedestrians and motor vehicles. So basically when you come to an intersection, they're stopping at all of them so you don't have the incident we had before. Then if you're over 14, it's tweaked just a little bit different. You're allowed to be in the roadway because they're kind of a valid driver. I mean, you can be in the sidewalk or in the roadway. Once again, though, we want to stay consistent with only one person on the scooter. They can go the speed that corresponds the speed limit to the road, so the road's 20 miles an hour. they did that basically they got to follow the speed of the roadway that they are on and um then they too have to deal to pedestrians and motor vehicles um as well um both of them you know all scooters whatnot have to you know 15 minutes after sunrise and 15 minutes before sunset otherwise you have to have lights on it we did put in there no scooters on main avenue basically from second street down to men so there's these two blocks of main avenue we have them zip them by on the sidewalks the doors are opening and we thought that would be a good thing to add and talk it over with alex a little bit on that um also with some of the other highlights um basically got to operate them in a safe manner um did put a penalty in there that you know if we would and not say we have to find them you can use this as a learning tool tool to give them warnings or whatnot, but if it comes down to finding a $50 fine, I also put in there that parents and guardians can be responsible for that fine as well. Brandon didn't have that in their ordinance, but Harrisburg did in their proposed ordinance, and I kind of like that responsibility on them a little bit too. So those are some things that you can talk about.

Great job, Teresa. I make a motion. I said great job. I make a motion to approve the first reading of Ordinance 776. Second. Any more discussion?

I do. So I think I asked last time on the helmet piece. We don't require kids on a bike to have a helmet ever, correct? Correct. I mean, we don't regularly have the bikes. We saw how many kids on a scooter tonight and not one of them had a helmet on. So are we actually going to stop every kid without a helmet?

Well, I think I would say we wouldn't have to stop every kid that doesn't have a helmet on. What's the point? I mean, and you said that part doesn't have to necessarily be in there. That was just to say to you.

I feel really weird. I mean, it's a great idea, but I also just think that right out of the gate, we're going to have an ordinance we're not going to enforce.

Yeah, I mean, I agree with the Main Street thing. And I thought, like, because I obviously have a business on Main Street, and these young ladies over here see the thing scoot. I mean, here's my issue with this whole thing, and I've been saying this for a year, and I'm probably the one on the outside of this, is I understand why we got to this point, but I don't, I certainly don't want our deputy, who there's much, I think, much bigger things. Like, kind of to the lines of what you're saying is, OK, we established this ordinance. And so we're going to be discretionary in who you're going after, right? Because you can't, I mean, if you're sitting there pulling over 20 kids a day, like, you better darn believe it. Like, you're going to hear from it, right? Like, that's a problem. But if you're only pulling over 5% of those kids, then, you know, it's just kind of like an interesting thing. I mean, I'm going to articulate this, but, like, on, like, the whole building code stuff, like, we either have to have a concrete pattern or you don't to park something up. Okay. If we're not going to enforce it, then don't have it. And I know that we enforce it, but it takes months and months and months and months and months. And so I'm going to rest my case here. I think that this is once again, a parenting issue. Um, I understand everyone's hardness is that we want to, you know, we had one incidence or one incident that we know of. There could be more, right. Without what we haven't heard of. Yeah. That we haven't heard of. Right. Um, this is once again, a parent thing. I think a parent should I think a parent should make that decision, if my kid's gonna wear a helmet or not. I don't think that this should be written in the ordinance. And I think that this could inundate law enforcement if they're not wise with it. I just don't see the logical ordinance in only, you're either gonna go chase on every kid on a scooter or you're not. And so, but I get the heart in this, but I just, I think that this is a parenting issue and I'm going to rest my case on that, but I understand why we're here. So I'm probably going to vote no on this, but I get why we're here. Yeah.

I look at it a little bit like where we've got this first reading. We make, if we treat it like the mask mandate, we never had a second reading, right? We put that thing on the shelf and in the event we needed it, we could pull it off and have that second reading. but it's something, it's goodness. So based on the public outcry and the amount of participants here to support and or beat this down, we've done our, we've made the first step as a city council. And so really I was going to recommend that just that this thing on the shelf if we need to have a second reading.

I will tell you, we did get a couple comments over our Facebook page after that accident happened of people wanting us to look at putting some kind of ordinance in place.

I generally am supportive of the ordinance. I'm just questioning the helmet piece because, I mean, I think it's going to be no different with bikes. Some kids wear them, some don't. I think of everything on here, and then especially if they're 14, then they don't have to.

I think the biggest thing, like I said, they wear a helmet or not, that may be up to the parent, like I said, but the biggest thing is regulating them in the streets and on the sidewalk. More traffic, yes, because that may be the more bigger safety issue.

My only other question, I think, then, too, is the 14 years of age. And just is that a number in some of the other communities?

The ones I've looked at have all been that 14 years, kind of that difference. I don't know if that's because that 14 years, you can get a learner's permit.

Well, that's why I was wondering if it should be a licensed driver or if they have a driver's license, they can be on the street. I mean, that's exactly what I was wondering. Do we need 14? Or do we mean a driver's permit? What do we mean? Like what's the intent?

And then how is the cop supposed to know that? Like a cop can't just say, well, I think that they're under 14, so I'm going to pull them over. And now there's logistical, actual law issues with that. You can't just pull over somebody just because you think something. You have to have reasonable, articulate suspicion of that.

Mayor, I encourage you to call the vote. Let's just vote on this thing.

All right, we'll call the vote. Did we get a first and a second? Hold on.

Once we call the vote, we got to vote.

You got to vote.

Man.

Yep, sir. Cindy and I were busy chit-chatting.

We beat this thing to death.

This is like my fifth year of talking about it.

All right, we'll vote.

Schilling.

Yes.

Horacek. Yes. Keel. Yes. Bowen. No. Mattson. Yes. Carlson.

Yes.

Man, I'm losing tonight. All right, that's first reading. We got one more. So keep your question. You know what?

I'm a broken clock. It's right twice a day. All right. Let's move down to reports. First up, Minnehaha County Deputy Sheriff, Deputy Alex.

All right. How's everybody doing? Doing well. Good, good, good. So not a lot different from last month. We had a total of six warrant services in town here. We got a couple of those guys in jail. A total of 59 actually, I was a little higher than that. 59 traffic stops in town here. One of those resulted in a warrant. Our accidents stayed about the same at four. Five burglary alarms in town here. I don't think any of those turned out to be an actual burglary. They're all false alarms. 79, check securities in town. That's parks, pools, where the parks, the pool, anywhere that our deputies, it's mostly at night, whether cruising around, we do a lot of storage units, things like that, checking that stuff. You guys are out there at 3 a.m. We find a lot of weird stuff going on. Yeah. Keeping up the proactive policing on that. A few DUIs in town. A couple of those involve some narcotics. We actually had a couple of gas skips this month. A couple of what?

Gas skips. Gas skips. Oh, that's right.

So pay for gas and take off on it. I found one of the guys and he came back and paid. That was good.

Beautiful.

Reckless drivers are out. We had 14 reckless drivers. That's just a summertime deal, but that's why our traffic stops are up as well. We're going after those reckless drivers. And then traffic hazards I have on here, eight. I think just about every one of those was somebody on a scooter doing something that I observed that was dangerous or reckless. That is what I got for it.

All right. Any questions for the deputy?

Well, then, Sean, I was also working on the heat map. I do have a... Oh, yeah. Yeah, I saw that we do have the technology to do that. Just to see where all the calls are coming in. Yeah, and I just have to figure out how to do it. Cool. Thank you.

Appreciate that. Can we work on a flock map? It's already out there.

Yeah, we do have a flock map out there. I'm sure. So we just have two of them in town area.

What's the difference between a flock camera and an ALPRS?

So flock, we get a picture of the vehicle as it's passing our flock camera. Okay. Where a licensed plate reader will, it's just a plate reader at the roadway or some towns have on their actual police cars. And as they pass the cars, it reads every license plate. And what that's doing is automatically reading that so I don't have to type everything in my computer while I'm driving. There's a hit on one of those license plates, stolen vehicle, personal warrants, kidnapping suspect, anything crazy like that. Murder suspect. Anything that they decide to put in there. Anything that we deem that we need to put in there, it could come back and it would hit, and then we have to verify it before we make a stop. What are those called?

Licensed plate readers? Yeah, automated licensed plate readers.

So we don't have those. We just have our clock system as well we have been using. That's right. on the flock i will say in town here i have used it three times in town here successfully the missing person that we were able to find down in yankton we were to locate him get him reunited with the family and then most recently we had a murder in sioux falls That just was like last week. That suspect was tracked down in two hours in Sioux City.

When you're going, as we're on that topic, when you're going through that data, can you personally, do you have access to that camera? Is that something at the sheriff's office? Or can you, from your computer, log into that? What information is publicly available to you when you log in? I'm sure these people do gas scabs, right? That might be one. What are you seeing on your interface?

So that was actually one of the things that I use it for. That's how we found that guy. Because the gas station cameras weren't very clear. So when I log into Flock, we have to go through training first. It's a decent amount of training that we have to go through, and it's a confusing system. But when I log in, for me to be able to, I have access to it. I can type in any place. And whatever cameras I choose in the state of the country, things will pop up on it. it would be audited. I need to have a case number or a call for service number that I need to put in there for that audit, so everybody knows what I'm looking for this vehicle for. The reason it has to be in there, but I'm sorry, what was your next sentence? But as Tim said, it is AI, and it will find, if I put, okay, this car doesn't have a plate, but I know it's a big, white SUV. I could put that in and I can say it probably passed our east side flock camera around this time. I hit go and it's like ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And I can look through and I can kind of compare from like the gas station, for instance. I'm looking at that picture of that vehicle compared to what we have in flock. And that's how we put two and two together. And now Otherwise, I mean, we wouldn't have found that guy. That was a gasket, you know, obviously not the end of the world. But, you know, I don't have really a personal opinion on it. Well, I was just curious on what that is. Yeah, no, and it definitely, it's helped me in my job, but I can definitely see the public outcry that people have around, surrounding the Flock system.

Thank you.

Yeah.

All right. Anything else? So Flock is the parent company. To the automated license plate?

Correct. So yes, Flock is the system that I think there's Axon that makes all the body cameras and tasers and things now. They're getting into that game too. I don't know where that's going.

It's all like monopolized. It's like I should start up a security camera company.

In the future it will be called Skynet.

Yeah, right. It's crazy.

Terminator.

All right. Thank you. Thank you, Deputy. Keep up the good work. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

All right. We'll move on to what I like to call the most exciting part of the evening, our city engineer report.

Good evening, everyone. Report is in your packet. General engineering side continue to review site plans and plans as they come in. As we did before this meeting, worked through some of that stormwater management facility. Those existing facilities, looked at that and prepared the map and we'll report for those. The ones we're gonna talk about later did update the capital improvement plan projects and descriptions and the map for budget this year. On the project side, the water resource recovery facility did get some closeout documents to the city. So some operations and maintenance manuals, record drawings, all that type of stuff to the city for their records are waiting on that final closeout, contingency use form, payout, all that. There are a couple of punch lists and warranty items that are still outstanding that we are tracking with bracelet. on the Mickelson shared use path, working with the school. They have a MOU going to them just for some land along that trail, just to help separate that out, hoping to have that on their agenda for next Monday. So following that, we'll be able to update the council on how that went. Kelly Avenue, nothing there. Every time I come down, I check on it and it seems to get over 50 usage you know we're parking within the lands i'll say but really waiting for the middle of the month to get some feedback and regroup with those property owners to discuss that that trial roadway and then lastly on the side of things uh rude landing diamond trail intersection reconstruction uh on the actual intersection project that is out for bid currently uh it bids next thursday morning So at the next meeting, we'll have that bid tabulation for Council's review. I have been sending it to planners and contractors that we've worked with in the past. We currently have three prime bidders, but if it's anything like past projects, that usually ramps up the week leading up to the bid. Just human nature, I suppose. I like to procrastinate some things. So we'll continue to reach out and provide that so we get some good bid numbers there. On the traffic control package, which is essentially called the driveway approach to the coffee cup to the south. That'll provide that. While the intersection thing reconstructed did get a few bits on that. That is an action item for the council this evening. However, I wanted just to answer questions on the report prior to.

Any questions for Michael before we move on to his action item here? Thanks for putting together the stuff on the detention ponds for us for our tour.

Of course, glad everyone learned a lot.

Yeah. We probably found out more than what we expected, maybe. How's that sound? Yeah. Yeah. We have a lot of ponds around town. All right, hearing no questions. Michael, let's talk about your action item here.

Yep, so as noted, this is the traffic control quote package, detour route, whatever you want to call it, for the Rude Lane intersection project. Solicited this over one week quote package, small scale. It's not atypical to shorten the window there. Solicited it to six contractors, most of which were local to the Hartford area, received three bids. I recommend a low bidder was blacktop paving of Sioux Falls with the amount of $21,349. Worked with them on many past projects either as the prime or a sub and they did good work in their responsibility. Get it done, that's all. Recommendation would be to where they're both happy. Affirmations.

Motion to approve a low coal from blacktop paving in the amount of $21,349. Second. Any discussion?

Hearing none, we'll vote. Carlson? Yes. Mattson? Yes. Bowen? Yes. Keel? Yes. Horacek? Yes. Schilling? Yes. Anything else, Michael? That is all I have for now. Good enough. I see you'll be talking to us later, I would assume. That is correct, yes. All right, next up, Public Works Superintendent Craig. What do you got?

Just a couple updates. Basically, for the parks, we are done with the fence around Pickleball Court for now until they get the surfacing done. Then we'll put the center rail system in there at the center fence. And then we did get started on the digging out that playground and stuff and getting rid of all the dirt in there at the sports complex. So getting some projects, getting close to being final with them, and some started, so... That's all I got unless somebody has anything for me.

Just an observation as we rolled down the bike path on our golf carts. There's a lot of debris. Yeah, it was purely city business. I mean, there was no shenanigans. We were inspecting the bike trail. A lot of debris on there. Literally, I mean, I think in areas it's kind of unsafe. Yeah. Because it runs off that.

We're supposed to be watching that all the time. Yeah.

Did you see us go bylaws? And it's probably due for a chip seal.

Yeah, they quote me soon. And we still need some cracks to get sealed up.

Yeah. There's always somebody going through there somewhere, it looks like, especially between Maple Pass and the Windsor Group's property.

You need a new city sweeper to take out it. All right you got an action item to Craig it looks like or so being with The Aramon system, they set up a schooling for two guys to attend. And I'd like to have, at this time anyway, Jesse and Jonathan attend that if it works out for him. Operator? It's an operating training class on the Aramon itself.

And if I read this right, they cover everything? Yes. Travel expense, everything?

Yep. Wow. So like I said, at this time, unless Jonathan couldn't make it, then... Maybe you can switch with me or something. Okay.

All right. You just need approval to attend, correct?

Put you guys to attend, yeah. Yep. All right.

A motion to approve for the two gentlemen to attend the AeroMod Operator Training Seminar.

Second.

Any discussion? Hearing none, we'll vote. Shelling. Yes. Horacek. Yes. Gill. Yes. Bowen. Yes. Manson. Yes. Carlson.

Yes.

All right, anything else, Craig? Nope, that's it. All righty. Let's move to Karen's report.

Report's in the packet.

Nothing to add.

Your report isn't that boring, Karen. Come on, Karen. Come on, Karen.

Same old, same old.

Anybody got any questions for Karen? All right. Thank you. We'll move to Teresa's report.

I don't have much for updates either. Monday, our new operator is planned to start, so he's coming Monday on the 10th, so we'll be glad to get him started and up and going. Grants updates, just to let you know, the bridge inspector I had in my report, but they have inspected all our bridge structures our big homeworks they will come to the next meeting to give their report on that that's part of the the grant we received with the state on we got an 80 20 grant for that so they'll be at the next meeting just to present the condition of the structures and then um i just want to remind you make sure you give the budget meeting down monday the 17th So a couple weeks from now, I will have your packet out to you guys that Monday prior. So this coming Monday, I'll have the budget packet. There's a lot of information I know every year. If you have any questions before the meeting, just reach out to us here on the staff, me, Karen, Craig, and try to walk you through it. What time are we starting? We're starting at 6.30 is what we scheduled it for. Monday the 17th at 6.30. And then you're going to have to turn around on Tuesday and come to a regular council meeting that Tuesday. So it'll be a busy week for you guys.

It'll be an exciting time. All right. Anything else, Karen? Or Karen, Teresa? All right. Any questions? If not, we'll move on to old business. I asked Teresa to throw this on. We've talked sidewalks. until we're blue i just don't want us to forget about this i know i had michelle and daryl were my subcommittee and if you guys need some assistance or need some help or whatever you need i i really want to get this thing we got to get this going if it's to the point where we're going to have to start writing the ordinance so we can Mandate them, we're gonna have to, we're gonna do it. So what I would recommend if we could one time, maybe Michelle and Darrell, if you can, maybe coordinate with Theresa. maybe Michael, and if we could have just one quick set down and talk about, so if we are gonna put together an ordinance, we could maybe come up with some bullet points. You wanna do that? I'll kinda let you guys coordinate. I'd set in if you want me to. All right, I just wanted to get this back up on the forefront.

Are we thinking about, and matching funds type of program as we're going into budget?

That's a great question.

Craig just talked about that. Last week we were talking over budgets. Should that be one of our recommendations to set aside a pool of money, whether that be $10,000, $20,000, whatever? We used to, many years ago, do kind of a rebate program that... people would put in a sidewalk and they'd get, you know, and we'd inspect as long as everything's to spec and regulations, they would get, you know, so much per foot reimbursed by the city. So we had that for a couple of years. We had fairly good participation the first year, kind of died off on the second year a little bit, but I mean, but that was probably.

That's been quite a while.

Yeah. 15 years. Yeah, that's been quite a while. If we're contemplating putting an ordinance in place, it would be nice in the lead up time. I don't know what it will be for effective dates, but to have some opportunities. I don't know if there's outside grants. Probably not, but. Sorry, I don't hear too many on sidewalks.

But we've seen it rip the bandaid off.

Well, even tonight we brought up, there's a couple like, you've got a sidewalk, and then you've got a concrete that's owned by somebody, an empty lot that's failed, and there's a break, and then there's a sidewalk. So even addressing maybe some of those and putting some regulation in place.

Yeah, we're talking to a goal. Yeah, go ahead.

I mean, I don't have a lot of you, even though you don't. No, I said go ahead. He said go ahead. Sorry. I'm trying to listen to you. We can talk more, but yeah, we can send out a doodle poll. We can see if we can next couple of weeks, two, three weeks, sit down and talk about a little bit more. We'll continue the discussion.

Okay, go on. I got the go now. I look at sidewalks as needed infrastructure. So I look at them not as, I mean, especially in the town of our size and like growing and families and kids and people. I mean, if you ever go on a walk, in the morning. It's incredible. There's people using them. So I look at sidewalks as really, I don't want to say they're just as important as a road or those things. It's hard to categorize those things, but they have a function. We're not some small rink and dink town out in western South Dakota. You know, and you think, Greg, you probably remember these days before we had all of our roads paved. And when the city council was sitting up here, hey, we're going to pave Main Street, whatever. we're going to pave this road. I mean, there was probably at that time a lot of citizens who were like, this is insane, right? This is crazy. I look at the sidewalk issue very similar to that, is that, you know, and this actually also plays into the scooter issue or to a bicycle, you know, kids, these things are meant to be safe routes for people of all ages and all backgrounds to walk on. So my encouragement to the sidewalk committee is to rip the bandaid off, do the thing that's hard to do, which is we need sidewalks in this town. We are a growing, developing town. And my concern is if we try and just keep this going or do it, or we're just gonna do these sidewalks, that's better than not doing it. I'm more of like, let's take the full approach. Let's get sidewalks. Sidewalks in the old part of town are just as important as sidewalks leading up to the school. Because I'm around town, I've got little kids. I am out on these things all the time. And so I think we just, I think our town needs sidewalks. Where we don't have sidewalks, the sidewalk needs to be in.

All right.

So.

So work on that.

Yep, we'll try to get a meeting date set up and throw some ideas around.

Except for Part T, because I don't think we've put one up there. A sidewalk? Yeah, I don't think it's built for that.

A skywalk would be nice.

A skywalk. That is an HOA. You guys raise enough money as an HOA. Should be able to do that.

All right. Let's move on to new business. We've had Lois and Deanna sitting here all night long listening to us. It's their turn to shine. Yes. This is the Hartford Senior Center is coming to us for a funding request for a paid position. Do you want to give us a little history?

For the last, I don't know, 15 years plus, I know, because I've been here 15 years, Lois and Helen have overseen the day-to-day operations of the meal program, which is independent of the senior citizens of Hartford. The meal program is run by or headed by active generations in Sioux Falls, and we get our meals served to us through the Wooden Nickel in Crooks. And so Lois and Helen would like to step down from being here being there five days a week, every single day, from 7 to 1, keeping everything going and have someone come in. In years past, Active Generations actually had that as a paid position, and they called it a site director. So when this all came up, the first thing we did was contact Active Generations to see if they could get us a new site director, and we were told that they no longer do that. It is not something that they fund. And so their recommendation then was to go to the Wooden Nickel and ask them because they provide, they technically are the site director, being the restaurant that provides all of that stuff to us. They handle the money and whatever else that they need to do. So then we went to the Wooden Nickel and they Her recommendation was to get a volunteer, which was our first invitation as well. And we tried, but nobody wants to volunteer over lunch for five days a week and make that commitment. So according to the Wooden Nickel, oh, I guess they went back and talked to their lawyer about it. And she came back to us and said no, they would do nothing. So we either get a volunteer or plan B was to go to a box lunch. So those were our two options. So they would deliver box lunches every day. There would be no more in-house dining. People could come and pick up a lunch. We could still do home delivery. But you would have to contend with basically a cold box lunch because they deliver food at 8.30 in the morning. No, 8 o'clock. Oh, 8 o'clock. Sorry. That's why we have a news. Two other places that also do meal delivery from the wooden nickel. One of them is funded from active generations, but she was grandfathered in because she had worked for them prior to this decision. So when that person leaves, they will no longer be funded there. The other person never would respond back to us, but we believe that at another meeting she said she was a volunteer also. So I wondered if we could get, have a contract, independent contractor, or if the city would be willing to help us. And so we had a discussion a little bit with Arden one day, because he comes and has lunch. He said to meet with Teresa. So Lois and I have met with Teresa a couple of times to try and figure out this whole process. So what we are looking at, and I'll let Teresa talk because she knows more about this part of it. You know it, yeah. The city, yeah. So the city can't fund a person to take care of it. So we as the senior citizen can do that if it's an independent contractor. And then all we have to do is pay the salary. We don't have to worry about taxes and everything. whether other kinds of employee issues that there might be.

You're paying a flat rate to a contractor.

Right. Right. That's a simple, I mean, they can hire an employee, but they're not going to want to mess with employment taxes and all that. So their best bet would to, yeah, put it out for a contractor position at a flat rate. And then basically they just need to pay them. If it's weekly, monthly, however you decide to do that. And then just do a 1099 at the end of the year is the simplest route to go with them. Talk it over a little bit with Tom and that would be their best option. But I think all in all it comes down to Funding, no, is the discussion with you guys.

We, as the senior citizens, don't have that kind of money to pay someone to do that. We will still help out. The senior citizens will be responsible for opening up the center, like we always do for coffee in the mornings. But someone will always be there to have the door open when the meals are delivered, turn on the steam table. We will still round up the volunteers that help during the lunch time. We will still subsidize paying for the paper goods and a lot of the packing things that we use to send out for our meals and we use in-house. Active Generation pays for nothing, or the wood and nickel, except for our dishwasher soap, pretty much. Right? Yeah, yeah. So we buy coffee, we buy all of the extra stuff, and the senior citizens subsidize that. So we will still continue to do all of that underneath stuff. We just need somebody present, pretty much like 930 to 1, kind of, to handle the deliveries that go out, pack them in for those to be delivered at 11 or 10.5 or 11, and then oversee the volunteers who come in for the lunchtime and the little bit of paperwork that goes along with it each day.

So when I was there one day and they first brought this up to me, I think the first thing I said was, well, the last thing we'll want to do is have another city employee. That's why they went down this path because I kind of, I sent them down that path right away because I figured we don't want another. Craig wants to do it, but we told him no.

We're not really supervising it. We've kind of been down that road.

It's kind of problematic. Basically, we want to keep our hands off of it.

We tried even for the wooden nickel to do a contract position, and they just flat. They don't want anything to do with it.

No. It's sad. You guys have been doing this for so long, Lois, that The volunteerism spirit. And I think most organizations see this. It's weighing so bad. It's just not there. People just do not want to.

These ladies don't even get their lunches paid every day. So Stacey from Wood and Nickel said, well, we'll buy somebody's lunch. And we're like, hello. I mean, that's going to bring them in.

so I just want to make sure that I'm correct I should have asked you this before tonight Teresa since we bought the building we cover all their you guys aren't they're not a line item because we take care of everything that's on our budget they're basically a line item on our budget

Yeah, for our building. They're under our government buildings and any maintenance or utilities expense and whatnot, we pay all.

But they don't pay rent, do they? No. The library does? No. Okay.

Because really our contract for Siouxland says we need to have a facility for them.

to have the library here.

That's part of the contract. And our contract with these guys is that we want them to have a facility.

And that was something we kind of asked for when we sold the building was that we have a place for the senior citizens to stay and to go along with that. Right.

Or you would have kept it. Hey, you want to buy it back?

I was out there.

Hold on. Hold on.

That went the wrong direction. Hey, Wes, that's how some other things go with us, it seems like.

Well, I can no longer do this. Right.

No, really, we are. Well, I'm not looking forward to when you can't do it. No, I didn't say looking forward. I want you to. I know. I want you to not have that stress. We're trying to maintain the integrity of the meal program for the future is what we're trying to do. Because I'm afraid if something happens to these ladies and we can't find somebody to take over, we will no longer have a meal program in Hartford. That's the bottom line. Right.

So surrounding communities... Do we have any surrounding communities that have this program? Are we kind of unique in that aspect? Who does Wooden Nickel prepare these meals for other than Hartford? Maybe that's the question I'm trying to ask.

Hartford, Lenox, and Beersford.

Oh, wow. That's scattered. Yeah. That's wild. Okay. Montrose does their own thing, right?

They do their own thing.

Are they through Active Generations or no? They are, but they do their own thing. Montrose has it available. And Crooks, they don't even do it in... Well, at the restaurant, they do.

They can go there and eat. It's just like when the goat had it, they want everybody to come there. with a nickel, said, well, they can just all drive here. Well, I'm sorry, but our people aren't going to do that. And they're not going to pick up a box lunch. And we've talked to them. And it's like, they like to come there for the camaraderie and to get out a bit.

Occasionally, they get to see the mayor. Occasionally, they get to see the mayor. That's a plus. You should have led with that.

Yeah, and they get to sing when the mayor's happy. So who determines the amount of the funding request? We are. I mean, we get to determine it? Yeah.

Got it. At this point, we have nobody over us doing anything. It's just whatever we come up with to try and put this position out there to offer, to try and get somebody to... to do it. So we're just hoping somebody would like a little bit of extra income because it's not going to be a big payday. So, you know, to come and help us. Well, the business should as well.

Well, I'm just sitting here thinking, does it make sense for us to approve, you know, you going out and doing the hiring or trying to solicit this person and then once you lock them down, at a rate that we can approve the funding? Or do we approve the funding and then you go out and solicit, you know, try and find the person? You know.

In my mind, it would be easier to know that we have the funding source locked down and we maybe have an amount up to. We've already discussed some amounts, kind of, sort of. Yeah, tentatively, yeah, indicated.

Yeah, tentatively, random numbers like that. And so... Depends on how soon you get somebody fired and whatnot.

Right, because we really would like to have someone this fall, so... You know, there might be a few months this year at the end of the year, but if not, if not, if not. But Lois and I have also talked about we would like to have someone who's computer savvy so they can do the computer programming and spreadsheets, you know, that kind of thing. And if they're not willing to do Z, that that's... a good idea for the whole program. We had to punch lunch tickets. I mean, it's this simple kind of a thing. Put in who's eating, who's not, and that would be awkward for somebody in another town to manage on a day-to-day basis. Okay, but if we got somebody who didn't, then that amount we paid them would be slightly lower because they wouldn't be having to do any of the accounting or the paperwork. So until we interviewed someone, we wouldn't know exactly. But if we had ceiling, the most we would pay if they hit all of our things that they could do.

I'm going to make a motion to approve funding for this contract employee not to exceed $20,000.

I'll second. All right.

Keith got it. Where is the money coming from? This would come from our general fund.

We don't have anything budgeted for this. Right. For this year anyway.

But they need this all. Do I have to make that clarification?

I was going to say, and I was just going to ask you to clarify, is that $20,000 to the year or is that $20,000 for a year?

Right. We make, I would say, three months at the most this year. And I'm being optimistic that we're going to find something. Right.

so to clarify my motion that would be 20 000 for 12 months of funding and that should come from the general fund okay yeah discussion yeah i yeah so discussion time um i love what you ladies do um lord willing one day if i make it to retirement age and I can go hang out and do what he does. I see your truck down there. I have, I mean, that's about, cause they were asking for about 11,000 a year. So I just, I'm wrestling with this as, you know, this is a nonprofit, I'm guessing you guys are running, you know, there's a lot of different nonprofits that we support as a city or a few of them at least. And so where my thing is, we talk about setting the precedent. We talk about setting the precedent a lot. And so, I just, I don't know enough about the organization. I'm looking at this as more of a volunteer organization, but I understand there's a lot of work that goes into that. So I'm in favor of probably not initially without having further discussion because what's going to stop the Jamboree Day Committee or whatever, I mean, whatever nonprofit that we support, what's going to stop them from coming and saying, you know, we've got these things going on. Those are the things of what I'm wrestling with. And I'm sure you have great answers.

I'm just... And I want to just say, because have you ever volunteered down there?

No, I have not volunteered down there, no.

So I think everybody should volunteer and see what it's like down at the Senior Center. making sure the meal is there, making sure it's delivered, prepping all of the meals in order for them to be delivered out to people who cannot come out of their homes. You have volunteers who come and pick up those meals and use their own vehicles, pay for their own gas, do not get paid a dime, take time out to people who cannot come out of their homes. You have volunteers who come and pick up those meals and use their own vehicles, pay for their own gas, do not get paid a dime, take time out of their day in the middle of the day to come and deliver meals to people who cannot leave their homes. And then it doesn't end there. You have to clean up everything at the end of volunteering. You have to do all the dishes. You have to sanitize. You have to put all the food away. You have to do all of the things. To compare this for me, and yes, I have a very, very close-knit connection to the senior center because I do volunteer. It is very, very difficult when you are a volunteer and to, when you have to leave town and you cannot deliver the meals, to find someone to cover just your one day. It is a commitment. They are making a commitment. This is a full-time job. This is not a nonprofit like DHI that meets once a month or has farmer's market. This is not jamboree days. Yes, they put a ton of work in, but this is- This is five days a week, 52 weeks a year. Yes, and they get the very few holidays off, and you have- Women and men in their 70s and 80s and close to 90s working full time with zero compensation and they can't do it anymore. They're trying to look ahead and they need a break. They need to be able to enjoy the senior center and I think $20,000 is nothing. to pay for what two women do as well as sometimes Deanna is down there as well. It's not just one person. These are multiple elderly individuals working And I think $20,000 is nothing.

My math was 15 bucks an hour times five hours a day times 52 weeks, you know, five days. And so we're sitting on roughly $10 million in our general fund. And these are the people that we should emulate, right? Shame on you. Shame on me? That you haven't gone over and checked it out. I mean, you're right. Oh, I've been over there.

But shame on you that you've never volunteered. Oh, Travis, okay, I'm not, no, no. I didn't mean to shame anybody. No, it's fine, it's fine. I've got my own opinion.

I love it over there.

I have a different opinion on this, and I'm going to rest my case on that. And I will say to your, I'm going to shoot my mouth shut. No, I'll say to your point, John, to everybody's comments. These guys are, you guys are frugal. When we say $20,000, I'm guessing that they're going to.

That's a not to exceed. Yes. Right?

They're going to come in less than that.

They come in at $12,000. They came in way less than that. Yeah, I know. They're going to do some buffer. Because what I don't want you to bring your hands over is $2 an hour. You know, to me that's. I'm going to give you some latitude to do what needs to be done.

That's all I arrived at, 20 grand. I would, since we're in discussion, I would ask this. Is there any sort of a job description that's been drawn up?

Yeah. In your packet they have. Oh, is there? Okay.

Sorry, I should have scrolled. Oh, never mind.

Never mind, I didn't scroll far enough. I wonder if you can post that on HireClick through the city, because I don't know how they're going to. I think they're going to need some technical assistance and HireClick, we pay, what, 100 bucks a month for that?

Our subscription's over now. could you do it by position?

So we'd have to have another, which is a hundred bucks. So, I mean, it's pretty inexpensive. I'm just, I'm just thinking of the council is going to pass this. How are they going to get that word out there? And we already have this, you know, the system, the software to put out a job posting and to get those candidates in. And then I guess you could coordinate any candidates with these ladies. I'm just thinking of the best way for them. I don't, I mean, How are you going to get it out there? You have to get it out there.

Does that make it feel as a city higher?

I was going to say, we want to keep that distance, that separation between the cities. It's going to be a contracted position with the seniors.

If the council passes it, one of you ladies come over to my office and I'll post it online for you. I'm still probably going to vote no, but if it passes, I will help out that way.

There you go.

I'm serious, so if it passes, my office is in the Mutt building. Yeah, don't come upstairs. Don't come upstairs. I had to yell at one of my employees, but come on over and talk to me, okay?

Could he buy lunch once a week for his employees? I should do that. Yeah, we should do that. Off of the senior meal? Well, you come over and you've got to hustle me.

Seriously, though, come over and talk to me, okay?

Hey, I like your saying you'd help him out.

I will help him out, yeah. All right.

Anything?

We will vote. Are we done here? Carlson.

I hope so. There's a yes.

Madsen.

Yes.

Bowen. Yes. Gill. Yes. Horace. Yes. Schilling.

Yes. All right. Thank you.

See Sean.

He said yes.

And it wasn't because, it wasn't because of Travis.

Thank you and you and Helen for everything you've done.

I know, I know you and that's why I said that. I know you guys are frugal. You're not going to do anything crazy. I know that.

Yeah, don't,

They're going to keep buying Folgers.

Well, and there might be a younger retiree that, like you said, with that extra incentive for some income might fall off.

That's what we think of somebody who just wants a little extra spending.

Oh, my God. Do you want that? Then at City Council. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you.

Let's, thanks you guys. Let's move forward. Park and Rec Board requests partial release of 2026 unallocated funds.

Motion to approve the request from the Park and Rec Board to release $3,400 of unallocated budget funds as presented.

Any discussion?

Hearing none, we'll vote. Schilling.

Yes.

Horacek. Yes. Keel. Yes. Bowen. Yes. Matson. Yes. Carlson.

Yes.

All right. Next up, we want to review the updated CIP. I have a thought. Let's see if anybody's reading my mind here.

Should we table this to our next meeting?

Boy, you read my mind.

Thank you.

So just FYI for you. So what we have planned for 2027, I am putting that in the proposed budget. That's fine. Because that will be right before the next meeting. But we can talk in more detail at the next meeting. Do you want to make that a motion draft?

Just want you aware of that. To move it to the next meeting. I mean, I did. I was looking for a second.

Second.

All right, we have a motion to second the table list to the next meeting. Table... The updated CIP is presented. Okay. Table votes, our table discussions do not get any... Tables don't get any discussions. How's that? Carlson?

Yes.

Madsen? Yes. Bullitt? Yes. Keel? Yes. Horace? Yes. Shelly?

Yes.

All right. Last up is our landscaping at the wastewater treatment plant. And if you haven't went and looked at it, it is in your box under landscaping stuff. Plus it is on here, the picture. And this is really...

we did originally have this in the original plan for it but you know we were then working with rice lake to try to get you know or a contract down or whatever so we dropped it out thinking this is something we can always add it you know a later date or whatever um so this is kind of the original plan that was you know presented and i thought about did get uh I would say an estimate or an approximate quote from Rice Lake. Basically they said when they took this out of the, when they took landscaping out of like the seeding contract and all that stuff, it was about $25,000 difference. So they're estimating there'll be, if you want to go down this route, $25,000. I think if you do want to do some sort of landscaping, whatever that may be, basically budget a dollar amount, like you said, not to exceed or something, and then we can come up with a more firm plan, maybe have IHG look at it a little bit more, see if there's anything in particular.

I mean, the part that jumps out to me in this conceptual is the area that looks to be like a native grass that doesn't need to be mowed. I think that's a money-saving opportunity for us. What's your input on that, Craig?

That area right in front.

Yeah. I guess we... We've had that seeded twice, and we've got grown grass growing. We've sprayed it so we don't have any weeds. We want to mow it. Yeah. It did look like that for a while.

Yeah, yeah.

We should do a wildflower.

Well, we could overseed it with some native grass, maybe. But anyway, I mean, really, and the other thing, they kind of do a nice job of trying to accent the building. I think that thing needs to be hidden. only because it's got that big OB generator sitting out there. I mean, it's an attractive building, but not from the north.

Yeah, I guess if we're going to do something out there, let's just allocate some money. We're going to take some looking because we did put, we locked that concrete slab in, we put gravel in there so we can bring our plows and stuff out there. So it's going to take a lot of tweaking. We've got to make sure we've got access to the generator. Right. All that stuff.

This just mainly looks like, well, there is some closer to the building, but...

I mean, I want to make sure we got... It's just trees. Right.

I mean, do we just need to put in... Well, if you wanted some trees, didn't you need to keep those corn husks out of that, out of those canes? We're going to get some, we're going to put a building over part of it, but I've been looking at some mesh type material for shade and everything like that too, but... That whole fence line, I mean, it doesn't matter which way the wind blows, we're getting stuff right now. Right.

So it'd be... Michael, how much work would it be for ISG to take an actual, you know, image and throw some vegetation or throw a conceptual landscape plan up there like you did with the flow station?

Won't be that big of a deal. Can they meet with us prior to putting it on there? Of course. I just...

So if we allocate the money, we could at least- We just want to, at this point, make the motion to have ISG come up with a plan, work with Craig, and then come back to you guys. How much is left in contingency? 150. Yeah, and we did clarify with Grace, this is going to come out of contingency, and we got about 150,000 left in contingency. There's not going to be too much left to use that for. And not that we would lose the contingency, because if there's a balance in there, it just reduces our contract. So either way, I mean, we're going to pay for it.

Yeah, I mean, do we look at the whole site, or do we look at just some, you know, the area around the building? I mean, maybe we're a little short-sighted. and saying, hey, why do we want to maintain all of that acreage? Why do we want to buy a new mower every three years to mow? Anyway, let's start with 25, I guess.

We've got that fence line that runs there, and that's the area we try to keep mowing.

Yeah.

Make a motion to approve $25,000 from the contingency fund with Rice Lake for landscaping at the wastewater treatment. Second. All right.

Any more discussion? Man, he was on that one like, wow. Any discussion? Hearing none, we'll vote. Carlson? Yes. Madsen? Yes. Bowen? Yes. Keel? Yes. Horace? Yes. Shelley?

Yes.

All right. Anything else? Do we need anything for? Personnel. Personnel or personnel?

Personnel, sorry. Personnel. Personnel, we thought maybe you would. See, Tom, I was on it.

Motion to move to executive for personnel. Second. All in favor? Aye.

All right, do we have a motion to adjourn?

Motion to adjourn.

And a second?

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Back in action.