City Council - Regular Meeting

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.

Okay, Mayor Jones. Here. Keel. Here. Carlson. Here. Bullen. Here. Horacek. Here. Mattson. Here. And Schilling. Here.

All right, do we have any additions or a motion for 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. Mattson? Yes. Bowen? Yes. Keel? Yes. Horacek? Yes. Schilling?

Yes.

All right, how about the minutes from the 8-4-2026 meeting? Make a motion to approve the minutes from 8-4-2026.

Second.

Any discussion? Hearing none, we'll vote. Schilling. Yes. Project. Yes. Keel. Yes. Bowen. Yes. Mattson. Yes. Carlson. Yes. Bills are in your packet. Any action from the council on the bills?

Motion to approve the bills submitted for payment.

Second.

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

Yes.

All right, public comments. Anything that's not on the agenda?

Here.

Yep, step up to the podium and say who you are.

Good evening, folks. Patrick Weedman. I'm a neighboring homeowner. An asphalt place is currently operating next to my neighborhood. I want to know what authorization permits and current operations that I would like copies of that authorization.

Are you up on Highway 38 up there? Yes, sir. Okay. So I know these people have been here longer. So you're talking about the asphalt plant where the Zacharias lands. So that land right now is zoned heavy industrial. That was part of, if you remember, you know, we built it. So you're not in a city, you're not a city resident, correct? Correct. Okay. So 30 second overview. So when we bought the, and Travis, are they correct me? Long story short, that land where that's at is zoned heavy industrial, and they can have that on there. Legally. Legally, they can have that on there. So there's nothing that can be done about that. There's nothing that you can do to change that. That is the legal zoning of that area.

But we were made aware and the landowner has been advised that he needed to have a conditional use permit. That information has been passed on to him.

Yeah, yeah. committed to the city.

Yes, did you get my email? I emailed it today too. All the information. I answered all your questions.

I appreciate the promptness. And again, this is just for the record. I know you have a full agenda. Previously there was a conditional use permit required for such. Activity over there.

Yeah, and he didn't and he ended up not putting the plant. That's correct. Correct.

That was a conditional use permit that expired December 31st, 2023. Correct. So I guess is that plant operating under the assumption that that CUP is still active?

We're not sure.

He doesn't need a CUP because he's zoned for heavy industry.

No, he still does. So he did not come to the city in that first day and this time. So that is part of it. I've worked with the city attorney. He has set notice to notify him he doesn't need a CUP. He's got to stop operation until he comes and secures that. Do you know when that was submitted to him? Just today, because I became aware of it on Monday.

It absolutely is operational. It went fast. I drove by that one. I was like, holy smokes. I got a call on Monday about it. I really appreciate it. I really do. I know this was a big deal. Arden, I didn't want to ruin your evening. No, no, no. I just want to make sure I state these. Someone's got to do it.

Somebody always has to.

I thought I did when I walked in. Okay. Okay. So again, for the record, real quick, I'm just going to run through these. A lot of them are probably taken care of. I'm requesting a copy of the approvals and the conditions, which we've already pursued that that's not happened. And for the record, what is the date of the approval? What is the permit number? Who is the permit holder and operator? When did it become effective and was there a public hearing? Again, I appreciate the answers even before I ask questions. Again, this is just for putting down. The next question, again, just building upon this, were the written findings of the studies required by chapter 19 of the zoning ordinance number 627 ever made and presented to the public in writing? That's again, chapter 19, 627. I guess we've already established that it hasn't been And I was going to ask you if we could agree on a reasonable time to provide info. Sounds like that's already done. Once again, thank you. Now, the next one is, if it's discovered the plant is operating outside of the framework of a CUP or authorization by the city, what is the recourse?

Did you?

He said to stop work order. Yeah. Okay. What happens if they don't? Civil fines will be imposed. Are homeowners affected? privy to civil penalty of the company. Are we able, as homeowners affected by an unauthorized operation, privy to sue the company for any perceived damages to our property? I can't advise you on what your rights are as a private citizen. All right. guess that was the only thing and my last one is that the city's own policies ordinance bylaws etc are not currently met by your own standards operations to cease immediately which again thank you for taking care Um, and that's really, I just want to be on record. No questions. Thank you for your cooperation. And, uh, where can I find the pursuance? The, uh, what happens next?

Uh, as soon as we get, I would assume that we're going to get, we'll get a response.

I would assume as soon as they get their letter, we get a response. Yeah. Yeah.

Get a hold of Tracy and she'll let you know.

All right.

Wonderful.

Question for you. Or a comment, really. You have the most influence with this council if you were annexed into the city. Never say never.

The way that our neighborhood has been treated by the city, it will never fly.

How about the township or the county? Have they treated you better? Not much. There you go.

No, I don't agree, but two wrongs will make a wrong, brother. Or two wrongs will make a right. That's what I did. Put that down in the notes. Correct you. One or the other. Thanks, folks. I really appreciate it.

You bet. Thank you. All right.

Anybody else? Hey, we do have a District 9 candidate, Megan Cheddar, here visiting us this evening.

Good to have you, Megan. Good to have you, Megan. All right. You came to an exciting meeting. All right, next up, we're going to move down to visitors. We have Mr. Hammond here with Brose Engineering to give us our bridge inspection report study.

Well, this will be sweet and easy for you. Good. We are required to inspect your bridges every two years. And we performed that for you again this year. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to do so. The good news is, I mean, you got, we don't have, we have two comments for your four bridges and they're pretty easy. So the one right down here at the end of Maine has got a little explosive rebar in one of the barrels and it's set to run. It's an easy fix. It's not a crisis level thing. It really doesn't even impact the strength and serviceability of the structure. We do recommend that it gets either patched or just cleaned and painted so it doesn't continue to corrode. And then we've got the same spot, there's some joint material in between in the curb and gutter panel. And if you sealed that up, it would probably save you a future problem. Simple, easy piece. The rest of them I don't even have a comment on. I mean, you guys are in great shape. I was just telling Teresa it's probably the best we have. We could stay and use a lot of these. Hey, it's good to be number one at something. Yeah. Yeah, Vox Colbert's, you know, they're the best thing you can put in the ground as far as I'm concerned. You've got all of them. Oh. A little way in there.

We should mark that spot.

That's all I have for you. Like I said, we're required to come by the FHWA. Honestly, this could have been a simple phone call with Craig there. It's the way it used to happen, but it's over time. It pays off. for your people on councils and commissions. But if you have any questions for me, I'm always willing to. Any questions?

Yeah, I read through the report. It looks pretty, we're in pretty good shape. So that's always good.

I'll give this stuff to you guys here.

Oops, you dropped Jake. All right. Thank you. Good enough. Thank you. We appreciate you doing that and showing up.

Thank you for the opportunity, we appreciate that too.

All right, let's move down to applications, agreements, hearings, resolutions, ordinances. First up, we have second reading of ordinance 773. That is to amend section 12.03 of the zoning regulations on accessory buildings. No changes since the first reading. This is the one that allows up to 200 square foot buildings, two structures on one lot.

If they have two accessory buildings on one lot before, one of them couldn't be any larger than 150 square feet, this bumps it up to 200 square feet. And that's kind of how the building code looks at things as the minimum, you know, square foot is 200 square feet. And then it also, we have another bullet point under accessory buildings that For like-kind materials, once again, it was for 150 square feet or larger, you needed the same building materials as the house, same kind of siding, same kind of shingles or whatnot. This bumps that up to 200 as well before that requirement kicks in. We're seeing a lot of pre-built accessory buildings come in under that 200 square feet that have no roofs, just kind of for their maintenance and whatnot. So we think this will maybe kind of grab some of those and make it easier for the homeowners.

You've got one across the street from you.

I do.

With a metal roof on it, yeah.

Yeah. All right, action from the council on this first one.

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

Three. Three is the first one.

Oops, I scrolled right by you.

No, that's fine.

I would like to make a motion to approve the second reading of ordinance 773.

Thank you. Do we have a second?

Second.

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

Yes.

All right, now we can go to the second one, which is reading of Ordinance 774, second reading. Amend Section 5.04 of Zoning Regulation on Manufactured Housing Residential Districts. And this is basically a cleanup, right? Right.

This one we talked about how In our manufacturer zoning regulations right now, we have a definition for a trailer camper, like a pull tight camper. And then we reference in there that to have a trailer camper in a mobile home park, you have to have it licensed. If you look under the permitted uses and the conditional uses, we don't allow any travel trailers in a mobile home park, which I don't think we want them to be in there. We want it to be a mobile home park. So either one of those aren't applicable to that district. So this is just taking out any reference to a travel trailer, the definition and the license requirement out of that, just to clean up the mobile home park zoning ordinance.

All right, action on this one. Motion to approve second reading of ordinance 774. Second.

And any discussion? Hearing none, we'll vote. Carlson. Yes. Mattson. Yes. Bowen. Yes. Keel. Yes. Horacek. Yes. Schilling. Yes. All right, the last one under this group is second reading of ordinance 776. This is our regulation for motorized foot scooters and personal assistant devices. And there is a change from first reading. You'll see it's marked in red. What we did was take out the requirement for helmets on the under 14 age drivers, our riders, because we do not have that helmet stipulation in our bicycle ordinance. So if we're going to do that for this, we'd have to go back and look at the whole.

And I think the discussion last time around is, That's kind of more of a parent decision of whether their child wears a helmet or pads or whatnot. And our biggest concern is being on the street and the safety of that. So I did remove that. So that's the one change in amendment on this.

I think that's helpful for enforcement as well. Yes.

And Alex agreed with that. Tom said that it's not a necessary one. It was in there because we kind of, wrote this after Brandon's, it was in there, but yeah, I think that could be something that could be regulated by the parent and not the city.

I want a clarification. No scooters on Main Avenue between Men's Street and Second Street. Yeah, that's a good question. Further up, you know, it says that we must drive on sidewalks and cannot drive in the street. I don't know that we want, so what's your interpretation of that? Because when I read that, I think we're promoting those scooters to be ridden on the sidewalks in our central business district. And we don't want them anywhere, either on the sidewalk or on the street.

This is going to restrict them completely between Second and Men's Street.

Where's Men's? I mean, I'm drawing a line.

Men's is down here. The shop. The shop is the second right here. So it's on the side of South Park, basically, to Second.

So they would have to walk their scooter. Correct. Technically, you can't. Right now, can you ride your bikes on the sidewalks on Main Street? Technically?

I mean, we don't have anything against it in our ordinance.

I mean, I'm not the only one that's kind of trying to muddy the water here. We say that they must drive on sidewalks, and then further down we say no scooters on Main Avenue. And so I believe that there may be some confusion if some kid is riding on the sidewalks between Main and Monthly.

So do we need to... On Main, between Main and Second. So do we need to amend that and say no scooters on sidewalks or Main Avenue? Or sidewalks or street between Main Avenue and Main? I know what the intent is, but you have to write this for a third.

How do we write that into...

or someone in the military.

What do you think, Tom? So you don't want them on the street because of the narrow... Well, partially because of the narrow and how the parking is, but more we don't want them on the sidewalk because with the seniors and everything, they go flying by and step out of the building. We're going to have a senior citizen get wiped out.

The way it's written is just the sidewalks. Well, it encourages those individuals to drive on the sidewalks, and then it doesn't specifically exclude the sidewalks, in my opinion, when it says no scooters on Main Avenue between Ment Street and Second Street. So, okay, they're not allowed to ride on the street because up above it says they must drive on sidewalks. So I don't know that, as I'm interpreting this, I'm thinking. It's an exception to the rule that we need to be very clear that no scooter's on the sidewalks between.

Or the street. Or the street. Or the street. That's what we're missing. The street part's what's missing. The street part, I think, is what's missing.

Are you looking at 7.104? Well, it's one of the bullet points. A bullet point, yeah. A bullet point?

So we tell them to drive on the sidewalks. Right? For drivers under 14, the first bullet point says you must drive on sidewalks and cannot drive in the street if there's an adjacent sidewalk. And then it just seems like we get really specific that no scooters on Main Avenue not the sidewalk specifically in that area. So we don't want that central business district period. At all. But I think there's some clarification that we could enhance there.

I think the 7.104, like I said, is missing the street portion of it.

I think it's missing the sidewalk portion. It says no driving on sidewalks.

If you're looking at the ordinance versus the bullets, the ordinance is better than the bullets.

Okay. I'm getting that up on the bullets. Okay. I need to scroll down to the ordinance then.

Yeah, because each section, I mean, this section 7.102 is talking about, you know, if you're under 14, 7.104 is applying to everybody with scooters. And I think, I agree with you, I think it's missing the street portion of it.

You should say no driving on sidewalks or streets on Main Avenue from Minth.

Does it just need to say scooters are banned? Well, or just say that they may walk there. So I had a constituent a couple weeks ago send me a

They were in some small community, and I thought it was a relatively good idea, where they had a picture on the sidewalks down the main avenue. And it was a picture of, hey, no bikes, no scooters, whatever. It was just a, I don't know how big it would be. And I thought that was good, because we have a business on Main Street, and I know that a few of my employees have. And it's not, I was just talking to Travis. I was on my way here driving. There's a kid on a bike and a kid on a scooter. Guess which one almost ran across the road? the kid on the bike, believe it or not. So I- He yelled, I'll give us tribute. Yeah. I mean, I just, you know, I agree with Travis that there's definitely a discrepancy here because if we don't want him on Main Street, then just no scooters on the sidewalk or street. It's simple, right? Let's put that language in there. I'm probably still a no vote on this just because I- I look at our law enforcement. We've had one incident that we're aware of, and I just, I am cautious about overburdening. And I know that this is just, this kind of gives a clause, but I'm not going to go into tangent on it. Cause I know I'm probably the odd one out, but I see what Travis is saying is that if we don't want them on main street between second and meth, then we have to have sidewalks or street. And I think in addition, if we're going to have this as a law or as an ordinance, Then I think whether it's a sign somewhere or these little sidewalk stamps so kids actually know versus them just, hey, we've been doing this the whole summer and all of a sudden they get pulled over by a cop. All of a sudden there's this law change and they have no idea. So if we do decide to pass this or change this and pass it, I do think some form of communication to the public is going to be helpful. Because I really don't want a bunch of kids just getting pulled over. Because this, you know what I mean?

So Viber cast a scooter on us, an electric scooter, having the same issues we had. Yes, I mean, they did like kind of a poster. It had some nice pictures on it, some bold lettering, you know, it caught a lot of awards or whatever. But basically, they, at the beginning of the school year, the city prints them out, takes them to school, asks them to pass it out to every child in the grade. That's a good idea. I like that idea, too. I think, you know, if we get something in place, we can have some nice pictures and bullets. So then they do know there are some regulations in place.

Okay, let's circle back. What can we do on this 7.1004?

Does it make more sense in the ordinance, Travis, if we add the word streets?

No driving on sidewalks or streets on Main Avenue from Memphis 2nd. Can we add that as a second and still pass it tonight?

That's fine.

Okay.

That's the easiest fix. Okay.

I make a motion. Do I have to include the change in the motion? Yeah. Okay. Make a motion to amend section 7.1004 of ordinance number 776 to say no driving on sidewalks or street on Main Avenue.

From?

From Ment Street to Second Street. Got it.

Second.

And a motion to approve.

Well, there's one. We got to do one and then approve it? I think you just approve the ordinance.

With the amendment. With that modification. Okay. Yeah. So I would like to approve the second reading of Ordinance 776 with the modification I just described.

I'll still second it. Thanks for doing the hard work.

I got the verb in the wrong place. Oh, that's good. Alright, any more discussion on this?

You know, I'm going to vote yes on this because The sheriff wants it. I thought this might be too big of a problem for the sheriff. And I agree with Sean on that.

But since he wants it or the department wants it? Correct. That's my answer.

The public has really been engaged in this.

The public wants it, actually. I haven't heard anybody tell me that they want it.

You didn't have to go get saved.

But the sheriff did.

I've had public comments in my office with concerns of the scooters and want us to do something, especially after the last incident. So there has been some that's come through City Hall.

And I know there's only been one incident, but one incident is still too many. I mean, if it were my child and it was one incident, I would be all for this.

All right, any other discussion? Hearing none, we'll vote. Schilling.

Yes.

Horacek. Yes. Keel. Yes. Bowen. No. Manson.

Yes.

Carlson. Yes. All right. So we got that? Got that with the corrections?

We stumbled through it, but I think you got it.

Thank you, Cindy, for having lifting there. All right, we'll move down to reports. First one up is the fire department. Chief Todd Lowe has submitted his report. It's in your packet. Nothing kind of jumped out at me when I read through it.

They have public safety day this Saturday.

This Saturday, yes. From 10.30 to 12.30.

Good event. Get kids out to it.

Isn't that what it is, Craig? Or is it 10 to 12? You're supposed to know. Come on. Just throw a number out. You're going to be gone? Nine to one. Nine to one? No, you don't know. You'll find it. I'm looking, right? I think it's 10.30 to 12.30, but I'm not.

I think I'm supposed to help somebody if I find out. What do you smoke detector install? Do you actually go over and put them in? We've done that in the past. We went around and installed smoke detectors, but if we had somebody that would call the fire department and ask them if they would install smoke alarms for them, they wouldn't call us. 10 to 12.30. You're so close. I was tempted to... Shoot one out the wall on a Thanksgiving.

Yeah, they're battery smokes because they're not licensed electricians.

Anyway, we've gone several years.

All right. If there's nothing else on that, we'll move down to building inspector code enforcement report from Kyle. He's got pages of information in the packet.

All of those reports are in the packet, any questions on those?

Looks like we've got a few things going on, huh?

So when something, when the status of the building inspection says expired, is that the building permit or do you do something to close that out or it's just done?

Typically, Paul or I will reach out to the property owner if they don't hear anything or if they say, no, we decided not to move forward. The permits are good for a year or so after that.

If they do want to still move forward, though, we may give them another permit, yeah.

Okay, that's building permit. Anything on code enforcement that we need to know?

I got a couple updates on two properties in town. So the North Oaks Development, I don't know if you know, so every year in May I usually send out annual developer letters just to remind all the developments in town to keep the developments in mode. And with North Oaks, I've sent a couple courtesy notices, and then I find them. And as of today, the city went out and molded it.

Started in Moines. Started in Moines.

It's a big area.

It'll take some time.

So if you have any questions on that, I can answer those.

What do you anticipate for hours on that, Craig?

It'll probably be all of five hours. Okay.

at $2.50 an hour. We're probably cheaper than whoever they had hired to do it, so that's probably why they went that route. Probably.

And we need to up our costs because we don't want to be mowers. Like a residential, it's pretty steep.

Right. But for like a big thing like this. An area like that, right. We could just use a smaller mower.

Yeah.

No, I mean, I like that. It's not a good mower, yeah. The thing's more on the top. I have to ask a question by Blue Tide. They have a fence around a patch of leaves. What's going on up there?

That's their gas tanks.

That's where they got their gas tanks. Ask them to knock those down.

Yeah, they're pretty bad.

Yeah, they did some. I don't know if they've done yet. Of course, they are out to follow up on them.

It's not a weed plot.

I'm like, is that a wildflower plot? Sunflowers coming out of there.

Any luck with the post office?

Yeah, that was another update. So I sent those six businesses along the 38 there that had tall weeds and cattails in the ditch. All of them either complied or they're in progress of getting them removed except for the post office. Apparently I sent them a fine on May 11 and they got till the 25th before I put in a work order to have the city do it.

That's next month. That week from today.

Yeah, 25th, yeah. Is that property owner still like in Vermillion or Yankton? Sioux Falls. Sioux Falls. Sioux Falls. Yeah.

Federal government?

No.

They leased the property from a private owner. It's a built lease.

I was looking forward to suing the federal government there for a minute. I don't think we're going to go down that road, but that's a great idea. All right.

Any questions for Kyle or anything else you need us to know? All right, thank you. We'll keep plowing forward. Most exciting part of the evening, city engineer report. Michael.

Good evening, everyone. General engineering update. A couple of things we're going to touch on later in the agenda. So we'll postpone those to then. On the project update, the water resource recovery facility contractor committee used to push on the punch list and warranty items. There has been some movement. It sounds like the Rice Lake has been holding some retainers on some of the subs to push some things along. So there's been some movement there. on the Mickelson Road shared use path, have gotten decisions from those adjacent property owners. So we're going to proceed with the plan as presented. So within the right of way. So we'll get restarted on that one, preparing a revised schedule this week, and then we'll get that one built on.

Do you think we can do that yet this fall?

Well, the plan's complete this fall, yes. Construction is not going to start until this spring. killing me lots of questions about that as i was visiting homes yep yes there should be yep so that was that was strictly from the dot though that was nothing that you know the city or isg could really modify so it's just some some of the funding that they received there's some extended timelines uh for review and all of that free money is not free On Kelly Avenue, the trial street ended earlier this week. It sounds like we're planning a meeting for September to regroup with those residents. So we'll look for feedback at that meeting. And then lastly, on the Erud Lane and Diamond Trail intersection reconstruction, we did have that project bid last week. It is, a word of recommendation is provided in your packet, but wanted to pause and answer any questions that the council had on any of the engineering outputs.

I see that you wrote that blacktop paving as a good contractor for the area in the north. Yeah. I mean, because it's such a small amount between D and G concrete construction. I just wanted to know if there was a difference in our relationship at which one of those contracts.

Well, and for codified law, you do have to take the lowest qualified bidder.

The lowest qualified bidder.

Unless they're a contractor that's not in good standing. Correct. That we do have to take the lowest bid. Yeah.

If they've done something that gets them into trouble with us, then you can make that decision.

If they're not in good standing, there's some reason.

And I don't know if you looked at the numbers today. It was what?

It was really close.

100 and some bucks. I mean, on a 300 and some thousand dollar job, it would be 100 and some bucks. That's crazy. That's gotten her right to the wire.

If there are no questions, we can move right into X-Files.

Have we got any questions for Michael before we address his items that are up for discussion here?

Okay. So as noted, Reuben Diamond Intersection bid last week, Black Tie, or Black Top, apologies, was the low bidder at $322,635.95. That is about $67,000 less than our estimate. So it was a very competitive bid environment. And we do recommend award to Black Top Caving.

All right. Do we have action from the council regarding this bid?

I'll make a motion to approve the low bid of $322,635.95 from White Top Baby.

Second.

Any discussion? Hearing none, we'll vote. Carlson? Yes. Madsen? Yes. Bowen? Yes. Keel? Yes. Horace? Yes. Schilling? Yes. All right, what do you got next?

The next, there's been a lot of discussion on some stormwater. management facility acceptance on new and existing basins moving forward. There's been a fair amount of discussion at council to help call it accelerate that timeline and keep council meetings efficient. We're recommending that a committee or subcommittee of council members staff our forms just so that we can bounce ideas off of without having to wait for the biweekly council cadence. So then once call it the subcommittee, we can discuss those proposed changes with them and get buy-in from that group. Then we can bring those recommendations to the whole council for acceptance.

All right, I'm prepared to make recommendation to the council. At this time, I'd like to have Travis Keel and Cindy Mattson sit on that subcommittee for the stormwater detention ponds. And as we are doing with the sidewalk committee, I would ask that they would be paid for these additional extra meetings at our standard fee. So I would like, if possible, a motion from council to make that happen.

I'll make a motion that the meeting of the of this committee is the landscape committee for the wastewater treatment plant.

No, this is the detention pot.

Retention pot.

What's going on down there? That Travis and Cindy would get paid as a special meeting for the retention meetings. All right. Is that covered? Does that give you enough information to make the motion? And we have a second for Michelle. All right. Any discussion? Thank you two for, uh, well and totally, uh, we'll vote Michelle.

Yes.

Daryl. Yes. Travis. Yes. Sean. Yes. You don't have to abstain from that.

I was going to say.

You can't abstain from that. I don't have to? No. So then say yes. I'll say yes. Okay. Sean.

Because if she abstained from it, then it wouldn't pass. He said yes. I said yes.

Keith, yes. Okay. No, but you can't abstain from that. And I wanted to throw you off by going first names one time.

You did.

Did that throw you off? I was after that. I was really trying to throw you guys off a little bit.

You could have, yes. You could have voted no, yeah.

All right, what do you got next, sir? The last is the revised landscaping plan for the treatment building at the water treatment facility. Following council direction at the last meeting, our landscape architects have revised that plan and provided the cost estimate for the revised plan, just based on some recent data we've had. And there were a couple of site changes from the past plan. with the main goal to screen the facilities, and keeping it below that budgetary number. I believe in your packet, we looked at the original scope of what we estimated that would cost, and then taking out all of the seating and landscaping, all of that, and it was still over the 25,000, so they looked at this revised plan to attain those goals while keeping it within the allocated budget amount.

Because this really just does the building.

yeah and then the very original panel was kind of a lot more of the outside outer limits and this really kind of just screens the building

So the number's $23,490, is that correct?

That is our estimate. That is not a quote from a contractor, but we just wanted to provide this plan for buying. If you're good with the plan. And then Rice Lake would go out with this plan.

So you're just looking for approval of the plan to go forward and get it back.

for Craig, as far as.

You all right with this, Craig? Since you didn't get it, they must not want you to see it.

He's got it right now.

I just want to make sure we have room to work on that generator or get it removed or something like that if we need to. That's the biggest thing for regions.

And we can ship some of those trees to the north so you can get a truck back there if needed. That was one thing that the landscape architect noted. Right. Otherwise, I feel sorry.

I got two great big ones if you want to move them. Now, do you think that'll keep this? I mean, it's not going to create an issue where the snow will roll up over those evergreens and basically create an issue with the generator, right? It should, in theory, keep that snow north of the generator. It should create a little blowhole where the generator actually will have less snow around it.

Sure. Yeah, it's true to screen. It stops them not blowing.

Depends on which way the wind's blowing. It's a wide open area.

It is a wide open area out there. I can see next year where we have to plant another row to the north of that. We can keep doing that. Just make a shelter valve, as they call it. You got a couple trees you want to donate?

I got a couple great big trees if they want to move them. I think this looks great.

Oh, gee.

All right, action on this one.

Make a motion to approve the landscaping plan and quote of $23,490 from ISG for the wastewater plant. Is that really correct?

Is that your quote? Well, it's our opinion on probable cost. So it's not a quote from a contractor.

It's basically a... You approved up to $25,000. It's similar to the capital money plans.

So I think this will approve the plan. within land up to $25,000. Yeah, not to exceed.

Perfect. All right, we got a second on that. If it exceeds that, the ISG isn't going to send their team out and do it for $23,490.

You're not going to go dig holes.

I hope not.

All right, any discussion?

Thank you for having a landscape architect do that.

Hearing none, we'll vote. Carlson? I was a second. Mattson? Yes. Bowen? Yes. Keough? Yes. Horace? Yes. Shelly? Yes. All right, what else you got? That is a laugh. I heard a rumor that you possibly got engaged. That's correct, yes.

Oh man, that look on his face.

How about that? Hey, you don't think I find stuff out. I find stuff out. I'm just telling you. Thank you. Congratulations. Congratulations. And this is the young lady from Vogel that I've met. Yes, it is. Oh, yeah. I know, that's why. Yes, same here.

But that's been a while ago.

That's been a while ago. I'm just confirming. Congratulations, Michael. Thank you. Can we send him a letter? Who, me? No, all of us will send him a letter on behalf of the city. All right, thank you for your report and all your work on that stuff. All right. I didn't mean to spring that on you, but I thought I would.

I kind of put that one in my back pocket. It takes a lot to get Michael to show emotion.

So now you'll have to show her the video that we were picking up. I'm sure she's watching.

She's probably watching right now. If your phone starts ringing, we'll know. Well, he's convinced that he's an Internet celebrity, so of course she's watching.

All right, let's move down to public works report. Craig, what do you got for us?

Just a couple updates. The parks at Janco Village should be done painting the pickleball court either Friday or Monday, depending on what the storm does tonight or tomorrow morning. And then we'll get in there within a couple days and get the fence up and that'll be, those courts will be open to play on. Bike trail, highway improvements was there today and resealed a bunch of the joints on the bike trail building, some of that were settled, so we'll take a look at that and see how it turned out. Sports complex, we do have the supports for the scoreboards. We picked those up today, so we will be putting those up. Probably next week we'll be hopefully getting on those, if not the end of this week. And also, the leveling of dirt for the playground equipment, we should be done with that tomorrow morning. We'll start laying that out to make sure it's gonna fit where we got it, and if we need to add a little bit more, we'll add a little more dirt in there. and then concrete for the shed. We're hoping to do that on Thursday. That's all I got for updates.

I know you got one action item on here. Any questions for Craig on his report before we move to his request here? Just a comment.

The light poles up at the wastewater treatment facility looks great. The light, just want to make sure it's not frightening all the way to I-90. For whatever reason, I noticed those things, strangely. For whatever reason, when I drove by, I was, must have been eastbound, I was westbound, and just happened to look. I just want to make sure it's not affecting traffic.

I haven't had any complaints, and usually DOT will let us know. We thought we had it angled up.

Okay.

Just an observation. Usually DOT, like on the billboards, we have one that they'll call us right away and let us know. We haven't heard anything, but...

It's a pretty small light, but it's bright. And so I don't know if it might take a little shudder maybe on that one side to really make sure that light gets kicked up there, but just an observation.

Thanks, and I haven't had any complaints. We looked at it pretty close. We put it up just to make sure that it's going to be above the traffic lights.

And while I was out observing lights, I noticed the new solar lights on the Welcome to Hartford sign, and just two of them just have a little less energy than the other two. So like 10.30, all four of them will be on. 11, only two of them are on. I don't know what's going on there. The two, if you're looking at it, two to the right stay on longer than the... Two to the left, that's true. Well, it's the same solar panel.

There's six solar panels there on that. They're all on the same side.

Right, on the back side, that looks like, right?

I can go through the adjustment, just make sure things set the same there, right?

Those solar panels don't feed one bank, they're like separate banks.

There's two banks in there, yeah. So there's two batteries, two cabinets, then you've got three solar panels for one, three solar panels for the other one, and each one takes care of two lights.

I will say, though, when they're shining, it really does look good. You have to parallel them all together. Yeah.

How did you know that at 10.30 it was this time and then 11? Because he comes. You sit up there?

He goes to the Sioux Falls every day. Because I come home. I come back to Hartford way too late, way too often. He comes home from work at either 10.30 or 11.

Okay.

That's what he tells us.

Have you ever tried the Brooks Road? Because the interstate's not good.

There's another option. Well, then you gotta go buy that new Smithfield.

You don't wanna do that. We'll take a look at it and see if there's something on the job.

Sounds good. All right, anything else for Craig? If not, he's got a request in here. Him and Jesse would like to attend the South Dakota Water and Wastewater Association Annual Conference, which is being held this year in Aberdeen, it looks like.

Yep.

16th through the 18th of September. I know that's always, you get some continuing ed for that, don't you?

Yeah. There's that, and then also on the 15th at two o'clock I have a board of operators meeting.

So why would we not send our wastewater guy there?

Oh, that's right. He's going to be going the following week to... Another one?

Kansas, to the Aramont training.

Oh, that's right. And we'll be, throughout the year, we'll be sending different people to different classes to keep up with their hours.

All right. Motion to approve Wagner and O'Kane's attendance at the SDWA conference. Second.

Any discussion? Hearing none, we'll vote. Schilling. Yes. Rochek. Yes. Keel. Yes. Bullitt. Yes. Mattson. Yes. Carlson. Yes. All right. Anything else, Craig?

Thank you. That's all I got.

All right.

Stop shooting, huh? You going to bring your shotgun out there?

He plays golf, usually.

All right. Let's move down to.

Not a city vehicle.

We can't.

Let's move down to Karen's report. We can't. Finance officer's report. Karen, what do you got for us?

Yeah, my report's in the packet. The only thing I wanted to add is I got no other petitions in today besides the four of you that have already filed, so there won't be an election. I'll slide right back in. Congratulations.

We're always saving the taxpayers' money, aren't we?

I'm happy.

Other than that, unless you have questions on my report, I just have one action item. Our CD is up for renewal.

Okay, go ahead and give us that explanation.

Okay. Our current CD was a five-month CD with Relia Bank. We earned about $1,400 interest over the last five months, so the balance of that is just over $94,000. Checking the rates at both banks, ReliBank is the most competitive and actually their 16 month is better than their five month, which usually it's the reverse. So their 16 month is 3.76% interest. So, Teresa and I talked and keep it in a deposit account, checking account at about 20,000. So we have about 12, a little over almost 1300 that we could, add in addition to the maturity value of the current CD, roll that into a new CD. So what we're recommended is the 16 month with the live end, the 95, 451, 12. Okay.

Enough, any action from the council on that one?

Motion to approve the renewal with the terms presented and the amount and the 16-month term at Reliving.

And we also need, in the minutes, the authorized signers on the CD. In the past, it's been Teresa and I usually, so can you make that part of your motion?

And the authorized signers for this will be Teresa and Karen.

Second.

Any discussion? Good work. We want to make money every time we can. If not, we'll vote. Carlson? Yes. Mattson? Yes. Bowen? Yes. Gale? Yes. Project? Yes. Shelly? Yes. You got anything else, Karen?

No, that was it.

All right. Thank you. Teresa, let's move down to your report.

I just have just a couple of quick little updates. As Michael pointed out, we are done with our trial run on Kelly Avenue, so we indicated to those homeowners that we will have a follow-up meeting with them to get their input, good, bad, whatever, with it. I kind of suggested, you know, we have at our second meeting in September, we talked about a little bit of possibly having a meeting prior to our council meeting on that second meeting. So it would be the 18th of September. to meet with them for like an hour or so, and then we would move into, for a special meeting, and then we'd move into our regular council meeting. Keith mentioned he can't make it, he won't be here at all that date. I don't know if it works for the rest of the year. We should look at something else. September. 18th. It'd be the 18th of September, and that's our, Second meeting for the month. 15th. 15th, is that? Sorry. Oh, yeah, it is. 15th, sorry. I'm trying to go off memory, and obviously that's not working. It's the 15th.

It'd be the 15th, yeah, September 15th.

I figure if we can meet with them like at 530 to 630, and then we can go lunch or...

It's kind of a special day in the Jones house. It is. It's the Joneses' anniversary.

Oh, no. That's right.

That's right. We had council on my anniversary a week

Yes, we did. Yes, we did.

Oh, wait, it was my birthday. Never mind.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Do you need any action for that or do you just want to send them off?

Well, it would just be if that is a consensus council because then we would get some follow-up letters out to the residents so they can, you know, plan their.

Do we have to have a quorum for that part of it?

Well, you don't have to. I mean, we would call a special meeting if we do have a quorum. If we don't have a quorum, it just depends on how many people want to kind of interact with the residents and get their input.

Yeah, I can be here too.

I should be available. Yeah, I should be available.

Let's plan. Are everybody all right? Let's plan on that.

And then we'll just plan on a special meeting because it sounds like everybody but Keith.

I should be there. Let's plan on making a special meeting at 530. Then we'll do our regular meeting afterwards.

And have that discussion and then move on from there. Okay, perfect. And then just kind of want to point out, I've noted to you guys previously in one of my updates, my email updates, but the mayor and I are going to meet with Michelle and Daryl on the 25th to kind of continue that sidewalk discussion again and look at possible things we can do to get started. some fillers and kind of keep that going. So we'll have a meeting that day. Having my report too, we got back our ISO audit and basically that is when they came in, they actually came in last fall, kind of went over, looked to see what the city does as far as like building codes, what codes we've adopted, what we do for inspections, you know, what regulations we put in place. Basically they would like to see that very strong department in that and because obviously the safer structures we build, you know, that's better as far as insurance ratings or whatnot, you know, they're better structures or whatnot. Ultimately, the ISO rating we get is incorporated by insurance companies to kind of help bring down insurance premiums for our community and whatnot. So They do this about every three years. Like I said, we had the audit, took them a while to kind of get the report back, but we got it back this last week. We actually got a better ranking than what we previously had. So that's a good, we went down two points from what our previous ranking was, which was very good. It's a one to 10 score and the lower the score, the better for you. basically only the larger cities like Sioux Falls or Rapid City that have a whole department dedicated to get the one. So I think our rankings are very good. And like I said, we've come down two points from previously. So that shows that we're implementing a lot of good stuff as far as our regulations.

Yeah. What are we between on the one to 10 scale though?

Yeah. So the last audit, the city's ranking went from a class four residential and a class three commercial, and then we went down two points on both of them.

So basically we went down- One for commercial, two for residential.

Six and a five, and we went down two, sorry, four and a three, yeah. Sorry, I read that wrong. That's so good, yep. So we went down two points on both, so that was good. So our Billings and Checkers are doing a good job. They're doing a great job.

Not too great, but get us down to a one, and then you'll get your Christmas bonus.

And then just a little update on our cyber security. Like I said, we have that checklist of things we need to implement. I am actually meeting with our IT representative tomorrow morning, and we're going to go over the firewall native and different stuff so we can get that implemented and get our grant.

Question on that, because Amy does my IT stuff, and I've gotten to know the group over there. Craig and I chatted a little bit last night. I want to make sure, and maybe I'm a little bit crazy, but our neighbors, our friends to the north of Minnesota, I don't know if their wastewater or whatever was hit. Well, they're north, east, north and east, not just north. But you know, their wastewater, what was it, Craig? Their water systems got hacked. Yeah, their water systems got hacked.

That's one of the things he's reviewing when he comes out here. We're going out to the plant.

Are we secured out there is the question.

Firewall, we got all the security we need out there.

Who's coming from A&B tomorrow?

Ross.

Ross is coming?

From the head of the department, yeah. But he didn't do that. I mean, Dakota Wesleyan did all that. Oh, yeah. They did our audit.

They did our audit, but A&B does the IT. We'll help us with that.

We'll help implement getting the firewall in place and the... the correct software and the different things needed to upgrade to their highest level to address what our audit recommended. So yeah, that is part of why he's physically coming out.

What time is he coming out tomorrow?

10 o'clock, I believe. 10, 10.30?

So it says we can utilize the secure SD grant fund. So is that like a reimbursement? Yes.

Actually, it's not even a reimbursement. The way I think it works is that A and B will see what we all need, provide us a quote. I send that to Secure SD and I think they pay A and B directly is the way I understand it. So nothing really passes through the city. So yeah, like I said, they're coming out and looking here and we are going to the wastewater plant too to make sure everything's in place that we need out there too.

Awesome. All right, anything else? Nope, that's all there is. Any other questions for Teresa? All right, we'll move down to old business. We talked about this kind of at length last night, our capital improvement plan, but it is in here because we...

technically always approve it this time right around budget time correct yeah we kind of look at it for budget but we postponed it to from last meeting to this meeting but yeah we talked about pretty much you know especially the 2027 projects you know at last night's budget meeting but we do have the whole five year they're kind of laid out and so um like i said every year we review this we adjust it uh if there's different needs that pop up or projects fall off or you know if we need to one comes to the forefront sooner than we think, you know, it's always adjusted every year. We do review it just to make sure we're staying on top of it and looking at it. There are a few things that we have added that we thought of that we just need to kind of keep on the radar, obviously. So I kind of noted that and currently this is our five year CIP though.

Can you talk about the utility extensions? and the 464th Street improvements, just like timing of those and why?

Certainly. So with the 2nd Street East utility extension, right, number five? so windsor the windsor group i believe is planning to approve second street as part of their tip just within their the bounds of their property but with the 38 north further to the east they do have another access that kind of goes up to second street on the gravel there intent with that is to provide a water main loop currently there's a pretty decent sized loop and there has been for a few years now and it's kind of behind the scenes caused us a little bit of stress, just something should happen to that. So we want to stay ahead of that for that development to provide that second source of water service for that development. That's about 160, 150 acres there.

That's the Jams.

The Jams in Virginia North, yeah. And then as far as the other one that Cindy Hewitt said, 464. 464. Yeah. So that's from the dog park, east of the dog park, south to across the creek. And timing of that really is likely driven by the future school expansion. along Mickelson Road, just so as folks come from the north, they're not routing all the way over to Mickelson where it meets 38 and then coming back to the west or driving down the road, just to provide almost a more direct route for that project. At this time, the water main loop that is included with that isn't necessarily critical, but it's something we would add just for redundancy in the city system.

Are we concerned with all those homes going in there or with the model of water going in? I mean, is it water pressure? Would it affect the water pressure on those?

No, with the water model, I mean, the development, you know. Yeah, so, yeah, we had looked at that within the water model. Kind of a worse case if they were on a single service and then kind of looking at the future of when they would be looked in. The pressures were really similar. It's more so if you know, at the, call it, southwest corner of that development along, just east of Quick Start, you know, if something were to happen to the water being there, you know, however many homes have been built or lived in within that whole development would be without water if that loop was not in place. So that would cause a significant disruption to those homeowners.

Obviously, if we can find a workaround, it would be a permanent... There could be a temporary solution if that water main were damaged to that.

Right now, we try to keep less than 20, 30 homes that would get shut down on time. If something would happen over by Turtle Creek there, the last loop is up there by Shamrock. So everybody from Shamrock that way is on one line. So this would make that loop so if you had a break somewhere, you could isolate with their valves and just have a few people on the second direction. We try to make the developers on their developments within like 30 homes to have that under loop around.

So this is where we're trying to get this.

Is that a big demand you're expecting then from there? I mean, will it drop the overall water pressure or no?

Your water pressure won't, I mean, the mains are oversized accordingly to handle the volume of water. Your pressure, since we have the volume going through, your pressure will just depend on basically according to the water tower.

The loop is for redundancy, not pressure, right?

For fire flows, all that stuff. There's other water quality aspects as well. Primarily if something were to happen where that water might be shut off. Yes. You could bypass it.

You could feed it from another direction.

Once we get the loops in, everything's opened up so water can travel any which way.

Sure, sure. Right, right. It doesn't like to have that loop shut off. It doesn't sit there dead. That's the best way for it to not work when you need it.

Yep. So everything's open. They're pretty hot up there. in the elevation as far as concerning the . I believe the tower's still higher yet.

So it's probably water pressure there.

I think they'll be in pretty good shape. If we put the second water tower where it is, do you want to have people out there? The second tower would still be at about the same, or it wouldn't be at the same elevation unless we go into different zones, which we didn't see a need for that because of the elevation of the tower right now. Actually, the more you head east, unless you get up on top of one of the hills, everything down below, like Turtle Creek and all that, is going to have higher pressure because they're actually getting lower. For every 2.2, roughly, feet, you gain one PSI.

Just going through this, what anticipated pool upgrades

are in mind. Well, that's the question, right? Because I've never heard of a $6 million pool of grades. I've heard of potentially for a new pool.

So just in that, that may be a major thing, but that was based on a similar scope scale as what Canton recently installed based on the bids they received. So really not much else has been done besides that. So if that changes, then that number will certainly need to shift.

Okay. There's no set design or whatnot. I mean, so obviously... the dollar amount will shift. It should go down, right?

It's been going up so much. It's got to go down eventually. I don't know. It must come down.

But we want a placeholder there and kind of idea of what this could cost.

Well, I think in my mind when I look at that 11, 12, 13, we've got the pool kind of targeted for 2030 in TBD on the community center and city hall. I just wonder if we shouldn't spend some time, I don't think it has to be updated this year, but what actual order are we thinking there? And what do we think of the community? Are they more interested in the pool or the community center? I mean, it would be good to gather some intel. We know what we want rolled. Because I think letting those big projects all sit out there, it seems like we should be able to move something up.

Doesn't it? And the pool probably going to depend a lot on if we get more future leagues, you know, how long it holds up too. So it could be shifted one way or the other, yeah.

Is it closed as of today? Last Friday. Friday, okay.

SATISFY THE SUMMER.

I GUESS, YEAH. I MEAN, WE HAVE THAT YEAR OUT THERE SITTING AT $13 MILLION. and three TBD items, like it seems like we should get a little more proactive maybe and start moving something up. Like we talked about, we have reserves.

Could turn Duncan loose to find a sponsorship for that pool.

Well, I think that there's, I mean, it sounds funny, but I think that, you know, look at what he did selling banners.

Or start some type of a campaign if we're willing to match it at a certain point in time.

Yep, I think we can leave that for a couple months. That's a great idea.

Item six there, the trail extension. That, in my opinion, is probably enough to get the trail done. But that is a really dark area. And I would encourage any further planning in there to have an alternate or an option on lighting. We did submit that with this last grant.

Because we knew there would be no vinyl. So with the grant, we did submit it. So that's all?

I know you're probably comparing it to the Mickelson Road trail cost, right? So that one's planned to be concrete, whereas this one, you're in for Craig, since it's not along the road, it's asphalt, so it's a little less spendy, but we did have included some lighting along that path. Solar lighting or something like that, something easy. The last one we had looked at was solar. The bane of Craig's existence.

You get what you pay for. You hate the planet then. Anything else on CIP?

No, other than, I mean, I don't want to just show up and have it look the same next year at some point. I don't know that I think we need to change anything right away, but I do think...

Maybe we need to look at this next spring or whatnot, kind of before the season starts or what. And we can do that. We'd like to have it updated before budget, but we can look at it earlier, too, and then revisit it again right before budget. I mean, no saying we can't look at it a couple times. I mean, it's coming up fast. Yeah.

Quick question. If you apply for a grant, typically like a federal grant, how long can you hold on to that grant before you actually utilize those dollars? How long is that?

Two to three years. I was just thinking of the water tower project. The time frame that you have to use it.

Yeah, because I know that's coming down the pipeline. That's a big project.

All right. If there's no major changes, I'd entertain a motion to approve this as presented for... the 2027 budget year to have this included.

Make a motion to approve the updated CIP. Second. Any more discussion?

Hearing none, we'll vote. Schilling. Yes. Prochek. Yes. Keel. Yes. Bowen. Yes. Matson. Yes. Carlson. Yes. Anything else? I don't think we need to go into exec for anything. Can we go into personnel? What's that?

Can we go into personnel? I'm sorry.

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

Thanks for joining me. Thanks for this. You're welcome.

Looks like we're up.

All right, I'll make a motion to approve the hiring of candidate A for the public's work position at the amount discussed.

Second.

Any discussion? Hearing none, we'll vote. Carlson? Yes. Mattson? Yes. Bowen? Yes. Keel? Yes. Horacek? Yes. Shelley? Yes. I'd entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved.

Second.

All in favor? Aye.