Common Council - Regular Meeting

I think so.

Okay, I have it is 630, so I'm going to call the Lake Mill City Council meeting to order on July 21st, 2026. Roll call, please. Ms. Curler? Here. Ms. Schmager?

Here.

Ms. Quidnow?

Here. And Mr. Burtlett and Mr. Coots previously informed staff that they would be unavailable for this evening's meeting.

Thank you. Please stand for Pledge of Allegiance.

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.

Our first item on the agenda this evening is correction and acceptance of the city council meeting minutes from July 7th, 2026. Any comments, corrections? I would like to note that there was one error, I believe, in the item noting resolution 26-61 in the be it further resolved. I believe we're missing the word native in front of range ecological. I think there was a typographical error. I believe the company is Native Range Ecological. So if that could be corrected, I'd appreciate it. And then we will accept the minutes into the record. Did you see that, Ms. T? Okay, thank you. Next we have board and committee reports, and we have the June 9th, 2026 Public Works Board Minutes. Any update or comment on those? Okay, then they also will be accepted into the record. Next item on the agenda is correspondence and constituent contacts. So Michelle, would you please nope?

Can you have no sister? Okay, Lisa, would you please oh you waiting for your computer to load?

Okay, Lisa, would you please start? Sure, I think all council members receive some correspondence with questions about where golf carts whether golf carts are allowed in the city I received several contacts regarding sandy beach and Park, several contacts of people very enthusiastic about the concept plan that we approved last time, and some questions or input regarding lifeguards and parking fees. And then I think we're all contacted about the library web pages, and I think staff made some updates there. And that's it for me. OK, thank you.

You can go ahead.

Okay, I also received correspondence on the hard-boiled egg processing. I believe we all received that one. I joined the JRLC meeting and I also received a correspondence along with Drake around interest in partnering with the city on E. coli testing, just a conversation with JRLC that they are looking to have with the staff.

My computer decided that it wanted to go through some updates right about now. So I will get back to you. But as far as I remember, and I have been keeping very good attendance to my email and correspondence, there isn't anything I need to add.

OK. Thanks, Michelle. Okay, so moving on, we have public comment. We have one person who is registered to speak. So Marty, you're registered to speak. You're invited to address the council at this time. Please state your name and address when you're called on to make your comments. No action will be taken on items not listed on the agenda, and you are limited to three minutes. Thank you. Yes, please.

My name is Marty Dula.

That's your timer. Sorry.

Oh, that's fine. You're ready to go. What do I have to do? Push the timer?

No, I got it. No, you're good. Just take your time. You have three minutes. I'm Marty from the Itty Bitty.

And I just wanted to thank you all for approving the Itty Bitty to begin with. It's been great. And I've been down there now for a little while. And what I'm proposing, obviously, is a slight change to the parking issue down there. And I don't know if it's even possible to make a change at this point. But regardless, maybe some of my observations you can still find some value in. Personally, as a resident, we never went down to the lake during the day. We always went in the evening. I was surprised at how busy it is during the day. It is really busy. And I've been down there regularly now for six weeks. But around 4, 5 o'clock, all those day beach people move out and they are pretty much gone. And there's very little new traffic coming in. And I suspect if you check the parking fees, the records, that parking revenue would plummet after 5 o'clock or 6 o'clock. And what's kind of curious is that my sales are interesting. I sell about 25% of my total sales during the day before 5 o'clock, but 75% of my sales are coming after 5 o'clock. So it's going well, but I think it could be going even better if parking fees were just eliminated after 5 or 6 o'clock. I don't think the city is making any money after 5 or 6 o'clock anyway because there's just naturally people are not coming to the lake at that time of day. But at the same time, it's also prohibiting people, especially townspeople, from coming to the lake because essentially, I think from many conversations I've had with them, it's essentially a cover charge. They have to pay and come down. and eat, whether it's with me or another vendor or anyone else. So I think not only is the city not making money off of parking just because of the natural flow of things, it's also limiting itself because of the 5% that I pay to the city is kind of being limited by people not being incentivized or being disincentivized to come out to the lake. I guess my point is, if it was free after 5 or 6 o'clock, I think that would be a reasonable compromise. It would incentivize people to come down to the lake from the town and surrounding areas. That would obviously, in my own interest, increase my sales, but it would also increase payment to the city. In addition, I think the city would have to staff parking enforcement down there, and the city would... would get a more accurate projection going forward for the new as we move towards reconstruction of the building to see what the real interest is for people who would feel free to come down and eat. So thank you very much for considering and thank you for giving your time to serve in this public office.

Thank you, Marty. Thank you.

It wasn't going.

Oh. That's okay, you did a good job. I have not, I don't know, just this buzzer and I don't seem to coordinate. Greg Kuss offered to take that job over for me, so in his absence. But thank you, Marty. Next on the agenda, we have the city manager's report, and I will turn it over to Drake.

One correction I will make. There's a typo. The library has fundraised approximately $2,210,000. I put it at $2,250,000. They have not quite yet hit that number. So it's $2,210,000 that they have raised to date. Otherwise, there's a number of attachments. Are there any questions?

OK, no questions. Thank you for comprehensive reports. Drake and it looks like you have been very busy engaging with all of your attendance of multiple meetings, so I look forward to learning more about how that is moving our needles here in the city. So super appreciate the report.

I guess the one thing I'll note is I have asked Mary to sit in on some meetings as we move through design. This is simply to keep a council voice in the process. If this was a private sector development, we would have regular meetings with the principals, I guess I'll call them, but that's not necessarily feasible with the full council at all times. i'm just looking for some assistance on keeping the council informed of the process that we're going through and then keeping us on schedule as to to when to present to make sure we're ready to present to the city council at regular intervals so that we can make sure council priorities and values are represented throughout the process and that decision points are reached at the time that we need to reach them so that you're all continuing to see the progress being made and being able to direct staff as to what the next steps should be at each point in the process.

Thank you.

So any questions or comments for Drake? No? OK. Thanks, Drake. Moving on to council business for this evening.

Our first item on the agenda is Resolution 26 dash 62 and so if you could read that please Misty City Council resolution 26 dash 62 authorizing the city manager and city clerk to execute an agreement for the 2026 northern expansion electric line construction project l03 dash 24 B spec 4 2 2 2

And I think Lucas, you're going to be on for this agenda item.

Yeah, so thank you. We had the project that came before you. It was bid out and we opened up bids on July 2nd and had four bidders with J&R Underground being a low responsible bidder. We reached out to them noticing the discrepancy in some of the I guess the bids between all of them, just to ensure they had a clear understanding of the project and the scope of the work, and they felt very comfortable. And J&R Underground is our current underground contractor we have right now that does local projects for us. So we work with them all the time as well. So Forrester Engineering and Lake Mills staff, we recommend awarding the contract to J&R Underground. If there's any questions, I can help answer.

Questions?

Lisa? I was just curious if you had a thought about why there was such a disparity, and not just the bottom three, but the top, the highest bid was three times the bottom bid, and I was kind of out of curiosity comparing some of the line items, and some of them were significantly different. I don't know, do you have any concerns about it, or thoughts about why it was so wide?

No, overall with the bids, I don't have concerns that they came in. We did reach out, like I say, to J&R, and And talking with them, they compared their numbers to similar bid prices they already have with the City of Lake Mills, and they feel comfortable with everything they submitted. And after all, the project was bid on our specification, so that's what we adhere to. So they all had their equal opportunity to review those and put the numbers to them. So we feel very, very good with them. And why the high bidder was the high, you know, I couldn't speculate why they put those higher numbers on there. All four are reputable, but Jay and I are.

Okay, I know sometimes, you know, a higher bid might be that maybe this isn't their top, maybe they're already full up, but they'll take, you know, they'll take the job if you're paying top dollar, but I'm glad you're, I appreciate your detailed memo, and I'm glad you feel confident in the low bidder.

Okay.

I'll move to approve City Council Resolution 26-62, authorizing City Manager and City Clerk to execute an agreement For the 2026 Northern Expansion Electric Line Construction Project.

Second. Okay, so we have a motion by Michelle Quidnow, a second by Lisa Curler.

Give a roll call, please. Ms. Schmager? Aye. Ms. Quidnow? Aye. Ms. Curler? Aye. Motion passes 3-0.

Okay, next we have Resolution 26-63. Misty, could you please read that one?

City Council Resolution 26-63, authorizing the city manager and city clerk to execute an agreement for the 2026 Lake Street Sanitary Sewer Extension Project.

Lucas, you're on again.

Thank you. Similar, this project was bid out, and we received bids back on July 9th with three bidders submitting bids. We reviewed them along with Strand. Strand and Associates, and a little better was Forest Landscaping and Construction, and we've worked with them on multiple projects as well here within the city in the past. We're recommending awarding them the contract to Forrester Landscaping.

Okay, any questions or comments for Lucas on this particular subject?

Move approval of resolution 26 dash 63 authorizing the city manager and city clerk to execute an agreement for the 2026 Lake Street sanitary sewer extension project second Okay, we have a motion by Lisa curlers second by Michelle quit now And we'll do a roll call, please Miss quit now.

Hi. Miss curler. I miss Schmager. I motion passes 3-0

Next, we have a second reading. This is Ordinance 1293. So, Misty, could you read that, please?

Ordinance 1293, an ordinance annexing territory of the City of Lake Mills, Jefferson County, Wisconsin.

Okay, so anything you want to discuss on this as a second reading?

I just have a question looking online. It looks like the document was updated today, and I didn't look at it. So, is there something new that we need to be aware of?

I did update the ordinance today. The state responded back, and in the review of the legal description, there was just an S for south missing in one portion, and they caught that, and so I included that, and the petition, or I'm sorry, the supporting documents will change too once I get that from the petitioner. So I just don't have that part yet, but we added the S, and to make it complete, that was the only change. Sounds good, thank you.

Okay, since this was a second reading, this will be a third reading on our next agenda. And so moving on, our last item before we adjourn is announcements and recommendations for future agendas.

We will be polling city council members for availability immediately prior to the August 18th city council meeting for a work session with the library board and their capital campaign committee.

Yep. Any other announcements or topics for future agenda?

I just had a reminder I mentioned before the meeting started that the Parks Board did recommend approval of the updated corp. And I know it's in staff's hands. It might need a little polishing, but I think that the substance is there. So whenever that's ready, just want to make sure we don't forget about it.

Thank you. And I will not be here at the next meeting. So hopefully the other two will.

Okay, thanks for letting us know. And then based on our very aggressive timeline that we possibly have in front of us for Sandy Beach, I would like to make sure that we have whatever work we can complete for Sandy Beach added to either an agenda item or we find an opportunity for us to make sure that we continue to move the needle Because if we move on the aggressive schedule as I think we've given a nod to with our agreement on concept, we will have to really have our ducks in a row to move.

I would anticipate either monthly action items or updates on the Sandy Beach project.

So any other announcements or agenda topics? Okay, then it is 6.47. I am going to call the meeting adjourned. Thank you.

Shortest one. I think it might be shortest one.

I think so.

17 minutes?

In five years.

Yeah, 18 minutes. I mean, it was a pretty short agenda.

It was, it was. And...

Oh, he's turned off that.