City Council - Special Meeting

A-T-H-M, whatever it is. I've heard of him before.

It is 630 and I will call the special work session of the City Council meeting for August 3rd, 2026 to order. We do have a quorum public forum. Individuals may address the City Council about items on the agenda or not included on the agenda. Speakers are required to state their name and address for the Council record and limit their remarks to three minutes or fewer. Speakers are requested to frame their comments around items that fall within the authority of the City Council. Generally, the City Council will not take official action on the items discussed at this time, but may place the item on file, take the matter under advisement, refer the matter to staff or a committee for a future report, or direct the matter to be placed on an upcoming agenda. Does anyone wish to speak? Does anyone wish to speak? Does anyone wish to speak? If you would please just go to the podium, state your name.

Randy Seahafer. I'd like to bring up, uh, what we're going to do as far as clean up in the streets and stuff, as far as weed control and stuff for the, uh, our craft fair. Do we have a plan as far as cleaning up the streets and sidewalks? Is that in our agenda for our craft come coming up in the next month?

That would be under the guise of a public works. Greg came in.

Um, yeah. Um, usually the week or so before the craft fair, we do come through it with a street sweeper and everything blowed all the parking lots and, and prep as much as we do. Yeah.

I'm talking about in front of the businesses, which don't clean it up and in the cracks in the sidewalks, and, and going down the traffic that comes, we have a lot of people that come here. You, they come off of a three 71 and 10 and you have, um, they go past the school. There's weeds in front of the school and it looks bad for little falls. So I would think that, uh, whoever's, if it's great, that has to take care of that, that they should, look at those streets that come into our city. So I just bringing it up at this time.

I actually brought that up to Alex and Mr. Kim and, um, that the downtown, um, businesses were not cleaning up the area. And I was told that the re uh, businesses are responsible for that and that we were going to contact them. So, um, I would hope that would be done before the arts and crafts fair.

I've been up here for five years, and I haven't seen any of these businesses take care of that. And they're in the street. They're in front of almost the fire department in the street. And they're just getting taller this dry year. So it's just a reflection on the city.

Yes, it is.

So people like our craft fair, so I think that we should do something about it. So I'm just bringing it up. I don't know what our agenda is and stuff like that. Thank you. I just sort of want to see what we're going to do. Thank you. Okay, thanks.

Anyone else wish to speak? Anyone else? Hearing none, we'll move on to bills discussion. Is there any discussion on the bills? Hearing none, we'll move to the consent agenda. Any discussion on the consent agenda items? Hearing none, we'll move on to council informational only items. Our first one is audit review by Ryan Schmidt of Schlenner, Winner & Company. Welcome, Ryan.

Thank you. All right, I'm going to walk us through the results of our 2025 audit. As in the past, we have a presentation in the form of a PowerPoint here that we're going to go through, and I've also passed out some copies if you want to follow along with that. But for starters, flipping into the first page, I always like to go over just a quick reminder of what exactly the audit process is, just at a high level, and what is the overall result of the audit. So an audit essentially consists of us obtaining your financial records and information from the past year, 2025, and performing various procedures over this information as shown here on this slide. So lots of inquiries with people within the city, various analytics where we compare to whether it be the budget or to prior years, comparing that revenue and expense activity, and then lots of detailed testing and sampling procedures where we're looking at supporting documentation for the actual transactions that are in your accounting system for the purpose of being able to express an opinion on whether or not all of that information is correct because that's what comes together and makes up the financial statements. So the opinion that we've given you this year is what's called an unmodified opinion, and that is a clean opinion, which is the best you can achieve. The next page here just kind of talks about, you know, so you got that clean opinion, but how did the audit process go? So we have some required communications here where, you know, if we had any difficulties getting the information we needed, or let's say we saw unusual accounting policies or procedures or just anything along those lines that we needed to point out, this is where we would tell you about it. But as you can see from the slide here, Nothing along those lines. Everything went smoothly. Uh, no issues getting the info we needed, nothing to report there. Next page. We do have a few items here, which I consider to kind of be the standard three, I would say for a lot of the cities that we work with. So I'll walk through each of these pretty briefly. The first one is audit adjustments. So historically, you've actually outsourced a lot of your year-end accounting adjustments to go from kind of the cash basis of accounting where you're just tracking cash receipts and disbursements to all of the balances that are required in the financial statements. So receivables, payables, capital assets, long-term debt, so on and so forth. So because we assist with those journal entries, We have to have a finding in the report that talks about how we post adjustments during the audit. The one in the middle there, by far the most common. This is pertaining to a lack of segregation of duties. Just based on the size of the city, it's really hard to get away from this one. It's something I'm sure you've heard in the past, but you just need to be aware that there are certain people who have full or nearly full access to your accounting system. So just implement oversight, ask questions wherever possible. And then finally, we as a third party, we do prepare your financial statements and we always need to just point that out that there's an outside entity ourselves preparing your financials. Next page. As part of the audit, we also have to review your compliance with Minnesota statutes. So the state gives us checklists related to each of the areas that are bullet pointed here and we look at how did you go about contracting and bidding and where do you keep your cash investments and so on and so forth. This year we did not have any compliance findings as a result of that review. So everything looked clean there. All right. With that, we'll move into the numbers a bit here. I'm going to start out with the general fund, just a really big picture look. So here we have 2021 through 2025 revenues and expenditures in the blue and red, and then the fund balance at the end of each year in the green. And then we also have the 2025 budget on the right hand side there. So just a really big picture look for starters, comparing to the budget, revenues did exceed budgeted amounts by about 215,000 and expenditures were under budgeted amounts by about 170,000. So overall you had budgeted for just a break even year, but you actually ended the year with an increase in your fund balance of about 303,000. Now the next two pages take those same revenues and expenditures and we break them down into smaller categories and do a little more detail here. So the first page here looking at revenues. First thing you can see across the board, the red is being the actual revenues for the year and then the green is the budgeted amounts. Very close to budget in every category shown here. Your largest two categories are of course property taxes and then intergovernmental revenues, which the vast majority of that is made up of state, local government funding. Next page, same layout, but looking at expenditures here, just walking across from left to right general government expenditures, slightly over budget here. Same with public safety, slightly over there as well. Not significant in the scope of your overall budget. That public safety of 3.36 or 3.7 million, about 3.1 of that relates to the police department and the rest being fire department and other public safety activities. Public Works was your biggest deviation from budget. Here you were actually under budget by about $309,000. It looked like various items causing this. Fewer road maintenance costs, snow and ice removal, personnel costs, et cetera. And then Parks and Rec, very close to budget. All right, so the next page here, still looking at just the general fund. Here we take a look at the unassigned portion of your general fund. So we're focusing on that fund balance at the end of the year. The unassigned portion of that fund balance turned into a ratio, looking at it as a percentage of your annual budgeted expenditures. So you actually have a policy in place which aligns with state recommendations to keep this somewhere between 35 and 50 percent of your annual budgeted expenditures. So you can see you've been a bit below that policy in recent years. But 2025, you actually did increase and you moved up from about 19% to about 22% for this ratio. Yes.

That's including this year's higher revenue or expenses, right?

Correct. Yep, yep. And that is why you had an increase in that ratio this year. Okay. Yep. All right. With that, we'll move away from the general fund and touch on a couple of your other funds that had more activity in them this year. Uh, so the first one being the fourth street Northeast project, um, of course, uh, so we have a table on the left and then that table is being driven by the actual numbers that are on the right hand side there. Um, so the very little revenues in this fund for the year, In fact, I think because cash was negative, you actually had negative interest earnings. It's just how you allocate your funds when you have negative cash in a fund. But your expenditures for project expenditures were about 3.6 million for the year. And then the other sources that you see there of about 3.6 million, that's PFA loan draws and then the 2025 bond proceeds. So as a result, you had a decrease in fund balance there of about $40,000 for the year. And as I mentioned, that fund balance is negative at the end of the year. It's borrowing from the debt service fund pending some sort of reimbursement, either from another fund or additional PFA draws. The debt service fund activity here, very typical. Revenues from taxes and assessments, expenditures for debt, principal, and interest payments. Overall, an increase here of about $381,000 for the year.

Sorry, but that doesn't include any assessments that we have. may have gotten for the fourth street project or not. No, correct. Not, not that's still up coming.

Yeah. Yeah. So, so the assessments would go into the debt service fund, uh, which then makes the payments on the debt going forward. Whereas this right here is this fourth street Northeast project fund is just tracking the costs that have gone into the project. and then the corresponding debt proceeds that are funding that. Okay. And then that'll get closed out and to the debt service.

Is there a way you can balance? Okay. We are going to assess this much in our expenses were this much. You understand what I'm saying? Does that come into effect anywhere in this? yeah yeah yeah i guess sometimes there is a bit of a timing difference there i mean when you see that assessment come through okay it just makes it look when it says negative to me it makes it look bad but then we haven't done anything with the assessment which is why i'm asking

Yeah, I noticed that. I noticed that seems to be historically how the capital project funds here run. It seems like they run negative, and then the following year they get reimbursed in some manner and closed out to the debt service fund, which isn't, I mean, it's a practice that's worked, but it's something we could look at, I suppose, and see if there's a different way of going about it.

Okay, but it is being looked at.

Absolutely, yeah. All right. The next page here. So here we have cash in the debt service fund. We'll look at that blue at the bottom first. You can see that kind of bounces around a bit from year to year. Part of the reason for that is that tends to be where you borrow from when you're having those capital project funds that take a negative balance. You tend to borrow from the debt service fund, and then that causes it to jump around a little bit here. So it did increase about $1.3 million for the year. I don't have the 4th Street. Northeast Project Fund on here because it didn't have any cash at the end of the year. It was borrowing. But then I do have the non-major funds all wrapped together into one category here, and there's a lot of funds included in this non-major category. If you were to look in the full financial statements for more detail, that's starting on page 87 if you want some light reading at some point. All right. With that, we'll move into your enterprise funds. Take a quick look at each one of those. We have your water fund here for starters. The graph at the top is focusing just on operations, and then the purple is whatever the change, the overall change in that net position or fund balance was for the year. So operating revenues compared to the prior year, up about $466,000. Operating expenses, up about $101,000 compared to the prior year. So overall an increase in this fund balance or in this net position of about $701,000 for the year. Next page with the same layout, but looking at the wastewater fund, you can see both revenues and expenses for operations increased operating revenues were up about 316,000 operating expenses of about 144,000. including the non-operating activities for things like interest income, transfers to other funds, interest expense. Overall, an increase in net position here of about 515,000 per year. Stormwater Fund on the next page. Here, operating revenues did jump a bit because of the rate implementation, the change in rates, up about $98,000 compared to the previous year. And operating expenses were up about $38,000. Overall, an increase in your net position here of about 127,000 for the year. All right, the following page here, here we have your municipal golf course fund. So from an operating revenues and expenses standpoint, very similar to the prior year, a slight increase in both of those. Down in non-operating activities, we of course have a bit more going on here. So the big item that you see there is under the non-operating expenses and transfers out. That's actually a transfer out to the clubhouse project to reimburse that fund for prior year costs. So you loaned some money from the Water Improvement Fund, Wastewater Improvement Fund, EDA General. That loan didn't have any impact on that position. but then you took that money and you transferred it out to the capital project fund from the prior year, that transfer does drop net position. Now, if you look at the previous year though, at 2024, you can see you had an increase there because that's when that asset was completed and you recognize that asset in the clubhouse fund. So it's not too different from what we were just talking about, where it's kind of a timing issue there where you recognize the asset last year, and now you had a transfer out to fund that project fund. Okay. Next page, recycling and garbage fund, pretty similar to the prior year here. Um, both revenues and expenses were up about $52,000 overall, just a slight increase in that position of about $4,500 for the year. And then for each one of those five funds that we just went through, we have the cash balance over the past five years. Um, No major swings in activity here. The biggest one maybe being the water fund at the top in the blue, that was up about 390,000. Wastewater held pretty steady, both storm water and recycling and garbage held pretty steady. And the golf course fund actually increased as well. There you've had a deficit cash balance for a while, but that deficit decreased by about 210,000. So in positive cash flows about 210,000. Okay, with that, we'll move away from the individual funds and just take a moment to look at everything kind of wrapped together big picture. So if you were to go through the full large financial statements that we prepare, you'd notice there's all the fund level information that we just went through. And then there's a few pages or some areas where we look at everything wrapped together as a whole and put on the full accrual basis of accounting where we're including infrastructure and capital assets and all these non-current items. That's what these pages are looking at. Just real quick. You can see overall your your citywide assets increased the larger increase actually being in your current assets in the blue there That's your short-term items like cash receivables, etc The next page same layout but looking at liabilities Here your liabilities actually shrink compared to the prior year the biggest change being current liabilities you had some more significant project related liabilities at the end of the previous year and Those got paid off. You did have a slight increase in your outstanding debt because the debt that was issued during 2025 exceeded what was paid off. But overall, a decrease in your liabilities for the year. And then on the following page, there's those same assets and liabilities in the blue and the red. And then the green is the net between the two. So you can see on a net basis, you've had an upward trend for the past, oh, four years. So a slight upward trend, pretty steady here. And then I just have two final slides that are showing your future payments that are due on your outstanding debt. This is, so just to clarify, this is not the balance each year, but this is actually the amount of payment that is due each year. So the blue being the principal portion and the red being the interest portion of the payment, just like a mortgage. So as you can see, it tapers off through about 2042. This is the debt that's being financed via property taxes and assessments primarily. And the next page is your proprietary fund debt. So a debt that's being financed by utilities.

Sorry, I didn't catch that last sentence.

Oh, debt that's being financed by utilities. Yep. So like water, wastewater, et cetera. Any questions? It's a lot of information all at once.

I do have a question and it's kind of a statement. When people are critical, we hire your firm to do this and this is an outside perspective that we're doing everything correctly. Yes?

Yes.

When people are being critical and they're saying you know, follow the money, where's the money, you know, and everything shady. This is exactly what our citizens of Little Falls are paying for to show us exactly where the money is going and that we are being responsible with that, with their money.

Absolutely. So, so what we're saying is that, is that everywhere that you reported the money went, we're agreeing that's where it went and, We're verifying the information that's been presented and that it's accurate. You know, there's none that's unaccounted for or anything along those lines. And then, of course, whether or not you spent it on things that everybody can agree on, well, that's always a different matter, of course. But as far as our purpose here is to say that, yes, all the money is accounted for and it's being properly presented and accounted for in the accounting system.

Any other questions? If not, thank you very much. Second item for tonight is permit fee discussion, special use vehicles. Sony and...

Thank you, Council President. The agenda item in the special work extension packet is the same as last time, but I do have some additional information here for you. So as stated last council meeting, staff is recommending the special use vehicle permit fee be set to $30 annually with a mid-year reduction to $15 starting July 1st. Permits are valid January 1 to December 31st. When you break down the numbers, each permit costs the city between $46.31 and $54.65. This includes the sticker price of $1.65, pamphlets and information booklets estimated at $3, and then staff time of $41.66 to $50, depending on how long exactly it takes to process. These permits require more tracking than something like a state park annual permit. Applications must be reviewed, insurance and driver's license verified, rules verbally explained to the applicant, ICR created and all information from the application included in the ICR. Chief Johnson will present more details on the specific tasks in a moment. Staff time is estimated to be 10 to 15 minutes with the individual applying for the permit plus an additional 15 minutes of back office work to enter the appropriate data into the appropriate systems. Zero enforcement costs have been built into this formula. as staff are already gainfully employed as evidenced by the budgeting and use of overtime for the police department. Staff time spent processing these new permits is time taken away from other existing city duties. Setting the fee at $30 allows the city to partially recoup these administrative costs. If we set the fee any lower or make it free, we're asking the general taxpayers to subsidize a special service that only a small group of residents will use. The mid-year drop to $15 is a compromise and incentive for those who will only use a permit for half the year to conform with the new compliance standard. We requested at the last meeting to research other cities, especially vehicle use permit fees. For those cities that allow similar permits, results range from $0 to $200 annually. So it's very wide range. Brainerd charges zero. Champlin is at $200. Elko New Market is at $30. Newport is at $20. Waconia is at $33.33, plus $3.33 for each additional driver. So therefore, staff is respectfully asking council to approve the $30 fee to protect city resources.

Anything more to add, Kyle?

I certainly, if you have questions, I do have, this is kind of just a checklist that we've put together. I've worked with my record staff for them to go through this process. Obviously this is completely new, um, but it's not new to them as far as going, you know, they do background checks currently, uh, for, uh, like liquor licenses. Um, we're also doing different things such as permit to purchase. And then of course our data requests and then other things that, um, so just ask the staff, you know, what, what do you think it's going to take to get something like this put through and how long it would actually take to process it. So we, obviously we want to do it correctly. Um, and like Sony pointed out, it's not, just your typical, they come in, here's your permit. What's your name? That kind of thing. We have to go through and verify, um, you know, what vehicle they're actually gonna operate. We have to track what that vehicle is. And then there's the, the permit that they have to, it has to be tied into that Apple, that application as well. So we're doing some, um, stuff in the background so that our officers can easily determine who has these permits and whether they're valid or not. So, um, Obviously, we're not exactly sure what this is going to look like when people start coming through that door, how many people are going to show up a single time during the day. They have a lot of other responsibilities that they have to attend to. We have in-custodies, we have body-borne camera redactions and videos and stuff that they're trying to work through in the front. Individuals are going to be coming in and they're going to have to explain some of these processes. Obviously, people are going to have questions. How do you get insurance? How do you do certain things? I think that this is just a fair... a fee to charge based on our staffing time, because it will take them away from their regular duties for certain. I don't have any other questions about the process, but...

If you and Sony agree on that $30, I'd go with it. Makes sense to me. Council President, if I may?

Go ahead. Okay, so just walk me through this. I'm coming, okay... I'm a citizen and I want a permit. I come to the police station. Correct. Or do I come to city hall? It'll be at the police department. Okay. That's understandable. So you're taking officers away from other duties. And I, and I get that if I'm not a resident, if I'm just driving through little falls as a tourist, which we want tourist dollars, correct?

Correct.

What, We've talked about this in the past. What is the process? Do they need to get a permit?

So it's written into the ordinance for I think it's a transient use type of situation where if they're just coming in, they're on a trail, they're coming here to eat, to fill up fuel, those kind of things. They don't need a permit for that. It's only if it becomes a habitual thing where obviously if they have a Little Falls address, they're coming in constantly. That's a different story, but yeah, certainly if they're just coming here, they want to go stop in at a restaurant, get gas, they can certainly do that without getting a permit.

Okay, so like if they're using their side-by-side as a grocery getter up at Walmart, and they do that fairly frequently, if they aren't showing a permit, your officers will pull them over, and ask them to get a permit, they won't write a fine, correct?

That would be the intent. That's part of the process of making sure that we are documenting who actually has these permits so they can easily just say, okay, I stopped this individual two weeks ago or my partner stopped this individual a month ago. They were told, they were given the information, they were given a pamphlet. If you're going to continue doing this, you need to get a permit. Education would be first and foremost. From there, if we needed to move into that enforcement,

portion of it we would certainly do that if we have an issue so if individuals tourists are coming through just on a weekend using a restaurant they don't need to get a permit like because you're not going to be able to verify insurance on a weekend correct correct i mean so it's kind of a moot point as far as i i just want this to be as user friendly as possible is my position on it. I don't want it to be, I went to Little Falls and ate at one of their downtown restaurants and I got pulled over and ticketed. I don't want that kind of thing going on. That's just my own personal opinion. Everybody else can have their own opinion as well. Certainly.

If you have two vehicles, you have to have a permit for each one?

So yes, if it's two separate vehicles, you would, but it's not based on per driver. So let's say there's, you have one vehicle, you don't have to get a certain permit individually. So it's just for that vehicle. So if you have a golf cart and you have a side-by-side, each one of them has to have their own permit. Correct.

Any other questions, discussions?

No, Mr. President, we got... definitive numbers on a dollar 65 for a sticker. It was three something for a pamphlet. I'm, I'm where I was at last meeting. It should be half of that. Get rid of the half a year thing. I mean, if we're going to attach our staff time to everything we do, where do we stop? I under, I understand it, but what's not factored into that is, we pay through tax money for our entire staff to be at work to begin with. So if we're going to segment every hour of their paycheck, it could go on and on forever.

Yeah, I, I, I agree with that statement and I think I agreed with that statement last time. Um, I mean, I can be talked into $30. I mean, but this is kind of, I mean, you know, this gentleman brought up, you know, we need to spray weeds in front of our downtown businesses and in the curbs, do we charge extra for staff time in order to do that? I mean, I mean, like if we're, if this council asks city employees to write, I mean, if they ask to go spray the weeds and the cracks of the curbsides, which is terrible, by the way, I agree with this gentleman. And I mean, this is just part of their day. They work eight hours and this is the direction of the council. So I agree with the statement that Councilman Hanson's making. In order just to get this done, I mean, 30 bucks isn't gonna break the bank, and if it's a matter of processing, and I get it, but I guess what I'm trying to say is I agree with, I'm on the fence. Please talk me into this $30 fee, because a lot of the side-by-sides are also paying a fee through the county with their license plates and whatnot, so.

Yeah, I guess I don't, obviously we're not, it's not for a revenue purpose. It's just to recoup some of that extra costs that our staff are going to be doing. And I get what you're saying. We do the same thing for fingerprints when they come in for the background checks that they're doing, the data requests that come through and there's charges that associated with all of those as well. So I don't see this as being any different than that. Um, also other motor vehicles that are on the roadways, they pay a fee every year to get their tabs for, and that's for the year. So, Um, these vehicles are not originally, they're not intended to be on city streets. That's not what their purpose is. So I know, um, I think, I feel like they should also pay that same fee that we're going to motor vehicle as if they're going to be wanting, wanting to be treated the same. That's just my take on it. Um, again, it's, this isn't about rocking to get revenue out of this. This is just to make sure that we're being responsible with the budget and making sure that that staff time is accounted for. Um, a lot of these machines are very, um, you know, some of them are, very expensive machines. You know, some of them are, so $30 to me doesn't seem like a big ask for some of these individuals.

It's just the principle of the matter, right? And quite frankly, fine. You're convincing me and that's fine. That's all I asked is somebody convinced me that this is an appropriate fee. And I mean, for golf carts, fine, because they don't already pay that licensure and whatnot. And there is an extra cost involved that not everybody's benefiting from. And that's, like I said, I just asked you to convince me and I think you did that. So we're good.

When does this go in effect?

The permits will go in effect October 1st is when that'll start. I think I've got some information out in, maybe it was last week's paper, but so we'll start kind of pushing things out a little. Once we get a little bit closer as to how they have to get that a permit, where they go, what they need to fill out. And then we're still waiting on our, the court process to get those tickets, numbers put into our system. But we're getting close, so I think we'll have no problem hitting that October 1st mark.

So if they buy their license in October, they don't have to buy another one in January, it'll go through September?

2027, it'll say 2027 on there, so that permit will be good from October 1st until next January, 2028.

Any other discussion? Hearing none, the next item we have here is wastewater user rate discussion. Back to you, Sony.

Thank you, Council President. Regarding Resolution 202644, which we'll present during the regular session, staff have been working with Minnesota Public Facilities Authority for funding assistance for phase two of the wastewater project. The PFA has indicated its intent to provide substantial financial assistance for the project of around $4 million. provided we meet certain commitments. The commitments that the city must meet are to increase our sewer rates by two and a half percent annually for the next five years. and then to use cash reserves of $170,000 in 2027 as part of the debt servicing for that loan that they're looking at giving us. If net revenues are insufficient to cover expenses of the sewer utility, the city may implement additional sewer utility rate increases or utilize available cash reserves from the sewer utility fund. And so we will be requesting adoption of that resolution.

Any questions?

Comments? Yeah, is 2.5% pretty typical per year?

Yeah, it's pretty minimal. I think last year we increased 8% or 10%, so we're not looking to do that. It would be for five years in a row, correct.

In order to get $4 million.

Correct. In order to get $4 million from PFA at a low interest rate. And the reason they're asking for these assurances is just so that the cash flow forecast shows that we are able to repay this from the sewer utility fund or from that sewer fund.

Any other questions? All right. Any other items?

I would like to bring up something, if I may. It may be under constituent messages.

All right, that's our next step, so you go ahead.

Okay. I was approached by three pickleball people, and I know they are requesting, not requesting, but We painted the pickleball courts and from what I talked to Greg Kimmel about this also, it's not painted right. They can't hold sanctioned tournaments because the pickleball courts aren't painted right. And I went out there today and they showed me everything and they would like to know if we could do something about it. And again, I talked to Greg Kim and to redo it from what he said was $30,000. I don't know. I don't know. But they would have to paint over the white stripes and this and that. And they have to be so far away from the fence and they're not. And they have to be so far between courts, pickleball courts, and they're not. And the reason they have to be so wide is because they've got to put a net through the middle, which the pickleball people are getting money to do. So if the ball rolls, it'll hit the net and won't roll into the other court. So there won't be any accidents with somebody stepping on a pickleball and suing the city. So I told him, I said, listen, I don't know. We can't do anything this year. And they understood that. And I talked to Sony about the audit and $300,000, I think it was, that more in revenue less in expenses. But she just told me before we went in, that should go to the

Remain in the general fund.

Yeah, remain in the general fund, which is fine, you know, for a rainy day, because we're trying to get that up to 35%. I think we're at 22 and a half now or something. So I asked her if we could get it from there, but then she told me this. I don't know, can we budget $30,000 to get that fixed so they can hold tournaments? They told me that they went down to a tournament in, Pine Island down by Sombrota, I think it is. And it's a small town. They had 156 teams come in. And that would be, you know, if we could get 70 teams to come in, it would be good for our tourism promotion and stuff. But again, I wanted to, I told them I'd bring it up tonight. And if you all would like to discuss it or I don't know where to go from here, but I would like to see something. We were the ones that messed that up in the first place. I think that's something that we could put on a- Whatever we got to do, I would like to see us do something to help them out if we can.

If we painted it wrong, I think we need to correct it.

Well, I have more questions. You created more questions and you answered one. Apparently, we painted it wrong. well not me i didn't paint it wrong um right right so who said put the lines in this spot i mean these courts have to have approved dimensions and something closer to the fence can we even handle that these pickleballers got what they asked for before it was painted, where were they to say, I mean, they offered all this help. Did they give the advice? Maybe they did. This is how it should be laid out.

That's the plan. They showed the plans and we screwed up somehow.

That's what I'm looking for answers for. But by we, no, what was it? Was it we or? I would just like to rule out it was the painting contractor.

Because, you know, Greg Kiven admitted it was an employee who no longer is with us. I don't know, Andrew, maybe you know about this. He's the one, right?

Well, we're not going to sell anything here tonight. No, I'm just saying. I think you brought the message.

Well, hold on a second. HR is over here telling him not to talk. And go ahead and not mention names, but you can certainly speak to what happened.

Yeah.

Yes, there was a mix-up with the lines that were hashtagged in for the painters to follow. So that individual, when they did that, It, uh, that's where it was mixed up was in the measuring and placement of the hashtag lines for the painters to follow.

Okay. So I'm sorry. Let me jump in here. $30,000. We, so we wasted 30 grand. Yes, sir.

I mean, it is painted obviously not to the standards for tournaments, um, for recreational ball. They can be used. but for tournaments, it will not work in terms of a sanctioned pickleball tournament.

David, before you say anything, please. They can use them, and they're using them now, but they've got to be careful because they can't put that net in between, and they're afraid there's going to be an accident right now as it stands. That's why they need to, because they can't get the net in between and still make it a pickleball court. Does that make sense to you, David? Yeah, I mean... You know, and they're afraid there's going to be an accident.

I understand, yeah, completely. I am... Frustrated.

I am too. How long have we known the lines over there are wrong?

I would say whenever they came to inspect them after the lines were painted with the pickleballers, so within a couple weeks.

Okay, so this is fresh.

A couple weeks of after they were painted.

And when was that? Last spring sometime. Okay, and first I'm hearing of this.

Great.

I was told they had been in contact with Greg since the beginning because they had the plans, original plans. The gentleman I talked to said I gave him the plans of an official thing. This was right after it was painted. and i don't know why it's just now being brought up by i guess because they wanted to hold a tournament and it wouldn't be they couldn't get it sanctioned they did by some other name i i can't tell you'd have to ask they would have to come and tell me why it isn't great i was aware of it the day after i was painted so was pickleball group they decided at that time

that they weren't going to paint it and everything. They were just going to use it the way it was. They weren't concerned with tournaments yet. This is something that's just coming on now because at first they, some cared because they didn't follow the correct plans. Some didn't care at all, just as long as they could play pickleball. So now that they're talking about tournaments, now I guess it's more of a concern. So are we willing to throw 30,000 more in towards it? I'm kind of looking at this as, uh, when we have tournaments for softball, there's a softball association. Uh, they collect money and it goes in towards softball. If they have a tournament, where did them proceeds go? Does it go to the city? Does it go to the pickleball group that's holding the tournament, but maybe That money should be applied towards it for maintenance. There's other things they want. They want benches. They don't want them picnic tables sitting out there. That's not according to rules either. They should have a different way of seating out there. So anyway, so it's just now It's starting to get stirred up because they did attend some tournaments, and they're seeing that, hey, wait a minute here. If we get this thing done right, lookit, we can host tournaments. It's good for the city. Where do funds go? I have no clue. But I think there should be a discussion. They should have some representatives come in and discuss why they're having the tournaments, If the funds are coming in, it should go towards the maintenance of the court itself. Anyway, my thoughts, let's sit down with them and discuss it. Just like Dave said, he brought it before the council. It was a concern. We're not going to solve it tonight. Let's get together and talk and see what can be done and how it's going to be paid for. That's it. Okay.

I would agree.

Yeah, I would totally agree with you. We can get the main people from the board or whatever they got to come in and we can all discuss it. I'm sure that would be fine.

They'll discuss it with Andrew or Greg. Yeah.

Council President.

Well, they can discuss that with Ed and get the information all lined up and then bring it back to a work session and then we can discuss it at that work session.

Go ahead, Ricko.

I believe the budget is already set for this year. Wouldn't it be something we would talk about at our at our budget meeting for 2027? Right, yeah, yeah, they know that nothing's going to happen this year. No, no, they know that they understand that.

OK, any other constituent messages? Hearing none will adjourn at 719 to our regular meeting at 730.