City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, it is excuse me 6:30. We will call the Monday, November 10, 2025 city council meeting to order. If you could join me for the 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. Perfect. Thank you. Do we have any additions to the agenda tonight? I don't have any additions tonight, mayor. Hearing none, I'll look for a motion to approve the agenda as presented. Motion. Second. We have a motion, a second. All in favor say I. I. Post. Same sign.

Motion carries. 4. With that, we'll move to public comments. If there is anyone who would like to discuss anything that is not on the agenda, please come forward. And seeing none, we'll close public comments and move to the consent agenda. Is there anything that needs to be pulled from the consent agenda for further discussion? Excuse me. Hearing none, I'll look for a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Motion. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. I. I. Post sign.

Motion carries 40. And with that, we will then open the public hearing on proposed assessments at 6:31. So, Nick, is that anything you would need to go over?

I'll just go recap. We don't have anybody in the audience for anybody watching. Um, we This is the public hearing on proposed assessments. Each year, cities uh across the state uh will submit lists of either delinquent utility bills or other uh charges which have not been collected and submit those for assessment to property taxes for the following year. Historically, mayor has been uh been in that 20 to uh in the 20s to 30s range for the amount of assessments we've been doing in the past. But since we've adopted uh shut offs once again, that number has now dropped to four, which has been pretty nice. And I'd say on a monthly basis, I was talking with Alicia about it. Probably have six or less shut offs that go out each month and most of those get taken care of.

Wonderful. That's great news. And uh no emails or anything to enter into the record? None of those. Anyone? Okay. So with that then and no one in the audience we will close the public hearing uh at 6:32. And with that then we will move to adopt adoption of resolution certifying assessments. So with that I'll look for a motion to approve resolution 2025-18. Motion second.

We have a motion to second. Any further discussion hearing? None. All in favor say I.

I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion carries 40. And that will take us to the approval of the 2026 city planning services contract. Thank you, mayor. Um, John Anderson has has announced his effective retirement from municipal planning. He's been with the city for 17 years and his workload has been such. He does stuff on the public and private side as well and the amount of work on the private side has been growing pretty steadily and he wants to focus more on that. So he's uh uh moving away from the public sector service side of things. Um he is with municipal municipal development group which is a group of planners that provide these cert services and he has recommended uh his successor to be Holly Craft. Holly Craft has been doing it for a number of years as well. Uh she hails a little bit east of us but covers our area and a bit southward for her territory so it was a natural fit. I know Alicia had mentioned she's worked with Holly in the past in Norwood Young America and had very high praise for her. I had lunch with her a couple weeks ago for a meet and greet and was very impressed with uh what she had to offer and the conversations we had and she's very eager to jump on in and take over in Johnstead. John will still be doing the zoning uh code project. through that since he's contracted for it. And this would take place at the turn of the year once everything's all said and done. John would still be available for questions here and there if there was just information that only really he had, but uh for the planning services contract for next year, the rates will stay the same as they are in 2025. And then recommending that Holly KF take over as our new city planner.

Wonderful. Thank you. So, with that, I'll look for a motion to approve the 2026 planning service contract with with municipal uh development group um with uh Holly Craft being our uh new planner. Motion. Second.

We have a motion and second. Any further discussion? So, obviously with that, we do want to thank John for all his service. John's been really instrumental in a lot of things. He's been great, has a lot of knowledge, a lot of background. He's done a wonderful job for the city. So, he'll certainly be missed, but I have no dou doubt Holly will jump right in and keep us going down that same path and um keep marching us forward. So, I appreciate um all John's support. Uh hearing nothing else, all in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion carries 4 Z. And then let's consider closing city hall on Friday, November 28th, 2025 and Friday, December 26th, 2025. Thank you, mayor. Uh each year the city uh city staff come forward and request that the Friday after Thanksgiving uh be uh have city hall closed as we all generally take one of either PTO comp or one of our floating holidays for that day. It's that's been tradition this year. We would also like to request to have city hall closed for Friday, December 26, which is the day after Christmas. Uh same thing, we would use PTO comp or uh one of our floating holidays to cover that. Wonderful. I look for a motion to close city hall on Friday, November 28th and Friday, December 26, 2025.

Motion. Oh, second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion hearing? None. All in favor say I. I. Oppos same fine. Motion carries 40. That will move us to city council reports. Council member health, anything you report on? Uh I had a planning commission meeting last week. I'm still working on updating the zoning and ordinances. Should be bringing that to council here next month or two. January. January. Yeah. For a good look over. Perfect. Council member Fouch. I have nothing. Council member Jackson, nothing.

And I did not have any city meetings. Um I did end up meeting with uh uh the owner of Cold Water, uh Ax Jude Lago after he was in. So I did meet with him for an hour or so, a week and a half ago, just try to get my arms around what some of the concerns were and some of those. So we worked through he gave me a little bit more of an understanding. We were going to have a follow-up meeting that didn't end up happening. So, I still want to continue try to build that relationship and see if we get whatever is resolved in either direction. So, excellent. Um, just for a heads up for people. So, um, and then with that is all I have. So, I'll look for a motion to adjurnn. Motion.

Second. We have a motion. We have a second. All in favor say I. Posting sign. We are journ. And with that, Nick, we can jump right into the workshop. Uh we'll call that uh order and start with the 2026 budget update.

Real quick update as they tend to be as we roll in towards the end of the year here. Couple tweaks in the general fund under uh general government on that telephone reducing that down from 6,5500 as we've controlled some costs there and regraded things. And then uh under postage we haven't used that in 2025 and those costs were actually shifted more into print binding. We've had a little bit more print binding this year. So, shifting some of that down into there and then increasing to see uh the increased cost we've had there. Under miscellaneous, we had in 2024 9500. That was way too much. Dropped it to 1,500. That thought would be better. Really more it's landing around that three grand zone as we get into uh looking at 2025 expenditures for 26. So, making some minor adjustments there. That's it for the general fund. So, as we come towards the end of the year, next time that will be our last budget workshop because in the first meeting in December, we adopt everything. So, we're sliding into the end here. I don't anticipate much if any changes at the next one. So, we're looking at revenues over expenditures sitting at $1,674. So, one of the uh questions always is for you guys to think about as we slide into the end and I'll ask this at the next workshop, how you want to resolve that. It can be a straight levy reduction of 11,674. This can be put into a CIP uh shifted there for one time to keep the levy where we want it to be. Um on a $1.1 million budget, that's about 1%. So, it's not like we're talking huge dollars here, but keep in mind what you'd like to do there,

right,

on that front. And then the only other change in the budget was on the sewer end of things under engineering fees. Uh, we haven't used much engineering this year. So, recommending we drop that. It's just been at 15. That's always what it's kind of been. And in 2024 and 2025, we had the ex uh I'm sorry, in 2023 and four and a little bit in 25, we had expenditures with the wastewater treatment facility. Those are done at this stage and we wouldn't incur any more until we get into uh construction and bidding. So I figure 25, drop it down to five grand, and then whenever the project happens, it'll happens on that front. But that's the only change we're seeing in there. So revenues over expenditures there. We're looking at 160,000 revenue over expenditures. Granted, anybody hearing that, that sounds like a lot. It is a lot, but that would be taken down as we do the wastewater treatment facility. We take on debt once again and that would then shrink back down to offset the debt load in preparation for that. if anybody out there is listening and has questions on that figure. Otherwise, everything else was staying the same. So, that's what I have for the budget workshop. Would you mind going to the EDA tab, please, Nick?

Yes. So, on this EDA tab, I I've been thinking a lot about this one lately. And one, let me preface with my apologies on last minute. You know, we're in first meeting in November. Um, I did attend the last EDA meeting because I wanted to talk through some of the things and me and talk about some of my concerns with this 50,000. Completely forgot that there were two council members on the EDA. So, with me being the third, we would have had a quorum. So, why couldn't there's not a lot I could talk about. So, and they only meet quarterly. I just am getting to the point I don't know how others feel on this. I almost feel like we should pause this for and and regroup on this and make sure this plan is doing what it was originally intended to do and make sure we're still aligned with this. I I when when we first started talking about doing this, it was almost going to be a one-year thing or maybe two years. I mean, we've now put in $100,000 and if we approve for 2026, we're going to be in for $150,000 of taxpayers money for business. I I just feel, is that the right thing? Should we be reooking at this? You know, as we keep going couple more years, we're going to be at a quarter million dollars of money. We got, you know, we could be using that for our sidewalks to get them repaired that we need to get done that we've talked about for years. So, I just I know it's last minute. Some of my thoughts were I'm just going to let it ride through and then hopefully in the beginning of the year we could talk about it before we authorize giving the money. And again, somehow where this slip through the cracks after talking with Nick, Nick's like, "No, we it won't come back to council. Once the budget's approved, the money's good. It'll just transfer over and they'll go through with the plan." I just want people to rethink on some of this, see if it's still the right thing. Um I still want to have I'm going to have a conversation

with EDI. I'm going to go to the next one and let them know my concerns. Um, and Nick's going to just write something up that there will be three council members in attendance. You know, we're going to do the right thing so I can talk without violating open meeting laws. So, um, and and Sam and Nikki, I'll sit down. I can let you know where where I'm thinking on some of this. But,

is it getting to be a lot of money? You know, $100,000. We're going to be in for $150,000 on this now, too. You know, initially when it came up, I it was to uh you know, beautifification, get some buildings up looking nice again on me. I think we've done that. You know, one R&V looks phenomenal. You know, they did a great job. I think it was well spent. You know, we kind of mimicked I know Watertown did this about 10 years ago um to do kind of the same thing. We got some awnings on over by the coffee shop, knuckleheads door. You know, some things look nice. court seeds.

Is it was it the intent to keep funding this and having businesses reuse it and redo their entire help them redo their entire buildings or or continue on or should be a one time, you know, just think through it. I'm not going to press too hard on this this year because again, we're down into November.

My first thought was I was just going to let it ride in. If we talked about it and decided, hey, let's pause it. we could take that 50 grand and slide it into street fund or somewhere else where we where we could use it. But that's all I have on it. Think through it. I'll touch base with the EDA, let them know my concerns, but um I just feel it's a we're it's a lot of money residents money that's going into this plan. Um so that's all I have on it. So I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Nick. So any other questions on anything on the budget? And like Nick said, start thinking about that 11 grand. I I can tell you for me, I think we should be sliding that into some sliding. I think we're holding things real good. We're looking good. We can always put stuff in sidewalks and streets.

That's what I was thinking. Always. Um those are some of our ones because that's a big project, right? That sidewalk project. Yeah, sidewalks going to be big. We still haven't come down to exact, you know, are we switching over now? Are we going concrete? Are we sticking with patuminis on on all the old stuff, you know? So, we got to but we've been kicking that down. You know, we've been talking three years that these some of these sidewalks are so bad. We got to get them we got to get something done. Um but all right. So, yeah. So, start thinking through that and if there's no other questions. Um and you have nothing else, Nick? Well, kind of a little off topic, but with the sidewalk project, could we address something along Ash South there?

You know, um like from Casey's to DG Market. Oh yes. Well, I noticed that the other day cuz there's a lot of people walking down 20. I saw kids on bikes trying to go down there, too. So, I I had a conversation real quick aside, I had a conversation with Mindot about about cost participation. And MDOT's general response was yes, we would cost participate, but you have to wait till we have the money available.

And when I asked when that would be available, they said sometime in the future. that's not a high priority for them even though it's a high priority for us. So the two avenues are do you want to wait for MDOT funding or do we want to get cost estimates to just do it ourselves and I think that's a a good comment. I've noticed it now too and we'll we can take that to public when we do our street to the road. I mean and I saw kids riding their bikes in people's yards to stay out of the road. I agree. I I'm glad you brought it up because I totally Or even if we could temporarily like somehow Yeah. widen the shoulder just even with gravel just temporarily. Yeah. I think our city would appreciate right away.

I'm sure that's highway. So we can look at that. We'll bring that up at one of our early public works meetings start talking about that. Bolton and Mink does a lot of our management for our roads obviously our road projects and our sidewalk projects and they have a lot of that. But that's certainly something I think we should look at. Absolutely. I looked at it as went by. There' be a lot of work to do on those. The way they, you know, the Oh, yeah. I was thinking to the way the yard and they can't go behind either, can they? Cuz that Well, you can, but it only comes out halfway down. Yeah. Okay, that's the problem. I was trying to picture it the other day when I was driving by. I was like, "Oh, is there And I don't know what kind of easements behind those properties or right away to put like something behind the houses there where it'd be much flatter."

Yeah. You know, I don't between the industrial and the houses there on the back side of the houses. The questions become would people actually use that or would they just continue on roadside because that's the easiest faster. I just didn't know if there wasn't something back there. It's just something we really should very much look at because it seems like it's very dangerous. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. I thought the same thing coming home from work the other day. Perfect. Thank you. So with that we will adjourn. Perfect. Thank you.

With all the