Council - Regular Meeting

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Join me in a moment of silent prayer. Amen. Okay. Okay. Agenda item number three is approval of tonight's agenda. I don't think there's any changes or additions. So, is there a motion for approval? So, move support. All those in favor signify by saying I.

I. Motion carries. Agenda item four is a time at um each city council meeting that we provide for citizen comments from our citizens of Orange City. I don't on usually on non-aggenda items. I'm not sure anybody's here to do that, but um thanks to all of you for at least attending. We appreciate that. Agenda item number five is approval of minutes from February 2 of 2026. This is exhibit one in your packet. If you had a chance to read those over, I would entertain a motion for approval. So move.

All those in favor signify by saying yes. Opposed. Motion carries. Agenda item number six is exhibit two in your packet and that is our monthly financial report and Kent is uh walk us through that.

Yeah, if you look at exhibit two there, um we took in about $39,000 in property taxes. So part of the general fund took in about 23. Debt service took in that 15925 that you see underneath conserved or received, excuse me. Um we did pay out uh and under hotel motel tax you can see under dispersed uh the 3% to the two hotels. Um that was for two quarters worth actually two. Um and also then under capital projects under the 304 fund, the received amount is the first payment from Canal for Canal second edition uh in regards to that purchase agreement that we've made with them over 10 years. Um and then the 5500 is a special assessment that came in for the street project that we did last year. So I don't have anything else other than that unless you guys have any other questions. Any questions for Kim's financial report? If not, I'll entertain a motion to approval.

Move. All those in favor signify. Yes. Motion carries. Agenda item seven is exhibit 3, which is our monthly bills dated from January 20th, 2026 through February 16, 2026.

Yeah, they don't have a whole lot here. Uh bottom of page one, uh we just had our annual inspection of our digger Derek and basket by Altech. Uh that's an annual thing. Beck engineering on page two. Uh working my from the bottom up. 20 583 is for Madison Place for engineering. Uh 9620 is for Canal second edition. The one above that for 822 is for 7th Street. And then there was some uh just general legal services there, the top two. And then the 1430 had was something that uh that they were working on with the event center in regards to some easements that were working there with Blue Mountain. That makes up the total for the month. Um, other than that, I went quite a ways here unless you guys have any questions on any of the pages. Otherwise, um, page eight, peak software systems is the recreation software that we pay on an annual basis specifically for the registration. Um, so that's that's a budgeted item, but it's a once a year thing. And then also on page nine, uh we have some software for the event center. Uh so that's under uh with Prism Incorporated. And then the last one I've got is on page 10 that is two months worth of uh work for Spireworks. Two months worth. And then at the bottom of page 11, Vanderpaul, I didn't put the project, but it's the final pay estimate plus the retainage for the school improvements out by the public element or public elementary school. That's all I got unless you guys have anything that you came across that you

had a question on. H2 the sensory cabinets. Oh, yes. Thank you. That is a That is a uh it's supposed to be a century business product. So, I need to recut that. Thank you, Mark. Sarah brought that to my attention today. I totally forgot. Thank you. Century what? It's uh I accidentally cut it to uh Century Cabinets and it's supposed to be the Century Business Project. Okay. I didn't think they got No, sorry about that. That's right. mistakes. Yeah. Wow.

Any other questions or comments? Is there a motion to approve the monthly bills? Support. All those in favor signify by saying yes. Motion carries. That takes us to agenda item number eight. And as I read this and I said to Kent, it says this is our final step like this in the geo bond process for the aerial fire truck. So um uh this is um for the 2,430,000 general obligation capital loan series.

Yes. Yes. Love that. uh fire. This is the aerial fire truck. About 67% of that 2.4 is for the aerial and the refunding is uh 85,000. Just so I mean other than that, that's all I have for comments. So, we just need a resolution approving and authorizing that. Correct. Correct. This is the last step. We'll get the money in the bank on the 10th of March, I think. Okay. And we'll get the fire truck when uh Dan's going to talk about that a little bit, but yes, it's coming this uh later this year. Perfect. Council and everybody rides on it. Are you in the bucket? Yeah. Yeah. Don't put me in charge of any button.

It's actually going to give you an update on the old Okay. on the old aerial. Okay. Good. Good. So, um we need a resolution to approve that. some support. And since resolution, we need roll call. So, Andrew, yes. Mark, yes. Brett, yes. Olivia, yes. Yes. Excellent. And agenda item nine, general obligation capital loan um notes. Kent, I'll let you explain that.

Yeah. This is again the 2019 bonds that we passed that year. They were a 10-year bond. They're callable uh June 1 of 26 to capture some of that interest fin or savings that we were talking about last meeting. Uh there's three years left. Uh it's a it's about $18,000 to in total for the making this and uh this is just needs to be a separate uh just basically officially to call the bonds to the people that actually hold them. So we'll make that transaction on June 1. And this again is um a resolution. So I'll start with you Mark. Yes. Brett. Yes.

Olivia. Yes. Darren and Andrew. Yes. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Um agenda item number 10. Um this for the canals second edition. Um this is from a revolving loan fund from RC. Is that right? It is. Okay. Yep. It's in their territory. So yeah, that's the reason we're kind of doing it. So, it's a 10-year loan for a half a million, 0% and uh yeah, it's for Canal Second and it's part of our uh the reason we're doing the issue. We'll probably officially uh do it later this summer, but this is just the proper uh getting everything stamped and signed and getting our levy in place. We do that service portion of that really it's for

that's all I got. So, is there a motion um to approve that resolution? So, and once again, it is a roll call for the resolution. Start with you. Brett, yes. Olivia, yes. Yes. Andrew, yes. Mark, yes. Excellent. Thank you. Um Kent, are you going to help us too with I am. This is my last one. I'm done. Agenda 11, resolution to set a public hearing for proposed property tax. Yeah. So, exhibit exhibit five. Is this four? Four. Four.

Yeah. Um, so state requires two public hearings for our budget. Uh, this one here that's in front of you, we're asking for the public hearing to be on April 6th um at 4:15. It needs to be at a separate meeting than a regular council meeting. So we did it last year this way 415 um prior to and this is uh basically going we're locking in our uh levy rate is what this public area is doing. So we'll move through the budget we talked about our rate of 1401. So in the third column there on the far right hand side about four lines from the bottom you'll see 1400581. That's what our levy rate will be um that we're locking in. The top numbers there at the very top are basically the eval the taxable evaluations for our community for all classes meaning residential, commercial, industrial. And then the next uh the second number down there is basically when we were going through the budget, it's our general levy that we were asking and this is dollars. This is uh just a little under $3 million there in the general levy which makes up about that $7.54 that we were talking about of that 14. Then we've got the tort liability which is the third number there. And then we have employee benefits about halfway down. And then uh you look under debt service, you'll see the $2 million. Uh that's basically for our go bonds that we're going to be paying off in 2627 and that's about $5.17. So those four items are what gets us to our total of 1401. So, uh, the the other numbers below that is our egg land value. And then what we can collect on that, uh, is just just under a million dollars. We get about $3,000 worth of

property uh, property taxes and egg value. And yeah, that's all I have. So, it's just making sure we're all good with that. Like we were talking about, locking in our 1401 rate. It's a 45 cent decrease compared to last year. So, that's Yeah. And so yeah, we'll do this on the 6th and then at that meeting so we be here at 4:15. 4:15. Great. Please. That's all I got. Thank you. So, um, we need a resolution to set the public hearing for April 6th at 4:50. And that is a resolution. So, start with you, Olivia. Yes. Darren, yes. Andy, yes.

Yes. Correct. Yes. Excellent. Great. Um, agenda item 12 is exhibit five in your packet is Northwest Iowa Regional Housing Authority appointment. Yeah. So, Kurt um, yeah, he represents us on the Northwest Iowa Regional Housing, uh, which I think they meet in Spencer and he also actually is kind of a voting member for Sou County as well. So, I think all the towns have one one person for for the county. So, uh, served on that and willing to do it again. We would have approved this at the beginning when we did all of our other assignments and everything, but uh, kind of was overlooked. So, yeah. And we got a notice after we did that, I think.

Yeah, that's right. We got a letter on that. So, recommend reappointing Kurt support. All those in favor signify by saying yes. Opposed motion carries. Okay. Excellent. And then um agenda item number 13, natural gas worker position. Jason, are you going to make a recommendation to us?

So we've been interviewing multiple applicants and we'd like to recommend Brett Kunan for a open position. She currently works for Sue County running the road grader and snowplows and has 10 years of experience at bulvers excavating as well. So, excellent. Good. So, is there a motion to approve uh another move? All those in favor signify by saying I

I posted. Motion carries. Um and we're going to go ahead and do administrative reports. I think if you looked at that we at the end we will go into a close session for some real estate um possible real estate transaction and we will hold you all to come back for that. So why don't we do administrative reports?

Yeah. So um I handed out to council and have several other um copies here too for anybody who's interested. This is basically a piece that Missouri River Energy put together. It's called the municipal power advantage talking about the benefits of specifically our electric utility but also other other things with the u with our municipal utilities. Uh talks about the um economic contributions that are made to the to the general fund and uh and the inind kind of work just by having our own linemen and uh street light maintenance that sort of thing. Um, so really some good information there and and uh um a good piece. I think everybody in our community is behind behind our utilities, but uh just a way to to highlight some of the work that's done there and the benefits of having a citizen utilities. So anybody else wants a copy? I have several more left. So

Jason, so um

Jason's going to give a few updates on a couple things coming up. Um wanted to highlight before that uh if you remember winter storm Fern. Um that was what we would call winter in in Iowa here, but they had a pretty big impact on the energy market. And um we uh uh with our natural gas pricing um we we were pretty hedged. We we if you recall we buy insurance gas for that and so we weathered that storm pretty well. The the um impact of that is going to be hitting us this February when uh we we locked in our first of the month pricing during that that cold spell. So some of that is um higher price gas for for this monthly gas for for February. Um fortunately usage is quite a bit lower. So I think it's all going to off offset just fine. But um so that's that's what the gas side of things on the electric side. Missouri River Energy um they they have generating resources and um you know all the all the communities that that buy that purchase power from from them. um on the on the generating side of things, um they were called upon to operate. They had uh I'll say two issues with their power plants and so weren't able to generate and so that cost some some money that way during wintertorm Yuri. We I think they made uh a significant amount of money by being able to generate in this storm. They did not. And so there was um just interesting how these weather events can have pretty large repercussions. We won't see a lot of it on our bills, but it does impact Missouri River Energy. Um they're they're books and I don't I don't think long-term it'll have an impact, but just just weather events in general while we see the es and flows that they have a significant impact on

on other things. So um just a little background information there. uh visiting with Beck Engineering on our strategic planning. Um looking ahead a few weeks, I'll be sending out a a poll or a Google uh scheduling to see once where there's some time available to schedule that session. So they're in the um wrapping up the survey process now and and uh moving forward with the next steps on that. So um that's all I had. Okay, I'll just go right to you, Jason. Okay.

Yeah. Just going to give a couple updates. Um a lot going on last week down at the west substation. Uh we got our new transformer in which has been what three years I think in the works. So uh team did a good job. They got the they started disconnecting the transformer early in the week and then Thursday the cranes came set up. They moved that transformer to the spare pad and then the new transformer came on Friday and it's all set in place. So, they'll be over the next few weeks uh commissioning that transformer and then bringing it online hopefully by end of March. So, but gives us some redundancy in town now. So, um

yeah, if we ever have an issue with any of our other transformers, we have a spare, so puts us in a good place.

And then I'm currently working on a 10-year street plan. Um, so my plan is to have that all together by next meeting where we can kind of go through the next 10 years, which streets we're going to be repairing, what type of repairs we're going to go go with on all those streets. Um, as part of that, uh, Albany is one of those streets, and we've been working on getting numbers put together for Albany. Um, so it will also probably come with asking for approval to apply for federal funding. Um, the DOT funding, uh, the same as we did Seventh Street. Um, that application will be due mid-March. So we'll get that yeah ask for approval to get that um submitted and hopefully like a 2030 project um starting probably on high from highway 10 to second street be the first phase of it. So that's what we have forward to look look forward to March 2nd.

Good. That's all I have. Good. Thank you. Jason Janet, do you have anything? No. say that cemetery thing is awesome. Yeah, it was nice, isn't it? Yeah, it's Ever had a chance to look on the It's on our website. Is that where you go? Or you can get the links are on there now, too. The links are on there to um see what's available and where somebody's buried. Yeah. Yeah. Where somebody's buried. It's very well done. So, thanks for all your work on that. You and Kent, I think we're good. Sean. Sean. Sean. Good. Well, we want to thank her. Yes. No. Very much appreciated. Kent, you have anything else? Ryan, nope. Chief Dan,

um, little update. We've been working behind the scenes trying to uh, sell our ladder 61, seeing what was out there and, uh, talked to a number of people and happy to report. We think we probably have a deal for our for our truck. We're working through um getting a letter to protect both communities, letter of intent to have that. And uh with that, we did a final inspection, not a final final because they're going to go and demo Tower 61. Um and then on Friday with everything else going on, I got a call saying that um a while back they said our truck was originally they thought they'd demo it as part of the national fire um at a large convention out in Indianapolis every year and then they came back said no it's not going to go there and on Friday they called back and said no it is going to go there so it's going to be right next to the Sue center truck that's also going to be there. So,

um, we're well represented. But anyway, so that that's in the end of April where the truck will be and then it's also going out for other demos, uh, down to Louisiana's one one location and we're working out the details. It looks like it will be deliverable before July 1, but we'll work that out. So, kind of happy on two fronts. Truck is virtually completed. Um, and then that the other the other one is sold. So we'll go through those details later, but so we're happy for that. So and our deepest sympathy to you on your on your mom. She was a grand lady.

She was uh always made me laugh. So thank you for that. Jenny, are you getting in the tool festival mood? How many? 87. 87. Okay. Okay. Extravaganza is March 18th. Yes. I asked and that's Wednesday, right? A Wednesday. Yeah. Good. Excellent. All right. Thanks. And the girls are doing well. Yeah. Okay. Good. Good. So, council Andrew, do you have anything? I have nothing. Mark, no. Olivia, there. No,

I don't have anything either. So we will um move on to our we need a motion to enter a close session to discuss potential real estate um possible real estate transaction. There will be no um decision made coming out so that you know that. So I do need a um resolution to go into close session. So is there a motion for that move? Think I start with you Darren. Yes. I'll just point you. Yeah.