City Council - Regular Meeting

Conservable economy. I'm assuming we can go right straight into the

official council. Yes. Yes. Yeah, it just feels off. I don't like this energy. show me department. Just trying to lighten it up. Okay.

She closer. Give me cry. Yeah, I will. Super weird. I thought

Moving through. That's doie. We're going to start. Uh we'll call the city council business meeting to order this Thursday, February 5th, 2026. It's 5:03 p.m. Kayn, would you please call the RO? Council member Bourjon, here. Council member Brown, here. Council member Fuel, here. Council member Mi here. Porter here. Mayor Phillip

here as well. We do have a quorum. So we'll move on. Uh item number two is the pledge of allegiance. Would you please rise and stand your pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right. Item number three is approval of the agenda. Would anybody like to move any of the consent agenda items to the regular agenda? Hearing none. Can I get a motion to approve the agenda? Motion. Second.

Okay. Motion by Bourjon, seconded by Miki. Uh, all those in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same. Motion carries. Item four is dedicated work session. So this is a dedicated work session for mayor, city council and staff. Uh RA city council meeting will begin immediately following this work session. Just a little technical difficulty. We'll get her.

Got it. All right. Good deal. Uh as I said, regular city council meeting will uh begin immediately following the work session. Tonight's topic is the fiscal year 27 budget. Uh at our last meeting, Luke and Jean presented an overall review of the budget and we also heard presentations from administration, uh the police department, economic development, the library and community development. That meeting is on YouTube. So take a look at that if you want that information. Uh I'll reiterate from our last meeting that all details for the city budget are available for review and discussion. Our city manager and finance finance director are always willing to answer questions about the budget. Uh taxpayers can also inquire with department heads or myself and council. We'd love to hear the feedback. Uh tonight we have our final three department presentations to hear. City council, this is a great time to stop and ask questions and get clarification on items. You're thinking about a question, then likely others are thinking about the same thing. So we're going to head into it. Uh, first on the menu is park.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. I brought Gina with me as my support system today. Um, so just wanted to go through some highlights of what Parks and Recreation has been up to over the last year. Some of them are big and obvious and some just a few um, perks that we want to talk about. Our um, memberships at the fieldhouse, now that we've are into our first full year and past that, um, we are seeing 48% increase just in the number of memberships. Um, admissions revenue for just drop in fees is up 10%. Our tournaments are increased bookings this year over last year. Um, and same with rentals for like birthday parties and lounge rentals and things like that. Um, same things at Macinch. We have increased number of tournaments this year over last year. So, we're excited about that too. Our department's doing a lot of great things um with the crew that we have. And then I should also just stick in a thank you to them and all of you for welcoming me and helping me through my first few months process. Um, so as we get into this here, um, the main things that I wanted to highlight, you'll see a position request on the parks page, um, for an additional technician in our parks department. Sorry, I lost my voice this last weekend a little bit. Um, and so a portion of that position is also um, being funded, Jean can give you more information on through a road use tax. Um, but most of that is coming through the parks budget. So you see an increase in the budget there. The request for that is primarily due to the increased park land management that we're doing from um over the years. Looking back at um the number of acres that we're managing and mowing um from 2019 to 2025, it was almost a 400% increase in the number of acres. So, um, when you're looking at, uh, the one parks full-time position that we have, looking for assistance for him to be able to help take care of those parks and get them into the condition that we want and be able to keep mowing and maintenance and bringing new parkland online to to be able to adequately staff for that. So, that's the biggest single

line um, jump that I want to draw your attention to. Other than that, um it's a lot of just right sizing things that we didn't know before we opened the fieldhouse in terms of operational expenses there. Uh and so you'll see on the recreation line, there's some increasing in um part-time staffing, our operational expenses and our payment for services there as we come out of warranty on the building. Just trying to figure out that exact budget number that we need to be able to maintain and do repairs and things like that. Um so now that we at this point last year when the budget was created, we didn't have a full year of operations to evaluate. So those are some of the um increases that you'll see there across aquatics um and across the sports complex. Pretty consistent from year to year there. So not a lot of changes. Anything else, Jean, that you think we can just let them know about? Are you gonna talk about the rest?

Yes. Yep. Yeah. And so the red budget, if you reviewed your packet prior to today, um our revenue section, the cells were shifted down by one. So you might have noticed um some weird numbers that didn't align. So you have a corrected version both online and on your table in front of you there, which looks a little more accurate to you if you got into the lines on the revenue of the recreation.

Oh, and overlap in director wages too is a good one to note. um that in this current fiscal year there was um an overlap of wages from the prior director Robin and then my wages coming in and where our um wages overlapped. So that accounts for a little bit of the re-estimated budget and then you won't see that going forward.

Yeah. So any questions that I can answer for you about particular sections? Yes, Kelsey. the new part-time position, is that going to help us play catch-up with the acres we already are maintaining? And then how do you feel about bringing on future green spaces from these developers? Um, I guess are we playing catch-up or are we kind of moving ahead of

It's probably a little bit of both, honestly. It is a full-time position. Um, so it's a full-time position, so it will increase that by 100% by our staffing there. We do utilize a lot of part-time staff to support that. And you'll see that number was adjusted down a little bit to account for some of that workload shifting into the full-time position. But yeah, as we bring on new parkland, um, there will probably be increased need over time. We can see how that works out with our staffing and if we can accommodate that with part-time again like they have historically before we moved to a full-time position again, but little chicken and egg. Yeah. And I don't know that I'll know the exact right amount, but I do know that at this point we desperately could use the help there.

Well, this uh budget, the proposed budget will allow you to develop any of the additional park land. Um you'll see that more in the CIP plans that we have than here. This is more just operationally. So when you get to reviewing CIP, you'll see that there are some um items in there to help catch up some of that. And then most of that will come in future fiscal years. So we'll come back in the future to ask for that. But there are some items this year to get started on some projects in some of the Thank you. Yeah. The capacity of the fieldhouse. I know you you're growing into it and finding your way, but yeah, just a kind of guesstimate how much more revenue

of revenue. Um, that'd be hard for me to just throw a number out and be accurate. I can get back to you with that. But I think there there's a lot of potential there for more revenue and different streams and paths that we're looking at. But I think we're on the right track growing the right way. We need to there's more potential. Yep. Absolutely. Yep. Say it makes the spoon pool look pretty good. Knowing that the swimming pool that another way, the swimming pool annual maybe not.

Yes. No, I think once we get into having uh this full year behind us and now we can plan and target specific areas for growth, I I know there's a lot of potential there, but I don't that don't know that I'd want to say a number to you today and we feel confident about it. Have you contemplated increasing the cost uh pool passes? Um I think we will re-evaluate all fees over this next year. We did a a brief overview right when I came on for what came to council at that time. Um we'll be reevalu reevaluating all that and some of that will tie into if we are looking at cuts in services increasing fees too. Um so that'll depend on how things shake out in the future too. But yes, we'll reevaluate everything over the next year.

Questions for Thank you. Thank you.

Fire department. Mayor, Council, thank you for the opportunity to present the fire department budget tonight. I did want to take an opportunity to kind of um give everyone a state of the department of where we're at currently today. Um the fire department is an all hazards um fullervice department providing fire protection and emergency services to the community of Norwok um through fully staffed 24-hour se 247 operations um within the department. We currently employ 12 full-time employees. Um there's three of us that work a 40-hour week. The fire chief, the fire marshal, and a training officer. The remaining nine full-time personnel um work a 4896 schedule, 48 hours on, 96 hours off. And the rest of the response plan is um fulfilled by part-time staff. With a population of 15,000 people and four firefighters per shift ex excluding our administrative staff, we're staffed to the level of.3 9 fire 93 firefighters per thousand people protected. That's well below the national average of the 1.54 to 1.81. um that continues to place a strain on our firefighters and limits the department ability to meet nationally registered um benchmarks during high-risisk calls or concurrent calls. Um in recognition of that, the um we did apply for a safer grant in 2024. That's a staffing for fire and emergency response grant. That's a FEMA federal grant that was denied in 2024. Um acknowledging the need, council then did approve for us to apply again at 2025. Um due to the federal shutdowns and all that, we're still awaiting a response. Um if that is again not successful, we do have to start making plans in the future to add staff to the fire department to continue to um provide the services that we're providing today. Um

do you know how the when you what was the number of fire personnel per how many people? Yep. It's 93 firefighters per thousand people protected. Okay. What would be do you have those numbers for similar like I would think about walke? Yep. So to be at 15,000 to be where we're at, we should really have three or more people on the floor at least. That would give us right now we have four on the floor and five would put us more at an appropriate level as compared to the other agencies. So they are more staff than we are currently. Correct. Um, what do you what do you what do you attribute that difference to?

Um, uh, the I think where it comes from is that we were a volunteer department for so many years and we've only transitioned to full-time over the past 17 years that I've been with the organization. So, I mean, I was one of the first full-time hires and we've been incrementally adding hours, adding part-time, converting those to full-time. So, I think we're really just playing catch-up from the years of volunteerism. Okay. And I think it's our tax base. We are predominantly a residential tax base still. Granted, we're making we're huge drives in that direction of having more of that commercial tax base. While Key has a star larger portion of their tax base comes from commercial industrial.

So the per Yeah. So they so most of our revenue comes at 50% of the value of a property is taxable where commercial is around 90%. Um so when most of your tax base comes from residential it's a little bit harder to keep up with some of those communities that have more value. Okay.

But we're getting there. Just keep growing. We have been again incrementally adding staff um and converting those hours from part-time to full-time. And just as Luke said, it's not a matter of just not wanting to add staff. It's been a matter of funding to do that. Um in calendar to 2025, we responded to 1,750 calls for service. We were relatively flat from the year prior. Of those calls, roughly 5.44% were dedicated to mutual aid. While we relied on the use of mutual aid, 2%. So, I think we're headed in the right direction when it comes to mutual aid. um given um when I took over we are giving away about 15% I believe so we're down to just over five so I think that's really positive making sure that we're keeping resources in house though um with the call volumes and with the concurrent calls and the high-risisk calls we have relate on mutual aid more which are up about a percent from the year prior so we are just under 1% last year 2% this year but I think that's going to fluctuate from year to year um we addition

I have to comment on that sorry that's okay that's huge It is a lot of where you were going for mutual aid was a significant distance away. Y so even that percent doesn't have a little effect each time we were going on mutual aid then our ability to serve this community was limited with the staff.

Sure. And I apologize I could go into more detail with the new council members. Thank you Lou for catching up on that. Uh yeah when when I took over we were providing mutual aid all the way down to New Virginia. A lot of our calls were going out to the Northern Warren district to the Martinsdale district. And once I came on in this position, we had conversations with those individuals, asked for them to not make us the first call. And um they've been doing a really great job of kind of honoring that and relying on other agencies around them instead of just doing the easy thing and calling us. Um so yeah, we have this has been a in the works over the past four years and we really are headed in the right direction. I personally think that that 5% is an appropriate appropriate amount for us to be providing to our neighbors. Any questions about mutual aid? Okay. Um, we additionally then provide the contractual services to the city of and Lin Township with the utilization to the city of at 1.6% and Lind Township at 5.4% of our total call volume. And um, just for for knowledge here, Lind Township is basically the township that we're in. It's our rural area that's to the south of us. Again, when I first took over, we had um, Spring Hill and a 25% of Lee Township. We get those contracts up just to kind of focus again on our territory here, but we deal do still hold that contract with Lynn Township. So, backstory there, too. Um, Lynn or the townships in general, they have a max levy by state code and at 60 and 3/4 cents per thousand, which is well below what our citizens are paying or the citizens of coming. Um, that's something that I think that state legislature is looking at now, but um that isn't a Norwok problem. um that is across the state where um cities are subsidizing those townships. Um the fire department is split between a fire and an EMS budget and that split is roughly 8020 and that's just to reflect our call volume. So roughly 80% of the calls that we go on are EMS related while the 20% are fire. So there are some of the items that are specific to EMS which would be your your medical

supplies and that sort of thing. But when it comes to staffing or the bigger items, they are split that um 80 8020 split. So that's why you see the wages are higher in our EMS budget than they are in fire because aside from the three of us that work for 40, all of the other employees, their wages are split 8020 between fire and EMS. Um there was a couple of items that I wanted to note in the reestimation of the fiscal 26. Um we did sell an ambulance and then we purchased cardiac monitors. So that would be reflected in the sale of personal property. I think you can see we got 95,000 there in the re estimates and then we will be taking the um monitors uh for that 95,000 back out of medical supplies. So that's why you kind of see that that in the reestimations. Um payment for services are up in our EMS budget, but so are our revenues. So payment for services um it we pay our um billing agent 3.9% of total revenues collected. So, if we see our revenues are up, then we're also going to see our payment for services up to pay those billing fees as well. Um, wages in EMS budget are up, but they're down in fire, so they balance out. Um, Gan and I were struggling to figure out why this was because we kept working the math over and over, and we had an employee that was coded incorrectly. Um, he was coded at the 8020 instead of the 5050. So, we will get that corrected for next year. Again, you'll see it up in the line items, but it really doesn't impact the um overall budget. Um, in the fire budget, you'll also see an increase in the local government grant. We did receive a grant for $28,000 um from Prairie Meadows, but then you'll see that coming out of the capital equipment. Um, we purchased fire hose with that. And there there was also an additional 5,000 for um the Warren County philanthropic grant. So, that's why you see that in the reestimations there. And then you will again see the reestimates for vehicle maintenance for $50,000 and that was for the um the approval to fix our aerial. So that will be in there and uh we'll be paying those

bills as as they come up. Any questions over the reestimates so far? And another question. Y u paramedics and EMTs and how many do we have of each?

Yeah. So we try on our on our st or on our um each day we try to do two and two. Two paramedics, two EMTs. And it's just the basic level that they provide. So, your paramedics, they can um push medications, they can intubate, they can do those higher level skills for your um sick or injured people and the EMTs provide basic level care. So, we try to always pair them up. Um sometimes we have to run with two basics if that's what we have, but they are paid separate wages. Um and we do try to balance them out with one of each. Any other questions? Okay. Chief Qu O fees that are listed here. What is that? and just explain that line to me because it's Yep. interesting.

Yeah, for sure. So, we have um the OER is a new fee that we added this budget cycle and there's they're for outside engineering review and so the theory is is that we how we let me start over. How we used to do business is so when we do our plan review through the fire marshall's office, we have the plans reviewed and they would get sent directly to our third party. So, we have a third party does a review for us and then they would come back. So the um businesses would pay directly to the um third party. Um we implemented fees just here recently so that they could pass through to us um because there was there's a number of reasons why we wanted to do that. One was so that we had a little bit better control over when things were being sent out for review so that we knew that they were going to kind of stay on task with the projects. And the other was that we are recouping no fees for that review. But we did have staff time attached to that because once the reviewers came or once the plans came from the reviewer then our fire marshall would conduct an internal review and then provide the um back and forth to rectify the deficiencies with the developer and we are um getting no fees for that. So we just recently um implemented or put the fees in place to be able to charge those. So we haven't started that process yet and that's why you see that change a little bit. It's essentially in and out with a 20% increase.

Great question. Anything else so far? Okay. Um in the expenses just overall um the you know the primary increase of course is is to wages. We did have a wage increase of $46,000. Um we had a couple other additional requests for staffing. One was to implement a step program for our line staff. Um and the other was to promote a training officer position from a lieutenant to a captain to more appropriately align with the dutious responsibilities. Um the STEP program is something that we we haven't done yet. Um but is consistent with the the industry standards um and whether they were union or not um it is again industry standard for firefighters to have a STEP program in addition to the cost of living based wage adjustments instead of merit-based. Um the total amount for both of those requests was $24,000 and they were recommended for approval. Any questions about that? Okay. Um the on so on the next year that on fiscal 27 we also did have we are anticipating the sale of an ambulance. So we'll say you see that we have a sale of property for $100,000 there. And then we reallocated about $80,000 of those down in the capital um line to purchase some equipment that we need. Um, we need a new uh vending machine for the medications and a storage cabinet, a Lucas mechanical CPR device, some additional gear, and then a skid unit for the back of the UTV. So, we're basically just taking um some of those those funds from the sale of our ambulance and putting those back into capital equipment within the department. Um, in revenues, you'll see that we do have a pretty significant increase to revenues. We really watching those pretty heavily. And I've been ha I've been having some assistance from internal staff. Holly Johansson, bless her, has been helping us u with that. And we have really seen an increase to our revenue. So I think that's positive. And then the other increase that you'll see is of course that that contract with coming like I said um we are expected to

see a $60,000 increase. U fiscal year 26 they were projected to pay 26,000 and a fiscal year 27 it's up to 260. And again, that is split that you'll find that in your um city and fire EMS service line item. Again, split with that 8020. Um other items that are in our revenue then are the township fees. Um those go just for fire because EMS is not essential service. So all of the levy uh the monies that we get from the levy with the township all go into the fire budget. We also um charge the city of Martinsdale a per fee or I'm sorry a per call fee uh for EMS calls. So those are reflected in those city fees on the EMS site as well. Um overall from fiscal year 26 to 27 our expenses are up 12.74% but our revenues are up 39.2%. So we're essentially um up that way and we have funded our own u requests. Okay.

Uh, Chief, before you go on, the agreement, the 2080 agreement that was established with coming for fire and MS service is a significant revenue for Norwok. And as much of it of of that is a significant revenue for us, it is a major expense for that community. I bring that up because if if we see property tax reform to an extent that really starts to impact the coming budget, I could foresee that being a location where they may seek other alternatives other than Norwok for their fire and human service. Sure.

And back to that point, um, when we talked about the townships, so cities and townships are required to have fire protection. They're not required to have EMS um because of EMS is not essential service. So we don't have to provide services to and does not have to um contract with us. They could contract with Winteret if they wanted to. They just have to provide that services and that would be on them to determine what level of services they want to provide to their citizens at the cost. So um their current rate to us is 1.73 per thousand. So we had a mathematical equation that we took in to see what are our taxpayers paying per thousand for fire and EMS services and we wanted them to be paying an equitable rate in the city of So we've worked kind of through that math and right now we're at the 1.73 which as you can see is significantly less than Lind Township at the point um 16 and 3/4 cents which is again by state code. But to your point though, Luke, like if that impending litigate legislation happens, they could choose to renegotiate or ask us to renegotiate though too, right? So

now, and I say that just as a heads up that that dollar figure could change, but has really been a great partner. We've chief predominantly has established some really good relationships with them. Certainly, we don't anticipate that. We probably have more of an opportunity to build our relationship, but I just think that's a good caution for us to be aware of.

Yeah, agreed. I mean, it it does. When we were having the last um negotiation with them, it was 100% a financial conversation. It had nothing to do with our services. They were pleased with our services. Um we're happy to provide those services. Um and they're not um at a level that we can't continue to provide internal and to them, but it did come down to some financial discussions to be had. And though their, you know, their their utilization is relatively low with us, we we are seeing an increase out there as well because of the, you know, the infrastructure that they're adding the the Lomar distribution center. We do go to calls out there. Um, so we are seeing an increase in calls, but again, it's still only, you know, one and a half utilization of our total call volume.

If the if it did go south, what line items on the expense side for us would change? Well, that would I mean that would be a discussion for finance. Um they're asking what where would we cut expenses if we cut revenues from coming? I don't know that we would necessarily cut our expenses. I I think that's ultimately we would have to look at our entire general fund budget because even though those revenues are flowing in here, a lot of general fund revenues flow into the general fund and then collectively we look at what we have to do across all budgets. Go ahead. Not much.

Not much with that call volume. Not much. Um, but you know, know that we we run a pretty tight budget. So, you know, that's what I'm mean. Yep. Yeah. We don't have any extra fluff just because of the revenues that we're bringing in from coming or EMS. Again, you see the increase was at 12% but or increase was 39% but expenses were 12. So, some of that is going back to the general fund. And I think, you know, he he tried to run it pretty close to the best now as far as the minimal of what we've got, you know, with resources, try to maximize it, but share in it, which I really appreciate you doing. Yeah. And uh so it'll be really challenging obviously things change.

That's you know, the the fire and EMS budget, it's it's like life insurance. you have it in hopes that you never have to use it. Um it's having that service available to them. That's where the big expense comes in. Yeah. Yeah. And that was part of the conversation originally when I very first started was with coming was they wanted to set talk about how many calls that we went to there. But that's really irrelevant. Whether we run 2,000 calls or zero calls, we're still paying for the service that we have here today. We're an engaged to wait um agency. So that's it's an insurance policy.

Well said. Okay. The only other things that I have here then was I did want to bring attention to our CIP items that are active. One, we have uh 25,000 for gear. That roughly comes at $5,000 a set. Those have a 10-year um lifespan. So, we just have some that are due for replacement. And then we did get um 150,000 per year for the next four years for the replacement of the aerial truck with a final um general obligation bond in fiscal year 31 um to finalize that purchase. Um, the other thing I'd like to bring attention to is that we do our best to apply for grants. Um, we apply for the Warren County philanthropic grant every year. Um, we also apply for the Prairie Meadows um, grant. Um, we we have in the past just for new council members. We did apply for an assistance to firefighter grant a couple of several years ago and we got $250,000 from that. So, any of those big items we will be looking at. Again, we're in the process right now for a safer grant still waiting. So, we do really try to to look external for some funding sources, especially for some of our capital items. We know that they're expensive, so we do our due diligence to make sure we're looking for writing those grants yourself primarily, right?

We are. Yeah. Yeah. We did I I we did have a grant writer for the safer grant and then it was um minimal cost to use them to just redo it the next year. All of the other grants for writing and any other questions? Okay. Thank you. All right. Wayne, you're up next. Thanks. Here's the guy that moves money. Wayne, please keep your comments minimum.

Good. Well done. Uh Jason's referring to my lack of enjoyment presenting the council members for new members. You don't like doing this? No. No.

So, we have four budgets to present. We have road use tax, water, sanitary sewer, and storm sewer. I'm not going to go into the weeds of each one. I'm just going to hit the larger budget items and kind of keep it big picture. Um, I really enjoy the CIP portion of this season. This is just budgeting. We'll have CIP coming in a few weeks. Um, but I will mention a few things as the other staff department heads have. So, the first thing I guess I'll get into is staffing. The we have two changes to staffing. One is we're proposing an additional building and grounds employee. We currently have one employee doing building and grounds work and he is awesome. Um, he is retirement eligible and retirement is on his radar. As you know, we're adding more buildings all the time. Our existing buildings are getting older. The calls for service are going up. Um, so there's a need for additional help there, but also we want to start the transition of knowledge from our existing employee to the future one. That's a position that is funded both with the general fund and with the public works funds. So, they serve all departments. It's not just public works. So, we have that in the budget. The second staffing point Chris already brought it up. We're increasing our road use packs seasonal help budget. Um, what we do is we just give that money to parks. They do all the heavy lifting related to hiring management of employee. That employee helps us do the rideway management. That's why we use road use tax dollars for it. It's mowing the rideway. Um, that relationship with parks has been awesome the last few years. they've really stepped up, helped us a ton. We appreciate them handling that staffing employee. So, that's a general for all my budgets for staffing. If I get into the road use tax, this is probably my busiest budget. It's streets and this is broken into five sections. You'll see the middle

three numbers. The 210s, that's general street budget. Uh the 230s is street lighting. 240 is traffic control. 250 with winter operations, 270 street cleaning. So, there's a lot of different um subcategories of the road use tax. Road use tax is funded with motor vehicle registration and fuel taxes. It's not property taxes. It's um set by the state. It's $140 per person from our population. We get that from the DOT. They review that. We don't have any say on the on the rate, but it's $140 per person. Again, not not your taxes. The biggest topic to hit with this budget is probably street maintenance through different line items in this budget. We have $900,000 in street maintenance. This is potholeing, crack sealing, pavement striping, and patching projects. Some of this is by public works staff. Some we have it contracted out. Some we have it engineered and then contracted out. It encompasses a lot of different um methods of pavement maintenance. City Council has done a great job of funding street maintenance for the city of Norwok. It's better than a lot of the communities. Um Norwok funds it with the road use tax, but they also contribute with lost. Some communities I know will only use the road use your road use tax dollars. That's $140. You're not getting a lot done for that. So Norwalk's done great. If you've gone to the League of Cities conferences or anything similar to that, you will hear though that's probably not enough. um every community in Iowa, nobody's probably contributing enough money to maintain their roads. It's a losing um equation. We probably couldn't fund enough to do it. What we're trying to do is just slow down the rate of the roads deteriorating. We try to keep them maintained. Um but again, we're doing a great job of it. Um the the probably the most interesting line items in this are the capital equipment and capital improvements. These two line items are probably the

most interesting ones, the ones I'm going to hit on in every budget. The capital equipment in here has a upgraded bucket truck. We're looking at getting another U or not another replacing our existing bucket truck with another used one. It's not new. Um it's $50,000. We use this for maintaining our traffic signals, street lights, putting up decorations. And then we have a new mini loader which we'll use um mainly for snow removal and smaller projects. Okay. Capital improvements is our street m main street maintenance line item. And then we have in here the cost participation for new developments where we have the improved road standards. We have $100,000 in road use tax to help participate in those cost which we are seeing plats come in now that we're requiring the new subdivision street standards. So, thank you, Brad. That's all I had for road use tax.

The the land acquisition line item, is that the over by the bus barn city said? Is that the stuff that we talked about at the school meeting? Yep. That the 10-year um 10-year budget item. Any questions on these tax? I'll jump in the Sorry, Wayne. One more thing on that. So what you heard during that meeting with the school was that the acreage worked out to be a little bit more than we had previously discussed. I haven't even brought that up with Wayne and Jean yet after that meeting. So we could see that number adjust slightly depending on how that

how the lines were drawn for the rest of the people, right? That yeah, the school might get a different amount than we had originally planned for. Correct. Yep. Y

thank you. Um, before I jump in water, I guess I'll just say for all of my budgets, I'm not discussing revenue. Jean can kind of get in. If you have revenue questions, Jean um can help answer that. I probably echo every department head. Jean's awesome. We all owe her a lot of thanks for her help with the revenue portion of it. Um, it's kind of like at my house, I just worry about spending money about making it happen. So anyway, in the water budget, the 810 numbers are the primary public works numbers. The 811 are more administrative. You'll see some that's why there's like education in both 810 and 811 numbers. 810 is guys out. 811 is probably more city hall work. The capital equipment line item 6727, that's where we fund new water meters, uh the MXUS, the fittings, all the new construction water meters and existing meters. There's $180,000 in there for new meters. For those that don't know, as the meters age, they generally slow down and they don't read accurately. People thinking they they might be getting overcharged. That's generally I've never seen a case where an old meter is overcharging somebody. It's always the under. So, it's important that we fund new meters on all particularly the large meters and the old meters. And that's what staff is continually working on. They're picking off the oldest ones and trying to get the big ones. And they're making a good push for that right now. City Hall helps a lot with that. Uh we also have in a budget updating our water main brake vehicle. So that's $50,000. We're proposing to get We have an old bread truck right now. If you've seen it out on water main brakes, we're proposing buying a newer but still used vehicle. We The guys are joking. It's instead of an old bread truck, we're going to get in get in an old bagel truck. just something slightly slightly newer but still uh just nothing extravagant but something they take out. It's a critical item. So

that's it for water. Moving along. Love it. Okay. San sewer. The big expendure here is under capital improvements. It's over a million dollars in the budget. This is a new lift station in Saddle Ridge for 605,000. 350 for a sewer rehab project and 80,000 for maintenance. Maintenance on our sanitary sewers typically involve root cutting in sewers with the machine. We'll do chemical root treatment. We'll do sewer lining, sewer spot repairs, and manhole rehabs. Um the manhole rehabs, the sewer lining, it's all to stop the roots and stop ground water from getting in. Everything that enters our sewers, we pay for it to so we got to keep the clean water out. There's no reason to have that in there. We pay for that to have that treated. the $350,000 sewer rehab project. I wanted to touch on that. That's a rehab project and it's cash funded uh made possible by saving money in past year's budgets. So, every year we budget money for maintenance. We don't always run that down to zero. We do spend maintenance money every year, but if we can save money, we like to save money and do a bigger project. It allows us to do different types of projects and we get economies of scale by doing these bigger ones. Um, I'm sure public works is no different. We don't try to burn down our budgets to zero just to burn, you know, just to use them up. That's not how anybody here operates. I don't believe for public works, it's extra beneficial because the enterprise funds, the money rolls over. It doesn't go back into a general fund pool. It stays in that utility fund. So, allows us to use that money for bigger projects. I mean, I feel like at one of our first budget meeting, Andy had a really good question about that that it looked strange that we had some budget line items that hey, it doesn't look like you're using this, but you're asking more in the next year.

That's why that's that is an example um of why that would happen. Yep. And we do that in all and public works does that for all the enterprise and even road use tax. We try to save money. Like I said, for us to hire a company to come in and do seal lining for 200 feet, we're going to pay a lot for that per foot. But if we can have them come in do 2,000 feet, we g we gain some value there for having that done. As a newbie, I think that's the hard thing just looking at this paper that's in front of me because I don't see those dollars that were saved that were not given back to the general fund. When something goes up, I want to look at it and then Wayne tells me something like that. Right? So that's hard as a as a general citizen or us to as a new person to understand that concept just looking at.

It's frankly it's why those are good questions if you're thinking that other people are probably having that same.

Excellent. I'll jump to storm sewer. The biggest expense here again it's capital improvements line item 470,000. We have in here storm sewer maintenance at 60,000. This is mainly city staff out there rebuilding intakes. Uh we do some contract work. We have a $350,000 highway 28 intake project. This is against a project run a cash fund for the new members. So you know the highway is state controlled. If it's curb and gutter the intakes are ours. The storm service portion is our responsibility to maintain that. Some other um components of the highway are too. Even though it's state controlled, we have some responsibility like the traffic signals would be another one that's our responsibility. Some of the intakes need repaired. We're going to start a project for that. Um, and then we have, oh, like I said, maintenance dollars. All I had for that. I guess I just wanted to mention the CIP. We had a lot of projects in 2025. I'll bring that list forward. 26 is going to be busier. You're going to see a couple projects in the CIP that are going to be very disruptive. We'll just start designing work disruptive. As you'll get through it, if you've been through any project, you know it's going to be good when it's done. you got to get through the painful part part of the growth and we'll discuss that when accounts comes up but just so you know there's a few uh few big ones out there on the radar it

one more question sorry I guess I like to know when we buy land the land acquisition that's in for the the sewer stuff is that for the lift station area is is that what we council talked about from yeah I know exactly what that Thank you. All right. You got anything else, Jim?

No, I just wanted to mention something about the if you're looking at the revenues for the enterprise funds, water, sewer, and storm water. They're up quite a bit. You notice that, you know, water is 10%, sewer shows 11, and storm water 13. this budget uh the 26th budget I should say was developed in March of 2025. We have done some increases since then. The state we had to have our budget done by March 5th to get these letters out. Um so we we didn't have our central waterworks numbers as far as what we were going to pay for the buyin. We didn't know if we were going to have to spread it out. We didn't know it was going to be all at once. It ended up being all at once. So then we determined our rates. uh our water rates, we did a four-year increase, uh 6% for four years to cover those costs for the buyin and the water tower. Um so we and that was an SRF. We got an SRF loan, state revolving loan fund through Iowa Finance Authority, and they required we do a multi-year increase. If we would went out to the bond market for a utility revenue bond, we would have had to put money aside in a um syncing fund or a reserve fund. SRF didn't require that, but they did require we have some kind of backup there. So, the four years. Um, and then the sewer, we went ahead and did the 3% each year. And again, like Wayne said, we save money and we do bigger projects for that. And storm water. Storm water was 13% because it's a dollar. Uh, it's been 50 cents and 50 cents since we increase those. We do 750 per ESU. Now, it's 850. That's 13% because it's just such a small amount. But um we have not increased storm water believe 10 years at least since I've been here. So just a little background on why those revenues are up like they are.

One more thing about the revenue on enterprise funds. We have uh tracking documents where each month we look at how revenues are flowing in for water, sewer, and storm to see if they're in line with what our estimation was. So, um I feel like that's something we watch pretty closely. If we notice that we're in a year, let's just say that we have a lot of rain and so there's not very much irrigation, that could move the needle on how much revenue we're receiving. If we're close enough on our budgets that we're not going to hit our revenue, we've even talked about holding back on some spending in that particular year so we can uh keep those two equal. So, it's something we watch pretty close on a monthly basis. So, was 25 that way?

Like because we probably didn't irrigate as much in 25 as we did the past year. It was, but still a fairly strong year for revenue. It was because I think that ban was 45 days. That boy, they sure made up for it. So, yeah, it adds and flows, right? And the other thing we do with our um so we don't just take the total number of revenue, divide it by 12 months. uh we go back historically and look how much water is used each month and then that's that's used to take that portion of the the total

thanks Jean

thanks Jean okay that's our budget discussion so we'll move on uh item number five welcome we got some public comment thank you for being here tonight appreciate you showing up for a meeting uh we'll open up the dis at At this point in time, if you want to address council or uh myself or staff uh for non-aggenda items, we'll give you three-minute time limit. Uh realize we can't take action on those items tonight because they're not on the agenda. That would be a violation of open meetings laws if we took action on them. Uh also, if you'd like to comment on any item in the consent agenda, now would be the time. So, anybody like to address council at this point? I will move on. Uh item number six, consent agenda. Can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda?

Motion. Second. Okay. Motion by Brown, second by Bourjon. Uh Kaylin, would you please call roll? Uh council member Bourjon, yes. Brown, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Motion carries. Item number seven is old and new business for consideration, discussion, and possible action. Item A is a public hearing regarding an amendment to the Orchard Hills plan unit development related to R4 highdensity residential and C5 traditional traditional neighborhood commercial uses in PUB parcels 1A and 1B. So, we'll open up public hearing at 5:51 p.m. So, this is a resoning request for the ground over by the water tower on North Avenue. Uh this will allow apartments to be built on much of the property and it preserves a commercial lot at the corner of Orchard Hills Drive and North Avenue. So Luke, I'll turn it over to you.

Yeah. So there's a lot of history on this parcel, so I'm going to rewind time back uh just to give everybody the full perspective on any everything. Um when the Orchard Hills neighborhood was officially kind of created and zoned, um this corner was uh C1 commercial. Um and it stayed that way for several years. Um in 2010, uh the council at that time made an amendment to the PUD that said that parcel one could be C1 or R4, but it said that at time of development, we needed to do an amendment to set it to be one of those. Um so that happened in 2010. Uh 15 years passed. In 2025, we had a proposal for the kind of subsoutheastern half of this um that was ended up being a senior apartment and town home complex. Um that was approved. So that's the zoning that's currently on place for this. Um however, that project did not move forward. In fact, uh the purchase agreements they had for it, they didn't end up buying it. Um they were going after some state assistance for that senior housing project. And uh so that project fell through. Um this project before you in request before you is a whole different group. Um the property owner that owns it is still the same property owner that owned it uh in 2025. Uh they purchased the land in 2022. Um so that's kind of the history there. Um the what we had done in the previous PUD was again kind of set that southoutheastern uh area as residential and then uh the northern area along North Avenue had been left as uh C1 or R4 still. Um so what this proposal to do would be to reszone it and kind of move the parcel lines around. Um so parcel 1B gets bigger. That was the residential piece

from the previous PUD. Um, it gets bigger and goes up along North Avenue. Um, parcel 1A does get smaller, but part of this uh discussion with the the developer, um, we would lock that into C1 at this time. So, um, unlike the previous proposal where parcel 1A was bigger but still had R4 and C1 zoning potential, this one would lock 1A into commercial. Um so it's a little bit different um as far as that's concerned. Um other than that uh comprehensive plan wise in our uh newest comprehensive plan we changed this corner to what our new urbanism um comprehensive plan land use district which talks about um a mix of uses and everything that was kind of based on the fact that the PUD at the time said hey this could be residential or commercial. Um, and so a lot of the new urbanism stuff isn't always just that mix of uses, but also the form things take and how they interact with uh the public realm. Um, so this proposal that they've shown before us um kind of reflects that. It's uh more of a, you know, street fronted project rather than a lot of apartment complex you might see would, you know, put that parking up against the street and put that building farther back. Um, so it's a little bit different in that regard. Um the kind of uh uh aerial shots there are just some examples of the product that uh they've built in other places so you can get an idea of kind of what that looks like um from a street level. And I believe there was a um uh kind of facade uh elevation in the packet as well. So I think that hits most of it. Um if there are questions I'm happy to answer them. Yeah. Went back to P&Z and

they gave thumbs up. They did. Kaylin, have we received any oral or written comments on this? No. Okay. Any public comment? Hearing none, we'll go ahead and close the public hearing at 5:55 p.m. Item 7Bs, first reading of an ordinance amending the master plan and rules, regulations, and guidelines for the Orchard Hills Planning Unit development as contained in ordinance 04-05. So, we just had a public hearing uh on this item. Luke, you got anything to add? Uh, no. Just happy to answer questions.

Awesome. Discussion questions from council. I get a motion to approve the first reading as presented. Motion second. Motion by Cool, seconded by Minne. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Kaylin, would you please call the role? Council member Brown, yes. Yes. Mi, yes. Porter, yes. Yes.

All right. That motion carries. Item 7 C is resolution approving amended development agreement with Dun Industrial Condominiums LLC and approving the termination of a minimum assessment agreement. So the developer has requested uh okay uh developers requested this amendment because phase 2 is not being completed as quickly as planned. Uh, also the minimum assessment agreement which set a $5 million minimum value by January 1, 2026, is causing some difficulty in attaining financing for phase 2 because this value is not viable until the entire project is completed. Uh, bond council advised terminating the minimum assessment uh agreement since no upfront incentives or grants were provided uh for the development. Uh the amended agreement delays the start of TIFF rebate payments uh by one year with the developer beginning to receive partial re partial tax rebate 2028. Holly, I'll turn it over to you. You

did a really good job. Um I would just say from time to time we do amend development agreements if there's a delay in construction or delay in the project and there's many reasons that that can happen. It can be supply and demand. It can be interest rates change which affects the capital stack or just um labor shortage different reasons for construction delays but um the most important thing to us is that our businesses are successful because we need them to be um run the city and the residents benefit from that. So anytime we can help a little bit here or there if they need an adjustment or delay by a year um then we try to do that. So I know it's a lot of pages but it's a pretty simple procedure. So, I'm not really sure why we have so many pages in these, but answer any questions.

Discussion questions from council. No, we don't have any upfront money against it. No, we'd be behind. Correct. Any public comment? So, get rid of the amendment assessment of 5 million. What What does that do? What if it comes comes assessment?

Yeah. So we used to do minimum assessment agreements pretty regularly because in the past kind of way in the past from time to time we would give an upfront grant. So we would do um like a portion of their tiff rebate at the time of certificate of occupancy. And so it was a way for the city to have a little bit of um protection that if we had a minimum assessment agreement in place we knew that no matter what we would get this minimum assessed value that we could um receive tip on. We went away from doing those upfront um grants a while ago and we pretty much just do tip rebate now. So there's really no risk to the city because they only get their payment if they build a facility and then they just get a percentage of whatever that value is. So since it's it's based that way, we don't really need to do those minimum assessment agreements anymore. And that was advised by bond council as well. We do have to do them now with all tax abatement applications, which we don't do a ton of those anymore. Um, but that's a new law that was required last year. So, if their assessment comes in, they just pay on their whatever they're actually being assessed at instead of right now their first phase is complete and they're assessed at about 1.3 million. It'd be crazy for them to pay taxes on 5 million when their building's at 1.3. So, this just puts it at level.

Other questions? Can I get a motion to approve the resolution as presented? Motion second by for seconded by cool. Any further discussion? Kaylin, would you call the role? Council member Cool. Yes. Ricky, yes. Order. Yes. Yes. Brown. Yes. All right. Motion carries. Item 7D is remove from table the consideration of the second reading of an ordinance amending the code of ordinances of the city of Norok Iowa to adopt the zoning amendment related to gates on commercial property. So uh next item was tabled by councel. So can I get a motion to remove the item from the table?

Motion. Okay. I got a motion by cool seconded by Mini. Kaylin, would you please call? Council member Mini. Yes. Order. Yes. For John. Yes. Brown. Yes. Yes. All right. That motion carries. Item 7E is the second reading of an ordinance amending the code of ordinances of the city of Moro, Iowa to adopt a zoning amendment related to gates on commercial properties. So, this zoning amendment is to allow construction of gates and barriers along Highway 28 for businesses. Luke,

yes. So, our first reading that we went through um was pretty um open to allowing lots of different styles of gates and barriers across commercial properties. Um at that meeting, we had a discussion about uh tableabling it and taking a look at doing some additional um work to maybe make it look nicer or or other things that we could do to uh further restrict that. So, um, I've gone ahead and made what I felt like were some good changes to that, but certainly willing to take any, uh, comments or feedback. Um, the main thing that I've done here is, uh, split the the security gates section into, uh, two different areas. One for commercial properties and then one area for, um, residential and industrial uh, and like gated communities. So on that industrial side and gated community side, the thought that you know those gates a lot of times need to function as a full-on barrier. Um a gated community sometimes it's even a feature to the community, that type of thing. And so being more open to different styles and different looks of things. Um so that that's on that side. Um on the commercial side, um where my mind was at was, uh there was some discussion about wanting the community to feel like an open place, you know, like not that we're like shutting down every night at 5, right? Um so I really focused on the thought that they would be allowed if they were less visible, right? And so what we came up with was this language that uh our planner and myself spent a lot of time trying to craft these two sentences that are highlighted there. Um, but the idea that uh we would allow a gate that could be uh retracted when not in use and that the the element that restricted access

would not be visible from the public right of way. Um, however, if you had posts or things that needed to be in place to support that when it was in place, um, that would be fine if it was visible. So, the simplest way to think about this would be two posts with the chain that ran ran between it. Doesn't even have to be anything fancy. No fancy mechanism, not even a lock. Just you can unhook it from the S hook, run the chain across, done. It's not real visible during the day. Uh it's not real visible at night in my opinion. I feel like that's a pretty low impact thing. Um, we would also if somebody wanted to do something a little more robust and they were able to screen it from public view with landscaping or have it kind of swing back or retract back behind a building, you know, those would be the other situations where it' be okay with it. So, the idea would be during the day when things are open, you're driving down Highway 28, we don't look like uh every property is, you know, a a prison or something. And uh at night, giving our property owners the ability to secure their property because ultimately that's what we want to do as well is is let them, you know, control that access um for their own purposes. So, I feel like I did a pretty good job with it. I don't know what y'all think. I'd be happy to hear. You did do a pretty good job. My question would be, you know, we're we're trying to make those things so they're not seen, right? So they're not real visible.

Sure. So I'm thinking nighttime and I'm thinking cars, headlights, and I'm thinking seeing those things. And I wonder if we should have any kind of a line there about it being visible to approaching traffic. Sure. Um I I feel like we cover that a little bit under section five where we do kind of require that they uh have illumination or some kind of reflectorization um to be seen during dark. So um I don't know, you know, maybe that we could be more deliberate in that maybe a sign needs to hang on a chain, right, that says

clothes or something. I don't know. No. Okay. You know, so a yellow chain a yellow chain then like you know um Yeah. Yeah. have done a good job. Yeah, I want to thank Luke for the work he's done on this, too. I Man, I never know where my OCD is going to crop up. Uh I didn't even know it was there for a long time. So, it's fun when occasionally things just get this. So, thanks for all your work on this, Luke. And I like the simplicity of the solution. Personally,

I just have one question just to I think you're giving me the answer I'm asking about. But uh so when it says the elements of the restriction to access will not show up in the time that means it said so it says gate gated property don't come in that can't be just sitting there permanently right. It has to be attached to the the gate and it goes away when you retract it.

Yeah. If it was something that slid back away, we'd want it to go alongside a building, say, if if the drive was coming there or behind some bushes and shrubs and stuff that, you know, some landscaping element. There there's ways you could kind of creatively still have that. I I think probably we end up with a lot of posts with chains because I think that's probably the simplest, easiest solution for people that want to do it. Yeah, for sure. I was picturing almost like a rod iron fence that

right there's lots of stuff like that. I mean there are posts that'll sink into the ground and I mean there's even chains that are automated but to me it's like I feel like that's probably getting a little too fancy what you really mean. Like the chain needs to be real taut. Just avoid degree of the building inspector take care of that.

So when we intro when we introduced this, mayor introduced it along Highway 28, and you said the same thing like what is this? Tell me the scoping for this. So what if there's commercial property off Highway 28? That this still applies. Yeah. So, this would apply to anything in our any of our commercial districts. And then like this is for along Highway 28. That's not really true. This is for any commercial properties in

Yep. I use Highway 20 as an example of areas that we pay attention to, but yeah, it'd be any commercial property. Also, non-residential uses that happen to have a residential zoning district. So um our own part well actually our Macinich is within an an industrial area but you know Macinich isn't is a use that's not typical of industrial or a school. Some of our schools if they wanted to restrict access to a parking lot or something um we would want them to follow uh this uh rule as opposed to the bigger gate rule. So play out an example for me, Luke, on the last one where we approved the reszoning of that that residential with the commercial next to it. Let's say the the residential wanted to put a chain across the road because people were parking in spots to visit that commercial. This would not apply to that, right?

They could do a chain, but they could also just do a regular gate for for that commercial as this is written or for for that residential as this is written. But we wouldn't say it has to look pretty for the residential is what this tells me. The residential I I don't I'm going to say not pretty. Um it would have to follow these standards.

Yeah, it would follow the in your uh packet. Uh the next page number nine is the standards that it would follow. Um which is the standards that we'd originally written. So it does have some requirements for you know it's got to be coated in a material that prevents corrosion. It's again got to have illumination factors and that stuff, but it would be able to be more of a typical gate that you would see because I feel like we have the two use cases. We have a res high density residential close to commercial things where they're not going to want people in their parking and taking over their spots and the inverse, right? So,

yeah. Other questions? Any public comment? Can I get a motion to approve the second reading as presented? Motion. Second. Okay. So, I got a motion from down there. Got a second from Miki. Uh, any further discussion? Would you please call roll? Council member Porter. Yes. Board. Yes. Brown. Yeah.

Yeah. Yes. All five. Appreciate you. Motion carries. Item 7F. Final reading of an ordinance amending the official zoning map of the city of Noral Iowa by amending the Brody's landing plan unit development regarding bulk regulations for decks in land use parcels C, D, and E. So, this change will allow decks in in those three parcels to extend within 10 feet of the back property line. Uh, we approved the second reading at our last meeting. Luke, anything to add? Nothing new. Discussion or questions from council or public comment? Any questions?

Yeah. With some higher density housing potentially in the future, will something like this be taken into account with

I think so certainly if we're um you know the unique thing with this was we had a proposal that usually we deal with lot width. We don't often have people coming at us saying we want to do less deep lots. So that was a function of us not fully kind of thinking through all the ramifications of that setback on that shorter lot. Um certainly we'll learn from that experience and uh if someone proposed that we would either bake that into the ordinance or um you know I think we'd have a deeper discussion about how deep a lot should be because I think this situation kind of shows where maybe that's not always the best. So yes because lots are getting smaller. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. We do have a motion. Anybody want to make a motion? Motion. All right. Second. Okay. So, motion by Maki, seconded by Porter. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Kaylin, would you please call roll? Council member Bordon. Yes. Brown. Yes. Yes. Yes. Porter. Yes. That motion carries. We're going to go ahead and open up for public comment one more time. You guys want to address council? Yeah.

Give you three minutes. Thank you. Uh, appreciate the time. I know I'm standing between you and a German here, but my name's Trey Wade. I'm the CEO of Every Step. We're a nonprofit that serves the greater metro area. May know us from other names. We have our Cabin House, Hospice House, Hospice of Central Iowa, Busy, Nurse Services, Amanda the Panda Services. Uh, over 20 programs. We serve about 40,000 people a year. Uh, one of our programs is called Healthy Homes, and it kind of impacts communities. It's where we go into homes. We make sure that uh they're safe for the environment, particularly uh for children who have uh asthma and other breathing problems. We go in and make sure there's no black mold. We remove some black mold and make sure it's it's safe that people have education on how to treat carpet uh for our pets in the home. And then we also go in uh and evaluate if seniors are safe in their home. We have a HUD grant right now and it's expiring. And uh there's no news coming out of the federal government that they're going to renew it. And so before we close down a program that benefits not only the people living in the homes but the communities because we keep the homes up, we thought we would approach some city councils about the program and see if there's any interest and continue to fund it. So uh Becky, my colleague here is going to go into some details about the program, tell you a little bit more about it. You can throw questions at it at us and if we can answer them, we will. But really this is kind of our way of saying uh as of September this would go away. communities throughout the greater de mo area uh have benefited from it and we're just trying to to save it before we have to torset it. So I'll let you talk.

Do you know how many how many homes in Norwok have been benefited by that? Um so for every step in general I can tell you we've served 60 families in Norwok with all of our services. So that includes like our maternal child health program. So a benefit of healthy you home is not only that it helps with the the modifications of the home but it also acts as like a catalyst into all of our other programming. So then we could connect with hospice home care maternal child health to help really holistically surround that family with services.

One of the parameters of the HUD grants is very limited to where we can serve. So, one of the, you know, cost benefits of it going away that we're hoping for is can we expand the program and further support other counties and get and get get more outside just that.

Yeah. Another part of the goal that we have, I'm like three minutes, how fast I can really talk fast if I really need to. Um, is that we want to a lot of our programming goes by income based and location based. and we are wanting to expand that to be able to provide services to I know um childhood safety injury and asthma prevention does not discriminate no matter your education or income level. So one of our goals is to go into homes in public areas and provide like education for here's childhood injury prevention and partner with other community resources like law enforcement um poison control to help really promote that education out in the community. So that would be another aspect and goal of this programming is to boost education and provide those services if they are income eligible to bring like the hepailter vacuum and the cleaning supplies of here's how to clean your home with a child with asthma.

So so a typical family we get a call from an ER doc. They would say hey we've seen this kiddo in ER like six times in the past year. We don't know what's going on. Can you go in? Our folks would come in do an evaluation. Maybe they find out that there's infest infestations of the home, uh, rodents, insects. Maybe they find that the home's not clean enough. Maybe they find that there's even black mold, uh, fans that aren't connected in the bathrooms that are causing, you know, all kinds of things can cause long exurbations with kids. So, we go in and we do everything from right now doing education with the family. here's how you the state you have to keep your home. Giving them supplies, giving them a HEPA vacuum to make sure they can keep it clean, trying to make sure we follow up, tying them to other programs. Um, we have seen in that instance those ER hospitalizations, those exacerbations, the asthma go down greatly. Um, if we can just get in there,

we've seen 64%. So we've been doing this work for a long time since 2015 and um we were predominantly focused on the asthma related um preventative care and we saw a reduction of 64% in children going to the e or children missing daycare in school because of asthma related concerns in parents missing 70% less work. So it really does fuel back into the city by keeping parents at work and kids at school and daycare. So, we'll leave some information for you. You can obviously take a look at it. We'll follow back up. We're going, you know, we're really talking to city councils throughout the metro area, seeing is there interest in this before we um we shutter it and we hope we can keep it going. It's done a lot of good. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Thanks for making time for us. This is a good organization, Mayor. This is the one I'm associated with this. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, any I'm happy to answer any questions although I won't respectful time as well. So if if it goes onto a future agenda, what would you want? What's what's the ask for council? Yeah, we kind of based it by population trying, you know, we we know that every township's not the same and every city's not same as we so we're really looking for based on the population here. Do you know it be 10,000 is normal?

10,000. We're hoping we can combine and and get the greater de mo to all continue all in. Uh we also are approaching the health systems. They've been a great partner of ours as well to keep the program going on a substance level just to do the education, bring in the supplies, make sure that people are getting the education they need to keep their kids safe. We need anywhere from 280 to 300,000 for a couple full-time FTEEs to to really run the program. All right. All right. Great. Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

All right. So item number eight, future agenda items. So, the purpose for of this item is for council to give direction to staff by way of motion to have items placed on future agendas. It's not for discussion the merits of the subject matter. It's just to get it on the agenda. Uh want to put the healthy form to deeper dive on to a future agenda. Make a motion. Okay. Got a second. All those in favor say I. I. I. Okay. So, let's get that on the on maybe next agenda. It's good to get that done earlier than later because of budget. Any anything else? Any other future?

Uh maybe a question first, like we've asked this before and had some approved and not and we said we were going to have a working session. Do we have a time for ones that didn't get put on agenda where we were going to have a working session? What we generally do is when when there is support from council um unanimous but it doesn't have to be unanimous majority says yes we want that on future agenda then we have set work sessions it's every other council meeting time and so we just take those items and we plug them in where they can be fit in over the next several months and so yes we have work sessions coming up one of them I just talked to George about today with the award versus um at large council member,

but it only gets put into a work session if it was received majority because we had two topics in the past that not received majority, right? That I think at some point either we need to bring back and get or figure out how we're going to check on those, right? I cover that, right, Lindsay? Yes, you did.

Anything else? Okay. Item number item nine is council inquiries and staff updates. I'd like to remind everybody that this portion of the meeting is much less formal. You may hear some back and forth uh banter and general joking around. Uh we believe that this can add uh and build camaraderie and cohesiveness between staff and the council. So uh we're going to start with Harry because she has some sort of award that we got.

Yeah. So this is the first or sorry not the first this is the fifth year in a row that the city has received the um best place for working parents designation. Um it's basically just a recognition of our family positive u policies that we have in place. Um you know the the healthc care coverage um the FSA flexible spending accounts um our parental leave policies um flexible scheduling things like that. So again, I think if if you're an a full-time employee here, I think um that all of this is sort of a given. You know that this is a great place to work uh in part because of the policies that we have in place that benefit our our working parents. Um and I was looking at it uh in preparation for today and really the only way for us to get a better score would be if we were to have an on-site daycare. Um, and so Wayne said he was all for having that.

So I I don't think that that is in the works or something that will happen. That's an idea. So So my point being that that uh we we really do have some great policies in place that benefit those looking parents. So, you know, this this is really a good I mean, it's a super good program for the city because it helps us ret retain staff retain and and recruitment as well. Yep. Yes, ma'am. And it's something that it we're not really putting a lot of I mean, not really a lot of money out there to be able to make this, right?

So, it's really a compliment, you know, to the management staff particularly that we have here that this is able to be made to work. And so I'm sure everybody up here appreciates that and appreciates this atmosphere for work atmosphere. Yeah. Goes a long way. For sure. Thank you. And thanks to council for being the ones that approve the policies that we have in place. So anything else? I don't.

Okay. We uh legislation. We're keeping an eye on that. The big ones are the property tax bills right now. And what we're waiting for is the League of Cities to finalize a financial model so that Gan and I can take a little bit deeper dive and truly understand how that's going to impact us. Last year, her and I spent a lot of time trying to put together our own model. Uh it was a good stab, but not quite as good as the one that PFM came up with. But nevertheless, um we figured this year our time would be better spent knowing that the league is working on that model just to wait for that. After that comes out, I'm going to have more detail for you on what that legislation looks like.

Sounds like a good plan to me. Yeah. Anything else? That's all good. George, uh, I got a new gig, new job, so I'm gonna be remote a week a month. So, there could be possibilities that I'll have to just be on Zoom or miss even randomly. So, yep. Um, and then just a random question. Uh exiting on on Highway 5 onto 28, there's the attractions sign. The only attractions point north. There's nothing that points to Norwok, right? Um like how do we get a like how do we get something to the fieldhouse or X or Y or Z on that sign?

We looked into all of that and we found all the information and it's up to the individual businesses. They can rent space on these signs. So we got that information out to all of our businesses. So I know that our hotels and it has to be within so many miles from the highway which is most paws and pints is on there and that's way farther away. Oh yeah, sure. Reaches into Norwok Central for sure. So we've notified all of them and it's pretty inexpensive to get on those signs. So hopefully within this next year so our hotels and restaurants and things will get I just happened to drive and I was notified. I'm like really like this seems

and then I just uh fence almost is done. I was going to give an update next. Okay. All right. Uh we did a walkthrough of the wall today. Wall, fence, whatever you want to call it. Um all in all, I think it looks pretty darn good. They're going to do some aesthetic things uh to help it look a little more level. We did put levels on the wall and it is pretty level. So, I think there could be some visual things that are compromising your vision if you think it looks crooked like utility poles that are extremely crooked. Um,

so I was going to ask a question about that. I would have forgot. So, the we have electric poles on the inside and outside of that fence. Does mid American care? Do we care that because they're going to have to replace those poles at some time and will fence get damaged because of their poor pole being moved? Uh I hope not. The reason for that there is some jog in the fence at places and it's just where there was large amounts of utilities they could not work around like a massive amount of underground utilities or overhead utilities. Um I believe that that wall is also designed that those panels can be replaced and moved, right? Yeah, I'm sure.

I wish Mid American cared enough to put it underground. That'd be great. We could maybe ask them to do that. It'd look a lot better. Uh anyhow, so yes, they are going to do some some minor work. They're hoping to be done completely by next Friday, weather permitting. It looks like our pretty soon. And the panels on the very north end will be moved to the the sign far north side of the column rather than the insides of the column. The signs the sign. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry I cl Yeah. Norwalk signs. Yeah. That says Norwalk. Please. You guys notice that after I said

after you mention that it bugs me every time I come into town. Like I don't want to read that way. It doesn't go that way. Right. So, I did talk to them about that today. It's going to be quite expensive to turn the word nor because each letter is put on individually into the wood panel. Just take the whole sign upside down because there's there's I I know what you're saying about the color stuff, but there's colors on the top and the bottom. Just flip it around. You could try that. I think you would then get another group of people saying it looks upside down. But try it. You know, not even read like a book end on a shelf. So if you put a book on a shelf, the title is top to bottom.

Not even upside down. Not even the wall of China has a sign on it like that. You realize that really unique. The Great Wall of China doesn't even have a sign on it like that. Huh? Look how Look how privileged we are. Okay. If council wants any of that changed, certainly have the ability to direct staff is obsessed. I It looks so much better, right, is is my opinion, right, compared to what was there, but I think people have already forgotten how poor the dead, right? You know, it seems like mayor seems like I remember when we were doing that

that we were talking about the possibility of putting on some solar lights on. I agree. And just info. Do you remember that? I don't know if that's something we might look at later on. I think they're distracting honestly programs. Okay. Mr. Rain back. George had a wonderful idea. pick them off. Yeah, I I don't think they add anything. I mean, I'm not with that. Decide at that time how it looks right now. It's not on the north facing panel. It's on the

That is true. It might look okay once you're coming out from that direction. It's upside put it on the north side and put it so that you can actually read. But how many are there? Four. Four. I'm just happy to have a sign. Still Ed made a comment about we at one point in time talked about putting lights on Yeah. on it. Yeah. We're still we're still looking at that. We never got a price for whatever reason. I'm not sure why. So Okay. Um Yeah, we will get a price. Yeah, I think the wall looks great. You know, I think it looks good. Yeah. Anything else? I don't think so. Kaylin,

thanks, Teresa. Bey,

just a couple of dates for the radar. Um, February 20th is the Kosovo Independence Day celebration at the World Food Prize Building. If you're never been involved in international relations, it's a really good way to get your feet wet. It's really a cool um it's just a really cool partnership and it's a really neat event to be at. It's very formal. Um they love America so much. So that's really great to see and we just have such a strong partnership with them. So if you have not sent me um a request to RSVP and you want to go, let me know. I'll get you on there. Got you on there, Kelsey. So um and then the next council meeting, we will have the Project West development agreement draft for you guys. We would have loved to have had it sooner, but it's a project, a lot of moving parts, and we finally got the the weeds all ironed out, and it look it looks great. So, we'll have that to you guys so that when you are um going through the urban renewal area amendment process at the next council meeting, you'll kind of have a better idea of what that's for and why that's on there. And then the following council meeting, um you would be approving that actual development agreement. So, we want to make sure you guys know that that's coming. And we will also have a term sheet which is a really good summary of all those points. It is a huge agreement of course because it's a giant project, a lot of land, a lot of infrastructure and raw land. So um we try to summarize it as best as we can. So you'll have that and then um we're working towards the annexation procedures too come next week. So everybody say a little prayer. Um and then I don't know Luke if you maybe want to show that video at the very end or now. It's totally up to you. Yeah, let's do it now.

So, this is a project. I can't remember whose initial idea this was. Maybe Jim Dhy's mayor. Um, they asked our team to work on doing a history project for Norwok because we don't have um a lot of known history or places to find it other than the library is done a really good job of um of curating what what we do have. So, my team put this together. I had nothing to do with it. The only thing they let me do is pick the voice. So, we'll see how many people recognize the narrator voice. Um, but we won't watch the whole thing because it's seven minutes. We could maybe just pop through a couple areas so you get an idea of what it's looking like so far. All right, we're going to see if the sound comes through.

Long before European settlers arrived, the land that would become Norwok was home to Native American tribes, including the Iway Sock and Msquakei Fox. These communities lived in the region for centuries, relying on the fertile prairie soil for agriculture and the North River and nearby waterways for travel, trade, and daily life. By about 1846, European American settlers, many of English, Irish, and German descent, began arriving. One of the earliest, Samuel Crowe, established a homestead near the North River. In 1852, Samuel Snyder built a log cabin on what would become the town site and more families followed.

So loop you can jump through. You don't have to known as run through. We just want to give post office was established on June 18th 1856 with Duffy. it still carried today, including the introduction of telephone service in 1903, helping connect the growing community to the wider region. Pictures of downtown are pretty neat. Yeah, pretty neat. Yeah, they come up here. That's pretty neat for us here. Yeah. off the phone.

Yeah. So, they dug out some pretty cool information. They found that the first graduating class was three people, three girls. Um there was Yeah. The first library was kind of um advanced for the area. They got the first computer. So, just kind of some neat stuff in there. But the whole point of this is so that the community members have a place to go and just learn about the history of Norwok as we grow, which is kind of important. And um they're going to continue working on kind of a master portal where it'll be on our website and community members can go there and dig up any kind of information that we have. And we've put out a call to the community to submit if they have historical documents or old photos to submit to us and we will add it to the collection. So I don't remember who asked us to do that but there you go. It's mostly done.

That's pretty cool. Who's the narrator? Well, it was the Bert Reynolds voice option. Yep. All right. Is that what it was like here when you started? Yeah. I see his name on it. Yeah. Okay. That itching pitch. Anything else? Al Jean?

Uh, we'll set our public hearing next meeting for the CIP. I've already sent out all the documents, but I will send out uh new ones for just fiscal year 27 because that's what we'll focus on and what just let you know it'll be a much smaller document.

Last year 2025 compared to 2024 was an up year in a lot of our categories um calls for surveyed reports and arrests and that sort of thing. And then this year that trend has already continued 20% increase in January in police reports over January 2025. Uh and another interesting um thing is that in all of 2025 our tactical team uh that we participate in with all the western suburbs was called out a total of six times and in January it was called out a total of six times. So, um I don't know if that's trend is going to continue, but uh for right now things are busy and increasing. So, that's all.

All right. Thank you, Chief. I just want to say um congratulations to my daughter Warren. She coaches a girls wrestling team. They had two state qualifiers. They're at the state tournament wrestling right now. Um Hannah Schmidz and Mercy Schulton. Uh just got a text from her. Hannah is still going. Mercy's out, but um still a great honor for them. They're both freshman, so to qualify at this tournament is a big deal. So, I just wanted to share. Yeah. Awesome. All right. Nothing tonight, Tony. Nothing else for me, Mayor. Thanks. All right, Luke.

Um for I was waiting. I thought I had a minute. Um not much. Uh you approved earlier tonight, um the Central Housing Trust Fund Grant. Just wanted to call attention to that. Um it's a $50,000 grant we received for our LMI uh rehab program. Um since 2022, we've ran that program and have uh put $140,000 of centralized housing trust fund dollars back into the community for needy projects. And so we're excited to do more. Cool. Well, two things. First, it was really fun to watch my beautiful, lovely, and talented daughter get that award.

Yeah. out of the chamber. That was fun. Very nice. And then secondly, I stopped up to check out the true hotel. Walked through the inside, looked around. Looks pretty nice. Yeah. The manager said that he's been having a lot of younger kids come in to use a pool table and Yeah. So, it's not a problem right now, but uh you know, he's going to keep an eye on it, I guess. But anyway, it's nice looking facility. It really does. It looks clean. It looks very presentable. Good. Looks like a nice addition to the community. Great. Jason, I attended my first wastewater reclamation authority.

It was riveting. Wish I was joking. I actually found it really, really interesting. Um, and I'm excited to learn more about it. So, just dipping my toe in. I know. My favorite. Oh, yeah. This is favorite. Like they always say though, the money's in the shore. Yeah, sure. Jim, uh, congratulate Lindsay on the wall because that was

the amount of time that that's taken. I think back on when we started that, it's shocking the amount of time that has taken from design to meeting with all the property owners that have sought every one of those fences and getting easements and chasing down those easements and negotiating, spending months negotiating with the DOT to get permission to go into their rideway. uh you start thinking about it and it was a lot of work and it turned out very well. It's uh you know it's it's about reasonable getting it done because it was a big project. One more comment on that one. I know that people didn't want a wall there where houses front. Yeah.

And their house looks so nice those both those walls kind of stopping where they just really accentuate their houses. They're nice houses. I know it probably doesn't solve their life problem. Really looks nice. Agreed. Uh only thing I have is we have community chat in here uh on February the 14th, 9:00 in the morning. Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day. Yeah. Yeah. So that it gives my wife a couple hours alone. So that's her Valentine's Day. So, uh, other than that, I would entertain a motion to adjurnn.

Motion. Okay. Motion by board John, seconded by Mick. All those in favor say I. I. We'rejourn. 6:40 p.m. All right.