City Council - Regular Meeting

Alright. Welcome everybody. Check it is Kristen on zoom. Best thing can we hear? Can you hear us? Kristen Kristen I'm not on mute or anything.

We can't hear her.

Yeah.

Did it help to have her log out and log back in?

Please one moment, please.

Yeah, yeah.

Let's do that I don't have any music and you didn't want me to sing so

We'll go ahead and entertain a motion to approve the agenda as posted and sent to the news media 24 hours prior to the meeting.

So moved.

We got Ms. Fay. Motion second by Ms. Griefe. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? OK. And Kristen is not in that one.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

OK. I said aye too.

Aye. Perfect. Unanimous. Thank you. Next we have the Mayor's Leadership Statement. This is the City of Hampton that endeavors at all times to promote and model the principle of professionalism, trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship. In conducting this evening meetings, we expect that all participants will act in a respectful manner and consistent with these principles. Thank you. We didn't have a workshop this week because of the holiday, so no report there. Brings us to our public comment. So if anybody has any public comment this evening. All right. Hearing none, we'll move on. We don't have any old business to take care of, so we'll move on to our new business. We have Eric Merritt with Merritt Computers to present the proposal for the city telephone changes. Merritt.

just a little bit of background on it going back a couple months Kelsey and I were talking about phone bills and we kind of looked at some phone bills and what CenturyLink was doing what they were charging us and that kind of what started the conversation but then also CenturyLink is getting out of the landline business is kind of what we're told we haven't got any notification of it so when that happens we don't know But anyway, the major, right now the major drive on it is the price savings. For example, City Hall, the phone bill right now at City Hall is approximately 800 bucks, give or take, and on a new phone, that's just for the phone service. and that would change to approximately be real close to 100 bucks so be right there alone is a $700 savings at City Hall at the police department there's another $300 in savings and it kind of goes on and on so it's about a thousand dollars a month for savings by switching off of CenturyLink and analog phone and going to IP phones digital phones over internet So there would be some cost to it. The cost would be we have to buy the phones and then labor to put them in. So that comes to, the estimation on that's about $4,500, give or take on that. So we're looking at a six month payback, pretty good ROI there. One of the things, the way we've got it drawn up right now is Our internet, the other thing we'd be doing is our internet in City Hall right now, police department pays for internet on their own through Mediacom. We're paying for internet through Rockwell Telephone. Through City Hall, we both have our own internet provider. I can put in a firewall that keeps the two entities separate and we can share the Rockwell Telephone internet connection and get down to one internet connection. Through this, I've had a couple conversations with Rockwell. They've kind of met some competitive pricing and gave us better bandwidth and have already given us that pricing, which was excellent. So that takes care of the internet, police department, city hall, airport. Rockwell Telephone has also said they will give us fiber at the airport. Currently, Ron, help me out, we're using a wireless provider out of central Iowa somewhere. Wastewater treatment, their internet is currently through Dumont. We can use their internet and put our telephones, the telephones I'm proposing come from Clear Lake Telephone, but we can run the Clear Lake Telephones over the wastewater. Currently the cemetery does not have internet nor the street department. So if Centrelink does pull the plug on us, we would have to look at we do need some sort of communication there, some Internet to make phones work. So we would have to be looking at something like a solution like Metronet. We evaluated the swimming pool, also the swimming pool. It's not cost-effective to do anything. They're currently using a cell system, and I suggest we stick with that. So we did consider, in addition to Clear Lake Telephone, we also considered Metronet. Metronet had some advantages of there would be no upfront costs in telephones. which is an advantage, but their price per month would be higher as they charge per site. There's a fee per site. So city hall would have it. I would assume, well, we had to keep the network separate from police department. So the police department, so there'd be a per site location. The other thing Metronet does is the way they have their phones is they have to put their equipment on the inside, which is a security risk as far as I'm concerned. So we do not want their equipment to be able to access the inside of our network. So we'd have to do some rewiring so we have, with the Clear Lake system, we can let the phones and our computers share a network. With the Metronet system, the way they wire, I've got some security concerns. So based on that, we kind of zero it in on Clear Lake Telephone. So between the prices and being able to combine some of these things, Clear Lake Telephone providing internet service based telephones would be my recommendation.

And then we also have a contract in front of the council with Clear Lake Telephone that Clear Lake Telephone would like us to sign for the services. So is this a standard?

This would be a standard agreement. I've switched a lot of people over to Clear Lake, and yes, they do want a three-year contract up front. So we'd be committing to three years on the telephones. I've also worked with Clear Lake long enough to know, let's say that we – we no longer needed a phone at the airport or something like that or the awas at the airport they dropped that clear lake would not hold us to the contract with the number of lines we put in they've said okay you drop a line no big deal they just want us to it's kind of a good faith agreement with clear lake they also like to know where we're going to be three years you know it's for their sure reason also but they've been very good about drop a line add a line and I've had great luck with them. It's been a very good company to work with. I think we've used Clearlight Telephone here before, Ron, for support of our existing phone system.

Mr. Limo?

The MetroNet, isn't that T-Mobile now?

It's T-Mobile. T-Fiber? T-Fiber is the fiber part of it, but Metronet held on to the phone part. OK.

The Clear Lake proposal, is that three-year fee locked in at that rate? Yes. Could we extend that somehow?

We could but I know there's no reason to I've been on I've been using the service for five and a half years and my prices I signed the three-year agreement initially and my prices actually come down Did you look at the library? Library is not on our list we could cover it but they're my understanding they're governed by a different board

I think they looked into your company for IT work and they ended up going a different direction so it's a conversation that we can have with Susie and let her know we're doing this and if she needs to look into it Any other questions for Eric? So just something that I think we should talk about is in the event there's an internet interruption, our phones at City Hall are not gonna work, but there are built-in redundancies that we can get around that. Can you explain that?

Right, so in the event of an internet failure, there would be an initial, there would be an outage. So you'd have to call me on a cell phone. What can we do? We can reroute to a cell phone. And actually as part of this, we can put an app on a cell phone if we want to be proactive about it, have an app on there. And all we'd have to do is log in that app and that phone would automatically ring. You'd turn off the data within the building so you'd be running off of your cellular system. So the phones have the ability, I can have my cell phone When my office number rings, my cell phone number rings, I've got that ability. And if it's on data, if I'm on Wi-Fi, I'm using Wi-Fi. If I turn off my Wi-Fi, then I'm using cellular data. So it's kind of interesting. So there's things that we can do proactively to make sure and we have a City Hall cell phone that stays in City Hall and so we could activate that and then the calls would roll to that cell phone we could put that app on that cell phone and leave that cell phone basically logged out of the app in the event of internet failure we turn off the Wi-Fi on the cell phone log into the app and the phone calls could start going to that cell phone what about the 911 system the 911 is We would not touch the 911 system. That's county. So as far as the police department's concerned, we've got, it would be just the local numbers relative to the police department. So we've got... Captain, Chief, Leah, Officer, Old Dispatch, and a fax number. It amounts to we've got five different phones there, but we would share one, two. We'd have a total. We'd be paying for three services there. But the services would be for local only. The police department does have one unusual line that rings at the county and here at the same time. And the purpose, I understand, is because caller ID, is that correct?

After hours.

But even during the day they answer it? Correct. And then they transfer the call via radio, is that correct?

So they still dispatch for us. So anything that's dispatched goes on that 2529 line for Hampton. If it's like a records request, they call the police department 2527 number.

Oh, and part of that was recording also. Because that number gets recorded at the courthouse. The phones themselves have the ability to record also. So we can put a USB memory stick in each phone that we want to have recordings on. And it's not automatic. You have to tell it when you want it to record. So a couple buttons on the phone, I want to record this call. So I think that was the purpose of that line at the same time is so we can have a recording of it from the courthouse. There was a couple things going on there, but I think the way we kind of planned it and worked it out is we would let the county have that line. They would answer it. If it's for us, they just forward it to us. If we want to record it, we can record it here.

Am I close?

The other thing about the system, it's very, very flexible. We can do kind of whatever you want. We can make it ring wherever you want. We can make it ring so many times at this phone if it doesn't get an answer. In fact, you can make the records at the police department and go anywhere within the system.

Mr. Lama? So we're going to put a phone in the cemetery office?

That currently has a landline in there. And so we're waiting to see what CenturyLink.

And the street department, right?

They have a landline currently.

Why is there no phone at the wastewater treatment plant? Don't we have alarms out there or anything?

Yeah, but it's not based off of a landline. It goes to cell phones, I think, yeah.

Can we get WLTEL for those two?

Actually, the wastewater plant, we have Dumont Telephone fiber to the wastewater plant.

So we could add a phone there very easily if it's required?

Yeah. That's all I have.

Am I correct, Kelsey? Yes. Yes. water you're correct yeah right

And then the water treatment plant, we don't have on here. The original idea was we were going to leave the water treatment plant alone, just a confidence thing because of reporting and things like that. It may come down. Depending on what CenturyLink does, we may have to do something there, though. If CenturyLink drops the lines, we'll be forced to do something there.

But that's the nice thing about it. It's a very flexible system. You can drop, or you can add, you can change.

I picked up one of my customers. I usually keep a couple phones on the shelf. And one of my customers had one. They wanted another one. And I pulled up the phone. For like within two hours, I had a new line ringing in a new place. And so instead of these work orders taking days and weeks, it's usually 24 hours. I'm safe saying 24 hours to bring up. So if something happened at wastewater, I've got a phone on the shelf. I give them a shelf. And I could have a phone ringing out of waste water. The phones are rather unique, too. So good or bad, depending on how you look at it, if we had a weather situation where I'm not sure if you live out of town or not, Kelsey, you don't. So this doesn't count for you. But you can actually unplug the phone from work, take it in, take it home, plug it into your own system at home, and it would work at home. So in theory, you can take calls. That's what we do if we have weather happening. One of our guys lives 20 miles away, so he just takes a home phone. Well, he keeps one at home. And whatever rings on his desk rings at home, too. So since everything's internet-based, it's pretty cool.

All right. Any other questions for Eric? It seems pretty straightforward. It seems logical. With the flexibility in the system, the cost.

The cost savings, the flexibility, and the fact that CenturyLink, we're getting all kinds of rumors that CenturyLink's going to be dropping as soon as next month. I'm not buying into that because they haven't notified us. But it's a scare tactic that's been going around. I don't like to be scared. I like to plan things.

And I don't think, just for any public that might be listening, it's not all their landlines. It's like DSLs, I think.

Is that what they call them? DSL? DSL is actually an internet service over phone lines, which will not affect us. It's certain lines that are discontinued. Yeah. And so, like I said, there's some scare tactics going around right now that say, hey, you got to do this. You got to do it now. Is it coming? Yeah, I think it is. Central Link's losing so much money on their landlines now because everybody's using cell phones. And so home users don't have landlines anymore. And so they want to get out of the business. And Iowa Utilities Board, I imagine, is going to grant it. But it's not going to be. I can't see it being next month, next week without them getting this notice.

I think this kind of possessions up a little bit better because landlines, I've been wondering when they're going to go away anyway. Right. But this just kind of moves us one step right.

Well, in addition to it, there's some significant cost savings too. Yeah, we've got some upfront costs. But on the other hand, if we're saving $1,000 a month, it's pretty good ROI. Yeah, yeah.

All right. Any other questions? If not, I would entertain a motion to approve the proposal for city telephone changes.

I'll make a motion for telephone changes with merit computers.

I'll second.

Motion by Mr. Lamos, second by Mr. Davies. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you, Eric. Thank you. Next we have a pay application, number four, the amount of $36,875.35 for the pharmacy project. Mr. Dunn.

Thank you, Mayor. So this is pay application number four, and it's the pink pages. You've got a two-page spreadsheet that kind of outlines the details, which you'd find in column E of that spreadsheet. Column E total is $38,015.82 for this work completed this period for which this pay request is submitted. Four and then you take off three percent of that for retainage and it's the thirty six thousand eight hundred seventy five dollars and thirty five cents Any questions

Hearing no questions, that makes sense. Just a pay request. So if there are no other questions or discussion, I would entertain a motion to approve pay application number four in the amount of $36,875.35 for four and six First Street Northwest. So moved. Seconded. Motion by Mr. Holmstrom, second by Ms. Griefe. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Moving on. Next, we have Randy Sanders for the Camping Tree Board proposal for tree plantings. Again, gang up on us.

Dick Lukensmeyer, Randy Sanders, Mel Brown with the tree board. Wanted to cover three things with you guys. Our spring planting of this year, 2026. Our fall planting. That's the real issue right here, what's going to happen within the next few weeks. And then more good news about the money that are available to us for 27 and 28. Those are all good things. You probably remember that last thing we let you guys know that we got a $22,000 grant from the DNR to plant street trees. not on private property but on public property and street trees were included in that. Well, we actually, through the season, planted 121 total trees. 76 of those trees were in the right of way here in Hampton. If you go around, you'll see lots of neighborhoods where we were. had one tree and the neighbor would come out and say, could I have one? Could I have one? They multiplied very, very quickly. So we also planted in the county parks, Beavis Lake, Rolling Prairie Trail, Harriman Park, and 17 trees last spring in the cemetery. Seven of those were memorial trees paid by others. And 10 of them were paid by a gift that was given to us by Bruce Dorman and his good, well, he did a good job of taking care of us, the library, and the conservation board. Very, very, very generous in his passing. So this year, What we're proposing, and I'm going to have Randy go through this because he's the guy, the bulldog that's been in there, getting good prices and availability. What we're planning this year is to have 15 trees in the cemetery. Two of those would be memorial trees. 13 of them can be paid out of the funds of the Bruce Dorman grant. So I'm going to let Randy take over because, as I said, he really has done all the work in lining up the trees and go for it.

OK. Well, I met with Jerry Bidwell and then Paul Wolbrandt off of the cemetery committee. And we went around and picked out the locations where we wanted to plant the trees. Pretty much everything that we wanted to plant is where there were trees before. So we're pretty much replacing all the trees that were there that came down in storms. A lot of ash trees, a lot of the big trees that were removed, some maple. and a few other spruce and stuff that came down in storms the only three that we we wanted to talk about really was uh south of park hill in that number 16 area so that's where there are no trees along the all the headstones there and i asked jeremy if he knew why he didn't uh he said not really sure so we talked Can we plant trees there? And I went out today and measured from where the flags are to the headstones is 32 feet. So that would be a nice height. Lots of room there to plant some evergreens along the south side there where there are no trees And they could still have the flags would go up and the headstones would still be clear of the trees so it just we proposed putting in some trees there and Everything else we've lined up and it breaks down on the other side the cost is So the cost of the city for welded wire fencing and fence posts and trees, $918.62 to do all that. Without the fencing, the deer, rabbits, and that stuff will destroy your young trees. These fences can be put on in the fall when we plant. And then we can remove them in the summertime for maintenance around them. And then they can be re-applied until they're no longer needed. But without them, the deer. The deer especially would raise heck with them. And putting a smaller tree in is a better option. The cost is lower, the maintenance is better, easier to water when the tree board's been watering. We've got other people that come out with memorial trees and they water the memorial trees for family members. And so it's always been a group effort here and doing that. So it's a nice number to go with, 10 to 15, say, every spring, 10 to 15 every fall. Then it's easy to maintain, and you're not getting overwhelmed with all trying to keep up when you get a dry spell or problems. And just continue to do that over the years, and it all adds up pretty well. So I don't know if you had any questions on anything we've got there.

any questions for randy about the extra money that we're going to have for 27 and 28.

Oh, OK. So we've got a grant that Ned got us through the DNR. And that's for trees and public spaces. So that goes until the spring of 2027. So we had just short of $23,000. And I think we have just about $12,000 left in it now, just over $12,000. We're going to spend some of that this fall and finish it off next spring. And then the grant will be done if you use it or you lose it. So we've got that. And then 2027, we can also start using another grant through the DNR, same place, and that's for $16,500. And that will be also for trees in the right of way. That could be trees at a school. That could be trees at the courthouse, any public area. Bike trails. We lost some trees this summer at the ballparks, West Park ball diamonds. We lost trees on the bike trail. So those trees can go in there through that money, that grant money. And then that also, that pays for trees. It pays for fencing. It pays for tubes on the trees and mulch. So it'll even pay if we wanted to hire somebody to come out and water the trees. But the tree board guys just said they'd just as soon do it themselves.

And that one's available through the spring of 2028, correct? 16.

The second grant is done at the fall of 2028. Yeah, so that starts in October of this year. So you've got two years on that.

I think I just had a couple of questions for you. The fencing and the posts, do we ever, when they come off the trees, eventually they come off, do we... keep that, reuse it? Yeah. We do it all the time.

Some of the trees we planted back in 2013, 14, up to 2018 on the bike trail, especially the evergreens, have gotten so we're out to the edge and they were getting tight in there. But those come off. And then we were using a lot of those on right-of-way trees that we planted for people. this spring we we ran short on fences and then we can use it in cemeteries the school had some they donated back to us the cattle panels i like the cattle panels are heavy duty but for the evergreens and the smaller trees that welded wire fence of one to two inch squares, we can put that clear to the ground. That keeps the rabbits out. And then it also keeps the deer off of them. And so we're just trying to, it's kind of like an insurance policy I tell people for your tree for the first three to five years. And then once that comes off, then the tree's up and on its way.

Have you gotten any tree grants from Alliant or MidAmerican Energy?

MidAmerican Energy, we get $1,000 every year from them. And we put trees in on the bike trail with that this year. The year before, we put in the Bay of Ruth diamond down below Church of the Living Word. We put trees all around the ball diamond down there. And then we put shade trees up on top of the hill. I forget where we used the other one. But yeah, every year, there's $1,000 from them. And Alliant Energy, we're not in. their territory here, but this DNR grant has been a real shot in the arm, and this is gonna be replacing, because I understand that there was roughly 365 ash trees come out of the right-of-ways in Hampton alone, so in five years, All those trees have come out. We're looking at 15 to 20 years to get back all that shade that we lost. It's going to take a while. But we have to continue to plant trees every year, twice a year, in the spring and in the fall. You're going to just have to continue to do that. Another thing that's happening, as those big trees have disappeared, now the storms, when they come through, Storms change. They're more powerful. They got more wind punch because those big trees that protected everything are now gone. And so we're seeing it with our young trees. As they're coming up, you have to kind of trim some of these trees back. They're really growing fast. But you got to trim them back because it's tipping them and breaking them. And that's, again, where the fencing comes in. It's kind of like a cradle for that young tree. It can only bowl so far. And that tree, that fencing acts as a protector for that young a young tree just to help them get snow. We're just trying to look at every angle that we can to make sure that our success rate is staying up there. And we're probably 95% or better success rate on our trees. and diversity. Diversity is huge. You get three trees in a right-of-way program, you get three different kinds of trees, and everybody is fine with that when you tell them about how we've lost all these trees by planting all the same kinds of trees in a row. And all I gotta do is say, remember the trees at the cemetery, 24 ash trees in a row? How many are there now? None. And the cost to take that out was pretty big. So hopefully, this will the diversity will eliminate that problem down the road yeah mother nature still got the final oh yeah yeah thank you

I think the only thing I would ask or say, and I don't want to diminish what the tree board does. You guys do a tremendous job replacing trees and getting grants and stuff like that. I think we need to look at, especially the cemetery. We took out a ton of trees there this year in the last couple years. And we don't necessarily have to plant every tree for every one we left out or took out. Because eventually down the road, 50, 20, 30 years, somebody else is going to have to deal with these trees. And we just kind of keep from causing another problem down the road. I mean, there's sometimes the parks. Green space is OK. We don't have to have a tree in every place in the park. We need places for kids to play, too. So just something to think about when we're planting the trees.

on some of these areas where you're pretty close to the pavement and also you know getting pretty close to stones and then when you so when you plant and then you put posts in and then you put fencing around just keep in mind to not go into the encroach onto the pavement because in the winter when they're coming by with the plow we don't want them to tear a fence and tear a tree so just to keep that in mind which you probably do anyway but just a reminder

Yeah, yeah, we, Jeremy's been really, really well, good to work with out there, and explaining, like, now, is this going to be a problem if it's here? No, because the snow goes this way, or we have this happen here. So he's on top of everything really well on how we do things out there.

Yeah, he's on top of things, that's for sure.

Mm-hmm. All right. Any other questions for Randy or Dick or Mel? If not, we need to entertain a motion. I guess we need to create a motion to provide the tree board with the $918.62 to get this project going for you. So I'd entertain a motion to approve $918.62 for the tree board for the fall of 2026. So moved. Most by Mr. Fay.

I'll second.

Second by Mr. Holmstrom. All right. All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? All right. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you.

Thank you. Could I say something real quick?

You betcha. Come on in.

This isn't for the tree board. This is for me. Okay. Our road is beautiful. Thank you all very much. Everybody that had stuff to do with it. It's working. It's working. The water's going in the ditches. It's going away. The road is beautiful. Good. We're ready to go. Glad to hear that. Thank you.

He's on South Federal, by the way.

Yeah, that's the South Federal. Yep. All right. Next, we don't have any public hearings tonight, so I'd entertain a motion to approve claims as submitted by staff in the amount of $221,175.81. I move we approve the claims. I'll second. A motion by Mr. Davies, second by Mr. Holmstrom. All in favor?

Aye.

And opposed? Motion carries, thank you. We got no ordinances, resolutions, so we'll go right to the consent agenda. The consent agenda tonight consists of approving the previous minutes as drafted from Monday, August 21st, 2026, regular session. Schedule the next regular session for Thursday, September 24th, 2026, at 6 p.m. in the city council chambers. Approve tobacco licensing under ownership update for Casey's General Store, 719, 4th Street Northeast, and approve alcohol licensing ownership update for Casey's Dental Store. We'll just do that twice, I guess. Oh, alcohol and tobacco. Never mind.

One correction there. The agenda is correct. The agenda says the next regular session will be Monday, September 21st instead of the 24th. So in your motion, please everybody note that the next regular session is Monday, September 21st.

Got it.

Thank you.

Okay.

I have an entertain motion to approve the consent agenda.

So moved.

Motion by Mr. Reedy.

Second.

Second by Mr. Davies. Sorry, Kristen. I just edged you out there. All right. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Next, we have our staff reports. Chief Morrison.

We have a couple things tonight. The first is Officer Aragon. Tomorrow will have completed his second of 16 weeks at the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy. I talked to him. He said everything was going well. He just mentioned that the physical testing was a lot more strenuous than he had anticipated and was very sore. So that's all I've heard out of him so far, so that's good. The second thing is... Our third open position, I hope to have filled this week. And so by the end of the month, hopefully have somebody started. So that'll be good. So then we'll send two to the academy in December, early January. And the last thing I had is the e-bike ordinance. We have that, the draft being prepped for that. And we should have that on the workshop for the next meeting. Excellent. That's all I got, unless there's questions.

Any questions for Chief Morrison? Kristen?

No, I don't have one.

She knows what's going on. Thank you, sir. Mr. Tarr, Public Works for Director.

Thank you, Mayor, Council. Kind of the biggies going on right now, the street project, 26, 27 street projects underway finally, which is great. But I want to remind citizens, Obey the traffic control please and do not move the traffic control Seems like past few years. They'll get rolling on some things. Maybe it's fresh concrete There might be some traffic control devices around that and people think they got to move the traffic control I strongly encourage them not to do that number one for safety for their own purpose, but Also for what potential damages you're causing when you drive into wet cement, wet asphalt, that's not cured. So there's things of that nature and unfortunately we run into it. Shouldn't happen, doesn't have to happen. All you have to do is obey the traffic control. East Park Bridge project's underway, that's going well. River City Fence has been in town. They did that storm damage repairs at West Park, the tennis courts down at Progress Park, and then the Progress Park Little League backstop. All those repairs have been made now, so that's great. Been spending a lot of time on the planning and zoning stuff going on right now. And then had a court today on a property that went well. And then I got quite a few in the upcoming weeks. I just do want to remind you guys that There are some times where we can't talk about some of those court cases in public and different things, but if you have some questions, feel free to contact me or come on in and I'll share what I can. I can't share everything, but what I can share, I will share. But believe me, there's a lot going on behind the scenes that the general public just isn't aware of. Other than that, I'll entertain some questions.

Any questions for Mr. Tarr?

hearing any all right thank you sir mr dunn thank you mayor uh the again i've been attending planning and zoning meetings as well and uh one last night um and there's a couple opportunities for public input which is good more input from planning commission on the amendment to the comprehensive plan to include data center So this is the first step, the comprehensive plan amendment and the future land use map. That's the first step when the planning and zoning, they're gonna have a public hearing on I think September 29th at five o'clock. More opportunity for public comment and input. and then once they reach a point where the PNZ is comfortable with it after a public hearing then they will recommend it go to the city council for consideration so then you'll get that in front of you to consider at a meeting probably a couple meetings and then a further public hearing and so that's the comprehensive plan amendment update And then once the council has approved an amendment update for the comp plan, then it goes back, that doesn't go back, but then we go back to the Planning and Zoning Commission to start talking about an ordinance for zoning regulations for data centers. And so what's that gonna look like? So then they'll work through that in however many meetings it takes and get public input on that as well. and that will move through planning and zoning, and then eventually that will get back to the city council, and then you'll talk about an ordinance and how to regulate data centers. So this isn't about a data center project. This is about planning for when and if a data center wants to locate in Hampton and how they would be regulated. Any questions on it? The pharmacy project is moving along nicely. That column that you guys approved to have done, that was done within a couple of days after it was approved. So they're moving. And the next step on the back, I think next week you'll be seeing siding, exterior siding going up on that west wall. and then they'll tie once the siding's up then they'll tie in the roof in deciding to get it fully weather tight and then once it's weather tight then they'll insulate that inside wall that they had a cost estimate about three thousand dollars and i approved that to keep it moving so they could get the material order, get the contractor prepared that they're going to be doing that. And so it's going to get insulated. And so it's moving along. And you can see by driving by, they're doing work on the upper story window framing, getting it ready for the actual windows to be installed. So they're moving right along. I've also had a couple of inquiries. I've been approached by a couple of different people asking questions about what potential uses and things like that. So there's some interest out there. So that's good. Anyway, that's moving along nicely. Any questions on anything else?

Thank you. Thanks, sir. All right, move on to the council reports. I'm going to start with Ms. Rohde on the phone.

I have no comment tonight.

All right, thank you. Mr. Lamos.

No comment.

All right.

Thank you. Mr. Davies. Just a follow-up with the pharmacy building. The design committee of the chamber did award a grant to the wood seller to help the Pullmans pay for their portion of the column. Just wanted to let the council know that. Hinted the chamber quarterly coffee that was held on September 5th. I have also been watching the planning and zoning videos. I find it very interesting and I appreciate the committee doing the work that they're doing as well as the staff. I think it's coming along quite well. Just a couple Kiwanis things. Kiwanis will be putting up flags on Friday for Patriots Day, September 11. And there is a scholarship fundraiser for Kiwanis on Monday, September 14th from 11 to 1 at Fairway. And to follow up too with the Emergency Community Catalyst Grant, I'm working on the application for that and I hope to have all the information and have that submitted by the first of next week. And sort of related to that, Fairway is doing a fundraiser for the Windsor Theater related to our construction project. It's gonna be Thursday, September 24th and they're serving Windsor chops. I thought that was very appropriate, but that's all I have. Thank you. All right.

Thank you, sir. Ms. Fay.

I also want to express appreciation for the Planning and Zoning Commission and Doug and Ron especially, too, for all the work they're putting in for going over all this comprehensive plan stuff and the data center stuff. It's a lot of work. So I really appreciate all the time you're putting into that. And then other than that, go Hawks.

Yeah.

All right. First one tonight.

Thank you. Mr. Holmstrom.

No report today, Mayor.

All right. Thank you.

Ms. Creepy.

Well, I know I've been quiet tonight. I've got a cold, dang it. Got it from my coworker. I'm not going to say any names, but her name is Nancy. My report. specialty shops are having their open houses that continues tomorrow and Saturday so I hope everybody gets out and supports them the grand opening of our flower shop is also going on yay so please stop in and see her Geneva market is this weekend there's a lot of stuff going on so there shouldn't be any excuse of saying there's nothing to do and okay this is the last time I'm going to mention the flower baskets they're down We're done for the season. Thank you, Doug. Did you find the pots OK? OK. All right. I just want to thank everybody that helped water, everybody that helped pay for them. It really was a successful year for those. And I also attended the quarterly coffee. There's a lot of information that gets handed out at the quarterly coffee, and it is open to the public. You'd be surprised at what is going on in our town. The next one is in December, correct? Okay. And the next city council meeting, the 24th, is when we should be drawing for the doggy bag, for the doggy prizes, for getting your doggy registered.

21st.

21st, we're gonna do a workshop?

Well, our meeting is moving to the Monday the 21st instead of workshop, but you can do it then.

Thank you for clarifying that. So the 21st. So you still have time. If your dog isn't registered, get your dog registered. Your name will go in the hat. We're going to draw for that prize. It's been a year since we kicked that off. Yeah. And that's all I got. All right.

Thank you. I'll move on to the mayor's report and I'll start with the first thing. So watering next year, are you taking volunteers already? Yeah. Just check it. Um, the only thing I really want to touch on is the same thing as, as this, the data center, uh, work that's being done. Um, just the people to understand or keep in mind that, that all the work that's being done right now. And number one, it's getting done fairly quickly too, which I like. It's just protecting us as a city. In the case where one approaches us and wants to come in here, we just want to make sure got everything where it needs to be and we're protected as a city. And again, it's moving along nicely and I appreciate that. The other thing I would add is the pharmacy project, it just keeps moving. I mean, it's not hitting any roadblocks and it's just getting done and we want that to get done as quickly as possible too We want, number one, our main street to look nice again. So that's, other than that, all I've got. So I would entertain a motion to adjourn this regular session of the Hampton City Council.

So moved.

Motion by Ms. Griefe.

I'll second.

I didn't know if anybody wanted to go in. Go home. I got a second by Mr. Davies. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? We are adjourned. Thank you. I thought maybe we were just going to stay here.