City - Regular Meeting

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to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, close. Everybody's here. Um, a couple of items to add to the agenda. So, under act under public works, number three is going to be the hockey rink. Number four is the gazebo modifications in Lions Park. And then under action items would be the uh additional two members to parks and recck board. Any other additions?

I think that was it. Okay. Look for a motion to approve the the additions and the agenda as it sits. Also move second. Okay. Motion and second. Any other discussion hearing? None. All in favor say I. I. I. Any nays? Okay. Resolution 2025-24 acceptance of the July 2025 donations and they were make a motion to accept. Okay. And I'll second that.

Second. Motion to second. Any further discussion hearing? None. All in favor say I. I. I. Any nays? Move on. Approval of June 2025 bills paid. Make a motion to approve the bills. I will second them. Motion and second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor indicate by saying I. I. I. Any nazs?

I'd like the record to show that I abstain from check number 23669 and 23723. Bobby, I'll abstain from check number 23700. Okay. [Music]

Okay. The consent agenda everybody's the Rockville City Council minutes from last month. Acknowledgement of the building permits. Acknowledgement of the sheriff's report. month then reconciliations and second quarter journal entries. Everybody's paid attention to that stuff. Okay. Look for a motion. I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. I'll second. Motion to second. Any further discussion? All in favor indicate by saying I. I. I. Any naysay?

Uh, department report A. We'll start with Justin.

Um, yeah. Uh, first item on your, uh, agenda here is the draft developers and storm water agreements for the MER edition. So, both of those items, uh, are in your council packet. Um, and staff has reviewed those. Uh myself, city attorney and the developer have all reviewed those and are recommending that they be approved. Um the development agreement covers um you know standard things for the development. It's not allowed in this development because there's not a lot of public infrastructure, but it does cover the storm water pond that that would become city. City would maintain that after it's built by the developer. Um and then also uh the storm water agreement uh covers kind of the same things. That's a requirement by the soccer wershed district that basically uh is similar to past agreements that we've also executed for Dream Acres and Hilltop Woods um and probably flat. So, uh any questions? I willing to take those. Anyone have any questions for Justin on the monitor? I just want to clarify whoever makes the motion that it be for the the latest there's a few changes that were just made today to the developers agreement. So

is it just wording you said during the few we just swapped a couple words out but that's not in the packet. Correct. That is not the one in the packet. The is an even more recent one.

Just to expound on that just just so you know ex exhibit C was was modified. there was a um the bonding uh security requirement was taken out of there because they already uh have deposited security with soft river wershed. So rather than having the developer put in security in both the city and the river wershed for for the same thing um it we're not going to require that we do it twice and that's consistent with what we've done in the past as well in other developments. Um and then the park uh dedication and exhibit C um the fee was taken out of there because earlier in the development agreement it's spelled out that the land is being outlawed being given to the city. So that was just kind of an inconsistency in there and that was the intent of the previous action that's been taken. So

thank you for the clarification. And then uh section 111 was just a little bit of clarification of developer versus builder requirements. So, separate those two. Okay. Does anyone want to make a motion on their latest version? I'll make a motion to approve the developers agreement with the current changes. I'll second it. Motion and second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor indicate by saying I. I. I. Any naysay? Hearing none, we'll move on. lift station project.

Yeah, Bobby handed out the uh copies for the latest pay application and change order number four for the lift station rehab project. All that uh work for pay application number three goes through the early um August. Only thing that remains on that project is those two manhold rehabs and I mentioned that is yeah tenatively planned for the week of Labor Day right now. So we should be able to wrap up um that project in the month of September. Uh change order 4 specifically has no uh new information. Um it's all previously approved uh extra work um from the June and July council meetings. So that's just to summarize what we've already discussed at those two council meetings just to formalize that and get signatures. So um is there any questions otherwise um they'll be required council action.

So there's no change in cost. This is just approving all of them. Change order four is just summarizing all the the ones that we already approved at June and July council meetings. Correct. Yep. And how long is the retainage going to be? It's 5% retainage. Um, how long? How long until they finish the project? So, we would not probably mean is there a warranty period that we hold that through too or no?

Retainage itself is not once it's closed out. It's closed out. There is a warranty period for the work. Correct. But there's no retainage that's held during that. Oh, I'll make a motion to approve. Okay, we have a motion to approve. I'll second. Motion, a second. Any further discussion? All in favor indicate by saying I. I. I. Any nays? Review cost estimate and authorization bidding for Lake Road. I think we talked about that already, but what is the council's wish to hold until January?

That'd be my recommendation. You guys can decide what you want to do. But I think we should wait till next year before we talk about it. Let the last batch of funding come through. Yeah. Okay. So, we do need to make a motion to push that off until January cuz even if even if we try to get under the um bond that we currently have, we ain't going to get far enough to where we're going to execute any of it anyway, right? Execute the work you're saying? Yeah. So if we bid it y

and we're trying to get under the bond that we currently have, we aren't going to get far enough into the project where there be any pay coming out of that bond anyway. No, more than likely not. No, I I I don't perceive there being much work being done this year. I I I don't know for sure, but I be a stretch. Yeah. And and that's that's what I'm getting at there. There's no benefit for us to try to hurry this along. I think we're better off to wait. I like the idea of giving some time because I think that entices a softer bid price. That's just my opinion. Yeah. Well, January is a good time to bid it. Yeah. Perfect. Because they're going to be looking for work. They they want to get started.

So, all right. So, that is that your motion to push off till January or who wants to make I'll make that motion. Okay. And a second. I'll second that. All right. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor indicate by saying I. I. I.

Any nays? Hearing none, we move on. All right. Now, Agot Beach Colbert. Yeah, this is just an update on where things are at. Um, we submitted uh follow-up information to FEMA that they requested u on August 5th. So, we have the final plans ready to go for that project. uh just contract documents are waiting on approval for a bid date. Um so it's now back in FEMA's hands and then once they get their final approvals back to us for the funding we'll be ready to go. So any indication at all? They did not give us any indication when that would be

two years of patience some of these people right the DNR uh we still have to get the our final plans over to them for their permit but again that won't take nearly as long as what we're waiting on FEMA for. Unfortunately, the window of completion for that this year is getting to slam shut here as well. By the time we get out to bid and award and it's going to be pending the be that white stuff will be in the air already year and a half. Year and a half. April.

Uh Justin and Cody, thank you. Uh Jim.

Okay. Finance committee. Um first thing on there is the water meter switch out. Um city water department uh wants to change all 290 water meters in the city to a new remote read version. Correct. Um and so we reviewed that at the finance committee. Um the cost for 290 new meters is $109,040. That's the bid we have. Um, and the c the committee was uh recommending that we purchase those as one batch of 290. Let's see if we can if we can commit to the contract for that price, lock in that contract by uh October and maybe take possession of them in smaller segments as city uh staff installs them. And part of the reason was, and I had forgotten that one, is you're you're paying a buck a month for every endpoint sitting on a shelf. So, um, plus the fact that it eases a little bit of that, maybe into 2026. Um, Tom's original budget for this was in 2026, not 2025. So, depending upon what other costs are incurred in 2025 for other projects he had going, it might run a little tight on the bottom line. But timing right now, being it's already this late in the year, might work out to do it that way. Um Barry thought that two that two of the city employees working in the slow seasons could probably get them put in. Uh they were estimating maybe two people a half an hour, one person a half an hour if they got it down and um that they could get that accomplished in the slower times like in the winter. Um the other option which you just talked about which you heard before was contracting that out at approximately $95 per meter to have them installed. So we had initially at our meeting said go ahead

and try it with them. If that gets to be too much, maybe we can contract it out. So, we're recommending go ahead and uh purchase the 290 meters, see if we can take them in some increments and have city staff attempt to install them.

Let me ask go back and just ask a quick budget question. So, you were saying if we buy them now, we can use 2025 dollars that haven't been sent spent yet of 2025. And I don't have that exact breakdown, but Tom's Tom's U budget for this was in 2026. Yes. I think he had 125,000 in or something like that. Um in 2025 he has what? Water tower cleaning. Couple other big items in there that may or may not get done this year and have to be paid for.

Okay. So, and that was a big number like $77,000. Okay. So, one thought we had was to swap. If if those projects don't get done this year and need to be paid for, get the water meters and then take that whenever it was in 2025, put that in 2026. Okay. The ultimate vote at the committee was to just buy them in 2025. We don't care what happens. Um, that's where it was left.

Okay. Thank you. I think the bottom line in the cash was like 200,000 um without this. So it was like 230,000 year end estimates. So 109 would run it closer to that 100 120,000 mark. It wouldn't drop it in the negative necessarily. Do you ever run numbers as far as to how many years it's going to take to have the labor savings of not having to manually go read the meters to pay for these? It it takes Tom a whole day to go and check me. If there's a misread, then he's got to go out and punch in the meter individually

and that's adding up. The other concern is right now they use this handheld machine to do it and it's called a dinosaur for a reason. And so the concern is that eventually we that dinosaur is going to become extinct and it won't work anymore and then we'll have to try to scramble to figure out how we're going to read these water meters. They also think that they're not getting accurate readings right now. So these would be more accurate. If they will agree to letting us buy it all at once and taking different, you know, shipments type situation, do don't you think then we should be able to wave that dollar fee until we got them all?

Yep. So, they would we would only take the end points that we want and would be able to install right away. The rest of them, they said we can leave them on their shelves and they'll the the metering technology solutions will pay that fee until we actually ask for for them. Okay. Yeah. Instead of having 290 sitting there and they've gotten in 10 and 280 of them are costing a buck a month. A buck a month. Yeah. The company, you know, would take care of that. They would hold on to them. We'd only bring them in in quantity enough that they can get them installed. You might have a few sitting there, but not 200. Yeah. Okay.

The only bad thing I see with this is when you went back to the old dinosaur stuff, it it worked. But as we keep getting more and more technology and and electronic stuff involved, that stuff becomes outdated faster than the old dinosaur stuff. So Donnie had made a comment earlier that we just replaced I shouldn't say just probably in the last 15 to 18 years we replaced the water meters and we're going to replace them now. These might not last that long. We might be doing this again in 10 years. Who knows? When the electronic stuff starts giving trouble and you can't repair it, you got to replace it. So just keep that in mind as we keep moving forward. It's not always the best thing. Initially, it is, but longevity isn't

agreed. I mean, 15 years ago, we had zero technology. So, at some point, we got to pull the pin else we're going to be even further behind. So, just keep that in mind that this is not going to go away. This will always be something on the horizon. So, and was it 15 years ago that they got changed or was it longer ago than that? No, I'm I'm going to say it wasn't. It was after I was mayor that they were all switched. So, sometime in the last 15 to 18 years.

Is let me ask I is there a liability for the city when we're changing them instead of hiring it out? I'm just playing devil's advocate here. If if we were to go in there and like the shut off, if we turn the shut off off and it doesn't shut the water off and we take that end off and it starts spraying water, we can't cap that. That is on the city cuz we're doing the work. Um, but we do have a curb stop outside like I said to shut off usually to shut off all the water to the house. Um, it's just a matter of finding them because most of them are in the dirt. Um, but most you're supposed to have a a shut off inside the house where it comes up just before the meter and one down the line so you can actually isolate the shut off valve.

I've worked on two now that they have the one coming into the house but don't have the one inside the house. So when you shut it off, we have to put a bucket there and let the water drain into the bucket as we're working because it'll back feed from

no matter what happens. That's my fear is that we're going to run into a lot of problems because there's a lot of old old stuff in this area. And I don't know. Yeah, I've been being through it a couple times. I know that there was some criteria that had to be m met as well. If the structure or built house I had that was down in the crawl space, it had to be moved up to the the access in the house and that was our cost. I guess

if you're replacing like for like, so if we go in and place the water meter, we're fine. But if something's wrong with the shut off and it's not up to code, now you have to bring it up to code because you're you're touching that portion of it. So, you do run that liability, too.

I don't know. I'd be in favor of having it the work done, paying somebody to do it because in the long run if something happens, you would think they would be insured through them,

but you would have to schedule if we have an outsider or even if we have, you know, PW workers come in, it has to be scheduled with the homeowner. Are you going to be doing this all at night? because there's a lot of people that work. So now are we paying you overtime? So do do you know what I'm saying?

We would have to switch our schedule to come in at like noon versus, you know, 7 or 8 in the morning. So that way we can do 2 or 3 at night if if they can't come home or at lunch or whatever. So that's one of those things where we would have to push it off and then we would get done at 5 at night versus, you know, 3 or 4. Did did we look at I think Ferguson offers that program as well where they would actually it's a contract where they provide the meter and they have their installers do that. Did we look at that as an option?