City Council - Regular Meeting

Start recording. I'm going to call the meeting to order. Join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay, the first thing on the agenda is to approve the regular agenda. Anyone have any questions, issues with anything on the agenda as presented? If not, I guess I'll look for a motion to approve the regular agenda.

So moved.

Second. Okay, I got a motion by Maggie Bass, seconded by, I'm going to give Bruce Wolfe this one. Seconded by Bruce Wolfe. There's no other questions. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposition? Okay, passes 5-0. Next is the consent agenda. We know these are items that are non-controversial and routine in nature. Does anyone have any questions on anything in the consent agenda? If not, I guess I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. I got a second by Rick Seiler. If there's no other questions or comments, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposition? Okay. Passes 5-0. We do not have anyone from any government agency. I do not have anyone that would like to speak to the council in the public forum, so we will go into the public hearings. Ken, are you taking this one? I will. Thank you.

All right, so I'll give you a little background. No, because I can't. Anyway, so in the packet I have a couple of different things. I have a cover memo and then a new map that will accompany the vacation document that was introduced with the ordinance back when this was introduced to the council originally on August 3rd when I was not present. Uh, my understanding is that there were a few different questions that came up at that meeting and I wanted to address a few of those tonight. But again, for everybody's benefit and uh, before we open the public hearing, uh, Nick Borowski, owner of 305th Street Southwest, um, owns a property. uh, that is broken up by two different 12 foot right of ways, presumed to be alleys, but they're not labeled as such. And a 40 foot right of way. Um, both included, uh, or both types of right away are included in the 1898 plat of syndicate edition. Um, Mr. Browski would like to vacate those to combine his properties into one contiguous parcel. Um, Staff supported the right away and noted that back on August 3rd that we have no plans for those streets or alleys or any utilities that may be needed in them in the future. The council, my understanding had a question regarding the need for those right aways for future street or other access to that area. Um, I did include a packet or a map in the packet, which is on the second page right behind the memo. Um, that showed the reason why we do not believe that we can, uh, that we need that right of way in, in those three different areas. Number one, the west side of the property is bound by the union Pacific railroad. Number two, the hatched area and kind of the light blue area on that map, including the majority of the property where these vacations are, uh, proposed are, uh, FEMA floodplain. So you can't have buildings or even streets, uh, built through those areas, uh, generally speaking under, um, limited circumstances. And then, um, the, uh, final reason is really, uh, the adjacent, um, Southside park, uh, bordering this property, um, basically on the East side. Um, I do want to note second Avenue, which, um, runs from fifth street Southwest South along the East side of these right of ways. And this property, um, is not being vacated. We do have, um, storm sewer, um, facilities within that particular right of way. We are maintaining them. Final thing I wanted to note, and that was also noted at the introduction back on August 3rd, we do have a large overhead electric utility line that runs through the very southern portion of the property. Working with Bruce Reimers from New Peg Utility Commission, we noted that we did not have any documented or recorded overhead utility easement for that overhead line. Bruce believes everything he's read that it's been around since 1970s, possibly earlier. We did work with the property owner to draft and have that revised. easement ready to go for signature should the council approve the ordinance vacation here tonight for those other right away. So not that they're directly connected, but we're going to clean up the issue with that overhead power line with this action here tonight. and make sure that we have that, um, overhead line properly documented. Speaking of Scott rigs, we don't necessarily need to do that, but it's the cleaner action with an agreeable property owner to document that overhead right of way, uh, with a new easement, um, at this time. Um, so with that, uh, we did, uh, notify adjacent property owners, adjacent, uh, utilities and other utilities that operate within city of new Prague to see if they had any comment on the vacation request and also published it in the new break time. So, um, I can stand for questions. Otherwise we do need to open that public hearing, uh, before we can take any action. Uh, the possible adoption of the ordinance, which again was introduced back on August 3rd for the vacation of these right of ways.

So we did do a first reading. We did do a first reading back on August 3rd. Okay. So after this public hearing, are we going to do the second reading? I would recommend doing the second reading unless you have other questions or concerns from the public during the hearing. Okay. I just didn't see any ordinances for adoption. I didn't see that in the agenda. That's why it's my question. So,

I make a motion to open the public hearing for vacation of certain right of ways in the plan of the syndicate addition to new break.

I got a motion by Bruce Wolf, second by Rick Siler. Uh, there's no other questions. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposition? Okay. The public hearing is open. So if anyone would like to speak, um, this topic of vacating a certain rights away for the plat, um, please come forward. Okay, it doesn't look like we have anyone in attendance that would like to speak on this subject, so I guess I'll make a motion to close the public hearing.

So moved.

Second. Got a motion by Maggie Bass, second by Sean Ryan. Any other questions? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposition? Okay. The public hearing is closed, and I guess now I guess we can move forward and do the second reading of that ordinance number 366. Does anyone have any questions regarding that ordinance? Okay. If not, I guess I'll make a motion to approve the second reading of ordinance adoption number 366. Second. And I got a second by Sean Ryan. Any other comments? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposition? Passes 5-0. Thank you. Thank you. Next on the agenda is city engineering projects. Chris, I assume you're taking this and you're going to bring us all up to date on what the hell is going on.

Yeah, absolutely. I have a few things in front of here tonight. First being the project updates. Specific to these projects, I do have the First Avenue Southeast turn back as a separate item to go through later. So I wasn't planning into that with the updates, but... 2026 project is wrapping up. Uh, well pretty much wrapped up. I guess there's some punch list items to do to take care of and I will be at the next council meeting with the assessment information to call for the assessment hearing. So that'll be kind of the next step for that project as we get towards, um, towards the end there. Um, but uh, as far as construction, we are at the 99% level. So I think they've got some turf to take care of and some minor punch list things. But, Construction is overall pretty much complete, so they're on schedule for that project. But any questions on the project updates for me before I move on? Just the lighting?

Just generally, anything on that list? The Alton Avenue feasibility study, I'm still looking for that.

Correct, yeah. We did get some updates, and I apologize for that not making it to this meeting here, but that should be at next week's, the next council meeting.

I should be presenting that report, so unless we get some changes, but... Are there additional changes from what this memo says?

I'm sorry, so there's two items here. So we have Alton Avenue feasibility study. We also have the Alton Avenue lift station, which is a separate item, just to make sure I'm referring to the correct one, but the Alton Avenue feasibility study... I'm hoping we should be presenting that as a final document pretty, like I said, the next council meeting, but I'm not sure what your question is, I guess, Bruce.

Yeah, I understood it was ready like a couple months ago already, and actually the housing development used that information on their development, so I guess I'm just surprised we haven't seen it yet.

Yeah, it's been completed as a draft document for, I don't know, four or six weeks, something like that. We do have some... Edits to make that I think we got in lastly two or three weeks and once we have those revised We'll look at that turn around for you.

So Okay any other questions regarding the Project I see that 2024 there's still some issue there.

Yeah, so as you're calling that project we had a contractor that's pretty unresponsive for doing final completion and The last item on there was in regard to some sanitary sewer repair services that were leaking. We have five of them repaired and all but one has been repaired. I think that was actually repaired last Friday. So with that said, we should be at the point of finally getting that one closed out. We have notified them of liquidated damages, which are in the amount of $28,800. So it is our intent to collect on those liquidated damages for failure to failure to meet milestone completion dates. And we really want to push it. We're definitely well over the final completion date too, but, uh, um, certainly the milestone completion date.

Okay. And then in the future we will probably not, um, entertain any of their proposals.

Yeah, that, yeah. So any, any, uh, any bids coming from that contractor would, um, likely be rejected.

So, so Chris, just for, um, just for their sake, it mentioned the 2026 project being substantially complete, but they will see lots of pipe sticking out of the ground about every two weeks or about every two blocks or block or so. I believe those are streetlights, correct? Correct. Yeah.

So the work, the work to be performed by the, uh, by the project, um, contractor is complete, mostly complete. Um, new break utilities is installing, uh, lighting on the east side of the road. and they wanted to have our contractor complete before they came through to complete that light installation. So that's why it's happening sequentially instead of at the same time.

Do you know a rough timeline on when they plan to have those lights installed? I thought they said two to three weeks, somewhere in that neighborhood, if that sounds right.

Two weeks. Two weeks. Yeah.

Okay.

And then there's some work on Highway 19, but that's not related to our project, so that's something else.

Oh, you mean with the? With the gas. Gas. Gas going on, yep. Cause that's in what state? It's in the state right away, but it's private utility. Okay. Any other questions for Kurt or Chris before we go on to the item B? Okay. If not, we'll get into the first Avenue Southeast turn back.

Okay. Uh, next time I have for you tonight is related to the first Avenue Southeast, uh, Lasura County, Lasura Casas 60, uh, uh, potential turn back project. Uh, so I believe it's back in June we were authorized to complete a, uh, completed preliminary engineering report, um, to, uh, review the, uh, potential turn back of this roadway from Lissabon County ownership to the city of New Prague. Um, we have been, uh, looking at this potential turn back for three years now, probably at this point. Um, and, uh, just need to kind of nail down a few things as far as what the cost would be, what the cost shares would be and what the potential improvements would be. So, Um, we did, uh, review the, um, existing roadway, um, make, um, proposed, uh, uh, made recommendations for proposed improvements, um, and, uh, similar costs and potential funding. Um, the, the roadway itself, we have split into four different areas working from south to north. Um, area one and area two are in the worst condition. Area two is, um, from about 11th Street, uh, circle southeast to about fifth street, uh, southeast. So that would take care of the south half mile. So that would be the south half mile of the roadway. The remaining half mile is considered areas three and four. Areas one and two were improved. The middle area, area two, was improved in 1986 to show what She'll hold that roadway was, um, area one was, uh, in the, in the nineties, it was 1998 and then area three, um, the north portion and, uh, area threes and four, uh, were early two thousands. And then I guess with the more recent main street paving projects. So, um, so we have gone through this. We have had a meeting with the sort of county to review, um, the costs and costs for the project, the potential funding splits. Um, and, um, we did have a very positive meeting with them. Everything seems to be in agreement with what we show in the report as far as how we would, um, likely go through a, a turn back. So, um, as far as the costs in this project, we did, uh, largely match what was performed on the Scott County turn back projects more recently, 2019 and 2022. So we're regarding, Columbus Avenue, the most recent one, copied identically how the cost share was done on those as far as who paid for what, whether it's street costs, sidewalk costs, utilities, and so forth. And that's what was used as the guide for preparation of this report. So with that said, as I mentioned before, working from south to north, we do have costs for Area 1, which we have estimated to be about $850,000, $847,000 total project cost. Um, area two, we have a total project cost estimated $977,000. That's including engineering and soft costs and all the other associated items. Um, and then, uh, areas three and four have been kind of lumped together since they, um, would have similar improvements at about $713,000. So areas one and two, we are proposing to do a pavement reclamation, which is to, um, leave the curb in place, but grind up the blacktop with the gravel, um, repave the roadway, um, remove the excess material, then repave the roadway with six inches of new blacktop. Um, so the roadway would be, um, same geometrics as it is today, just with new surfacing. Um, that would be for areas one and two, the south half of first Avenue Southeast, while the north half was proposed for a mill and overlay, um, because it is in much better condition and that, uh, um, It's currently being proposed to potentially be a future project, whether it happens at the same time or not, because it is in much better condition. So there's seven inches of blacktop on that portion of the roadway, which is probably the heaviest roadway in the section in town, I imagine, with that section. I mentioned some timing on there. The next step in this process, we do have the report in front of you here today, would be to move into a memorandum of understanding, which is to outline the expected cost participation by City of New Prague and LeSueur County. And then moving after that, it'd be moving towards a turn back agreement. That'd be the more formal process, which would have all of the same findings from the Memorandum of understanding, but it would likely be to take place concurrently with with bidding of the project when costs are a little more finalized There's a process to kind of follow through that the term that process itself wouldn't be initiated until Likely March at the latest so that the turn back the roadway at the soonest could happen in 2028 doesn't mean the improvements can't happen before that but that's when they officially would change jurisdiction and And that is just based on MnDOT cycles as far as when that timing would happen. So with that said, I don't have information on assessments. That wasn't part of this report. That would be something that would be completed afterwards if the project does move forward. That is something that we didn't want to include with the um, report, uh, beyond just saying city share of costs because assessments are, would not be, um, some of the county would participate in the cost for determining since they are, uh, going to be, uh, providing about 50% funding towards this report that was put together. So we, as a city item, we decided to leave that one out. So the next step would be a feasibility report. And, uh, if the project moves forward, well, I'm sorry, the next step would be a feasibility report for assessments. And then as a product moves forward, it'd follow their normal, um, normal improvement schedule for advertising, bidding, and construction, all that stuff.

So this is all broken down in areas. Is it something that we're planning to do everything next year?

No. So, uh, section one and two are the ones that we were proposing that I proposed to the county of last week when we met that we would like to see one and two done. That would be the 600 block roughly to the south. And then anything north of that was done in, uh, 2002, 2003 ish. Um, that is the proposed just to leave it and just pay the city lump, a lump sum payment. And then we'll do that down the road. In my opinion, we could hopefully see another 10 years out of that. Maybe five years, obviously depend on Minnesota winter. Um, but that, that road still has a lot of life in it before we would do any maintenance to it. So, and the county was an agreeance. Um, me, Chris and Ken met with the county and it was a very good meeting. They were agreeance on pretty much everything we proposed. We, like Chris said, we just pretty much everything the council approved in 2019 and 2022 on the Scott County agreement. That's what we proposed to them. So, and again, I just asked Chris to come up since he was here today already to present this. I know this has been a major top topic for, three, four years with that first avenue on the south side deteriorating as fast as it has been. So, um, I thought it was good information for you guys to see where we're at and all the steps that we have been taking already to get to this point.

Um, I got a few questions on the area three you talk about to the last sentence on the 2.2.3 area three. Um, Improvements to this portion of First Avenue Southeast may not be imminently needed, but would generally be expected within five years. So because of that, we are doing a mill and overlay because it's going to be only a useful life of five years. Are we doing a mill and overlay and that's only going to last for five years?

Yeah. So the, the improvements that are identified in, um, area three, which is the North half mile of the road. So this is North half, I should just put it that way. Uh, We've identified mill and overlay of the pavement surface and then ADA improvements are probably the most substantial part of the project on that one. The sidewalks go through driveways and a lot of those were done the way they were done 20 years ago and don't meet any current standards. But there's nothing in there that's, it doesn't have potholes, it doesn't have a lot of surface raveling or anything like that that's creating a condition where we need to take care of it right now. Uh, when I say five years, it's just more of a, and, and, and Matt just said 10 years. So it's something five to 10 years, somewhere in that range. The expectation would be that the, the payment would need to repair a mill and overlay, um, but not before five years. Uh, if it goes after 10 years, it probably becomes something more substantial than a mill and overlay, but that's just, that's okay.

My mind is turned around. One and two would be done now. Three and four would be done later.

Yeah. The expectation is that areas one and two would be completed, um, as soon as 2027. And, um, the areas three and four would be, yeah, the state has received, received the funding now and take care of that project when you're ready.

And then if we, when this happens, we would sign an agreement to take it back with the stipulations that they would still share cost in area three and four.

Usually in the past, Scott Coney had his pay, like Scott Coney has paid us a lump sum payment for objects that we were looking at doing down the road. Oh, okay. That's how we do the same thing.

Okay, so they would pay us and then we'd sign and we just have that money in an account, a fund that we could use it when we're ready to. That is correct. Yep.

Talking about new sidewalks, it references that the expectations that we'll get traffic back up to what it was and maybe I think it was cited as 2024 or something like that in the report, something like that. And then this is more of a comment than really a question, I guess. But then your talk came about the sidewalks. I think you say something about it would be preferable to have them on both sides, but I'm not sure if it's financial is the main reason that it's just one side. And I apologize.

I didn't go into the sidewalks when I talked about the project improvements. The north half of the project primarily has sidewalk on one or both sides, most of it both sides. I think the south block or so only has it on one side, the east side of the roadway. We are proposing to extend the five or six foot wide sidewalk further south all the way to Highway 29, 15th Street southeast. The sidewalk is only proposed on one side of the roadway at this time. Topographically, it'd be difficult to put the sidewalk on the west side. due to steep driveways, steeper areas, retaining walls, things that are kind of in the way. The west side is steeper? There's some steeper driveways. There's some retaining walls, too. So it becomes one of those things that, yes, you can put it in there, but it becomes a much more extensive type of improvement when you've got some driveways that are exceptionally steep. So trying to put in a sidewalk. means we're probably taking on driveway up to someone's garage practically in a couple spots. So I think of the East side as being more steep. It's a, I think there's one driveway on the East side that identified as being kind of tough. Um, but, uh, yeah, I was referring to sidewalks, but yeah, yeah, sorry. Yeah. Well, the sidewalk through the driveway is what I'd say. So when the steepness is usually a bigger concern or driveways cause we're going to have a grade break to put the sidewalk through there. Um, and then you have to remove everything around it to make it work. And that's why, the north half of the project does have so much sidewalk replacement is because a lot of them go through driveways and a lot of that sidewalk's directly behind the curb. Uh, so it's preferable to have sidewalk on both sides if we can take it all the way to the south end. Um, I would say we do have sidewalk allocated into the city share, new sidewalk allocated into the city share of the project. So, um, if as you move forward, you had the, um, wanted, wanted to install a sidewalk on both sides, you certainly can make that decision. Um, there'd just be, of course, a cost associated with that.

Yeah, I'm not advocating that we do both, but I do, when I think about the geography in that area, we do have kind of a geographic bottleneck in that part of town. That is our main exit for quite a ways. I imagine when the Tukulski side on the west side might get developed, there may be other access to 29 coming off of there maybe or something. Yeah. And I'm not saying that we need another pedestrian road, way there, but that is the most, that would be the most widely used pedestrian access to get out of there. But unless there's really a community, the community really is wanting it or screaming for it, I guess I would, I just wanted to ask about that, I guess.

And we did try to include future pedestrian improvements. So, you know, hope at some point maybe there's a trail on on 29 or something and we are trying to account accommodate that. But uh, we did accommodate for it with the 10th Avenue improvements or something that maybe happened later on.

But uh, at this point she's accounting for it, not necessarily designing for it. The east side where I saw a sidewalk could be going in the steepness there. I think in the diagram you referenced that the hill would be shaved down. I was just curious, Who is going to give us permission to shave down the hill?

And is that cost in the, there's a cost associated with that. And we did have a conversation with the property owners and they're okay with it. Yes. Okay. So, and I should probably mention that. So, um, on the east part of the prop, uh, east side of 10th Avenue, um, north of, uh, north of the County 29, that is, um, private property to centerline the road. So there is a right-of-way acquisition that is needed before the turn back agreement actually goes fully processed because the goal is with the turn back process is this is inherited as a turn back, like a sod turn back onto your state aid system. So you're able to collect needs funding from it. If you did not collect it that way or not acquire that right-of-way or the county did not acquire that right-of-way as part of the turn back process, then you would not be able to collect needs over the south. thousand feet of the road or whatever it is.

The, uh, intersection at 29 is, is that, uh, area going to be built up more? I mean, uh, like on the east side because if you want a future roundabout or something, there's, it's really low there.

Yeah.

Nothing's proposed as far as what we're talking about with the turn back at least. Um, I haven't had any conversations with, with, uh, Dave Teagues regarding any improvements at the intersection area though. So, There's nothing proposed at the intersection, the far south end.

Yeah, I don't know if it's, you know more than I do, Matt, if that's something that should be considered to build it up more around the sides.

Will you look for volunteer flaggers, if you're interested? Flaggers?

Yeah, that would be likely, if that's something that was ever to go through, there'd probably be an extensive amount of work going in all four legs of that intersection to make something work. So, outside the scope of a turn back, but certainly could be something that, uh, maybe in the future.

And I was just curious when I drive by there, the 11th street circle, the, um, that, that just seems like it needs attention.

I don't know if they, that's part of this project, but who it is. Well, it's part of the project, but not part of the turn back. So that's why we're not even discussing the 11th. I mean, that would be added onto the project as that would, that needs a mill and overlay. That's still coding failed extremely bad. And it's, um, we were waiting to get to first Avenue so we could do 11th street.

Okay. That sounds good.

Any other questions? So what are the steps we have?

At this point, there's no action to take. I did get a, and I haven't mentioned these guys yet, but I did get an example memorandum of understanding from LeSueur County to work through that. So the next step would be the memorandum of understanding, I guess.

Are there costs of the right-of-ways in the budget in this plan? It is not. It is not, and I'm not sure if we talked about that, Ken, or not.

With the property owner?

Yeah. So the property owner would be expected to dedicate that right-of-way with the development of their property. I met with the property owner a couple of times, and then most recently I think it was Matt, Chris, and myself met with the property owner, the family, I should say. And I think they realize that whether they develop or a future property owner develops, it's going to be provided as right-of-way. So we have not talked. cost to acquire that because that would be a requirement of obviously platting the property.

So in the map when you showed the, I thought it was the right of ways with the blue dotted line, is that meaning right of ways for all of the property owners all the way in section three?

It would just be the, uh, the only one we're looking at meeting right away from is going to be the south two properties on the east side. So the farm field and then the, uh, um, house at the corner. I misunderstood that.

What's the dotted? I think it's a sidewalk. That's sidewalk. Oh, okay. Yeah.

The way acquisition needed on parcels. Yeah. So we'd be looking at, I believe 40 feet, I think is what we identified from centerline of the roadway, um, onto the east side of the road. So we did stake that last year just where we thought it would be for the property owner to that acquisition label.

For those two pages, it just goes to the farm field through there. And so they're just signifying that we would need to have that right-of-way dedicated along that last section on the south part of it.

Okay, yeah, it wasn't delineated what it was referring to, I guess, in the map. Thank you.

Any other questions? Then I guess the letter C, the MS4 proposal that is in front of us?

Yes. So the next time I have in front of you is in relation to the MS4 permit that the city is now going to be required to complete. So you're notified a couple of years back that the city of New Prague would become an MS4 community. This is in relation to MS4 communities typically are of a certain population, I believe it's 10,000 or larger, or you're within a distance of an impaired water, water of significance. And in this case, Sand Creek is that waterway. And because that is an impaired water, the City of New Prague has been notified that you will need to start start preparation of MS4 documentation. So, uh, this is a, uh, technically you're into it now. Started January 1, 20, 2026. There's no documentation needed the first year. So you get a little, a little bit of leeway to kind of start getting your bearings and figure out what you need to do. Um, what we have done is provided you a proposal, uh, to, um, assist you with, um, assist you with that documentation. So, um, on the first level we have a phase one, uh, approach, which is, uh, largely a document, uh, information seeking type of a proposal. So, um, a lot of the items that you need to include with your MS4, um, permit, um, are things that you're likely already doing. Um, there's probably a lot of things you still, you need to start doing. Um, and we largely don't know what that is yet. So this is kind of an information gathering process, um, meeting with city staff, uh, meeting with, uh, um, uh, council and, and, uh, going through some sort of a public involvement, uh, stage here at the beginning. So, um, the, the, the biggest things right now, uh, we've identified for, for this information is what we kind of identified in this, um, schedule at the bottom here. And we're, we're, some of these will get pushed back. So we're, we're reviewing it here today on August 17th. But, uh, we do have a questionnaire, which is a documentation we send out basically saying, what are you doing now? So we can kind of start getting that information. Um, and then we do have, um, a couple of workshops and then a summary report and checklist. So, That's putting together basically what are you doing, what do you need to do, and this would all be used in preparation of likely a phase two, which is implementation. And that's starting to complete the items that you need to do for your MS4 permit, which I believe would be ultimately submitted in May, which is, I think it's May every year. So this is kind of one of those things that, it's going to be kind of a learning process. Um, for us, not obviously as you've done many of these, but just learning what you are doing, um, at the beginning here and, uh, kind of, um, working with the city as far as, um, what you need to do, what do you want to do, what do you want us to do? And then that's kind of what goes into the second phase is, uh, we do have the abilities to complete a lot of this documentation for you, but there's probably not much reason for us to, to do that. Um, at least not, uh, you know, forever because this is something you'll be doing on an annual basis. It doesn't mean you'll be doing this proposal on an annual basis, but once you start doing the submittals and documentation that you need to prepare, that is something you'll have to do every year. There will be a, every five years you should expect to be audited from that information, so there are certainly, certainly some reasons to getting sure you get it, I guess, the way you need to do it, so. You're probably doing a lot of work you need to do on inspections and things like that that get implemented to it. You're going to have a lot more stuff you need to do. You're going to identify someone that's doing SWPPP inspections, looking at private developments, doing all sorts of stuff you aren't necessarily doing now. So you will have some extra work added to your staff. But that's basically what we need to find out, what do you need to do here. The proposal we have in front of you here today is an hourly not to exceed fee of $29,900. This would be led by Jeremy Walgrave, who's in our water resources group. Jeremy's met with city staff here through a couple meetings now already, I think maybe a year, two years ago I think we met the first time, and then early this summer as well. So he's prepared these, he's assisted several cities with preparation of these documents and has a good background for that.

So is this December 15th date, a firm date, which means, I know we're missing some of the earlier dates, but is it something that we can still achieve?

The December 15th date, I would expect we'd still be able to stick with that, or certainly before Christmas. There's nothing in here that says you have to get it done by 4 December 15th. This is just trying to get us prepared so that we know what we need to do so we can start working on that next step in January. is the general idea so that, uh, then everything you do need to get ready for that first, uh, permits middle. Um, first documentation is ready for that. I think it's, I believe it's may when it has to be submitted. So it's just, uh, yeah, I think a lot of stuff will probably be shifted back a little bit, but I don't see that December 15th date changing a whole lot. Maybe I'd probably just say before Christmas on that one. Okay.

Besides inspections, do you foresee us in the future needing to either adjust zoning or ordinances or how we allow developments to occur or permit process?

Yeah, some of the items put in there are going to include ordinance updates, and that's going to be some of the things, whether it's Ken and his staff work on it or something that a CH helps out with. There's some template items that we can provide, and you can just kind of orient it towards how you want to work with it. we can write them all directly and do all that kind of stuff. So that goes into our determination of what you need to do. But yes, you will need to change, change things, um, that are in your, um, in your sleep code.

Someone building a commercial building. Well, they notice, notice the difference from yesterday to next year.

I'd say most developers that are coming in at this point, we're making them aware of the changes, and I think the items that we're referring to right now are gonna still follow those guidelines that MS4 will have, the stormwater requirements. So we are trying to get them oriented towards that, even though it's not officially oriented, but once you have the permit, I mean, you're gonna be the permit holder and people in your city are gonna have to be following it as well.

Okay. One thing I want to point out, Chuck, um, or mayor, sorry, I've been talking to you too much lately outside of the council meetings. Um, so the cost for this, um, study is 29,900 like you said. So I, uh, I budgeted 15,000 for this in the 2026 budget. Uh, we've had a good, uh, budget this year for the storm. Um, anticipate we'll have the additional 15,000 to cover that difference. But if we do not, we would have to take out of the fund balance. Um, and we are sitting very well in the storm budget, so that would not be an issue. But this is a necessary step. It's one audit and they miss, we miss one thing in our, um, paperwork and that fine would exceed this. So this is a necessary step. But uh, on top of that, we've talked about this for so many years now that the city will become an MS4 city. It's coming up. We've been preparing for it. Um, we doing a lot. I know we're doing 75% of the things that we should be doing already to be an MS4 city, but there are that 25% of stuff that we could be missing that we need an expert that's done this with other cities to understand exactly what we're missing.

What triggers that Matt becoming an MS4 city?

Well, this one doesn't, you would think what new prey hasn't changed much in five years. How could this, um, How do we fall into this lap now? Well, I know a lot of the bordering cities, New Market, Belle Plaine, I think just recently landed at the same time we did. I think it's because who we dump into, is that correct?

Yeah, so if you're over 10,000 population or if you are part of a regional water significance or an impaired water, I should say. So Sand Creek Watershed is the reasoning for it. So once that got designated as an impaired water, and I want to say it was within, I can't remember the range of miles. I think it might have been five miles. I can't recall exactly, but. Um, but because of the proximity to Sand Creek, um, that's why you get put onto it. So, um, yeah, even though you're less than 10,000 population, so a lot of the other, that's why the Metro communities are included in there. But, uh, you were not.

Okay. Any other questions? If not, I guess I'll look for a motion to approve this, uh, proposal, the MS4 proposal. So move. And I will second. I got a motion by Rick Sider, second by Chuck Nicolai. There's no other questions. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposition? Okay. Passes 5-0. Thanks, Chris. See you in two weeks. Okay. Next, we have John Wright from Wold. Unless it's easier for me to do it, I can either way.

Evening mayor and council. It's good to be back on a different project this time. And this one is, uh, is the relocation of city hall over to the building that, uh, the city just recently purchased. Um, we've met a couple of times with city staff to kind of go over some ideas on what we can do, what we can defer in the building and, um, are looking for some feedback. tonight on a couple of different ideas that, um, are important as we look at this building, not only from a building usage but also from the side of public access. Um, so those of you that are looking at this, we do have a public parking area on the south side. It's noted on the drawings here as there's 11 stalls there. Now there is a sizable parking lot behind the building with 41 stalls in there and so if while there isn't a lot of traffic to city hall, there are sometimes meetings in the council chambers and whatnot that will involve the potential of using the back lot for public parking. So we wanted to make sure to present some options that would not only help with access to those public spaces, but also enhance some security in the building as well so that we don't have people kind of walking up back ways like what we do in this building here. Um, so this is just to illustrate that there are a number of entries on the building that will need some level of control over. And so we've had a number of conversations related to how we want to do that. And we'll kind of talk through that, uh, as we go through the presentation. So for, Option number one is kind of a more traditional, um, look at how we might organize the building and the main vestibule on kind of the Southeast side there at the angle. Um, there was a very large open rotunda in there that octagonal space, uh, that sets up nicely for some sort of a service counter in that area. And so what we would envision is capturing probably about half of that area, uh, for city staff to have a singular, uh, service counter in that building. So kind of combining those into one location so that, uh, the public coming in has kind of a one stop shop for city services. Um, a couple of things to note in that lobby is there is no security in that lobby from, uh, what we're noting in this option as the council chamber. So we would add some, uh, some doors in that area to allow for the public to kind of be in that public area and the staff spaces and the council chambers, uh, would be secure and only opened based on, uh, usage. Uh, this option here would add to handicap accessible toilets. We have done in a preliminary, occupancy count of the council chambers. And based on the usage of that and the square footage of that space, it kind of dictates how many restrooms we would need in that public area. And two are the number. So we are, uh, proposing to, uh, unisex bathrooms in that area, non gendered toilets. Uh, we do have, um, a service counter that we're proposing to have, um, impact resistant glass and not ballistic glass, but impact resistant glass kind of similar, uh, but more, uh, designed into that space, a little public terminal in there. Um, and then a kind of a sub lobby area leading into the council chambers. Uh, this option here envisions, uh, doing some renovation in that corner by the council chambers to not only add a toilet, but to add a conference room in that area. So not unlike the conference room that's downstairs in this building, something that's in the more public area so that, uh, we don't have, uh, to escort people into the back area. We are showing a council chambers as oriented to the south. So the council would sit on the south side against that southern part of that Octagon octagonal area there. we are suggesting that that existing side door would be a safe and secure way for a city staff and council to exit that space. Should there be some emergency that's necessary that so that we don't have to go back through the public area. Um, and then from our conversations with staff, we have added a side area to connect our staff positions to the council dias in there. The council dies would be elevated similar to what you have in here. we are budgeting to add, um, ballistic protection to the council diets for, uh, safety reasons. It's a traditionally the way that we do, uh, council chambers, uh, today. And we do have a desk in there for, uh, the media location, um, similar to what you have here. Um, during our conversations, it was noted that we would likely relocate all of the council equipment that's in here to the new building. And so that would be something that would need to be coordinated, uh, during construction as to how that, uh, it stuff gets moved over there. Uh, the remainder, the remaining part of the building would pretty much stay as is today. Maybe a little painting and touch up here and there, but as if you've toured through the building, it's in good shape, so we don't expect there to be a lot of changes that are necessary. but we would be adding a card access system to the building and through our conversations with code official, we would need to provide a handicap actuators to, uh, any location where we would have the public coming and going from the building. Um, in this option here, we're leaving the existing training room on the east side, uh, as is, um, and adding a door near where those bathrooms are. So as it's being used as a polling location with two separate polling areas in there, having access to public bathrooms would be important. So adding another point of security in that area would allow the public to use those restrooms. Um, if there is a need for that, when we go to option two, we had some conversations related to, um, usage of the east training room versus the, um, octagonal space. and we had some conversations related to the parking lot on the north side having more parking available there, would it be possible to put the council chambers in that training room and have it completely separated from the rest of the building? We would still provide access to those public restrooms. That would solve the need to provide two bathrooms off the main lobby. In this version, we would only need one unisex bathroom off of the main lobby. it would retain the octagonal space as a training room and future growth for the city. Uh, and the rest of it would remain the same. It's just a different way of looking at it. And that's one of the key components that we would like to, um, get feedback from the council tonight. So I'll pause there before we go through the, um, the current estimate for the project. and look for any questions from the council. We would like to get some consensus on which option that we want to go with so that we can advance the drawings to the next stage.

Is the yellow meaning construction or does yellow mean something in particular? It's where we're doing the most renovation, yes. Okay. And I guess more question for Josh. I was just surprised when I look at this that there aren't that many offices. Are we still having...

Do we have enough space for the individual staff members? Yes. So if you were to count current city hall staff members today, we have about 12 people that work out of city hall full time. So when you look at the various spaces, there's the, what amounts to four kind of office environments. If you make that one, a council, uh, a conference room, you hit the one, two, three, kind of as they go around the curve, there's a larger space that could work as an office. Um, right now we're kind of viewing it more as like a supply closet, copiers, all the noisy stuff that we deal with, a kind of a workroom with maybe a desk in there. And there's another, a fourth office kind of across that little hallway there then. And then you end up having, um, kind of going south there, you've got a large enough space that you can put four or five kind of workstations in there. And then in that front lobby area, the staff that are the most direct with the public all of the time, there's enough space for three or four workstations kind of right up front there, um, for those people that deal with the counter on a consistent basis. So you end up dealing with, I guess roughly that gives you, uh, off the top of my head, 13, 13, 14. 13 spaces without really having to jam people into spaces that don't make sense. Um, like I said, and then as you get into it, I mean that, that works, that work office space is large enough. You could fit desks in there in the future if you have to. And then ultimately as we kind of talked through this whole process, um, depending on which way you went, you would have a space on one side that would be able to be expanded into in the future. If you saw a staff staff expansion, if that became something that, um, was a big need of the city at the time.

So when you walk in, are you in or am I to envision that there's a person standing on that part that's diagrammed as a wall is as a service counter that would be actually like a, a built in desk service counter.

Yeah. And I don't know, at least food talk. It doesn't sound like there's some of you working directly at the counter,

Yeah, to clarify, based on our conversations, we want the most flexibility there. So staff would be sitting at their workstation, and then whoever would walk up to the counter, whether it's somebody to see the building official, planning and zoning question, a finance question, the staff would come up to the counter to service them. So it would be more of a stand-up work area on both sides.

So it wouldn't be someone sitting there then? No, not permanently, no. Okay, so otherwise the spacing didn't seem right if you have four... three or four people behind a person sitting at the front.

So those beige dashed things are intended to be workstations for staff. Okay.

So in my packet, I see the proposed budget for option one, but not for option two. The pages are sequential.

Correct.

What would be the proposed budget for option two?

Uh, the, because there is more construction that's needed for option two with adding a vestibule and, um, into the council chambers and some of the additional work that would be needed in there. Uh, our opinion is, is that the cost estimate is negligible between the two of them. So council can make the decision based on operationally what works the best.

I'm surprised by that because you're eliminating a bathroom and the savings there is going to be eaten up by the,

the training? It's within, you know, it's within five to $10,000 between the two of them. And we can certainly run a detailed estimate on option two. Uh, tonight was to give you kind of an idea where we're landing from, you know, kind of the traditional putting the council chambers in the octagonal space. Um, and once we kind of get that decision, we can, uh, finalize the details of what it's going to take to do it and update it, uh, at our next council update.

I guess in my opinion, having the council chambers in the octagonal area makes more sense to me to keep that training room open for expansion of employees and perhaps more cubicles if needed in the future.

I would agree with you, Maggie.

that's a very large room and it could have multiple uses.

Correct.

Yeah.

It's a nice bit of flexible space to have available.

Yeah.

I'm good with a option one.

Yeah. I also agree with Maggie's statement too. I think the, the look that, that the council chambers, uh, an option one, I think gives it a unique look. And I think that's,

we have access to the parking lot from that public exit then? Yeah.

If you look access to go back to the site plan, um, there is a sidewalk that leads to that side door. So either coming, our thought was for council meeting night, we would all have lobbies, main lobby area be open, but also have the ability to utilize the back parking area.

I did. Yeah. I mean, for all of this, I would assume staff will always be parking up in the North slot, kind of like we do here now. Um, and then even, uh, if you, with you guys with key cards to get in, whether that's locked or not, you guys would have access. So if you wanted to park them behind too, you just have access to that back door, leaving that front lot open for any visitors.

Is there one option that you feel provides more value to the taxpayer than the other?

Initially, there was some intrigue about the training room because of its, you know, location and that type of stuff. But I think from looking at kind of a more traditional formal council venue, the octagonal room kind of fits better for that because as you can see, you're sitting at a desk with angles in it already. And so that room tends to lend itself to that. the only caveat is it's got a lot of windows in it. And so, um, we just have to be able to control daylighting and some of that type of stuff in there. So, um, if you want my opinion on this, I think option one also probably provides the best flexibility in the future, but we wanted to at least explore a couple of different ideas for you. Yeah, I like option one.

And, um, the thing I don't like about it is you're cornered in there, so there's no escape or, TODD BANDUCCI. If there was something going on with the residence.

CHRIS RODGERS. In option one? TODD BANDUCCI. Yeah. CHRIS RODGERS. Well, there is that staff exit, and that's kind of why I know we talked of where they're positioned and how you could potentially build that in a way that provides an exit if needed.

TODD BANDUCCI. Yeah, that staff. Is that a closet in between? If you look to where the council would be sitting? CHRIS RODGERS. The dark line. Is that just like a half wall? TODD BANDUCCI.

Yep, that's just a half wall. It would be kind of like this ramp here, but maybe with a more formal wall to kind of blend it in.

Uh, are most new buildings, uh, putting in ballistic protection? Is that a pretty standard thing now?

I have since, uh, I don't know, probably a third of way through my career, uh, we've been putting ballistic material in, uh, council. desks to be able to give you the ability to protect in place if necessary.

And it's only in the desk then that this would be in? Yeah. Nothing else?

We are proposing to put film on the exterior windows to provide some level of impact resistance to those existing windows in there just because we have such a large quantity of windows. Certainly that's a budgetary decision you can make, but it seemed prudent based on how much glass is in there for us to have some amount of impact resistance to, uh, the council chambers.

And that just, and just for their sake kind of talk, there's different ways you go about that. You could physically replace the glass, which was the much higher cost option. And then similar to, I'm assuming like when you put the window tint on your window, there's a film you can put over it that just, I guess probably like putting a protector on your screen on your phone just provides a little bit more resistance than what the glass provides.

There's a lot of products that came about with a lot of the school work that we do that have transitioned into a lot of our government projects as well, just all the research that's been done out there. So what we're trying to do is just slow people down.

Chief Applin, were you consulted in any of this?

Just at a high level, but I haven't been a part of the conversations, no.

Thank you.

Is staff get ballistic material too? Yes.

A little bit.

What are you saying, Bruce?

Just smile at me?

Just ask me. Because I care about you. Thank you. You'd be expected to wear a target on yourself.

So I think, Bruce, are you thinking option one is a better option? I think.

The parking was the only concern I had on that. But I think if you have access to the back way, Yeah. That's fine with me.

So I assume the consensus is option one.

Yes. For me, yes.

For me, yep. We will continue to build some details around that. We would enjoy to review with the council at a future date the design of the dais and what that kind of public-facing piece would look like. We should look at the budget a little bit. We did a little bit more detailed budget on this based on our being on site and some of the design work that we've done. Uh, and right now, including a roughly about a $23,000 estimated contingency, we're at roughly about $480,000 in construction. Now this assumes that a general contractor is doing all of the work. There has been some conversation about using city resources to do that. We have not taken that into consideration at this point in time because literally we're just at the point of finalizing the design and we would just need to make sure that that doesn't have an overburden, uh, your other staff people. But our intent would be to come back with a recommendation on how we would split that work scope out. A couple of other things to note in here that still need some, uh, additional work, which is the technology, uh, budget. We've established roughly about 115,000 as a set aside budget for technology just based on, conversations. Um, obviously we would like to reuse what we have at city hall right now. Um, and so that may have some impact on that. as well as, uh, this does include, uh, an updated card access system for the building. So this includes modification of doors to provide for card readers and all of that stuff is included in the budget. Uh, there's some miscellaneous site stuff that will likely be done by the city for parking lot lights and the sign out there. And then an overall, uh, project contingency for unknown. So at the schematic design level that we're at, Uh, it's a, it's critical to have some, uh, contingencies in there. And as we go through the next phase of construction documents, we'll be working on, uh, kind of the final engineering, figuring out what things we can save on and then bringing back the final recommendation to council at a future meeting.

One thing I would like to know guys is when you look at that technology budget, um, one of the things that we are having to adapt around is I guess you could currently call city hall the brains. of our city operations. We have connected all of our buildings with fiber and a lot of the brains of the city are located here. So we have to move those brains somewhere. Um, and this building, uh, fiber is about a block and a half away. And so, um, part of that technology budget is just acquiring fiber and then working through our own utility that can do the work to run that fiber, um, over to the new city hall location. So that way we have the new building connected to the rest of the hub. But, Also then working with Bruce and staff and just trying to figure out would this location be the best place for a new brains or center of the city? Or are we better off putting it in the power plant or that sort of thing? Hopefully trying to eliminate maybe a need if in 30, 40 years to have to move it again. But that would be conversations we have internally.

Well, Josh, when we walked through, it was going to be a couple of bathrooms, and we thought 200,000, and then we gave you a check for 650, and now it's 760, and we're not even done yet.

You didn't give me a check for anything.

Well, but in our budget meeting, you asked for 650.

And that was where we, I guess we, working with Matt, him and I kind of walked the building, and we made a very general guess as to what we thought it would be. And so... Yeah, and like I said, that was with staff doing some work. And as John mentioned, this is all contractor work at this point, contingencies built in, that sort of thing. And so as we get through this process, my hope is that this will get narrowed down a little bit to a more realistic number.

I guess I was asking for clarification on that, too, because the number seems more than what we talked about. When we talked about a $400,000 construction budget, I'm not sure maybe when you use that word, it might mean something different for different people. So I'm not sure if that was meant to mean the construction budget or the direct construction scope. But in my mind, $400,000 meant the whole construction part of it. So I'm not sure we thinking of trying to get that back down to what we thought around that 600,000 number or I mean that that's our hope.

Obviously I think working through some of this, a lot of it even comes down to what, what do we need to do now? What can we do later?

Um, so it comes down to, um, so, uh, and we're certainly aware of this is higher than what was anticipated. Uh, but this, this is the scope that we've talked about. Our intent is to continue talking about it and figuring out if there are some ways to, say we haven't even had our mechanical engineers out to the building yet to try to figure out what we can reuse and what needs to be modified. So we have placeholders in the budget for what we would expect for restrooms and that type of stuff and ventilation systems. And so as we go through the next stage of design, we're going to do that field verification and make sure that we are looking to reuse what we can in the building.

Okay. So obviously you understand which direction the council would like to go, uh, What's the timeline then of the next step?

Russell? We're early September. I think we had proposed to be pretty well done with the schematic design here in September, so we're on track right now for where we would hope to be. I think we had allowed a couple of months to do final design documents and so I'll work with Josh and staff to kind of finalize the details on that and we'll look to come back to council's price on midpoint in the next phase of design. So probably sometime in October to review kind of the final design of the council chambers and we'll have an updated estimate at that time. and we expect to be done with the bidding documents probably in that November timeframe sometime. So we're still on track to what we had expected at this point in time.

Okay. Any other questions? All right. Well, it looks good. Thank you very much. Well, thank you. Thank you. Next on the agenda is ordinance for introduction. Is this a first reading Ken of ordinance number 367?

This would be the first reading. So I'll give you a little background. Council will recall we did do some minor amendments to the Unified Development Code on July 6th that were adopted.

Those were some quick changes we needed to make, some more, we'll say more important and more critical amendments from when we adopted that back in March that didn't appear immediately. This next set of amendments, and we hope we've got

solar power, but Planning Commission did review these changes in July and held a public hearing at our August 26th meeting. We did not have any public comment received at that meeting on August 26th, but just wanted to go over in general terms the changes that are proposed. So number one, in Unified Development Code, we wanted to specifically call out that shipping containers and storage containers are not allowed as structures or permanent buildings.

There's a set of concerns and then also concerns of them meeting the building code.

So that was something that, just by the fact that it wasn't listed specifically as being allowed, that they were prohibited, but we wanna make that clearer, because we did have some inquiries about that. So the language you put together, surveyed a number of the cities in the area, language regarding city requirement building permits for all solar systems and explicitly not allowing ground-mounted solar. Again, the city code or the

state statute, if you don't allow it, it is prohibited by the code. So we're just clarifying that. Third one, regarding parking vehicles in front yard or even back or side yard or residential properties. We had put that language in there, so you can't just park on the grass. We had, again, some questions of people saying, well, I don't have a passenger vehicle, I have a commercial vehicle. So we're suggesting making the change saying that

any vehicle parked in the grass in your front yard, side yard, or rear yard is not allowed unless it's on a paved area. So that's another change. We do allow in certain cases to be on gravel. Fourth one, regarding that commercial industrial buildings that are accessory. Previously to the UDC being adopted, we didn't require any design requirements for them. Planning Commission had quite a bit of discussion about this following the public hearing meeting in August. And there's kind of a list of different things that they have to meet from using varying colors, varying roof lines, windows, accents to the garage door. And the way the code was written, they had to pick two of these criteria, which applied to principal buildings. We've never intended that to apply to accessory buildings. So Planning Commission determined that they That was what the planning commission was looking for, to pick one of the design elements that have to be incorporated into your commercial or industrial accessory buildings, like a shed or a garage. Fifth one, regarding decks. This is another kind of clarifying item. We've had more and more people wanting to put decks around pools that are in their backyards. And the way we had UDC written, and even going back before we did the big adoption and change back in March, It was just that you couldn't have a deck less than 20 feet from your rear lot line. That was intended for attached decks and for fire, instead of the 20-foot. It was an initiative that comes up a ton, but it just didn't make sense that a detached deck should have the same setback requirements as an attached one because you didn't have the fire connection to the principal structure.

The main reason why we wanted the 20-foot setback.

And then finally, we just had multiple references to zoning ordinance in the UDC, and those should have So that was really just kind of a cleanup item. So I believe we have all the major items. Again, Planning Commission's gonna hold a hearing on the topic of solar again at their meeting on September 16th. That's coming up next week. So that will be kind of the final item, I think, It's been working well so far, but we just believe that clarifying items that the Planning Commission wanted to review and did make the motion to move in front of you for introduction tonight at the council level.

And what issues are coming before the Planning Commission with regards to solar?

Solar specifically, I think, The issue was, we're actually, not actually just saying solar, also regarding alternative energy systems, so like windmills.

And I think specifically Sean brought up at the meeting, correct me if I'm wrong, Sean?

No, you're right.

Particularly a case that came up in Orono with a house-mounted wind turbine that was noisy.

And in state statute, we can't outright prohibit them, but we can severely limit where they're allowed. So that's what we're going to be looking at at the planning commission hearings.

And that was the whole house fan type of deal?

Just a, I don't know, it was rough-mounted windmill.

We had to do a lot of them in the city.

What's that?

We did a lot of them in the city.

Yeah, and we're not saying we prohibit them. We just wanted to put some guardrails up, so we... have been in our continuing through this week to do research on what other cities have for regulations for them, because right now we don't have any.

And mine was not even house-based. I think the Orono case, it was out in the backyard, but it was 30 feet high. It was huge.

On the farm, huh? Yeah. So. I'm surprised. Don't we have a resonance with shipping containers being used right now as structures to store things?

You know, um, I hope we don't because by the ordinance we do not allow them, so they have not been allowed and we've never had anybody asked to put one in the yards. If there are any, they're illegally placed.

They're next to the chickens. Would people ask the coop?

Um, I don't know that everybody would ask, but if we, if we have seen one and we have not at this point, we would definitely address it. Maybe we should drive through the alleys again. Definitely can do that. And if you know of an area where we should look, We'd be happy to hear that.

No, no, no, no. No, I think it is, I think that's an area that can be, there might be some people that have arguments about that one. Some of the structures that people store stuff in don't look as good as the storage containers.

So, any other questions? If not, I guess I'll make a motion for the first reading of ordinance number 367.

I'll second.

We have a second by Maggie Bass. If there's no other questions, comments, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposition? Okay. Passes.

Thank you.

We don't have any ordinance for adoption. Next is a resolution dealing with officially naming the area where the pops stage is being built. Is that correct?

Correct. Um, so I think I've given you an update maybe a month and a half ago or so. Um, per the adopted policy for, uh, park naming, uh, that we have, uh, council adopted policy, I should say that quite a lengthy process that had to be followed beginning with the, um, park board and ultimately ending with the park board. uh, to collect names, collect a public, um, comment period and all the comments on the names that we had solicited. So we had six names initially that were, um, solicited Mill Pond Commons, Central Park, Dvorak's Landing, Harmony Park, Mill Pond Park, and I'm going to butcher this, Strumovka Park, which I believe is a park in the Czech Republic, um, that were, uh, formally submitted and we had given the council an update on those at that time. So we did have a public comment period that had run for most of the summer and that wrapped up on August 10th. Uh, the park board did review, uh, the names and again the comments that were on all the names. I did include that information in the packet here tonight for the city council to consider. But ultimately the park board did pass a recommendation on to the council tonight to utilize the name of Mill Pond Commons for the formal name of what we've temporarily been calling city center where the POPs facility is located. So we do have a resolution in the packet tonight that would establish the formal name of Mill Pond Commons for that property.

Before you go into that part, can I ask a question? Sure. Why did this come up?

Why did it come up?

Because with the commons part at the end, it almost sounds like there's an apartment building right over there.

So that actually did come up at the park board meeting with mill pond apartments. And the commons idea was that it's not just simply a park, but rather, a park with the surrounding development that has not yet occurred in the north end of the property where the council and the concept plan and, um, all of that small area planning that, uh, the park board and the council did a few years back with the comp plan, but there could be future developments both north of pops as well as on the, um, adjacent to the railroad tracks on the west side of, um, the gravel third Avenue.

Well, I'm almost definitely in the north, north end there is going to have to get rebuilt up. Yep. I'm just saying that, we could sell it and everything like that and they could put something they, what they want there, but we would be changing the name sooner or later from commons to something else.

Yeah. And I, I, I think the, the general consensus and again with the public comment was the mill pond commons. Obviously one of the other ones was mill pond park. So it wasn't a huge, you know, outpouring of park versus commons commons just had more comment in the affirmative for that. And maybe Maggie can shed some more light on it.

It sounds like it was pretty common to have a common.

Yeah. Commons I think is, is also known as a gathering place. So because I think of the pops stadium, the stormwater pond, maybe a, um, a trail and you know, some other amenities, it's a place for people to gather. So it's just a, a different use of verbiage.

I think you see it actually. I'm going to go south of the border down to Mexico. When you think like traditional Mexican towns, a lot of them have that common square right in the middle. But commons, yeah. In this instance, I think commons is referring more to the public gathering place, open to everybody.

I think park will kind of unscrew that. You're going to have park playground equipment type there. And I don't think... There may be, but... Maybe at some time, but I don't think that... I mean, growing up in New Prague, that was always the mill pond area, even when there was no pond. But, I mean, I think that's a very good option for a name because we are going to have some kind of a pond, aren't we? A holding pond of some sort on that end? We still hope that it exists. Are your buddies at deed having fun with you or we're getting there?

We're, we're, we're feel like we're this close.

Yeah. We're this close in May. Isn't that the feeling? Yeah. You had to meet the same feeling every month.

We have farther away. We actually, yeah.

Well now if we got a name, tell him, Hey, you got to put the palm there. Any other comments? Okay, if not, I guess I'll look for a motion to approve resolution CC-26-09-08-02. So moved. Officially naming Mill Pond Commons, and I got a motion by Maggie Bass. I'll second that. Second by Rick Seiler. If there's no other comments, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposition? All right. That's fair. I bet you we have to change that one of these days. Well.

Go through the process again.

There you go. Uh, there's no general business. So we're now at the miscellaneous. Rick, do you have anything? No. Bruce?

No. Maggie?

No.

Sean? Um, just a question for Tim. Do we got an open house date yet set?

We are looking at, give me one second. October the 24th.

Okay, great.

So we're doing our, uh, we do our carving with the cops event. Oh, so kind of jointly do that at the same time.

Perfect. Sounds great.

Thank you. Yep. We were just working on the flyers today, so hopefully it'll be out here by the end of the week. We can start putting that out there. Okay. Thank you. That was it. No, that was it.

Shana or Josh?

Uh, yes. Real quick. Um, I had a talk with the fire chief about their pension fund. And due to some wise investments, that fund has continued to grow. And so he wanted to sit down and have a kind of a discussion to see if there was a possibility maybe of using some of that funds. As you guys may remember, the only way we can use that funds is by disseminating it to firefighters. So I know in the past, generally the council has selected kind of a subcommittee of two people and myself to sit down, um, with the rural board as well as, um, kind of the fire board and kind of talk through that and then bring back any sort of recommendation to the council. And so I'm just wondering if the council wants to go through that process again. Um, I think the last couple of times we've done it, it was the mayor and Sean, wasn't it? And the three of us. But, um, just want to check with the council if that's kind of process we wanted to go through again. Um,

I'm just trying to understand how that works again. Is that just transferring money into their pension program?

Yep. So the way that works is cities do it a few different ways. What we do is we receive a fund. We receive basically an amount from the state every year and we as a city just acts as a pass through them to move that over into their pension fund. And then when they leave the, uh, service, whether it's like retire or slightly early, I don't know the exact payout schedules of it. They would get a portion for serving within the fire department. And so a lot of times when they retire with 20 years and their full pension, they would then take a lump sum of that. And so generally as we, um, review this, uh, and part of it, I think they, um, we use, uh, Shannon Bruce. So that kind of looks over that fund for them. Um, we make sure that that fund can hold or pay out basically all of its current debts. And if for some reason that drops below 90%, which I believe it's happened once, hasn't it, Sean? Were you hearing that happen the first time? And Chuck, there was one time. The city basically has to come up with funds to catch up to that. Now, the last couple of times, that fund is hitting around 115% of being covered. And the city said, OK, there's only one thing we can do with this. It's not like we can recoup it for ourselves. goes out to pay out these funds. And so we said, okay, we're going to up the amount of retirement for the annual years of service.

So what they're asking is if they can increase our pension benefits.

Yep. So right now they're saying our, our current fund balance is sitting at whatever it is. I don't know the exact number. Is there something we could do to look at increasing the pension fund benefits to use some of that fund balance?

Okay. So then, and I'm not trying to make a statement here or anything, but just so I understand the financial part of it. So if we do that, increase their benefits, then there's a greater risk that we might fall short in the future.

That is correct. That risk exists. I know it was a couple of years ago we started putting away a little bit of money at the end of each year when we had revenue surpluses just to kind of hold as a just in case too for that. But yes, obviously as their benefit increases, it does increase that risk, which is why we then look at it and say, okay, where is it sitting? What would the market have to adjust to potentially put us into that default risk?

That's where there's no automatic increase in benefits each year. Correct. There's nothing. That is correct. OK.

So yeah, they basically get a benefit based off of years of service and what we have set the annual benefit at.

And often it goes two or three years before we ever- Without anything changing. Without anything changing. When was the last time we changed it? Was it two years ago, probably? I was going to say, I thought two, but it could be as soon as, or maybe it was last year.

No, because Chuck wasn't here. It was back when Duane was mayor. So I think it was two years ago.

Yeah, I'd be in favor of changing it and not doing it dramatically.

And I think that usually we go from like $3,000 to $3,300. Like I said, I know the last few years we've put that analysis into it of, okay, if we do this, where does that put our fund balance and what are our liabilities and what would that market likely have to change to affect and really affect the city? Because at this point, the city doesn't put anything into that.

where budgeted to put something in it. We started a few years ago when it was fluctuating quite a bit that we just to cover. So we didn't have some on. So do you have it in this budget?

No, so we haven't, so yeah, we've taken, we get to the end of the year and say, oh, we've got these excess revenues from the year, like when we talk to the auditors and they tell us a little bit of fund balance, like that's where we designate some of that fund balance just to set aside, kind of like we've also done it for the aquatic center in case for some reason.

Right, but I thought for a few years we actually budgeted an expense.

Just so we wouldn't have some huge swing just in case. But you don't do that anymore. We don't do that anymore. Okay. I think that housing, I think if I remember right, it was like 60 some thousand that the city had to come up with one time before you and I were on. Yeah. But during like the housing crisis when everything. Right. End of 2008 or something.

Yeah.

There was only been one year, I think.

Yeah, I guess.

Oh, yeah. So I guess would you, sorry, the whole point of that conversation, would you guys like to kind of do that whole subcommittee thing like we've done before? Like I said, I know Sean sat on the last few ones at least and has been the mayor, but if you'd like a different makeup, we can certainly do that too. It's up to you guys.

I'd be happy to do it, but if somebody else wants to do it, that's happy to do it too.

It's fine.

It's just an hour long meeting. I'd be happy for you guys to do it.

Well then I guess if that's the case, I know some dates I got kind of right off hand that would work if kind of the 22nd, 24th or 17th, I guess I put those in the wrong order. 17th, 22nd or 24th work here this month at like six o'clock. So I think it's a Thursday, Tuesday, Thursday. next Thursday or after that Tuesday or Thursday.

I think Thursday probably works a little better for me. I don't have my, I left my phone in my car. So if I call you tomorrow? Yeah. Just kind of confirm that? Sure. Okay. Yeah, that's fine. Oh wait, you have golf on Thursday. I can do Tuesday. The 17th is our last golf day.

Meet, league, meet, day. League? Not your last golf day. Well, no, but.

Okay, I'll call you guys tomorrow and see if I can confirm something on that.

Okay. Anything else?

That's all I had.

Ken, do you have anything? Nope. Robin? Kim?

Matt? I do.

All right. I did want to share a little information. While I feel like there's so much negative information stuff in the world, social media, newspaper, everything. I wanted to share a little bit of positive stuff about, uh, our community. Um, the last three weeks, uh, hopefully I'm not stealing your thunder, Chuck, but the last three weeks, uh, new break held the state amateur baseball tournament. Um, while I made a while, I was there a lot. I only made one game, but I couldn't be more impressed with this community. Um, there is talking to Nick Seneca. He was one of the, One of the main guys that helped get that tournament here, including many, Chuck was part of that board and everything, but there's 29,000 people that attended all the games through four venues, three main venues with the fourth one. New Prague had the highest attendance at over 9,313 paid attendance. These events do not take place without hundreds and hundreds of volunteers throughout the three weeks. And I'm not joking, it's hundreds and hundreds of people volunteer their time. Um, city staff spends a lot of time on that field. We are extremely proud of that field. Uh, the big renovations that took place 10 years ago. We are so excited when we see all these people come into our community to get to see our field. Um, I heard nothing but great compliments of how great the field conditions were, how great this community is and how do you get so many volunteers that are all happy, just willing to help and uh, just make it a better event. Um, I just, I really cannot express how excited I was. Uh, someone that's born and raised in New Prague, New Prague means the world to me. Um, just seeing everybody come together and make this event, this event, I would arguably one of the best events. Um, I think a lot of the people I talked to would say the same thing. So one, I want to thank all those people that did that, uh, volunteer their time. I want to thank my staff for all the time they put into the, that field. Um, A lot of time, a lot of money has obviously been put into that field. Uh, a lot of money that, uh, this tournament raises to put back into that field. Um, really every dollar they make goes back into that field and it gets, uh, lets us do a lot of the projects we've done. So, uh, I really just want to thank everybody in the community staff. Um, there's an amazing event and, uh, coming down hole 18 on Sunday when the Class B tournament was. I thought they were all cheering for me, but then I realized they weren't. But it was really impressive. That's all I wanted to say. Thank you to Chuck, everybody that volunteered, if any of you guys did. I know I'm rambling on, but it was a very special event. So I just wanted to say that.

And we all thank you guys, because I heard that you did a lot of work on this too, Chuck.

Yeah, no, to reiterate that, I mean, I think we had a lot of positive feedback from people who've never heard of new prey. Uh, cause we had a lot of class C games, which they came two or three hours. They drove like a New York mills and, and, uh, Buffington and all this stuff. And they come in and they were not only oppressed with the ball field, but the community as a whole. And, uh, I think it really showcases that we, uh, are doing the right things, uh, In this community and we got great workers Matt your people did a great job and the board was impressed I know we did in 2018 we broke a record also and this record that we broke stood since 1961 So we got to be very proud of what we did and you are right the volunteers and there's people Shawnee was there two or three times and And other people, they would look on Sign Up Genius, and they didn't care if they were there six hours. They would sign up for different shifts if there was gaps in it, and we're very fortunate to that. All right. Mitch, you got anything? Patrick? I don't have anything, so I guess I'll make a motion to adjourn. Second. Second by Bruce Wolf. All in favor say aye. Aye. All right. We're out of here. Thank you, everyone.