City Council - Regular Meeting

and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Teresa. Please take the role. Okay. Mayor Jones here. Kill here. Carlson here. Bowen. Yep. Yes. Shilling here. And I have not heard from Matson. Have you? I have not. Okay. So, we'll go ahead and start rolling. Uh any action agend or additions to the agenda for tonight's meeting? Motion to approve the agenda for tonight's meeting. Thank you. Have a second. I'll second it. No one. Any discussion?

Thank you, Keith. I don't care what they say about you. You're doing a great job. Hearing none, we'll vote. Schilling, yes. Harach, yes. Keel, yes. Bowen, yes. Matson, yes. Carlson. Yes. All right. How about the minutes from the 2326 meeting? Any action? Motion to approve minutes from 23 2026 meeting. Second. Any discussion? Hearing none. We'll vote. Carlson, yes. Matson, yes. Bowen, yes. Gee, yes. Yes. Shelley, yes.

Okay, the bills are in your packet. Any action on the bills presented for payment? Make a motion to approve bills for payment as presented. I'll second. Any discussion? I just got a question on the U and I think this is probably a yearly thing. It's a mass notification sys. So, is that what we use as a city if something needs to go out? Is that a yearly thing with that? Yep. Snow like it's our communications as like with email or text when we snow alerts we send out and Yeah. information that we need out

and so it's people that are signed up on the email they put their Okay, you got to sign up for it either email, text or both or whatever. Yep. But but yeah, that's a yearly fee. Does that put do both text and email or just email? Both. Both and either either or both. Okay. Yep. All right. You decide that when you sign up. Thanks, Sean. Anything else? All I got. Hearing none, we'll vote. Shilling, yes. Rochek, yes. Ke, yes. Bowen, yes. Matson, yes. Carlson. Yes.

All right. Looks like we have nobody from the public. No public comment. Applications, agreements, hearings, resolutions, ordinance. There's none tonight. Fire department report was laying on your desk. Todd was here. He now knows that he doesn't have to come other than every quarter. So, we probably won't see him for a month or so. And he did say if you guys have any questions, you know, just get them or let me know and I can get a hold of them or whatnot. So,

yep. Looks good. Anybody got any questions? No. All right, we'll move on. Next up, building inspector report. Kyle Christensen. Any questions on the code enforcement or building side?

I don't know if I have a question on the spec. This is more of a general question and I've probably asked this before. I'm not trying to cause a five or 10 minute debate here. So, but I think it's a a point that is, you know, how am I saying this? So there are obviously code. So like I I'll just I'll give a real life example. So 3 years ago I poured a concrete pad on the side of my house. Okay. I was like, "All right, if I have a third vehicle, if I want to park, we've got a concrete pad." So I I got a good deal on it, but I poured a concrete pad, did all the dirt work, all that. And then I know that I'm not going to say specifics, but I know that there's parts of town where people have either put dirt or some type of rock um on the side of their house and they park there or there's people that park stuff uh trailers or things in the back of their house and I'm fine with that. But I was I was always I was always under the impression that I have to have a concrete pad to park on. So, I spent probably $4,000 to a rather large concrete pad to do that. And then I know that there's people that um you know are doing these other ways to park things. So, I'm kind of like, okay, I spent four grand, you know, hard earned money and I did this the right way. And then there's people that I know for extensive periods of time that have used other means or methods, other material to park things on for a long period of time. Do we have any like I'm just like did I waste my money? I'm just cur because I feel like I did because like there's people that have not followed that which I'm fine with if that's the way like I'm fine with that. Is there a mechanism and I'm not looking for us to be once again I'll throw out this well I'm not going to throw out that term. I'm not looking for

us to like hyper hyper patrol the these things. But I'm kind of like I felt like I I wasted my money because there's people that I know that are parking in their backyard or on gravel getting away with it, not doing what I did the right way. And it doesn't seem like anything is being done. And I'm just like, "Okay, I want my money back." There's quite a bit of parking in town that's grandfathered in. If you got an existing uh gravel pad or driveway, if as long as it's maintained, it's grandfathered in. It's It's allowed. How about into a backyard? Parking on grass is doesn't matter where it's at.

So backyard on grass is that not No. No grass at all. I want to make one comment something you said. So you don't you don't feel like we're at a point where we can hyper enforce. This is but this is one of those situations. I don't know that there's a mid ground. You either don't or you enforce every. You know what I mean? I know. I get what you're saying, but I don't know how you say we're gonna enforce this, but we're gonna let this go. Actually, Kyle addresses a lot of them like every month. I WANT TO SAY,

NO, I'M SURE THEY'RE ADDRESSED, but that to me is a very like subjective term. Like, what does it mean to be addressed? So, like, like I said, I'm not going to blast somebody po publicly, but I know that there's a particular property in town where I'm like, they're parking on grass. They parked on grass for well, ever since I've lived in Harford. I bought my house in 2017. So, we're going on 9 years in December when I bought my house. And so, I'm like, okay, nine years, you know? So like either we either a have these codes that people are going to follow or we just have them as just like it's kind of like wearing masking code. We're just going to wear it to look good. They don't actually do anything.

So like this is what I get you should privately get and yeah assuming you have I have if you go back through I have on this specific one but I can we can reconvene but I'm just like nine years. Well there shouldn't be any parking on grass at all but Kyle's right. You know, we did require the hard surface. Hold on to this for a while. No, but hey, you know, Michelle, I forgot about it. I'm just like, we're going through the course. I'm just like, it's a topic of convers either we're going to enforce them or not. You know, I don't know. I think it's a matter of do we go around and look for them? But most of our ordinances get a warning letter first, don't they? Yes.

So, if they if they do get a warning and then they don't do it when they follow up, then what happens after that though? get a letter and they get a fine. But but if they do it again in 6 months like it's then we start the process again, right? We letter them, we do this, we do that invisible. So how do we as city councilman and mayor know if a specific property is grandfathered in or not? That's a great question. It's difficult. I use the county's GIS map because you can so there is a record somewhere. It's usually I mean it depends on how clear the GIS map is.

Okay. So I can load up like say 2015's GIS map and you should make them put a flag in their window grandfathered. That might be like a mafia thing. We got to be careful with that. You know flag. So Sean, to address your question, I'm not when I drive around town, I'm not peering in everybody's backyard, per se, but if I know something on the side of the house or in the front yard, I usually address it. Fair enough. That's all I need. Just reach out to that we're a complaint based uh enforcement, right? Like if there's a complaint, we're reactionary. Yeah. And and I'm totally cool being that way.

He's just part time currently. Um, so, okay, I'm good. Okay, because I got I wanna You really started Michelle. So, now I'm gonna now I'm gonna go on my giving you how how or when do we as a city start looking at some of these properties that are becoming disheveled? I don't know what's the good word. Well, Ram, let me add on to that. Blighted. Blighted is the word. collided or I'm going to add on to that exact point. So, if there's a property, so I I put up a fence. I did the building thing. Yeah. I follow all the rules down the rabbit hole. Yeah.

No, it's not a This is important stuff here. We have a short agenda. We're going to make it long. We broke it last Sunday. Okay. But yeah, no, it's a good point. So, like your five minutes. I'm just saying. Okay. Well, I'm not That's fine. That's Yeah, the mayor. He's got this thing right here. Yeah. But yeah, a bladed property or a property that has a fallen down fence for years, it's like, okay, and and I get that. But if my wooden fence fell down and I just let it chill for years, should I expect just to let it be fine? I think it's you have to what ordinance is it violating? Right. I say a falling down

because I have a lot of fence that's falling down. A lot of things in my area, we'll say, that I don't care for that I think should be dealt with, but they don't violate an ordinance. Well, I I think at some maybe maybe to get this started, at some point when we have our get together, we're going to invite K. I didn't mean to rope you into that. I'm just asking questions. No, I really don't you think that'd be a good place. And then we could start with rental properties. I mean, yeah. I mean, I think that'd be a good time. I feel like I'm personally, don't you think? And then we can kind of put all of our minds together and think about a good solution.

As management, so does as the leadership team. Let's talk about this and see what we think. Let's do that next month. Let's invite you in. Is that that right? I look like I have been I hope you feel better. Thank you for your attention. Let it out. LET IT OUT, BUDDY. All right. You got anything else, Kyle? Um, I got an update. Couple building construction related. Yes. Um, bills that are in pure right now if you'd like to hear them. You bet. Uh, so Senate Bill 129, uh, Pier's looking at adopting the 24 building codes.

So, if adopted, the effective date will be July 1st. Paul is in communications with Neil Kings who falls his building official and typically they've given him a boilerplate copy that we can use so we can adopt the code for ourselves. Okay. Certainly pass the Senate. It's waiting for a house vote. Okay.

And then the other one is Senate Bill 3. They're looking at limiting types of residential improvements for which we as a city can permit. Originally, they included items such as non-structural interior projects. I think like your basement finishes, your window wells, stuff like that. And then they originally included roofs, sidings, doors, gutters, down spouts, and fencing panels or posts. They now since amended it. basically how how I'm reading through we may see and how it affect Hartford would be we um siding still on the list and then there's mention of fencing panel or posts and I'm not 100% sure if they mean um eliminating permit work for all fences like new putting up a new fence or just existing I think it's existing but I'm not 100%

okay um that one has passed the Senate it's waiting for the house to vote on that one as well. They are not taking roofs off the They took roofs off. So you don't have to permit for a re-roof any longer. You do. You do things. Oh, you do have to. Yeah, they were going to miss. So the list is what you don't. So you still do for a roof, but not for siding. Okay. Gotcha. Oh, repairs. So, I think the only thing that could affect us if this passes is we would no longer be able to permit sighting projects. Okay? Because a lot of these we don't already permit like downspouts, gutters,

doors, windows, if they're the same size, we don't permit them already. It's just where people work. And isn't it typically like with down spots and stuff if you're tearing off and putting back on? I don't know that we have. No, you do not have we don't have permit in the city. You do not have to permit for that. No. Right. Okay. All right. Other than that, that's all I got. That's good to know. Anybody else got any questions for Kyle? All right. Thank you, Kyle. And we'll look forward to having you at the next meeting of the uh staff. Now he's Now he's going to be scared

for a whole month. He's going to be scared now. I'll be all right. I would be scared. All right. Uh, city engineer report. The most exciting time of the night right there. Go.

Uh, good evening everyone. Uh, quick project updates for you. Following up on item from last meeting on the, uh, stating at the water facility there. I did look at it at a progress meeting uh, last Friday. Um that staining was just from some acid wash they did from some some roof some of the gutter and roofing work. So that should have paid over time. Teresa and Jesse looked at it and didn't have any concerns. So um it looked better from earlier this year. So yeah might have just been a lighting time of day moisture type of thing. So but so taking care of that. Um Western Avenue did talk with uh Tracy Craig at our our bi-weekly meeting a couple weeks ago last week. Uh we're going to follow up on a punch list. Uh Tim, uh myself and Craig just walk the project, make sure check off what's done, just get it resent to the contractor, make sure it's top of mind once weather um breaks if this nice weather doesn't continue. So I just help expedite that process uh in the spring. Uh and then lastly, uh Mickelson Road Shared Use Path mentioned at the last meeting, we did get that notice to proceed. Uh so survey teams have been out there uh last week and I think they were are going to be out tomorrow just collecting uh the last of the data. anticipate having that ready for to begin design later this week on the really next.

Awesome. Happy to answer any questions on the projects or anything else you have questions on. All right. Any questions for Michael? They're kind of farming kind of close to the easement, aren't they? When I was or into the easement to the city right away. Yeah. We're going to get some uh some T-ost set along the highway there just so they correct. Yep. Yep. Just a delineate. So we can uh reclaim the right away. Yeah. Yeah. Good. All right. Anything else for Michael? Thank you, sir. Thank you. Uh public works superintendent Craig Wagner.

I don't really have any updates to my report unless anybody has any questions for me. Uh they must have got right after that light pole. I didn't notice it. So he went checked and he said everything was working. Okay. Um, so he said maybe it was just um happened to be a brighter day. He said it was the code was facing to the east. Oh, sure. So he said it might have just had the right caught the sun. Yep. Right. Just just those are supposed to face north. Just an FYI. Yep. I think he turned it. All right. Sounds good. How about a solen lights on our welcome sign out by the interstate? You know the welcome to Hartford sign. Yeah. I'll get those ordered and get them up.

Yeah, let's cuz I know we budgeted and approved that. So, we'll be getting a bunch of thought about that Friday night. Came home. What are you up to? Yep. Okay. Anybody got any questions for Craig? No. Is Eric going to do his wastewater certification, too? Yep. He's uh he'll be taking his class one in That's a good question. Uh March. Yeah, toward the end of March. There's a class coming up in Sou Falls. Okay.

So, it'll be a 2 and 1 half day training class. Um, and for the class ones, they go over pretty much everything that's on the exam. So, if you pay attention to him in class, you can usually pass for class ones. So, he'll be taking that in March. Um, Jesse's going with him to help him get familiar with what's going on with classes, stuff like that. Plus, he's going to get continuing education hours that he has to have. And then uh there's another class coming up in Sou Falls in April which is uh water collection or water yeah water collection it is or something treatment but um so he'll be taking that class too then get working on his ones for that. So

all right I got a quick question um on the wastewater treatment plant and I'm thinking worst case scenario. I I was driving by there on Sunday night. If there was ever like a fire there, this is worst case scenario, but you don't think things happen. Where's the set? You got my attention though. Well, cuz you heard fire. There might be some electrical work. Um, so I, and this is more a question of curiosity, what's that? Want to get the fire department in there?

Not necessarily that. Like let's just say if that thing became incapacitated for a period of time, what happens to that flow of water? Like if the generators are burning up and that building started on fire, that building once it so from the pump station over 465th. Yep. That's forced to the building. Yep. Once it hits the building, it's gravity fed all the way through the whole plant. And so worst case scenario, you open up your cuz you have you have your grinders or whatever your agitators bypasses on, you can just open those up and it can just flow. Yep. I I don't know why I was thinking about that like man like what happens if it's complete gravity flow. Um you know you'd be struggling for your oxygen and stuff like that which you'd get something temporary hooked up as soon as poss.

Okay, cool. I was just I don't know I was thinking about that but I was Armageddon. Yep. You never know. Deep thoughts. Deep Yeah. Deep thoughts of Shawn Bone on Sunday night. Thinking about crap water. All right. Anything else for Craig? All right. Thank you, Greg. Karen, you got anything for your report?

No, not really. Our switching ever bank is moving along. We got the customer deposit accounts all switched over cuz I had all the supplies come in on those. Still waiting for our laser checks to come in on our main checking and our savings. So, we'll move all those once I get all the supplies. Um Teresa and Rhonda and I are going to participate in some training Thursday morning on Reli Bank's cash management system and that's a system where we would like upload AC files and do all the transfers and things like that. So there gal that's the head of that is coming here on Thursday morning. So let's move it along.

Do they offer positive pay? Yes, they do. They do. So what's positive pay? You have to tell them what checks or what aes are approved. And if you don't, then they send you a notification saying, "Hey, is this legit?" Okay. So, it helps cut down on fraud. Sounds like I could just upload a file every time I run checks. Yeah, that's that's that's one way of doing it. I do it on the rears all the time. Oh, I forgot to approve that check. Oh, yeah. That's my positive pay. Yep. That's a good one. Yep. Now, part of their package. Yeah.

So, if I'm looking at this, we have close to 10 million or sorry, 9.3 million on cash. This is liquid money that we're sitting on. Am I reading this correctly? Um, how that's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. So, are we I'm just kind of curious on like how we compare to other towns in terms of liquidity of cash. Um, it seems like a lot of money to sit on. I know you've talked about that before, you know, where it's a lot of pickle ball courts.

It's a lot of pickle ball courts, but are we generally speaking, I mean, we're in a healthy, you know, so like like the public could say, okay, you we're spending all this money. We got this wastewater treatment plant. we're doing these these other projects, we're spending a lot of money. It's like, okay, well, that's all subjective, but we're sitting on $9.3 million. So, from your assumption, are we as a city sitting financially well? So, you know, please answer no. Yeah. No, I'm just going to say I know it's not quite, you know, when you look at your balance in your account, do you think you have all that to spend? No. That's where I'm kind of going with this. Same principle.

Same principle. So, because we're up 30 close to 30% from last year. So, where's Well, the revenue is down. We might we might need some of that before they I know it's only down 20 grand compared to your 3 million, but 40. Yeah. 20 on the first penny, 20 on the second. That's I've always I that number always I don't know. I kind of started not worrying about it because it depends on when we pay bills and it's kind of an eb and flow, you know, because projects come up and more money coming out and then

and it kind of a big thing is the two search charges we enacted. We've been collecting that first one for how long and we're not we just started repayment on the first loan. So we've got all that search charge money sitting there sitting there that has got to go to those loans now. these loans. We're going to start paying on these loans and then that even going to go down. It's a great explanation. I think so. It's just can't look at one year compared to another because there's just so much fun. So, it's kind of a And we also when did we start moving money to the money market and capitalizing on that? Couple years ago.

Like a year and a half to two years ago. So, we also move uh move some of this money into our money market and we're getting a better rate of return. So, we've been making What did you figure we'd make this year? Like couple hundred,000, right? Yeah. 30. That's amazing. Well, I know when we switched to Reliab, you know, based on our current m amount, we could make 35,000 more than we were making just in the increase in their rates.

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, if you think of kind of like an offset of that when you think of like future water tower that's needed 9 million that's not too much in there. So you have to think of project that much. So it's kind of you know when you think of like future next 5 10 years and the cost of what that would be then this isn't really that what what I always like to see and this is what you guys tell me I have it I don't look at it but like what did our budget look like last year and did we deficit spend or did we put some away at the end of the year um you know that's where that's where I think

like if there's extra money like that that we could think about because it doesn't really budget. We rebudget for this year. We kind of start over, you know. So, I don't know. And we did three or three or four years ago when we budgeted, we deficit spent, we dug into our return with the budget. Wasn't money wasn't actual money spent. But when we presented that y we were actually uh we were negative we were negative uh deficit spend remember that that's been three or four years ago. So

so I don't know I feel like I don't really know if we're ahead or if it's just perceptual but that like you said that's a good explanation that helps. But I'd rather be in that position than Well, if we're 40,000 short a month, you know, from what we budgeted, we might need some extra cash depending on how this year goes.

Um, since it's a tax related comment, I caught late this afternoon, uh, they were trying to not let that three 3/10 sunset on the 27th and 27. I think that yeah, they wanted to leave it on forever, but I think they that failed. It's going to sunset in 27, so it'll go back to 4.5 the way it is looks right now. That's what I see today. So anyway, all right. Anything else for Karen? Thank you, Teresa.

Yeah, my reports in the packet, not much change either. Just want to point out um DSU last week did insert a device and tried hacking into our system on one day. They hacked in 22 times. We stopped them all. Locked up our server though. So we were down for a little bit because they had to actually hard come out here and put our server back online. And it took a little while. But but the good news is that we were able to stop all the attacks. So, um, they're going to complete that up probably this week. Um, they said they will put together just like homeland security report of, you know, what we did well, what not, recommendations or whatnot. When I get that, I will kind of give a master report to you guys kind of what is recommended and what I think we should follow up through or whatnot. So, um, probably the next month or so, we'll be seeing that. And like I said, Homeland Security has that, uh, grant out there. So if there are things that we say are a firewall or you know things that we need to spend money on that grant covers things like that 100%. So um so that that's a good thing.

Can it help with um software? Yep. Yep. Software upgrade seen our new laptops and things. Is there any way to I do not think it'll do like a new laptop. It's got to be related to cyber security threats I guess. Yeah, like two two-actor authentication or something with a token or could be. Yeah, I I would have to check into that. Like I said, once I get this report to look at it, I'll um I can then go to Homeland Security and see what they'll help with and what they won't what the scramble will cover.

Let's give Chrissy a call and see what she says. Give Chrissy a call. When do we when do we get our new emails? So that's I know that's one of the recommendations from Homeland Security is that taking your Gmails everybody going to ago because they are more secure the gov they have another process through them. So I know talking with Homeland Security that's on the list for them as because even like our regular through our website are um they want everybody be on ago system. Oh, it'll be sometime this year probably because that would be one of the recommendations for and a A and B who does our IT can facilitate all that and that.

Yep. Yeah, they they've been working with us um for filling out the forms and everything and whatnot. So, so yeah, so look for something um from DSU shortly and we'll have discussion going forward.

Um and I did put a note in there. Um Tyler Torgensson is going to be here at the next meeting. He was originally going to come here, but uh he said I'll have more of a regional update for you guys at the next meeting. So, he plans on coming there. Uh our district 3 meetings, and this is what the municipal puts on every year. You know, the the states is split up into different districts. Our district's kind of in the southeast um portion of South Dakota here. After the legislative sessions, every district has a meeting where they invite everybody to for kind of social hour, a dinner, and then um the municipally kind of gives a short um presentation on what is passed and what hasn't passed um you know in legislative session and what what would be a concern to municipalities and what we need to know. So, it's a good meeting. I usually always attend it. It's on it's in Linux this year on March 24th. If anybody wants to attend, just let us know. They're taking reservations up to that date. So, if you can let me or Karen know, we can get you signed up for it. Um, and then the other thing I just want to point out is that, um, I'm going to be attending a city manager meeting. We're having our first conference that we've ever held. We usually kind of do a lot of Zoom meetings, but they're going to actually have a physical conference um, coming up on March 18th through the 20th. It's in Harrisburg, so I don't have any overnight stays or whatnot, so need approval for that. But I just want to let you know I will be uh the 18th is just at night if it's a social so you know I'll be in the office all day that day but it'll be all day on the 19th and then half a day on the 20th. So just letting you know you know I'll be out of the office during that time attending that meeting. So

what's forward partners? What do they do? Are you looking at their their schedule? Yeah. From what I don't know, I've just printed out this because I haven't got any other information than what I put in there. But basically, I think from what I understand is that we're going to focus on um working with relationships with council with citizens. Um uh I know there's going to be a session talking about so you don't get burnt out in the position or whatnot. I think it's kind of focusing on that kind of things for it. Very good. I was just curious looking at it right now.

All right. Anything else? Teresa? No. Any questions for Teresa? You taking any calls from any concerned citizens about the proximity of the new Smithfield plants or anything like that? I thought maybe it would today, but no, we haven't had any calls come in with that. So, bit of a reach, but you never know. Yeah, it's a little close. Yeah, I could I wouldn't mind if it was on either side of Sou Falls. Definitely see it. Where is it? Is it going just north of north of Amazon or do we know which lot it's going on out there? I mean, I looked at the foundational park. So, where they're building CJ Foods? Yeah,

I would say between CJ Food and the road that runs to the interstate that runs past the run the road that runs east and west. Okay. But I would call the Krooks Road. Yep. Yep. And between that road and CJ Foods in that stretch. Yep. The parcel north of CJ. It's a lot closer to Krooks then. Oh, definitely closer. That's going to I think they might see some changes there. Oh, yeah. I've heard I know a couple people live there, but you know, it's not downtown Sou Falls, so that's always a plus. The the plus side is, you know,

with a new facility like that, hopefully there'll be a lot more improvements as far as smell and pollutants and that kind of stuff. I mean, I don't think you're going to have the same Smithville plant up there that you do downtown now. So, yeah, it might change the population. It'll change some demographics. We don't get a lot of East Winds, so that'll help. Yellow Park is going CJ's is in there. The Schwan's right right there. Right. That's the move. Yeah, it's just for that. Yep.

All right. Anything else for Teresa? If not, we'll move to new business. First up, we have a review approve and abatement for parcel number 68839. It looks like any action. I'd make a motion to approve the abatement for parcel 68839. I'll second. Any discussion? Hearing none, we'll vote. Carlson, yes. Madson, yes. Bowling, yes. Keel, yes. Yes. Shilling, yes.

All right. Next up, we want to review the advertisement that we put together for our econ economic development projects and approve advertising said plan. So, this goes back to budget time. We I think Travis made the uh was instrumental in getting this started that we would set up a fund of $100,000 uh for economic development projects would open it up to groups in within the groups or businesses or entrepreneurs that have specific projects that they would like to present. to the city for help.

You know, it's my understanding this is just for the advertising, which is really no cost because it's really a low like Facebook type, right? We'll put in Facebook on our website. We'll is only for the projects. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What we're talking about tonight is if everybody's okay with the criteria and what we put together that we would start promoting this and putting it out there. Yeah. I like the worksheet.

Yeah. And last fall we kind of put this together and we reviewed it and haven't done any changes since then. Um we have a little advertisement then we talked about when a project does come in what's the criteria you know of how we're going to rank it or whatnot. So we put together the criteria worksheet. Um I do know of one entity that is interested in submitting a project here shortly. So um I just want to make sure we're all on board with this and what the process going to be. Um, like I put in my report, you know, I see that that this entity will, you know, fill out the top portion of this criteria, submit that along with their project, whatever their plans are, what they're proposing, and their supporting documentation with that. I can see us getting that, sending it out to the council for review, everybody ranking it. how you see I can compile those rankings then and then at a council meeting we could have the compiled information you know on an agenda and then you guys can decide what if any funds would would go to this project.

I'll make a motion that we approve the advertising for the development plan. Second. Any more discussion? Just a couple questions. Um, do we and I'm just maybe I'm I'm kind of putting on my Cindy hat here with We'll see. Do we need to put any sort of wear hats? What's that? Cindy has many hats. She doesn't wear hats. Oh, she doesn't wear hats. Okay.

It's a fingertip of speech. I don't know if you um do we need to put any sort of legal language in our advertisement? I'm just once again I'm thinking and may maybe not. It's just a question of if you've got five entities or five different people, do we have to put any sort of legal language within that advertisement as far as what addressing what? I don't know. like you know we're basing our decision that there's no kind of like you think of like if you put out a job posting there you have a equal opportunity

think of this as that come in at budget time for budget anybody can request funds from the council and it's up to the council's discretion of whether you budget for it or not is kind of the same premise of that is that you guys can decide it's city funds of whether you want to expense funds to it or not. Yeah.

Okay. And then my no that's a good point. Um and then the next question would be um within the qualification for this do we want so let's just say ABC organization wants to participate in this. Do we want them to put down what their budget request is? I mean you know cuz maybe somebody has a small project and they're like hey we don't need 100. Okay. I was looking at the worksheet so I I missed that. Okay. It's requested funds. So, they got to put it on the amount that they want. And like I said, I would have them submit this with all their supporting documentation of what they plan to do, whatever that may be and how they plan to go about it. So, then

I could send them this worksheet and their supporting documentation to each of the council members. Yeah. You know, give you guys a week, two weeks, whatever, you know, you guys decide you want to review it, rank it, we can compile that, and then we can put it on a city council agenda. You know, I think everybody will have different viewpoints on how we feasibility is going to be really important because I just don't want to throw money and then it's gone this year and right they can't sustain whatever it is or is the city going to sustain it or what does that look like? So is there a timeline of when we would like these up? I there is no timeline. Go ahead. Till the money's gone.

Okay. unl so say you got a project that wants $100,000 if you guys decide to give that all to that one project. Yeah. I just I guess I didn't know if there was like an end date kind of like a hey here's here's the advertisement. Have your have your uh your criteria in before whatever. I I to me I think you'd want to leave it open because say say nobody comes forward until this fall or I mean that the funds aren't available this year and if you have funds available I I think you guys would want to entertain any project that well and if we have a good project then we spend it then we try to budget next year I guess. Well, then we just advise everybody, hey, we have a great project. Here's what we're doing. This is right here.

My question is, are we going to make sure it gets like to our community other groups? Are we going to are we just going to be like web page and Facebook and whoever sees it sees it?

Well, and then that's kind of some of the things that I throw out in my report. You know, it's it's it's so hard to get information out to everybody. I would thought we could maybe work through the chamber, too, to get on their list of email to to send it out through. You know, like I said, we really, you know, we throw it in the paper. How many people see the paper? You know, we can throw it in our newsletter. How many people see the news? But yeah, if you guys got ideas of a good resource of I was just trying to think of like other community organizations that maybe we like not that we necessarily already fund but like that like things like the optimist club or

jam readings I mean we we fund them but or you know you know just like a broader thought process of community leaders women of today will be on our digital banner here could be marquee yep Y okay I mean I guess I don't know any master list that has all those or and spot I really think some of those questions might might get answered when we put it out. I think we'll know if you like I I envision if you push it out to the chamber they would probably a lot of those organizations are a part of the chamber correct optimist you know probably people you know we put on Facebook we'll share it and can push it out that way as well you know that would be

yeah it out all right just my followers isn't that big sorry all right anything else we Got a motion and a second. Any other comments? Any other These are projects that were available just to Hartford citizens. Is that right? They have to have residents in Hartford, do they? Or not project one time. No. Like whatever they're doing has to be in Harford. I was going to say I think the project has to be in Hartford. They're doing if you're going to spend our funds on maybe some developer from out of town said, "Hey, this aligns with

what I want to do. I want to do it here in Hartford. Yeah, I could I could see that happening. Yeah, that's a great question though, Darl. They don't necessarily have to be a resident to apply, but the project has to be within the city limit. Would you have a a question for you guys? Um, is there would there be a time frame when you would allocate the money? Would it be after the project is substantially complete or you know, so you didn't give it out ahead or anything like that? basically it's going to be how they need the money because I think some projects maybe won't get started without funds right I mean I don't know I'm just guessing I mean I

yeah some of those deals with grants though you have to you have to turn in the receipts to get the cash right and some yeah right I think we could agree to that when we group of project I think they're going to have to like I said when all said after you guys review it it's going to have to be on agenda they're going to have to come to so I Those are maybe some details that we can have that discussion on. Whatever the project may be, as wide open as it is, there might be some smaller projects where yeah, they aren't going to have to make it happen. They're going to need the

Yeah. versus working with an existing business or someone with a more resources where we could reimburse for it. Especially if we even compare it to Jambbury Day's hometown Christmas. We don't make them give receipts to be able to get funds. We give them the funds so that they can Yeah, I think it's depends on a case by case. Yep. I think it'll work both ways. I'm excited for this. I think it's kind of a unique opportunity hopefully to drum up some curiosity, some excitement, some

and who knows, we might get a bunch of proposals. We might say nah. This is actually the city just paying for something that we didn't budget for. Yeah. Right. This is great. All right. You ready to take a No other discussion? Let's vote. Shilling. Yes. Harach, yes. Ke, yes. Bolan, yes. Matson, yes. Carlson, yes. All right. Last up is an item that uh Theresa and I have been talking about that I wanted to have discussion with the council. I I'll let you explain. Yeah. Okay. So, we've been having discussion, we've been discussing it too with Craig and Karen about

what could be a better budget process that would be maybe more time efficient than having, you know, every group come up here and making them sit through the first quarter meeting and then come do the presentation and the back and forth. And we all know, you know, we have to have a whole separate meeting for budget. So, it's a little time consuming. It's timeconuming regardless if you have those requests. So, I kind of threw it out to other um cities. How do you handle this? A lot of them do it um it varies, I should say. It varies kind of the process. Some do it like we do. Some um

don't recognize visitors at all during the budget meeting because they say it's a council workshop, so they don't let them talk at all. the one I like the best because I feel I feel you need to hear what these entities you know were requesting and why they you know have that conversation back and forth with them but um some of the cities do it like I'm like we are proposing is they have you know prior to budget you know whether it be June and July have the mayor couple of council people you know city administrator we sit down and we just have that conversation outside the budget mean it's like what is your request this year why are you requesting it you have have those questions back and forth, you know, um kind of can have a more one-on-one that way, you know, gives the city a chance to ask those questions that would normally be at budget time and also gives that entity that that time too to be able to justify why they are requesting those funds. We would be able to sit down with each, you know, have a meeting with each of those entities, have that conversation, and then this committee will put together a recommendation of, you know, we we recommend so much to the fire department, so Mr. Jambbury that will be incorporated into the budget that's presented to you guys. Like I said, you guys vote on that budget. So at that time, you know, the people that are involved with those conversation, if you don't agree with them, you know, you can take it out. You can keep it in or take it out. It's still all up to the council, but like I said, it makes it so hopefully it'll streamline the budget process and make the budget meeting a little bit quicker if you won't have all those entities sitting in here for 3 hours that night, you know, and having those discussions at the budget meeting. They'll happen ahead of time.

Seems like a little friendlier process to be able to sit down with them versus having to stand at the podium. You know, it doesn't I I think there could be more of a conversation held too. You know, you know, we give, you know, it's a law meeting. We they only got so much time. Maybe it could be a little bit more time taken with them for, you know, them to fully explain their position. More questions can be held, you know, on the city's end as well. So, I think it would give them

I think it's a great idea. I really do. My only recommendation would be to because we're talking about budget, right? So, because we're talking about taxpayer dollars, I would like to see that maybe formed as a special meeting versus a a committee. Um, I just think that, you know, we all have to make decisions on sometimes, you know, this could be, you know, I'm just thinking of the committees that or the committees, organizations that ask us for money, that could be in total of $500,000. That's probably a rough number depending on parks and wreck, fire department, jambay days, all those things. I personally think it's a great idea. I would be curious if it makes sense because it's a budget thing and and this is not just a little bit of money. It's a lot of money. I personally would like to see that set aside as a special meeting so that we're all here or at least the city administrator in addition to the council because the council is the one who makes you know these are decision. So that would be the only recommendation that I I'm not going to die in that hill, but I think it would

thinking doing it have all come to a meeting, special meeting. Yep. And Yep. Let's do this. It'll just be for their request. And let's do this in public because you're you're you know, I I think that there is a um I think that the public should hear about this versus behind and I'm not saying I'm just using terminology or instead of behind closed door. I don't want to use that terminology because that sounds negative, but that's not where I'm coming from. I just think it would be good to make that public. So, hey, you know, I actually agree with you. Yeah, I I I'm totally cool with the process. Yeah,

I agree. I love the fact of it being a separate meeting. Um I just think for myself, it is going to be harder for me to make a decision if I can't ask questions. Y um and I think that I agree that it should be publicized. It should be on YouTube. It should be a public meeting that we are not having individual meetings that are not public

um to all the organizations that for any of our residents and individuals of the wards that would like to view what's happening with city budgeted funds um that maybe don't want to come and sit. But are might be the two people watching. Whatever. I just if we do a separate pre-budget meeting, first of all, I think giving money to nonprofits is different than paying fire department. Fire department, sheriff's department, and even um ambulance. Yeah. All of that. I think that should not be the the same as a Jamberee day or DHI or

Yes. economic development. Correct. I agree. But but if we have a special meeting, can we like can we assign times kind of like we do the hearings so that people don't have to sit here all night? Well, say you're probably still going to have that. We should just keep our budget meeting another meeting. Really? And that I will say so this was Travis always you know he loves to always say that these were all his always his ideas and you going to let him get away with that there you know things got a little tense at the last budget meeting and I'm like that's really what drove and I wasn't here for that. How can we uh how can we make a little less uh

uh like stand up here and bear your soul and potentially plead your case and then I think that got I think that got tense and I wasn't here but that got tense because I I'll just say this publicly. I don't care is that a public official got out of got out of hand. Yeah. Um but true the the one thought after we've been discussing this is exactly what Sean said. I I anticipated I put myself in you guys' shoes. Same way Michelle said it too. Mhm. Are we taking the ability for you guys to be able to ask those questions away? That was the one question I had.

What I was looking at it and I think what Travis's goal was from the beginning was let's see if we can streamline this process and not have such a I don't I still don't think it's terrible to have a separate meeting. I don't think it's I think it's great to have a separate meeting. Then do we just give them a time slot? I give them 15 to 20 minutes. I mean, just set them up and give them a time slot. And then the night when we're actually going through and doing the voting and all of that, you know, is the budget night and we don't have minutes doing presentations and it's still two hours. It's going to be two hours. We've heard all the stuff and I think the other I hope my hope is plus you have time to think about it.

That's the other thing. So, like I've always felt it to be super awkward when you have groups asking for for money and you're listening and then we move on from those agenda topics and then right from there we go to vote. It's like, hey, wait, wait a minute. If I could think about like, you know, I think doing some more discovery. I'll interject this like we have the agenda on Friday and we have the whole weekend to look at it and think about it. We have Monday and Tuesday to ask those. Yeah, I've got a full-time job, so it's kind of a hard time. I don't disagree. You get it a week early. Yeah, but if you're if you're trying to be fiscally responsible to the citizens, having another meeting where they pay us, right? You know, isn't necessarily

I would argue the opposite of that is that sometimes you have to spend money to make the best decisions to to save money to make those best decisions. So, can we

can we come up with a consensus that we would attempt to make our budget uh scenario a special meeting time slotted for each group to be able to come in and uh make their presentation. Council ask them questions. We move on to the next one. Then at the ne at the official budget meeting, we've had a chance to ask all the questions. We have the information, we approve the budget. Is that fair? And I do agree with Cindy that I don't think like the things that like our fire, they do not

So it's a separate entity. They have to request funds from the city. Right. Right. But I I mean you I like your your viewpoint of this is specifically for a non a nonprofit, right? I would even argue like I don't know that our park and wrecks need to come to that. We have a city board that's a different they vet out their request publicly at their meeting.

Yes. So what what I would say my next thought on this whole process is let's move more uh groups to line item. I think that's the words that I I think maybe I even said that to you guys. Let's have more of them be they're a line item. They're on there. Fire department ambulance. Yes, those would be a line item. They are line items. So they're basically they're going to give us their stuff, but they're going to be they're going to be on the budget. They don't even need to come and make a presentation in my opin. They're going to give us their stuff. We're going to approve, you know,

unless it's out of the normal request. Opening a can of worms there if you don't have them. Not even coming. But no, that is for a million dollars. I would say yeah I would say that with those services there's a difference between the county sheriff or the fire department versus the jamboree day or DHI. Okay. So I have I think it makes perfect sense moving them to a line item because these are in my opinion I think we'd all agree these are needed. This is a needed service versus a non a total nonprofit.

And I don't agree with that. I'm just thinking they should probably go through the same process as everybody else have the request and that way if it seems out of the norm or whatever you can still have questions but they're still a separate entity but like you said then you can decide at the end of the night that fire department ambulance or whatever we're going to line item these in the budget and the rest are still going to stay at requests in the budget. That's fair. Does that sound fair and all at this not quite there yet. Okay. So, you know, you're talking about a meeting, but before I think what you're talking is almost like a subcommittee where you really Well, no.

Oh, my original. Yes. Yeah. And so then with the sub with the committee, I think you could put in different people besides the city council people like uh if I don't know if there's some city employees that would help with determining what is this a good idea for the for the budget or some knowledgeable I mean or knowledgeable people that would help the uh council members or whoever was in that committee. Right. Right. And then and then the city council on on your budget meeting when we get those items, they would know that it's already gone and been approved by the committee and then that we could just sort of move forward quicker with the in the budget meeting, right? But I just like to ask questions.

Yeah. And we're the ones, you know, we're the ones in charge of it. So, I think I think that's a I don't want to hammer too hard, but we're the ones here who make those decisions regardless of what Greg or Cindy or what anybody else out there thinks. So, I would say, yeah, not having been at one of those meetings, you know, I don't know how much help that we need from uh other personnel, but uh yeah, I'll I'll trust you guys if you want to do another special meeting. I would like to be involved in that special meeting. And you would be that's if we did a committee then only a few people would be. If we did a special meeting then we're all at the table, right?

I assume we would do a special meeting like in July because then we can get this request put together worked into the budget and then that budget information comes to you guys in August. Yep. Sure. That special meeting could have like you said time slots. Yep. trying to get through them quicker. And we could still hopefully have it be more conversational if there's not a big correct. Yep. Yeah, that's correct. And really and still break down the specific we can still have the same request form. Hey, you send us your budget, your you know, because there's still certain information we're going to need. Then when it comes to budget night, that's really you still give the community an opportunity to interject if they so if they feel the need.

Yeah. They can come to that budget meeting and be pro or against Yep. a certain if they want to sit here for two hours and attend, they can. Well, I think the other benefit too is just with the council and the continuity, you know, if we start not having people getting that history during budget time and then you have turnover, right? I mean, it just could get problematic with understanding some of the issues and where the money's going. I know. I have, you know, I I'm charged with taking these ideas and you got putting them putting them into action. I don't care what these people say about you guys. Great idea. Great job. Great job. All ideas are good ideas.

Do we need a act or just conversation? I think this is a conversation at this point. And really, that was the when we decided to get this on the agenda. This is why cuz I wanted to have this discussion. I want to see what everybody thought. Absolutely. I think it's a great idea. Sometimes you got to throw something out that makes everybody mad. You don't do that very sidewalks. No, no more rabbit holes. Okay. All right. Um, not on the agenda. Darl, you're not saying anything. We are going into uh exec for personnel and can we say economic development? If you talk about economic development, we have economic development. We can do that.

Yeah, there's some economic development stuff we can talk about. Um, oh, and before we go into exact, four years ago, this meeting was when uh Jeremy had resigned and you guys decided to make me mayor and Cindy got on council. Remember that? Wow. I came back first of Mar it was the first of March, but this was the meeting in February when that whole ball started rolling down. So, it's been uh it's been four years. Well, congratulations and uh been four great years. I'll say that. Boy, that's your timing is impeccable, Greg.

All right. Do we have a motion to go into exec for economic development and personnel? Second. All in favor?

Yeah. Um, if Cindy can stay, I I want you to stay for a minute. I got to talk to you. We're good.

All right. Do we have any motions from the council? I'll make a motion um based on the review of regional wage studies uh to give a 5% w uh 5% wage increase to the following individuals. Neil Hannish, Jesse Okaane, Kyle Christensen, Ronda Kupta, Terry Hagen, Paul Clark, Jennifer Stangland. Also, um a 20 cent per hour raise for Eric Loopy Loop Keys for attaining uh an additional certification, a 20% raise, uh to Terresa Syidell, a 10 10% raise to Craig Wgner, and a 10% raise to Karen Wilbur.

Effective. Effective the next pay period. Do we have a second? Second. Any discussion hearing? None. We'll vote. Carlson, yes. Matson, yes. Bowen, yes. Ke, yes. Parach. Yes. Shelley, yes. All right. No other action in front of the council. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? So move. Second. All in favor? I. Well, thank you guys very much. Hey.