City Council - Regular Meeting

Are we recording?

Is this on? That should be on. Yep.

All right. With it being 6.07, we'll call our meeting to order and start with the Pledge of Allegiance. With that, roll call around the horn, please. Bora. Steichen. Nash. And Olson. With that, we do have our agenda. Any questions about the agenda? Just quickly thank you for adding that adjustment to 6B. Everybody see 6B is a continuation of what we were looking at at our last meeting. Any questions about the agenda? I will entertain a motion.

Motion to approve.

Motion by Nash. Steichen second. Second by Steichen. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We have our consent. Questions about the consent agenda? Hearing none, I will entertain a motion for our consent agenda.

Motion to approve.

Motion by Nash. Second. Second by Borah. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Number five is our public comment period. Jessica, has there been any formal request to speak before council this evening?

None.

All right, thank you. And remember, encourage the public to participate in our process. Let's make progress to number six, police department. Six alpha, looks like we have some good news. Chief, looks like we're looking to authorize the hire of a police officer.

Mr. Mayor, council members, yes, we are. We are looking to offer a conditional offer to candidate Jacek Hummel, who is also, we spoke of earlier, who is actually a referee for ice hockey. But what's great about him is he worked in Eden Prairie. with their system that they had down there is New World. That's a system that we have up here. So the transition, the onboarding that we have with them, the training's gonna be expedited, especially with his years in law enforcement and his training, especially with New World. So we are excited to get him up here, to have him start. He's already done the background, so that is good to go. We just have to do the psychological test and also the occupational health and physical, if approved by you guys.

Questions for the chief? My only question is, will this be fully staffed then?

This will be fully staffed. All right. Unless we have another officer online.

Not yet.

How many officers are there right now? Or will there be?

We'll have eight.

You're authorized for eight?

Eight, including myself. So eight sworn.

All right.

Here are another question. I will entertain a motion for the authorization of the hire of the police officer pending all the mandated regulations. Records and surveys and health scans, all the requirements.

All the requirements.

I'll make that motion.

Motion by Nash. Steichen, second. Second by Steichen. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Congratulations, Chief, and congratulations to Officer Hummel. Welcome to the DPD. Look forward to meeting him.

You've probably met him already, just on the hockey rink.

Is it brickwall.com?

Brickwall, yeah. So he does a lot of ice hockey. He refs college, high school, and other events for ice hockey, so he's been up here. He's refed a couple of my kids' games, unbeknownst to me. That didn't...

It's a very small world.

Yeah, we almost didn't make it through the interview. He didn't...

Julie remembers this. Just kidding.

So with that, all refereeing aside, we do move 6, Bravo, as consideration of the contract with Digital Plans, LLC, IT Services at the Delworth Police Department. Chief?

Yes, we were looking to extend or have a contract with Digital Plains IT LLC for our IT services for the next three years. That will completely take over Clay County IT services as well as Hader Howitzer. It will be an all-inclusive facility or all-inclusive business for a turnkey operation. You'll see the first fee is going to be $32,000. That includes approximately a $2,000 onboarding fee. After that, we're looking at $30,000 a year for continuation of services. It will also be our virtual lasso. They will take over all needed requirement for us, for CGIS, BCA compliance, FBI compliance, connection to dispatch, everything we need.

Any questions for Chief? And I will just freely admit that I misunderstood this because you were going to keep Hayter as well? Negative. Okay, okay. So I'm reading that he handles the data, but that's going to go away and it'll be one.

One entity is going to cover. Hayter will be there as a consultant, as a friend if I need some assistance, not a paid position.

He's not going to be a budget line item is my question. He's not going to be a budget. That was really the end all be all gist of it is. There's our IT number. Okay.

That's our IT.

All right. No, and that makes sense. I appreciate you bringing this back up, Chief, and moving this forward. Great collaboration with the county to make sure the transition is as seamless as possible, learning as we go. And I will just say, give a shout out to Stephen Larson, who has been really fantastic in talking to me. And the small cities had a great meeting in terms of how we make this work for everybody and maintaining public safety. So I'm excited to see how this transitions. Any other questions for the chief? HEARING NO FURTHER QUESTIONS, I WILL ENTERTAIN A MOTION FOR THE CONTRACT WITH DIGITAL PLANES LLC FOR IT SERVICES FOR THREE YEARS.

FOR YOUR CONTRACT.

STYKEN, SO MOVED. MOTION BY STYKEN. SECOND. SECOND BY BORA. ALL THOSE IN FAVOR, SAY AYE. AYE. OPPOSED? MOTION CARRIES. ALL RIGHT, CHIEF, THANKS AGAIN. I APPRECIATE THAT. THANK YOU. THAT DOES BRING US TO THE CONVERSATION FOR THE CONSIDERATION FOR THE EMPLOYMENT AGREEMENT WITH OUR NEW CITY HIRE.

Liza online, is she with us?

No.

Are you feeling this one then?

I thought she was going to.

I was under the impression that she would. All right. So.

Here we are. After our interviews, then the negotiation team met to discuss offer of which was extended. And anyway, through the process, Mr. Breath. Breath Horst. Breath Horst. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

I think. I've been calling them that for years.

Correct me, Mike. Give me a call if I said it wrong. We were excited to extend this invitation anyway to be our next city administrator, and he has accepted that, and the terms of the agreement are in our packet. Any questions?

No questions.

All right. Hearing no questions, I will entertain a motion for the employment agreement with Mike Brethorst, which will begin September 28th. September 28th. So moved. Motion by Borough.

Second.

Go ahead, Dave. Second by Steichen. Steichen second. He's in. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Wow. With that, it does jump us to council members' concerns and committee updates.

Round the horn. Park Board has an event on the 24th at Paws in the Park. We've done it before. You can bring your dogs out at 6 p.m. September 24th? Yep. We do have a lot of stuff going on, so I hope you guys can make it. This will be pretty similar to the years before, but it's always a good night. That's all I got.

Thank you. Mr. Steichen. I want to thank Perry and everybody else that's involved in the department managers for working on budget and appreciate your being able to answer our questions. Sometimes my questions might not be formulated in your language of sorts, so I guess I appreciate your patience with some of my questioning, and Jessica's work with it as well, so I do appreciate that. The process we went through last Wednesday with the interviews, well, everything that led up to the interviews and all the work that went into it and the interviews itself, All the candidates were great. I mean, I'm on record that they were all really worthy of the position. And it comes down to having to choose one, which is never always an easy choice. So for whoever... WAS CHOSEN, IT WAS LOTS OF DISCUSSION, LOTS OF QUESTIONS, LOTS OF, IT WAS TOTALLY FAIR QUESTION-WISE. BUT I DO APPRECIATE THEM APPLYING AND EVERYBODY THAT APPLIED AND THEN THE FINALISTS OBVIOUSLY ARE THE ONES THAT ARE IDENTIFIED. I'm excited about moving forward, and it's fun to see their enthusiasm and wanting to advance their careers as well. So we'll all get a chance to learn more about Mr. Breath Horse down the road, and I do appreciate his enthusiasm. his excitement of being here and working with them. So that's where I'm going to turn it over to Juliet, or Council Member Nash. Thank you, Mr. Steigman.

um i just wanted to say thank you to all the staff and community members that took part in that process too i mean um it was a great i think effort by everyone and the fact that we had community members that showed up as well but um many thanks to everyone who did everything in the background to help bring our next city administrator to dillworth so Last lunch with a cop is tomorrow, so don't miss that. And until then, our PD doesn't have anything until October. So a little break, right?

He's going to take a pause in the park.

He's going to take a pause.

Wow, dad joke.

There you go. Okay, that's it. I can't follow that up. Nope. I don't know if you need it.

I don't know if you want to. It was pretty bad, but here we go. Jessica, what do you got for us?

I just have that the pool is all closed up. We're still working on some stuff at City Hall for stats and everything on closing it up, but as far as maintenance, it's drained. It's good to go. Staff is on their way to college, and we'll start prepping for next year.

I think we need to build in a staff day at the end of the year. Yeah. Kind of like Caddyshack reference. Just one day at the end. Let the guards go.

Anything else, Jessica? Nope.

All right. Thank you. I'm going to echo a lot, but I think it's worthy of that. When we looked at the hiring process the day after, I just kind of had a chance to reflect. I was like, holy cow, everything went exceptionally well. I think the city of Dillard from top to bottom put its best professional foot forward. Office staff was remarkable, orchestrating all the logistics. The coffee in the morning and the bus, hit time with the bus at 730 and they were off and running. Don did a great job. I WILL ALSO BLAME DON ON THE RECORD FOR US FALLING BEHIND RIGHT AWAY AS HE CAME BACK 15 MINUTES LATE. BUT I THINK THAT REALLY SET THE TONE FOR THE COMMITMENT FOR THE CITY, THE DETAIL THAT WAS PROVIDED AT EACH STOP WITH OUR MANAGERS AND GETTING TO SEE THE DEPARTMENTS AND HAVING THAT, I THINK THAT SET THE TONE FOR THE ENTIRE DAY AND THE ENTIRE PROCESS, AND THAT WAS FANTASTIC. It was very difficult. I mean, at the end of the day, when we came to our conclusion, I'm also optimistic that we have the best candidate, the best fit for the city of Delworth. And it was tough. It was tough. And one of the things that I took away is that everybody I talked to on that day, all the candidates, I GOT NOTES OF THINGS THAT WE COULD BE DOING IN THE CITY FROM THEIR DIFFERENT IDEAS, FROM THEIR INTERACTIONS THROUGHOUT THE DAY. SO AGAIN, THAT PROCESS, AND AGAIN, THANK YOU COUNCIL AS WELL, RIGHT, FOR THE PROFESSIONALISM AND THE COMMITMENT. And again, time off from our regular job and stuff like that. It worked because we all did it together and some excellent teamwork. We just got done with the budget. I know we're going to get out of here relatively early, but I also like to point out that we've been working on the budget process. since five o'clock uh and again i i applaud that i i want to echo that too thanks perry you know like i said i'll say it again social studies teacher i want the numbers to make sense um so i'll ask the same question nine times until you tell it till it clicks because again at the end of the day when when people ask what why are their taxes going up like we have to defend that um and we know that SALARIES, RIGHT? WE KNOW THAT THE HUMAN COMPONENT OF RUNNING A CITY IS EXPENSIVE BECAUSE IT'S WORTH IT. SO I ASK THE QUESTIONS BECAUSE I WANT TO KNOW. AND I WANT TO BE ABLE TO STAND UP FOR THE VISION THAT WE HAVE AND HOW WE'RE FUNDING THAT. SO WE STILL HAVE MILES TO GO ON OUR BUDGET. BUT WE'LL GET THERE. I'M CONFIDENT WE HAVE TO GET THERE BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT THE LAW SAYS. Speaking of teamwork, I did meet with the small cities when we were talking about the dispatch center and the leadership across the board. We're fortunate with the four cities, Hawley, Glendon. Justin Vogel was great. Jeremy and Mayor Rick from Barnesville were fantastic. Just a great collaboration of ideas that really allowed us the best common sense approach for CONTINUING TO COLLABORATE EVEN AS WE MOVE UP AND WORK WITH THE COUNTY. AGAIN, I'LL SAY THIS, TOO, STEVEN LARSON HAS BEEN AMAZING, PATIENT AND UNDERSTANDING AND GIVING ME A CLEAR PICTURE. HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO SIT DOWN AND VISIT. I WENT TO THE EDC MEETING TRANSITIONING INTO THE COUNTY. There's some really cool things that are going on with regards to some – like the growth in the campground in Barnesville is obviously county economic development, but they also have a potential – solar panel garden or solar fields. I don't know if it's a garden, if it's going to be 400 acres or whatever it's going to be. It's going to be huge. But it's interesting to see how that impacts not only like the wildlife and DNR and everything like that, but then there's there's an economic impact and how solar energy is taxed and how that generates revenue and all that other stuff. I mean, it's just, it's crazy to see how diverse the economy is becoming throughout our county. And then one of the other caveats, and I've not attended one meeting or anything like that, but one of the questions was asked about the potential for the casino. And the theme that I heard and took away is like, there's kind of a pumping of the brakes. just to make sure that it's financially feasible to actually do that. I mean, with the water and sewer because of the protection, wellhead protection site. So there's all kinds of things that are really working themselves out. But again, county leadership has done some pretty remarkable things in trying to you know flesh out what the proper role is for local governments and how we cooperate across the board so um with the absence of our city administrator i got to see something a little bit different a little bit unique something i'm not usually exposed to and it was good it was good same same concept right teamwork and working together so it's been a it's been an interesting couple weeks we'll see where this goes um but at the end of the day thanks for ever to everybody for all that they do because it's It's been good, and I think it's going to continue to be good. So that's all I have at this time. I'm trying to think if I forgot anything, but I don't know that I did. But I probably did, and I apologize. I'll come back later. But we can go to number nine, and we can pay the bills. Are there any questions, comments, or concerns about the bills? Hearing none, I will entertain a motion to pay the bills. Motion by Nash. Steichen second. And a second by Steichen. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Here's one thing that maybe just popped up. Do we need a motion or anything like that to do a press release for the new hire? I mean, it's official now. We offered him and he's accepted. Can we just do the press release?

Mm-hmm.

Okay. So let's...

It's public. Right.

So, as long as we don't need to do anything, we can do something. Well, that's a great question that I was going to ask, but I'll have to ask via email. So, with that, and there being no further business before council, we'll call this meeting adjourned.

Can I ask you one more?