City Council - Regular Meeting

He had pretty good support. Not sure if she's or not. Probably helped him out pretty good there. Jason Kelsey's online. Y we're going to go ahead and call to order. City Council regular business meeting for Thursday, April 16th, 2025. It is 6 pm. Lindsay, would you please call the role? Council member Bourjon here. Brown here. Miki here. Porter.

You're muted. There you go. I'm here as well. We do have a quorum, so we'll move on. Uh, item number two is pledge of allegiance. Would you please rise and say 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, indivisible, withy andice for all. Item number three is approval of the agenda. Would anybody like to move any of the consent agenda items to the regular agenda? Hearing none. Uh can I get a motion to approve the agenda? Motion. Second.

Motion by Borjon, seconded by Mini. All those in favor say I. I. Uh okay. All those in favor? All those opposed same. Motion carries. I didn't I was watching Kelsey. Sorry.

Uh item number four, proclamations. We got several proclamations. Uh today we have proclamation for Arbor Day. It's April 24th. Municipal Clerk's Week is May 3rd through the 9th. Public service week uh is May 3rd through the 9th. Building safety month is the month of May. And mental health month is the month of May. So go out and read those. And uh notice what those are about. Uh item number five is a dedicated work session. This work session uh is for the mayor and city council. Regular city council meeting will follow uh we'll begin following this work session. Our item tonight is a council representation options at large at large versus ward-based systems. So I'll turn it over to Lindsay Loop for a brief presentation to provide some education and get the discussion started.

Thank you mayor. So, as the mayor said, this is at large versus board-based systems. This is something George had asked us to put on a future agenda. So, we are here with that for you too. And this is a discussion. So, if anybody has a question as we're going through it, just interrupt and we'll address it at the time.

Okay. So, the purpose uh council would like to explore whether the current at large election system continues to best serve our resident. Goal today is just to understand the differences between the two, the ATL large versus word-based systems. Review research and data. Outline transition process if you decide to pursue this and no decision will be made today. It'sformational step to guide future discussions which would also include community engagement. So definitions at large sorry at large systems uh we're all very familiar with that's what you are right now. All council seats are elected by the entire city electorate, meaning every voter can vote for every seat. If we move to a ward system, the city would be divided into geographic wards, each elect one representative. Uh some cities also do like a hybrid model where some are elected by wards and others at large, usually two or one at large uh people. There's not really a one-sizefits-all with this. uh it's more kind of based on your priorities and the growth of the city. So advantages, obviously there's advantages and disadvantages to both. So the advantages of ATL large is their citywide accountability. Residents can approach any of you at any time and a broader voter choice. As for the ward system, stronger neighborhood representation, there's a perception of increased accessibility to council members, diverse viewpoints, and reduced reduces potential duplication of work. So, if a coun if someone calls all of you, you all might be working on something, whereas if you were in a ward, it would just be one person. Disadvantages, campaigns can be costly for ATL large. Um, we may underrepresent neighborhoods and high turnout areas may dominate. Award system disadvantage, potential focus on local issues over

citywide, limited voter choice, meaning lessen and that would be lessened under a hybrid model, possible uncontested races and boundary challenges, which Luke taught me a new word. Jerry mandering that. Oh, possibly even just no candidates for a given board, too. Right. Correct. Yeah.

So, there's two legal pathways that a council can switch from one system to the next. Um, one being council initiated by ordinance, the other a citizen petition. Uh, we would be mostly talking obviously about the council initiated ordinance. So, we would have to gather population data and draft award plan that would come off of our census information, our most recent census. Uh we would prepare an ordinance um language and a map. Obviously, we would have the required notices, hold public hearings, adopt the ordinance, notify the county. Uh it's highly encouraged that we have community input on that if we do decide to maybe move forward with this.

We uh spitballled an idea of coming up with like a draft map of what that might look like, and we quickly realized that might cause more problems than it does good. So, we didn't go down that path. We just said instead we'll just explain that you'd have to have uh those maps created based on census with similar populations. You've seen when they've changed the Senate and and House lines, right? What stir that causes, right? We just went through because because we moved from three board of supervisor members to five. They had to redo all the board of supervisors district and I was on that committee. It was interesting and to try to figure out where those lines should be.

Yeah, that that that's I mean I don't want to say it's a challenge, but it's something we'd have to work through. Along with the ordinance, it's super important we would put an effective date in the ordinance. We don't want to like inadvertently mess up term dates, shorten somebody's term on accident or lengthen it on accident. So, next slide, I believe, talks about uh at least a sample. we wouldn't have to do it this way, but it's the best way I could think in my head to do it, which would be we just had a 2025 atlarge election. Two people, as we know, Andy and Kelsey, came on board, so their terms end in 2029. So with the 27 election, um we could implement three ward three wards with their terms ending in 2031. And then the 2029 election would be two wards if we went full ward system. Um and their terms would last until 2033 and then we would be on that cycle

and like annexation is a would be a challenge with that too then right having to redraw lines. Yeah sure I know I don't so on that as far as the election goes for the board of supervisors when we changed it we had to go to five districts at that point in time or five boards and everybody was up for election at that point in time. Really? Yes. There was two or three of them that got two-year terms and then the other amount got a four-year term at that election. Okay. Definitely something we would check into for sure to make sure we did everything. Yeah. Might have to go with all five. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

And some of that might even be a decision that you get to make that council could choose to say, "Hey, this is going to be part of it. We're just going to start from scratch." But could do that. I I don't want that to sound confident. I'm saying that could be part of it, right? What do you think, Jim? Think we can stagger it this way? Well, the only problems I'd see on that one is that 27 So, you're talking about getting three words for the entire city or would you two would still be at large? Two would still be at large. But what if the one of the council members in 2027 or two of the council members would be in the eventual same ward once you change to five?

The words will change. Yeah, the word lines would change when you get to five also. So maybe my brain was thinking this would work better as a hybrid model if we were going to have two atlars and three which would mean 32. Yeah. Yeah. Which would mean that 2029 instead of saying two wards that would be two atlarge but once established the wards would remain the same until the next census every 10 years. Yes. Yep. and then or annexation probably or annexation or something if you annex if there was a significant amount of population to throw off that balance. Okay. Yeah. Like our even the large population, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think that would change anything that specific one

and then anything you would have a ward where nobody could that could you have a policy or place ordinance in place where that and that throws it into an atlarge I don't believe so we can't believe it council would have to follow the procedure of appointing an open seat or someone I mean someone ward but yeah the council would appoint somebody and there would likely be a ride in Just whether or not that person actually really wants to serve be the question. That's true. Yeah. So, or yeah, council would ultimately have to appoint somebody right at 10 vote.

So, a couple um I guess still on this slide. So, yeah, if a change were made, clearly it's not going to happen overnight. We have some time. Um but the closer you get to the next election cycle, the quicker it needs to happen. So, keep that in mind. Um, that's really all I have, I guess. So, yeah, next steps. Do we know like surrounding communities? So, De Moine is is clearly a ward based, right, for their city council is West De Mo and I think West De Mo is too, right? Because I think Doug Loots, my friend, is he serves a certain population set, but I don't Any other cities in the metro? Indian. Indian. They're hybrid. I matter. That's where I saw it. Y there's not that big.

Yeah. traffic. There has been so there's a uh Ivan League of Cities has a mayor's group. Uh there has been some traffic on on list serve in regards to W systems and there's there's quite a few larger cities that have gone from warts back to at large because of a lack of mining can. That's that be one of my main concerns I think. Quality of candidates. Sorry, go ahead.

The qualities of candidates because you really narrow down your focus. You may end up with words that nobody wants to run in or maybe less than ideal. Might have a couple of good ones and another one and you know Yeah. Uh I had a little frustration with the ward system that was set up for the county to be honest with you. here cuz I would really like to seen them gone with two at large. We had a couple of guys that would have been decent uh guys on the bench, but they had to run against each other. Yeah.

You know, and I thought that was really unfortunate for our team. Anyway, uh the only last comment I would have on the whole thing is that whatever the council would seem to favor, I think it should be scheduled for the next election so the people vote on whether or not it happens because it's a fundamental change in government. They're asking well the regular election vote is that what you're speaking of? I think the same you would are you saying you'd rather the city vote as to whether we change from wards or from at large to wards,

right? And and and we might uh take an action if the majority council wants to to put it on an election on a ballot, but but a next scheduled election, right? Not a special election. Well, if it goes by petition, it has to go to a vote, correct? But if it goes through, council can initiate through council. You don't have to have a public but you do have to have a public hearing. And that's what happened at the county. It was a petition that got if put on the ballot to vote, but they could have chosen do that themselves. No, they did do it themselves because a threat of a petition. Ah, they knew it was going to happen.

I guess I just think that the public would like it better if they got the voice in a change in their government. Just be a nightmare. You got seven precincts. Oh yeah. Voting. Yeah. You have 15 ballots.

But you could have alleviate nobody running it for a certain ward. You could just have three wards and two at large. Yeah. Y you could even have four wards and one at large if you wanted. Yeah. Great. Increase the chance somebody would run at they'd be bigger. It would cover up swap for the city that way. Yeah. I wouldn't mind the three the three W two at large. Do you have like when if let's say we had three and two uh do you have to say I'm running for this ward or I'm running at large you have to make that determination. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Y

I guess what what would be the reason to change from what we have now? Just asking the question. Is there some failure that we've had? Well, and the reason I brought it up was I was just sitting in my office one day and realized everybody's north of my office that are on on the council. I thought that doesn't seem right. Just a and then I that's that's about it. Just geographically doesn't seem to be geographically just seemed like everybody's on the north side.

Okay. uh just got my attention that way and thought, well, you have a big area down here on south of Chattam that has a lot of people there and they you don't get represent obviously, but they're they just have a representative from that area. Yeah, that's true. Of course, they could run if somebody wanted to run. Well, and that's part of it, too. I think um is get people to run is don't feel like you have to do a citywide campaign awards. So you can literally walk door to door if you felt like it to a great degree. Yeah.

Dantage wise and get more door to talk on. I guess that what it's worth and uh as opposed to trying to do a citywide campaign that cost uh that type of thing. Plus I'll throw in Jason's speech today noon. uh you know want to do the villages in Norwok right not that would it wouldn't pair up exactly obviously because it's this isn't a legal process not economic development but at the same time hopefully that'll build some community spirit that you did want to uh run this through yeah okay well thanks

I know Brian and Jackie rolled off I don't know mayor you've been on on this so a long time have we had like his his comment around was like everybody's north of my office. Have we had other people on the city council from the parts maybe that are underrepresented in the past or not really? Lester was Lester. Yeah, Lester. Yeah. Well, Greg and I live on the south side of town. saw us on the council for he lived down.

Um and we've always this is the first election in a long time that we had unontested races for all for all three. And that's interesting. The other day I heard um Jessica Drake, she the manager for uh city development board, so where all the annexation things go. And she said over the past 40 years they've had 13 disinccorporations, so cities just dissolving. And of those 13, four have happened within the past couple years. And part of what she alluded to was a lack of some of the smaller communities just being able to find people to serve on council as they're starting to make some more difficult decisions. It used to probably be more fun where do we get a direct funds projects

and unfortunately I think it's going to be more some of the bad news type decisions that elected officials are going to have to make. Y so we'll be left out. Yeah. Nice easy decision for you guys. Any other questions for me? I don't think we don't need to decide tonight. Just something you guys can

discuss. If there was one question I heard, sorry, mayor, just to jump in before you ask for discussion. Um, is if we could find out from our neighbors. Feel like that was a question that came up. who has ward systems around us or in the metro area. That'd be relatively easy for us to track down.

And appreciate the information. Good. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks.

Okay. Item six on the agenda. Welcome. We've got some public comment. Thanks for being here tonight. Appreciate your attendance and participation. Uh we'll open up the dis now for uh anybody who wants to address council for non-aggenda items. Got a three-minute time limit. We realize we can't take action on those tonight since it's not on the agenda. We did. That would be a violation of open meetings law and we don't want to do that. Uh also if you'd like to comment on any item that's in the consent agenda, now would be the time. Anybody like to talk? Hearing none, we will move on. Item number seven is the consent agenda. Can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda? Second.

Okay. Motion by Micki. Second is by Lindsay. Would you call roll? Council member Bourjon. Yes. Cool. Yes. Mine. Yes. Porter. Yes.

All right. Item eight is old and new business for consideration, discussion, and possible action. Uh item A is a social services funding request. So the Norwalk area ministerial solution association or NAMA is going to have a pickleball tournament as a fundraiser and NAMA would like to host the tournament at the fieldhouse. They've asked to wave any of the fees associated with renting fieldhouse. Uh as staff began to discuss this, it became apparent that this could cause other nonprofit organizations to make the same type of request and and what does that actually mean in a bigger picture. Uh let me remind you that the fieldhouse was built as an economic development project. The idea is to bring a lot of people into the area that will also shop at our shops and eat at our restaurants and visit our businesses. And that's why we have in that area we have Hyper Energy Bar, Culver's, Quickstar, Coopers, the Fairfield in the Hilton True, Mullets, Pinh High Sports, Neutri Smoothie, and Vivid Life Spa just to name a few. Okay. Uh so this discussion is going to be more about policy than than the request from NAMA. Uh parks and recck is asking for council to make that policy decision that they can then follow when these types of requests are made up with three categories of donation or fee waiver type requests. Uh the first one is that there are donation requests for day passes or memberships to the pool or the fieldhouse, things like that. Uh these are generally community organizations that are holding a fundraiser and we're collecting donations for an auction or a raffle. Uh it's good market practice to get people to try our facilities. So uh there's a limit to one per organization per year of those. Secondly, there are requests to use park space or shelters. Uh these are for community events like music fest, run norwalk, I think lunch at the park in the summer, those types of those types of things. Finally, now that we

have the fieldhouse, we're going to request for use of that facility. Uh the only one the only one that council has approved so far is with the school school district and this is due to reciprocity and it is reflected already in city code. So Carissa, when you took all this information to park and recck, what did they say?

Um so the parks and recreation committee just held discussion on this topic just to give you some feedback. Um, we had good discussion amongst the commission members. Um, they do agree that there's distinction between the tiers of requests that you just went through. Um, they understand and appreciate the requests of the nonprofits and the work that they do in the community. Um, commissioners discussed that they believe that city fees exist to cover the costs of the services that we provide. Um and for that reason um the general consensus of the group without an official vote was that um use of the fieldhouse should include a fee to cover um that cost. They also talked about um that there are many other spaces and communities where nonprofits do still have to pay fees for facility usage. So this isn't um out of the ordinary or um inconsistent. and that um as a department, parks and recreation program fees generally cover the cost of using the fieldhouse space as well. We have a few outliers, one on the agenda tonight that we'll talk about a little later, but um our programming is structured in that same way to cover the cost of that court rental time for our programming that we offer the community as well. Um commissioners also discussed that they think there should be some requirement that organizations are based in or have a good service within Norwok, which is our current practice anyways on our donation policies. Um, so that is where the commissioner's input was noted.

Thanks. Del, what do you think?

When this first came up, uh, Angie that's in the audience, Angie Troll, uh, she had showed up to a council meeting and made a request, we also had another organization that had requested some funds. So, it wasn't consideration of just one organization for some type of funding. There were actually two. Now since then the other organization has backed away uh and um did not pursue their request. So part of this that makes it tough for me is NAMA has become become has always been maybe I can say that a very important organization in our community. They do a lot of good in Norwalk. So, um, it's tough when we're considering something like this where we're sort of talk more about policy than just that organization. So, with that said, grants and gifts, uh, we do need an explanation, whatever you call it. Uh Jim, our city attorney, had really zeroed in on one of our last audits when the auditor specifically brought up that if we are going to provide grants of some type, we have to be very purposeful on establishing that it's for a public purpose. Uh so we just need to be cognizant of that and that the auditors are watching uh the grants and gifts that we provide. We are growing and I would imagine that we will start to see an increase in requests from other organizations and we just need to be prepared to be somewhat equitable with those organizations. You know, I just got done talking about all the good things that does. I suppose a community could have an organization that they're not as thrilled with uh the kind of things that they do in the community. Uh so somehow setting a policy of how we would provide those gifts uh needs to be top of mind and right now we just don't have that

guidance. We don't have those policies and our policy admin group when we got together that was one of the things that was kind of troublesome is how do we in make some type of decision without that guidance. We talked about things like uh establishing some type of a fund or going to the chamber and saying, "Hey, chamber, we're going to provide you with these dollars. You determine what social services should receive funding." Uh the community that I was in previously each year, they had a grant funding committee that would take a portion of hotel motel tax dollars and they had some uh citizens, they had some elected officials that would get together, consider all the applications. uh maybe they had $30,000 in a given year and then they would give those outuh to different organizations. We don't have any of that. So it would be establishing some type of a new uh a new fund. So going down a path of uh structured giving would be more difficult. Uh considering that the state of Iowa, our state legislature is also uh imposing upon us a desire to reduce our footprint of government. So, just like it's challenging for NAM to raise funds, we're starting to see some of our ability uh to gain revenue being decreased. Even though we're a growing community, it's still going to be a challenge. So, it's kind of tough at a time when we're talking about having to deal with some budget constraints in the future to expand out and provide additional services. So I don't know that I feel real confident one way or the other saying absolutely go this direction absolutely don't. Um NAMA is a great organization if you are going to do something with that organization. Uh, I would highly encourage that this

be maybe a a oneandone and that before we do anything of difference in the future that we do establish policies, whether it be that policy is we're just not going to do this in the future. Whatever it looks like, just so we as staff have direction. Any final thoughts? Carissa? Um, I would just add we do have a I wouldn't say a lot, but we have a list of um regular annual events in our parks. the ones that you alluded to and we do have some other requests from other community organizations for park and shelter use this year that we're waiting for this discussion on too. So there is that component um for some of those other ongoing events that we already talked about

discussion from council. So we have some groups right now that were given free services facilities. Yep. Which would include the Namas lunches in the park um the music fest um and things like that. So nothing in the fieldhouse category that's waiting, but there are some sheltered and park rental spaces that were waiting.

You know, I understand that we can do something like this if we establish it for the greater good of some public greater purpose. And I don't think any of those organizations that we're talking about are bad. me think you're all good to be supported. I guess I'm uncomfortable with it. Uh even though I participated for years in some of these organizations, I think that we're up against it with the state. We don't know for sure what the state's going to do. The very most I would probably see us doing is some fixed amount that might go to an organization like the chamber or someone to do the consideration when that money's gone it's gone. Most of us up here are members of the 100 men of Norwok and I think if these things were brought before them, you know, they've been pretty generous on funding them. And we've got a diversity of views obviously in our community. I mean, not everybody's going to see things the same. Taxes are compulsory dollars and there may be some connotation sometimes with some different organizations that you know people don't get to decide what they're supporting those organizations policies might not be the same as the cities you know what I'm saying and I just think that uh if we believe that we want to designate an amount of our budget to such a uh purpose but we should limit that amount we should take it out of our hands and leave it to another organization because I don't feel comfortable picking and

choosing which organizations are more important than others right I don't think I ran for them and um I don't think it'd be a terrible thing if we didn't do it all together but I would encourage those organizations to go before like the 100 men of Norwalk and other benevolent organizations in the community. They'll probably be more than willing to fund it, right? That's where I'm coming. Those are my thoughts.

Well, this I mean this is Park and R primary, but for example, we give money to the chamber and that's basically met the same way. or is that more of an economic development? Traditionally, it's been economic development. That was the reasoning for it. And uh

you know, it's at one point in time the chamber hired somebody took relieve duties from the city as a result and the city agreed to share costs with that. And I think I think that I think uh you know the music fast and things like that uh though it's a group putting it together was kind of the city proposing it to a group to take it over at some point in time you know and so like uh when that group started doing the music fest it was kind of at the guest of the city and the city said okay this is really a city event we like this city event and this like fourth of July celebration

uh but you know it reduces liability by having a third party group so I mean that group was actually spurned by the city to get get get together to actually do these type of events kind of on behalf of the city. So that's how it started. But now it's you know as we have more assets, we have more people, more groups and all those groups are tight on money. uh it is it's time to start being a little bit more discernible because at some point in time um you know we're going to be hit with you got a wonderful group that's we're talking about today but I mean moral group might be you know who well every group we've had some nightmare group that says hey we we also deserve that yeah

just to get us to say no so they could take you to court for you know a discrimination thing because you can't be subjective on what they stand for group we have before us funed for us always sounds like big idea. Exactly. So yeah,

something to keep in mind that so the chamber greater de mo partnership we used to be in Bravo uh were catch de mo um all Warren County economic development all of those essentially league of cities even were were members of those organizations of which we are receiving somewhat of a servant which is also a little bit different. We have done grant matches. Um I think of the Freedom Rock, you know, we participated in that, but it was an amenity in the community. Uh we've done things with Rotary for grant matches. Uh but those have all been for projects of things that go in public areas are provided to public.

And one we had just recently is every step I think was a few months back. That's right. That's what's they provide services to the

and I think it's it's easier to if you can point at a direct benefit for instance if we had a group that let's say the the NORG boosters or NOG JC's came in and said hey what we want to do is is have a basketball tournament in at the fieldhouse and all the proceeds are going to go towards the city to have a scholarship fund for underprivileged kids that want to be in in basketball or uh soccer leagues or whatever sports leagues. Well, then we're getting a direct benefit off that, you know, that's a lot different than, you know, a group coming and say, "Hey, we're a great group, uh, and we want to do a fundraiser for ourselves, you know." So, there there's a difference, but it's tough. I you spend a number of years on the school board and school board has a pretty hard line rule. We're not going to do any of that stuff.

Yeah. We don't have different rules that we operate under. It's just the city's been more flexible over the years finding a public purpose whereas the school a number of years ago I think probably made the decision is like forget it. We're not giving anything away because we'll have endless requests. Yeah. Can someone remind me because it's relatively new the hotel motel tax that we receive. Where is that where is that being directed to? Because you brought that up as in your past community right that that was leveraged

uh for a number of years. Those funds are dedicated. they go to uh catch de mo they get a portion of it and then uh part of our economic incentive package to both of the hotels was to take a portion of their hotel motel tax that comes in and it goes back to them. So ultimately I think we end up with a net grow or we're getting 15%. So 60% goes back to the hotels and then 25% to catch de mo. So about how much 15% comes back to what is that for total dollars? It's early with probably.

Yeah, this is the first year. Um I'm estimating this year from Fairfield about 220,000. Uh now that is here um up and running. I haven't got their first quarter statement yet, but 220,000 is our 15% or that's the total. No, that's the total right now. I wish we're hoping in the future, but

so in the future as those kind of develop some that's just one example you could choose maybe local option sales tax or some other even general fund pull those dollars from if you just wanted to set aside a certain amount this year. I I agree wholeheartedly with that. I think maybe in the future like the the hotel motel tax and say pick a number, right? If it's and I don't know what an appropriate number is, but 25 or $30,000 and we allow the the chamber to dedicate those funds. Like that that seems like a good option to me, right? But we're not in that situation where it's not $30,000 at this point, right? So, can you hear me? Yep. Oh, yeah. Am I really loud? Sorry,

I don't think that's your fault. The volume, not you. It's your outside voice. Okay, I'll use my inside voice. Um, my first question is if I'm involved in a fundraiser like this, and this might be for Luke or um, mayor. Um, if I'm involved in a fundraiser such as this in any capacity, is this something I need to recuse myself on a vote or discussion before I ask or before I make some statements? Um, I'm gonna let Jim answer. I don't think to make statements or anything like that. You, as long as you're not making a personal profit off this or anything like that. U, okay.

You know, if you want people to take it under consideration, you can also, you know, you can certainly say, "Hey, I'm a member of this group." thought uh you know so they could you know so you're not hiding anything. Not that you would be anyway but I don't I don't see a financial conflict there. So you would have to uh conduct yourself on what you feel comfortable with.

Okay. Um then my next follow-up comments would be to I think it's really important for us to remember that NAMA directly impacts 100% our local um residents um and it's not in a capacity I know the example about the basketball team was a really great one in a lot of ways but like these are necessities that children in need in our community are benefiting from and families are benefiting from and necessities like food and school supplies. So, I think that that's really important to remember. Um, but I do agree with Ed. I think that this is a really challenging topic to keep coming up and keep having to put us in a hard position of saying whether or not a charity's cause is worthy. Um, so I I do agree with that, but I do think that this is a very unique organization that is 100% in town and some of our residents depend on it in a lot of ways. Um, and then I also think that that's where it makes it very different than the chamber. Um, and I do think that something like a fundraiser like this too is in a way an economic development potential because this would be a fundraiser that isn't just Norwok citizens participating in the fundraiser. This would bring people in from all over the metro, which is why um, Angie um, so gracefully asked me if I had any interest in helping them with this as a pickleball player myself. um that's pretty well connected in that space in the greater metro. So, I think that that's something to remember, too. You know, this is a one to two day tournament, whatever it would end up being where people are being brought in for hours at a time. They have to eat our foods um in between matches or games or when they um are eliminated from the tournament. They would be ideally shopping in our stores. Like, it would

be drawing people in from other communities, too. So, those were just some comments I wanted to make. Um, I do have to say I'd probably recuse myself from a vote on anything like this because of my involvement, but I just wanted to make those things known. Yes, Kelsey. Just as a clarification though, um, you're not receiving any personal gain from anything associated with NAMO or you're helping them. That's you doing that as a volunteer, correct? you that your Kim

I do not view it as a defined legal conflict under Iowa code. You know, there's an awful lot of times that I I kind of lay off. There's times that for instance, you know, if there's a vote involving naming the bank as the official depository, George is going to make extra money as a result of it, but he might decide not to vote on us because of the appearance of impropriy. That's kind of a personal decision on behalf of each council member to say, you know, I don't want that appearance. But really, if Kelsey thinks there might be a conflict and it just makes sense for her to say, I'm going to That's right. Okay.

I I guess to maybe state my opinion a little more bluntly, I guess I I would not be in favor of it right now with the city finances the way we are. Um I we have great organizations that want it, but I think to Ed's point, like I'm not in Hunter Men of Norwalk. I'm in a different one. We have Echo Valley Professionals Group. We give money to lots of different places. I think we should push them to leverage those until maybe we have hotel motel tax that we could leverage. Um and then and then think about what's the right way to use those funds because that that's that's funds that I think would be the right thing to use for for this type of thing is my personal opinion. I agree with those and I know those of us that are members of that organization under men's more than happy to stuff that jar to get it in there for a discussion. But, you know, there are other organizations in town too that might be helpful for that sort of thing. But, and I think maybe after this next year, whatever the legislature does, maybe we'll be in a more settled situation for a little while. and then we can take a look at any particular number to set and then push it off to another organization to make a decision on it. I I might be in favor of that depending on what financial situation we find. So I just don't think it'd be good judgments to do it right now.

Go ahead. Yeah. No, I think the Nama organization's been great. Uh, the kids in the park, the kids in the park and families, state families, uh, I've been there, helped helped out, not not lately, but a few years ago was helping out about 300 336 average per week at home. Oh, wow. And, you know, food bank obviously. Yep. We have our food bank. And then, uh, 115 families per week. Yeah. Yeah. I just think that's incredibly important and I been off the school board for a long time, but I assume we're not feeding the kids in the summertime.

Communities can do that if you got a certain amount of low-inccome or whatever. I assume we don't. So this but so if you're low income in Norwalk as a kid, you got an issue, you know. Yeah. Uh so I think it's very important that uh we do that and I'm not ready to change policy at this meeting to do that. I think I would be more than supportive of doing the ban what they were requesting. So I would go with that. Now

after that I'm into okay let's let's rethink this. But I felt Angie came here before you know if we would have took the vote that night I would have been yeah do it. I'm sure most of us would have done the same thing, but you would have asked me walking in here, I would have said we already approved it if I, you know, that type of thing. Uh, so anyway, I'm very supportive of it. Changing the rules, I get it because the budgets are going to get tighter and that's still gives but it gives everybody time to adapt as well as ourselves. I do want to make one more comment about diff um so I was on the board for a nonprofit back in Cleveland, Ohio that benefited the entire county um that greater Cleveland was in. So a much different less local townoriented nonprofit, but I helped start it and I was on the board until we moved. And I want to make it clear that there's two different kinds of donations. There's cash donations and there's inind donations. and um donating court time or discounting court time um I believe would be more in the realm of an inind donation rather than I I hear your point of the 100 men of Norwok some of these other organizations being able to donate say this round number of $5,000 towards fieldhouse court time. Um those are very different things in the space of a nonprofit because the nonprofit trying to throw an event and getting free or 50% off court time or something like that that would be treated as in kind and that's a great donation but they would in your example of like going to the hundred men of Norwok asking for the $5,000 to cover the court time. Now, that's asking for the five grand, putting that directly towards 100% coverage of the fieldhouse court time. Like, those are two different things.

Um, so I just wanted to I don't know, that's where my mind goes from my experience in the nonprofit realm. Um, those are two very different things even though they seem at the surface like they're not. They help. Just that there's a pretty stiff uh view that the state has on us giving away things of value, right? And we have to be able to justify when we do that. Yes. We have any public input? Um I mean I

can you can can you come up so everybody can hear you? Sure. And state your name and address.

Uh sure. Angie Kroll, 225 West High Road in Norwok, uh the executive director for NAMA. Um I appreciate Kelsey's comment about the separate the different types of donations. Um and I think that we would treat this as an inkind donation. Um and I I mean I just to kind of throw out a another idea too is partnering with the city, having the city be maybe like a co-sponsor to the pickle ball event. Um, I do think there's also value to the city in bringing specific pickle ball players in, a large group of pickle ball players in to show off the pickle ball courts in in the um, wreck building as it is. Um, I'm not sure I the I know it gets a lot of use um, right now the pickle ball courts. Um, but that would be a good showing I think for the city to to show off the new pickle ball courts. Um, yeah, I've been kind of spitting a few of the few of the um stats that we have out. Our lunch in the park has been increasing. Last year, we actually had one lunch that o went over 400 people that we served lunch to. And part of our lunch in the park, too, because the school doesn't do any summer meals. We send home a take-home bag of snacks with the kids that they can a whole box of granola bars, box of cereal. We try to get protein in there so that they can feed themselves during the week. Um some healthy snacks to try to get them through. If they're home alone, they can stick a thing of Easy Mac in the microwave. Um so I as far as going to other organizations, we have used Hunter Men of Norwok and we appreciate all of their support. Um I go to all the businesses. We have a super strong um community of businesses and they support us for sure. Um so

the one thing that is missing and I'm not sure what other cities Luke might be able to inform me about this but I don't know what other cities do as far as helping their um like the human services organizations that that work in their cities. All of our services obviously go directly to Norwok residents or kids in Norwok schools and I mean we're paying for stuff like rent and water bills um but energy bills. So I didn't know do you know like what other cities do? It it is it's not uncommon for cities to do some kind of a social service assistance program of different types.

Yeah. And that's what I like in Indianola, Sue at Weelift, I I haven't sat down and talked to her about the specific funding she received from Indianola, but I know she's gotten that from Indianola before. Um, last year we did get money from the county. Um, that was never going to happen again, we were told, which is understandable. Um, but I do think I mean there's just not a lot of um we haven't gotten any money from the city in the past for for uh human services. So,

one thing to mention, um, Jean, our finance director, not not knowing what the decision of council would be, but in the event that council wanted to set aside some dollars, uh, she did identify that um, we have some LMI dollars, as you know, some some of the tiff that we use. Yeah. Uh, when we did that with ECHK, we had a tiff uh, LMI set aside for low to moderate income. And I can't imagine that this purpose wouldn't fall under that LMI category. I agree. Um, we've used it for Norwok Nice through impact for similar type things. I'm sure you've heard

that's what we try to get our the families who come to us for water bills. That's usually we try to have them go there first to get to use that resource. So we've used it for that and we've used it for the last several years. So I guess an option. So just saying that Gan did that research just in case that is something that uh the path that council wants to go just to know that those dollars would be there'd be a source.

I guess I'd be curious, you know, looking at the amount of dollars that might be available and maybe uh some discussion or recommendation on an amount we might look at. But I still wouldn't want the city to be directly given anything away. I would rather see us establish a fund and push it off to the chamber or some other organization and then let them take care of administering that. Would that be an issue doing though because they'd have to I assume follow the rules whatever the rules are for LMI

this um so talking about the specific NAMA request right now the LMI is a good category. I think Andy makes a real good point that down the road that becomes a much better source of those future hotel motel dollars, hotel motel tax dollars. And also I what I'm hearing from everybody here is that it's uh more about this is a one-time decision realizing there is going to be some policies. This isn't me telling you the same thing the county said, but it's kind of coming across that way that I I guess if the council were inclined, I' and this is just kind of more I'm not say manipulation, but a different way to do it. I would prefer not to have it just be free use of the fieldhouse. You know, I'd rather find it a way that funds could properly be provided for this cause and that those funds would be used to pay for the fieldhouse. I mean even internally I've been told that the fire department or police department want to use the fieldhouse they pay and actually goes on the books where one department is paying park and wreck for usage of the fieldhouse and uh because it's just it's better to across the board say it's going to get paid for. Uh you know there's certainly there's ways I would feel comfortable doing this legally. I'm le legally it's not standing in our way but I mean the council could absolutely find its economic development or that you know there's certain obligation for the city to provide for low and moderate income people. We have these funds for it and this event is is going to be a good investments that gets thrown right back into benefit those that exact population we want to benefit. uh we have money that we give away for low and moderate income housing housing rehab program uh which is you know an income based thing everything like that so I mean there are ways to legally do it

I do think we need to contemplate the future because you know it's it's like you know at some point in time we have to have some standards because you do every time you give it away to somebody else you know clearly there's a subjective viewpoint being involved there and our the money that's given away for free by the city shouldn't be sub, you know, a subjective approval because they're great people. I think it's a good idea to have standards. I really do.

Yeah. Anyways, uh all I was going to say is if we do the if we would choose to do the LMI dollars, then maybe uh we set a criteria around it for the chamber, whoever to dispense it that would be in compliance with the legal requirements for the use of those dollars. But can we use can we give those dollars to the chamber to do what you're saying? Is that

Well, that's a that's a good question. I'd almost rather see it go directly to NAM we entered a contract with them where they agree to accept the money for this fundraiser and that in return what they're going to do is use the benefits from this fundraiser to directly spend it upon the population that it is which then benefits the city because in a way it kind of relieves the city from having to do it that themselves. We can draft something that would clarify that. Ed, I feel like what you're talking about is maybe next year or down the road. Yeah, that's right. We set up that program,

right? And you know, I I don't want to be in a position where I'm picking and choosing, right? That's not a good spot for us to be. And the other thing is that, you know, I think you're going to have a hard time. We're going to have a hard time saying no once we do one.

It's not going to be so easy. Okay? Just saying. It's not that they're not worthy, you know. I mean, I've done fundraisers for them myself over here and and you welcome to city government. All the all these department heads had very fine things they wanted to do and they were really good. They would benefit the community, but we couldn't afford them. So, all of them got to know on something and we got ideas. Okay. So, we're pretty limited with what we can do. I mean, it's getting tight, but maybe there's some leeway. I mean, I guess I'm willing to take a look at it, but that's about as far as I can say.

So, there's there's four options for you guys to choose from that that are in the packet. Uh the first one is to grant both requests both for the fieldhouse up to $5,000 towards fieldhouse and approve a fee waiver for city park or shelter worth use. Uh you can grant a portion of the request whether that's the financial support or partial or full fee waiver for one or the other. Uh you can just all around deny the request, direct NAMA to go to state and federal agencies for assistance or we can direct staff to do some further research.

I have an example. So, I helped plan a tennis tournament very similar to this and for a nonprofit and the tennis club gave it was more falling along the lines of number two of what you just read, grant a portion of the request. They lowered the court-time fees for the tournament rental to a flat $1,000 fee, even though it would have been significantly more than that if like a regular person would have just gone in and rented the courts for those for that time period. I think that that's a great solution here. Um, I know it sounds like Jim likes the mon the monetary value and then they would use that towards the court time. Um, I think if this was any other nonprofit, I really just wouldn't feel so strongly about it, but the fact that it benefits only Norwok area citizens and their and necessities like not art, not athletics, um, necessarily, like, but mostly food and rent and utilities and a roof over your head. Like, I just think that that is so different than than anything else. I I would I would challenge the community to please come forward with like some o some other nonprofit that would more directly benefit our residents than a NAMA. So, I don't know if this is like super comparable to other potential things that would come up, but just wanted to give that example because that is pretty common in the sports athletic facility realm is discounts or grant, whatever you want to call it, for that court time for activities like this.

Mayor, could I chime in real quick on that? Sure. Um, just to the point of how we got to the using funds versus a discount or a fee waiver, um, I think there is the potential when we do a court discount or a fee waiver as a matter of policy for our department to implement that we could end up with a lot of nonprofits looking for that nonprofit discount um, if it isn't a request of a of a financial contribution to NAM, if that makes sense. Um, and there are a lot of youth sports clubs, organizations that do fall into the nonprofit sector that rent field space, court space, things like that. So, I think that's how we got to this point of should it be a financial contribution. So, I just want to throw that out as how we got to here.

I I think part of it Kelsey is making a lot of good points from viewing it in that nonprofit world. it once you step into the messy murky uh local government world of what funds can go where. Kelsey, I hope what you're hearing us say is the the revenues generated at the fieldhouse are more limited dollars and that's a little bit more difficult that fund where some of these other locations where we have dollars available like the LMI there are dollars there available for this type of use. So, if if we're just thinking it from a strictly city financial viewpoint, it's easier for the city to simply provide those dollars as a grant as opposed to do the fee waiver. I hope that makes sense.

So, maybe a follow up on that. So, Gene, how much money do we have in LMI dollars that we could use? If we said this year like we're going to give five, do we have 10 left? And if two other organizations like but like I may maybe be okay doing that knowing what would be in that cookie jar so to say otherwise we have to have a hard line on it I feel like right so

well we do have limited funds in there u right now I think it's like 1 6 million we're using about a million for water projects and we have about 500,000 earmarked for not 500 250,000 for um our rehab uh LMI housing rehab that Luke Paris's department works on. So there's plenty there right now. I don't want to sit there and say, "Oh, there's 200,000." But I think 5,000 right now um certainly qualified. You know, they would much more than going through the chamber. I feel like it'd be a much more um easier to justify that they're actually helping low to moderate income families.

That that that's where I guess I'm at on this one a little bit, right? Is there's a really good tieback for this organization to get funds from there, right? And if we have some funds available that we feel like then I guess my thing would be like, let's do that. Let's use those $5,000 for this funds. If somebody comes and doesn't have that good tieback, then my stance is denied. Sorry. We don't have funds to do it. If if you did do the 5,000 um then they could use the 5,000 to pay for shelter rentals, to pay for pickle ball. 5,000 was assuming you're going to use the entire weekend. If you don't, they may be able to divide that up under several rentals.

Uh I think it was like five was getting up there. I thought we initially said 2500. Kelsey, correct me if I'm wrong. Wasn't it initially 2500, but then Golda said we need another quart more quarts? Can she hear me? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that was I think this was like the most we would need. That's where this number came from. Yes.

Okay. That's what I think it is. And then for like the shelter rental, for lunch in the park, we had nine lunches in the park. The shelter rental is just $15, I think, right? For a four hour time. So, we would just need that would be $135. So, I mean, that's not as that's a little easier to buy off. It might be 25. I think for that you can come to Oh, okay. Um, but in the past, historically, that's always been free for nonprofit. Girl Scouts can go any and you are not the only nonprofit currently taking advantage of that.

Yeah. I guess mayor before I'd want to vote on something like that. I'd want to see that criteria written out or that u requirements, you know, so we cover ourselves. So, can I I make a motion that we do number four, we conduct further research. I'm not sure about your timing, so I apologize for there, but I'm in favor of using some funds that support uh low to moderate income, right, for this type of situation. But I I agree with Ed, right? We gota we got to understand that, right? So I don't know how we turn that into a motion, but I that's how I think we should conduct more research to do that.

Would would you want us to table this pending a staff report or what do you think would be the way to go, Mayor? I think if we use Andy's motion to conduct further research. All right, I'll vote on that and then bring it up. I'll second that one. Okay. Okay. So, I got a motion to do the further research. Can I Can I say something? Sure.

Okay. Sorry. I think um and maybe Jim can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe if we wanted to like assign something like this in the future, just while we're still on this topic, to the chamber, they would need to have like a foundation, which I don't believe they have like we have as of now. Um but I do think that in West De Moines their chamber has a foundation that can do things like this. So maybe that's part of the research. So I just wanted to plant that seed for the research part of it. Maybe we look into what they do, how they maybe founded it, what the parameters are. Yeah. Yeah. We can look at that because yeah, I can't imagine the chamber just taking it. I agree with that. There's got to be something there, some sort of community foundation or

right there some sort of fiduciary duty there and handing it to the chamber that would wouldn't create any type of fiduciary duty. You know where I came from, there was a community foundation. Mayor's wife actually headed it. She was elected to be the chairman of the committee and they did uh fundraising to buy equipment for the fire department, police department, things like that. And uh I I believe the city participated through them for things such as this, right? and they were like a board.

I mean, it was a connection, but they weren't part of the city that that it's pretty gray and Yeah. You know, it take a little that take a couple sets of glasses if you look your way through that one. Yeah. I think we talk about LMI money. I think it's be pretty hard to turn over somebody that's not versed in that. Correct. To protect ourselves.

Yeah. I I don't think you can delegate that authority. I think that's a little bit the research, right? the LMI's where we're at with that to be able to use some funds for them like 5,000 is my number, right? Like if you need another 135 Norwok men 100 men in Norwalk or Equality Professionals Group, right? Like I think we just need to understand that and then I think the further research is foundation other things right is my opinion. I'm all for number one I vote for number four too where I stand is number one. Okay. How we make that work how we don't get ourselves put in a trap of funding everything that comes along. I'm okay with that. I think yeah, that's what we need.

Uh I think only thing is ultimately I I like the idea though using the money because I think that does insulate the you know park and recck department from having to field a bunch of different requests. I mean we want to take that discretion out of them so they can say no I can't do that right go to like damma and they come in and rent the facility. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah. So, just for clarification, are you talking both the fieldhouse and for the for the park shelters? I I I was saying $5,000 probably for them to use towards the the fieldhouse, right?

Okay. That's the na that's the nomine request, but there are other organization. Well, let's let's go ahead and finish that vote then then I'm I'm going to bring up more. Okay. Uh so, any further discussion on this one? Lindsay, would you call roll on that? Council member Koul, yes. Mine, yes. Porter, yes. Bourjon, yes. Okay. Uh, that motion. That motion carries. It's not only not Is there a timing? Is there a timing need to figure this out by? No. Um, we haven't set a date yet. I mean, obviously, but we haven't really set a date because we were kind of waiting to see what happens. Okay. So

there are other organizations currently using park shelters. So how do you how I I think we you want further research on that or you want to set some type of policy tonight that says they have to pay fees or are we going to do fee wavers like we're current? I guess we should deal with this one first and then come back with the other one. Yes, sir. So, I think status quo for now. Yes, sir. When nobody's in front of us, then we should deal with the other. But you But but who are the other organizations wipers?

You probably have several in front of you right now for

We have several that are waiting and then we have some that I've approved that have historically happened. So, we have um just a few examples. Run Norwalk through the chamber is using Macinich parking lot. That's approved. Um Hometown Pride is waiting for an answer on Fourth of July and Musicfest. Mama is waiting for an answer on their lunches in the parks. Um the library utilizes um the pool for their reading program and then some shelter time in City Park as well. um the school district which again that's a reciprocal thing so there's some different nuance there um and then looks like Martin Sale elementary has also historically used so there's that kind of covers all of it and all of it is repetitive from year to year so I could keep moving forward with what's status quo for that until we make a decision okay or I can hold a little longer and the organizations already know they're waiting so

I think there's no status quo what you have in the past but we're going to possibly change in the future with that. All right, we're going to move on. Uh let's item number 8B have public hearing on proposed fiscal year 2027 budget for the city of Norwalk, Iowa. So, we'll open up public hearing at 7:09 p.m. Gan, I'm going to turn it over to you. Thank you, mayor. Um, just one thing I was going to mention about I think the further research re to make sure that they qualify for the LMI. Is that what

I like like you said we have a million for this, we have 250 for this like what like what do we think we have that is like buffer so to say, right? because if it's nothing I mean we have a couple that we haven't earmarked yet um you know Wayne can always find water projects to work on but there will be like some income requirement information from you just like uh organizational I'm assuming you get income levels from people anyway just want to you know that's how we qualify that that's that's information that'll need to come back with conduct further research.

Thank you. Um Luca is helping me with the presentation again. Um so I thought I would just start. Um first of all, you've heard you all sitting up here have heard this information. Staff has heard this information. Um I know it's redundant, but it's a public hearing. So um I'm going to try to just go through some and we have some public here too. That's kind of nice.

Yeah. Um, so I'll just go through some quick stats. Um, our Norwok's assessed valuation grew 100% assessed valuation grew by 17.75% which is pretty astounding uh from 1.8 billion to 2.2 billion. Um, now our taxable growth grew about nine a little over 9%. And this this factor is, you know, this most critical with regards to budget numbers and our ability to pay for things. So we kind of hit a couple milestones for Norwok. We hit over two billion with assessed value and over a billion with taxable value. And um that's res the that's with tiff. you know, tiff is about 158 million um but 925 million in um residential value and commercial and industrial value. So anyway, kind of a cool numbers for us to hit. Um and even though we are growing that much, we do have a limitation from 2023, state law changed how much um of that taxable growth we can capture. So we are capturing about 5.9% of that. So basically reducing us by about 3%. Um as you know if a city has a growth of 6% or higher then tax revenues are reduced by 3%. So um we had about 382,000 in new money in our general fund this year. Just to give you an example last year our tax rate was 763 per thousand. Now, uh, in our general fund at 741, we would be getting about 200,000 more with that growth. If we would have been at the 810 limit, we'd be getting about 260,000 more. That's kind of the financial differences. Uh, roll back, residential roll back, which is established by the state, decreased 2.89% from 47.43

to 44.53%. This is the second lowest of all time. Um, this basically means Norwok needs to grow by 3% just to stay on top of roll back under the current legislation. So, those are just some quick facts. Um, slide three, you're already there. Uh, that the tax rate breakdown. It kind of gives you the year-over-year from 26 to 27. Again, that 22 cent decrease uh general fund that's mandated reduced. Uh, 1 cent uh we're up in our insurance, 4 cents special revenues. Um and then we kept the levy the same um in our and we put that 17 cents in our debt service levy. Basically, this is shifting the money. Um by doing that, we can use the money for more capital improvements. So like infrastructure or equipment, things of that nature. Um if you would go to the next slide, please. This gives us a summary of our general fund expenses. Uh the state breaks these breaks it down into categories even though we may not u break them down that specifically. Um it's it's it's similar but somewhat different. Uh for them uh public safety is police, fire, EMS, building and dispatch services through Westcom. Uh public works is roads, bridges, sidewalks, street lighting, snow removal, garbage and recycling. Health and Human Services budget is we give some money to the cemetery every year. Impact and then Hera gets um about 16,000. Culture and recreation is library, parks, recreation programming, our sports complex and the pool. Um community and economic development is one fund area, those two departments. And then finally, general government and that is administration and that includes

city manager, city clerk, finance, human resources, our IT department, our legal department, um and then elected officials. Um that budget's about 13.1 million. Um in the budget document, uh I added the detailed expenses and revenues for the general fund. I think at our first uh work session, Andy, you mentioned the requests were seemed way more than 382,000, which in fact they were. Um so I was wanted to show the revenue side to kind of give a clearer picture of um that portion of the budget. Other revenues can include uh license and permits, ambulance fees, ambulance contracts we have with and Martinsdale, grants, um interest income, intergovernmental reimbursements, and fieldhouse and pool revenues. These help offset increases. Um slide five and six is basically a year-over-year comparison of the general fund, which is fairly consistent. Um, there was a 2% increase to community development and economic development, a 1% reduction to public safety and general government. And basically the reason is the hotel motel tax rebates. Um, it's kind of a pass through. So it increased the economic development budget because we had to have a place to pay it out of, but it's coming into the general fund. So even though it increased that budget, it was basically a wash. Um slide seven uh just shows the road use tax fund and then enterprise funds which are water, sewer and storm water. These are managed by public works at Wayne's area. Road use is about 2.2 million. Water is about 4.7 million. We have a 9.5 million in their CIP that is due to um the water tower.

Um and then we had some other capital projects. sewer is 7.9 million. Four million of this is for the North River sewer trunk. The TIFF geo bonds that we're authorizing tonight will offset 4 million of this. So that uh fund will be replenished. Um and then storm water is 1 million. And then I just put a little a few little things about each of those. Slide eight is our capital improvements plan. Our total CIP is about 20 a little over 25 million. 9.5 million will be general obligation bonds that pay for capital improvement projects. We will issue this January 2027 or after similar to what we did this year. Um, a little under two million in local option sales and service taxes, pays for police vehicles and equipment, street and parks maintenance and improvements, parks equipment, fire equipment, fire truck set aside. We're putting 150,000 um aside for four or five years for a firet truck and then at the end of that time frame either 28 29 or 30 whatever whenever we pull trigger um to uh get pay for that firetruck or borrow the money for it. Uh we'll have some cash to put down. Um IT equipment uh we cyber security uh is a big thing. We're spending uh money there for things that we need to hopefully keep our um software in good shape and uh the De Moine airport expansion financial contribution. This is the final year for that. So, we'll be done with that. Um and then I think we're uh we have a planning study. We have a couple to choose from that council will be looking at. We have 5.6 million in public works projects. We do like street maintenance, water, sewer, storm water systems, and improvements. uh the tiff LMI fund about a million in there you know marked um 50,000 I have in the

housing rehab for this year but there is another we did put another 200,000 the next that's why I said 250,000 for the next four years um and then 7 million is uh project west improvements in our budget our capital budget these are development driven and they're paid from other sources so either grants or private financing you wouldn't mind slide nine Um, this one's a Sorry. Go ahead. The Project West for somebody that's saying, um, hey, you're not incentivizing those, we still, even if we have dollars coming in privately to help pay, we still have to show that coming in, but we also show it being spent. Correct.

There is a revenue coming in. Um, this is the expense part of it. Capital, and then we have a revenue.

That was my question from earlier on the year, right? Um slide nine is an example um with the the 1488 maintaining that tax levy. Uh on an average home value we uh use 375,000. This was a assessment year, a re-evaluation year. So we went ahead and put uh two 10% as an example. So the $375,000 home went to 4125. see what the roll back would do by going down almost 3%. Um, it shows the annual amount, the monthly amount. The annual uh increase is about $87 a year or about $7 a month, which is about a 3.28% increase. A good example that if you get a 10% increase, your taxes aren't necessarily going up 10%. Truly three and a quarter.

And what was the inflation rate? Do you do you do you know I just thought of this so I don't know what our right around 3%. Um when I went to that budget session in November I want to say it was just over 3%. So we're we're kind of going at inflation. Right. Right. This is where I think it would be interesting have a slide. I don't know how you do it and I talked to Lindsay about this. Right. is there's this and then there's the to Luke's earlier point a few meetings ago there's the the homeowners insurance right like typical cost of 26 versus or 25 versus 26 or 26 27 it's not 3% right it's like

28% or whatever right to be able to show somebody like your taxes for your house went up $7 and your home insurance went up I don't know $112 a month or whatever that number is right like people don't get that and I don't know how we make a graphic that shows that We we have been working on it. I uh Andy, I don't know if you've seen it, but I did send you a draft which we have some more changes to it, but we are working on that a way to to create that draft. In fact, showed that to uh Representative Fett when she came to meet with us and she even had a few suggestions to even simplify it more to clearly state that to folks.

I do agree that we should hammer that home. Um, you know, my research was it's been over 90% over a fiveyear. the compounded amount. So, I think people really need to understand when they see an increase, it's not necessarily simply property taxes, but more and less coverage. Yeah, you pay more, get less.

Um, I'm done with the slides. I just wanted to mention um something about our fund balances. I also added another spreadsheet um based on some questions you had early on, Andy, about just fund balances and things like that. Um, and it it showed the audited fund balances from last year. It has our reestimated numbers, which can change, but they're fairly um, solid. And then it has the 2027 numbers. Just trying to provide a picture of the overall budget, all the funds and and you know, the ins and out of those. Um, the city does try to maintain reserves at a reasonable level. Um, we try to ensure money is available for contingencies and unplanned expenses. And it is important. I think I've said this before um to investors that um and it's a highly weighted factor when we look at borrowing money. Just had a credit call yesterday and we talked about fund balances and that is something that they look at and it's it's fairly strong weighted uh factor. Um I thought about talking about some of the legislation and the potential changes but um it's consistently changing. So, um I think just to note that there likely is to be some changes for the next budget cycle um which will be 28. Uh finally, I just want to say uh a lot of work goes into the budget and I appreciate um the elected officials being on the committees um and staff working with me uh and Luke trying to um prioritize projects, understanding there is always more need than funding. Um we're always taught not to use absolutes, but in this case it's absolutely true. We just don't have enough money that I everybody needs. So, um, with that, if you have any questions of me or any, uh, staff, we'd be happy to answer those.

Any questions? Lindsay, have we received any oral or written comments on the budget? Not. Okay. Any public comments? Hearing none, we will go ahead and close public hearing at 7:24 PM. Item 8 C is a resolution approving the fiscal year 2027 budget for the city of Norwok Iowa. So, we just had a public hearing on about this budget. Anything else to add, Gene? Um, not on that. No. Okay. Uh, discussion from council. Motion. Second. Okay. Got a motion for Bourjon, seconded by Mi. Any further discussion? Lindsay, would you call?

Appreciate all the work the staff did. Appreciate the sacrifices they made in order to make things work out. Great. Okay. Council member Miki. Yes. Porter. Yes. Bjon. Yes. Cool. Yes. All right. That motion carries. That was quite the face. Uh item 8 D resolution approving the city lock fiscal year 2026 reestimated in fiscal year 27 budget transfers. So during the public hearing well in the packet there was also amended 26 budget transfers. Jean, you want to go over those or

just real quick, this is a state administrative rule that was put into place about five or six years ago. Um it just has to be a separate motion by the council. Um, and they want you to show a picture of the uh transfers of the fund it comes out of, the fund it goes into, and an explanation of that. So, this is what that does. Any questions for the council? Motion. Okay. Motion by seconded by Borjon. Any further discussion? Lindsay with the police call roll. Council member Porter. Yes. Borjon. Yes. Cool. Yes. Miniki, yes.

All right. Motion carries. Item 8E is a resolution setting the date for sale of general obligation corporate purpose bonds series 2026 and authorizing the use of a preliminary official statement in connection therewith. Uh this bond's going to fund CIP projects council's approved. Jean, I'll turn it over to you.

This action uh just sets the bond sale date for May 7th. It authorizes the use of the preliminary official statement that you received about a week ago which shows the picture of Norwok's financials for potential investors to evaluate the structure and credit quality of this transaction. As the mayor mentioned, it'll pay for some CIP. Um we are going to put in some ADA compliant sidewalks. We're buying two plow trucks with attachments for public works and this about 5.6 six million to fund uh the remaining portion of the North River sewer main project. All right, questions from council.

So, I have more of a process question and George and I were talking about this beforehand, right? Like when Wayne does a project, we bid out whatever that is to whoever, right? And like we we do the same thing here over and over again. And I think the question and I don't understand this process well enough, right? So that's why I was talking to George hoping he could influence me since he's been on council longer than I have. Is there a way to go about this to help save the city money and and more bid it out or is it or we feel like we're doing the right thing year in year out the way we've done it? Well, this project was bid out a year ago, was it? Are are you talking about bidding the project or bidding the financing? Financing.

Financing. Okay. Um, yeah, I do think going to the public market is the best um, for this situation and we look at every situation differently. Um, I do think we get the best bang for our buck. I think we spend the least amount of money by going to a public u bidding process. We have I'm not going to say we haven't ever done a private sale. We have u when we thought it was uh the market was really at a point where we could do that. I think we did that 2016. what would make the differentiation to go private? So like the company I one of the companies I work for is a big private credit company and I think lending is moving towards a private credit market. Um sorry George uh

it has already but but so like when when do we make the determination of of public credit versus private credit being a good thing or not good thing, right? Like that's a that's a tough thing and or do we bid it both ways to see where we get a a better perspective? Right.

Yeah. I will say honestly I do lean on PFM a lot um because they were involved they've been involved since I've been here and when we did the private they recommended and the rates were really good at the time. It just it just um was a different market than it is now. I kind of look at my counterparts and see what they're doing um in the market. Um and you know I know we've had a person indicate they can save us money per bond. that's just such a small amount. Um, you know, that could be made up real easily on the basis points and you know,

that's where I wonder the basis points are on a big number though, right? And so that that's my question if it makes makes difference, but like I don't know the process well enough, right? And George, like maybe we should go to lunch and understand this more, but that that was maybe my concern. I don't know if you have any other thoughts or opinions there, but

just to understand the difference between going out to public bid and probably having somebody just pick it up and then try to sell it. You know what? I would recommend that we have Matt and Suzanne come down and go through that with you and can they can show you financial differences between if you go like you know what Scott's talking about per bond and then the difference of what that means on a basis five basis points or 10 basis points on a particular transaction and kind of go through some of these details because I think that would be very helpful. works. I'm not sure.

I maybe the other council members know better than I, right? But I don't understand the entire process. And I think George used kind of the same thing, right? You don't understand it as well. Yeah. We would probably all learn a little bit more each time. Be a good idea. Okay. Awesome. Anything else? Questions or other questions? comments from council or public comment. Can I get a motion? Motion. So, tell me then again what we're approving. We're approving using we're selling this is um authorizing the sale on May 7th and then using that preliminary official document. Okay.

Uh to go out to the bond market investors can take a look at that and review our financial. Okay. But then we'll have a work session. You said doing the understanding that. Okay. Okay. And yeah, because then on the 21st. So we actually will sell uh the bonds on the seventh and then you'll approve them that night. Yep. Okay. Or or pass for this one, but for future definitely. Now, we probably won't do the work sessions until later. Okay. Second. Thank you. Okay. Okay. So, I got a motion by Mi, seconded by Porter. Any further discussion? Lindsay, would you please call roll? Council member Bourjon, yes. Yeah. Miki,

yes. Porter, yes. All right. Motion carries. Uh, item 8F is a resolution initiating resoning referring the resoning proposal to the Mohawk Planning and Zoning Commission and setting a public hearing regarding a zoning amendment to chapter 175A. 21 regarding exceptions to yard requirements. Luke, I'm just going to turn this over to you.

Yeah, sure. Um, so this is regards to the Main Street School. Um, Main Street School owns one uh building on Main Street. They purchased the house uh directly north of them. And we've been working with them to try to get that house to be compliant to be able to be used as a second school building. um which necessitated some building code and fire code review. Um the fire code, I believe, required a uh an exterior uh fire escape that would be essentially a set of stairs that would come off the side of the building. Um however, when we run that projection of the structure through the zoning code, it goes into a setback that's not allowed. So, what we're looking at doing is adjusting the non-residential use setback in the residential districts. Okay. Comments, discussion, questions, council.

Okay. So, this would be our effort to make it fit on what they got available for space. Correct. Yeah. Send it to planning and zoning to make sure. Yeah. See what their recommendation is. Okay. any public? Why wouldn't this be just a variance?

They could ask for a variance. Um, we would, uh, tend to say that it's not a hardship. Um, we take a pretty hard line with our hardships and everything. And, uh, you know, just because you can't, uh, build a staircase there doesn't necessarily mean it's a a hardship. um specifically, you know, um so yeah. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you. I want to make a motion to approve. I'll make a motion. Second. Okay. Motion by Cool. Seconded by Miki. Any further discussion? Would you call roll? Council member Cool. Yes. Mine. Yes.

Harder. Yes. Ordon. Yes. All right. Motion carries. Item 8G, first reading of an ordinance amending chapter 177 rates and fees of the Norwok Code providing for amended fees for park and wreck volleyball program. So park and recre asking amended fees for the adult wreck volleyball program. Chris, I'll turn it over to you.

Yeah. Um a similar request came before you all towards the end of last year for our youth basketball program with moving um some of our programs into the fieldhouse. We are making an effort to cover the court costs um with our program fees and in getting ready to advertise volleyball for this year, we realized that we need to make some adjustments here. Um we compared our current fees uh to other programs that we offer in the fieldhouse, other adult and youth programs and other volleyball leagues in um the metro and the court costs and determined that the fee should probably be somewhere um about three times as high as it currently is right now. It's pretty low. Um, but we don't want to put that burden on our participants right away and deter people from signing up. So, we're going to take a gradual approach. And so, this before you is just to increase the fee to $100 for the six to seven week season for the teams to participate.

Questions, comments, council, public input. Get a motion to approve the first reading. Motion motion by Bourjon. Anybody want to second it? Second. Okay. Seconded by Cool. Any further discussion? Lindsay, would you please call roll? Council member Mine? Yes. Porter? Yes. War? Yes. Cool. Yes.

All right. Motion carries. Item 8H is final reading of an ordinance amending the official zoning maps of Norwalk, Iowa. by reszoning all R1 zone lots and plats David Gordon Heights Westwood Estates plats one and two Norwok Nolles plats one two and three from R1 single family single family residential to RF founders residential so we have some situation in these areas where some t some things were built to what was code at the time but that now don't meet code some of these are in condition that need to be replaced new code means that they would need to move move it due to setbacks uh which is a burden to the homeowners We had a public hearing on March the 5th on this item and the second reading was approved at our April 2nd meeting. Luke, anything else?

Nothing new. All right. Comments, questions, discussion from council or public comment? Motion. Second. Motion by Cool, seconded by Bourjon to approve the final reading. Lindsay, which call roll? Council member Porter. Yes. Bjon. Yes. K. Yes. Mini. Yes.

All right. Motion carries. Item 8 I is final reading of an ordinance amending the official zoning map of the city of Nakok, Iowa by changing the bulk regulations for accessory structures in RE1 single family rural Estates R1 single family residential and RF founders residential zoning districts and amending zoning ordinance chapter 175A.29.2 accessory buildings and residential zoning districts. So this go this goes along with our previous item. Second reading was passed at our April 2nd meeting. Luke, anything else? Nothing new. All right. Questions, comments from council to public comments. Motion. Second.

All right. Motion by Miki to approve final reading. Second by Cool. Lindsay. Would you please call roll? Council member Bourjon. Yes. Cool. Yes. Mine. Yes. Porter. Yes. All right. Motion carries. Item nine, future agenda items. So, the purpose of this is for council to give direction to staff by way of motion uh to have items placed on future agenda. It's not for discussion of the merits of that subject matter. That's why we're putting it on on an agenda. So, anybody have any future agenda items tonight? Just the one we already talked about.

Okay, sounds good. All right. Well, moving on. Item 10, council inquiries and staff updates. I'd like to remind everybody that this is portion of the meeting is much less formal. You hear some back and forth banner and joking around. We believe this can build camaraderie and cohesiveness between staff and council. Uh update for the envision 2035 is in your packet. Does anybody have any questions about that? All right, Jenn. Kelsey

just glad we can do Zoom. Hello from South Carolina down there. Probably uh F uh just good lunch today. It was a really good presentation. I appreciated it. Thanks community development for the effort they put into that. Yeah, Luke Paris. Nothing new. All right, Gary. Nothing new. Thank you.

We have a couple projects going on, at least when it's not raining. We have a couple projects going on. The West High Road subdrain is about 50% complete already. The Colonial Circle is about three4s done. They're be moving over to Colonial Parkway. if you saw signs. Uh next week they're going to shut down Colonial Parkway between Cedar and the highway for two to three weeks, weather dependent. Uh you might have seen today there's some crack sealing going on around the community. Uh contractor moved in today for that. And then um I won't get into it tonight, but we have a new PCI rating from the DOT. Some of you may not know what that is, but they come in every few years and they assess our street network and they assign each roadway segment a PCI rating. Uh they send us new data from last year. So I'll I'm working on compiling that GIS and I'll bring bring that forward here in the future.

Cool. Thank you, Tony. Nothing else for me tonight, Mayor. Thanks, Chief. Um thank you for everybody that supported the pancake breakfast that was on April 4th. We served um 950 people and we raised almost $8,000 for our firefighters association. So, thank you to everybody that was there for the community for the support. Um and then it was on the um packet for tonight, but the fire department was awarded a $5,000 grant from the Warren County Philanthropic Partnership um from for some technical rescue equipment. So, we have one of our lieutenants, our grant writer, so thank him for all this work on it. All right. Thank you. Chief, nothing today. Jean, nothing. Holly, nothing. Wow. Carissa,

nothing. Jean, just real quick, I did pass out the May 26 library program calendars. Uh, it's a little smaller month because we're preparing for June and July, which are really big. And also, uh, if you don't have your tickets yet for the Cherish Library fundraiser, the library foundation would love to have you support that. And there's flyers for that as well. And there's also a silent option if you can't make it to the event. We'd appreciate the support. Thank you, Lindsay. Nothing.

And uh two things. I had Metro Waste last night. That organization continues to just like like they're great. Like it's a good people. They they kill it. They're doing a really good job. Um I requested that we get two more battery boxes in town. Um I posted on my Facebook page like Norwalk's not leading, but we're not last. We're kind of right in the middle of collecting batteries, but you know, for our size, we're doing pretty good. Um Luke Herd from Fairway. No, I reached out to Reynolds Kramer. Um, he's saying possibly. Um, and maybe possibly at other fairways, too. So, that's cool. Okay. Um, and I don't think we've heard back from Ace Hardware yet, right? But I have more details in a picture and other things if we want to show them, right? So, we did.

You did. Okay.

Um, so that's really good. And they just have a lot of really good programs going on. There's actually a battery bill at at the capital right now that they're lobbying for that's really interesting. We'll see if anything happens there. There, you know, the legislator want to get out of there, right? So, the better deal might not happen at all. And then the other one that's just interesting, our men's group who Scott is also, he's a partner in that. Um, we met at the Merkantile and the Diligent people walked us through the entire uh aggraclid plan and I had never seen that kind of soup to nuts and was just really like it's very interesting that they're trying to do on that whole aggraclid thing. So, it was a good learning ending for me. I was at the uh CIW finance audit committee today and Tammy Vansson who was here last month uh mentioned oh it was very enjoyable this is the best place to come to see a city council meeting I go okay and that I got busy had to leave and so I couldn't come back around to ask her why but she was very positive about it I'll leave it at that I'll ask her next time so

okay I'm just going to echo what uh Jean said earlier. I'd love to get an update on legislation, which would primarily be about property tax. Uh but I have no updates to give other than the model that we received from the League of Cities that you have a model on all three of the property tax bills. I'm not going to say it's worthless now, but with all the amendments, that model does not have the same meaning. So, it just we're so excited for them to make a decision whichever one they're going to pick with whatever amendments. I really hope they take action this session before they get too anxious to get out of there. Uh the chamber presentation today, I also want to back up what Ed said. Uh Jason Brown, Council Member Jason Brown's not here. Uh you could tell that gentleman was a pastor at one point in time. Very well spoken up in front of a

Got a lot of amens, didn't he? He did a good job. And Holly and her team, I know they helped create a lot of that presentation, a lot of those materials. Even Holly was a part of that presentation. Uh I thought it was a pretty good turnout. They did a good job. Uh also, a couple more shoutouts. Uh what is Austin uh what is his official title? He's our training officer.

So Austin Lancaster. So today we did a tabletop emergency uh a mass shooting emergency tabletop. So just a a training scenario. And um Austin and then Sergeant Reed uh were there sitting by the chiefs. And I was very impressed with how well organized uh how they reacted to that that tabletop uh planning things out. Joe was there from public works uh did a good job. The school was there. So Miranda Chadwick, she is the emergency management coordinator. And so she puts this together with Lindsay uh to kind of organize everything and then she steps us through the scenario and essentially puts different individuals on the spot having to make those emergency uh decisions. Uh the school was very impressive. We had the uh the superintendent there, uh his communication staff, and a couple of others. So, it's just mayor was there as part of our C4 team, and he'll take a crucial role if we ever find ourselves, hopefully not, but if we ever find ourselves in that situation. So, this is just one of many trainings and tabletops that we do. I know that even emergency services does a lot more. Um, but it gave me a lot of confidence sitting in that room seeing all of our staff, the way they interact, especially working with the school. It was just very impressive.

I agree.

And I I have them on my list, too, though. Thanks and for putting that together because it was good. Uh, also went to uh Metro Advisory Council or MAC on Tuesday. Uh who was it? Uh Tammy was there. Tammy Manson was there from CIWW uh talking about the changes to the water use plan. Uh it used to be a water shortage plan. We've never been short on water. There's always water in the river. Uh we have a water use plan now. So because we're not we need to use our water properly. Uh so and so that's going to that the water use plan is getting finalized I think and it should be coming to us at some point in time soon. So there's going to be different levels of of alerts within that. So just be aware that that's on its way. That's all I have. I would take I would entertain a motion to adjurnn.

Motion. Second. Okay. Motion approved by Mini. All those in favor say I. I. I. Post same. We're journ 747.