Council - Regular Meeting

Yes, ma'am. Um, the gentleman that's talking to writing right now, he may want to sign that. I'm not sure. [snorts] No. 6:30. Call this meeting to order. 6:30. Call this meeting to order. Roll call. Johnson here. [clears throat] Light here. [laughter]

Bend here. Blows here. And is not here. [snorts]

for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liy and justice for all. [clears throat]

Okay. Well, welcome to 2026. Wouldn't thought we'd be here. This is my first time being a mayor and uh so it's kind of, shall we say, uh intimidating. I'll try not to make too many missteps, but uh I have an experienced potential mayor prom here who will correct me, I hope, keep me in line and correct my missteps. Um when the council members are speaking to me or speaking to the chair, please face me. my hearing aids increase volume but seeing your lips move helps me define words so I hope it won't be too difficult in that case um each one of you comes from a very varied background vast experiences in different places your your life experiences are all varied and you all bring something to this group and I really really want to hear what each one of you has to say whether in a meeting or outside the meeting. We have differences and sometimes we don't agree. But even in the disagreement, we'll find points where we do agree. And seeing someone else's point of view increases our ability to accept things

for how the other person sees it. With that, let's move on to the meeting. Thank you very much. [snorts] public input. We have Richard Smith. [clears throat] I see here in the for tonight on F you're looking at agreeing to you're looking at proposal to borrow money up to 940,000. What is a general obligation core purpose loan and why? Thank you. Uh move on the consent agenda. Do I have a motion? A motion [clears throat] to consent agenda. Second. Are there any questions on the consent agenda? If there are no questions, go to a vote. So just to repeat, Jeff motioned and Shane seconded. Sing Junior.

Councilman uh Bendle. Yes. Councilman Light. Yes. Councilman Johnson. Yes. Councilman Baski. Yes. I'm sorry. I You're good. [laughter]

Council person, I I I need to correct my and staff reports. Public works director is written. Ben County Sheriff is written, I presume. I I thought I saw them. Uh fire department, no building inspector report. City administrator, did you have anything verbally? Do I have what? Do you have something verbally?

Oh, I will probably all night, but I tried just summarizing a few of the things that um I've been working on this year 27 budget. So, that has taken a lot of time. Um we will be talking about most of the items. We do have winter um training coming up that the deputy clerk and myself will attend um that's put on by the Iowa Municipal Financial um association. Um had a really good engineering meeting yesterday that was quite a big final projects which the pay apps would show in the consent agenda. So, the big Miller overlay um is finalized. Pollinator Park phase one is um finalized. The two Union Avenue demo came down Monday. Um we'll be working on phase two and finalizing the designs there for phase two of the pollinator parks. Uh, our comprehensive plan steering committee had their first meeting in December and I sent out the updates for that as well as a social or website post. And we're still working in um with legal on 305 Wood Street building um downtown in the downtown district.

City engineer, you have verbal. Let me just emphasize what Jennifer said. We got a couple pay apps are being finalized on the consent agenda. Projects completed, wrapping them up. Um the pump house and tank are pretty much uh winterized and kind of sitting still at this point. And hopefully come March, we can get back with house work and finalizing the tank project.

And old business. [clears throat] We don't have any new business. Mayor appoints prom. [clears throat] Council person Bendle will be our mayor prom. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, consider [clears throat] resolution 20 2618 depositories and authorizing signatorries of the same for the city of Roana. Do I have a motion? I'll make a motion to approve resolution 202618, the name of dispens. And I'll second.

Any discussion? No discussion. Take a vote. Vaski. Yes. Council person Johnson. Yes. Council person Light. Yes. Council person. Yes.

Consideration of request to approve written consent for 300 North Union. the little bit of background on that. I'm going to have the city administrator speak to uh how that consent came to be so you have something a bit of an understanding.

Yes. Okay. So, um, the office has [clears throat] a request, um, that came in for a property owner here on 300 North Union Avenue. The, um, request actually came from the grandson, uh, to take either the grandson, so you can ask, great grandson, but so the whole family. Um, and the property owner uh, we did get some further clarification. mayor uh contacted to find out further clarification on um the weapon that they would like to have discharged on the property which is a BB gun air rifle if I'm correct on that. Um BB gun air rifle and he would like to take his grandson on um the property to hunt it is a 5 acre property to hunt rabbit during rabbit season. Um, so of course per the ordinance, the property owner needs to have a written consent for this because it is to discharge a weapon within the city limits. Um, so since I have not done this before, I did provide the council with a two sample written um I'll just call it a written council consent to discharge BB gun rifle on the private property. Um the feedback that came back from council member Bendel was that if we do look at providing um a council written consent to do that during uh rabbit season which we're going to say would be from after tonight's meeting until February 28th that the proposal would be the two samples but one of the samples actually includes a date range. So, the written

consent would only be for the date range that they're requesting for the rabbit, which I see on here that the sample that I put says January 18th. I would assume if this is approved, it would start as soon as tomorrow, if that's the case, through February 28th, 2026. The second sample letter simply just leaves out the date, which was the one that I had initially created. Um I know there was a concern previously uh with the particular property in regard to the nuisance uh because it has been a property that has been a nuisance property. Um, and I don't know, chair, if you would like council member Bendel to maybe give a little more background on that or if everyone's been able to keep up with their email. I don't know.

Would you like to elaborate personal? I mean I um I would say separate from the merits of this request. That property has been we've we've had u they've received nuisance abatement requests for believe there's an updated home media building as well. Um to my knowledge they haven't been corrected or abated. The nuisance hasn't been abated. Um just merely pointing that out as we we've requested and not received. um it's not been taken care of. So um that that's kind of an aside to this. I think um I don't know if we want to discuss that. That might be a whole another topic to to go down. Um but I think the merits of the request for discharging the gun on city property is probably a a singular discussion we could have.

Private property. Sorry. Yeah. Correct. Apologies. So, that's just merely what I was thinking in terms of that property itself since it is um [clears throat] it's I don't know if you drove past it, you can see for yourself what what concerns have been. So, but that's like I said that's kind of a different topic of this request specifically. So, okay. May I take a motion to consider the request? Make a motion to consider the request.

I second that. You say yes. Is there discussion on the item?

I have just a couple I guess. Um, and just invest. I mean, obviously it's we all know it's a BB gun rifle, whatever you want to call it, but it's still discharging a firearm. Um, I know there is. I don't know. I was trying to uh get to that. Didn't quite get to what area that is zoned. Is that commercial? Is that residential zoning? Does anyone know on that? And obviously there is a commercial business closed which state laws you can't discharge any firearm within 200 yards. I don't know if anybody's measured the distance of that

permission to speak. Um so to answer the first part of your question I believe it is still zone light industrial. Um, the second piece of that, I personally have not measured the 200 yard, but the person that will be on the property with his grandson did mention as he does work for the DNR um that he was aware that there is the 200 um yard between other structures. So, I did not personally measure it, but he did mention the that he is aware of the law um with the 200 yards

and this this [clears throat] did did we clarify it the owner did submit the request or it wasn't just right

so I ended up correct so the initial request came in from the son, the grandson to take his son [clears throat] on the property. I did reach out to the actual property owner and spoke with him and his wife to get the verbal consent to that they agreed to request that the weapon be discharged on the property. And they agreed that that was what they were requesting the council to [clears throat] allow their son or grandson go on the property to discharge the BB gun air rifle. They also called it a BB gun, but I'm saying BB gun rifle because I know the mayor did get clarification. I

I'll step outside my mayorship momentarily. Uh during discussion, he described the weapon as a fivep pump gun. And so BB gun, it will shoot BB's, but it's actually an air rifle when you start pumping them up like that. So it I was concerned that they were going to wound rabbits and that's that that's why I started inquiring as to the capabilities of this air rifle. I think perhaps they described it as a BB gun to shall we say minimize the danger quotient. That's the that's another concern I would have is just what liability does it open the city up to if we grant them grant the permission if there is an incident. I'm not I'm not implying anything. Just if it did occur, would there be any do we do we need to have a full harmless list on attached to any authorization granted? I I don't [clears throat] know the just just thought of that. But [clears throat] um you want to make sure both the uh laws contain etc. Um, have you have you read what we're looking at? So, if they're if they're complying with the laws, that's that's one thing. If they're not complying with the laws, then they're in trouble on top of that,

right? So, because it is private property, I don't I don't believe that the city would then be held liable. It is it goes back to they're doing the request. So if they break the law, that would be whether they're at their residential or here at their private or private property, commercial or residential, but they would be held liable. So like they didn't stay within the 200 yards and they shot the weapon and it broke a window, they're still held liable for that um as property owners just as any of us would be. I mean, I personally don't have an issue with it. Um, especially with the dates being clarified, but that's my two cents.

Well, for I I will I will ask for a vote, yes or no, on discharging the weapon and then a second vote on whether or not to apply the dates. So, Just just to clarify, okay,

how how to proceed here, but it's entirely up to the council's vote, how this goes. My concern with not attaching any type of time frame to it is when does it end? Is it indefinite with the property? Is it indefinite with the current ownership of the property? without time boxing. I feel like [clears throat] it it does leave some ambiguity as to what we've authorized. Is it forever on that that address they can discharge? You know, that that that was my main point of the of limiting it to or requesting a limit to when they could actually discharge for rabbit hunting. Yeah, I feel that the dates the dates would be fine with uh with the rabbit season off as far as you know staying without at least 200 yards away from any structures property other property having issues. Council person Johnson, do you have some input?

No. I would make a motion to approve the request to discharge the [clears throat] BB gun rifle on the private property for Revit funding. And I given we have a motion to make it one vote. Blaski. Yes. Light. Yes. Bend. No.

Johnson. Yes.

Motion is passed. to approve the written consent for 300 union with the date constraints [snorts] [clears throat] consideration of request to initiate ali right away vacation process. Southeast Washington Avenue. Do I have a motion to discuss that?

I'll motion to discuss initiation of rightway vacation. Second. [clears throat] [clears throat] Any discussion on that? So, this would just be merely going through the legal process, correct? To correct.

Yep. So we actually I did provide um I know the email that I sent out I did provide yesterday during the um engineering meeting I did request that we have a new map which I attached here um so that you can see a little better that oh it's so hard to show this but [snorts] the um green space here on Southeast Washington Avenue for the right of way. Um that's being requested by Mr. Jacobson. Did he you did come back in? Okay. I just wanted to make sure I didn't have to go get you. Um so we we did discuss this uh with the engineer. We've also [clears throat] gone through the utility maps and the easements for utilities. Um, so what we'd like to move forward with the vacation process. So this is simply just to get the the council's approval to move forward with the process. Um, and then of course it would go to PNZ and then public hearing and all those things. So we have other steps unless you guys have questions for me. Um, or for the engineer. He was part of the process as well yesterday when we discussed it. Would [clears throat] it make sense to also consider the other property there? Are they interested in that?

So that will be part of the process. So right now you will just make the motion that we would um approve initiating the right of way vacation process. So when I included the um ordinance in here, you'll see that once it goes to PNZ, there will be a notice to vacate and then there's also findings required, which one of the findings required would be that there will be a notorized consent, written consent from the abunding properties um that the person wanting um to purchase the property will need to be getting the written consent of above neighbors. to do so. So again, this is just to initiate that process to start um because there will be expenses to the property the current property owner for survey and other different things that they would have to do with their attorney as well. Any other discussion? Are we ready to vote? I'll make a motion to initiate the process of alley right away vacation process.

And I'll second

yes person. Yes. Congress. Yes.

Congress Johnson. Yes. Set dates for special meetings on Monday, April 6 at 6 PM to consider resolution to set the date for the public hearing approve proposed property tax levy relief for 27 budget and meeting number two set special meeting for Monday, April 20th, 2026 at 6:30. :30 p.m. Hearing on the fiscal year 27 budget adoption. Do I have a motion? A motion to approve the dates for meeting one and meeting two.

We're at Can I Sorry, Chair. Can I clarify something?

So, just to be clear, um we are setting the date for the April 6th meeting. Um, and I just put B on there so that you know that we have to actually have two completely separate meetings if you remember from last year as a state requirement. So for B, we will not have the resolution for that until the April 6th meeting. So that's why you only have the one resolution which will be to set the date. So, as we go through our budget sessions, um March 5th, I believe, is when we we need to have our property tax levy ready. So, um to the county so that they can do their publications. So, this is simply for the first one and the B is just letting as that reminder that there will be two separate meetings. So, the second one to set the date for April 20th, that resolution will be on April 6th.

Okay. Thank you. I'll second. Any discussion? Have a vote. Council person. Yes. Council person. Yes. Council person White. Yes. Council person Johnson. Yes. and capital improvement plan fiscal year 27 projects. Do we have a motion to discuss that?

I'll make a motion to discuss the capital improvement plan for this week 27. discussion.

Okay. Um so this was a lengthy part of our engineering meeting yesterday. So I'd like to provide as much information as we can. So, um, in your budget binders that we'll look at later, as you know, we, the city council developed the capital improvement plan that is for as our guiding. I like to use that as our guide. Um, where we went through and prioritized all the capital improvement projects within the within the city. And that plan is 2025 through 2029. So, um, I provided a memo to kind of walk through some of those things, but I did want to further clarify after some questions when I sent the memo out regarding the two upcoming projects. So, the first one is uh the overlay for 30th Avenue, which would be highway 150 to Deer Run Drive. Um, initially that estimated cost of course which would have been like 24 20 24 25 um was $320,000 when we got those estimates from the engineer when we were developing the plan. Um that particular project is $363 for the city engineer which would include the compounded inflation of 4% to construction cost for 2027. And I'll get a little more in depth than that. The second project that we're looking at um is the I like to call it a safe routes to school project which we had discussions about a couple years ago in developing the plan which would include construction of sidewalk along South Street and after the engineering meeting yesterday it only makes sense

that this actually would be from Shiloh Vista Avenue to Ash Avenue. Um, and the initial estimated cost a couple years ago was $494,000 with the increase uh for the city engineer for compounded inflation of 4% construction costs to the 2027. Um, those are the two projects that that I would like to discuss. back when we prioritized these projects. Um we had estimated we had I don't actually I don't even know that we really had maps or p what do we call these concepts just concept

concept plans or exhibits

so I I [clears throat] have included um from Holland Hall the 30th Avenue overlay which I believe if it's not right there in there it should be it was in the email copy for everyone Um so with this project I think the important part is in order for us to move forward I think we always need to understand that we're moving forward with um a a general obligation um corporate bonds we would do this without the understanding of whether or not we would have outside funding sources. So, um, and then of course as these projects go, we would, um, have have that financial pieces available. We do have a couple of things that could help us with the funding of these projects. So, I did go with our um public works superintendent to the county and I've had discussions with the county because this particular um 30th Avenue overlay and I get my directions all weird but west is really kind of managed by the county and then of course the east portion is within the city limit. Did I say that right?

The east portion within the city limit. So many years ago with the history of that um probably back when Becca those things were happening um it was a temporary fix to do this chip seal and this then was a shared expense between the county and the um city and of course over the years this temporary has just continued to become temporary. Since then, we have over 250 residents out in that area, and this was one that was prioritized that we need to really have a more permanent um uh solution, which would then lend itself to more of an overlay for this project. So, coming to this meeting, we do those conversations with the county are in place. I do believe that the county will contribute something. We do not know exactly what they would contribute but the city has prioritized this as one of our projects. Um so I feel that whatever the county contributes would be um good for the project. So obviously if that were to happen and the bids come in lower then we would have additional funds or we would need to take out some of that loan or yeah some of that loan. So are there questions about the 30th?

That's a bond. Sorry, the bond. Thank you. And and you have to set the bond a certain amount. Yes.

Yes. So those funds Yes. So the funds will still be there, but if we come into additional dollars, those funds could potentially be used toward a another project that the city would allocate at that [clears throat] time if we were to get the additional anything if we were to get anything from the county. Um, and our date for them to get back to us was after their meeting, which I think I want to say January 20th. We'll know more after January 20th. Um, the second project was the South Street to Ash Avenue, which you really don't have a map of because we really don't have a concept map. But if you Oops. I actually want to put this this way.

We can update. Yeah, we we'll probably we'll probably update this. So, the discussion yesterday for the sidewalks project is anytime you do a sidewalk project, and I'm guessing that this did we say that this is almost a mile? A mile? On both sides, it would be a mile. On both sides, it would be a mile.

It was installed on both sides of South Street down to Shiloh. So I think how we left this yesterday based on the estimate this would be from Shiloh to Ash Avenue and it would be would likely end up being in phases. So the first phase which would be the 545,000 our our hope would be that it will be Shiloh Avenue to Ash Avenue along South Street with one side fully sidewalk for one side. Um then where I believe with the um funding it's not called safe routes anymore. What is it called?

Safe routes for all. safe routes for all. Um that that may come in a second phase because then um [sighs] uh [clears throat] Main Street where the school is, we have those side streets where we would also then likely have additional infrastructure that would take place. So the safe routes grant opportunity I feel would be best as like the second phase of the project which would be the those side streets that would connect the school actually to South Street then um because then we would also likely have um additional infrastructure which right off the top of my head I'm not

I think there's some water man and then some improvements along with it. Um, and then of course the difference between those would be the cost of issuance. So I included Maggie's um, email in there that I sent you, which is the estimates and quotes for um, for the issuing of the bonds. Did I forget anything? That was a lot. [clears throat] That was a lot. So moving on to to [clears throat] how this fits in the capital improvement plan. So back in 2024 25 when the city council was working on that these and some of you may or may not remember because you were probably not on the council at the time but these were also prioritized with Spear Financial so that the city would take on projects when other debts would fall off. So, um, what I wanted to make clear here is that, um, the current debt, which was a 2015 for 880,000, which was a general obligation loan, that will be paid off here in June of 2026, which then frees up that um, debt capacity for the city or the debt service, which Maggie quoted. I think the net debt was likely like 46 to 47,000 there. um which she referenced in her email. So, how we move forward with this would be that in Maggie's email as well as with bond council, we would have to move forward if this is a fiscal year 27 project that we would like to do to line up with our um

financial plan. That timeline would then be setting a date tonight for a public hearing that would take place at the next um council meeting which would be February

11. Thank you. February 11th. So, um, just to reiterate, I'm sure like I did print off all of the information that Maggie had shared in her email, which [clears throat] we'll get back down into the proforma of how that works. Um, how that would impact once I get this into the Department of Management website, if this is approved, then I'll be able to show you exactly how that would impact or not impact the property tax levy. Um, it would, but we also have the other one dropping off, so there would be little to none in terms of a difference there. Hopefully, um, there does that capture a lot of what we discussed yesterday? Do you remember looking at me or other questions that maybe I haven't I know that's a lot. I have a question. So, just to go back, so if we were to set a public hearing, we would be able to plug that in then is what you were saying and we would have that before we would have to decide.

So, that would be my hope. Yes. That I'll be able to get all of this into the Department of Management's website. Um, and the one thing that we probably won't have by February is the insurance. Uh, but we have we'll have an estimate. I'm going to go with an estimate for not only the liability property insurance, but we'll also go with a estimate for the health insurance. So, I think we should have a really good idea of how that would impact the property tax levy for the um hearing. So the um [clears throat] project of doing one side is there one side more optimal than the other. So the the thought is we look at it kind of what side would would be the most cost effective and then focus on doing that as a base bid and then maybe do like an alternate for [clears throat] one block on the opposite side you know maybe a second alternate for a second block. See do as much as we can for whatever is budgeted for that that project is what we've discussed. So, you know, hopefully we can get all of one side and part of the other side um with this project. We just don't know if we can get all both sides of South Street and Endeavor down Endeavor down to or avenue down to Shiloh completed. So the thought was focus on one side the entire length so we at least have one out in place [clears throat] and then do one or two alternates on the opposite side to max out that funding [clears throat] and see as much done as we can.

the estimate of the 545 is that including adding to Shiloh or would that increase to add to Shiloh? I think it I think it would increase it a little bit but then again you know why you know why we focus on doing because the original estimate um back in 24 I think was stopping in endeavor endeavor um but in the last three years a lot of that shy was built out and you'd be living you leaving just a block without sidewalks it didn't make sense and that newer development has sidewalk with when they build the houses that build on the sidewalks into it. So the thought was let's go and get that connected with at least one side of of South Street and Denver in [clears throat] so there's no drainage issues from along south then like

so there is one block that's rural. So what we would have to do um you know whatever side we do the the base project with we would improve that we put curb gutter in and then we pull the covers out of the driveways and we raid that in. We'd have to look to see if we have to put one or not or if the existing roadway can handle that that drainage. But yeah that's a good question. that would be part of, you know, that that one block. We have to look at upgrading that uh that section of roadway from a rural section to an urban section.

With that in mind, there is um I want to say it's like hope all the way to agape the curb and gutters really tore up right in there. I don't know if there's any synergy of [laughter] I don't know if you know what I'm talking about but

I I so Jennifer mentioned you know we had an engineer meeting yesterday and I drove um after the meeting I did drive the section and obviously before meeting and stuff and got on Google maps and kind of looked at it that's a useful tool but it's never as good as going in in person. So, you know, if if council wants to move forward with the project, we would definitely get out to look at some of those details. You know, you know, look at the site more details, but I mean, that's good information to know. I mean, if if it makes sense to you, replace the gutter along with that. It's definitely something that was considered

what you said between hope and and I want to say agape but it goes quite a ways down all of that all that what I guess you call a curb it's it's just messed up curve it's not curve it's just like the waterway if you will yeah the gutter

gutter yeah it's it's really bad on both sides to be honest and that stretch right We can definitely, you know, with the preliminary uh plans, we can look at that and we put that in for, you know, council's consideration and obviously that would be we could do that as an ultimate instead of sidewalk and the southside or something like that if that was something that we desired. And I don't know if Trent had any other ideas with that.

Yeah. replacing that anytime soon with our um storm sewer fund. I don't know. It's It's just really bad down there. So,

um I don't know the answer to that, but I think like Shane said, I don't I don't we brought up the rural part yesterday, but I don't remember like we didn't talk specifically about that. However, the best time to do that would be probably in a project like this, which is why we our first commitment was that we wanted to commit with the funds that were available that we could get the long stretch of sidewalk in with that money and then get those side streets and then possibly the um additional side then as well. So, I definitely feel that that makes sense to address that um issue, but that's way outside my scope to speak on that. So, and for tonight, I mean, really, I mean, I just want to make clear that, you know, I had some questions come up about this agenda topic. And what tonight is is really just setting that date for the public hearing. It's not one way or the other whether or not we're doing this. And

um I think in order for us to have more visibility to what that looks like for our budget, we almost have my understand is we have to have a public hearing be able to even do that. Okay.

And we also want to get the council's permission before we start investing a lot of more um heavy concept maps and engineering costs, things like that before we were to get into that as well. So, um I think most of uh the financial side of it with Maggie, this was very clearly like I would say strategically planned this way in the in the capital plan based on um the meetings that we had been with her as well as ECOG at the same time um to make sure that the the city had the capacity to do that. So, so yes, setting the date is the resolution for today.

Any other concerns? No, I'd make a motion to setting a date for those two capital projects for 2000. [clears throat] And I'll second. We've already had the discussion. So, shall we vote? Bite. Yes. Johnson. Yes. Vendle. Yes.

Yes. [clears throat] Well, that shows that. Do I have a motion to adjourn? Motion to second. All in favor? Anybody? Okay. So, we could take a short recess then before the budget uh session if anyone wants to. for