Board of Aldermen - Regular Meeting

down. Down. I feel down.

I'd like to call this meeting quick order [laughter] and ask everyone to please rise for pledge of allegiance and prayer. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. John, if you lead us in prayer, please. Heavenly Father, we come to you this evening and we just thank you for this time. We we thank you for this community. We just ask that uh everything we say and do in this meeting would bring honor and glory to you. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

All right. Where's the roll call? I am present. Alderwoman Dent present. Aler Kinsey present. Alderman Whan present. Alderman Wchworth present. City administrator Burbridge present. City clerk caller present. City attorney Weber present. Public works director Payne present. Chief of lease Jay. And finance director Stacy Ethan. Economic development director Carrie Cedfield present. Any other city staff? No. Next up is the approval of tonight's agenda. Make a motion approve the agenda. Do I have a second? I second the motion. This time I'll call for the vote. Alderman Whan, yes. Woman Dent,

yes. Ludworth, yes. And Alderman McKenzie, yes. [snorts]

Next up is the consent agenda. Do you have a motion to approve the consent agenda? I make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Uh, do I have a second? I'll second the motion. [snorts] I will call for the vote. Alderman Mackenzie, yes. Alderman Whan, yes. Alderwoman Dent, yes. Alderman Leworth, yes.

We don't have anybody for public comment tonight. Next up, we have board and committee appointments for the library board. Um, Mr. Essenbal has resigned from the the public library board of trustees due to a scheduling conflict and the library board recommends Mr. Conrad Hake fill his vacancy. Who is that? I don't know.

Also, due to the passing of Mr. Harold Hamilton, the library board recommends Katherine Hill to serve in his seat. This time, do I have a motion for those board appointments? I'll make a motion to approve Katherine Hill and Conrad Hate for the library board positions. Do I have a second? I'll second the motion. This time I'll call for the vote. Alderman Kinsey, yes. Alderman Whan, [snorts] yes. Alderman Leworth, yes. And Alderwoman Dent,

yes. All right, next up is the bids for the power light uh power line tree trimming bid.

Good evening, mayor, alderman. Good evening.

Um so project descriptions. Uh the tree trimming is essential for properly maintaining our electrical system, particularly along the larger feeder lines. City of Salem has four main feeder lines that deliver power from the substation behind the park shop at Third and Grand to the rest of the community. Smaller distribution lines branch off and those main feeders uh from those main feeders to serve residents. This was uh put out to bid basically to continue our work on our feeder lines. Uh we're we're starting into feeder line number three. So, uh, this phase of trimming will cover 7 mi of feeder line in the southwest quadrant of town and will include limb trimming, tree removal, brush clearing, and lawn remediation to ensure our power lines remain clear, reliable, and safe. Um, procurement bids were advertised in the Salem News on November 4th, posted to the city's website, and sent out to at least three vendors who provided this type of work and services. Two bids were received. Aspen's bid came in at $179,7854 and Forester Works came in at $112,8616. So fiscal impacts, there's a there are $69,500 left in the capital improvement budget for this uh electric fund of tree trimming. Our intent would be to fund this 69,500 this fiscal year and possibly the remainder in the next fiscal year. Um what we're asking for is department recommendation would be move for approval of the bid from Forester Works in the amount of 112860116. That has been our previous vendor that was doing the work and uh it's been satisfactory. when I u review what they've done in the past, they, you

know, always follow up recommendations for, you know, things that I I'm a little picky. So, we go through and we we kind of pick it apart a little bit and they they stepped up and take care of that as well. So, and this will just make us better when the ice storms come. Uh they're not coming this winter, but uh you know, it's hard to say, Steve, don't jinx us. I know, right? Knock on wood. So, all right. Any discussion? I don't have any. All right. Nope. Do I have a motion?

Make a motion to approve the bid for Forester Works for the amount of 112,000 8616. Do I have a second? I'll second. Call for the vote. Alchworth, yes. Kendrick, yes. [snorts] Denn, yes. Alderman Whan, yes. All right. Thank you, De. Appreciate it. All right. Next up is reports of city officials, boards, and committees. Miss Berick.

So, in your packet, I do have a written report this time. Uh give me just a second here. I'm not going to go over it line by line. It is a lot of detail. Um this is um basically sharing with you the most recent MP meeting. So Mid Missouri um municipal power energy pool. So our cooperative pool that we purchased electric power from. So my staff summary piece that's in there actually talks about the pieces that are in the packet that's included in you all's packet. there was the actual board meeting. Um, there's a lot of detail in here that will help you all understand some of the ins and outs of our electric purchasing and different things that are going on. I know I've shared in the past details about um, you know, we have been moving from just power purchase contracts to actual ownership shares in generation stations. And so this talks about some of that. It talks about some of the resource planning, so long-term resource planning that MPA is doing on our our behalf or in other cities behaves. Um talking about the different types of generation that makes up our electric power. And so as we look towards the future, um trying to determine what is the best fit to fill some of the gaps that we have in future years. So they've been doing a lot of work on what that looks like, what it needs to be, and where do we need to be positioning oursself um to fill those holes as we move forward. So as we have power purchase contracts that roll off, how are we filling those gaps? And so that's really what the uh integrated resource planning is all about. Um long-term, so we're talking several years down the line still. uh they are talking about the possibility of combining the power purchase pools. So

NPUA currently manages three purchase pools. Um there's ours which were like the middlesized one. There's one that's even smaller. Um and then there's a larger MOEP is smaller. Um I believe it's Swim PEP is the smallest one. But they are talking about long-term because currently what we're doing MOPEP being the largest one. They sometimes have additional either generation that us and the other pools can purchase when we have a gap or they have extra capacity. So capacity is well I mean it it's capacity. But what what it means is that when we're running at peak load and something happens and we need more than our normal peak, do you have that extra capacity? And you have to purchase that electrical that chunk of power to provide for that extra. So, and it's a requirement by the federal government that we have that capacity purchased and reserved so that if we need it and so MOEP a lot of times has additional capacity that those of us in the other pools can purchase. So, since we're already doing that quite a bit, it starts to make a little sense that maybe joining the pools and then we're not having to do these transactions back and forth. Okay. Um, so like I said, not a set in stone at this point, but it is something that they're looking at as one possible um, path forward in the future. So I think those are um, the gist of the highlights. Um, you'll see in there also when it talks about like one of the very first ones, it talks about operations of the different generation stations. Let me see if I can pull that up. It's not very far in the packet, but I just want to point this out to you. Um, most generating facilities, are required, oops, so I just passed it there, are required to shut down for

maintenance. I mean, they have to, but they're required to do it generally in the spring and the fall of the year. So, on this graph, you'll see that kind of dip in the middle there, which is about April and May. So, that's spring shutdowns. Um, dogwood is the red. It's kind of hard to distinguish red from That's not too bad here, but the darker red, you'll see in April, it's just this tiny sliver. Dogwood is our natural gas fired plant. Mhm. April, they had a mandatory maintenance shutdown. Okay.

So, you'll see we're not pulling much power from them, which means the orange, the Sykes plant, we're pulling way more from. And so, when when we talk about where does our power come from, it fluctuates every month. It it depends on who has um a required maintenance shutdown, who had an oh crap kind of moment and and had to shut down because something happened unexpected. That fluctuates all the time. And so where the power comes from is in constant flux. But I just kind of wanted to point that out. And you'll notice then in May and June, those orange bands where it comes from Syton are much smaller than the other months because they had shutdowns for maintenance. And so then others kind of fill in that gap in those times. So I just wanted to point that out. Um as you're looking at this graph in particular, Dogwood, the red that's natural gas fired, Syden is coal, plum point, the green is coal, and then of course the blue band is the overall load. This is just for our power purchase pool. Okay? So otherwise I'll leave it to you all. Please look through it. If you haven't had a chance, let me know if you have questions. I'll be happy to answer.

Okay. I only got one. So, so with us purchasing shares Mhm. through them, do they see any future decrease for our costs as far as buying shares on it? Unfortunately, before they shot, I mean, if we're buying shares, that'd be nice, but but unfortunately, no. But the projections if if we aren't looking at ownership shares and are continuing to stay on the market to just purchase is even scarier. Um but yeah, projections aren't aren't showing any decrease in electric costs. Poor the shop. I know it's nice wishful thinking. Okay.

All right. Moving right along. Miss Stacy like to come up and do some financial updates. Okay. So an update on our sales tax revenues and this is what we have collected through November. So far for the year we are trending ahead of last year by 3% which is a positive indicator for our sales tax revenue. General fund sales tax we have generated 1.4 million. Parks and w sales tax we have brought in approximately 272,000 with capital improvement sales tax bringing in around 363,000. And then for those who are interested in visual trends, the graph illustrates a sales tax performance for the past three years providing a year-to-year comparison. Okay, next slide. Okay, this next slide is an overall look at our utility usage and revenues and this is through October. Year to date of this fiscal year, we have bills around 18 million kilowatt hours. That is up slightly compared to same time frame as last year generating 2.4 million in sales revenues on the purchase of power. This is what the city pays to MPUA to provide power to us. We paid out 1.6 million. That is about the same as we did the same time frame as last year. Water consumption we have built around 45 million gallons. That's up slightly compared to last year. Water re revenues generated is around 420,000 with um sewer consumption we have built around 41 million gallons with revenues build at 553,000. Okay. Next.

Okay. This slide this slide is a list of all the funds the city has. It shows the activity for fiscal year 26 and this is through October. It shows the beginning balance of this fiscal year. Then revenues and expenditures and any transfers between funds. Then the very last column shows the ending balance in each fund as of October 31st. And then if you scroll down to the very bottom, it shows the total of all funds comes to just under 15 or just over 15.2 million. Okay, next slide. Okay, this last slide shows the total fund revenues and expenditures compared to what we have budgeted for revenue. So far, we have brought in 25% of what we have budgeted for the year. And then we have expended 24% of what we have budgeted. That's all I have for financials. Anyone have any questions?

Nope. Thank you. Thank you. All right, next up that's my report. Um, we got one more staff report. Oh, I was going to do Carrie last, but okay. Huh? No, you do whatever. No, Carrie, come on up. Come on down. Let's talk economics. Happy birthday, mayor. Thank you for making me feel old in a large audience. [laughter] [clears throat]

So, the banner program is coming along nicely. I have seen some mockups and I think you guys are going to be really excited. They're really they're cool. Um and then you can go through there the little um page in your packet. You can go through there and kind of um get a brief synopsis of the different meetings and the trainings that I have attended. But I left the NREA, the National Rural Economic Development Association conference. I left it blank because that's why I'm up here. So, initially um it I was looking at it and it was it was a lot of money. It was a lot of money for us, but I wanted to attend the conference and I had been told that it was relatable. It was relatable for communities such as our own. So I looked a little further and there was a scholarship button there. So I applied for the scholarship and I got it. I was one in four that got the scholarship. So I got things handled on this end and I went to the conference in Tennessee. So and it the it was right. It was an awesome chance to be able to connect with professionals other professionals. Some of them were well seasoned and even retiring, but and then some of them were no offices such as myself. And then some of them were just way in the thick of it. They I mean they were in the they were in the weeds with everything. And so they offered so much connectivity and collaboration and ideas and um and it was truly scalable. There were repres there were communities there that were representative of numbers just like ours and then even smaller. So that's what [clears throat] that's what made it so attractive to me is I didn't have to scale anything. I didn't have to say, "Well, I understand that that works for a 250,000 plus population, but what about what about

us?" And so it was it was super beneficial to see all the um unique ways that they were able to leverage the site selection and the um the different uh crisis communications and and uh cyber security and just the different breakout sessions. That was what it was about. And it was about innovative ideas on how you could use what spaces and and what you could do with that. and some of them were way way out of the box, right? So, um [cough] I [clears throat] was we talked about um a main street program. We talked about enhancing um our workforce. And so I come away from there with maybe not even maybe not even some big grand ideas on how we could implement for Salem, but I did come away from there with little baby steps that I think that will benefit and we can start taking toward to uh to obviously help and encourage Salem to grow and enhance. So that was super exciting for me and I wanted to make sure that I [clears throat] covered it with you because again it was it was a lot of money even just to go. So I we had to pay for the hotel, right? We had to pay for the fuel and and all of that. And so I got down there and I learned that I was one in four economic development directors that had received that scholarship. So that was really fun. So then the very last day, we all put in our badges to get to find out if we maybe could be gifted the 2026 conference. Well, I didn't win that, but what I did win was $500 toward traveling expenses for this conference. So, in essence, the conference was at a

fraction of the cost that it could have been. And I feel like that um I feel like it it um motivated, it inspired, and it gave me some people that I can connect with and collaborate with and um learn from. So, I'm super excited about that and I thank you all for allowing me the opportunity to go and uh I look forward to seeing how we can how we can jump in together and continue to make Salem great. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, Carrie. You're welcome. Hey, don't forget the economic lunchon that we had. It was pretty awesome.

It was awesome. Yeah. Okay. It was awesome. We had an unexpected visitor and that was pretty cool. Yeah.

All right. I'll do my report. Is that okay? We can now. It's my birthday. It's your birthday. Go ahead. The 2025 uh parade.

Uh the theme this year will be Candy Cane Lane Parade. It'll be Friday, December the 5th, 6:00. I think the lineup starts about 5 5:30. The Ozark Heritage Artisans Art Show and Sale will be Saturday, December the 6th, uh, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the Creative Arts Center. Uh, PJ and Pancakes with Santa hosted by the Salem Fireworks Committee will be Saturday, December the 6th from 8 to 11:00 a.m. at the Armory or Salem Community Center. Uh, they're going to have County Road Coffee there, pancake breakfast, and balloon art, juice bar, and more. Uh we also have one of my favorites, Keeping Christmas at Home with all of our local vendors. Uh December the 7th from 1 to 4 at the Salem Upper Elementary School. If you've never went, I'd probably encourage it. I got a lot of people that do some really neat stuff. So, um Christmas trivia night will be Friday, December the 12th from 7:00 p.m. at the community center of the Armory. All proceeds go to toward 2026 project graduation. They have concessions available and a 50/50 raffle. Other than that, that's all I have for my notes. Move right along to public works. Come on up. Back up, Steve. Your turn to shine. I was going to try to keep it short tonight. Um, we'll just go over the top top of the list here. your wastewater treatment plants healthy, still functioning and uh working on daily testing as well as phase 2 a uh upgrades. Water departments fixed several water line repairs and today they replaced a fire hydrant at the corner of East Fourth and North Warful Street. Uh electric department, I just wanted to say uh they didn't have anything major going on. Our last power

outage was due to a bird in the substation according to Show Me Electric or Show Me Power. So, our electric department did get out today though in combination with street department and actually yesterday, sorry, and put all the snowflakes up per per the mayor's request because folks like to see those. So, we're a little ahead of schedule. I guess we usually do them after Thanksgiving. So, yeah, it was nice to see them come up early. I appreciate that.

Yeah, you're welcome. They they put all of them up. I think there's three that needed some more repairs before they go up. So, um, construction crew is working on concrete project over at city park to make it safer and they're setting up the temporary downtown lights, uh, in preparation for the parade and the holiday season. So, uh, street department finished packing gravel into the healthy Dent County Fitness Center parking lot. Uh they set up the down they set up the downtown temporary light poles, cut a fire trail around at the yard waste area in case that were to ever break out in a a fire again. They they cut out an area to help u mitigate that hazard and they're continued to street sweep, clean drins and clean ditches out. So mechanic's been hustling a lot working on equipment across the city and keeping stuff maintained. So, he also made sure all of our HVAC units and all the facilities were fired up and functioning properly. So, cemetery crew, they're over there. They're keeping eyes on things. We have um Paul who's primarily the cemetery employee at this time and uh Paul was one of our newer employees and he he goes over checks on things in the morning then jumps in with for the safety morning meeting with the street crew which is really beneficial so he can uh hear what's going on and and get his um safety stuff. So that's all I've got. I'll keep it short. Does anybody have any questions? Nope.

All right. Thank you, Steve. Thanks. All right. Last but not least, let's do some board reports. We'll start with you, Alderwoman. Den [laughter] surprised.

Okay. I attended a lunch and learn with the mayor and the economic development director and I learned that house Salem can launch a Missouri main street chapter and it was very interesting and thank you for inviting me. I appreciate that. I attended the ribbon cutting along with the mayor and the economic development director for the new Salem Four Rivers Clinic. Um, I've spoken with various individuals in the West Ward with regard to property concerns and utilities, but the best thing I think I did was I was a guest speaker for the Rotary Club along with Amber Harrison Schwarz and we were able to speak on the community involvement committee for the city and more specifically the advocacy for animals group. And as of 5:15 tonight, we have brokered a deal with DeOS and Ozark Pet Rescue to open and obtain the building for use for animals. Um, there are a lot of details that have to be worked out, but it will be renamed the Ozark Pet Rescue Charlotte White Center. And as those uh as that information becomes available, I'll let you let you know.

Thank you. All right. Thank you. All way. No report. Ledworth, no report. Kenzie, you got something? Nothing to report at this time. Overachievers. Thank you. All right. Well, this time, do I have a motion to adjurnn? I'll make a motion to adjurnn. I second the motion. I will call for the vote. Alderman Kenzie, yes. Alderwoman Dent, yes. Alderman Whan, yes. And Alderman Lechworth, yes. Thank you all for attending tonight.