City Council - Regular Meeting

Good.

Call to order for a Watertown City Council meeting for March 16th, 2026. Please rise while we have Watertown Fire Rescue Chief Don Roland lead us in prayer. Are we on? Yep. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you tonight with humble hearts, and we know, Lord, that you're here to serve and guide us and give us wisdom as a community, Lord. Lord, I ask that you look over our city council members tonight, our city manager, our mayor as they make informed and thoughtful and fair decisions tonight for our community. Lord, I ask that you also take a time to praise our our street department friends. They did a nice job this last weekend during the storm. Keep our roads safe, clear, and passable for all of us. Lord, I just ask you to watch over the rest of our city staff members as they do a wonderful job and do good works for the city of Watertown. Lord, as this Lent season is moving on, we just ask that your your son Jesus Christ who's in our heart stays with us every day. In your name we pray. Amen. Pledge allegiance 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.

Finance officer Bob Zen, please call the role. Okay. Jirens. Yeah. Peters here. Shotty here. Allan here. Hoyer here. Pauline here. Mormon here. Thank you. Quorum is established. I do have one change of business. We will be

Just want to make sure we're pulling the right item. We are going to be pulling item H off of eight. So 8H off of the consent calendar. We're just going to remove it. We will take it up at next council meeting. So that's the only change for the agenda. But with that, I would and I know that I'm one ahead on the conflict of interest. So I'll go back to that in just a second. Sorry about that. But with that one change, can I get a motion to approve the agenda? Motion made by Councilman Allen, seconded by Councilman Peters. Any discussion on that hearing? None. The motion is Councilman I mean city manager. Sorry.

Thank you, mayor. Uh just for the benefit of the audience who doesn't have the agenda in front of them, item H, which has been uh removed from the consent agenda, is the approval of a 2-year lease renewal agreement for the Derby Downs Fairgrounds facility with K&H Rodeo Company. And thank you. And that was just a couple questions came up today. We weren't able to contact all interested parties. So, we just thought that it would be better to have a more thorough hearing at the next council meeting. So, motion made and seconded. All those in favor of accepting the agenda, please say I.

I. Any oppose say nay. Motion carries. Now, conflict of interest. Councilman Hoyer. Uh,

just going to be abstaining from 12 E and 12F. Any other conflict of interest to disclose? All right. Thank you very much. We're on an open forum. If there is anyone who would like to address the council on something that is not on tonight's agenda, now is your time to do so. Um, make sure the red light is on.

Green light. Green light. Go. Uh, I'm Tyler with County Fair Foods, Tyler Thinger. I'm here to speak about the continued closure of Second Street Northeast following the demolition of the old city hall. The street was originally closed the week of December 22nd to allow the demolition to take place. That demolition was completed in January, yet the second street remains closed. Over the past several weeks, we have continued to hear timelines such as a few more weeks or a couple more weeks while the city waits for final drawings. However, there is no activity on the site for nearly two months. Because of that, I'm asking the council to consider reopening Second Street Northeast until construction activity actually begins. Specifically, I'm asking that the barricades be removed and the street reopened within a week from today, hopefully. Uh we've already been two months. Uh, I think we're all well aware of what that can do and I'll state a few of them here. First, pedestrians are crossing in areas they normally wouldn't in order to navigate around barricades. This creates unsafe crossing situations near co crosswalks and traffic. Second, customers walking in and out of nearby businesses, including County Fair, are now navigating a more congested and confusing traffic pattern. Third, drivers entering and exiting the county fair parking lot are forced to manage increased traffic, pedestrians, and vehicles trying to reroute around the closure. Additionally, two of the entrances and exits to the county fair lot are effectively blocked by the closure, which disrupts the flow and reduces a safe access for customers. When we receive deliveries and orders, our access becomes even more restricted, often leaving us with only one usable entrance or exit for both customer traffic and delivery vehicles. The alley traffic has no has also increased significantly as drivers attempt to bypass the closure. It makes for more difficult and unsafe for semis, UPS, FedEx, and other vendors to safely stop and unload product. I do believe I emailed you guys the list of some

signatures that I obtained from downtown members. Those also included some of the vendors that do stop at our store. UPS and FedEx specifically do use alleyways a lot because it's safer for them and their vehicles. Uh, and another big reason because their job is also relying on that street and that alley. Second Street is also one of the primary routes into downtown Watertown. Well, there are other ways to get downtown. Second Street is arguably the first major artery from the north used when traveling westbound on First Avenue. Another concern is that County Fair parking lot is private property. Yet, it is now being used as a path pass through route for downtown traffic because the street is closed. This increases traffic through the lot, creates additional safety concerns for customers, pedestrians, and causes unnecessary wear and tear on our property. Finally, downtown businesses depend heavily on traffic flow and ease of access. When major streets remain closed for long periods of time without active work taking place, it inevitably affects business. While it can be difficult to measure the exact revenue impact, the disruption is real for not only me and the remainder of the downtown businesses. I would invite any council member to visit our lot in the morning when we have a delivery at our dock to see how traffic flow is affected. I would also encourage you to visit around 5:00 pm when traffic is at its busiest for us and both entrances funnel into the same exit and entrance points. It quickly becomes clear how the closure creates congestion and safety concerns. This issue first and foremost about issu about safety for pedestrians, drivers, and customers visiting downtown and county fair. Reopening the sec second street until construction actually begins begins would help restore normal traffic flow and reduce many of these risks. I respectfully ask the council to take action and reopen Second Street

Northeast within a week until active construction be begins. If it has to be closed again later, that is fine. But until then, it only continues to create unnecessary safety risks and hardships for the business and people who rely on this area every day. Thank you. Thank you very much. Would anyone else like to address the council?

Hi, good evening. Uh, my name is Dave Idy and I'm the manager of Cottington Clark Electric, um, a memberowned electric cooperative and I live in Watertown. Tonight on the agenda is the second reading for the Harmony Hill annexation, second edition. This annexation is in Codington Clark electric service territory. I would respectfully ask that Codington Clark Electric retain our service territory in this annexed area instead of it going to Watertown Municipal. When this happens, again, I mentioned this a couple months ago, it's a government taking of private business. That's what's going on. This has happened multiple times, many, many times since I've been the manager at Codington Clark Electric. Another another thing is when annexations occur, and we're not against annexations at all. When they occur, we don't receive notice, and uh we ask that we receive notice. We spend millions of dollars on infrastructure every year installing new power lines, and if there's area that's eventually going to be taken away from us, we don't want to spend the money on it. But then there's another issue with that though. That's unfair to the people that live by it. So we're not spending money on infrastructure that's serving them. That's a waste of members money and that's um a concern. And uh I'm coming before the council because you're the only elected officials again that I can talk to about this. The municipal utilities board is appointed and that's a problem. That's not good governance. We all know that. they should be elected. So, I leave with three asks tonight. One, notice of annexation. We should get notice. Two, addressing the election process for the Watertown Municipal Utilities Board. And three, retaining that service territory

uh of the Harmony Hill annexation, second edition. Back in January, I asked uh to continue to serve the burger annexation and about the election process at Watertown Municipal Utilities. And no one got back to me on either one of those issues one way or another if we were going to get to keep serving that or what was going to happen there. So, I would appreciate a response. It doesn't have to be now, but a response to this all of this. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. ID. I will tell you if you want to, you can stick around when item 12C is up and there is a public forum. There is a public meeting, public hearing during that item. So if you want to bring up these specific questions regarding Harmony Hill second edition, you can do so at that time and possibly get an answer at that time to at least some of them. The uh point about the election is that is not on tonight's agenda. So that is very appropriate for the open forum. But if you wanted to stick around, you can sure testify at the public hearing on that item specifically. Okay. Otherwise, I wrote down your questions and and get those looked at. Is there anyone else who would like to address the council? All right, I will close public hearing or open forum and we will go into item 9A, which is a yearly update presentation from the first district association of local governments. their executive director, Todd Kay. He asked me to refer to him as the Grand Puba, but I think executive director will work for now. Uh, but he's a good friend of the council. Todd,

thank you. Um, take it away. It could you put the PowerPoint presentation up for the public to see, please.

Thank you very much. Well, I get to see many of you on an individual basis throughout the year, but generally it's only one time a year that I get out and uh address the city council about uh activities at the first district. And I try to use this as an opportunity also to educate the public on who we are as an organization and what it is that we do for this region. So, some of you have heard this before over the 17 18 years that I've been coming to the city council doing this, but the first district is one of six regional planning and development districts. Um, we are located in the northeast corner of the state. We have sister offices in Aberdine, Pier, Rapid City, Sou Falls, and Yankton. Next slide, please. We are uh not government, but we're creatures of government. uh we were the boundaries of the first district were set out by governor Frank Ferrar in 1971 and shortly after those boundaries being set uh the at that time 10 counties uh of the first district got together under what's called a joint powers agreement and put in place uh the first district and who we are and what our tasks are and what we are supposed to be doing and our mission in 1971 is very consistent to what it is Today, we are still out here trying to improve the quality of life and economic and community development opportunities for um the membership that we have. In 2000, Roberts County became a member of the planning district. They left NECOG and joined us. So, we have 11 counties, 76 municipalities here in northeast South Dakota. Next slide, please. As far as how we are governed, um we have a 35 member board which is three representatives from every county that we serve plus the chairman of the Flandrew Santi Flandrew Santi Sue and the Sistinwapoate tribes. Currently on our board, uh county commissioner Myron

Johnson is the county rep. Dan Dan Shetty is the municipal representative. Michelle Kakachek, she's gonna yell at me for saying that wrong again. um our at large member Myron Johnson is currently uh on our executive board. Next slide. As far as what the governing body does, I should back up for just a second, is uh they meet twice a year. Uh they establish our budget and approve our budget. They approve our work plan. uh they hire the executive director on an annual basis and they're used as a sounding board just to talk about um various community and economic development opportunities and projects that are going on throughout the region. As far as how we are funded, we basically have four uh streams of funding. uh all counties and all municipalities with at least 100 individuals pay dues into our organization and we use those dues as a way to leverage other state and federal grant opportunities. Um but the lion share of how we are funded comes in fee for service work and we do different sorts of activities at no cost to our members and some things we do charge a fee but those fees are much less than you would find if you were dealing with the private sector and that's just through the power of the collective. The governing body sets our due schedule on a 10-year float and it happens shortly after the census and our dues are based on a population basis throughout uh throughout the district. Next slide, please. As far as um who works at the district, uh currently we have nine employees with about a little over 140 years of work experience. There's a few of us at the top of that list are getting a little long in the tooth and uh we'll be looking at some transitioning happening in the next few years of course. Um we do have several employees that used to work for the city of Watertown and we

are very happy that we have them working for us. Um they they bring a lot of expertise and uh they're quality individuals and you'll see that you'll recognize some of their names up there on the board. I will be uh 33 years old here um in May and God to wish. Anyhow um but these individuals on this list do a wide variety of services. Next slide please. Or our membership. We're kind of known for doing a lot of work in finance and application packaging whether those be for grant or loan programs that promote community and economic development. If we're fortunate enough to uh write a grant or write a loan for one of our members and we do that at no cost, we then assist in the project administration because all that quote free money has a lot of strings to it that and we have expertise in just how to manage uh the minefield of uh f federal and state financing, planning and research. Planning is in the title of who we are as an organization. is what I've spent most of my professional career doing, working in everything from nuisance policy, strategic planning, comprehensive land use planning, emergency planning. It's got the word book report or study in it. We've probably done one of those at our office. Also work a lot in the human resource development as well. That's kind of one of my nerdy things I like to do on the side. As far as uh some of our technical and financial specialies that we have at the office, we do work in tax increment financing. Um, GIS is very important. We have four individuals that work in GIS. We probably have the most seasoned GIS staff outside of Sou Falls in the state of South Dakota. It's something that we do from all of our planning activities to grant writing activities. We manage variety of local, regional, and statewide uh GIS databases. We also have revolving loan funds within our office. So, we have about $4 million that we provide uh working in concert with uh local lenders

to promote um new business growth and expansion of new businesses here within our 11 counties. And then a lot of things that I do mostly is I'm out there supporting and promoting the various different programs that our memberships have access to. Next slide, please. There's a lot of different ways we try to show um return on investment for our membership. And the basic easiest one is just the the metric that I use is to show um what kind of dollars have come into our region in the form of state and federal grant opportunities for our membership. Last year as was about $27 million in loans and grants came into our area. 21 million of that was just in solely grants. And so if you take the the total grant dollars that came into our area divided by the dues that were paid by a membership is about $63 return on investment. Since I've been the director late in 2008, we've been able to assist our membership obtaining about $325 million worth of income and and and financing to do a variety of community and economic development projects. So, it's about a $70 return on investment. And we take a a local look here at Codington County. You can see last year, next slide, please, that um that was about $7 million in grants and loans came into Cington County. A little over six and a half of that was in grant dollars. So about $105 return on every dollar's worth of dues. And that's been $41 million into Codington County communities and the county over the last since I've been the director last 1617 years. Um with an average return about 46.5 dollars per news. And then here in Watertown, next slide please. Last year we had a good year. Um assisted uh our partners with the Watertown Development Company in the city of Watertown in obtaining two large grants, a $2 and half million dollar economic development administration and a half million dollar lip grant for the Calvin Industrial Park. So, I was a $3 million and for the

city uh that those projects are going to be moving forward on and that was like $250 return on every dollars worth of investment. We can say we had a really our high water year was in 2022. Um and that had to do with all the COVID funding that was being made available across the nation. So on the average um we've been averaging about $157 return on investment of the city of Watertown over the time that I've been the director here and about 27 26.5 million dollars in this different grants. So those are just some of the the highlights of as far as what we do as an organization and uh some of the returns. uh if you could be uh IT staff open up the other document and it's about the fourth page and just to show highlight a few projects that we've been working on here uh with the county and the city and other municipalities in in in Kodington County over the past year. We do a lot of work for the county in 911 database management and maintaining their web pages. Luke Mueller in our office is the Kington County zoning officer. Uh we did the highway bridge plan for the county last year and also assisted them uh with a commodity flow study that received $10,000 um that identified and counted the various types of hazardous materials being transported through the county. Been doing some work in Henry and Southshore on some water and sewer projects there. The city of Watertown over the course of the last year. Uh there's a lot of projects being done with the water municipal utilities as well as the city on various water and sewer projects. We take care of a lot of the strings that are attached to those grant and loan funds there. Again, I mentioned that uh working with the city and the grant applications for the Calvin Park expansion will be assisting and facilitating the the finance strings with that. And um so you can just kind of see we've had a really

wonderful working relationship. you Watertown is home. Uh go class of 82 and uh been here for a long period of time and I'll be here for a little while longer. But uh any questions or comments be more than glad to take anything at this point in time. And I'll ask if council does have any questions or comments. Councilman Shuy.

Well, thank you Mr. Case for your presentation and being on that board. It's been an honor the last two years. Um just want to just mention that seeing the teamwork as you mentioned the years of service there. It's always nice to have an organization in our region that's the teamwork of the not just the number of years of employment but working together and and understanding each other. It's just it's encouraging to see and so I appreciate your leadership in that.

Thank you very much. Well, again, we look forward to another uh successful year as the association as well working with the city of Watertown and uh look forward and as always uh most of you call me when you have a question and so uh phone's always open. Always stop by for coffee. Thanks. Thank you very much. Move on to item 12A. an approval of a resolution of res a resolution of necessity for sidewalk improvements along Fifth Avenue North with the 20126 neighborhood street reconstruction project number 25503. City engineer Justin Peterson, tell us more.

Uh thank you, mayor. The uh resolution of necessity is the the first step to for sidewalk to be assessed. the resolution assess C if it's passed and at the end of the project there'd be a second step where there's a resolution of assessment and that's where um the land owners would have an opportunity to either pay up front or uh put it on the the tax roles. Uh so this is a resolution of necessity for the sidewalk along Fifth Avenue. the there's uh the sidewalk that's being that would be assessed would be sidewalk that doesn't meet ADA requirements or it's doesn't exist. Um this could be sidewalk that's broken um it's pushing up u the cross slope is uh greater than 2% there's structural heaving joint displacement or any other safety factor. um notices were sent to the the land owners with an estimate of and the estimate includes the um the city's sidewalk reimbursement portion already included in that. So it's totals up to be $9.86 per linear foot. Um if if I may, um we also had some uh calls about trees. I'd like to address that. Um there are several trees over 100 trees being removed. Half of them are ash trees, cotton trees or evergreen trees. So they'd be removed um as part of this project and then we're uh planning on replanting um the 103 trees kind of evenly spaced along the the route. So at the end of the project, there will be about the same number of trees as there is now. So, I guess with that, I'll stand by for any questions.

And city engineer Peterson, what size will the trees be? I think the reference was two. I mean, they're about 5t tall, 2 in in is it circumference? Yeah. So, I mean, these aren't saplings. I just wanted to make that clear. So, okay. Uh, city manager Stagger, anything to add? Nothing to add at this time. Okay. I will open a public hearing. Is there anyone who would like to testify on this item?

Just please come forward and introduce yourself and where you live. If you represent anyone other than yourself, I'm Shane and Shelley Ronkey. We live on 502 North Broadway, which is right on the corner of Fifth Avenue, where that's going to start. Um back when the um ash beetle came, there was no discussion about um this project removing trees. And so we went ahead, we wanted to save our trees and went ahead and paid tested by an arborist. Um they didn't have any. We had them tested, treated, now they're marked for removal.

Removal. We have replaced the sidewalks on both Fifth Avenue and Broadway sides that has all brand new Our concern was the trees that we've already paid to have treated and they're tagged. Um curious as to why they had to be removed that was our concern because we didn't know otherwise we wouldn't have paid to have them treated if they were going to be removed anyway. We kind of think that that made it should have been a discussion before that when we had our meeting at the um extension center. You know, if you want to keep them, treat them. You did. We did.

And we did replace our sidewalks. So, we're curious as to why the tree happened. Thank you. What did you say your address was again? 502. 502. And I'm saying that because we might be able to look it up to see the trees in question. Yes. It's right on the corner. The two tree There's two trees on Fifth Avenue. We move we removed two at the end towards the alley because of construction. So, those two were removed, but the other two that sit right on Fifth Avenue, we treated those and the two that sit in front of the house on Broadway, those were trees. Yeah. We really don't want to leave. I mean, lose them if we don't have to. And like I said, the sidewalks have already been done.

Um, I will get to I'll make sure your question gets answered. Um, but I have to continue with the public hearing. That's fine. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to testify on this item? Could you come forward just The other thing I have up Not I love consider that is They're not far enough. Thank you. Um, you said you lived on the corner of

Maple Maple and Fifth. Is any Would anyone else like to testify on this item? Um, I know I talked to Stagger. Would you please introduce yourself? I'm Kayie Steiner. Um, we just bought Excuse me. What was the name? Kayie Steiner. Kayer.

We just bought the house at 318 on Fifth Avenue. Um, and we came home on Friday to five of our trees being marked. Three of them, I guess one's in the corner. Two of them are on fourth and three of them are on fifth and we weren't told of anything being taken down or put in or anything. So, I contacted city hall and they said that our street wasn't being widened, so there should be no reason for the streets or the trees to come down. Um, and then they said the sidewalk, which we weren't informed about the sidewalk either. Um, definitely three of them shouldn't be in the way of a sidewalk, especially if they're shrinking our portion of the road. Um, but I don't want our trees taken down and I don't want to pay for a sidewalk that we don't want it. So, I'm not sure if that's up for discussion if we get to choose the sidewalk or not or but I want the trees reevaluated.

Did you you happen to know if those trees are ashes or not? There's two pine trees. um a really old maple tree and then I think the other two are aspen. I'm not sure. The other two

uh you said aspen and maple and pine trees and pine. Thank you. Would anyone else like to testify?

Yeah, it's on the question topic. Yeah. Um, you said you're replacing the trees, Zach Thompson. I'm just curious what kinds woods. I mean, I've had them in my family's property before, but beautiful, but tend to rot at some point. If we're not putting any of those in, it would be better. Curious.

Thank you. Would anyone else like to testify on this item? Okay, I will close public hearing, open it up for council action. Can I get a motion to approve the resolution? Motion made by Councilman Shetty, seconded by Councilman Jurns. Thank you very much. Uh, let's open it up for some questions. I will try to make sure that I got all of the questions listed from the people who came forward. I will go in reverse order. Could someone tell me what the trees what new trees will be planted? City engineer Peterson.

What kind of trees will be planted? There's three different types of of maples. There's a spring snow, there's a lynen, and there's a red oak. So, they're kind of divided up among And correct me if I'm wrong, but the homeowner, the property owner does have the opportunity to choose what kind of tree they want. Correct. If if they reach out uh before they're ordered, yeah, there there's an opportunity.

I actually I'm glad I got that on. So, if you do own property, anyone who even is not here, if you want to specify what kind of tree you want, you have that opportunity and the city will put it in. Okay. Yeah, excuse me. Um, and I can get I I can get back to you, Miss Miss Owens. Um, I will go to Miss Steiner's question. So, first, and I will try to get everyone done, but I do know that some of the trees that you had listed I think might have their own reason for being removed, the aspen and pine. But I am not an arborist. So someone who can better explain what the issue might be with those trees.

I I might ask park and recck director Rodic to to comment on the coniferous trees in in the public rightway.

Evening council mayor. Uh I as far as I'm concerned I don't know that there's an issue with the aspentantry. It was the conifers. Uh typically they're not recommended in any community to put in the boulevards. Just it tends to create sighteline issues. Uh the spread of those um can impact sidewalks. Um just the way those trees grow instead of growing top up kind of you know down from the bottom. So it's primarily, you know, a sighteline issue um with coniferous trees in a in a rightaway. Okay. So thank you very much, Director Rodic.

And that's just with the coniferous.

There was several questions that u Miss Steiner had uh in regard to the sidewalk. That was one question. I'm going to say let's focus on trees for right now because most of the question were on trees and then we'll go back to the sidewalk issue. Okay. Is that okay council? So, um, Miss Niner asked about why she had to put in the sidewalk. We will get to that after we discuss the tree issue. There was a question about if Fifth Avenue is not being widened, then why do her trees need to be removed? Because they would not present a problem with the sidewalk. And if the road is not being widened, then it would likely not cause a problem with the road either. Engineer Peterson. There you go. So, uh um the Steiner is one of the properties that does doesn't have sidewalk. So, where the sidewalk is placed, there's trees. Looks like it's lining up right in the middle of where the sidewalk would be. Okay. And I would ask Miss Steiner, does that sound right? Could you come up to the microphone, please? Excuse me.

Yeah. Could we find a map too to pull up? If only we had someone like the first district here with GIS services.

Can we Okay. Uh while we pull up the map, uh you can stand at ease for right now. Um there's a quick question. Yep. Councilman, I think it might be easier. Justin, how how many feet is the boulevard and we can start to understand what that is from the street? But you want me to comment, Justin?

Um, it's going to be various widths. The existing rightway is between 66 and 80 feet with a street that will be 36 feet in the new design. Today the street actually has various widths going up to 39 ft in some areas. So it's a it's a mixed answer. What I will say, um, Miss Steiner's property was looked at by, uh, engineering staff this afternoon, and in that place it is about a 16 foot right of way from back of curb to where the sidewalk is, and the trees would interfere with that six uh, 16 feet.

Okay. And then I was also told that our portion of the street was going to be narrowed. Would that still affect? I I believe it would. Okay.

All right. I' please do work on that map. I suspect we're going to need it for some of the other discussion as well. Right. Did I get to all of your questions? It doesn't mean that we're done. It just means I wanted Okay. I just wanted to make sure that I got your questions asked. So, we had questions from uh Shane and Shelley Ronkey and Brenda Owens regarding the trees that they had treated and also a little bit with the widening, but I'd like to address the treated trees. Yes, is a good question. Um, who do I go to on this one? City Manager Stagger,

I I will try to take it. Um, we have advised people that uh um trees they choose to keep that they can treat. Um, I believe last fall people were made aware of which properties would have trees removed. I know that there was a meeting held here at city hall uh to review with most of the property owners. Um, everybody did receive a certified letter. Um, I I'd have to ask what time the trees were treated. It may have been before the notifications went out. U, but certainly it wouldn't be the intent of the city to advise people to treat trees that we knew were going to be coming out.

Thank you. Would either Miss Owens or either Roni be able to answer the date as far as I I'd be curious to know. I I know the meeting that you're referring to with the extension office as far as like um telling land owners that they can or homeowners that they can treat their trees. I can't remember. Can anyone help me with the dates of those things? Dates of that timeline. Um it was before Labor Day. Um because that was the defining time. They said treating before Labor Day was ination.

Would you check if that green light is on? It is. Okay. And I'm sorry. It was before Labor Day because I said that's when it would be added. So we had it about a week after we had Chris York come and arrow tree service come and check tested all the trees and inject them and tag them all say August probably and we never got a certified letter any of our be removed that's why we treated them otherwise we wouldn't have gone to the expense of treating them if we knew they were going to be removed.

Okay. Um, I just I got a text from someone saying that they can't hear people at the micro at the at the podium. So anyway, no, it's not your fault. Just uh if uh you come back forward, just lean a little bit into the microphone. But uh city manager ster. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to ask the ronkeys a a quick question which I think would be relevant here in a minute or two. Um your new sidewalk that you you placed, do you know how wide that sidewalk is? 5 foot. It is 60 in. Okay. Thank you. On Broadway, you know, we put that in two years ago. And can I ask a question specific to your property as well? Sure.

Is is their property one that has to redo the sidewalk because it's already conforming according to Okay. We did it because there was parts of it on the Broadway side that were buckled up and we it was a tripping hazard. And then we did construction on the Fifth Avenue side by adding a garage. We put we just There were certain parts of that sidewalk too that could have been in question, but when we removed those trees, we just put in all new sidewalk to the alley. Yeah. Just so there was no Thank you for doing that. But in this case, your sidewalk will remain as is. We're not touching it. We're not doing anything different with that. Am I correct on that? I want to make sure.

Okay. We will get an answer to you on that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Specific. Does anyone have a question specific to the Ronkey? Councilman Shetty.

Thank you, Mayor. So, the question is actually for staff on this with with Miss Steiner the and their property. The trees were in the in the rightway, if you will, for the sidewalk. So the trees that they treated, if they're not in the rightway, do they need to be removed? I mean, if they're not in the way of a sidewalk, it sounds like, do they need to be removed? I guess can they be st

That's my question. Guess for staff or whoever on that engineer Peterson or city manager Stager. I will say I drove I drove that road twice today and it's only Boulevard trees that are marked. So if they're inside that, then they're not marked. Then they're safe. Yeah. Go ahead, Councilman Peters. Just a quick piggyback onto that. So is it true that if they treated their trees that they don't have to be removed? I'm I'm I'm confused on that because I think what I'm hearing is they treated them, but they were still automatically going to be removed. Since they treated them, do they have to be removed? the the

I I want to I want to make sure that the question is you're wondering do they have to be removed for this road or for the emerald ashbor? Okay. So, because they're two different issues. So, as I understand it, if you treat your tree for the emerald ashbor, you can keep your ash on the boulevard. I believe so. Am I That's what we're Okay. So, I'm getting a nod from director Rodic. So just for anyone, this is a good lesson out there for anyone. If you own an asht tree and you want to keep it, you can if you want to treat it, you have that ability and even if it's on the boulevard, we would keep it. Is that correct?

Except for the construction project.

But yeah, so in general, but for this spec for your property specifically and Mrs. Owens as well if it impacts the road and we will get to that in just a second. I do have one other question on the timeline. I don't know the exact timeline, but I do remember this meeting that the homeowners reference and it would be late August, early September. What day was what day did the city send out the letter? I I'll have to defer to city engineer Peterson on the date of the letter. I I will add this though. Um there was an in-person meeting with at least half of the property owners in November and and just uh Trent, if you could take my screen, I do have a map up.

Yes. the uh the letters for this project uh for that uh meeting that uh council um city manager Allen um mentioned is in was beginning of November is when those were sent out. The meeting was November 18th if I remember right. But I just want to make that clear that the the homeowners received notice about the trees being removed after they had heard that they could keep the trees if they treated them. Just want to make that. So

those are right there by the alley, those have been Councilman Shetty. So I guess just for my question and the staff again, is there a reason? It's not for the sidewalk reasons, I don't believe. Is it is there for road construction purposes that they have to be removed? I guess I haven't gotten a clear answer on that. I'd like to look into this one. It it appears that they they may not be it. It might have been just because they're ash trees, but I want to confirm that with the designer

just to follow that up because yeah, it's possible that because it's ash trees, we marked it. Maybe we didn't realize I'm not sure if we have a record on in the city hall here as far as which trees are being treated or not. So maybe it just was miscommunication. So and and that might very well be, but the tags are about a foot above the X, right? The X is right. There's a bright blue tag right above the X. So, so on both the tree either either way. So, if they had just looked like this, they would have seen the tag, the bright blue tag. Guess our question is is if they have to be removed, why? And I believe Brenda probably has the same.

And I think um I mean, Miss Steiner was slightly different with a couple different trees, but still, I think I think all everyone on council wants to know exactly why these trees have been marked as well. city engineer just kind of follow up. This is one I will check up on and we don't have your phone number. If you could give us the phone number, we'll follow up on it. Okay. Councilman Allen,

this is really kind of a sidewalk question, I guess, and and that is um I'm hearing that the road may be of different widths. It it currently is of different widths. So, I assume we're going to standardize the width of the road uh through the length of Fifth Avenue. Does that change anything about the sidewalks? We're talking about a 5-ft sidewalk. Um is that going to be uniform, the length of both sides of Fifth Avenue, or will that vary depending on the road width? I don't know who can answer that. the engineer Peterson.

The the road width is going to be 36 foot standard throughout. Um the sidewalk is placed uh typically on the um about four 4 inches off the property line. So it's going to be pretty consistent sidewalk as well. Yep.

Any other questions? city manager ster the the one change is a 60inch width of sidewalk right um and looking at this uh Mr. Roni said his sidewalk was 5T or 60 in and it looks like the Owen sidewalk is the same width. Uh just looking at the picture, um this is a 31 foot width of roadway approximately here. Uh city engineer, is that that driving the the need to remove the trees or do you need to look at it further?

That could explain it. I' I'd still like to look into a little bit further, but that could be the reason why. Yes,

I will ask a question that will probably just complicate matters, but in our meeting this morning talking about the agenda items, not every sidewalk has to be replaced and therefore not every sidewalk will be uniform in width. Is that correct? the not all the sidewalks will be assessed. The um there's some sidewalk that's being replaced, but uh um uh if it meets ADA, it it let me rephrase it. In some in some cases there are patchwork, you know, so some might meet it, some might not. In those cases, we're replacing all the sidewalk, but we we're only assessing the the bad bad sidewalk, if that makes sense.

That bad or non-conforming. Correct. Yman Hoyer,

um I would just lead with I know that we have uniform road standards that we do try to uphold in the city. Um I assume that's why we're going with the number we are is that's probably the uniform code we're trying to hit. Um, something I struggle with with this one, and this happened when we were on 10th Avenue, too. I was on council at the time as well. I understood for that one, just because it's an emergency route. We needed hospital access. I'm kind of wondering the specific push to adjust the integrity of this neighborhood. It's an older, more historic neighborhood. Um, I wonder how heavy is traffic flow that we feel we need to widen it. I would almost wonder why don't we just narrow it to all match the narrowest section. That actually usually increases public safety and makes cars slow down. Uh I personally run on this route all the time because I come up St. An's Hill, go down Skyline and then run by the Mlette house. So now you guys know my running route. Um it's not that heavily trafficked when I'm on it. I understand it does go by Mallette or it's near there. Um, but I'm just kind of curious what our mindset is on choosing the number we're choosing if it's just a standard or, you know, and then really do we have to be and I I don't want to set a precedent or anything like that. It's just it's so difficult in these older parts of town, especially like Ward B is just full of a lot of like the most interesting flavor. And I understand these guys being nervous about the trees and having them coming out. I just I struggle with it too. I honestly sit there and go, we should have a extremely good reason for feeling the need to widen this and put those at jeopardy. But I don't I just I'd like some feedback on that on why we're choosing the road width we're choosing if it's just purely standards or is there an option that we don't have to go that wide and we could narrow it because strong towns would argue keep it skinny engineer Peterson. So, I don't know the exact lanes, but the

the majority of the roadway width is staying the same. There is uh uh a block, maybe two blocks on the eastern edge that is significantly narrow. Um so narrow that you really couldn't park cars on the street. So we we kept the 36 ft because that was the majority of it and it would allow parking on the street. So that was kind of the thought process. Hoyer, any follow up on that?

Um, no. It's just it's kind of difficult to really assess it without looking at it and knowing each narrow section and where it is. Um, you know, I've just I've lived in a lot of different communities that do have varying widths of roads and in some of those ones where it's a little tight and sometimes you feel like you got to let the car ahead of you go by the park car first and then you feel comfortable going by it. But, uh, it's just challenging again cuz like I'll be honest, I literally run in the road in this part of town because there's no cars. Um, and the sidewalks I would argue could possibly use some updating in scenarios because I am running in the road. There's a reason. Um, but I I just I again I have a hard time widening roads and taking out these older historic trees. They don't come back very fast and the varieties that we've chosen don't necessarily grow super fast. So, it's tough. I mean, it affects their utility bills. It affects the aesthetic of the neighborhood. Um, it's just again, you got to have a really good reason in my book for me to say yes to that.

Councilman Peters and that's why we chose to live there. That's why we bought that house is because of the neighborhood and beat the trees neighborhood. And if you wanted to, you could you could have a seat, but please stand by because we might have more questions for you. I just you don't need to stand up there the entire time, but thank you, Councilman Peters.

Thank you, Mayor. Um well, I'm just going to keep my comments along the same lines as Councilman Oyer. Um, I don't know if I have any questions quite yet, but maybe just some comments and and uh we find ourselves here a couple times a year with this discussion. And I kind I call it established neighborhoods because these neighborhoods were built a time ago and and uh we don't have a great policy because it's hard to enact a policy that's uniform across the city for these established neighborhoods. But in the new developments, there's a requirement to put in uh sidewalks. So, I would use uh Kayle's example. She just she just bought this home. Uh 318 Fifth A, right? That's your home. She just bought this home. There's no there's no sidewalk here. Um it's really if even if you did put a sidewalk in, I don't know where it would go because to the west it's a dead end. And so I'm putting myself in her shoes. She bought this home and now she's going to be told that she has to pay for a sidewalk that she didn't know she was going to have to have. So, I think that's one side is putting in sidewalks that aren't currently there and asking our citizens to pay for it. It's a whole other topic to redo a sidewalk that's already there. And I think that that makes sense because people are used to it. There's typically enough space there. But we ran into this issue. I think it was on 12th Avenue. Uh that was last summer. We had a council chambers pretty full with folks that came in here and said, um, well, we don't want sidewalks. and we voted those sidewalks out of that plan. And so for me to sit here and say that we're going to, you know, agree to put sidewalks in for this plan for ultimately the same reasons, I don't think is good on us. Um, it comes down to a rightaway issue. It comes down to uh to Councilman Hoyer's points, do we even need uh to to widen the roads? Um, so, you know, I'll keep my comments directly on the on the uh sidewalks for now because the trees is a whole other topic. I don't think I fully understand

quite yet. Um, but on the sidewalks itself, I I think that we need to take a hard look at at removing the the plan because I'm confused as to what we're even really doing here. And you know, the question that Reed had earlier was, are they going to the existing sidewalk? So, uh, the Rockies, for example, they they paid, uh, to put in a sidewalk. And if that one is not, let's say it's four feet wide. I'm not sure how wide it is, but let's say it's four feet wide. We're going to put in five feet wide sidewalks. Do we have to rip that one out and put in a five foot one? So So those are some of the questions I think I have. And if I'm them, I'm asking those same questions as well. So um I'm I'm not excited about it. I think it's I think it's hard for us as a council to pick winners and losers on sidewalks, and I think we need a better policy before we can move forward.

Thank you, Councilman Shetty. Thank you, mayor. So, yes, on the sidewalk, you know, I've been part of some meetings here in the last few years, and I've kind of looked at it from both perspectives. Uh, in fact, probably prior to me being on the council, uh, like Miss Sner, I probably would have, if I'd have been in her shoes, I'd have been like, what's the point? Why not why not just leave it as is? It's working great. There's not much traffic. Um, the more I'm been sitting here and and and getting an education on sidewalks and neighborhoods and streets, there absolutely are pros and cons both directions. Um, so on the ADA side of it, you know, when we're when we're doing a new construction or, you know, reconstruct, if you will, in a in a neighborhood, I believe that's that's trying to become our policy to where that is when we will update that neighborhood with sidewalks. And it sounds I mean it's a decent policy to to want to upgrade and and that's the time to to do this. Now granted we can come up with a policy as well for other neighborhoods. You know even without reconstructed we just start putting in sidewalks. Um we we sure can. Um I've been on both sides where I've thought well maybe that isn't the right place uh to put a sidewalk in. And other times been like well maybe it is. So it is challenging because of the aesthetics of a neighborhood. Um, but when I mentioned the ADA thing, I know, you know, I live in an old house built in 1880. So, it's an old neighborhood and, you know, a year and a half ago, I come down with menitis and lost my hearing and balance and I had to use a walker for for about a month or so around my sidewalks in my neighborhood. And um, you just we just never know when something's going to come up where those sidewalks are going to be vital for for even one person in your neighborhood. So, like tonight, I'm leaning more towards, as much as I've I've actually voted against sidewalks um in the last few years, but more and more as I look through this, I'm realizing the necessity of we got to start

somewhere and put sidewalks in. So, as long as we're doing it correctly, um but I get the trees. I enjoy my neighborhood and old trees as well. And so, I understand the tree portion of it. Um, I'm just I guess what I'm what I'm just sharing here is that as we decide this um even the width of the street the neighborhood I live in, we can park on both sides. And I do have a question for city engineer Peterson possibly. Um, the question was asked here about the 36 or the 36 foot wide road in the new construction, new developments like up by Derby Downs. changed the the the width to do you remember what what the width was of the road on that new development up there last year

read down well the our new engineering what's that our new engineering design standards is 36 feet now

it's 36 now so that's what I remember that was discussion I voted no I voted it it originally was supposed to be wider than 36 um I voted no on that because I wanted to keep the width because at 36 it's even a little challenging to have traffic pass through a little even two more feet wider and you can have cars parked in both sides. In these older neighborhoods, at least my neighborhood, there's a lot of cars parked on the on the streets. So, that's a good time to get the street widened so we can actually park cars better on the streets. Um, so I see the the value of of widening a street. I see the value of sidewalk. Um, like I say, I've been on both sides of this, but as of tonight, um, and I understand I understand the property owners concerns with the sidewalk because if I was in some of your shoes, I'd be like, "No, I don't let's let's not put a sidewalk in." U, but I do appreciate the I believe is it it's a 10-year can I go on the tax? What I guess if someone could ask that question, what's the time frame for the sidewalks for how long they have to to pay that tab and is there interest on that? I guess if we could have those two answers as well.

I'll take it. It is up to 10 years and there is an interest uh uh provision of up to 10%. However, it's it's typically significantly less than the 10%. Thank you for that. And we can wave the 10%. Personally, that's the one caveat that I would rather not make someone put sidewalks in and then make them to pay interest. I would I would vote no for that reason alone. Um, however, I do see the value of putting sidewalks in. So, if we can keep that in mind when we're doing this on the interest, I'm not a fan of forcing to charge interest on it. Um, so anyway, I I digress. That's where I'm at currently.

Manager, I' I'd like to point out a couple of things along this particular uh roadway that might be helpful. Um, this is really different than the 12th Avenue project that has been referenced. 12 12th Avenue did not have existing sidewalks. This is a neighborhood that has sidewalks on at approaching 90% of the entire uh roadway on both sides. This is really a rare neighborhood in the community to have sidewalks on both sides. Now, some of the sidewalks do not meet um the standards that our city engineer has talked about. What I would urge you to consider is perhaps there's a compromise here where if a 48 inch sidewalk will save trees, what are the pros and cons of going with a 48 inch sidewalk in those particular sections and continuing with the 60-in sidewalk which is the modern design standard um where it makes sense. Is is that something city engineer Peterson that we could look at? Um, we can look at it um just maybe for more information, but uh when you have a less than a 60 inch a 5ft sidewalk, then you end up having to have a passing lane, so to speak, on the sidewalk, but that's something we can look into, see if we have the appropriate space for that.

Councilman Allen, u just a couple um questions. I think we don't really have a sidewalk policy in the city currently. Is that correct? I think we might. We have a reference to a policy. Um I I will admit I have not read it. Executive Director case and you

Thank you. When I was going to talk during the over 20 years ago, the city of Watertown contracted with the first planning district to do a sidewalk assessment where we GPSed all sidewalks, existing sidewalks in the community where we had handicapped, accessibility, whatnot. We also made suggested policies on an arterial network of sidewalks and also recommended policies regarding sidewalks on one side of the street versus the other. So there was a continuing pedestrian traffic flow. And as staff has said the design we we every planner today you talk about complete streets that means sidewalks along with the street. I'm I'm a firm believer in commissioners um Hoyers I hate that we have 36 foot wide streets we have just to just to do the finance how much more it costs to re repay them how much it costs to put the snow there's more cost with wider streets in older parts of town I'm 32 and 34 foot streets are fine park on one side of street versus the other there's so many other things I think what's going on here and I would agree with uh Kyle Peters that um the city before we keep going down this road of replacing something every year and we have fights and we have neighborhoods you as leaders need to be coming up with a policy. There was some work done 20 odd years ago. Um I'll admit the city council never adopted at that time because they didn't want to tear the the lid off that can but they spent good resources and have and we had good conversations at the planning commission at the city council level. Nothing was ever done. So you have a basis that you can at least start with to have those conversations. And I would encourage you as um elected officials to come up with that umbrella policy on what we should be doing in 90%

of the cases and then when we have the 10 or 15% oddball cases, we've got a responsive policy that can um help the citizens. And I was going to say this earlier, but I didn't know if it was going to come this way. So thank you. Thank you, executive director. Um followup, Councilman. Yeah, just a little bit of a followup because I I know this goes up past the Mlette House and there isn't a doesn't it it actually ends one block prior to the MLET house. Okay. Thank you, Councilman Hoyer.

Um I just wanted to clarify my stance a little bit. Um I I really appreciate Todd pointing out the uh instance on, you know, there's there's a lot of options to this. When you do get those narrow roads, a lot of times cities will just make it so you park on one side of the street. there's only one side available for parking on those narrow ones. Uh my mother-in-law lives just off of the McKenna Park District in Sou Falls. They literally do that. Um doesn't really pose a huge issue. It doesn't seem like they have a lot of problems with it. Again, this isn't like a super, at least from my experience, hasn't been a super highly trafficked area. So, those things can kind of work if it's not a main thoroughfare. Um I 100% believe in sidewalks. Um you know, unfortunately, they do cost money. Um they're ADA for a reason. I will point out that this part of town is riddled with corner bumpouts that are stairs and are not accessible at all to somebody who's handicapped. Um, it's a huge problem. And I would also point out in my previous comment, this is my running route and I run in the street. I'm running in the street because there's no sidewalks and there's no like real good way to go about it. Um, now if there were sidewalks, it' probably be more likely that somebody would utilize them. Um, that's just a classic problem. It is hard in these old neighborhoods. Keep in mind these predate zoning. We didn't have zoning ordinances at this point. We adopted them as a community in the 50s. Everything here is 50 years older than that. You know what I mean? So, it is challenging. It's really hard. Um, and we do need to get consistent with what our policy is. Um, there's a lot of instance where we allow a sidewalk on one side of the street because there's one side that has it done and then we don't make the other side do it. That that can work. Sure. Um, it goes back to we love doing studies and then, you know, paying a lot of money for them and then we just go, "Cool, we'll look at that in 20 years." Um, it'd be good if we got consistent. Um, the roads widening, again, I'm not

sold 100% on that. There's so much research that says don't do that. I love the cost savings argument. Uh, why add more pavement when we don't necessarily need to? Because then we're going to have to maintain more pavement. So, if we can keep it narrower, that's cost savings. Um, as long as traffic is willing, and honestly, again, I think most people push to other main roadways anyway. This isn't a key one. Um, but the sidewalks are important. I really think they are. I don't think, and I think Councilman Shetty did a good job of pointing out, you don't know when you're going to get into a situation that you actually need those things. And when you don't need them, you don't notice them. And so, I do think it's important that we take it into consideration. And that is one of the issues in this part of town that they're they're not even close to ADA compliant. You couldn't get up on certain areas if you wanted to. Um, so I I do think we should take a hard look at that. I would 100% be in favor of the sidewalks. If we can work with folks to get around a tree, great. I mean, we literally put sidewalks, this is not the right answer, don't do this, but like we literally put sidewalks on the curb on the highway, which is like the last thing you should do for public safety, but that's what we did. Um, I think we can find a solution that kind of meets both ends of this. I think we'd be able to maybe preserve what makes these neighborhoods beautiful. I mean, other communities just deem them historic neighborhoods. The Mlet House is literally right there. Um, there's a lot of interesting and historically important architecture in this part of town. I think if we can keep the character of those neighborhoods as it is, all the better. Um, if their ash trees have been treated, of course, that that's a really hard pill for me to swallow. That would go cool, great, out. Um, I'd hope we'd consider if we end up having to do something like that that we do a reimbursement or something if there's proof of receipt, but u because we encouraged it. But I I just really think asking for the sidewalks and not

widening the road to the point where you need to take everything out, I think that's a pretty fair in between. Um, if we can entertain that, that'd be great. But I I just think imposing modern street standards in a pre-dating historic area, it doesn't necessarily drive. And I I think there's special instances where we don't necessarily have to achieve that modern standard of road width. Um, again, but sidewalks and walkability matters 100%. I I do think that matters, especially in this area because guess what? It is one of the prettier parts of town. People walk this. I I run into people all the time walking it, but they're doing the same thing I'm doing. They're cutting out into the road and then coming back in or weaving around cars. We should do a PSA on don't park your vehicles over the sidewalk or the public right away. But, uh, anyway, that's my two cents. um if we're going to actually widen this in this resolution and pass like try to push that way, I'm going to say no, but I I think we can find a middle ground and I would hope we can.

Thanks. Uh Councilman, I want to just make sure that everything is clear because widening the sidewalks is different than widening the road. So different but and it's weird because then we also have trees coming coming into this but I that is a fair question. I can I will just say I want to answer I want that asked and answered before I go to Councilman Keers is why why this road? Why this wide? the well the answer you know the majority of it was 30 36 actually I think even some of it was as big as 38 but we kept everything 36 and um like I said there was like a block or whatever block or two that was a little narrower that we widened out I remember right it was like a two foot on either side so make it at one point was 32 feet went to 36

I will also ask a question before I go back to the councilman Councilman Hoyer says that he runs on this road quite often. Now, I have driven it. I will say it's in bad condition, but I assume that there's some sort of traffic study that justifies that this road should take I mean, because there's a lot of roads in town that could be um could that could accept a lot of investment into making them better that might have more traffic on them. Um, I was just wondering in that regard, why this road?

Um, this road's been on the on the list for at least five years to to redo. Um, the this one has sanitary sewer and water main as part of the project. Um, the road condition, the curb and gutter, the the sidewalk. We're addressing the those corners, so they'll be ADA compliant. Um, all those things kind of tie together why this road.

Thank you, city engineer. And I asked that in part because there's some things that are going to be happening with this reconstruct that is not just road related that I think all homeowners would appreciate. The sanitary sewer, the curb and gutter, the and the water and the water manes all being improved. Those are things that are a huge improvement to this neighborhood that can only happen when you tackle a road because like we've all discussed, it's a historic neighborhood. We're not going to just go in and tear up everything to address certain aspects of it. So, this is an example. I know that it's difficult, but as long as we're tearing into the road, we're trying to bring some improvements to that neighborhood as well, and we are. So, that is one thing to add to the conversation. Um, and some of the other things. So, I've got a long waiting list here. So, I've got Councilman Peters and Councilman Allen, then Councilman Hoyer. Councilman Peters,

I'll be brief. Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Um, one comment I forgot to make here when I was going through earlier was the cost share piece. Um, I see here in this proposal, uh, it's it's $9.86 per linear foot that would be essentially paid for by the landowner. Yeah, as we talk about moving forward and getting a policy, I think we should take a hard look at what we make our residents pay for. If it's our idea and we want to put in the sidewalks, I don't think it's reasonable to say, "Here's a bill." And and I'll use Kaye for example. She bought her home and there's no sidewalk and and now we're up here voting to put in a sidewalk on her property that she has to scoop snow on, maintain, mow the boulevard, and yet she has to pay for a share of that. I don't think that's very fair. So, um, just a just a comment as we talk about moving forward here. And then the next thing I would say, and I think Justin was alluding to it, is I want to be respectful to staff as well because I know you guys have put a lot of work into this and I don't think that we've done a good job looking at the map in Watertown asking what's next because as I sit here and look at this, I think, well, why wouldn't we spend money in uh the Highland Park and the drainage area issue that we've got? Why are we putting money into this? because to me it doesn't seem like putting in this much money in this particular neighborhood makes a lot of sense because half the neighborhood doesn't want it. We have a drainage issue where uh we were at a gentleman's house this past summer and he was literally getting water in his garage because the road was rebuilt so much that there was no more curb. That seems to be something we should be spending a little bit more time on. So I think we should do a better job as a council to get with the staff and figure out what does the next five years look like so they don't run into this issue either. Thank you,

Councilman Hoyer.

Oh, I was just going to toss out um the road's not in the best conditions. I I want to be clear on that. Um I would just ask to redo a road, which also, by the way, we're going to find surprises as soon as we get to those pipes. You remember the last time we did work up in this neighborhood? It was like you'd have a 4-in pipe and it would cut down to a 2in pipe and then would expand back to a log. Like, we've got some weird plumbing up in this area. And a lot of them have trunk lines that go to the properties and they share like lines that come from the houses, pull up together, then come to the road. So like we're going to find some surprises. So I mean anticipate that's coming. Um also maybe it's an opportunity to switch out a lead pipe if you potentially have one going to your house. But um the other extra piece I was going to ask is to redo the road and do that work. Do you need to widen the road to do it or could you do it at its current width? you could keep the same width. Um the majority of the majority of the project is 36 ft. Um it's really only a block or two. Um and at this point, I mean, it's designed and essentially be a complete redesign if we were going to change it. Sure. It's just Can I follow up, Mayor? One more. I know that costs us money. I understand that. But sometimes I I just don't And I know you guys have probably put a ton of work into it. I understand. I respect that. But us being willing to go back to the drawing board sometimes I think it shows a lack of creativity. I think it shows a lack of willingness to work on it. And I I know we're working really hard to do the right things on stuff, guys. And again, I respect the time you put into it, but sometimes you got to go back to the drawing board. I'm not saying it's passing like that or not, but I think we should be willing to do it if there's an option and then

we're setting a precedent for ourself that if we're in historic neighborhoods like this, because Highland's probably going to see it, too, that if we can respect the integrity of the neighborhood, we I would argue we try to of course all new developments going forward. Absolutely. Let's get them to standard, but I just I would hope that we'd have a willingness. Mayor, could I Community Development Manager Hinton?

Thank you, Mayor. So, to Councilman Hoyer's point there, um definitely something that has been looked at and like they have the engineering department has reduced the street width from 39 to well and actually 41 to 39 to 36. And the reason behind it is so that in a neighborhood they try to allow for parking on both sides of the street where in some of these areas you don't have that. So that is an amenity for guests and whatnot. Um again though I mean I'm an advocate for making them as minimal as possible in neighborhoods because of the traffic calming that it does provide. Um but again so that would be something that the engineering department would bring forward in their engineering design standards where these policies are adopted. And then I just wanted to be clear too that we do have a sidewalk ordinance. Um I know Todd had mentioned that we have the study but it is an ordinance and it is required. Um, and we we don't have the actual like the 5 foot or 60 inch width, but that we we call out the ADA standards. So, as um engineer Peterson um stated, if you don't have them at 60 in, then you can do other alternative um designs to meet that ADA standard. But that's what I have to add. Thank you, council. I have a few comments. Uh, first off, okay, I'll just say know we're bouncing between sidewalks and trees. I'm not going to speak for the entire council, but I have heard from a couple councilmen. In my mind, given the timeline and the unique circumstances that the entire world is facing with the

emerald dashboard, if the property owners have paid to treat the trees, which they did prior to learning about this redo, I would say we should find a way to work with them. Um, these are they're good trees and they're paying to keep them. We should respect that. um that I think I think that there is support in the council for that. As far as the width of sidewalks, I have become a much stronger proponent of sidewalks and the reason being in large part is I feel like I made in my mind the wrong vote on a couple different sidewalk ordinances. I think that there should be some flexibility, but in the circumstances, I will say 12th Avenue of last year, we had all these people saying, "Why do we need sidewalks? Nobody walks there anyway." Well, you could say, "Well, nobody walks there because you don't have a sidewalk. It's a chicken and egg thing." And that is definitely part of it. But also there the argument there and I'm not singling them out because we've heard this literally every time we've done a major road reconstruction because someone will say my house doesn't have a sidewalk. It wouldn't go anywhere. Well again it doesn't go anywhere because we don't follow our own rules of connecting them to other places where we build a road. So, in the case of 12th Avenue, we had a circumstance where we voted that down and literally a couple months later, we had a couple different property owners in including Watertown Christian School, who then has to go put in a sidewalk. So, the sidewalk that we voted down on 12th Avenue would have connected to a school had we followed our own policies. So, I'm going to be pretty strong in voting for a sidewalk, but

I do think that there needs to be some flexibility. This 60in 5T width of a sidewalk is is a very, very wide sidewalk and there's got to be some consideration to the homeowners if it can save some trees, if it can allow some flexibility. I'm all for being ADA compliant and I'll have an announcement on something at the end of the meeting that might be able to help us out a little bit. But as sympathetic as I am to the ADA rules, building these incredibly wide sidewalks for the I would say very rare instances where you have a wheelchair going one way and a wheelchair going the other way is pretty rare. and to allow to force a land owner to build those very very generous standards is quite a bit I think that we can work with land owners especially in the case of the Ronkeys they paid to put a sidewalk in and it's a fine sidewalk I don't see any reason why we would force them to pay any more to make it 12 in wider so that's how that's where I stand on these issues and I do know I think city manager is with us. I think city engineer Peterson. I think we're all in agreement that we do need to figure out uh sidewalks and come up with something so that we don't have this debate again. City manager Stagger,

I I'd like to maybe offer a few points that can maybe bring the conversation together. Um first of all this project's need was identified approximately the year 2020 and the activity to design this project launched in late 2023 with approval in early 2024. So all great comments have been made about street width and and I think all of us agree we want the narrowest street feasible. It's too late on this one. Um, it's either don't do a street project this year or continue with the average width of 36 feet. City manager, we've already I mean council, we have already approved this road.

Absolutely. This this is approved. This is the issue before us is a resolution of necessity on sidewalks and the ability to save some trees by doing sidewalks differently. terms of the economics that we're talking about here. The resolution of necessity will assess uh about $26,000 across about half of the homeowners that have either no sidewalks or substandard sidewalks. That breaks down to about $16,000 for substandard sidewalks and about $8,000 for sidewalks. And I would argue I I maybe disagree with Councilman Peters, everybody else paid for their sidewalks. So in completing a neighborhood, I think it's fair to ask people without sidewalks to pay for their sidewalks. And we're very generous in allowing people to pay for those sidewalks over a 10-year period of time, often without interest. Now, I think the argument here about putting in a sidewalk that may be an excessively wide sidewalk that causes people to lose trees, which are a big part of the value of their home, is a legitimate question to ask. And what I think I'd recommend is we need to proceed with the road project as we have it, but the sidewalks should be going in late in the project. I do think we need to redesign the sidewalks around saving as many trees as we can, even if that means a 48 inch sidewalk, which I think is pretty standard throughout the community. May mean that we have to utilize driveways or other methods for allowing passage on sidewalks, but I think our homeowners have asked us to save their trees, and we should uh we should look at doing that. City Manager.

So, your recommendation would be to on this item in particular because as as you noted, the road reconstruction is going forward. We've already passed that. It's that's going to happen. Question is the sidewalks, which is what what is is in front of us right now. Do we vote this up or vote this down? If we want to, if we I think I think council is largely in support, if not unanimously in support of having some flexibility in understanding the sidewalks and the trees more.

I I would recommend voting in favor of this. This is dealing with the economics of the project. Um I I think it's standard. We we shouldn't look away from a neighborhood that has almost complete sidewalks and vote it down because a couple of homeowners don't have sidewalks. I think that'd be going against everything I've heard you guys say about recognizing the necessity for sidewalks. I think separately we can address the design of sidewalks which certainly are not going to get wider and so any cost of the assessment would only be going down.

And just to clarify this is the resolution the assessment so the actual cost of the sidewalk is going to be debated at a future council meeting. Correct? I don't know that there's a lot of debate at the future meeting. it will be assigned to the roles based upon the actual cost. Councilman Hoyer, just one last clarifying question. Um, when it comes to the areas that we are like actually here it's simpler. How many trees are coming out due to road width expansion and then how many would have been marked just for the sidewalk situation? That that's kind of a tough question, I know, but do we have any idea of what that is?

I don't have that information now, but we can look into it. I I don't have the answer.

So, I think the action is somebody needs to get some brown paint and go cover up some X's pretty quick because the plan was to begin moving these trees midweek. council. I don't largely do I don't do a show of hands or anything, but if you disagree with me in my wish to keep the trees, which would mean covering those X's, then please let me know right now. If you disagree with me, I think if you agree that we want to find a way to keep the trees, then okay, I think we need to cover up some X's. Councilman Jurns, you had something.

That was a great summary. I believe we should do everything we can to save those trees. Um, I think it's customer service worthy to talk about going out and having a quick conversation with them before you start putting X's and O's and and marking them up with white paint and green paint and and pink paint. um in in the world of of uh taking care of of uh people in the right way. Um we're servants to them and we don't need a lesson in that. We just aren't doing a great job sometimes in that because as a government entity we're just used to going in there and going this is the way it's going to be and that is where we get rooms full of people. Um, so that was one issue and so I completely agree with um both um city manager Stagger and the mayor. Um do what we can narrow where we can the sidewalks. Um but a lot of this comes down to this well this is the standard and I know Todd it's good to have standards. I agree with that. But this standard in this part of the the community, we've known that we're working on this for four years and then we're still building a 36 wide. That's what's causing the tree problem also. Why are we just going in there with a 36 wide plan? Why aren't we taking these things into account? Those trees have been there for how many years? And now we're having the issue and the conversation tonight for that's okay. It's been great discussion for an hour, but for other projects coming ahead, I would hope that those that are in charge of designing the trees and putting this project in front of the city, in front of the the those that are living along those um major roads that are having to be reconstructed and in front of the

council would do some pre-planning. I know they've done a lot of work. I get it. It's hard. Um, but if we skinnied that thing down from 36 to 31, 32, if we skinnied down the sidewalk, we wouldn't be having as huge of a tree issue here. So, again, I agree with the mayor. I agree with what most of the sentiment here is. Um, don't take out the dang trees unless you have to. That's all I get.

Thank you, Councilman Shetty. All right. Thank you, mayor, and thank you, yes, for for the insight tonight. So, when we had that discussion about uh just changing our uh standards here last year to 36 feet, one of the things was we had uh Chief Roland was up and talking about public safety and the fire, you know, our equipment working through neighborhoods. That was also in consideration as far as you know, how narrow do we go for public safety as well. Um we have brought it down from different numbers. So, what I want to mention though as far as tonight too, just for the public and for our sake as a council and for staff that our public works department engineering department, um they're they've already worked to bring the street widths down. They're they're they've come up with standards to follow. That's what they've put up for that they put forward was a standard. Um so, by no fault of the engineering or public works department, they've got a standard. That's what they've been going with. They've even narrowed like I said, they've narrowed the roads. um the goal that's that's been policy here for quite some time to put sidewalks in whenever we do a reconstruct uh and rightly so. But these are these are great concerns by neighborhoods and and questions and as a council. So I appreciate that why we're having I appreciate the time to have this conversation. But just again for public to know this isn't a city staff issue. They're they've been doing their job. I believe it's more maybe more of us as a council on take listening to our conversation tonight and listening to the public and how do we do a better job of maybe tackling this for once. So just want to make sure I get that out there. And then also as far as the my math is right if I have a 50ft lot. So if it's $9 a lineal foot I believe I stretch that out over 10 years it'll cost me about $50 a year to pay this for 10 year. if it's, you know, 500 bucks, 10 bucks for 50 feet. Is that

right? 500 bucks. So, I mean, I guess that's not that for me as a homeowner. If I had to, you know, pay 500 bucks over 10 years, um, that's not such a bad deal to put a sidewalk in. I had to put it in myself at full price, it's going to be a whole lot more money than that. So, it's going to it's going to help the neighborhood. It's going to help your neighbors. So, it's but yes, taking consideration with the sidewalks, the trees, u we gota we'll work through that. Let's let's do that. But I still think we should uh move forward with with where we're at tonight.

Thank you. I do Well, one question before a comment. The $9 per linear foot of a sidewalk is not the full cost. Is that correct? Because the full cost $9 is what is just what we assess the homeowner. Correct. Correct. And the city the So the total cost per linear foot is more towards like 28 $29. Correct. Yep. It's $29. So the city is already paying for $20 per linear foot of a sidewalk that we put in. Correct.

I'm just going to go out there and say that if you have a property that does not currently have a sidewalk, I think the city of Watertown should pay those extra $9. If we're forcing someone, if we are forcing someone to put in a sidewalk where one does not exist, the city should pay for that. If it's one where a sidewalk already exists, I can see where that is an asset that is part of the house. That is part of what you maintain as a homeowner because we're not just forcing in particular, like you know, we had one homeowner here, but there's other homes that are going to be affected. We're not just forcing them to pay for a sidewalk. We are also going to be forcing them to shovel it every time it snows for as long as they live there. It comes with a cost and I think that that's one of the things that you need to consider. However, I do think that sidewalks in a neighborhood actually do add value to the to the neighborhood. It adds value to all of your neighbors. It creates more camaraderie, more friendship, more safety. So there are there's definitely an asset to the homeowner for having a sidewalk. But with that said where it doesn't exist and I'm yeah we've we've done it before and that has always been one thing that I've had a problem with and we've done it on 10th Avenue. We've done it on 7th Avenue. Did away with them completely on 12th. And I'm just going to say I live and learn and uh my attitude has changed and my attitude is now if we're going to force someone to put in a sidewalk where one doesn't exist, which I think we should, we should pay for it.

Councilman Hoyer, I would just caveat that if new developments decide to put houses in that they'd be required to put their sidewalk in before they sell it. Does I would say existing neighborhoods. There we go. Okay. Thank you very much. Any other comments? So, I would say City Manager Stagger in regard to what I just said. How does would that affect the vote at all? I mean, we're still moving forward with this needs to be done. We're figuring out exactly how it's going to be done. Yeah. my my vote doesn't change regardless because I don't vote. Um

I I think it's premature to look at a policy change like that, but I think I I would advise you you're probably making the wrong decision if you were to do that tonight. Um there there are decades of history on sidewalk policy and assessments and the city's contribution in the past has been the $20 per foot. Maybe we review the $20 per foot and and I don't think that's been changed for quite some time, but I I think it's a blanket statement that would lead to a bunch of interpretation if we as staff are trying to figure out if it's an existing neighborhood that we are forcing a sidewalk to be placed when every other neighborhood by ordinance requires the sidewalk. I I'd recommend that we hold a work session on it, not make any change this evening.

Councilman Peters, just a quick clarification. So, if we vote yes tonight, it's for the road construction and we can at a later date decide if we want to move forward with sidewalk.

Nope. Tonight is purely on assessing sidewalks and assessment across approximately 33 property owners totaling $26,000. So to follow Councilman Shotty's math, on average about $90 per year, unless a homeowner decides to pay for it upfront. Thank you. Just a quick comment. Uh so a comment that I have before we take a vote here is that we voted on the 12th Avenue project and then I think it was third by Walgreens um for the two sidewalk projects that are coming to mind right now. Uh, I believe I voted no on both of those and we haven't had an updated discussion on what we're going to do with the sidewalk policy since then. So, it would be disingenuous for me to vote yes tonight since I voted no in the past. So, I just wanted to throw that out there that we haven't talked about sidewalks since we've had those votes. Thank you. Well, there you go. having to make a good point. Any further com comments? Councilman Mormon? I would just say if we if we didn't for existing homes that didn't have sidewalk, if we didn't make them pay for the sidewalk that we're putting in, um just food for thought, probably the argument we would hear from homeowners that have a sidewalk already would they would say, "I had to pay for it at one time and now I have to pay for it again." and the person who never paid for a sidewalk in the first place doesn't have to pay for it now, you know. So, I could see almost a reverse argument of people saying, "Well, I've already paid for my sidewalk once. Um, the person who that who has never paid for their sidewalk would have to pay for it now." So, just food for thought. I I

could just see that being an argument if we wanted to try and push an issue of if you didn't have a sidewalk currently that the city should pay the whole thing. Thank you. Any further comments? Okay. If you are in favor of this resolution, even though just to make it clear, we're going to be looking at the trees and we're going to be allowing for some flexibility on the sidewalks. Okay. and that will be figured out when finance officer Bobine

I think the only thing that I wanted to add is just the fact that the resolution necessity does not do anything at this stage other than get the ball rolling. So this will come back to the council if there is any assessment after the sidewalk discussion of where we're doing work that would all come back um after the project.

Thank you. Um, I will make one comment because I think Councilman Peters made an excellent point. I'm still going to vote on the opposite side of him on this one simply because he is right. We have had we have voted against this twice in the in recent memory. But both times we voted against our own regulations. We have regulations that we have had for 20 years. We just are choosing not to follow them. So, I totally agree that we need to get a we need to get a better policy and a better understanding of this and we also need to implement it with future road construction before well before the fact so that we can be much more aware of the concerns of the homeowners. With that said, I know that uh I'm going against on this one, but I'm just saying I've seen it firsthand where we don't follow our own policy and it comes back to bite us and possibly some cases like in the Watertown Christian School. Fortunately, we haven't had an accident and most kids don't walk to school anymore. But any kid who does, you got to start with sidewalkers, sidewalks somewhere. And this is close to Mallet Elementary. Oh, city manager stagger, you had one more thing.

I don't remember. Okay. So, I just wanted to explain why I will be voting in favor of this. But so, if you're in favor of this resolution, please say I. If you're opposed, say nay. Finance officer Bob Zeen, please call the role. Okay. Jirens. I. Peters. Nay. Hi. Allen. Hi. Byer. Hi. Hi Orman. Hi. Yes.

Resolution carries. So I just want to make sure that for everyone who testified in regard to the trees, who are they going to contact or what's the followup on this going to be? We have a project manager. They can reach out to uh Craig Ening.

Okay. And we have your names that you came and testified. If you wanted to email myself, Craig Enen on go to the city website, make sure that we have your contact information so that we can follow up with you. So, would that be adequate? At least as far as like the followup. I I don't want you leaving here tonight and then not knowing what the next step is. I'll have Councilman, I'll just get their contact information now. So, just want to meet

if that would be okay with you before you leave if you wanted to write down your contact information. Thank you. We'll move on to item 12B. I'm going to allow a little bit of flexibility of if community development manager Hon wants to testify. These are 12B and C are very similar. If you wanted to have some crossover in your testimony, you sure can. But 12B is the annexation of the second edition and zoning. So we have item one is which is an approval of a resolution initiating annexation of attractive land contiguous to the city of Watertown. Number two is second reading of ordinance 26-01 establishing the zoning designation of R1C compact single family residential district for the property to be known as Harmony Hill Annexation second edition community development manager Hinton.

Thank you mayor. So as stated this let's see here what it has what they're going to show. Um if you if it if you just want to pull up the agenda item and go to the map. I think that's how we were doing it now. So this is the annexation and zoning of a 2acre parcel of property in the Harmony Hill subdivision. It will be brought in as our 1C um compact resident single family residential zoning designation. And then the reszone is for a portion of property that was annexed previously. That is approximately 7 acres. It is currently zoned A1 agricultural district. And then the reszone will also be to the R1C, the compact single family residential zoning designation to meet up with the property being annexed and zoned to all be platted together for a uh residential project. So, with that, I'll stand by if there's any questions.

Taking the steering wheel here. The mayor stepped out. Um, is this for Do you want to talk about 12 C as well, or do you want to do B first? Oh, I did them all. Okay, great. Well, then we'll look for a motion for approval. Move by. Second by Allan. Okay. Uh, questions, council.

Yeah. Public hearing. Anybody here that wishes to speak on this item? Yeah. Come on up. Yeah, please. Dave, you just state your name again. That'd be great. Dave Idy, the manager of Cottington Clark Electric. I know this taking place here. That other portion was already taken away from us. That was a couple years ago. But anyway, we'd still like to serve all of it. That was our old area, but we'd still ask that Cottington Clark Electric serves that area. And uh we got power right there across the road. And um would appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else wishes to speak on this item?

Okay, seeing none, we've got a first and a second. Council questions. Um, just want to touch on it, Brandy, just because I haven't pulled it up yet to look at it. Um, does flood plane really impact this area very much or is it all pretty much up high enough to be out of it just with all the creeks and stuff that I see running through? Yeah, there's no designated flood plane in this area. Cool. Perfect. Thank you. Uh, real quick, Alan, is would you like to comment on Mr. Idy's comments or Lisa? Not to put you guys on the spot, but um, just out of respect for him, he's waited out to ask that question.

I, you know, I'd comment after Mr. Idy's last visit in January. Um, I've spoken with Mr. I've spoken with Watertown Municipal Utilities. largely the relationship is maintained through Watertown Municipal Utilities in terms of notification of annexations and how they work through those rules together. And so there's not much I can comment on that in in terms of how the municipal utilities board is elected. That's something you guys could consider in the future. It would require an ordinance change. Um but that's not something I think you would you would take lightly or or be able to take on at this time.

Mr. Mayor, Councilman Hoyer, um would it be an ordinance change or a home rule charter issue just for our understanding on it? We we'd have to go back and look at the legislation that established the independent board. I'm just I'm asking because there's a set period for when we can adjust home rule charter rules. Correct. Um the attorney Carico I'd have to double check but when utilities was created as a separate entity it was voted on by the people and at that time that was when it was decided how the board would be configured. Okay.

So I don't know if it's specifically in the charter but it was a separate document at that time that the people voted for. So I believe but I can double check. So I will double check but it need would need to be voted on by the public. Yeah, it's a unique relationship. Councilman Peters,

a question for you, Dave, if you don't mind. Um, so when you're going through an annexation and let's say that Cottington Clark u builds out infrastructure, you guys front that cost, let's say you're working it back into the rate over time instead of charging those customers. Is there a buyout plan that the WU would would have? So you guys, let's say you're 75% of the way through your infrastructure being paid off through that rate. Do you guys have a payoff with the WMU or how does that process work?

Okay. State law requires that they buy us back or payback for infrastructure that's existing like at at C edition. We got a line going right through there and everything. Uh it happens since we've got more than just that too. Um when I became the man, this has been something that's been a thorn in my side. I began the manager at Cington to Clark Electric about 17 years ago. First thing that happened is uh municipal utilities walks in the door and they we're going to take the territory where the U National Guard Armory is. We got a map. This is all we got dots all. So that was taken. And I'm like, I I was unfamiliar with this and I didn't sign anything right away. I was like, I what? I've never heard of this. You can take our territory away. I mean, that's what we live on. Uh then, um I realized that we, this is 17 years ago, the co-op signed an agreement with uh uh with municipal utilities. And the agreement basically says, and this is in place, and we're in litigation over this agreement right now, uh we've been to the state legislature two years in a row. This stuff is not going to end until this is cleared up. Uh the the agreement that we have with the city of Watertown basically says if you have a meter that you serve in this area that is taken from you, you get to serve that meter. I don't think that's happened once, at least since I've been the manager, where there's been a meter that we have served. Uh there's some areas that we serve that are in uh city limits and they were there uh being served beforehand and they got left alone. There's a number of them. Like one example would be the gas station on Highway 20. We serve that. Uh I don't know exactly how that happened years ago. Um, so anyway, this that's

what the agreement says is we serve an area that is uh if we have a meter in there, we get to continue serving it. Uh, and then we forfeited any compensation from the municipal utilities uh, in order to keep that meter. So that was all forfeited in this agreement. And about that same time, about 18 years ago, a decision was made uh the agreement used to be every 3 years. It was a three-year agreement and signed off, stamped, sent to the PUC. The PUC approved it and said, "Okay, yeah, this is your agreement." Somebody made the agreement perpetual. That's what our litigation is over. And that should have never happened. Somebody forgot to put a sentence in there saying if either time anybody disagrees with this agreement, the agreement is no longer in place. We're trying to get out of that right now. And uh anyway, so that's so we are not getting compensated for anything when these things happen. That's the answer. Could could I make a comment too of the um as far as the comment for notification? Um and I think the city wants to work with all other agencies too. It's just we don't have that in place. But what I would say as far as with your guys' projects and putting um investment into infrastructure is that if you are within the growth area of the city of Watertown to definitely reach out to to learn what our growth pattern is so that you are not ma so you're not making those investments and and and not having the communication.

Right. Yeah. I'd love to see that. Uh I've recent I've been recently asked uh by Watertown Development. Um

if you get a an entity that comes in, they want to buy 2 megawws or more, it's biddable. And I've been a there's a lot of this data center crypto mining stuff going on. You guys have probably heard about it. Uh they're just huge enormous users of power. And of course, Watertown Development, they're saying, "Well, we're going to have something huge come in. You guys can both put in a bid on it. So, I've se I just read something today. I'm supposed to put in a bid on one of these or not a bid, give information, let's say. And I noticed some of the areas around Watertown that I had no idea were being looked at for expansion. So, I would love to see all that.

Yeah. And just like rule of thumb of where the city limits are today, it's the three mile is what we are what we consider the joint jurisdiction district. So, we have joint zoning between the city and the county and because those are within the areas that we anticipate growth obviously because they're adjacent and beyond. Um, but yeah, any time that staff can have any discussion,

right? And a three mile that's a long way. There's a lot of infrastructure in a three- mile area. But that's why every other utility in the state of South Dakota has a line. You serve here, you serve here. Now, everybody knows what they're spending money on. That's the way it is for everybody else. And uh except not and the only areas that it really affects is Watertown, uh Brookings, Vermilion, and Pier. And appear at one time they were kicking around just making the whole town appear a co-op. They're to avoid the issue that was brought up. But um anyway, thank you for letting me talk to you.

Thank you, council. Uh, Councilman Shy, you had something?

Yes. This question may be for Mr. is it ID, I believe. Right. Correct. Uh, or possibly someone else here that's in development. Um, so when it comes to cities and growth like Sou Falls or any other community again, this must be issue for every city. So I guess how does that using Sou Falls as an example, if someone could answer that when a when when a city like Sou Falls grows, I guess my most of the time, doesn't it just come into the utility department of the city? Souf Falls has a municipality right in the center of the city. They have made the decision not to grow because they have an AWA allocation. They want to keep that for that little group because it's cheap power. They said we aren't going to just jump out and start serving everything and and water that down. The rest of Sou Falls is served by an investor owned utility. And again, like I said, all the other utilities like between co-op to co-op, there's a line drawn. co-op to Northwestern, co-op to Excel Energy. There's a line drawn in the sand. You serve here, I serve there. That was done in the mid70s. I think there was a battle at that time between uh the cooperatives and the investor owned utilities. Everybody forgot about the the municipalities. They weren't growing. Back in 1975, Watertown was probably 10,000 people, you know, and these small towns and there's little towns, there's maybe 30, 40 of them in South Dakota that are municipalities, but they don't grow. And a lot of the little towns get this the cooperative takes care of their infrastructure because they don't have they don't want to hire alignment or anything, you know. So, it's kind of an odd it's a different.

All right. Thank you. Yeah. I guess that was just just to get a education on how this works for city growth. Um appreciate your input,

council. Any further questions or comments? I will make a comment. I'm saying I want to thank the work being done out at Harmony Hill for the sisters and that huge development going on on the south of Watertown. I think it's still one of, if not the largest single development in all of South Dakota and I am extremely appreciative for the work that is being done and for the growth in Watertown. Any further comments? You are in favor of the let's see we've got the annexation we've got the approval of resolution and establishing the zoning designation but it's one vote correct you got two votes

okay

so you're saying you're counting 12 C as the third vote which I knew that. Oh, okay. But when it's combined under one letter, two. Okay. So, the motion which was made by Councilman Hoyer, seconded by Councilman Allen, if I had my notes correctly, is just for 12B1, which is the approval of the resolution. All those in favor, we'll say I oppose. Nay. Call the roll. Jirens. I. Peters. Hi. Shy. Hi. Allen. I, I, Pauline. I, Morman. Hi. All in favor? Motion carries. Item 12 B2. Can I get a motion on that?

I'll move. Motion made by Councilman Hoyer, second by Councilman Shetty. Any discussion? Hearing no discussion, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor will please say I. Oppose. Nay. Please call the role. Okay. Earns. Hi. Peters. Hi. Shuty. Hi. Allen. Hi. Hi. Pauline I. Morvin I. All in favor? Motion carries. Item 12 C is a second reading of an of an ordinance amending the zoning map of the city of Watertown for a portion of property to be known as Harmony Hill Annexation second edition from A1 Agricultural District to R1C compact single family residential district. Community development manager Hannon. Anything to add?

I combined them all when I did the annexation and zoning. So again, this is just the reszone that will tie into the annexation and zoning piece that you just approved and be platted as one lot for future development. Thank you. Thank you very much. I will open a public hearing. Is there anyone who would like to testify on this item? I close the public hearing. Can I get a motion to approve the ordinance? Second. Motion made by Councilman Peters. Seconded by Councilman. Any discussion? Feel comfortable going to a voice vote. All those in favor, please say I.

I. Any oppose? Say nay. Motion carries. Item 12D is an application for a transfer of a retail liquor license and video lottery license from APO LLC doing business as Sandy's Bar and Grill to Infinity Fund LLC doing business as Infinity Fund. and also all in the plat entitled Davelin's addition to Watertown Cington County, South Dakota to be effective on April 1st, 2026. I wanted to add that date because it was in there specifically. So, we'll go to finance officer Bob Zen for more information.

Okay. Thank you, mayor. Yes, in front of the council tonight is a transfer of ownership um for the liquor license and video lottery. Uh everything is in order. Notice has been made. Um these have been paid. development has looked at the location and it does meet those requirements for the liquor license. So, if there is any questions, I can answer them and I do know that the applicant here as well.

Thank you very much. I will open a public hearing. I do know the applicant is here. Thank you for your patience on this. You don't have to testify, but if you did have something to say, you sure can. Otherwise, you can stand by for questions. Okay. Thank you very much. Anybody else would like to testify in this for public hearing? I'll close the public hearing. Can I get council action to approve the transfer? Motion made by Councilman Allen, second by Councilman Peters. Questions, comments, council. Councilman Shetty. Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate the applicants. They have a right to request this and appreciate what you're doing in your business there. I guess the the decision tonight for us as a council is, you know, of course to transfer this liquor license over. Um when we had the legends when that came across us here, there was a 52 vote in approval for that one, I believe. Um me and another councilman voted against because the the thought was do we that was just not for liquor license, that was more for the remote beverage. Um but do we incorporate how much we incorporate the youth activities with with the sale of alcohol? And so that was it was a good discussion that we had a few years ago. Um then then when we got to this to your location here last go around, I voted yes. That was one of those votes as as Mayor Holene said, sometimes you look back and go, I probably shouldn't have. And for me personally, I appreciate I love the business that you're doing there, but personally, do we incorporate alcohol sales with the um with the establishment? So currently, there is the malt beverage license. Um, but as far as moving forward and transferring over the uh the full liquor license and video lottery into two, I just think as a governing body, we do have the right to try to to to analyze some of these, determine is this a right fit for our community? Where do we want to go? I

mean, there is there is the, you know, the right to, you know, to run your business as you will. And that's why I appreciate you guys coming forth with this. Um, but then we still reserve the right to is it the right fit for the city? So, personally, I'm gonna I'm open to more discussion tonight on this, as it should be. We should just have some discussion, but I um I'm personally not for voting to have the the full-fledged liquor license in the um in this particular application. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Hoyer.

Just a question on um video lottery. Uh the current law with it, is it that it remains out of sight from the public? I know that's kind of been a thing in the past that it has to have some form of separation. Um, is that still how that law is? That is correct. Okay. Because I guess for me, like, you know, I have concerns as well. Uh, granted, I do view most Oh, go ahead, please. I I'd also point out the building official did visit the establishment today and the planned location of the video lottery meets state statute requirements.

Okay. Um, can we ask more detail on where that would be? Like like is it is it kind of sometimes we kind of get some silly versions of this where it's like well there's a partition here and it's still totally visible but versus it might be something else. I just I just want to have clear understanding of Mr. Pollson you can answer that question. You don't have to.

Please come up to the microphone. We do have people watching and they can't hear if if we're not testifying in a microphone. So I I it will be its own room. Like it right now I have I don't know four or 5,000 square foot in the back that isn't even utilized right now that I plan I'm moving Sandy's Bar and Grill the whole thing pretty much to the back so that I can have a better restaurant back there because right now I get complaints about my food isn't like I have more of a concession stand. Well, I have a huge kitchen set up there and I have a $60,000 oven that I'm barely even using. So, I'm trying to utilize more of a restaurant in the back. I'll have your rear entrance. I'll have an outdoor patio. Like everything, the whole Sandy's Bar, we'll say is a complete separate like there's a wall right now that you walk into infinity, you don't even know that that's back there right now. That's how it'll be. You'll be able to come in the back, go in the restaurant bar, and not even know that there's anything out front. you'll be able to come in the front and if you don't want to go into the bar or in the restaurant area, you won't even know that anything's back there. But from Infinity, you'll have to walk through the door into the restaurant and into another door, go into the casino. It's more sealed off than what my restaurant is now for casino wise anyways. Like I'm not trying to, you know, on the beer I get, you know, the beer, the alcohol. I anticipate for the alcohol to be more staying back there like, oh yeah, if someone wants to come out and play bowling or something, they can have a couple drinks or whatever, but I don't anticipate people walking around with mixed drinks, you know, and I mean, we'll have we have policies in place to where people can't buy drinks and then go jump on the trampolines or something. I mean, that's my insurance stuff. I don't I'm not trying to encourage any of that. So, I mean, I'm trying to keep this as safe and away from kids. Like I said, it's it's going to be more more away from kids in the new setup than it is in my current setup.

Thank you. Thank you. Could you please identify yourself? I know who you are, but Jared Pollson. Thank you. Thank you. Any further questions, comments, council, Councilman Shy, thank you for that information because that I mean that helps, right? That's a little caveat part that I didn't I didn't see that maybe none of us did. Um but my question now though is I appreciate your desire to separate it out. But when we if we approve this that doesn't legally speaking it can be a portion. It can be any part of the building any part of the business as far as infinity fund. It's doesn't have to be just backed there by Andy's bar. Would that be correct?

Okay. So I mean even though you're doing what you can to keep it separate, we approve this. Let's say you sell the business to someone else. They could or or do you have a change of mind? It could still We're not voting for keeping it in the back corner. That's you're designing to do it honorably, but that's technically not what we're voting on. So, just want to make sure I got that correct. Mr. Paul,

I'd also like to add that like n I mean, granted, we can do whatever, but I mean the family fun center up in Aberdine, they have liquor. The ones in Sou Falls have liquor. the like 10 or 12 that I visited before this like all like two had liquor. I It's nothing new. It's nothing that I'm trying to add or do different. I mean, you know, there's it's not. So, I just like to add that. Thank you. Thank you. Any further questions, comments,

Councilman Jurns? So, Mr. Pollson, thanks for your investment in Watertown. Um, I would add to that comment. I was in Kansas City for a volleyball tournament about three weeks ago. Brand new facility, hockey ring, area for volleyball, huge arcade, bowling alley, allin-one complex. right in the middle was was an open bar with food and it seemed to be doing real well. So, it's good that when we have state tournaments and we have things and people coming to town, they have things like this to do because they've got off time. Um, I know the mix of alcohol is an interesting subject, but I don't think it's for me to debate. um it is being done right or wrong everywhere and in order to compete and stay b you know worthy of of u staying in business um it's a in the Dakotas in Kansas City and all around the country um you probably need to do it to to provide and and to make a living it thank you

thank Thank you, Councilman Shetty. Thank you for that. Councilman Jurns, just to clarify that my concern was more the mixing it with the with youth activities and some of these facilities, you know, are they're more adultoriented. I'm not sure about the one you were talking about in Kansas City, but um so just for me, it's just the youth activity side of it that I believe in family fund is more targeted towards the youth. Thank you.

So my comments had nothing to do with what Mr. or Councilman Shuy's remarks were they had to do with what I'm seeing around the country. Uh, and this is a youth facility only, but there's a lot of adults that have to be there for, in my case, I was there eight hours a day for three days. And when people drop off their kids at the hockey, I mean, there's just to compete against other cities, um, we need to have things like this. So, thank you, Mr. Pollson, for what you have done.

Any further comments or questions? To say thank you, Mr. Pollson. I can I'm not in your business, but I can understand why you would think moving Sandy's closer, it helps both businesses. So, I can catch that vision and I think it could help Watertown. So, I'll be voting in favor and we will find out now how the rest of the council will be doing so. Uh, if you're in favor of this transfer, you'll vote I. If you're against it, vote nay. Finance officer Bob Zim. Okay. Journs. I. Peters. I. Judy. Nay. Allan. I. Abstain. Um, I get me off. Colleen I.

Orman. Nay. Four in favor. Two opposed. Motion carries. Next item is an application for an application for a transfer of ownership of a retail onoff sale malt beverage in South Dakota farm wine license from is it reev reve or rev from Rev LLC doing business as Watertown Brewing Company to Undeniable Worldwide LLC doing business as Watertown Brewing Company at the same location. Uh, finance officer Bob Z.

Okay. Thank you, Mayor. If you're not opposed, I'm gonna handle E and F together just because they're both the same. But yes, in front of the council is a transfer of ownership of a malt beverage and farm wine as well as then a wine insider license. Um, everything is the same as far as location. So, this is just ownership. All fees have been paid, notice published, everything's in order. If there's any questions, I can answer them. Thank you. I'll open a public hearing. Is there anyone would like to testify? I'll close the public hearing. Can I get a motion from the council to approve the transfer? Motion made by Councilman Allen, seconded by Councilman Peters. Discussion. Council.

I just I would just like to say I mean the owner is a little shady, but and since he's abstained, he can't defend himself. No. I wish you nothing but the best, Councilman. Councilman Shetty, someone could answer how the name undeniable came to be. Uh, executive chef Lindsay is a big fan of the term and so out of respect for him. All right. Any further questions, comments? Motion is to approve the transfer. If you're in favor of that, vote I. Oppose. Nay. Officer Bobine. Okay. Dur. I. Peters. I Chy. I Allan. Hi, Pauline.

I Mormon. Hi. All in favor? Motion carries. Last item is an application for a transfer of a retail wine cider license from Rev to Undeniable Worldwide. Has a little step brothers sound to it.

Finance officer Bob Zen, you've already testified. Do you have anything to add? Nothing. Uh, anybody for a public hearing? A close public hearing. Council action. Can I get a motion to approve? Motion made by Councilman Peters. Second. Second by Councilman Shuy. Any discussion? Council. All right. I will go to just a voice vote. Please note that Councilman Hoyer has abstained. So, the voice vote will be for the six who are voting. All those in favor of approving this transfer, please say I. I.

I. Post say nay. Motion carries. We're on to I other business from the council. Uh any other business? This isn't announcements yet. This isn't announcements, but just other business. Is it business? I think it's business. It's a clarification of something earlier. Okay.

Okay. So, I just wanted to point out and and I apologize for being so late and I know Mr. ID had left. But I realize that both times that he has come forward, he has talked about the lack of notification and how he's here now. And I know uh community manager Hon has kind of elaborated of how he can be more active, but technically utilities doesn't notify until after annexation and platting. So when he's talking about when Conington Clark is talking about that they haven't received notification, it's because under the state statute, it doesn't happen yet. you guys annex then it's platted then they do the notification. So I just wanted to clarify that and you can go on to other business. Thank you. Any other business? Move on to city council member announcements and introduction of topics for future discussion. I will start and I will just say I will ask for any interested people. For a long time, we have had a mayor's committee for people with disabilities, and it kind of disbanded just organically a while ago in part uh because of bylaws. So, I have revised the bylaws and I am going and I do have some people who were on that committee who are still interested in being on it, but I'm asking if anyone else in the community has interest in serving on the mayor's committee for people with disabilities. and then please contact me. One of the things, one of the main reasons why I'm trying hard to resurrect it now is because I believe that this committee could offer us some insight on sidewalks. And that is one of the things that I think that the committee could help us out on because we need help. I'll just put it that way. There's other things that they do as well. I've revised the bylaw so that they don't have to meet as often. could be just a couple times a year, but uh I do believe that they

could help us understand this issue from an ADA perspective better. So, if you are interested, please contact me. Any other announcements? Councilman Chuy.

So, as Councilman uh Warman would say, shout out. We're going to do a We should have like an agenda item called a shout out kind of a thing, right? Um, so the Watertown Fire Rescue and the Watertown Police Department. So today, um, there was an incident at Access Ministry where a car drove into our building as some of you know already. But it was interesting having a front row seat on seeing well, first the first responder was the police department. They beat the fire department. So just there you go. But but then the as the fire department was there um they rolled up their sleeves and I was surprised at how much a fire department I mean of course you think the basic the the you know the important stuff of of course saving lives and we don't even know what they all what they all have to to work through but the hats they got to wear the education they have to to go through because they were actually putting on their engineer construction hat. they had to sit there and look at the building uh and determine if it was structurally sound or not because the the vehicle had drove in in through the the doorway and brick wall area. And so just just the way that they were able to they had to look at it, engineer it, and see how the how to frame it and and make sure it's it's secure before the contractor got there. Um I was like, "Wow, these guys uh they got to know a whole lot. There's a whole lot of education they must have to to learn." And so you had mentioned I believe Chief Roland that they put in how many hours a 200 hours individually a year in education and part of it must be how to structurally secure a building. And so just anyway shout out to to our well both services there but in this case the fire rescue with their engineering and construction. Um we didn't need to get the building official there to make sure it was done right. They were doing it well. So anyway, thanks for your service.

Councilman Shy, have you ever considered moving your building? I am going to contact the street department and see I I got a sign I want to have make and put you know no no no outlet you know and and put it put it right there no through street no through street right there on that fine that's twice in two years uh just want to wish uh warton arrows boys basketball team um good luck this weekend out at the state tournament in Rapid City and prayers for uh a lot of people that'll be traveling across the state this uh speak. Councilman Allen,

couple of things. Uh, first, a shout out to the city staff for the press briefing that we had uh recently to hear from uh both the police department and the fire department about uh their annual public safety and and law enforcement report. Um, I like the press briefing. I thought it was well done. Uh the press was uh there and had an opportunity to ask questions and I support the that that activity. I also want to shout out to both of those uh departments for the quality of their work. Um you know we have if you look at the overall report uh crime is down. Um, we're doing an excellent job on lots of levels and I think you deserve kudos for that. Um, but I do want to push back a little bit on a couple of things and uh just a couple of statistics that were offered up to us. Um, these are calls for service. There were 273 family disturbances, 118 domestic assaults, 168 assaults that were non-domemestic, 103 sexual contact, rape, or uh indecent exposure calls for service. We also saw uh 60 juvenile arrests for simple assault and four juvenile arrests for rape. That's a 400% increase on that rate uh from zero to four. Um and so I I think we spent a little bit of time at that uh briefing talking about about assaults and you got questions from Mayor Holene about the difference between a simple assault and an aggravated assault. And uh I think we uh Chief Tumi characterized some of the

increase as actually a positive thing because it meant that more people were reporting it and thus it meant that they trusted police more than perhaps they had in the past and I I think that's that may be true. Um but it also means that we are seeing this increase and I I uh I think just to differentiate between simple assault, a slap, a punch, uh aggravated assault, which is a vis, you know, broken bones, those kinds of things. Um, I think you rhetorically asked a question about how many DUIs should we have for people that were underage and we all went zero because we shouldn't see any of those. And I would argue the same thing about assaults, simple, aggravated, sexual. Um, we really should be seeing zero reports. But of course, we're not. We live in a real world. And I grew up in this community and as I grew up uh like most boys I got into some fights and most of them were the shoving and pushing and wrestling and and those kinds of fights but I was also the victim of an aggravated assault at one point where I was punched and kicked and bloodied and and so forth and and in those days we never reported it. uh you were expected to deal with it yourself and so I of course didn't report it um and tried to deal with it myself. Uh I'd like to think that that's changed. Um I know we have alternative programs uh at the Boys and Girls Club for these underage these juveniles that are engaged in these assaults. I applaud that. I think the Boys and Girls Club is doing a great job of trying to provide these kids with a different means of solving problems other than resorting to

violence. I think it's a real problem. And I I would also say that, you know, even though of course some of these are boyon boy kinds of things, I think that a lot of assaults in this community uh the victims are women and I think that's a problem for us. Uh, and I I think that we in leadership positions in the community have a great deal of power in terms of where we allocate resources and where we put our efforts to reduce crime. And I and I think that um we focus on drugs, we focus on DUIs, and I know Chief Tumi would say we focus on everything, but I think we need to ramp up what we're doing in terms of assaults, especially domestic assaults that involve women. We we know that uh we have a beacon center here in town. There's a reason we do and they're struggling to replace some funding that they've recently lost. I think it's a real important service. I I I just think it points to a real need. And so I would argue that I would like to see us allocate more resources to trying to do something to to correct this problem because I think it's getting worse. And I I know that um you know where we put our resources uh has an impact and I know that you would agree with me that that it's you know that you share the concern. But I just want to do in addition to congratulating you urge you to redouble our efforts in this in this area. And I I uh I think the other thing that this points out is that as I look around at the leadership in the community and I look around at this city council, uh I don't see very many women. Just don't see very many women. And I think that's

not the problem of the departments, but it tells me that we need to probably do a better job. Uh we know that, you know, more than half of our community are women and we know they're doctors and attorneys and they play all kinds of roles in our community. I'd like to see us do more things to support women in leadership roles in the community because I think it would help us perhaps uh reallocate resources in a different way. So congratulations. Just personally, I hope we can do more to reduce uh assaults in the community and and particularly in our school system where I'm really concerned that boy, we've got a lot of kids solving problems with violence and I think that's a mistake and we need to nip that in the bud. Thank you very much,

Councilman Hoyer. I thought you get on. There we go. I just wanted to revisit um the concerns that came up at the start of our meeting. Maybe someone else was going to bring it back up, but um just if that's something we do want to bring up in discussion or if we want to handle it privately or however we want to go about it, but now would be the time. Okay. I just I do think it's a genuine concern. I've heard it from a lot of And you're talking about the road closure. Yes. Second, just to clarify that everyone's on the same page.

Yep. Um just heard a lot of um you know just because I am present in the downtown so I get talked to a lot about it. Um genuine concern from a lot of people um I don't know what our timeline looks like. Have we gotten an update for when they're looking at getting going? Um because it sounds like in the appeal that was kind of given to us that they're fine with it if they're doing stuff. But I can I can see the concern when we haven't seen any movement here for about a month. I'll give a couple of updates. And first of all, those of us in city hall live with it every day. We we know the concerns. Um almost a direct quote is the same update that I've received for the last month, which is tomorrow or within a few days, we will be ready. We actually saw the civil plans this afternoon. So, I am confident that things are finally moving forward. Um there are some logistical issues with opening up the street right now. That's not that's not easy to do in the short term and therefore we've been listening to the developer um tell us what their plans are in terms of getting started. I can tell you that they are ready to start. um meeting the one weekek requirement will either happen or we will open up the road through the city's effort long before a week um because we can't deal with it any longer either. One of the complicating factors is there is a trench dug through almost both lanes of the road because the water man is actually located on the east side. And so there hasn't been a provision made yet for how that's temporarily paved. So if we were to just go in there today and open up the road, there'd be a really bad spot in it. And so that's been one of the hesitencies in in wanting to open

it up for just a short period of time. We do intend that when it is um uh under construction that we will have that addressed and we will be able to open it up for short periods of time on a more frequent basis, but we're just not at that point yet. So simple answer is it will be open within a week or there will be active construction activity at the site.

Thank you. And I would also like to add that city manager Stagger and myself talked to the developers. Everyone is frustrated and would like it to move forward. I know that's part of that. But they did also make it clear that there has been work that is being done with the soil and the foundation that is just not as obvious to people that doesn't involve well demolition. So it might not be obvious to people that work is going on but work is going on there that they have to do before they move forward. So that has been part of it as well. Councilman Jurns hearing them out. Their one request was due to logistics running in and out congestion. Will we be able to open up one lane? And I know I hear now that's the first I've heard of the of the uh the digging that has been done in there because of the east side water lane or water. But when they're actually doing the work, do they need the whole street cut shut down

to to the extent possible? We intend to keep one lane open in each direction. There may be times when that's not safe. And I think everybody acknowledges there will be times it has to be completely shut down. I would be hesitant to open up just one lane and creating a inadvertent oneway. I think that's more hazardous than having it closed. Any further questions, comments, shout outs, topics? City manager, anything to report?

Uh, I had some stuff a long time ago. Um, I I'll just go at this. I I think we need a work session on streets and we were planning that even before tonight. So, I had mentioned uh during the discussion on sidewalks that this street project actually started about five years ago. um city uh engineer Peterson and I have actually gone through a list of street projects for the next three years that we would like some input on and and going through that in a work session I I think gives all of you an opportunity to ask some of the design related questions that it's way too late to ask on the project in front of us. So do look for a a work session in in the coming month. Um, second thing I'd bring up, um, we continue to look for, uh, volunteers to put on our list for boards and commissions. It's real simple to sign up on our website, uh, just clicking on the apply to serve link. And then finally, the Bramble Park Zoo is beginning a master planning process. And on Thursday, March 26th, at 5:30 p.m. at the zoo, there will be a listening session where interested community members can come and give some input into the future uh the future of the Bramble Park Zoo. That's all I have.

You said March 26th at 5:30. March 26th, 5:30 p.m. in the uh Discovery classroom. Thank you. We have no reason to go into executive session. So I will take a motion to adjurnn. Motion made by Councilman Allen. Second. Seconded by Councilman Hoyer. All those in favor of adjournment, please say I. I. Any oppose say nay. Motion carries. Good night and God bless you, Watertown.