Common Council - Regular Meeting

Call this meeting to order the committee of the whole May 5th 2026 at 7 p.m. Can I have a roll call please? Here. G here. Stubby here. Sen here. Collie here. Here are here.

Thank you. We do not have any virtual attendees tonight. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [cough] [clears throat] On to number four, which is the general public comments. We do not have any. Number five is approval of minutes. Recommendation is to approve the minutes from April from the April 8th committee of the whole meeting.

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from the April 8th committee of holding. I'll second that. Motion by Victoria, second by Terry. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Number six is the Do I want to bump up? Those the two that are here are the first two.

Um, sorry Brad. Can I bump you down one real quick just because I know that the website went pretty quick. Um, I'm gonna move up number seven. So, the website ADA compliance and development. Nathan, do you want to come up to the mic, please? Okay. Um, my name is Nathan. I work for the owner and director for Studios for what?

Design and web development. Uh so I was approached to do a proposal for ADA compliance for the city website. If you don't know what that is, that's visually impaired so that a screen reader can read your website effectively and tell the person what is on it.

So the current site pretty old. I think I developed that 10 years ago or more somewhere around there. Uh it needs a lot of work. Um I guess the main objective phase one would be we have to redesign the framework and theme. Um the framework is a package that provides a structured formation pre-written code libraries to simplify the development portion of it. And then a theme is a prepackaged set of files that dictates the design layout and functionality of the website. So the current one like I said was 10 years ago. It is not a line. Mhm.

So, uh, step one would be to redesign a new framework. The framework I use now, uh, is a subscription based framework that gets continuous updates or be compliant. I think it'll stay compliant. I don't know for sure. They might abandon it at some point. You never know where that for anyone. Yeah, I would use a new framework at that. But, um, it's a pretty popular framework. I think it'll stay. So,

so with that framework then I would develop a new theme for a website. Uh normal processes I do like two to three different concepts. We get narrowed down to a final concept. So we pick fonts, big color scheme, big layout. Uh we get that implemented onto the website. So now we have a fresh new website that should be largely ADA compliant. [clears throat] Phase two, we would go we would use uh accessibility checker.org or they have a scanner that I would use to scan the framework just to make sure it is compliant the theme that I developed to make sure it's compliant and then all 44 pages of the website including the images. So they would provide like a pretty detailed like uh assessment of what how it needs to be fixed and what the problem is and different levels of like critical things maybe just aesthetic things that should be done in future all that kind of stuff. So pretty detailed on what needs to be fixed.

So make those fixes. Bad news is what it doesn't include is all the documents on the website, PDFs and word documents. There's no way for a website scanner to scan all those documents and correct them because they have to be corrected in the program that were made. So Acrobat or Word, which they have their own checkers in those programs. More bad news, there's 4,000 documents on the website. So my rules does not include those because that would take in your um would you say that a lot of the majority of those are outdated documents that we need anymore?

Largely most of them would be non-compliant in some way. So a lot of the documents on a website were from a printed printed and scanned newer scan newer scanners will create those as searchable um and readable. So, but there's still other pretty minuscule things that you have to do with PDF text. You have to assign a title to them. The couple I checked or scanned in. So, they had to be which Acrobat has a good tool for that to make it searchable, right? Um, word would always be searchable. They were made in Word. It was they were made pretty compliant. So, the process is probably make something in Word, export it to a PDF, upload it to a website.

Right. And I think that's I don't know how you guys are doing that stuff now. Current C currently most of the documents that go on the website are scanned in through the copier put out there. My understanding you may have a better understanding than I do. My understanding is that we don't have to bring the document into compliance. If it's not a document that changes all the time, if it's just there for history, but moving forward, anything that we vote on has to be compliant. If I'm incorrect on that, I apologize. That's that's my very limited understanding of this very long statute or whatever.

I'm very new to this too. I don't have too many others and while I am presenting this to other clients, they are brushing it up. So, the deadline was pushed back. Yeah. It doesn't mean that I mean it's still going to take us a while to to everything with that new documents like moving forward. You have to make sure they're comp. Sure. That's my understanding. I mean, it certainly wouldn't hurt depending on if we have to get software or something. So, is there a reason you're not just combining all the files in Adobe and it because there's a way to do that and that's I just And then you're not you're not making a copy scanning it. You're just uploading. You're just uploading it.

And I've noticed depends what we get. So, you know, for documents that we create in house, sure, but we don't always get everything in house. We get stuff emailed or dropped off, you know, depending on what we're talking about or an RFP, a bid, a, you know, whatever. It's those documents that that's why it's simpler for us to just put the packet all together and throw it in the copier and and scan it and then have one document out there for people to access. What I'm mostly referring to is packets. That's how we do it now. Not saying we can't change that process, which is just what we do now. I mean, I have to do that, too. Sure.

But we either ask for electronic copies or we scan just those pages and combine it into the already electronic copies of things that we have because I've noticed that in here like a lot of these are not they're just scanned. Yes. They're not the print. [clears throat] The only a couple of our staff have that version. I can't do that. Britney can pro.

Yeah. Whatever it is. So, we may have some additional costs to finally figure out exactly how best to do this. We've got to figure out what option makes the most sense. That very well may be it, but we got to make sure it's compliant before we invest anything, too. So hopefully we had a little bit of time to figure that out, but I would I would encourage us to start down this path of getting the website the way you want it and you know so that it doesn't come crashing down on us with you know time to figure out the PDF stuff and everything has a feature where you can you can take a scan document and it's just a click of a button to make it searchable for people.

I don't know how accurate it is to do that but it it will go through the document and chain it to electronic text. Mhm.

So, um, and then there's there's a separate section for accessibility. So, there's a you just got to go through that and the one I checked, I think it had 12 different things wrong with it. And it was a it was a scanned document. That was the main part of it is so maybe eight of those were pages of the document saying, "Hey, these are this was a scanned image essentially, not electronic." And then there are a handful other things that had to be done pretty minor. But I would bet that most of those documents at in some point have to something has to change. And I think and I don't know if there's someone internally that can help while we're doing this to clean up. There's so many old docs, so many old, you know, you search for something and five different pages come up that might not even have anything linked to it anymore. I think there's just again whether we can internally help save on some of that time clearing up some of those pages but um updating this website is something we should have done a long time ago but now we have to

so yeah so we scan it we make all those changes and then like I said eventually I'll at least moving forward make sure they're before they're uploaded on the website whatever program you're in make sure they come out of there what do you think your time frame is Nathan for at least coming up with the um um I mean I can I'm project but I'm just curious like if you think this is going to take few months five month like I'm just curious if it needed to be done in a month I get it done at least my portion not okay I was just curious

and then phase three if you want to do continuous monitoring then we have to keep paying for that program versus $150 you save 20% if you go annually but that would do you could do continual scans um it provides all sorts of like auditing reports and uh accessibility statement that you can put on the website so viewers know you're compliant. So there's a there's a lot of stuff back in there and then if changes are made on the site or just every now and then run a scan on the framework and the theme just to make sure that because compliance will change levels will change on that. So, just make sure it continues to stay compliant. I recommend it. Um, I don't know what's better to just pay for a month because you can cancel and pick it up any time. So, pay for a month. Like I said, it would take me a month to get through it.

So, I would pay for that software a month, get through the site, then we could cancel it, maybe, you know, six months, three months or however that's good.

All right. Does anybody have any questions for Nathan? I don't think there's many ways around this. If there's no questions, we're looking for a motion. I'll make a motion to recommend to the common council approval of the quote from Finish Line Studios to bring the city's web page into compliance with ADA requirements and freshen up the look of the website. Second motion by Terry, second by Missy. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries.

So, put that on for next week for review approval. So, I don't need you next week. I think everybody has their questions answered. My only question is who would I be working with Jesse? Yeah. Yeah. Between Jesse and or any of the ladies in the office, whoever's taking it on, but yeah. Okay. I provided one. I kind I gave them that picture. But yeah, if you if you come up with a couple then um it's up to the council. Do you want us to bring just the general concepts and you pick A, B or C and then he can run with that kind of thing?

That usually ends up being a combination. I don't think I nailed it on the first [laughter] combination like this and this and that and then finalize it and then build it up. Sure. Yeah. I think um once we narrow down some ideas then we can bring it back to council and you guys can choose on which yeah I'm going to go for a more like the current website just a big image a lot of overlaying stuff and big buttons not much content like go back towards I think that'll help with compliance as well more traditional like logo simplicity

navigation banner area action and some content actual text content page which will also after. Yeah. [clears throat] All righty. Sounds good. Thank you. All right. So, we're going to go back to number six, which is resolution number 26-03, the resolution author, authoring the issuance, authorizing authorizing the issuance and establishing parameters for the sale not to exceed um $2 million general obligation promisory notes. So we have Brad from Baird. All right. Thank you.

Thanks. I welcome to the presentation packet that was included in your agenda. So this is for the city's uh capital program and borrowing. This isn't financing that the city typically undertakes every other year uh for capital projects. So just in terms of a timeline with the committee's uh recommendation tonight uh to council, council would take this up next week. um preparations for the issuance would be made. We prepare an official statement which is the offering document used to sell the notes. Uh we apply for bond insurance to begin marketing the obligation. And then we were targeting a May 20th um award date. That's the date that the rates and the terms are finalized and closing them would follow June 10th. So the resolution that you're looking at tonight is called the parameters resolution. establishes a narrow set of parameters that once those parameters are met then the b the notes can be awarded outside of a regular council meeting. So the parameters are listed on summarized on the bottom of this page include a not to exceed borrowing amount $2 million and not to exceed interest rate 4.75% and then there's flexibility to increase or decrease individual principal payments, individual annual principal payments by up to $2,000. That's included so we can meet the long-term debt targets that the city has. U the summary of the issuance is towards the middle of the page. These are general obligation comparatory notes. So that means the city is pledging its taxing authority to the investors to secure the notes. You're supporting levy levy supported projects will be funded with these notes. That includes projects included in your capital improvement program and equipment acquisition. Um we've got a 10-year repayment. So final payment is scheduled for 2036. First

interest will be next year um next March. The uh estimated interest rate based on current market is 3.75%. So that's one percentage point below the maximum interest rate outlined in the parameter. That that 1% might seem like a pretty wide margin, but it's really so that we in case rates start to move up, we can get this locked in. Uh if we put a much narrower rate, like for example, if I put 3.8% and then rates went to 385, we can't finalize. we have to come back to council and either get an additional approval or wait for the rates to drop. So, this just provides a little more flexibility to the city to get this [clears throat] note issued. There's a long-term financing plan detail on the next page. This lays out a few things. First, on the left hand side of the page are the existing obligations of the city that are supported by tax levy. In the box in area is the estimated repayment for this $2 million issue. And you can see in the the boxed in total payments I have equal annual payments between $245 to $250,000 based on the 375 interest rate. Towards the right hand side of the page, you've got a placeholder for future issuance. Those are just for planning purposes, purely hypothetical. At this point, the council is not being asked to take any formal action on those future issues. They're here for planning only. So, the combined debt service then includes existing the $2 million issue this year and those hypothetical future $2 million issues brought to market every other year, every two years. What I point out is that we've got a structure developed that by 2031 or I'm sorry 2030 we see the peak year in the debt service levy at 1 million349

or I guess peaked at about 10,000 higher than in 2029 but then you'll see it starts to drops to 1 million 137 and then finally levels out at about 1 million250. So to the extent we stick with this plan, we have a very level repayment um and and manageable debt service levy for the city moving forward. Of course, if we if you need to increase these borrowings because of additional projects or inflation, you know, these numbers will change, but this is something we update every time we come before council, something that would be updated for you. [clears throat] With that, I'd be glad to answer questions or I can go into more detail. So when will um the taxpayers see this increase on their tax bills? The

well start 27. They're the first time they're going to see it is 27. Yeah.

Because the way and that's reflected on that right hand column towards the right that says total combined debt service. You can see from this year you budgeted the city budgeted $883,000 for capital projects that are funded with debt service. In 26 that would actually drop just a little bit. Drops about $20,000. And then the first impact is 2027 where it would be a total payment to 1 million110. Anybody else have any questions for Brad or Jesse? Um, if not, we're looking for a motion. Obviously, this is not the first time we've talked about the borrowing. I'll make a motion to recommend a common council approval of resolution 26-03 authorizing the issuance and establishing parameters for the sale of not to exceed $2 million general obligation from home. I'll second that motion by Sam, second by Terry. All in favor say I. I.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. That was quicker than the the internet one. Sorry, I thought I thought the website was going to go quick here. Um, on to number eight, which is the raise and repair unsafe properties update. Recommendation is listen to presentation and discussion and action. That's appropriate, Tim.

All right. So just this was prepared with council's request to have a say a comprehensive update of where things are at with some properties, some that are historic that just are in the memory. There are some that are ongoing and some that are say planned to be addressed and at the more beginning stages of trying to find solutions to the problems. Um so uh I mean you can say that yeah I mean there's not a lot I can add on the ones that are I say finished or on the borderline of being finished but uh again we're always open to that any sort of thoughts on that. U the ones that do need work we've have some ongoing progress for those. Actually, I'd say in the last week, there are a couple items I could have updated on this, but um I think sticking to the 30-day as in the building code requirements to people and then communicating that has been effective and it's at least for one of those is say keeping it from becoming a greater problem. There is one that could become a greater problem with its current trajectory. We're just having to figure out how to try to motivate the property owner and not get it to the point where it has to be formal razor repair or razor remove which always possibility may have the vacant properties that are say represented in the ladder section that of the ongoing that also had some progress. We are actually going to be having an inspection of one of those tomorrow and hopefully we'll be able to say that it's in better shape than I'm

sort of thinking it will be. But again, do not want to see that go to razor repair or remove. It would be quite cost prohibitive likely based on just the materials it's made of. So these are just [clears throat] I know the list is or this excuse me the spreadsheet that we've that I've seen this list is not all inclusive right there's several others that may have been warned or are in a process right like there there are others that are on the radar just I think we're trying to strategically manage the workload especially with the inspectors being

dedicated to more than just Berlin as far as cities go right Um because as a reminder, they're only here for a couple hours weekly. Yeah, they're here several hours in the office and then probably about that much inspecting more than that. Sure.

Just depends on how they can manage the workload overall. But uh yeah, I mean otherwise just the other solution is I mean threatening and going to citation which would have typically 10 or 14 day compliance windows. I'd say it's a coin flip that there will be compliance or not that route. I mean there are some that are just not sure what else to do with but anyway I'm just trying to go in I say generalizations. There's more information in here that I could go into if you have questions, comments, or anything else you want to pull out of this.

Um, I would like to maybe next week we can touch base um sit down and take a look at that spreadsheet and just see where we're at with the rest of them um or the severity um because I know this is not everything. So, does anybody else have any questions for Tim or any concerns? Anything that sticks out to you? Because I would say that there's more than just one nuisance property that we have, not just this one. Right. Yeah. These are ones where there's overlap with the unsafe or unsafe condition.

I had a question for you because we're throwing out a couple terms here. I just want to make sure that I understand kind of the evolution. Can you tell me the difference between a nuisance property, an unsafe property, a raise and repair? Like how do we evolve through those? Sure. Those are all defined in ordinance. I'd say generally speaking, the nuisance ones are the ones that are we have our chapter 46 as the public nuisance. It has a list of it's I wouldn't say that's exactly exclusive of what's in the building chapter, but it has specific items that it calls out where unsafe building is the what the overall category that the raise and repair is part of or raise and remove which are in the building chapter.

So you're telling me read the ordinance what you're telling me? Sorry, it's Yeah, there's not a real high level way to

I think a nuisance is any time that there's a violation of the code, we would consider that a nuisance and you would issue a letter which pictures explaining what needs to be done to bring it back into compliance. Um, most of your nuisances, well, I shouldn't say most, they don't have to necessarily be related to the safety core structure. Um, those can be people parking something that they shouldn't park in the yard or having trash in the yard, things like that. So, it's not necessarily un unsafe, but um it's a violation of of the ordinance to be a nuisance. So, then when you get to unsafe, there's something that's probably structurally unsound. That's a problem that we've taken to the building inspector. And once the building inspector deems that it's gotten to the point where it either needs to be fixed or needs to be torn down because of safety issues that I wish to the race and repair.

Thank you. We also have that's in my office though. We have a the workflow sheet too. I don't exactly know where to find it on the website. I feel like it was on the website. Yes, it says still on the website. I checked today. What? Give me an idea. Where am I looking? Is it under yours? Under building inspection? I think it's under code enforcement under city hall.

Um, flowchart is a link I believe on the bottom of the page. Okay, that's what I'm looking for. Um, this would be helpful to maybe print for everybody again or to send to them. I love that. Yeah, thank you.

So, this was um especially when people come to you as other persons. Um, it's a little flowchart of when they come to you, what you should do as the next step. If you're going to Jesse, if you're going to Scott or how how that goes. So, it's just a flowchart of city above property news nuisance flowchart. Um, and it starts with someone public building inspector, city staff, PD officer notices, issues with the property in Berlin. Then it goes down to planning and development directors notified of the issue. Then it goes to the what is this one? police or planning and development director checks city records for history, property address and then it's down to he checks with the police department for history of property address and owner and then it from there. Yeah. So, um that's something that we can either print or email to them.

Thank you. Any other questions for Tim? I like seeing this update. So, thank you for for keeping us in the loop on those. I have a question, Tim. Um, what what kind of responses do you get on a lot of these letters when they get sent out? Are the responses are are they pretty much like, "Okay, yep, we're going to take care of this." Or do you get a lot of push back? Yeah, actually more a lot more often than not. Yeah, people do just get the letter and they deal with the issue. Did I say within about a week? Good.

Anything else? Okay. Thanks, Tim. Um, on to number nine is council chambers audio video systems upgrade. Recommendation is review and recommend the quote from peak systems group. Um, I guess I can take this one since most of

Um, so I had tried my darnest to get that room working again. Um, we have one computer in there that actually fried. It's not working at all. So that's why we are using this lovely thing to get us at least on to YouTube. Um, I went through down several wormholes of contacting different people to try to get it figured out and everybody um either didn't show up or they left and didn't come back um because it was that bad. So finally I reached out um to the school district because we have um our own in-house AB um directors and so I had them come in and their suggestion was to go with this company who I believe is out of Apple or Reaper, sorry. Um and so they do a lot of municipal and um churches. Um they do a lot of school districts including the Brooklyn school district. Um so he came in um met with me for over an hour, took measurements, looked at everything and at the end of the day asked what our needs were, what we're looking for and I think my answer was very simple was make it simple. Um, we have several different people that are hosting and running meetings. And the way I used to have to talk people through and the different notes if we could even get that room up and running was just the whole synopsis was that room was way more than we ever needed. That room was created during COVID um with pieced together um equipment. Um, and then it was set up and we never heard from the people that installed it again. So, it was also set up so that we could stream online. Sorry, not just online, but also our cable channel. Um, I don't know if I'm probably the oldest one here now. You might remember that we never got Spectrum Chart or whatever. They never

gave us the part. We never got back on the cable channel. So, that is not even an option anymore. So, um, when he came in, we're using a lot of our own hardware. Um, you'll see that there was [clears throat] a quote in here. I told him to throw it in there if we had the option to upgrade the cameras. He said the cameras were okay. We can make them work. Um, obviously the new ones are going to be better quality. Um, but he threw in that extra I think it was 14,000 for extra for the new cameras. Yeah.

Um, otherwise they're using our same fixtures that we have. The biggest difference instead of me having to run over there to the volume is on the wall um when they put all that together, the whole concept was that whoever was the moderator of the meeting um would have been able to control all that stuff up here, but at the time we had not so techsavvy leaders that could not make it work. So they said, "Okay, let's put it in this room." Um volume on the wall doesn't help me up here. It doesn't help whoever's running the meeting. Um, it doesn't help to have to go and switch the computer in there to try to get somebody on Zoom. It's just it's it was not set up the way it should have been. Um, this will be the new system will be on an iPad basically and it'll be a touch here to stream, touch here for this camera. It very simplistic so that anybody can run it. Um, [clears throat] so this was their quote to get us up and running um to be able to stream to YouTube and Zoom at the same time. So we can have like we used to have where we can have our Zoom um participants if we need to. Um but it would be whoever is running that meeting can have that iPad and and control everything whether zooming in on the cameras because that's a thing we just could never do it in there. Um use the cameras better um and more efficiently and be able to talk to the people up on the screen and adjust volumes and all that good stuff. So, um, the recommendation was to use this out of the capital funds that we are just borrowing. Again, this is not something we were planning, but I can't keep up with this and we have the equipment and I just feel like it's a disservice that we're not even using any of this stuff or we can't because we can't even tap into it because it's ancient or locked out. We can't even access it. So, does anybody have any questions for me?

Um, just regarding the cameras. Yeah, you'd mentioned that he said that we could use the existing cameras, but why does he recommend the upgrade?

He didn't. He said we could absolutely just use these. It's just the quality. These cameras are um I think this was installed in 20. So, they're six years old already. Um, megapixel wise, obviously, the day you buy them, they're already extinct. um you can buy better the next day. So, I just asked him that if we're spending the money, we're doing it now and we're making the upgrades, if he wasn't sure at the time when I asked him what the cost would be of the new cameras. So, when he did the research and I threw them in here, wasn't exactly expecting that much, but um I said while we're doing it, if we're doing it, I would bring it to you guys and you guys can make that decision. So, they can work. Um but if we're installing all the other stuff, I wanted to run it by you guys. Maybe I'm not seeing it, but this quotes for 35,800, but so we don't need the second or sorry, the first

Okay. Um, we don't need the t the cable TV feed. Um, and the option two with the new cameras is the extra 14,000. So, it's without the cameras, it's more in the 20. It says the basis of 20,300 at the bottom of the No, she's looking at the 89,000 321 321 that we borrow and I'm not seeing that in the proposal. This project could be added to the list. The contingency borrowing, right? We would add it to the list of projects. I'm sorry, I didn't give you that list again. You guys proved that not too long ago. Um

the big list that they gave us with all the projects for the $2 million borrowing, right? Okay. There's there's about 85,000 that we have listed as contingency and to be perfectly honest. And this is

yes I mean it can go in there. We don't want to use all of the contingency because some of the borrowing costs and other things will come out of that and obviously those are all estimates but if you're comfortable I I think it would be safe to to move forward with this under the borrowing. And again, I we didn't have the money any other time, and I'm not saying to just go ahead and drain because we have this $2 million. I just know that this can't keep up. And either way, we were going to have some expenses coming, whether it was new computers because we can't use any of those um or the the cost it was going to take to have to even find somebody. We can't find somebody to touch that. I have had several people in here um that again have either just ghosted me or they this isn't their forte. So, um, this is the best I've gotten from anybody. So, and honestly, with the different the variety of people that are leading the meetings and the trainings that I have to have or the times I have to come running up here, no offense,

the times I have to come running up here, um, when there's other meetings to help people set up this stuff, I would rather not be here for every single meeting to do that since we don't have in-house IT. So, this will help a lot of people. And normally I would say normally I would say if the cameras are working, leave them. But I've watched online and it's even difficult to discern who is talking sometimes with that video

and the fact you you could zoom. We could have zoomed all this time, but again, I whoever is doing the meeting would have had to have gone in there to do it. Um, and you're right, it's not crystal clear. I I would agree. I was just trying to save some money. But again, if we're doing it, my preference would be to just do it all. But again, that's it's up to you guys. I would note though, just and and maybe everybody's on the same page. This assumes we go back to using Yeah.

the big cameras, not the owl, excuse me. So, the most the meetings for the last few months here have been the owl. So, if you're talking about camera quality, just so you know, we'd be talking about meetings probably last year. And I would almost I would almost say that the quality is probably the same. Actually, the owl is probably a better quality because it's a little bit closer. The old views were so stretched out that you couldn't see who was talking. And again, had I known or

neither here nor there, whatever. Can't go back. [clears throat] Um, but you're Yeah, I I didn't want to be the one to make the decision all alone of should we replace them. Obviously, we're trying to be frugal, but then again, if we're making all the other updates, to me, it makes sense to update them. But

I think it is it makes a lot of sense logically to have the same company that's doing your computers, that's doing the integration to do the video rather than have someone come in five years later and then play with wiring and, you know, jerryrig it to make their own stuff work. So, I think it does make sense to do them at the same time. If you're going to upgrade it to a working solution, if we do do this and we have issues, do we have them available to call? So, yeah. And this is I was um talking to Jesse about this too that they are very responsive. They were very quick with me. Um the school district, this is what's nice about um tag teaming the same like businesses. Um they're very quick with the school district.

[clears throat] And so most times when you get stuff like that, if they'll check in with you if they're at the school district, you know, it's easy for them to stop over and which is what they did the day they came to measure. Hey, we're in the neighborhood. We're going to be in the neighborhood next week working on school stuff. Can we swing in and take a look? So yeah, they're very responsive, which is also a bless. I I would say though that if you were planning to go with the cameras, keep in mind that total at the bottom the 358 includes I believe that um 1100. Yeah, we can take that that I think I don't think anybody is proposing that we Noise that it's not even an option, right?

So it's either it's either the 20,300 or the 30 347. Really? Yeah. If any I'll make a motion to recommend approval of the quote from Peak Systems Group to upgrade and restore the audio visual systems in council chambers to include the video for the estimate estimate total 34,700. We'll second that motion by Victoria, second by Terry. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed?

Motion carries. [clears throat]

Okay. Item number 10 is the pool request for proposal process. Um discussion and action is appropriate. So what I did was take our last version. Basically just replace this with the version which I think was option four before. So basically just any idea what do you want to do with the pool? And I tried to um clarify as I thought was the request last time that this could definitely include the reuse of the pool if that's somebody's proposal or not. It does not have to. So it's out there for anything that anybody wants to do. Once the RFP goes out, once you're comfortable with the documentation and choose a timeline and all those types of things, keep in mind you are not required to select an RFP. If it comes back and you don't feel that any of the ideas brought forward um are in the best interest of the community, you can reject that proposal. Just keep that in mind. I'm not suggesting that's what we want to do. I'm just saying there's no pressure that if you get two proposals and you're like, I don't think either of these are going to be between the you don't have to pick between them, you know?

[clears throat] or you could get 10 really great ones and have a lot of conversation and a really difficult decision. I hope so. I hope that you have really good options out there to choose from. But I just want to make sure that people realize that putting this out does not mean you have to choose something that comes back to the city. I certainly don't want you to go through this not planning to choose one. That's not what I mean at all. [laughter]

Did anybody have any questions, concerns, things that they thought were missing or that they thought were too much or anything like that? Um, I think it looks good. Yeah, I do have a question. If somebody wanted to Sorry. If somebody wanted to see the property to make a quote, how would they reach out to the city for that? So, within this, I've actually put in here that um there would be a non-mandatory proposal meeting site visit. So, we would put a date in here when we would be out at the site and they would be, you know, welcome to walk through.

So, we'd have a mini meeting out at the site. So, there's a site visit date. Yep. It isn't in here yet, right? When it goes out, but yes. Yep. But I [clears throat] also think if somebody was really interested, I don't see our our city staff turning down somebody to let them in or Oh. Outside of the date normally for fairness, right, you keep it. it is the date or if we had to like if we heard from a few people I can't make that date then I would say that we would post right

that there will be an additional meeting on another date night like we wouldn't just allow an individual an individual time to go because that could be considered an unfair advantage by the others who are good thank you any other questions Sorry. If not, then I will talk with staff and get these dates updated and proposed for you guys and then you can um approve it next week if you're comfortable with that. Unless there's anything else you want me to look into further or whatever. No, that was actually my question was um when you tell you have dates ready. So, okay, good. Okay,

everybody go with that? Yeah. All right. On to number 11, which is the charter ordinance 05-26 to amend chapter 2, article 1 of the municipal code to institute at large representation of the common council rather than representation by alderatic district. The recommendation is to approve the charter ordinance um to institute the atlarge representation. And then this [clears throat] one's just the council one. The next um number will be for our boards and committees. Yes, I know that was a question the council had asked if we could do the um charter ordinance changes together. The answer that I got was yes, but don't. [laughter] Okay,

those just get too hairy. So, they wanted um our attorney wanted two separate.

The reason being that because the charter ordinance has to um have the twomon period where people can then request that it be put on a ballot as a referendum question. If you have multiple pieces, it could make your referendum question rather complicated and it could stop a portion that you didn't that nobody has a problem with. So if you do it a separate then it can be their own their own deals and it's just basically what I got. So a timeline for this one once this gets approved it's a 60-day waiting period

and then it should be a a go. So, it is implemented after the 60 days if there is no um appeal of it. That's not the right word, but if nobody petitioned to make it go to referendum, if that were to happen, then we'd have to get it on for a referendum, which I have to double check the timeline, but I think we're probably looking at November. It would be November. Yeah. Because there's 60 days out and then Yeah. Unless they petitioned immediately. Yes. So remind [clears throat] me understand what order we're doing this in which which is the first part that we're going to then the second part. So we're doing first this number 11 is for the alderman at large.

Okay. Right.

So can I get some background as to why the change? So, so I'm I requested um it's been so hard to fill alderman seats and we've had several people in certain wards that like we had many people running and then we have well look at your guys' seats for example. There's other people in other wards that wanted to step up but couldn't. Um and so this has been happening in quite a few different um municipalities. And so I it's just so hard and if we have the people that want to do it, why why does it matter where they're sitting or where they're living? Um, so this was my thought to try to help that process because I'm not going to lie, I was super nervous that we weren't even going to have a quorum leading up to after this last election. So, we thought that this was a good idea to to bring forward for a change. Um, and it's not even it's not just older persons. This is why we're going on to the next one, too, is um just finding people to step up is getting so hard. So, if there's other people out there willing to do the job, it shouldn't matter where they live,

right? This one is specific to older persons because by statute, you must be a resident of the community to sit on this council. That's not the case with necessarily most of the boards and commissions and committees, but for this one, you absolutely have to be a resident in order to to sit on council. So, what this would allow is that each year rather than having either the odd or the even numbers um for election, it would be three seats at large. So everyone in the community would vote for not more than three older persons. Top three vote. Yep. Exactly. Just like the school board. Like if there was five people that wanted to run, you pick your top three choices still. Yep.

Um it would not change the voting districts. You know, if you're W three, you're still voting in W three. has nothing to do with those um the districts or the um

right because you could have different representation on the county board or if you're in Oer County versus um Green Lake County. So that's what those districts are in place for more than just our city ws they're in place because of other representation layers. So, if you live in W three, you're still going to get a word free ballot. Although, if there isn't anything specific to to the wards, then everybody need the same ballot. But that's per election. That's a whole bunch of fun to go to. Yeah. [clears throat]

But yeah, it makes a lot of sense because we'll have two people running for the same seat and nobody running for two other seats and Yeah. Yes. And I mean there are certainly advantages to almatic districts especially for really large communities. I mean you look at Milwaukee and I'm certain that there are people who have not been to other awards you know who represent or frequently whereas here I I kind of feel that our community is small enough that you're all familiar with all corners of it being that that you live here. Um, and we all hear whether we're the older person of of a of an area anyways. It doesn't People are going to um people call who they want.

They call who they want. Go down the list. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and Ashkosh, right? Oshkosh is at large. Ashkosh is at large. So, they're much larger community. But again, this Yeah. This just came down to we need people in the seats. So, this was kind of the best solution we could find. I have to agree with Jesse, like there's really not many of us and I'm a transplant from 2004 and I could probably go to just about every place in the city and be familiar with it. So,

so with that, we are looking for a motion. I'll make a motion to recommend to the common council the adoption of the charter ordinance 05-26 of the municipal code to institute at large representation of the common council. I'll second motion and second. All in favor say I. I.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Um and then also in those notes, it obviously gave the the updates like this isn't going to happen overnight. We all don't just all run over again. You were just you guys were just elected for two terms. You are safe for your two terms or sorry two years. Two years. Your one term. Correct. Yes. Um, so it's going to be kind of a staggered if and when this passes, um, as long as there's no petitions or anything like that and it doesn't have to go to, um, referendum, um, it'll kind of be a staggered approach. So, okay. So, then we are on to number 12, which is the residency requirements of the committee, board, and commission members. Um, recommendation is to review and action as appropriate. Um, same same but not same.

Right. So, this ordinance has not been written yet because um we need guidance as to if you would like to see some of the committees and commissions not requiring residency, which of those it would be or on the flip side, which ones do you wish to continue to require? So you got to have that conversation through the committing commissions and boards um so that the ordinance can then be updated per your wishes. Did we have a um we have a staff report on this one that had a recommended or the am I missing it?

Staff report that had what? I'm sorry for this section. Um it it says which section it comes out of that. I'm just missing that's what I was looking for. I was just looking for that sheet. And then there's a memo from the attorney that goes through and says what what's required by statute and what's required by um by ordinance.

So of course like we just talked about city council you can't change that other than the representation that you've been discussing prior but then when you go to your other um committees commissions boards you have some flexibility for the most part. The second column is state law residency requirement. So if it says no then it's up to you guys completely. If there is a statute there then we have to make sure that whatever you determine is within those perviews obviously because we can't override the state but so do any of these don't have any state statute requirements. So again background I don't know if you're I don't all the meetings kind of run together so I don't remember what we talked about but this was again um over since I started as older person so I had I served two two terms so four five years as one year whatever several times I heard that business owners wish that they could sit and have us say um they may not have been a citizen or a resident of the community but they were attacked taxpayer of the community um and then had their businesses here and they wish they had more say. Um so [clears throat] again and then at a previous meeting, excuse me, we had um a resident come and ask again for us to um kind of open up that that door um to allow to at least allow it. And so the way that this is stated, you could see our attorney's recommendation was instead of using the terminology of uh permitting only a business owner, only a taxpayer um that to be eligible for these boards and commissions that he recommended using um more expansive language such as um a a citizen person's recognized um experience and qualifications,

right? So basically um you could determine when you make your appointments if that if that person meets the qualify. Yeah. So there would be just like there's an application to be on any of these boards. They can put their qualifications and why they think that they should be on it. Um and so then we can review that and decide if they fit the bill and we think that they would be a good fit for our community if they weren't a um a resident of our community. I've had numerous business owners approach me that have asked for this change. I think we should look at opening some of them up on that can. Right. Right. I think [clears throat]

um I love opening this up to business owners that have a vested interest in the city and they do pay taxes and they care about how the city moves forward. Um, I feel that the the board of appeals would be the one that we might want to leave off of that table just because it could look like a conflict of interest if we say um, you know, you the business owner can start giving appeal, you know, [clears throat] variances. What's the word I'm looking for here? special license. What's the word I'm looking for?

Conditional use. Thank you. Condition conditional use. CUPs could be offering cups um based on based on their preferences when they don't have a residence here. So that would be the one that I would say um that and possibly planning commission just because they're deciding the future of the growth of the city and business might be only solely interested commercial growth not the whole growth of the city. Those are the only two that I feel might be suspicious if we had So what's the other one you said? Um, I was thinking of board of appeals. So, that one already says no.

Yeah. Well, that would just be Oh, sorry. No. Okay. But we do have a city code for that. Yes. Right.

All of them pretty much are restricted by city code. That 237 um, excuse me, 2-327, sorry, there um, is the one that most of these refer back to. It's in it's on the memo, but um there are some that have other specifics. So, we'd have to for sure if you open it up probably tweak 2-327 and then depending on which other ones you wished um for instance, if you wanted to do open cemetery board, we'd have to tweak to-41, you know. So, that that's what that third column is. So, you want us to decide tonight what we're

You don't have to, but um if you want the ordinance written up, then you do. If you want to think about this further and have me put it on for next month's committee to hold, that's okay. I mean, this is at your your your pace and what how much discernment you feel that you need because to be honest, these committees and commissions, we normally do the assignments at the organizational meeting, which is in April, which just happened. We still have a couple of vacancies yet, but we're in much better shape than we were prior to April, thanks to the the mayor's consistent getting out there and talking to people and trying to round up um activity among our our people. So, I I don't personally have a time frame. This is your time frame.

And I'm willing to be open to hearing if anybody feels that business owners should be on those. That that was just my initial first blush thought that that could be considered a conflict of interest in the eyes of people and if you're just looking to always seem on the up and up, you know,

or if there's any additional information that you think would aid you in these types of discussions, please um we're happy to find it for you. Just tell me what that is. we gave you or I myself and Eric gave you [clears throat] what made sense to us, but certainly if there's something else. Did you in talking with Eric, did he mention if this is becoming more common or if this is I'm just like weren't we can't be the only ones out there that are trying to do this or that have done it. I I didn't get anything specific from it, but I did when I spoke with the community, I just done basically the same chart for another community fairly recently conversations,

right? One of the nice perks with having Eric Larson as our attorney is the fact that they work for the municipal law. They that this is all they do is municipal law. So, I was hoping that he had a little insight in this of um we're not alone. Okay. I'm just I'm curious what what other communities pick and choose or how what they I mean because now we not that we have a ton of boards but if we start eliminating board of appeals plan commission um I mean so parks and rec committee on aging Oakwood cemetery board library board is already open to other non-residents and the library board has some pretty specific state statutes to be honest I would avoid messing with that one

so I'm just going to write no on that Um, police and fire. I feel like that one I feel a little more open on just because I feel that even businesses would be interested in the, you know, safety of the town. My question is optional powers. Do we even get to decide this? Well, that's a good question. That's a good question. I think that this needs to go to place in I don't think you do. If you want to change that should that that specific piece should probably go to that. Yes.

Next week that would be the same, right? Same. Ask them. So I I guess see what um police and fire if we can add it to their agenda if they meet tomorrow. So it would be a month which is again we're fine. I mean, I would, but I don't think we can make that decision for them. So, I think that they should make that decision. Let them Well, they would make a recommendation to you. Right. Right. But I'm saying that let's we need to check with them or get that on their agenda for them to discuss. Okay. Were there any others? I heard the same.

So, really travel and tourism sounds like a good one. Yes. Um, Oakwood Cemetery, Committee on Aging, Community Development Authority doesn't really need anyways. And then parks and wreck. Does that sound Yeah. Yep. What about board of review? What's the difference between board of appeals? That's another state one that Yeah, that's required that you have Let me see. Does this exist of any number of town, city, or village residents? But it has to be the city res. Those are the ones that hear assessment appeals. Okay. So really we'd just be opening up one, two, three, four, five, and possibly where did you cut that?

Travel and tourism travel and tourism one two committee on agent three open cemetery four. Oh, she probably Oh, community building. I didn't even calm down because they don't meet. We don't even have people on it. I mean ordinance if if they ever created it. Sure. [laughter] Yeah. Sure. If we had people interested like business owners, would that be Yeah. Right. Right. They [clears throat] might create it. Mhm. Sure.

Okay. What what I heard as next steps is to take this to the police and bar commission and the sewer and water commission then bring that back to you and then you can kind of do your final yes and then at that point ask the city attorney to draft it. Yes. Okay. All right. Agree. Easy peasy. Okay. Any other questions on that one? We're on to number 13. I'll let Missy have it. I'll make a motion to adjurnn. I'll second.

Motion by Missy, second by Sam. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Meeting adjourned at 803. [clears throat] Are you guys can hear you