Administration / Public Works Committee - Regular Meeting

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All right. Welcome, everyone, to a meeting of the Administration of Public Works Committee for Tuesday, July the 7th, 2026, at 530 p.m. here in the Wadlow City Hall Community Room. Ms. Mathis, would you please take roll?

Council Member Owen.

Here.

Council Member Trottier. Council Member Chair Attenberg.

Here. Here.

Council member Dadwell, here. Council member Means, here. Council member Rambo. Council member Kranz, here. Council member Albers, here.

Three, four, five, six. Yep.

Dr. Rambo has joined via Zoom, so I'm going to reread that one. Okay. He was trying to get in.

Council member Rambo. Yes, I'm here. It took a second to get promoted. Thank you. All right.

And council member Rambo will try to do a better job of not ignoring you like we did at the last meeting.

That's fine. A lot of people have done that. So it's not a big deal to me, but thank you.

Okay. So next item is the approval of the minutes from the June 2nd, 2026 meeting. Does anyone have any questions, comments regarding the minutes from that particular meeting? If not, then I will entertain a motion for approval of the minutes from the June 2nd meeting, made by Council Member Dodwell, seconded by Council Member Means. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Minutes approved. Thank you. Okay. Public participation, do we need, there is no one I see in the audience. Do we have anybody online? Just Ms. Clark. Ms. Clark. Okay. Ms. Clark, welcome. Did you have any comments that you wanted to make?

You can use the raise hand feature if you would like to speak for public comment. If not, we will proceed. We're good to go. Chair.

Okay. It's moving on from public participation we move into administration review of standardized petitioners committee affidavit form this is something that I spoke to the city administrator about previously and what this is some internal housekeeping to make sure that the form that is used for recall or petitioning on any other type of matter is in keeping, I believe, with state law. Is that correct, city administrator?

That is correct. So the city charter has a section that allows residents to proposed their own ordinances to also have referendum. So call into question and ordinance that the city council had passed. And then also for recall in some instances. So nonetheless, the city doesn't have a dedicated city council approved form. And we had noted that in the charter that there was a specific request for a form to have that was created by the city. So what we're doing here is creating a standardized form. It's exhibit a here that's included in the report. What this does, it kind of covers all three all at the same time, so that if someone ever were to request one of these, it would be city council approved. We'd most likely, after review tonight, if the committee would would endorse it. We would bring it forth to the city council under a resolution to adopt it as a formal document for the, uh, for the city. Nonetheless, uh, one other note that I did want to make while we're just talking about this, because we will be talking about the charter, the update to the charter, which we'll do, uh, in 2027 as part of a 10 year, every, uh, every 10 years we review it. And one thing that we do have that's somewhat a little out of alignment is that usually for, uh, our charter that when it has the recall component, Now the state statute has been updated in the last 10 years and it does force whoever would try to do something like that to say four columns. So right now it just says you wouldn't have to put the four columns in the charter, but state statute would kick in after that and you would still have to provide it. So this form is still, will still cover it then, covers it now. but when we go to the charter review, I make a note of that because that will be something that is brought up by legal counsel, but also the department for an update later on.

So just to answer a question that may come up. So this form that we are acting on tonight, this has been reviewed by city legal advisory, correct? That is correct. Okay. All right. Very good. Does anyone have any questions on this form?

Just real quickly. Why don't we have the four cause in again? I mean, Since this is a new form, I don't see any reason why we can't.

We could include it. It doesn't require like our chart. It would. The one thing about that is I guess the state statute does require it, but our charter doesn't call for it explicitly. So that would be the one question to go against. But if we wanted to include that in the form, that's not going to make a big difference either way. It is just that it would be technically inconsistent with our charter, but consistent with state statute. We look to remedy that exact question.

2027 when we do the charter review so without updating the charter that would be the one little hiccup but we could definitely ask the city attorney's team to see if they could yeah see if we could add it now and then not have to go back to it later because i think it would be helpful for anyone who's reviewing the form to know what their issue is Why are they recommending something to occur?

I agree with that. It sounded like we could go down a path and then end up having to go back and rely on state statute and ask for that cause anyway. Yeah. So now you've set a group of individuals up and made them go back to the drawing board for... the cause reason, which is to be frustrating to them. And also if they have to put a cause on here to potentially keep them from filing something, if they don't have a good cause.

So if I people can initiate a referendum.

It starts a process. So not what this would technically do is they'd have to fill out this form. It would be certified at least from the city clerk's department. And then they would have to go out and collect petitions. So there's different thresholds for different things you're trying to put on the ballot. But this is just to start the process. You need five people to serve as a committee that will oversee the lawful collection of signatures.

So this is all you're asking us to look at?

Yeah, just the form. Because the specific thing that brought this up was that we have a form. It says that we should have this form on file, but we haven't. I went back to the records before. The most latest example was when we changed Old Slave Road to Madison Valley. We had a somewhat of a form, but it was a little bit more inorganic where kind of residents just came about, had like an Excel sheet that was signed. So we look back on it to really is this housekeeping to update it. So we have a standardized form that everybody's reviewed. And in this case, we could try to incorporate that for-cause provision too, if it doesn't have any, if it jives well with the city chart.

Who pays for the election?

In that case, the individuals that put up- Yeah, the petitioner, I believe I would have to do some research. I can get back to you with that answer. But if they, I believe if they were to get all the signatures necessary, the city would actually be.

Is that 60% or two thirds to get rid of a council member? Oh, you would need. I think it's 90%. Percentage.

One second here. I don't want to get bad info. I want to get the exact date.

What are you planning? He's going to revolt. You think about people I don't like on the council.

Okay, so for there's different ones for different for petition. Allow this for each of these.

Yeah, the initiative and the referendums are different amounts and the recall is a different amount too.

So a number of signatures for initiative and referendum petitions, they shall be signed by registered qualified voters of the city equal in number to at least 10% of the total numbers of persons registered to vote at the last general municipal election. And then the recall threshold would be at least 15% of the total number of persons registered to vote. And our interpretation is that would be 15% of the total number of whatever the, you have to be within for initiative or petition that affects the entire city. That's the entire city you have to deal with with that 10% threshold. But that 15% threshold on a recall, the understanding is that would be that ward because you'd be calling into question a specific ward. Thank you.

All right, good.

Any other questions or discussion? The only thing I would add is this. Tonight, we would be just requesting a recommendation to review, first and foremost, if that forecast item can be added to the form, and if so or if not, that we would bring this forth to the City Council, the company resolution, so we can have it on file. So, Council Member Dodd-Well, did you want to make that motion?

I'll make said motion as stated. Awesome. All right. And we have a second from Council Member Owen. So all those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Abstentions? Now, so that was to add that to, so do you still need a vote on the form itself? Because that wasn't just a vote on the change.

My understanding was that we can, but I thought that was encompassing both the request to have the language added for the four cards.

As long as you're satisfied with what we've done, I'm good. Any could you in that motion did you have it as as one of us okay all right very good. Okay moving on to preliminary review of the fiscal year twenty twenty seven capital improvement plan in five year capital improvement. plan. There's an action item here. So city administrator, I am back to you.

Thank you very much, Sharon. This is want to do a quick update on on this. We'll be diving into this a little bit further in August, but clearly in September and October as we get into budgeting. We wanted to kind of kick off the process capital improvements always, you know, the most one of the hotly debated which we've been able to address by going through a priority scoring matrix that we introduced last year. The question we want to introduce before we start crunching all the numbers. and to give the council here, I know we have some new members of this committee, but also new members of the council as well, was to do a check-in to make sure that the criteria that's listed in our scoring matrix and our overall process for how we go through, score each project, and then recommend it for approval, inclusion, or recommend it for addition to the unfunded needs list, whether or not that process is all, should we proceed with that process, similar to what Ms. Rowan has there. But The chart that's included tonight, you'll see that they're all zeros. What will typically happen? I guess we can share this. Can you share that image there? So nonetheless, once we actually proceed with agreement on the criterion and also the process that we have here, the plan would be to go through the already planned projects that we have listed for fiscal year 2027. The staff would go through and score these. These were what were listed out under the five year. You'll notice that zeros are in place here. It's because we have prefabricated equation on this side. So we didn't want to mess with that. But nonetheless, these will be filled with actually denominations of zero, three, five, or nine. That process is used to add weight. So zero would be an indication that under that criteria, it has minimal impact and doesn't really have, it doesn't support it. So if it's master plan, a zero would represent zero. that it's clearly not included in the master plan and couldn't really be even subject to it, has nothing to do with it. A nine would be it's directly supporting one of the major clauses. Then you can kind of fall in between the gray area because a three would be, hey, it's supporting one of the goals, but it's definitely an indirect supporting factor. And then the same could be said for a five. Hey, it's listed, but it's not a goal. It's maybe one of the policies that we have listed in the master plan. So nonetheless, this would be filled out, completed. It would have three, in each one of these cells, you'd have three, five, or nine, or zero. And then it actually calculates, can you scroll up just a little bit there, Brendan? We'll be able to see the top there. But on the top, these are actually the criteria weight. So the other component that comes in here- is that the master plan is, at least from last year, and this is what we're really discussing tonight, the master plan was considered the highest criteria we wanted to weight in this matrix. So when you score this, say you score this a three, if it's got a three on the master plan, you're actually multiplying the three by the 18. And go all the way down for something like tourism and recreation. Say this, you scored a three on this, then you just do three times one. All of these numbers are added to give you a priority score at the end. And typically what we would do is we would fill this out and have a hard line dropped wherever it might be that when you take into account grant funding and you take into account fee expenditures from our half cent capital improvement sales tax, there practically be a line drawn for the council and committee to know, Hey, these projects can be funded with city fee expenditures and revenues. And then anything underneath would be highlighted in red and would show, Hey, that would, if we did all these projects, it would list them underneath that threshold. So the goal tonight is not necessarily to approve a capital improvement plan or to approve certain projects for, and whatnot. It's really more so looking at whether or not we want to continue with this process. It did work very well last year for helping balance out our capital improvement budget. And it seems to be working well this year. That said, we wanted to do two things. Make sure that this is the process the council would like to continue using moving forward. And then also get initial feedback from the council if there's anything that might be wanted to be considered for scoring as we go into the fiscal cycle. One thing here, a couple that were added for ourselves, you could scroll down just a little bit there, Brendan. A couple of things that were brought up by staff that we do have listed here that could be considerations are some committee members have mentioned this at the Planning and Parks Committee, but the stage structure has been asked about. HAB-Jacques Juilland, At the village green. So that was listed here as a TBD, but more importantly for this committee stuff that has been discussed and also at for public safety. HAB-Jacques Juilland, We've talked internally about a streetlight conversion, but we've recently had updates there where we might just try to have HAB-Jacques Juilland, Aaron we reimburse for a fixed cost from Aaron. So that said, if we were to actually do meter. and do a maintenance program of our streetlights that are more dedicated from the capital improvement plan.

You're referring to the situation involving the Bank of Houston? That's correct.

And the church and a couple others, but the church and the Bank of Houston are the big ones. But then the other big one here that we wanted to make sure to call it was the pedestrian, we call it here the pedestrian safety improvement program. That's a little broad, but we wanted to make sure that something we, we're going to try to get some numbers on this. But after talking with the Department of Public Works, there's, we've identified a need over time are flashing beacon crosswalks that give indication that someone is crossing the street, a pedestrian is. Over time, they just tend to break down. They start really falling apart to the point where they're not working properly. And with those being there, they're there for a purpose. We found that they're pretty expensive to maintain, which should definitely be a consideration moving forward, whether or not these are added. And really, we have a policy in place when they can be added and where we would consider them. But the idea would be to have each year some money set aside where we can go in and start either replacing or fixing some of the ones that we have so we can plan for it. Because The problem is when you have one that goes down now, say water is getting into one of the actual beacons and it causes the flicker, it's causing it not to turn on at certain times. Then all of a sudden you have to fix that or you have to remove it. And that has a cost associated with it. But this is hopefully going to have a kind of a sitting item each year. We know we own this many of these things. We know each year it's going to cost some money to maintain them. this will help at least absorb that shock and kind of plan for those improvements each year going forward. So just a couple of the ideas we wanted to bring up.

Do you have a summary of what's been expended per year on repairs already?

We can pull that together, but we haven't had actually that. We installed them and they're kind of moving towards their end of life cycles. Yeah, a lot of cycles. I might defer to Rick here a little bit, but I know we just had on Manchester, they're hit by cars. In those instances, we can try to get it through restitution with the courts. But most of the time, we're on the hook for rebuilding them. But the ones on Manchester alone, those were in the $70,000 to replace all three, correct?

we have a contract and it yeah it roughly equates to about 0.25 000 per crosswalk frankly to replace all the pretty much everything except the poles um because the we just find that the push buttons start to leak and the batteries start to fail and the solar panels get aged and just this they don't last forever they've been in place for over 10 years and you say they don't last very long how many years do you estimate an average Well, I think realistically, and I've said this before, you probably don't want to figure much more than 10 years. Okay.

That's not bad.

Not bad, right. It's just they're not going to last for long years. Traffic signal, you can get a little bit more life out of it, but these have not been as durable. Maybe the newer vehicles will be. They were fairly new when we installed them, so the second or third generations might be able to get one. Okay.

So how many more of these, how many do we have and how many more do we have proposed?

We're replacing three this year. We probably have another eight or nine out there. So if we could, I guess what I'd like to do is have a plan to replace next year, maybe half of those in the following year, then the remainder or something to that effect. It'd just be a matter of having enough monies budgeted that we could put a project out get it bid and get that work done.

Right now, after the last 10 to 12 years, and we've got 10 to 12 of them, it's $25,000 a year on average. The more we put in, the more that budget goes up every year to replace crosswalks. We just got a long-term impact on being up with 36 of them across the city, then it's $75,000 a year to replace crosswalks.

That's very fair. One of the things we're trying to call out, too, is that HAB-Jacques Juilland, You know, clearly, and we want to be able to help residents when these requests come in and when it makes sense and we haven't actually put together a really nice rubric to show when a crosswalk location makes sense for it, but Don D' Nonetheless we're trying to really upfront ties and costs of this so going forward, we all know we're getting into someone request them, I know. Don D' We had recently updated the committee here about the crosswalk over it. Don D' The high school, but good news is that's not going to be city owns that'll be on county property and they will have to maintain that so it's a little bit of a different calculus, if you will. Don D' But nonetheless, the ones we do have it, they do seem to be heading towards end of life and. We at least wanted to have some type of, even if it's just replacing maybe one or two each year, it's just, you're slowly chipping away at the problem versus waiting for them to fail. Because then you create your own safety issue in that case.

Well, if you replace one or two per year, then we're on a long-term cycle where, okay, 10 years from this or nine years from this, let's budget for replacing one or two. And then it's not quite the same size of a hit.

So city administrator, what do you need from us on this topic? Yeah.

So tonight really, this is supposed to be more of a really looking at the rubric. So how we're going to grade these, um, we can dive into a little bit more detail. If anybody would like to learn a little bit more about how we, how we plan to score them and that process, and then the criteria itself in the report, the weights actually are really helpful too, because it shows that zero three, five and nine, um, It gives examples too in some instances, but truthfully, if you want to go through these as a committee, if the council has issue with any of the criteria, if they should maybe be restacked in this case, You know, an example would be, hey, you know, master plan is important, but we really think public safety should be the top priority. So if we wanted to make any changes in that regard, that's what we wanted to open up the discussion for tonight. So that when we go in, we're going to plan to score this and then bring that scored matrix back to the committee that we're all working from an agreed upon criteria and weights.

So this is our plan for. 2026, correct? How much of this have you got finished, I guess, is my question. This is 2027. Oh, this is 2027. All right. Okay. So how successful are you this year? One second.

The only one that's a little bit off base for 2026, and I have a note in here one moment, is we're We have a lot of it ordered, but the playground hasn't been constructed yet. That was programmed for 2026. So that's a big piece. And we anticipate that the equipment is actually going to be in October. The only question we have to answer now is the stormwater consideration. So that one should be picking up here shortly. And then the only other item was the Main Street extension getting the easements. We do have $200,000 budget for the easements on the north and south side. Right now, we're currently reviewing that appeal at the development appeal that's going on.

So this really helps you manage?

Yes, this helps kind of up front. Well, the two things that it does is that it kind of helps us go to, say, a resident or a group of residents are really interested in a project to improve something very specific that might not affect the whole city. If they come to the city and they make a big deal and say, hey, we want to get this included right now, it at least kind of puts a fortress, if you will, saying, hey, here's our plan. Here's how we scored it. We don't want to throw a grenade into the tent, if you will. We have a very solid plan. And what we'll do, and this is where, honestly, I think this becomes the most useful tool of it, is that you can take a project like that, that maybe a group of residents are pushing for, and you can place it in our unfunded needs list. And that unfunded needs list can serve and will serve as a repository moving forward of, hey, here's a list of projects that have been made and have been made important by our residents or by a group of council members, whatever it might be. And for one reason or another, we just didn't have the funding to be able to cover it. But each year we'll kind of include that in the discussion and talks. And then slowly as you chip away at the capital improvement cycle in the five year, then hopefully it can start filling in that fifth year. It's just more so setting up a more organized process to put a hard line on certain years to say, hey, after this line, we just don't have the funding to show that more clearly to everyone. But then also on the flip side, being able to fill in that fifth year on the five year, it'll help in the long term, making sure we know.

If you look at this list, the City Hall capital investment, that's been on the wish list for a couple of years now. So has the bridge replacements for Wild Horse Creek. And so they've moved out of that. that red zone down there, up into let's do it this year kind of thing, which is a positive, which is the way this is supposed to flow so that we don't forget what those important things are. We just don't have the money for them this year.

So this is under the capital improvement tax, right? Yes. This is where you get the money?

100%. And federal grants. Okay. And that runs about, what, $2.5 billion or something like that? So we currently, each year, we typically get about 2.9 million and a half cent tax, but then we usually leverage that to get 80% matches from the federal government.

That's the budget you get.

That's truthfully. That's what you're spending.

Okay. Council Member Alvarez, you had your hand up.

Yeah, I was just going to say, I really hope Main Street extension can become a reality. this year this upcoming year of 27 because the sooner we put it all together it puts everything that the city is dreaming about so to speak to have it look like so just a editorial comment sort of i guess so that's all so um

Yes, that's a real. So I see the budget for that here is 1.5. It's somewhere I thought I read it was like 3.8.

Yeah, so there that that was done in the five years. So this is not given the full context. So we didn't know since we've had this this kind of cloud over Main Street because we've been waiting for a development proposal to go through. And also we were going to, the seven on the north side isn't as critical because you do, I mean, it is critical. It's 10 to 15 feet you need on that north side. But the 40 feet depth that we need, 750 feet length on the south side, that is, you know, if you don't have that, then the project can't proceed. You can't build a road around it. And you also need everyone to give rights to Crestview. So when you're looking at that, what you're seeing is 2026. I mean, not 26, 2027, we had 1.5 budgeted. And then 2028, we had 1.5 budgeted because we knew one of those years we were hoping that construction would take place. And that means still in the five-year, you're accounting for that. That said, that 3.86 number that you were referencing did actually just come from the most recent engineer's estimate. So our last estimate before that, it's gone up about $800,000 to do that project. So you are seeing there has been an increase to do it. Nonetheless, The plan was have it budgeted either for 27 or 28 whenever we can actually get it done legally, given the easements necessary. So that 1.5 should actually be three if you connect with what's planned in the five-year in 2028. And is that 3.8 number, are we going to get it? We'll have to account for that.

Are we getting matches on that?

That was another thing we were going to bring up is that Technically under the LPA program, and Rick knows more than I on this, but Main Street is listed as one of the streets that could be eligible. That said, there's always been kind of a question of whether or not doing the extension itself would be a eligible project. But that said, that I believe would be a really good project to have as part of our funding application cycle going into 2027. And if we can secure easement prior to it, it helps the case when you're going, as long as you do it the right way. It goes towards getting a little bit more points when you go to apply for funding. Council Member Means, did you have your hand up early?

Okay.

One other question. Yes. On the grid itself, we've used this a lot in the business world when I was there. The only thing that I think we might want to think about is listing these as 1 to 18 and doing the math that way. Because when you get down to 1, you really get no impact. So we've done this before and done them in like three, five, seven, nine and categorize them into one of the three, five, seven, nine. That way one weight is no more than three times the other weight versus 18 times the other weight. When you look at the things across the top.

Gotcha. So you're not just saying, cause one thing is we did have this listed from one to 18, but there was questions that, Hey, that put the most important factor first, but you're saying, I'm saying make the first fix a nine, make the next,

group of seven and then a five and then a three or something.

That is, see, that's the, that's the feedback that I would appreciate it because, so is that something the committee would like to do is when we look at this criteria and the weights, are there specific criteria that you would say we could group together and give the same, you know, would you say the math, like, that's the question we have to ask here.

So for the master plan, where would you break them if you did it that way?

If you broke them, I would say, you know, master plan, public safety, overall benefit estimated costs in the five-year strategic plan. So 18 through 14, I would say that would be high tier criterion. And then as you go forward, the ongoing expenses, definitely a high one, but nonetheless, urgency and timing, external funding, feasibility, risk mitigation, and then city-owned infrastructure. I'd probably put a line there because then the next one's the legal implications. I'd go all the way down to traffic impact. So you'd almost break it up into groups of four, four, five, and five. You would have It's easier to point this out, sorry. This is just a quick look at it, but you could, and what Mr. Owen is saying is, if everyone agrees that master plan, public safety, estimated cost, which is calculated on a percentage of the total revenue that we bring in each year, And then overall benefit and then the five-year strategic plan. If we think these are all even weights, so master plan is just as important as the cost, if it's included, we could technically group those so that if they score, then you would have something like a nine up there versus 18 through 14. But if we want to Go buy it one by one, you still have this option that we've done before, which does work, but I understand what you're saying because it helps group if we have otherwise the last couple items really are like they don't have as much weight.

There's so little weight. They're really not going to have an impact.

Yes, exactly. Because you're talking when you do these calculations. Typically what ends up coming out the back end here is you're seeing it something around 700 to 1,000, depending on the priority of it, if it scores high. The highest score last year, I think, was 1,033. That said, if we had it where these last ones in the last section would maybe be a three, you would probably have a little bit less standard deviation. Your standard deviation would probably decrease a little bit. So we could come back with maybe two options here. Like if you scored it this way or scored it that way. Once you score it, it's pretty simple. It's just filling in the numbers up top. We could come back with a recommendation on grouping them if that would be something the committee would want to see.

You know, maybe you could do this for us since you did it that way last year. Get the groupings. They're the same, but the new scoring methodology to last year's. And then let's see how it shakes out. And I think that would give us an indication of how it would have impacted us last year and if we can figure out if it is relevant to make that change for this year. And you can probably do that in five minutes on a spreadsheet.

Yes. And so in this case to do, we want to, this, the committee would, would they want to provide the flexibility to staff to kind of go in there and group these accordingly too. So we would go in and say, Hey, because one thing, I mean, I was looking at this just quickly, the five feet, five-year strategic plan, you know, in this case is very important, but the master plan technically would outweigh it. And that's how the committee had saw it in council. It saw it last year. So like there would be some that are going to kind of jostle around here. But again, it should stay pretty true to form of what we have in front of you tonight. So we could do that and show both.

So is that a motion that you require?

Yeah, that could be.

So I make a motion that we redo the top boxes to be weighted three, five, seven, nine. we'll have to figure out which categories go where, but we make that old. We'll let you maybe wait, wait to figure out where those weights go and bring them back to us.

That sounds good. And we'll everybody understand what we're talking about doing here.

Okay. We're still going to do all these projects, right?

Yes.

We're just getting organized.

Yeah. Okay. Makes sense. So this is what I was hoping would be the benefit of having a couple of guys from the financial service sector on the admin and PW. So, uh, You're on the hook for the next grade.

And then I guess the only other thing too, and I don't want to forget the motion, but if there's any projects that the committee wanted to at least, you know, kind of give a nudge just for us to score this year, that was also something I wanted to open it up for. If someone wanted to at least have it go through that process, then it would be reviewed by committee.

So before we go too much further, we do have a motion on the floor and we need a second. So who would like to make the second? Council Member Donovan makes the second. Okay. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Motion carries. Great. Thank you. What else do we need to do on this topic, City Administrator?

Staff is keeping an eye on all these things, but if there are any projects that residents have been requesting or asking about that you know, there wants to be a motion tonight. Hey, let's grade that project. Tonight would be the night to bring that up and we can at least run it through as long as the committee concurs.

All right. Council members, Kranz and Albers, you guys are in wards seven and eight right in the heart of the city. You might say anything come to mind?

Well, all state brought about, which is, there's a lot of negotiations to do with Aliceville and the county within the pointing up some money. I don't think we're ready to do anything yet, but something down the road that people are concerned about, the safety of Old State.

So put that on the red category?

We could put it on the list. And just for my benefit, which intersection on Old State is it? Ridgeville.

Where you have to make that hard left.

Yeah, it's a county road, and they should pony up the money, and they know it's dangerous, but it's not high, and they're scoring less because there's no fatalities, unfortunately, in the county. Fortunately, there's no fatalities, but it's dangerous, and so the director will probably put a deal together for us that we can pass down the road.

I think Center Avenue has already been downgraded, right? Yes, that is correct. Yeah, and that's fine because they're sort of getting what they asked for.

And a note on Center Avenue, too, because the thing that kind of affected that project score was originally we didn't have it resurfaced. Back in 2023, we fully resurfaced the road. If you go down Center Avenue now, it's actually in pretty good shape. That said, it doesn't, it wouldn't meet the same, you know, aesthetic and looks as if you drove down West Glen or something along those lines, clearly. That said, one of the issues we've had, and we did found this during design, was that if you were going to put the sidewalk in, you were going to have to carve a little too much into some of the properties and we weren't able to get buy-in from some of the local residents there. So truthfully, you would have to have like a sidewalk coming in and looking at on a map You'd have it coming down on the west side of the street, but then it would cross over halfway through and then go down the east side of the street, which kind of takes two sidewalks and disconnects it. You'd have some stormwater improvements made if we redid the road as well. But truthfully, the resurfacing effort, you'd have to resurface the road. And then the sidewalk, unless you can get it all on one side of the road, I would say, and i'll defer to our city engineer but i think that would be the main selling point of doing something on that road would be if you actually can get the sidewalk on a contiguous piece of land mass i don't i don't think they want to give up any easements there because that ashley grove deal you know they're kind of united against it you know so um And there are going to be, and that brings up a good point too, because where Ashley Grove is, there are going to be improvements done at that portion of the corridor. And the question would be, well, hey, could you connect that down in the sidewalk? But if you don't have that easement on the west side of the road there, then you would technically have it come down. It would look just fine, but then it would have to cross over the street, which it wouldn't look normal if you had to do that or you had to cross over.

And I think there's things in there for Etherton. But I really think Etherton will be developed as houses or other developments are constructed. You know, if everybody knows, like, where Main Street crossing backs up to Etherton, I think that's how the road will continue to build out with future developments.

And that is another consideration, too. So Etherton was on there. And one thing we had kind of taken into account is that once Main Street gets extended, and you connect there, that would actually be a great beachhead to start working on that project. But when we looked at it, there are, I think there's 17 easements that you have to procure to do that project, which it was a pretty steep climb considering what improvements would need to occur. So that said, it can be done. There are opportunities where development could occur and then they would have to build out their frontage. And the same could be said, you know, we could kind of fill in the gaps or help support, you know, future development.

Other than probably it turns out like center, like, uh, people selling the older homes and newer houses going in with nice acreage there and everything too, you know.

Yeah, so that would be the idea. And if anybody were to build on that site along Etherton, we would require along their frontage to make those improvements.

Absolutely. Okay, thanks. All right, anything else on this topic city of ministry that that seems to be good, but we will.

pick around those those three that were mentioned and we'll come back to it will come back to the committee here with those two different versions will have it scored within the groupings. And then we'll also score it via the one through 18 and we can kind of show that difference. And from there, we would actually start getting that direct feedback from the committee. But the one thing, too, with this matrix is that once we have it all scored out, staff completed their part, if the committee wanted to go through and score it themselves, we can definitely provide the Excel document that has the equations already coded in there so that all you have to do is go in and you can almost use a little cheat sheet. And if you wanted to do it on paper, we'd be more than happy to take your answers and input, that actually is helpful because then we could take that and average it out and actually say, hey, we've heard from six council members on this project and the average score was this. So all that is helpful. But the first step is making sure we all feel like these are important criteria and good weights, that the method is good. If the method's good, then the rest can kind of be worked out over the next two months.

So I wonder if we might not benefit from getting an initial stab at the rankings and so on with the information that you provide and then we can make adjustments as I guess we so desire. Does that make sense to everybody? Because they'll have a certain perspective that we may not have.

Yeah.

Okay. All right. So are we finished on that topic? Yes, we are. All right. Very good. Let me.

Yeah, absolutely. I just say when you do, but when you send that out to council for us to review it, just give us like a couple of weeks to review it, not like three days over the weekend. Yeah. That's a lot to get in. Or in methodology that we used to do, obviously a lot. We bought software or something, and it's not something you want to fly through in five minutes.

And that's the reason why we wanted to bring it up now too. So. We technically this will be incorporated into the budget where we'll actually be getting through that review. Actually looking at that and more of a final form enough over. So there will be a score that comes back the next month meeting and then you'll have that from that time, all the way to pretty much October. To start finalizing opinions, but quite frankly, the changes can be made to the budget up until the ordinance is passed, even after that, but nonetheless should be done prior to the second and

before we do any scoring on things, could you, I've been here a long time, so I know what these projects are, but some of these new council members don't know the details on these projects. So if you could reference someplace with a web link to the project information so that they can go see what that project is about, that'd be helpful. That way they can score with more information on hand.

Certainly. without having to go search.

Yeah. The search tools that we have on our website is awful.

Sorry.

You mean leave room for improvement.

Yeah. I'm going to be blunt.

And one thing, though, I know this isn't a great workaround of that, but The weird thing about the website, and it's a little off topic, but it's a good, this is a good tool. If you were using like Google or whatever your search engine is, if you search that same thing that you're looking for, but you just put City of Wildwood, Missouri, and then whatever it is, it actually, Google does a better job of finding those pages. Okay. As long as you put the key factor is putting City of Wildwood and then whatever you want to talk about, but City of Wildwood, then the subject matter, it actually does a better job. What this website does, which has always been a conflict, you know, conflict point, because it's going to show the page that has gotten the highest number of visits. And it doesn't change that algorithm on the back end. And that means if you had, say, a really popular program or a really popular document that was published back in 2017, but it might not be the most recent document, it's going to show that if it has, you know, it depends on the number of views and the amount of time people are spending on it. But that Unfortunately, it almost looks at it like a, like a YouTube type model. Yeah. Hey, give us the most refreshed data. And we've tried to go in there and it's troublesome because it goes backwards. So newer documents are getting the treatment of, Hey, we want to do it based off release dates and when it was published. But nonetheless, some of the older documents, the archive documents before we did the updates, they're still showing up based off that use number. But city of Wildwood, Mo and then If you put the O in there, you're going to end up with some more. You'll end up with Florida or New Jersey. New Jersey, yeah. That does happen, too.

I tend to get searched more than this.

I don't know why. Thanks, Thomas.

So that wraps up that particular issue, correct? That is correct. OK. So then we move on next to, let's see here. It's the review of the procurement process for independent auditing services. Action item here. uh the current agreement for our auditor which audits cities books basically belongs through december 31st of 2026 we are i guess basically uh satisfied with the current performance of our auditing firm but city code requires us to review this every so often that is correct and i want to make sure that you know especially and the auditors always know about this too these are provisions in the charter so it's not a surprise but uh

TAB, Mark McIntyre, And we are satisfied with the work that Ruben brown's been doing they've been the one they're actually gonna be presented the next week account meeting with the annual comprehensive financial report, but nonetheless. TAB, Mark McIntyre, Our code pretty much offers that you go out to bid every four years, usually it would be. TAB, Mark McIntyre, Just for the next year, and then you can have an option to do three additional so that will be included were. going to be putting together the RFP and actually have most of it done. We're about to publish that. We plan to come back with responsive proposals in September. So that's the current timeline. And then once it's approved at committee, then we would still need to take that to the full city council and then have an ordinance read. So the goal would be to have the agreement in place for whomever is able to be responsive, but also provide the most competitive and qualified proposal by the end of this year, kind of concurrently with our budgeting process. So, uh, I just wanted to make clear that it definitely isn't Reuben Brown being, you know, they've done a great job for us, but we just, we need to go out and do this process every four years.

That's a real one. So they will, Reuben Brown will be on the list again this year. So yeah.

And then who are the other, who are the other, have we selected them? We have not selected them yet. So if there's any recommendations tonight, we'd be happy to send it to them, but. The plan will be we're kind of getting started on this. We have the majority of the RP done. And if we want, we could come back with like a list that we plan to send it out to next month. And we could still meet that timeline. It typically could be published for 30 days. But Yeah, we could do that if you want to.

Yeah, if you want to do that, we're going out to, you know, I'm assuming we're probably not going to go out to the big four if they're too expensive for us. But who else are we going out to that's of equivalent size and cost to have them around? Chris, we probably have some thoughts on that. And I would say your city treasurer, Tony Scrooge, would probably have some input on that.

Yeah. So in that case, would we want to maybe bring this back at the next meeting with the kind of listen, get it tailored down from here? I'd say review with the city treasurer. Okay.

Get his invitations and send it out from there.

So in that case, then tonight, uh, we're just acknowledging this. And then the department would just be recommended that, Hey, um, HAB-Jacques Juilland, Review with the city treasurer for the list and then come back with the responsive proposals and then a recommendation on what to do for fiscal year 2026 and then moving forward.

HAB-Jacques Juilland, So are you going to talk to with other cities who they use HAB-Jacques Juilland, Yeah, we'll go that we've.

Yes, we'll do that and then Um, the plan would be, we would submit the, not submit, but we'd send out like, Hey, we're collecting proposals for this service. Uh, we'd send that to a group of different agencies throughout that specialize in this area. Um, you do want them to be somewhat localized. They have to have their license here in Missouri. Um, so nonetheless, we would go back and most, I will say most cities around here, they, um, they do use Reuben Brown, but we'll find multiple individuals. All right.

Any other questions for the city administrator or comments suggestions? City administrator, what do you need from us in terms of motion on this case?

I guess the only thing would be to, I don't think we need a motion on this. Okay. In this case, as long as everyone's comfortable here with us proceeding, kind of like in the soft way of publishing this and then coming back with recommendations and no action would be necessary. All right. Very good. Thank you.

Um, moving on to public works status report on city improvement projects. So I guess for this one, we move over to Mr. Brown.

Um, yes, thank you chair. Um, council members, this next item is a. I'll repeat monthly item we've been putting together for a while now. So it's a summary of our current projects that we have underway. HAB-Jacques Juilland, Either under designer construction in the city of wildwood I didn't intend to go through the whole list i'm certainly be able to answer any specific questions and I would note that you're going to talk about three of those projects next on the agenda so. HAB-Jacques Juilland, Other than those three if you have specific questions that you'd like to bring up, we would certainly be happy to answer them or anything you can think about.

Yeah, like you said, we're going to go in depth on three of them. So if there's any other questions on the others that are on here, feel free to ask.

So as everybody had a chance to take a quick look at the list and are there any questions that can be answered prior to Mr. Brown going into detail on the three?

This is something I thought about yesterday driving down 100. signs from last year, fall, completing fall 2025. Those typically take a while to come down because they're still up halfway through the year here. We've requested that.

I know which one you're talking about, too, the one that's on 100 coming into the city. We've requested for MoDOT to have that sign removed twice now, so we'll get back on it. But that said, that is not the city sign. We didn't put that.

No, I know that. I just thought that. I'm sure it's the highway department, right? It is. I just noticed it driving yesterday. It's like, oh. A little outdated.

You could go out there tonight and put a little completed sign there.

Right, right.

Checkmark.

Council Member Dodwell.

Just one other issue. Thank you very much for getting County back out to work on lights that went off after the weekend storms and get them fixed.

Council Member Owens. The 109 project, is that still on pace to be done, Paul? Seems like it's set for a while and nothing was really going on.

There's been a little bit of lack of progress there, but I would say it's still on schedule. They have plenty of time to finish it. They've not said which project. 109 BA. Yeah, I mean, they're still working.

Yeah, it just seemed like for a while there was a lot of activity there on the BA coming into 109 and then It looks like the last several times I've gone by there, there's been no activity. So I didn't know if we had any issues going on with that of some kind.

They have some paving that's coming next on 109. And that's where you see them pour the curb and gutter adjacent to the roadway. That's the next thing is to get the asphalt placed for essentially the widening of 109 in that area. And once that gets completed, That's the next shift. The major shift is to push traffic into phase two. So north and southbound traffic will move kind of to the west side of that roundabout. And they'll be basically going around part of that roundabout to free up the space to build the east half of it. It'll be a little bit wonky if that's a good term for a bit when we do that. and hopefully we'll get through that in short order, but I'd say we have no reason to believe they're not still within, not still scheduled to get it done this fall.

Okay. It's been pretty wet.

Mr. Brown, at one point in time, there was some talk that I believe it's called Smith School Road, which is in back of the temple there might be used for like traffic temporarily or something of that sort. Are there any plans to do that? Or is that not necessary? or on the B.A. Okay. But you won't need that in terms of like north-south traffic at any point in time, correct?

There's no plan to use it other than as is current. Okay. All right. Perfect. All right. And then the plan when we complete construction is to sever that section of old Etherton Road beyond the Durga Temple, essentially. So you will not be able to access 109 from it. So it'll be a dead-end road. And the thought is, once we get the roundabout completed, they'll be able to take advantage of the new intersection and the easier access that you have. And the current connection, as you probably know, is a very poor angle. And it's not conducive to a safe location at all. And I think the best thing would be to sever it, essentially make it a street that serves the Derricka Temple. Technically, the former church on the other side could have access from it, but not allowed through traffic on it anymore.

That's a good idea.

I think I got the names of the roads incorrect.

It's all that. The roads don't go further down. Yeah, they go all the way behind.

They get spewed upon.

That's all right. I congratulate Tom on the railroad crossing. However, it wasn't done right. Well, we didn't do it. I know you didn't, but they should have put a tie outside of the rails that parallel the track there. Instead, they put the asphalt up against the rails again, which will make it rough. It's a lot better than it was, but I'm just letting you know from my experience. I used to handle claims on railroad crossings. I actually went out there to take pictures of bad crossings.

Centaur Road.

We don't have that. That's pretty rough.

And you had said, can you repeat that too? You said usually, so they have the, I had noticed the asphalt was up against the tracks.

There shouldn't be a timber. The railroad is responsible for a foot outside of that rail. And, uh, I'm just, it's a lot better than it was, but it wasn't done right. Working to standards I know.

The other thing I'll say on that is they left a lot of material around. This material, are they going to all that off with big piles of gravel all over the place?

Yes. So that's part of, and just to add to that, that is a county road, county road, county permit. That said, we kind of prefaced it and had requested northbound lane um that said the county won't let them close that but we will reach out to them to see what the approach was there and see if there's a i don't know if there'll be a way to get them to do it but that would be nice if they could put in a few uh mr krantz said a timber there to keep the longevity i've just passed that on uh it's a lot better than it was um they did a lot of work on it um brand new track in there so

if they would have done it right.

You would think. We'll reach out to them, and then for the removal, we'll be keeping them open as well.

Sorry, I just had to turn off Centaur. I've got to scoot up even further now to see around the fell. That's my neck of the woods. It's pretty messy over there.

Okay. Mr. Brown, I think we're up to you now for the update on the three projects.

Thank you, Chair, Council Members. So the first item is Main Street Extension Project, It's an informational item. We wanted to give you an update, and especially on this one, Brendan, you might want to pull that up. It's in the memo, or maybe pull the strip map of the design if you can, because that does show a lot. Just wanted to provide an update and answer any questions relative to the Main Street Extension project. I mentioned it earlier. It is a project we're working with our civil engineering firm, CDI, on finalizing the right-of-way plans. and also the utility adjustments at this point in time you might pull the uh colored version up you can brennan um this is a a long from the perspective of the department i think joe vunich would agree it's kind of a long planned project part of the town center master plan it's been envisioned for some time it builds on three completed projects essentially East of here, we've obviously rebuilt Main Street out to this point. And then on the other end through Main Street crossing subdivision that was planted and constructed more recently. And then the last improvement was the roundabout on 109, which the city funded as well. So three steps have been completed. The last step would be this piece of the improvement. The plan is to match in general the roadway between 109 and Etherton Road. So it would be a divided road with one lane of traffic eastbound, one lane westbound. Only thing on this segment, we've tried to taper and widen out the median width and provide a crossover in the middle for U-turning vehicles, or at least to provide some width so that you can make a U-turn in a passenger car, maybe a pickup truck. And that location was selected because it was the location shown under the prior development plans that were submitted to the city. We had a plan on the north side by McBride Sons to develop single-family homes, and then As you all know, I think on the South latitude North 38 has had a number of proposals in front of us. And more recently, they've got one in front of city council on appeal. So the thought was it would line up. And if, if we were providing our, our opinion of where to put a break, that was a good spot to do it. So that's where we have it right now. Again, with that break was if you're coming from Taylor Road and you wanted to utilize the Village Green, you've got an easy way to make a U-turn potentially and use the on-street parking that we will be putting in in front of the Village Green with this project. So that's the main scope of the improvement. Stormwater is one of the issues we are wrestling with right now. We are planning to meet all the MSD requirements for stormwater design, as any private developer would as well. That is going to require underground detention. At least that's what we're proposing to do on this project. We put underground detention in with the Village Green. And so essentially it would be building on that same concept. Civil design is working now with the consultant with the phase two of the Village Green, the all-inclusive playground, and with coordination with North 38, or Latitude North 38, on stormwater from a holistic view of the three, essentially three development projects, including City Hall. So I'm getting a little bit off topic here, but We're trying to pull all three projects together and look at them as one essentially relative to stormwater management and approach MSD from that perspective so we can do what makes sense overall for the three improvement projects instead of trying to focus each one individually. So that effort is going on in line with our design efforts on this improvement project. I want to make a few points about right away. I think you know Crestwood is a private street currently. So as we improve this road and make it a public street, we will have to acquire the right-of-way for Crestview Avenue, make it a public right-of-way. And then additionally, I think you know there is a need for a strip of right-of-way on the north side and the south side. So 522 North 38 moves forward. I think they've indicated that. a willingness to dedicate the right away at the minimum for the main street project as we show it. At one point, we were expecting McBride to do the same on the north side of the road. So if there is a development on the north, we'd like to see that they dedicate the right away. If there's not, we'll have to be in a position to pursue right away acquisition with those private property owners. So we're trying to move forward with our right-of-way plans so that we would be positioned to start that effort shortly. Utility relocations, just a couple comments there. The Amron pole line that's out there on the north side of Crestview would have to be relocated. Currently, we plan to relocate it just to the north of the trail that runs on the north side of the road. I didn't mention that, but we do have a 10-foot-wide path slash sidewalk on the north and a traditional sidewalk on the south side of the road. And that's consistent with Main Street west of Crestview as it was more recently constructed. So Ammon's poles would be relocated. Since this is a private road and we don't own the right-of-way and these utilities are not on public right-of-way, we will be required to pay the cost to relocate them if that's necessary. So one disadvantage here, we will have to be responsible for those costs. So those poll locations for Ameren would be out of our pocket, unfortunately.

Those expensive roads.

Yeah, so.

I want a quick note on that too, Rick, if you don't mind. Typically though, I just want, I know this was requested at a former meeting, that state legislation that was being reviewed about moving polls and whether or not cities would have to reimburse Ameren. That legislation didn't pass. The reason why this one would cost the city money is because we'd be taking over a private road to make the improvement. So it's part of what initiates the act, if you will. But say this was a road that was already owned by the city and we're just making an improvement to it. We had to widen it. In that case, Ameren would cover the cost until the state changes the law, which as of right now, it hasn't been. So good news on that front, but not for this project. Sorry to interrupt, but-

Council member Roberts to question. Yeah, just a statement. I've been in a few meetings with Mr. Voonage and Mr. Bosworth on a new design. Rick, have you seen the new design for latitude? Yes, I believe I have. So it's instead of having like the bend in it, it's going to be a straight shot. And that's going to help give us access to the playground. And then the only entrance and exit would be off other 10. That is correct. So that's what they had proposed.

So they practically came in and before it kind of went in and stayed everything on their property where it kind of curled around. But now that the one you drawbacks of doing it that way, but it, comes down and then there's a portion of this I would say this cul-de-sac looking item that has actually I think it's 24 parking spots included on that side uh that would be right up against it would be over the property line here it would tie into the city's property but that would service uh the all-inclusive playground that's going in right here right so nonetheless uh that obviously has to be considered by the council as part of the field process and whatnot but they HAB-Jacques Juilland- It that would, in theory, solve kind of our timing issue because we do have this playground coming in and the problem right now is the closest space, you have for a say you have the playground that gets built completion. HAB-Jacques Juilland- You have an individual that has media needs they technically had to park over here and still take it's technically ADA accessible in the sense that you can solve level flat, you can get on this property here without going upstairs. HAB-Jacques Juilland- But they would have to go around the full circle to get to the park that would kind of put in, but it wouldn't have a secondary access to Main Street and would not include improvements done on Main Street. I'm going to pass this.

I actually have a copy if you guys want to take a look at it. I just forgot I had it. I'm sorry. Just get it back to me. What's new on this? It goes straight. Instead, it was going to the right and the entrances and entrances. Exits will be here instead of anything there. Then that gives us access to the

So are these houses going to back Crestview? No.

From Crestview, you would see the front door. You wouldn't see the garage. The garage is going to be internal to the interior road that they're building.

So the houses will face Crestview? Yes. So he changed that? Yes. Is he going to pay for his portion of Crestview?

That is not proposed at this time. What they're proposing is this parking solution that's not Main Street. That's the one thing that's still out there. so is that more up to date uh mr brown than what you have up here on the screen oh yeah well we did not show yeah either north north 38 or the uh playground in our view just yet we are we're meeting and this is just the road so this is me so that that has no bearing technically on the configuration of the road this one wanted to be considered but that that drawing would have to be kind of, we could super, once it's all done, we can put all these together and run, but that's kind of rapid.

Council Member Kranz, I know you've expressed concern in the past regarding parking along this street.

I'm suggesting there should be parking in front of Village Green. Are we talking about Bosworth or are we talking about Park?

The parking's right there.

Yeah, but that Is there parking in front of those? Yeah, those light blue things. Those are parking spaces. Okay.

I thought that was just the park, not the playground.

Yeah, the playground is down here. I was guessing that was the case, but I didn't see it. This will be an ADA park.

HAB-Terry Palmos- Or yeah.

HAB-Terry Palmos- Third, is that we have plenty of parking if we, you know, we need to make sure we have parking. This is HAB-Terry Palmos- This is completely new. HAB-Terry Palmos- That concert for me.

HAB-Terry Palmos- That is, that is completely. So just a note miss these trails is this trail network over here kind of don't HAB-Terry Palmos- Don't show that. Yeah, don't go by that. That was just a circumvented a CAD file from the village green and it's not reflective of the true that would end up being that That said, you can almost picture the playground being located right here in this area. And what we originally had to do is almost like an offbeat shoot of it would be to have some type of like dry vial built off here and have some type of parking structure placed on this side. And then you'd have direct access to the bathroom facility right here, which is going to add a ton of cost to the project. What this developer has proposed in their subsequent provision is that, hey, you know, We're going to take care of your parking needs. You don't have to deal with this. We're going to actually just build it right through, have it over last year, and then your parking is directly connected to the park. So they're solving our parking problem with us in lieu of giving us the right in lieu of dedication.

So what?

They're going to be here. There's the parking in the circle. There's the playground. Yeah. This property, this property, this property. Okay. All right. The front end. I can maybe show you. I'm sorry.

i'm surprised that is do that have all that city traffic coming down behind all the dollars that's true well that said i mean what do you mean this well i mean this would be running all these people have all this traffic coming right it's working for that i'm shocked they want to do that yeah that doesn't make sense that would deter me from wanting to buy one of those properties they are rentals that's well i'm just telling you and that's what they're trying to sell you know we're working with i know it's kind of that topic but

HAB-Jacques Juilland- I've been drawn out here in you have this you can eliminate that which does save the city considerable costs. HAB-Jacques Juilland- There's parking. HAB-Jacques Juilland- There would be, we still have the caddy corner parallel parking here, but we would the ADA parking would be effectively replaced with this roundabout structure.

So, Tom, why did they take that back to planning and zoning? Why did they take it back to planning and zoning?

They've taken it to planning and parks. That appeal is still up, though, and that's something that the committee was...

But this is a new plan. Can't they go back to... They could, in theory. Why should the city council bother with it? I can ask with the city attorney.

Technically, the way it's being performed now is that in September at the appeal, you'd have to review the original proposal and they could propose like, hey, we're going to do this and this. That said, it would have to go back and do it all again if they want.

I don't know. We just seem to keep kicking this can down the road and not. allowing the developer to come up with a system.

Okay, so coordination to follow with both potentially North latitude North 38 and certainly the playground. Well, so we didn't reflect that on here yet. But that's ongoing. Okay.

So I guess Mr. Brown, we should circle back to you and let you continue. So I think I'm pretty much wrapped up with my a couple of my comments. If there's any other questions you have for me right now, that would be fine. I'll do my best to answer them. Great discussion, everyone, on this topic. So there's nothing more to suggest or comment on. You will move on. Next, we are going to be discussing the, let's see, I guess it's the Old State Road shared use path.

Correct.

Yep.

Yep. Chair and council members, wanted to also provide you an overview of the Old State Road shared use path project. This will construct a new 10 foot wide shared use path. I think you're aware of the project on the west side of Old State Road between Nantucket Island Drive up to Old State Place. It's a project that is intended to fill a gap that exists with regard to any pedestrian or bike facilities on Old State Road where none exist. Currently, once this project is complete, you will have a facility that runs all the way from Nantucket Island Drive all the way up to Ridge Road. Actually, all the way up to, frankly, to Manchester Road because there are sidewalks on the remainder of Old State. So regionally, I think it's a pretty good project from that perspective. If you're not aware, Old State Road is an archival roadway that is maintained by St. Louis County. It is not a city of Wildwood roadway. It has a 35 mile an hour speed limit. And so I want to make sure you're aware of that. Tee Hill Construction is our contractor on that improvement. They were awarded the project in December. And Cochran is doing construction engineering services for us on a separate agreement that was awarded by the council in December of 2025 as well. So they are on board and progressing. Now, because it is a county roadway, some of the improvements are within county right-of-way. And for that reason, we were required to formally submit and request a special use permit from St. Louis County to cover that work. That has been completed. It did take a bit to get through that effort and to essentially get the permit issued. But we do have it in, right, Brendan? Yes. But I wanted to make a couple of points about that because it didn't go as well as we'd hoped. County did make a very comprehensive review of the plans, and we had to make some changes at their request, most of which we were amenable to making, and they were not major changes by any stretch. But the one issue that did come up was a review of the crosswalk locations. When we originally started this project, we proposed a crosswalk in the middle of Lakeshore Meadows Drive. because of the subdivision across the street there was quite a few homes in that subdivision that was a very logical place to have a crosswalk during the public meeting there was concern and request for a second crosswalk with rapid flashing beacons at lake country lane so more towards the south end of the improvement closer to old fairway is Lake Country Lane. It's a smaller, large lot subdivision, not as many homes as the other. Nonetheless, we went forward and added that crosswalk to the plans. Both would have signs and raptor flashing beacons at both locations. But in the review, county said that the Lake Country Lane crosswalk did not meet their warrants. They have policies in place that require a certain number of users for the crosswalk to be warranted. And they also said, based on, we had to provide a site distance study for them. They said that the site distance was not sufficient, did not meet their standards. So based on those two reasons right now, that crosswalk at Lake Country Lane is not part of the improvement project. I know we have residents in that subdivision who are very concerned about this and not happy with that situation. I think there is an opportunity for us to appeal this with the county. And we've not done that just yet, but I think that is the intent, at least from the staff side, to repeal the decision and get more clarity on whether there is an option or not to change that decision. But nonetheless, that's where we stand right now.

Can't they move from Old Country Lane down to the light that is the flashing beacon that is approved? There's no sidewalk? There's no sidewalk on that side.

It's on the south side. Sorry. I mean, they would have to technically cross. No, at that point, they crossed the street.

Yeah.

That's the issue. I think there are 24 homes in that subdivision, Rick. Yeah. That said, there has been a very vocal group of residents that obviously pushed for that to begin with, and I think is important. We already have it. We're already building it over there. And one thing is, too, the county's kind of coming at this a little bit late in the game with this type of change. So unless we can go to the county and try to make this appeal, but we wanted to make sure that the committee was aware of it. Because right now, as the county stands, they would say that you can't have that second crosswalk. The rest of the project's fine, but that one crosswalk with the flashing beacon at Lake Country Lane, they are not giving us their blessing.

Do you know the number of people that live down off that road? I think you're right. It's probably 24 homes. 24. Okay. And most of those properties are like 10 acres, aren't they? They're larger lots. Yeah, they're huge. But if it's unsafe, I mean, that's the issue.

Well, just to be clear, so it's a unique scenario. So it's not unlawful to cross the road there. It would be considered a lawful crossing. It's just not a legal crossing. It's just not a marked crosswalk. So we're not prohibiting anybody from crossing the road there. Just that the county policy is not to stripe a crosswalk at that location because it's not going to be utilized very significantly. And that's a policy they have in place.

Plus the site view is not good, right?

Well, based on the review, it could be better. I feel it's sufficient, but it's certainly at the minimum, right? So the argument I think we would have is that, and this is what I personally feel, is if we put the crosswalk in with the beacons, it would be safer, right? probably a better situation overall. County has to look at it from their policies and the fact that they manage a large system of roads.

So if you did appeal it, it's not going to go anywhere, right? Is that what you're saying? If it's their policy, they're going to say no?

I guess what I would tell you is these things tend to be policy engineering driven and not whoever screams the loudest, frankly. So I know that the residents are going to scream loudly and they certainly can do that. I don't know how much effect that will have. We can bring it up with county senior staff. We can bring it up with Joe Colessa. Because I think the frustration on our end was it was approved initially. And we discussed this location in the crossing with them, with their staff, and it was approved. Now, they came back and said, well, that was a conceptual approval. We weren't clear about that. They went into a more detailed analysis and came back and said no. Who do you appeal to? Colessa? No. We would probably bring it up with Mr. Colessa, yeah. So he's already said no, right? So this review was done through their permit group, which I'm sure ultimately reports to Mr. Colessa. Who are all engineers. They're all engineers. It's an engineering organization. Well, Mr. Colessa is a reasonable guy. I've talked to him before. No, he is. And Stephanie is very reasonable. They treat us very fairly. They're not out to do anything wrong. I mean, their goal is like our goal. Ultimately, we're all trying to do the right thing. It's just that when they have these policies in place, they put them in place for their overall good for an entity that manages a large system. It doesn't always filter down to these type of locations, unfortunately. Give it a try. I'd say give it a try.

Yeah.

The only other item I was going to mention to you relative to this improvement is we are working through some issues with water and gas lines. Towards the south end of the improvement, we went through and located the depths on existing utility lines to make sure we had sufficient cover. Finding that, and unfortunately this is not unusual, I think the gas line is shallow enough that we may have to adjust the grade of our trail. That's the thought right now. The engineer is looking at this. He's supposed to provide us information any day now relative to a potential change in the grade of the trail. Make sure we have the minimum cover that we need on the gas line. So that's something we're working through right now. Hopefully we'll have direction on that.

We did receive updated plans on that. The contractor is going to hopefully start work again very soon. Okay.

So there hasn't been much direction. They raised the path up some amount.

Yep. The utilities were shallower than what thought by the design consultant. So the grade had to be changed.

Plenty of those utilities get away with not doing what they're supposed to do. Gas lines are notoriously shallow. And that's how they built my house on. Water line wasn't as deep as it was supposed to be, and therefore I had to adjust the grade of my dry water.

Spectrum lines are notoriously shallow too.

Yes.

It happens. So I think that's most of the points I was going to make. So we should see some more active construction here shortly with that change. If there's any particular questions you have, I'll do my best to address them as well.

Any other questions for Mr. Brown? Okay. We will move on to the update on bridge 386 and 387 replacement project.

Chair and council members, again, this improvement project is another one we've been working on with our consultant CDG. We have two... Two structures on Wadhorse Creek Road near Austin Fort Road. One is a bridge, one is a small stone box culvert that was constructed in 1940. Both are deficient and we plan to replace both to address those deficiencies. That section of Wadhorse Creek Road is a lower volume city arterial roadway. It's got a three mile an hour speed limit. And the last traffic count we had showed an average weekday traffic volume of 1,360 vehicles per day. So bridge 386 is the one-lane structure that's closest to Austin-Fort Road if you've been in that area. It is a one-lane road over the structure currently. 387 is the bridge that's further to the north that It's built in 1962. It's a 66 foot long bridge. We're proposing to replace bridge 386 with a 19 foot by 13 foot, excuse me, eight foot concrete box culvert. So it'll retain a box culvert shape. It won't be a formal bridge. The bridge 387 will become a 111 foot bridge currently proposed to be a two-span steel structure over Wild Horse Creek. 386 is not over Wild Horse Creek. It's over a tributary of Wild Horse Creek. But we do see a great deal of flooding in that area as a result of the creek. We do have right-of-way needs to acquire for both improvement projects, which are federally funded. I counted correctly. We have about five property owners that we'll have to acquire property from. One of the larger impacted property owners is Mr. Craig Bidner, who owns most of the frontage along the west side of both bridges and some property on the other side as well. So we met with Mr. Bidner and had some discussions relative to the design. He's very... concerned with the improvements and has expressed his concerns to us quite directly. So we have some work to do there potentially, and I'm sure there'll be more discussions in that regard coming. One of the things that I did want to mention was Babler State Park runs along the east side of the improvement. I think you're aware of that. The original concept that we had for the Bridge 387 improvement project built the bridge closer to its existing alignment location. And because we're putting in a longer bridge, we're going from 66 feet to 111 feet, we end up raising the roadbed a bit and widening the channel out. And so the work to widen the channel out and even to put the embankment in pushes us into the park. And so it triggered the need to acquire an easement or permanent right away from Babler State Park. Well, when you use federal funds, there's a section of the federal law that states that if a park was improved using federal funds, it triggers federal oversight. Essentially, the acquisition means the federal government has to approve it, and you have to mitigate against the impacts of your taking. So what we found from talking to other folks is that this is a very lengthy process. It takes several years to work through. And given that we might have to mitigate for our impacts, we didn't feel that was realistic or attainable given the timeline that we have with our federal fund. So we redesigned in current concept that we put together, shifted the bridge more to the west And frankly, the alignment is more about a straight line. The bridge previously was partially on a curve. Now it's on a tangent. So it actually removed, the new alignment removed some of the curvature in the prior road alignment that we had. It does shift the road closer to Mr. Bidner. He's not happy about that. He would like it to remain in its current alignment where it stands right now.

And so for those who don't live in this area, it's... Mr. Bidner's driveway is here. And behind him, he's got 130 acres and his house sits on 11 way back. So he's concerned about the 30 feet that we're encroaching into his property on his doorstep. So that the issue we're kind of dealt with there is he does not want us to move the bridge from up here to down here. So my guess is when we get to some open comments, he will probably come and make them. He's come out with Rick and he's met with me. And he basically is not accepting of us moving the bridge at all.

Any of the residents around? okay with moving the bridge.

There's only one of the residents that's impacted and that's they're impacted by the other bridge, the smaller box bridge. No one else is impacted by this because it only impacts his property to the west and the park to the east.

But they're impacted when it floods. So that was my question is have we reached out to any residents that are unable to pass through that roadway because the bridge is compromised during flooding situations or whatever.

And Rick, I don't know if this bridge is necessarily going to improve flooding in that area.

And that's one thing that's important to keep in perspective. So from the big picture perspective, this won't solve the flooding issues we have down there. So from a localized standpoint, it should keep more water going in the channel and not going over the road around the bridge. The current bridge generally does not flood, it approaches flood. So this will have more water pass under the bridge and it should have a localized effect, but generally the whole corridor is flood prone. And so down further near Pullman Road where it usually starts, it won't have an effect.

How far did you say his house is set at? So you can see.

Hundreds of yards. He's, yeah, he's, his driveways, several, probably 300, 400 yards from his house is from the street. He's substantially, he sits on 130 acres and his house is towards the back of it. He's my rear neighbor because my neighbor backs up and he kind of wraps around.

So Mr. Brown, these two bridges, what would be your estimated timeframe as their actual replacements?

Rough estimate, that's acceptable. So based on the schedule, we need to start right away acquisition and get through that within the next, pretty much next year would be the goal.

Construction late 27.

And if we can get it under construction a year from now or late 2027, that would be.

we do have two proposed options i think and i've asked rick and brendan to look at how different they are in costs um this one is going to cost the fund the city 509 000 so i've asked them to look at what the other one cost us and it saves us substantial dollars and i think we need to consider the other one so so maybe not quite as acceptable to the residents, but if we can save hundreds of thousands of dollars, we've got to consider that.

One of the things that we did for Mr. Bidner was to propose a steel two-span bridge. Typically the most cost-effective bridge is a concrete girder bridge. And what we would probably do from a cost-effective standpoint is a single span concrete girder bridge in lieu of what we're proposing in this location. Now, what that does is it means the bridge is deeper A little bit more embankment, the road goes up potentially, which was one of the objections Mr. Bidner had. So the steel structure keeps it shallow. It brings it down, matches closer to the current runway grade. So that was a concession that we were going to make. It is a more expensive bridge. Need to get a number. So I can tell you exactly what we believe that number is. And I'll have that in the future.

Can we get matching money for that then?

So this is a federally funded project. So as long as we meet ODOT's requirements, we are eligible to be reimbursed for 80% of our cost for construction. The $500,000 is accounting for the reimbursement, 80% construction reimbursement. And the other design met federal standards, correct? Either way, we're intending to meet the federal standards. Yes.

No, we have almost over 2.5 million federal funding tied to this project. So it's just, just wanted to kind of highlight the critical importance of getting it done.

So are you saying we build a better bridge if we go with a bridge?

Well, we would build a a lower roadway, less embankment, closer to matching the existing roadway. So that was one of Mr. Binder's concerns was that we were bringing in fill and embankment, raising it up about three feet with the concrete bridge. Now there's probably a foot, roughly a fill height or differential, more or less. So it brought the road down to match the current grade. It's a shallower structure because it's steel versus the concrete is about. You don't have a problem with doing that then, do you? No. Well, the steel structure is a more expensive bridge. Okay, we're talking about cost. The question is, is it really worth it? And I think if Mr. Bidwell doesn't want to negotiate, that's really what he's told us more lately. It's probably something we'd want to reconsider doing, frankly.

is spending the money on the more expensive bridge if we get our money back right or it's paid for by the feds right well that is the that is the the thought is any percent of it will be paid by the federal government so does that extend the life of the bridge itself and the waterway through does the steel hold up better than the concrete is the question

Not necessarily. I mean, some would say that you'd be better off with a concrete girder bridge over the long run because the steel might need to be painted or it might be more inclined that you'd have more maintenance. I mean, it's tossed down in the future. Yeah. All right. Any other questions for Mr. Brown? So the only other thing I was going to mention is we do want to do a quick... analysis of large vehicle usage. This pertains mainly to the smaller structure, Bridge 386 at Austin-Fort Road. So we need to do that. We're going to need to authorize a separate agreement with our consultant CDG. That analysis would evaluate the passage of larger vehicles, particularly what we typically would do is a large semi-tractor trailer truck CONCERN IS WE HAVE A NUMBER OF FOLKS THAT HAVE HORSE TRAILERS IN THAT AREA, CLEARLY, AND WE WANT TO MAKE SURE WE'RE DESIGNING, WE HAVE COVERED THE FACT THAT THEY ARE OUT THERE AND USING THE INTERSECTION AND they don't have any issues navigating the intersection. So that is a reasonable thing to do, and we should do it. And so we would like to move forward with a separate agreement with CDG to do that analysis. There's a software program called AutoTurn that we utilize that runs the turning paths through the project and shows how the vehicle off tracks. And it basically shows us if we've built enough pavement to allow the vehicle to stay in the lane or not. So that will cost no more than $5,000, but I would like to get a motion from you if I can authorizing that we do that study with a consultant. And I'm happy to report back on that hopefully by the next meeting if you are willing to make a motion that we approve that study.

All right.

Council Member Allen makes the motion. Somebody like to second, please. I'll second that motion. All right. Council member in seconds. Read the motion. I guess if you're in agreement, we'll have Mr. Brown sort of state what the motion is.

The request or the recommendation is that the department work with CDG to complete a auto turn truck analysis for the Austin Fort and Wild Horse Creek Road intersection. Up to $5,000? Cost would not exceed $5,000, yes.

Council Member Owen, are you comfortable? Yes. Okay. All right. Perfect. So we have the motion and the second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Motion carries. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. Mr. Brown, anything else from you? How did it do?

for that item, no, that would be, that is fine. I think the next one might be fine to take.

All right. So the next one, I believe is the review of the intergovernmental agreement with the Missouri Department of National Resources for a proposed stream gauge monitoring station. And I believe this is at Filmon Creek. So this sort of ties in loosely with what we were just talking about. So city administrator, do we turn this one over to Mr. Brown to you?

I can take it. And Mr. Brown, more happy to have you in. your input on it as well. But that said, we are currently working on installing some signs on Wild Horse Creek Road that will notify residents or motorists specifically when there might be flooding conditions when the creek rises to a certain extent. That was kind of the way we were able to We had a discussion with the fire department last year, and a big concern was, hey, there's flooding that takes place off Wild Horse Creek. It does. That is one of the bigger concerns we have during the flash flooding components. There are some instances and some water rescues that have taken place, and the Monarch Fire Protection District definitely has raised the concern. They want as much stuff done as possible to have a better handle on when it's flooding and when it's not, which is understandable. That said, when we first discussed it, the USGS had come in, the National Geologic Survey had said, hey, we could do it, but it was going to have a pretty hefty price tag associated with it. So one thing that the department looked into is, hey, we want to make sure we can try to get residents to not go down that road when it's flooding so they can avoid being stuck in those situations. And it also helps with the public safety component because then you don't have firefighters down there trying to save themselves. That I think we've accomplished pretty well with the installation of this sign, but I will give some kudos here to the Monarch Fire Protection District. They kind of kept on the issue and eventually found a program and got a hold of someone with the state and specifically MDNR to have this other larger program that we would be a part of where they would install a stream gauge monitor. It would be simple as just putting it on our existing bridge. It's not going to do from what I've been able to see. And Rick can add some context here. But it doesn't seem like it would damage the bridge. It seems pretty light what they would be installing. They would install at Pelman near Wild Horse Creek, which would give you access to 24-7 to what the gauge is, what the water level is in that tributary leading into Wild Horse Creek. The benefit there is that we don't have that data currently, and this actually ties in. It's actually interesting. As we were talking with them, They showed us this website that they just created that shows not only what this gauge would be, but also across the state. They're installing these in multiple locations. So you'd be able to kind of look at it at any given time, and we'd be able to see and start correlating, hey, when it's at this level, that tributary's at this level, typically we've seen that there's some flooding that takes place over off Centaur. We could start making some connections. It's not perfect. The perfect idea would be to have gauges at multiple areas and be able to do a more comprehensive study. But MDNR is offering to do this at no cost to the city. They would install it, maintain it, and keep it there for perpetuity. The only thing the city would have to do is allow them adequate access. And one thing we discussed with them was that, hey, if you want to, in the future, upgrade it or change it out or do something along those lines, and specifically upgrade it where it would require traffic closure, or any type of traffic interruption that we'd require a special use permit from the city side. Nonetheless, we would have to have an intergovernmental cooperation agreement because between two different entities. But truthfully, it's them installing a gauge on our bridge in our right-of-way and then providing access to the data. But the city is not at fault for any of the costs. That's a true consideration. We do think this would be a met. And it looks like it, no strings attached. which typically these do, they'll come in and say, we'll install it, you maintain it type deal. But it does seem like this is part of a broader project for them that they're collecting data on statewide. And it's part of a bigger program. So I would almost say it would be a shame if this isn't going to damage the bridge, it'd be a shame to miss out on getting this data because it does allow us at least one data point to start putting two and two together when we see flash flooding down in the valley portion along Wild Horse Creek. So this is a win-win situation all around, it sounds like.

To me, it appears to be.

Okay.

Councilman Rowland, I'm sorry. I didn't say right around the corner from this bridge, if you're going northbound, is where it floods across the road. So hopefully that data, over time, we can figure out when Corralhurst actually almost starts backing up under that bridge, is that's when it's starting to cross over the road, just as you turn that corner where they've got the concrete board to retain the bank but then when the water gets high it just uses that concrete as a way to come up over the concrete right onto wild horse my wife had to turn back there on one of the heavy springs spring storms this year yeah that's that's why that location has been selected is it's closest north up in that area it has to be one of the worst places that floods just north of film in there

And that's where it becomes helpful. Because when we go out there, and right now, say we have a flash flooding event, we go out there, we'll see it. We'll make a notice. We'll put something out on social media. We'll try to put it on the website. We'll try to get the word out there. But what will be great here is that we'll be able to look at that online, see what that water level is, and just start putting two and two together, track it over time whenever we have an incident. Well, what was the gauge reading at? And then if we start seeing that gauge, just kind of keep an eye on it during when we know it's been raining a lot. You can kind of tell when, and you can, I mean, the best example here, and this is not nearly to this level, but what they did over on the inundation map that they did down, can you explain a little bit further on that, Rick? But it's not nearly that.

It's not nearly as comprehensive as USGS was. potentially be able to do for us or could do for us in the future. There's no mapping involved to visually show what the flooding is expected to be and when it might occur, but it's a start and it's certainly anything down there would be better than what we have right now.

What does it report back to? Does it send it back to a phone or?

website okay they have they have a i'm assuming some type of transmitter that it goes back to but nonetheless we'll have access i mean some other folks the other governmental entities have this too uh just a web link online where you can track the gauge at any given time okay that was one of our big questions too because it didn't necessarily cover the data transmission but since it's already public uh very easy to track okay do you need a motion yeah the motion uh requested from the department tonight would be to go ahead and recommend approval of this intergovernmental cooperation agreement. We did have a couple of changes that we had made notes of that Rick had called out. So of that version, and then if the terms are agreeable, it might be come back to council in August because they'll have to run it up their flagpole for the might changes, even though they're not substantive. But nonetheless, we would plan to have this come back to the city council in an ordinance form at the August meeting. Is there any costs? No cost. Thank you.

All right. And so the motion you need from us, or you just described the motion.

Yep. And that all sounds good. You wanted to make that motion basically.

Sure. Okay. I didn't mean to put words in there. That's fine. Okay. And do we get a second? Councilor Morrell. Okay. Second. Any discussion? Um, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Extensions. Motion carries. Thank you everyone. All right. Now we move right along to, um, Opposed code revision, right-of-way maintenance by property owners and city administrator. You and I spoke about this briefly a couple days ago, but I'll let you go into the explanation for the group. Yeah, this one, you said this is maintenance of roadsides? Yeah, right-of-way maintenance by property owners, opposed code revision.

Yep, perfect. So last year we had discussed this and this may be something that Rick wants to add some perspective on because he deals with it on a more day-to-day basis, but I've definitely seen a little bit of it now. But nonetheless, last year we had talked about, I'll just put this in more real concepts, day-to-day concepts. When we go out and do our concrete street slab replacement project, or if we're doing sidewalk work, what we find a lot of the times is that a resident may not have notified the city of a buried irrigation line that they have placed in the tree lawn, or they might have an invisible dog fence that might be placed in the tree lawn. They might have a concrete, I mean, a brick mailbox that's placed right up against the actual street itself. So it doesn't have a buffer in between the two and Quite frankly, if you're moving out to concrete slab, it's gonna cause a lot of shaking and reverberation that can cause some damage. So there's a lot of these instances across the city, especially in the more densely populated areas of the city where you've got private property placed within tree lawns in the right of way of the city. So when we go in to conduct work or carry out work either on the street or in the sidewalk or along the street trees too, we end up having situations where something gets damaged And technically, it shouldn't have been there in the first place. But nonetheless, the city is now on the hook for not only paying for the improvement that's taking place, but then to go back and to pay for a broken irrigation line or a tree. We've had issues where residents have claimed that their tree has been killed because the roots go underneath the sidewalk and whatnot. So there's a lot of different claims that come up. That said, the idea behind the amendment to the code that's being proposed tonight, and I would have to go to council, of course, for consideration, is just more clearly defining these. We have some pretty big changes here. The first part, and then we'll get to the second part. Step one, we are actually putting in there that in the code, it already says you shouldn't put private personal property in the right-of-way.

It doesn't allow it. Just to be clear, there is no allowance for private property on the public right-of-way.

that's right so right now that's it's black and white it is so right now that's what the code says but we get put into interesting situations where uh we get claims from residents that hey my dog fence was damaged or my uh my really it's dog fences and irrigation lines you say sprinkler heads are the ones that i've heard from time to time because the sprinkler heads are right out next to the curve in order to get all of that grass green space yeah so that i mean and that's the drawback here so there's positive and negative. Right now, they shouldn't be there anyways. This allows an exception. That said, it kind of guides how they should do it and then also provides some coverage for the city that if it is damaged, it is on them unless we know about where it's at. But that does have its drawbacks because some residents may find that a little too harsh. They want to take care of the grass. We do want the tree lawn to look good. We want the right way to look good. We're not going out there and watering that grass. So there are benefits having it watered. That said, with us not knowing that the irrigation line exists, specifically dog fence, because quite frankly, if you have a dog fence that goes across a sidewalk, that's not a really good idea in the first place. That could cause other issues. That said, this kind of puts those exceptions into a little bit more fine point detail while still kind of prohibiting them. But then the thing here too is get some direction. When we brought this up last year, The motion was, hey, we really shouldn't put something that's strictly prohibited because there are going to be those gray area cases where something was in the right of way, but they were doing it to help maintain the look and the aesthetic. We damaged it. We should fix it. But we wanted to bring this up because every year when we get into the concrete street slab work and we get into our sidewalk work, it just tends to pop up and staff gets put into these weird spots where we have an invoice, someone trying to get repaid, and really it comes up. you know, summer right now, people are running their sprinkler, but what happens is maybe the sprinkler line gets hit in a project that we're doing in the early spring or in the winter more specifically, and they don't turn it on for a couple months. And all of a sudden the contractor's out of town, they're done. And all of a sudden they're, irrigation lines broken, they're going to reach out to us. The contractor could say, hey, I didn't do that. It's been four months since I did it. So they're not going to go back and make it as easy as a fix. Those happen all the time. We get probably about five, 10 of those a year. Does that sound about right? I think that's... We get about 510 of these instances each year, and the staff is really just wanting some direction on that. This code would be a little bit more towards the restrictive side to say, hey, if you want to put these things out there, you got to let us know. We got to know where they're at, and we're not holding liability for you putting your personal property.

Question, is that something covered by insurance or insurance if we damage somebody's irrigation system? You guys just call the insurance company up and they... Yeah, so typically it's covered.

We try to get it covered by our... not ours, but the contractor's insurance. So we tell them, Hey, you go fix it. And if they're on site, that's great. But if not, that's when we would have to use our insurance. In some instances, it's not supposed to, the problem is it's not supposed to be in the right of way. So our insurance won't cover it. So if the law right now says you're not supposed to have personal property. So our insurance, when we call them and say, Hey, our contractor hit this X thing in the right of way, they're going to say, well, you're well, we've been told, Hey, your code says you're not supposed to put these in the right of way, so we're not going to cover it because that person shouldn't have it there in the first place. That's currently the insurance claim to us.

You're right, their argument. So you get a lot of claims then?

About five to ten a year. I mean, that's a rough estimate. A year? Yeah. I mean, they have. They do have.

This just helps you. Well, we want to make sure the insurance company... doesn't stick it to the city, right?

This would give like if folks follow the rules and they provide us with documentation of where they're putting some of these things, specifically irrigation. So the attorney will bless this, right? Yes, we're pretty sure the attorney will bless this.

I think the intent, at least from the department's perspective, not necessarily to change what we're doing. We would still require, and we do require our contractors to repair these items when they're aware that they've done the damage. So I don't think the intent is to change that. It's just to have a fallback position to take to a resident Ultimately, you've placed this with conditions on our right-of-way, and it's your responsibility. So when those gray areas arise where we can't definitively say, and that's where we get into trouble, is where the contractor is not owning up to the damage. We can't really know who did it, but it was done by somebody, and they're blaming the city. Well, I'm sorry, we don't have proof that our contractor did it. Sorry, property owner, you're responsible. If we can say that the contractor did it, we'll tell them to fix it, and they will.

Did you settle that mailbox claim? Well, it's technically settled, but that's actually a great example here. That is a great example, because technically we don't have any code provision about that type of mailbox. You've got a brick mailbox that... technically shouldn't be placed in that way, right up against the concrete road. The problem is that mailbox being where it's at, there's no separation between that and the concrete slab that makes up the road. So when the contractor goes in to remove it, there's really, the question you have to ask is, Did someone hit it, the mailbox, which would be, yeah, contractor, that's your fault. You should fix it. Or the flip side, was it because we removed the entire street slab that's next to it, the reverberations from that movement, did that cause maybe a roaded mailbox to shift? That's kind of one of these gray areas that we're trying to address.

I heard the contractor's insurance turned her down.

Yes. In that instance, the

mailboxes are a difficult one too because the ones that get damaged are usually not the new ones they're the ones that are 25 years old and frankly they're usually not in the best they're not they're old and they may be some you know they're they're mailboxes that are likely going to get hit or knocked over when the snowplow goes by so We usually replace them. We do have the contract to go back and address it. But these expensive ones that might be 30 years old that are damaged, maybe because they're in disrepair and they're just old or not necessarily entirely the contractor's responsibility. So this does help to shift that back to the resident to some degree. These are just, they are difficult.

All the space between the sidewalk out to the street, city owned.

So sidewalk and then a tree lawn area.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's city-owned. So like they're putting, they have a right to have a mailbox, of course.

Yeah.

The question that always gets brought up is what kind of mailbox is allowed? We don't, you never, and I would highly, I would highly advise against putting anything that says, hey, you can explicitly put that type of mailbox in there because that could open up. Yeah, it's not what we're talking about.

I mean, the thing, the problem there is people that put their mailbox in, and I agree, if you put the big concrete one in, but if you put a mailbox in, you can't put it, you know, clear back on the other side of the sidewalk, the mailman's not going to drop your mail.

So it's got to be right. And that part's fine.

And then we get a conflict with what we want and what they want. So it makes it kind of difficult to say, If it's just like a mailbox out of the way when we can't.

No, we're not trying to do that.

If I understand this, what you want to do is basically clarify the code, but you're not necessarily trying to prohibit people from doing what they've always done.

Yep, we're just saying, hey, who, if... Something happens during our construction phase and it's not clear that our contractor did it. It gives us a fallback position to say, hey, you know, you did put your personal property here in the right of way. We can replace your mailbox, but it's going to be the standard, you know, wooden post with the normal receptacle. We're not going to pay $10,000 for the nice elaborate brick.

So I got a, I got one of your 3B mailbox installation. So not result in a potential safety hazard for adjacent traffic. So basically, does that mean you can't put up a big stone mailbox? Because if someone drives down the road and runs into it, it's a safety hazard. You're probably talking more about a mailbox. My mailbox is 18 inches wide, 24 inches deep, four and a half feet tall. And if you run into it with your car, you're losing that battle. I may lose my mailbox, but your car is going to get the brunt of it. No, I'm in the back end of a neighborhood where You know, it's not an issue, but, you know, somebody might want to put a nice mailbox like that in on a busier street.

Well, on a busier, depending on the street, and Rick can attest to this, but I mean. I think the thought is if it's deemed to be a safety hazard, and that's obviously difficult to define, that we ought to have the ability to encourage it to be removed. If it's on the outside of a curve and somebody, say somebody hits it, maybe it shouldn't be resolved. I'm not an attorney, but if I, but when those on a busy street, I would be a little concerned about the liability of it because you're putting an obstacle along the side of the street that you just stated that they're going to damage the car. And that's being done, but you're willingfully constructing that obstacle on the side of the street. I don't know that we have liability on that

But I guess I haven't asked that question to the attorney. I'm putting them because I want a nice aesthetically looking mailbox on my property. Again, I'm way off.

Well, I think that's the definition too.

So there's a difference. That's the concern. That's kind of where we're coming from is that if it's a liability and it's a safety concern, then we should have the ability to say it should be removed or not rebuilt, say.

So if I live along Hutchinson Road, It's just not in our city. But even if you're on Old State, you got a house right on Old State, then I can't put that mailbox on Old State because it's a busy thoroughfare. We wouldn't have that because it's a county road. Yeah.

West Glen Farms. There you go. And certainly the intent is not a low speed, low volume roads, residential streets to do this. And I can't really pinpoint a location. And I'm certainly open to discuss this further. But the instance I would think of would be if it got hit, it's on the outside of a curve, there's a crash history there, it just doesn't make sense to put it back, we should have some right to say that it shouldn't be rebuilt. It should be a traditional mailbox that's more of a breakaway style.

Yes. I guess I see the scenario where somebody takes a post, drives it, Post straight up and down. They drive it right in next to the curb. And then there's an arm out from the post with a mailbox on it. And then that mailbox hangs out two feet over the pavement.

Yeah, I agree. That's a problem. I just think this particular language, I just, you know, if we're going to do that, then you got to go, everybody's got their house on the corner that puts big boulders on the corner, but people don't cut the corner and tear up their lawn, which is a pretty common practice for people that live in neighborhoods where everybody's cutting the corner and they're ending up with their grass torn up all the time. Public street, that probably shouldn't be going on either.

Yeah, I was going to say that.

It's in their yard. They put the boulders in their yard, not in the street. It's in their yard.

Yeah, but there's a right-of-way off of every yard or off of every street. There's a right-of-way that the city owns. If there's a private property, that...

There's definitely a question in the writing.

Okay, so Council Member Krantz wants to change the subject. This is something I've been wanting to know. In this regard, so maintenance of sidewalks, and I'll just read this. Any person, all property, easement, abutting, said lot, clean, clear and free of mud, silt, sediment or debris from sidewalks, correct? Correct. You're responsible for all the debris, silt, mud on the sidewalks.

This is part two of the question here. But the idea here is, yes, the property owner, and this is supported by our legal counsel, that you can most definitely say, hey, this tree lawn area and the sidewalk, you need to keep it clear, keep it clean, keep the grass cut in.

I think the average citizen don't. But the thing that you don't say in here is no. And are the residents required to clear the sidewalk from snow?

It does not say snow. It says mud, I believe. But the intent is not to require snow.

So you don't have to show your sidewalk and wildwood? You don't currently. And the intent was not to add that. OK. I just wanted to know that.

I mean, when it snows, the priority is given to the streets and sidewalks are typically given that. So some, well, where I'm from, they will find you.

Or the mailman has to deliver the mail.

And we'll get you access to the mailbox for sure. Cause that's what, that's where the street comes in. Getting that clearance up.

All right. So you can have, keep your snow on your sidewalk.

I would check your HOA indentures in case, but I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. So ours does. But I mean, kind of going back to this, there's not something this major pressing issue that once again is kind of where it led last last year, but there's not a major pressing issue to have this addressed. It's not like we're spending an absolute fortune on these types of issues. So if there are, you know, we've got some feedback tonight. If you want us to work on like the mailbox provision and some of the maintenance side, the maintenance side of things, we can do that and bring it back. That said, you know, we do, the staff is hoping to get something a little bit more concrete to say, hey, you know, our contractor does it, it's clear, we're going to have them fix it, but on these little gray areas, these offset chances that we have a little bit more fallback, if you will, like, hey, you did put that there knowingly and wittingly, it has consequences. Council Member Dudwell.

I'd like to make a motion that we move forward with the changes in the verbiage as outlined by the city administrator and the Director of Public Works.

So we have a motion. Do we have a second? All right, Council Member Kranz. Any discussion? And a lawyer will approve this, correct? That's correct.

All right. I just think we're, again, we've got private mailbox and public driveway that puts us to safety, or maybe a route by the Department of Public Works, and we need to go in and define what is a safety hazard and let residents know that. Because you got a mailbox can be a safety hazard. You have no idea what is deemed a safety hazard when you talk about a mailbox. Does that mean you can't use a steel pole and concrete? Or does that mean you can't use a brick mailbox? I mean, what does that mean? Is I got to use a four by four only or what? So that doesn't give anybody any clear indication of what that's going to be. So you want some clarification on what is safety hazard? Yes. I think you have to somehow give some examples of what that could be.

Council Member Dodwell, did you want to include a clarification in your motion along the lines that Council Member Owen is suggesting?

That's fine if staff feels they can add in those definer terms.

I will say the one concern there, and this is just getting down to it. I mean, if we start defining what is and isn't the public safety, the reason why it's kind of vague is that it gives the department some flexibility. If someone hits a mailbox and says, gosh, that wasn't there, I wouldn't have totaled my car. A kid has a concussion, whatever it might be. Hey, we look at it, give some discretion to say that is kind of dangerous. Maybe you should replace that and be able to urge them to get rid of it. That said, if we go in there and start really defining what is and isn't a safety hazard, what that technically is, it's a prohibition on the brick and concrete mailboxes.

So if we. That's not the intent.

That's not the intent.

That's not the intent. Is the concern with what Council Member Owens is suggesting, is it that we end up defining what is a safety hazard, and so we list items A, B, C, D, and E, but instead item M occurs. And since that wasn't specifically defined, then somebody comes back and says, well, you didn't find that as a safety.

That's what they'll do. That's exactly what they'll do.

Yep. And I think, I mean, this really is going back to kind of like the example that we were talking about with the concrete mailbox that was right up on the road with no separation or no joint in between the two that could help absorb any reverberations in the road. In that instance, it gives another fallback position that, hey, you know, that type of mailbox is right up on the road, shouldn't have been there in the first place. So when they come to, you know, say city, you have to replace this, then it gives another layer of protection to say, you know, really shouldn't have been in that location anyways.

So what I'm going to do is... But I don't think we need to make any adjustments to the current. we do it.

This is not a prohibition of mailboxes.

So I'm going to backtrack a little bit. I was making suggestions as to what Council Member Dodwell should have in her motion.

So Council Member Dodwell, why don't you go ahead and restate your motion that we follow the outline that was provided by city staff and city administrator to make the necessary adjustments to our ordinances in regards to mailboxes.

Okay. And council member Kranz, you seconded that. So council member Owen, you can propose an amendment to their motion if you wish, and then see if we get a second and then we can vote on it or that's up to you. I'm not going to, I'll just open it. Okay.

You can do that. Okay.

I will. The record is voting up. All right. Very good. All right. So we have a motion. We have a second. Any further discussion on this topic? Seeing none. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Nay. Okay. Council Member Owen has nay. Abstentions? None. Motion carries. Thank you all. That was a good discussion.

Okay, so let's just... The other thing I'll say is in my old neighborhood, I would have been calling you up to say, hey, I got a guy with a mailbox that's half leaning over in the street. You need to go talk to him. So we just put ourselves in the hook for being the mailbox place to... Code enforcement already is, I think. Okay, well then why do we need it here if it's already somewhere in the code enforcement? It's we don't have it right now, but if there's a lot of property right that's what I'm getting at first left a lot of our neighborhood where they're being held up by bricks.

Case neighborhood good so we move on to item number 7 which is topics for inclusion on future agendas. targeted workforce analysis in review of contracted services with in-house staffing potential. So city administrator, I'll let you clarify what we're actually talking about.

Yeah, so this is looking at specifically as we get into the budgeting season, taking a look at some of the day-to-day tasks that we have that our contractors carry out that are consistent, cover each month of the year. An example would be something like an electrician. We have a lot of streetlights that we've been maintaining. That's something just a flat-out idea that you could possibly make a case that the amount of money we spend in a contract cost could pay for a position to do that work for us. The idea would be to identify a couple of scenarios like that where you might be able to save money over time with some of our contracted services. When you look at the capital investment it takes up front, it just won't make sense. We haven't completed the full analysis, but I could see where some of the writing would go. At the end of the day, if you had seasonal work where we're going to hire three folks to do grass cutting across the city you know first of all you probably need a little bit more than that but then also they're only going to work you know from march to early november and then you have to pretty much lay them off or find something else for them to do and then also you have to maintain and keep up all the equipment that it takes so the question would be looking at some of those costs and see like hey if we were to bring someone on do that, could we? And does it lead to a net expense to the city? Or does it lead to a net, you know, gross in our, what we have left over in the bank? So if there are opportunities for that growth, we'll bring those forward. And then we'll also outline some of the issues that we identified. Like one, like the porta potties that we have provided certain places and events possibly can do the cleaning, but actually procuring and providing those porta potties might be a bigger business than what we might want to do.

Council Member Dodwell.

Part of the original intent of the way we structured the city and the way it works is that we would not fall into the scenarios that you just outlined where we have seasonal workers that are on a full year payroll and what you do with them on the time periods that we don't need them. um you have porta potties where are we going to store them during the winter when we don't have a place to store port porta potties i mean the original intent of the charter and or i don't know which documents exactly was absolutely was that the city doesn't get involved in lot of this stuff the contracting cost may be a little bit more on the front end but if you look at the cost for insurance of the employee um the taxes that you have to pay on that employee etc so i think if the city one staff wants to bring forward very detailed outline of what they're talking about what budget is going to be set aside for that particular requirement. And then my concern is with the current tax law juggling that's going on right now, we may end up having to lay people off two years after we hire them because we don't have any more money for them. That's exactly right. So I understand the reasoning. I don't think it's a bad idea to go through that process, but um it and then it also takes some of the liability off the city if the contractor's doing things um versus the city doing so that's just my problem i can appreciate what you just said i'm sure there's exceptions and the one exception that comes to my mind

is we've hired an arborist that has paid for themselves many times over.

No, I don't disagree with that.

So there's got to be some exceptions.

That's where the targeted piece comes in.

Yeah.

Council Member Owens, did you have a comment? No, my comment is probably similar, Mr. Albers. If we're going to do that, we've got to look at, you know, if we hired an electrician to replace all the streetlights because it would save us some money, what happens when that particular individual wants to go on a vacation or gets hurt and can't work for a month or something, then we're trying to scramble to find somebody to replace them. So it's almost like you got to be looking at groups of four and five people that are contracted where if all of a sudden you lose one, they still cover your shortages. And then it may make sense, but I think we've got to look at the depth of it. And it's got to be a pretty big spin and a pretty broad swath of contractors .. All right.

So any other discussion on this issue? So city administrator, what action did you want from the committee? It's not ready for action. OK. All right. I'm sorry. Yeah. I didn't notice. All right, very good. So moving on to miscellaneous, there's nothing. Next meeting is Tuesday, August the 12th, 2026 at 5.30 p.m. We're right here in the same location. And with that, I will entertain a motion for adjournment. But before I do entertain that motion, thank you, everyone. It's been a good meeting, good input from everyone. Great discussion. Thank you for being here tonight. So with that, I'll now entertain that motion for adjournment. Council member Alvarez, do I have a second? Second. Council member Means, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?