City Council - Regular Meeting

flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. We need to start with a roll call. Miss Harris, will you help us with that? Sure. Council member Welling is excused and everyone else is present. So, we do have a quorum. Thank you. We'll have to uh we'll have to question Council Lwelling on that. I think the reason why he's not here is his is a birthday for the [laughter] world to know it's his birthday today. And so he'll he'll appreciate that, I'm sure. But anyway, hope he has a good birthday. We have an agenda before us. Is there a motion to approve the agenda as it's been prepared? I'll make that motion, Mr. Lind I'll second your

second. Any discussion on the motion? [snorts] There is none. All in favor say I. I. I.

Are there any opposed? We have an agenda. We have the work or the city council minutes for January 6th and the work session minutes for January 13. Any questions or comments, concerns about those minutes? [snorts] If not, we will acknowledge those as they've been prepared and we'll go on to the bills [snorts] questions there.

I had one. Okay. I noticed that health equity was listed twice, one for a larger number, uh one for a smaller number, and was wondering why it was broken out in two different ways. Uh the first one is on um fifth down under vendor 25916 and then again, it's listed. [sighs] Um it's the one thing I didn't highlight. Bear with me. It's in here for health equity is the second down on the second page 1,0019,270. Just curious why there's two. [snorts]

Any idea about that treaty? Well, we pay health equity every two weeks when payroll for what the employees they have their checks for their FSA.

We'll probably look I guess we can look into that. Go back. Good question. [snorts] I think Miss Lyn actually explained this. The 25916 is under payroll the from the employees taking out and the other larger amount for just shy of 120 is listed as FSA H. See? Okay. If that's 100,000, that is when we submitted the first of the year for all the city. So that's fun.

Okay, that makes sense. Any other questions on the bills? If none, is there a motion to approve? I'll make that motion, your honor. Perks, I'll second. Mr. Seller seconding. Any discussion? [snorts] No discussion. All in favor say I. I. I. Any [clears throat] opposed? That's approved. Now we'll go to the revenue [snorts] and expenditure report for October. Questions there.

[snorts] If there are none, I'll entertain a motion to approve that report. I'll make that motion. Mr. Lind motion. Is there a second? I'll second. Mr. Seller seconding. Discussion. [clears throat] No discussion. All in favor say I. I I there any opposed? That's approved as well. Council comments. Miss Hegman, let's start down here again. This week, what's on your mind tonight?

Um I've been noticing um a lot of negativity online. People are in these trying times are being harsh. And I just ask that remember the an anonymity of a keyboard still has it protects you but your words still have impacts on [snorts] people on the other end and there these are trying times and people are asking for help is where I'm seeing a lot of these comments and it's prudent not to judge. you don't always know and there's extenduating circumstances and um just an overall be kind [clears throat] to one another that it's tough there's a lot of stress and on that as I always say keep in mind your service members the men and women who are serving this country that are all around us and our veterans when times that escalate in the news like this wear on them and their families and bring up uh a lot of things that you may not be aware of with our veterans that they choose not to share. But times like these and news cycles like these and world's events like these are trying and emotionally very difficult. So it adds to the importance to be kind. So

yeah, all I have is I'm in our local stores a lot because I get things and our it's a rough time of the year normally for our stores and I walk into stores that there's usually business and they're completely empty. I mean like I'm the only one in there. And I think the highlight was I was in Smith the other night right off about 5:30 when people are getting off work and there was only like five people there and I'm thinking I know people are ordering and they do the home delivery and there's stuff like that but I don't think it's that much. So be mindful of your local people who were selling goods and services in our community and give them business. Don't take it out of town because that supporting our local businesses makes our community run.

Mr. Perks, I have nothing tonight, your honor.

Mr. Um I just wanted to touch on things budgetary wise because at the end of the day our job is to be keep track of our finances. Um I looked at our net position as far as our audit goes and we were in a deficit from 24 to 25. So we're halfway through the budget year this year. So I would just say our department heads, let's keep a close eye on our spending. We're heading into a budget year now. So, let's keep an eye on where we're at, what we want versus what we need. Um, it's nothing to be alarmed about. It's not that big of a deficit, but when you go if year by year by year in a continued deficit, then you lose your savings account essentially. So, as we go into a budgetary year, let's think about what we what we want and what we need. Let's get what we need first. Um, but other than that, [clears throat] just [snorts] be mindful.

Thank you, Mr. Schmidt. Um, I just looking at, [clears throat] excuse me, looking at the uh happenings here for January and February, and I see that on the 25th is the family ice skating party. Um, if you plan on doing that, it takes some fins and maybe a rubber duck or something to be able to float with. But, uh, just be careful out there because the ice I don't see much out there. So, just be careful. Probably wise council. Polar plunge. You're going to have a polar plunge.

Yeah, it' be pretty plenty cold, but yeah, good advice. I don't think I have anything uh to add. I'll just uh say amend to that and we can uh we can move on. We have no public hearings or special orders nor consent agenda. We do have a couple of items of unfinished business that we need to do with today. Now, two weeks ago, we we I I'm trying to remember. Did we put these on? What's your pleasure? Do we do we take them off the table both of them together or or separately? Mr. Mayor, that's up to the council. However you want to do What's your What's your pleasure? You want to take them both off the table with one motion and then discuss them separately?

I think we have to discuss the first before we can even move to the second if you're talking about the agreement approving the agreement cuz No, we're talking about taking it off. Yeah, we're just taking the table off. I'll make that motion to take on table it from the last meeting. Are you both of them? Both of them at once. Got a motion to remove these items from the table. Is there a second? Second. Schmidt seconding. There's any discussion on that motion? I'd like to make sure we talk about them both though. Absolutely. Absolutely. There's no further discussion. All in favor say I. I.

I. These are off the table. Our first item there is uh the agreement with River Oaks Communication. Mr. Harris, do you want to refresh our memory a little bit and we can go from there? Yes, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. The first item is the uh consult consulting agreement with River Oaks regarding all West Communication franchise agreement renewals. Um as you indicated this was tabled until this meeting. Uh I do believe [snorts] I don't know if there was a motion made to approve it or not.

How far we got? I if I'm I could be wrong, but I want to say it was just a motion to table it until until today as I remember. So, uh nothing's changed in the in the agreements and uh that's all. Okay. Well, I guess for purposes of discussion, I'll just entertain a motion to approve this agreement so we can put it on the table and discuss it.

I'll make that motion to get that conversation moving. Mr. Perks, a motion to uh approve the agreement with River Oaks for regarding All West. Is there a second to that motion? I'll second it, Mr. Schmidt. Second discussion. What's everybody's pleasure there? [snorts] Go ahead. Yeah, sure. I'll talk. Yeah. Um

looked like [laughter] you were going to say something, so go ahead. Um, as far as now that we've had a little bit of time to look into it and see what's going on as far as the agreement goes, as far as the purpose of the agreement and everything involved with it, um, I think it's a good idea to get a consulting firm that is knows this, knows these contracts, knows how to negotiate these contracts, knows how to take care of them. Um it'd be for the best interest in the city to make sure that we have someone that is privy to what's going on as far as this goes. Um River Oaks is a viable company that uh could negotiate on our behalf. I'm not a huge fan of what their rate is. They But I mean when you get lawyers involved, that's what their rate is. He's not even going to smile at me. But uh [laughter] the one thing I would say about the whole process of this is how this went about. I wish I wish we would have went to a work session first instead of it getting put on it as a motion to our agenda. You know, I think a lot of and and I've said this two or three different times. I it bothers me that we go to just put something on the agenda. Us as a council only have a couple two or three days to evaluate it and then we're supposed to make them make a vote on it. Um, I wish the process was a little different where it's like, "Hey, somebody wants something to do. Let's go to the mayor, let's go to department heads, let's go to the council for a work session, and then let's put it on the agenda." And I think we skipped that last session of coming to the council and it went as a motion straight to the agenda. That is the one thing that that bothered me about the whole process, but we were able to table it, able to talk about it in the work session. Um, ultimately, you know, I'm I'm okay with the idea of a consulting firm. Um, and from what I've heard, Mr. Harris and

department heads are fine with this consulting firm. Um the [clears throat] optics of just how it went about I don't think is great for this council in the sense of you know it kind of looked like it was tried to slide it under the table a little bit at first but you know after reviewing it looking at it I think it would be in our best interest to uh to hire this consulting firm and and uh move [clears throat] forward.

Thank you further discussion. just I'm I'm wondering if we're allowed to state some guidance that we would like and I'm just going to reiterate what I said. I want to make sure that as they negotiate that the end consumers really looked into that we don't pass on extra charges back to our our citizens. I mean, we're not spending money in our community. You can look at our sales tax revenue and it's down from the last couple years and I think we need to make sure that people have money in their pockets and we need to I mean it's you know when you look at it in the scheme of thing it's if it's 1% or this or that but that will migrate over the other utilities and it might not be that much. It might be five it might be $20 a month but for some people that that's a lot of money and especially as our community is aging and you got people on fixed incomes. I just would like to give that guidance that we as we look at a contract that we do one that the company and the the companies are willing to look at what's important for their customers. And I think I talked to Mark about that too is I don't necessarily think we want to go in guns ablazing like we want to take this telecom company for all it's worth. At the same time we want don't want to be at the bottom of the barrel to where the city's not getting what they should to maintain any kind of the you know maintain the franchise agreement. So we don't want to pass on any cost to the citizen but at the same time the city's got to maintain roads rideways all of that stuff. So [clears throat]

is that one you have Yeah. please.

Well, I was curious why we only had one one consulting firm put before us, vetted and put before us. And I researched and I looked up and there's actually a ton of consulting firms for telecom that range anywhere from $40 an hour to 180 was the highest I saw. I looked up Lander because Lander was brought up and Lander on their records has a bill from this um from River Oaks from $1,410.75. Whereas before us is the possibility of 15,100 with no cap and no clause [snorts] saying exceeding payments must be approved by the council. We're 4.27 million in decline. We're our unrestricted net position declined by approximately 3.7 million over last year. And we're looking at one consulting firm out of at least 10. That was the first list on Google. Boom. 10. And I'm wondering why aren't we doing our fiduciary responsibility and looking at three? Now, the law specifically says we do not have to require a low bid selection for

professional service. However, it does require reasonable transparency and fiduciary responsibility and looking at one service provider that's $285 an hour and not even entertaining the thought of other consultants at lower rates when we're millions of dollars this year in the hole. Oh, seems a little negligent on our part. And the council, and I want this to be explained, the council was not provided with competing proposals, informal quotes, or rate comparisons with other telecom franchise consulting firms. No written sole source justification was included in the council packet. Both contracts were negotiated and routed through our city attorney rather than through council directed procurement process. Scope language allows for additional services at the time of hourly rate without a defined not to exceed cap. No conflict of interest or prior relationship disclosure was included in the materials and council is being asked to ratify consultant selection after the fact rather than direct in advance. That's a huge issue.

Mr. Harrison, if you please um the response is is that both of these proposed uh agreements are for and ought not to exceed range and then the agreements provide any supplemental hours would be subject to the mutual written agreement of the parties. So there has to be a mutual written agreement to exceed uh the not to exceed limits for additional hours. Second thing is is that uh the city of Evston procurement policy does not require competitive quotes. Uh and in fact the procurement policy uh does not require uh that the city council authorize these agreements. I brought them to the council because of the nature of the it's an unusual situation with franchise agreements. uh you don't see them maybe once every 10 years or so. Um we haven't had a new franchise requests for almost 25 years. Uh they're a unique situation. Uh but I did bring them to the council uh so that we could have a discussion. the uh amount [clears throat] that the and the line item for these budget requests for these these contracts was approved by this council and um I'm just bringing them to the council. You vote yes or no, we'll go forward.

Thank you, sir. Any further discussion?

Yeah, I'm I want to know by law we have 180 days and the statute gives us 180 days. So councils can vet consultants and discuss and go through because these are big contracts that bind cities for up decades sometimes which binds the taxpayers for de decades. These are nothing light to go into and that's why the law gives us 180 days. We are 14 days in. What is the rush gentlemen? Mr. Mayor, let me correct something. We are not 14 days in. The request for visionary came in November.

So, we're how many days in? How much more time do we have? Two months. Two months in. So, we're left. So, we have till April. So, we have till April to negotiate a great thing on M and vet some more consultants. $285 is $105 more than the h per hour than the highest one I found.

I guess did Mr. Harris, have you looked at any other consulting firms or is this the only one you've looked at? I did not. I was not aware of any others. Didn't look at any others. I was aware of River Oaks from my prior work with Wyoming Association as well. And do you feel like you've vetted them? Pardon? Do you feel like you've vetted them as far as them being a good firm? Yes,

it it seems I appreciate that. I It seems to me that we have we have been in communication with other communities that have also utilized their services. Um and and I feel comfortable with them myself. As far as Mr. Sellers, your comments, this is a consulting firm and as Mr. Harris uh mentioned we don't do these often. It's not unreasonable to to say we might need a little uh extra help on this affair. It's similar to other issues that the count the city will face that for which we might enlist the help of a consultant of a variety of kinds. And this is a consulting firm. We're not we're not necessarily bound by anything that they do. We will be bound by a future contract that we would enter into and we would utilize them to to negotiate to work through uh to provide the best services that we can provide at the most cost-effective uh way to our to the community and to ultimately to the citizens. So I I hear those concerns. Um as far as I'm concerned, I think this is this is probably um uh a prudent thing to do. Yes, it is a lot of money. Um, but at the same time when we're talking about these are these are big issues as you correctly point out these are big issues and u and uh I think that there has been enough uh experience I guess with other communities that we have been in contact with to to and for that matter for visionary and all west themselves who have also worked as my understanding with with River Oak. So I'm I'm I'm comfortable with with their involvement. Granted, it is it is an expenditure and and and the budget has always come into play. However, you know, to say, you know, the way the budget will shake out between now and the end of the budget, it's hard to know until it's all said and done. And we we want to be as prudent and as careful

with with city funds as we can possibly be. That has been my goal and my stance since since becoming mayor. And so sometimes we uh we are we're better off at the end of one fiscal year than we are the other just for a variety of reasons. But uh but I am confident that uh by the end of the fiscal year we will be um in in fairly fairly decent shape. I hope. Uh granted that's an unknown and I don't have a crystal ball and neither do you. So um that's kind of where my my feelings are uh on the on the matter on both matters here. Any further discussion?

I just have one comment please. Uh I I know I voiced my opinion last week on you know on on the franchise and so on or this most favored nations clauses [snorts] and um does this uh agreement or this franchise agreement will that go along for I mean will the other not only visionary all west um century tell and all the others will that lead over covering them also? I know their contracts are up. So, uh will that be part of their negotiations or do we renegotiate with them also?

Mr. Mayor, please.

Uh councelor Smith, um we are trying to ascertain uh the Century Link termination date. Uh right now we're just negotiating these two. the federal law regulations and the state law requires that we be non-discriminatory in in um the franchise agreements. Uh now does that mean they have to be exactly the same? No. Uh but that's one of the things a consultant can lead us on is where we can where the differences can be without running a foul law. it will not require us to renegotiate with Century Link. That's that's the other telecom we have. So you can think of these two and then Century Link is a telecom. Um but um you know assuredly if there's uh if there's differences in what the current Century franchise is and maybe benefits for us to renegotiate with Century Link so that we get more favorable terms uh including rates length of service of the facility. So is is so is each one of them would be individual on that 1%. So I mean when it's renegotiated it it wouldn't lock them all into that same so that it's not being passed on to the public.

That's correct. What you negotiate with one does not mean you have to negotiate the same thing with the other. Okay. But they have to be non-discriminatory. And um but I don't but you know a difference in race. discriminatory from what I understand that's a question we would ask of the consultant but they're all individual they stand alone [snorts] further discussion

yeah [clears throat] I'll I'll reiterate what I said last year or last week excuse me should have had more water u well this has been so long since we've negotiated any any of these contracts. I think it's to our advantage to get all the information we can. And so I'm I'm in support of of going and have an agreement with River Oaks, but I do agree with Jesse. You know, once we start negotiating this, hopefully you'd come back to the council in a work session and we can go over all your [snorts] findings before we come to a meeting. So we're not having a lot of these big long discussions at a regular meeting. We can have them at a work session and throw around more ideas. So that's my two cents. Thank you. Anybody else?

Yeah. Um, you know, you you mayor, you brought up a good point, which is, you know, we're not bound to the contracts that the consultant comes up with. We we get to choose. However, we are bound by the bill. And that's my point here. We've got one before us that is over-the-top expenses, has personal liaison uh connections. It's it doesn't look good. The optics are horrible and we haven't been given any comparative pricing. We don't have a sole source justification. I mean, are River Oaks worth the 285 versus the other telecom company uh consulting companies for 40, 80 or 100? Why was Lander's bill only $1,400? Why is ours looking at $1,500 plus? There's so many questions. And statute 151131 provides up to 180 days. We, as Mr. Harris said, we have four months left. It is prudent that we look into hiring the a firm that is right for the consulting and has the expertise. But since there's a lineup of 20, we should be looking at other ones. If it turns out that, you know, River Oaks is the second coming, so be it. But not

looking at one other consultant is irresponsible for our council's fiduciary oversight. and comparative information does not jeopardize the city, it strengthens it. Well, I just ask Mr. Harris another question. Do we know and with these other attorneys or other companies other than River Oaks uh what their expertise is as far as the most favor you know the what they were asking the most favorable cause and all of the other because I you know as I as I said before I studied this but it's kind of a little bit over my head is when I start reading all this and you you uh try to put you know I'd like I I understand what Uh, Councilman Haggman was saying about, you know, let's compare apples and apples and oranges and oranges, but um, have we done that, Mr. Harris? Have we looked at what their expert I mean, there there obviously other communities that are using River Oaks? I'm I'm assuming not,

Mr. Mayor. That is correct. Lander and Lander, Pinedale, Casper, Cheyenne. There's more. I have not contacted those communities. I know the mayor of Pinedale told me they were uh very satisfied with River Oak's work. Uh that was before this that was a year or two ago, something completely different. Um and the only one I'm familiar with is Lander. Um and I do have the Lander franchise agreement, but I can't answer the question on that. I guess I understand the the concerns and I and I truly I I appreciate it. I I my fear is is that we extend this off too much. Uh we're going to we're most likely uh although it is an unknown. I will concede that. But my fear would be that we will we'll spend similar or more money and then we'll we're a month or two months or 3 months down the road and and then we're find ourselves behind an eightball or something trying to get uh get this done in in time. So I'm comfortable with moving forward. Um if and I appre I mean I respect if somebody decides to vote uh negative toward this I'm that's that's why we're here. That's why everybody's here. So,

I'd like to motion to table it for another two weeks and gives us all time to do some due diligence and some research on some other companies and city staff to look into other consulting firms and give us the information that we need to make a good decision. It is, you know, time and time I again I hear I trust the city staff. Well, it's not about trusting the staff. That's not our job. [snorts] It is trust but verify. And sherking responsibility onto the staff that are is our duty. And trusting blindly is not what we are here to do. We are here to look over the taxpayers's money independently and vet everything that comes before us. Trust is nice, but as Ronald Reagan said, verify. And we can't verify without a more time to look at other telecom franchising consulting firms and look at Pinedale and Jackson and Lander. What was the scope of their work? Did they raise and hike prices by a hundred and something dollars is why they were so good? We have none of this information and we're about to spend 15 plus thousand with, you know, open-ended whether it says open-ended or capped or not. It also says you can come back and we can look at some other stuff. And I just don't understand with four months left on such a critical thing.

Everybody says this is critical. Me personally, I don't think we need a consultant. We can do our own research, but that's not the vote of the body. You want to rely on a consultant? Great. But you've made a motion to table. Yes. Is there a second to that motion? I say that motion dies for the lack of second. Any further discussion on the original motion? We have a motion to approve the agreement with River Oaks Communications Consulting Services regarding All West Communications franchise agreement. Is there any further discussion? I just have one more quick question.

Please go ahead. Um, looking at the the fees and expenses, uh, they say that the franchise will not exceed $7,900 to $9,300. Do you know why it would cost any more than that? No, I do not, Mr. Mayor. I don't. And we can't do it. We can't exceed that amount under the terms of this agreement unless we come back and get the consent of the council. Thank you.

So, I do not I mean I agree with Miss Hegman. I wish we had two or three options. I wish we had a venom. I wish we had to do all that. I wish it would have been gone about differently. I've already said all of that, but I've done my own research on River Oaks. Um I know Visionary very well. A matter of fact, I have their service at another location. Um as far as those two companies go, they are viable companies. They're great companies. I want to have them in our community. Uh we just approved, you know, a million dollars for last month on what the city spent. So, you know, I we I'm I am very fiscally responsible. That's why I mentioned the fact we were in a deficit from the year last year to this year. But we need to hire a firm for this situation. River Oaks is a viable company. And I say viable because they've worked in Lander, Pinedale, everything in Wyoming. And you want a comparable, they've worked everywhere in Wyoming. I don't like the cost, but like I said, I've never liked the cost of a lawyer ever in my life anyway. So, be that I think we go ahead and get this moving myself. Um, next time, let's go about it a little differently. Maybe go through a work session, bring two or three options to us, you know, just do it a little different next time, then we don't turn into this situation.

Thank you, Mr. Sers. Um, my concern and why I didn't second is is because they're the ones that are all through the state and so if there's other firms that are cheaper, why aren't they other cities using them? So I being in healthcare, I look at and I think is it like the Blue Cross Blue Shield's the only group that will insure in Wyoming. So, so I've I'm worried that we put it off even though you're paying more. You pay more for insurance in Wyoming because there's no competition. But but the reason there's no competition is nobody wants else wants to come in. And so if we I'm afraid that if we get going, we'll find that there's nobody else. There's other people out there, but they just don't do business in Wyoming. Or you would think one of these other communities would have used used a cheaper alternative.

There's no further discussion. All in favor of the motion say I. I. I. There. Any opposed? I. We have one opposed. Our next item is a similar motion to approve an agreement with River Oaks Communications regarding a request from Visionary Communications for a new franchise agre agreement. That's also effectively off the table. And I'll entertain a motion to approve that agreement for purposes of discussion. I'll make that motion. Mr. Sers of the motion. I'll second it. Your honor, Mr. Perk. Seconding. Discussion. Like I said, I know Visionary. I'm happy they want to be part of the community. So, that's great.

I I use I use Visionary for years. So, I don't have a problem with that. But I'd like just to say our client is not visionary. Our client is the community of Evston, Wyoming. And I've heard up here how great Visionary is in all West. I have all West. That is not what I care about in agreements, especially regarding taxpayer money. I don't give a rat's ass about whether they provide a good service. I give a grat's ass about my community and the citizens in it and the money that they give to us.

Any further discussion? Well, just to that if we hire a really good consulting firm that could get us 10fold back in the city, too. So, correct. Or it is a double-edged sword. And the only other thing I have to say is I like I said last time is, you know, I want to make sure that every the city's protected and that the community is protected. And that's what I care about. There's no further discussion. All in favor say I. I. I. Are there any opposed? Nay. One negative. Thank you. We have no new business. Uh, departments. Let's see. Mr. Robinson, you're farthest left here. M. Larson. Mr. N. No, sir.

O'Neal. Miss Lim. Chief Ranish. No, sir. Thank you. Miss Harris. No sir. Mr. Paris. Nothing, your honor. Thank you. Thank you. Public participation. Is there anyone here from the public that would like to address the council for any reason? [clears throat] Um, I was told by someone that um the comments are disabled on the YouTube YouTube recordings of the city council and I wanted to know why. I don't know if we can answer that. Did you hear that, Preston? The comments on the YouTube are disabled. Is that

Yes, the comments are heard off. It's we're just providing a service [clears throat] to watch it, not necessarily a platform. Okay. Wouldn't that help if you listen to your constituents?

I guess everybody could have a personal opinion on that. I don't know that I for me uh for something like that to help me. I would appreciate it if somebody actually came to this meeting and and if they had a comment they could they could make it right here in a in a public forum from from me perspective. I'm probably not going to read any of those comments. So the uh that's my own personal opinion. Um, well, speaking of that, um, I think what you've done here with voting for, uh, all that money for a consultant is not a good idea.

Thank you. Anyone else? Jared Hton, 234 Medicine, but just out of curiosity, you all notice the water damage in the corners of the ceilings up there? There's a little bit um totally unrelated to this, but uh I'd like to thank Mr. Paris uh for responding to an email I sent earlier today, especially I sent it pretty short notice. Um for the visionary or for the River Oaks agreement, uh a cost is definitely an issue, especially based off of what you sent me, Mr. Harris. Uh in order for that cost to make sense, their rates are going to have to go up. Um either way, um I'm definitely interested in seeing the results of that. So the only request I'd have for that is is as soon as that the contracts are made available to you, they be made available to the public as well. Um other than that, I think that's pretty much it. Questions for me?

We got a new roof on here. Can I ask a clarifying question? Just Absolutely. Mr. Hton, you said when the contracts are available, you're talking about the franchise agreements. The ones that that they the council would vote on. Yes. Yes. Those and just so everyone's aware, those are ordinances that enact we call them agreements, but they're ordinances. Yeah. There'll be there'll be three readings. There'll be a public hearing, three readings, a work session. We already that was set a while ago. we were going to have a work session and uh at the time of first reading of a proposed ordinance those will be included in the packets just like every other ordinance. So yes, you will see them before first.

Sounds good. Thanks. I appreciate you guys. I don't think anybody did anything nefarious and or anything like that. I just Yeah. But to answer your question, we did put a new roof on here. The stains were already there. Oh, I have the same problem at home, so I understand. Okay. I have a question. Where are your pants? It's 18° outside. That's pretty warm for January around here. Anyone else? Um, sorry. Um, I just uh wanted to ask Jesse, how how big is the deficit? 4.2.

Yeah, it's right around 4 million. It went from 1.3 down to like 99. Those are rough numbers. I can give you the exact ones. I just shut my computer though.

But that's from that's from year to year. Um, you know, it we we gained money the year before. It's just when you go consecutive years and continue to lose money, that's when you're in a bind. I think we had a lot of capital projects that went into that as well. I mean, you think about roundhouse, you think about roofs. I mean, after that tough winter, I we replaced I don't know how many roofs. So, you you've got to go into that money, you know, spend it for infrastructure for the city, but if we look at the budget as we move forward, let's go ahead and do better if we can.

I had another question about um last time uh we met, we were talking about the golf course. They were doing well, blah blah blah. And um but we didn't talk about parks and wrecks and how much deficit they're in with the they you know it's our biggest park we have is the golf course and yet it wasn't mentioned about how much money um that we are paying for the parks and wreck for the golf course. Do you want me to

All of that all of that information is available during the budget session. It's all it's all right there in the in the city budget every every year. Um, so it's the information is all available to you if you want to stop down here and look into it. I thought it was funny that you didn't mention it at the same time you're talking about the golf course because the golf course, you know, the golf club is doing really well. Mr. Eers was here just simply to give us a yearly report on the golf course specific

and and there's one thing people got to remember. Scott gives us uh for the season how they've done at the golf course, but the golf course and the parks and wreck are on a fiscal year. So, a lot of their revenues as far as the budget goes. They will see that in the spring. Plus, the parks the the recreation district goes year round, but a lot of their revenue will still come in before uh June 30th at the end of the fiscal year. He just gives us from season to season even though technically that's only part. He's given us two parts if that makes sense out of two different years.

I mean overall we do subsidize the golf course. But yes, you know we it's usually I think 200,000 is what we looked to subsidize it the last time I looked at numbers. But I believe that $200,000 comes back 10fold in economic development and stuff for our community. I mean, I think it's well worth it in my own opinion. Mr. Mayory and Miss Cook,

the information relating to uh the budget information for the golf fund is in that uh financial get make sure I the expenditure report for October of 2025. Each expenditure report will contain a separate revenue and expenditures for the golf fund, but it doesn't have a page number. Well, it's page eight. So, if you turn to page eight in the P council packet of that document, you'll see where we stand through the end of October. Okay. Thank you. Do you have some real quick?

I just want to address the deficit thing and I don't want people getting the wrong idea. Thank you. Um, we have money. It's not like we spend all our money and we have a deficit. We may have not received as much revenue as we spent through the year, but that's why we have money that's saved for capital projects and different things. That doesn't mean we're $3 million in the hole, basically. Okay, let me clarify. Our net position has went down from year, but we still have a positive net position. But we still have a very positive outlook for our city. But our net position went down, which means we spent more than spent more than we made. So,

but yes, I just want to make sure no one thinks we went in the whole $3 million because that is not the case. Maybe deficit is the wrong word, but our net position has went down since the previous year. our revenue also. Anyone else? There's nothing else. Is there a motion to adjourn? I'll make that motion, your honor. First, I have a second. All in favor?