City Council - Special Meeting

Good morning and welcome to the special city council meeting for Tuesday December 23rd 2025. We will begin with a roll call and determination of quorum. Leman here. Maher Roberts here. Strowman here. Pedigrew Serris here. Beverdorf here. Tang. Evans here. Meyer here. We have a quorum. Uh, thank you. Next we'll have the pledge of allegiance.

I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you everyone. And next, I'll entertain a motion to adopt the agenda. Move to approve. All right, we got a motion by Evans with a second by Roberts. All in favor?

Any opposed? The agenda is adopted. Next, we'll have a general public comment. A time for members of the public to discuss or express concerns to the council on any issue not on the agenda. No action will not be taken at the No action will be taken to the agenda. Excuse me. No items will be added to the agenda per state statute for special meetings. We have no speaker request form. So, we will close the public comment and move on to non-public hearing item number one. And we will entertain a motion for item one, which is the second reading of ordinance number 6701, an ordinance regarding supplemental appropriation number five for 2025 in the amount of Oh, boy, that's a big number. Uh, it's not that big. All right. John says it's not that uh Okay, sorry. 50,75,417.30. Cali Meyer.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to note I'll abstain from item one. Thank you. Okay. Motion by uh Layman with a second by Tamang to approve item one. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. Uh now we move on to public hearing item and open the public comment for items two through five. I have no speaker request form. So we will close the public comment and move on to consent public hearing items two through four. to approve second. All right, we got a motion by Roberts with a second by Tamang to approve items two through four. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. Next, we'll move on to non-conent public hearing item number five, approved declaring declaring emergency repairs following the December 17th and 18th, 2025 wind event.

Second. Motion by Tang with a second by Roberts to approve. All in favor?

Any opposed? Motion carries. Uh next, we'll move on to item uh to the bill list. With that, we'll go to Oh, Kevin's in here. Pardon me, Kevin. I didn't I didn't know you were at the meeting. I'm sorry. Snuck in. I I just want everybody to know that I I'm here. I'm two minutes late and but I I did have a question about number five and I'm Okay, I'm running like two minutes behind today. Um, if somebody could answer this wind event, I see this caravan of dump trucks, a lot of private haulers carrying the branches from Fitzgerald Stadium. I'm just curious. Um, do we have any idea estimated cost of doing that?

Yeah, with that, we'll go to the finance department and, uh, he'll give you an update.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, right now it looks like the additional costs uh that we've incurred uh probably exceed about 30,000 just for the operations that occurred over the past couple of days. That's the cleanup. As far as the damage, the item that's included on your agenda is for some emergency repairs at the landfill that exceeds about $720,000 at the monument. We have estimates uh to make some repairs there that exceed about 30,000. We have several other facilities that we are not getting estimates very quickly as it's uh the Christmas season. There's a lot of contractors that are out. So, it's taking us a little longer. Um we anticipate that the total damage to city infrastructure probably exceeds a million dollars. Our cleanup efforts are going to exceed a couple hundred,000 at least. And Daniel, just with that million-dollar threshold, let them know what that does for us.

Sure. Um I did notify the um the Pennington County emergency manager yesterday uh once we actually receive the estimates because legally we have to receive some of the estimates. Um once it's a million dollars, um the emergency manager is able to request uh from the county that it would be declared a um an emergency. we anticipate that it's going to be and then it moves on to the governor's office. If the governor also declares an emergency, then it's able to go to the president's um office. If the president declares an emergency, then we're able uh to receive some federal funding uh from FEMA to assist us. That is obviously what we're hoping to do so that we can be reimbursed for uh not just our infrastructure costs, but also our uh cleanup efforts as well as the equipment uh that's being used. all of that. And so there's a lot of tracking that's going on right now for each of the individual items. We have a process that's starting to go into effect. So we I don't have all the numbers for you yet, but they continue to climb. But I would say that parks and uh public works are doing a tremendous job uh trying to get cleaned up as quickly as possible. And that started literally um during the wind event itself. Um, we have a lot of individuals that are checking literally every city facility trying to find any damage uh so that we can make those repairs now. So, I can't give you the exact numbers now. It'll probably be a couple of months until we get that, but it is substantial.

Yeah. And damage to the airport as well. So, um, that's good. I'm glad you provided that update. We're going to send an email if we didn't need to just let the council know what that looks like, but that assessment still being done. I appreciate the question, Kevin. Do you have further comments or questions?

No, I just want to thank the city. It's uh Fitzgerald Stadium is is being uh managed so well with the way they've got the one way in and one way out and it's it's a traffic jam and then they're managing very well. I just since I got that mic I'm just going to I also want to thank uh Parks and Rex for Halley Park. The Christmas lights are gorgeous. So, thank you. Thank you. Any other comments? Okay. Well, the motion's already been the item's already been approved, but uh good to get that information out there. Uh now with the bill the bill list, we'll go back to the finance director, Daniel Ansley, for item six.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh for item number six, the uh total bills for Main Street Square and Visit Rapid City total $41,513.34. Move to approve. Second. Motion by Roberts with a second by layman to approve. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries with one abstension for Meyer. Item seven, we go back to the finance director, Daniel Ansley. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The remaining bills total 7,581,27855.

A motion by Robert, second by Tamang. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. All right. Motion by Layman, second by Strowman to adjurnn. All in favor? Any opposed? We're journed. Thanks everyone and merry Christmas.