City Council - Regular Meeting

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. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Seeing no one signed up for the open forum, we will move on to the consent items. Move to accept.

Second.

Aaron Holtz?

Aye. Jackson? Aye.

Sloan?

Aye. Weitrich? Aye.

Winkleman?

Aye. Under new business item A, now is the time for the public hearing on the proposed grant of the electric line easements to Interstate Power and Light Company.

So this would be a proposal. It involves the city purchasing some lots from Alliant Energy, listed here as Interstate Power and Light Company. So these lots are areas south of Jefferson Telecom or to the east of the middle school property. So we would propose the purchase of that. As part of the offer and acceptance, it states that the city would issue easements back to Alliant for existing electric and natural gas infrastructure that they have there. So that's what this first issue would be, would be to offer the easements back to Alliant upon the purchase.

Oh, it's a city. It's a public hearing. So do you need to move to open the hearing? Nope, it's already open. And then you just get through this comment.

Got it. Yes. So these existing utilities are underground?

They are. You can see, of course, the natural gas. There's a natural gas station there, and you can see that above ground.

And, of course, they haven't needed them since they've owned the property. But once they divest themselves of the property, then they'll need them. Yeah.

Have you heard anything from anybody?

No comments on these? No, I've heard nothing. No.

I'll move to close the hearing. I'll second.

Winkleman?

Aye.

Sloan?

Aye.

Weichert? Aye. Jackson?

Aye.

Aaron Holtz?

Aye. Item B is resolution approving the grant Electric line easements to Interstate Power and Light Company.

This is the result of that open, that hearing on the fifth group.

Second.

Jackson.

Aye.

Sloan.

Aye.

Winkelmann. Aye. Weitrick. Aye. Aaron Holtz.

Aye. Item C is resolution approving the purchase agreement for the property from the Interstate Power and Light Company.

So there is an offer and acceptance in the packet for purchasing this property. The main thing about the offer and acceptance purchase price on this is $26,000. The properties were listed in the package in essentially, again, areas south of Jefferson Telecom. east of of the middle school and then there's about a quarter block that's actually south about south of uh of elks and the vet clinic and next to it so um again total asking price here is twenty six thousand dollars and uh uh this has been it's the site of a former power plant And just know that the environmental assessment has been done and Alliant has mitigated the known problems that are there. They've been mitigated. The offer and acceptance is as is, as far as the property goes. But state laws in regards to contamination and everything, of course, still apply to the property. So, prepared for action.

When you say state laws apply to the property, apply to the previous owner or the actual initial polluter?

The initial polluter always holds responsibility.

How did you come to a value of paying $26,000 for it?

Their initial offer to the city was to sell that for $28,000 and just had asked them for reconsideration of the price. This was their response.

And what is the land value to have assessment-wise? I don't know the answer, Jeff. And what would the city want to do with this if they choose to buy it?

Yeah, the primary purpose then becomes a parking lot area. So a parking lot area for the downtown. Certainly there will be folks from the Jeffersonian apartments would certainly use the parking lot area. The intent is to make it a public parking lot though.

So the residents of the apartment, where are they going to park? Does he have to provide a parking lot or anything for them?

As of right now, their options are on street parking, basically.

How does the city ordinance work on that? If you build an apartment or change something, don't you have to provide parking for your residents and not have the city provide it?

Chad can tell me if I'm wrong, but...

Where the middle school is is zone central business commercial and in that zoning district off off street parking is not required. So it had been zoned multifamily and then there would be off street parking would be required for that just because of the zoning. It's on the same as the downtown, so we have a part upper story apartments downtown. There's there's not off street parking requirements for those either.

So if the city moves forward with this parking lot and you have snow ordinance, where's everybody gonna park? How's the city gonna do that? Or is that addressed down the road with no overnight parking and those types of things?

So again, public parking lot in the city can have regulation on that as you would see fit. But the flip side of that is that it truly allows folks an opportunity to get their cars off the street and provides the parking for during snow removal time.

But yeah, say you got 30 cars there for people that live there. How are we ever going to move the snow in the parking lot owned by the city without meeting? You guys have a plan for that, or is that going to be addressed down the road? It did be addressed down the road. No plan on that.

With this, and I suppose this might be down the road too, but I mean, if a resident was from those apartments, they can't, in a sense, like let's say they had a camper or something that they only use from time to time. are they allowed just to like, you know, kind of stake out, this is my spot. I'll only, it'll be here 11 months out of the year or something like that.

Right, so we have parking restrictions on rights-of-way, and we can have some very similar type of parking restriction on the parking lot. The city would own the property,

be a public parking lot but the city would have restriction as as the council would see fit i do think in the future it wouldn't be bad to have some type of restriction on that so as recreational vehicles aren't just essentially it's not turned into a long-term parking lot well i don't think they can do that on our parking lots now okay

I don't exactly remember the code, but there is a set amount of time where a vehicle could be could be parked in a public parking lot.

Any idea what that time frame would be?

I don't recall for sure. No.

That might be something we want to take another look at, but you mean it would whatever apply whatever would apply to the rest of our parking lots would apply to this parking lot right now. I mean. If at some point we think we need to carve something out, I think we've got the flexibility to do that too.

So the city does. I mean, I think parking across from the Elks. That's a that's a city parking lot, correct? Right. Also public parking lot along with behind City Hall. So What applies there currently would apply to this new parking lot also.

Has there been any significant issues popped up in the past regarding that particular parking lot?

We've towed some vehicles behind City Hall parking lot before. I'm not sure about over by the Elks if we have or not.

How many spots approximately would be in that parking lot?

We do have, I had asked Bolton and Mink to prepare some, prepare a proposal about what it could potentially look like. And there's little sub lots that would be in there, but say 26 here or 30 here and another 50 or 60 some here. is ample and actually more than ample. And as we begin to work through the parking lot design, you'll hear from me the suggestion that we not put that all the parking lot right away. There's other opportunities for potential use of the land. And certainly parking lot for summer, all of it would be needed, but for some of it needed, but not necessarily all of it.

So there's potential to if we were to pave that to do it in a phased situation but I know we had talked about the potential of using a lot of that for the solar the overhead solar Would we need to isolate which sections that would be and pave those?

Yeah, and just plan accordingly. So we'll have a solar plan on that and, of course, know where the pillars for the solar are and how they would interwork then with the plans for a parking lot. So, yeah, it's just having the two jive together.

And those solar panels were intended to power the rec center, that well pump?

Right. These would power the rec center.

Okay. Yeah.

I guess these were my thoughts. If this was just going to be used for the middle school apartments, then I think they should probably purchase it. However, I live near there, and I see when they have tournaments at the rec center. Boy, that's hard. That would be a nice thing for people to be able to park there and use that. Between the middle school in the rec center is eventually close that section of Harrison Street that would take away some parking there. If in the future. that the Jefferson apartments find that they are getting complaints and whatever. I would say if the city thinks about selling it to them, then it would be at a comparable rate for what we're purchasing it now. But I think they're probably anticipating in the five years when the gym is torn down, that that'll give them enough parking there. Maybe that's why they're not in a hurry about this, although that's five years.

I do know following the downtown events, whether it be the Bell Tower Festival, whether it be cruising around the square, car shows, things like that, parking is at a premium. And while it would be nice if there were a more appropriate open spot closer to the square, Having, you know, scoped that out myself, I don't see a better solution. So this would put it the next closest. And you are correct in that the tournaments at the rec center do fill up that parking space. And then anything around the Jeffersonian gets filled up right away, including the days where we have voting at the rec center. So this does seem to have more parking. I agree it's not the ideal solution, but I don't see a better solution or a better location.

I mean, during bell tower, people park way down in front of my house, which is quite a hike from the square. But there's just not that much parking around.

Also any events going on at the Elks or if there's ever again big events at RVP 1875, those areas. That current city lot is only big enough for a little bit so there's plenty of things in the region that this could get utilized by.

And in terms of underground potential pollution, any future prospects for building in that location if they were to dig underground might uncover something that would be a problem. So turning it into a parking lot seems like probably the least likely to open Pandora's box.

Well, at least initially. I mean, we may get down the roadways, but yeah. And like Scott said, There's parts of that property that we're probably not going to need for a parking lot right now, but another opportunity for commercial expansion in the event that's needed.

There's potential to do this and be able to have the solar and then if that other spot to the east looks needed, that could even be a crushed rock opportunity there and still make it easy to do development too without feeling like you paved and then need to tear that out or something.

I move to approve. I second.

Sloan? Aye. Jackson?

Aye. Aarhus? Aye.

Weichert?

Aye.

Winkleman?

Aye. Item D is the ordinance amending the court of ordinance of the City of Jefferson by adding the new chapter electric bicycles, electric scooters, and personal transportation devices.

This would be second reading of the ordinance, and as far as input back down to City Hall, not much, if any, input has been received on this.

Second.

Did you have more? No, go ahead and vote on this.

Ann Holtz? Aye. Jackson?

Aye.

Sloan? Aye. Weitrick? Aye. Winkleman?

Aye. But I do have a little bit more on this. We've been talking about the public education side of things, and I know the Chief's been hard at work at that as far as getting some stuff set up. But just any update on that then, Mark? This ultimately may affect whether we want to consider a third reading.

Somebody had approached me a few weeks ago wanting to offer a bike safety rodeo type event. I had mentioned that Craig has done those in the years past. And so we all got together and it will be August 8th from 10 till 2. That will be at Hy-Vee. They're going to offer hot dogs and food and stuff for the kids. The Rotary Hy-Vee is purchasing 50 bike helmets to pass out during that event. And now the Rotary has come on board as well to help us with the event. And also they're going to purchase an additional 50. So it would be 100 helmets we can pass out. And we'll take an opportunity there to answer questions and explain some of the ordinance to the young folks with their bikes.

yeah I think what we got proposed is maybe have some sort of obstacle course or we're gonna have officers there with stop signs they can flip to make sure the kids are stopping and It's going to be similar to the bike rodeos we used to have 10, 15 years ago, but this one's basically going to be focused on e-scooters, e-bikes. I don't know so much e-bikes, but e-scooters are a big concern, I think, with the community. We'll handle whoever shows up.

Outside of that, we're still putting some other things together for education, so we will keep working at it.

I'll be at the Hy-Vee parking lot, is that what you said?

Yes.

But the date was the 8th?

Yes, August 8th, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. That's great.

Should there be a proposal to waive the third reading? Do you see any conflicts with those dates? any do you see any conflicts with those dates any conflicts with your schedule in a if it were proposed to waive that third reading Is that something we can do since it's not on the agenda?

It's on the agenda. I mean, well, the ordinance itself is on the agenda. You can consider the... I'll move to waive the third reading.

Do we need to close the... We just did it. We just closed the second one. We're good. Yeah, that's been voted off. We're just going to waive the third and it'll be the final. I'm moving to close the third. I'll second that.

Sloan? Aye. Jackson?

Aye.

Aaron Holtz? Aye. Weitrich? Aye. Winkleman?

Aye. That means resolution of the warning contract and improving contract and bond for the Westwood sidewalk project.

When we left this issue with the council last time the issue had been raised about not just the contract but the issue about snow removal and then the snow removal issue to be taken back to committee. So the issue had been taken back to committee and the committee then considered this and had a lengthy discussion about snow removal and you'll see then on your, at your place there is proposed policy then on what snow removal would look like. The committee had considered this. There's a couple of new items there in the highlighted yellow and one would just allow the city to close the sidewalk if we can't adequately address the the snow removal on that. And then the second one clarifying what happens then that the city's not responsible for removing refreeze or ice after the fact. But so as it went to the committee, we knew it would be coming back to the city council then too. Really coming back as two separate issues. So that shows up on the agenda tonight as the contract and then we'll have some action on the And the proportional removal also.

So with this, it does put some responsibility onto the homeowners as of the ice control and situations like that, correct?

And it will but this what this policy is going to say is that snow removal and generally any snows following a snowfall of one inch or more that the city be responsible for snow removal on that. We also do recognize that one of the main reasons for this for doing snow removal is that it is the sidewalk itself is so close to the back of the curb and that as continue it or continuing or subsequent passes with the snowplow go back and they will refill in the sidewalk. This does say that the city would take care of that on a second removal too as situations allow. What this does say again, so the city is responsible for snow removal, this would say though that the The property owner ultimately is responsible for ice control. So this does say the city takes care of snow removal and says as appropriate or as feasible, the city would put down salt or sand. And that we would still do that also. But it does have the property owner then being responsible for subsequent stuff. If there is some potential refreeze and there's ice out there or something, yes, the property owner would have some responsibility on that.

And this item we're discussing right now is regarding item E. Can we do that? Order of the agenda? Yes.

I'll move to approve of awarding the contract.

Second.

And who was the contractor that we were awarding this to? Cardenas Concrete LLC.

Cardenas Concrete LLC.

And then there would be a total bill of $786,502.

And that included dogs? Dogs, yes. It does include the alternate, yes.

We have a motion and a second.

Yep. Sloan?

Aye.

Jackson? Aye. Aaron Holtz? Aye. Weitrich? Aye. Winkelmann?

Aye. Item F is the snow removal policy we've just been discussing. Yeah.

What do the street crews say about the added responsibility, and do they have the equipment currently?

Yeah. So we had that discussion at every streets committee meeting since discussion started on this probably a year and a half ago. And this came up, and not at our initial meeting. It came up at the second meeting. So it's been talked about. When we left our last committee meeting, which was held last Tuesday, and our public works guys are usually always here to a member, and they were again, but they have always been in favor of doing this. And they have been doing it. I mean, the new sidewalks we put in, and I always lose track of time at this age, but probably four or five years ago, And this is exactly what they've been doing with the sidewalks, the shared use pathways and walkways out to the cemetery, the central avenue that heads out towards the school, and then out at Westwood. The team has been doing that every day since those sidewalks have been put in, so they know how to do it. And that was one of the main questions we asked very initially. Number one, do we have the equipment to do this or do we have to buy new equipment? No, we've got the equipment. Personnel, do we have to hire new personnel? No. But Scott touched on part of it with his discussion on the sidewalk. It's probably not, that sidewalk is probably not going to be top priority for our snow removal crew. So we've got to look for some mitigation to bridge that gap too. And we've covered, I think, all that we could think of right now. In fact, at our last committee meeting, Chad even suggested, which I think is a great idea, that we get one of these heavy snows and they can't get in there for one or two days or more. What do we do there? And just closing the sidewalk seemed to make the most sense, and that's why we included it in the policy. I think we've tried to think of everything that could possibly happen, but undoubtedly something will come up. But I think we are very, very well prepared to take care of that situation regardless of the length and time of the snow and on all that.

Are you seeing this as more like what you were talking about, the walkway out to the cemetery and some of those other things than of just kind of a, I mean, I know it's both, but is it then a residential sidewalk?

Well, this is kind of a residential sidewalk at Westwood, but I can tell you personally from day one, I looked at that more as a community project than a neighborhood project. I mean there's a lot of people that are using that walkway out there that don't live in that area. And one of the other big issues was safety. I mean I don't think we can lose sight of that. I can't tell you how many people have told me they've almost been hit by a car coming up that that hill walking up that hill and i'm thinking well gosh don't walk out there anymore but yeah they continue to do it i mean they're walking dogs and kids and i think i see that i mean i'm not out there a lot but when it's the setting sun yeah and this isn't a traditional sidewalk if you drive the area out there we put the sidewalk in the property owner's job of moving snow probably becomes two or three times what they've had to do just to clear their driveways before. So I think from that reason it makes an awful lot of sense too. But again, I think I have viewed it as more community project than a neighborhood project and I do think that it's going to get a lot of use and I'll tell you when it's done I'm sure going to feel a lot better about the the safety aspect I know nothing's happened out there yet but I've driven that I've driven it when kids are getting off the school buses there And they've got no place to go but up and down the street or walk on the grass and across people's yards and the like. I think, and there are a lot of kids in that neighborhood as you get off those cul-de-sacs. So I think this is a big improvement for that whole area out there. I think there's going to be a lot of people benefit from it. I know that not 100% of the people have been forward all along the way, but I think the way that it's set up right now as far as the proposed snow removal, I think it makes something everybody can live with.

Yes, sir.

Did the issue about the liability get cleared up following the committee meeting last week?

My phone calls in that regard dealt a lot with our insurance company to clarify this. So again, the city would be taking on responsibility for snow removal. So what if something happens out there at the time before the snow has been removed? Certainly the city would hold responsibility for that. And yes, our insurance company would agree it be a covered incident then by the insurance company. Okay, after the snow's been removed and then there's an incident after that, it does get a little bit murky. You know, the city certainly has some continued responsibility out there, but it likely is some type of shared responsibility with homeowner also.

I have one question.

Come up to the microphone, Larry.

So you guys are just saying that the city could use your discretion to close this sidewalk down there if you couldn't get the snow removed in time. Does that apply to the whole town as a homeowner? We have X amount of hours to have the snow move. So does that apply to everybody or just out in Westwood?

the right of the city to close something down in case of an emergency would always be there. That doesn't alleviate the responsibility of the homeowner to have the snow removed. Our code, I would tell you, our code right now says that the snow is to be removed within 12 hours, and that's current code right now. But as we go through this discussion, I think everyone that we're talking with is agreeing that 12 hours isn't just long enough and we'll be looking for so she doesn't you have to follow the same rule as every other homeowner then regardless if we have 12 hours, shouldn't you?

I mean it's a sidewalk.

That's that's why it is. That's why we are taking on the additional responsibility and with priorities about time to get things done. If it can be done in time, certainly, absolutely, it will be. And if it can't, we're still attending to other... to other snowfall incidents, you know, it will be done as quick as practical. Then it does become a time then if we can't get to that and we're not able to follow our rules like you say, that you just have the opportunity to close it and liability is, you know, it's just not available for use.

What we're looking at, Larry, is, you know, we got a 12-hour time limit right now. We're looking at extending it.

before winter hits this year just you know we're gonna work everything together and just see how that works and I'm not even talking about me because when it comes to snow I'm an absolute freak but there's a lot of it'll be people in this town blah blah that have to hire people to come do it and they they can't make it in time or like last winter very much pregnant, but yet she didn't get to her sidewalk in time.

But I went down and got it done, but it came down to the crunch wire and I just thought, well, if you can close that out there and that's and that's there, that's another reason why we're looking at possibly extending that time from 12 to whatever the committee comes up with.

Alright, thank you. Who? Is it Chad Stevens that enforces that?

Yes.

How many citations have you written for snow removal approximately?

I don't write citations. Post notice on the door and on then give him X amount of time to clear it or the city will come do that it now I post dozens of those every winter and then the city according you know I it kind of depends on the weather a little bit like if it's. You know, you have 12 hours of climate, but it's going to warm up in a day and melt, and then it's not, you know, we wouldn't necessarily enforce that all the time. You know, that 12 hours. The only place where we really do try hard to enforce that is around the square, where, you know, there's a lot of traffic, and that is important, but a lot of the residential areas. You know, I have people call me up and say, hey, you know, I'm my snow removal guy is really busy and he's not going to make it in time is that okay yeah that's you know that's that's fine appreciate you calling and letting letting us know so so you do off you do exercise some discretion based on how much snow has been done whether or not they have a plan to do it in the near future absolutely yeah because you know there's only so many people that remove snow in town if we get 8, 10, 12 inches of snow or something. Snow removal companies just can't get to everybody in a timely manner. And sometimes even the individuals who are doing the snow removal for hire will call it and say, hey, I'm behind on my route. I've got these properties to do. I'm going to get to them, but can I have a little more time? Yeah.

There's been a little bit of discussion about revisiting that ordinance. Are you amendable to us adjusting that ordinance?

Yes, I think that with maybe an exception of the square in residential areas for sure that a little more time would be okay. And 12 hours is not very long. I mean if it quits snowing at 8 o'clock at night so you have to have it done by 8 o'clock in the morning, I mean that's unrealistic in a lot of circumstances.

Any idea what other cities, is there a common way to do this?

24 hours is pretty common. When we have discussions, the numbers that are often talked about are 24 or 36 hours. Thank you.

Thank you.

So are you looking for an approval of this proposal? I would.

I would view this as a policy that the council could approve by motion.

I would like to add one more thing to this that on this proposal the last thing is the city reserves the right to modify suspend or discontinue this service at any time due to budget limitations staffing equipment failures weather conditions so This is going to be a way for the city to not do it down the road if it's too much of a hindrance. I want people to know that.

You're asking to modify what that says?

No, I'm making sure people know that the city can... have this go away at any time they decide. Sure.

And I guess what I would tell you that is that, you know, that's put in there really in the issue of transparency and really wanting to be as transparent about it. Fact of the matter is if that weren't included in there and we had a policy and three years from now the council wanted to change the policy anyway, you sure could. You know, so it's just, like I say, just a matter of transparency.

Okay.

I want to thank the team on that committee that put this together. I know it was a specific ask on my part, and I appreciate the hard work they went through.

It seemed a good common sense to just have everybody on the same page and have it in writing. So it's good work. Yeah. I'd move to approve it as presented. Second.

Jackson? Aye. Aaron Holtz? Aye. Sloan?

Aye.

Weichert? Aye. Winklewood?

Aye. Item G is to authorize a bid for the sidewalk handicap ramps.

Yeah, I asked Geoconcrete to submit a bid for continued handicap ramp accessibility that we've been doing throughout the city over the last few years. I think we're looking at about 13 intersections. For this year, that's on Vine Street and Oak Street and Pinette. And these are all south of Lincoln Way. I think this would pretty much complete most of the intersections that are south of Lincoln Way and east of Highway 4. And then we're going to continue on across Highway 4 onto the south side of Lincoln Way on the west side of Highway 4. So this is the kind of part of our plan that we started a few years ago to do a set amount of intersections every year. So this is continuing on with the city's plan to install these handicapped accessible ramps.

At the current rate, how many more years do you think we have to cover existing intersections?

A lot. I'm not sure. I don't even know that we have to get the whole town done in the next... X number of years. Yeah, I'm not sure.

Chipping away.

Yeah, but it's just progress. Many, several years.

Move to approve.

Second.

Winkleman. Aye. Jackson. Aye. Aaron Holtz.

Aye.

Weichert. Aye. Sloan.

Aye. Item H is the Water Department SCADA upgrades and integration of wells.

Yeah, so John's been on the job now for for a couple months really digging into things, especially at the water plant. SCADA system is something that he would like to look at improvements to and this has one new computer workstation and then some updated SCADA software then that goes along with it. Automatic Systems is the company that does our SCADA work for us, cost on this $22,000. And then also includes an integration of that generator. So we moved that generator to the well that's down by the middle school on the highway. And that generator had come originally from the sewer plant. And then when they got a new one there, they moved that for backup for the wells. So this would integrate those so that that generator, it provides backup services to three wells. There's a little give and take on that because if we look at solar on the well that's south of Jefferson Telecom, The interconnection there is difficult and may require that we would choose between generator backup or solar. Staff would absolutely desire that we would defer to the generator backup instead of the solar. So they do propose that we would go ahead and pursue this. Red Lion, in the meantime, is still working on different options for interconnection to hopefully make everything work.

Move to approve. Second.

Utrecht? Aye. Aaron Holtz? Aye. Winkleman? Aye. Sloan?

Aye.

Jackson?

Aye. Item I is to approve the GAX number one for $600,000 for the Story Jefferson High School project.

This GACS is for the $600,000 grant received by the city from IEDA for improvements on the Jeffersonian. The grant was for $600,000. We are drawing it down in one single draw, and that is the GACS that you will be approving.

Move to approve. And the city operated as the fiduciary in this IEDA grant?

Yeah, it's just passed through the funds with us. Second.

Winkleman?

Aye.

Weitrich? Aye. Sloan?

Aye.

Jackson? Aye. Aaron Hall?

Aye. Item J is resolution approving the request for a grant reimbursement from the Iowa Economic Development Authority for reimbursement of 203 West Harrison LLC in relation to the 203 West Harrison Street Housing Project.

This is a continuation of the same request for the $600,000 in grant funds for the 25 units that were created at the Jefferson.

Yeah, but the difference being procedurally, what you just did before, when you approve the GACs, that submits it into the state to be able to get the money. This resolution authorizes the city to pay it to 203 West Harrison. Move to approve.

Second.

You second?

I second.

Jackson? Aye. Arnholz?

Aye.

Sloan?

Aye.

Weitrick? Aye. Winkman?

Aye. Item K is resolution approving a future payment of the final grant reimbursement to 203 West Harrison LLC in relation to the 203 West Harrison Street Housing Project.

This is a requirement brought forward by the auditing firm, RSM, that was hired by IEDA to monitor all of the funds spent through the downtown housing grant. And just as they want to and have audited every expense, payment, change order, contract, language for the contractors, they also want to make sure on the flip side that upon receipt, the city promises to forward the money on to the developer.

Move to approve. Second.

Sloan? Aye. Jackson? Aye. Aaron Holtz? Aye. Weitrich? Aye. Winkman?

Aye.

Thank you. Thank you. Item L is resolution establishing purpose statement for proposed local option sales and services tax.

Yeah, so there's a resolution in here which would establish really two things. Establish the revenue purpose statement. which is proposed to just continue the same statement that we've had for this past many, many years that the sales tax has been in place. Okay, and that reads that revenues from the sales and service tax shall be allocated as follows, 100% further repair, maintenance, replacement, and improvement of Jefferson's infrastructure. So all of the dollars that we receive from sales tax are put into infrastructure and infrastructure projects. Okay, so the second thing proposed in this resolution is that it no longer includes a sunset date. So that it would go to referendum with this revenue purpose statement and no sunset date, okay? So the existing sales tax expires at June 30th of 27th. And we've already authorized placing this on the ballot then during the general election this year. So this would go on the ballot for the general election with this purpose statement and again, no sunset.

With no sunset, what is the process for repeal? Would it require another vote or just action by the council?

I don't know the answer because the fact of the matter is I don't know that it can be repealed. Okay. I don't know the answer.

I move to approve.

Second. Bernholz? Aye. Jackson? Aye. Sloan?

Aye.

Weitrich? Aye. Winkman?

Aye. Item N is there approval to pass number three to the Vore Energy LLC for $108,464.15 for the airport fuel farm project. Can you bet?

This pays for virtually all of the outstanding construction, which is now largely complete. This pay estimate includes electrical work, installing the display, installing lights, the remote fuel recovery system, those type of things. So today we had a walkthrough with the engineer and the contractor, and the project is substantially complete. Everything is operational out there now. Just a few checklist items about an oil leak and bolting down the cabinets. one of the cable rewind thing was just wasn't working purpose perfectly and then the emergency overhead lighting they needed so to work on some of the wiring on that everything else is is complete and like say it's operational so you'll see them finish up those last few few projects and then we'll actually be working towards towards closing out the project here in the new church The other news from the day was that we are on the list for approval of that Iowa DOT grant that we applied for for the airport then. And this would be for additional paving out there. So where they had the fuel farm in the middle before the old one, was the area is raised and it has some unique slopes associated with that. Okay, city staff has removed the fuel farm and replaced the concrete there. It's functional right now, but they will explore opportunities about getting rid of those slopes out there and potentially adding some more concrete for accessibility to the fuel farm. So we're not don't receive the final blessing on the grant yet, but we are on the list for approval.

And the need to smooth out those slopes so that the wings don't dip and strike. Right. Yep.

So the issue for us today is this pay application, and that's recommended for approval.

We have to approve. Second.

Sloan?

Aye.

Jackson? Aye. Weitrich? Aye. Winkleman?

Aye. Dan Holtz? Aye. Under reports, Roxanne?

No report.

David? No report.

Scott?

The water tower inspector was here yesterday and conducted the water tower inspection. So just know that that's been done, anticipated about six to eight weeks for us to receive the report on that. And then my other note deals with solar installations. And you'll see the solar, I think, come together pretty quick. They were loading solar panels up on the roof here at City Hall today. So you'll see that at City Hall and at the library. And they've been working out at the animal shelter to do those three off to start with.

Okay. Since Greg isn't here, you got anything, Mark?

No report.

Chad, you got anything?

No report. Just that today the diving board was supposedly installed at the swimming pool. Did you hear if that went?

I have not confirmed that. I don't know.

So they were closing the deep end today to get that installed finally after a few little hiccups here and there. So that should be finally happened. But that's pretty much the only thing from parking rec meeting this month. So that's it.

Chair. No report. Move. Main Street board meeting happened last week. Again, hitting the ground running with preparation for events, not only the tail end of this year, but working on events coming up for next year. So groundwork being laid for excellent plans in that regard. There are continuing events. Going full steam ahead for the rest of this summer. So I'm really excited to see that Deb McGinn is getting ready to hand the baton off to her her next Commander the community for that section. So I'm excited to see the changing of the guard there But other than that no report

No report. The only thing I've got I'd like to commend a Jefferson police officer for his actions and his intense support of the safety for the citizens of Jefferson and the actions that happened over the weekend. And that's it.