City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, you guys ready? All right, we're going to go ahead and start. It is 6 pm. Uh, this is city council regular business meeting. Uh, Thursday, February 19th. Uh, Lindsay, would you please call the role? Council member Bourjon here. Brown here. Kill here. Mine here. Porter here. Mayor Phillips, I'm here. We do have a quorum, so we'll move on. Item number two is pledge of allegiance. Would you please rise and stand alone?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Item three is approval of the agenda. Would anybody like to move any of the consent agenda items to the regular agenda? Hearing none, could I get a motion to approve the agenda? Motion second. Okay. Motion by uh Brown, seconded by Cool. Uh all those in favor say I. I.

Post same. That motion carries. Item number four is a proclamation today uh for the 18th anniversary of the independence of the uh Republic of Kosovo. And tonight we have Dilon uh Zogosh here. He is the chief chief of mission to the consulate for the Republic of Kosovo. Uh, can I read this first?

Yeah, I'll read this. Uh, it's a city of Norwalk proclamation recognizing the 18th anniversary of the independence of the Republic of Kosovo. Whereas on February 17th, 2008, the Republic of Kosovo declared its independence, affirming the rights of its people to self-determination, and establishing a sovereign nation grounded in democratic principles. And whereas the United States of America was among the first nations to recognize Kosovo's independence, and the state of Iowa has since developed a strong and enduring partnership with the Republic of Kosovo uh through the Iowa National Guard's state partnership program, educational exchanges, uh economic development initiatives, and communityto community relationships. And whereas the city of Norwok is proud to contribute to the partnership uh through its involvement with the Greater De Mo Sister Cities Commission and the Pristina Committee, strengthening ties of friendship, cultural understanding, and shared opportunity between our communities. And whereas both the United States and the Republic of Kosovo are constitutional republics committed to the rule of law, democratic governance, and the belief that freedom and who human dignity are fundamental values. And whereas the people of Kosovo and the people of Iowa share a deep commitment to liberty, peace, and the pursuit of prosperity for future generations. And whereas Norwok recognizes the importance of international partnership that foster mutual respect, economic collaboration, and cultural exchange, enriching the lives of our reg residents, and strengthening global understanding. Now therefore, I, Tom Phillips, mayor of the city of Norwok, Iowa, do hereby recognize the Republic of Kosovo's Independence Day and encourage our residents to join in recognizing the 18th anniversary of Kosovo's independence, celebrating the shared values and enduring friendship between Norwok, the state of Iowa, the United States of America, and the Republic of

Kosovo. In witness whereof I have here unto set my hand and cause the official se seal of the city of Norwok, Iowa to be affixed this 19th day of February, 2026. All right. Thank you. Want to say a few words?

Yes. Very shortly. Thank you so much. It's a great honor to be here. Dear Mayor Phillips, dear council members, uh it's a great privilege to be here today and we are deeply grateful for this special honor. Uh this proclamation dedicated to the 18th anniversary of the independence of Kosovo not only recognizes Kosovo's remarkable journey but also celebrates the strong friendship and partnership between and the great state of Iowa. On behalf of the consulate of Republic of Kosovo, I would like to express our sincerious gratitude to Mayor Tom Phillips for his leadership and for standing with us throughout these years. May this celebration further strengthen the bonds of friendship between our states and inspire continued cooperation in the years ahead. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Now I got to take trip back to the other side of the podium. Yes, absolutely. [laughter] Okay. Next on the agenda is a dedicated work session. So this dedicate Thank you.

Uh this work session is for mayor and city council. Uh regular city council meeting will begin following this work session. Tonight we're going to talk about a draft development agreement for project west. This is an exciting project for Norwok. Uh I asked Holly to put together a special presentation to ensure that the public and council have a chance to learn uh all about this project prior to the meeting uh where council is going to consider the development agreement. This is just an added step of transparency. So Holly, I will turn it over to you. Sure. I'm going to manage this from here if that's okay in case I start sneezing. We'll see if that uh if the clicker works.

Okay, not I can move up there. Um, and I apologize for stuffy sniffly stuff. It is just allergies. I'm not contagious. Um, so before we get into the development agreement summary of the draft terms, um, I'm going to just pop through a couple of slides here that is just a really good overview of the benefits of this particular project that we're still calling project west. And um, at the next council meeting on March 5th, the full development agreement will be on for consideration of approval. So all of the the details and everything will be at that meeting. But this particular meeting, we have a couple of items on the agenda for the urban renewal plan amendment. So uh the mayor asked that we just kind of run through some of the the details to give council and the public a little bit more information before we move into the next phase of approval. So um I will start see if this works. Maybe not.

That's okay. You can use the microphone that way. Those are really huge. Now you might want to chart back away here. There you go. Good. Okay. Oh, wait. Click on

Okay. So, just an overview of the benefits again. So, this development, which will involve about 282 acres right now out in our southwest development corridor that we've been investing in and working on for many years as a city and our long-term plan. Uh, this particular project is a private investment of about $12 billion. And just to kind of give a little caveat here, this is a long game. So, this is a long-term project because data center developments um they do take many years because they are so monstrous in size and there's a lot of infrastructure that goes into each one of them. So, you're all pretty familiar with data centers around the metro and in Iowa they've been pretty common in the last few years. So, we've seen them build out over time. So, taxable valuation upon full buildout will be between four and 500 million. So, that's once everything is fully built out within that 282 acres. Maybe that land mass will expand over time as well. Um, and just giving you an general idea of what that looks like for taxes. So that's about $15 million per year in new taxes, new property taxes. So that's the combined total. So that's all the taxing entities between the city, county, schools. There's some DMAC in there, some other things that go into that. Um, so Norwok city share is between 8 and 9 million. That might need to be updated. is that yeah, we were kind of running the numbers again for the fifth time today. Uh but the city's share when we really kind of dug into it is more around the five million because we're about a third of that total. So that's kind of what we're looking at for that. And this is the single largest um private investment in Warren County's history. This all goes through as um planned right now. So it's a big deal not just for our community, but for the county, the region, schools especially. It's a huge deal. uh local option sales tax. So there is some benefit from that. We do have there is a couple of bills out there right now that are kind of restricting a little bit of the

exemptions that are currently in place for data centers. Data centers do have some exemptions to local option sales tax with equipment and things electricity, but they did pull a little bit of that back last year, but still we do receive some benefit from that. So just our estimations are anywhere between 30,000 to 100,000 annually in local option sales tax benefit. So full-time jobs is 80 is what they're projecting right now. And so these are highquality jobs. So we're looking at the engineering, IT, management. So they're exactly the types of jobs that we want to bring to our community. Um and you know Iowa has low population. We have low unemployment. So it's really hard to fill mass amounts of jobs when we're working with the kind of larger projects. This is really perfect for our area. And then the construction jobs during the the multi-year buildout will be around 600. So with the construction phase, the economic impact, the total construction impact is 7 to 900 million over that buildout phase. So it's really massive. uh the construction jobs over those years like we said six around 600 40 to 55 million in payroll the economic stimulus construction is 12 to 20 million in just local spending and then we did use the recommended 1.7 to 2.1 regional multiply multiplier for that. So that breaks us down to a little bit more of a ripple effect here on this next slide. So the direct economic activity is 8 to 10 million in annual payroll the 80 full-time jobs and the 1 to 3 million in vendor spending and then indirect economic impact. So this affects the region 160 to 320 additional jobs 4 to7 million in annual local spending and then ongoing demand for more housing retail child care services etc. And then the infrastructure investment.

So this development group specifically is spending out of the gate about 8.2 million over time. It'll be quite a bit more in infrastructure and that's for the water and street. And then the city enabled investment is over 20 million. That helps us expand infrastructure for surrounding developments. So when we've been talking about this annexation that we're working on, it connects Highway 28 out to I35. The city's had a very long-term plan. We've been investing in uh infrastructure out there and sewer so that we do have a new um ability for highv value development and connectivity. So incentives that's always the biggest question and over time you know the data centers in the region and across the country have received a variety of types of incentives. Some of them might have received a very large incentive, a 20-year TIFF. Um, sometimes 100% they might they might have received free land. So, it's kind of varied over time, but as data centers have continued to increase in the area, those have streamed streamed down a little bit to where cities are giving a little bit less. Um, and they're asking for less, which has been really great for us because this project, first in my history of working in economic development, they've asked for no tiff and they've asked for no grants. And so that is um wildly wonderful for us, for our county, for our schools, everything. um because that means all of the new taxes generated, the tiff that's being generated from this won't be going back to pay them back for their new infrastructure or their um development needs, which is is common when we have large development projects because we need large developments. We need their jobs, we need the new taxes that come from them over time. So, generally cities do invest in those types of projects. But this one is not that's not being asked of us. So, it's pretty wonderful. And right now the only thing that we're looking at in terms of an actual incentive is um waving a sewer

district connection fees in that area. And so total over time that's being estimated at about $564,000 total because it's around 2,000 per acre at 282 acres. So that would be about the amount that would be waved during that time frame. And Tony, our city engineer, put those estimates together for us after painstaking uh work and research. So thank you Tony. Um, and then water and electricity. So, this is something that comes up a lot in the public and there's a lot of question and concern circling around out there and we've talked to providers to get the facts and and make sure that we know what we're talking about when we address the public with these two areas. So, with water specifically, the developer requests capacity. So, this is really for any data center project. They pay for their use, they pay for the infrastructure, and then they also pay for just the reservation request. So if they're asking the city to reserve a certain capacity, so many gallons per day, they have to pay for just reserving it, and they pay for the actual water once they use it and they pay for the infrastructure to build. So they're they're covering that cost and it's not being pushed out into existing rate. Then electricity, since we're not the electricity provider, Mid-American Energy is in this area. So developers work directly with the the electric provider and gas provider and they work out their own agreements. But I did talk to my counterpart at Mid-Americ and just ask because we've heard you know in the public people saying well definitely rates are going to be increased you know uh rate payers are going to have an increase um because of these data centers and our our utility rates are going to go up. So I asked them just directly and they said that that's just not true. And part of the reason for that is we're in a a state that regulates those rates. And so the electric provider has to go in front of the Iowa utility commission to ask for any kind of increase in rates. And they have to have reason why. They have to

have all sorts of um information as to um be approved for that. And they have not been in front of the utility commission since 2014. So there's not been any rates that have been raised since 2014. And then data centers similar to the water, they pay for their own infrastructure for new power. They pay for the the use of it. So it is not passed on to the uh existing repairs. So that I just wanted to make sure it got out there. And then minimal traffic generation. So I know this can be kind of looked at as maybe a a plus or a minus. Um we want people coming through town because then they um you know go to our businesses and they spend money. But this is this is meant more for that heavy traffic generation. So we don't have big semis and heavy vehicles using our public infrastructure. So that's a really positive thing with this. Data centers are relatively quiet once they're established. Um there's not a whole lot to um worry about in terms of traffic or noise or any of those types of things that you might see at a maybe like a large industrial plant or something. That's positive.

A lot of bits and bites. What? a lot of electronic electronic traffic. Oh, sure. That's cute. [laughter]

I like it. So, just kind of summarizing the benefits here. Um the long-term economic value. It brings high quality jobs, significant private investment, um it generates substantial property tax revenue, as we all know, that tax revenue supports schools, public safety, parks, city services, you name it. um infrastructure, community investment, new roads, utilities, um infrastructure upgrades, data centers typically invest the community. Uh for example, Microsoft and West De Moines has had they've supported 132 community projects ranging from investments in public art, parks, education, and it contributed over $31 million so far. And we do have a full report from the city of West De Mo. They put out what has happened so far with their data centers and just the benefits from that. So, I think we might have sent that off to you guys right at some point, but we can send it back out.

This is just a good sample of a very local neighbor and and what they've dealt with and seen since they've had their their data centers for a number of years now. So the other thing about data centers versus, you know, really large developments that that happen in industrial areas is they're designed to be just very efficient and they are they're held to a type of standard that most businesses really aren't because they're always in the spotlight. They're required to do things um you know very efficiently and they have um really high environmental standards. So that's something else that I think is is good for our area because we care about that. We care about our air and water quality. And then just as a conclusion um again just unlocks future growth capacity. It's catalyst for billions in follow-on investment and by that meaning is with all of this new infrastructure coming in that the development will be paying for themselves the developers will be paying for themselves. It also gives us a trigger to continue our investment in that area moving west getting out towards um I35 and then it helps to attract other high-quality developments in that area especially because we've kind of laid the groundwork for the high-tech industry area in the southwest development corridor. So, it'll really open up some good doors for us. And then it strengthens our regional and national competitiveness, which is important, too, because everybody is going to be vying for types of projects like this. And we have some pretty competitive states nearby that like to get uh frisky with Iowa. So, we have to fight back in in the ways that we can and be be competitive. So, we're all kind of the benefits. And then if you guys don't have any questions on those, we can probably just jump right into the draft summary. But if you have questions, I'm happy to answer

questions. There you go. Okay. Well, in case I can't see that up there, want me to I'll put that up on the screen. this one.

Okay, so this just kind of summarizes I know this is still several pages, but the development agreement itself, that draft is around 55 pages right now. The only reason why it's so big is because there's so many uh infrastructure projects related to this project. Um, but again, since we're not using TIFF with this development, unless they end up doing a city infrastructure project for us because we can't get to it or can't fund it in time, that'd be the only situation where TIFF would be used as um a reimbursement. But we have this development agreement in place because we are building the infrastructure projects so that we can manage it, control it to city standards, and they're paying for those. So that's part of the reason why there's an actual agreement in place. Um, so the first section here, we just kind of run through some of the timelines. So, early summer of 2026, we will we will um I say continue applying for the RISE grant application because we did start this about a year and a half ago when we were um getting ready to extend Delaware, just a shorter section because we had the done development um that was under construction there. And then we got this project kind of in the hopper and we decided to wait and hold off because that road would need to be extended further. So, we will continue that. Um, Wayne's going to be managing the Delaware project, thankfully, and that will get underway. As of right now, um, we have every reason to believe we'll receive the RISE grant from DOT, which would pay for about half of the cost of extending Delaware, which is fantastic. So, then winter 2028, the city would secure exclusive water service rights from Warren Water District. That's something that's kind of an ongoing um work and negotiation with um with the water rights. Winter of 2028, the city will complete construction of the public water system improvements funded by the developer. Um then the city will complete construction of Delaware Street roadway extension project funded by RISE and the developer. The city will

complete construction of the Trump sewer from phase one north river interceptor up to Delaware Street funded by the city and the developer. And this was uh partially a city project that we had started working on before we had the development which was great. Uh additional timing requirements. The developer may issue early construction notices for sewer projects. The city must then complete early requested components within the earlier of 26 months. Um after notice or certificate of occupancy for any building served by these components. um the developer must apply for a building permit by April 1st of 2032 to avoid water allocation reduction or they would have to begin um paying $40,000 per month to reserve that. So just to kind of break that piece down a little bit more. Um that 2032 sounds like kind of a scary date. Seems like it's way out there, but that's the developer worst case scenario. They do not want to see it take that long. If that happened, it would be because um just getting their utilities to them in time. there is a that takes a while. There there are a lot of um utility infrastructure and sometimes there's delays on transformers or you name it. So that would be the only reason it would extend that long, but they absolutely want to move as quickly as possible on this. Uh so we have in the agreement that they would if they have not um pulled their building permit at that point, then they would have to start paying $40,000 per month whether they're using water or not. So either way, the city's protected and that protects our existing payers. So the scope of the project, the development is a multi-building hypers scale data center campus and approximately 282 acres of land. Um it's anticipated that the multi-phase buildout with multiple data center buildings, substations, and supporting infrastructure. And the reason why um it's not just one giant building is because it may end up being more than one end user. It could be a couple different companies or it

could be one company with multi multiple buildings. And then um it just kind of breaks down like what's inside the facilities is kind of obvious. I think we had it broken down even a little bit more and Luke said, "Yeah, we know there's going to be computer equipment in there. You could take that out." Uh proposed incentives. Again, um as we mentioned earlier, right now the only actual incentive is waving of the sewer district connection fees, which is around 2,000 per acre at this time. the city will pursue the rise grant to offset the roadway costs and we we have a good relationship with the DOT and they've told us that if the project qualifies and all of the requirements are met, it's very unlikely that they don't fund these these um grants. So, we feel pretty confident about that city will construct a major public infrastructure.

We we've already received rise on that first portion of Delaware that was done and that was even a partnership with the county to help offset uh some of the matching funds. So, we have a track record of being awarded that grant in that area.

That's true. And they've been a great partner. And the city will construct the major public infrastructure up front with developer reimbursing certain components per the agreement. And again, um anytime anybody wants to go through that long agreement in detail, we're absolutely uh welcoming questions and and digging further, but this just kind of summarizes that. Additional information to note, the developer may assign the project to affiliates or subsequent owners with structured notice requirements. This is standard in our agreements. A lot of times they'll um transfer their agreement over to an end user or a buyer. The agreement term is for 20 years with certain infrastructure obligations. And that again sounds scary, but the only reason there's a 20-year term on it is because that's the lifetime tiff. So, if we do end up needing to use TIFF to reimburse them for a city infrastructure project, which again is pretty unlikely, we would have to stay within that 20 years. So, if that project happened at year 15, they would only have 5 years of that reimbursement left basically within that time span. So, that's why that's in there. If the developer changes the project use in any way, a way that violates the RISE contract, the developer will reimburse the city for any required grant repayment. That is part of the the RISE grant um application is that if if the project does not end up meeting all the requirements in that application that that portions of the grant can be um requested to be repaid. So in the agreement we have that listed out that the developer would repay that. And then again tax increment finance payments to the developer would only occur after the city is fully reimbured from tiff for previous sewer projects. So this section in here and and the developer understands this and it's clearly defined in the agreement that even if we needed to reimburse them for a city infrastructure project that they would have to undertake, the city would first pay itself with

their tiff with their new generation their new generation um for any other projects related city is paying for in that area. So again, it's it's hard to express, but that is probably one of the most important things to protect any risk of the city is by having that statement in the development agreement to asssure that our bonds, our loans are repaid first,

a lot of comfort on the city level. And so that tiff reimbursement is capped at the developer eligible cost up to 6.1 million. And so what that number is is that was an estimate that our um city engineer and the developers engineers put together about a year year and a half ago. So we have a little bit higher um estimate that Tony had put together that just gives some of that kind of inflation um rise over the years. But the the TIFF is being capped at 6.1 for the developer for that particular infrastructure project because the one that we're relating this to is the sewer interceptor phase two believe. So that's kind of down the road. Luke's proud that we're talking about sewers again.

So just to kind of um and again that maxes only if for some reason they activate an earlier time schedule than what we would have at NRCP,

right? Yep. But the true reimbursement, so it's not considered a a TIFF rebate or a TIFF incentive. We're just actually paying them back for our project. So it's kind of a a good thing. So then just breaking down how this works out for the city and the community and Luke you can pop in or Jean can pop in if any of these numbers feel off to you but I think we've all broken these down a few different times. So the total private investment being 12 billion um estimated taxable valuation upon full buildout and this could last you know 10 years somewhere in there. So everybody just has to be a little patient. It's a big project but 4 to 500 million. Annual property tax revenue combined again for all taxing authorities is 14 to 16 million annually. The city I think that 8 to9 might be off a little bit. I think we're more around the 5 to 6 million. Um but these two can confirm that the school at 3.4 to 3.8 million county 1 and a half to 1.8 and then other entities between 4 and 450,000. So everybody gets a nice nice split off of that. And then annual tiff 5.7 full-time jobs 80 again just kind of summarizing uh developer funds the 8.2 million in the water and street infrastructure and then the data center tax revenue enables the city to invest over 20 million. So again just kind of a recap there and then below that is the recap of the construction phase impact which I won't make you listen to again. And then as we scroll down, uh, we did add the legal descriptions of the properties in case anybody's really into that. They figure out how to read legal descriptions, but it's in there. And below that, we have some maps, and those are probably more interesting. So, this first map here has a yellow highlighted area, which shows the actual project site that's under contract. And so timing wise, we have a couple of procedures tonight and then on uh March 5th, the full development agreement,

like we said, will be on for consideration of approval. And then after that, then the developers can work with the private land owners and close on the land as as they see fit. And then they can be kind of off to the races with their site work and then the all of the standard city approval process with that. And you can see that green highlighted area there is what we call the the done industrial area. So, we already have a development um in the red that's that's been under construction for a couple of years. And then just to the northeast there is Michael Foods and Windsor windows just to give you an idea where that's at. And then further down is a couple of um infrastructure maps. So, we have the North River interceptor service area map. It's a great one I think Tony put together pretty recently. shows a future area. This is a huge area that the city with a city investing in this sewer, this North River sewer interceptor. This is going to serve thousands of acres in the future west, even west of 35 down the road someday. So, this is a really big deal for the area and it's protecting Norwok and its investment, its taxpayers. And that below that shows Trump.

Before you go on, just in case anybody doesn't have perspective, this right here, this line is Interstate 35. So that's showing how far that coverage area for the sewer uh how far that goes to the west.

So all of this was really in this long-term plan that the city's been working on for years. So then we had this development group come to us. It helped us initiate this long-term plan much sooner than we had ever hoped. So, the next map is the trunk sewers and interceptors. I will try to explain that. Maybe Wayne or Luke or can talk about that if you have questions. And then the next one is the water roadway. A little more clear. You can see the property highlighted in red there. And it shows the water distribution feeder main in that as well.

And that yellow line at the northern part of the map, that's where the 16in main 16inch western feeder main comes from our secondary water source at Lake Reservoir that we just worked on within the past 8 to 10 years. That's just kind of a brief overview summary, but we're happy to answer any questions. And Tony and Jim, they've been working on this a lot as well. So, if you guys feel like I missed anything, great summary. Thanks.

Yes. Thank you. What other questions you guys? No, there's a lot of pages to that and I read that thing three times. Okay. came down. I talked to minister or manager and I talked with the attorney and I was trying to find something in there that would somehow put the city at risk at jeopardy of something. There's got to be a problem here, right? Because there's a lot of patience. But as God is my witness, I could not find anything in there that puts the city in any kind of jeopardy

that we're protected from risk. I mean, I I don't know what to say. And then I thought to myself, now how could I be opposed to having a project like this coming into town that's worth this much money and would generate this much taxes for the city, the school, and and in good conscience, I couldn't be opposed to that, you know, right? And and man, that that baby just lays the groundwork for development of that area. I mean, it couldn't be any nicer. You know, I I don't know how it turns out that we're fortunate enough to have this opportunity, but mayor, I got to tell you, I I think it's great.

And I I would add on to what Ed said, you know, like the research that I've done because I've had concerns around the environmental impacts and Holly brought it up the standards at which data centers are held to, right? Like it's a it's a big deal. It's important and you know to have this investment and not to have not that there isn't maybe some negatives but anything our cars are negatives right to to the environment like to have it little negatives little risk for the city like Ed said seems like a really good opportunity for our city right

I also love picking holes in things and [laughter] I really couldn't like kick that I think um I'm a numbers person as an investor. ROI is talked about at my dinner table every night and this really seems like a home run ROI. The return on investment is great.

And the other thing that Holly didn't bring up and I think we've talked about a few times, you know, a partner city in Altuna was also working with the same developer developer like on another project and I think maybe they're a little bit ahead, right? And so we also get to see maybe a little bit of the future ahead of us because they're working with Altuna as well on a data center which I think is a nice nice safety precaution, right? Not one's going to win, one's going to lose. They're both going to happen and they're just a little bit ahead of us. That's a good point. Yeah, agreed. Okay, so next steps, we're going to have a public hearing on the development agreement on March the 5th and then we will vote to accept the development agreement on March 5th after the public hearing. Right. Pat.

No, mayor. I'd just like to congratulate everybody involved in this for putting this together. How good did it look and the only thing I've got to say is bring us more of these. This is like the magical unicorn that every economic developer works [laughter] for in this industry for a long time. I'm like, is this actually happening? But you got to do it again. That way you can't retire yet. Yeah, we'll stay till it's built. We'll say that.

Okay. Well, that's acceptable to me. All right. Uh, anything else? Hearing none, we'll move on. Uh, item number six, welcome to guest and public comment. Thanks for being here tonight uh to the meeting and we will open up the dis for any want to address council for any item that is not on the agenda. Uh, realize we can't take action on those tonight since they aren't on the agenda and that would be a violation of both open meetings law. Also, if you'd like to comment on any item in the consent agenda, now would be the time. Any takers

online? Hearing none, we are going to move forward. Item seven is a consent agenda. Can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda? Motion. Second. Okay. So, motion by my seconded by Lindsay, would you please call roll? Council member Mine? Yes. Porter? Yes. Bourjon? Yes. Brown? Yes. P?

Yes. All right, that mo that motion carries. Uh item eight, sold a new business for consideration, discussion, and possible action. Item A, it's public hearing on a proposed amendment to the Norwok urban renewal area for project west. So, we'll open up the public hearing at uh 6:36 p.m. So, we discussed the project west development agreement uh during our earlier work session, and this hearing is to get input on creating a new urban renew urban renewal area for that project. Uh just as an FYI again, we'll have a public hearing on the development agreement at our March 5th meeting. Holly, I'll turn it over to you.

The urban renewal area or the urban renewal plan that the city has for Norwok has to be amended if we want to add land into the urban renewal area. And that has to be done before a tiff area could be created so that the city can utilize any new increment from a new commercial industrial um development. And so with this 282 acres, it's being added into the urban renewal area through this um procedure. And then from there, the city can uh create a tiff area and utilize the the generation from that. Okay. Thank you, Lindsay. Have we received any oral or written comments on this? We have not.

Do we have any public comment? Hearing none, we'll go ahead and close public hearing at 6:38 p.m. Item 8B is a resolution to declare necessity and establish an urban renewal area pursuant to section 403.4 of the code of Iowa and approve urban renewal plan amendment for the Nor urban renewal area. So, we just had a public hearing about this new urban renewal area. Paulie, anything else to add? I don't think so. Do you have any discussion for the council? Does this pretty well cover all that annex area that we just did? I think it just covers the 283 just the 282 acres. So that's that's what we want to do right now. Yeah.

And you did approve that annexation application that was the 100% voluntary a couple of weeks ago or maybe a month ago that came to council. Yeah. Good. Thank you. Yep. Any other discussion from council questions? Can I get a motion to approve the resolution as presented? Motion. Second. Okay. So, I got a motion by Cool, seconded by Porter. Uh, any further discussion? Lindsay, would you call the role? Council member Porter, yes. Borjon, yes. Brown, yes. P, yes. Mine, yes.

Motion carries. Item 8 C is public hearing on a proposal to enter into a general application corporate purpose loan agreement. So, we'll open up the public hearing at 6:39 p.m. So, this public hearing is to get input on entering a loan agreement for a general obligation bond. Gan, I'm going to turn it over to you.

Thank you. Um, these projects are part of our current year budget that were approved last year, last March. Um, it's three projects that we are borrowing money for. One is the um sewer project that uh Northwest no north river north river interceptor and it was it's a $10 million project. We had already borrowed part of the money at the uh during 2024 2024 a bonds. So the 5.6 million of the 6 uh4 million is for that project. So sewer projects. We also are doing some sidewalk improvements and then we're purchasing two plow trucks for public works department. The total is about 6.4 million. Um we borrow a little bit more for um bond fees as well. Those are the projects. They've already been approved. Um, I did want to mention um, and I no one probably read the public hearing notice, but I did want to mention um, it kind of gave me a little bit of, um, angst. House File 718, they passed in 2023. Um, so when the city issues debt, we have to hold a public hearing, which we're doing right now, and talk about the purpose or purposes for the debt and the amount. Well, with the new um House File 718, I'm going to read this because I I can't even say it better. Um the city must provide an estimate of the annual increase in property taxes as a result of the bond issuance on a residential property with an actual value of $100,000. So the the public hearing notice indicated this would result in an increase of $2544 per $100,000 of loan. [clears throat] This this is a mathematical equation. Um

it's not reality. Uh the the formula doesn't take into account a lot of things that we look at when we're issuing debt. Um, our debt service value grew 15% from last year to this year. Um, that helps offset any increases that we have. Um, home values vary. Uh, there's not a one-sizefits-all. uh if we consider $100,000 value from year to year um and we you know we don't change that value and we maintain our levy which we are going to do um the taxes would actually decrease because the roll back is going from 47 to 44% but we know everyone's value and most people's value increase 2025. So setting um stating a set value yearover-year just doesn't um accurately reflect the final number. Also when we look at our overall planning when we do our debt service projections we look at outside revenues or other sources. We transfer loss money into our debt service which helps lower um the taxes. If we have private entities that we're working with that pay uh down the debt, if we've done some infrastructure, the data center is going to be an example. We're going to borrow some money, but they're going to pay for part of their portion of the infrastructure. Um we Warren County put in some money for a road. So we look at other things as well. Um we also look at if there's any debt falling off in our future. So, we have principal and interest um that fall off from time to time. So, just to let you know that that 2544 is is is probably not accurate and it's really dependent on the value of a home. Each individual property owner, it's going to be different for but we are maintaining

the tax levy. Great. Thank you, Lindsay. Have we received any oral or written comments on this? We have not. Do we have any public comment? Hearing none, we'll close public hearing at 6:43 p.m. Item 8D is a resolution taking additional action on proposal to enter into a general obligation corporate purpose loan agreement and providing for the levy of taxes to pay a general obligation corporate purpose bond series 2026. So, we just had a public hearing about this bond issue. Jean, you got anything else? I do not. All right. What uh discussion from council? Questions for Jean? I get a motion to approve the resolution as presented.

Motion. Second. Okay. Motion by Micki, seconded by Brown. Any further discussion? Lindsay, would you call the role? Council member Bourjon, yes. Brown, yes. P, yes. Miki, yes. Porter, yes. All right, motion carries. Item 8E, this public hearing regarding the 2026 sewer rehabilitation project. We'll open up the public hearing at 6:44 PM. So, this public hearing is to get input on our 2026 sewer re rehabilitation that's going to clean, inspect, repair, and line about a half mile of sanitary sewer pipe. So, Wayne, I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you, mayor. If you recall from my amazing budget presentation a few weeks ago, we memorized things, but yeah, I watch that again.

We do maintenance projects every year. A lot of years we'll do chemical treating of the sewers. Some years we hire out some repairs. This year we're going to do a sewer lining project. We hired BNK to help us with that. They we identified an area we get frequent backup calls on or we're going to target. It's in one of our older areas as you can imagine. We did get uh getting into the bids. We did get favorable bids and we have some project dollars remaining. So I imagine if everything goes as planned, you'll probably see a change order come forward expanding the scope. We're going to try to do a few more blocks while we're out there because we did get low prices with the bid. That's all I have. Any questions? Happy to answer. Have we received any oral or written comments on this?

No, we have not. Daily public comment. Hearing none, we'll close the public hearing at 6:45 p.m. Item 8F is a resolution approving plans, specifications, form of contract, and estimate of cost for the 2026 sewer re sewer rehabilitation project. So, we just had a public hearing for this project, and this is the first of three resolutions needed to get the project launched. Uh, on January 15th, council passed a resolution that approved the preliminary plan, specs, former contract, and estimate for this uh for this project. Uh, this resolution is the final approval for all of those. So, Wayne, you anything else?

Yeah, I just want one more thing I was gonna mention just a little bit about the process. I actually have a sample of the liner. It's pretty neat. If you look up a video of it, Luke, I'm like Luke, I enjoy san stuff. [laughter] They put like a flexible fabric. It's a really neat. It's a little flexible like a sock they put in the pipes and they inject it with resin and it gets really hard. It hardens the pipe. You have cracks in it. Then it prevents roots from getting in. So, this completely lines the entry of the pipe. It's pretty amazing stuff. Uh, we have some sewers in town. I think we decided it was 2008 that we've had it done in this area. So, the company when they're here, they're going to go out and inspect the liner we had done in 2008 and see how it's holding up. So, it's it's a neat product. It's a neat project. It's it'll be uh be good for the neighborhood.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. That'd be pretty cool. Discussion for the council. Well, other than having a mind in the sewer all the time, look like something we need to get done. Yes. Good. Anybody else? Motion. Second. Motion by Bourjon, seconded by Brown. Any further discussion? Lindsay, would you call a roll? Council member Brown, yes. P, yes. Mine, yes. Porter, yes. Bjon, yes.

All right, that motion carries. Item 8G is resolution awarding contract for the 2026 sewer rehabilitation project. So this is the second of three resolutions needed to start the project. So this resolution awards the contract for Vizu Sewer LLC for $84,860.50. Wayne, anything to add? No, sir. All right. Any discussion or question at the council? Anybody want to make a motion? Second. Okay. Motion by Maki, seconded by Borjon. Uh any further discussion hearing? None. Lindsay, would you call a roll? Council member K? Yes. Mine? Yes. Porter? Yes. Borjon? Yes. Brown? Yes.

All right. Motion carries. Item 8H is resolution approving contract and bond for the 2026 sewer re rehabilitation project. So, this is the third and final resolution needed to get the project going. Uh, this resolution approves the contract and indicates how the city is going to pay Visu Sewer LLC for their work. Wayne, anything else? No, sir. Any discussion or question? Council, I get a motion to approve the resolution as presented. Motion second. Wow. I got motion by Cool, seconded by Bourjon. Uh, any further discussion hearing? None. Lindsay, would you call a role? Council member Mine. Yes. Porter, yes. Bourjon, yes. Brown, yes. Cool.

Yes.

Right. Motion carries. Item 8 I resolution adopting the city of Norwok basic and comprehensive emergency operations plans. So in March of 22, uh we had a tornado skirt the south edge of town. Uh and a post incident review, we determined we needed a complete review and update of both our basic and comprehensive emergency operations plans. So, as you read through these, you'll find some areas that are purposefully vague. Uh, since we're going to be making some decisions on the fly based on location of the incident and availability of resources. Uh, once this is uh once this resolution's been passed, uh, I believe we're going to start working on some uh, tabletop exercises so we can continue to develop and evolve the plan. Uh, I can tell you that my response to the tornado wasn't what I should have been doing. Uh so exercising the plan is also a good way to remind individuals what their roles are going to be and so we respond to an incident most effectively. And then once we do have an incident, uh we'll plan to do a post incident review again and the plan's going to be updated and evolved some more. So Chief Porter, I'll turn it over to you.

Right. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Council. Um it just like the mayor said, this kind of came out of the incident that we had of the tornado in 2022. We recognized that the emergency operation plans needed updated. Um they took a little longer than we hoped of course. Um but that was because we put a lot of care into making sure that they were aligning with a FEMA's um national instant management system and the instant command systems again as it's a framework established by FEMA. And so there's no need for us to kind of reinvent the world uh the wheel there, but to rather look at the framework that's already in place and then put that developmentally into our city to make it work for us. So, uh, as mayor said, it is a little bit vague because it's meant to be scalable. Um, every incident is different. It's dynamic. Um, so it depends what your incident is and how quickly you um need additional resources that aren't available within the city. Um, the biggest thing that we like to that we wanted to fun um excuse me um look at in this these plans was a 15 emergency support functions. So that's really kind of the core of the plan that talks about um who is responsible for what. So we do identify a coordinator of those functions along with a primary department and a secondary department. Outside of that, we're letting the departments kind of run under their own protocols and policies are already in place. So for instance, you'll see one of the emergency support functions is firefighting, but of course it doesn't have all of the firefighting SOPs, SOGS included in this plan. Otherwise, the plan would be a thousand pages long. So we wanted this to be a really usable plan. We didn't want to be something that was going to be sitting on the shelf collecting dust. We wanted everybody to be able to kind of look at it, understand it, understand the concepts behind it, and then we do intend to practice that again as the mayor said in some tabletop exercises. I spoke with Miranda Chadwick today. She is our um county emergency manager. She did a review of this plan as well. She is working on um with us on doing some tabletop exercises here in the next couple of months. Um some tabletop exercises with us in the school to kind of start practicing some of these concepts. And uh again, as the mayor said, we do intend in intend for this to continue to evolve. So as we learn

things, uh the fire department specifically has been very um engaged in regional trainings with instant command and through the man um emergency management. And so as we learn more, then we may bring back more to kind of um transform this document into something different than it is today. But this is just kind of again the the really strong foundational base work. So I'm happy to answer any questions. I I love the idea of tabletop exercises. Like my like my job dayto-day, we do them quarterly for various topics. I think I would be interested like what they come up with to say let's let's do this, right? I was telling Ed premeating like I went to my first Metro waste authority and we were talking about aven influenza. We're talking about tornadoes and where does the trash go with Metro Waste, right? And so like I'd be very interested in what those scenarios are like what they feed us and then do we have ideas for our own tabletops too.

Yeah, absolutely. I think there's a lot that comes out of just those conversations and people are thinking about what they didn't consider before. So we had a preliminary just conversation with the school a few months ago again with emergency management and there was an aha moment I believe with a few of the key players at the table that said I didn't consider that and that was that was a major turning point I believe in the conversation is that we recognized that some of us didn't know what the answers were and this was the time to figure it out and to continue um the training and the education so that we weren't figuring them out when we we really needed to respond.

Yeah. So, I think that I had responded to um to council member Boschan as well as some training. If you guys haven't received instant command training um the online version of it, please get with Carrie. She can get you guys signed up for that. Um I've also requested um from the county emergency manager that she do a training for um elected officials specifically. And I I spoke with her again today to kind of remind her of that. I know. Did she talk to you about that at the commission a little bit? Um, this would be hopefully in person for you guys and for other elected officials in the county so that you understand what your roles would be in an emergency situation. Um, you know, kind of a broad scope of that would be is that you are the policy makers. So, if we have a tornado here today, do we need the council members to be in action? Not necessarily. Right. We're not going to put you to work out in the out in the field, but we may have some funding requests.

Pretty good. Right. Right. We could have some funding requests that we would need. we um or there could be some policy change that we would need postevent that we would ask for your support. Outside of that, I think that we would ask for the council members to support any of our safety initiatives. So, when we're out talking to the community about safety and about emergency mitigation, like that's where we would kind of elicit your input on that as well to support those efforts.

And another thing that we've been doing is we we put together what's called a C4 team. communications team that will be uh in in case of an incident will be put together and at that point in time one of the things I'll do is I will email or or text all you guys to let you know what's going on and then to get you kind of in a standby mode to see if you need to if we need you for anything. Yep. So,

and I think that was a great point. One of the questions I think that um Council Borchon also asked was how will we be notified? It says like notified as necessary. Well, that depends on what's indicated. You know, if it's something that we don't need immediate response for, you guys might just get a text or an email. If it's something we need immediately, you'll get a phone call. So, ever again, this whole plan is meant to be scalable. So, if it's just a a one department incident, we can manage it on our own, then probably the communication might be slightly delayed. We don't need immediate response from you, but we want to make sure that we're keeping you all in the loop. Um, but then it continues to grow. So, once we out, you know, we need resources outside of our community. It scales. We um then we'll pull in our county emergency manager and then she can go to the state from there. So then both state and federal, we just keep scaling it and building it as large as we need it to be.

Well, Chief, I really appreciate the work you did into that. You're welcome. It's really a good document.

Thank you. I appreciate that. And I do want to say like I did not do this document on my own. Um internal staff of the fire department helped a lot with this and then passed that it went to all of the departments within the city. So all of the directors took a look at that. Um, Mayor Luke was very involved and then again we did send it to our county emergency manager after that. She did a review as well. So all hands were on deck and we when I talked to Miranda again today, we said part of this was just looking at some of those emergency support functions and throwing it out to the city and say who wants to be responsible for this? Like this is a little bit vague. Does this fall within administration? Does it fall back to the fire department? And so that's why it's adaptable to each community because um it just depends who your players are and everything could be assigned to different people. And I think we ended up being happy with how the assignments were made because everybody was involved in the conversation.

Yeah. Good strong document. Appreciate the fact the mayor's leaning into these tabletop. Yeah. I was up at the high school the other day delivering flowers not for Valentine's Day. Oh. And uh the assistant principal came out and he said, "Ah, Chief, you're delivering flowers." And I said, "Yeah." And he said, "Hey, you know what? We're going to have a tabletop again." Yeah. And I said, "That's great." You know, and it is. I really appreciate you doing that. Yeah, because that's where the real work gets done. I think so.

I I I think they're super important. I'm glad we're leaning on it, too. The other thing I think thinking about how you can make them almost it's going to sound awkward like but semi-real like all of a sudden city hall is not available. Nobody can work here, right? But we still need to go through this tabletop, right? Like how do we facilitate that remotely, right? It adds a different level of complexity, but usually very telling, right? I would like to get to that point where

Sure. We do that in the fire service a lot. kind of, you know, crawl before you run. So, yeah, we would start with a tabletop and then move into more of a a real life scenario with moving pieces and radio communications and that sort of thing. But I think it does start with tabletops. Um, and back to kind of where the plan is today. I think where um just emergency management is evolving is that people have stopped working in silos. So where we used to just have, you know, the school here and the city here or police here and fire here, we're definitely having more broad conversations to not talk in those silos and let's make sure we all know what we're going to be doing. Respectfully understand what everybody's going to be doing individually, but how it impacts the whole. So um again, I think we're really going in the right direction with this these plans. And I would also say that having uh an emergency man management coordinator through Warren County who really kind of knows how to do a tabletop has been very very helpful. She's a great resource.

Yeah. Aside from the one we had here, we also did sit in one um a city with the county as well. They were talking about a county incident. So again, these conversations are going beyond the city of Norwok into the county and again we sit into Poke counties quite a bit as well. So yeah. Cool. Is there any questions about these plans or anything I can answer for you? It's kind of a side note, but it kind of relates like do we ever do any like saber cyber tabletops where um you know like now we're held for ransom or it kind of fits in the same vein but it's different, right? Yone several. Y

and several years ago that wasn't tabletop. It actually did happen within our um Westcom communication center. And so we we had the fire department specifically had a real life goal with that where we all had to go to paper and and I'm sure police was impacted as well, but um so but I know that you guys and the C4 team have done a lot of work about cyber protection as well. So I'll echo what what Ed said. It's it's just been a great job by you and your staff. Thank you.

Uh many other city staff for getting us all pulled together. There's a lot of work to do. uh it took a while to get it finished, but I think the product we're looking at and talking tonight about tonight is way ahead of what we had. So, thanks to you. Thanks to the department heads who participated as well. Uh that includes you, Wayne. And make sure you asked our thanks along to your staff. Hello. Right. Right. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Any other questions or comments from council or can I get motion? Motion. Motion. Second. Okay. So motion by Bourjon, seconded by Porter. Any further discussion? Lindsay, would you please call the role? Council member Porter, yes. Bourjon, yes. Brown, yes. Pool,

yes. Mini, yes. All right.

Motion carries. Uh, item 8J. It's a resolution approving a parkland dedication agreement for Blooming Heights Plat 5. Uh, so the parkland dedication for Blooming Heights Plat 5 should be about43 acres. Uh our ordinance allows the city council to accept cash in lie of the land. Uh the developer is offered to give the city $35,16181 instead of the park. Uh this payment will need to be used directly uh to directly provide parks and rec to the to that development. That could mean adding equipment to a nearby park or something like that. But it will be documented to ensure that the money directly benefits the residents of Bloominghouse Plat 5. Uh it's also important to note that the parks and rec uh commission reviewed this request on February 4th, 2026 and recommended approval of the cash and new contribution. So Jim or Luke, anything to add?

You covered it well. Great. All right. Any discussion from council? Motion. All right. Second. A motion by Maki, seconded by Brown. Any further discussion? Wish it was more money, but [laughter] I know how much those lots are going to score. Agreed. But I will is what it is. Yes. Okay. Uh let's see then. Lindsay, would you call the role? Council member Bourjon, yes. Brown, yes. Yes. Mine? Yes. Porter? Yes.

All right. Motion carries. Kind of got lost there for a second. Uh item 8K. resolution approving the preliminary plat of Bloomman Heights Plat 5. So with the PLA parkland agreement passed, uh we can now move forward with approving the preliminary plat. Want to clarify something about the plat. You may have noticed on the plat there is a temporary turnaround. Uh staff has confirmed that this is actually being built as a paid service as if it were permanent, but it will go away when a through street is installed in the future. Uh there's no timeline for that future street which was a major reason for the required payment pavement. Uh lof

I think you covered it well. I don't have anything to add. All right. Discussion from council. So the future street will is that going to go north or it'll go west. It'll go east. Okay. Back out that might any public comment? Can I get a motion to approve the resolution as presented? Motion. Second. Second. All right. So, I got a motion by Cole, seconded by Brown. Any further discussion? None. Lindsay, would you call the role? Council member Browns.

Yes. Yes. Mine? Yes. Porter? Yes. Bourjon. Yes. All right. Motion carries. Thanks. Yep. Item 8 L. So you can stay. 8 L is a second reading of an ordinance amending the master plan on rules, regulations, and guidelines for the Orchard Hills plan unit development as contained in ordinance 04-05. This is a resoning request for the ground over by the water tower on North Avenue. Uh, this will allow apartments to be built on much of the property and it preserves the commercial lot at the corner of Orchard Hills Drive and North Avenue. First reading was passed at our last meeting. Luke, anything to add? No.

All right. Any discussion with councel or public comment? Can I get a motion to approve the second reading? Second. Motion by be seconded by Bourjon. Any further discussion? Lindsay, would you please call a role? Council member Koul, yes. Mine, yes. Porter, yes. Bourjon, yes. Brown, yes. All right, move carries. Item 8 M, final reading of an ordinance amending the code of ordinances of the city of Norwalk, Iowa to adopt a zoning amendment related to gates on commercial property. This zoning amendments allow construction of gates and barriers, as you said, on commercial property. Uh, Luke, anything to add? No.

Any discussion from council or any public comment? I have a question on and maybe Kelsey you can talk about this too like what we have a scenario over by the pizza ranch with some private resistances right like like what how would that relate to this maybe you can describe you saw it in person versus I there's a big need there in my from what I've seen so what kind of is it stopping people from driving from public road onto private property an exit of Pizza Ranch parking lot is going directly down a residential tight town home community with garages and driveways right there

and that's one of few exits of the parking lot. So, I think what was what is tough about this then is we would say that needs to be open and I think that person wants it to be shut because they don't want it to be a through street and I think it's a buffer zone right between residential and commercial and so I'm good with this for that but I think maybe that's a thing we need to to table and be able to talk about like this buffer zone between these commercial and residential thing like what what's the best course of action there

I would think that this would this could apply to that I think other factors play into it because a lot of times like a development like that before lots are even sold the developer already put in easement access right there and it could so there could be a private easement and there also controls this between the two parties where yeah it doesn't look good and it's uh but it was totally within the plans from day one before everything's constructed that that there's going to be an access there. So what what I don't know though is if it's for like emergency management to be able to get a vehicle through where it has two like an in and out so to say that that well could be like

but then then we have you know customers using that as as a as an exit onto a private garden. Is that truly what we want? Right. Yeah. That just goes boom because the pizza ranch is right there that it's new enough it doesn't show up on the aerial photos.

Right. Right. So people are exiting Pizza Ranch and and using that private drive, right? And I think that'd be concerning if I was a homeowner here. This gate policy, I feel like would say it needs to be open all the time and then that would do them no good, right? Where this where that where that resident would want that closed, but you know, usable by fire at times to be able to get through if there is emergency. Like what does that look like or how would we deal with that? this situation specifically made me feel like it needs to be a more case by case scenario because this is very different than the last.

And I I totally get it from Chief Porter's perspective, right? Like we need that because if they need to get in and be able to service a fire at those condos, right, to be able to get in and out of there, you need that. But those residents don't want commercial traffic through their driveways, right? And so what would we do in that scenario? So I want to bring it up during this. I'm good. we can get to voting, but I'm good with this, but I think we'll have circumstances that we need to be able to visit for this type of scenario.

What we can do is uh good discussion. I think we can probably get a pretty quick opinion back to you guys. So, you kind of at least uh get something from myself and Paris that would say what the current status of it is, what we believe, how this affects it. Uh and then that'll give you some information to be able to react to it. If I may, actually the um if the ordinance, if I remember correctly too, it says it has to be approval by staff, which would include review by the fire department to ensure that the that the would be compliant to the international fire code. So for this one in particular, we would have to review code to make sure that gates and barriers would be appropriate appropriate there, but any of them would have to be reviewed before they're approved to go in place to make sure that it doesn't limit our access. Again, according to the International Fire Code, But I think this one does, as far as gates, the requirement on is that it's when not in use, it's got to be able to be retracted and things like that. But, uh, you it doesn't necessarily I don't think there's limits on when it's in use and when it's not.

Yeah, I guess. Yeah, that's okay, that makes sense. Yeah, I I wasn't I wasn't reading the letter of the law like that. Like to me when when not in use or when in use I think it was Jason brought up we want appear always open. So to me when it's in use it's open right and so you just made me think about that slightly different I guess. Yeah. Yeah. We'll look at it further and give you because I can think of several other gates in town where it kind of has that same scenario. Yep. Uh there's one over in the Legacy that we've dealt with for a number of years out in front of Dollar General that used to be a pass through and the one came up and just put a permanent fence on a area that used to access it all the time. Yep.

Yeah. Yeah. Park Place is is another location of it. So yeah, we can certainly look at that. Do you recommend driving by the Pizza Ranch town home? Okay. Because the visual was very eye opening. Well, I think just Yeah, this overhead that I just saw is is unopening. You pull in and you just realize how close the residence is to that through traffic. Yeah. All right. I get a motion to approve the final reading. Motion. Second. Okay. So, motion by Porter, seconded by Borjon. Any further discussion? Lindsay, would you please call the RO? Council member Miki, yes. Porter, yes. Borjon, yes. Brown, yes. Cool. Yes.

All right. Motion carries. Item nine, future agenda items. So, the purpose of this item is to uh for council to give direction to staff by way of motion to have items placed on a further agenda. It's not for the discussion of the merits of that subject matter. Get it on them on the agenda so that we can uh any future agenda items for tonight. Hearing none, we'll move on. Item 10, council inquiries and updates. Like to remind everybody that this portion of the meeting is much less formal. Uh you may hear some joking around and back and forth banner. Uh we believe this builds camaraderie and cohesiveness between staff and council. Uh Jim.

Uh no. Are you sure? Kind of smiling. I was kind of smiling, but uh well I I guess I compliment Wayne. He he goes back and forth on these projects all the time and uh and that one today was pretty cool. Yeah.

All right. just that I know my first meeting I tried to add something to the agenda and it failed but I am a tennis player and we are very patient and we are very detail oriented and we are also we never give up um so just know that I'm um having a lot of discussions about um golf carts in Norwok and I'm excited about Okay.

Alternatively, my slightly more controversial addition to the I I I am willing to be very very very patient and think otherwise on potentially. Uh but I appreciate that. Um no, I want to say yeah, thanks to Holly and her team, economic development for all the hard work that's gone into that. Grateful for that. and thanks for all the hard work that went into the emergency and in general just struck me throughout the meeting tonight um how much I rely on the excellency of our paid people and then also a guy like Ed who takes the time to come down read through everything and like have these conversations on behalf of our city. Um so I you know I was engaged tonight. I want you to know that if you looked at my face you would think he wasn't. Um, but I'm very very grateful uh for the trust that's been established. All behind every one of these things tonight has been a lot of work and effort. Almost all of them. Sorry. Almost say so. Thank you.

And you too, mayor. Thank you. Ed, I don't know that brown's pretty cerebral. I don't know if I can follow, but you know, we did some big things tonight. And when we leave here, we need to take the time to realize that and big things as far as the the staff and the quality of the staff, the work they did together, right? But the other thing is the fact that we worked and I think that's even more important, you know, and it's a good group of people up here. I'm glad to serve with you and uh I just think we did some really big things. Yeah. Okay,

Wayne, thank you for that example that or sample that you brought in. That was awesome. Thank you. It's good to have visuals. Yeah, it was almost as good as that budget presentation.

The only thing I was going to bring up tonight is we have some um detection issues at our traffic signal at Cherry Parkway and Highway 28. This is more operation. I don't normally get in the weeds, but I know our traffic signals. So you could probably get complaints on them notice them. One at Cherry we had the manufacturer out. There's something wrong with the core component. They couldn't fix it. They're having to send it in. So in the meantime, it has to call every leg, every phase of the signal. So you might see left turn greens when there's not a car there because there's no detection. So it's assuming there's a car there. I don't have a time frame. It may be a few weeks before we get new equipment back, but we know about it. We're working on it. on.

Wait, that is strangely good news because I have sat there multiple times and thought this thing is not working the way. It was just in my So good. Okay. I thought I was out of the lane and over there a little bit and that that's why the green came on. Yeah. And next time I was there, I was I know I was in the lane and the green green still came on. So yeah, that's all I have. Thank you.

All right. Thanks, Chief. um want everybody know that the extreme temperature plan is in effect uh tomorrow morning. If you don't know um we have an extreme temperature plan within the city and the um library is our dedicated warming and cooling center. So that is open during um business hours that again takes effect tomorrow likely to expire Tuesday. Burn ban is also in effect. Um we've had an abnormally amount abnormal amount of grass fires, large grass fires. It's extremely dry right now. Even with the precipitation that we're getting today, it's not going to be enough. So burn ban is in effect um through the state fire marshals office office until further notice. Um if you may have noticed we are wearing our morning band. Um we did lose longtime volunteer firefighter Wendy Colenberg um longtime volunteer for over 40 years with the fire department. He also owned uh John's Pizza and uh Wendy's Ice Cream. So his visitation was this evening and funeral's tomorrow at 11. Um, and other than that, oh, I do understand that, um, Council Member Mine responded to a fire on our behalf. So, we do have an honorary fire bag. [laughter]

Hey, thank you. I just want to say thank you to Wayne for maintaining our water infrastructure, for helping out these fires. You could bust out one of those collectible fire department hats for me. I should have. here. I don't think any farm management worry about losing their job to me. That was one and done. Well, we appreciate your assistance. Thank you. Tony, nothing else. Chief, uh, I don't have anything other than to say, Wayne, I'm glad I know what the inside of sewer pipe looks like now because I wanted newly newly fresh one. Yeah. Yeah. A sleeved thing is fresh.

Yeah. Yeah, snow. No, there's snow out there, so I'm good. All right. I want to shower lots of love to because he's just been amazing to work with and he took this Delaware project like a champ. Didn't complain. So, thank you, Wayne. All right. Nothing for me, but thank you to Wayne this week for helping me with beacon. Appreciate that. All right. [laughter] Lindsay, I think we all get the picture that Wayne is awesome. Yeah, I'm just happy. Valentine's Day for Wayne. [laughter] Great. We all love Wayne. All right, Andy.

Uh, I had my first Metro Waste meeting and I also met with a a city councilman from West Mo for lunch and I just like we were talking about I was talking about staff and our city at various things and just how lucky we are and tonight's a good example of all the cool stuff that we've done and how good the staff, mayor, etc. is, right? So, we should feel lucky about that because four stories I hear on the news about the infighting of De Moines as a city and and their boards, right? And I think we all work really well together, right? So, that's good. Some some sexy stuff about trash.

Um they're they're doing some projects on Metro West to to make some new cells there. They have 58 years of capacity at current uh trash level, which I thought is interesting. They have 60 years of capacity at at the east side uh waste facility. Um they're actually going to go deeper and higher and it will be the deepest trash place in the Midwest, I believe, which is and it was just really interesting. We talked about uh aven bird flu and their role in some of that and their plans with that. Um I'm a big user of the cardboard facility over by the library. Um I don't know how many people know about it. It's great. what I didn't know and like we we also have some battery places where we can turn in batteries and that is one of the number one problems I have at the at the two facilities is batteries causing fires at those facilities right and so however we can promote that you know and you might not think of like the double D batteries or triple A D batteries or AA batteries whatever but like scooter batteries laptop batteries that stuff get thrown away that it's a big deal and so I was I was talking to had before the meeting just how interesting and sexy trash is. It's not sexy, but they make it sound sexy, right? It's really an interesting group. Um, and and they offered like the entire like if the city or the council if we want to do a tour, they would love to to host us anytime to be able to go to any of the facilities. So,

all right. Kudos to the fire department. the police come out to that to my neighbor's grass fire that I was helped put out, but that thing could have got out of control pretty quick and they did a great job. By the time they got done, they got called off to another grass fire. So, but they did a great job. Thank you.

Wayne, I think your hair looks nice tonight. Uh just just to let you know on February the 11th uh we went to the city development review board to uh annex the 282 acres and they approved that. So clock started then. We are hoping for no news until March the 15th or so. March 14th, 15th. Well, 16th will be the Monday. So, that's when we so and uh we passed the emergency management budget last week as well and uh we're going to get

county. Yes. Uh yes. Thank you. And uh that's part of that budget includes a new employees. So, uh, we're gonna see, I think, more good things out of that out of that department down there. So, looking forward to it. That is all I had. To be fair, I got one alibi. An alibi? Yeah. I mean, the one one excuse, just one doover. Okay. I forgot something that's really important. Okay, go for it.

Well, we have an employee here that's having a birthday. Matter of fact, it's her birthday tonight and she sacrificed her personal life to be present here, you know, for our meeting. So, I think that's the least we could do for our national director to sing her around a happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday. Uh, logo. Thank you. Thank you very much. And Luke reminded me, Jean Strables online. Jean, what do you got tonight?

Uh, thank you. I was reminded by Andy, who is a trash enthusiast, that we did hear back from the Metro Waste Management that Norwok citizens recycled 385 pounds of Christmas lights. So, good job everybody. And I'll also I'll also throw in a plug that the library does have a recycling center for batteries, cords, laptops, devices, old phones, um all the good stuff. So, we would love to take your trash and let them take it away.

All right. If if if we want more, they're in the hopper to get more of those locations. So, if we wanted one at city hall or if we want to ask Fairway, if we could host one there, I feel like we should get them in places where people are at all the time. Not that they're not at the library, but where else could we have them? Right. Right. be pretty handy. Sounds good. Uh, okay. Item 11 is close session pursuant to Iowa code chapter 21.51c to discuss strategy with council in matters that are presently in litigation or were litigation imminent uh where its disclosure would like be likely to prejudice or disadvantage the position of the governmental body and that litigation. Jim, is this a valid reason to go in close session? Yes, it is.

All right. Can I get a motion to go into close session? Motion second. Okay. Motion by Brown, seconded by uh Cool. Uh Lindsay, would you please call? Council member Warjon? Yes. Brown? Yes. P? Yes. Mine? Yes. Porters? Yes. All right.