City Council Agendas, Packets and Minutes - Regular Meeting

The clock above us says one minute to six, but my Apple Watch says it's six o'clock. So let's call this meeting to order, the six o'clock meeting of the City Council for order. May I have a roll call, please?

Cheeseman? Here. Gilbertson? Here. Helwig? Here. Jennewine? Here. Lieber? Here. Elias? Here. Murrah? Here. Toller? Here. Mayor O'Kelley?

Here. Thank you very much. Please rise and join me with the Pledge of Allegiance.

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.

Thank you very much. Have we all had a chance to read the minutes of the July 20th meeting and the joint meeting and the second meeting of just us? Are there any changes or alterations to that? the minutes or do i have a motion to approve them as written is there a second second thank you very much all of those in favor of approving the minutes as written please indicate by saying aye aye opposed very good are there any visitors to be heard on subjects not on the agenda first of all Oh, adoption of the agenda. Sorry, thank you very much. They have to tap me on the knee every time I make a mistake. We have an agenda tonight. Are there any changes to the agenda as written or a motion to approve it as written?

So moved.

Second, please.

Second.

All in favor of adopting the agenda as written, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, nay. The agenda's adopted. Thank you. I've got a little bruise on my knee from people tapping me, okay? So... As far as visitors be heard, persons addressing the council shall use the microphone at the podium. Please raise your hand to recognize, go to the podium and say your name and address. For items not on the agenda, there's copies of the agenda in the back. For items not on the agenda, members of the public may speak on any topic for five minutes and no decision or conversation will occur at this time. When we go to the agenda items, the public also will be invited to speak for items on the agenda. Public tests will be taken at the beginning of each agenda item after the subject has been explained by city staff. Okay, again, five minutes. All right. So are there any visitors here? Yes, please come up. Please state your name and address.

My name is Rodney Oberly, 2409 East Main Street, Vermilion, South Dakota. I am the president of Ribs, Rods, Rock and Roll and tonight you're voting on street closing in the second and I just wanted to take a few minutes to address the council and the city and all of our supporters, I guess is the best thing. So I'm gonna take a few minutes and if you don't know where Ribs and Rods started, it started 90 years ago below the bluff in a place called the Boneyard and it was to bring community members together after harvest, celebration of community and just Gather a community and celebrate Vermillion. 22 years ago, a committee got together and started what's called Ribs Rods Rock and Roll with the same intent, 70 years in between, to try and celebrate community. It's had a lot of changes over the years. In the last couple, we've really tried to give it more towards community. We donate $4,000 to the food pantry from our event. have a scholarship this year to Miss USD. There's a couple other scholarship opportunities for the pageant that's gonna happen at the AV Lounge. It's our second year of that. We donate a couple thousand dollars worth of scholarships to Vermillion High School students that are going to vo-tech schools. Not the ones that get 40,000, the ones that probably don't want to fill out an application. We want to give them an opportunity and we've done that the last Seven or eight years that I've been on the committee. We have a lot of community involvement. We have the after prom committee that comes and does clean up and we give them money for that. Last year we did a dunk tank with a couple people, maybe in this room that we're in there, that's raised money for the Vermillion Housing Authority. This year it's going to be for the high school drama, so if you're interested, you can get a hold of the high school drama. They're looking for volunteers, probably Friday and Saturday night for that. The Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts, this is their major fundraiser. Walmart and other places donate water and soda, and this is where they make most of their money. We also are adding this year the Pinewood Derby for the Scouts, so we're encouraging them to go to the automotive places. We have 12 automotive supporters that support our car show, and we're hoping to have each one of them sponsor a young person's car in the Pinewood Derby that will happen Saturday afternoon. So that should be pretty cool, I think. We're going to have a little kid's tractor pull to get more community people into town. So the goal is community and getting people together. We're actually gonna have a couple cars at the dome to hopefully get people that leave the football game to come downtown and Saturday night and enjoy the festivities. A couple other things, if you haven't noticed, the last several years we've had many USD athletes down there handing out ribs and wings and I mean they beg to come back now. A couple years ago we had to beg them and now they're like, we're in, can we come back next year? We've had USD people come down and do tabling, which was new to me, but I guess it's something they like to do, and so they do that at our event. the farmers market is set in their notes a month ago every weekend except the weekend of Ribs Rods Rock and Roll and I said why wouldn't we do it then so it will be at the south end of Market Street Saturday morning we'll open up that end of the street so people who are coming to the farmers market can come in and park and get their produce and what other things are at the farmers markets and get out easily so tons of community opportunities and opportunities for you to get involved. If you want to be on the committee and get one of these cool shirts, we'll probably get new ones next year, but I just wanted to take a few minutes and thank that, and somewhere I've got a list of the businesses that sponsor. If you can put that up, Core Trust is our premier sponsor. Obviously, we're at the corner of Command Central there, so this whole list up here, Ace Hardware, Voyage, Pipe Piper, East River, First Bank and Trust, KTIV, Pepsi Runnings, Vermillion, there are 24 people up there that are major suppliers or helpers or vendors or cash for this event. It takes a lot. It takes a community to put this together. You can go to the next slide, please. There's a whole other list. This is a huge community effort to put this effort on. And Sydney River Bay was on there somewhere, so I didn't mention everybody up there. But there are lots of different levels and lots of different levels of people that support this event. And I wanted to make sure everyone knew how much we appreciate it. And our seven or eight community members have been working hard since the day after the event last year, booking bands. Oh, one more thing. At 10 o'clock, we're going to have DJ Marcus playing downtown to hopefully get USD students down there. Been trying for years to get USD part of our event and enjoy our community, so a little change this year. If at 10 o'clock you're still rockin' and rollin', we'll keep rockin' and rollin', and if you wanna do some DJ stuff, come on down at 10, listen to Marcus. That's all I have. Thank you. And if you have questions later, I'm sure you'll call me back up for this.

Thank you. Given our history as a harvest festival, I'm really glad you brought the farmer's market back. So thank you very much. Excellent. Are there any other visitors here? Yes, please come up.

Good afternoon. My name is Camden Knutson. I live on 440 East Cherry Street, and I'm not going to use too much time. I just have a couple questions. We know that the Zoning Commission meeting is next Monday, and it is regarding some amendments and regulations surrounding data centers. And I just wanted to know if you guys had any more information on the meeting and then also data centers in general.

So we have no information at this meeting on data centers. The appropriate place will be at that meeting at the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. That's a public meeting. It's at 5.30 next Monday, and that will be the first opportunity to chat about it as a city. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. See you there. Are there any other visitors? You did well, by the way. You did well. Okay, you did well. Thank you. That's community involvement we like. Any other visitors on any items not on the agenda? All right. Seeing none, we'll move on. We have the consent agenda. Does everybody have a chance to look at it? Any items you want to remove from the consent agenda and add to the new business column? Yes. Yes, absolutely. Sorry, my handwriting, okay, payable. I know how to spell that. Other than the invoices payable, which is item number A, is there a motion to approve the rest of the consent agenda? Lacking item A. Is there a second?

Second.

All in favor of approving the consent agenda lacking item A, indicate by saying aye. Opposed, nay. Thank you very much. All right, old business, the second reading of this ordinance. I love the picture, by the way. You don't have to show it, but I do love it. Thank you.

So the proposed ordinance, I guess, that you guys would be considering today, which is the second rating, as you mentioned, will be creating a new zoning district. The zoning district considers the owner's desires to maintain a rural feel in the area. As such, the owner is proposing to have a larger right-of-way, no curb and gutter, no on-street parking, drainage ditches and sidewalks to be constructed at a later time. All of this was discussed in detail at the first reading. which happened on July 20th. At that meeting, similarly to the Planning and Zoning Commission, the City Council also recommended or moved to a second reading, which was today. There were no changes to the ordinance since then. As such, City Staff and the Planning and Zoning Commission recommend the City Council adopt the ordinance as presented. This being the second reading, a roll call vote is required. Thank you very much. Are there any visitors who heard of this item?

members of the public want to chat about this nope any members of the council want to ask questions or discuss this uh ordinance no then i would look for a motion to approve this uh and then we'll have the vote any so do i have motion to approve this reading and as our sense thank you very much all in favor well we vote we vote Show me again how this works, John.

I think Daniel will probably set it for you.

OK.

I believe so.

Oh, there we go. Did it show up on the other members? It showed up on mine.

There you go.

There you go. So seven yeses and two yeses. Very, very good. Oh, I didn't. I don't know why I didn't vote redo. Sorry, I do vote in favor. There we go. Well, I'm not sure how the computer works. Okay, all right. So the computer's making its vote again, guys. Sorry about that. I messed it up. Okay, there we go. Thank you very much. That was my glitch, okay? Eight to one, the motion passes. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Don't go too far away. The next business is to agree with Banner, My preliminary engineering report. No, no, no, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, we're a new business.

Should we do, do we do the, will we move the consent agenda first or last, typically? It usually goes to the last item. Very good. Just wanted to comply with what we normally do. So new business. Resolution topic, safe streets for all. And that is Jose.

Thank you. So in 2025, the city partnered with Seacog County, Turner County, and a few communities within the Seacog planning region and planlessly complete a plan or the idea was to complete a plan, the Safe Streets for All Comprehensive Safety Action Plan to act for that entire region. This document has been completed for the most part. There's a few items that are left out there, something more like the resolution that you guys are going to be approving today. So the proposed resolution that you guys are considering will essentially recognize importance of the plan. as it pertains to Vermilion and to the region as a whole. And also it will be focusing essentially on how the city can maybe change some things or adopt rules or maybe do some design improvements or whatever the case may be. to reduce traffic accidents or the severity of those if they were to happen. The action plan, if adopted, will be placed with the city's 2012 transportation plan and the 2018 bicycle master plan, meaning that staff will be following those recommendations or at least bringing them up when projects occur that pertain to those improvements or possible improvements. The information on the plan can also be used by the city when applying for federal grants related to transportation. With that being said, staff recommends the city council sign the resolution stating that the city supports the Safe Streets for All comprehensive action plan and that the city will work towards the reduction of traffic fatalities and serious injury accidents.

Thank you. Are there any visitors in the audience to talk about this issue? Any members of the City Council want to talk about the Safe Streets for All plan? Do we need to read it out loud?

I mean, I don't think we have to, but if you want me to, it's going to take a while.

I saw the question of... So the parliamentary procedure, do we need to read the resolutions out loud? I don't know.

You don't need to read it out loud. It can be, but the full resolution would be included in the minutes. All right.

I have a question, please, Jose. So we're all in favor of safe streets for all. That's a huge part of your job, to save streets for all, right? So what is the action plan, though? I know we have a street plan, or a transportation plan, or a bicycle plan. What is the Safe Streets for All Comprehensive Action Plan? How does that amend or change your other two plans related to streets and planning all that?

So the action plan wouldn't be changing what we already have adopted. It would be used in conjunction with it. If you recall at the last council meeting, we actually had somebody, one of the planners, come over and discuss a project or the plan. And when he was discussing that, there was a particular section that he that was just related to Vermillion, where I believe there were four corridors that would be included. So those corridors, that is our action plan. So if we ever decided to do something, let's say around the new elementary school on Dartmouth, or anything happens around there, then we would be looking at the city's transportation plan, we would be looking at the bike plan, and then we would also be looking at this action plan.

Very good, it's an additional guidance document.

Yep, it's another step in the process, yep.

Very good, thank you. Any other questions, Jose, on the State Streets for All comprehensive action plan? I would entertain a motion that we sign the resolution supporting the Safe Streets for All Action Plan.

Move approval.

Is there a second? Second. All in favor of assigning this resolution supporting the Safe Streets for All Conference of Action Plan, did you keep on saying aye? Aye. Oh, no. Did any of the opposed say nay? Good. Thank you. A little ahead of the game there. Thank you very much. So Shane is already coming to the front. There you go. So the agreement with Banner to include preliminary and engineering report for the Cherry Street water main.

Thank you. So back in mid-June, we experienced a pretty significant water main break along Cherry Street between Dakota Street and Rose, just north of the law school there at USD. We actually had two breaks at the same time within about 500 feet of each other that resulted in water outages for about 12 hours and a street closure for almost 24. This section of pipes seen some higher rate of failure in the last two years. And after this most recent issue and kind of seeing the condition of the pipe in a larger area, we thought that this should kind of rise up to the top of the replacement list and kind of be expedited. Staff would like to pursue a community development block grant or CDBG. which are awarded by the state and originates from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. These grants can be awarded at a 70-30 split between the grant and the city's contribution, and a preference can be given to low-income communities and projects that benefit the community at large, which we think this project would fall under both of those umbrellas. The CDBG applications are due in the fall and spring of each year. We'd like to apply this fall, and if things don't turn out our way, we would probably go ahead and just reapply again in the spring of next year. In order to apply for these grants, you do need to have what's called the preliminary engineering report, which is just kind of an engineer takes a look at the project, looks at some different options, looks at a cost evaluation of the project. You need that in order to apply for this. Banner has prepared the attached agreement for the preliminary engineer report. This agreement has one task, not to exceed $11,500. If other funding options are pursued, we would most likely have to add to that agreement. We would have to do a little bit more of an in-depth study on the environmental side of things. For the CDBG, there is not an environmental requirement. CCOG actually does a smaller one on our behalf for us for that. So this project was not budgeted for, so a revision would be necessary. Also, I just want to make clear that this does not include any project design or any construction costs. With that, administration recommends approving the agreement with Banner Associates in the amount of costs not to exceed $11,500.00. Thank you, Shane.

Are there any members of the public who would like to chat about this particular item? Members of the City Council? Yes.

Gene, what do you think the breakage over there along Cherry Street was, and do you foresee this happening anywhere else along there then?

I don't. I do think that it was a pretty... kind of outside of the normal realm of things. What we think happened is we think we got what was called a water hammer through the system. Water hammer is a pressure surge that kind of runs its way through the system. We were actually doing some other work out in the Mesaba area, and we think we had some trapped air in the line, and when that air got displaced by the water, it creates this surge through the system, and that's what we kind of think happened there. It's very abnormal what we've seen. Literally a 12 inch pipe blew out about four feet of the pipe was just gone. When we exposed it, the pipe was just gone. We've never seen anything like that before. And so, unique in that sense, but also on the second break where it was, was about a 10 foot strip that the whole bottom of the pipe just cracked and there was two or three different little potholes in there. And so, like I said, we've had some kind of a raised amount of breaks in this area, and so do I think other breaks will probably happen there in the future? Yeah, the pipe's in some pretty bad shape in there, so I think it's inevitable before we probably have it again. Thank you.

Al?

How old is the pipe, pretty old?

That one, I don't even have dates on some of that that's installed in there, so that 12 inch has been in there for a very long time.

Mike Murrah.

Yeah, I stopped by when you guys were working that day, and I want to tell you, everybody here, and so it's on TV too, so everybody knows, those guys were literally trying to figure out who was going to watch their kids. and who was going to do what so they could stay and work there and fix that water leak. And I want to thank you for that when I was standing there. I don't know if the, I forget what his name is. I told him to tell everybody thank you, but I just want to tell you guys, thank you for putting in that time. That was a mess and that was a big leak. I've never seen a pipe blown apart like that before. So thank you.

I have a question. So this is a no-bid thing to Banner?

We did not go out for additional. This is a pretty straightforward study.

I don't think you're going to get a whole lot of prices difference on this. Given the McCrory or whatever, I don't know. You're happy with this price?

I am happy with this price. I think it's a pretty straightforward price. It's a pretty straightforward study.

Any other comments or questions for Shane from the council members? If not, I would entertain a motion to approve the agreement of Banner Associates to complete the PER for the Cherry Street water main replacement. All in favor, please say aye. Opposed, say nay. Passes. Don't go away. All right, so well field study. The agreement of Banner Associates and well field study. We all need water. Tell us how we're going to get it, Shane.

So the City of Vermilion's water comes from the Lower Vermilion, Missouri aquifer, which is located down below the bluff about 130, 150 feet below the surface. The city has five wells that pulls water out of that aquifer. Those wells could run independently or simultaneously with one another to get water up to our treatment facility. Those wells range in age from 1972 all the way up to 2001. We do annually rehab one of five, maybe sometimes two of the five. We'll get and go through them and have a well company come through and rehab them and just kind of give them a facelift, if you want to call it that. In addition to the wells, we do have, Vermilion has what's called a future water rights permit through the state of South Dakota, which locks in our water use for seven year periods. And so that permit was originally assigned back in 2000 and most recently updated in 2022. So we will be up for renewal on that. in 2029. This study will also look at that and help us identify if we need to increase that number, which I think we probably do, but it's always good to have some outside eyes take a look at that and look at it kind of future growth and things like that and see if that's something we need to do. We reached out to Banner Associates to perform the wellfield study. The study has been broken into four tasks. The agreement and study has been attached for your review. Cost of the study has been prepared as an hourly not to exceed fee of $25,500. Those tasks included in the study are as follows. We got task number one is the existing water supply infrastructure assessment. So they're just going to take a look at everything that we have right now. Task two is a water supply source evaluation. It's gonna look at where's our source water coming from, what other options are in the area. Task three is the water supply alternatives development. They're gonna actually give us probably three options of what can we do differently to improve our water, our raw water collection system. And then four is to prepare a report and review. The study will help identify the potential updates, improvements on the system, and help us evaluate those water rights, like I said. Water department budget did include this well field study, and we also included funds to replace one of our wells. We as a staff, we'd like to kind of put that on hold, replacing one of the wells until we get this study done, just to see what options are out there. We might have better options, that money may be better well spent once we get this study done. So with that, the administration recommends awarding the contract to the well field study to Banner Associates in the amount of $25,500. Thank you, Shane.

Are there any visitors to be heard on this subject for the well study? Seeing none, questions from council members?

Yes, Gary. So Shane, did this go up for bid? We did not take this out to bid. So when it comes to engineering and stuff, you don't have to take that out to bid. We can just request quotes on that kind of thing. And so with our history with Banner, they designed our water treatment plant. They designed our wastewater plant. They have a vast amount of knowledge of the history of our system. And so a lot of times when it comes to the water and the wastewater stuff, I don't typically elect that unless I feel like the price is way out of line. And you guys have seen that. I've been on the council for a while now. So there's just a lot of history there that if I went someplace else, I don't necessarily have that. Thanks.

Well, I have a question. I was at a meeting, you were a Rotary, you talked about a different well design to ameliorate the issue of different wells having different properties of contaminants, not contaminants, but is this, is the well field study going to address that? I can't remember what you called it.

So, yeah, we're going to, so one of the options that I think that we're going to really kind of push towards and what we would really like to see as a staff is it's called a collector well. And it's one well that's in one area that essentially can have more than one pump. and so it's drilled most wells are drilled just vertically but a collector well can be vertically and then actually have horizontal fingers that go out from the well and so it essentially makes all the water comes from one place so even though we have five wells coming out of the same aquifer each well has a little bit different water quality so when we change from let's say two and three and we add four into the mix that kind of changes our whole chemistry on our water and how the guys have to change the the feed rates and things like that the chemicals to treat the water if we can get a collector well which is a possibility we're hoping Now that water stays very consistent, all coming from one area in the aquifer. It's all coming from one source, which makes treatment much simpler. And so then you can kind of just ramp up the flow that you're pulling from the aquifer.

And this well-filled study will help you make that decision?

Absolutely, yep.

Yes, sir? When they go out, how far out do they go?

So it depends. I don't know the answer to that. They can be hundreds of feet or just a couple, you know, 100 feet or 200, 300 feet.

Because the wider it is, the better chance you'll have more stable.

Yep.

Yes. Shane, you got any idea, or has there ever been any studies or anybody guessed on how big that aquifer is? What's the size of that?

Yeah, I don't have the numbers. There have been studies on it. I could get that to you guys. The geological survey has gone through that and really figured some of that stuff out. It's an older study. I want to say it was in the 90s is the most recent one that I've seen, but there is some study material on that if you guys want that. Yeah.

Yeah. So can I confirm you're going to get us that information? If you guys would like that information, I can absolutely get that study forward to you guys. I think you would. Okay. Thank you very much. Yep. So I see that this is a budgeted expense. Yep. Are there any further questions from council members? Then I would entertain a motion to approve this agreement with Banner Associates to do the Wellfield study.

Move to approve. Second.

All in favor say aye. That opposed nay. Thank you so much. Invoices payable, let's return back to that. Let me open up my pages here.

I have, there it is.

All right, so were there any specific invoices you wanted to talk about, Mike?

37.

I'm sorry?

Page 37 in the PDF.

Oh.

I just have one question.

Is it Butler machinery, $293,000?

So we officially named our newspaper as the plain talk that we publish everything in. Mr. Elias still is employed by the Plain Talk, still writing. How is that gonna work when we're publishing stuff constantly through them and he's up here representing and then he's still working for the paper? Isn't that, to me that's kind of a conflict of interest a little bit. Maybe Mr. Terrell, maybe you can explain it to me better.

So I think, and unfortunately Mr. Elias wasn't feeling well and wasn't able to be here this evening. And I think he has to do with the pecuniary interest. And I'm not 100% certain, but I... They think the old-fashioned term was he's like a stringer, that he writes articles, I believe, on a per-article basis versus a full-time employee. Mr. Jesse may not be aware of that. I just wanted to offer that background for him.

No, it's a fair question, but John is exactly right.

Sorry.

John's exactly right, there's a specific statute that says if you have a direct or indirect pecuniary or financial interest, you can't participate in the discussion and you can't vote. Now if you did happen to vote, the only ramification is that vote's invalid. So it doesn't invalidate everything. So I think if you're careful to identify, could he have some direct or indirect financial interest, then he should abstain from the discussion and the vote. But other than that, there's not any problems with him addressing anything. But it has to do specifically with that newspaper then.

So one more question then. So then every month we have a bill from the plane talk. So he would have to abstain? Every month then?

Arguably as to that specific item, yes. Okay.

So then technically we'd have to pull invoices off every month off the consent agenda.

Oh, it is monthly. I didn't listen to that.

Is that right? We typically monthly have a bill from the Plain Talk. A lot of the legal notices are minutes, anything like that. So we typically have a monthly bill from them.

Oh, with the minutes especially. Just wanted some clarification. Yeah, no, fair question.

yes gary i wish he was here i i thought he said that he retired from the paper so he he did retire from the paper and his email address no longer works plane talk dot net or whatever it was because i tried to email him before going to germany he was already gone and he told me that he would not be covering city council meetings you know as a but he still covers high school sports or whatever, as a stringer, as you said. Something something like that. But I do not, I cannot speak for him.

So he does freelance articles for the paper?

We will have to ask him. I can't go on and speak for him.

Al? Darrell, I have a question. You know, in schools, if a school board member can still make a certain amount of money and still be on the school board, isn't there a limitation? So if he's a part-time person, not an owner, Does that negate some of the questions we had?

I mean, the statute doesn't specify whether you're an owner, it's whether you have a direct or indirect financial benefit from that particular entity. So again, you're right though, there's some people that you can do part-time work for a city as a council member, but it can't exceed X amount of dollars.

particularly since they're the only newspaper in town. So I think you're allowed to do that.

Again, I don't think that the conflict statute doesn't specify that. It's more of if you're sitting on this and you mow in the summer months, you could do that, but that's a different situation than where he's employed by a newspaper who the city's paying money to.

Nonetheless, I think it's a valid question. Yes. And perhaps we need to bring it up, perhaps at a noon meeting we can discuss whatever the issues are, because we don't want to have any appearance of a conflict of interest. We don't want to have a newspaper article come out that is influenced by, written by Councilman Lyas, that's been influenced by activities on this board. I think that's a valid question. The newspaper reporter on the city council is kind of a new thing for us. So I appreciate that. So given that, yes, I'm sorry, you're very good, Gary. Thank you.

So just so I'm clear in my own head, Mike, you'd just like to take the invoices payable off the consent agenda and he would just abstain from that vote?

I think, I'm not an attorney, but I think legally we probably have to.

Yeah, and I can, Mayor, to your point, I can certainly check and make sure there's no de minimis amount where he can be paid and still be able to vote on that, but off the top of my head, I don't believe there is, but I'll check to confirm that, and then I think Council Member Murrah's right, you'd have to pull that off, and he would just say, I approve everything other than I'm abstaining from that vote.

Julie?

One of the things that we've done before when we had it was payable, like somebody got reimbursed, something like that, is that they recuse themselves from that line item, right, and then we do the balance of the invoices, right? I agree.

Yeah. One more, Darrell, to test your knowledge here. Would it be possible to, when we reorganize, when you appoint the newspaper as our official newspaper, with the condition that they'll be billed monthly, he could abstain from that, And since that was done one time each year, he wouldn't have to abstain all the way through if it was kind of written as a package deal, so to speak. The billed monthly, right? The official newspaper billed monthly. Instead of every month him having to say, I abstain.

Yeah, it's a very good procedural question. I don't know if you can abstain into the future. And I'm not trying to be flippant about that. I just don't know the answer to that. My abstention applies to future votes on the newspaper payment. Sounds very efficient to me, so I'm guessing we don't do it then.

I don't have the minutes handy for the organizational meeting, but I do remember that he abstained from the vote where we I made that, yeah, okay. No, it's a very good question.

I have had people ask me about it. So I just, I said, well, tonight's the night. Daryl's here. That's the only time I get to see him, so I'm going to ask the question.

That's a fair question. We need to be Caesar's wife in pure that we need to be.

Yes. I think, great discussion, appreciate that. I think what we can do as a staff is we will just, we have items that we know are potential or perceived as a conflict of interest. It was mentioned in reimbursement. Years ago when Clarine Mines was on city council and she had university cleaners, we always pulled that one separate. So I think if it's okay with the council, our practice will be those items that somebody may have a conflict of interest for, we will just list those items maybe under new business. and keep the bulk of them on the invoices payable that's part of consent.

I think that answers my issues. Does that make sense?

Very good.

So Mr. Elias is not here tonight, so given that conversation, can we approve the invoices payable? Is there a motion to approve the invoices payable tonight? So moved. Is there a second? All in favor of approving the invoices payable on this list, including the broadcaster, or the plain talk rather, indicate by saying aye. Opposed, nay. Passes. Bid openings, we just have this one, right? Summer field bid?

That was part of consent.

That was part of consent, very good. So we have nothing there. It's up to the City Manager's report then.

All right, well, I do have a number of items. We have several upcoming meetings or events before our next regular City Council meeting on August 17th. The Human Relations Commission will be meeting this Thursday, August 6th at 5 p.m., excuse me, 5.15 p.m. in the Powell Conference Room here at City Hall. Also on Thursday, August 6th, there will be a presentation on city utilities. That will be in the library's COSAC room. This is the same presentation that was provided to the Planning and Zoning Commission at their meeting last Monday night. On Friday, August 7th at noon, we're excited that there is the groundbreaking ceremony for the new light and power building. Street address is 112 Shriner Street, the street that kind of runs to the backside of Walmart, you might say. Prairie Eye Clinic's right there. So 112 Shriner Street, noon on Friday, August 7th, is the groundbreaking for that. There may be a quorum of city council members there, but no action or meeting will take place. Also, on Friday, August 7th at 4 p.m., there could potentially be a quorum of city council members at this Clay County Fair helping to scoop ice cream. They're going to share, but there will be no action or meeting taking place if we do have a quorum of members present. Next Monday, August 10th, is our Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. That's at 5.30 p.m. They have several items on their agenda. One of those is a rezoning for the Bluestem Trail development. Bluestem Trail is on the east-hand side of Crawford Road, just north of Main Street. Part of that property was annexed into the city earlier this year, so we have two different zoning categories. One of those is NRC, and the other one is our... Part of it's NRC and part of it's R2, and it'll be rezoned to R3. And then kind of follow up to earlier, there'll be six ordinances. They'll be related to data centers. That'll be part of the discussion that evening. And then there is a plat that needs to have action taken on as well, as well as there'll be a joint meeting with the county planning commission at the start of that. So it's a full planning and zoning commission agenda that next Monday, August 10th. And I need to go back. With the fair, I used the wrong date. It's Friday, August 14th. It's not this Friday, it's Friday, August 14th, would be the city council members may have a quorum present to scoop ice cream. The Historic Preservation Commission, they are meeting Wednesday, August 12th. That's at nine o'clock here in the Powell Conference Room at City Hall. And then, with respect to the council members here, we're working on finding a time for a rescheduled orientation session, so if we can maybe grab your availability after the meeting, we'll work on planning that. Speaking of the Historic Preservation Commission, we have two three-year terms that will be expiring on the Historic Preservation Commission in September. Expression of interest forms to apply for that are available through the city's website. Those will be accepted through Thursday, August 13th at five o'clock. We anticipate that we will have those appointments at the August 17th meeting. Also coming up, it's board appointment season, bid number one, which works with the $2 per night per occupied hotel room. We'll have a term or two coming up for that, as well as bid number two, which is the business improvement district that involves the downtown area. Speaking of the fair, just a reminder that High Street will basically be closed from the entrance from Southeast Public Transit north to West Cherry Street. This is the annual closure related to the Clay County Fair, so that starts on Wednesday the 12th and runs until Sunday the 16th. We mentioned this last time, the mausoleums at the Bluffview Cemetery, they've been nominated for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. The State Historical Society Board of Trustees will be considering this nomination on Friday, September 11th. We do have that available if anybody wants to offer comments on that, take a look at that. That's part of the public process. And then 605 Magazine came out today. I think there's one copy sitting downstairs. They can also, I believe, have a box in the downtown area. There's a nice feature on the courts at Cotton Complex. And there was profiles, some pictures of our local residents playing pickleball or tennis. It's just a nice feature in the community. We appreciate the VCDC's support of getting that article into 605 Magazine. And just kind of a follow-up for the council, we received some comments about the Blue Peak franchise. Just kind of report back a little bit to you on that. There is a cable franchise agreement with Blue Peak to utilize the public right away. And part of that does include them paying the 5% franchise fee. So that's part of the reason why they have a franchise agreement for the cable television or the television services that they offer. They did, some of you may recall, there's language in their agreement that they would make an annual presentation to the city council. They last did that at the October 6th meeting of last year, and so we'll have a follow-up presentation, no date scheduled yet, probably coming up this fall. At your next meeting, August 17th, MidAmerican Energy will be here to do their annual report back to the council. That's language we have in all of our franchise agreements. And then there's also concerns about the hand holes or kind of more the, what I'm calling the flush mount boxes that might be found in the public right away. If any of those are broken or angled or perhaps not just sitting right, we as a city have turned in concerns about those boxes in potential locations around the community. If any community members observe those, please let us know and we will pass those along to Blue Peak or certainly feel free to contact Blue Peak directly to let them know of your observations. And I would say the same with their other utilities. Not so much MidAmerican Energy, but we sometimes have these concerns expressed about phone boxes as well as Medco as well. So if you have those concerns, please let us know those so we can let those respective companies know. That's all they had, Mayor.

Thank you. I appreciate the fact these franchisees are going to do annual presentations. I was not aware of that and I appreciate that. As a follow-up, if any community members notice the Blue Peak things are messed up, there's only five community members here. How do we get that knowledge out to the community itself?

We can certainly put that on the city's website, some of the social media. We can certainly let people made aware of that. I will say we've had some staff that are basically going out and looking at those as they're doing their other activities, the surveying work. Last Thursday and Friday, we had our chip seal work. They were doing that as they're observing projects. So, yeah, feel free to pass those on either to the city staff or to Blue Peak directly.

I know we have a local resident who's actively following this, and I think maybe we can preempt some of that by some kind of public way. I've got a messed up hole in my house. Okay. Very good. Okay, that was all I had. Any other business? Yes, Darrell.

Mayor, if I may? Yeah. Just to, I pulled up the actual statutes I have in front of me. For clarification, again, you're prohibited from discussing or voting, but it's a direct financial interest, not indirect also. So just direct. financial interest, and I don't see any reference to a de minimis that Council Member Lieber brought up, de minimis of payment amount, but I guess that's the question. Would his vote result in a direct financial benefit to him, or does he get his paycheck regardless? I'm just asking that because this doesn't clearly state that. Just a quick background on this. This statute came into place, it looks like 21 years ago, when there was a, I'll just name the city, because it's a South Dakota Supreme Court case. The city of Winter had a council member vote against a bar license being issued to a competing bar where her family owned the competing bar. So that seems pretty clear. And the South Dakota legislature said, hey, we need to make that very clear that you can't vote on things where you have a direct financial interest. I just wanted to clarify that because I didn't have the statute in front of me.

I appreciate that, but I also think that maybe Councilman Murrah's concern is a bit broader than that. I wouldn't want to have Mark Twain on the City Council and then be writing editorials from the paper about how the City Council works. That's kind of an issue. It's not a matter of necessarily remuneration, but a matter of, you know, he gets an article every week and none of the rest of us do. So I think it's worthy to have that conversation with him about where the boundaries are of his journalism.

And at a minimum, there's the appearance of a conflict.

I have to say, I think the appearance might be there, and the Caesar's wife thing all over again. Any other comments, questions, concerns from the City Council? Do we have another visitor to be heard? It has to be a unanimous agreement that we can have another visit if we heard.

Does anybody have any objection to Cindy speaking?

Hearing no objections, please come up to the podium.

Cindy Game, do you need an address? 804 Canby Street, Vermillion. I just was listening to the city manager report, and he mentioned the August 10th meeting with the Planning and Zoning Committee. And maybe he said this, or maybe not, I'm not sure. But it actually is a public hearing. Was that mentioned?

Yes. It was.

Okay. I missed that then. I just wanted to make sure.

Thank you.

Yep.

And... As a corollary to that, that probably will be a well-attended meeting, and you may want to consider a different room for that meeting, John. It is going to be here. Thank you very much. If nothing else, I would entertain a motion to adjourn. Is there a second? Second. All in favor of adjourning?

Aye.

We're adjourned.