City Council - Regular Meeting

call to order for Watertown City Council meeting for April 20th of 2026. Please rise while Rich M from Fallout Shelters Ministries leads us in prayer. Just press the button. Make sure it's red. Green.

And Reed didn't give me any directions. So, I'm preparing for Africa. So, an hour or two. Dear Lord, we come before you and we we do submit our will to yours, Lord. Guide these leaders to give them wisdom. Give them the courage to do what you call them to do. Guide them every step of the way. Lord, as as we uh pray for our leaders here, Lord, we just lift them up to you that they can be humble, that they can be accountable to you and that they can be effective and work with diligence and skill throughout all of all of the meetings and all of the requirements of the government. Lord, we pray for these local leaders and for our county and our nation as well. Lord, just be with the leaders and and give them holy wisdom and perfect knowledge that they can do the right thing in any and every circumstance. Lord, we thank you for your sacrifice. We thank you for your forgiveness, Lord. And we thank you that we can openly pray to you here in Jesus perfect name. Amen.

Amen. I aliance 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. Just a note that Councilman Kyle Peter not going to be able to join us tonight. He is excused. Other than that, finance officer, finance officer Bob Zen, please confirm that the rest of us are here. Okay. Jetty here. Allan here, here, Pauline here, Mormon here, Jiren here, and then Peter's absent. Thank you.

Quorum is established. I will ask if anyone has a conflict of interest they want to disclose. I'll be done with that. I will take an action to approve tonight's agenda. Motion made by Councilman Shuddy. Seconded by Councilman Allen. Any discussion on that. Motion is to approve the agenda. All those in favor, please say I.

I. Any oppose say nay. Motion carries. We're on to open forum. If there is anyone here who would like to address the council on something that is not on the agenda tonight, now is your time to do so. Just either one. You can sit down or stand up and just make sure the light is on and introduce yourself and who you're representing.

Is that Is that on?

Okay, now there now it's good. Zack Thompson and I am representing New Adventure. but um with uh Liberty Forge AI and I have a Heartland AI ethics forum if you the public would be interested in attending. I hope to find a grassroots conversation on how to build the framework ethically of on AI before it really gets in the community. And um that's going to have a few local speakers, some regional and one national speaker. And and there's also an update from the if you guys missed the state um state historical society. They had come to speak at the library and they suggested preparations for Fourth of July celebrations. And the two there was three interesting ones they that he recommended. You can request from him and this historical society a document of the of the of the declaration of independence where they strike the historical names and allow the public to come sign as if they were doing it. and they will be signing nationwide uh or reading it nationwide on the 8th of July if it's a historical timeline and then they had the recommendation of a liberty tree and some other ideas. It was in the paper with the current a while back but I don't know if all of those details were present. So I just wanted to bring that to your attention. Thank you.

All right. So, two two separate things, an AI forum and South Dakota Historical Society. Is there anyone else who would like to address the council? I'll close the open forum. We'll go into item 9A, a presentation of fire suppression units to the Watertown Police Department donated by the Watertown Masons. See, we have a few Masons here. Come on up. And this is uh please take the opportunity to explain a little bit about what this is because this is a really cool we will do that piece of m

uh first of all my name is Greg Dubo. I'm with Troy Stavic Frank Kerman and Cliff Knox. We are with the Watertown Masons of Concord Lodge 13. Uh first and foremost, we would like to thank all the honorable members of this council for allowing us to do this here at your meeting. Uh we uh don't have any one particular project that we do. We try to help uh all people. We put on uh pie and ice cream socials at uh at uh Jenkins Living Center and several of the other HSA buildings. Uh this is our pet project. This is one that we truly believe in. Um on April 2023, we donated three of these uh to the city of Watertown, which are carried in the the cars of the Watertown Police Department. On April 29th of 2024, they had to deploy one of these uh fire suppression units here in town. Um, it did save the building. Uh, unfortunately there were no people in in there at the time. But one of the greatest assets with this fire suppression unit is if there are people or pets in the building at the time this is deployed, it does absolutely no harm to people or pets. They can sit in the midst of this. And what it does is it lowers the degree of the fire. So it slows it down and u that's uh it it's our pet project is what we want to do. Uh and this one is a replacement for the one that they had to deploy and uh we've been trying for year and a half to we ordered it a year and a half ago just after they used the

other one and we finally got it. So uh captain or chief if he wants to take it out of the box, he certainly can. But they uh they are very very useful unit. There are very there haven't been very many deployed in South Dakota, thank goodness. And that's what they look like. And uh I believe the police department has been trained on how to use them. And we thank you, sir, for for taking care of that for us. And the men and women of the fire department as well. So, thank you so much for your time.

Well, thank you to the Masons for doing this for the community. It already has saved one building. It's great technology. Uh, Chief, do you want to explain just real quick how one of your anybody on the Watertown Police Department would use one of those? Yeah, it was proved to be really successful. I believe it was August, wasn't it?

August 29th of 2024. It bought valuable minutes for the uh fire department to get there. It absolutely worked. It was deployed inside the residence, lowered the temperature, depress suppressed the fire for, you know, just a couple minutes to get the fire department there. So, it's definitely enhancing public safety in Watertown. I can't thank you guys enough, and hopefully we'll never have to use it, but if we need it, it's there. So, thank you.

Thank you so much to the to the Masons. Thank you very much again, Masons. We'll move on to a presentation on the on street projects in the city of Watertown. And for that, we will go to our city engineer, Justin Peterson. All

right. Uh thank you mayor and council for this opportunity to share some information on our uh future street projects. Um just going to give a quick overview of kind of how projects are selected. Um you know we take a look at the pavement condition and then if there's any utility needs whether it's storm sewer, sanitary or uh water and we have some input from council and public. And then there are some other factors like safety and drainage that that come up when we look at uh projects. Uh we do try to coordinate with WU. Um couple examples those are 10th Avenue, 12th Avenue, Fifth Avenue this year. They all were coordinated with WU's water main project. Um and uh all the paved roads in town have a PCI score between zero and 100. Generally speaking, um we we separate the um kind of types of projects. The CCF stands for a crack chip fog. It's kind of a surface treatment. It's meant to seal the cracks on the surface. And those are generally the the roads that have PC PCI 60 or higher. When the PCI drops to between 40 and 60, then we start looking at milling overlays. And um then if the PCI drop below 40, those are uh typically reconstructs or if there's uh utility needs um that moves it into a reconstruct as well. There you go. Um this table kind of shows uh this year's as well as several years in the future, the next five years. Um this year we we have the Fifth Avenue Northwest project that's going on right now. uh Fourth Street in Highland is a project that's going to be on the agenda later tonight. Um

uh it's kind of mostly a drainage project there. We also have a portion of Third Street Northeast which is uh part of a development project. The developer is um doing the south half and then the city as part of the development agreement is doing the north half for that stretch. uh Milan overlay um sometimes abbreviated M um that's another project that's going to be uh bit awarded later this u this evening uh that will be in the north north ridge area um CCF the crack chip fog we don't have any planned for this year and then just kind of mentioned the parks and wreck trails project project was already awarded um we're focusing on the the gravel road kind of on the west side of Mount So, uh, the 2027 we're looking at a couple more reconstructs. Broadway Street North is primarily driven with by a sanitary project. Uh, just so happens to coincide with a lower PCI rating on the roadway. 17 7th 17th Street Southeast is by the uh the soccer fields and uh the softball fields. that that road's been kind of in rough shape and gets uh pretty heavy traffic. So, we plan on widening that road. Um adding some shoulders to that. And then there's u kind of a plan for Fifth Avenue Northwest kind of the entrance to Derby Downs. There's two blocks there that uh we're looking at widening in 2027. Um due to the budget, we we don't expect to do any milling overlay or crack and chip. Again, we do Mount Hope um for the next several years. It's going to be kind of pavement resurfacing within Mount Hope, kind of starting on the east side near the entrance and working around um in 2028. Uh we don't plan at this

point any street reconstructs. We plan to focus a lot on the Milan overlay kind of in the stadium area and moving west across town to the Mlette neighborhood and try to get as much we can done kind of moving east or west to east. And then uh we do have a portion of the south uh southeast water town kind of an industrial area where we plan on crack chip and fog. Um, in 2029, we plan on continuing the Milan overlay kind of in the Roosevelt neighborhood and the Lake Area Tech neighborhood. Um, and again, um, no plans for reconstructor crack and chip that that year. And then 2030, it's kind of a long ways out to kind of plan for, but uh, there's a second phase, the 17th Street, which is kind of the north half of what we plan on doing next year. And then we plan on doing quite a few uh collector roads and and then the Derby Downs area for crack chip and fog. Um we try as we try uh about four or five years after the mill and overlay to do a crack chip and fog just kind of seal up any specific cracks. You see the budget for each of these years is roughly in the neighborhood of 3.8 million. Oops, wrong way. There are some roads that we hear quite a bit about that are unscheduled or unbudgeted. Um there's uh 16th Avenue Northwest with the half road by Jefferson School. That's the picture on the right there. Um we kind we estimate that to be in the neighborhood of $250,000. Uh North and South Lake Drive. Uh that's $31 million for a complete reconstruct. That's for uh widening the road, adding some curbon gutters in some locations, doing some utility work, exp uh extending coverts because the roads widening. It's um a pretty intensive

project likely would be done over multiple years. Um Third Avenue Northeast by the ice arena. Right now it's a gravel road looking at finishing paving paving that. That's between five and 7 million um kind of estimated. And then there's uh uh 24th Street which is uh one block gravel road um near Evolution. Uh that's roughly $350,000 for that block of road that um includes curbon gutter, sidewalk, all the above. And then there are several alleys um believe it or not there's there's uh um seven miles of paved alleys in the city that right now are kind of pothole patrolled and at some point those would need to be redone at at some point and we estimate that to be roughly $75,000 per block. Um kind of all total there's over $38 million of kind of unbudgeted street needs that unless there's um you know that we really kind of looking for um some additional funding in order to add that into our our CIP plan. So, um, specifically, I'll move to, uh, 2026 projects. That's this year. Kind of I think you're familiar with Fifth Avenue. It's already been approved. Mentioned Fourth Street with the drainage. Um, project um, Milolay, Northridge, and then third Avenue. Uh, kind of on the right, you see a table of kind of the budgeted dollars of kind of what we expect for the project. Um, I did add, um, there is WMU water main project I'd like to talk about here. It's kind of in the Highland Park area. It's not a city project per se, but

we're kind of coordinating with Wu on it. It's kind of in that outline. There are several roadways in that red box on the screen. Um, they it's essentially two years worth of water main work um, trying to get done in in one year. Um, listed some of the streets. a lot of north south streets, First Street, Second Street, Third Street, Fourth Street, um Karen Street, uh Crest View, and Mayfair Drive. And then there's Maple Second and Third Street as well. Um when they do the water main, it's essentially uh resurfacing half the road. Um this is kind of a photo of Fifth Avenue. Um all the above uh street base water main wastewater storm sewer curbon gutter sidewalks um they're making pretty good progress um finishing up water main I believe this week and hopefully um uh continuing on into phase two. Uh this one will be the bid award uh later tonight. Uh this area was developed without storm sewer and uh the storm water is conveyed over the streets and overland channels. It's way it's designed. It's the way it should work. Um over time though the street street capacity has been diminished uh as um overlays have been added. If you go out there and look, there's not a lot of curb at all left. So uh the water doesn't stay in the street. It overflows into neighbor neighboring areas. And so this project is really to restore that street capacity so that the water um stays into the road and minimize that yard flooding as much much as we can. Anyway, um the mill overlay, this is a map of the area that we plan on milling overlaying.

Um again, this will be later this u this evening. The PCI ranges in this area between 36 and 60. Um we focused on some of the heavily uh traveled roads near the school. Um and there this spring there was quite a bit of frost heaving in this area as well. So, working on this area. And then Mount Hope, um it's kind of hard to see on the screen, but on the west side is the gravel road that we plan on um prioritizing this year. And then annually kind of redoing the other roads inside Mount Hope there. And that's brief. I make 15 minutes. All right. City Manager Stagger,

I I asked our city engineer to put this together uh for each of you to have a chance to react to. Um we'd be happy to take any questions that you have, but really want you to see the issue that we have with the amount of funding that we can devote each year of the CIP to road projects, which is around $4 million a year versus the long-term need that is out there. And I know it's it's easy to hear from constituents and concerns about roads and we wanted at least the public to see that there is a thought process that goes into how we determine where to spend the scarce resources that we do have. There are some uh needs that we would like to have some discussions on as we get into the budget for 2027, especially some of those needs that uh are currently unfunded, but we know there are critical roads uh areas such as gravel streets and areas such as half streets within the community. Um, also we do know that uh when Watertown Municipal Utilities replaces water manes, sometimes we only uh repave half of the street. And sometimes people look at us like, why are you only doing half the street? You've got resources there anyway. And a big factor that goes into that is in many cases these are less traveled roads and we could easily consume the entire street budget taking care of making sure that minimally traveled roads get a complete new surface. And so there's a delicate balancing act um to understand where the best place to spend the money each year is. You'll also see in the appendix there's some detail on the future looking projects that that we will get you to look at. And really this in in some cases is to allow you to have some

insight into what's going on in 2026 a little bit into 2027 but then to also prepare you for the more in-depth conversations in August of this year. We'd be happy to take any questions that uh any of you have of the street plans. City Manager Stagger, I will actually lead it off for just a moment and asking you to clarify for the public. You used the term, I think it was minimally traveled road. Now, I know, but I think it would be important for the community to know how we know what roads are major arteries, which ones have like less travel, how we track that, how we plan that out ahead. We we do our entire transportation system classifies roads into one of three categories. Uh with local being the the streets that typically take just the local traffic. So it might be a road that is in a neighborhood that gets you from your garage to the major collector or artery streets that exist in the more welltraveled areas. Okay.

Thank you, Councilman Jires. So, property taxes are real popular in this state. You've been hearing about it in the last few months. Um, no, that's u not right. Um, property taxes are not popular and that would be the normal funding source for increasing our budget to 4 million. So, I thought it'd be important because every one of us in here gets calls about um roads that aren't perfect uh or they're not just not good. Uh in fact, I recently made a Facebook post saying, "Hey, let's uh shop at our local store." And that turned into, "How come you're not fixing my two blocks of street?" The challenge is $4 million is the budget. Everyone's heard that. What are some other because property taxes, there'd be a revolt in town if we did something there. What are other ways that we've all thought about and talked about um city manager Allen to to to make this work that might be a tad bit more acceptable?

Yep. Uh there are a couple of different things we could explore. And just in terms of property taxes of the first class cities in the state, the city of Watertown does have the lowest mill levy of any of the state of any of the other municipalities out there of of any size. But we are limited in terms of what we can even raise through property taxes if we did choose to implement um a property tax increase for streets. So that really isn't a viable option. Couple of other options that are out there would be a special assessment based on street frontage or even assessments based upon a drainage formula um that we could utilize for street and drainage uh type of programs. Those would be collected similar to a property tax in that uh they would be based upon the the lineal feet of street uh that absut your property um but wouldn't be based upon the value of the property. That is an option that we could potentially raise a couple million dollars a year. Now it is a new source of revenue. Another source which again I don't think would be popular nor necessarily the right source. We could force water to town municipal utilities to completely reconstruct streets if they do any work in the street. Well, although that's not a tax, it has to be funded someplace and would come in utility rates. And so any option that we look at involves some new source of revenue if we want to enhance the overall quality of our street transportation system followup. So, one of the more controversial ones, which I have talked to someone who did show up here tonight, and I've had multiple conversations recently because

they just started a business in this area, and there's a ton more traffic. Of course, this is in uh Councilman Shuy's ward. So, I'm actually filing a complaint tonight against uh Oh, no, wait. I'm not going to do that to you. is that section uh we talked about the evolution powers sports coming off of 212 onto I have had to travel at four five I don't have to I go around I can get in at the Morton buildings uh uh entrance and go all the way around through um the u the the the park there, the mobile park. Um, but if I'm going to get there quickly, um, I take the, um, the piece of gravel road there. Um, so it has now become personal for me and about 50 to 70 other patrons of this business. So, of course, um, I'm the person they know. Um, and and I've been redirecting them to Shuddy. Uh, in this case, we've been talking about an option, but it's only a temporary option, unless we want to spend what Justin had in his presentation, 350,000. So I'd like you to talk about the real affordable option but a temporary fix and then I'd like to find out who the adjacent prop is it you know the the solution if it's the adjacent property owners that we've really be moving if it's not them we'd be moving um um years and years of the way it's been working. Uh that that that's really if they don't want if the adjacent property owners don't want to put the chips on the on the on the

table, we're really handcuffed by years and years of the way it's been done.

Uh Councilman, you you bring up a a great a great street to use to illustrate how we fund streets. And to some extent, this also applies to a highly traveled street being 16th Avenue North as well, which is half a street next to an elementary school. So, typically streets are paid for by the property owners who develop the property and put the street in. That's where the initial street is paid for. In some cases, I'll take 16th Avenue North as an example. The property in the north hasn't been annexed into the city. So, there isn't the ability to assess that property owner to pay for the complete street. Now, we could pay for that as the city and then at point of annexation, it could be assessed onto the parties annexing the property. In this case, there are other some contra other controversial issues there which would require likely a condem condemnation of the property to get that one done. So that's a unique scenario on the northern part of town. The street you are talking about which is uh 21st Street Southwest I believe is one that's been before this council many times over the last 15 years. In fact, there was a petition at one time uh to pave that street in I believe 2011. Um what it comes down to is the two adjoining property owners in today's funding model would be responsible for the assessment of the entire stretch of street. And they looked at it and protested and and said back 15 years ago that they don't get any benefit from this. It's really benefiting the property owners who use that section of of Gravel Street today to assess the properties further south.

And that, you know, that leads us to a quandry that we face quite often is who is really getting the benefit for the street. And and you guys want to look at a disproportionate assessment on a street for a couple of property owners just because as a city we we perhaps did some spot development and didn't consider the entire road system back when it was developed I don't know 2530 years ago or maybe longer. That's the difficult thing that you face. Now, in terms of other solutions, we could do um a maintenance type of operation on our gravel streets that would involve essentially roughing up the gravel and then applying a asphalt type of product. It's called a blotter top. That comes at maybe a tenth of the cost of of an asphalt street. However, that's a temporary fix and especially as you noted with 70 to 100 additional cars on that stretch of roadway every day, that would shorten the life of even that temporary solution. Um the same argument could be made with uh Third Avenue Northeast in terms of do we do a temporary solution such as a blotter top that instead of 5 to 7 million might be 500,000 to a million and again we need to weigh in that that equation um the anticipated life of that temporary solution. So to conclude, there are no easy answers when it comes to streets and the scarce scarce dollars that we have available. Having a discussion like this, I think, is great for the public. It it starts to show the thought process that goes goes into

ensuring our transportation network meets the needs of a growing community. Councilman Hoyer.

Um I think it also just poses a really good uh opportunity to highlight to as we continue to develop that every time we add another large stretch of road, our funds get thinner. And so as we're going, we do need to be thinking as a council, are the homes going consecutively and getting built next to each other as we go? So like just a natural organic progression of homes so that we're not putting a bunch of roads to nowhere for that one. Um but also just responsible growth. Um again that kind of goes back to even high density housing. The more homes that are in an area, the better utilization of that road and we're not having to put as much in. But just things for us to maybe consider as we're going forward. The next one I wanted to touch on though um with you, Mr. city engineer Peterson. Um, as we're looking at those alleys because you listed quite a staggering number with that though paved streets are wonderful in alleys sometimes I wonder in residential areas. Do they make the most sense? Or would we have our dollars better spent taking those pavement dollars and doing just better maintenance of our gravel ones that we have there or letting some of those revert to gravel is because we might be able to better maintain them than letting them pot out and then you have a bigger issue with the pothole than you would with a maintained gravel alley. Um I guess one one challenge in converting them to gravel and maintaining them is um generally speaking those those alleys were paid and paid for by the neighbors and with the expectation that the city would maintain them going forward. So there's that kind of commitment that I guess the city made at one point to continue to maintain them. Um there are um I guess no plans to pave additional

alleys. We we do have certain requests usually a couple a year where neighbors will ask to pay their alley and then kind of explain to them the process and when they see the cost to paving the alley it generally doesn't go very much further. Right. Anyway,

no. Fair enough. Um and again that just raises the challenge when we do that. Um, yeah, lot lot to weigh out. Roads are tough. More you have though, the more to maintain. So, I just think as we're looking to at broadening roads, making them wider, keep in mind you're adding square footage of road you got to maintain. Um, and we're going to talk about some tonight that are kind of in some older neighborhoods. Again, might be something to keep on the mind that if we make the road bigger, going to be paying more for the road and it's going to cost more to maintain down the line, too. But anyway, Councilman Allen,

uh, just to get back to Third Avenue and the the notion that we're sort of expanding the amount of road that we've got to cover that that's a when J&J and next when that property was annexed into Watertown, we get this kind of bizarre thing there where they're going to have to pave that road, a portion of it next to what they enact what was enexed into the city and north of that uh is county road uh or county property and so we can't assess anybody the cost of the other half of that road in fact we're making them pay for the whole road I think uh we're not okay

n

so I I just and because I live along there I can tell you that even though the street department made a valiant effort effort to improve that roadway. Uh it is indeed a short-term fix. If you drive it right now, it's already washboardy to the point where you can hardly I mean you just it's very rough and daily. Now we have these large side dumpers rolling down the road from the gravel pit and it just destroys the road. I mean it takes hardly any time at all. So uh I understand the dilemma of a blotter top because I can tell you it would not last. I mean it would I don't know how long it would last but it couldn't be more than a month I bet and it would be destroyed or ineffective I guess not destroyed probably but uh so you know there again we approve growth in one particular part part of town but we don't think about you know how people are going to traverse that and you know the new ice arena that's a great thing uh people drive that road all the time now uh they don't go around through Willow Lake Drive and the paved option 90% of the time. If it's Third Avenue is the shortest route, they're going to do that. And now they cut through J&J's uh development there to get over there as well. So, it's a you know, it's a dilemma and uh I wish there was an easy solution to streets, but there obviously isn't one. One of the questions I had was for how long has 3.8 8 or4 million3.9 million been the benchmark. Have we been spending that on roads for the last 20 years? No. No. I a couple of comments. First of all, the the question regarding the um section of Third Avenue that that we are

doing this year. We are as the city uh doing about half of that project. We will recover that upon annexation of the northern part. But until that happens, and it might not ever happen, uh that's that's a city paid for street. In terms of the budget, I think it's been four or five years that we've been around 3 million or higher. Historically before that, it was about a million3 to a million5 per year. One thing to keep in mind with roads and our our roads are primarily covered by sales tax revenues and so our sales tax revenue the roads are funded through the second penny and so sales tax revenues have been in part increasing due to inflation. One of the issues we have is the things that drive the cost of a road like the price of a barrel of oil and a dollar of labor have been increasing at a much higher rate of inflation than the general economy. So that's put pressure on what we can do with roads as well. Councilman Hoyer.

Um I'll just toss out I think some of the other challenge we're going to have here though is that you know a lot of those roads that were listed as a resident I drive them too but um the state that Fifth Avenue was in because there's sections of that where the roads literally rotted out. I mean it's it's going there's basically down to the base but I mean you get down into W C and a lot of those neighborhoods look like that too. And so there's a lot of old neighborhoods right now where the street's literally failing. I mean, if you want to come over to my house, you can literally put your hand under the road and lift it and just take it apart. I'm not advocating that you do my road, but that is Yeah. Yeah. Right. But that's that whole section of town. Um, so I I just think and you know, like our area is not really on the list. And so, you know, not addressing it in five years, I'm like, where's that road going to be at? I've seen how much it's already deteriorated in the last five years. And so I I do really think we got to start getting ahead of this and start getting a little creative here because I I think we're going to end up with a bigger load in our lap here than we think we are in the next couple years.

Councilman Shuy,

thank you, Mayor. So I got a Well, first off, city engineer Peterson, thank you for your work putting this together and all that you do behind the scenes. I got a question I guess on the as far as Watertown Municipal Utilities and their projection. How far ahead do they project if anyone answer that? Um their their their portion of the reconstruct when they're doing the all the dirty work underneath. They truly they they really rely on, you know, when when we're proposing a road, we we have monthly meetings with them and uh say, "We're looking at doing this road," and they'll they'll let us know, "Oh, yeah, we we need to redo the water in that that one or or whatever." Um I think generally they have a a three-year plan, but um um the electric gas is kind of separate, but the water is they kind of rely on us when we redo our roads.

Sure. Thank you. Because I was uh so the driving I didn't know if they were driving the you know which road, pardon the pun, uh needs to be be done first or if it's us because I just I was just using an example here. The uh the Mlette neighborhood in 2028. Um so as a mill overlay I was looking at that going what happens if in three years they have a plan to do a you know water main. However, it sounds like they're a little more there. We're not we shouldn't see that happen where we're going to see a mill and overlay road get done in three or four years with a with a water man.

We hope not. That's what we try to avoid. Um I I will point out Fifth Avenue. Uh it originally was planned to be a mill and overlay I think back in 2021 and that and then Wu said, "Hey, we need to renew the water man in this area." And so that was kind of part of the reason why we postponed it. So, we try to have those conversations to avoid that. Yeah, you bet. All right. I guess that's all for now. Thank you, Councilman Mormon.

Um, yeah, I just want to say thank you also, Justin, and the city for putting this information together. It's very, uh, informative and educating for the public. So, thank you for that. Uh just quickly with a going all the way back to the beginning of that PCI rating. Does our staff do that? For the public's knowledge, does our staff, the engineering staff do that or is that an outside firm? If it's an outside firm, um when was the last time they came in and did a big survey to to establish that number for this specific road?

Um the PCI rating is an outside firm. Uh the last time it was done is in 2021. We do try to have it about every five years. So hope next year to kind of redo it and u see where we're at as a community. And um they they typically kind of provide some recommendations of you know priority roads. Um it's a little bit of science, a little bit of art to that. So I hope that answer your question. Yep.

I would like to not even necessarily a question. I want to point out a couple different things that everyone focuses upon. Obviously the negative on roads. No one calls in and says, "Oh, I had the greatest road that I traveled into work today." Um I'll get to that in just a moment. But when we talk about how we are limited based upon monetary considerations, I think everyone gets how we're limited by weather considerations here in South Dakota. I think people understand that we have a very limited time frame that we can work on roads. But even more than that, we have a cap on workers manpower because we could put more money into roads. But the problem that we have is we literally it's hard to even find firms that can come in and do more work because they're all employed across the state. Now we could get more aggressive but then what happens is if you are doing that it's almost a desperation mode and then the firms increase their cost because they're going to be changing their schedule. So they're going to be increasing their cost. So a road that may only cost a million could end up costing a million and a half if you're trying to rush it. So planning out ahead is a good consideration to do because you have to factor in the limitations upon manpower as well and the firms and even if you're talking not major road constructs but what our own street department can do again we're limited on the people that we have here and I just want people to understand that there are considerations and it's not even just manpower but even just driving down to Brookings to get some of the asphalt to get some of the materials and then driving it back. That all costs something as well. So, we're trying to

do the best that we can in consideration for the PCI. I point out that you can just look at the numbers. Um, if you're complaining, and I I get it because it's what roads you drive on a daily basis are going to be largely upon how you feel about what the conditions of the roads are in Watertown. But just looking purely on the pavement condition index which is not done by our city, our PCI rating is at or above comparable towns in South Dakota. And I would I would also like to point out that while other comparable towns of size have about 130 miles of road of roads, uh, Watertown has over 200 miles of roads because we are a much larger geographical town. So we have way more roads to consider and try to do as much as we can with the same limited resources. So, I just want to point that out to say take that into consideration when you're understanding what everyone on this team is trying to accomplish and what we're facing. It's not just it's not apples to apples. It's not Watertown to Brookings. It's not things like that. There are a lot of other considerations here. So, just wanted to point out some of those things and say there's a lot of good things that are happening, especially with what we can and cannot do. and uh want to thank you for the presentation, Councilman Mormon.

Just one quick question for the public. Um if they're are curious of what the the street that their house is on or their business is on, what the number rating was, is there a map or is there a um do they come up to city hall to find that out or where where could the general public find the number rating for a street that they might be personally interested in? We can contact the city. We can look that up. Okay. Thank you.

All right. We'll move on to item 10A, an approval of a bid award for the 2027 airport taxiway A reconstruction project number 2601 to J&J Earthworks in the amount of roughly $3,182,000. We'll go to our airport director, Ian Merryweather.

Thank you, Mayor Councilman. So, as stated, the project is for 2627 reconstruction of taxiway alpha uh project 2601 uh 3,181,52.70. A little bit of of the background of this story or of this project. Initially, um our budget for the project was 3,726,665. So there's a few things in this project gets a little strange as we had combined some work. Um the initial project spelled out 2400 by 50 feet of taxi way to be reconstructed because of I don't know if anyone remembers but because of our hanger taxi lane project that we had proposed and went through design um and then with the FAA taking that project back we had some unrealized capital improvement funds to use. So with efficiency in mind, we went out for a base bid and an alternate bid to see what we could get back from developers. Our base bid was 2,385,384 for the initial 2400 ft of taxiway. The alternate bid covers an additional 1,200 ft of taxiway which gives us an entire length of taxiway alpha to be done this fiscal year into completion of next in in 27. That alternate bid would be 805,000 give or take

with a total project cost of 3,770,000 with the budgeted amount of 3,726,000. So now it seems a little odd because we are pushing two projects together, but with our federal share dropping from 95% to 90% in 27, we thought it prudent to get uh bid proposals back for additional additional length of taxiway to see how far our money could go in 26 and in 27. And this is also based off of grant. So you have to keep in mind local share is all in at 104,875. And I'll stand by for any questions.

Thank you, Director Merryweather. Council, can I get a motion to approve the bid award? Motion made by Councilman Allen, seconded by Councilman Mormon. Let's open it up for comments, questions. Councilman Hoyer, just want to say thanks for taking the time to look ahead and catch that change. I mean, that's a that's a lot of dollars that we'd be losing out on if we pushed it out. 5% at those scales is a lot of money. So, right, um, my opinion would be batch it. Now, while it's going to be a much better rate for us, we're going to get a lot more from the feds. Um, in economics, you call it a J curve. We're going to have a little dip, but pays off later. So,

any other comments, questions? Motion is to approve the bid award. All those in favor will say I oppose. A call the roll, please. Okay. Betty, hi. Allan, hi. Hyer, hi. Colleen, hi. Orman, hi. Jur, I. All in favor? Motion is unanimous in favor. Motion passes. Item 10B is an approval of a bid award for the 2026 PMPA milling and asphalt paving project 2602 to Dunink Incorporated in the amount of roughly $517,000. City engineer Peterson, tell us more.

Uh, thank you, Mayor. Um, this is the Milolay project I talked about earlier. It's in the Northridge edition. We got uh one bid from Dunik. Um, and in the $517,000 range and the budget was $600,000. So, it's under budget and we recommend approval. Thank you. Council, can I get a motion to approve the bid award? Motion made by Councilman Shuddy, seconded by Councilman Mormon. Questions, comments, council? Councilman Hoyer, I'm going to do this for all of them. Is this widening the streets? Does it affect trees?

This project does not widen the road and it does not affect trees. Lovely. Thank you. Any other questions, comments? Council, without objection, I'm just going to do a voice vote on this one. All those in favor of approving the spit award, please say I.

I. Any oppose, say nay. Motion carries. Item 10 C is approval of a bid award for the Fourth Street West and Highland Boulevard neighborhood street reconstruction project 2604 to Hallme Incorporated in the amount of roughly $248,000. City engineer Peterson. Um thank you mayor. This one was also discussed in the uh presentation previously. It's on the corner of Fourth Street and Highland. It's primarily um trying to drainage related trying to renew the streets. Um uh the budget was 270,000. It came in under budget and recommend approval and I could answer his question before. Uh there there are uh I believe three trees uh kind of working to move them so we don't affect any trees and we don't widen the road. So thank you.

Thank you. Can I get a motion? Can I get a motion, please, to approve the bid award? Motion made by Councilman Allen, seconded by Councilman. Open it up for any questions, comments. Uh, city engineer Peterson. Um, I'm not going to complain that both these last two bids were under budget, but there any particular reason. Do we care? When we do estimates, I always like it when they come under budget. So that's that's good. Um it it seems like we've we've had some really good uh bidding environment this year. People seem to be hungry. Um I think this one in particular um only is also doing the Wu project. So it kind of works kind of in the same same area. So I think that was why we got good good numbers from them.

Thank you. Any other questions, comments? Councilman Hoyer. Um, first off, just commend you guys for taking some of this drainage issues that happen in this neighborhood. I mean, that's one of the roughest areas in town when it comes to that kind of stuff. Um, the only question I had other than the ones you already answered, um, all the building owners and stuff, they've been contacted about the sidewalks or is that contingent upon us approving this? I I don't know if we've contacted about the sidewalks, but I don't believe there is any um assessments for this one. Okay, thank you. Any other questions, comments? Motion is to approve the bid award. If you're in favor, vote I oppose. Nay. Officer Bobsy.

Okay. Shetty, I. Allen, hi. Hi. Hen. Hi. Foreman. Hi. Jiren. Hi. All in favor? Motion is unanimous in favor. Motion passes. Item 11A is a first reading of an ordinance amending the zoning map of the city of Watertown for a portion of property in the Prairie Hills development first edition from C2 Local Government District to R2 single family attached residential district. For more, we will go to go to our community development manager, Brandy Hton.

Thank you, mayor. Um if it could scan yeah there let's see to page 62 on the agenda. So this is a reszone request for a property at Prairie Hills or Pur Hills development first edition. It's currently zoned C2 local commercial and the proposal is to reszone to R2 single family attached residential district. You'll see on this map that the property to the north is also zoned R2. And this would be this there's a proposed plat for three lots for just a little over an one acre of land to be reszoned. Um this does follow our comprehensive land use plan. With that, I'll stand by for any questions.

Thank you. This is a first reading. There's not going to be any official action, but we do encourage questions and comments. Doesn't look like there are any. Okay, Councilman Shetty, just a quick I mean, I see the need for this and I I plan on voting for it, but just a question. You know, with that C2, so when someone purchases a lot, for example, theoretically here in the near future and builds a home in a C2, you can Where's the building requirements? Can you build how far from the lot line uh with the C2 property?

So, there are different setbacks for the C2 along with different uses and that is all within our ordinance. Um that would be considered a sideyard which in the C2 is a 10-ft setback. Okay. So, yeah. So, if someone were to purchase that in their backyard, there'd be a 10-ft setback on the other on the property behind them there in essence. Okay. that right they'll be purchasing that with that in mind of course understanding that so but just wanted to ask the question thank you

I guess I could ask just for the people who might be affected geographically there um just would you please explain real quick what the difference would be in what is allowed in a C2 versus an R2

yes so R2 allows for dup duplexes, triplexes, or forplexes at by permitted use. And then C2, it's your kind of professional office, your retail um your neighborhood retail establishment, uh just those types of commercial uses that uh really if you think North Highway 81, that is um you know, professional office service type type commercial businesses. Thank you, council. Any other questions? Councilman Hoyer.

Um, I'm just looking at it here. So, we're getting four lots out of this right now. That's how we're splitting it up. And Okay. And then just the intent probably those big ones because I mean, we're at 14,000, 13,000, 16,000. And then we still have the giant green space with the stage, which man, somebody got to use that at some point. But is that kind of how it's split out right now? Is that to the north? Okay. Yep. And that's how the they are replatting it with the three R2 lots and then the one C2 lot with intent likely for multif family then. Oh well duplex up to fourplex is the most they could do in the R2 for residential,

right? Do they still have an option for anything beyond that or is that just conditional? Uh so in the R2 they there would be conditional uses but um it's still like R2 that they are reszoning from C2 to R2 um that is strictly residential. Okay. So they're downzoning. Yep. Yep. I And I think it's a better use anyway. So sounds good. Any other questions, comments? We'll move on to item 11B of another first reading of an ordinance establishing the zoning designation of C3 Highway commercial district for lot one of Bourbon's edition. Manager Hinton.

Thank you, Mayor. So it to page 70, please. This is a pretty straightforward annexation and zoning. It is adjacent to city limits currently in the county being proposed to be zoned C3 highway commercial. This is approximately 10 acres. Uh as you can see, it is adjacent to other C3 districts. Um and and is abudding city limits on three sides, I guess. Three and a half, we'll say. Okay, whatever. In the north. Um so this is uh this does follow our comprehensive land use plan. With that, I'll stand by for any questions.

Thank you. Again, no official action tonight, but questions or comments. All right. Thank you. We'll move on to item 13A, an approval of a resolution accepting the state water resources management system grant for the Big Sue Flood Control Study and authorization for the city manager to execute documents relating to the state water resources management system grant for the Big Sue flood control study. Engineer Peterson.

Uh, thank you, Mayor. Um, this one is fairly straightforward. It's just a resolution that uh accepts uh a grant, an additional $170,000 grant from the DNR uh swarms program. We've got we've had a couple grants before. So, this uh if approved, this the total amount would be 625,000. Um and that's about half of our local share of the project of the um flood control project. So, with that, I'll stand by for questions.

Thank you, council. Can I get a motion to approve the resolution? Motion made by Councilman Shuddy. Need a second. Seconded by Councilman Mormon. Thank you, councel. I'll ask a question that I think the public deserves to know. Um, what's the timeline on this? I mean, we've been we've been going through this we've been going through this for years now. Um, and I know that I'll just leave it open-ended for you, Engineer Peterson, because I know we talked about it earlier today, but uh, for the public who are paying attention. Um, you talking about the the project?

Yeah. The overall timing of the project and cost and just where are we at on this? Because we haven't had much movement on this in about a year. I'd say

since December, probably. Um the uh the uh core of engineers is is kind of finalizing the report. One the requirements kind of actually new requirements of of the project is the they they're looking to get to about 30% design. Uh so not only are they getting report but 30% design in order for it to be approved internally. So that's kind of what they've been working on behind the scenes is is kind of doing that design. Um, guess answer your question. Yep. Any other questions? Councilman Allen.

Uh, I'm just trying to refresh my memory on this because I sat in some meetings relative to this and I thought that the core was going to present something to us by October or whatever. They missed that deadline and we're this is all still part of the same process. It's take just taking a lot longer.

Yeah. Um remember back in October the government shutdown kind of had effect of that and then they've they've also been you know doing some of the design to get internal approval the um the plan still is as far as I know the the levy and the channel widening project. So that that's likely going to be the recommendation when they finally release the report and then it'll be a public comment when that happens. Yeah. And then it'll be up to us to make a decision whether that plan makes sense for us or not.

Yeah. Then we I don't really want to say accept it, but we kind of move forward and then the uh folks in DC kind of approve it in order to get funding. It's still likely two years out before we have any potential dirt moving. So, it's first step is a report and then then it goes to DC. And I'll go to you in just a moment, Councilman Hoyer, but uh just to make it clear for the public where we left it with the Army Corps of Engineers and we've we had a lot of meetings regarding this, but originally there was a lot of consternation about using Compesca as a retention or a bladder. And that after a lot of conversation was basically advised against from the city of Watertown that we were not interested in doing that. And so that's why you're saying the channel widening of the big sue and the levy out by the lake. Just I wanted to make that clear if I have that completely understood. the the levy is east side of the big Sue River through town and then channel widening and those are the there's not any component with the the weir at the lake or anything that's kind of off the table.

Thank you Councilman Hoyer. Kind of same thing. I'm making sure I just have my head around what we're talking about uh 100% here. So government shutdown kicked it back in October. We're paying for another study to re or this is just to for grant dollars at this point or because I the last solution we had was broaden the big Sue River and then guess log where we put a log out if we think there's going to be a flood and then we take the log away if we don't think there's going to be a flood. That's the part that's not Okay, cool. We got rid of that. That's good.

Um the it's still the same project. It still has to do with the report there. They just have some um internal requirements that they have to do a little bit more design. It doesn't cost the city anymore. It just takes more time on their end. Okay.

City manager. Uh, mayor and council members, just to clarify on this project, which goes back to 2015. Uh, it's been at least over a year and a half since the city has approved expending any more money on it. Every action that we've taken over the last year and a half has been to accept grants or lower uh lower contract amounts from the core of engineers. And and this is an example of that. this is lowering the amount of investment that we are making locally into the study phase. Um I'll also caution everyone um this is still preliminary and it begins a long process when we do finally get a report back uh which we hope to have soon.

Thank you. Any other questions, comments? Councilman Jurns, wasn't part of that report going to be maybe changing and looking at the cost benefit of more of a retention somewhere else away from the lake? Was there some conversation there towards the end that they were going to look at that that costbenefit analysis would change now that we were going to take the log in, the log out, and get away from the lake. in doing that had something to do with the sediment. I I remember that as well. It's basically just to the east of Yes.

where the big Sue is coming into contact with Compca and there was the thought that maybe if we dug it under dug it deeper and yes, forget her name, but she was um look at that. So that's it's not a question. It's just that I believe that was what I recollect. What city manager Stiger

when we last met with the core you you might recall at that time they had not discussed the project with the state and I think what drove some of the major changes including the changes um that that may reduce the sedimentation those were driven by the state's review of the project. Yeah. Any other questions or comments? All right. The motion is to approve the resolution. All those in favor will vote. I oppose. Nay. Finance officer Bubsy. Petty. Hi. Alan. Hi. Hi. Pen. I. Orman. Hi. Jiren. I.

All in favor. Motion is unanimous in favor. Motion passes. Item 13B is a preliminary report and approval of the 2025 financial statements from the finance officer. Okay, we'll go to the finance officer.

Thank you, mayor. Um, yeah, so essentially there's a requirement that preliminary financials are reported to the council no later than the first meeting of May. Um, we are currently in the audit process and a final report will come from ID Bailey when that is completed. when the audit's completed. Um the first page of the report is going to cover what we consider governmental funds. Um for 2025, our major funds this year is the general fund, park and wreck, and the capital improvement fund, often referred to as the second penny. In the other governmental funds column to your right, that holds the BBB fund, the wellness center, E911, library fines, all of the tiffs, and the capital projects. So those are considered Um, our total fund balance for all governmental funds increased 267,000. I will do a little bit of information here on the general fund. Um, we did reduce our fund balance by 326,000, but it continues to maintain a strong unassigned fund balance of 13.2 million. This balance exceeds the GFOA recommendation of three months of operating. I've always tried to target more of four months that put us in a range of an unassigned fund balance of from 5.5 million to about 7.2 million. So in general, the general fund is very strong at the end. The next one we'll look at is our park and recreation fund. That fund did see a decrease in fund balance of just over 600,000 and ends with an available balance of 1.7 million. The decrease in this fund was anticipated following our division budget adjustments that we did in the park fund relies heavily on the general fund and the BBB fund to support it. This makes our operational

efficiency and building our programming essential. The next one we'll look at is our capital improvement fund. This one had a fund balance increase of 2.2 2 million but that is due primarily to the fact that we carried over 2.5 million in 2020. Um debt service obligation is 5.4 million which is approximately 37% of our total annual revenue. This is going to highlight the significance of debt management. The current fund balance only 19 million 13 million remains unassigned providing flexibility for future projects. While the fund is stable, long-term planning remains essential. Recent change to the ordinance allowing for all capital expenditures over 25,000 to come from this fund has increased the pressure and highlights the need for budgeting are critical. Uh the other thing that I'll point out for our governmental fund side is our current long-term debt is just at 57.7. That is what's considered the governmental funds. The next page of the report covers what we consider enterprise funds. Enterprise funds are used by municipalities to track revenues and expenditures for services that are operated in a manner similar to private businesses where fees are charged for services versus taxes. All enterprise funds except for the airport fund recorded increases in operating income. The focus continues to be fulfilling operational needs while accumulating cash reserves for anticipated equipment replacement and infrastructure improvements. These funds are stable and are managed with an emphasis of long-term sustainability. The airport fund reported an operating loss for 2025 and continues to be closely monitored that relies heavily on support of the general fund for

operational needs and the capital improvement fund for capital projects. Ongoing discussions are addressing strategies to enhance the airport revenue and additionally grant funding remains essential in facilitating improvements to the airport. Current long-term debt in our enterprise funds is at 38.8 and I'm also going to report that at the end of 2025 our cash in the bank was 110.1 million. So with that I will for questions. Let's see if there are any questions. Councilman Hoyer missed it. There we go. Um I was just wondering up in revenues and other sources when we say miscellaneous, what does that refer to? They would be a grouping that is either something that doesn't happen often or it just uh doesn't have enough of a value for it to be categorized within any of these charges, fines, interest, rental. It's kind of our catchall. So they they may look significant when grouped together. You got to remember in the general fund that's about 14 different departments. Maybe have miscellaneous things just in throughout the year.

Do you have any like examples just so we can get our heads around it? Oh, let's see. I'm trying of grants are in our intergovernmental. Um, so miscellaneous revenue. Yeah, sorry. You can come back to us with the two the next time. I mean, this is the first reading. Yeah.

City Manager Stagger, I was wondering if you had anything to add. I have about 30 minutes worth of additions. Um, you know, I'd like to just point out a couple of things. Our our finance officer took us through the debt level between 2024 and 2025. Our debt as a city and a municip municipal utilities combined increased about $14 million. And our debt level is now at 96.5 million. And a large portion of that was driven by the wastewater treatment plant investments that are currently ongoing. You compare that 96 a.5 million um which currently has a debt service of of just 5.5 million on the city excluding what we have for debt service on municipal utilities. And you can see how the debt level that we have in the city has reached u what I would say the point where we don't want to go incur more. And so as we look at projects like a new street facility, we do have programmed in our our numbers here the ability to spend about 10.5 million without new debt. Um, and it also highlights the next major project, the East Site Fire Station, the importance of being able to do that without debt. And we will be in that position for another about seven years before we start to pay down the debt below that mid30% range um of our general fund revenues. And so we're in a bit of a tight position for a few years. Overall, with 110 million of cash, we're in a a great position as a community to meet our near-term needs. Um, we've been managing uh very prudently over the years and it it's reflected in the fund

balances that we do show. Um, as our CFO indicated, there are really two areas that get my attention. the prolonged deficit or the use of fund balance in park and wreck is not sustainable in the long term. Part of that's driven by the number of park and wreck resources and amenities that we have as a community of our size. And so we have a zoo, we have a park system that includes many more acres per capita than almost any city of our size. We have a very expansive trail system. All of those things place a financial burden on the city. And as I bring up that example, it's not to encourage you guys to look at let's take things away. Let's shut things down. Let's cut off trails and close facilities. It's really to get us thinking about the importance of growth as a community to sustain the amenities that we've built up over generations. We need the population growth coming between now and 2030 to make these uh make these amenities that we have financially viable again. And so it really puts the growth equation into perspective and how important that is. The second area that I'll bring up is the airport. Our CFO mentioned the deficit at the airport. I think it was 6 or $800,000 last year. We talked about this at budget time as well. Um, our airport has received a tremendous amount of investment in the last seven years, largely funded by federal funding for airports. So, we've made these investments at either 5 cents or 10 cents on the dollar of investment. For

example, tonight you just approved 3.2 million for a taxiway. That number is almost as much as we are investing in our entire street investment in the community. Well, that's funded at 5 cents on the city portion. So, I bring this up that having an operating deficit at the airport with the investment that we have is not a good position to be in. It is an enterprise fund that should be operating like a business. And now it's incumbent upon all of us to start to drive aviation related business development in what is one of the finest airfields in the region. And so that is a great opportunity for us too. We have made the investments. They are the generational type of investments in the airport uh in the airport terminal and airfield that now it's our time to go get a return on those investments. And so I bring that up as as something for you to focus on as well going forward. Major investments are behind us. It's time to uh to make some money on them.

That wasn't a half an hour. I've only covered two funds. All right. Council Councilman Mormon, quick question. What are we getting for an interest rate on the cash we have in the bank? We've been averaging around four and a half to 5%. Okay, thank you. Finance officer. We have an example for miscellaneous right now. Hey, there we go.

Um, anytime like an insurance proceed would be received in that's that's just kind of an example. It's the oneoff doesn't happen often. Um, do you know, and if you don't, that is okay. What we're getting currently for like our credit card processing fees is an expense in the city currently. Currently, um, I know it's a lot less than what we were. Um, I don't off the top of my head, but I can have that at the next meeting. Okay, great. Yep. That was good to bring up, Councilman, because part of what we saw in the park and wreck was

that uh out of balance um quite a bit on the U credit card fees. Councilman Mormon,

just one quick follow up on the money that we gain off of interest. Um when we're looking at $110 million, that can be a pretty substantial amount. Where are we putting that money? So the way the interest that is earned um is placed is basically we do an average over the last 12 months and it's a running average and then whatever fund balance is held by the different funds. So whether that's utilities, capital improvement fund, general fund, they're given a portion of that relative to their fund balance because that truly is their cash in hand.

Okay. Thank you, Councilman Shuy. Well, yeah, and I appreciate the due diligence in in having that money set aside and unrestricted fund. I mean, that's that's I think important to always we never know what's going to lie ahead in months or years ahead. And so, keeping that cash on hand and then yes, with I know what city manager Stagger is doing here along with the council here to look at some capital improvement and not overextending ourselves, especially with the street department. We're going to be bringing some more things to light in the near future about that which like to think we're going to be pleased in keeping it keeping things within the budget instead of um overextending ourselves. So we're moving in the right direction here. Thank you.

Any other conversation? Council Councilman Allen.

Uh I just want to emphasize what you said about the debt and our current debt level and that we really need to be careful about that. Um, and that's uh I just think as you know we one of the things we get a lot uh other than streets is um gee we'd like a new this or a new that. Um so why don't you know the city should just build a new ball field or whatever it is. We really cannot afford to do that. And I think that's a that's a good point for the public to know that uh we're trying to be as fiscally prudent as we can and we've taken on about as much debt as we can possibly handle at this juncture.

Thank you, city manager.

I would add just a couple of comments to that. First of all, um we talked about property tax earlier in this meeting. None of our our debt is currently serviced by property tax, which is a bit unusual, which means our debt service, which is based on the variable sales tax revenue, is a little riskier than a typical municipality because your property tax gets paid every year or you lose your property. If there's an economic downturn, what do we do? We spend less money, which generates less sales tax. So, we've got a little bit of risk and debt service there based upon that that mix of sales versus property tax. I will say the legislature this year did give us a new tool in the capital projects uh uh capital projects bill which would allow us to implement an additional tax of 1% um for up to five years to fund special capital projects. we could generate as a city if we implemented the full 1% about $12 million a year over five years would be $60 million. Now, that is a new tax. Um, and it's paid by sales taxpayers. So, I do want to put that out there that we do have um tools. That tool would require a 60% vote of of the voters and able to implement it. So, if somebody's really passionate about wanting a project of some sort, we do have tools to do it. But it would take a a case to convince the voters that we want to tax ourselves an additional 1% for a period of time. Any other conversation, council? I see that it does have approval. Do we need an

official action? Can I get an official action for approval, council? Motion made by Councilman Jurns, seconded by Councilman Hoyer. Thank you, gentlemen. Okay. Any final conversation, questions? Okay. The motion is to approve the preliminary report of the financial statements. And all those in favor of that, please say I. Oppose. Nay. Shetty. Hi. Allen. Huyer. Hi. Colleen. Hi. Orman. Hi. Jens. Hi. All in favor?

Motion carries. We are on to city council member announcements. An introduction of topics for future discussion. I will do an introduction of a topic for future discussion. Kind of an announcement as well. Just wanted to make it known to the community that we are working on celebration or celebrations for the 250th anniversary of the United States of America. Yay. Go team. Um but uh we do want to make this a wonderful event, ongoing event for the community. This isn't limited to to July 4th. Most of the communities in and America in general is spanning this out over several months. If anyone has any ideas, uh any interest in being willing to help, please contact can be myself, Councilman Allen, City Manager Stagger. There's a few others that are on the discussion group and then also we are raising money for the fireworks show on the 4th of July which is always an annual event here in Watertown but it is dependent upon the donations that come in from the community. So I want to make that very clear. It is very much appreciated and very much dependent upon that. So, if you enjoy the fireworks, then please let it be known to the companies and the businesses that help support it for us. But, uh, also, if you're interested in donating, you can contact myself or Randy Tupper is also taking the lead on that. Any other announcements or topics? Councilman Hoyer. Um, just because we talked about streets, I thought it would be worth noting to the public, just a friendly PSA. You can always go to watertownd.usform center and there's a tab specifically there that says report a concern. And so if you have a pothole that's really been

bugging you, that's a great spot to do it. You literally just drop a pin, take a picture of it, you can upload it. Um, I've done it in the past, but it's a good place to do it. Um, as we're coming into summer here pretty soon, we're coming out of spring. Visit Watertown has a wonderful community calendar that I recommend you take a look at. Visit watertownsd.comevents. Uh it has pretty much everything that's going on in town. So it's pretty comprehensive. So if you feel like there's nothing to do in Watertown, that's a great place to find something to do in Watertown. Um we talked briefly too on housing and growth. I would continue to urge council and all parties involved, treat it like a moonshot. um we have to grow and we have to create those opportunities for people otherwise we're not going to see that population growth and I thought it was appropriate just as we had the Artemis mission conclude that uh you have to treat it that way so we'll have to be thinking creatively how we can approach that how can we streamline things how can we make that process more smooth make it easier for developers and folks to understand what they need to do and the requirements they need to meet we have good systems just educating people probably further on that and what we can do to incentivize Um and then maybe in the same way going forward when we want to do improvements in things like parks, maybe entertaining some public private partnerships in those situations. But yeah, I'll say that. There you go.

Councilman Allen,

uh just want to emphasize again the visit Watertown. Uh that's where we're going to be gathering all the information about the 250th and and the kinds of events that we're doing. Uh the library has an extensive list of things that they're planning to do over the course of really into next November. Uh so I encourage you to go to that as well. Um I'd also like to do a shout out to uh and I probably will mispronounce her name, but Officer Alexis Busy Basy uh as the um officer of the year. Uh that's quite an honor for the community, for our department, uh for Chief Tumi and just the things that she has done um have been really I think kind of remarkable for our city and and I just want to congratulate her on that and uh the whole department for the effort that you're making to you know make a difference. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Any other councilman? Okay, city manager report.

Well, thank you, gentlemen. You've covered almost everything on my report. Um, just an addition that I had. Uh, this is the time that many of our city departments are changing seasons. So, the park and wreck department is starting to begin the roll out of their seasonal programming uh for the summer. So, pay attention to that. the road uh the uh street department is transitioning from snow to road maintenance. So, as Councilman Hoyer pointed out, go online if you've got concerns so that we can address them. And then finally, something that uh hasn't been brought up before just as the seasons change. I also like to en encourage our citizens to pay closer attention to safety in the community. You recall last year we had quite a few discussions on regulation around ebikes and scooters and bicycle safety and ultimately what we've concluded is yes we could go put more ordinances in place which would be difficult to enforce but the reality is to truly be a safe community we need to exercise the right judgment in the operation of vehicles of all sorts and watch out for each other as well when we're on trails when we're maneuvering construction sites and recognizing that uh our traffic patterns are going to continue to change and evolve over the course of the summer as construction projects start and end. Um with that, I'll just leave it with the uh semiquincentennial that we are working on planning. Um this is a great opportunity for us to get some pride in our community. If we're proud of our community and what we are able to accomplish and do, we can certainly grow and continue to look for the moonshot that Councilman Hoyer has brought up. That's all I have.

Thank you. We have no reason to go into executive session. Therefore, I will take a motion to adjurnn. Motion made by Councilman Allen, seconded by Councilman Shuddy. Any discussion? Hearing none, the motion is to adjurnn. All those in favor, please say I. I. Any oppose? Say nay. Motion carries. Good night and God bless you, Watertown.